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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/31871-8.txt b/31871-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9672701 --- /dev/null +++ b/31871-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10940 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Voice of Science in Nineteenth-Century +Literature, by Various, et al, Edited by Robert Emmons Rogers + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Voice of Science in Nineteenth-Century Literature + Representative Prose and Verse + + +Author: Various + +Editor: Robert Emmons Rogers + +Release Date: April 3, 2010 [eBook #31871] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VOICE OF SCIENCE IN +NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Lybarger, Brian Janes, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Transcriber's note: + + Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). + + Subscripted numbers are enclosed by curly brackets + (example: H{2}O). + + + + + +THE VOICE OF SCIENCE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE + + + * * * * * + + + ATLANTIC TEXTS + + _TEXTBOOKS IN LIBRARY FORM_ + + + ATLANTIC CLASSICS, _First Series_ $1.50 + + ATLANTIC CLASSICS, _Second Series_ 1.50 + + Both volumes collected and edited by ELLERY SEDGWICK, + Editor of the _Atlantic Monthly_. + + For classes in composition and current literature. + + ESSAYS AND ESSAY-WRITING 1.25 + + Collected and edited by WILLIAM M. TANNER, University of + Texas. + + For literature and composition classes. + + ATLANTIC NARRATIVES, _First Series_ 1.25 + + For college use in classes studying the short story. + + ATLANTIC NARRATIVES, _Second Series_ 1.25 + + For secondary schools. + + Both volumes collected and edited by CHARLES SWAIN THOMAS, + Editorial department of the Atlantic Monthly Press, and + Lecturer in Harvard University. + + ATLANTIC PROSE AND POETRY 1.00 + + Collected and edited by CHARLES SWAIN THOMAS and HARRY G. + PAUL of the University of Illinois. + + A literary reader for upper grammar grades and junior high + schools. + + THE PROFESSION OF JOURNALISM 1.25 + + Significant Atlantic articles on journalism collected and + edited by WILLARD G. BLEYER, University of Wisconsin. + + For use in courses in journalism. + + THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY AND ITS MAKERS 1.00 + + By M. A. DEWOLFE HOWE, Editorial department of the Atlantic + Monthly Press. + + Biographical and literary matter for the English class. + + WRITING THROUGH READING .90 + + By ROBERT M. GAY, Simmons College. + + A short course in English Composition for colleges and + schools. + + THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS: The Principle and the Practice. 2.50 + + Edited by STEPHEN P. DUGGAN, College of the City of New York. + + A basic text on international relations. + + THE LIGHT: An Educational Pageant .65 + + By CATHERINE T. BRYCE, Yale University. + + Especially suitable for public presentation at Teachers' + Conventions. + + PATRONS OF DEMOCRACY .80 + + By DALLAS LORE SHARP, Boston University. + + For classes interested in discussing democracy in our public + schools. + + AMERICANS BY ADOPTION 1.50 + + By JOSEPH HUSBAND. + + For Americanization courses. + + THE VOICE OF SCIENCE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE 2.00 + + An anthology of prose and poetry. + + Collected and edited by ROBERT E. ROGERS, Assistant + Professor of English at Massachusetts Institute of + Technology. + + With an Introduction by HENRY G. PEARSON, Head of the + English Department at Massachusetts Institute of + Technology. + + THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS + 8 ARLINGTON STREET, BOSTON (17) + + * * * * * + + +THE VOICE OF SCIENCE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE + +Representative Prose and Verse + +Selected and Arranged by + +ROBERT EMMONS ROGERS + +Assistant Professor of English in +Massachusetts Institute of Technology + +With an Introduction by Henry Greenleaf Pearson + +Head of the Department of English and History in +Massachusetts Institute of Technology + + + + + + + +The Atlantic Monthly Press +Boston + +Copyright, 1921, by +The Atlantic Monthly Press + + + + +PUBLISHER'S NOTE + + +The nucleus of this collection was a privately printed volume for the use +of the students in the sophomore course in English and History at the +Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The volume was edited by Professor +DeWitt C. Croissant, visiting professor of English at the Institute from +George Washington University, Washington, D.C. The present volume, which +contains some changes and additions, is edited by Robert E. Rogers, +assistant professor of English at the Institute, who is, therefore, +responsible for its present form. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + INTRODUCTION ix + + MATTHEW ARNOLD + _The Function of Criticism_ 1 + + SIR MICHAEL FOSTER + _The Growth of Science in the Nineteenth Century_ 22 + + THOMAS HUXLEY + _Three Hypotheses Respecting the History of Nature_ 52 + _On the Physical Basis of Life_ 69 + + JOHN TYNDALL + _Scope and Limit of Scientific Materialism_ 93 + + JOHN HENRY, CARDINAL NEWMAN + _Christianity and Physical Science_ 104 + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + _Pulvis et Umbra_ 108 + + JOHN RUSKIN + _The Mystery of Life and its Arts_ 116 + + MATTHEW ARNOLD + _Marcus Aurelius_ 146 + _Dover Beach_ 170 + _Morality_ 171 + _Self-Dependence_ 172 + + ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH + _All is Well_ 174 + _To Spend Uncounted Years of Pain_ 174 + _Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth_ 175 + + ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE + _The Garden of Proserpine_ 176 + + EDWARD FITZGERALD + _Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam_ 180 + + ROBERT BROWNING + _Rabbi Ben Ezra_ 197 + _An Epistle_ 204 + _Caliban upon Setebos_ 214 + _A Grammarian's Funeral_ 224 + _Why I am a Liberal_ 228 + _Fears and Scruples_ 229 + _Epilogue to "Asolando"_ 231 + _Prospice_ 232 + + ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON + _Wages_ 233 + _The Higher Pantheism_ 233 + _Flower in the Crannied Wall_ 234 + _In Memoriam_ 235 + _Crossing the Bar_ 239 + + GEORGE MEREDITH + _Lucifer in Starlight_ 240 + + WILLIAM E. HENLEY + _Invictus_ 241 + + THOMAS HARDY + _New Year's Eve_ 242 + + RALPH WALDO EMERSON + _Civilization_ 244 + _Illusions_ 255 + _Fate_ 268 + + WALT WHITMAN + _Song of the Open Road_ 300 + _Crossing Brooklyn Ferry_ 313 + _A Song of Joys_ 320 + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +BY HENRY GREENLEAF PEARSON + + +"The Voice of Science in Nineteenth-Century Literature" is a volume of +selections put together for use in the third term of a course in English +and History offered to the second-year students at the Massachusetts +Institute of Technology. The plan of the year's work provides for a study +of the record made in English literature by the great movements of thought +that distinguished the nineteenth century. First John Stuart Mill's essays +on "Liberty" and "Representative Government" furnish an interpretation of +the political currents of thought in the first half of the century. +Carlyle's "Past and Present," which is read in the second third of the +year, is an analysis of economic and social problems in the same period; +in the third term the profound effect of science on the thought of the age +receives illustration in the writings here brought together. + +Broadly stated, the central theme of the book is man's place in the +universe, considered in the light of the new knowledge and speculation as +to his origin and destiny which the study of science in the nineteenth +century has invoked. Some of the selections are more closely related to +this theme than are others. Between some of the selections the connection +or contrast is obvious ("Rabbi Ben Ezra" and "The Rubaiyat of Omar +Khayyam"); in others it is less immediately evident. In some cases the +background is the group of ideas roughly classed under the word +_evolution_; in others it is some characteristic phase of religious +feeling or ethical or theological thought. The contrast in outlook +between the American writers, Emerson and Whitman, and their English +contemporaries is one of which particularly valuable use may be made. The +discovery of these interrelations is what gives zest to the reading for +both parties in the classroom; for neither teacher nor students should the +work take the form of checking off selections on a minutely correlated +syllabus. The course should be pursued on the assumption that the whole is +greater than the sum of the parts: the total impression, the height gained +at the end, the inspiration of the view there disclosed--these are the +goals to be sought for. And the discerning teacher will not be surprised +that the pupil presses him so closely up the ascent. + +In reading pursued on this plan what should be emphasized on the side of +history is not the marshaling of fact, of things done, but the war of +thought in one field or another. Without being embroiled in the +controversy for this or that belief, the student examines the battleground +to learn how the battle was fought. He discovers what befell truths, +half-truths, and falsehoods, and under what circumstances of glory or +shame. He sees the period with the unity that genius always gives to a +subject; at the same time he learns how to make the correction that a +piece of contemporary interpretation inevitably requires. On the side of +literature, the student's approach is no less special and with its +appropriate reward. He sees the man of genius primarily in the setting of +his age. The personal adventures and idiosyncracies that often form so +large and so unedifying a portion of the treatment afforded in the +traditional "historical survey course" here fill a modest space in the +background; the attention is concentrated on what this leader did for the +men of his own day. These writers lived intensely in the life of their own +generation; conscious of a clearer perception of the truth and possessing +a voice that men could hear, they sought to lead their companions out of +the wilderness. It is the man of genius speaking with authority to those +of his own time who is here presented. In such a setting his voice has +still its ancient power. + + + + +THE VOICE OF SCIENCE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE + + + + +MATTHEW ARNOLD + +THE FUNCTION OF CRITICISM[1] + + +The critical power is of lower rank than the creative. True; but in +assenting to this proposition, one or two things are to be kept in mind. +It is undeniable that the exercise of a creative power, that a free +creative activity, is the true function of man; it is proved to be so by +man's finding in it his true happiness. But it is undeniable, also, that +men may have the sense of exercising this free creative activity in other +ways than in producing great works of literature or art; if it were not +so, all but a very few men would be shut out from the true happiness of +all men; they may have it in well-doing, they may have it in learning, +they may have it even in criticizing. This is one thing to be kept in +mind. Another is, that the exercise of the creative power in the +production of great works of literature or art, however high this exercise +of it may rank, is not, at all epochs, and under all conditions, possible; +and that, therefore, labor may be vainly spent in attempting it, and may +with more fruit be used in preparing for it, in rendering it possible. +This creative power works with elements, with materials; what if it has +not those materials, those elements, ready for its use? In that case it +must surely wait till they are ready. Now, in literature,--I will limit +myself to literature, for it is about literature that the question +arises,--the elements with which the creative power works are ideas; the +best ideas on every matter which literature touches, current at the time; +at any rate, we may lay it down as certain that in modern literature no +manifestation of the creative power not working with these can be very +important or fruitful. And I say _current_ at the time, not merely +accessible at the time; for creative literary genius does not principally +show itself in discovering new ideas--that is rather the business of the +philosopher; the grand work of literary genius is a work of synthesis and +exposition, not of analysis and discovery; its gift lies in the faculty of +being happily inspired by a certain intellectual and spiritual atmosphere, +by a certain order of ideas, when it finds itself in them; of dealing +divinely with these ideas, presenting them in the most effective and +attractive combinations, making beautiful works with them, in short. But +it must have the atmosphere, it must find itself amidst the order of +ideas, in order to work freely; and these it is not so easy to command. +This is why great creative epochs in literature are so rare; this is why +there is so much that is unsatisfactory in the productions of many men of +real genius; because, for the creation of a master-work of literature, two +powers must concur, the power of the man and the power of the moment, and +the man is not enough without the moment; the creative power has, for its +happy exercise, appointed elements, and those elements are not in its own +control. + +Nay, they are more within the control of the critical power. It is the +business of the critical power, as I said in the words already quoted, "in +all branches of knowledge, theology, philosophy, history, art, science, to +see the object as in itself it really is." Thus it tends, at last, to make +an intellectual situation of which the creative power can profitably avail +itself. It tends to establish an order of ideas, if not absolutely true, +yet true by comparison with that which it displaces; to make the best +ideas prevail. Presently these new ideas reach society, the touch of truth +is the touch of life, and there is a stir and growth everywhere; out of +this stir and growth come the creative epochs of literature. + +Or, to narrow our range, and quit these considerations of the general +march of genius and of society,--considerations which are apt to become +too abstract and impalpable,--everyone can see that a poet, for instance, +ought to know life and the world before dealing with them in poetry; and +life and the world being, in modern times, very complex things, the +creation of a modern poet, to be worth much, implies a great critical +effort behind it; else it would be a comparatively poor, barren, and +short-lived affair. This is why Byron's poetry had so little endurance in +it, and Goethe's so much; both had a great productive power, but Goethe's +was nourished by a great critical effort providing the true materials for +it, and Byron's was not; Goethe knew life and the world, the poet's +necessary subjects, much more comprehensively and thoroughly than Byron. +He knew a great deal more of them, and he knew them much more as they +really are. + +It has long seemed to me that the burst of creative activity in our +literature, through the first quarter of this century, had about it, in +fact, something premature; and that from this cause its productions are +doomed, most of them, in spite of the sanguine hopes which accompanied and +do still accompany them, to prove hardly more lasting than the productions +of far less splendid epochs. And this prematureness comes from its having +proceeded without having its proper data, without sufficient materials to +work with. In other words, the English poetry of the first quarter of this +century, with plenty of energy, plenty of creative force, did not know +enough. This makes Byron so empty of matter, Shelley so incoherent, +Wordsworth, even, profound as he is, yet so wanting in completeness and +variety. Wordsworth cared little for books, and disparaged Goethe. I +admire Wordsworth, as he is, so much that I cannot wish him different; and +it is vain, no doubt, to imagine such a man different from what he is, to +suppose that he could have been different; but surely the one thing +wanting to make Wordsworth an even greater poet than he is,--his thought +richer, and his influence of wider application,--was that he should have +read more books--among them, no doubt, those of that Goethe whom he +disparaged without reading him. + +But to speak of books and reading may easily lead to a misunderstanding +here. It was not really books and reading that lacked to our poetry at +this epoch; Shelley had plenty of reading, Coleridge had immense reading. +Pindar and Sophocles--as we all say so glibly, and often with so little +discernment of the real import of what we are saying--had not many books; +Shakespeare was no deep reader. True; but in the Greece of Pindar and +Sophocles, in the England of Shakespeare, the poet lived in a current of +ideas in the highest degree animating and nourishing to the creative +power; society was, in the fullest measure, permeated by fresh thought, +intelligent and alive; and this state of things is the true basis for the +creative power's exercise; in this it finds its data, its materials, truly +ready for its hand; all the books and reading in the world are only +valuable as they are helps to this. Even when this does not actually +exist, books and reading may enable a man to construct a kind of semblance +of it in his own mind, a world of knowledge and intelligence in which he +may live and work. This is by no means an equivalent to the artist for the +nationally diffused life and thought of the epochs of Sophocles or +Shakespeare; but, besides that, it may be a means of preparation for such +epochs, it does really constitute, if many share in it, a quickening and +sustaining atmosphere of great value. Such an atmosphere the many-sided +learning and the long and widely combined critical effort of Germany +formed for Goethe, when he lived and worked. There was no national glow of +life and thought there, as in the Athens of Pericles or the England of +Elizabeth. That was the poet's weakness. But there was a sort of +equivalent for it in the complete culture and unfettered thinking of a +large body of Germans. That was his strength. In the England of the first +quarter of this century there was neither a national glow of life and +thought, such as we had in the age of Elizabeth, nor yet a culture and a +force of learning and criticism such as were to be found in Germany. +Therefore the creative power of poetry wanted, for success in the highest +sense, materials and a basis; a thorough interpretation of the world was +necessarily denied to it. + +At first sight it seems strange that out of the immense stir of the French +Revolution and its age should not have come a crop of works of genius +equal to that which came out of the stir of the great productive time of +Greece, or out of that of the Renaissance, with its powerful episode, the +Reformation. But the truth is that the stir of the French Revolution took +a character which essentially distinguished it from such movements as +these. These were, in the main, disinterestedly intellectual and spiritual +movements; movements in which the human spirit looked for its satisfaction +in itself and in the increased play of its own activity; the French +Revolution took a political, practical character. This Revolution--the +object of so much blind love and so much blind hatred--found, indeed, its +motive-power in the intelligence of men, and not in their practical sense. +This is what distinguishes it from the English Revolution of Charles the +First's time; this is what makes it a more spiritual event than our +Revolution, an event of much more powerful and world-wide interest, though +practically less successful--it appeals to an order of ideas which are +universal, certain, permanent. 1789 asked of a thing, Is it rational? 1642 +asked of a thing, Is it legal? or, when it went furthest, Is it according +to conscience? This is the English fashion, a fashion to be treated, +within its own sphere, with the highest respect; for its success, within +its own sphere, has been prodigious. + +But what is law in one place is not law in another; what is law here +to-day is not law even here to-morrow; and as for conscience, what is +binding on one man's conscience is not binding on another's; the old woman +who threw her stool at the head of the surpliced minister in the Tron +Church at Edinburgh obeyed an impulse to which millions of the human race +may be permitted to remain strangers. But the prescriptions of reason are +absolute, unchanging, of universal validity; _to count by tens is the +easiest way of counting_--that is a proposition of which everyone, from +here to the Antipodes, feels the force; at least, I should say so if we +did not live in a country where it is not impossible that any morning we +may find a letter in the "Times" declaring that a decimal coinage is an +absurdity. That a whole nation should have been penetrated with an +enthusiasm for pure reason, and with an ardent zeal for making its +prescriptions triumph, is a very remarkable thing, when we consider how +little of mind, or anything so worthy and quickening as mind, comes into +the motives which alone, in general, _impel_ great masses of men. In spite +of the extravagant direction given to this enthusiasm, in spite of the +crimes and follies in which it lost itself, the French Revolution derives +from the force, truth, and universality of the ideas which it took for its +law, and from the passion with which it could inspire a multitude for +these ideas, a unique and still living power; it is--it will probably long +remain--the greatest, the most animating event in history. And as no +sincere passion for the things of the mind, even though it turn out in +many respects an unfortunate passion, is ever quite thrown away and quite +barren of good, France has reaped from hers one fruit, the natural and +legitimate fruit, though not precisely the grand fruit she expected: she +is the country in Europe where _the people_ is most alive. + +But the mania for giving an immediate political and practical application +to all these fine ideas of the reason was fatal. Here an Englishman is in +his element: on this theme we can all go for hours. And all we are in the +habit of saying on it has undoubtedly a great deal of truth. Ideas cannot +be too much prized in and for themselves, cannot be too much lived with; +but to transport them abruptly into the world of politics and practice, +violently to revolutionize this world to their bidding--that is quite +another thing. There is the world of ideas and there is the world of +practice; the French are often for suppressing the one and the English the +other; but neither is to be suppressed. A member of the House of Commons +said to me the other day: "That a thing is an anomaly, I consider to be no +objection to it whatever." I venture to think he was wrong; that a thing +is an anomaly _is_ an objection to it, but absolutely and in the sphere of +ideas; it is not necessarily, under such and such circumstances, or at +such and such a moment, an objection to it in the sphere of politics and +practice. Joubert has said beautifully: "C'est la force et le droit qui +réglent toutes choses dans le monde; la force en attendant le droit." +Force and right are the governors of this world; force till right is +ready. _Force till right is ready_; and till right is ready, force, the +existing order of things, is justified, is the legitimate ruler. But +right is something moral, and implies inward recognition, free assent of +the will; we are not ready for right,--_right_, so far as we are +concerned, _is not ready_,--until we have attained this sense of seeing it +and willing it. The way in which for us it may change and transform force, +the existing order of things, and become, in its turn, the legitimate +ruler of the world, will depend on the way in which, when our time comes, +we see it and will it. Therefore, for other people enamored of their own +newly discerned right, to attempt to impose it upon us as ours, and +violently to substitute their right for our force, is an act of tyranny, +and to be resisted. It sets at nought the second great half of our maxim, +_force till right is ready_. This was the grand error of the French +Revolution; and its movement of ideas, by quitting the intellectual sphere +and rushing furiously into the political sphere, ran, indeed, a prodigious +and memorable course, but produced no such intellectual fruit as the +movement of ideas of the Renaissance, and created, in opposition to +itself, what I may call an _epoch of concentration_. + +The great force of that epoch of concentration was England; and the great +voice of that epoch of concentration was Burke. It is the fashion to treat +Burke's writings on the French Revolution as superannuated and conquered +by the event; as the eloquent but unphilosophical tirades of bigotry and +prejudice. I will not deny that they are often disfigured by the violence +and passion of the moment, and that in some directions Burke's view was +bounded, and his observation therefore at fault; but on the whole, and for +those who can make the needful corrections, what distinguishes these +writings is their profound, permanent, fruitful, philosophical truth; they +contain the true philosophy of an epoch of concentration, dissipate the +heavy atmosphere which its own nature is apt to engender round it, and +make its resistance rational instead of mechanical. + +But Burke is so great because, almost alone in England, he brings thought +to bear upon politics, he saturates politics with thought; it is his +accident that his ideas were at the service of an epoch of concentration, +not of an epoch of expansion; it is his characteristic that he so lived by +ideas, and had such a source of them welling up within him, that he could +float even an epoch of concentration and English Tory politics with them. +It does not hurt him that Dr. Price and the Liberals were displeased with +him; it does not hurt him, even, that George the Third and the Tories were +enchanted with him. His greatness is that he lived in a world which +neither English Liberalism nor English Toryism is apt to enter--the world +of ideas, not the world of catchwords and party habits. So far is it from +being really true of him that he "to party gave up what was meant for +mankind," that at the very end of his fierce struggle with the French +Revolution, after all his invectives against its false pretensions, +hollowness, and madness, with his sincere conviction of its +mischievousness, he can close a memorandum on the best means of combating +it,--some of the last pages he ever wrote: the _Thoughts on French +Affairs_, in December, 1791,--with these striking words:-- + +"The evil is stated, in my opinion, as it exists. The remedy must be where +power, wisdom, and information, I hope, are more united with good +intentions than they can be with me. I have done with this subject, I +believe, for ever. It has given me many anxious moments for the last two +years. _If a great change is to be made in human affairs, the minds of men +will be fitted to it; the general opinions and feelings will draw that +way. Every fear, every hope will forward it; and then they who persist in +opposing this mighty current in human affairs will appear rather to +resist the decrees of Providence itself, than the mere designs of men. +They will not be resolute