,,heretics by ,gilbert ,k4 ,chesterton 8,to ,my ,father0 ,source ,heretics was copyrighted in #aije by the ,john ,lane ,company4 ,this electronic text is derived from the twelfth 7#aiai7 edition published by the ,john ,lane ,company of ,new ,york ,city and printed by the ,plimpton ,press of ,norwood1 ,massachusetts4 ,the text carefully follows that of the published edition 7including ,british spelling74 ,the ,author ,gilbert ,keith ,chesterton was born in ,london1 ,england on the #bith of ,may1 #ahgd4 ,though he considered himself a mere 8rollicking journalist10 he was actually a prolific and gifted writer in virtually every area of literature4 ,a man of strong opinions and enormously talented at defending them1 his exuberant personality nevertheless allowed him to maintain warm friendships with people--such as ,george ,bernard ,shaw and ,h4 ,g4 ,wells--with whom he vehemently disagreed4 ,chesterton had no difficulty standing up for what he believed4 ,he was one of the few journalists to oppose the ,boer ,war4 ,his #aibb 8,eugenics and ,other ,evils0 attacked what was at that time the most progressive of all ideas1 the idea that the human race could and should breed a superior version of itself4 ,in the ,nazi experience1 history demonstrated the wisdom of his once 8reactionary0 views4 ,his poetry runs the gamut from the comic #aijh 8,on ,running ,after ,one's ,hat0 to dark and serious ballads4 ,during the dark days of #aidj1 when ,britain stood virtually alone against the armed might of ,nazi ,germany1 these lines from his #aiaa ,ballad of the ,white ,horse were often quoted3 ,i tell you naught for your comfort1 ,yea1 naught for your desire1 ,save that the sky grows darker yet ,and the sea rises higher4 ,though not written for a scholarly audience1 his biographies of authors and historical figures like ,charles ,dickens and ,st4 ,francis of ,assisi often contain brilliant insights into their subjects4 ,his ,father ,brown mystery stories1 written between #aiaa and #aicf1 are still being read and adapted for television4 ,his politics fitted with his deep distrust of concentrated wealth and power of any sort4 ,along with his friend ,hilaire ,belloc and in books like the #aiaj 8,what's ,wrong with the ,world0 he advocated a view called 8,distributionism0 that was best summed up by his expression that every man ought to be allowed to own 8three acres and a cow40 ,though not known as a political thinker1 his political influence has circled the world4 ,some see in him the father of the 8small is beautiful0 movement and a newspaper article by him is credited with provoking ,gandhi to seek a 8genuine0 nationalism for ,india rather than one that imitated the ,british4 ,heretics belongs to yet another area of literature at which ,chesterton excelled4 ,a fun-loving and gregarious man1 he was nevertheless troubled in his adolescence by thoughts of suicide4 ,in ,christianity he found the answers to the dilemmas and paradoxes he saw in life4 ,other books in that same series include his #aijh ,orthodoxy 7written in response to attacks on this book7 and his #aibe ,the ,everlasting ,man4 ,orthodoxy is also available as electronic text4 ,chesterton died on the #adth of ,june1 #aicf in ,beaconsfield1 ,buckinghamshire1 ,england4 ,during his life he published #fi books and at least another ten based on his writings have been published after his death4 ,many of those books are still in print4 ,ignatius ,press is systematically publishing his collected writings4 ,table of ,contents #a4 ,introductory ,remarks on the ,importance of ,orthodoxy #b4 ,on the ,negative ,spirit #c4 ,on ,mr4 ,rudyard ,kipling and ,making the ,world ,small #d4 ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw #e4 ,mr4 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells and the ,giants #f4 ,christmas and the ,esthetes #g4 ,omar and the ,sacred ,vine #h4 ,the ,mildness of the ,yellow ,press #i4 ,the ,moods of ,mr4 ,george ,moore #aj4 ,on ,sandals and ,simplicity #aa4 ,science and the ,savages #ab4 ,paganism and ,mr4 ,lowes ,dickinson #ac4 ,celts and ,celtophiles #ad4 ,on ,certain ,modern ,writers and the ,institution of the ,family #ae4 ,on ,smart ,novelists and the ,smart ,set #af4 ,on ,mr4 ,mc,cabe and a ,divine ,frivolity #ag4 ,on the ,wit of ,whistler #ah4 ,the ,fallacy of the ,young ,nation #ai4 ,slum ,novelists and the ,slums #bj4 ,concluding ,remarks on the ,importance of ,orthodoxy ,i4 ,introductory ,remarks on the ,importance of ,orthodoxy ,nothing more strangely indicates an enormous and silent evil of modern society than the extraordinary use which is made nowadays of the word 8orthodox40 ,in former days the heretic was proud of not being a heretic4 ,it was the kingdoms of the world and the police and the judges who were heretics4 ,he was orthodox4 ,he had no pride in having rebelled against them2 they had rebelled against him4 ,the armies with their cruel security1 the kings with their cold faces1 the decorous processes of ,state1 the reasonable processes of law--all these like sheep had gone astray4 ,the man was proud of being orthodox1 was proud of being right4 ,if he stood alone in a howling wilderness he was more than a man2 he was a church4 ,he was the centre of the universe2 it was round him that the stars swung4 ,all the tortures torn out of forgotten hells could not make him admit that he was heretical4 ,but a few modern phrases have made him boast of it4 ,he says1 with a conscious laugh1 8,i suppose ,i am very heretical10 and looks round for applause4 ,the word 8heresy0 not only means no longer being wrong2 it practically means being clear-headed and courageous4 ,the word 8orthodoxy0 not only no longer means being right2 it practically means being wrong4 ,all this can mean one thing1 and one thing only4 ,it means that people care less for whether they are philosophically right4 ,for obviously a man ought to confess himself crazy before he confesses himself heretical4 ,the ,bohemian1 with a red tie1 ought to pique himself on his orthodoxy4 ,the dynamiter1 laying a bomb1 ought to feel that1 whatever else he is1 at least he is orthodox4 ,it is foolish1 generally speaking1 for a philosopher to set fire to another philosopher in ,smithfield ,market because they do not agree in their theory of the universe4 ,that was done very frequently in the last decadence of the ,middle ,ages1 and it failed altogether in its object4 ,but there is one thing that is infinitely more absurd and unpractical than burning a man for his philosophy4 ,this is the habit of saying that his philosophy does not matter1 and this is done universally in the twentieth century1 in the decadence of the great revolutionary period4 ,general theories are everywhere contemned2 the doctrine of the ,rights of ,man is dismissed with the doctrine of the ,fall of ,man4 ,atheism itself is too theological for us to-day4 ,revolution itself is too much of a system2 liberty itself is too much of a restraint4 ,we will have no generalizations4 ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw has put the view in a perfect epigram3 8,the golden rule is that there is no golden rule40 ,we are more and more to discuss details in art1 politics1 literature4 ,a man's opinion on tramcars matters2 his opinion on ,botticelli matters2 his opinion on all things does not matter4 ,he may turn over and explore a million objects1 but he must not find that strange object1 the universe2 for if he does he will have a religion1 and be lost4 ,everything matters--except everything4 ,examples are scarcely needed of this total levity on the subject of cosmic philosophy4 ,examples are scarcely needed to show that1 whatever else we think of as affecting practical affairs1 we do not think it matters whether a man is a pessimist or an optimist1 a ,cartesian or a ,hegelian1 a materialist or a spiritualist4 ,let me1 however1 take a random instance4 ,at any innocent tea-table we may easily hear a man say1 8,life is not worth living40 ,we regard it as we regard the statement that it is a fine day2 nobody thinks that it can possibly have any serious effect on the man or on the world4 ,and yet if that utterance were really believed1 the world would stand on its head4 ,murderers would be given medals for saving men from life2 firemen would be denounced for keeping men from death2 poisons would be used as medicines2 doctors would be called in when people were well2 the ,royal ,humane ,society would be rooted out like a horde of assassins4 ,yet we never speculate as to whether the conversational pessimist will strengthen or disorganize society2 for we are convinced that theories do not matter4 ,this was certainly not the idea of those who introduced our freedom4 ,when the old ,liberals removed the gags from all the heresies1 their idea was that religious and philosophical discoveries might thus be made4 ,their view was that cosmic truth was so important that every one ought to bear independent testimony4 ,the modern idea is that cosmic truth is so unimportant that it cannot matter what any one says4 ,the former freed inquiry as men loose a noble hound2 the latter frees inquiry as men fling back into the sea a fish unfit for eating4 ,never has there been so little discussion about the nature of men as now1 when1 for the first time1 any one can discuss it4 ,the old restriction meant that only the orthodox were allowed to discuss religion4 ,modern liberty means that nobody is allowed to discuss it4 ,good taste1 the last and vilest of human superstitions1 has succeeded in silencing us where all the rest have failed4 ,sixty years ago it was bad taste to be an avowed atheist4 ,then came the ,bradlaughites1 the last religious men1 the last men who cared about ,god2 but they could not alter it4 ,it is still bad taste to be an avowed atheist4 ,but their agony has achieved just this--that now it is equally bad taste to be an avowed ,christian4 ,emancipation has only locked the saint in the same tower of silence as the heresiarch4 ,then we talk about ,lord ,anglesey and the weather1 and call it the complete liberty of all the creeds4 ,but there are some people1 nevertheless--and ,i am one of them--who think that the most practical and important thing about a man is still his view of the universe4 ,we think that for a landlady considering a lodger1 it is important to know his income1 but still more important to know his philosophy4 ,we think that for a general about to fight an enemy1 it is important to know the enemy's numbers1 but still more important to know the enemy's philosophy4 ,we think the question is not whether the theory of the cosmos affects matters1 but whether in the long run1 anything else affects them4 ,in the fifteenth century men cross-examined and tormented a man because he preached some immoral attitude2 in the nineteenth century we feted and flattered ,oscar ,wilde because he preached such an attitude1 and then broke his heart in penal servitude because he carried it out4 ,it may be a question which of the two methods was the more cruel2 there can be no kind of question which was the more ludicrous4 ,the age of the ,inquisition has not at least the disgrace of having produced a society which made an idol of the very same man for preaching the very same things which it made him a convict for practising4 ,now1 in our time1 philosophy or religion1 our theory1 that is1 about ultimate things1 has been driven out1 more or less simultaneously1 from two fields which it used to occupy4 ,general ideals used to dominate literature4 ,they have been driven out by the cry of 8art for art's sake40 ,general ideals used to dominate politics4 ,they have been driven out by the cry of 8efficiency10 which may roughly be translated as 8politics for politics' sake40 ,persistently for the last twenty years the ideals of order or liberty have dwindled in our books2 the ambitions of wit and eloquence have dwindled in our parliaments4 ,literature has purposely become less political2 politics have purposely become less literary4 ,general theories of the relation of things have thus been extruded from both2 and we are in a position to ask1 8,what have we gained or lost by this extrusion8 ,is literature better1 is politics better1 for having discarded the moralist and the philosopher80 ,when everything about a people is for the time growing weak and ineffective1 it begins to talk about efficiency4 ,so it is that when a man's body is a wreck he begins1 for the first time1 to talk about health4 ,vigorous organisms talk not about their processes1 but about their aims4 ,there cannot be any better proof of the physical efficiency of a man than that he talks cheerfully of a journey to the end of the world4 ,and there cannot be any better proof of the practical efficiency of a nation than that it talks constantly of a journey to the end of the world1 a journey to the ,judgment ,day and the ,new ,jerusalem4 ,there can be no stronger sign of a coarse material health than the tendency to run after high and wild ideals2 it is in the first exuberance of infancy that we cry for the moon4 ,none of the strong men in the strong ages would have understood what you meant by working for efficiency4 ,hildebrand would have said that he was working not for efficiency1 but for the ,catholic ,church4 ,danton would have said that he was working not for efficiency1 but for liberty1 equality1 and fraternity4 ,even if the ideal of such men were simply the ideal of kicking a man downstairs1 they thought of the end like men1 not of the process like paralytics4 ,they did not say1 8,efficiently elevating my right leg1 using1 you will notice1 the muscles of the thigh and calf1 which are in excellent order1 ,i--0 ,their feeling was quite different4 ,they were so filled with the beautiful vision of the man lying flat at the foot of the staircase that in that ecstasy the rest followed in a flash4 ,in practice1 the habit of generalizing and idealizing did not by any means mean worldly weakness4 ,the time of big theories was the time of big results4 ,in the era of sentiment and fine words1 at the end of the eighteenth century1 men were really robust and effective4 ,the sentimentalists conquered ,napoleon4 ,the cynics could not catch ,de ,wet4 ,a hundred years ago our affairs for good or evil were wielded triumphantly by rhetoricians4 ,now our affairs are hopelessly muddled by strong1 silent men4 ,and just as this repudiation of big words and big visions has brought forth a race of small men in politics1 so it has brought forth a race of small men in the arts4 ,our modern politicians claim the colossal license of ,caesar and the ,superman1 claim that they are too practical to be pure and too patriotic to be moral2 but the upshot of it all is that a mediocrity is ,chancellor of the ,exchequer4 ,our new artistic philosophers call for the same moral license1 for a freedom to wreck heaven and earth with their energy2 but the upshot of it all is that a mediocrity is ,poet ,laureate4 ,i do not say that there are no stronger men than these2 but will any one say that there are any men stronger than those men of old who were dominated by their philosophy and steeped in their religion8 ,whether bondage be better than freedom may be discussed4 ,but that their bondage came to more than our freedom it will be difficult for any one to deny4 ,the theory of the unmorality of art has established itself firmly in the strictly artistic classes4 ,they are free to produce anything they like4 ,they are free to write a 8,paradise ,lost0 in which ,satan shall conquer ,god4 ,they are free to write a 8,divine ,comedy0 in which heaven shall be under the floor of hell4 ,and what have they done8 ,have they produced in their universality anything grander or more beautiful than the things uttered by the fierce ,ghibbeline ,catholic1 by the rigid ,puritan schoolmaster8 ,we know that they have produced only a few roundels4 ,milton does not merely beat them at his piety1 he beats them at their own irreverence4 ,in all their little books of verse you will not find a finer defiance of ,god than ,satan's4 ,nor will you find the grandeur of paganism felt as that fiery ,christian felt it who described ,faranata lifting his head as in disdain of hell4 ,and the reason is very obvious4 ,blasphemy is an artistic effect1 because blasphemy depends upon a philosophical conviction4 ,blasphemy depends upon belief and is fading with it4 ,if any one doubts this1 let him sit down seriously and try to think blasphemous thoughts about ,thor4 ,i think his family will find him at the end of the day in a state of some exhaustion4 ,neither in the world of politics nor that of literature1 then1 has the rejection of general theories proved a success4 ,it may be that there have been many moonstruck and misleading ideals that have from time to time perplexed mankind4 ,but assuredly there has been no ideal in practice so moonstruck and misleading as the ideal of practicality4 ,nothing has lost so many opportunities as the opportunism of ,lord ,rosebery4 ,he is1 indeed1 a standing symbol of this epoch--the man who is theoretically a practical man1 and practically more unpractical than any theorist4 ,nothing in this universe is so unwise as that kind of worship of worldly wisdom4 ,a man who is perpetually thinking of whether this race or that race is strong1 of whether this cause or that cause is promising1 is the man who will never believe in anything long enough to make it succeed4 ,the opportunist politician is like a man who should abandon billiards because he was beaten at billiards1 and abandon golf because he was beaten at golf4 ,there is nothing which is so weak for working purposes as this enormous importance attached to immediate victory4 ,there is nothing that fails like success4 ,and having discovered that opportunism does fail1 ,i have been induced to look at it more largely1 and in consequence to see that it must fail4 ,i perceive that it is far more practical to begin at the beginning and discuss theories4 ,i see that the men who killed each other about the orthodoxy of the ,homoousion were far more sensible than the people who are quarrelling about the ,education ,act4 ,for the ,christian dogmatists were trying to establish a reign of holiness1 and trying to get defined1 first of all1 what was really holy4 ,but our modern educationists are trying to bring about a religious liberty without attempting to settle what is religion or what is liberty4 ,if the old priests forced a statement on mankind1 at least they previously took some trouble to make it lucid4 ,it has been left for the modern mobs of ,anglicans and ,nonconformists to persecute for a doctrine without even stating it4 ,for these reasons1 and for many more1 ,i for one have come to believe in going back to fundamentals4 ,such is the general idea of this book4 ,i wish to deal with my most distinguished contemporaries1 not personally or in a merely literary manner1 but in relation to the real body of doctrine which they teach4 ,i am not concerned with ,mr4 ,rudyard ,kipling as a vivid artist or a vigorous personality2 ,i am concerned with him as a ,heretic--that is to say1 a man whose view of things has the hardihood to differ from mine4 ,i am not concerned with ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw as one of the most brilliant and one of the most honest men alive2 ,i am concerned with him as a ,heretic--that is to say1 a man whose philosophy is quite solid1 quite coherent1 and quite wrong4 ,i revert to the doctrinal methods of the thirteenth century1 inspired by the general hope of getting something done4 ,suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something1 let us say a lamp-post1 which many influential persons desire to pull down4 ,a grey-clad monk1 who is the spirit of the ,middle ,ages1 is approached upon the matter1 and begins to say1 in the arid manner of the ,schoolmen1 8,let us first of all consider1 my brethren1 the value of ,light4 ,if ,light be in itself good--0 ,at this point he is somewhat excusably knocked down4 ,all the people make a rush for the lamp-post1 the lamp-post is down in ten minutes1 and they go about congratulating each other on their unmediaeval practicality4 ,but as things go on they do not work out so easily4 ,some people have pulled the lamp-post down because they wanted the electric light2 some because they wanted old iron2 some because they wanted darkness1 because their deeds were evil4 ,some thought it not enough of a lamp-post1 some too much2 some acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery2 some because they wanted to smash something4 ,and there is war in the night1 no man knowing whom he strikes4 ,so1 gradually and inevitably1 to-day1 to-morrow1 or the next day1 there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all1 and that all depends on what is the philosophy of ,light4 ,only what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp1 we now must discuss in the dark4 ,,ii4 ,on the negative spirit ,much has been said1 and said truly1 of the monkish morbidity1 of the hysteria which as often gone with the visions of hermits or nuns4 ,but let us never forget that this visionary religion is1 in one sense1 necessarily more wholesome than our modern and reasonable morality4 ,it is more wholesome for this reason1 that it can contemplate the idea of success or triumph in the hopeless fight towards the ethical ideal1 in what ,stevenson called1 with his usual startling felicity1 8the lost fight of virtue40 ,a modern morality1 on the other hand1 can only point with absolute conviction to the horrors that follow breaches of law2 its only certainty is a certainty of ill4 ,it can only point to imperfection4 ,it has no perfection to point to4 ,but the monk meditating upon ,christ or ,buddha has in his mind an image of perfect health1 a thing of clear colours and clean air4 ,he may contemplate this ideal wholeness and happiness far more than he ought2 he may contemplate it to the neglect of exclusion of essential ,,things2 he may contemplate it until he has become a dreamer or a driveller2 but still it is wholeness and happiness that he is contemplating4 ,he may even go mad2 but he is going mad for the love of sanity4 ,but the modern student of ethics1 even if he remains sane1 remains sane from an insane dread of insanity4 ,the anchorite rolling on the stones in a frenzy of submission is a healthier person fundamentally than many a sober man in a silk hat who is walking down ,cheapside4 ,for many such are good only through a withering knowledge of evil4 ,i am not at this moment claiming for the devotee anything more than this primary advantage1 that though he may be making himself personally weak and miserable1 he is still fixing his thoughts largely on gigantic strength and happiness1 on a strength that has no limits1 and a happiness that has no end4 ,doubtless there are other objections which can be urged without unreason against the influence of gods and visions in morality1 whether in the cell or street4 ,but this advantage the mystic morality must always have--it is always jollier4 ,a young man may keep himself from vice by continually thinking of disease4 ,he may keep himself from it also by continually thinking of the ,virgin ,mary4 ,there may be question about which method is the more reasonable1 or even about which is the more efficient4 ,but surely there can be no question about which is the more wholesome4 ,i remember a pamphlet by that able and sincere secularist1 ,mr4 ,g4 ,w4 ,foote1 which contained a phrase sharply symbolizing and dividing these two methods4 ,the pamphlet was called ,,beer ,,and ,,bible1 those two very noble things1 all the nobler for a conjunction which ,mr4 ,foote1 in his stern old ,puritan way1 seemed to think sardonic1 but which ,i confess to thinking appropriate and charming4 ,i have not the work by me1 but ,i remember that ,mr4 ,foote dismissed very contemptuously any attempts to deal with the problem of strong drink by religious offices or intercessions1 and said that a picture of a drunkard's liver would be more efficacious in the matter of temperance than any prayer or praise4 ,in that picturesque expression1 it seems to me1 is perfectly embodied the incurable morbidity of modern ethics4 ,in that temple the lights are low1 the crowds kneel1 the solemn anthems are uplifted4 ,but that upon the altar to which all men kneel is no longer the perfect flesh1 the body and substance of the perfect man2 it is still flesh1 but it is diseased4 ,it is the drunkard's liver of the ,new ,testament that is marred for us1 which we take in remembrance of him4 ,now1 it is this great gap in modern ethics1 the absence of vivid pictures of purity and spiritual triumph1 which lies at the back of the real objection felt by so many sane men to the realistic literature of the nineteenth century4 ,if any ordinary man ever said that he was horrified by the subjects discussed in ,ibsen or ,maupassant1 or by the plain language in which they are spoken of1 that ordinary man was lying4 ,the average conversation of average men throughout the whole of modern civilization in every class or trade is such as ,zola would never dream of printing4 ,nor is the habit of writing thus of these things a new habit4 ,on the contrary1 it is the ,victorian prudery and silence which is new still1 though it is already dying4 ,the tradition of calling a spade a spade starts very early in our literature and comes down very late4 ,but the truth is that the ordinary honest man1 whatever vague account he may have given of his feelings1 was not either disgusted or even annoyed at the candour of the moderns4 ,what disgusted him1 and very justly1 was not the presence of a clear realism1 but the absence of a clear idealism4 ,strong and genuine religious sentiment has never had any objection to realism2 on the contrary1 religion was the realistic thing1 the brutal thing1 the thing that called names4 ,this is the great difference between some recent developments of ,nonconformity and the great ,puritanism of the seventeenth century4 ,it was the whole point of the ,puritans that they cared nothing for decency4 ,modern ,nonconformist newspapers distinguish themselves by suppressing precisely those nouns and adjectives which the founders of ,nonconformity distinguished themselves by flinging at kings and queens4 ,but if it was a chief claim of religion that it spoke plainly about evil1 it was the chief claim of all that it spoke plainly about good4 ,the thing which is resented1 and1 as ,i think1 rightly resented1 in that great modern literature of which ,ibsen is typical1 is that while the eye that can perceive what are the wrong things increases in an uncanny and devouring clarity1 the eye which sees what things are right is growing mistier and mistier every moment1 till it goes almost blind with doubt4 ,if we compare1 let us say1 the morality of the ,,divine ,,comedy with the morality of ,ibsen's ,,ghosts1 we shall see all that modern ethics have really done4 ,no one1 ,i imagine1 will accuse the author of the ,,inferno of an ,early ,victorian prudishness or a ,podsnapian optimism4 ,but ,dante describes three moral instruments--,heaven1 ,purgatory1 and ,hell1 the vision of perfection1 the vision of improvement1 and the vision of failure4 ,ibsen has only one--,hell4 ,it is often said1 and with perfect truth1 that no one could read a play like ,,ghosts and remain indifferent to the necessity of an ethical self-command4 ,that is quite true1 and the same is to be said of the most monstrous and material descriptions of the eternal fire4 ,it is quite certain the realists like ,zola do in one sense promote morality--they promote it in the sense in which the hangman promotes it1 in the sense in which the devil promotes it4 ,but they only affect that small minority which will accept any virtue of courage4 ,most healthy people dismiss these moral dangers as they dismiss the possibility of bombs or microbes4 ,modern realists are indeed ,terrorists1 like the dynamiters2 and they fail just as much in their effort to create a thrill4 ,both realists and dynamiters are well-meaning people engaged in the task1 so obviously ultimately hopeless1 of using science to promote morality4 ,i do not wish the reader to confuse me for a moment with those vague persons who imagine that ,ibsen is what they call a pessimist4 ,there are plenty of wholesome people in ,ibsen1 plenty of good people1 plenty of happy people1 plenty of examples of men acting wisely and things ending well4 ,that is not my meaning4 ,my meaning is that ,ibsen has throughout1 and does not disguise1 a certain vagueness and a changing attitude as well as a doubting attitude towards what is really wisdom and virtue in this life--a vagueness which contrasts very remarkably with the decisiveness with which he pounces on something which he perceives to be a root of evil1 some convention1 some deception1 some ignorance4 ,we know that the hero of ,,ghosts is mad1 and we know why he is mad4 ,we do also know that ,dr4 ,stockman is sane2 but we do not know why he is sane4 ,ibsen does not profess to know how virtue and happiness are brought about1 in the sense that he professes to know how our modern sexual tragedies are brought about4 ,falsehood works ruin in ,,the ,,pillars ,,of ,,society1 but truth works equal ruin in ,,the ,,wild ,,duck4 ,there are no cardinal virtues of ,ibsenism4 ,there is no ideal man of ,ibsen4 ,all this is not only admitted1 but vaunted in the most valuable and thoughtful of all the eulogies upon ,ibsen1 ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw's ,,quintessence ,,of ,,ibsenism4 ,mr4 ,shaw sums up ,ibsen's teaching in the phrase1 8,the golden rule is that there is no golden rule40 ,in his eyes this absence of an enduring and positive ideal1 this absence of a permanent key to virtue1 is the one great ,ibsen merit4 ,i am not discussing now with any fulness whether this is so or not4 ,all ,i venture to point out1 with an increased firmness1 is that this omission1 good or bad1 does leave us face to face with the problem of a human consciousness filled with very definite images of evil1 and with no definite image of good4 ,to us light must be henceforward the dark thing--the thing of which we cannot speak4 ,to us1 as to ,milton's devils in ,pandemonium1 it is darkness that is visible4 ,the human race1 according to religion1 fell once1 and in falling gained knowledge of good and of evil4 ,now we have fallen a second time1 and only the knowledge of evil remains to us4 ,a great silent collapse1 an enormous unspoken disappointment1 has in our time fallen on our ,northern civilization4 ,all previous ages have sweated and been crucified in an attempt to realize what is really the right life1 what was really the good man4 ,a definite part of the modern world has come beyond question to the conclusion that there is no answer to these questions1 that the most that we can do is to set up a few notice-boards at places of obvious danger1 to warn men1 for instance1 against drinking themselves to death1 or ignoring the mere existence of their neighbours4 ,ibsen is the first to return from the baffled hunt to bring us the tidings of great failure4 ,every one of the popular modern phrases and ideals is a dodge in order to shirk the problem of what is good4 ,we are fond of talking about 8liberty02 that1 as we talk of it1 is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good4 ,we are fond of talking about 8progress02 that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good4 ,we are fond of talking about 8education02 that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good4 ,the modern man says1 8,let us leave all these arbitrary standards and embrace liberty40 ,this is1 logically rendered1 8,let us not decide what is good1 but let it be considered good not to decide it40 ,he says1 8,away with your old moral formulae2 ,i am for progress40 ,this1 logically stated1 means1 8,let us not settle what is good2 but let us settle whether we are getting more of it40 ,he says1 8,neither in religion nor morality1 my friend1 lie the hopes of the race1 but in education40 ,this1 clearly expressed1 means1 8,we cannot decide what is good1 but let us give it to our children40 ,mr4 ,h4,g4 ,wells1 that exceedingly clear-sighted man1 has pointed out in a recent work that this has happened in connection with economic questions4 ,the old economists1 he says1 made generalizations1 and they were 7in ,mr4 ,wells's view7 mostly wrong4 ,but the new economists1 he says1 seem to have lost the power of making any generalizations at all4 ,and they cover this incapacity with a general claim to be1 in specific cases1 regarded as 8experts01 a claim 8proper enough in a hairdresser or a fashionable physician1 but indecent in a philosopher or a man of science40 ,but in spite of the refreshing rationality with which ,mr4 ,wells has indicated this1 it must also be said that he himself has fallen into the same enormous modern error4 ,in the opening pages of that excellent book ,,mankind ,,in ,,the ,,making1 he dismisses the ideals of art1 religion1 abstract morality1 and the rest1 and says that he is going to consider men in their chief function1 the function of parenthood4 ,he is going to discuss life as a 8tissue of births40 ,he is not going to ask what will produce satisfactory saints or satisfactory heroes1 but what will produce satisfactory fathers and mothers4 ,the whole is set forward so sensibly that it is a few moments at least before the reader realises that it is another example of unconscious shirking4 ,what is the good of begetting a man until we have settled what is the good of being a man8 ,you are merely handing on to him a problem you dare not settle yourself4 ,it is as if a man were asked1 8,what is the use of a hammer80 and answered1 8,to make hammers02 and when asked1 8,and of those hammers1 what is the use80 answered1 8,to make hammers again04 ,just as such a man would be perpetually putting off the question of the ultimate use of carpentry1 so ,mr4 ,wells and all the rest of us are by these phrases successfully putting off the question of the ultimate value of the human life4 ,the case of the general talk of 8progress0 is1 indeed1 an extreme one4 ,as enunciated to-day1 8progress0 is simply a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative4 ,we meet every ideal of religion1 patriotism1 beauty1 or brute pleasure with the alternative ideal of progress--that is to say1 we meet every proposal of getting something that we know about1 with an alternative proposal of getting a great deal more of nobody knows what4 ,progress1 properly understood1 has1 indeed1 a most dignified and legitimate meaning4 ,but as used in opposition to precise moral ideals1 it is ludicrous4 ,so far from it being the truth that the ideal of progress is to be set against that of ethical or religious finality1 the reverse is the truth4 ,nobody has any business to use the word 8progress0 unless he has a definite creed and a cast-iron code of morals4 ,nobody can be progressive without being doctrinal2 ,i might almost say that nobody can be progressive without being infallible--at any rate1 without believing in some infallibility4 ,for progress by its very name indicates a direction2 and the moment we are in the least doubtful about the direction1 we become in the same degree doubtful about the progress4 ,never perhaps since the beginning of the world has there been an age that had less right to use the word 8progress0 than we4 ,in the ,catholic twelfth century1 in the philosophic eighteenth century1 the direction may have been a good or a bad one1 men may have differed more or less about how far they went1 and in what direction1 but about the direction they did in the main agree1 and consequently they had the genuine sensation of progress4 ,but it is precisely about the direction that we disagree4 ,whether the future excellence lies in more law or less law1 in more liberty or less liberty2 whether property will be finally concentrated or finally cut up2 whether sexual passion will reach its sanest in an almost virgin intellectualism or in a full animal freedom2 whether we should love everybody with ,tolstoy1 or spare nobody with ,nietzsche2--these are the things about which we are actually fighting most4 ,it is not merely true that the age which has settled least what is progress is this 8progressive0 age4 ,it is1 moreover1 true that the people who have settled least what is progress are the most 8progressive0 people in it4 ,the ordinary mass1 the men who have never troubled about progress1 might be trusted perhaps to progress4 ,the particular individuals who talk about progress would certainly fly to the four winds of heaven when the pistol-shot started the race4 ,i do not1 therefore1 say that the word 8progress0 is unmeaning2 ,i say it is unmeaning without the previous definition of a moral doctrine1 and that it can only be applied to groups of persons who hold that doctrine in common4 ,progress is not an illegitimate word1 but it is logically evident that it is illegitimate for us4 ,it is a sacred word1 a word which could only rightly be used by rigid believers and in the ages of faith4 ,,iii4 ,on ,mr4 ,rudyard ,kipling and ,making the ,world ,small ,there is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject2 the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person4 ,nothing is more keenly required than a defence of bores4 ,when ,byron divided humanity into the bores and bored1 he omitted to notice that the higher qualities exist entirely in the bores1 the lower qualities in the bored1 among whom he counted himself4 ,the bore1 by his starry enthusiasm1 his solemn happiness1 may1 in some sense1 have proved himself poetical4 ,the bored has certainly proved himself prosaic4 ,we might1 no doubt1 find it a nuisance to count all the blades of grass or all the leaves of the trees2 but this would not be because of our boldness or gaiety1 but because of our lack of boldness and gaiety4 ,the bore would go onward1 bold and gay1 and find the blades of grass as splendid as the swords of an army4 ,the bore is stronger and more joyous than we are2 he is a demigod--nay1 he is a god4 ,for it is the gods who do not tire of the iteration of things2 to them the nightfall is always new1 and the last rose as red as the first4 ,the sense that everything is poetical is a thing solid and absolute2 it is not a mere matter of phraseology or persuasion4 ,it is not merely true1 it is ascertainable4 ,men may be challenged to deny it2 men may be challenged to mention anything that is not a matter of poetry4 ,i remember a long time ago a sensible sub-editor coming up to me with a book in his hand1 called 8,mr4 ,smith10 or 8,the ,smith ,family10 or some such thing4 ,he said1 8,well1 you won't get any of your damned mysticism out of this10 or words to that effect4 ,i am happy to say that ,i undeceived him2 but the victory was too obvious and easy4 ,in most cases the name is unpoetical1 although the fact is poetical4 ,in the case of ,smith1 the name is so poetical that it must be an arduous and heroic matter for the man to live up to it4 ,the name of ,smith is the name of the one trade that even kings respected1 it could claim half the glory of that arma virumque which all epics acclaimed4 ,the spirit of the smithy is so close to the spirit of song that it has mixed in a million poems1 and every blacksmith is a harmonious blacksmith4 ,even the village children feel that in some dim way the smith is poetic1 as the grocer and the cobbler are not poetic1 when they feast on the dancing sparks and deafening blows in the cavern of that creative violence4 ,the brute repose of ,nature1 the passionate cunning of man1 the strongest of earthly metals1 the wierdest of earthly elements1 the unconquerable iron subdued by its only conqueror1 the wheel and the ploughshare1 the sword and the steam-hammer1 the arraying of armies and the whole legend of arms1 all these things are written1 briefly indeed1 but quite legibly1 on the visiting-card of ,mr4 ,smith4 ,yet our novelists call their hero 8,aylmer ,valence10 which means nothing1 or 8,vernon ,raymond10 which means nothing1 when it is in their power to give him this sacred name of ,smith--this name made of iron and flame4 ,it would be very natural if a certain hauteur1 a certain carriage of the head1 a certain curl of the lip1 distinguished every one whose name is ,smith4 ,perhaps it does2 ,i trust so4 ,whoever else are parvenus1 the ,smiths are not parvenus4 ,from the darkest dawn of history this clan has gone forth to battle2 its trophies are on every hand2 its name is everywhere2 it is older than the nations1 and its sign is the ,hammer of ,thor4 ,but as ,i also remarked1 it is not quite the usual case4 ,it is common enough that common things should be poetical2 it is not so common that common names should be poetical4 ,in most cases it is the name that is the obstacle4 ,a great many people talk as if this claim of ours1 that all things are poetical1 were a mere literary ingenuity1 a play on words4 ,precisely the contrary is true4 ,it is the idea that some things are not poetical which is literary1 which is a mere product of words4 ,the word 8signal-box0 is unpoetical4 ,but the thing signal-box is not unpoetical2 it is a place where men1 in an agony of vigilance1 light blood-red and sea-green fires to keep other men from death4 ,that is the plain1 genuine description of what it is2 the prose only comes in with what it is called4 ,the word 8pillar-box0 is unpoetical4 ,but the thing pillar-box is not unpoetical2 it is the place to which friends and lovers commit their messages1 conscious that when they have done so they are sacred1 and not to be touched1 not only by others1 but even 7religious touch67 by themselves4 ,that red turret is one of the last of the temples4 ,posting a letter and getting married are among the few things left that are entirely romantic2 for to be entirely romantic a thing must be irrevocable4 ,we think a pillar-box prosaic1 because there is no rhyme to it4 ,we think a pillar-box unpoetical1 because we have never seen it in a poem4 ,but the bold fact is entirely on the side of poetry4 ,a signal-box is only called a signal-box2 it is a house of life and death4 ,a pillar-box is only called a pillar-box2 it is a sanctuary of human words4 ,if you think the name of 8,smith0 prosaic1 it is not because you are practical and sensible2 it is because you are too much affected with literary refinements4 ,the name shouts poetry at you4 ,if you think of it otherwise1 it is because you are steeped and sodden with verbal reminiscences1 because you remember everything in ,punch or ,comic ,cuts about ,mr4 ,smith being drunk or ,mr4 ,smith being henpecked4 ,all these things were given to you poetical4 ,it is only by a long and elaborate process of literary effort that you have made them prosaic4 ,now1 the first and fairest thing to say about ,rudyard ,kipling is that he has borne a brilliant part in thus recovering the lost provinces of poetry4 ,he has not been frightened by that brutal materialistic air which clings only to words2 he has pierced through to the romantic1 imaginative matter of the things themselves4 ,he has perceived the significance and philosophy of steam and of slang4 ,steam may be1 if you like1 a dirty by-product of science4 ,slang may be1 if you like1 a dirty by-product of language4 ,but at least he has been among the few who saw the divine parentage of these things1 and knew that where there is smoke there is fire--that is1 that wherever there is the foulest of things1 there also is the purest4 ,above all1 he has had something to say1 a definite view of things to utter1 and that always means that a man is fearless and faces everything4 ,for the moment we have a view of the universe1 we possess it4 ,now1 the message of ,rudyard ,kipling1 that upon which he has really concentrated1 is the only thing worth worrying about in him or in any other man4 ,he has often written bad poetry1 like ,wordsworth4 ,he has often said silly things1 like ,plato4 ,he has often given way to mere political hysteria1 like ,gladstone4 ,but no one can reasonably doubt that he means steadily and sincerely to say something1 and the only serious question is1 ,what is that which he has tried to say8 ,perhaps the best way of stating this fairly will be to begin with that element which has been most insisted by himself and by his opponents--,i mean his interest in militarism4 ,but when we are seeking for the real merits of a man it is unwise to go to his enemies1 and much more foolish to go to himself4 ,now1 ,mr4 ,kipling is certainly wrong in his worship of militarism1 but his opponents are1 generally speaking1 quite as wrong as he4 ,the evil of militarism is not that it shows certain men to be fierce and haughty and excessively warlike4 ,the evil of militarism is that it shows most men to be tame and timid and excessively peaceable4 ,the professional soldier gains more and more power as the general courage of a community declines4 ,thus the ,pretorian guard became more and more important in ,rome as ,rome became more and more luxurious and feeble4 ,the military man gains the civil power in proportion as the civilian loses the military virtues4 ,and as it was in ancient ,rome so it is in contemporary ,europe4 ,there never was a time when nations were more militarist4 ,there never was a time when men were less brave4 ,all ages and all epics have sung of arms and the man2 but we have effected simultaneously the deterioration of the man and the fantastic perfection of the arms4 ,militarism demonstrated the decadence of ,rome1 and it demonstrates the decadence of ,prussia4 ,and unconsciously ,mr4 ,kipling has proved this1 and proved it admirably4 ,for in so far as his work is earnestly understood the military trade does not by any means emerge as the most important or attractive4 ,he