and firm, but perverse and obstinate._" + +That return of Burke upon himself has always seemed to me one of the +finest things in English literature, or indeed, in any literature. That is +what I call living by ideas: when one side of a question has long had your +earnest support, when all your feelings are engaged, when you hear all +round you no language but one, when your party talks this language like a +steam-engine and can imagine no other--still to be able to think, still to +be irresistibly carried, if so it be, by the current of thought to the +opposite side of the question, and, like Balaam, to be unable to speak +anything _but what the Lord has put in your mouth_. I know nothing more +striking, and I must add that I know nothing more un-English. + +For the Englishman in general is like my friend the Member of Parliament, +and believes, point-blank, that for a thing to be an anomaly is absolutely +no objection to it whatever. He is like the Lord Auckland of Burke's day, +who, in a memorandum on the French Revolution, talks of "certain +miscreants, assuming the name of philosophers, who have presumed +themselves capable of establishing a new system of society." The +Englishman has been called a political animal, and he values what is +political and practical so much that ideas easily become objects of +dislike in his eyes, and thinkers "miscreants," because ideas and thinkers +have rashly meddled with politics and practice. This would be all very +well if the dislike and neglect confined themselves to ideas transported +out of their own sphere, and meddling rashly with practice; but they are +inevitably extended to ideas as such, and to the whole life of +intelligence; practice is everything, a free play of the mind is nothing. +The notion of the free play of the mind upon all subjects being a +pleasure in itself, being an object of desire, being an essential provider +of elements without which a nation's spirit, whatever compensations it may +have for them, must, in the long run, die of inanition, hardly enters into +an Englishman's thoughts. It is noticeable that the word _curiosity_, +which in other languages is used in a good sense, to mean, as a high and +fine quality of man's nature, just this disinterested love of a free play +of the mind on all subjects, for its own sake--it is noticeable, I say, +that this word has in our language no sense of the kind, no sense but a +rather bad and disparaging one. But criticism, real criticism, is +essentially the exercise of this very quality; it obeys an instinct +prompting it to try to know the best that is known and thought in the +world, irrespectively of practice, politics, and everything of the kind; +and to value knowledge and thought as they approach this best, without the +intrusion of any other considerations whatever. This is an instinct for +which there is, I think, little original sympathy in the practical English +nature, and what there was of it has undergone a long, benumbing period of +check and suppression in the epoch of concentration which followed the +French Revolution. + +But epochs of concentration cannot well endure forever; epochs of +expansion, in the due course of things, follow them. Such an epoch of +expansion seems to be open here in England. In the first place, all danger +of a hostile forcible pressure of foreign ideas upon our practice has long +disappeared; like the traveler in the fable, therefore, we begin to wear +our cloak a little more loosely. Then, with a long peace, the ideas of +Europe steal gradually and amicably in, and mingle, though in +infinitesimally small quantities at a time, with our own notions. Then, +too, in spite of all that is said about the absorbing and brutalizing +influence of our passionate material progress, it seems to me +indisputable that this progress is likely, though not certain, to lead in +the end to an apparition of intellectual life; and that man, after he has +made himself perfectly comfortable and has now to determine what to do +with himself next, may begin to remember that he has a mind, and that the +mind may be made the source of great pleasure. I grant it is mainly the +privilege of faith, at present, to discern this end to our railways, our +business, and our fortune-making; but we shall see if, here as elsewhere, +faith is not in the end the true prophet. Our ease, our traveling, and our +unbounded liberty to hold just as hard and securely as we please to the +practice to which our notions have given birth, all tend to beget an +inclination to deal a little more freely with these notions themselves, to +canvass them a little, to penetrate a little into their real nature. +Flutterings of curiosity, in the foreign sense of the word, appear amongst +us, and it is in these that criticism must look to find its account. +Criticism first; a time of true creative activity, perhaps,--which, as I +have said, must inevitably be preceded amongst us by a time of +criticism,--hereafter, when criticism has done its work. + +It is of the last importance that English criticism should clearly discern +what rules for its course, in order to avail itself of the field now +opening to it, and to produce fruit for the future, it ought to take. The +rules may be given in one word; by being _disinterested_. And how is it to +be disinterested? By keeping aloof from practice; by resolutely following +the law of its own nature, which is to be a free play of the mind on all +subjects which it touches; by steadily refusing to lend itself to any of +those ulterior, political, practical considerations about ideas, which +plenty of people will be sure to attach to them, which perhaps ought often +to be attached to them, which in this country, at any rate, are certain to +be attached to them quite sufficiently, but which criticism has really +nothing to do with. Its business is, as I have said, simply to know the +best that is known and thought in the world, and by in its turn making +this known, to create a current of true and fresh ideas. Its business is +to do this with inflexible honesty, with due ability; but its business is +to do no more, and to leave alone all questions of practical consequences +and applications, questions which will never fail to have due prominence +given to them. Else criticism, besides being really false to its own +nature, merely continues in the old rut which it has hitherto followed in +this country, and will certainly miss the chance now given to it. For what +is at present the bane of criticism in this country? It is that practical +considerations cling to it and stifle it; it subserves interests not its +own; our organs of criticism are organs of men and parties having +practical ends to serve, and with them those practical ends are the first +thing and the play of mind the second; so much play of mind as is +compatible with the prosecution of those practical ends is all that is +wanted. + + * * * * * + +It must needs be that men should act in sects and parties, that each of +these sects and parties should have its organ, and should make this organ +subserve the interests of its action; but it would be well, too, that +there should be a criticism, not the minister of these interests, not +their enemy, but absolutely and entirely independent of them. No other +criticism will ever attain any real authority or make any real way toward +its end--the creating a current of true and fresh ideas. + +It is because criticism has so little kept in the pure intellectual +sphere, has so little detached itself from practice, has been so directly +polemical and controversial, that it has so ill accomplished, in England, +its best spiritual work; which is to keep man from a self-satisfaction +which is retarding and vulgarizing, to lead him toward perfection, by +making his mind dwell upon what is excellent in itself, and the absolute +beauty and fitness of things. A polemical practical criticism makes men +blind even to the ideal imperfection of their practice, makes them +willingly assert its ideal perfection, in order the better to secure it +against attack; and clearly this is narrowing and baneful for them. If +they were reassured on the practical side, speculative considerations of +ideal perfection they might be brought to entertain, and their spiritual +horizon would thus gradually widen.... + +It will be said that it is a very subtle and indirect action which I am +thus prescribing for criticism, and that, by embracing in this manner the +Indian virtue of detachment and abandoning the sphere of practical life, +it condemns itself to a slow and obscure work. Slow and obscure it may be, +but it is the only proper work of criticism. The mass of mankind will +never have any ardent zeal for seeing things as they are; very inadequate +ideas will always satisfy them. On these inadequate ideas reposes, and +must repose, the general practice of the world. That is as much as saying +that whoever sets himself to see things as they are will find himself one +of a very small circle; but it is only by this small circle resolutely +doing its own work that adequate ideas will ever get current at all. The +rush and roar of practical life will always have a dizzying and attracting +effect upon the most collected spectator, and tend to draw him into its +vortex; most of all will this be the case where that life is so powerful +as it is in England. But it is only by remaining collected, and refusing +to lend himself to the point of view of the practical man, that the critic +can do the practical man any service; and it is only by the greatest +sincerity in pursuing his own course, and by at last convincing even the +practical man of his sincerity, that he can escape misunderstandings which +perpetually threaten him. + +For the practical man is not apt for fine distinctions, and yet in these +distinctions truth and the highest culture greatly find their account. But +it is not easy to lead a practical man--unless you reassure him as to your +practical intentions, you have no chance of leading him--to see that a +thing which he has always been used to look at from one side only, which +he greatly values, and which, looked at from that side, more than +deserves, perhaps, all the prizing and admiring which he bestows upon +it--that this thing, looked at from another side, may appear much less +beneficent and beautiful, and yet retain all its claims to our practical +allegiance. Where shall we find language innocent enough, how shall we +make the spotless purity of our intentions evident enough, to enable us to +say to the political Englishman that the British constitution itself, +which, seen from the practical side, looks such a magnificent organ of +progress and virtue, seen from the speculative side,--with its +compromises, its love of facts, its horror of theory, its studied +avoidance of clear thoughts,--that, seen from this side, our august +constitution sometimes looks--forgive me, shade of Lord Somers!--a +colossal machine for the manufacture of Philistines? How is Cobbett to say +this and not be misunderstood, blackened as he is with the smoke of a +lifelong conflict in the field of political practice? How is Mr. Carlyle +to say it and not be misunderstood, after his furious raid into this field +with his "Latter-day Pamphlets"? How is Mr. Ruskin, after his pugnacious +political economy? I say, the critic must keep out of the region of +immediate practice in the political, social, humanitarian sphere, if he +wants to make a beginning for that more free speculative treatment of +things, which may perhaps one day make its benefits felt even in this +sphere, but in a natural and thence irresistible manner. + +Do what he will, however, the critic will still remain exposed to frequent +misunderstandings, and nowhere so much as here in England. For here people +are particularly indisposed even to comprehend that, without this free, +disinterested treatment of things, truth and the highest culture are out +of the question. So immersed are they in practical life, so accustomed to +take all their notions from this life and its processes, that they are apt +to think that truth and culture themselves can be reached by the processes +of this life, and that it is an impertinent singularity to think of +reaching them in any other way. "We are all _terrć filii_," cries their +eloquent advocate; "all Philistines together. Away with the notion of +proceeding by any other way than the way dear to the Philistines; let us +have a social movement, let us organize and combine a party to pursue +truth and new thought, let us call it _the liberal party_, and let us all +stick to each other, and back each other up. Let us have no nonsense about +independent criticism, and intellectual delicacy, and the few and the +many. Don't let us trouble ourselves about foreign thought; we shall +invent the whole thing for ourselves as we go along. If one of us speaks +well, applaud him; if one of us speaks ill, applaud him too; we are all in +the same movement, we are all liberals, we are all in pursuit of truth." +In this way the pursuit of truth becomes really a social, practical, +pleasurable affair, almost requiring a chairman, a secretary, and +advertisements; with the excitement of a little resistance, an occasional +scandal, to give the happy sense of difficulty overcome; but, in general, +plenty of bustle and very little thought. To act is so easy, as Goethe +says; to think is so hard! It is true that the critic has many +temptations to go with the stream, to make one of the party movement, one +of these _terrć filii_; it seems ungracious to refuse to be a _terrć +filius_, when so many excellent people are; but the critic's duty is to +refuse, or, if resistance is vain, at least to cry with Obermann: +_Perissons en resistant_. + + * * * * * + +What then is the duty of criticism here? To take the practical point of +view, to applaud the liberal movement and all its works ... for their +general utility's sake? By no means; but to be perpetually dissatisfied +with these works, while they perpetually fall short of a high and perfect +ideal. + +In criticism, these are elementary laws; but they never can be popular, +and in this country they have been very little followed, and one meets +with immense obstacles in following them. That is a reason for asserting +them again and again. Criticism must maintain its independence of the +practical spirit and its aims. Even with well-meant efforts of the +practical spirit, it must express dissatisfaction, if in the sphere of the +ideal they seem impoverishing and limiting. It must not hurry on to the +goal because of its practical importance. It must be patient, and know how +to wait; and flexible, and know how to attach itself to things and how to +withdraw from them. It must be apt to study and praise elements that for +the fulness of spiritual perfection are wanted, even though they belong to +a power that in the practical sphere may be maleficent. It must be apt to +discern the spiritual shortcomings or illusions of powers that in the +practical sphere may be beneficent. And this without any notion of +favoring or injuring, in the practical sphere, one power or the other; +without any notion of playing off, in this sphere, one power against the +other. When one looks, for instance, at the English Divorce Court,--an +institution which perhaps has its practical conveniences, but which in the +ideal sphere is so hideous; an institution which neither makes divorce +impossible nor makes it decent; which allows a man to get rid of his wife, +or a wife of her husband, but makes them drag one another first, for the +public edification, through a mire of unutterable infamy,--when one looks +at this charming institution, I say, with its crowded trials, its +newspaper reports, and its money compensations, this institution in which +the gross unregenerate British Philistine has indeed stamped an image of +himself, one may be permitted to find the marriage theory of Catholicism +refreshing and elevating. Or when Protestantism, in virtue of its supposed +rational and intellectual origin, gives the law to criticism too +magisterially, criticism may and must remind it that its pretensions, in +this respect, are illusive and do it harm; that the Reformation was a +moral rather than an intellectual event; that Luther's theory of grace no +more exactly reflects the mind of the spirit than Bossuet's philosophy of +history reflects it; and that there is no more antecedent probability of +the Bishop of Durham's stock of ideas being agreeable to perfect reason +than of Pope Pius the Ninth's. But criticism will not on that account +forget the achievements of Protestantism in the practical and moral +sphere; nor that, even in the intellectual sphere, Protestantism, though +in a blind and stumbling manner, carried forward the Renaissance, while +Catholicism threw itself violently across its path. + +I lately heard a man of thought and energy contrasting the want of ardor +and movement which he now found amongst young men in England with what he +remembered in his own youth, twenty years ago. "What reformers we were +then!" he exclaimed; "what a zeal we had! how we canvassed every +institution in Church and State, and were prepared to remodel them all on +first principles!" He was inclined to regret, as a spiritual flagging, the +lull that he saw. I am disposed rather to regard it as a pause in which +the turn to a new mode of spiritual progress is being accomplished. +Everything was long seen, by the young and ardent amongst us, in +inseparable connection with politics and practical life. We have pretty +well exhausted the benefits of seeing things in this connection; we have +got all that can be got by so seeing them. Let us try a more disinterested +mode of seeing them; let us betake ourselves more to the serener life of +the mind and spirit. This life, too, may have its excesses and dangers; +but they are not for us at present. Let us think of quietly enlarging our +stock of true and fresh ideas, and not, as soon as we get an idea or half +an idea, be running out with it into the street, and trying to make it +rule there. Our ideas will, in the end, shape the world all the better for +maturing a little. Perhaps in fifty years' time it will in the English +House of Commons be an objection to an institution that it is an anomaly, +and my friend the Member of Parliament will shudder in his grave. But let +us in the meanwhile rather endeavor that in twenty years' time it may, in +English literature, be an objection to a proposition that it is absurd. +That will be a change so vast, that the imagination almost fails to grasp +it. _Ab integro sćculorum nascitur ordo._ + +If I have insisted so much on the course which criticism must take where +politics and religion are concerned, it is because, where these burning +matters are in question, it is most likely to go astray. In general, its +course is determined for it by the idea which is the law of its being: the +idea of a disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is +known and thought in the world, and thus to establish a current of fresh +and true ideas. By the very nature of things, as England is not all the +world, much of the best that is known and thought in the world cannot be +of English growth, must be foreign; by the nature of things, again, it is +just this that we are least likely to know, while English thought is +streaming in upon us from all sides, and takes excellent care that we +shall not be ignorant of its existence; the English critic, therefore, +must dwell much on foreign thought, and with particular heed on any part +of it which, while significant and fruitful in itself, is for any reason +specially likely to escape him. Judging is often spoken of as the critic's +one business, and so in some sense it is; but the judgment which almost +insensibly forms itself in a fair and clear mind, along with fresh +knowledge, is the valuable one; and thus knowledge, and ever fresh +knowledge, must be the critic's great concern for himself; and it is by +communicating fresh knowledge, and letting his own judgment pass along +with it,--but insensibly, and in the second place, not the first, as a +sort of companion and clue, not as an abstract lawgiver,--that he will +generally do most good to his readers. + +Sometimes, no doubt, for the sake of establishing an author's place in +literature and his relation to a central standard,--and if this is not +done, how are we to get at our _best in the world_?--criticism may have to +deal with a subject-matter so familiar that fresh knowledge is out of the +question, and then it must be all judgment; an enunciation and detailed +application of principles. Here the great safeguard is never to let one's +self become abstract, always to retain an intimate and lively +consciousness of the truth of what one is saying, and, the moment this +fails us, to be sure that something is wrong. Still, under all +circumstances, this mere judgment and application of principles is, in +itself, not the most satisfactory work to the critic; like mathematics, +it is tautological, and cannot well give us, like fresh learning, the +sense of creative activity. To have this sense is, as I said at the +beginning, the great happiness and the great proof of being alive, and it +is not denied to criticism to have it; but then criticism must be sincere, +simple, flexible, ardent, ever widening its knowledge. Then it may have, +in no contemptible measure, a joyful sense of creative activity; a sense +which a man of insight and conscience will prefer to what he might derive +from a poor, starved, fragmentary, inadequate creation. And at some epochs +no other creation is possible. + +Still, in full measure, the sense of creative activity belongs only to +genuine creation; in literature we must never forget that. But what true +man of letters ever can forget it? It is no such common matter for a +gifted nature to come into possession of a current of true and living +ideas, and to produce amidst the inspiration of them, that we are likely +to underrate it. The epochs of Ćschylus and Shakespeare make us feel their +preëminence. In an epoch like those is, no doubt, the true life of +literature; there is the promised land, toward which criticism can only +beckon. That promised land it will not be ours to enter, and we shall die +in the wilderness; but to have desired to enter it, to have saluted it +from afar, is already, perhaps, the best distinction among contemporaries; +it will certainly be the best title to esteem with posterity. + + + + +SIR MICHAEL FOSTER + +THE GROWTH OF SCIENCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY[2] + + +The eyes of the young look ever forward; they take little heed of the +short though ever-lengthening fragment of life which lies behind them; +they are wholly bent on that which is to come. The eyes of the aged turn +wistfully again and again to the past; as the old glide down the +inevitable slope, their present becomes a living over again the life which +has gone before, and the future takes on the shape of a brief lengthening +of the past. May I this evening venture to give rein to the impulses of +advancing years? May I, at this last meeting of the association in the +eighteen hundreds, dare to dwell for a while upon the past, and to call to +mind a few of the changes which have taken place in the world since those +autumn days in which men were saying to each other that the last of the +seventeen hundreds was drawing toward its end? + +Dover, in the year of our Lord 1799, was in many ways unlike the Dover of +to-day. On moonless nights men groped their way in its narrow streets by +the help of swinging lanterns and smoky torches, for no lamps lit the +ways. By day the light of the sun struggled into the houses through narrow +panes of blurred glass. Though the town then, as now, was one of the chief +portals to and from the countries beyond the seas, the means of travel was +scanty and dear, available for the most part to the rich alone, and for +all beset with discomfort and risk. Slow and uncertain was the carriage +of goods, and the news of the world outside came to the town (though it, +from its position, learned more than most towns) tardily, fitfully, and +often falsely. The people of Dover sat then much in dimness, if not in +darkness, and lived in large measure on themselves. They who study the +phenomena of living beings tell us that light is the great stimulus of +life, and that the fullness of the life of a being or of any of its +members may be measured by the variety, the swiftness, and the certainty +of the means by which it is in touch with its surroundings. Judged from +this standpoint, life at Dover then, as indeed elsewhere, must have fallen +far short of the life of to-day. + +The same study of living beings, however, teaches us that while from one +point of view the environment seems to mould the organism, from another +point the organism seems to be master of its environment. Going behind the +change of circumstances, we may raise the question, the old question, Was +life in its essence worth more then than now? Has there been a real +advance? + +Let me at once relieve your minds by saying that I propose to leave this +question in the main unanswered. It may be, or it may not be, that man's +grasp of the beautiful and of the good, if not looser, is not firmer than +it was a hundred years ago. It may be, or it may not be, that man is no +nearer to absolute truth, to seeing things as they really are, than he was +then. I will merely ask you to consider with me for a few minutes how far +and in what ways man's laying hold of that aspect of, or part of, truth +which we call natural knowledge, or sometimes science, differed in 1799 +from what it is to-day, and whether that change must not be accounted a +real advance, a real improvement in man. + +I do not propose to weary you by what in my hands would be the rash effort +of attempting a survey of all the scientific results of the nineteenth +century. It will be enough if for a little while I dwell on some few of +the salient features distinguishing the way in which we nowadays look +upon, and during the coming week shall speak of, the works of nature +around us--though those works themselves, save for the slight shifting +involved in a secular change, remain exactly the same--from the way in +which they were looked upon and might have been spoken of at a gathering +of philosophers at Dover in 1799, and I ask your leave to do so. + +In the philosophy of the ancients earth, fire, air, and water were called +"the elements." It was thought, and rightly thought, that a knowledge of +them and of their attributes was a necessary basis of a knowledge of the +ways of nature. Translated into modern language, a knowledge of these +"elements" of old means a knowledge of the composition of the atmosphere, +of water, and of all the other things which we call matter, as well as a +knowledge of the general properties of gases, liquids, and solids, and of +the nature and effects of combustion. Of all these things our knowledge +to-day is large and exact, and, though ever enlarging, in some respects +complete. When did that knowledge begin to become exact? + +To-day the children in our schools know that the air which wraps round the +globe is not a single thing, but is made up of two things, oxygen and +nitrogen,[3] mingled together. They know, again, that water is not a +single thing, but the product of two things, oxygen and hydrogen, joined +together. They