has not written so well about soldiers as he has about railway men or bridge builders1 or even journalists4 ,the fact is that what attracts ,mr4 ,kipling to militarism is not the idea of courage1 but the idea of discipline4 ,there was far more courage to the square mile in the ,middle ,ages1 when no king had a standing army1 but every man had a bow or sword4 ,but the fascination of the standing army upon ,mr4 ,kipling is not courage1 which scarcely interests him1 but discipline1 which is1 when all is said and done1 his primary theme4 ,the modern army is not a miracle of courage2 it has not enough opportunities1 owing to the cowardice of everybody else4 ,but it is really a miracle of organization1 and that is the truly ,kiplingite ideal4 ,kipling's subject is not that valour which properly belongs to war1 but that interdependence and efficiency which belongs quite as much to engineers1 or sailors1 or mules1 or railway engines4 ,and thus it is that when he writes of engineers1 or sailors1 or mules1 or steam-engines1 he writes at his best4 ,the real poetry1 the 8true romance0 which ,mr4 ,kipling has taught1 is the romance of the division of labour and the discipline of all the trades4 ,he sings the arts of peace much more accurately than the arts of war4 ,and his main contention is vital and valuable4 ,every thing is military in the sense that everything depends upon obedience4 ,there is no perfectly epicurean corner2 there is no perfectly irresponsible place4 ,everywhere men have made the way for us with sweat and submission4 ,we may fling ourselves into a hammock in a fit of divine carelessness4 ,but we are glad that the net-maker did not make the hammock in a fit of divine carelessness4 ,we may jump upon a child's rocking-horse for a joke4 ,but we are glad that the carpenter did not leave the legs of it unglued for a joke4 ,so far from having merely preached that a soldier cleaning his side-arm is to be adored because he is military1 ,kipling at his best and clearest has preached that the baker baking loaves and the tailor cutting coats is as military as anybody4 ,being devoted to this multitudinous vision of duty1 ,mr4 ,kipling is naturally a cosmopolitan4 ,he happens to find his examples in the ,british ,empire1 but almost any other empire would do as well1 or1 indeed1 any other highly civilized country4 ,that which he admires in the ,british army he would find even more apparent in the ,german army2 that which he desires in the ,british police he would find flourishing1 in the ,french police4 ,the ideal of discipline is not the whole of life1 but it is spread over the whole of the world4 ,and the worship of it tends to confirm in ,mr4 ,kipling a certain note of worldly wisdom1 of the experience of the wanderer1 which is one of the genuine charms of his best work4 ,the great gap in his mind is what may be roughly called the lack of patriotism--that is to say1 he lacks altogether the faculty of attaching himself to any cause or community finally and tragically2 for all finality must be tragic4 ,he admires ,england1 but he does not love her2 for we admire things with reasons1 but love them without reasons4 ,he admires ,england because she is strong1 not because she is ,english4 ,there is no harshness in saying this1 for1 to do him justice1 he avows it with his usual picturesque candour4 ,in a very interesting poem1 he says that-- 8,if ,england was what ,england seems0 --that is1 weak and inefficient2 if ,england were not what 7as he believes7 she is--that is1 powerful and practical-- 8,how quick we'd chuck 'er6 ,but she ain't60 ,he admits1 that is1 that his devotion is the result of a criticism1 and this is quite enough to put it in another category altogether from the patriotism of the ,boers1 whom he hounded down in ,south ,africa4 ,in speaking of the really patriotic peoples1 such as the ,irish1 he has some difficulty in keeping a shrill irritation out of his language4 ,the frame of mind which he really describes with beauty and nobility is the frame of mind of the cosmopolitan man who has seen men and cities4 8,for to admire and for to see1 ,for to be'old this world so wide40 ,he is a perfect master of that light melancholy with which a man looks back on having been the citizen of many communities1 of that light melancholy with which a man looks back on having been the lover of many women4 ,he is the philanderer of the nations4 ,but a man may have learnt much about women in flirtations1 and still be ignorant of first love2 a man may have known as many lands as ,ulysses1 and still be ignorant of patriotism4 ,mr4 ,rudyard ,kipling has asked in a celebrated epigram what they can know of ,england who know ,england only4 ,it is a far deeper and sharper question to ask1 8,what can they know of ,england who know only the world80 for the world does not include ,england any more than it includes the ,church4 ,the moment we care for anything deeply1 the world--that is1 all the other miscellaneous interests--becomes our enemy4 ,christians showed it when they talked of keeping one's self 8unspotted from the world20 but lovers talk of it just as much when they talk of the 8world well lost40 ,astronomically speaking1 ,i understand that ,england is situated on the world2 similarly1 ,i suppose that the ,church was a part of the world1 and even the lovers inhabitants of that orb4 ,but they all felt a certain truth--the truth that the moment you love anything the world becomes your foe4 ,thus ,mr4 ,kipling does certainly know the world2 he is a man of the world1 with all the narrowness that belongs to those imprisoned in that planet4 ,he knows ,england as an intelligent ,english gentleman knows ,venice4 ,he has been to ,england a great many times2 he has stopped there for long visits4 ,but he does not belong to it1 or to any place2 and the proof of it is this1 that he thinks of ,england as a place4 ,the moment we are rooted in a place1 the place vanishes4 ,we live like a tree with the whole strength of the universe4 ,the globe-trotter lives in a smaller world than the peasant4 ,he is always breathing1 an air of locality4 ,london is a place1 to be compared to ,chicago2 ,chicago is a place1 to be compared to ,timbuctoo4 ,but ,timbuctoo is not a place1 since there1 at least1 live men who regard it as the universe1 and breathe1 not an air of locality1 but the winds of the world4 ,the man in the saloon steamer has seen all the races of men1 and he is thinking of the things that divide men--diet1 dress1 decorum1 rings in the nose as in ,africa1 or in the ears as in ,europe1 blue paint among the ancients1 or red paint among the modern ,britons4 ,the man in the cabbage field has seen nothing at all2 but he is thinking of the things that unite men--hunger and babies1 and the beauty of women1 and the promise or menace of the sky4 ,mr4 ,kipling1 with all his merits1 is the globe-trotter2 he has not the patience to become part of anything4 ,so great and genuine a man is not to be accused of a merely cynical cosmopolitanism2 still1 his cosmopolitanism is his weakness4 ,that weakness is splendidly expressed in one of his finest poems1 8,the ,sestina of the ,tramp ,royal10 in which a man declares that he can endure anything in the way of hunger or horror1 but not permanent presence in one place4 ,in this there is certainly danger4 ,the more dead and dry and dusty a thing is the more it travels about2 dust is like this and the thistle-down and the ,high ,commissioner in ,south ,africa4 ,fertile things are somewhat heavier1 like the heavy fruit trees on the pregnant mud of the ,nile4 ,in the heated idleness of youth we were all rather inclined to quarrel with the implication of that proverb which says that a rolling stone gathers no moss4 ,we were inclined to ask1 8,who wants to gather moss1 except silly old ladies80 ,but for all that we begin to perceive that the proverb is right4 ,the rolling stone rolls echoing from rock to rock2 but the rolling stone is dead4 ,the moss is silent because the moss is alive4 ,the truth is that exploration and enlargement make the world smaller4 ,the telegraph and the steamboat make the world smaller4 ,the telescope makes the world smaller2 it is only the microscope that makes it larger4 ,before long the world will be cloven with a war between the telescopists and the microscopists4 ,the first study large things and live in a small world2 the second study small things and live in a large world4 ,it is inspiriting without doubt to whizz in a motor-car round the earth1 to feel ,arabia as a whirl of sand or ,china as a flash of rice-fields4 ,but ,arabia is not a whirl of sand and ,china is not a flash of rice-fields4 ,they are ancient civilizations with strange virtues buried like treasures4 ,if we wish to understand them it must not be as tourists or inquirers1 it must be with the loyalty of children and the great patience of poets4 ,to conquer these places is to lose them4 ,the man standing in his own kitchen-garden1 with fairyland opening at the gate1 is the man with large ideas4 ,his mind creates distance2 the motor-car stupidly destroys it4 ,moderns think of the earth as a globe1 as something one can easily get round1 the spirit of a schoolmistress4 ,this is shown in the odd mistake perpetually made about ,cecil ,rhodes4 ,his enemies say that he may have had large ideas1 but he was a bad man4 ,his friends say that he may have been a bad man1 but he certainly had large ideas4 ,the truth is that he was not a man essentially bad1 he was a man of much geniality and many good intentions1 but a man with singularly small views4 ,there is nothing large about painting the map red2 it is an innocent game for children4 ,it is just as easy to think in continents as to think in cobble-stones4 ,the difficulty comes in when we seek to know the substance of either of them4 ,rhodes' prophecies about the ,boer resistance are an admirable comment on how the 8large ideas0 prosper when it is not a question of thinking in continents but of understanding a few two-legged men4 ,and under all this vast illusion of the cosmopolitan planet1 with its empires and its ,reuter's agency1 the real life of man goes on concerned with this tree or that temple1 with this harvest or that drinking-song1 totally uncomprehended1 totally untouched4 ,and it watches from its splendid parochialism1 possibly with a smile of amusement1 motor-car civilization going its triumphant way1 outstripping time1 consuming space1 seeing all and seeing nothing1 roaring on at last to the capture of the solar system1 only to find the sun cockney and the stars suburban4 ,,iv4 ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw ,in the glad old days1 before the rise of modern morbidities1 when genial old ,ibsen filled the world with wholesome joy1 and the kindly tales of the forgotten ,emile ,zola kept our firesides merry and pure1 it used to be thought a disadvantage to be misunderstood4 ,it may be doubted whether it is always or even generally a disadvantage4 ,the man who is misunderstood has always this advantage over his enemies1 that they do not know his weak point or his plan of campaign4 ,they go out against a bird with nets and against a fish with arrows4 ,there are several modern examples of this situation4 ,mr4 ,chamberlain1 for instance1 is a very good one4 ,he constantly eludes or vanquishes his opponents because his real powers and deficiencies are quite different to those with which he is credited1 both by friends and foes4 ,his friends depict him as a strenuous man of action2 his opponents depict him as a coarse man of business2 when1 as a fact1 he is neither one nor the other1 but an admirable romantic orator and romantic actor4 ,he has one power which is the soul of melodrama--the power of pretending1 even when backed by a huge majority1 that he has his back to the wall4 ,for all mobs are so far chivalrous that their heroes must make some show of misfortune--that sort of hypocrisy is the homage that strength pays to weakness4 ,he talks foolishly and yet very finely about his own city that has never deserted him4 ,he wears a flaming and fantastic flower1 like a decadent minor poet4 ,as for his bluffness and toughness and appeals to common sense1 all that is1 of course1 simply the first trick of rhetoric4 ,he fronts his audiences with the venerable affectation of ,mark ,antony-- 8,i am no orator1 as ,brutus is2 ,but as you know me all1 a plain blunt man40 ,it is the whole difference between the aim of the orator and the aim of any other artist1 such as the poet or the sculptor4 ,the aim of the sculptor is to convince us that he is a sculptor2 the aim of the orator1 is to convince us that he is not an orator4 ,once let ,mr4 ,chamberlain be mistaken for a practical man1 and his game is won4 ,he has only to compose a theme on empire1 and people will say that these plain men say great things on great occasions4 ,he has only to drift in the large loose notions common to all artists of the second rank1 and people will say that business men have the biggest ideals after all4 ,all his schemes have ended in smoke2 he has touched nothing that he did not confuse4 ,about his figure there is a ,celtic pathos2 like the ,gaels in ,matthew ,arnold's quotation1 8he went forth to battle1 but he always fell40 ,he is a mountain of proposals1 a mountain of failures2 but still a mountain4 ,and a mountain is always romantic4 ,there is another man in the modern world who might be called the antithesis of ,mr4 ,chamberlain in every point1 who is also a standing monument of the advantage of being misunderstood4 ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw is always represented by those who disagree with him1 and1 ,i fear1 also 7if such exist7 by those who agree with him1 as a capering humorist1 a dazzling acrobat1 a quick-change artist4 ,it is said that he cannot be taken seriously1 that he will defend anything or attack anything1 that he will do anything to startle and amuse4 ,all this is not only untrue1 but it is1 glaringly1 the opposite of the truth2 it is as wild as to say that ,dickens had not the boisterous masculinity of ,jane ,austen4 ,the whole force and triumph of ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw lie in the fact that he is a thoroughly consistent man4 ,so far from his power consisting in jumping through hoops or standing on his head1 his power consists in holding his own fortress night and day4 ,he puts the ,shaw test rapidly and rigorously to everything that happens in heaven or earth4 ,his standard never varies4 ,the thing which weak-minded revolutionists and weak-minded ,conservatives really hate 7and fear7 in him1 is exactly this1 that his scales1 such as they are1 are held even1 and that his law1 such as it is1 is justly enforced4 ,you may attack his principles1 as ,i do2 but ,i do not know of any instance in which you can attack their application4 ,if he dislikes lawlessness1 he dislikes the lawlessness of ,socialists as much as that of ,individualists4 ,if he dislikes the fever of patriotism1 he dislikes it in ,boers and ,irishmen as well as in ,englishmen4 ,if he dislikes the vows and bonds of marriage1 he dislikes still more the fiercer bonds and wilder vows that are made by lawless love4 ,if he laughs at the authority of priests1 he laughs louder at the pomposity of men of science4 ,if he condemns the irresponsibility of faith1 he condemns with a sane consistency the equal irresponsibility of art4 ,he has pleased all the bohemians by saying that women are equal to men2 but he has infuriated them by suggesting that men are equal to women4 ,he is almost mechanically just2 he has something of the terrible quality of a machine4 ,the man who is really wild and whirling1 the man who is really fantastic and incalculable1 is not ,mr4 ,shaw1 but the average ,cabinet ,minister4 ,it is ,sir ,michael ,hicks-,beach who jumps through hoops4 ,it is ,sir ,henry ,fowler who stands on his head4 ,the solid and respectable statesman of that type does really leap from position to position2 he is really ready to defend anything or nothing2 he is really not to be taken seriously4 ,i know perfectly well what ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw will be saying thirty years hence2 he will be saying what he has always said4 ,if thirty years hence ,i meet ,mr4 ,shaw1 a reverent being with a silver beard sweeping the earth1 and say to him1 8,one can never1 of course1 make a verbal attack upon a lady10 the patriarch will lift his aged hand and fell me to the earth4 ,we know1 ,i say1 what ,mr4 ,shaw will be1 saying thirty years hence4 ,but is there any one so darkly read in stars and oracles that he will dare to predict what ,mr4 ,asquith will be saying thirty years hence8 ,the truth is1 that it is quite an error to suppose that absence of definite convictions gives the mind freedom and agility4 ,a man who believes something is ready and witty1 because he has all his weapons about him4 ,he can apply his test in an instant4 ,the man engaged in conflict with a man like ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw may fancy he has ten faces2 similarly a man engaged against a brilliant duellist may fancy that the sword of his foe has turned to ten swords in his hand4 ,but this is not really because the man is playing with ten swords1 it is because he is aiming very straight with one4 ,moreover1 a man with a definite belief always appears bizarre1 because he does not change with the world2 he has climbed into a fixed star1 and the earth whizzes below him like a zoetrope4 ,millions of mild black-coated men call themselves sane and sensible merely because they always catch the fashionable insanity1 because they are hurried into madness after madness by the maelstrom of the world4 ,people accuse ,mr4 ,shaw and many much sillier persons of 8proving that black is white40 ,but they never ask whether the current colour-language is always correct4 ,ordinary sensible phraseology sometimes calls black white1 it certainly calls yellow white and green white and reddish-brown white4 ,we call wine 8white wine0 which is as yellow as a ,blue-coat boy's legs4 ,we call grapes 8white grapes0 which are manifestly pale green4 ,we give to the ,european1 whose complexion is a sort of pink drab1 the horrible title of a 8white man0--a picture more blood-curdling than any spectre in ,poe4 ,now1 it is undoubtedly true that if a man asked a waiter in a restaurant for a bottle of yellow wine and some greenish-yellow grapes1 the waiter would think him mad4 ,it is undoubtedly true that if a ,government official1 reporting on the ,europeans in ,burmah1 said1 8,there are only two thousand pinkish men here0 he would be accused of cracking jokes1 and kicked out of his post4 ,but it is equally obvious that both men would have come to grief through telling the strict truth4 ,that too truthful man in the restaurant2 that too truthful man in ,burmah1 is ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw4 ,he appears eccentric and grotesque because he will not accept the general belief that white is yellow4 ,he has based all his brilliancy and solidity upon the hackneyed1 but yet forgotten1 fact that truth is stranger than fiction4 ,truth1 of course1 must of necessity be stranger than fiction1 for we have made fiction to suit ourselves4 ,so much then a reasonable appreciation will find in ,mr4 ,shaw to be bracing and excellent4 ,he claims to see things as they are2 and some things1 at any rate1 he does see as they are1 which the whole of our civilization does not see at all4 ,but in ,mr4 ,shaw's realism there is something lacking1 and that thing which is lacking is serious4 ,mr4 ,shaw's old and recognized philosophy was that powerfully presented in 8,the ,quintessence of ,ibsenism40 ,it was1 in brief1 that conservative ideals were bad1 not because they were conservative1 but because they were ideals4 ,every ideal prevented men from judging justly the particular case2 every moral generalization oppressed the individual2 the golden rule was there was no golden rule4 ,and the objection to this is simply that it pretends to free men1 but really restrains them from doing the only thing that men want to do4 ,what is the good of telling a community that it has every liberty except the liberty to make laws8 ,the liberty to make laws is what constitutes a free people4 ,and what is the good of telling a man 7or a philosopher7 that he has every liberty except the liberty to make generalizations4 ,making generalizations is what makes him a man4 ,in short1 when ,mr4 ,shaw forbids men to have strict moral ideals1 he is acting like one who should forbid them to have children4 ,the saying that 8the golden rule is that there is no golden rule10 can1 indeed1 be simply answered by being turned round4 ,that there is no golden rule is itself a golden rule1 or rather it is much worse than a golden rule4 ,it is an iron rule2 a fetter on the first movement of a man4 ,but the sensation connected with ,mr4 ,shaw in recent years has been his sudden development of the religion of the ,superman4 ,he who had to all appearance mocked at the faiths in the forgotten past discovered a new god in the unimaginable future4 ,he who had laid all the blame on ideals set up the most impossible of all ideals1 the ideal of a new creature4 ,but the truth1 nevertheless1 is that any one who knows ,mr4 ,shaw's mind adequately1 and admires it properly1 must have guessed all this long ago4 ,for the truth is that ,mr4 ,shaw has never seen things as they really are4 ,if he had he would have fallen on his knees before them4 ,he has always had a secret ideal that has withered all the things of this world4 ,he has all the time been silently comparing humanity with something that was not human1 with a monster from ,mars1 with the ,wise ,man of the ,stoics1 with the ,economic ,man of the ,fabians1 with ,julius ,caesar1 with ,siegfried1 with the ,superman4 ,now1 to have this inner and merciless standard may be a very good thing1 or a very bad one1 it may be excellent or unfortunate1 but it is not seeing things as they are4 ,it is not seeing things as they are to think first of a ,briareus with a hundred hands1 and then call every man a cripple for only having two4 ,it is not seeing things as they are to start with a vision of ,argus with his hundred eyes1 and then jeer at every man with two eyes as if he had only one4 ,and it is not seeing things as they are to imagine a demigod of infinite mental clarity1 who may or may not appear in the latter days of the earth1 and then to see all men as idiots4 ,and this is what ,mr4 ,shaw has always in some degree done4 ,when we really see men as they are1 we do not criticise1 but worship2 and very rightly4 ,for a monster with mysterious eyes and miraculous thumbs1 with strange dreams in his skull1 and a queer tenderness for this place or that baby1 is truly a wonderful and unnerving matter4 ,it is only the quite arbitrary and priggish habit of comparison with something else which makes it possible to be at our ease in front of him4 ,a sentiment of superiority keeps us cool and practical2 the mere facts would make our knees knock under as with religious fear4 ,it is the fact that every instant of conscious life is an unimaginable prodigy4 ,it is the fact that every face in the street has the incredible unexpectedness of a fairy-tale4 ,the thing which prevents a man from realizing this is not any clear-sightedness or experience1 it is simply a habit of pedantic and fastidious comparisons between one thing and another4 ,mr4 ,shaw1 on the practical side perhaps the most humane man alive1 is in this sense inhumane4 ,he has even been infected to some extent with the primary intellectual weakness of his new master1 ,nietzsche1 the strange notion that the greater and stronger a man was the more he would despise other things4 ,the greater and stronger a man is the more he would be inclined to prostrate himself before a periwinkle4 ,that ,mr4 ,shaw keeps a lifted head and a contemptuous face before the colossal panorama of empires and civilizations1 this does not in itself convince one that he sees things as they are4 ,i should be most effectively convinced that he did if ,i found him staring with religious astonishment at his own feet4 8,what are those two beautiful and industrious beings10 ,i can imagine him murmuring to himself1 8whom ,i see everywhere1 serving me ,i know not why8 ,what fairy godmother bade them come trotting out of elfland when ,i was born8 ,what god of the borderland1 what barbaric god of legs1 must ,i propitiate with fire and wine1 lest they run away with me80 ,the truth is1 that all genuine appreciation rests on a certain mystery of humility and almost of darkness4 ,the man who said1 8,blessed is he that expecteth nothing1 for he shall not be disappointed10 put the eulogy quite inadequately and even falsely4 ,the truth 8,blessed is he that expecteth nothing1 for he shall be gloriously surprised40 ,the man who expects nothing sees redder roses than common men can see1 and greener grass1 and a more startling sun4 ,blessed is he that expecteth nothing1 for he shall possess the cities and the mountains2 blessed is the meek1 for he shall inherit the earth4 ,until we realize that things might not be we cannot realize that things are4 ,until we see the background of darkness we cannot admire the light as a single and created thing4 ,as soon as we have seen that darkness1 all light is lightening1 sudden1 blinding1 and divine4 ,until we picture nonentity we underrate the victory of ,god1 and can realize none of the trophies of ,his ancient war4 ,it is one of the million wild jests of truth that we know nothing until we know nothing4 ,now this is1 ,i say deliberately1 the only defect in the greatness of ,mr4 ,shaw1 the only answer to his claim to be a great man1 that he is not easily pleased4 ,he is an almost solitary exception to the general and essential maxim1 that little things please great minds4 ,and from this absence of that most uproarious of all things1 humility1 comes incidentally the peculiar insistence on the ,superman4 ,after belabouring a great many people for a great many years for being unprogressive1 ,mr4 ,shaw has discovered1 with characteristic sense1 that it is very doubtful whether any existing human being with two legs can be progressive at all4 ,having come to doubt whether humanity can be combined with progress1 most people1 easily pleased1 would have elected to abandon progress and remain with humanity4 ,mr4 ,shaw1 not being easily pleased1 decides to throw over humanity with all its limitations and go in for progress for its own sake4 ,if man1 as we know him1 is incapable of the philosophy of progress1 ,mr4 ,shaw asks1 not for a new kind of philosophy1 but for a new kind of man4 ,it is rather as if a nurse had tried a rather bitter food for some years on a baby1 and on discovering that it was not suitable1 should not throw away the food and ask for a new food1 but throw the baby out of window1 and ask for a new baby4 ,mr4 ,shaw cannot understand that the thing which is valuable and lovable in our eyes is man--the old beer-drinking1 creed-making1 fighting1 failing1 sensual1 respectable man4 ,and the things that have been founded on this creature immortally remain2 the things that have been founded on the fancy of the ,superman have died with the dying civilizations which alone have given them birth4 ,when ,christ at a symbolic moment was establishing ,his great society1 ,he chose for its corner-stone neither the brilliant ,paul nor the mystic ,john1 but a shuffler1 a snob a coward--in a word1 a man4 ,and upon this rock ,he has built ,his ,church1 and the gates of ,hell have not prevailed against it4 ,all the empires and the kingdoms have failed1 because of this inherent and continual weakness1 that they were founded by strong men and upon strong men4 ,but this one thing1 the historic ,christian ,church1 was founded on a weak man1 and for that reason it is indestructible4 ,for no chain is stronger than its weakest link4 ,v4 ,mr4 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells and the ,giants ,we ought to see far enough into a hypocrite to see even his sincerity4 ,we ought to be interested in that darkest and most real part of a man in which dwell not the vices that he does not display1 but the virtues that he cannot4 ,and the more we approach the problems of human history with this keen and piercing charity1 the smaller and smaller space we shall allow to pure hypocrisy of any kind4 ,the hypocrites shall not deceive us into thinking them saints2 but neither shall they deceive us into thinking them hypocrites4 ,and an increasing number of cases will crowd into our field of inquiry1 cases in which there is really no question of hypocrisy at all1 cases in which people were so ingenuous that they seemed absurd1 and so absurd that they seemed disingenuous4 ,there is one striking instance of an unfair charge of hypocrisy4 ,it is always urged against the religious in the past1 as a point of inconsistency and duplicity1 that they combined a profession of almost crawling humility with a keen struggle for earthly success and considerable triumph in attaining it4 ,it is felt as a piece of humbug1 that a man should be very punctilious in calling himself a miserable sinner1 and also very punctilious in calling himself ,king of ,france4 ,but the truth is that there is no more conscious inconsistency between the humility of a ,christian and the rapacity of a ,christian than there is between the humility of a lover and the rapacity of a lover4 ,the truth is that there are no things for which men will make such herculean efforts as the things of which they know they are unworthy4 ,there never was a man in love who did not declare that1 if he strained every nerve to breaking1 he was going to have his desire4 ,and there never was a man in love who did not declare also that he ought not to have it4 ,the whole secret of the practical success of ,christendom lies in the ,christian humility1 however imperfectly fulfilled4 ,for with the removal of all question of merit or payment1 the soul is suddenly released for incredible voyages4 ,if we ask a sane man how much he merits1 his mind shrinks instinctively and instantaneously4 ,it is doubtful whether he merits six feet of earth4 ,but if you ask him what he can conquer--he can conquer the stars4 ,thus comes the thing called ,romance1 a purely ,christian product4 ,a man cannot deserve adventures2 he cannot earn dragons and hippogriffs4 ,the mediaeval ,europe which asserted humility gained ,romance2 the civilization which gained ,romance has gained the habitable globe4 ,how different the ,pagan and ,stoical feeling was from this has been admirably expressed in a famous quotation4 ,addison makes the great ,stoic say-- 8',tis not in mortals to command success2 ,but we'll do more1 ,sempronius1 we'll deserve it40 ,but the spirit of ,romance and ,christendom1 the spirit which is in every lover1 the spirit which has bestridden the earth with ,european adventure1 is quite opposite4 ',tis not in mortals to deserve success4 ,but we'll do more1 ,sempronius2 we'll obtain it4 ,and this gay humility1 this holding of ourselves lightly and yet ready for an infinity of unmerited triumphs1 this secret is so simple that every one has supposed that it must be something quite sinister and mysterious4 ,humility is so practical a virtue that men think it must be a vice4 ,humility is so successful that it is mistaken for pride4 ,it is mistaken for it all the more easily because it generally goes with a certain simple love of splendour which amounts to vanity4 ,humility will always1 by preference1 go clad in scarlet and gold2 pride is that which refuses to let gold and scarlet impress it or please it too much4 ,in a word1 the failure of this virtue actually lies in its success2 it is too successful as an investment to be believed in as a virtue4 ,humility is not merely too good for this world2 it is too practical for this world2 ,i had almost said it is too worldly for this world4 ,the instance most quoted in our day is the thing called the humility of the man of science2 and certainly it is a good instance as well as a modern one4 ,men find it extremely difficult to believe that a man who is obviously uprooting mountains and dividing seas1 tearing down temples and stretching out hands to the stars1 is really a quiet old gentleman who only asks to be allowed to indulge his harmless old hobby and follow his harmless old nose4 ,when a man splits a grain of sand and the universe is turned upside down in consequence1 it is difficult to realize that to the man who did it1 the splitting of the grain is the great affair1 and the capsizing of the cosmos quite a small one4 ,it is hard to enter into the feelings of a man who regards a new heaven and a new earth in the light of a by-product4 ,but undoubtedly it was to this almost eerie innocence of the intellect that the great men of the great scientific period1 which now appears to be closing1 owed their enormous power and triumph4 ,if they had brought the heavens down like a house of cards their plea was not even that they had done it on principle2 their quite unanswerable plea was that they had done it by accident4 ,whenever there was in them the least touch of pride in what they had done1 there was a good ground for attacking them2 but so long as they were wholly humble1 they were wholly victorious4 ,there were possible answers to ,huxley2 there was no answer possible to ,darwin4 ,he was convincing because of his unconsciousness2 one might almost say because of his dulness4 ,this childlike and prosaic mind is beginning to wane in the world of science4 ,men of science are beginning to see themselves1 as the fine phrase is1 in the part2 they are beginning to be proud of their humility4 ,they are beginning to be aesthetic1 like the rest of the world1 beginning to spell truth with a capital ,t1 beginning to talk of the creeds they imagine themselves to have destroyed1 of the discoveries that their forbears made4 ,like the modern ,english1 they are beginning to be soft about their own hardness4 ,they are becoming conscious of their own strength--that is1 they are growing weaker4 ,but one purely modern man has emerged in the strictly modern decades who does carry into our world the clear personal simplicity of the old world of science4 ,one man of genius we have who is an artist1 but who was a man of science1 and who seems to be marked above all things with this great scientific humility4 ,i mean ,mr4 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells4 ,and in his case1 as in the others above spoken of1 there must be a great preliminary difficulty in convincing the ordinary person that such a virtue is predicable of such a man4 ,mr4 ,wells began his literary work with violent visions--visions of the last pangs of this planet2 can it be that a man who begins with violent visions is humble8 ,he went on to wilder and wilder stories about carving beasts into men and shooting angels like birds4 ,is the man who shoots angels and carves beasts into men humble8 ,since then he has done something bolder than either of these blasphemies2 he has prophesied the political future of all men2 prophesied it with aggressive authority and a ringing decision of detail4 ,is the prophet of the future of all men humble8 ,it will indeed be difficult1 in the present condition of current thought about such things as pride and humility1 to answer the query of how a man can be humble who does such big things and such bold things4 ,for the only answer is the answer which ,i gave at the beginning of this essay4 ,it is the humble man who does the big things4 ,it is the humble man who does the bold things4 ,it is the humble man who has the sensational sights vouchsafed to him1 and this for three obvious reasons3 first1 that he strains his eyes more than any other men to see them2 second1 that he is more overwhelmed and uplifted with them when they come2 third1 that he records them more exactly and sincerely and with less adulteration from his more commonplace and more conceited everyday self4 ,adventures are to those to whom they are most unexpected--that is1 most romantic4 ,adventures are to the shy3 in this sense adventures are to the unadventurous4 ,now1 this arresting1 mental humility in ,mr4 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells may be1 like a great many other things that are vital and vivid1 difficult to illustrate by examples1 but if ,i were asked for an example of it1 ,i should have no difficulty about which example to begin with4 ,the most interesting thing about ,mr4 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells is that he is the only one of his many brilliant contemporaries who has not stopped growing4 ,one can lie awake at night and hear him grow4 ,of this growth the most evident manifestation is indeed a gradual change of opinions2 but it is no mere change of opinions4 ,it is not a perpetual leaping from one position to another like that of ,mr4 ,george ,moore4 ,it is a quite continuous advance along a quite solid road in a quite definable direction4 ,but the chief proof that it is not a piece of fickleness and vanity is the fact that it has been upon the whole an advance from more startling opinions to more humdrum opinions4 ,it has been even in some sense an advance from unconventional opinions to conventional opinions4 ,this fact fixes ,mr4 ,wells's honesty and proves him to be no poseur4 ,mr4 ,wells once held that the upper classes and the lower classes would be so much differentiated in the future that one class would eat the other4 ,certainly no paradoxical charlatan who had once found arguments for so startling a view would ever have deserted it except for something yet more startling4 ,mr4 ,wells has deserted it in favour of the blameless belief that both classes will be ultimately subordinated or assimilated to a sort of scientific middle class1 a class of engineers4 ,he has abandoned the sensational theory with the same honourable gravity and simplicity with which he adopted it4 ,then he thought it was true2 now he thinks it is not true4 ,he has come to the most dreadful conclusion a literary man can come to1 the conclusion that the ordinary view is the right one4 ,it is only the last and wildest kind of courage that can stand on a tower before ten thousand people and tell them that twice two is four4 ,mr4 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells exists at present in a gay and exhilarating progress of conservativism4 ,he is finding out more and more that conventions1 though silent1 are alive4 ,as good an example as any of this humility and sanity of his may be found in his change of view on the subject of science and marriage4 ,he once held1 ,i believe1 the opinion which some singular sociologists still hold1 that human creatures could successfully be paired and bred after the manner of dogs or horses4 ,he no longer holds that view4 ,not only does he no longer hold that view1 but he has written about it in 8,mankind in the ,making0 with such smashing sense and humour1 that ,i find it difficult to believe that anybody else can hold it either4 ,it is true that his chief objection to the proposal is that it is physically impossible1 which seems to me a very slight objection1 and almost negligible compared with the others4 ,the one objection to scientific marriage which is worthy of final attention is simply that such a thing could only be imposed on unthinkable slaves and cowards4 ,i do not know whether the scientific marriage-mongers are right 7as they say7 or wrong 7as ,mr4 ,wells says7 in saying that medical supervision would produce strong and healthy men4 ,i am only certain that if it did1 the first act of the strong and healthy men would be to smash the medical supervision4 ,the mistake of all that medical talk lies in the very fact that it connects the idea of health with the idea of care4 ,what has health to do with care8 ,health has to do with carelessness4 ,in special and abnormal cases it is necessary to have care4 ,when we are peculiarly unhealthy it may be necessary to be careful in order to be healthy4 ,but even then we are only trying to be healthy in order to be careless4 ,if we are doctors we are speaking to exceptionally sick men1 and they ought to be told to be careful4 ,but when we are sociologists we are addressing the normal man1 we are addressing humanity4 ,and humanity ought to be told to be recklessness itself4 ,for all the fundamental functions of a healthy man ought emphatically to be performed with pleasure and for pleasure2 they emphatically ought not to be performed with precaution or for precaution4 ,a man ought to eat because he has a good appetite to satisfy1 and emphatically not because he has a body to sustain4 ,a man ought to take exercise not because he is too fat1 but because he loves foils or horses or high mountains1 and loves them for their own sake4 ,and a man ought to marry because he has fallen in love1 and emphatically not because the world requires to be populated4 ,the food will really renovate his tissues as long as he is not thinking about his tissues4 ,the exercise will really get him into training so long as he is thinking about something else4 ,and the marriage will really stand some chance of producing a generous-blooded generation if it had its origin in its own natural and generous excitement4 ,it is the first law of health that our necessities should not be accepted as necessities2 they should be accepted as luxuries4 ,let us1 then1 be careful about the small things1 such as a scratch or a slight illness1 or anything that can be managed with care4 ,but in the name of all sanity1 let us be careless about the important things1 such as marriage1 or the fountain of our very life will fail4 ,mr4 ,wells1 however1 is not quite clear enough of the narrower scientific outlook to see that there are some things which actually ought not to be scientific4 ,he is still slightly affected with the great scientific fallacy2 ,i mean the habit of beginning not with the human soul1 which is the first thing a man learns about1 but with some such thing as protoplasm1 which is about the last4 ,the one defect in his splendid mental equipment is that he does not sufficiently allow for the stuff or material of men4 ,in his new ,utopia he says1 for instance1 that a chief point of the ,utopia will be a disbelief in original sin4 ,if he had begun with the human soul--that is1 if he had begun on himself--he would have found original sin almost the first thing to be believed in4 ,he would have found1 to put the matter shortly1 that a permanent possibility of selfishness arises from the mere fact of having a self1 and not from any accidents of education or ill-treatment4 ,and the weakness of all ,utopias is this1 that they take the greatest difficulty of man and assume it to be overcome1 and then give an elaborate account of the overcoming of the smaller ones4 ,they first assume that no man will want more than his share1 and then are very ingenious in explaining whether his share will be delivered by motor-car or balloon4 ,and an even stronger example of ,mr4 ,wells's indifference to the human psychology can be found in his cosmopolitanism1 the abolition in his ,utopia of all patriotic boundaries4 ,he says in his innocent way that ,utopia must be a world-state1 or else people might make war on it4 ,it does not seem to occur to him that1 for a good many of us1 if it were a world-state we should still make war on it to the end of the world4 ,for if we admit that there must be varieties in art or opinion what sense is there in thinking there will not be varieties in government8 ,the fact is very simple4 ,unless you are going deliberately to prevent a thing being good1 you cannot prevent it being worth fighting for4 ,it is impossible to prevent a possible conflict of civilizations1 because it is impossible to prevent a possible conflict between ideals4 ,if there were no longer our modern strife between nations1 there would only be a strife between ,utopias4 ,for the highest thing does not tend to union only2 the highest thing1 tends also to differentiation4 ,you can often get men to fight for the union2 but you can never prevent them from fighting also for the differentiation4 ,this variety in the highest thing is the meaning of the fierce patriotism1 the fierce nationalism of the great ,european civilization4 ,it is also1 incidentally1 the meaning of the doctrine of the ,trinity4 ,but ,i think the main mistake of ,mr4 ,wells's philosophy is a somewhat deeper one1 one that he expresses in a very entertaining manner in the introductory part of the new ,utopia4 ,his philosophy in some sense amounts to a denial of the possibility of philosophy itself4 ,at least1 he maintains that there are no secure and reliable ideas upon which we can rest with a final mental satisfaction4 ,it will be both clearer1 however1 and more amusing to quote ,mr4 ,wells himself4 ,he says1 8,nothing endures1 nothing is precise and certain 7except the mind of a pedant74444 ,being indeed6--there is no being1 but a universal becoming of individualities1 and ,plato turned his back on truth when he turned towards his museum of specific ideals40 ,mr4 ,wells says1 again1 8,there is no abiding thing in what we know4 ,we change from weaker to stronger lights1 and each more powerful light pierces our hitherto opaque foundations and reveals fresh and different opacities below40 ,now1 when ,mr4 ,wells says things like this1 ,i speak with all respect when ,i say that he does not observe an evident mental distinction4 ,it cannot be true that there is nothing abiding in what we know4 ,for if that were so we should not know it all and should not call it knowledge4 ,our mental state may be very different from that of somebody else some thousands of years back2 but it cannot be entirely different1 or else we should not be conscious of a difference4 ,mr4 ,wells must surely realize the first and simplest of the paradoxes that sit by the springs of truth4 ,he must surely see that the fact of two things being different implies that they are similar4 ,the hare and the tortoise may differ in the quality of swiftness1 but they must agree in the quality of motion4 ,the swiftest hare cannot be swifter than an isosceles triangle or the idea of pinkness4 ,when we say the hare moves faster1 we say that the tortoise moves4 ,and when we say of a thing that it moves1 we say1 without need of other words1 that there are things that do not move4 ,and even in the act of saying that things change1 we say that there is something unchangeable4 ,but certainly the best example of ,mr4 ,wells's fallacy can be found in the example which he himself chooses4 ,it is quite true that we see a dim light which1 compared with a darker thing1 is light1 but which1 compared with a stronger light1 is darkness4 ,but the quality of light remains the same thing1 or else we should not call it a stronger light or recognize it as such4 ,if the character of light were not fixed in the mind1 we should be quite as likely to call a denser shadow a stronger light1 or vice versa ,if the character of light became even for an instant unfixed1 if it became even by a hair's-breadth doubtful1 if1 for example1 there crept into our idea of light some vague idea of blueness1 then in that flash we have become doubtful whether the new light has more light or less4 ,in brief1 the progress may be as varying as a cloud1 but the direction must be as rigid as a ,french road4 ,north and ,south are relative in the sense that ,i am ,north of ,bournemouth and ,south of ,spitzbergen4 ,but if there be any doubt of the position of the ,north ,pole1 there is in equal degree a doubt of whether ,i am ,south of ,spitzbergen at all4 ,the absolute idea of light may be practically unattainable4 ,we may not be able to procure pure light4 ,we may not be able to get to the ,north ,pole4 ,but because the ,north ,pole is unattainable1 it does not follow that it is indefinable4 ,and it is only because the ,north ,pole is not indefinable that we can make a satisfactory map of ,brighton and ,worthing4 ,in other words1 ,plato turned his face to truth but his back on ,mr4 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells1 when he turned to his museum of specified ideals4 ,it is precisely here that ,plato shows his sense4 ,it is not true that everything changes2 the things that change are all the manifest and material things4 ,there is something that does not change2 and that is precisely the abstract quality1 the invisible idea4 ,mr4 ,wells says truly enough1 that a thing which we have seen in one connection as dark we may see in another connection as light4 ,but the thing common to both incidents is the mere idea of light--which we have not seen at all4 ,mr4 ,wells might grow taller and taller for unending aeons till his head was higher than the loneliest star4 ,i can imagine his writing a good novel about it4 ,in that case he would see the trees first as tall things and then as short things2 he would see the clouds first as high and then as low4 ,but there would remain with him through the ages in that starry loneliness the idea of tallness2 he would have in the awful spaces for companion and comfort the definite conception that he was growing taller and not 7for instance7 growing fatter4 ,and now it comes to my mind that ,mr4 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells actually has written a very delightful romance about men growing as tall as trees2 and that here1 again1 he seems to me to have been a victim of this vague relativism4 8,the ,food of the ,gods0 is1 like ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw's play1 in essence a study of the ,superman idea4 ,and it lies1 ,i think1 even through the veil of a half-pantomimic allegory1 open to the same intellectual attack4 ,we cannot be expected to have any regard for a great creature if he does not in any manner conform to our standards4 ,for unless he passes our standard of greatness we cannot even call him great4 ,nietszche summed up all that is interesting in the ,superman idea when he said1 8,man is a thing which has to be surpassed40 ,but the very word 8surpass0 implies the existence of a standard common to us and the thing surpassing us4 ,if the ,superman is more manly than men are1 of course they will ultimately deify him1 even if they happen to kill him first4 ,but if he is simply more supermanly1 they may be quite indifferent to him as they would be to another seemingly aimless monstrosity4 ,he must submit to our test even in order to overawe us4 ,mere force or size even is a standard2 but that alone will never make men think a man their superior4 ,giants1 as in the wise old fairy-tales1 are vermin4 ,supermen1 if not good men1 are vermin4 8,the ,food of the ,gods0 is the tale of 8,jack the ,giant-,killer0 told from the point of view of the giant4 ,this has not1 ,i think1 been done before in literature2 but ,i have little doubt that the psychological substance of it existed in fact4 ,i have little doubt that the giant whom ,jack killed did regard himself as the ,superman4 ,it is likely enough that he considered ,jack a narrow and parochial person who wished to frustrate a great forward movement of the life-force4 ,if 7as not unfrequently was the case7 he happened to have two heads1 he would point out the elementary maxim which declares them to be better than one4 ,he would enlarge on the subtle modernity of such an equipment1 enabling a giant to look at a subject from two points of view1 or to correct himself with promptitude4 ,but ,jack was the champion of the enduring human standards1 of the principle of one man one head and one man one conscience1 of the single head and the single heart and the single eye4 ,jack was quite unimpressed by the question of whether the giant was a particularly gigantic giant4 ,all he wished to know was whether he was a good giant--that is1 a giant who was any good to us4 ,what were the giant's religious views2 what his views on politics and the duties of the citizen8 ,was he fond of children--or fond of them only in a dark and sinister sense8 ,to use a fine phrase for emotional sanity1 was his heart in the right place8 ,jack had sometimes to cut him up with a sword in order to find out4 ,the old and correct story of ,jack the ,giant-,killer is simply the whole story of man2 if it were understood we should need no ,bibles or histories4 ,but the modern world in particular does not seem to understand it at all4 ,the modern world1 like ,mr4 ,wells is on the side of the giants2 the safest place1 and therefore the meanest and the most prosaic4 ,the modern world1 when it praises its little ,caesars1 talks of being strong and brave3 but it does not seem to see the eternal paradox involved in the conjunction of these ideas4 ,the strong cannot be brave4 ,only the weak can be brave2 and yet again1 in practice1 only those who can be brave can be trusted1 in time of doubt1 to be strong4 ,the only way in which a giant could really keep himself in training against the inevitable ,jack would be by continually fighting other giants ten times as big as himself4 ,that is by ceasing to be a giant and becoming a ,jack4 ,thus that sympathy with the small or the defeated as such1 with which we ,liberals and ,nationalists have been often reproached1 is not a useless sentimentalism at all1 as ,mr4 ,wells and his friends fancy4 ,it is the first law of practical courage4 ,to be in the weakest camp is to be in the strongest school4 ,nor can ,i imagine anything that would do humanity more good than the advent of a race of ,supermen1 for them to fight like dragons4 ,if the ,superman is better than we1 of course we need not fight him2 but in that case1 why not call him the ,saint8 ,but if he is merely stronger 7whether physically1 mentally1 or morally stronger1 ,i do not care a farthing71 then he ought to have to reckon with us at least for all the strength we have4 ,if we are weaker than he1 that is no reason why we should be weaker than ourselves4 ,if we are not tall enough to touch the giant's knees1 that is no reason why we should become shorter by falling on our own4 ,but that is at bottom the meaning of all modern hero-worship and celebration of the ,strong ,man1 the ,caesar the ,superman4 ,that he may be something more than man1 we must be something less4 ,doubtless there is an older and better hero-worship than this4 ,but the old hero was a being who1 like ,achilles1 was more human than humanity itself4 ,nietzsche's ,superman is cold and friendless4 ,achilles is so foolishly fond of his friend that he slaughters armies in the agony of his bereavement4 ,mr4 ,shaw's sad ,caesar says in his desolate pride1 8,he who has never hoped can never despair40 ,the ,man-,god of old answers from his awful hill1 8,was ever sorrow like unto my sorrow80 ,a great man is not a man so strong that he feels less than other men2 he is a man so strong that he feels more4 ,and when ,nietszche says1 8,a new commandment ,i give to you1 #8be hard1'0 he is really saying1 8,a new commandment ,i give to you1 #8be dead4'0 ,sensibility is the definition of life4 ,i recur for a last word to ,jack the ,giant-,killer4 ,i have dwelt on this matter of ,mr4 ,wells and the giants1 not because it is specially prominent in his mind2 ,i know that the ,superman does not bulk so large in his cosmos as in that of ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw4 ,i have dwelt on it for the opposite reason2 because this heresy of immoral hero-worship has taken1 ,i think1 a slighter hold of him1 and may perhaps still be prevented from perverting one of the best thinkers of the day4 ,in the course of 8,the ,new ,utopia0 ,mr4 ,wells makes more than one admiring allusion to ,mr4 ,w4 ,e4 ,henley4 ,that clever and unhappy man lived in admiration of a vague violence1 and was always going back to rude old tales and rude old ballads1 to strong and primitive literatures1 to find the praise of strength and the justification of tyranny4 ,but he could not find it4 ,it is not there4 ,the primitive literature is shown in the tale of ,jack the ,giant-,killer4 ,the strong old literature is all in praise of the weak4 ,the rude old tales are as tender to minorities as any modern political idealist4 ,the rude old ballads are as sentimentally concerned for the under-dog as the ,aborigines ,protection ,society4 ,when men were tough and raw1 when they lived amid hard knocks and hard laws1 when they knew what fighting really was1 they had only two kinds of songs4 ,the first was a rejoicing that the weak had conquered the strong1 the second a lamentation that the strong had1 for once in a way1 conquered the weak4 ,for this defiance of the statu quo1 this constant effort to alter the existing balance1 this premature challenge to the powerful1 is the whole nature and inmost secret of the psychological adventure which is called man4 ,it is his strength to disdain strength4 ,the forlorn hope is not only a real hope1 it is the only real hope of mankind4 ,in the coarsest ballads of the greenwood men are admired most when they defy1 not only the king1 but what is more to the point1 the hero4 ,the moment ,robin ,hood becomes a sort of ,superman1 that moment the chivalrous chronicler shows us ,robin thrashed by a poor tinker whom he thought to thrust aside4 ,and the chivalrous chronicler makes ,robin ,hood receive the thrashing in a glow of admiration4 ,this magnanimity is not a product of modern humanitarianism2 it is not a product of anything to do with peace4 ,this magnanimity is merely one of the lost arts of war4 ,the ,henleyites call for a sturdy and fighting ,england1 and they go back to the fierce old stories of the sturdy and fighting ,english4 ,and the thing that they find written across that fierce old literature everywhere1 is 8the policy of ,majuba40 ,,vi4 ,christmas and the ,aesthetes ,the world is round1 so round that the schools of optimism and pessimism have been arguing from the beginning whether it is the right way up4 ,the difficulty does not arise so much from the mere fact that good and evil are mingled in roughly equal proportions2 it arises chiefly from the fact that men always differ about what parts are good and what evil4 ,hence the difficulty which besets 8undenominational religions40 ,they profess to include what is beautiful in all creeds1 but they appear to many to have collected all that is dull in them4 ,all the colours mixed together in purity ought to make a perfect white4 ,mixed together on any human paint-box1 they make a thing like mud1 and a thing very like many new religions4 ,such a blend is often something much worse than any one creed taken separately1 even the creed of the ,thugs4 ,the error arises from the difficulty of detecting what is really the good part and what is really the bad part of any given religion4 ,and this pathos falls rather heavily on those persons who have the misfortune to think of some religion or other1 that the parts commonly counted good are bad1 and the parts commonly counted bad are good4 ,it is tragic to admire and honestly admire a human group1 but to admire it in a photographic negative4 ,it is difficult to congratulate all their whites on being black and all their blacks on their whiteness4 ,this will often happen to us in connection with human religions4 ,take two institutions which bear witness to the religious energy of the nineteenth century4 ,take the ,salvation ,army and the philosophy of ,auguste ,comte4 ,the usual verdict of educated people on the ,salvation ,army is expressed in some such words as these3 8,i have no doubt they do a great deal of good1 but they do it in a vulgar and profane style2 their aims are excellent1 but their methods are wrong40 ,to me1 unfortunately1 the precise reverse of this appears to be the truth4 ,i do not know whether the aims of the ,salvation ,army are excellent1 but ,i am quite sure their methods are admirable4 ,their methods are the methods of all intense and hearty religions2 they are popular like all religion1 military like all religion1 public and sensational like all religion4 ,they are not reverent any more than ,roman ,catholics are reverent1 for reverence in the sad and delicate meaning of the term reverence is a thing only possible to infidels4 ,that beautiful twilight you will find in ,euripides1 in ,renan1 in ,matthew ,arnold2 but in men who believe you will not find it--you will find only laughter and war4 ,a man cannot pay that kind of reverence to truth solid as marble2 they can only be reverent towards a beautiful lie4 ,and the ,salvation ,army1 though their voice has broken out in a mean environment and an ugly shape1 are really the old voice of glad and angry faith1 hot as the riots of ,dionysus1 wild as the gargoyles of ,catholicism1 not to be mistaken for a philosophy4 ,professor ,huxley1 in one of his clever phrases1 called the ,salvation ,army 8corybantic ,christianity40 ,huxley was the last and noblest of those ,stoics who have never understood the ,cross4 ,if he had understood ,christianity he would have known that there never has been1 and never can be1 any ,christianity that is not corybantic4 ,and there is this difference between the matter of aims and the matter of methods1 that to judge of the aims of a thing like the ,salvation ,army is very difficult1 to judge of their ritual and atmosphere very easy4 ,no one1 perhaps1 but a sociologist can see whether ,general ,booth's housing scheme is right4 ,but any healthy person can see that banging brass cymbals together must be right4 ,a page of statistics1 a plan of model dwellings1 anything which is rational1 is always difficult for the lay mind4 ,but the thing which is irrational any one can understand4 ,that is why religion came so early into the world and spread so far1 while science came so late into the world and has not spread at all4 ,history unanimously attests the fact that it is only mysticism which stands the smallest chance of being understanded of the people4 ,common sense has to be kept as an esoteric secret in the dark temple of culture4 ,and so while the philanthropy of the ,salvationists and its genuineness may be a reasonable matter for the discussion of the doctors1 there can be no doubt about the genuineness of their brass bands1 for a brass band is purely spiritual1 and seeks only to quicken the internal life4 ,the object of philanthropy is to do good2 the object of religion is to be good1 if only for a moment1 amid a crash of brass4 ,and the same antithesis exists about another modern religion--,i mean the religion of ,comte1 generally known as ,positivism1 or the worship of humanity4 ,such men as ,mr4 ,frederic ,harrison1 that brilliant and chivalrous philosopher1 who still1 by his mere personality1 speaks for the creed1 would tell us that he offers us the philosophy of ,comte1 but not all ,comte's fantastic proposals for pontiffs and ceremonials1 the new calendar1 the new holidays and saints' days4 ,he does not mean that we should dress ourselves up as priests of humanity or let off fireworks because it is ,milton's birthday4 ,to the solid ,english ,comtist all this appears1 he confesses1 to be a little absurd4 ,to me it appears the only sensible part of ,comtism4 ,as a philosophy it is unsatisfactory4 ,it is evidently impossible to worship humanity1 just as it is impossible to worship the ,savile ,club2 both are excellent institutions to which we may happen to belong4 ,but we perceive clearly that the ,savile ,club did not make the stars and does not fill the universe4 ,and it is surely unreasonable to attack the doctrine of the ,trinity as a piece of bewildering mysticism1 and then to ask men to worship a being who is ninety million persons in one ,god1 neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance4 ,but if the wisdom of ,comte was insufficient1 the folly of ,comte was wisdom4 ,in an age of dusty modernity1 when beauty was thought of as something barbaric and ugliness as something sensible1 he alone saw that men must always have the sacredness of mummery4 ,he saw that while the brutes have all the useful things1 the things that are truly human are the useless ones4 ,he saw the falsehood of that almost universal notion of to-day1 the notion that rites and forms are something artificial1 additional1 and corrupt4 ,ritual is really much older than thought2 it is much simpler and much wilder than thought4 ,a feeling touching the nature of things does not only make men feel that there are certain proper things to say2 it makes them feel that there are certain proper things to do4 ,the more agreeable of these consist of dancing1 building temples1 and shouting very loud2 the less agreeable1 of wearing green carnations and burning other philosophers alive4 ,but everywhere the religious dance came before the religious hymn1 and man was a ritualist before he could speak4 ,if ,comtism had spread the world would have been converted1 not by the ,comtist philosophy1 but by the ,comtist calendar4 ,by discouraging what they conceive to be the weakness of their master1 the ,english ,positivists have broken the strength of their religion4 ,a man who has faith must be prepared not only to be a martyr1 but to be a fool4 ,it is absurd to say that a man is ready to toil and die for his convictions when he is not even ready to wear a wreath round his head for them4 ,i myself1 to take a corpus vile1 am very certain that ,i would not read the works of ,comte through for any consideration whatever4 ,but ,i can easily imagine myself with the greatest enthusiasm lighting a bonfire on ,darwin ,day4 ,that splendid effort failed1 and nothing in the style of it has succeeded4 ,there has been no rationalist festival1 no rationalist ecstasy4 ,men are still in black for the death of ,god4 ,when ,christianity was heavily bombarded in the last century upon no point was it more persistently and brilliantly attacked than upon that of its alleged enmity to human joy4 ,shelley and ,swinburne and all their armies have passed again and again over the ground1 but they have not altered it4 ,they have not set up a single new trophy or ensign for the world's merriment to rally to4 ,they have not given a name or a new occasion of gaiety4 ,mr4 ,swinburne does not hang up his stocking on the eve of the birthday of ,victor ,hugo4 ,mr4 ,william ,archer does not sing carols descriptive of the infancy of ,ibsen outside people's doors in the snow4 ,in the round of our rational and mournful year one festival remains out of all those ancient gaieties that once covered the whole earth4 ,christmas remains to remind us of those ages1 whether ,pagan or ,christian1 when the many acted poetry instead of the few writing it4 ,in all the winter in our woods there is no tree in glow but the holly4 ,the strange truth about the matter is told in the very word 8holiday40 ,a bank holiday means presumably a day which bankers regard as holy4 ,a half-holiday means1 ,i suppose1 a day on which a schoolboy is only partially holy4 ,it is hard to see at first sight why so human a thing as leisure and larkiness should always have a religious origin4 ,rationally there appears no reason why we should not sing and give each other presents in honour of anything--the birth of ,michael ,angelo or the opening of ,euston ,station4 ,but it does not work4 ,as a fact1 men only become greedily and gloriously material about something spiritualistic4 ,take away the ,nicene ,creed and similar things1 and you do some strange wrong to the sellers of sausages4 ,take away the strange beauty of the saints1 and what has remained to us is the far stranger ugliness of ,wandsworth4 ,take away the supernatural1 and what remains is the unnatural4 ,and now ,i have to touch upon a very sad matter4 ,there are in the modern world an admirable class of persons who really make protest on behalf of that antiqua pulchritudo of which ,augustine spoke1 who do long for the old feasts and formalities of the childhood of the world4 ,william ,morris and his followers showed how much brighter were the dark ages than the age of ,manchester4 ,mr4 ,w4 ,b4 ,yeats frames his steps in prehistoric dances1 but no man knows and joins his voice to forgotten choruses that no one but he can hear4 ,mr4 ,george ,moore collects every fragment of ,irish paganism that the forgetfulness of the ,catholic ,church has left or possibly her wisdom preserved4 ,there are innumerable persons with eye-glasses and green garments who pray for the return of the maypole or the ,olympian games4 ,but there is about these people a haunting and alarming something which suggests that it is just possible that they do not keep ,christmas4 ,it is painful to regard human nature in such a light1 but it seems somehow possible that ,mr4 ,george ,moore does not wave his spoon and shout when the pudding is set alight4 ,it is even possible that ,mr4 ,w4 ,b4 ,yeats never pulls crackers4 ,if so1 where is the sense of all their dreams of festive traditions8 ,here is a solid and ancient festive tradition still plying a roaring trade in the streets1 and they think it vulgar4 ,if this is so1 let them be very certain of this1 that they are the kind of people who in the time of the maypole would have thought the maypole vulgar2 who in the time of the ,canterbury pilgrimage would have thought the ,canterbury pilgrimage vulgar2 who in the time of the ,olympian games would have thought the ,olympian games vulgar4 ,nor can there be any reasonable doubt that they were vulgar4 ,let no man deceive himself2 if by vulgarity we mean coarseness of speech1 rowdiness of behaviour1 gossip1 horseplay1 and some heavy drinking1 vulgarity there always was wherever there was joy1 wherever there was faith in the gods4 ,wherever you have belief you will have hilarity1 wherever you have hilarity you will have some dangers4 ,and as creed and mythology produce this gross and vigorous life1 so in its turn this gross and vigorous life will always produce creed and mythology4 ,if we ever get the ,english back on to the ,english land they will become again a religious people1 if all goes well1 a superstitious people4 ,the absence from modern life of both the higher and lower forms of faith is largely due to a divorce from nature and the trees and clouds4 ,if we have no more turnip ghosts it is chiefly from the lack of turnips4 ,,vii4 ,omar and the ,sacred ,vine ,a new morality has burst upon us with some violence in connection with the problem of strong drink2 and enthusiasts in the matter range from the man who is violently thrown out at #ab4cj1 to the lady who smashes ,american bars with an axe4 ,in these discussions it is almost always felt that one very wise and moderate position is to say that wine or such stuff should only be drunk as a medicine4 ,with this ,i should venture to disagree with a peculiar ferocity4 ,the one genuinely dangerous and immoral way of drinking wine is to drink it as a medicine4 ,and for this reason1 ,if a man drinks wine in order to obtain pleasure1 he is trying to obtain something exceptional1 something he does not expect every hour of the day1 something which1 unless he is a little insane1 he will not try to get every hour of the day4 ,but if a man drinks wine in order to obtain health1 he is trying to get something natural2 something1 that is1 that he ought not to be without2 something that he may find it difficult to reconcile himself to being without4 ,the man may not be seduced who has seen the ecstasy of being ecstatic2 it is more dazzling to catch a glimpse of the ecstasy of being ordinary4 ,if there were a magic ointment1 and we took it to a strong man1 and said1 8,this will enable you to jump off the ,monument10 doubtless he would jump off the ,monument1 but he would not jump off the ,monument all day long to the delight of the ,city4 ,but if we took it to a blind man1 saying1 8,this will enable you to see10 he would be under a heavier temptation4 ,it would be hard for him not to rub it on his eyes whenever he heard the hoof of a noble horse or the birds singing at daybreak4 ,it is easy to deny one's self festivity2 it is difficult to deny one's self normality4 ,hence comes the fact which every doctor knows1 that it is often perilous to give alcohol to the sick even when they need it4 ,i need hardly say that ,i do not mean that ,i think the giving of alcohol to the sick for stimulus is necessarily unjustifiable4 ,but ,i do mean that giving it to the healthy for fun is the proper use of it1 and a great deal more consistent with health4 ,the sound rule in the matter would appear to be like many other sound rules--a paradox4 ,drink because you are happy1 but never because you are miserable4 ,never drink when you are wretched without it1 or you will be like the grey-faced gin-drinker in the slum2 but drink when you would be happy without it1 and you will be like the laughing peasant of ,italy4 ,never drink because you need it1 for this is rational drinking1 and the way to death and hell4 ,but drink because you do not need it1 for this is irrational drinking1 and the ancient health of the world4 ,for more than thirty years the shadow and glory of a great ,eastern figure has lain upon our ,english literature4 ,fitzgerald's translation of ,omar ,khayyam concentrated into an immortal poignancy all the dark and drifting hedonism of our time4 ,of the literary splendour of that work it would be merely banal to speak2 in few other of the books of men has there been anything so combining the gay pugnacity of an epigram with the vague sadness of a song4 ,but of its philosophical1 ethical1 and religious influence which has been almost as great as its brilliancy1 ,i should like to say a word1 and that word1 ,i confess1 one of uncompromising hostility4 ,there are a great many things which might be said against the spirit of the ,rubaiyat1 and against its prodigious influence4 ,but one matter of indictment towers ominously above the rest--a genuine disgrace to it1 a genuine calamity to us4 ,this is the terrible blow that this great poem has struck against sociability and the joy of life4 ,some one called ,omar 8the sad1 glad old ,persian40 ,sad he is2 glad he is not1 in any sense of the word whatever4 ,he has been a worse foe to gladness than the ,puritans4 ,a pensive and graceful ,oriental lies under the rose-tree with his wine-pot and his scroll of poems4 ,it may seem strange that any one's thoughts should1 at the moment of regarding him1 fly back to the dark bedside where the doctor doles out brandy4 ,it may seem stranger still that they should go back to the grey wastrel shaking with gin in ,houndsditch4 ,but a great philosophical unity links the three in an evil bond4 ,omar ,khayyam's wine-bibbing is bad1 not because it is wine-bibbing4 ,it is bad1 and very bad1 because it is medical wine-bibbing4 ,it is the drinking of a man who drinks because he is not happy4 ,his is the wine that shuts out the universe1 not the wine that reveals it4 ,it is not poetical drinking1 which is joyous and instinctive2 it is rational drinking1 which is as prosaic as an investment1 as unsavoury as a dose of camomile4 ,whole heavens above it1 from the point of view of sentiment1 though not of style1 rises the splendour of some old ,english drinking-song-- 8,then pass the bowl1 my comrades all1 ,and let the zider vlow40 ,for this song was caught up by happy men to express the worth of truly worthy things1 of brotherhood and garrulity1 and the brief and kindly leisure of the poor4 ,of course1 the great part of the more stolid reproaches directed against the ,omarite morality are as false and babyish as such reproaches usually are4 ,one critic1 whose work ,i have read1 had the incredible foolishness to call ,omar an atheist and a materialist4 ,it is almost impossible for an ,oriental to be either2 the ,east understands metaphysics too well for that4 ,of course1 the real objection which a philosophical ,christian would bring against the religion of ,omar1 is not that he gives no place to ,god1 it is that he gives too much place to ,god4 ,his is that terrible theism which can imagine nothing else but deity1 and which denies altogether the outlines of human personality and human will4 8,the ball no question makes of ,ayes or ,noes1 ,but ,here or ,there as strikes the ,player goes2 ,and ,he that tossed you down into the field1 ,he knows about it all--he knows--he knows40 ,a ,christian thinker such as ,augustine or ,dante would object to this because it ignores freewill1 which is the valour and dignity of the soul4 ,the quarrel of the highest ,christianity with this scepticism is not in the least that the scepticism denies the existence of ,god2 it is that it denies the existence of man4 ,in this cult of the pessimistic pleasure-seeker the ,rubaiyat stands first in our time2 but it does not stand alone4 ,many of the most brilliant intellects of our time have urged us to the same self-conscious snatching at a rare delight4 ,walter ,pater said that we were all under sentence of death1 and the only course was to enjoy exquisite moments simply for those moments' sake4 ,the same lesson was taught by the very powerful and very desolate philosophy of ,oscar ,wilde4 ,it is the carpe diem religion2 but the carpe diem religion is not the religion of happy people1 but of very unhappy people4 ,great joy does1 not gather the rosebuds while it may2 its eyes are fixed on the immortal rose which ,dante saw4 ,great joy has in it the sense of immortality2 the very splendour of youth is the sense that it has all space to stretch its legs in4 ,in all great comic literature1 in 8,tristram ,shandy0 or 8,pickwick01 there is this sense of space and incorruptibility2 we feel the characters are deathless people in an endless tale4 ,it is true enough1 of course1 that a pungent happiness comes chiefly in certain passing moments2 but it is not true that we should think of them as passing1 or enjoy them simply 8for those moments' sake40 ,to do this is to rationalize the happiness1 and therefore to destroy it4 ,happiness is a mystery like religion1 and should never be rationalized4 ,suppose a man experiences a really splendid moment of pleasure4 ,i do not mean something connected with a bit of enamel1 ,i mean something with a violent happiness in it--an almost painful happiness4 ,a man may have1 for instance1 a moment of ecstasy in first love1 or a moment of victory in battle4 ,the lover enjoys the moment1 but precisely not for the moment's sake4 ,he enjoys it for the woman's sake1 or his own sake4 ,the warrior enjoys the moment1 but not for the sake of the moment2 he enjoys it for the sake of the flag4 ,the cause which the flag stands for may be foolish and fleeting2 the love may be calf-love1 and last a week4 ,but the patriot thinks of the flag as eternal2 the lover thinks of his love as something that cannot end4 ,these moments are filled with eternity2 these moments are joyful because they do not seem momentary4 ,once look at them as moments after ,pater's manner1 and they become as cold as ,pater and his style4 ,man cannot love mortal things4 ,he can only love immortal things for an instant4 ,pater's mistake is revealed in his most famous phrase4 ,he asks us to burn with a hard1 gem-like flame4 ,flames are never hard and never gem-like--they cannot be handled or arranged4 ,so human emotions are never hard and never gem-like2 they are always dangerous1 like flames1 to touch or even to examine4 ,there is only one way in which our passions can become hard and gem-like1 and that is by becoming as cold as gems4 ,no blow then has ever been struck at the natural loves and laughter of men so sterilizing as this carpe diem of the aesthetes4 ,for any kind of pleasure a totally different spirit is required2 a certain shyness1 a certain indeterminate hope1 a certain boyish expectation4 ,purity and simplicity are essential to passions--yes even to evil passions4 ,even vice demands a sort of virginity4 ,omar's 7or ,fitzgerald's7 effect upon the other world we may let go1 his hand upon this world has been heavy and paralyzing4 ,the ,puritans1 as ,i have said1 are far jollier than he4 ,the new ascetics who follow ,thoreau or ,tolstoy are much livelier company2 for1 though the surrender of strong drink and such luxuries may strike us as an idle negation1 it may leave a man with innumerable natural pleasures1 and1 above all1 with man's natural power of happiness4 ,thoreau could enjoy the sunrise without a cup of coffee4 ,if ,tolstoy cannot admire marriage1 at least he is healthy enough to admire mud4 ,nature can be enjoyed without even the most natural luxuries4 ,a good bush needs no wine4 ,but neither nature nor wine nor anything else can be enjoyed if we have the wrong attitude towards happiness1 and ,omar 7or ,fitzgerald7 did have the wrong attitude towards happiness4 ,he and those he has influenced do not see that if we are to be truly gay1 we must believe that there is some eternal gaiety in the nature of things4 ,we cannot enjoy thoroughly even a pas-de-quatre at a subscription dance unless we believe that the stars are dancing to the same tune4 ,no one can be really hilarious but the serious man4 8,wine10 says the ,scripture1 8maketh glad the heart of man10 but only of the man who has a heart4 ,the thing called high spirits is possible only to the spiritual4 ,ultimately a man cannot rejoice in anything except the nature of things4 ,ultimately a man can enjoy nothing except religion4 ,once in the world's history men did believe that the stars were dancing to the tune of their temples1 and they danced as men have never danced since4 ,with this old pagan eudaemonism the sage of the ,rubaiyat has quite as little to do as he has with any ,christian variety4 ,he is no more a ,bacchanal than he is a saint4 ,dionysus and his church was grounded on a serious joie-de-vivre like that of ,walt ,whitman4 ,dionysus made wine1 not a medicine1 but a sacrament4 ,jesus ,christ also made wine1 not a medicine1 but a sacrament4 ,but ,omar makes it1 not a sacrament1 but a medicine4 ,he feasts because life is not joyful2 he revels because he is not glad4 8,drink10 he says1 8for you know not whence you come nor why4 ,drink1 for you know not when you go nor where4 ,drink1 because the stars are cruel and the world as idle as a humming-top4 ,drink1 because there is nothing worth trusting1 nothing worth fighting for4 ,drink1 because all things are lapsed in a base equality and an evil peace40 ,so he stands offering us the cup in his hand4 ,and at the high altar of ,christianity stands another figure1 in whose hand also is the cup of the vine4 8,drink0 he says 8for the whole world is as red as this wine1 with the crimson of the love and wrath of ,god4 ,drink1 for the trumpets are blowing for battle and this is the stirrup-cup4 ,drink1 for this my blood of the new testament that is shed for you4 ,drink1 for ,i know of whence you come and why4 ,drink1 for ,i know of when you go and where40 ,,viii4 ,the ,mildness of the ,yellow ,press ,there is a great deal of protest made from one quarter or another nowadays against the influence of that new journalism which is associated with the names of ,sir ,alfred ,harmsworth and ,mr4 ,pearson4 ,but almost everybody who attacks it attacks on the ground that it is very sensational1 very violent and vulgar and startling4 ,i am speaking in no affected contrariety1 but in the simplicity of a genuine personal impression1 when ,i say that this journalism offends as being not sensational or violent enough4 ,the real vice is not that it is startling1 but that it is quite insupportably tame4 ,the whole object is to keep carefully along a certain level of the expected and the commonplace2 it may be low1 but it must take care also to be flat4 ,never by any chance in it is there any of that real plebeian pungency which can be heard from the ordinary cabman in the ordinary street4 ,we have heard of a certain standard of decorum which demands that things should be funny without being vulgar1 but the standard of this decorum demands that if things are vulgar they shall be vulgar without being funny4 ,this journalism does not merely fail to exaggerate life--it positively underrates it2 and it has to do so because it is intended for the faint and languid recreation of men whom the fierceness of modern life has fatigued4 ,this press is not the yellow press at all2 it is the drab press4 ,sir ,alfred ,harmsworth must not address to the tired clerk any observation more witty than the tired clerk might be able to address to ,sir ,alfred ,harmsworth4 ,it must not expose anybody 7anybody who is powerful1 that is71 it must not offend anybody1 it must not even please anybody1 too much4 ,a general vague idea that in spite of all this1 our yellow press is sensational1 arises from such external accidents as large type or lurid headlines4 ,it is quite true that these editors print everything they possibly can in large capital letters4 ,but they do this1 not because it is startling1 but because it is soothing4 ,to people wholly weary or partly drunk in a dimly lighted train1 it is a simplification and a comfort to have things presented in this vast and obvious manner4 ,the editors use this gigantic alphabet in dealing with their readers1 for exactly the same reason that parents and governesses use a similar gigantic alphabet in teaching children to spell4 ,the nursery authorities do not use an ,a as big as a horseshoe in order to make the child jump2 on the contrary1 they use it to put the child at his ease1 to make things smoother and more evident4 ,of the same character is the dim and quiet dame school which ,sir ,alfred ,harmsworth and ,mr4 ,pearson keep4 ,all their sentiments are spelling-book sentiments--that is to say1 they are sentiments with which the pupil is already respectfully familiar4 ,all their wildest posters are leaves torn from a copy-book4 ,of real sensational journalism1 as it exists in ,france1 in ,ireland1 and in ,america1 we have no trace in this country4 ,when a journalist in ,ireland wishes to create a thrill1 he creates a thrill worth talking about4 ,he denounces a leading ,irish member for corruption1 or he charges the whole police system with a wicked and definite conspiracy4 ,when a ,french journalist desires a frisson there is a frisson2 he discovers1 let us say1 that the ,president of the ,republic has murdered three wives4 ,our yellow journalists invent quite as unscrupulously as this2 their moral condition is1 as regards careful veracity1 about the same4 ,but it is their mental calibre which happens to be such that they can only invent calm and even reassuring things4 ,the fictitious version of the massacre of the envoys of ,pekin was mendacious1 but it was not interesting1 except to those who had private reasons for terror or sorrow4 ,it was not connected with any bold and suggestive view of the ,chinese situation4 ,it revealed only a vague idea that nothing could be impressive except a great deal of blood4 ,real sensationalism1 of which ,i happen to be very fond1 may be either moral or immoral4 ,but even when it is most immoral1 it requires moral courage4 ,for it is one of the most dangerous things on earth genuinely to surprise anybody4 ,if you make any sentient creature jump1 you render it by no means improbable that it will jump on you4 ,but the leaders of this movement have no moral courage or immoral courage2 their whole method consists in saying1 with large and elaborate emphasis1 the things which everybody else says casually1 and without remembering what they have said4 ,when they brace themselves up to attack anything1 they never reach the point of attacking anything which is large and real1 and would resound with the shock4 ,they do not attack the army as men do in ,france1 or the judges as men do in ,ireland1 or the democracy itself as men did in ,england a hundred years ago4 ,they attack something like the ,war ,office--something1 that is1 which everybody attacks and nobody bothers to defend1 something which is an old joke in fourth-rate comic papers4 ,just as a man shows he has a weak voice by straining it to shout1 so they show the hopelessly unsensational nature of their minds when they really try to be sensational4 ,with the whole world full of big and dubious institutions1 with the whole wickedness of civilization staring them in the face1 their idea of being bold and bright is to attack the ,war ,office4 ,they might as well start a campaign against the weather1 or form a secret society in order to make jokes about mothers-in-law4 ,nor is it only from the point of view of particular amateurs of the sensational such as myself1 that it is permissible to say1 in the words of ,cowper's ,alexander ,selkirk1 that 8their tameness is shocking to me40 ,the whole modern world is pining for a genuinely sensational journalism4 ,this has been discovered by that very able and honest journalist1 ,mr4 ,blatchford1 who started his campaign against ,christianity1 warned on all sides1 ,i believe1 that it would ruin his paper1 but who continued from an honourable sense of intellectual responsibility4 ,he discovered1 however1 that while he had undoubtedly shocked his readers1 he had also greatly advanced his newspaper4 ,it was bought--first1 by all the people who agreed with him and wanted to read it2 and secondly1 by all the people who disagreed with him1 and wanted to write him letters4 ,those letters were voluminous 7,i helped1 ,i am glad to say1 to swell their volume71 and they were generally inserted with a generous fulness4 ,thus was accidentally discovered 7like the steam-engine7 the great journalistic maxim--that if an editor can only make people angry enough1 they will write half his newspaper for him for nothing4 ,some hold that such papers as these are scarcely the proper objects of so serious a consideration2 but that can scarcely be maintained from a political or ethical point of view4 ,in this problem of the mildness and tameness of the ,harmsworth mind there is mirrored the outlines of a much larger problem which is akin to it4 ,the ,harmsworthian journalist begins with a worship of success and violence1 and ends in sheer timidity and mediocrity4 ,but he is not alone in this1 nor does he come by this fate merely because he happens personally to be stupid4 ,every man1 however brave1 who begins by worshipping violence1 must end in mere timidity4 ,every man1 however wise1 who begins by worshipping success1 must end in mere mediocrity4 ,this strange and paradoxical fate is involved1 not in the individual1 but in the philosophy1 in the point of view4 ,it is not the folly of the man which brings about this necessary fall2 it is his wisdom4 ,the worship of success is the only one out of all possible worships of which this is true1 that its followers are foredoomed to become slaves and cowards4 ,a man may be a hero for the sake of ,mrs4 ,gallup's ciphers or for the sake of human sacrifice1 but not for the sake of success4 ,for obviously a man may choose to fail because he loves ,mrs4 ,gallup or human sacrifice2 but he cannot choose to fail because he loves success4 ,when the test of triumph is men's test of everything1 they never endure long enough to triumph at all4 ,as long as matters are really hopeful1 hope is a mere flattery or platitude2 it is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength at all4 ,like all the ,christian virtues1 it is as unreasonable as it is indispensable4 ,it was through this fatal paradox in the nature of things that all these modern adventurers come at last to a sort of tedium and acquiescence4 ,they desired strength2 and to them to desire strength was to admire strength2 to admire strength was simply to admire the statu quo4 ,they thought that he who wished to be strong ought to respect the strong4 ,they did