know that when the air makes the fire burn and gives the +animal life, it is the oxygen in it which does the work. They know that +all round them things are undergoing that union with oxygen which we call +oxidation, and that oxidation is the ordinary source of heat and light. +Let me ask you to picture to yourselves what confusion there would be +to-morrow, not only in the discussions at the sectional meetings of our +association, but in the world at large, if it should happen that in the +coming night some destroying touch should wither up certain tender +structures in all our brains and wipe out from our memories all traces of +the ideas which cluster in our minds around the verbal tokens, oxygen and +oxidation. How could any of us--not the so-called man of science alone, +but even the man of business and the man of pleasure--go about his ways +lacking those ideas? Yet those ideas were, in 1799, lacking to all but a +few. + +Although in the third quarter of the seventeenth century the light of +truth about oxidation and combustion had flashed out in the writings of +John Mayow, it came as a flash only, and died away as soon as it had come. +For the rest of that century, and for the greater part of the next, +philosophers stumbled about in darkness, misled for most of the time by +the phantom conception which they called phlogiston. It was not until the +end of the third quarter of the eighteenth century that the new light, +which has burned steadily ever since, lit up the minds of the men of +science. The light came at nearly the same time from England and from +France. Rounding off the sharp corners of controversy, and joining, as we +may fitly do to-day, the two countries as twin bearers of a common crown, +we may say that we owe the truth to Priestley, to Lavoisier, and to +Cavendish. If it was Priestley who was the first to demonstrate the +existence of what we now call oxygen, it is to Lavoisier that we owe the +true conception of the nature of oxidation and the clear exposition of the +full meaning of Priestley's discovery; while the knowledge of the +composition of water, the necessity complement of the knowledge of oxygen, +came to us through Cavendish and, we may perhaps add, through Watt. + +The date of Priestley's discovery of oxygen is 1774; Lavoisier's classic +memoir "On the nature of the principle which enters into combination with +metals during calcination" appeared in 1775, and Cavendish's paper on the +composition of water did not see the light until 1784. + +During the last quarter of the eighteenth century this new idea of oxygen +and oxidation was struggling into existence. How new was the idea, is +illustrated by the fact that Lavoisier himself at first spoke of that +which he was afterwards, namely, in 1778, led to call oxygen, the name by +which it has since been known, as "the principle which enters into +combination." What difficulties its acceptance met with is illustrated by +the fact that Priestley himself refused to the end of his life to grasp +the true bearings of the discovery which he had made. + +In the year 1799 the knowledge of oxygen, of the nature of water and of +air, and indeed the true conception of chemical composition and chemical +change, was hardly more than beginning to be; and the century had to pass +wholly away before the next great chemical idea, which we know by the name +of the atomic theory of John Dalton, was made known. We have only to read +the scientific literature of the time to recognize that a truth which is +now not only woven as a master-thread into all our scientific conceptions, +but even enters largely into the everyday talk and thoughts of educated +people, was, a hundred years ago, struggling into existence among the +philosophers themselves. It was all but absolutely unknown to the large +world outside those select few. + +If there be one word of science which is writ large on the life of the +present time, it is the word "electricity." It is, I take it, writ larger +than any other word. The knowledge which it denotes has carried its +practical results far and wide into our daily life, while the theoretical +conceptions which it signifies pierce deep into the nature of things. We +are to-day proud, and justly proud, both of the material triumphs and of +the intellectual gains which it has brought us, and we are full of even +larger hopes of it in the future. + +At what time did this bright child of the nineteenth century have its +birth? + +He who listened to the small group of philosophers of Dover, who in 1799 +might have discoursed of natural knowledge, would perhaps have heard much +of electric machines, of electric sparks, of the electric fluid, and even +of positive and negative electricity; for frictional electricity had long +been known and even carefully studied. Probably one or more of the group, +dwelling on the observations which Galvani, an Italian, had made known +some twenty years before, developed views on the connection of electricity +with the phenomena of living bodies. Possibly one of them was exciting the +rest by telling how he had just heard that a professor at Pavia, one +Volta, had discovered that electricity could be produced, not only by +rubbing together particular bodies, but by the simple contact of two +metals, and had thereby explained Galvani's remarkable results. For, +indeed, as we shall hear from Professor Fleming, it was in that very year, +1799, that electricity as we now know it took its birth. It was then that +Volta brought to light the apparently simple truths out of which so much +has sprung. The world, it is true, had to wait for yet some twenty years +before both the practical and theoretic worth of Volta's discovery became +truly pregnant under the fertilizing influence of another discovery. The +loadstone and its magnetic virtues had, like the electrifying power of +rubbed amber, long been an old story. But, save for the compass, not much +had come from it. And even Volta's discovery might have long remained +relatively barren had it been left to itself. When, however, in 1819, +Oersted made known his remarkable observations on the relations of +electricity to magnetism, he made the contact needed for the flow of a new +current of ideas. And it is perhaps not too much to say that those ideas, +developing during the years of the rest of the century with an +ever-accelerating swiftness, have wholly changed man's material relations +to the circumstances of life, and at the same time carried him far in his +knowledge of the nature of things. + +Of all the various branches of science, none perhaps is to-day, none for +these many years past has been, so well known to, even if not understood +by, most people as that of geology. Its practical lessons have brought +wealth to many; its fairy tales have brought delight to more; and round it +hovers the charm of danger, for the conclusions to which it leads touch on +the nature of man's beginning. + +In 1799 the science of geology, as we now know it, was struggling into +birth. There had been from of old cosmogonies, theories as to how the +world had taken shape out of primeval chaos. In that fresh spirit which +marked the zealous search after natural knowledge pursued in the middle +and latter part of the seventeenth century, the brilliant Stenson, in +Italy, and Hooke, in England, had laid hold of some of the problems +presented by fossil remains, and Woodward, with others, had labored in the +same field. In the eighteenth century, especially in its latter half, +men's minds were busy about the physical agencies determining or modifying +the features of the earth's crust; water and fire, subsidence from a +primeval ocean and transformation by outbursts of the central heat, +Neptune and Pluto were being appealed to, by Werner on the one hand and by +Demarest on the other, in explanation of the earth's phenomena. The way +was being prepared, theories and views were abundant, and many sound +observations had been made; and yet the science of geology, properly so +called, the exact and proved knowledge of the successive phases of the +world's life, may be said to date from the closing years of the eighteenth +century. + +In 1783 James Hutton put forward in a brief memoir his Theory of the +Earth, which, in 1795, two years before his death, he expanded into a +book; but his ideas failed to lay hold of men's minds until the century +had passed away, when, in 1802, they found an able expositor in John +Playfair. The very same year that Hutton published his book, Cuvier came +to Paris and almost forthwith began, with Brongniart, his immortal +researches into the fossils of Paris and its neighborhood. And four years +later, in the year 1799 itself, William Smith's tabular list of strata and +fossils saw the light. It is, I believe, not too much to say that out of +these, geology, as we now know it, sprang. + +It was thus in the closing years of the eighteenth century that was begun +the work which the nineteenth century has carried forward to such great +results; but at this time only the select few had grasped the truth, and +even they only the beginning of it. Outside a narrow circle the thoughts +even of the educated about the history of the globe were bounded by the +story of the Deluge,--though the story was often told in a strange +fashion,--or were guided by fantastic views of the plastic forces of a +sportive nature. + +In another branch of science, in that which deals with the problems +presented by living beings, the thoughts of men in 1799 were also very +different from the thoughts of men to-day. It is a very old quest, the +quest after the knowledge of the nature of living beings, one of the +earliest on which man set out; for it promised to lead him to a knowledge +of himself--a promise which perhaps is still before us, but the +fulfillment of which is yet far off. As time has gone on, the pursuit of +natural knowledge has seemed to lead man away from himself into the +furthermost parts of the universe, and into secret workings of Nature in +which he appears to be of little or no account; and his knowledge of the +nature of living things, and so of his own nature, has advanced slowly, +waiting till the progress of other branches of natural knowledge can bring +it aid. Yet in the past hundred years the biologic sciences, as we now +call them, have marched rapidly onward. + +We may look upon a living body as a machine doing work in accordance with +certain laws, and may seek to trace out the working of the inner wheels: +how these raise up the lifeless dust into living matter, and let the +living matter fall away again into dust, giving out movement and heat. Or +we may look upon the individual life as a link in a long chain, joining +something which went before to something about to come, a chain whose +beginning lies hid in the farthest past, and may seek to know the ties +which bind one life to another. As we call up to view the long series of +living forms, living now or flitting like shadows on the screen of the +past, we may strive to lay hold of the influences which fashion the +garment of life. Whether the problems of life are looked upon from the one +point of view or the other, we to-day, not biologists only, but all of us, +have gained a knowledge hidden even from the philosophers a hundred years +ago. + +Of the problems presented by the living body viewed as a machine, some may +be spoken of as mechanical, others as physical, and yet others as +chemical, while some are, apparently at least, none of these. In the +seventeenth century William Harvey, laying hold of the central mechanism +of the blood stream, opened up a path of inquiry which his own age and the +century which followed trod with marked success. The knowledge of the +mechanism of the animal and of the plant advanced apace, but the physical +and chemical problems had yet to wait. The eighteenth century, it is true, +had its physics and its chemistry; but, in relation at least to the +problems of the living being, a chemistry which knew not oxygen and a +physics which knew not the electricity of chemical action were of little +avail. The philosopher of 1799, when he discussed the functions of the +animal or of the plant involving chemical changes, was fain, for the most +part, as were his predecessors in the century before, to have recourse to +such vague terms as "fermentation" and the like; to-day our treatises on +physiology are largely made up of precise and exact expositions of the +play of physical agencies and chemical bodies in the living organisms. He +made use of the words "vital force" or "vital principle," not as an +occasional, but as a common, explanation of the phenomena of the living +body. During the present century, especially during its latter half, the +idea embodied in those words has been driven away from one seat after +another; if we use it now when we are dealing with the chemical and +physical events of life, we use it with reluctance, as a _deus ex machina_ +to be appealed to only when everything else has failed. + +Some of the problems--and those, perhaps, the chief problems--of the +living body have to be solved, neither by physical nor by chemical +methods, but by methods of their own. Such are the problems of the nervous +system. In respect to these the men of 1799 were on the threshold of a +pregnant discovery. During the latter part of this nineteenth century, +especially during its last quarter, the analysis of the mysterious +processes in the nervous system, and especially in the brain, which issue +as feeling, thought, and the power to move, has been pushed forward with a +success conspicuous in its practical, and full of promise in its +theoretical, gains. That analysis may be briefly described as a following +up of threads. We now know that what takes place along a tiny thread which +we call a nerve fibre differs from that which takes place along its fellow +threads, that differing nervous impulses travel along different nervous +fibres, and that nervous and physical events are the outcome of the +clashing of nervous impulses as they sweep along the closely woven web of +living threads of which the brain is made. We have learned by experiment +and by observation that the pattern of the web determines the play of the +impulses, and we can already explain many of the obscure problems, not +only of nervous disease, but of nervous life, by an analysis which is a +tracking out of the devious and linked path of nervous threads. The very +beginning of this analysis was unknown in 1799. Men knew that nerves were +the agents of feeling and of the movements of muscles; they had learned +much about what this part or that part of the brain could do; but they did +not know that one nerve fibre differed from another in the very essence of +its work. It was just about the end of the eighteenth century, or the +beginning of the nineteenth, that an English surgeon began to ponder over +a conception which, however, he did not make known until some years later, +and which did not gain complete demonstration and full acceptance until +still more years had passed away. It was in 1811, in a tiny pamphlet +published privately, that Charles Bell put forth his New Idea, that the +nervous system is constructed on the principle that "the nerves are not +single nerves possessing various powers, but bundles of different nerves, +whose filaments are united for the convenience of distribution, but which +are distinct in office, as they are in origin, from the brain." + +Our present knowledge of the nervous system is to a large extent only an +exemplification and expansion of Charles Bell's New Idea, and has its +origin in that. + +If we pass from the problems of the living organism viewed as a machine to +those presented by the varied features of the different creatures who have +lived or who still live on the earth, we at once call to mind that the +middle years of the nineteenth century mark an epoch in biologic thought +such as never came before; for it was then that Charles Darwin gave to the +world the "Origin of Species." + +That work, however, with all the far-reaching effects which it has had, +could have had little or no effect, or, rather, could not have come into +existence, had not the earlier half of the century been in travail +preparing for its coming. For the germinal idea of Darwin appeals, as to +witnesses, to the results of two lines of biologic investigation which +were almost unknown to the men of the eighteenth century. + +To one of these lines I have already referred. Darwin, as we know, +appealed to the geological record; and we also know how that record, +imperfect as it was then, and imperfect as it must always remain, has +since his time yielded the most striking proofs of at least one part of +his general conception. In 1799 there was, as we have seen, no geological +record at all. + +Of the other line I must say a few words. + +To-day the merest beginner in biologic study, or even that exemplar of +acquaintance without knowledge, the general reader, is aware that every +living being, even man himself, begins its independent existence as a tiny +ball, of which we can, even acknowledging to the full the limits of the +optical analysis at our command, assert with confidence that in structure, +using that word in its ordinary sense, it is in all cases absolutely +simple. It is equally well known that the features of form which supply +the characters of a grown-up living being, all the many and varied +features of even the most complex organism, are reached as the goal of a +road, at times a long road, of successive changes; that the life of every +being, from the ovum to its full estate, is a series of shifting scenes, +which come and go, sometimes changing abruptly, sometimes melting the one +into the other, like dissolving views--all so ordained that often the +final shape with which the creature seems to begin, or is said to begin, +its life in the world is the outcome of many shapes, clothed with which it +in turn has lived many lives before its seeming birth. + +All, or nearly all, the exact knowledge of the labored way in which each +living creature puts on its proper shape and structure is the heritage of +the present century. Although the way in which the chick is moulded in the +egg was not wholly unknown even to the ancients, and in later years had +been told, first in the sixteenth century by Fabricius, then in the +seventeenth century, in a more clear and striking manner, by the great +Italian naturalist, Malpighi, the teaching thus offered had been neglected +or misinterpreted. At the close of the eighteenth century the dominant +view was that in the making of a creature out of the egg there was no +putting on of wholly new parts, no epigenesis. It was taught that the +entire creature lay hidden in the egg, hidden by reason of the very +transparency of its substance; lay ready-made, but folded up, as it were; +and that the process of development within the egg or within the womb was +a mere unfolding, a simple evolution. Nor did men shrink from accepting +the logical outcome of such a view--namely, that within the unborn +creature itself lay in like manner, hidden and folded up, its offspring +also, and within that, again, its offspring in turn, after the fashion of +a cluster of ivory balls carved by Chinese hands, one within the other. + +This was no fantastic view, put forward by an imaginative dreamer; it was +seriously held by sober men, even by men like the illustrious Haller, in +spite of their recognizing that, as the chick grew in the egg, some +changes of form took place. Though so early as the middle of the +eighteenth century Friedrich Casper Wolff, and, later on, others, had +strenuously opposed such a view, it held its own, not only to the close of +the century, but far on into the next. It was not until a quarter of the +nineteenth century had been added to the past that Von Baer made known the +results of researches which once and for all swept away the old view. He +and others working after him made it clear that each individual puts on +its final form and structure, not by an unfolding of preëxisting hidden +features, but by the formation of new parts through the continued +differentiation of a primitively simple material. It was also made clear +that the successive changes which the embryo undergoes in its progress +from the ovum to maturity are the expression of morphologic laws; that the +progress is one from the general to the special; and that the shifting +scenes of embryonic life are hints and tokens of lives lived by ancestors +in times long past. + +If we wish to measure how far off in biologic thought the end of the +eighteenth century stands, not only from the end, but even from the middle +of the nineteenth, we may imagine Darwin striving to write the "Origin of +Species" in 1799. We may fancy his being told by philosophers how one +group of living beings differed from another group because all its members +and all their ancestors came into existence at one stroke, when the +first-born progenitor of the race, within which all the rest were folded +up, stood forth as the result of a creative act. We may fancy him +listening to a debate between the philosopher who maintained that all the +fossils strewn in the earth were the remains of animals or plants churned +up in the turmoil of a violent universal flood, and dropped in their +places as the waters went away, and him who argued that such were not +really the "spoils of living creatures," but the products of some playful +plastic power which, out of the superabundance of its energy, fashioned +here and there the lifeless earth into forms which imitated, but only +imitated, those of living things. Could he amid such surroundings, by any +flight of genius, have beaten his way to the conception for which his name +will ever be known? + + * * * * * + +Here I may well turn away from the past. It is not my purpose, nor, as I +have said, am I fitted, nor is this perhaps the place, to tell even in +outline the tale of the work of science in the nineteenth century. I am +content to have pointed out that the two great sciences of chemistry and +geology took their birth, or at least began to stand alone, at the close +of the last century, and have grown to be what we know them now within +about a hundred years, and that the study of living beings has within the +same time been so transformed as to be to-day something wholly different +from what it was in 1799. And, indeed, to say more would be to repeat +almost the same story about other things. If our present knowledge of +electricity is essentially the child of the nineteenth century, so also is +our present knowledge of many other branches of physics. And those most +ancient forms of exact knowledge, the knowledge of numbers and of the +heavens, whose beginning is lost in the remote past, have, with all other +kinds of natural knowledge, moved onward during the whole of the hundred +years with a speed which is ever increasing. I have said, I trust, enough +to justify the statement that in respect to natural knowledge a great gulf +lies between 1799 and 1899. That gulf, moreover, is a twofold one: not +only has natural knowledge been increased, but men have run to and fro, +spreading it as they go. Not only have the few driven far back round the +full circle of natural knowledge the dark clouds of the unknown, which +wrap us all about, but also the many walk in the zone of light thus +increasingly gained. If it be true that the few to-day are, in respect to +natural knowledge, far removed from the few of those days, it is also true +that nearly all which the few alone knew then, and much which they did not +know, has now become the common knowledge of the many. + +What, however, I may venture to insist upon here is that the difference in +respect to natural knowledge, whatever be the case with other differences +between then and now, is undoubtedly a difference which means progress. +The span between the science of that time and the science of to-day is +beyond all question a great stride onward. + +We may say this, but we must say it without boasting. For the very story +of the past, which tells of the triumphs of science, bids the man of +science put away from him all thoughts of vainglory, and that by many +tokens. + +Whoever, working at any scientific problem, has occasion to study the +inquiries into the same problem by some fellow worker in the years long +gone by, comes away from that study humbled by one or other of two +different thoughts. On the one hand, he may find, when he has translated +the language of the past into the phraseology of to-day, how near was his +forerunner of old to the conception which he thought, with pride, was all +his own, not only so true but so new. On the other hand, if the ideas of +the investigator of old, viewed in the light of modern knowledge, are +found to be so wide of the mark as to seem absurd, the smile which begins +to play upon the lips of the modern is checked by the thought, Will the +ideas which I am now putting forth, and which I think explain so clearly, +so fully, the problem in hand, seem to some worker in the far future as +wrong and as fantastic as do these of my forerunner to me? In either case +his personal pride is checked. + +Further, there is written clearly on each page of the history of science, +in characters which cannot be overlooked, the lesson that no scientific +truth is born anew, coming by itself and of itself. Each new truth is +always the offspring of something which has gone before, becoming in turn +the parent of something coming after. In this aspect the man of science is +unlike, or seems to be unlike, the poet and the artist. The poet is born, +not made; he rises up, no man knowing his beginnings; when he goes away, +though men after him may sing his songs for centuries, he himself goes +away wholly, having taken with him his mantle, for this he can give to +none other. The man of science is not thus creative: he is created. His +work, however great it be, is not wholly his own: it is in part the +outcome of the work of men who have gone before. Again and again a +conception which has made a name great has come not so much by the man's +own effort as out of the fullness of time. Again and again we may read in +the words of some man of old the outlines of an idea which, in later days, +has shone forth as a great acknowledged truth. From the mouth of the man +of old the idea dropped barren, fruitless; the world was not ready for it, +and heeded it not; the concomitant and abutting truths which could give it +power to work were wanting. Coming back again in later days, the same idea +found the world awaiting it; things were in travail preparing for it, and +someone, seizing the right moment to put it forth again, leaped into fame. +It is not so much the men of science who make science, as some spirit, +which, born of the truths already won, drives the man of science onward +and uses him to win new truths in turn. + +It is because each man of science is not his own master, but one of many +obedient servants of an impulse which was at work long before him, and +will work long after him, that in science there is no falling back. In +respect to other things there may be times of darkness and times of light; +there may be risings, decadences, and revivals. In science there is only +progress. The path may not be always a straight line; there may be +swerving to this side and to that; ideas may seem to return again and +again to the same point of the