not realize the obvious verity that he who wishes to be strong must despise the strong4 ,they sought to be everything1 to have the whole force of the cosmos behind them1 to have an energy that would drive the stars4 ,but they did not realize the two great facts--first1 that in the attempt to be everything the first and most difficult step is to be something2 second1 that the moment a man is something1 he is essentially defying everything4 ,the lower animals1 say the men of science1 fought their way up with a blind selfishness4 ,if this be so1 the only real moral of it is that our unselfishness1 if it is to triumph1 must be equally blind4 ,the mammoth did not put his head on one side and wonder whether mammoths were a little out of date4 ,mammoths were at least as much up to date as that individual mammoth could make them4 ,the great elk did not say1 8,cloven hoofs are very much worn now40 ,he polished his own weapons for his own use4 ,but in the reasoning animal there has arisen a more horrible danger1 that he may fail through perceiving his own failure4 ,when modern sociologists talk of the necessity of accommodating one's self to the trend of the time1 they forget that the trend of the time at its best consists entirely of people who will not accommodate themselves to anything4 ,at its worst it consists of many millions of frightened creatures all accommodating themselves to a trend that is not there4 ,and that is becoming more and more the situation of modern ,england4 ,every man speaks of public opinion1 and means by public opinion1 public opinion minus his opinion4 ,every man makes his contribution negative under the erroneous impression that the next man's contribution is positive4 ,every man surrenders his fancy to a general tone which is itself a surrender4 ,and over all the heartless and fatuous unity spreads this new and wearisome and platitudinous press1 incapable of invention1 incapable of audacity1 capable only of a servility all the more contemptible because it is not even a servility to the strong4 ,but all who begin with force and conquest will end in this4 ,the chief characteristic of the 8,new journalism0 is simply that it is bad journalism4 ,it is beyond all comparison the most shapeless1 careless1 and colourless work done in our day4 ,i read yesterday a sentence which should be written in letters of gold and adamant2 it is the very motto of the new philosophy of ,empire4 ,i found it 7as the reader has already eagerly guessed7 in ,pearson's ,magazine1 while ,i was communing 7soul to soul7 with ,mr4 ,c4 ,arthur ,pearson1 whose first and suppressed name ,i am afraid is ,chilperic4 ,it occurred in an article on the ,american ,presidential ,election4 ,this is the sentence1 and every one should read it carefully1 and roll it on the tongue1 till all the honey be tasted4 8,a little sound common sense often goes further with an audience of ,american working-men than much high-flown argument4 ,a speaker who1 as he brought forward his points1 hammered nails into a board1 won hundreds of votes for his side at the last ,presidential ,election40 ,i do not wish to soil this perfect thing with comment2 the words of ,mercury are harsh after the songs of ,apollo4 ,but just think for a moment of the mind1 the strange inscrutable mind1 of the man who wrote that1 of the editor who approved it1 of the people who are probably impressed by it1 of the incredible ,american working-man1 of whom1 for all ,i know1 it may be true4 ,think what their notion of 8common sense0 must be6 ,it is delightful to realize that you and ,i are now able to win thousands of votes should we ever be engaged in a ,presidential ,election1 by doing something of this kind4 ,for ,i suppose the nails and the board are not essential to the exhibition of 8common sense20 there may be variations4 ,we may read-- 8,a little common sense impresses ,american working-men more than high-flown argument4 ,a speaker who1 as he made his points1 pulled buttons off his waistcoat1 won thousands of votes for his side40 ,or1 8,sound common sense tells better in ,america than high-flown argument4 ,thus ,senator ,budge1 who threw his false teeth in the air every time he made an epigram1 won the solid approval of ,american working-men40 ,or again1 8,the sound common sense of a gentleman from ,earlswood1 who stuck straws in his hair during the progress of his speech1 assured the victory of ,mr4 ,roosevelt40 ,there are many other elements in this article on which ,i should love to linger4 ,but the matter which ,i wish to point out is that in that sentence is perfectly revealed the whole truth of what our ,chamberlainites1 hustlers1 bustlers1 ,empire-builders1 and strong1 silent men1 really mean by 8commonsense40 ,they mean knocking1 with deafening noise and dramatic effect1 meaningless bits of iron into a useless bit of wood4 ,a man goes on to an ,american platform and behaves like a mountebank fool with a board and a hammer2 well1 ,i do not blame him2 ,i might even admire him4 ,he may be a dashing and quite decent strategist4 ,he may be a fine romantic actor1 like ,burke flinging the dagger on the floor4 ,he may even 7for all ,i know7 be a sublime mystic1 profoundly impressed with the ancient meaning of the divine trade of the ,carpenter1 and offering to the people a parable in the form of a ceremony4 ,all ,i wish to indicate is the abyss of mental confusion in which such wild ritualism can be called 8sound common sense40 ,and it is in that abyss of mental confusion1 and in that alone1 that the new ,imperialism lives and moves and has its being4 ,the whole glory and greatness of ,mr4 ,chamberlain consists in this3 that if a man hits the right nail on the head nobody cares where he hits it to or what it does4 ,they care about the noise of the hammer1 not about the silent drip of the nail4 ,before and throughout the ,african war1 ,mr4 ,chamberlain was always knocking in nails1 with ringing decisiveness4 ,but when we ask1 8,but what have these nails held together8 ,where is your carpentry8 ,where are your contented ,outlanders8 ,where is your free ,south ,africa8 ,where is your ,british prestige8 ,what have your nails done80 then what answer is there8 ,we must go back 7with an affectionate sigh7 to our ,pearson for the answer to the question of what the nails have done3 8,the speaker who hammered nails into a board won thousands of votes40 ,now the whole of this passage is admirably characteristic of the new journalism which ,mr4 ,pearson represents1 the new journalism which has just purchased the ,standard4 ,to take one instance out of hundreds1 the incomparable man with the board and nails is described in the ,pearson's article as calling out 7as he smote the symbolic nail71 8,lie number one4 ,nailed to the ,mast6 ,nailed to the ,mast60 ,in the whole office there was apparently no compositor or office-boy to point out that we speak of lies being nailed to the counter1 and not to the mast4 ,nobody in the office knew that ,pearson's ,magazine was falling into a stale ,irish bull1 which must be as old as ,st4 ,patrick4 ,this is the real and essential tragedy of the sale of the ,standard4 ,it is not merely that journalism is victorious over literature4 ,it is that bad journalism is victorious over good journalism4 ,it is not that one article which we consider costly and beautiful is being ousted by another kind of article which we consider common or unclean4 ,it is that of the same article a worse quality is preferred to a better4 ,if you like popular journalism 7as ,i do71 you will know that ,pearson's ,magazine is poor and weak popular journalism4 ,you will know it as certainly as you know bad butter4 ,you will know as certainly that it is poor popular journalism as you know that the ,strand1 in the great days of ,sherlock ,holmes1 was good popular journalism4 ,mr4 ,pearson has been a monument of this enormous banality4 ,about everything he says and does there is something infinitely weak-minded4 ,he clamours for home trades and employs foreign ones to print his paper4 ,when this glaring fact is pointed out1 he does not say that the thing was an oversight1 like a sane man4 ,he cuts it off with scissors1 like a child of three4 ,his very cunning is infantile4 ,and like a child of three1 he does not cut it quite off4 ,in all human records ,i doubt if there is such an example of a profound simplicity in deception4 ,this is the sort of intelligence which now sits in the seat of the sane and honourable old ,tory journalism4 ,if it were really the triumph of the tropical exuberance of the ,yankee press1 it would be vulgar1 but still tropical4 ,but it is not4 ,we are delivered over to the bramble1 and from the meanest of the shrubs comes the fire upon the cedars of ,lebanon4 ,the only question now is how much longer the fiction will endure that journalists of this order represent public opinion4 ,it may be doubted whether any honest and serious ,tariff ,reformer would for a moment maintain that there was any majority for ,tariff ,reform in the country comparable to the ludicrous preponderance which money has given it among the great dailies4 ,the only inference is that for purposes of real public opinion the press is now a mere plutocratic oligarchy4 ,doubtless the public buys the wares of these men1 for one reason or another4 ,but there is no more reason to suppose that the public admires their politics than that the public admires the delicate philosophy of ,mr4 ,crosse or the darker and sterner creed of ,mr4 ,blackwell4 ,if these men are merely tradesmen1 there is nothing to say except that there are plenty like them in the ,battersea ,park ,road1 and many much better4 ,but if they make any sort of attempt to be politicians1 we can only point out to them that they are not as yet even good journalists4 ,,ix4 ,the ,moods of ,mr4 ,george ,moore ,mr4 ,george ,moore began his literary career by writing his personal confessions2 nor is there any harm in this if he had not continued them for the remainder of his life4 ,he is a man of genuinely forcible mind and of great command over a kind of rhetorical and fugitive conviction which excites and pleases4 ,he is in a perpetual state of temporary honesty4 ,he has admired all the most admirable modern eccentrics until they could stand it no longer4 ,everything he writes1 it is to be fully admitted1 has a genuine mental power4 ,his account of his reason for leaving the ,roman ,catholic ,church is possibly the most admirable tribute to that communion which has been written of late years4 ,for the fact of the matter is1 that the weakness which has rendered barren the many brilliancies of ,mr4 ,moore is actually that weakness which the ,roman ,catholic ,church is at its best in combating4 ,mr4 ,moore hates ,catholicism because it breaks up the house of looking-glasses in which he lives4 ,mr4 ,moore does not dislike so much being asked to believe in the spiritual existence of miracles or sacraments1 but he does fundamentally dislike being asked to believe in the actual existence of other people4 ,like his master ,pater and all the aesthetes1 his real quarrel with life is that it is not a dream that can be moulded by the dreamer4 ,it is not the dogma of the reality of the other world that troubles him1 but the dogma of the reality of this world4 ,the truth is that the tradition of ,christianity 7which is still the only coherent ethic of ,europe7 rests on two or three paradoxes or mysteries which can easily be impugned in argument and as easily justified in life4 ,one of them1 for instance1 is the paradox of hope or faith--that the more hopeless is the situation the more hopeful must be the man4 ,stevenson understood this1 and consequently ,mr4 ,moore cannot understand ,stevenson4 ,another is the paradox of charity or chivalry that the weaker a thing is the more it should be respected1 that the more indefensible a thing is the more it should appeal to us for a certain kind of defence4 ,thackeray understood this1 and therefore ,mr4 ,moore does not understand ,thackeray4 ,now1 one of these very practical and working mysteries in the ,christian tradition1 and one which the ,roman ,catholic ,church1 as ,i say1 has done her best work in singling out1 is the conception of the sinfulness of pride4 ,pride is a weakness in the character2 it dries up laughter1 it dries up wonder1 it dries up chivalry and energy4 ,the ,christian tradition understands this2 therefore ,mr4 ,moore does not understand the ,christian tradition4 ,for the truth is much stranger even than it appears in the formal doctrine of the sin of pride4 ,it is not only true that humility is a much wiser and more vigorous thing than pride4 ,it is also true that vanity is a much wiser and more vigorous thing than pride4 ,vanity is social--it is almost a kind of comradeship2 pride is solitary and uncivilized4 ,vanity is active2 it desires the applause of infinite multitudes2 pride is passive1 desiring only the applause of one person1 which it already has4 ,vanity is humorous1 and can enjoy the joke even of itself2 pride is dull1 and cannot even smile4 ,and the whole of this difference is the difference between ,stevenson and ,mr4 ,george ,moore1 who1 as he informs us1 has 8brushed ,stevenson aside40 ,i do not know where he has been brushed to1 but wherever it is ,i fancy he is having a good time1 because he had the wisdom to be vain1 and not proud4 ,stevenson had a windy vanity2 ,mr4 ,moore has a dusty egoism4 ,hence ,stevenson could amuse himself as well as us with his vanity2 while the richest effects of ,mr4 ,moore's absurdity are hidden from his eyes4 ,if we compare this solemn folly with the happy folly with which ,stevenson belauds his own books and berates his own critics1 we shall not find it difficult to guess why it is that ,stevenson at least found a final philosophy of some sort to live by1 while ,mr4 ,moore is always walking the world looking for a new one4 ,stevenson had found that the secret of life lies in laughter and humility4 ,self is the gorgon4 ,vanity sees it in the mirror of other men and lives4 ,pride studies it for itself and is turned to stone4 ,it is necessary to dwell on this defect in ,mr4 ,moore1 because it is really the weakness of work which is not without its strength4 ,mr4 ,moore's egoism is not merely a moral weakness1 it is a very constant and influential aesthetic weakness as well4 ,we should really be much more interested in ,mr4 ,moore if he were not quite so interested in himself4 ,we feel as if we were being shown through a gallery of really fine pictures1 into each of which1 by some useless and discordant convention1 the artist had represented the same figure in the same attitude4 8,the ,grand ,canal with a distant view of ,mr4 ,moore10 8,effect of ,mr4 ,moore through a ,scotch ,mist10 8,mr4 ,moore by ,firelight10 8,ruins of ,mr4 ,moore by ,moonlight10 and so on1 seems to be the endless series4 ,he would no doubt reply that in such a book as this he intended to reveal himself4 ,but the answer is that in such a book as this he does not succeed4 ,one of the thousand objections to the sin of pride lies precisely in this1 that self-consciousness of necessity destroys self-revelation4 ,a man who thinks a great deal about himself will try to be many-sided1 attempt a theatrical excellence at all points1 will try to be an encyclopaedia of culture1 and his own real personality will be lost in that false universalism4 ,thinking about himself will lead to trying to be the universe2 trying to be the universe will lead to ceasing to be anything4 ,if1 on the other hand1 a man is sensible enough to think only about the universe2 he will think about it in his own individual way4 ,he will keep virgin the secret of ,god2 he will see the grass as no other man can see it1 and look at a sun that no man has ever known4 ,this fact is very practically brought out in ,mr4 ,moore's 8,confessions40 ,in reading them we do not feel the presence of a clean-cut personality like that of ,thackeray and ,matthew ,arnold4 ,we only read a number of quite clever and largely conflicting opinions which might be uttered by any clever person1 but which we are called upon to admire specifically1 because they are uttered by ,mr4 ,moore4 ,he is the only thread that connects ,catholicism and ,protestantism1 realism and mysticism--he or rather his name4 ,he is profoundly absorbed even in views he no longer holds1 and he expects us to be4 ,and he intrudes the capital 8,i0 even where it need not be intruded--even where it weakens the force of a plain statement4 ,where another man would say1 8,it is a fine day10 ,mr4 ,moore says1 8,seen through my temperament1 the day appeared fine40 ,where another man would say 8,milton has obviously a fine style10 ,mr4 ,moore would say1 8,as a stylist ,milton had always impressed me40 ,the ,nemesis of this self-centred spirit is that of being totally ineffectual4 ,mr4 ,moore has started many interesting crusades1 but he has abandoned them before his disciples could begin4 ,even when he is on the side of the truth he is as fickle as the children of falsehood4 ,even when he has found reality he cannot find rest4 ,one ,irish quality he has which no ,irishman was ever without--pugnacity2 and that is certainly a great virtue1 especially in the present age4 ,but he has not the tenacity of conviction which goes with the fighting spirit in a man like ,bernard ,shaw4 ,his weakness of introspection and selfishness in all their glory cannot prevent him fighting2 but they will always prevent him winning4 ,x4 ,on ,sandals and ,simplicity ,the great misfortune of the modern ,english is not at all that they are more boastful than other people 7they are not72 it is that they are boastful about those particular things which nobody can boast of without losing them4 ,a ,frenchman can be proud of being bold and logical1 and still remain bold and logical4 ,a ,german can be proud of being reflective and orderly1 and still remain reflective and orderly4 ,but an ,englishman cannot be proud of being simple and direct1 and still remain simple and direct4 ,in the matter of these strange virtues1 to know them is to kill them4 ,a man may be conscious of being heroic or conscious of being divine1 but he cannot 7in spite of all the ,anglo-,saxon poets7 be conscious of being unconscious4 ,now1 ,i do not think that it can be honestly denied that some portion of this impossibility attaches to a class very different in their own opinion1 at least1 to the school of ,anglo-,saxonism4 ,i mean that school of the simple life1 commonly associated with ,tolstoy4 ,if a perpetual talk about one's own robustness leads to being less robust1 it is even more true that a perpetual talking about one's own simplicity leads to being less simple4 ,one great complaint1 ,i think1 must stand against the modern upholders of the simple life--the simple life in all its varied forms1 from vegetarianism to the honourable consistency of the ,doukhobors4 ,this complaint against them stands1 that they would make us simple in the unimportant things1 but complex in the important things4 ,they would make us simple in the things that do not matter--that is1 in diet1 in costume1 in etiquette1 in economic system4 ,but they would make us complex in the things that do matter--in philosophy1 in loyalty1 in spiritual acceptance1 and spiritual rejection4 ,it does not so very much matter whether a man eats a grilled tomato or a plain tomato2 it does very much matter whether he eats a plain tomato with a grilled mind4 ,the only kind of simplicity worth preserving is the simplicity of the heart1 the simplicity which accepts and enjoys4 ,there may be a reasonable doubt as to what system preserves this2 there can surely be no doubt that a system of simplicity destroys it4 ,there is more simplicity in the man who eats caviar on impulse than in the man who eats grape-nuts on principle4 ,the chief error of these people is to be found in the very phrase to which they are most attached--8plain living and high thinking40 ,these people do not stand in need of1 will not be improved by1 plain living and high thinking4 ,they stand in need of the contrary4 ,they would be improved by high living and plain thinking4 ,a little high living 7,i say1 having a full sense of responsibility1 a little high living7 would teach them the force and meaning of the human festivities1 of the banquet that has gone on from the beginning of the world4 ,it would teach them the historic fact that the artificial is1 if anything1 older than the natural4 ,it would teach them that the loving-cup is as old as any hunger4 ,it would teach them that ritualism is older than any religion4 ,and a little plain thinking would teach them how harsh and fanciful are the mass of their own ethics1 how very civilized and very complicated must be the brain of the ,tolstoyan who really believes it to be evil to love one's country and wicked to strike a blow4 ,a man approaches1 wearing sandals and simple raiment1 a raw tomato held firmly in his right hand1 and says1 8,the affections of family and country alike are hindrances to the fuller development of human love20 but the plain thinker will only answer him1 with a wonder not untinged with admiration1 8,what a great deal of trouble you must have taken in order to feel like that40 ,high living will reject the tomato4 ,plain thinking will equally decisively reject the idea of the invariable sinfulness of war4 ,high living will convince us that nothing is more materialistic than to despise a pleasure as purely material4 ,and plain thinking will convince us that nothing is more materialistic than to reserve our horror chiefly for material wounds4 ,the only simplicity that matters is the simplicity of the heart4 ,if that be gone1 it can be brought back by no turnips or cellular clothing2 but only by tears and terror and the fires that are not quenched4 ,if that remain1 it matters very little if a few ,early ,victorian armchairs remain along with it4 ,let us put a complex entree into a simple old gentleman2 let us not put a simple entree into a complex old gentleman4 ,so long as human society will leave my spiritual inside alone1 ,i will allow it1 with a comparative submission1 to work its wild will with my physical interior4 ,i will submit to cigars4 ,i will meekly embrace a bottle of ,burgundy4 ,i will humble myself to a hansom cab4 ,if only by this means ,i may preserve to myself the virginity of the spirit1 which enjoys with astonishment and fear4 ,i do not say that these are the only methods of preserving it4 ,i incline to the belief that there are others4 ,but ,i will have nothing to do with simplicity which lacks the fear1 the astonishment1 and the joy alike4 ,i will have nothing to do with the devilish vision of a child who is too simple to like toys4 ,the child is1 indeed1 in these1 and many other matters1 the best guide4 ,and in nothing is the child so righteously childlike1 in nothing does he exhibit more accurately the sounder order of simplicity1 than in the fact that he sees everything with a simple pleasure1 even the complex things4 ,the false type of naturalness harps always on the distinction between the natural and the artificial4 ,the higher kind of naturalness ignores that distinction4 ,to the child the tree and the lamp-post are as natural and as artificial as each other2 or rather1 neither of them are natural but both supernatural4 ,for both are splendid and unexplained4 ,the flower with which ,god crowns the one1 and the flame with which ,sam the lamplighter crowns the other1 are equally of the gold of fairy-tales4 ,in the middle of the wildest fields the most rustic child is1 ten to one1 playing at steam-engines4 ,and the only spiritual or philosophical objection to steam-engines is not that men pay for them or work at them1 or make them very ugly1 or even that men are killed by them2 but merely that men do not play at them4 ,the evil is that the childish poetry of clockwork does not remain4 ,the wrong is not that engines are too much admired1 but that they are not admired enough4 ,the sin is not that engines are mechanical1 but that men are mechanical4 ,in this matter1 then1 as in all the other matters treated in this book1 our main conclusion is that it is a fundamental point of view1 a philosophy or religion which is needed1 and not any change in habit or social routine4 ,the things we need most for immediate practical purposes are all abstractions4 ,we need a right view of the human lot1 a right view of the human society2 and if we were living eagerly and angrily in the enthusiasm of those things1 we should1 ipso facto1 be living simply in the genuine and spiritual sense4 ,desire and danger make every one simple4 ,and to those who talk to us with interfering eloquence about ,jaeger and the pores of the skin1 and about ,plasmon and the coats of the stomach1 at them shall only be hurled the words that are hurled at fops and gluttons1 8,take no thought what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink1 or wherewithal ye shall be clothed4 ,for after all these things do the ,gentiles seek4 ,but seek first the kingdom of ,god and ,his righteousness1 and all these things shall be added unto you40 ,those amazing words are not only extraordinarily good1 practical politics2 they are also superlatively good hygiene4 ,the one supreme way of making all those processes go right1 the processes of health1 and strength1 and grace1 and beauty1 the one and only way of making certain of their accuracy1 is to think about something else4 ,if a man is bent on climbing into the seventh heaven1 he may be quite easy about the pores of his skin4 ,if he harnesses his waggon to a star1 the process will have a most satisfactory effect upon the coats of his stomach4 ,for the thing called 8taking thought10 the thing for which the best modern word is 8rationalizing10 is in its nature1 inapplicable to all plain and urgent things4 ,men take thought and ponder rationalistically1 touching remote things--things that only theoretically matter1 such as the transit of ,venus4 ,but only at their peril can men rationalize about so practical a matter as health4 ,,xi4 ,science and the ,savages ,a permanent disadvantage of the study of folk-lore and kindred subjects is that the man of science can hardly be in the nature of things very frequently a man of the world4 ,he is a student of nature2 he is scarcely ever a student of human nature4 ,and even where this difficulty is overcome1 and he is in some sense a student of human nature1 this is only a very faint beginning of the painful progress towards being human4 ,for the study of primitive race and religion stands apart in one important respect from all1 or nearly all1 the ordinary scientific studies4 ,a man can understand astronomy only by being an astronomer2 he can understand entomology only by being an entomologist 7or1 perhaps1 an insect72 but he can understand a great deal of anthropology merely by being a man4 ,he is himself the animal which he studies4 ,hence arises the fact which strikes the eye everywhere in the records of ethnology and folk-lore--the fact that the same frigid and detached spirit which leads to success in the study of astronomy or botany leads to disaster in the study of mythology or human origins4 ,it is necessary to cease to be a man in order to do justice to a microbe2 it is not necessary to cease to be a man in order to do justice to men4 ,that same suppression of sympathies1 that same waving away of intuitions or guess-work which make a man preternaturally clever in dealing with the stomach of a spider1 will make him preternaturally stupid in dealing with the heart of man4 ,he is making himself inhuman in order to understand humanity4 ,an ignorance of the other world is boasted by many men of science2 but in this matter their defect arises1 not from ignorance of the other world1 but from ignorance of this world4 ,for the secrets about which anthropologists concern themselves can be best learnt1 not from books or voyages1 but from the ordinary commerce of man with man4 ,the secret of why some savage tribe worships monkeys or the moon is not to be found even by travelling among those savages and taking down their answers in a notebook1 although the cleverest man may pursue this course4 ,the answer to the riddle is in ,england2 it is in ,london2 nay1 it is in his own heart4 ,when a man has discovered why men in ,bond ,street wear black hats he will at the same moment have discovered why men in ,timbuctoo wear red feathers4 ,the mystery in the heart of some savage war-dance should not be studied in books of scientific travel2 it should be studied at a subscription ball4 ,if a man desires to find out the origins of religions1 let him not go to the ,sandwich ,islands2 let him go to church4 ,if a man wishes to know the origin of human society1 to know what society1 philosophically speaking1 really is1 let him not go into the ,british ,museum2 let him go into society4 ,this total misunderstanding of the real nature of ceremonial gives rise to the most awkward and dehumanized versions of the conduct of men in rude lands or ages4 ,the man of science1 not realizing that ceremonial is essentially a thing which is done without a reason1 has to find a reason for every sort of ceremonial1 and1 as might be supposed1 the reason is generally a very absurd one--absurd because it originates not in the simple mind of the barbarian1 but in the sophisticated mind of the professor4 ,the teamed man will say1 for instance1 8,the natives of ,mumbojumbo ,land believe that the dead man can eat and will require food upon his journey to the other world4 ,this is attested by the fact that they place food in the grave1 and that any family not complying with this rite is the object of the anger of the priests and the tribe40 ,to any one acquainted with humanity this way of talking is topsy-turvy4 ,it is like saying1 8,the ,english in the twentieth century believed that a dead man could smell4 ,this is attested by the fact that they always covered his grave with lilies1 violets1 or other flowers4 ,some priestly and tribal terrors were evidently attached to the neglect of this action1 as we have records of several old ladies who were very much disturbed in mind because their wreaths had not arrived in time for the funeral40 ,it may be of course that savages put food with a dead man because they think that a dead man can eat1 or weapons with a dead man because they think that a dead man can fight4 ,but personally ,i do not believe that they think anything of the kind4 ,i believe they put food or weapons on the dead for the same reason that we put flowers1 because it is an exceedingly natural and obvious thing to do4 ,we do not understand1 it is true1 the emotion which makes us think it obvious and natural2 but that is because1 like all the important emotions of human existence it is essentially irrational4 ,we do not understand the savage for the same reason that the savage does not understand himself4 ,and the savage does not understand himself for the same reason that we do not understand ourselves either4 ,the obvious truth is that the moment any matter has passed through the human mind it is finally and for ever spoilt for all purposes of science4 ,it has become a thing incurably mysterious and infinite2 this mortal has put on immortality4 ,even what we call our material desires are spiritual1 because they are human4 ,science can analyse a pork-chop1 and say how much of it is phosphorus and how much is protein2 but science cannot analyse any man's wish for a pork-chop1 and say how much of it is hunger1 how much custom1 how much nervous fancy1 how much a haunting love of the beautiful4 ,the man's desire for the pork-chop remains literally as mystical and ethereal as his desire for heaven4 ,all attempts1 therefore1 at a science of any human things1 at a science of history1 a science of folk-lore1 a science of sociology1 are by their nature not merely hopeless1 but crazy4 ,you can no more be certain in economic history that a man's desire for money was merely a desire for money than you can be certain in hagiology that a saint's desire for ,god was merely a desire for ,god4 ,and this kind of vagueness in the primary phenomena of the study is an absolutely final blow to anything in the nature of a science4 ,men can construct a science with very few instruments1 or with very plain instruments2 but no one on earth could construct a science with unreliable instruments4 ,a man might work out the whole of mathematics with a handful of pebbles1 but not with a handful of clay which was always falling apart into new fragments1 and falling together into new combinations4 ,a man might measure heaven and earth with a reed1 but not with a growing reed4 ,as one of the enormous follies of folk-lore1 let us take the case of the transmigration of stories1 and the alleged unity of their source4 ,story after story the scientific mythologists have cut out of its place in history1 and pinned side by side with similar stories in their museum of fables4 ,the process is industrious1 it is fascinating1 and the whole of it rests on one of the plainest fallacies in the world4 ,that a story has been told all over the place at some time or other1 not only does not prove that it never really happened2 it does not even faintly indicate or make slightly more probable that it never happened4 ,that a large number of fishermen have falsely asserted that they have caught a pike two feet long1 does not in the least affect the question of whether any one ever really did so4 ,that numberless journalists announce a ,franco-,german war merely for money is no evidence one way or the other upon the dark question of whether such a war ever occurred4 ,doubtless in a few hundred years the innumerable ,franco-,german wars that did not happen will have cleared the scientific mind of any belief in the legendary war of '#gj which did4 ,but that will be because if folk-lore students remain at all1 their nature will be unchanged2 and their services to folk-lore will be still as they are at present1 greater than they know4 ,for in truth these men do something far more god-like than studying legends2 they create them4 ,there are two kinds of stories which the scientists say cannot be true1 because everybody tells them4 ,the first class consists of the stories which are told everywhere1 because they are somewhat odd or clever2 there is nothing in the world to prevent their having happened to somebody as an adventure any more than there is anything to prevent their having occurred1 as they certainly did occur1 to somebody as an idea4 ,but they are not likely to have happened to many people4 ,the second class of their 8myths0 consist of the stories that are told everywhere for the simple reason that they happen everywhere4 ,of the first class1 for instance1 we might take such an example as the story of ,william ,tell1 now generally ranked among legends upon the sole ground that it is found in the tales of other peoples4 ,now1 it is obvious that this was told everywhere because whether true or fictitious it is what is called 8a good story20 it is odd1 exciting1 and it has a climax4 ,but to suggest that some such eccentric incident can never have happened in the whole history of archery1 or that it did not happen to any particular person of whom it is told1 is stark impudence4 ,the idea of shooting at a mark attached to some valuable or beloved person is an idea doubtless that might easily have occurred to any inventive poet4 ,but it is also an idea that might easily occur to any boastful archer4 ,it might be one of the fantastic caprices of some story-teller4 ,it might equally well be one of the fantastic caprices of some tyrant4 ,it might occur first in real life and afterwards occur in legends4 ,or it might just as well occur first in legends and afterwards occur in real life4 ,if no apple has ever been shot off a boy's head from the beginning of the world1 it may be done to-morrow morning1 and by somebody who has never heard of ,william ,tell4 ,this type of tale1 indeed1 may be pretty fairly paralleled with the ordinary anecdote terminating in a repartee or an ,irish bull4 ,such a retort as the famous 8je ne vois pas la necessite0 we have all seen attributed to ,talleyrand1 to ,voltaire1 to ,henri ,quatre1 to an anonymous judge1 and so on4 ,but this variety does not in any way make it more likely that the thing was never said at all4 ,it is highly likely that it was really said by somebody unknown4 ,it is highly likely that it was really said by ,talleyrand4 ,in any case1 it is not any more difficult to believe that the mot might have occurred to a man in conversation than to a man writing memoirs4 ,it might have occurred to any of the men ,i have mentioned4 ,but there is this point of distinction about it1 that it is not likely to have occurred to all of them4 ,and this is where the first class of so-called myth differs from the second to which ,i have previously referred4 ,for there is a second class of incident found to be common to the stories of five or six heroes1 say to ,sigurd1 to ,hercules1 to ,rustem1 to the ,cid1 and so on4 ,and the peculiarity of this myth is that not only is it highly reasonable to imagine that it really happened to one hero1 but it is highly reasonable to imagine that it really happened to all of them4 ,such a story1 for instance1 is that of a great man having his strength swayed or thwarted by the mysterious weakness of a woman4 ,the anecdotal story1 the story of ,william ,tell1 is as ,i have said1 popular1 because it is peculiar4 ,but this kind of story1 the story of ,samson and ,delilah of ,arthur and ,guinevere1 is obviously popular because it is not peculiar4 ,it is popular as good1 quiet fiction is popular1 because it tells the truth about people4 ,if the ruin of ,samson by a woman1 and the ruin of ,hercules by a woman1 have a common legendary origin1 it is gratifying to know that we can also explain1 as a fable1 the ruin of ,nelson by a woman and the ruin of ,parnell by a woman4 ,and1 indeed1 ,i have no doubt whatever that1 some centuries hence1 the students of folk-lore will refuse altogether to believe that ,elizabeth ,barrett eloped with ,robert ,browning1 and will prove their point up to the hilt by the unquestionable fact that the whole fiction of the period was full of such elopements from end to end4 ,possibly the most pathetic of all the delusions of the modern students of primitive belief is the notion they have about the thing they call anthropomorphism4 ,they believe that primitive men attributed phenomena to a god in human form in order to explain them1 because his mind in its sullen limitation could not reach any further than his own clownish existence4 ,the thunder was called the voice of a man1 the lightning the eyes of a man1 because by this explanation they were made more reasonable and comfortable4 ,the final cure for all this kind of philosophy is to walk down a lane at night4 ,any one who does so will discover very quickly that men pictured something semi-human at the back of all things1 not because such a thought was natural1 but because it was supernatural2 not because it made things more comprehensible1 but because it made them a hundred times more incomprehensible and mysterious4 ,for a man walking down a lane at night can see the conspicuous fact that as long as nature keeps to her own course1 she has no power with us at all4 ,as long as a tree is a tree1 it is a top-heavy monster with a hundred arms1 a thousand tongues1 and only one leg4 ,but so long as a tree is a tree1 it does not frighten us at all4 ,it begins to be something alien1 to be something strange1 only when it looks like ourselves4 ,when a tree really looks like a man our knees knock under us4 ,and when the whole universe looks like a man we fall on our faces4 ,,xii4 ,paganism and ,mr4 ,lowes ,dickinson ,of the ,new ,paganism 7or neo-,paganism71 as it was preached flamboyantly by ,mr4 ,swinburne or delicately by ,walter ,pater1 there is no necessity to take any very grave account1 except as a thing which left behind it incomparable exercises in the ,english language4 ,the ,new ,paganism is no longer new1 and it never at any time bore the smallest resemblance to ,paganism4 ,the ideas about the ancient civilization which it has left loose in the public mind are certainly extraordinary enough4 ,the term 8pagan0 is continually used in fiction and light literature as meaning a man without any religion1 whereas a pagan was generally a man with about half a dozen4 ,the pagans1 according to this notion1 were continually crowning themselves with flowers and dancing about in an irresponsible state1 whereas1 if there were two things that the best pagan civilization did honestly believe in1 they were a rather too rigid dignity and a much too rigid responsibility4 ,pagans are depicted as above all things inebriate and lawless1 whereas they were above all things reasonable and respectable4 ,they are praised as disobedient when they had only one great virtue--civic obedience4 ,they are envied and admired as shamelessly happy when they had only one great sin--despair4 ,mr4 ,lowes ,dickinson1 the most pregnant and provocative of recent writers on this and similar subjects1 is far too solid a man to have fallen into this old error of the mere anarchy of ,paganism4 ,in order to make hay of that ,hellenic enthusiasm which has as its ideal mere appetite and egotism1 it is not necessary to know much philosophy1 but merely to know a little ,greek4 ,mr4 ,lowes ,dickinson knows a great deal of philosophy1 and also a great deal of ,greek1 and his error1 if error he has1 is not that of the crude hedonist4 ,but the contrast which he offers between ,christianity and ,paganism in the matter of moral ideals--a contrast which he states very ably in a paper called 8,how long halt ye80 which appeared in the ,independent ,review--does1 ,i think1 contain an error of a deeper kind4 ,according to him1 the ideal of ,paganism was not1 indeed1 a mere frenzy of lust and liberty and caprice1 but was an ideal of full and satisfied humanity4 ,according to him1 the ideal of ,christianity was the ideal of asceticism4 ,when ,i say that ,i think this idea wholly wrong as a matter of philosophy and history1 ,i am not talking for the moment about any ideal ,christianity of my own1 or even of any primitive ,christianity undefiled by after events4 ,i am not1 like so many modern ,christian idealists1 basing my case upon certain things which ,christ said4 ,neither am ,i1 like so many other ,christian idealists1 basing my case upon certain things that ,christ forgot to say4 ,i take historic ,christianity with all its sins upon its head2 ,i take it1 as ,i would take ,jacobinism1 or ,mormonism1 or any other mixed or unpleasing human product1 and ,i say that the meaning of its action was not to be found in asceticism4 ,i say that its point of departure from ,paganism was not asceticism4 ,i say that its point of difference with the modern world was not asceticism4 ,i say that ,st4 ,simeon ,stylites had not his main inspiration in asceticism4 ,i say that the main ,christian impulse cannot be described as asceticism1 even in the ascetics4 ,let me set about making the matter clear4 ,there is one broad fact about the relations of ,christianity and ,paganism which is so simple that many will smile at it1 but which is so important that all moderns forget it4 ,the primary fact about ,christianity and ,paganism is that one came after the other4 ,mr4 ,lowes ,dickinson speaks of them as if they were parallel ideals--even speaks as if ,paganism were the newer of the two1 and the more fitted for a new age4 ,he suggests that the ,pagan ideal will be the ultimate good of man2 but if that is so1 we must at least ask with more curiosity than he allows for1 why it was that man actually found his ultimate good on earth under the stars1 and threw it away again4 ,it is this extraordinary enigma to which ,i propose to attempt an answer4 ,there is only one thing in the modern world that has been face to face with ,paganism2 there is only one thing in the modern world which in that sense knows anything about ,paganism3 and that is ,christianity4 ,that fact is really the weak point in the whole of that hedonistic neo-,paganism of which ,i have spoken4 ,all that genuinely remains of the ancient hymns or the ancient dances of ,europe1 all that has honestly come to us from the festivals of ,phoebus or ,pan1 is to be found in the festivals of the ,christian ,church4 ,if any one wants to hold the end of a chain which really goes back to the heathen mysteries1 he had better take hold of a festoon of flowers at ,easter or a string of sausages at ,christmas4 ,everything else in the modern world is of ,christian origin1 even everything that seems most anti-,christian4 ,the ,french ,revolution is of ,christian origin4 ,the newspaper is of ,christian origin4 ,the anarchists are of ,christian origin4 ,physical science is of ,christian origin4 ,the attack on ,christianity is of ,christian origin4 ,there is one thing1 and one thing only1 in existence at the present day which can in any sense accurately be said to be of pagan origin1 and that is ,christianity4 ,the real difference between ,paganism and ,christianity is perfectly summed up in the difference between the pagan1 or natural1 virtues1 and those three virtues of ,christianity which the ,church of ,rome calls virtues of grace4 ,the pagan1 or rational1 virtues are such things as justice and temperance1 and ,christianity has adopted them4 ,the three mystical virtues which ,christianity has not adopted1 but invented1 are faith1 hope1 and charity4 ,now much easy and foolish ,christian rhetoric could easily be poured out upon those three words1 but ,i desire to confine myself to the two facts which are evident about them4 ,the first evident fact 7in marked contrast to the delusion of the dancing pagan7--the first evident fact1 ,i say1 is that the pagan virtues1 such as justice and temperance1 are the sad virtues1 and that the mystical virtues of faith1 hope1 and charity are the gay and exuberant virtues4 ,and the second evident fact1 which is even more evident1 is the fact that the pagan virtues are the reasonable virtues1 and that the ,christian virtues of faith1 hope1 and charity are in their essence as unreasonable as they can be4 ,as the word 8unreasonable0 is open to misunderstanding1 the matter may be more accurately put by saying that each one of these ,christian or mystical virtues involves a paradox in its own nature1 and that this is not true of any of the typically pagan or rationalist virtues4 ,justice consists in finding out a certain thing due to a certain man and giving it to him4 ,temperance consists in finding out the proper limit of a particular indulgence and adhering to that4 ,but charity means pardoning what is unpardonable1 or it is no virtue at all4 ,hope means hoping when things are hopeless1 or it is no virtue at all4 ,and faith means believing the incredible1 or it is no virtue at all4 ,it is somewhat amusing1 indeed1 to notice the difference between the fate of these three paradoxes in the fashion of the modern mind4 ,charity is a fashionable virtue in our time2 it is lit up by the gigantic firelight of ,dickens4 ,hope is a fashionable virtue to-day2 our attention has been arrested for it by the sudden and silver trumpet of ,stevenson4 ,but faith is unfashionable1 and it is customary on every side to cast against it the fact that it is a paradox4 ,everybody mockingly repeats the famous childish definition that faith is 8the power of believing that which we know to be untrue40 ,yet it is not one atom more paradoxical than hope or charity4 ,charity is the power of defending that which we know to be indefensible4 ,hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate4 ,it is true that there is a state of hope which belongs to bright prospects and the morning2 but that is not the virtue of hope4 ,the virtue of hope exists only in earthquake and1 eclipse4 ,it is true that there is a thing crudely called charity1 which means charity to the deserving poor2 but charity to the deserving is not charity at all1 but justice4 ,it is the undeserving who require it1 and the ideal either does not exist at all1 or exists wholly for them4 ,for practical purposes it is at the hopeless moment that we require the hopeful man1 and the virtue either does not exist at all1 or begins to exist at that moment4 ,exactly at the instant when hope ceases to be reasonable it begins to be useful4 ,now the old pagan world went perfectly straightforward until it discovered that going straightforward is an enormous mistake4 ,it was nobly and beautifully reasonable1 and discovered in its death-pang this lasting and valuable truth1 a heritage for the ages1 that reasonableness will not do4 ,the pagan age was truly an ,eden or golden age1 in this essential sense1 that it is not to be recovered4 ,and it is not to be recovered in this sense again that1 while we are certainly jollier than the pagans1 and much more right than the pagans1 there is not one of us who can1 by the utmost stretch of energy1 be so sensible as the pagans4 ,that naked innocence of the intellect cannot be recovered by any man after ,christianity2 and for this excellent reason1 that every man after ,christianity knows it to be misleading4 ,let me take an example1 the first that occurs to the mind1 of this impossible plainness in the pagan point of view4 ,the greatest tribute to ,christianity in the modern world is ,tennyson's 8,ulysses40 ,the poet reads into the story of ,ulysses the conception of an incurable desire to wander4 ,but the real ,ulysses does not desire to wander at all4 ,he desires to get home4 ,he displays his heroic and unconquerable qualities in resisting the misfortunes which baulk him2 but that is all4 ,there is no love of adventure for its own sake2 that is a ,christian product4 ,there is no love of ,penelope for her own sake2 that is a ,christian product4 ,everything in that old world would appear to have been clean and obvious4 ,a good man was a good man2 a bad man was a bad man4 ,for this reason they had no charity2 for charity is a reverent agnosticism towards the complexity of the soul4 ,for this reason they had no such thing as the art of fiction1 the novel2 for the novel is a creation of the mystical idea of charity4 ,for them a pleasant landscape was pleasant1 and an unpleasant landscape unpleasant4 ,hence they had no idea of romance2 for romance consists in thinking a thing more delightful because it is dangerous2 it is a ,christian idea4 ,in a word1 we cannot reconstruct or even imagine the beautiful and astonishing pagan world4 ,it was a world in which common sense was really common4 ,my general meaning touching the three virtues of which ,i have spoken will now1 ,i hope1 be sufficiently clear4 ,they are all three paradoxical1 they are all three practical1 and they are all three paradoxical because they are practical4 ,it is the stress of ultimate need1 and a terrible knowledge of things as they are1 which led men to set up these riddles1 and to die for them4 ,whatever may be the meaning of the contradiction1 it is the fact that the only kind of hope that is of any use in a battle is a hope that denies arithmetic4 ,whatever may be the meaning of the contradiction1 it is the fact that the only kind of charity which any weak spirit wants1 or which any generous spirit feels1 is the charity which forgives the sins that are like scarlet4 ,whatever may be the meaning of faith1 it must always mean a certainty about something we cannot prove4 ,thus1 for instance1 we believe by faith in the existence of other people4 ,but there is another ,christian virtue1 a virtue far more obviously and historically connected with ,christianity1 which will illustrate even better the connection between paradox and practical necessity4 ,this virtue cannot be questioned in its capacity as a historical symbol2 certainly ,mr4 ,lowes ,dickinson will not question it4 ,it has been the boast of hundreds of the champions of ,christianity4 ,it has been the taunt of hundreds of the opponents of ,christianity4 ,it is1 in essence1 the basis of ,mr4 ,lowes ,dickinson's whole distinction between ,christianity and ,paganism4 ,i mean1 of course1 the virtue of humility4 ,i admit1 of course1 most readily1 that a great deal of false ,eastern humility 7that is1 of strictly ascetic humility7 mixed itself with the main stream of ,european ,christianity4 ,we must not forget that when we speak of ,christianity we are speaking of a whole continent for about a thousand years4 ,but of this virtue even more than of the other three1 ,i would maintain the general proposition adopted above4 ,civilization discovered ,christian humility for the same urgent reason that it discovered faith and charity--that is1 because ,christian civilization had to discover it or die4 ,the great psychological discovery of ,paganism1 which turned it into ,christianity1 can be expressed with some accuracy in one phrase4 ,the pagan set out1 with admirable sense1 to enjoy himself4 ,by the end of his civilization he had discovered that a man cannot enjoy himself and continue to enjoy anything else4 ,mr4 ,lowes ,dickinson has pointed out in words too excellent to need any further elucidation1 the absurd shallowness of those who imagine that the pagan enjoyed himself only in a materialistic sense4 ,of course1 he enjoyed himself1 not only intellectually even1 he enjoyed himself morally1 he enjoyed himself spiritually4 ,but it was himself that he was enjoying2 on the face of it1 a very natural thing to do4 ,now1 the psychological discovery is merely this1 that whereas it had been supposed that the fullest possible enjoyment is to be found by extending our ego to infinity1 the truth is that the fullest possible enjoyment is to be found by reducing our ego to zero4 ,humility is the thing which is for ever renewing the earth and the stars4 ,it is humility1 and not duty1 which preserves the stars from wrong1 from the unpardonable wrong of casual resignation2 it is through humility that the most ancient heavens for us are fresh and strong4 ,the curse that came before history has laid on us all a tendency to be weary of wonders4 ,if we saw the sun for the first time it would be the most fearful and beautiful of meteors4 ,now that we see it for the hundredth time we call it1 in the hideous and blasphemous phrase of ,wordsworth1 8the light of common day40 ,we are inclined to increase our claims4 ,we are inclined to demand six suns1 to demand a blue sun1 to demand a green sun4 ,humility is perpetually putting us back in the primal darkness4 ,there all light is lightning1 startling and instantaneous4 ,until we understand that original dark1 in which we have neither sight nor expectation1 we can give no hearty and childlike praise to the splendid sensationalism of things4 ,the terms 8pessimism0 and 8optimism10 like most modern terms1 are unmeaning4 ,but if they can be used in any vague sense as meaning something1 we may say that in this great fact pessimism is the very basis of optimism4 ,the man who destroys himself creates the universe4 ,to the humble man1 and to the humble man alone1 the sun is really a sun2 to the humble man1 and to the humble man alone1 the sea is really a sea4 ,when he looks at all the faces in the street1 he does not only realize that men are alive1 he realizes with a dramatic pleasure that they are not dead4 ,i have not spoken of another aspect of the discovery of humility as a psychological necessity1 because it is more commonly insisted on1 and is in itself more obvious4 ,but it is equally clear that humility is a permanent necessity as a condition of effort and self-examination4 ,it is one of the deadly fallacies of ,jingo politics that a nation is stronger for despising other nations4 ,as a matter of fact1 the strongest nations are those1 like ,prussia or ,japan1 which began from very mean beginnings1 but have not been too proud to sit at the feet of the foreigner and learn everything from him4 ,almost every obvious and direct victory has been the victory of the plagiarist4 ,this is1 indeed1 only a very paltry by-product of humility1 but it is a product of humility1 and1 therefore1 it is successful4 ,prussia had no ,christian humility in its internal arrangements2 hence its internal arrangements were miserable4 ,but it had enough ,christian humility slavishly to copy ,france 7even down to ,frederick the ,great's poetry71 and that which it had the humility to copy it had ultimately the honour to conquer4 ,the case of the ,japanese is even more obvious2 their only ,christian and their only beautiful quality is that they have humbled themselves to be exalted4 ,all this aspect of humility1 however1 as connected with the matter of effort and striving for a standard set above us1 ,i dismiss as having been sufficiently pointed out by almost all idealistic writers4 ,it may be worth while1 however1 to point out the interesting disparity in the matter of humility between the modern notion of the strong man and the actual records of strong men4 ,carlyle objected to the statement that no man could be a hero to his valet4 ,every sympathy can be extended towards him in the matter if he merely or mainly meant that the phrase was a disparagement of hero-worship4 ,hero-worship is certainly a generous and human impulse2 the hero may be faulty1 but the worship can hardly be4 ,it may be that no man would be a hero to his valet4 ,but any man would be a valet to his hero4 ,but in truth both the proverb itself and ,carlyle's stricture upon it ignore the most essential matter at issue4 ,the ultimate psychological truth is not that no man is a hero to his valet4 ,the ultimate psychological truth1 the foundation of ,christianity1 is that no man is a hero to himself4 ,cromwell1 according to ,carlyle1 was a strong man4 ,according to ,cromwell1 he was a weak one4 ,the weak point in the whole of ,carlyle's case for aristocracy lies1 indeed1 in his most celebrated phrase4 ,carlyle said that men were mostly fools4 ,christianity1 with a surer and more reverent realism1 says that they are all fools4 ,this doctrine is sometimes called the doctrine of original sin4 ,it may also be described as the doctrine of the equality of men4 ,but the essential point of it is merely this1 that whatever primary and far-reaching moral dangers affect any man1 affect all men4 ,all men can be criminals1 if tempted2 all men can be heroes1 if inspired4 ,and this doctrine does away altogether with ,carlyle's pathetic belief 7or any one else's pathetic belief7 in 8the wise few40 ,there are no wise few4 ,every aristocracy that has ever existed has behaved1 in all essential points1 exactly like a small mob4 ,every oligarchy is merely a knot of men in the street--that is to say1 it is very jolly1 but not infallible4 ,and no oligarchies in the world's history have ever come off so badly in practical affairs as the very proud oligarchies--the oligarchy of ,poland1 the oligarchy of ,venice4 ,and the armies that have most swiftly and suddenly broken their enemies in pieces have been the religious armies--the ,moslem ,armies1 for instance1 or the ,puritan ,armies4 ,and a religious army may1 by its nature1 be defined as an army in which every man is taught not to exalt but to abase himself4 ,many modern ,englishmen talk of themselves as the sturdy descendants of their sturdy ,puritan fathers4 ,as a fact1 they would run away from a cow4 ,if you asked one of their ,puritan fathers1 if you asked ,bunyan1 for instance1 whether he was sturdy1 he would have answered1 with tears1 that he was as weak as water4 ,and because of this he would have borne tortures4 ,and this virtue of humility1 while being practical enough to win battles1 will always be paradoxical enough to puzzle pedants4 ,it is at one with the virtue of charity in this respect4 ,every generous person will admit that the one kind of sin which charity should cover is the sin which is inexcusable4 ,and every generous person will equally agree that the one kind of pride which is wholly damnable is the pride of the man who has something to be proud of4 ,the pride which1 proportionally speaking1 does not hurt the character1 is the pride in things which reflect no credit on the person at all4 ,thus it does a man no harm to be proud of his country1 and comparatively little harm to be proud of his remote ancestors4 ,it does him more harm to be proud of having made money1 because in that he has a little more reason for pride4 ,it does him more harm still to be proud of what is nobler than money--intellect4 ,and it does him most harm of all to value himself for the most valuable thing on earth--goodness4 ,the man who is proud of what is really creditable to him is the ,pharisee1 the man whom ,christ ,himself could not forbear to strike4 ,my objection to ,mr4 ,lowes ,dickinson and the reassertors of the pagan ideal is1 then1 this4 ,i accuse them of ignoring definite human discoveries in the moral world1 discoveries as definite1 though not as material1 as the discovery of the circulation of the blood4 ,we cannot go back to an ideal of reason and sanity4 ,for mankind has discovered that reason does not lead to sanity4 ,we cannot go back to an ideal of pride and enjoyment4 ,for mankind has discovered that pride does not lead to enjoyment4 ,i do not know by what extraordinary mental accident modern writers so constantly connect the idea of progress with the idea of independent thinking4 ,progress is obviously the antithesis of independent thinking4 ,for under independent or individualistic thinking1 every man starts at the beginning1 and goes1 in all probability1 just as far as his father before him4 ,but if there really be anything of the nature of progress1 it must mean1 above all things1 the careful study and assumption of the whole of the past4 ,i accuse ,mr4 ,lowes ,dickinson and his school of reaction in the only real sense4 ,if he likes1 let him ignore these great historic mysteries--the mystery of charity1 the mystery of chivalry1 the mystery of faith4 ,if he likes1 let him ignore the plough or the printing-press4 ,but if we do revive and pursue the pagan ideal of a simple and rational self-completion we shall end--where ,paganism ended4 ,i do not mean that we shall end in destruction4 ,i mean that we shall end in ,christianity4 ,,xiii4 ,celts and ,celtophiles ,science in the modern world has many uses2 its chief use1 however1 is to provide long words to cover the errors of the rich4 ,the word 8kleptomania0 is a vulgar example of what ,i mean4 ,it is on a par with that strange theory1 always advanced when a wealthy or prominent person is in the dock1 that exposure is more of a punishment for the rich than for the poor4 ,of course1 the very reverse is the truth4 ,exposure is more of a punishment for the poor than for the rich4 ,the richer a man is the easier it is for him to be a tramp4 ,the richer a man is the easier it is for him to be popular and generally respected in the ,cannibal ,islands4 ,but the poorer a man is the more likely it is that he will have to use his past life whenever he wants to get a bed for the night4 ,honour is a luxury for aristocrats1 but it is a necessity for hall-porters4 ,this is a secondary matter1 but it is an example of the general proposition ,i offer--the proposition that an enormous amount of modern ingenuity is expended on finding defences for the indefensible conduct of the powerful4 ,as ,i have said above1 these defences generally exhibit themselves most emphatically in the form of appeals to physical science4 ,and of all the forms in which science1 or pseudo-science1 has come to the rescue of the rich and stupid1 there is none so singular as the singular invention of the theory of races4 ,when a wealthy nation like the ,english discovers the perfectly patent fact that it is making a ludicrous mess of the government of a poorer nation like the ,irish1 it pauses for a moment in consternation1 and then begins to talk about ,celts and ,teutons4 ,as far as ,i can understand the theory1 the ,irish are ,celts and the ,english are ,teutons4 ,of course1 the ,irish are not ,celts any more than the ,english are ,teutons4 ,i have not followed the ethnological discussion with much energy1 but the last scientific conclusion which ,i read inclined on the whole to the summary that the ,english were mainly ,celtic and the ,irish mainly ,teutonic4 ,but no man alive1 with even the glimmering of a real scientific sense1 would ever dream of applying the terms 8,celtic0 or 8,teutonic0 to either of them in any positive or useful sense4 ,that sort of thing must be left to people who talk about the ,anglo-,saxon race1 and extend the expression to ,america4 ,how much of the blood of the ,angles and ,saxons 7whoever they were7 there remains in our mixed ,british1 ,roman1 ,german1 ,dane1 ,norman1 and ,picard stock is a matter only interesting to wild antiquaries4 ,and how much of that diluted blood can possibly remain in that roaring whirlpool of ,america into which a cataract of ,swedes1 ,jews1 ,germans1 ,irishmen1 and ,italians is perpetually pouring1 is a matter only interesting to lunatics4 ,it would have been wiser for the ,english governing class to have called upon some other god4 ,all other gods1 however weak and warring1 at least boast of being constant4 ,but science boasts of being in a flux for ever2 boasts of being unstable as water4 ,and ,england and the ,english governing class never did call on this absurd deity of race until it seemed1 for an instant1 that they had no other god to call on4 ,all the most genuine ,englishmen in history would have yawned or laughed in your face if you had begun to talk about ,anglo-,saxons4 ,if you had attempted to substitute the ideal of race for the ideal of nationality1 ,i really do not like to think what they would have said4 ,i certainly should not like to have been the officer of ,nelson who suddenly discovered his ,french blood on the eve of ,trafalgar4 ,i should not like to have been the ,norfolk or ,suffolk gentleman who had to expound to ,admiral ,blake by what demonstrable ties of genealogy he was irrevocably bound to the ,dutch4 ,the truth of the whole matter is very simple4 ,nationality exists1 and has nothing in the world to do with race4 ,nationality is a thing like a church or a secret society2 it is a product of the human soul and will2 it is a spiritual product4 ,and there are men in the modern world who would think anything and do anything rather than admit that anything could be a spiritual product4 ,a nation1 however1 as it confronts the modern world1 is a purely spiritual product4 ,sometimes it has been born in independence1 like ,scotland4 ,sometimes it has been born in dependence1 in subjugation1 like ,ireland4 ,sometimes it is a large thing cohering out of many smaller things1 like ,italy4 ,sometimes it is a small thing breaking away from larger things1 like ,poland4 ,but in each and every case its quality is purely spiritual1 or1 if you will1 purely psychological4 ,it is a moment when five men become a sixth man4 ,every one knows it who has ever founded a club4 ,it is a moment when five places become one place4 ,every one must know it who has ever had to repel an invasion4 ,mr4 ,timothy ,healy1 the most serious intellect in the present ,house of ,commons1 summed up nationality to perfection when he simply called it something for which people will die1 ,as he excellently said in reply to ,lord ,hugh ,cecil1 8,no one1 not even the noble lord1 would die for the meridian of ,greenwich40 ,and that is the great tribute to its purely psychological character4 ,it is idle to ask why ,greenwich should not cohere in this spiritual manner while ,athens or ,sparta did4 ,it is like asking why a man falls in love with one woman and not with another4 ,now1 of this great spiritual coherence1 independent of external circumstances1 or of race1 or of any obvious physical thing1 ,ireland is the most remarkable example4 ,rome conquered nations1 but ,ireland has conquered races4 ,the ,norman has gone there and become ,irish1 the ,scotchman has gone there and become ,irish1 the ,spaniard has gone there and become ,irish1 even the bitter soldier of ,cromwell has gone there and become ,irish4 ,ireland1 which did not exist even politically1 has been stronger than all the races that existed scientifically4 ,the purest ,germanic blood1 the purest ,norman blood1 the purest blood of the passionate ,scotch patriot1 has not been so attractive as a nation without a flag4 ,ireland1 unrecognized and oppressed1 has easily absorbed races1 as such trifles are easily absorbed4 ,she has easily disposed of physical science1 as such superstitions are easily disposed of4 ,nationality in its weakness has been stronger than ethnology in its strength4 ,five triumphant races have been absorbed1 have been defeated by a defeated nationality4 ,this being the true and strange glory of ,ireland1 it is impossible to hear without impatience of the attempt so constantly made among her modern sympathizers to talk about ,celts and ,celticism4 ,who were the ,celts8 ,i defy anybody to say4 ,who are the ,irish8 ,i defy any one to be indifferent1 or to pretend not to know4 ,mr4 ,w4 ,b4 ,yeats1 the great ,irish genius who has appeared in our time1 shows his own admirable penetration in discarding altogether the argument from a ,celtic race4 ,but he does not wholly escape1 and his followers hardly ever escape1 the general objection to the ,celtic argument4 ,the tendency of that argument is to represent the ,irish or the ,celts as a strange and separate race1 as a tribe of eccentrics in the modern world immersed in dim legends and fruitless dreams4 ,its tendency is to exhibit the ,irish as odd1 because they see the fairies4 ,its trend is to make the ,irish seem weird and wild because they sing old songs and join in strange dances4 ,but this is quite an error2 indeed1 it is the opposite of the truth4 ,it is the ,english who are odd because they do not see the fairies4 ,it is the inhabitants of ,kensington who are weird and wild because they do not sing old songs and join in strange dances4 ,in all this the ,irish are not in the least strange and separate1 are not in the least ,celtic1 as the word is commonly and popularly used4 ,in all this the ,irish are simply an ordinary sensible nation1 living the life of any other ordinary and sensible nation which has not been either sodden with smoke or oppressed by money-lenders1 or otherwise corrupted with wealth and science4 ,there is nothing ,celtic about having legends4 ,it is merely human4 ,the ,germans1 who are 7,i suppose7 ,teutonic1 have hundreds of legends1 wherever it happens that the ,germans are human4 ,there is nothing ,celtic about loving poetry2 the ,english loved poetry more1 perhaps1 than any other people before they came under the shadow of the chimney-pot and the shadow of the chimney-pot hat4 ,it is not ,ireland which is mad and mystic2 it is ,manchester which is mad and mystic1 which is incredible1 which is a wild exception among human things4 ,ireland has no need to play the silly game of the science of races2 ,ireland has no need to pretend to be a tribe of visionaries apart4 ,in the matter of visions1 ,ireland is more than a nation1 it is a model nation4 ,,xiv4 ,on ,certain ,modern ,writers and the ,institution of the ,family ,the family may fairly be considered1 one would think1 an ultimate human institution4 ,every one would admit that it has been the main cell and central unit of almost all societies hitherto1 except1 indeed1 such societies as that of ,lacedaemon1 which went in for 8efficiency10 and has1 therefore1 perished1 and left not a trace behind4 ,christianity1 even enormous as was its revolution1 did not alter this ancient and savage sanctity2 it merely reversed it4 ,it did not deny the trinity of father1 mother1 and child4 ,it merely read it backwards1 making it run child1 mother1 father4 ,this it called1 not the family1 but the ,holy ,family1 for many things are made holy by being turned upside down4 ,but some sages of our own decadence have made a serious attack on the family4 ,they have impugned it1 as ,i think wrongly2 and its defenders have defended it1 and defended it wrongly4 ,the common defence of the family is that1 amid the stress and fickleness of life1 it is peaceful1 pleasant1 and at one4 ,but there is another defence of the family which is possible1 and to me evident2 this defence is that the family is not peaceful and not pleasant and not at one4 ,it is not fashionable to say much nowadays of the advantages of the small community4 ,we are told that we must go in for large empires and large ideas4 ,there is one advantage1 however1 in the small state1 the city1 or the village1 which only the wilfully blind can overlook4 ,the man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world4 ,he knows much more of the fierce varieties and uncompromising divergences of men4 ,the reason is obvious4 ,in a large community we can choose our companions4 ,in a small community our companions are chosen for us4 ,thus in all extensive and highly civilized societies groups come into existence founded upon what is called sympathy1 and shut out the real world more sharply than the gates of a monastery4 ,there is nothing really narrow about the clan2 the thing which is really narrow is the clique4 ,the men of the clan live together because they all wear the same tartan or are all descended from the same sacred cow2 but in their souls1 by the divine luck of things1 there will always be more colours than in any tartan4 ,but the men of the clique live together because they have the same kind of soul1 and their narrowness is a narrowness of spiritual coherence and contentment1 like that which exists in hell4 ,a big society exists in order to form cliques4 ,a big society is a society for the promotion of narrowness4 ,it is a machinery for the purpose of guarding the solitary and sensitive individual from all experience of the bitter and bracing human compromises4 ,it is1 in the most literal sense of the words1 a society for the prevention of ,christian knowledge4 ,we can see this change1 for instance1 in the modern transformation of the thing called a club4 ,when ,london was smaller1 and the parts of ,london more self-contained and parochial1 the club was what it still is in villages1 the opposite of what it is now in great cities4 ,then the club was valued as a place where a man could be sociable4 ,now the club is valued as a place where a man can be unsociable4 ,the more the enlargement and elaboration of our civilization goes on the more the club ceases to be a place where a man can have a noisy argument1 and becomes more and more a place where a man can have what is somewhat fantastically called a quiet chop4 ,its aim is to make a man comfortable1 and to make a man comfortable is to make him the opposite of sociable4 ,sociability1 like all good things1 is full of discomforts1 dangers1 and renunciations4 ,the club tends to produce the most degraded of all combinations--the luxurious anchorite1 the man who combines the self-indulgence of ,lucullus with the insane loneliness of ,st4 ,simeon ,stylites4 ,if we were to-morrow morning snowed up in the street in which we live1 we should step suddenly into a much larger and much wilder world than we have ever known4 ,and it is the whole effort of the typically modern person to escape from the street in which he lives4 ,first he invents modern hygiene and goes to ,margate4 ,then he invents modern culture and goes to ,florence4 ,then he invents modern imperialism and goes to ,timbuctoo4 ,he goes to the fantastic borders of the earth4 ,he pretends to shoot tigers4 ,he almost rides on a camel4 ,and in all this he is still essentially fleeing from the street in which he was born2 and of this flight he is always ready with his own explanation4 ,he says he is fleeing from his street because it is dull2 he is lying4 ,he is really fleeing from his street because it is a great deal too exciting4 ,it is exciting because it is exacting2 it is exacting because it is alive4 ,he can visit ,venice because to him the ,venetians are only ,venetians2 the people in his own street are men4 ,he can stare at the ,chinese because for him the ,chinese are a passive thing to be stared at2 if he stares at the old lady in the next garden1 she becomes active4 ,he is forced to flee1 in short1 from the too stimulating society of his equals--of free men1 perverse1 personal1 deliberately different from himself4 ,the street in ,brixton is too glowing and overpowering4 ,he has to soothe and quiet himself among tigers and vultures1 camels and crocodiles4 ,these creatures are indeed very different from himself4 ,but they do not put their shape or colour or custom into a decisive intellectual competition with his own4 ,they do not seek to destroy his principles and assert their own2 the stranger monsters of the suburban street do seek to do this4 ,the camel does not contort his features into a fine sneer because ,mr4 ,robinson has not got a hump2 the cultured gentleman at ,no4 #e does exhibit a sneer because ,robinson has not got a dado4 ,the vulture will not roar with laughter because a man does not fly2 but the major at ,no4 #i will roar with laughter because a man does not smoke4 ,the complaint we commonly have to make of our neighbours is that they will not1 as we express it1 mind their own business4 ,we do not really mean that they will not mind their own business4 ,if our neighbours did not mind their own business they would be asked abruptly for their rent1 and would rapidly cease to be our neighbours4 ,what we really mean when we say that they cannot mind their own business is something much deeper4 ,we do not dislike them because they have so little force and fire that they cannot be interested in themselves4 ,we dislike them because they have so much force and fire that they can be interested in us as well4 ,what we dread about our neighbours1 in short1 is not the narrowness of their horizon1 but their superb tendency to broaden it4 ,and all aversions to ordinary humanity have this general character4 ,they are not aversions to its feebleness 7as is pretended71 but to its energy4 ,the misanthropes pretend that they despise humanity for its weakness4 ,as a matter of fact1 they hate it for its strength4 ,of course1 this shrinking from the brutal vivacity and brutal variety of common men is a perfectly reasonable and excusable thing as long as it does not pretend to any point of superiority4 ,it is when it calls itself aristocracy or aestheticism or a superiority to the bourgeoisie that its inherent weakness has in justice to be pointed out4 ,fastidiousness is the most pardonable of vices2 but it is the most unpardonable of virtues4 ,nietzsche1 who represents most prominently this pretentious claim of the fastidious1 has a description somewhere--a very powerful description in the purely literary sense--of the disgust and disdain which consume him at the sight of the common people with their common faces1 their common voices1 and their common minds4 ,as ,i have said1 this attitude is almost beautiful if we may regard it as pathetic4 ,nietzsche's aristocracy has about it all the sacredness that belongs to the weak4 ,when he makes us feel that he cannot endure the innumerable faces1 the incessant voices1 the overpowering omnipresence which belongs to the mob1 he will have the sympathy of anybody who has ever been sick on a steamer or tired in a crowded omnibus4 ,every man has hated mankind when he was less than a man4 ,every man has had humanity in his eyes like a blinding fog1 humanity in his nostrils like a suffocating smell4 ,but when ,nietzsche has the incredible lack of humour and lack of imagination to ask us to believe that his aristocracy is an aristocracy of strong muscles or an aristocracy of strong wills1 it is necessary to point out the truth4 ,it is an aristocracy of weak nerves4 ,we make our friends2 we make our enemies2 but ,god makes our next-door neighbour4 ,hence he comes to us clad in all the careless terrors of nature2 he is as strange as the stars1 as reckless and indifferent as the rain4 ,he is ,man1 the most terrible of the beasts4 ,that is why the old religions and the old scriptural language showed so sharp a wisdom when they spoke1 not of one's duty towards humanity1 but one's duty towards one's neighbour4 ,the duty towards humanity may often take the form of some choice which is personal or even pleasurable4 ,that duty may be a hobby2 it may even be a dissipation4 ,we may work in the ,east ,end because we are peculiarly fitted to work in the ,east ,end1 or because we think we are2 we may fight for the cause of international peace because we are very fond of fighting4 ,the most monstrous martyrdom1 the most repulsive experience1 may be the result of choice or a kind of taste4 ,we may be so made as to be particularly fond of lunatics or specially interested in leprosy4 ,we may love negroes because they are black or ,german ,socialists because they are pedantic4 ,but we have to love our neighbour because he is there--a much more alarming reason for a much more serious operation4 ,he is the sample of humanity which is actually given us4 ,precisely because he may be anybody he is everybody4 ,he is a symbol because he is an accident4 ,doubtless men flee from small environments into lands that are very deadly4 ,but this is natural enough2 for they are not fleeing from death4 ,they are fleeing from life4 ,and this principle applies to ring within ring of the social system of humanity4 ,it is perfectly reasonable that men should seek for some particular variety of the human type1 so long as they are seeking for that variety of the human type1 and not for mere human variety4 ,it is quite proper that a ,british diplomatist should seek the society of ,japanese generals1 if what he wants is ,japanese generals4 ,but if what he wants is people different from himself1 he had much better stop at home and discuss religion with the housemaid4 ,it is quite reasonable that the village genius should come up to conquer ,london if what he wants is to conquer ,london4 ,but if he wants to conquer something fundamentally and symbolically hostile and also very strong1 he had much better remain where he is and have a row with the rector4 ,the man in the suburban street is quite right if he goes to ,ramsgate for the sake of ,ramsgate--a difficult thing to imagine4 ,but if1 as he expresses it1 he goes to ,ramsgate 8for a change10 then he would have a much more romantic and even melodramatic change if he jumped over the wall into his neighbours garden4 ,the consequences would be bracing in a sense far beyond the possibilities of ,ramsgate hygiene4 ,now1 exactly as this principle applies to the empire1 to the nation within the empire1 to the city within the nation1 to the street within the city1 so it applies to the home within the street4 ,the institution of the family is to be commended for precisely the same reasons that the institution of the nation1 or the institution of the city1 are in this matter to be commended4 ,it is a good thing for a man to live in a family for the same reason that it is a good thing for a man to be besieged in a city4 ,it is a good thing for a man to live in a family in the same sense that it is a beautiful and delightful thing for a man to be snowed up in a street4 ,they all force him to realize that life is not a thing from outside1 but a thing from inside4 ,above all1 they all insist upon the fact that life1 if it be a truly stimulating and fascinating life1 is a thing which1 of its nature1 exists in spite of ourselves4 ,the modern writers who have suggested1 in a more or less open manner1 that the family is a bad institution1 have generally confined themselves to suggesting1 with much sharpness1 bitterness1 or pathos1 that perhaps the family is not always very congenial4 ,of course the family is a good institution because it is uncongenial4 ,it is wholesome precisely because it contains so many divergencies and varieties4 ,it is1 as the sentimentalists say1 like a little kingdom1 and1 like most other little kingdoms1 is generally in a state of something resembling anarchy4 ,it is exactly because our brother ,george is not interested in our religious difficulties1 but is interested in the ,trocadero ,restaurant1 that the family has some of the bracing qualities of the commonwealth4 ,it is precisely because our uncle ,henry does not approve of the theatrical ambitions of our sister ,sarah that the family is like humanity4 ,the men and women who1 for good reasons and bad1 revolt against the family1 are1 for good reasons and bad1 simply revolting against mankind4 ,aunt ,elizabeth is unreasonable1 like mankind4 ,papa is excitable1 like mankind ,our youngest brother is mischievous1 like mankind4 ,grandpapa is stupid1 like the world2 he is old1 like the world4 ,those who wish1 rightly or wrongly1 to step out of all this1 do definitely wish to step into a narrower world4 ,they are dismayed and terrified by the largeness and variety of the family4 ,sarah wishes to find a world wholly consisting of private theatricals2 ,george wishes to think the ,trocadero a cosmos4 ,i do not say1 for a moment1 that the flight to this narrower life may not be the right thing for the individual1 any more than ,i say the same thing about flight into a monastery4 ,but ,i do say that anything is bad and artificial which tends to make these people succumb to the strange delusion that they are stepping into a world which is actually larger and more varied than their own4 ,the best way that a man could test his readiness to encounter the common variety of mankind would be to climb down a chimney into any house at random1 and get on as well as possible with the people inside4 ,and that is essentially what each one of us did on the day that he was born4 ,this is1 indeed1 the sublime and special romance of the family4 ,it is romantic because it is a toss-up4 ,it is romantic because it is everything that its enemies call it4 ,it is romantic because it is arbitrary4 ,it is romantic because it is there4 ,so long as you have groups of men chosen rationally1 you have some special or sectarian atmosphere4 ,it is when you have groups of men chosen irrationally that you have men4 ,the element of adventure begins to exist2 for an adventure is1 by its nature1 a thing that comes to us4 ,it is a thing that chooses us1 not a thing that we choose4 ,falling in love has been often regarded as the supreme adventure1 the supreme romantic accident4 ,in so much as there is in it something outside ourselves1 something of a sort of merry fatalism1 this is very true4 ,love does take us and transfigure and torture us4 ,it does break our hearts with an unbearable beauty1 like the unbearable beauty of music4 ,but in so far as we have certainly something to do with the matter2 in so far as we are in some sense prepared to fall in love and in some sense jump into it2 in so far as we do to some extent choose and to some extent even judge--in all this falling in love is not truly romantic1 is not truly adventurous at all4 ,in this degree the supreme adventure is not falling in love4 ,the supreme adventure is being born4 ,there we do walk suddenly into a splendid and startling trap4 ,there we do see something of which we have not dreamed before4 ,our father and mother do lie in wait for us and leap out on us1 like brigands from a bush4 ,our uncle is a surprise4 ,our aunt is1 in the beautiful common expression1 a bolt from the blue4 ,when we step into the family1 by the act of being born1 we do step into a world which is incalculable1 into a world which has its own strange laws1 into a world which could do without us1 into a world that we have not made4 ,in other words1 when we step into the family we step into a fairy-tale4 ,this colour as of a fantastic narrative ought to cling to the family and to our relations with it throughout life4 ,romance is the deepest thing in life2 romance is deeper even than reality4 ,for even if reality could be proved to be misleading1 it still could not be proved to be unimportant or unimpressive4 ,even if the facts are false1 they are still very strange4 ,and this strangeness of life1 this unexpected and even perverse element of things as they fall out1 remains incurably interesting4 ,the circumstances we can regulate may become tame or pessimistic2 but the 8circumstances over which we have no control0 remain god-like to those who1 like ,mr4 ,micawber1 can call on them and renew their strength4 ,people wonder why the novel is the most popular form of literature2 people wonder why it is read more than books of science or books of metaphysics4 ,the reason is very simple2 it is merely that the novel is more true than they are4 ,life may sometimes legitimately appear as a book of science4 ,life may sometimes appear1 and with a much greater legitimacy1 as a book of metaphysics4 ,but life is always a novel4 ,our existence may cease to be a song2 it may cease even to be a beautiful lament4 ,our existence may not be an intelligible justice1 or even a recognizable wrong4 ,but our existence is still a story4 ,in the fiery alphabet of every sunset is written1 8to be continued in our next40 ,if we have sufficient intellect1 we can finish a philosophical and exact deduction1 and be certain that we are finishing it right4 ,with the adequate brain-power we could finish any scientific discovery1 and be certain that we were finishing it right4 ,but not with the most gigantic intellect could we finish the simplest or silliest story1 and be certain that we were finishing it right4 ,that is because a story has behind it1 not merely intellect which is partly mechanical1 but will1 which is in its essence divine4 ,the narrative writer can send his hero to the gallows if he likes in the last chapter but one4 ,he can do it by the same divine caprice whereby he1 the author1 can go to the gallows himself1 and to hell afterwards if he chooses4 ,and the same civilization1 the chivalric ,european civilization which asserted freewill in the thirteenth century1 produced the thing called 8fiction0 in the eighteenth4 ,when ,thomas ,aquinas asserted the spiritual liberty of man1 he created all the bad novels in the circulating libraries4 ,but in order that life should be a story or romance to us1 it is necessary that a great part of it1 at any rate1 should be settled for us without our permission4 ,if we wish life to be a system1 this may be a nuisance2 but if we wish it to be a drama1 it is an essential4 ,it may often happen1 no doubt1 that a drama may be written by somebody else which we like very little4 ,but we should like it still less if the author came before the curtain every hour or so1 and forced on us the whole trouble of inventing the next act4 ,a man has control over many things in his life2 he has control over enough things to be the hero of a novel4 ,but if he had control over everything1 there would be so much hero that there would be no novel4 ,and the reason why the lives of the rich are at bottom so tame and uneventful is simply that they can choose the events4 ,they are dull because they are omnipotent4 ,they fail to feel adventures because they can make the adventures4 ,the thing which keeps life romantic and full of fiery possibilities is the existence of these great plain limitations which force all of us to meet the things we do not like or do not expect4 ,it is vain for the supercilious moderns to talk of being in uncongenial surroundings4 ,to be in a romance is to be in uncongenial surroundings4 ,to be born into this earth is to be born into uncongenial surroundings1 hence to be born into a