intellectual compass; but it will always be +found that they have reached a higher level--they have moved, not in a +circle, but in a spiral. Moreover, science is not fashioned as is a house, +by putting brick to brick, that which is once put remaining as it was put, +to the end. The growth of science is that of a living being. As in the +embryo, phase follows phase, and each member or body puts on in succession +different appearances, though all the while the same member, so a +scientific conception of one age seems to differ from that of a following +age, though it is the same one in the process of being made; and as the +dim outlines of the early embryo become, as the being grows more distinct +and sharp, like a picture on a screen brought more and more into focus, so +the dim gropings and searchings of the men of science of old are by +repeated approximations wrought into the clear and exact conclusions of +later times. + +The story of natural knowledge, of science, in the nineteenth century, as, +indeed, in preceding centuries, is, I repeat, a story of continued +progress. There is in it not so much as a hint of falling back, not even +of standing still. What is gained by scientific inquiry is gained forever; +it may be added to, it may seem to be covered up, but it can never be +taken away. Confident that the progress will go on, we cannot help peering +into the years to come, and straining our eyes to foresee what science +will become and what it will do as they roll on. While we do so, the +thought must come to us: Will all the increasing knowledge of nature +avail only to change the ways of man; will it have no effect on man +himself? + +The material good which mankind has gained and is gaining through the +advance of science is so imposing as to be obvious to everyone, and the +praises of this aspect of science are to be found in the mouths of all. +Beyond all doubt, science has greatly lessened and has markedly narrowed +hardship and suffering; beyond all doubt, science has largely increased +and has widely diffused ease and comfort. The appliances of science have, +as it were, covered with a soft cushion the rough places of life, and that +not for the rich only, but also for the poor. So abundant and so prominent +are the material benefits of science, that in the eyes of many these seem +to be the only benefits which she brings. She is often spoken of as if she +were useful and nothing more; as if her work were only to administer to +the material wants of man. + +Is this so? We may begin to doubt it when we reflect that the triumphs of +science which bring these material advantages are in their very nature +intellectual triumphs. The increasing benefits brought by science are the +results of man's increasing mastery over nature, and that mastery is +increasingly a mastery of mind; it is an increasing power to use the +forces of what we call inanimate nature in place of the force of his own +or other creatures' bodies; it is an increasing use of mind in place of +muscle. + +Is it to be thought that that which has brought the mind so greatly into +play has had no effect on the mind itself? Is that part of the mind which +works out scientific truths a mere slavish machine, producing results it +knows not how, having no part in the good which in its workings it brings +forth? + +What are the qualities, the features, of that scientific mind which has +wrought, and is working, such great changes in man's relation to nature? +In seeking an answer to this question we have not to inquire into the +attributes of genius. Though much of the progress of science seems to take +on the form of a series of great steps, each made by some great man, the +distinction in science between the great discoverer and the humble worker +is one of degree only, not of kind. As I was urging just now, the +greatness of many great names in science is often, in large part, the +greatness of occasion, not of absolute power. The qualities which guide +one man to a small truth silently taking its place among its fellows, as +these go to make up progress, are at bottom the same as those by which +another man is led to something of which the whole world rings. + +The features of the fruitful scientific mind are, in the main, three. + +In the first place, above all other things, his nature must be one which +vibrates in unison with that of which he is in search; the seeker after +truth must himself be truthful, truthful with the truthfulness of nature. +For the truthfulness of nature is not wholly the same as that which man +sometimes calls truthfulness. It is far more imperious, far more exacting. +Man, unscientific man, is often content with the "nearly" and the +"almost." Nature never is. It is not her way to call the same two things +which differ, though the difference may be measured by less than a +thousandth of a milligramme or of a millimetre, or by any other like +standard of minuteness. And the man who, carrying the ways of the world +into the domain of science, thinks that he may treat nature's differences +in any other way than she treats them herself, will find that she resents +his conduct; if he, in carelessness or in disdain, overlooks the minute +difference which she holds out to him as a signet to guide him in his +search, the projecting tip, as it were, of some buried treasure, he is +bound to go astray, and the more strenuously he struggles on, the further +he will find himself from his true goal. + +In the second place, he must be alert of mind. Nature is ever making signs +to us; she is ever whispering to us the beginnings of her secrets; the +scientific man must be ever on the watch, ready at once to lay hold of +nature's hint, however small; to listen to her whisper, however low. + +In the third place, scientific inquiry, though it be preeminently an +intellectual effort, has need of the moral quality of courage--not so much +the courage which helps a man to face a sudden difficulty as the courage +of steadfast endurance. Almost every inquiry, certainly every prolonged +inquiry, sooner or later goes wrong. The path, at first so straight and +clear, grows crooked and gets blocked; the hope and enthusiasm, or even +the jaunty ease, with which the inquirer set out, leave him, and he falls +into a slough of despond. That is the critical moment calling for courage. +Struggling through the slough, he will find on the other side the wicket +gate opening up the real path; losing heart, he will turn back and add one +more stone to the great cairn of the unaccomplished. + +But, I hear someone say, these qualities are not the peculiar attributes +of the man of science: they may be recognized as belonging to almost +everyone who has commanded or deserved success, whatever may have been his +walk of life. That is so. That is exactly what I desire to insist, that +the men of science have no peculiar virtues, no special powers. They are +ordinary men, their characters are common, even commonplace. Science, as +Huxley said, is organized common sense, and men of science are common men +drilled in the ways of common sense. For their life has this feature. +Though in themselves they are no stronger, no better than other men, they +possess a strength which, as I just now urged, is not their own, but is +that of the science whose servants they are. Even in his apprenticeship, +the scientific inquirer, while learning what has been done before his +time, if he learns it aright, so learns it that what is known may serve +him, not only as a vantage-ground whence to push off into the unknown, but +also as a compass to guide him in his course. And when, fitted for his +work, he enters on inquiry itself, what a zealous, anxious guide, what a +strict and, because strict, helpful, schoolmistress does Nature make +herself to him! Under her care every inquiry, whether it bring the +inquirer to a happy issue or seem to end in nought, trains him for the +next effort. She so orders her ways that each act of obedience to her +makes the next act easier for him; and step by step she leads him on +toward that perfect obedience which is complete mastery. + +Indeed, when we reflect on the potency of the discipline of scientific +inquiry, we cease to wonder at the progress of scientific knowledge. The +results actually gained seem to fall so far short of what under such +guidance might have been expected to have been gathered in, that we are +fain to conclude that science has called to follow her, for the most part, +the poor in intellect and the wayward in spirit. Had she called to her +service the many acute minds who have wasted their strength struggling in +vain to solve hopeless problems, or who have turned their energies to +things other than the increase of knowledge; had she called to her service +the many just men who have walked straight without the need of a rod to +guide them, how much greater than it has been would have been the progress +of science, and how many false teachings would the world have been spared! +To men of science themselves, when they consider their favored lot, the +achievements of the past should serve, not as a boast, but as a reproach. + +If there be any truth in what I have been urging, that the pursuit of +scientific inquiry is itself a training of special potency, giving +strength to the feeble and keeping in the path those who are inclined to +stray, it is obvious that the material gains of science, great as they may +be, do not make up all the good which science brings, or may bring, to +man. We especially, perhaps, in these later days, through the rapid +development of the physical sciences, are too apt to dwell on the material +gains alone. As a child in its infancy looks upon its mother only as a +giver of good things, and does not learn till after days how she was also +showing her love by carefully training it in the way it should go, so we, +too, have thought too much of the gifts of science, overlooking her power +to guide. + +Man does not live by bread alone, and science brings him more than bread. +It is a great thing to make two blades of grass grow where before one +alone grew; but it is no less great a thing to help a man to come to a +just conclusion on the questions with which he has to deal. We may claim +for science that, while she is doing the one, she may be so used as to do +the other also. The dictum just quoted, that science is organized common +sense, may be read as meaning that the common problems of life, which +common people have to solve, are to be solved by the same methods by which +the man of science solves his special problems. It follows that the +training which does so much for him may be looked to as promising to do +much for them. + +Such aid can come from science on two conditions only. In the first place, +this her influence must be acknowledged; she must be duly recognized as a +teacher no less than as a hewer of wood and a drawer of water. And the +pursuit of science must be followed, not by the professional few only, but +at least in such measure as will ensure the influence of example by the +many. But this latter point I need not urge before this great +association, whose chief object during more than half a century has been +to bring within the fold of science all who would answer to the call. In +the second place, it must be understood that the training to be looked for +from science is the outcome, not of the accumulation of scientific +knowledge, but of the practice of scientific inquiry. Man may have at his +fingers' ends all the accomplished results and all the current opinions of +any one or of all the branches of science, and yet remain wholly +unscientific in mind; but no one can have carried out even the humblest +research without the spirit of science in some measure resting upon him. +And that spirit may in part be caught even without entering upon an actual +investigation in search of a new truth. The learner may be led to old +truths, even the oldest, in more ways than one. He may be brought abruptly +to a truth in its finished form, coming straight to it like a thief +climbing over the wall; and the hurry and press of modern life tempt many +to adopt this quicker way. Or he may be more slowly guided along the path +by which the truth was reached by him who first laid hold of it. It is by +this latter way of learning the truth, and by this alone, that the learner +may hope to catch something at least of the spirit of the scientific +inquirer. + +This is not the place, nor have I the wish, to plunge into the turmoil of +controversy; but if there be any truth in what I have been urging, then +they are wrong who think that in the schooling of the young science can be +used with profit only to train those for whom science will be the means of +earning their bread. It may be that, from the point of view of pedagogic +art, the experience of generations has fashioned out of the older studies +of literature an instrument of discipline of unusual power, and that the +teaching of science is as yet but a rough tool in unpractised hands. That, +however, is not an adequate reason why scope should not be given for +science to show the value which we claim for it as an intellectual +training fitted for all sorts and conditions of men. Nor need the studies +of humanity and literature fear her presence in the schools; for if her +friends maintain that the teaching is one-sided, and therefore misleading, +which deals with the doings of man only, and is silent about the works of +nature, in the sight of which he and his doings shrink almost to nothing, +she herself would be the first to admit that that teaching is equally +wrong which deals only with the works of nature and says nothing about the +doings of man, who is, to us at least, nature's centre. + +There is yet another general aspect of science on which I would crave +leave to say a word. In that broad field of human life which we call +politics, in the struggle, not of man with man, but of race with race, +science works for good. If we look only on the surface, it may at first +sight seem otherwise. In no branch of science has there during these later +years been greater activity and more rapid progress than in that which +furnishes the means by which man brings death, suffering, and disaster on +his fellow men. If the healer can look with pride on the increased power +which science has given him to alleviate human suffering and ward off the +miseries of disease, the destroyer can look with still greater pride on +the power which science has given him to sweep away lives and to work +desolation and ruin; while the one has slowly been learning to save units, +the other has quickly learned to slay thousands. But, happily, the very +greatness of the modern power of destruction is already becoming a bar to +its use, and bids fair--may we hope before long--wholly to put an end to +it; in the words of Tacitus, though in another sense, the very +preparations for war, through the character which science gives them, make +for peace. + +Moreover, not in one branch of science only, but in all, there is a deep +undercurrent of influence sapping the very foundations of all war. As I +have already urged, no feature of scientific inquiry is more marked than +the dependence of each step forward on other steps which have been made +before. The man of science cannot sit by himself in his own cave, weaving +out results by his own efforts, unaided by others, heedless of what others +have done and are doing. He is but a bit of a great system, a joint in a +great machine, and he can only work aright when he is in due touch with +his fellow workers. If his labor is to be what it ought to be, and is to +have the weight which it ought to have, he must know what is being done, +not by himself, but by others, and by others not of his own land and +speaking his tongue only, but also of other lands and of other speech. +Hence it comes about that to the man of science the barriers of manners +and of speech which pen men into nations become more and more unreal and +indistinct. He recognizes his fellow worker, wherever he may live, and +whatever tongue he may speak, as one who is pushing forward shoulder to +shoulder with him toward a common goal, as one whom he is helping and who +is helping him. The touch of science makes the whole world kin. + +The history of the past gives us many examples of this brotherhood of +science. In the revival of learning throughout the sixteenth and +seventeenth centuries, and some way on into the eighteenth century, the +common use of the Latin tongue made intercourse easy. In some respects, in +those earlier days science was more cosmopolitan than it afterwards +became. In spite of the difficulties and hardships of travel, the men of +science of different lands again and again met each other face to face, +heard with their ears, and saw with their eyes, what their brethren had to +say or show. The Englishman took the long journey to Italy to study +there; the Italian, the Frenchman, and the German wandered from one seat +of learning to another; and many a man held a chair in a country not his +own. There was help, too, as well as intercourse. The Royal Society of +London took upon itself the task of publishing nearly all the works of the +great Italian, Malpighi; and the brilliant Lavoisier, two years before his +own countrymen in their blind fury slew him, received from the same body +the highest token which it could give of its esteem. + +In these closing years of the nineteenth century this great need of mutual +knowledge and of common action felt by men of science of different lands +is being manifested in a special way. Though nowadays what is done +anywhere is soon known everywhere, the news of a discovery being often +flashed over the globe by telegraph, there is an increasing activity in +the direction of organization to promote international meetings and +international coöperation. In almost every science, inquirers from many +lands now gather together at stated intervals, in international +congresses, to discuss matters which they have in common at heart, and go +away, each one feeling strengthened by having met his brother. The desire +that, in the struggle to lay bare the secrets of nature, the least waste +of human energy should be incurred, is leading more and more to the +concerted action of nations combining to attack problems the solution of +which is difficult and costly. The determination of standards of +measurement, magnetic surveys, the solution of great geodetic problems, +the mapping of the heavens and of the earth--all these are being carried +on by international organizations. + + * * * * * + +One international scientific effort demands a word of notice. The need +which every inquirer in science feels to know, and to know quickly, what +his fellow worker, wherever on the globe he may be carrying on his work or +making known his results, has done or is doing, led some four years back +to a proposal for carrying out by international coöperation a complete +current index, issued promptly, of the scientific literature of the world. +Though much labor in many lands has been spent upon the undertaking, the +project is not yet an accomplished fact. Nor can this, perhaps, be +wondered at, when the difficulties of the task are weighed. Difficulties +of language, difficulties of driving in one team all the several sciences +which, like young horses, wish each to have its head free with leave to go +its own way, difficulties mechanical and financial, of press and post, +difficulties raised by existing interests--these and yet other +difficulties are obstacles not easy to be overcome. The most striking and +the most encouraging features of the deliberations which have now been +going on for three years have been the repeated expressions, coming not +from this or that quarter only, but from almost all quarters, of an +earnest desire that the effort should succeed, of a sincere belief in the +good of international coöperation, and of a willingness to sink as far as +possible individual interests for the sake of the common cause. In the +face of such a spirit we may surely hope that the many difficulties will +ultimately pass out of sight. + + * * * * * + +I make no apology for having thus touched on international coöperation. I +should have been wanting had I not done so on the memorable occasion of +this meeting. A hundred years ago two great nations were grappling with +each other in a fierce struggle, which had lasted, with pauses, for many +years, and which was to last for many years to come; war was on every lip +and in almost every heart. To-day this meeting has, by a common wish, +been so arranged that those two nations should, in the persons of their +men of science, draw as near together as they can, with nothing but the +narrow streak of the Channel between them, in order that they may take +counsel together on matters in which they have one interest and a common +hope. May we not look upon this brotherly meeting as one of many signs +that science, though she works in a silent manner and in ways unseen by +many, is steadily making for peace? + +Looking back, then, in this last year of the eighteen hundreds, on the +century which is drawing to a close, while we may see in the history of +scientific inquiry much which, telling the man of science of his +shortcomings and his weakness, bids him be humble, we also see much, +perhaps more, which gives him hope. Hope is, indeed, one of the watchwords +of science. In the latter-day writings of some who know not science much +may be read which shows that the writer is losing, or has lost, hope in +the future of mankind. There are not a few of these; their repeated +utterances make a sign of the times. Seeing in matters lying outside +science few marks of progress and many tokens of decline or decay, +recognizing in science its material benefits only, such men have thoughts +of despair when they look forward to the times to come. But if there be +any truth in what I have attempted to urge to-night, if the intellectual, +if the moral influences of science are no less marked than her material +benefits, if, moreover, that which she has done is but the earnest of that +which she shall do, such men may pluck up courage and gather strength by +laying hold of her garment. + +We men of science at least need not share their views or their fears. Our +feet are set, not on the shifting sands of the opinions and the fancies of +the day, but on a solid foundation of verified truth, which by the labors +of each succeeding age is made broader and more firm. To us the past is a +thing to look back upon, not with regret, not as something which has been +lost never to be regained, but with content, as something whose influence +is with us still, helping us on our further way. With us, indeed, the past +points not to itself, but to the future; the golden age is in front of us, +not behind us; that which we do know is a lamp whose brightest beams are +shed into the unknown before us, showing us how much there is in front, +and lighting up the way to reach it. We are confident in the advance +because, as each one of us feels that any step forward which he may make +is not ordered by himself and is not the result of his own sole efforts in +the present, but is, and that in large measure, the outcome of the labors +of others in the past, so each one of us has the sure and certain hope +that, as the past has helped him, so his efforts, be they great or be they +small, will be a help to those to come. + + + + +THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY + +THREE HYPOTHESES RESPECTING THE HISTORY OF NATURE + + +So far as I know, there are only three hypotheses which ever have been +entertained, or which well can be entertained, respecting the past history +of nature. I will, in the first place, state the hypotheses, and then I +will consider what evidence bearing upon them is in our possession, and by +what light of criticism that evidence is to be interpreted. + +Upon the first hypothesis, the assumption is, that phenomena of nature +similar to those exhibited by the present world have always existed; in +other words, that the universe has existed from all eternity in what may +be broadly termed its present condition. + +The second hypothesis is, that the present state of things has had only a +limited duration, and that, at some period in the past, a condition of the +world, essentially similar to that which we now know, came into existence, +without any precedent condition from which it could have naturally +proceeded. The assumption that successive states of nature have arisen, +each without any relation of natural causation to an antecedent state, is +a mere modification of this second hypothesis. + +The third hypothesis also assumes that the present state of things has had +but a limited duration; but it supposes that this state has been evolved +by a natural process from an antecedent state, and that from another, and +so on; and, on this hypothesis, the attempt to assign any limit to the +series of past changes is, usually, given up. + +It is so needful to form clear and distinct notions of what is really +meant by each of these hypotheses, that I will ask you to imagine what, +according to each, would have been visible to a spectator of the events +which constitute the history of the earth. On the first hypothesis, +however far back in time that spectator might be placed, he would see a +world essentially, though perhaps not in all its details, similar to that +which now exists. The animals which existed would be the ancestors of +those which now live, and similar to them; the plants, in like manner, +would be such as we know; and the mountains, plains, and waters would +foreshadow the salient features of our present land and water. This view +was held more or less distinctly, sometimes combined with the notion of +recurrent cycles of change, in ancient times; and its influence has been +felt down to the present day. + +It is worthy of remark that it is a hypothesis which is not inconsistent +with the doctrine of Uniformitarianism, with which geologists are +familiar. That doctrine was held by Hutton, and in his earlier days by +Lyell. Hutton was struck by the demonstration of astronomers that the +perturbations of the planetary bodies, however great they may be, yet +sooner or later right themselves; and that the solar system possesses a +self-adjusting power by which these aberrations are all brought back to a +mean condition. Hutton imagined that the like might be true of terrestrial +changes; although no one recognized more clearly than he the fact that the +dry land is being constantly washed down by rain and rivers, and deposited +in the sea; and that thus, in a longer or shorter time, the inequalities +of the earth's surface must be leveled, and its high lands brought down to +the ocean. But, taking into account the internal forces of the earth, +which, upheaving the sea-bottom, give rise to new land, he thought that +these operations of degradation and elevation might compensate each other; +and that thus, for any assignable time, the general features of our +planet might remain what they are. And inasmuch as, under these +circumstances, there need be no limit to the propagation of animals and +plants, it is clear that the consistent working-out of the uniformitarian +idea might lead to the conception of the eternity of the world. Not that I +mean to say that either Hutton or Lyell held this conception--assuredly +not; they would have been the first to repudiate