romance4 ,of all these great limitations and frameworks which fashion and create the poetry and variety of life1 the family is the most definite and important4 ,hence it is misunderstood by the moderns1 who imagine that romance would exist most perfectly in a complete state of what they call liberty4 ,they think that if a man makes a gesture it would be a startling and romantic matter that the sun should fall from the sky4 ,but the startling and romantic thing about the sun is that it does not fall from the sky4 ,they are seeking under every shape and form a world where there are no limitations--that is1 a world where there are no outlines2 that is1 a world where there are no shapes4 ,there is nothing baser than that infinity4 ,they say they wish to be as strong as the universe1 but they really wish the whole universe as weak as themselves4 ,,xv4 ,on ,smart ,novelists and the ,smart ,set ,in one sense1 at any rate1 it is more valuable to read bad literature than good literature4 ,good literature may tell us the mind of one man2 but bad literature may tell us the mind of many men4 ,a good novel tells us the truth about its hero2 but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author4 ,it does much more than that1 it tells us the truth about its readers2 and1 oddly enough1 it tells us this all the more the more cynical and immoral be the motive of its manufacture4 ,the more dishonest a book is as a book the more honest it is as a public document4 ,a sincere novel exhibits the simplicity of one particular man2 an insincere novel exhibits the simplicity of mankind4 ,the pedantic decisions and definable readjustments of man may be found in scrolls and statute books and scriptures2 but men's basic assumptions and everlasting energies are to be found in penny dreadfuls and halfpenny novelettes4 ,thus a man1 like many men of real culture in our day1 might learn from good literature nothing except the power to appreciate good literature4 ,but from bad literature he might learn to govern empires and look over the map of mankind4 ,there is one rather interesting example of this state of things in which the weaker literature is really the stronger and the stronger the weaker4 ,it is the case of what may be called1 for the sake of an approximate description1 the literature of aristocracy2 or1 if you prefer the description1 the literature of snobbishness4 ,now if any one wishes to find a really effective and comprehensible and permanent case for aristocracy well and sincerely stated1 let him read1 not the modern philosophical conservatives1 not even ,nietzsche1 let him read the ,bow ,bells ,novelettes4 ,of the case of ,nietzsche ,i am confessedly more doubtful4 ,nietzsche and the ,bow ,bells ,novelettes have both obviously the same fundamental character2 they both worship the tall man with curling moustaches and herculean bodily power1 and they both worship him in a manner which is somewhat feminine and hysterical4 ,even here1 however1 the ,novelette easily maintains its philosophical superiority1 because it does attribute to the strong man those virtues which do commonly belong to him1 such virtues as laziness and kindliness and a rather reckless benevolence1 and a great dislike of hurting the weak4 ,nietzsche1 on the other hand1 attributes to the strong man that scorn against weakness which only exists among invalids4 ,it is not1 however1 of the secondary merits of the great ,german philosopher1 but of the primary merits of the ,bow ,bells ,novelettes1 that it is my present affair to speak4 ,the picture of aristocracy in the popular sentimental novelette seems to me very satisfactory as a permanent political and philosophical guide4 ,it may be inaccurate about details such as the title by which a baronet is addressed or the width of a mountain chasm which a baronet can conveniently leap1 but it is not a bad description of the general idea and intention of aristocracy as they exist in human affairs4 ,the essential dream of aristocracy is magnificence and valour2 and if the ,family ,herald ,supplement sometimes distorts or exaggerates these things1 at least1 it does not fall short in them4 ,it never errs by making the mountain chasm too narrow or the title of the baronet insufficiently impressive4 ,but above this sane reliable old literature of snobbishness there has arisen in our time another kind of literature of snobbishness which1 with its much higher pretensions1 seems to me worthy of very much less respect4 ,incidentally 7if that matters71 it is much better literature4 ,but it is immeasurably worse philosophy1 immeasurably worse ethics and politics1 immeasurably worse vital rendering of aristocracy and humanity as they really are4 ,from such books as those of which ,i wish now to speak we can discover what a clever man can do with the idea of aristocracy4 ,but from the ,family ,herald ,supplement literature we can learn what the idea of aristocracy can do with a man who is not clever4 ,and when we know that we know ,english history4 ,this new aristocratic fiction must have caught the attention of everybody who has read the best fiction for the last fifteen years4 ,it is that genuine or alleged literature of the ,smart ,set which represents that set as distinguished1 not only by smart dresses1 but by smart sayings4 ,to the bad baronet1 to the good baronet1 to the romantic and misunderstood baronet who is supposed to be a bad baronet1 but is a good baronet1 this school has added a conception undreamed of in the former years--the conception of an amusing baronet4 ,the aristocrat is not merely to be taller than mortal men and stronger and handsomer1 he is also to be more witty4 ,he is the long man with the short epigram4 ,many eminent1 and deservedly eminent1 modern novelists must accept some responsibility for having supported this worst form of snobbishness--an intellectual snobbishness4 ,the talented author of 8,dodo0 is responsible for having in some sense created the fashion as a fashion4 ,mr4 ,hichens1 in the 8,green ,carnation10 reaffirmed the strange idea that young noblemen talk well2 though his case had some vague biographical foundation1 and in consequence an excuse4 ,mrs4 ,craigie is considerably guilty in the matter1 although1 or rather because1 she has combined the aristocratic note with a note of some moral and even religious sincerity4 ,when you are saving a man's soul1 even in a novel1 it is indecent to mention that he is a gentleman4 ,nor can blame in this matter be altogether removed from a man of much greater ability1 and a man who has proved his possession of the highest of human instinct1 the romantic instinct--,i mean ,mr4 ,anthony ,hope4 ,in a galloping1 impossible melodrama like 8,the ,prisoner of ,zenda10 the blood of kings fanned an excellent fantastic thread or theme4 ,but the blood of kings is not a thing that can be taken seriously4 ,and when1 for example1 ,mr4 ,hope devotes so much serious and sympathetic study to the man called ,tristram of ,blent1 a man who throughout burning boyhood thought of nothing but a silly old estate1 we feel even in ,mr4 ,hope the hint of this excessive concern about the oligarchic idea4 ,it is hard for any ordinary person to feel so much interest in a young man whose whole aim is to own the house of ,blent at the time when every other young man is owning the stars4 ,mr4 ,hope1 however1 is a very mild case1 and in him there is not only an element of romance1 but also a fine element of irony which warns us against taking all this elegance too seriously4 ,above all1 he shows his sense in not making his noblemen so incredibly equipped with impromptu repartee4 ,this habit of insisting on the wit of the wealthier classes is the last and most servile of all the servilities4 ,it is1 as ,i have said1 immeasurably more contemptible than the snobbishness of the novelette which describes the nobleman as smiling like an ,apollo or riding a mad elephant4 ,these may be exaggerations of beauty and courage1 but beauty and courage are the unconscious ideals of aristocrats1 even of stupid aristocrats4 ,the nobleman of the novelette may not be sketched with any very close or conscientious attention to the daily habits of noblemen4 ,but he is something more important than a reality2 he is a practical ideal4 ,the gentleman of fiction may not copy the gentleman of real life2 but the gentleman of real life is copying the gentleman of fiction4 ,he may not be particularly good-looking1 but he would rather be good-looking than anything else2 he may not have ridden on a mad elephant1 but he rides a pony as far as possible with an air as if he had4 ,and1 upon the whole1 the upper class not only especially desire these qualities of beauty and courage1 but in some degree1 at any rate1 especially possess them4 ,thus there is nothing really mean or sycophantic about the popular literature which makes all its marquises seven feet high4 ,it is snobbish1 but it is not servile4 ,its exaggeration is based on an exuberant and honest admiration2 its honest admiration is based upon something which is in some degree1 at any rate1 really there4 ,the ,english lower classes do not fear the ,english upper classes in the least2 nobody could4 ,they simply and freely and sentimentally worship them4 ,the strength of the aristocracy is not in the aristocracy at all2 it is in the slums4 ,it is not in the ,house of ,lords2 it is not in the ,civil ,service2 it is not in the ,government offices2 it is not even in the huge and disproportionate monopoly of the ,english land4 ,it is in a certain spirit4 ,it is in the fact that when a navvy wishes to praise a man1 it comes readily to his tongue to say that he has behaved like a gentleman4 ,from a democratic point of view he might as well say that he had behaved like a viscount4 ,the oligarchic character of the modern ,english commonwealth does not rest1 like many oligarchies1 on the cruelty of the rich to the poor4 ,it does not even rest on the kindness of the rich to the poor4 ,it rests on the perennial and unfailing kindness of the poor to the rich4 ,the snobbishness of bad literature1 then1 is not servile2 but the snobbishness of good literature is servile4 ,the old-fashioned halfpenny romance where the duchesses sparkled with diamonds was not servile2 but the new romance where they sparkle with epigrams is servile4 ,for in thus attributing a special and startling degree of intellect and conversational or controversial power to the upper classes1 we are attributing something which is not especially their virtue or even especially their aim4 ,we are1 in the words of ,disraeli 7who1 being a genius and not a gentleman1 has perhaps primarily to answer for the introduction of this method of flattering the gentry71 we are performing the essential function of flattery which is flattering the people for the qualities they have not got4 ,praise may be gigantic and insane without having any quality of flattery so long as it is praise of something that is noticeably in existence4 ,a man may say that a giraffe's head strikes the stars1 or that a whale fills the ,german ,ocean1 and still be only in a rather excited state about a favourite animal4 ,but when he begins to congratulate the giraffe on his feathers1 and the whale on the elegance of his legs1 we find ourselves confronted with that social element which we call flattery4 ,the middle and lower orders of ,london can sincerely1 though not perhaps safely1 admire the health and grace of the ,english aristocracy4 ,and this for the very simple reason that the aristocrats are1 upon the whole1 more healthy and graceful than the poor4 ,but they cannot honestly admire the wit of the aristocrats4 ,and this for the simple reason that the aristocrats are not more witty than the poor1 but a very great deal less so4 ,a man does not hear1 as in the smart novels1 these gems of verbal felicity dropped between diplomatists at dinner4 ,where he really does hear them is between two omnibus conductors in a block in ,holborn4 ,the witty peer whose impromptus fill the books of ,mrs4 ,craigie or ,miss ,fowler1 would1 as a matter of fact1 be torn to shreds in the art of conversation by the first boot-black he had the misfortune to fall foul of4 ,the poor are merely sentimental1 and very excusably sentimental1 if they praise the gentleman for having a ready hand and ready money4 ,but they are strictly slaves and sycophants if they praise him for having a ready tongue4 ,for that they have far more themselves4 ,the element of oligarchical sentiment in these novels1 however1 has1 ,i think1 another and subtler aspect1 an aspect more difficult to understand and more worth understanding4 ,the modern gentleman1 particularly the modern ,english gentleman1 has become so central and important in these books1 and through them in the whole of our current literature and our current mode of thought1 that certain qualities of his1 whether original or recent1 essential or accidental1 have altered the quality of our ,english comedy4 ,in particular1 that stoical ideal1 absurdly supposed to be the ,english ideal1 has stiffened and chilled us4 ,it is not the ,english ideal2 but it is to some extent the aristocratic ideal2 or it may be only the ideal of aristocracy in its autumn or decay4 ,the gentleman is a ,stoic because he is a sort of savage1 because he is filled with a great elemental fear that some stranger will speak to him4 ,that is why a third-class carriage is a community1 while a first-class carriage is a place of wild hermits4 ,but this matter1 which is difficult1 ,i may be permitted to approach in a more circuitous way4 ,the haunting element of ineffectualness which runs through so much of the witty and epigrammatic fiction fashionable during the last eight or ten years1 which runs through such works of a real though varying ingenuity as 8,dodo10 or 8,concerning ,isabel ,carnaby10 or even 8,some ,emotions and a ,moral10 may be expressed in various ways1 but to most of us ,i think it will ultimately amount to the same thing4 ,this new frivolity is inadequate because there is in it no strong sense of an unuttered joy4 ,the men and women who exchange the repartees may not only be hating each other1 but hating even themselves4 ,any one of them might be bankrupt that day1 or sentenced to be shot the next4 ,they are joking1 not because they are merry1 but because they are not2 out of the emptiness of the heart the mouth speaketh4 ,even when they talk pure nonsense it is a careful nonsense--a nonsense of which they are economical1 or1 to use the perfect expression of ,mr4 ,w4 ,s4 ,gilbert in 8,patience10 it is such 8precious nonsense40 ,even when they become light-headed they do not become light-hearted4 ,all those who have read anything of the rationalism of the moderns know that their ,reason is a sad thing4 ,but even their unreason is sad4 ,the causes of this incapacity are also not very difficult to indicate4 ,the chief of all1 of course1 is that miserable fear of being sentimental1 which is the meanest of all the modern terrors--meaner even than the terror which produces hygiene4 ,everywhere the robust and uproarious humour has come from the men who were capable not merely of sentimentalism1 but a very silly sentimentalism4 ,there has been no humour so robust or uproarious as that of the sentimentalist ,steele or the sentimentalist ,sterne or the sentimentalist ,dickens4 ,these creatures who wept like women were the creatures who laughed like men4 ,it is true that the humour of ,micawber is good literature and that the pathos of little ,nell is bad4 ,but the kind of man who had the courage to write so badly in the one case is the kind of man who would have the courage to write so well in the other4 ,the same unconsciousness1 the same violent innocence1 the same gigantesque scale of action which brought the ,napoleon of ,comedy his ,jena brought him also his ,moscow4 ,and herein is especially shown the frigid and feeble limitations of our modern wits4 ,they make violent efforts1 they make heroic and almost pathetic efforts1 but they cannot really write badly4 ,there are moments when we almost think that they are achieving the effect1 but our hope shrivels to nothing the moment we compare their little failures with the enormous imbecilities of ,byron or ,shakespeare4 ,for a hearty laugh it is necessary to have touched the heart4 ,i do not know why touching the heart should always be connected only with the idea of touching it to compassion or a sense of distress4 ,the heart can be touched to joy and triumph2 the heart can be touched to amusement4 ,but all our comedians are tragic comedians4 ,these later fashionable writers are so pessimistic in bone and marrow that they never seem able to imagine the heart having any concern with mirth4 ,when they speak of the heart1 they always mean the pangs and disappointments of the emotional life4 ,when they say that a man's heart is in the right place1 they mean1 apparently1 that it is in his boots4 ,our ethical societies understand fellowship1 but they do not understand good fellowship4 ,similarly1 our wits understand talk1 but not what ,dr4 ,johnson called a good talk4 ,in order to have1 like ,dr4 ,johnson1 a good talk1 it is emphatically necessary to be1 like ,dr4 ,johnson1 a good man--to have friendship and honour and an abysmal tenderness4 ,above all1 it is necessary to be openly and indecently humane1 to confess with fulness all the primary pities and fears of ,adam4 ,johnson was a clear-headed humorous man1 and therefore he did not mind talking seriously about religion4 ,johnson was a brave man1 one of the bravest that ever walked1 and therefore he did not mind avowing to any one his consuming fear of death4 ,the idea that there is something ,english in the repression of one's feelings is one of those ideas which no ,englishman ever heard of until ,england began to be governed exclusively by ,scotchmen1 ,americans1 and ,jews4 ,at the best1 the idea is a generalization from the ,duke of ,wellington--who was an ,irishman4 ,at the worst1 it is a part of that silly ,teutonism which knows as little about ,england as it does about anthropology1 but which is always talking about ,vikings4 ,as a matter of fact1 the ,vikings did not repress their feelings in the least4 ,they cried like babies and kissed each other like girls2 in short1 they acted in that respect like ,achilles and all strong heroes the children of the gods4 ,and though the ,english nationality has probably not much more to do with the ,vikings than the ,french nationality or the ,irish nationality1 the ,english have certainly been the children of the ,vikings in the matter of tears and kisses4 ,it is not merely true that all the most typically ,english men of letters1 like ,shakespeare and ,dickens1 ,richardson and ,thackeray1 were sentimentalists4 ,it is also true that all the most typically ,english men of action were sentimentalists1 if possible1 more sentimental4 ,in the great ,elizabethan age1 when the ,english nation was finally hammered out1 in the great eighteenth century when the ,british ,empire was being built up everywhere1 where in all these times1 where was this symbolic stoical ,englishman who dresses in drab and black and represses his feelings8 ,were all the ,elizabethan palladins and pirates like that8 ,were any of them like that8 ,was ,grenville concealing his emotions when he broke wine-glasses to pieces with his teeth and bit them till the blood poured down8 ,was ,essex restraining his excitement when he threw his hat into the sea8 ,did ,raleigh think it sensible to answer the ,spanish guns only1 as ,stevenson says1 with a flourish of insulting trumpets8 ,did ,sydney ever miss an opportunity of making a theatrical remark in the whole course of his life and death8 ,were even the ,puritans ,stoics8 ,the ,english ,puritans repressed a good deal1 but even they were too ,english to repress their feelings4 ,it was by a great miracle of genius assuredly that ,carlyle contrived to admire simultaneously two things so irreconcilably opposed as silence and ,oliver ,cromwell4 ,cromwell was the very reverse of a strong1 silent man4 ,cromwell was always talking1 when he was not crying4 ,nobody1 ,i suppose1 will accuse the author of 8,grace ,abounding0 of being ashamed of his feelings4 ,milton1 indeed1 it might be possible to represent as a ,stoic2 in some sense he was a ,stoic1 just as he was a prig and a polygamist and several other unpleasant and heathen things4 ,but when we have passed that great and desolate name1 which may really be counted an exception1 we find the tradition of ,english emotionalism immediately resumed and unbrokenly continuous4 ,whatever may have been the moral beauty of the passions of ,etheridge and ,dorset1 ,sedley and ,buckingham1 they cannot be accused of the fault of fastidiously concealing them4 ,charles the ,second was very popular with the ,english because1 like all the jolly ,english kings1 he displayed his passions4 ,william the ,dutchman was very unpopular with the ,english because1 not being an ,englishman1 he did hide his emotions4 ,he was1 in fact1 precisely the ideal ,englishman of our modern theory2 and precisely for that reason all the real ,englishmen loathed him like leprosy4 ,with the rise of the great ,england of the eighteenth century1 we find this open and emotional tone still maintained in letters and politics1 in arts and in arms4 ,perhaps the only quality which was possessed in common by the great ,fielding1 and the great ,richardson was that neither of them hid their feelings4 ,swift1 indeed1 was hard and logical1 because ,swift was ,irish4 ,and when we pass to the soldiers and the rulers1 the patriots and the empire-builders of the eighteenth century1 we find1 as ,i have said1 that they were1 ,if possible1 more romantic than the romancers1 more poetical than the poets4 ,chatham1 who showed the world all his strength1 showed the ,house of ,commons all his weakness4 ,wolfe walked about the room with a drawn sword calling himself ,caesar and ,hannibal1 and went to death with poetry in his mouth4 ,clive was a man of the same type as ,cromwell or ,bunyan1 or1 for the matter of that1 ,johnson--that is1 he was a strong1 sensible man with a kind of running spring of hysteria and melancholy in him4 ,like ,johnson1 he was all the more healthy because he was morbid4 ,the tales of all the admirals and adventurers of that ,england are full of braggadocio1 of sentimentality1 of splendid affectation4 ,but it is scarcely necessary to multiply examples of the essentially romantic ,englishman when one example towers above them all4 ,mr4 ,rudyard ,kipling has said complacently of the ,english1 8,we do not fall on the neck and kiss when we come together40 ,it is true that this ancient and universal custom has vanished with the modern weakening of ,england4 ,sydney would have thought nothing of kissing ,spenser4 ,but ,i willingly concede that ,mr4 ,broderick would not be likely to kiss ,mr4 ,arnold-,foster1 if that be any proof of the increased manliness and military greatness of ,england4 ,but the ,englishman who does not show his feelings has not altogether given up the power of seeing something ,english in the great sea-hero of the ,napoleonic war4 ,you cannot break the legend of ,nelson4 ,and across the sunset of that glory is written in flaming letters for ever the great ,english sentiment1 8,kiss me1 ,hardy40 ,this ideal of self-repression1 then1 is1 whatever else it is1 not ,english4 ,it is1 perhaps1 somewhat ,oriental1 it is slightly ,prussian1 but in the main it does not come1 ,i think1 from any racial or national source4 ,it is1 as ,i have said1 in some sense aristocratic2 it comes not from a people1 but from a class4 ,even aristocracy1 ,i think1 was not quite so stoical in the days when it was really strong4 ,but whether this unemotional ideal be the genuine tradition of the gentleman1 or only one of the inventions of the modern gentleman 7who may be called the decayed gentleman71 it certainly has something to do with the unemotional quality in these society novels4 ,from representing aristocrats as people who suppressed their feelings1 it has been an easy step to representing aristocrats as people who had no feelings to suppress4 ,thus the modern oligarchist has made a virtue for the oligarchy of the hardness as well as the brightness of the diamond4 ,like a sonneteer addressing his lady in the seventeenth century1 he seems to use the word 8cold0 almost as a eulogium1 and the word 8heartless0 as a kind of compliment4 ,of course1 in people so incurably kind-hearted and babyish as are the ,english gentry1 it would be impossible to create anything that can be called positive cruelty2 so in these books they exhibit a sort of negative cruelty4 ,they cannot be cruel in acts1 but they can be so in words4 ,all this means one thing1 and one thing only4 ,it means that the living and invigorating ideal of ,england must be looked for in the masses2 it must be looked for where ,dickens found it--,dickens among whose glories it was to be a humorist1 to be a sentimentalist1 to be an optimist1 to be a poor man1 to be an ,englishman1 but the greatest of whose glories was that he saw all mankind in its amazing and tropical luxuriance1 and did not even notice the aristocracy2 ,dickens1 the greatest of whose glories was that he could not describe a gentleman4 ,,xvi4 ,on ,mr4 ,mc,cabe and a ,divine ,frivolity ,a critic once remonstrated with me saying1 with an air of indignant reasonableness1 8,if you must make jokes1 at least you need not make them on such serious subjects40 ,i replied with a natural simplicity and wonder1 8,about what other subjects can one make jokes except serious subjects80 ,it is quite useless to talk about profane jesting4 ,all jesting is in its nature profane1 in the sense that it must be the sudden realization that something which thinks itself solemn is not so very solemn after all4 ,if a joke is not a joke about religion or morals1 it is a joke about police-magistrates or scientific professors or undergraduates dressed up as ,queen ,victoria4 ,and people joke about the police-magistrate more than they joke about the ,pope1 not because the police-magistrate is a more frivolous subject1 but1 on the contrary1 because the police-magistrate is a more serious subject than the ,pope4 ,the ,bishop of ,rome has no jurisdiction in this realm of ,england2 whereas the police-magistrate may bring his solemnity to bear quite suddenly upon us4 ,men make jokes about old scientific professors1 even more than they make them about bishops--not because science is lighter than religion1 but because science is always by its nature more solemn and austere than religion4 ,it is not ,i2 it is not even a particular class of journalists or jesters who make jokes about the matters which are of most awful import2 it is the whole human race4 ,if there is one thing more than another which any one will admit who has the smallest knowledge of the world1 it is that men are always speaking gravely and earnestly and with the utmost possible care about the things that are not important1 but always talking frivolously about the things that are4 ,men talk for hours with the faces of a college of cardinals about things like golf1 or tobacco1 or waistcoats1 or party politics4 ,but all the most grave and dreadful things in the world are the oldest jokes in the world--being married2 being hanged4 ,one gentleman1 however1 ,mr4 ,mc,cabe1 has in this matter made to me something that almost amounts to a personal appeal2 and as he happens to be a man for whose sincerity and intellectual virtue ,i have a high respect1 ,i do not feel inclined to let it pass without some attempt to satisfy my critic in the matter4 ,mr4 ,mc,cabe devotes a considerable part of the last essay in the collection called 8,christianity and ,rationalism on ,trial0 to an objection1 not to my thesis1 but to my method1 and a very friendly and dignified appeal to me to alter it4 ,i am much inclined to defend myself in this matter out of mere respect for ,mr4 ,mc,cabe1 and still more so out of mere respect for the truth which is1 ,i think1 in danger by his error1 not only in this question1 but in others4 ,in order that there may be no injustice done in the matter1 ,i will quote ,mr4 ,mc,cabe himself4 8,but before ,i follow ,mr4 ,chesterton in some detail ,i would make a general observation on his method4 ,he is as serious as ,i am in his ultimate purpose1 and ,i respect him for that4 ,he knows1 as ,i do1 that humanity stands at a solemn parting of the ways4 ,towards some unknown goal it presses through the ages1 impelled by an overmastering desire of happiness4 ,to-day it hesitates1 lightheartedly enough1 but every serious thinker knows how momentous the decision may be4 ,it is1 apparently1 deserting the path of religion and entering upon the path of secularism4 ,will it lose itself in quagmires of sensuality down this new path1 and pant and toil through years of civic and industrial anarchy1 only to learn it had lost the road1 and must return to religion8 ,or will it find that at last it is leaving the mists and the quagmires behind it2 that it is ascending the slope of the hill so long dimly discerned ahead1 and making straight for the long-sought ,utopia8 ,this is the drama of our time1 and every man and every woman should understand it4 8,mr4 ,chesterton understands it4 ,further1 he gives us credit for understanding it4 ,he has nothing of that paltry meanness or strange density of so many of his colleagues1 who put us down as aimless iconoclasts or moral anarchists4 ,he admits that we are waging a thankless war for what we take to be ,truth and ,progress4 ,he is doing the same4 ,but why1 in the name of all that is reasonable1 should we1 when we are agreed on the momentousness of the issue either way1 forthwith desert serious methods of conducting the controversy8 ,why1 when the vital need of our time is to induce men and women to collect their thoughts occasionally1 and be men and women--nay1 to remember that they are really gods that hold the destinies of humanity on their knees--why should we think that this kaleidoscopic play of phrases is inopportune8 ,the ballets of the ,alhambra1 and the fireworks of the ,crystal ,palace1 and ,mr4 ,chesterton's ,daily ,news articles1 have their place in life4 ,but how a serious social student can think of curing the thoughtlessness of our generation by strained paradoxes2 of giving people a sane grasp of social problems by literary sleight-of-hand2 of settling important questions by a reckless shower of rocket-metaphors and inaccurate #8facts1' and the substitution of imagination for judgment1 ,i cannot see40 ,i quote this passage with a particular pleasure1 because ,mr4 ,mc,cabe certainly cannot put too strongly the degree to which ,i give him and his school credit for their complete sincerity and responsibility of philosophical attitude4 ,i am quite certain that they mean every word they say4 ,i also mean every word ,i say4 ,but why is it that ,mr4 ,mc,cabe has some sort of mysterious hesitation about admitting that ,i mean every word ,i say2 why is it that he is not quite as certain of my mental responsibility as ,i am of his mental responsibility8 ,if we attempt to answer the question directly and well1 we shall1 ,i think1 have come to the root of the matter by the shortest cut4 ,mr4 ,mc,cabe thinks that ,i am not serious but only funny1 because ,mr4 ,mc,cabe thinks that funny is the opposite of serious4 ,funny is the opposite of not funny1 and of nothing else4 ,the question of whether a man expresses himself in a grotesque or laughable phraseology1 or in a stately and restrained phraseology1 is not a question of motive or of moral state1 it is a question of instinctive language and self-expression4 ,whether a man chooses to tell the truth in long sentences or short jokes is a problem analogous to whether he chooses to tell the truth in ,french or ,german4 ,whether a man preaches his gospel grotesquely or gravely is merely like the question of whether he preaches it in prose or verse4 ,the question of whether ,swift was funny in his irony is quite another sort of question to the question of whether ,swift was serious in his pessimism4 ,surely even ,mr4 ,mc,cabe would not maintain that the more funny 8,gulliver0 is in its method the less it can be sincere in its object4 ,the truth is1 as ,i have said1 that in this sense the two qualities of fun and seriousness have nothing whatever to do with each other1 they are no more comparable than black and triangular4 ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw is funny and sincere4 ,mr4 ,george ,robey is funny and not sincere4 ,mr4 ,mc,cabe is sincere and not funny4 ,the average ,cabinet ,minister is not sincere and not funny4 ,in short1 ,mr4 ,mc,cabe is under the influence of a primary fallacy which ,i have found very common in men of the clerical type4 ,numbers of clergymen have from time to time reproached me for making jokes about religion2 and they have almost always invoked the authority of that very sensible commandment which says1 8,thou shalt not take the name of the ,lord thy ,god in vain40 ,of course1 ,i pointed out that ,i was not in any conceivable sense taking the name in vain4 ,to take a thing and make a joke out of it is not to take it in vain4 ,it is1 on the contrary1 to take it and use it for an uncommonly good object4 ,to use a thing in vain means to use it without use4 ,but a joke may be exceedingly useful2 it may contain the whole earthly sense1 not to mention the whole heavenly sense1 of a situation4 ,and those who find in the ,bible the commandment can find in the ,bible any number of the jokes4 ,in the same book in which ,god's name is fenced from being taken in vain1 ,god himself overwhelms ,job with a torrent of terrible levities4 ,the same book which says that ,god's name must not be taken vainly1 talks easily and carelessly about ,god laughing and ,god winking4 ,evidently it is not here that we have to look for genuine examples of what is meant by a vain use of the name4 ,and it is not very difficult to see where we have really to look for it4 ,the people 7as ,i tactfully pointed out to them7 who really take the name of the ,lord in vain are the clergymen themselves4 ,the thing which is fundamentally and really frivolous is not a careless joke4 ,the thing which is fundamentally and really frivolous is a careless solemnity4 ,if ,mr4 ,mc,cabe really wishes to know what sort of guarantee of reality and solidity is afforded by the mere act of what is called talking seriously1 let him spend a happy ,sunday in going the round of the pulpits4 ,or1 better still1 let him drop in at the ,house of ,commons or the ,house of ,lords4 ,even ,mr4 ,mc,cabe would admit that these men are solemn--more solemn than ,i am4 ,and even ,mr4 ,mc,cabe1 ,i think1 would admit that these men are frivolous--more frivolous than ,i am4 ,why should ,mr4 ,mc,cabe be so eloquent about the danger arising from fantastic and paradoxical writers8 ,why should he be so ardent in desiring grave and verbose writers8 ,there are not so very many fantastic and paradoxical writers4 ,but there are a gigantic number of grave and verbose writers2 and it is by the efforts of the grave and verbose writers that everything that ,mr4 ,mc,cabe detests 7and everything that ,i detest1 for that matter7 is kept in existence and energy4 ,how can it have come about that a man as intelligent as ,mr4 ,mc,cabe can think that paradox and jesting stop the way8 ,it is solemnity that is stopping the way in every department of modern effort4 ,it is his own favourite 8serious methods20 it is his own favourite 8momentousness20 it is his own favourite 8judgment0 which stops the way everywhere4 ,every man who has ever headed a deputation to a minister knows this4 ,every man who has ever written a letter to the ,times knows it4 ,every rich man who wishes to stop the mouths of the poor talks about 8momentousness40 ,every ,cabinet minister who has not got an answer suddenly develops a 8judgment40 ,every sweater who uses vile methods recommends 8serious methods40 ,i said a moment ago that sincerity had nothing to do with solemnity1 but ,i confess that ,i am not so certain that ,i was right4 ,in the modern world1 at any rate1 ,i am not so sure that ,i was right4 ,in the modern world solemnity is the direct enemy of sincerity4 ,in the modern world sincerity is almost always on one side1 and solemnity almost always on the other4 ,the only answer possible to the fierce and glad attack of sincerity is the miserable answer of solemnity4 ,let ,mr4 ,mc,cabe1 or any one else who is much concerned that we should be grave in order to be sincere1 simply imagine the scene in some government office in which ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw should head a ,socialist deputation to ,mr4 ,austen ,chamberlain4 ,on which side would be the solemnity8 ,and on which the sincerity8 ,i am1 indeed1 delighted to discover that ,mr4 ,mc,cabe reckons ,mr4 ,shaw along with me in his system of condemnation of frivolity4 ,he said once1 ,i believe1 that he always wanted ,mr4 ,shaw to label his paragraphs serious or comic4 ,i do not know which paragraphs of ,mr4 ,shaw are paragraphs to be labelled serious2 but surely there can be no doubt that this paragraph of ,mr4 ,mc,cabe's is one to be labelled comic4 ,he also says1 in the article ,i am now discussing1 that ,mr4 ,shaw has the reputation of deliberately saying everything which his hearers do not expect him to say4 ,i need not labour the inconclusiveness and weakness of this1 because it has already been dealt with in my remarks on ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw4 ,suffice it to say here that the only serious reason which ,i can imagine inducing any one person to listen to any other is1 that the first person looks to the second person with an ardent faith and a fixed attention1 expecting him to say what he does not expect him to say4 ,it may be a paradox1 but that is because paradoxes are true4 ,it may not be rational1 but that is because rationalism is wrong4 ,but clearly it is quite true that whenever we go to hear a prophet or teacher we may or may not expect wit1 we may or may not expect eloquence1 but we do expect what we do not expect4 ,we may not expect the true1 we may not even expect the wise1 but we do expect the unexpected4 ,if we do not expect the unexpected1 why do we go there at all8 ,if we expect the expected1 why do we not sit at home and expect it by ourselves8 ,if ,mr4 ,mc,cabe means merely this about ,mr4 ,shaw1 that he always has some unexpected application of his doctrine to give to those who listen to him1 what he says is quite true1 and to say it is only to say that ,mr4 ,shaw is an original man4 ,but if he means that ,mr4 ,shaw has ever professed or preached any doctrine but one1 and that his own1 then what he says is not true4 ,it is not my business to defend ,mr4 ,shaw2 as has been seen already1 ,i disagree with him altogether4 ,but ,i do not mind1 on his behalf offering in this matter a flat defiance to all his ordinary opponents1 such as ,mr4 ,mc,cabe4 ,i defy ,mr4 ,mc,cabe1 or anybody else1 to mention one single instance in which ,mr4 ,shaw has1 for the sake of wit or novelty1 taken up any position which was not directly deducible from the body of his doctrine as elsewhere expressed4 ,i have been1 ,i am happy to say1 a tolerably close student of ,mr4 ,shaw's utterances1 and ,i request ,mr4 ,mc,cabe1 if he will not believe that ,i mean anything else1 to believe that ,i mean this challenge4 ,all this1 however1 is a parenthesis4 ,the thing with which ,i am here immediately concerned is ,mr4 ,mc,cabe's appeal to me not to be so frivolous4 ,let me return to the actual text of that appeal4 ,there are1 of course1 a great many things that ,i might say about it in detail4 ,but ,i may start with saying that ,mr4 ,mc,cabe is in error in supposing that the danger which ,i anticipate from the disappearance of religion is the increase of sensuality4 ,on the contrary1 ,i should be inclined to anticipate a decrease in sensuality1 because ,i anticipate a decrease in life4 ,i do not think that under modern ,western materialism we should have anarchy4 ,i doubt whether we should have enough individual valour and spirit even to have liberty4 ,it is quite an old-fashioned fallacy to suppose that our objection to scepticism is that it removes the discipline from life4 ,our objection to scepticism is that it removes the motive power4 ,materialism is not a thing which destroys mere restraint4 ,materialism itself is the great restraint4 ,the ,mc,cabe school advocates a political liberty1 but it denies spiritual liberty4 ,that is1 it abolishes the laws which could be broken1 and substitutes laws that cannot4 ,and that is the real slavery4 ,the truth is that the scientific civilization in which ,mr4 ,mc,cabe believes has one rather particular defect2 it is perpetually tending to destroy that democracy or power of the ordinary man in which ,mr4 ,mc,cabe also believes4 ,science means specialism1 and specialism means oligarchy4 ,if you once establish the habit of trusting particular men to produce particular results in physics or astronomy1 you leave the door open for the equally natural demand that you should trust particular men to do particular things in government and the coercing of men4 ,if1 you feel it to be reasonable that one beetle should be the only study of one man1 and that one man the only student of that one beetle1 it is surely a very harmless consequence to go on to say that politics should be the only study of one man1 and that one man the only student of politics4 ,as ,i have pointed out elsewhere in this book1 the expert is more aristocratic than the aristocrat1 because the aristocrat is only the man who lives well1 while the expert is the man who knows better4 ,but if we look at the progress of our scientific civilization we see a gradual increase everywhere of the specialist over the popular function4 ,once men sang together round a table in chorus2 now one man sings alone1 for the absurd reason that he can sing better4 ,if scientific civilization goes on 7which is most improbable7 only one man will laugh1 because he can laugh better than the rest4 ,i do not know that ,i can express this more shortly than by taking as a text the single sentence of ,mr4 ,mc,cabe1 which runs as follows3 8,the ballets of the ,alhambra and the fireworks of the ,crystal ,palace and ,mr4 ,chesterton's ,daily ,news articles have their places in life40 ,i wish that my articles had as noble a place as either of the other two things mentioned4 ,but let us ask ourselves 7in a spirit of love1 as ,mr4 ,chadband would say71 what are the ballets of the ,alhambra8 ,the ballets of the ,alhambra are institutions in which a particular selected row of persons in pink go through an operation known as dancing4 ,now1 in all commonwealths dominated by a religion--in the ,christian commonwealths of the ,middle ,ages and in many rude societies--this habit of dancing was a common habit with everybody1 and was not necessarily confined to a professional class4 ,a person could dance without being a dancer2 a person could dance without being a specialist2 a person could dance without being pink4 ,and1 in proportion as ,mr4 ,mc,cabe's scientific civilization advances--that is1 in proportion as religious civilization 7or real civilization7 decays--the more and more 8well trained10 the more and more pink1 become the people who do dance1 and the more and more numerous become the people who don't4 ,mr4 ,mc,cabe may recognize an example of what ,i mean in the gradual discrediting in society of the ancient ,european waltz or dance with partners1 and the substitution of that horrible and degrading oriental interlude which is known as skirt-dancing4 ,that is the whole essence of decadence1 the effacement of five people who do a thing for fun by one person who does it for money4 ,now it follows1 therefore1 that when ,mr4 ,mc,cabe says that the ballets of the ,alhambra and my articles 8have their place in life10 it ought to be pointed out to him that he is doing his best to create a world in which dancing1 properly speaking1 will have no place in life at all4 ,he is1 indeed1 trying to create a world in which there will be no life for dancing to have a place in4 ,the very fact that ,mr4 ,mc,cabe thinks of dancing as a thing belonging to some hired women at the ,alhambra is an illustration of the same principle by which he is able to think of religion as a thing belonging to some hired men in white neckties4 ,both these things are things which should not be done for us1 but by us4 ,if ,mr4 ,mc,cabe were really religious he would be happy4 ,if he were really happy he would dance4 ,briefly1 we may put the matter in this way4 ,the main point of modern life is not that the ,alhambra ballet has its place in life4 ,the main point1 the main enormous tragedy of modern life1 is that ,mr4 ,mc,cabe has not his place in the ,alhambra ballet4 ,the joy of changing and graceful posture1 the joy of suiting the swing of music to the swing of limbs1 the joy of whirling drapery1 the joy of standing on one leg1--all these should belong by rights to ,mr4 ,mc,cabe and to me2 in short1 to the ordinary healthy citizen4 ,probably we should not consent to go through these evolutions4 ,but that is because we are miserable moderns and rationalists4 ,we do not merely love ourselves more than we love duty2 we actually love ourselves more than we love joy4 ,when1 therefore1 ,mr4 ,mc,cabe says that he gives the ,alhambra dances 7and my articles7 their place in life1 ,i think we are justified in pointing out that by the very nature of the case of his philosophy and of his favourite civilization he gives them a very inadequate place4 ,for 7if ,i may pursue the too flattering parallel7 ,mr4 ,mc,cabe thinks of the ,alhambra and of my articles as two very odd and absurd things1 which some special people do 7probably for money7 in order to amuse him4 ,but if he had ever felt himself the ancient1 sublime1 elemental1 human instinct to dance1 he would have discovered that dancing is not a frivolous thing at all1 but a very serious thing4 ,he would have discovered that it is the one grave and chaste and decent method of expressing a certain class of emotions4 ,and similarly1 if he had ever had1 as ,mr4 ,shaw and ,i have had1 the impulse to what he calls paradox1 he would have discovered that paradox again is not a frivolous thing1 but a very serious thing4 ,he would have found that paradox simply means a certain defiant joy which belongs to belief4 ,i should regard any civilization which was without a universal habit of uproarious dancing as being1 from the full human point of view1 a defective civilization4 ,and ,i should regard any mind which had not got the habit in one form or another of uproarious thinking as being1 from the full human point of view1 a defective mind4 ,it is vain for ,mr4 ,mc,cabe to say that a ballet is a part of him4 ,he should be part of a ballet1 or else he is only part of a man4 ,it is in vain for him to say that he is 8not quarrelling with the importation of humour into the controversy40 ,he ought himself to be importing humour into every controversy2 for unless a man is in part a humorist1 he is only in part a man4 ,to sum up the whole matter very simply1 if ,mr4 ,mc,cabe asks me why ,i import frivolity into a discussion of the nature of man1 ,i answer1 because frivolity is a part of the nature of man4 ,if he asks me why ,i introduce what he calls paradoxes into a philosophical problem1 ,i answer1 because all philosophical problems tend to become paradoxical4 ,if he objects to my treating of life riotously1 ,i reply that life is a riot4 ,and ,i say that the ,universe as ,i see it1 at any rate1 is very much more like the fireworks at the ,crystal ,palace than it is like his own philosophy4 ,about the whole cosmos there is a tense and secret festivity--like preparations for ,guy ,fawkes' day4 ,eternity is the eve of something4 ,i never look up at the stars without feeling that they are the fires of a schoolboy's rocket1 fixed in their everlasting fall4 ,,xvii4 ,on the ,wit of ,whistler ,that capable and ingenious writer1 ,mr4 ,arthur ,symons1 has included in a book of essays recently published1 ,i believe1 an apologia for 8,london ,nights10 in which he says that morality should be wholly subordinated to art in criticism1 and he uses the somewhat singular argument that art or the worship of beauty is the same in all ages1 while morality differs in every period and in every respect4 ,he appears to defy his critics or his readers to mention any permanent feature or quality in ethics4 ,this is surely a very curious example of that extravagant bias against morality which makes so many ultra-modern aesthetes as morbid and fanatical as any ,eastern hermit4 ,unquestionably it is a very common phrase of modern intellectualism to say that the morality of one age can be entirely different to the morality of another4 ,and like a great many other phrases of modern intellectualism1 it means literally nothing at all4 ,if the two moralities are entirely different1 why do you call them both moralities8 ,it is as if a man said1 8,camels in various places are totally diverse2 some have six legs1 some have none1 some have scales1 some have feathers1 some have horns1 some have wings1 some are green1 some are triangular4 ,there is no point which they have in common40 ,the ordinary man of sense would reply1 8,then what makes you call them all camels8 ,what do you mean by a camel8 ,how do you know a camel when you see one80 ,of course1 there is a permanent substance of morality1 as much as there is a permanent substance of art2 to say that is only to say that morality is morality1 and that art is art4 ,an ideal art-critic would1 no doubt1 see the enduring beauty under every school2 equally an ideal moralist would see the enduring ethic under every code4 ,but practically some of the best ,englishmen that ever lived could see nothing but filth and idolatry in the starry piety of the ,brahmin4 ,and it is equally true that practically the greatest group of artists that the world has ever seen1 the giants of the ,renaissance1 could see nothing but barbarism in the ethereal energy of ,gothic4 ,this bias against morality among the modern aesthetes is nothing very much paraded4 ,and yet it is not really a bias against morality2 it is a bias against other people's morality4 ,it is generally founded on a very definite moral preference for a certain sort of life1 pagan1 plausible1 humane4 ,the modern aesthete1 wishing us to believe that he values beauty more than conduct1 reads ,mallarme1 and drinks absinthe in a tavern4 ,but this is not only his favourite kind of beauty2 it is also his favourite kind of conduct4 ,if he really wished us to believe that he cared for beauty only1 he ought to go to nothing but ,wesleyan school treats1 and paint the sunlight in the hair of the ,wesleyan babies4 ,he ought to read nothing but very eloquent theological sermons by old-fashioned ,presbyterian divines4 ,here the lack of all possible moral sympathy would prove that his interest was purely verbal or pictorial1 as it is2 in all the books he reads and writes he clings to the skirts of his own morality and his own immorality4 ,the champion of l'art pour l'art is always denouncing ,ruskin for his moralizing4 ,if he were really a champion of l'art pour l'art1 he would be always insisting on ,ruskin for his style4 ,the doctrine of the distinction between art and morality owes a great part of its success to art and morality being hopelessly mixed up in the persons and performances of its greatest exponents4 ,of this lucky contradiction the very incarnation was ,whistler4 ,no man ever preached the impersonality of art so well2 no man ever preached the impersonality of art so personally4 ,for him pictures had nothing to do with the problems of character2 but for all his fiercest admirers his character was1 as a matter of fact far more interesting than his pictures4 ,he gloried in standing as an artist apart from right and wrong4 ,but he succeeded by talking from morning till night about his rights and about his wrongs4 ,his talents were many1 his virtues1 it must be confessed1 not many1 beyond that kindness to tried friends1 on which many of his biographers insist1 but which surely is a quality of all sane men1 of pirates and pickpockets2 beyond this1 his outstanding virtues limit themselves chiefly to two admirable ones--courage and an abstract love of good work4 ,yet ,i fancy he won at last more by those two virtues than by all his talents4 ,a man must be something of a moralist if he is to preach1 even if he is to preach unmorality4 ,professor ,walter ,raleigh1 in his 8,in ,memoriam3 ,james ,mc,neill ,whistler10 insists1 truly enough1 on the strong streak of an eccentric honesty in matters strictly pictorial1 which ran through his complex and slightly confused character4 8,he would destroy any of his works rather than leave a careless or inexpressive touch within the limits of the frame4 ,he would begin again a hundred times over rather than attempt by patching to make his work seem better than it was40 ,no one will blame ,professor ,raleigh1 who had to read a sort of funeral oration over ,whistler at the opening of the ,memorial ,exhibition1 if1 finding himself in that position1 he confined himself mostly to the merits and the stronger qualities of his subject4 ,we should naturally go to some other type of composition for a proper consideration of the weaknesses of ,whistler4 ,but these must never be omitted from our view of him4 ,indeed1 the truth is that it was not so much a question of the weaknesses of ,whistler as of the intrinsic and primary weakness of ,whistler4 ,he was one of those people who live up to their emotional incomes1 who are always taut and tingling with vanity4 ,hence he had no strength to spare2 hence he had no kindness1 no geniality2 for geniality is almost definable as strength to spare4 ,he had no god-like carelessness2 he never forgot himself2 his whole life was1 to use his own expression1 an arrangement4 ,he went in for 8the art of living0--a miserable trick4 ,in a word1 he was a great artist2 but emphatically not a great man4 ,in this connection ,i must differ strongly with ,professor ,raleigh upon what is1 from a superficial literary point of view1 one of his most effective points4 ,he compares ,whistler's laughter to the laughter of another man who was a great man as well as a great artist4 8,his attitude to the public was exactly the attitude taken up by ,robert ,browning1 who suffered as long a period of neglect and mistake1 in those lines of #8,the ,ring and the ,book'-- 8#8,well1 ,british ,public1 ye who like me not1 7,god love you67 and will have your proper laugh ,at the dark question2 laugh it6 ,i'd laugh first4' 8,mr4 ,whistler10 adds ,professor ,raleigh1 8always laughed first40 ,the truth is1 ,i believe1 that ,whistler never laughed at all4 ,there was no laughter in his nature2 because there was no thoughtlessness and self-abandonment1 no humility4 ,i cannot understand anybody reading 8,the ,gentle ,art of ,making ,enemies0 and thinking that there is any laughter in the wit4 ,his wit is a torture to him4 ,he twists himself into arabesques of verbal felicity2 he is full of a fierce carefulness2 he is inspired with the complete seriousness of sincere malice4 ,he hurts himself to hurt his opponent4 ,browning did laugh1 because ,browning did not care2 ,browning did not care1 because ,browning was a great man4 ,and when ,browning said in brackets to the simple1 sensible people who did not like his books1 8,god love you60 he was not sneering in the least4 ,he was laughing--that is to say1 he meant exactly what he said4 ,there are three distinct classes of great satirists who are also great men--that is to say1 three classes of men who can laugh at something without losing their souls4 ,the satirist of the first type is the man who1 first of all enjoys himself1 and then enjoys his enemies4 ,in this sense he loves his enemy1 and by a kind of exaggeration of ,christianity he loves his enemy the more the more he becomes an enemy4 ,he has a sort of overwhelming and aggressive happiness in his assertion of anger2 his curse is as human as a benediction4 ,of this type of satire the great example is ,rabelais4 ,this is the first typical example of satire1 the satire which is voluble1 which is violent1 which is indecent1 but which is not malicious4 ,the satire of ,whistler was not this4 ,he was never in any of his controversies simply happy2 the proof of it is that he never talked absolute nonsense4 ,there is a second type of mind which produces satire with the quality of greatness4 ,that is embodied in the satirist whose passions are released and let go by some intolerable sense of wrong4 ,he is maddened by the sense of men being maddened2 his tongue becomes an unruly member1 and testifies against all mankind4 ,such a man was ,swift1 in whom the saeva indignatio was a bitterness to others1 because it was a bitterness to himself4 ,such a satirist ,whistler was not4 ,he did not laugh because he was happy1 like ,rabelais4 ,but neither did he laugh because he was unhappy1 like ,swift4 ,the third type of great satire is that in which he satirist is enabled to rise superior to his victim in the only serious sense which superiority can bear1 in that of pitying the sinner and respecting the man even while he satirises both4 ,such an achievement can be found in a thing like ,pope's 8,atticus0 a poem in which the satirist feels that he is satirising the weaknesses which belong specially to literary genius4 ,consequently he takes a pleasure in pointing out his enemy's strength before he points out his weakness4 ,that is1 perhaps1 the highest and most honourable form of satire4 ,that is not the satire of ,whistler4 ,he is not full of a great sorrow for the wrong done to human nature2 for him the wrong is altogether done to himself4 ,he was not a great personality1 because he thought so much about himself4 ,and the case is stronger even than that4 ,he was sometimes not even a great artist1 because he thought so much about art4 ,any man with a vital knowledge of the human psychology ought to have the most profound suspicion of anybody who claims to be an artist1 and talks a great deal about art4 ,art is a right and human thing1 like walking or saying one's prayers2 but the moment it begins to be talked about very solemnly1 a man may be fairly certain that the thing has come into a congestion and a kind of difficulty4 ,the artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs4 ,it is a disease which arises from men not having sufficient power of expression to utter and get rid of the element of art in their being4 ,it is healthful to every sane man to utter the art within him2 it is essential to every sane man to get rid of the art within him at all costs4 ,artists of a large and wholesome vitality get rid of their art easily1 as they breathe easily1 or perspire easily4 ,but in artists of less force1 the thing becomes a pressure1 and produces a definite pain1 which is called the artistic temperament4 ,thus1 very great artists are able to be ordinary men--men like ,shakespeare or ,browning4 ,there are many real tragedies of the artistic temperament1 tragedies of vanity or violence or fear4 ,but the great tragedy of the artistic temperament is that it cannot produce any art4 ,whistler could produce art2 and in so far he was a great man4 ,but he could not forget art2 and in so far he was only a man with the artistic temperament4 ,there can be no stronger manifestation of the man who is a really great artist than the fact that he can dismiss the subject of art2 that he can1 upon due occasion1 wish art at the bottom of the sea4 ,similarly1 we should always be much more inclined to trust a solicitor who did not talk about conveyancing over the nuts and wine4 ,what we really desire of any man conducting any business is that the full force of an ordinary man should be put into that particular study4 ,we do not desire that the full force of that study should be put into an ordinary man4 ,we do not in the least wish that our particular law-suit should pour its energy into our barrister's games with his children1 or rides on his bicycle1 or meditations on the morning star4 ,but we do1 as a matter of fact1 desire that his games with his children1 and his rides on his bicycle1 and his meditations on the morning star should pour something of their energy into our law-suit4 ,we do desire that if he has gained any especial lung development from the bicycle1 or any bright and pleasing metaphors from the morning star1 that the should be placed at our disposal in that particular forensic controversy4 ,in a word1 we are very glad that he is an ordinary man1 since that may help him to be an exceptional lawyer4 ,whistler never ceased to be an artist4 ,as ,mr4 ,max ,beerbohm pointed out in one of his extraordinarily sensible and sincere critiques1 ,whistler really regarded ,whistler as his greatest work of art4 ,the white lock1 the single eyeglass1 the remarkable hat--these were much dearer to him than any nocturnes or arrangements that he ever threw off4 ,he could throw off the nocturnes2 for some mysterious reason he could not throw off the hat4 ,he never threw off from himself that disproportionate accumulation of aestheticism which is the burden of the amateur4 ,it need hardly be said that this is the real explanation of the thing which has puzzled so many dilettante critics1 the problem of the extreme ordinariness of the behaviour of so many great geniuses in history4 ,their behaviour was so ordinary that it was not recorded2 hence it was so ordinary that it seemed mysterious4 ,hence people say that ,bacon wrote ,shakespeare4 ,the modern artistic temperament cannot understand how a man who could write such lyrics as ,shakespeare wrote1 could be as keen as ,shakespeare was on business transactions in a little town in ,warwickshire4 ,the explanation is simple enough2 it is that ,shakespeare had a real lyrical impulse1 wrote a real lyric1 and so got rid of the impulse and went about his business4 ,being an artist did not prevent him from being an ordinary man1 any more than being a sleeper at night or being a diner at dinner prevented him from being an ordinary man4 ,all very great teachers and leaders have had this habit of assuming their point of view to be one which was human and casual1 one which would readily appeal to every passing man4 ,if a man is genuinely superior to his fellows the first thing that he believes in is the equality of man4 ,we can see this1 for instance1 in that strange and innocent rationality with which ,christ addressed any motley crowd that happened to stand about ,him4 8,what man of you having a hundred sheep1 and losing one1 would not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness1 and go after that which was lost80 ,or1 again1 8,what man of you if his son ask for bread will he give him a stone1 or if he ask for a fish will he give him a serpent80 ,this plainness1 this almost prosaic camaraderie1 is the note of all very great minds4 ,to very great minds the things on which men agree are so immeasurably more important than the things on which they differ1 that the latter1 for all practical purposes1 disappear4 ,they have too much in them of an ancient laughter even to endure to discuss the difference between the hats of two men who were both born of a woman1 or between the subtly varied cultures of two men who have both to die4 ,the first-rate great man is equal with other men1 like ,shakespeare4 ,the second-rate great man is on his knees to other men1 like ,whitman4 ,the third-rate great man is superior to other men1 like ,whistler4 ,,xviii4 ,the ,fallacy of the ,young ,nation ,to say that a man is an idealist is merely to say that he is a man2 but1 nevertheless1 it might be possible to effect some valid distinction between one kind of idealist and another4 ,one possible distinction1 for instance1 could be effected by saying that humanity is divided into conscious idealists and unconscious idealists4 ,in a similar way1 humanity is divided into conscious ritualists and unconscious ritualists4 ,the curious thing is1 in that example as in others1 that it is the conscious ritualism which is comparatively simple1 the unconscious ritual which is really heavy and complicated4 ,the ritual which is comparatively rude and straightforward is the ritual which people call 8ritualistic40 ,it consists of plain things like bread and wine and fire1 and men falling on their faces4 ,but the ritual which is really complex1 and many coloured1 and elaborate1 and needlessly formal1 is the ritual which people enact without knowing it4 ,it consists not of plain things like wine and fire1 but of really peculiar1 and local1 and exceptional1 and ingenious things--things like door-mats1 and door-knockers1 and electric bells1 and silk hats1 and white ties1 and shiny cards1 and confetti4 ,the truth is that the modern man scarcely ever gets back to very old and simple things except when he is performing some religious mummery4 ,the modern man can hardly get away from ritual except by entering a ritualistic church4 ,in the case of these old and mystical formalities we can at least say that the ritual is not mere ritual2 that the symbols employed are in most cases symbols which belong to a primary human poetry4 ,the most ferocious opponent of the ,christian ceremonials must admit that if ,catholicism had not instituted the bread and wine1 somebody else would most probably have done so4 ,any one with a poetical instinct will admit that to the ordinary human instinct bread symbolizes something which cannot very easily be symbolized otherwise2 that wine1 to the ordinary human instinct1 symbolizes something which cannot very easily be symbolized otherwise4 ,but white ties in the evening are ritual1 and nothing else but ritual4 ,no one would pretend that white ties in the evening are primary and poetical4 ,nobody would maintain that the ordinary human instinct would in any age or country tend to symbolize the idea of evening by a white necktie4 ,rather1 the ordinary human instinct would1 ,i imagine1 tend to symbolize evening by cravats with some of the colours of the sunset1 not white neckties1 but tawny or crimson neckties--neckties of purple or olive1 or some darkened gold4 ,mr4 ,j4 ,a4 ,kensit1 for example1 is under the impression that he is not a ritualist4 ,but the daily life of ,mr4 ,j4 ,a4 ,kensit1 like that of any ordinary modern man1 is1 as a matter of fact1 one continual and compressed catalogue of mystical mummery and flummery4 ,to take one instance out of an inevitable hundred3 ,i imagine that ,mr4 ,kensit takes off his hat to a lady2 and what can be more solemn and absurd1 considered in the abstract1 than1 symbolizing the existence of the other sex by taking off a portion of your clothing and waving it in the air8 ,this1 ,i repeat1 is not a natural and primitive symbol1 like fire or food4 ,a man might just as well have to take off his waistcoat to a lady2 and if a man1 by the social ritual of his civilization1 had to take off his waistcoat to a lady1 every chivalrous and sensible man would take off his waistcoat to a lady4 ,in short1 ,mr4 ,kensit1 and those who agree with him1 may think1 and quite sincerely think1 that men give too much incense and ceremonial to their adoration of the other world4 ,but nobody thinks that he can give too much incense and ceremonial to the adoration of this world4 ,all men1 then1 are ritualists1 but are either conscious or unconscious ritualists4 ,the conscious ritualists are generally satisfied with a few very simple and elementary signs2 the unconscious ritualists are not satisfied with anything short of the whole of human life1 being almost insanely ritualistic4 ,the first is called a ritualist because he invents and remembers one rite2 the other is called an anti-ritualist because he obeys and forgets a thousand4 ,and a somewhat similar distinction to this which ,i have drawn with some unavoidable length1 between the conscious ritualist and the unconscious ritualist1 exists between the conscious idealist and the unconscious idealist4 ,it is idle to inveigh against cynics and materialists--there are no cynics1 there are no materialists4 ,every man is idealistic2 only it so often happens that he has the wrong ideal4 ,every man is incurably sentimental2 but1 unfortunately1 it is so often a false sentiment4 ,when we talk1 for instance1 of some unscrupulous commercial figure1 and say that he would do anything for money1 we use quite an inaccurate expression1 and we slander him very much4 ,he would not do anything for money4 ,he would do some things for money2 he would sell his soul for money1 for instance2 and1 as ,mirabeau humorously said1 he would be quite wise 8to take money for muck40 ,he would oppress humanity for money2 but then it happens that humanity and the soul are not things that he believes in2 they are not his ideals4 ,but he has his own dim and delicate ideals2 and he would not violate these for money4 ,he would not drink out of the soup-tureen1 for money4 ,he would not wear his coat-tails in front1 for money4 ,he would not spread a report that he had softening of the brain1 for money4 ,in the actual practice of life we find1 in the matter of ideals1 exactly what we have already found in the matter of ritual4 ,we find that while there is a perfectly genuine danger of fanaticism from the men who have unworldly ideals1 the permanent and urgent danger of fanaticism is from the men who have worldly ideals4 ,people who say that an ideal is a dangerous thing1 that it deludes and intoxicates1 are perfectly right4 ,but the ideal which intoxicates most is the least idealistic kind of ideal4 ,the ideal which intoxicates least is the very ideal ideal2 that sobers us suddenly1 as all heights and precipices and great distances do4 ,granted that it is a great evil to mistake a cloud for a cape2 still1 the cloud1 which can be most easily mistaken for a cape1 is the cloud that is nearest the earth4 ,similarly1 we may grant that it may be dangerous to mistake an ideal for something practical4 ,but we shall still point out that1 in this respect1 the most dangerous ideal of all is the ideal which looks a little practical4 ,it is difficult to attain a high ideal2 consequently1 it is almost impossible to persuade ourselves that we have attained it4 ,but it is easy to attain a low ideal2 consequently1 it is easier still to persuade ourselves that we have attained it when we have done nothing of the kind4 ,to take a random example4 ,it might be called a high ambition to wish to be an archangel2 the man who entertained such an ideal would very possibly exhibit asceticism1 or even frenzy1 but not1 ,i think1 delusion4 ,he would not think he was an archangel1 and go about flapping his hands under the impression that they were wings4 ,but suppose that a sane man had a low ideal2 suppose he wished to be a gentleman4 ,any one who knows the world knows that in nine weeks he would have persuaded himself that he was a gentleman2 and this being manifestly not the case1 the result will be very real and practical dislocations and calamities in social life4 ,it is not the wild ideals which wreck the practical world2 it is the tame ideals4 ,the matter may1 perhaps1 be illustrated by a parallel from our modern politics4 ,when men tell us that the old ,liberal politicians of the type of ,gladstone cared only for ideals1 of course1 they are talking nonsense--they cared for a great many other things1 including votes4 ,and when men tell us that modern politicians of the type of ,mr4 ,chamberlain or1 in another way1 ,lord ,rosebery1 care only for votes or for material interest1 then again they are talking nonsense--these men care for ideals like all other men4 ,but the real distinction which may be drawn is this1 that to the older politician the ideal was an ideal1 and nothing else4 ,to the new politician his dream is not only a good dream1 it is a reality4 ,the old politician would have said1 8,it would be a good thing if there were a ,republican ,federation dominating the world40 ,but the modern politician does not say1 8,it would be a good thing if there were a ,british ,imperialism dominating the world40 ,he says1 8,it is a good thing that there is a ,british ,imperialism dominating the world20 whereas clearly there is nothing of the kind4 ,the old ,liberal would say 8,there ought to be a good ,irish government in ,ireland40 ,but the ordinary modern ,unionist does not say1 8,there ought to be a good ,english government in ,ireland40 ,he says1 8,there is a good ,english government in ,ireland20 which is absurd4 ,in short1 the modern politicians seem to think that a man becomes practical merely by making assertions entirely about practical things4 ,apparently1 a delusion does not matter as long as it is a materialistic delusion4 ,instinctively most of us feel that1 as a practical matter1 even the contrary is true4 ,i certainly would much rather share my apartments with a gentleman who thought he was ,god than with a gentleman who thought he was a grasshopper4 ,to be continually haunted by practical images and practical problems1 to be constantly thinking of things as actual1 as urgent1 as in process of completion--these things do not prove a man to be practical2 these things1 indeed1 are among the most ordinary signs of a lunatic4 ,that our modern statesmen are materialistic is nothing against their being also morbid4 ,seeing angels in a vision may make a man a supernaturalist to excess4 ,but merely seeing snakes in delirium tremens does not make him a naturalist4 ,and when we come actually to examine the main stock notions of our modern practical politicians1 we find that those main stock notions are mainly delusions4 ,a great many instances might be given of the fact4 ,we might take1 for example1 the case of that strange class of notions which underlie the word 8union10 and all the eulogies heaped upon it4 ,of course1 union is no more a good thing in itself than separation is a good thing in itself4 ,to have a party in favour of union and a party in favour of separation is as absurd as to have a party in favour of going upstairs and a party in favour of going downstairs4 ,the question is not whether we go up or down stairs1 but where we are going to1 and what we are going1 for8 ,union is strength2 union is also weakness4 ,it is a good thing to harness two horses to a cart2 but it is not a good thing to try and turn two hansom cabs into one four-wheeler4 ,turning ten nations into one empire may happen to be as feasible as turning ten shillings into one half-sovereign4 ,also it may happen to be as preposterous as turning ten terriers into one mastiff4 ,the question in all cases is not a question of union or absence of union1 but of identity or absence of identity4 ,owing to certain historical and moral causes1 two nations may be so united as upon the whole to help each other4 ,thus ,england and ,scotland pass their time in paying each other compliments2 but their energies and atmospheres run distinct and parallel1 and consequently do not clash4 ,scotland continues to be educated and ,calvinistic2 ,england continues to be uneducated and happy4 ,but owing to certain other ,moral and certain other political causes1 two nations may be so united as only to hamper each other2 their lines do clash and do not run parallel4 ,thus1 for instance1 ,england and ,ireland are so united that the ,irish can sometimes rule ,england1 but can never rule ,ireland4 ,the educational systems1 including the last ,education ,act1 are here1 as in the case of ,scotland1 a very good test of the matter4 ,the overwhelming majority of ,irishmen believe in a strict ,catholicism2 the overwhelming majority of ,englishmen believe in a vague ,protestantism4 ,the ,irish party in the ,parliament of ,union is just large enough to prevent the ,english education being indefinitely ,protestant1 and just small enough to prevent the ,irish education being definitely ,catholic4 ,here we have a state of things which no man in his senses would ever dream of wishing to continue if he had not been bewitched by the sentimentalism of the mere word 8union40 ,this example of union1 however1 is not the example which ,i propose to take of the ingrained futility and deception underlying all the assumptions of the modern practical politician4 ,i wish to speak especially of another and much more general delusion4 ,it pervades the minds and speeches of all the practical men of all parties2 and it is a childish blunder built upon a single false metaphor4 ,i refer to the universal modern talk about young nations and new nations2 about ,america being young1 about ,new ,zealand being new4 ,the whole thing is a trick of words4 ,america is not young1 ,new ,zealand is not new4 ,it is a very discussable question whether they are not both much older than ,england or ,ireland4 ,of course we may use the metaphor of youth about ,america or the colonies1 if we use it strictly as implying only a recent origin4 ,but if we use it 7as we do use it7 as implying vigour1 or vivacity1 or crudity1 or inexperience1 or hope1 or a long life before them or any of the romantic attributes of youth1 then it is surely as clear as daylight that we are duped by a stale figure of speech4 ,we can easily see the matter clearly by applying it to any other institution parallel to the institution of an independent nationality4 ,if a club called 8,the ,milk and ,soda ,league0 7let us say7 was set up yesterday1 as ,i have no doubt it was1 then1 of course1 8,the ,milk and ,soda ,league0 is a young club in the sense that it was set up yesterday1 but in no other sense4 ,it may consist entirely of moribund old gentlemen4 ,it may be moribund itself4 ,we may call it a young club1 in the light of the fact that it was founded yesterday4 ,we may also call it a very old club in the light of the fact that it will most probably go bankrupt to-morrow4 ,all this appears very obvious when we put it in this form4 ,any one who adopted the young-community delusion with regard to a bank or a butcher's shop would be sent to an asylum4 ,but the whole modern political notion that ,america and the colonies must be very vigorous because they are very new1 rests upon no better foundation4 ,that ,america was founded long after ,england does not make it even in the faintest degree more probable that ,america will not perish a long time before ,england4 ,that ,england existed before her colonies does not make it any the less likely that she will exist after her colonies4 ,and when we look at the actual history of the world1 we find that great ,european nations almost invariably have survived the vitality of their colonies4 ,when we look at the actual history of the world1 we find1 that if there is a thing that is born old and dies young1 it is a colony4 ,the ,greek colonies went to pieces long before the ,greek civilization4 ,the ,spanish colonies have gone to pieces long before the nation of ,spain--nor does there seem to be any reason to doubt the possibility or even the probability of the conclusion that the colonial civilization1 which owes its origin to ,england1 will be much briefer and much less vigorous than the civilization of ,england itself4 ,the ,english nation will still be going the way of all ,european nations when the ,anglo-,saxon race has gone the way of all fads4 ,now1 of course1 the interesting question is1 have we1 in the case of ,america and the colonies1 any real evidence of a moral and intellectual youth as opposed to the indisputable triviality of a merely chronological youth8 ,consciously or unconsciously1 we know that we have no such evidence1 and consciously or unconsciously1 therefore1 we proceed to make it up4 ,of this pure and placid invention1 a good example1 for instance1 can be found in a recent poem of ,mr4 ,rudyard ,kipling's4 ,speaking of the ,english people and the ,south ,african ,war ,mr4 ,kipling says that 8we fawned on the younger nations for the men that could shoot and ride40 ,some people considered this sentence insulting4 ,all that ,i am concerned with at present is the evident fact that it is not true4 ,the colonies provided very useful volunteer troops1 but they did not provide the best troops1 nor achieve the most successful exploits4 ,the best work in the war on the ,english side was done1 as might have been expected1 by the best ,english regiments4 ,the men who could shoot and ride were not the enthusiastic corn merchants from ,melbourne1 any more than they were the enthusiastic clerks from ,cheapside4 ,the men who could shoot and ride were the men who had been taught to shoot and ride in the discipline of the standing army of a great ,european power4 ,of course1 the colonials are as brave and athletic as any other average white men4 ,of course1 they acquitted themselves with reasonable credit4 ,all ,i have here to indicate is that1 for the purposes of this theory of the new nation1 it is necessary to maintain that the colonial forces were more useful or more heroic than the gunners at ,colenso or the ,fighting ,fifth4 ,and of this contention there is not1 and never has been1 one stick or straw of evidence4 ,a similar attempt is made1 and with even less success1 to represent the literature of the colonies as something fresh and vigorous and important4 ,the imperialist magazines are constantly springing upon us some genius from ,queensland or ,canada1 through whom we are expected to smell the odours of the bush or the prairie4 ,as a matter of fact1 any one who is even slightly interested in literature as such 7and ,i1 for one1 confess that ,i am only slightly interested in literature as such71 will freely admit that the stories of these geniuses smell of nothing but printer's ink1 and that not of first-rate quality4 ,by a great effort of ,imperial imagination the generous ,english people reads into these works a force and a novelty4 ,but the force and the novelty are not in the new writers2 the force and the novelty are in the ancient heart of the ,english4 ,anybody who studies them impartially will know that the first-rate writers of the colonies are not even particularly novel in their note and atmosphere1 are not only not producing a new kind of good literature1 but are not even in any particular sense producing a new kind of bad literature4 ,the first-rate writers of the new countries are really almost exactly like the second-rate writers of the old countries4 ,of course they do feel the mystery of the wilderness1 the mystery of the bush1 for all simple and honest men feel this in ,melbourne1 or ,margate1 or ,south ,st4 ,pancras4 ,but when they write most sincerely and most successfully1 it is not with a background of the mystery of the bush1 but with a background1 expressed or assumed1 of our own romantic cockney civilization4 ,what really moves their souls with a kindly terror is not the mystery of the wilderness1 but the ,mystery of a ,hansom ,cab4 ,of course there are some exceptions to this generalization4 ,the one really arresting exception is ,olive ,schreiner1 and she is quite as certainly an exception that proves the rule4 ,olive ,schreiner is a fierce1 brilliant1 and realistic novelist2 but she is all this precisely because she is not ,english at all4 ,her tribal kinship is with the country of ,teniers and ,maarten ,maartens--that is1 with a country of realists4 ,her literary kinship is with the pessimistic fiction of the continent2 with the novelists whose very pity is cruel4 ,olive ,schreiner is the one ,english colonial who is not conventional1 for the simple reason that ,south ,africa is the one ,english colony which is not ,english1 and probably never will be4 ,and1 of course1 there are individual exceptions in a minor way4 ,i remember in particular some ,australian tales by ,mr4 ,mc,ilwain which were really able and effective1 and which1 for that reason1 ,i suppose1 are not presented to the public with blasts of a trumpet4 ,but my general contention if put before any one with a love of letters1 will not be disputed if it is understood4 ,it is not the truth that the colonial civilization as a whole is giving us1 or shows any signs of giving us1 a literature which will startle and renovate our own4 ,it may be a very good thing for us to have an affectionate illusion in the matter2 that is quite another affair4 ,the colonies may have given ,england a new emotion2 ,i only say that they have not given the world a new book4 ,touching these ,english colonies1 ,i do not wish to be misunderstood4 ,i do not say of them or of ,america that they have not a future1 or that they will not be great nations4 ,i merely deny the whole established modern expression about them4 ,i deny that they are 8destined0 to a future4 ,i deny that they are 8destined0 to be great nations4 ,i deny 7of course7 that any human thing is destined to be anything4 ,all the absurd physical metaphors1 such as youth and age1 living and dying1 are1 when applied to nations1 but pseudo-scientific attempts to conceal from men the awful liberty of their lonely souls4 ,in the case of ,america1 indeed1 a warning to this effect is instant and essential4 ,america1 of course1 like every other human thing1 can in spiritual sense live or die as much as it chooses4 ,but at the present moment the matter which ,america has very seriously to consider is not how near it is to its birth and beginning1 but how near it may be to its end4 ,it is only a verbal question whether the ,american civilization is young2 it may become a very practical and urgent question whether it is dying4 ,when once we have cast aside1 as we inevitably have after a moment's thought1 the fanciful physical metaphor involved in the word 8youth10 what serious evidence have we that ,america is a fresh force and not a stale one8 ,it has a great many people1 like ,china2 it has a great deal of money1 like defeated ,carthage or dying ,venice4 ,it is full of bustle and excitability1 like ,athens after its ruin1 and all the ,greek cities in their decline4 ,it is fond of new things2 but the old are always fond of new things4 ,young men read chronicles1 but old men read newspapers4 ,it admires strength and good looks2 it admires a big and barbaric beauty in its women1 for instance2 but so did ,rome when the ,goth was at the gates4 ,all these are things quite compatible with fundamental tedium and decay4 ,there are three main shapes or symbols in which a nation can show itself essentially glad and great--by the heroic in government1 by the heroic in arms1 and by the heroic in art4 ,beyond government1 which is1 as it were1 the very shape and body of a nation1 the most significant thing about any citizen is his artistic attitude towards a holiday and his moral attitude towards a fight--that is1 his way of accepting life and his way of accepting death4 ,subjected to these eternal tests1 ,america does not appear by any means as particularly fresh or untouched4 ,she appears with all the weakness and weariness of modern ,england or of any other ,western power4 ,in her politics she has broken up exactly as ,england has broken up1 into a bewildering opportunism and insincerity4 ,in the matter of war and the national attitude towards war1 her resemblance to ,england is even more manifest and melancholy4 ,it may be said with rough accuracy that there are three stages in the life of a strong people4 ,first1 it is a small power1 and fights small powers4 ,then it is a great power1 and fights great powers4 ,then it is a great power1 and fights small powers1 but pretends that they are great powers1 in order to rekindle the ashes of its ancient emotion and vanity4 ,after that1 the next step is to become a small power itself4 ,england exhibited this symptom of decadence very badly in the war with the ,transvaal2 but ,america exhibited it worse in the war with ,spain4 ,there was exhibited more sharply and absurdly than anywhere else the ironic contrast between the very careless choice of a strong line and the very careful choice of a weak enemy4 ,america added to all her other late ,roman or ,byzantine elements the element of the ,caracallan triumph1 the triumph over nobody4 ,but when we come to the last test of nationality1 the test of art and letters1 the case is almost terrible4 ,the ,english colonies have produced no great artists2 and that fact may prove that they are still full of silent possibilities and reserve force4 ,but ,america has produced great artists4 ,and that fact most certainly proves that she is full of a fine futility and the end of all things4 ,whatever the ,american men of genius are1 they are not young gods making a young world4 ,is the art of ,whistler a brave1 barbaric art1 happy and headlong8 ,does ,mr4 ,henry ,james infect us with the spirit of a schoolboy8 ,no2 the colonies have not spoken1 and they are safe4 ,their silence may be the silence of the unborn4 ,but out of ,america has come a sweet and startling cry1 as unmistakable as the cry of a dying man4 ,,xix4 ,slum ,novelists and the ,slums ,odd ideas are entertained in our time about the real nature of the doctrine of human fraternity4 ,the real doctrine is something which we do not1 with all our modern humanitarianism1 very clearly understand1 much less very closely practise4 ,there is nothing1 for instance1 particularly undemocratic about kicking your butler downstairs4 ,it may be wrong1 but it is not unfraternal4 ,in a certain sense1 the blow or kick may be considered as a confession of equality3 you are meeting your butler body to body2 you are almost according him the privilege of the duel4 ,there is nothing1 undemocratic1 though there may be something unreasonable1 in expecting a great deal from the butler1 and being filled with a kind of frenzy of surprise when he falls short of the divine stature4 ,the thing which is really undemocratic and unfraternal is not to expect the butler to be more or less divine4 ,the thing which is really undemocratic and unfraternal is to say1 as so many modern humanitarians say1 8,of course one must make allowances for those on a lower plane40 ,all things considered indeed1 it may be said1 without undue exaggeration1 that the really undemocratic and unfraternal thing is the common practice of not kicking the butler downstairs4 ,it is only because such a vast section of the modern world is out of sympathy with the serious democratic sentiment that this statement will seem to many to be lacking in seriousness4 ,democracy is not philanthropy2 it is not even altruism or social reform4 ,democracy is not founded on pity for the common man2 democracy is founded on reverence for the common man1 or1 if you will1 even on fear of him4 ,it does not champion man because man is so miserable1 but because man is so sublime4 ,it does not object so much to the ordinary man being a slave as to his not being a king1 for its dream is always the dream of the first ,roman republic1 a nation of kings4 ,next to a genuine republic1 the most democratic thing in the world is a hereditary despotism4 ,i mean a despotism in which there is absolutely no trace whatever of any nonsense about intellect or special fitness for the post4 ,rational despotism--that is1 selective despotism--is always a curse to mankind1 because with that you have the ordinary man misunderstood and misgoverned by some prig who has no brotherly respect for him at all4 ,but irrational despotism is always democratic1 because it is the ordinary man enthroned4 ,the worst form of slavery is that which is called ,caesarism1 or the choice of some bold or brilliant man as despot