it. Nevertheless, the +logical development of their arguments tends directly toward this +hypothesis. + +The second hypothesis supposes that the present order of things, at some +no very remote time, had a sudden origin, and that the world, such as it +now is, had chaos for its phenomenal antecedent. That is the doctrine +which you will find stated most fully and clearly in the immortal poem of +John Milton,--the English "Divina Commoedia,"--"Paradise Lost." I +believe it is largely to the influence of that remarkable work, combined +with the daily teachings to which we have all listened in our childhood, +that this hypothesis owes its general wide diffusion as one of the current +beliefs of English-speaking people. If you turn to the seventh book of +"Paradise Lost," you will find there stated the hypothesis to which I +refer, which is briefly this: that this visible universe of ours came into +existence at no great distance of time from the present; and that the +parts of which it is composed made their appearance, in a certain definite +order, in the space of six natural days, in such a manner that, on the +first of these days, light appeared; that, on the second, the firmament, +or sky, separated the waters above from the waters beneath the firmament; +that, on the third day, the waters drew away from the dry land, and upon +it a varied vegetable life, similar to that which now exists, made its +appearance; that the fourth day was signalized by the apparition of the +sun, the stars, the moon, and the planets; that, on the fifth day, aquatic +animals originated within the waters; that, on the sixth day, the earth +gave rise to our four-footed terrestrial creatures, and to all varieties +of terrestrial animals except birds, which had appeared on the preceding +day; and, finally, that man appeared upon the earth, and the emergence of +the universe from chaos was finished. Milton tells us, without the least +ambiguity, what a spectator of these marvelous occurrences would have +witnessed. I doubt not that his poem is familiar to all of you, but I +should like to recall one passage to your minds, in order that I may be +justified in what I have said regarding the perfectly concrete, definite +picture of the origin of the animal world which Milton draws. He says:-- + + The sixth, and of creation last, arose + With evening harps and matin, when God said, + "Let the earth bring forth soul living in her kind, + Cattle and creeping things, and beast of the earth, + Each in their kind!" The earth obeyed, and, straight + Opening her fertile womb, teemed at a birth + Innumerous living creatures, perfect forms, + Limbed and full-grown. Out of the ground uprose, + As from his lair, the wild beast, where he wons + In forest wild, in thicket, brake, or den; + Among the trees in pairs they rose, they walked; + The cattle in the fields and meadows green; + Those rare and solitary; these in flocks + Pasturing at once, and in broad herds upsprung. + The grassy clods now calved; now half appears + The tawny lion, pawing to get free + His hinder parts--then springs, as broke from bonds, + And rampant shakes his brinded mane; the ounce, + The libbard, and the tiger, as the mole + Rising, the crumbled earth above them threw + In hillocks; the swift stag from underground + Bore up his branching head; scarce from his mould + Behemoth, biggest born of earth, upheaved + His vastness; fleeced the flocks and bleating rose + As plants; ambiguous between sea and land, + The river-horse and scaly crocodile. + At once came forth whatever creeps the ground, + Insect or worm. + +There is no doubt as to the meaning of this statement, nor as to what a +man of Milton's genius expected would have been actually visible to an +eye-witness of this mode of origination of living things. + +The third hypothesis, or the hypothesis of evolution, supposes that, at +any comparatively late period of past time, our imaginary spectator would +meet with a state of things very similar to that which now obtains; but +that the likeness of the past to the present would gradually become less +and less, in proportion to the remoteness of his period of observation +from the present day; that the existing distribution of mountains and +plains, of rivers and seas, would show itself to be the product of a slow +process of natural change operating upon more and more widely different +antecedent conditions of the mineral framework of the earth; until, at +length, in place of that framework, he would behold only a vast nebulous +mass, representing the constituents of the sun and of the planetary +bodies. Preceding the forms of life which now exist, our observer would +see animals and plants, not identical with them, but like them; increasing +their difference with their antiquity and, at the same time, becoming +simpler and simpler; until, finally, the world of life would present +nothing but that undifferentiated protoplasmic matter which, so far as our +present knowledge goes, is the common foundation of all vital activity. + +The hypothesis of evolution supposes that, in all this vast progression, +there would be no breach of continuity, no point at which we could say, +"This is a natural process," and, "This is not a natural process"; but +that the whole might be compared to that wonderful process of development +which may be seen going on every day under our eyes, in virtue of which +there arises, out of the semifluid, comparatively homogeneous substance +which we call an egg, the complicated organization of one of the higher +animals. That, in a few words, is what is meant by the hypothesis of +evolution. + +I have already suggested that, in dealing with these three hypotheses, in +endeavoring to form a judgment as to which of them is the more worthy of +belief, or whether none is worthy of belief,--in which case our condition +of mind should be that suspension of judgment which is so difficult to all +but trained intellects,--we should be indifferent to all _a priori_ +considerations. The question is a question of historical fact. The +universe has come into existence somehow or other, and the problem is, +whether it came into existence in one fashion, or whether it came into +existence in another; and, as an essential preliminary to further +discussion, permit me to say two or three words as to the nature and the +kinds of historical evidence. + +The evidence as to the occurrence of any event in past time may be ranged +under two heads, which, for convenience' sake, I will speak of as +testimonial evidence and as circumstantial evidence. By testimonial +evidence I mean human testimony; and by circumstantial evidence I mean +evidence which is not human testimony. Let me illustrate by a familiar +example what I understand by these two kinds of evidence, and what is to +be said respecting their value. + +Suppose that a man tells you that he saw a person strike another and kill +him: that is testimonial evidence of the fact of murder. But it is +possible to have circumstantial evidence of the fact of murder: that is to +say, you may find a man dying with a wound upon his head having exactly +the form and character of the wound which is made by an axe; and, with due +care in taking surrounding circumstances into account, you may conclude +with the utmost certainty that the man has been murdered; that his death +is the consequence of a blow inflicted by another man with that implement. +We are very much in the habit of considering circumstantial evidence as of +less value than testimonial evidence; and it may be that, where the +circumstances are not perfectly clear and intelligible, it is a dangerous +and unsafe kind of evidence; but it must not be forgotten that, in many +cases, circumstantial is quite as conclusive as testimonial evidence, and +that, not unfrequently, it is a great deal weightier than testimonial +evidence. For example, take the case to which I referred just now. The +circumstantial evidence may be better and more convincing than the +testimonial evidence; for it may be impossible, under the conditions that +I have defined, to suppose that the man met his death from any cause but +the violent blow of an axe wielded by another man. The circumstantial +evidence in favor of a murder having been committed, in that case, is as +complete and as convincing as evidence can be. It is evidence which is +open to no doubt and to no falsification. But the testimony of a witness +is open to multitudinous doubts. He may have been mistaken. He may have +been actuated by malice. It has constantly happened that even an accurate +man has declared that a thing has happened in this, that, or the other +way, when a careful analysis of the circumstantial evidence has shown that +it did not happen in that way, but in some other way. + +We may now consider the evidence in favor of or against the three +hypotheses. Let me first direct your attention to what is to be said about +the hypotheses of the eternity of the state of things in which we now +live. What will first strike you is, that it is a hypothesis which, +whether true or false, is not capable of verification by any evidence. +For, in order to obtain either circumstantial or testimonial evidence +sufficient to prove the eternity of duration of the present state of +nature, you must have an eternity of witnesses or an infinity of +circumstances, and neither of these is attainable. It is utterly +impossible that such evidence should be carried beyond a certain point of +time; and all that could be said, at most, would be, that, so far as the +evidence could be traced, there was nothing to contradict the hypothesis. +But when you look, not to the testimonial evidence,--which, considering +the relative insignificance of the antiquity of human records, might not +be good for much in this case,--but to the circumstantial evidence, then +you find that this hypothesis is absolutely incompatible with such +evidence as we have; which is of so plain and so simple a character that +it is impossible in any way to escape from the conclusions which it forces +upon us. + +You are, doubtless, all aware that the outer substance of the earth, which +alone is accessible to direct observation, is not of a homogeneous +character, but that it is made up of a number of layers or strata. Each of +these groups represents a number of beds of sand, of stone, of clay, of +slate, and of various other materials. + +On careful examination, it is found that the materials of which each of +these layers of more or less hard rock is composed are, for the most part, +of the same nature as those which are at present being formed under known +conditions on the surface of the earth. For example, the chalk, which +constitutes a great part of the Cretaceous formation in some parts of the +world, is practically identical in its physical and chemical characters +with a substance which is now being formed at the bottom of the Atlantic +Ocean, and covers an enormous area; other beds of rock are comparable with +the sands which are being formed upon sea-shores, packed together, and so +on. Thus, omitting rocks of igneous origin, it is demonstrable that all +these beds of stone, of which a total of not less than seventy thousand +feet is known, have been formed by natural agencies, either out of the +waste and washing of the dry land, or else by the accumulation of the +exuvić of plants and animals. Many of these strata are full of such +exuvić--the so-called "fossils." Remains of thousands of species of +animals and plants, as perfectly recognizable as those of existing forms +of life which you meet with in museums, or as the shells which you pick up +upon the sea-beach, have been imbedded in the ancient sands, or muds, or +limestones, just as they are being imbedded now in sandy, or clayey, or +calcareous subaqueous deposits. They furnish us with a record, the general +nature of which cannot be misinterpreted, of the kinds of things that have +lived upon the surface of the earth during the time that is registered by +this great thickness of stratified rocks. + +But even a superficial study of these fossils shows us that the animals +and plants which live at the present time have had only a temporary +duration; for the remains of such modern forms of life are met with, for +the most part, only in the uppermost, or latest, tertiaries, and their +number rapidly diminishes in the lower deposits of that epoch. In the +older tertiaries, the places of existing animals and plants are taken by +other forms, as numerous and diversified as those which live now in the +same localities, but more or less different from them; in the mesozoic +rocks, these are replaced by others yet more divergent from modern types; +and in the palćozoic formations, the contrast is still more marked. Thus +the circumstantial evidence absolutely negatives the conception of the +eternity of the present condition of things. We can say with certainty +that the present condition of things has existed for a comparatively short +period; and that, so far as animal and vegetable nature are concerned, it +has been preceded by a different condition. We can pursue this evidence +until we reach the lowest of the stratified rocks, in which we lose the +indications of life altogether. The hypothesis of the eternity of the +present state of nature may, therefore, be put out of court. + +We now come to what I will term Milton's hypothesis--the hypothesis that +the present condition of things has endured for a comparatively short +time; and, at the commencement of that time, came into existence within +the course of six days. I doubt not that it may have excited some surprise +in your minds that I should have spoken of this as Milton's hypothesis, +rather than that I should have chosen the terms which are more customary, +such as "the doctrine of creation," or "the Biblical doctrine," or "the +doctrine of Moses," all of which denominations, as applied to the +hypothesis to which I have just referred, are certainly much more familiar +to you than the title of the Miltonic hypothesis. But I have had what I +cannot but think are very weighty reasons for taking the course which I +have pursued. In the first place, I have discarded the title of the +"doctrine of creation," because my present business is not with the +question why the objects which constitute nature came into existence, but +when they came into existence, and in what order. This is as strictly a +historical question as the question when the Angles and the Jutes invaded +England, and whether they preceded or followed the Romans. But the +question about creation is a philosophical problem, and one which cannot +be solved, or even approached, by the historical method. What we want to +learn is, whether the facts, so far as they are known, afford evidence +that things arose in the way described by Milton, or whether they do not; +and, when that question is settled, it will be time enough to inquire into +the causes of their origination. + +In the second place, I have not spoken of this doctrine as the Biblical +doctrine. It is quite true that persons as diverse in their general views +as Milton the Protestant and the celebrated Jesuit Father Suarez, each put +upon the first chapter of Genesis the interpretation embodied in Milton's +poem. It is quite true that this interpretation is that which has been +instilled into every one of us in our childhood; but I do not for one +moment venture to say that it can properly be called the Biblical +doctrine. It is not my business, and does not lie within my competency, to +say what the Hebrew text does, and what it does not signify; moreover, +were I to affirm that this is the Biblical doctrine, I should be met by +the authority of many eminent scholars, to say nothing of men of science, +who, at various times, have absolutely denied that any such doctrine is to +be found in Genesis. If we are to listen to many expositors of no mean +authority, we must believe that what seems so clearly defined in +Genesis--as if very great pains had been taken that there should be no +possibility of mistake--is not the meaning of the text at all. The account +is divided into periods, which we may make just as long or as short as +convenience requires. We are also to understand that it is consistent with +the original text to believe that the most complex plants and animals may +have been evolved by natural processes, lasting for millions of years, out +of structureless rudiments. A person who is not a Hebrew scholar can only +stand aside and admire the marvelous flexibility of a language which +admits of such diverse interpretations. But assuredly, in the face of such +contradictions of authority upon matters respecting which he is +incompetent to form any judgment, he will abstain, as I do, from giving +any opinion. + +In the third place, I have carefully abstained from speaking of this as +the Mosaic doctrine, because we are now assured upon the authority of the +highest critics, and even of dignitaries of the Church, that there is no +evidence that Moses wrote the Book of Genesis, or knew anything about it. +You will understand that I give no judgment--it would be an impertinence +upon my part to volunteer even a suggestion--upon such a subject. But, +that being the state of opinion among the scholars and the clergy, it is +well for the unlearned in Hebrew lore, and for the laity, to avoid +entangling themselves in such a vexed question. Happily, Milton leaves us +no excuse for doubting what he means, and I shall therefore be safe in +speaking of the opinion in question as the Miltonic hypothesis. + +Now we have to test that hypothesis. For my part, I have no prejudice one +way or the other. If there is evidence in favor of this view, I am +burdened by no theoretical difficulties in the way of accepting it; but +there must be evidence. Scientific men get an awkward habit--no, I won't +call it that, for it is a valuable habit--of believing nothing unless +there is evidence for it; and they have a way of looking upon belief which +is not based upon evidence, not only as illogical, but as immoral. We +will, if you please, test this view by the circumstantial evidence alone; +for, from what I have said, you will understand that I do not propose to +discuss the question of what testimonial evidence is to be adduced in +favor of it. If those whose business it is to judge are not at one as to +the authenticity of the only evidence of that kind which is offered, nor +as to the facts to which it bears witness, the discussion of such evidence +is superfluous. But I may be permitted to regret this necessity of +rejecting the testimonial evidence the less, because the examination of +the circumstantial evidence leads to the conclusion, not only that it is +incompetent to justify the hypothesis, but that, so far as it goes, it is +contrary to the hypothesis. + +The considerations upon which I base this conclusion are of the simplest +possible character. The Miltonic hypothesis contains assertions of a very +definite character relating to the succession of living forms. It is +stated that plants, for example, made their appearance upon the third day, +and not before. And you will understand that what the poet means by plants +are such plants as now live, the ancestors, in the ordinary way of +propagation of like by like, of the trees and shrubs which flourish in the +present world. It must needs be so: for, if they were different, either +the existing plants have been the result of a separate origination since +that described by Milton, of which we have no record, or any ground for +supposition that such an occurrence has taken place; or else they have +arisen by a process of evolution from the original stocks. + +In the second place, it is clear that there was no animal life before the +fifth day, and that, on the fifth day, aquatic animals and birds appeared. +And it is further clear that terrestrial living things, other than birds, +made their appearance upon the sixth day, and not before. Hence, it +follows that if, in the large mass of circumstantial evidence as to what +really has happened in the past history of the globe we find indications +of the existence of terrestrial animals, other than birds, at a certain +period, it is perfectly certain that all that has taken place since that +time must be referred to the sixth day. + +In the great Carboniferous formation, whence America derives so vast a +proportion of her actual and potential wealth, in the beds of coal which +have been formed from the vegetation of that period, we find abundant +evidence of the existence of terrestrial animals. They have been +described, not only by European but by American naturalists. There are to +be found numerous insects allied to our cockroaches. There are to be found +spiders and scorpions of large size, the latter so similar to existing +scorpions that it requires the practised eye of the naturalist to +distinguish them. Inasmuch as these animals can be proved to have been +alive in the Carboniferous epoch, it is perfectly clear that, if the +Miltonic account is to be accepted, the huge mass of rocks extending from +the middle of the Palćozoic formations to the uppermost members of the +series must belong to the day which is termed by Milton the sixth. + +But, further, it is expressly stated that aquatic animals took their +origin upon the fifth day, and not before; hence, all formations in which +remains of aquatic animals can be proved to exist, and which therefore +testify that such animals lived at the time when these formations were in +course of deposition, must have been deposited during or since the period +which Milton speaks of as the fifth day. But there is absolutely no +fossiliferous formation in which the remains of aquatic animals are +absent. The oldest fossils in the Silurian rocks are exuvić of marine +animals; and if the view which is entertained by Principal Dawson and Dr. +Carpenter respecting the nature of the Eozoön be well founded, aquatic +animals existed at a period as far antecedent to the deposition of the +coal as the coal is from us; inasmuch as the Eozoön is met with in those +Laurentian strata which lie at the bottom of the series of stratified +rocks. Hence it follows, plainly enough, that the whole series of +stratified rocks, if they are to be brought into harmony with Milton, must +be referred to the fifth and sixth days, and that we cannot hope to find +the slightest trace of the products of the earlier days in the geological +record. When we consider these simple facts, we see how absolutely futile +are the attempts that have been made to draw a parallel between the story +told by so much of the crust of the earth as is known to us and the story +that Milton tells. The whole series of fossiliferous stratified rocks +must be referred to the last two days; and neither the Carboniferous nor +any other formation can afford evidence of the work of the third day. + +Not only is there this objection to any attempt to establish a harmony +between the Miltonic account and the facts recorded in the fossiliferous +rocks, but there is a further difficulty. According to the Miltonic +account, the order in which animals should have made their appearance in +the stratified rocks would be this: fishes, including the great whales, +and birds; after them, all varieties of terrestrial animals except birds. +Nothing could be further from the facts as we find them; we know of not +the slightest evidence of the existence of birds before the Jurassic, or +perhaps the Triassic, formation; while terrestrial animals, as we have +just seen, occur in the Carboniferous rocks. If there were any harmony +between the Miltonic account and the circumstantial evidence, we ought to +have abundant evidence of the existence of birds in the Carboniferous, the +Devonian, and the Silurian rocks. I need hardly say that this is not the +case, and that not a trace of birds makes its appearance until the far +later period which I have mentioned. + +And again, if it be true that all varieties of fishes and the great +whales, and the like, made their appearance on the fifth day, we ought to +find the remains of these animals in the older rocks--in those which were +deposited before the Carboniferous epoch. Fishes we do find, in +considerable number and variety; but the great whales are absent, and the +fishes are not such as now live. Not one solitary species of fish now in +existence is to be found in the Devonian or Silurian formations. Hence we +are introduced afresh to the dilemma which I have already placed before +you: either the animals which came into existence on the fifth day were +not such as those which are found at present, are not the direct and +immediate ancestors of those which now exist,--in which case either fresh +creations of which nothing is said, or a process of evolution, must have +occurred,--or else the whole story must be given up, as not only devoid of +any circumstantial evidence, but as contrary to such evidence as exists. + +I placed before you in a few words, some little time ago, a statement of +the sum and substance of Milton's hypothesis. Let me now try to state, as +briefly, the effect of the circumstantial evidence bearing upon the past +history of the earth which is furnished, without the possibility of +mistake, with no chance of error as to its chief features, by the +stratified rocks. What we find is that the great series of formations +represents a period of time of which our human chronologies hardly afford +us a unit of measure. I will not pretend to say how we ought to estimate +this time, in millions or in billions of years. For my purpose, the +determination of its absolute duration is wholly unessential; but +unquestionably the time was enormous. + +It results from the simplest methods of interpretation, that, leaving out +of view certain patches of metamorphosed rocks, and certain volcanic +products, all that is now dry land has once been at the bottom of the +waters. It is perfectly certain that, at a comparatively recent period of +the world's history,--the Cretaceous epoch,--none of the great physical +features, which at present mark the surface of the globe, existed. It is +certain that the Rocky Mountains were not. It is certain that the Himalaya +Mountains were not. It is certain that the Alps and the Pyrenees had no +existence. The evidence is of the plainest possible character, and is +simply this: we find raised up on the flanks of these mountains, elevated +by the forces of upheaval which have given rise to them, masses of +Cretaceous rock which formed the bottom of the sea before those mountains +existed. It is therefore clear that the elevatory forces which gave rise +to the mountains operated subsequently to the Cretaceous epoch; and that +the mountains themselves are largely made up of the materials deposited in +the sea which once occupied their place. As we go back in time, we meet +with constant alternations of sea and land, of estuary and open ocean; +and, in correspondence with these alternations, we observe the changes in +the fauna and flora to which I have referred. + +But the inspection of these changes gives us no right to believe that +there has been any discontinuity in natural processes. There is no trace +of general cataclysms, of universal deluges, or of sudden destructions of +a whole fauna or flora. The appearances which were formerly interpreted in +that way have all been shown to be delusive, as our knowledge has +increased, and as the blanks which formerly appeared to exist between the +different