because he is suitable4 ,for that means that men choose a representative1 not because he represents them1 but because he does not4 ,men trust an ordinary man like ,george ,,iii or ,william ,,iv4 because they are themselves ordinary men and understand him4 ,men trust an ordinary man because they trust themselves4 ,but men trust a great man because they do not trust themselves4 ,and hence the worship of great men always appears in times of weakness and cowardice2 we never hear of great men until the time when all other men are small4 ,hereditary despotism is1 then1 in essence and sentiment democratic because it chooses from mankind at random4 ,if it does not declare that every man may rule1 it declares the next most democratic thing2 it declares that any man may rule4 ,hereditary aristocracy is a far worse and more dangerous thing1 because the numbers and multiplicity of an aristocracy make it sometimes possible for it to figure as an aristocracy of intellect4 ,some of its members will presumably have brains1 and thus they1 at any rate1 will be an intellectual aristocracy within the social one4 ,they will rule the aristocracy by virtue of their intellect1 and they will rule the country by virtue of their aristocracy4 ,thus a double falsity will be set up1 and millions of the images of ,god1 who1 fortunately for their wives and families1 are neither gentlemen nor clever men1 will be represented by a man like ,mr4 ,balfour or ,mr4 ,wyndham1 because he is too gentlemanly to be called merely clever1 and just too clever to be called merely a gentleman4 ,but even an hereditary aristocracy may exhibit1 by a sort of accident1 from time to time some of the basically democratic quality which belongs to a hereditary despotism4 ,it is amusing to think how much conservative ingenuity has been wasted in the defence of the ,house of ,lords by men who were desperately endeavouring to prove that the ,house of ,lords consisted of clever men4 ,there is one really good defence of the ,house of ,lords1 though admirers of the peerage are strangely coy about using it2 and that is1 that the ,house of ,lords1 in its full and proper strength1 consists of stupid men4 ,it really would be a plausible defence of that otherwise indefensible body to point out that the clever men in the ,commons1 who owed their power to cleverness1 ought in the last resort to be checked by the average man in the ,lords1 who owed their power to accident4 ,of course1 there would be many answers to such a contention1 as1 for instance1 that the ,house of ,lords is largely no longer a ,house of ,lords1 but a ,house of tradesmen and financiers1 or that the bulk of the commonplace nobility do not vote1 and so leave the chamber to the prigs and the specialists and the mad old gentlemen with hobbies4 ,but on some occasions the ,house of ,lords1 even under all these disadvantages1 is in some sense representative4 ,when all the peers flocked together to vote against ,mr4 ,gladstone's second ,home ,rule ,bill1 for instance1 those who said that the peers represented the ,english people1 were perfectly right4 ,all those dear old men who happened to be born peers were at that moment1 and upon that question1 the precise counterpart of all the dear old men who happened to be born paupers or middle-class gentlemen4 ,that mob of peers did really represent the ,english people--that is to say1 it was honest1 ignorant1 vaguely excited1 almost unanimous1 and obviously wrong4 ,of course1 rational democracy is better as an expression of the public will than the haphazard hereditary method4 ,while we are about having any kind of democracy1 let it be rational democracy4 ,but if we are to have any kind of oligarchy1 let it be irrational oligarchy4 ,then at least we shall be ruled by men4 ,but the thing which is really required for the proper working of democracy is not merely the democratic system1 or even the democratic philosophy1 but the democratic emotion4 ,the democratic emotion1 like most elementary and indispensable things1 is a thing difficult to describe at any time4 ,but it is peculiarly difficult to describe it in our enlightened age1 for the simple reason that it is peculiarly difficult to find it4 ,it is a certain instinctive attitude which feels the things in which all men agree to be unspeakably important1 and all the things in which they differ 7such as mere brains7 to be almost unspeakably unimportant4 ,the nearest approach to it in our ordinary life would be the promptitude with which we should consider mere humanity in any circumstance of shock or death4 ,we should say1 after a somewhat disturbing discovery1 8,there is a dead man under the sofa40 ,we should not be likely to say1 8,there is a dead man of considerable personal refinement under the sofa40 ,we should say1 8,a woman has fallen into the water40 ,we should not say1 8,a highly educated woman has fallen into the water40 ,nobody would say1 8,there are the remains of a clear thinker in your back garden40 ,nobody would say1 8,unless you hurry up and stop him1 a man with a very fine ear for music will have jumped off that cliff40 ,but this emotion1 which all of us have in connection with such things as birth and death1 is to some people native and constant at all ordinary times and in all ordinary places4 ,it was native to ,st4 ,francis of ,assisi4 ,it was native to ,walt ,whitman4 ,in this strange and splendid degree it cannot be expected1 perhaps1 to pervade a whole commonwealth or a whole civilization2 but one commonwealth may have it much more than another commonwealth1 one civilization much more than another civilization4 ,no community1 perhaps1 ever had it so much as the early ,franciscans4 ,no community1 perhaps1 ever had it so little as ours4 ,everything in our age has1 when carefully examined1 this fundamentally undemocratic quality4 ,in religion and morals we should admit1 in the abstract1 that the sins of the educated classes were as great as1 or perhaps greater than1 the sins of the poor and ignorant4 ,but in practice the great difference between the mediaeval ethics and ours is that ours concentrate attention on the sins which are the sins of the ignorant1 and practically deny that the sins which are the sins of the educated are sins at all4 ,we are always talking about the sin of intemperate drinking1 because it is quite obvious that the poor have it more than the rich4 ,but we are always denying that there is any such thing as the sin of pride1 because it would be quite obvious that the rich have it more than the poor4 ,we are always ready to make a saint or prophet of the educated man who goes into cottages to give a little kindly advice to the uneducated4 ,but the medieval idea of a saint or prophet was something quite different4 ,the mediaeval saint or prophet was an uneducated man who walked into grand houses to give a little kindly advice to the educated4 ,the old tyrants had enough insolence to despoil the poor1 but they had not enough insolence to preach to them4 ,it was the gentleman who oppressed the slums2 but it was the slums that admonished the gentleman4 ,and just as we are undemocratic in faith and morals1 so we are1 by the very nature of our attitude in such matters1 undemocratic in the tone of our practical politics4 ,it is a sufficient proof that we are not an essentially democratic state that we are always wondering what we shall do with the poor4 ,if we were democrats1 we should be wondering what the poor will do with us4 ,with us the governing class is always saying to itself1 8,what laws shall we make80 ,in a purely democratic state it would be always saying1 8,what laws can we obey80 ,a purely democratic state perhaps there has never been4 ,but even the feudal ages were in practice thus far democratic1 that every feudal potentate knew that any laws which he made would in all probability return upon himself4 ,his feathers might be cut off for breaking a sumptuary law4 ,his head might be cut off for high treason4 ,but the modern laws are almost always laws made to affect the governed class1 but not the governing4 ,we have public-house licensing laws1 but not sumptuary laws4 ,that is to say1 we have laws against the festivity and hospitality of the poor1 but no laws against the festivity and hospitality of the rich4 ,we have laws against blasphemy--that is1 against a kind of coarse and offensive speaking in which nobody but a rough and obscure man would be likely to indulge4 ,but we have no laws against heresy--that is1 against the intellectual poisoning of the whole people1 in which only a prosperous and prominent man would be likely to be successful4 ,the evil of aristocracy is not that it necessarily leads to the infliction of bad things or the suffering of sad ones2 the evil of aristocracy is that it places everything in the hands of a class of people who can always inflict what they can never suffer4 ,whether what they inflict is1 in their intention1 good or bad1 they become equally frivolous4 ,the case against the governing class of modern ,england is not in the least that it is selfish2 if you like1 you may call the ,english oligarchs too fantastically unselfish4 ,the case against them simply is that when they legislate for all men1 they always omit themselves4 ,we are undemocratic1 then1 in our religion1 as is proved by our efforts to 8raise0 the poor4 ,we are undemocratic in our government1 as is proved by our innocent attempt to govern them well4 ,but above all we are undemocratic in our literature1 as is proved by the torrent of novels about the poor and serious studies of the poor which pour from our publishers every month4 ,and the more 8modern0 the book is the more certain it is to be devoid of democratic sentiment4 ,a poor man is a man who has not got much money4 ,this may seem a simple and unnecessary description1 but in the face of a great mass of modern fact and fiction1 it seems very necessary indeed2 most of our realists and sociologists talk about a poor man as if he were an octopus or an alligator4 ,there is no more need to study the psychology of poverty than to study the psychology of bad temper1 or the psychology of vanity1 or the psychology of animal spirits4 ,a man ought to know something of the emotions of an insulted man1 not by being insulted1 but simply by being a man4 ,and he ought to know something of the emotions of a poor man1 not by being poor1 but simply by being a man4 ,therefore1 in any writer who is describing poverty1 my first objection to him will be that he has studied his subject4 ,a democrat would have imagined it4 ,a great many hard things have been said about religious slumming and political or social slumming1 but surely the most despicable of all is artistic slumming4 ,the religious teacher is at least supposed to be interested in the costermonger because he is a man2 the politician is in some dim and perverted sense interested in the costermonger because he is a citizen2 it is only the wretched writer who is interested in the costermonger merely because he is a costermonger4 ,nevertheless1 so long as he is merely seeking impressions1 or in other words copy1 his trade1 though dull1 is honest4 ,but when he endeavours to represent that he is describing the spiritual core of a costermonger1 his dim vices and his delicate virtues1 then we must object that his claim is preposterous2 we must remind him that he is a journalist and nothing else4 ,he has far less psychological authority even than the foolish missionary4 ,for he is in the literal and derivative sense a journalist1 while the missionary is an eternalist4 ,the missionary at least pretends to have a version of the man's lot for all time2 the journalist only pretends to have a version of it from day to day4 ,the missionary comes to tell the poor man that he is in the same condition with all men4 ,the journalist comes to tell other people how different the poor man is from everybody else4 ,if the modern novels about the slums1 such as novels of ,mr4 ,arthur ,morrison1 or the exceedingly able novels of ,mr4 ,somerset ,maugham1 are intended to be sensational1 ,i can only say that that is a noble and reasonable object1 and that they attain it4 ,a sensation1 a shock to the imagination1 like the contact with cold water1 is always a good and exhilarating thing2 and1 undoubtedly1 men will always seek this sensation 7among other forms7 in the form of the study of the strange antics of remote or alien peoples4 ,in the twelfth century men obtained this sensation by reading about dog-headed men in ,africa4 ,in the twentieth century they obtained it by reading about pig-headed ,boers in ,africa4 ,the men of the twentieth century were certainly1 it must be admitted1 somewhat the more credulous of the two4 ,for it is not recorded of the men in the twelfth century that they organized a sanguinary crusade solely for the purpose of altering the singular formation of the heads of the ,africans4 ,but it may be1 and it may even legitimately be1 that since all these monsters have faded from the popular mythology1 it is necessary to have in our fiction the image of the horrible and hairy ,east-ender1 merely to keep alive in us a fearful and childlike wonder at external peculiarities4 ,but the ,middle ,ages 7with a great deal more common sense than it would now be fashionable to admit7 regarded natural history at bottom rather as a kind of joke2 they regarded the soul as very important4 ,hence1 while they had a natural history of dog-headed men1 they did not profess to have a psychology of dog-headed men4 ,they did not profess to mirror the mind of a dog-headed man1 to share his tenderest secrets1 or mount with his most celestial musings4 ,they did not write novels about the semi-canine creature1 attributing to him all the oldest morbidities and all the newest fads4 ,it is permissible to present men as monsters if we wish to make the reader jump2 and to make anybody jump is always a ,christian act4 ,but it is not permissible to present men as regarding themselves as monsters1 or as making themselves jump4 ,to summarize1 our slum fiction is quite defensible as aesthetic fiction2 it is not defensible as spiritual fact4 ,one enormous obstacle stands in the way of its actuality4 ,the men who write it1 and the men who read it1 are men of the middle classes or the upper classes2 at least1 of those who are loosely termed the educated classes4 ,hence1 the fact that it is the life as the refined man sees it proves that it cannot be the life as the unrefined man lives it4 ,rich men write stories about poor men1 and describe them as speaking with a coarse1 or heavy1 or husky enunciation4 ,but if poor men wrote novels about you or me they would describe us as speaking with some absurd shrill and affected voice1 such as we only hear from a duchess in a three-act farce4 ,the slum novelist gains his whole effect by the fact that some detail is strange to the reader2 but that detail by the nature of the case cannot be strange in itself4 ,it cannot be strange to the soul which he is professing to study4 ,the slum novelist gains his effects by describing the same grey mist as draping the dingy factory and the dingy tavern4 ,but to the man he is supposed to be studying there must be exactly the same difference between the factory and the tavern that there is to a middle-class man between a late night at the office and a supper at ,pagani's4 ,the slum novelist is content with pointing out that to the eye of his particular class a pickaxe looks dirty and a pewter pot looks dirty4 ,but the man he is supposed to be studying sees the difference between them exactly as a clerk sees the difference between a ledger and an edition de luxe4 ,the chiaroscuro of the life is inevitably lost2 for to us the high lights and the shadows are a light grey4 ,but the high lights and the shadows are not a light grey in that life any more than in any other4 ,the kind of man who could really express the pleasures of the poor would be also the kind of man who could share them4 ,in short1 these books are not a record of the psychology of poverty4 ,they are a record of the psychology of wealth and culture when brought in contact with poverty4 ,they are not a description of the state of the slums4 ,they are only a very dark and dreadful description of the state of the slummers4 ,one might give innumerable examples of the essentially unsympathetic and unpopular quality of these realistic writers4 ,but perhaps the simplest and most obvious example with which we could conclude is the mere fact that these writers are realistic4 ,the poor have many other vices1 but1 at least1 they are never realistic4 ,the poor are melodramatic and romantic in grain2 the poor all believe in high moral platitudes and copy-book maxims2 probably this is the ultimate meaning of the great saying1 8,blessed are the poor40 ,blessed are the poor1 for they are always making life1 or trying to make life like an ,adelphi play4 ,some innocent educationalists and philanthropists 7for even philanthropists can be innocent7 have expressed a grave astonishment that the masses prefer shilling shockers to scientific treatises and melodramas to problem plays4 ,the reason is very simple4 ,the realistic story is certainly more artistic than the melodramatic story4 ,if what you desire is deft handling1 delicate proportions1 a unit of artistic atmosphere1 the realistic story has a full advantage over the melodrama4 ,in everything that is light and bright and ornamental the realistic story has a full advantage over the melodrama4 ,but1 at least1 the melodrama has one indisputable advantage over the realistic story4 ,the melodrama is much more like life4 ,it is much more like man1 and especially the poor man4 ,it is very banal and very inartistic when a poor woman at the ,adelphi says1 8,do you think ,i will sell my own child80 ,but poor women in the ,battersea ,high ,road do say1 8,do you think ,i will sell my own child80 ,they say it on every available occasion2 you can hear a sort of murmur or babble of it all the way down the street4 ,it is very stale and weak dramatic art 7if that is all7 when the workman confronts his master and says1 8,i'm a man40 ,but a workman does say 8,i'm a man0 two or three times every day4 ,in fact1 it is tedious1 possibly1 to hear poor men being melodramatic behind the footlights2 but that is because one can always hear them being melodramatic in the street outside4 ,in short1 melodrama1 if it is dull1 is dull because it is too accurate4 ,somewhat the same problem exists in the case of stories about schoolboys4 ,mr4 ,kipling's 8,stalky and ,co40 is much more amusing 7if you are talking about amusement7 than the late ,dean ,farrar's 8,eric2 or1 ,little by ,little40 ,but 8,eric0 is immeasurably more like real school-life4 ,for real school-life1 real boyhood1 is full of the things of which ,eric is full--priggishness1 a crude piety1 a silly sin1 a weak but continual attempt at the heroic1 in a word1 melodrama4 ,and if we wish to lay a firm basis for any efforts to help the poor1 we must not become realistic and see them from the outside4 ,we must become melodramatic1 and see them from the inside4 ,the novelist must not take out his notebook and say1 8,i am an expert40 ,no2 he must imitate the workman in the ,adelphi play4 ,he must slap himself on the chest and say1 8,i am a man40 ,,xx4 ,concluding ,remarks on the ,importance of ,orthodoxy ,whether the human mind can advance or not1 is a question too little discussed1 for nothing can be more dangerous than to found our social philosophy on any theory which is debatable but has not been debated4 ,but if we assume1 for the sake of argument1 that there has been in the past1 or will be in the future1 such a thing as a growth or improvement of the human mind itself1 there still remains a very sharp objection to be raised against the modern version of that improvement4 ,the vice of the modern notion of mental progress is that it is always something concerned with the breaking of bonds1 the effacing of boundaries1 the casting away of dogmas4 ,but if there be such a thing as mental growth1 it must mean the growth into more and more definite convictions1 into more and more dogmas4 ,the human brain is a machine for coming to conclusions2 if it cannot come to conclusions it is rusty4 ,when we hear of a man too clever to believe1 we are hearing of something having almost the character of a contradiction in terms4 ,it is like hearing of a nail that was too good to hold down a carpet2 or a bolt that was too strong to keep a door shut4 ,man can hardly be defined1 after the fashion of ,carlyle1 as an animal who makes tools2 ants and beavers and many other animals make tools1 in the sense that they make an apparatus4 ,man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas4 ,as he piles doctrine on doctrine and conclusion on conclusion in the formation of some tremendous scheme of philosophy and religion1 he is1 in the only legitimate sense of which the expression is capable1 becoming more and more human4 ,when he drops one doctrine after another in a refined scepticism1 when he declines to tie himself to a system1 when he says that he has outgrown definitions1 when he says that he disbelieves in finality1 when1 in his own imagination1 he sits as ,god1 holding no form of creed but contemplating all1 then he is by that very process sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrant animals and the unconsciousness of the grass4 ,trees have no dogmas4 ,turnips are singularly broadminded4 ,if then1 ,i repeat1 there is to be mental advance1 it must be mental advance in the construction of a definite philosophy of life4 ,and that philosophy of life must be right and the other philosophies wrong4 ,now of all1 or nearly all1 the able modern writers whom ,i have briefly studied in this book1 this is especially and pleasingly true1 that they do each of them have a constructive and affirmative view1 and that they do take it seriously and ask us to take it seriously4 ,there is nothing merely sceptically progressive about ,mr4 ,rudyard ,kipling4 ,there is nothing in the least broad minded about ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw4 ,the paganism of ,mr4 ,lowes ,dickinson is more grave than any ,christianity4 ,even the opportunism of ,mr4 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells is more dogmatic than the idealism of anybody else4 ,somebody complained1 ,i think1 to ,matthew ,arnold that he was getting as dogmatic as ,carlyle4 ,he replied1 8,that may be true2 but you overlook an obvious difference4 ,i am dogmatic and right1 and ,carlyle is dogmatic and wrong40 ,the strong humour of the remark ought not to disguise from us its everlasting seriousness and common sense2 no man ought to write at all1 or even to speak at all1 unless he thinks that he is in truth and the other man in error4 ,in similar style1 ,i hold that ,i am dogmatic and right1 while ,mr4 ,shaw is dogmatic and wrong4 ,but my main point1 at present1 is to notice that the chief among these writers ,i have discussed do most sanely and courageously offer themselves as dogmatists1 as founders of a system4 ,it may be true that the thing in ,mr4 ,shaw most interesting to me1 is the fact that ,mr4 ,shaw is wrong4 ,but it is equally true that the thing in ,mr4 ,shaw most interesting to himself1 is the fact that ,mr4 ,shaw is right4 ,mr4 ,shaw may have none with him but himself2 but it is not for himself he cares4 ,it is for the vast and universal church1 of which he is the only member4 ,the two typical men of genius whom ,i have mentioned here1 and with whose names ,i have begun this book1 are very symbolic1 if only because they have shown that the fiercest dogmatists can make the best artists4 ,in the fin de siecle atmosphere every one was crying out that literature should be free from all causes and all ethical creeds4 ,art was to produce only exquisite workmanship1 and it was especially the note of those days to demand brilliant plays and brilliant short stories4 ,and when they got them1 they got them from a couple of moralists4 ,the best short stories were written by a man trying to preach ,imperialism4 ,the best plays were written by a man trying to preach ,socialism4 ,all the art of all the artists looked tiny and tedious beside the art which was a by-product of propaganda4 ,the reason1 indeed1 is very simple4 ,a man cannot be wise enough to be a great artist without being wise enough to wish to be a philosopher4 ,a man cannot have the energy to produce good art without having the energy to wish to pass beyond it4 ,a small artist is content with art2 a great artist is content with nothing except everything4 ,so we find that when real forces1 good or bad1 like ,kipling and ,g4 ,b4 ,s41 enter our arena1 they bring with them not only startling and arresting art1 but very startling and arresting dogmas4 ,and they care even more1 and desire us to care even more1 about their startling and arresting dogmas than about their startling and arresting art4 ,mr4 ,shaw is a good dramatist1 but what he desires more than anything else to be is a good politician4 ,mr4 ,rudyard ,kipling is by divine caprice and natural genius an unconventional poet2 but what he desires more than anything else to be is a conventional poet4 ,he desires to be the poet of his people1 bone of their bone1 and flesh of their flesh1 understanding their origins1 celebrating their destiny4 ,he desires to be ,poet ,laureate1 a most sensible and honourable and public-spirited desire4 ,having been given by the gods originality--that is1 disagreement with others--he desires divinely to agree with them4 ,but the most striking instance of all1 more striking1 ,i think1 even than either of these1 is the instance of ,mr4 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells4 ,he began in a sort of insane infancy of pure art4 ,he began by making a new heaven and a new earth1 with the same irresponsible instinct by which men buy a new necktie or button-hole4 ,he began by trifling with the stars and systems in order to make ephemeral anecdotes2 he killed the universe for a joke4 ,he has since become more and more serious1 and has become1 as men inevitably do when they become more and more serious1 more and more parochial4 ,he was frivolous about the twilight of the gods2 but he is serious about the ,london omnibus4 ,he was careless in 8,the ,time ,machine10 for that dealt only with the destiny of all things2 but he is careful1 and even cautious1 in 8,mankind in the ,making10 for that deals with the day after to-morrow4 ,he began with the end of the world1 and that was easy4 ,now he has gone on to the beginning of the world1 and that is difficult4 ,but the main result of all this is the same as in the other cases4 ,the men who have really been the bold artists1 the realistic artists1 the uncompromising artists1 are the men who have turned out1 after all1 to be writing 8with a purpose40 ,suppose that any cool and cynical art-critic1 any art-critic fully impressed with the conviction that artists were greatest when they were most purely artistic1 suppose that a man who professed ably a humane aestheticism1 as did ,mr4 ,max ,beerbohm1 or a cruel aestheticism1 as did ,mr4 ,w4 ,e4 ,henley1 had cast his eye over the whole fictional literature which was recent in the year #ahie1 and had been asked to select the three most vigorous and promising and original artists and artistic works1 he would1 ,i think1 most certainly have said that for a fine artistic audacity1 for a real artistic delicacy1 or for a whiff of true novelty in art1 the things that stood first were 8,soldiers ,three10 by a ,mr4 ,rudyard ,kipling2 8,arms and the ,man10 by a ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw2 and 8,the ,time ,machine10 by a man called ,wells4 ,and all these men have shown themselves ingrainedly didactic4 ,you may express the matter if you will by saying that if we want doctrines we go to the great artists4 ,but it is clear from the psychology of the matter that this is not the true statement2 the true statement is that when we want any art tolerably brisk and bold we have to go to the doctrinaires4 ,in concluding this book1 therefore1 ,i would ask1 first and foremost1 that men such as these of whom ,i have spoken should not be insulted by being taken for artists4 ,no man has any right whatever merely to enjoy the work of ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw2 he might as well enjoy the invasion of his country by the ,french4 ,mr4 ,shaw writes either to convince or to enrage us4 ,no man has any business to be a ,kiplingite without being a politician1 and an ,imperialist politician4 ,if a man is first with us1 it should be because of what is first with him4 ,if a man convinces us at all1 it should be by his convictions4 ,if we hate a poem of ,kipling's from political passion1 we are hating it for the same reason that the poet loved it2 if we dislike him because of his opinions1 we are disliking him for the best of all possible reasons4 ,if a man comes into ,hyde ,park to preach it is permissible to hoot him2 but it is discourteous to applaud him as a performing bear4 ,and an artist is only a performing bear compared with the meanest man who fancies he has anything to say4 ,there is1 indeed1 one class of modern writers and thinkers who cannot altogether be overlooked in this question1 though there is no space here for a lengthy account of them1 which1 indeed1 to confess the truth1 would consist chiefly of abuse4 ,i mean those who get over all these abysses and reconcile all these wars by talking about 8aspects of truth10 by saying that the art of ,kipling represents one aspect of the truth1 and the art of ,william ,watson another2 the art of ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw one aspect of the truth1 and the art of ,mr4 ,cunningham ,grahame another2 the art of ,mr4 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells one aspect1 and the art of ,mr4 ,coventry ,patmore 7say7 another4 ,i will only say here that this seems to me an evasion which has not even had the sense to disguise itself ingeniously in words4 ,if we talk of a certain thing being an aspect of truth1 it is evident that we claim to know what is truth2 just as1 if we talk of the hind leg of a dog1 we claim to know what is a dog4 ,unfortunately1 the philosopher who talks about aspects of truth generally also asks1 8,what is truth80 ,frequently even he denies the existence of truth1 or says it is inconceivable by the human intelligence4 ,how1 then1 can he recognize its aspects8 ,i should not like to be an artist who brought an architectural sketch to a builder1 saying1 8,this is the south aspect of ,sea-,view ,cottage4 ,sea-,view ,cottage1 of course1 does not exist40 ,i should not even like very much to have to explain1 under such circumstances1 that ,sea-,view ,cottage might exist1 but was unthinkable by the human mind4 ,nor should ,i like any better to be the bungling and absurd metaphysician who professed to be able to see everywhere the aspects of a truth that is not there4 ,of course1 it is perfectly obvious that there are truths in ,kipling1 that there are truths in ,shaw or ,wells4 ,but the degree to which we can perceive them depends strictly upon how far we have a definite conception inside us of what is truth4 ,it is ludicrous to suppose that the more sceptical we are the more we see good in everything4 ,it is clear that the more we are certain what good is1 the more we shall see good in everything4 ,i plead1 then1 that we should agree or disagree with these men4 ,i plead that we should agree with them at least in having an abstract belief4 ,but ,i know that there are current in the modern world many vague objections to having an abstract belief1 and ,i feel that we shall not get any further until we have dealt with some of them4 ,the first objection is easily stated4 ,a common hesitation in our day touching the use of extreme convictions is a sort of notion that extreme convictions specially upon cosmic matters1 have been responsible in the past for the thing which is called bigotry4 ,but a very small amount of direct experience will dissipate this view4 ,in real life the people who are most bigoted are the people who have no convictions at all4 ,the economists of the ,manchester school who disagree with ,socialism take ,socialism seriously4 ,it is the young man in ,bond ,street1 who does not know what socialism means much less whether he agrees with it1 who is quite certain that these socialist fellows are making a fuss about nothing4 ,the man who understands the ,calvinist philosophy enough to agree with it must understand the ,catholic philosophy in order to disagree with it4 ,it is the vague modern who is not at all certain what is right who is most certain that ,dante was wrong4 ,the serious opponent of the ,latin ,church in history1 even in the act of showing that it produced great infamies1 must know that it produced great saints4 ,it is the hard-headed stockbroker1 who knows no history and believes no religion1 who is1 nevertheless1 perfectly convinced that all these priests are knaves4 ,the ,salvationist at the ,marble ,arch may be bigoted1 but he is not too bigoted to yearn from a common human kinship after the dandy on church parade4 ,but the dandy on church parade is so bigoted that he does not in the least yearn after the ,salvationist at the ,marble ,arch4 ,bigotry may be roughly defined as the anger of men who have no opinions4 ,it is the resistance offered to definite ideas by that vague bulk of people whose ideas are indefinite to excess4 ,bigotry may be called the appalling frenzy of the indifferent4 ,this frenzy of the indifferent is in truth a terrible thing2 it has made all monstrous and widely pervading persecutions4 ,in this degree it was not the people who cared who ever persecuted2 the people who cared were not sufficiently numerous4 ,it was the people who did not care who filled the world with fire and oppression4 ,it was the hands of the indifferent that lit the faggots2 it was the hands of the indifferent that turned the rack4 ,there have come some persecutions out of the pain of a passionate certainty2 but these produced1 not bigotry1 but fanaticism--a very different and a somewhat admirable thing4 ,bigotry in the main has always been the pervading omnipotence of those who do not care crushing out those who care in darkness and blood4 ,there are people1 however1 who dig somewhat deeper than this into the possible evils of dogma4 ,it is felt by many that strong philosophical conviction1 while it does not 7as they perceive7 produce that sluggish and fundamentally frivolous condition which we call bigotry1 does produce a certain concentration1 exaggeration1 and moral impatience1 which we may agree to call fanaticism4 ,they say1 in brief1 that ideas are dangerous things4 ,in politics1 for example1 it is commonly urged against a man like ,mr4 ,balfour1 or against a man like ,mr4 ,john ,morley1 that a wealth of ideas is dangerous4 ,the true doctrine on this point1 again1 is surely not very difficult to state4 ,ideas are dangerous1 but the man to whom they are least dangerous is the man of ideas4 ,he is acquainted with ideas1 and moves among them like a lion-tamer4 ,ideas are dangerous1 but the man to whom they are most dangerous is the man of no ideas4 ,the man of no ideas will find the first idea fly to his head like wine to the head of a teetotaller4 ,it is a common error1 ,i think1 among the ,radical idealists of my own party and period to suggest that financiers and business men are a danger to the empire because they are so sordid or so materialistic4 ,the truth is that financiers and business men are a danger to the empire because they can be sentimental about any sentiment1 and idealistic about any ideal1 any ideal that they find lying about4 ,just as a boy who has not known much of women is apt too easily to take a woman for the woman1 so these practical men1 unaccustomed to causes1 are always inclined to think that if a thing is proved to be an ideal it is proved to be the ideal4 ,many1 for example1 avowedly followed ,cecil ,rhodes because he had a vision4 ,they might as well have followed him because he had a nose2 a man without some kind of dream of perfection is quite as much of a monstrosity as a noseless man4 ,people say of such a figure1 in almost feverish whispers1 8,he knows his own mind10 which is exactly like saying in equally feverish whispers1 8,he blows his own nose40 ,human nature simply cannot subsist without a hope and aim of some kind2 as the sanity of the ,old ,testament truly said1 where there is no vision the people perisheth4 ,but it is precisely because an ideal is necessary to man that the man without ideals is in permanent danger of fanaticism4 ,there is nothing which is so likely to leave a man open to the sudden and irresistible inroad of an unbalanced vision as the cultivation of business habits4 ,all of us know angular business men who think that the earth is flat1 or that ,mr4 ,kruger was at the head of a great military despotism1 or that men are graminivorous1 or that ,bacon wrote ,shakespeare4 ,religious and philosophical beliefs are1 indeed1 as dangerous as fire1 and nothing can take from them that beauty of danger4 ,but there is only one way of really guarding ourselves against the excessive danger of them1 and that is to be steeped in philosophy and soaked in religion4 ,briefly1 then1 we dismiss the two opposite dangers of bigotry and fanaticism1 bigotry which is a too great vagueness and fanaticism which is a too great concentration4 ,we say that the cure for the bigot is belief2 we say that the cure for the idealist is ideas4 ,to know the best theories of existence and to choose the best from them 7that is1 to the best of our own strong conviction7 appears to us the proper way to be neither bigot nor fanatic1 but something more firm than a bigot and more terrible than a fanatic1 a man with a definite opinion4 ,but that definite opinion must in this view begin with the basic matters of human thought1 and these must not be dismissed as irrelevant1 as religion1 for instance1 is too often in our days dismissed as irrelevant4 ,even if we think religion insoluble1 we cannot think it irrelevant4 ,even if we ourselves have no view of the ultimate verities1 we must feel that wherever such a view exists in a man it must be more important than anything else in him4 ,the instant that the thing ceases to be the unknowable1 it becomes the indispensable4 ,there can be no doubt1 ,i think1 that the idea does exist in our time that there is something narrow or irrelevant or even mean about attacking a man's religion1 or arguing from it in matters of politics or ethics4 ,there can be quite as little doubt that such an accusation of narrowness is itself almost grotesquely narrow4 ,to take an example from comparatively current events3 we all know that it was not uncommon for a man to be considered a scarecrow of bigotry and obscurantism because he distrusted the ,japanese1 or lamented the rise of the ,japanese1 on the ground that the ,japanese were ,pagans4 ,nobody would think that there was anything antiquated or fanatical about distrusting a people because of some difference between them and us in practice or political machinery4 ,nobody would think it bigoted to say of a people1 8,i distrust their influence because they are ,protectionists40 ,no one would think it narrow to say1 8,i lament their rise because they are ,socialists1 or ,manchester ,individualists1 or strong believers in militarism and conscription40 ,a difference of opinion about the nature of ,parliaments matters very much2 but a difference of opinion about the nature of sin does not matter at all4 ,a difference of opinion about the object of taxation matters very much2 but a difference of opinion about the object of human existence does not matter at all4 ,we have a right to distrust a man who is in a different kind of municipality2 but we have no right to mistrust a man who is in a different kind of cosmos4 ,this sort of enlightenment is surely about the most unenlightened that it is possible to imagine4 ,to recur to the phrase which ,i employed earlier1 this is tantamount to saying that everything is important with the exception of everything4 ,religion is exactly the thing which cannot be left out--because it includes everything4 ,the most absent-minded person cannot well pack his ,gladstone-bag and leave out the bag4 ,we have a general view of existence1 whether we like it or not2 it alters or1 to speak more accurately1 it creates and involves everything we say or do1 whether we like it or not4 ,if we regard the ,cosmos as a dream1 we regard the ,fiscal ,question as a dream4 ,if we regard the ,cosmos as a joke1 we regard ,st4 ,paul's ,cathedral as a joke4 ,if everything is bad1 then we must believe 7if it be possible7 that beer is bad2 if everything be good1 we are forced to the rather fantastic conclusion that scientific philanthropy is good4 ,every man in the street must hold a metaphysical system1 and hold it firmly4 ,the possibility is that he may have held it so firmly and so long as to have forgotten all about its existence4 ,this latter situation is certainly possible2 in fact1 it is the situation of the whole modern world4 ,the modern world is filled with men who hold dogmas so strongly that they do not even know that they are dogmas4 ,it may be said even that the modern world1 as a corporate body1 holds certain dogmas so strongly that it does not know that they are dogmas4 ,it may be thought 8dogmatic10 for instance1 in some circles accounted progressive1 to assume the perfection or improvement of man in another world4 ,but it is not thought 8dogmatic0 to assume the perfection or improvement of man in this world2 though that idea of progress is quite as unproved as the idea of immortality1 and from a rationalistic point of view quite as improbable4 ,progress happens to be one of our dogmas1 and a dogma means a thing which is not thought dogmatic4 ,or1 again1 we see nothing 8dogmatic0 in the inspiring1 but certainly most startling1 theory of physical science1 that we should collect facts for the sake of facts1 even though they seem as useless as sticks and straws4 ,this is a great and suggestive idea1 and its utility may1 if you will1 be proving itself1 but its utility is1 in the abstract1 quite as disputable as the utility of that calling on oracles or consulting shrines which is also said to prove itself4 ,thus1 because we are not in a civilization which believes strongly in oracles or sacred places1 we see the full frenzy of those who killed themselves to find the sepulchre of ,christ4 ,but being in a civilization which does believe in this dogma of fact for facts' sake1 we do not see the full frenzy of those who kill themselves to find the ,north ,pole4 ,i am not speaking of a tenable ultimate utility which is true both of the ,crusades and the polar explorations4 ,i mean merely that we do see the superficial and aesthetic singularity1 the startling quality1 about the idea of men crossing a continent with armies to conquer the place where a man died4 ,but we do not see the aesthetic singularity and startling quality of men dying in agonies to find a place where no man can live--a place only interesting because it is supposed to be the meeting-place of some lines that do not exist4 ,let us1 then1 go upon a long journey and enter on a dreadful search4 ,let us1 at least1 dig and seek till we have discovered our own opinions4 ,the dogmas we really hold are far more fantastic1 and1 perhaps1 far more beautiful than we think4 ,in the course of these essays ,i fear that ,i have spoken from time to time of rationalists and rationalism1 and that in a disparaging sense4 ,being full of that kindliness which should come at the end of everything1 even of a book1 ,i apologize to the rationalists even for calling them rationalists4 ,there are no rationalists4 ,we all believe fairy-tales1 and live in them4 ,some1 with a sumptuous literary turn1 believe in the existence of the lady clothed with the sun4 ,some1 with a more rustic1 elvish instinct1 like ,mr4 ,mc,cabe1 believe merely in the impossible sun itself4 ,some hold the undemonstrable dogma of the existence of ,god2 some the equally undemonstrable dogma of the existence of the man next door4 ,truths turn into dogmas the instant that they are disputed4 ,thus every man who utters a doubt defines a religion4 ,and the scepticism of our time does not really destroy the beliefs1 rather it creates them2 gives them their limits and their plain and defiant shape4 ,we who are ,liberals once held ,liberalism lightly as a truism4 ,now it has been disputed1 and we hold it fiercely as a faith4 ,we who believe in patriotism once thought patriotism to be reasonable1 and thought little more about it4 ,now we know it to be unreasonable1 and know it to be right4 ,we who are ,christians never knew the great philosophic common sense which inheres in that mystery until the anti-,christian writers pointed it out to us4 ,the great march of mental destruction will go on4 ,everything will be denied4 ,everything will become a creed4 ,it is a reasonable position to deny the stones in the street2 it will be a religious dogma to assert them4 ,it is a rational thesis that we are all in a dream2 it will be a mystical sanity to say that we are all awake4 ,fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four4 ,swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer4 ,we shall be left defending1 not only the incredible virtues and sanities of human life1 but something more incredible still1 this huge impossible universe which stares us in the face4 ,we shall fight for visible prodigies as if they were invisible4 ,we shall look on the impossible grass and the skies with a strange courage4 ,we shall be of those who have seen and yet have believed4 ,,the ,,end