formations have been filled up. That there is no absolute break +between formation and formation, that there has been no sudden +disappearance of all the forms of life and replacement of them by others, +but that changes have gone on slowly and gradually, that one type has died +out and another has taken its place, and that thus, by insensible degrees, +one fauna has been replaced by another, are conclusions strengthened by +constantly increasing evidence. So that within the whole of the immense +period indicated by the fossiliferous stratified rocks there is assuredly +not the slightest proof of any break in the uniformity of nature's +operations, no indication that events have followed other than a clear and +orderly sequence. + +That, I say, is the natural and obvious teaching of the circumstantial +evidence contained in the stratified rocks. I leave you to consider how +far, by any ingenuity of interpretation, by any stretching of the meaning +of language, it can be brought into harmony with the Miltonic hypothesis. + + + + +ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE + + +In order to make the title of this discourse generally intelligible, I +have translated the term "protoplasm," which is the scientific name of the +substance of which I am about to speak, by the words "the physical basis +of life." I suppose that, to many, the idea that there is such a thing as +a physical basis, or matter, of life may be novel, so widely spread is the +conception of life as a something which works through matter, but is +independent of it; and even those who are aware that matter and life are +inseparably connected may not be prepared for the conclusion--plainly +suggested by the phrase, "_the_ physical basis or matter of life,"--that +there is some one kind of matter which is common to all living beings, and +that their endless diversities are bound together by a physical, as well +as an ideal, unity. In fact, when first apprehended, such a doctrine as +this appears almost shocking to common sense. + +What, truly, can seem to be more obviously different from one another, in +faculty, in form, and in substance, than the various kinds of living +beings? What community of faculty can there be between the brightly +colored lichen, which so nearly resembles a mere mineral incrustation of +the bare rock on which it grows, and the painter, to whom it is instinct +with beauty, or the botanist, whom it feeds with knowledge? + +Again, think of the microscopic fungus--a mere infinitesimal ovoid +particle, which finds space and duration enough to multiply into countless +millions in the body of a living fly; and then of the wealth of foliage, +the luxuriance of flower and fruit, which lies between this bald sketch +of a plant and the giant pine of California, towering to the dimensions of +a cathedral spire, or the Indian fig, which covers acres with its profound +shadow, and endures while nations and empires come and go around its vast +circumference. Or, turning to the other half of the world of life, picture +to yourselves the great Finner whale, hugest of beasts that live or have +lived, disporting his eighty or ninety feet of bone, muscle, and blubber, +with easy roll, among waves in which the stoutest ship that ever left +dockyard would founder hopelessly; and contrast him with the invisible +animalcules--mere gelatinous specks, multitudes of which could, in fact, +dance upon the point of a needle with the same ease as the angels of the +Schoolmen could, in imagination. With these images before your minds, you +may well ask, what community of form, or structure, is there between the +animalcule and the whale, or between the fungus and the fig tree? And, _a +fortiori_, between all four? + +Finally, if we regard substance, or material composition, what hidden bond +can connect the flower that a girl wears in her hair and the blood that +courses through her youthful veins; or, what is there in common between +the dense and resisting mass of the oak, or the strong fabric of the +tortoise, and those broad disks of glassy jelly which may be seen +pulsating through the waters of a calm sea, but which drain away to mere +films in the hand which raises them out of their element? + +Such objections as these must, I think, arise in the mind of everyone who +ponders, for the first time, upon the conception of a single physical +basis of life underlying all the diversities of vital existence; but I +propose to demonstrate to you that, notwithstanding these apparent +difficulties, a threefold unity--namely, a unity of power or faculty, a +unity of form, and a unity of substantial composition--does pervade the +whole living world. + +No very abstruse argumentation is needed, in the first place, to prove +that the powers, or faculties, of all kinds of living matter, diverse as +they may be in degree, are substantially similar in kind. + +Goethe has condensed a survey of all the powers of mankind into the +well-known epigram:-- + + Warum treibt sich das Volk so und schreit? Es will sich ernähren, + Kinder zeugen, und die nähren so gut es vermag. + + * * * * * + + Weiter bringt es kein Mensch, stell' er sich wie er auch will. + +In physiological language this means that all the multifarious and +complicated activities of man are comprehensible under three categories. +Either they are immediately directed toward the maintenance and +development of the body, or they effect transitory changes in the relative +positions of parts of the body, or they tend toward the continuance of the +species. Even those manifestations of intellect, of feeling, and of will, +which we rightly name the higher faculties, are not excluded from this +classification, inasmuch as, to everyone but the subject of them, they are +known only as transitory changes in the relative positions of parts of the +body. Speech, gesture, and every other form of human action are, in the +long run, resolvable into muscular contraction, and muscular contraction +is but a transitory change in the relative positions of the parts of a +muscle. But the scheme which is large enough to embrace the activities of +the highest form of life covers all those of the lower creatures. The +lowest plant, or animalcule, feeds, grows, and reproduces its kind. In +addition, all animals manifest those transitory changes of form which we +class under irritability and contractility; and it is more than probable +that, when the vegetable world is thoroughly explored, we shall find all +plants in possession of the same powers, at one time or other of their +existence. + +I am not now alluding to such phenomena, at once rare and conspicuous, as +those exhibited by the leaflets of the sensitive plant, or the stamens of +the barberry, but to such more widely spread, and, at the same time, more +subtle and hidden, manifestations of vegetable contractility. You are +doubtless aware that the common nettle owes its stinging property to the +innumerable stiff and needle-like, though exquisitely delicate, hairs that +cover its surface. Each stinging needle tapers from a broad base to a +slender summit, which, though rounded at the end, is of such microscopic +fineness that it readily penetrates, and breaks off in, the skin. The +whole hair consists of a very delicate outer case of wood, closely applied +to the inner surface of which is a layer of semifluid matter, full of +innumerable granules of extreme minuteness. This semifluid lining is +protoplasm, which thus constitutes a kind of bag, full of a limpid liquid, +and roughly corresponding in form with the interior of the hair which it +fills. When viewed with a sufficiently high magnifying power, the +protoplasmic layer of the nettle hair is seen to be in a condition of +unceasing activity. Local contractions of the whole thickness of its +substance pass slowly and gradually from point to point, and give rise to +the appearance of progressive waves, just as the bending of successive +stalks of corn by a breeze produces the apparent billows of a cornfield. + +But, in addition to these movements, and independently of them, the +granules are driven, in relatively rapid streams, through channels in the +protoplasm which seem to have a considerable amount of persistence. Most +commonly, the currents in adjacent parts of the protoplasm take similar +directions; and, thus, there is a general stream up one side of the hair +and down the other. But this does not prevent the existence of partial +currents which take different routes; and, sometimes, trains of granules +may be seen coursing swiftly in opposite directions, within a +twenty-thousandth of an inch of one another; while, occasionally, opposite +streams come into direct collision, and, after a longer or shorter +struggle, one predominates. The cause of these currents seems to lie in +contractions of the protoplasm which bounds the channels in which they +flow, but contractions so minute that the best microscopes show only their +effects, and not themselves. + +The spectacle afforded by the wonderful energies prisoned within the +compass of the microscopic hair of a plant, which we commonly regard as a +merely passive organism, is not easily forgotten by one who has watched +its display, continued hour after hour, without pause or sign of +weakening. The possible complexity of many other organic forms, seemingly +as simple as the protoplasm of the nettle, dawns upon one; and the +comparison of such a protoplasm to a body with an internal circulation, +which has been put forward by an eminent physiologist, loses much of its +startling character. Currents similar to those of the hairs of the nettle +have been observed in a great multitude of very different plants, and +weighty authorities have suggested that they probably occur, in more or +less perfection, in all young vegetable cells. If such be the case, the +wonderful noonday silence of a tropical forest is, after all, due only to +the dullness of our hearing; and could our ears catch the murmur of these +tiny maelstroms, as they whirl in the innumerable myriads of living cells +which constitute each tree, we should be stunned, as with the roar of a +great city. + +Among the lower plants, it is the rule rather than the exception that +contractility should be still more openly manifested at some periods of +their existence. The protoplasm of Algć and Fungi becomes, under many +circumstances, partially, or completely, freed from its woody case, and +exhibits movements of its whole mass, or is propelled by the contractility +of one or more hair-like prolongations of its body, which are called +vibratile _cilia_. And, so far as the conditions of the manifestation of +the phenomena of contractility have yet been studied, they are the same +for the plant as for the animal. Heat and electric shocks influence both, +and in the same way, though it may be in different degrees. It is by no +means my intention to suggest that there is no difference in faculty +between the lowest plant and the highest, or between plants and animals. +But the difference between the powers of the lowest plant, or animal, and +those of the highest, is one of degree, not of kind, and depends, as +Milne-Edwards long ago so well pointed out, upon the extent to which the +principle of the division of labor is carried out in the living economy. +In the lowest organism all parts are competent to perform all functions, +and one and the same portion of protoplasm may successively take on the +function of feeding, moving, or reproducing apparatus. In the highest, on +the contrary, a great number of parts combine to perform each function, +each part doing its allotted share of the work with great accuracy and +efficiency, but being useless for any other purpose. + +On the other hand, notwithstanding all the fundamental resemblances that +exist between the powers of the protoplasm in plants and in animals, they +present a striking difference (to which I shall advert more at length +presently), in the fact that plants can manufacture fresh protoplasm out +of mineral compounds, whereas animals are obliged to procure it +ready-made, and hence, in the long run, depend upon plants. Upon what +condition this difference in the powers of the two great divisions of the +world of life depends, nothing is at present known. + +With such qualification as arises out of the last-mentioned fact, it may +be truly said that the acts of all living things are fundamentally one. Is +any such unity predictable of their forms? Let us seek in easily verified +facts for a reply to this question. If a drop of blood be drawn by +pricking one's finger, and viewed with proper precautions and under a +sufficiently high microscopic power, there will be seen, among the +innumerable multitude of little circular, discoidal bodies, or corpuscles, +which float in it and give it its color, a comparatively small number of +colorless corpuscles, of somewhat larger size and very irregular shape. If +the drop of blood be kept at the temperature of the body, these colorless +corpuscles will be seen to exhibit a marvelous activity, changing their +forms with great rapidity, drawing in and thrusting out prolongations of +their substance, and creeping about as if they were independent organisms. + +The substance which is thus active is a mass of protoplasm, and its +activity differs in detail, rather than in principle, from that of the +protoplasm of the nettle. Under sundry circumstances the corpuscle dies +and becomes distended into a round mass, in the midst of which is seen a +smaller spherical body, which existed, but was more or less hidden, in the +living corpuscle, and is called its _nucleus_. Corpuscles of essentially +similar structure are to be found in the skin, in the lining of the mouth, +and scattered through the whole framework of the body. Nay, more: in the +earliest condition of the human organism, in that state in which it has +but just become distinguishable from the egg in which it arises, it is +nothing but an aggregation of such corpuscles, and every organ of the body +was, once, no more than such an aggregation. + +Thus a nucleated mass of protoplasm turns out to be what may be termed the +structural unit of the human body. As a matter of fact, the body, in its +earliest state, is a mere multiple of such units; and, in its perfect +condition, it is a multiple of such units variously modified. + +But does the formula which expresses the essential structural character of +the highest animal cover all the rest, as the statement of its powers and +faculties covered that of all others? Very nearly. Beast and fowl, reptile +and fish, mollusk, worm, and polyp, are all composed of structural units +of the same character, namely, masses of protoplasm with a nucleus. There +are sundry very low animals, each of which, structurally, is a mere +colorless blood-corpuscle, leading an independent life. But, at the very +bottom of the animal scale, even this simplicity becomes simplified, and +all the phenomena of life are manifested by a particle of protoplasm +without a nucleus. Nor are such organisms insignificant by reason of their +want of complexity. It is a fair question whether the protoplasm of those +simplest forms of life which people an immense extent of the bottom of the +sea would not outweigh that of all the higher living beings which inhabit +the land put together. And in ancient times, no less than at the present +day, such living beings as these have been the greatest of rock-builders. + +What has been said of the animal world is no less true of plants. Imbedded +in the protoplasm at the broad, or attached, end of the nettle hair, there +lies a spheroidal nucleus. Careful examination further proves that the +whole substance of the nettle is made up of a repetition of such masses of +nucleated protoplasm, each contained in a wooden case, which is modified +in form, sometimes into a woody fibre, sometimes into a duct or spiral +vessel, sometimes into a pollen grain, or an ovule. Traced back to its +earliest state, the nettle arises, as the man does, in a particle of +nucleated protoplasm. And in the lowest plants, as in the lowest animals, +a single mass of such protoplasm may constitute the whole plant, or the +protoplasm may exist without a nucleus. + +Under these circumstances it may well be asked, how is one mass of +non-nucleated protoplasm to be distinguished from another? Why call one +"plant" and the other "animal"? + +The only reply is that, so far as form is concerned, plants and animals +are not separable, and that, in many cases, it is a mere matter of +convention whether we call a given organism an animal or a plant. There is +a living body called _Ćthalium septicum_, which appears upon decaying +vegetable substances, and, in one of its forms, is common upon the +surfaces of tan-pits. In this condition it is, to all intents and +purposes, a fungus, and formerly was always regarded as such; but the +remarkable investigations of De Bary have shown that, in another +condition, the _Ćthalium_ is an actively locomotive creature, and takes in +solid matters, upon which, apparently, it feeds, thus exhibiting the most +characteristic feature of animality. Is this a plant, or is it an animal? +Is it both, or is it neither? Some decide in favor of the last +supposition, and establish an intermediate kingdom, a sort of biological +"No Man's Land," for all these questionable forms. But, as it is +admittedly impossible to draw any distinct boundary line between this no +man's land and the vegetable world, on the one hand, and the animal, on +the other, it appears to me that this proceeding merely doubles the +difficulty which, before, was single. + +Protoplasm, simple or nucleated, is the formal basis of all life. It is +the clay of the potter, which, bake it and paint it as he will, remains +clay, separated by artifice, and not by nature, from the commonest brick +or sun-dried clod. + +Thus it becomes clear that all living powers are cognate, and that all +living forms are fundamentally of one character. The researches of the +chemist have revealed a no less striking uniformity of material +composition in living matter. + +In perfect strictness, it is true that chemical investigation can tell us +little or nothing, directly, of the composition of living matter, inasmuch +as such matter must needs die in the act of analysis; and upon this very +obvious ground, objections, which I confess seem to me to be somewhat +frivolous, have been raised to the drawing of any conclusions whatever +respecting the composition of actually living matter, from that of the +dead matter of life, which alone is accessible to us. But objectors of +this class do not seem to reflect that it is also, in strictness, true +that we know nothing about the composition of any body whatever, as it is. +The statement that a crystal of calc-spar consists of carbonate of lime is +quite true, if we only mean that, by appropriate processes, it may be +resolved into carbonic acid and quicklime. If you pass the same carbonic +acid over the very quicklime thus obtained, you will obtain carbonate of +lime again; but it will not be calc-spar, or anything like it. Can it, +therefore, be said that chemical analysis teaches nothing about the +chemical composition of calc-spar? Such a statement would be absurd; but +it is hardly more so than the talk one occasionally hears about the +uselessness of applying the results of chemical analysis to the living +bodies that have yielded them. + +One fact, at any rate, is out of reach of such refinements, and this is, +that all the forms of protoplasm which have yet been examined contain the +four elements, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, in very complex +union, and that they behave similarly toward several reagents. To this +complex combination, the nature of which has never been determined with +exactness, the name of protein has been applied. And if we use this term +with such caution as may properly arise out of our comparative ignorance +of the things for which it stands, it may be truly said that all +protoplasm is proteinaceous; or, as the white, or albumen, of an egg is +one of the commonest examples of a nearly pure protein matter, we may say +that all living matter is more or less albuminoid. + +Perhaps it would not yet be safe to say that all forms of protoplasm are +affected by the direct action of electric shocks; and yet the number of +cases in which the contraction of protoplasm is shown to be effected by +this agency increases every day. + +Nor can it be affirmed with perfect confidence that all forms of +protoplasm are liable to undergo that peculiar coagulation at a +temperature of from 40 to 50 degrees Centigrade, which has been called +"heat-stiffening"; though Kuhne's beautiful researches have proved this +occurrence to take place in so many and such diverse living beings, that +it is hardly rash to expect that the law holds good for all. + +Enough has, perhaps, been said to prove the existence of a general +uniformity in the character of the protoplasm, or physical basis of life, +in whatever group of living beings it may be studied. But it will be +understood that this general uniformity by no means excludes any amount of +special modifications of the fundamental substance. The mineral, carbonate +of lime, assumes an immense diversity of characters, though no one doubts +that, under all these protean changes, it is one and the same thing. + +And now, what is the ultimate fate, and what the origin, of the matter of +life? + +Is it, as some of the older naturalists supposed, diffused throughout the +universe in molecules, which are indestructible and unchangeable in +themselves, but, in endless transmigration, unite in innumerable +permutations, into the diversified forms of life we know? Or, is the +matter of life composed of ordinary matter, differing from it only in the +manner in which its atoms are aggregated? Is it built up of ordinary +matter, and again resolved into ordinary matter when its work is done? + +Modern science does not hesitate a moment between these alternatives. +Physiology writes over the portals of life:-- + + Debemur morti nos nostraque,-- + +with a profounder meaning than the Roman poet attached to that melancholy +line. Under whatever disguise it takes refuge, whether fungus or oak, worm +or man, the living protoplasm not only ultimately dies and is resolved +into its mineral and lifeless constituents, but is always dying, and, +strange as the paradox may sound, could not live unless it died. + +In the wonderful story of the "Peau de Chagrin," the hero becomes +possessed of a magical wild ass's skin, which yields him the means of +gratifying all his wishes. But its surface represents the duration of the +proprietor's life; and for every satisfied desire the skin shrinks in +proportion to the intensity of fruition, until at length life and the last +handbreadth of the _peau de chagrin_ disappear with the gratification of a +last wish. + +Balzac's studies had led him over a wide range of thought and speculation, +and his shadowing forth of physiological truth in this strange story may +have been intentional. At any rate, the matter of life is a veritable +_peau de chagrin_, and for every trivial act it is somewhat the smaller. +All work implies waste, and the work of life results, directly or +indirectly, in the waste of protoplasm. + +Every word uttered by a speaker costs him some physical loss; and, in the +strictest sense, he burns that others may have light--so much eloquence, +so much of his body resolved into carbonic acid, water, and urea. It is +clear that this process of expenditure cannot go on forever. But, happily, +the protoplasmic _peau de chagrin_ differs from Balzac's in its capacity +of being repaired, and brought back to its full size, after every +exertion. + +For example, this present lecture, whatever its intellectual worth to you, +has a certain physical value to me, which is conceivably expressible by +the number of grains of protoplasm and other bodily substance wasted in +maintaining my vital processes during its delivery. My _peau de chagrin_ +will be distinctly smaller at the end of the discourse than it was at the +beginning. By and by, I shall probably have recourse to the substance +commonly called mutton, for the purpose of stretching it back to its +original size. Now, this mutton was once the living protoplasm, more or +less modified, of another animal--a sheep. As I shall eat it, it is the +same matter altered, not only by death, but by exposure to sundry +artificial operations in the process of cooking. + +But these changes, whatever be their extent, have not rendered it +incompetent to resume its old functions as matter of life. A singular +inward laboratory, which I possess, will dissolve a certain portion of the +modified protoplasm; the solution so formed will pass into my veins; and +the subtle influences to which it will then be subjected will convert the +dead protoplasm into living protoplasm, and transubstantiate sheep into +man. + +Nor is this all. If digestion were a thing to be trifled with, I might sup +on lobster, and the matter of life of the crustacean would undergo the +same wonderful metamorphosis into humanity. And were I to return to my +own place by sea, and undergo shipwreck, the crustacea might, and +probably would, return the compliment, and demonstrate our common nature +by turning my protoplasm into living lobster. Or, if nothing better were +to be had, I might supply my wants with mere bread, and I should find the +protoplasm of the wheat-plant to be convertible into man, with no more +trouble than that of the sheep, and with far less, I fancy, than that of +the lobster. + +Hence it appears to be a matter of no great moment what animal, or what +plant, I lay under contribution for protoplasm; and the fact speaks +volumes for the general identity of that substance in all living beings. I +share this catholicity of assimilation with other animals, all of which, +so far as we know, could thrive equally well on the protoplasm of any of +their fellows, or of any plant; but here the assimilative powers of the +animal world cease. A solution of smelling-salts in water, with an +infinitesimal proportion of some other saline matters, contains all the +elementary bodies which enter into the composition of protoplasm; but, as +I need hardly say, a hogshead of that fluid would not keep a hungry man +from starving, nor would it save any animal whatever from a like fate. An +animal cannot make protoplasm, but must take it ready-made from some other +animal, or some plant--the animal's highest feat of constructive chemistry +being to convert dead protoplasm into that living matter of life which is +appropriate to itself. + +Therefore, in seeking for the origin of protoplasm, we must eventually +turn to the vegetable world. The fluid containing carbonic acid, water, +and ammonia, which offers such a Barmecide feast to the animal, is a table +richly spread to multitudes of plants; and, with a due supply of only such +materials, many a plant will not only maintain itself in vigor, but grow +and multiply until it has increased a million-fold, or a +million-million-fold, the quantity of protoplasm which it originally +possessed; in this way building up the matter of life, to an indefinite +extent, from the common matter of the universe. + +Thus, the animal can only raise the complex substance of dead protoplasm +to the higher power, as one may say, of living protoplasm; while the plant +can raise the less complex substances--carbonic acid, water, and +ammonia--to the same stage of living protoplasm, if not to the same level. +But the plant also has its limitations. Some of the fungi, for example, +appear to need higher compounds to start with; and no known plant can live +upon the uncompounded elements of protoplasm. A plant supplied with pure +carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur and the like, +would as infallibly die as the animal in his bath of smelling-salts, +though it would be surrounded by all the constituents of protoplasm. Nor, +indeed, need the process of simplification of vegetable food be carried so +far as this, in order to arrive at the limit of the plant's thaumaturgy. +Let water, carbonic acid, and all the other needful constituents be +supplied with ammonia, and an ordinary plant will still be unable to +manufacture protoplasm. + +Thus the matter of life, so far as we know it (and we have no right to +speculate on any other), breaks up, in consequence of that continual death +which is the condition of its manifesting vitality, into carbonic acid, +water, and ammonia, which certainly possess no properties but those of +ordinary matter. And out of these same forms of ordinary matter, and from +none which are simpler, the vegetable world builds up all the protoplasm +that keeps the animal world a-going. Plants are the accumulators of the +power which animals distribute and disperse. + +But it will be observed that the existence of the matter of life depends +on the preëxistence of certain compounds; namely, carbonic acid, water, +and ammonia. Withdraw any one of these three from the world, and all vital +phenomena come to an end. They are related to the protoplasm of the plant, +as the protoplasm of the plant is to that of the animal. Carbon, hydrogen, +oxygen, and nitrogen are all lifeless bodies. Of these, carbon and oxygen +unite in certain proportions, and under certain conditions, to give rise +to carbonic acid; hydrogen and oxygen produce water; nitrogen and hydrogen +give rise to ammonia. These new compounds, like the elementary bodies of +which they are composed, are lifeless. But when they are brought together, +under certain conditions, they give rise to the still more complex body, +protoplasm, and this protoplasm exhibits the phenomena of life. + +I see no break in this series of steps in molecular complication, and I am +unable to understand why the language which is applicable to any one term +of the series may not be used with any of the others. We think fit to call +different kinds of matter carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen, and to +speak of the various powers and activities of these substances as the +properties of the matter of which they are composed. + +When hydrogen and oxygen are mixed in a certain proportion, and an +electric spark is passed through them, they disappear, and a quantity of +water, equal in weight to the sum of their weights, appears in their +place. There is not the slightest parity between the passive and active +powers of the water and those of the oxygen and hydrogen which have given +rise to it. At 32 degrees Fahrenheit, and far below that temperature, +oxygen and hydrogen are elastic gaseous bodies, whose particles tend to +rush away from one another with great force. Water, at the same +temperature, is a strong though brittle solid, whose particles tend to +cohere into definite geometrical shapes, and sometimes build up frosty +imitations of the most complex forms of vegetable foliage. + +Nevertheless we call these, and many other strange phenomena, the +properties of the water, and we do not hesitate to believe that, in some +way or another, they result from the properties of the component elements +of the water. We do not assume that a something called "aquosity" entered +into and took possession of the oxide of hydrogen as soon as it was +formed, and then guided the aqueous particles to their places in the +facets of the crystal, or among the leaflets of the hoar-frost. On the +contrary, we live in the hope and in the faith that, by the advance of +molecular physics, we shall by-and-by be able to see our way as clearly +from the constituents of water to the properties of water, as we are now +able to deduce the operations of a watch from the form of its parts and +the manner in which they are put together. + +Is the case in any way changed when carbonic acid, water, and ammonia +disappear, and in their place, under the influence of preëxisting living +protoplasm, an equivalent weight of the matter of life makes its +appearance? + +It is true that there is no sort of parity between the properties of the +components and the properties of the resultant; but neither was there in +the case of the water. It is also true that what I have spoken of as the +influence of preëxisting living matter is something quite unintelligible; +but does anybody quite comprehend the _modus operandi_ of an electric +spark, which traverses a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen? + +What justification is there, then, for the assumption of the existence in +the living matter of a something which has no representative, or +correlative, in the not-living matter which gave rise to it? What better +philosophical status has "vitality" than "aquosity"? And why should +"vitality" hope for a better fate than the other "itys" which have +disappeared since Martinus Scriblerus accounted for the operation of the +meat-jack by its inherent "meat-roasting quality," and scorned the +"materialism" of those who explained the turning of the spit by a certain +mechanism worked by the draught of the chimney? + +If scientific language is to possess a definite and constant signification +whenever it is employed, it seems to me that we are logically bound to +apply to the protoplasm, or physical basis of life, the same conceptions +as those which are held to be legitimate elsewhere. If the phenomena +exhibited by water are its properties, so are those presented by +protoplasm, living or dead, its properties. + +If the properties of water may be properly said to result from the nature +and disposition of its component molecules, I can find no intelligible +ground for refusing to say that the properties of protoplasm result from +the nature and disposition of its molecules. + +But I bid you beware lest, in accepting these conclusions, you are placing +your feet on the first rung of a ladder which, in most people's +estimation, is the reverse of Jacob's, and leads to the antipodes of +heaven. It may seem a small thing to admit that the dull, vital actions of +a fungus are the properties of its protoplasm, and are the direct results +of the nature of the matter of which it is composed. But if, as I have +endeavored to prove to you, its protoplasm is essentially identical with, +and most readily converted into, that of any animal, I can discover no +logical halting-place between the admission that such is the case, and the +further concession that all vital action may, with equal propriety, be +said to be the result of the molecular forces of the protoplasm which +displays it. And if so, it must be true, in the same sense and to the same +extent, that the thoughts to which I am now giving utterance, and your +thoughts regarding them, are the expression of molecular changes in that +matter of life which is the source of our other vital phenomena. + +Past experience leads me to be tolerably certain that, when the +propositions I have just placed before you are accessible to public +comment and criticism, they will be condemned by many zealous persons, and +perhaps by some few of the wise and thoughtful. I should not wonder if +"gross and brutal materialism" were the mildest phrase applied to them in +certain quarters. And, most undoubtedly, the terms of the propositions are +distinctly materialistic. Nevertheless two things are certain: the one, +that I hold the statements to be substantially true; the other, that I, +individually, am no materialist, but, on the contrary, believe materialism +to involve grave philosophical error. + +This union of materialistic terminology with the repudiation of +materialistic philosophy I share with some of the most thoughtful men with +whom I am acquainted. And, when I first undertook to deliver the present +discourse, it appeared to me to be fitting opportunity to explain how such +a union is not only consistent with, but necessitated by, sound logic. I +purposed to lead you through the territory of vital phenomena to the +materialistic slough in which you find yourselves now plunged, and then to +point out to you the sole path by which, in my judgment, extrication is +possible. + +Let us suppose that knowledge is absolute, and not relative, and, +therefore, that our conception of matter represents that which it really +is. Let us suppose, further, that we do know more of cause and effect than +a certain definite order of succession among facts, and that we have a +knowledge of the necessity of that succession,--and hence, of necessary +laws,--and I, for my part, do not see what escape there is from utter +materialism and necessarianism. For it is obvious that our knowledge of +what we call the material world is, to begin with, at least as certain and +definite as that of the spiritual world, and that our acquaintance with +law is of as old a date as our knowledge of spontaneity. Further, I take +it to be demonstrable that it is utterly impossible to prove that anything +whatever may not be the effect of a material and necessary cause, and that +human logic is equally incompetent to prove that any act is really +spontaneous. A really spontaneous act is one which, by the assumption, has +no cause; and the attempt to prove such a negative as this is, on the face +of the matter, absurd. And while it is thus a philosophical impossibility +to demonstrate that any given phenomenon is not the effect of a material +cause, anyone who is acquainted with the history of science will admit, +that its progress has, in all ages, meant, and now, more than ever, means, +the extension of the province of what we call matter and causation, and +the concomitant gradual banishment from all regions of human thought of +what we call spirit and spontaneity. + +I have endeavored, in the first part of this discourse, to give you a +conception of the direction in which modern physiology is tending; and I +ask you, what is the difference between the conception of life as the +product of a certain disposition of material molecules, and the old notion +of an Archćus governing and directing blind matter within each living +body, except this--that here, as elsewhere, matter and law have devoured +spirit and spontaneity? And as surely as every future grows out of past +and present, so will the physiology of the future gradually extend the +realm of matter and law until it is coextensive with knowledge, with +feeling, and with action. + +The consciousness of this great truth weighs like a nightmare, I believe, +upon many of the best minds of these days. They watch what they conceive +to be the progress of materialism, in such fear and powerless anger as a +savage feels, when, during an eclipse, the great shadow creeps over the +face of the sun. The advancing tide of matter threatens to drown their +souls; the tightening grasp of law impedes their freedom; they are alarmed +lest man's moral nature be debased by the increase of his wisdom. + +If the "New Philosophy" be worthy of the reprobation with which it is +visited, I confess their fears seem to me to be well founded. While, on +the contrary, could David Hume be consulted, I think he would smile at +their perplexities, and chide them for doing even as the heathen, and +falling down in terror before the hideous idols their own hands have +raised. + +For, after all, what do we know of this terrible "matter," except as a +name for the unknown and hypothetical cause of states of our own +consciousness? And what do we know of that "spirit" over whose threatened +extinction by matter a great lamentation is arising, like that which was +heard at the death of Pan, except that it is also a name for an unknown +and hypothetical cause, or condition, of states of consciousness? In other +words, matter and spirit are but names for the imaginary substrata of +groups of natural phenomena. + +And what are the dire necessity and "iron" law under which men groan? +Truly, most gratuitously invented bugbears. I suppose if there be an +"iron" law, it is that of gravitation; and if there be a physical +necessity, it is that a stone, unsupported, must fall to the ground. But +what is all we really know, and can know, about the latter phenomenon? +Simply, that, in all human experience, stones have fallen to the ground +under these conditions; that we have not the smallest reason for believing +that any stone so circumstanced will not fall to the ground; and that we +have, on the contrary, every reason to believe that it will so fall. It is +very convenient to indicate that all the conditions of belief have been +fulfilled in this case, by calling the statement that unsupported stones +will fall to the ground "a law of nature." But when, as commonly happens, +we change _will_ into _must_, we introduce an idea of necessity which most +assuredly does not lie in the observed facts, and has no warranty that I +can discover elsewhere. For my part, I utterly repudiate and anathematize +the intruder. Fact I know, and Law I know, but what is this Necessity, +save an empty shadow of my own mind's throwing? + +But, if it is certain that we can have no knowledge of the nature of +either matter or spirit, and that the notion of necessity is something +illegitimately thrust into the perfectly legitimate conception of law, the +materialistic position that there is nothing in the world but matter, +force, and necessity, is as utterly devoid of justification as the most +baseless of theological dogmas. The fundamental doctrines of materialism, +like those of spiritualism, and most other "isms," lie outside "the limits +of philosophical inquiry"; and David Hume's great service to humanity is +his irrefragable demonstration of what these limits are. Hume called +himself a skeptic, and therefore others cannot be blamed if they apply the +same title to him; but that does not alter the fact that the name, with +its existing implications, does him gross injustice. + +If a man asks me what the politics of the inhabitants of the moon are, and +I reply that I do not know; that neither I, nor anyone else, has any means +of knowing; and that, under these circumstances, I decline to trouble +myself about the subject at all, I do not think he has any right to call +me a skeptic. On the contrary, in replying thus, I conceive that I am +simply honest and truthful, and show a proper regard for the economy of +time. So Hume's strong and subtle intellect takes up a great many problems +about which we are naturally curious, and shows us that they are +essentially questions of lunar politics, in their essence incapable of +being answered, and therefore not worth the attention of men who have work +to do in the world. And he thus ends one of his essays:-- + +"If we take in hand any volume of Divinity, or school metaphysics, for +instance, let us ask, _Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning +quantity or number?_ No. _Does it contain any experimental reasoning +concerning matter of fact and existence?_ No. Commit it then to the +flames; for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion." + +Permit me to enforce this most wise advice. Why trouble ourselves about +matters of which, however important they may be, we do know nothing, and +can know nothing? We live in a world which is full of misery and +ignorance, and the plain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the +little corner he can influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less +ignorant than it was before he entered it. To do this effectually, it is +necessary to be fully possessed of only two beliefs: the first, that the +order of nature is ascertainable by our faculties to an extent which is +practically unlimited; the second, that our volition counts for something +as a condition of the course of events. + +Each of these beliefs can be verified experimentally, as often as we like +to try. Each, therefore, stands upon the strongest foundation upon which +any belief can rest, and forms one of our highest truths. If we find that +the ascertainment of the order of nature is facilitated by using one +terminology, or one set of symbols, rather than another, it is our clear +duty to use the former; and no harm can accrue, so long as we bear in +mind that we are dealing merely with terms and symbols. + +In itself it is of little moment whether we express the phenomena of +matter in terms of spirit, or the phenomena of spirit in terms of matter: +matter may be regarded as a form of thought, thought may be regarded as a +property of matter--each statement has a certain relative truth. But with +a view to the progress of science, the materialistic terminology is in +every way to be preferred. For it connects thought with the other +phenomena of the universe, and suggests inquiry into the nature of those +physical conditions, or concomitants of thought, which are more or less +accessible to us, and a knowledge of which may, in future, help us to +exercise the same kind of control over the world of thought that we +already possess in respect of the material world; whereas, the +alternative, or spiritualistic, terminology is utterly barren, and leads +to nothing but obscurity and confusion of ideas. + +Thus there can be little doubt that the further science advances, the more +extensively and consistently will all the phenomena of nature be +represented by materialistic formulć and symbols. + +But the man of science who, forgetting the limits of philosophical +inquiry, slides from these formulć and symbols into what is commonly +understood by materialism, seems to me to place himself on a level with +the mathematician who should mistake the _x_'s and _y_'s with which he +works his problems for real entities--and with this further disadvantage, +as compared with the mathematician, that the blunders of the latter are of +no practical consequence, while the errors of systematic materialism may +paralyze the energies and destroy the beauty of a life. + + + + +JOHN TYNDALL + +SCOPE AND LIMIT OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM + + +Partly through mathematical and partly through experimental research, +physical science has of late years assumed a momentous position in the +world. Both in a material and in an intellectual point of view it has +produced, and is designed to produce, immense changes--vast social +ameliorations, and vast alterations in the popular conception of the +origin, rule, and governance of natural things. By science, in the +physical world, miracles are wrought; while philosophy is forsaking its +ancient metaphysical channels and pursuing others which have been opened +or indicated by scientific research. This must become more and more the +case as philosophical writers become more deeply imbued with the methods +of science, better acquainted with the facts which scientific men have won +and with the great theories which they have elaborated. + +If you look at the face of a watch, you see the hour- and minute-hands, +and possibly also a second-hand, moving over the graduated dial. Why do +these hands move, and why are their relative motions such as they are +observed to be? These questions cannot be answered without opening the +watch, mastering its various parts, and ascertaining their relationship to +each other. When this is done, we find that the observed motion of the +hands follows of necessity from the inner mechanism of the watch, when +acted upon by the force invested in the spring. + +The motion of the hands may be called a phenomenon of art, but the case is +similar with the phenomena of nature. These also have their inner +mechanism and their store of force to set that mechanism going. The +ultimate problem of physical science is to reveal this mechanism, to +discern this store, and to show that, from the combined action of both, +the phenomena of which they constitute the basis must of necessity flow. + +I thought that an attempt to give you even a brief and sketchy +illustration of the manner in which scientific thinkers regard this +problem would not be uninteresting to you on the present occasion; more +especially as it will give me occasion to say a word or two on the +tendencies and limits of modern science; to point out the region which men +of science claim as their own, and where it is mere waste of time to +oppose their advance; and also to define, if possible, the bourne between +this and that other region to which the questionings and yearnings of the +scientific intellect are directed in vain. + +But here your tolerance will be needed. It was the American Emerson, I +think, who said that it is hardly possible to state any truth strongly +without apparent injustice to some other truth. Truth is often of a dual +character, taking the form of a magnet with two poles; and many of the +differences which agitate the thinking part of mankind are to be traced to +the exclusiveness with which partisan reasoners dwell upon one half of the +duality in forgetfulness of the other half. The proper course appears to +be to state both halves strongly, and allow each its fair share in the +formation of the resultant conviction. But this waiting for the statement +of the two sides of the question implies patience. It implies a resolution +to suppress indignation if the statement of the one half should clash with +our convictions, and to repress equally undue elation if the +half-statement should happen to chime in with our views. It implies a +determination to wait calmly for the statement of the whole, before we +pronounce judgment in the form of either acquiescence or dissent. + +This premised and, I trust, accepted, let us enter upon our task. There +have been writers who affirmed that the pyramids of Egypt were the +productions of nature; and in his early youth Alexander von Humboldt wrote +a learned essay with the express object of refuting this notion. We now +regard the pyramids as the work of men's hands, aided probably by +machinery of which no record remains. We picture to ourselves the swarming +workers toiling at these vast erections, lifting the inert stones, and, +guided by the volition, the skill, and possibly at times by the whip, of +the architect, placing them in their proper positions. The blocks in this +case were moved and posited by a power external to themselves, and the +final form of the pyramid expresses the thought of its human builder. + +Let us pass from this illustration of constructive power to another of a +different kind. When a solution of common salt is slowly evaporated, the +water which holds the salt in solution disappears, but the salt itself +remains behind. At a certain stage of concentration the salt can no longer +retain the liquid form: its particles, or molecules, as they are called, +begin to deposit themselves as minute solids, so minute, indeed, as to +defy all microscopic power. As evaporation continues, solidification goes +on, and we finally obtain, through the clustering together of innumerable +molecules, a finite crystalline mass of a definite form. What is this +form? It sometimes seems a mimicry of the architecture of Egypt. We have +little pyramids built by the salt, terrace above terrace from base to +apex, forming a series of steps resembling those up which the Egyptian +traveler is dragged by his guides. The human is as little disposed to look +unquestioning at these pyramidal salt-crystals as to look at the pyramids +of Egypt without inquiring whence they came. How, then, are those salt +pyramids built up? + +Guided by analogy, you may, if you like, suppose that, swarming among the +constituent molecules of the salt, there is an invisible population, +controlled and coerced by some invisible master, and placing the atomic +blocks in their positions. This, however, is not the scientific idea, nor +do I think your good sense will accept it as a likely one. The scientific +idea is that the molecules act upon each other without the intervention of +slave labor; that they attract each other and repel each other at certain +definite points, or poles, and in certain definite directions; and that +the pyramidal form is the result of this play of attraction and repulsion. +While, then, the blocks of Egypt were laid down by a power external to +themselves, these molecular blocks of salt are self-posited, being fixed +in their places by the forces with which they act upon each other. + +I take common salt as an illustration because it is so familiar to us all; +but any other crystalline substance would answer my purpose equally well. +Everywhere, in fact, throughout inorganic nature, we have this formative +power, as Fichte would call it--this structural energy ready to come into +play and build the ultimate particles of matter into definite shapes. The +ice of our winters and of our polar regions is its handiwork, and so +equally are the quartz, feldspar, and mica of our rocks. Our chalk-beds +are for the most part composed of minute shells, which are almost the +product of structural energy; but behind the shell, as a whole, lies a +more remote and subtle formative act. These shells are built up of little +crystals of calc-spar, and to form these crystals the structural force had +to deal with the intangible molecules of carbonate of lime. This tendency +on the part of matter to organize itself, to grow into shape, to assume +definite forms in obedience to the definite action of force, is, as I have +said, all-pervading. It is in the ground on which you tread, in the water +you drink, in the air you breathe. Incipient life, as it were, manifests +itself throughout the whole of what we call inorganic nature. + +The forms of the minerals resulting from this play of polar forces are +various, and exhibit different degrees of complexity. Men of science avail +themselves of all possible means of exploring their molecular +architecture. For this purpose they employ in turn, as agents of +exploration, light, heat, magnetism, electricity, and sound. Polarized +light is especially useful and powerful here. A beam of such light, when +sent in among the molecules of a crystal, is acted on by them, and from +this action we infer with more or less of clearness the manner in which +the molecules are arranged. That differences, for example, exist between +the inner structure of rock salt and crystallized sugar or sugar-candy, is +thus strikingly revealed. These differences may be made to display +themselves in chromatic phenomena of great splendor, the play of molecular +force being so regulated as to remove some of the colored constituents of +white light, and to leave others with increased intensity behind. + +And now let us pass from what we are accustomed to regard as a dead +mineral to a living grain of corn. When _it_ is examined by polarized +light, chromatic phenomena similar to those noticed in crystals are +observed. And why? Because the architecture of the grain resembles the +architecture of the crystal. In the grain also the molecules are set in +definite positions, and in accordance with their arrangement they act upon +the light. But what has built together the molecules of the corn? I have +already said regarding crystalline architecture that you may, if you +please, consider the atoms and molecules to be placed in position by a +power external to themselves. The same hypothesis is open to you now. But +if, in the case of crystals, you have rejected this notion of an external +architect, I think you are bound to reject it now, and to conclude that +the molecules of the corn are self-posited by the forces with which they +act upon each other. It would be poor philosophy to invoke an external +agent in the one case and reject it in the other. + +Instead of cutting our grain of corn into slices and subjecting it to the +action of polarized light, let us place it in the earth and subject it to +a certain degree of warmth. In other words, let the molecules, both of the +corn and of the surrounding earth, be kept in that state of agitation +which we call warmth. Under these circumstances, the grain and the +substances which surround it interact, and a definite molecular +architecture is the result. A bud is formed; this bud reaches the surface, +where it is exposed to the sun's rays, which are also to be regarded as a +kind of vibratory motion. And as the motion of common heat, with which the +grain and the substances surrounding it were first endowed, enabled the +grain and these substances to exercise their attractions and repulsions, +and thus to coalesce in definite forms, so the specific motion of the +sun's rays now enables the green bud to feed upon the carbonic acid and +the aqueous vapor of the air. The bud appropriates those constituents of +both for which it has an elective attraction, and permits the other +constituent to resume its place in the air. Thus the architecture is +carried on. Forces are active at the root, forces are active in the blade, +the matter of the earth and the matter of the atmosphere are drawn toward +both, and the plant augments in size. We have in succession the bud, the +stalk, the ear, the full corn in the ear; the cycle of molecular action +being completed by the production of grains similar to that with which the +process began. + +Now there is nothing in this process which necessarily eludes the +conceptive or imagining power of the purely human mind. An intellect the +same in kind as our own would, if only sufficiently expanded, be able to +follow the whole process from beginning to end. It would see every +molecule placed in its position by the specific attractions and repulsions +exerted between it and other molecules, the whole process and its +consummation being an instance of the play of molecular force. Given the +grain and its environment, the purely human intellect might, if +sufficiently expanded, trace out _a priori_ every step of the process of +growth, and by the application of purely mechanical principles demonstrate +that the cycle must end, as it is seen to end, in the reproduction of +forms like that with which it began. A similar necessity rules here to +that which rules the planets in their circuits round the sun. + +You will notice that I am stating my truth strongly, as at the beginning +we agreed it should be stated. But I must go still further, and affirm +that in the eye of science _the animal body_ is just as much a product of +molecular force as the stalk and ear of corn, or as the crystal of salt or +sugar. Many of the parts of the body are obviously mechanical. Take the +human heart, for example, with its system of valves; or take the exquisite +mechanism of the eye or hand. Animal heat, moreover, is the same in kind +as the heat of a fire, being produced by the same chemical process. Animal +motion, too, is as directly derived from the food of the animal as the +motion of Trevethyck's walking engine from the fuel in its furnace. As +regards matter, the animal body creates nothing; as regards force, it +creates nothing. Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his +stature? All that has been said, then, regarding the plant may be restated +with regard to the animal. Every particle that enters into the composition +of a muscle, a nerve, or a bone has been placed in its position by +molecular force. And, unless the existence of law in these matters is +denied, and the element of caprice introduced, we must conclude that, +given the relation of any molecule of the body to its environment, its +position in the body might be determined mathematically. Our difficulty is +not with the _quality_ of the problem, but with its _complexity_; and this +difficulty might be met by the simple expansion of the faculties which we +now possess. Given this expansion, with the necessary data, and the chick +might be deduced as rigorously and as logically from the egg as the +existence of Neptune was deduced from the disturbances of Uranus, or as +conical refraction was deduced from the undulatory theory of light. + +You see, I am not mincing matters, but avowing nakedly what many +scientific thinkers more or less distinctively believe. The formation of a +crystal, a plant, or an animal is, in their eyes, a purely mechanical +problem, which differs from the problems of ordinary mechanics in the +smallness of the masses and the complexity of the processes involved. Here +you have one half of our dual truth; let us now glance at the other half. +Associated with this wonderful mechanism of the animal body, we have +phenomena no less certain than those of physics, but between which and the +mechanism we discern no necessary connection. A man, for example, can say +_I feel_, _I think_, _I love_; but how does _consciousness_ infuse itself +into the problem? The human brain is said to be the organ of thought and +feeling; when we are hurt, the brain feels it; when we ponder, it is the +brain that thinks; when our passions or affections are excited, it is +through the instrumentality of the brain. Let us endeavor to be a little +more precise here. I hardly imagine that there exists a profound +scientific thinker, who has reflected upon the subject, unwilling to admit +the extreme probability of the hypothesis that, for every fact of +consciousness, whether in the domain of sense, of thought, or of emotion, +a certain definite molecular condition is set up in the brain; who does +not hold this relation of physics to consciousness to be invariable, so +that, given the state of the brain, the corresponding thought or feeling +might be inferred; or, given the thought or feeling, the corresponding +state of the brain might be inferred. + +But how inferred? It is at bottom not a case of logical inference at all, +but of empirical association. You may reply that many of the inferences of +science are of this character; the inference, for example, that an +electric current of a given direction will deflect a magnetic needle in a +definite way; but the cases differ in this, that the passage from the +current to the needle, if not demonstrable, is thinkable, and that we +entertain no doubt as to the final mechanical solution of the problem. But +the passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of +consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a definite thought and a +definite molecular action in the brain occur simultaneously; we do not +possess the intellectual organ, nor apparently any rudiment of the organ, +which would enable us to pass, by a process of reasoning, from the one to +the other. They appear together, but we do not know why. Were our minds +and senses so expanded, strengthened, and illuminated as to enable us to +see and feel the very molecules of the brain; were we capable of following +all their motions, all their groupings, all their electric discharges, if +such there be; and were we intimately acquainted with the corresponding +states of thought and feeling, we should be as far as ever from the +solution of the problem, "How are these physical processes connected with +the facts of consciousness?" The chasm between the two classes of +phenomena would still remain intellectually impassable. Let the +consciousness of _love_, for example, be associated with a right-handed +spiral motion of the molecules of the brain, and the consciousness of +_hate_ with a left-handed spiral motion. We should then know, when we +love, that the motion is in one direction, and when we hate, that the +motion is in the other; but the _Why?_ would remain as unanswerable as +before. + +In affirming that the growth of the body is mechanical, and that thought, +as exercised by us, has its correlative in the physics of the brain, I +think the position of the "Materialist" is stated, as far as that position +is a tenable one. I think the materialist will be able finally to maintain +this position against all attacks; but I do not think, in the present +condition of the human mind, that he can pass beyond this position. I do +not think he is entitled to say that his molecular groupings and his +molecular motions _explain_ everything. In reality, they explain nothing. +The utmost he can affirm is the association of two classes of phenomena, +of whose real bond of union he is in absolute ignorance. + +The problem of the connection of body and soul is as insoluble in its +modern form as it was in the pre-scientific ages. Phosphorus is known to +enter into the composition of the human brain, and a trenchant German +writer has exclaimed, "Ohne Phosphor, kein Gedanke."[4] That may or may +not be the case; but, even if we knew it to be the case, the knowledge +would not lighten our darkness. On both sides of the zone here assigned to +the materialist he is equally helpless. If you ask him whence is this +"Matter" of which we have been discoursing, who or what divided it into +molecules, who or what impressed upon them this necessity of running into +organic forms, he has no answer. Science is mute in reply to these +questions. + +But if the materialist is confounded and science rendered dumb, who else +is prepared with a solution? To whom has this arm of the Lord been +revealed? Let us lower our heads and acknowledge our ignorance, priest and +philosopher, one and all. Perhaps the mystery may resolve itself into +knowledge at some future day. The process of things upon this earth has +been one of amelioration. It is a long way from the iguanodon and his +contemporaries to the President and the Members of the British +Association. And whether we regard the improvement from the scientific or +from the theological point of view, as the result of progressive +development, or as the result of successive exhibitions of creative +energy, neither view entitles us to assume that man's present faculties +end the series--that the process of amelioration stops at him. + +A time may therefore come when this ultra-scientific region by which we +are now enfolded may offer itself to terrestrial, if not to human, +investigation. Two thirds of the rays emitted by the sun fail to arouse in +the eye the sense of vision. The rays exist, but the visual organ +requisite for their translation into light does not exist. And so, from +this region of darkness and mystery which surrounds us, rays may now be +darting which require but the development of the proper intellectual +organs to translate them into knowledge as far surpassing ours as ours +surpasses that of the wallowing reptiles which once held possession of +this planet. Meanwhile the mystery is not without its uses. It certainly +may be made a power in the human soul; but it is a power which has +feeling, not knowledge, for its base. It may be, and will be, and we hope +is, turned to account, both in steadying and strengthening the intellect, +and in rescuing man from that littleness to which in the struggle for +existence or for precedence in the world he is continually prone. + + + + +JOHN HENRY, CARDINAL NEWMAN + +CHRISTIANITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE[5] + + +So far, then, as these remarks have gone, Theology and Physics cannot +touch each other, have no intercommunion, have no ground of difference or +agreement, of jealousy or of sympathy. As well may musical truths be said +to interfere with the doctrines of architectural science; as well may +there be a collision between the mechanist and the geologist, the engineer +and the grammarian; as well might the British Parliament or the French +nation be jealous of some possible belligerent power upon the surface of +the moon, as Physics pick a quarrel with Theology. And it may be +well--before I proceed to fill up in detail this outline, and to explain +what has to be explained in this statement--to corroborate it, as it +stands, by the remarkable words upon the subject of a writer of the +day:[6]-- + +"We often hear it said," he observes, writing as a Protestant (and here +let me assure you, gentlemen, that though his words have a controversial +tone with them, I do not quote them in that aspect, or as wishing here to +urge anything against Protestants, but merely in pursuance of my own +point, that Revelation and Physical Science cannot really come into +collision), "we often hear it said that the world is constantly becoming +more and more enlightened, and that this enlightenment must be favorable +to Protestantism, and unfavorable to Catholicism. We wish that we could +think so. But we see great reason to doubt whether this is a well-founded +expectation. We see that during the last two hundred and fifty years the +human mind has been in the highest degree active; that it has made great +advances in every branch of natural philosophy; that it has produced +innumerable inventions tending to promote the convenience of life; that +medicine, surgery, chemistry, engineering, have been very greatly +improved, that government, police, and law have been improved, though not +to so great an extent as the physical sciences. Yet we see that, during +these two hundred and fifty years, Protestantism has made no conquests +worth speaking of. Nay, we believe that, as far as there has been change, +that change has, on the whole, been in favor of the Church of Rome. We +cannot, therefore, feel confident that the progress of knowledge will +necessarily be fatal to a system which has, to say the least, stood its +ground in spite of the immense progress made by the human race in +knowledge since the days of Queen Elizabeth. + +"Indeed, the argument which we are considering seems to us to be founded +on an entire mistake. There are branches of knowledge with respect to +which the law of the human mind is progress. In mathematics, when once a +proposition has been demonstrated, it is never afterwards contested. Every +fresh story is as solid a basis for a new superstructure as the original +foundation was. Here, therefore, there is a constant addition to the stock +of truth. In the inductive sciences, again, the law is progress.... + +"But with theology the case is very different. As respects natural +religion (Revelation being for the present altogether left out of the +question), it is not easy to see that a philosopher of the present day is +more favorably situated than Thales or Simonides. He has before him just +the same evidences of design in the structure of the universe which the +early Greeks had.... As to the other great question, what becomes of man +after death, we do not see that a highly educated European, left to his +unassisted reason, is more likely to be in the right than a Blackfoot +Indian. Not a single one of the many sciences, in which we surpass the +Blackfoot Indians, throws the smallest light on the state of the soul +after the animal life is extinct.... + +"Natural Theology, then, is not a progressive science. That knowledge of +our origin and of our destiny which we derive from Revelation is indeed of +very different clearness, and of very different importance. But neither is +Revealed Religion of the nature of a progressive science.... In divinity +there cannot be a progress analogous to that which is constantly taking +place in pharmacy, geology, and navigation. A Christian of the fifth +century with a Bible is neither better nor worse situated than a Christian +of the nineteenth century with a Bible, candor and natural acuteness +being, of course, supposed equal. It matters not at all that the compass, +printing, gunpowder, steam, gas, vaccination, and a thousand other +discoveries and inventions, which were unknown in the fifth century, are +familiar to the nineteenth. None of these discoveries and inventions has +the smallest bearing on the question whether man is justified by faith +alone, or whether the invocation of saints is an orthodox practice.... We +are confident that the world will never go back to the solar system of +Ptolemy; nor is our confidence in the least shaken by the circumstance +that so great a man as Bacon rejected the theory of Galileo with scorn; +for Bacon had not all the means of arriving at a sound conclusion. But +when we reflect that Sir Thomas More was ready to die for the doctrine of +Transubstantiation, we cannot but feel some doubt whether the doctrine of +Transubstantiation may not triumph over all opposition. More was a man of +eminent talents. He had all the information on the subject that we have, +or _that, while the world lasts, any human being will have.... No +progress that science has made, or will make_, can add to what seems to us +the overwhelming force of the argument against the Real Presence. We are +therefore unable to understand why what Sir Thomas More believed +respecting Transubstantiation may not be believed, to the end of time, by +men equal in abilities and honesty to Sir Thomas More. But Sir Thomas More +is one of the choice specimens of human wisdom and virtue; and the +doctrine of Transubstantiation is a kind of proof charge. The faith which +stands that test will stand any test.... + +"The history of Catholicism strikingly illustrates these observations. +During the last seven centuries the public mind of Europe has made +constant progress in every department of secular knowledge; but in +religion we can trace no constant progress.... Four times since the +authority of the Church of Rome was established in Western Christendom, +has the human intellect risen up against her yoke. Twice that Church +remained completely victorious. Twice she came forth from the conflict +bearing the marks of cruel wounds, but with the principle of life still +strong within her. When we reflect on the tremendous assaults she has +survived, we find it difficult to conceive in what way she is to perish." + + * * * * * + +You see, gentlemen, if you trust the judgment of a sagacious mind, deeply +read in history, Catholic Theology has nothing to fear from the progress +of Physical Science, even independently of the divinity of its doctrines. +It speaks of things supernatural; and these, by the very force of the +words, research into nature cannot touch. + + + + +ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + +PULVIS ET UMBRA[7] + + +We look for some reward of our endeavors, and are disappointed; not +success, not happiness, not even peace of conscience, crowns our +ineffectual efforts to do well. Our frailties are invincible, our virtues +barren; the battle goes sore against us to the going down of the sun. The +canting moralist tells us of right and wrong; and we look abroad, even on +the face of our small earth, and find them change with every climate, and +no country where some action is not honored for a virtue and none where it +is not branded for a vice; and we look in our experience, and find no +vital congruity in the wisest rules, but at the best a municipal fitness. +It is not strange if we are tempted to despair of good. We ask too much. +Our religions and moralities have been trimmed to flatter us, till they +are all emasculate and sentimentalized, and only please and weaken. Truth +is of a rougher strain. In the harsh face of life, faith can read a +bracing gospel. The human race is a thing more ancient than the ten +commandments; and the bones and revolutions of the Kosmos, in whose joints +we are but moss and fungus, more ancient still. + +Of the Kosmos in the last resort, science reports many doubtful things, +and all of them appalling. There seems no substance to this solid globe on +which we stamp: nothing but symbols and ratios. Symbols and ratios carry +us and bring us forth and beat us down; gravity, which swings the +incommensurable suns and worlds through space, is but a figment varying +inversely as the squares of distances; and the suns and worlds +themselves, imponderable figures of abstraction, NH{3} and H{2}O. +Consideration dares not dwell upon this view; that way madness lies; +science carries us into zones of speculation, where there is no habitable +city for the mind of man. + +But take the Kosmos with a grosser faith, as our senses give it us. We +behold space sown with rotatory islands, suns and worlds and the shards +and wrecks of systems: some, like the sun, still blazing; some rotting, +like the earth; others, like the moon, stable in desolation. All of these +we take to be made of something we call matter: a thing which no analysis +can help us to conceive; to whose incredible properties no familiarity can +reconcile our minds. This stuff, when not purified by the lustration of +fire, rots uncleanly into something we call life; seized through all its +atoms with a pediculous malady; swelling in tumors that become +independent, sometimes even (by an abhorrent prodigy) locomotory; one +splitting into millions, millions cohering into one, as the malady +proceeds through varying stages. This vital putrescence of the dust, used +as we are to it, yet strikes us with occasional disgust; and the profusion +of worms in a piece of ancient turf, or the air of a marsh darkened with +insects, will sometimes check our breathing so that we aspire for cleaner +places. But none is clean: the moving sand is infected with lice; the pure +spring, where it bursts out of the mountain, is a mere issue of worms; +even in the hard rock the crystal is forming. + +In two main shapes this eruption covers the countenance of the earth: the +animal and the vegetable; one in some degree the inversion of the other; +the second rooted to the spot; the first coming detached out of its natal +mud, and scurrying abroad with the myriad feet of insects, or towering +into the heavens on the wings of birds; a thing so inconceivable that, if +it be well considered, the heart stops. To what passes with the anchored +vermin, we have little clue; doubtless they have their joys and sorrows, +their delights and killing agonies; it appears not how. But of the +locomotory, to which we ourselves belong, we can tell more. These share +with us a thousand miracles: the miracles of sight, of hearing, of the +projection of sound; things that bridge space; the miracles of memory and +reason, by which the present is conceived, and, when it is gone, its image +kept living in the brains of man and brute; the miracle of reproduction, +with its imperious desires and staggering consequences. And to put the +last touch upon this mountain mass of the revolting and the inconceivable, +all these prey upon each other, lives tearing other lives in pieces, +cramming them inside themselves, and by that summary process, growing fat: +the vegetarian, the whale, perhaps the tree, not less than the lion of the +desert; for the vegetarian is only the eater of the dumb. + +Meanwhile our rotatory island, loaded with predatory life, and more +drenched with blood, both animal and vegetable, than ever mutinied ship, +scuds through space with unimaginable speed, and turns alternate cheeks to +the reverberation of a blazing world, ninety million miles away. + +What a monstrous spectre is this man, the disease of the agglutinated +dust, lifting alternate feet or lying drugged with slumber; killing, +feeding, growing, bringing forth small copies of himself; grown upon with +hair like grass, fitted with eyes that move and glitter in his face; a +thing to set children screaming; and yet, looked at nearlier, known as his +fellows know him, how surprising are his attributes! Poor soul, here for +so little, cast among so many hardships, filled with desires so +incommensurate and so inconsistent, savagely surrounded, savagely +descended, irremediably condemned to prey upon his fellow lives: who +should have blamed him, had he been of a piece with his destiny, and a +being merely barbarous? And we look and behold him instead filled with +imperfect virtues: infinitely childish, often admirably valiant, often +touchingly kind; sitting down, amidst his momentary life, to debate of +right and wrong and the attributes of the deity; rising up to do battle +for an egg or die for an idea; singling out his friends and his mate with +cordial affection; bringing forth in pain; rearing, with long-suffering +solicitude, his young. + +To touch the heart of his mystery, we find in him one thought, strange to +the point of lunacy: the thought of duty; the thought of something owing +to himself, to his neighbor, to his God; an ideal of decency, to which he +would rise if it were possible; a limit of shame, below which, if it be +possible, he will not stoop. The design in most men is one of conformity; +here and there, in picked natures, it transcends itself and soars on the +other side, arming martyrs with independence; but in all, in their +degrees, it is a bosom thought. Not in man alone, for we trace it in dogs +and cats whom we know fairly well; and doubtless some similar point of +honor sways the elephant, the oyster, and the louse, of whom we know so +little. But in man, at least, it sways with so complete an empire that +merely selfish things come second, even with the selfish; that appetites +are starved, fears are conquered, pains supported; that almost the dullest +shrinks from the reproof of a glance, although it were a child's; and all +but the most cowardly stand amid the risks of war; and the more noble, +having strongly conceived an act as due to their ideal, affront and +embrace death. Strange enough, if, with their singular origin and +perverted practice, they think they are to be rewarded in some future +life; stranger still, if they are persuaded of the contrary, and think +this blow, which they solicit, will strike them senseless for eternity. + +I shall be reminded what a tragedy of misconception and misconduct man at +large presents: of organized injustice, cowardly violence, and treacherous +crime; and of the damning imperfections of the best. They cannot be too +darkly drawn. Man is indeed marked for failure in his efforts to do right. +But where the best consistently miscarry, how tenfold more remarkable that +all should continue to strive; and surely we should find it both touching +and inspiriting that, in a field from which success is banished, our race +should not cease to labor. + +If the first view of this creature, stalking in his rotatory isle, be a +thing to shake the courage of the stoutest, on this nearer sight he +startles us with an admiring wonder. It matters not where we look, under +what climate we observe him, in what stage of society, in what depth of +ignorance, burthened with what erroneous morality: by camp-fires in +Assiniboia, the snow powdering his shoulders, the wind plucking his +blanket, as he sits, passing the ceremonial calumet and uttering his grave +opinions like a Roman senator: in ships at sea, a man inured to hardship +and vile pleasures, his brightest hope a fiddle in a tavern and a +bedizened trull who sells herself to rob him, and he, for all that, +simple, innocent, cheerful, kindly like a child, constant to toil, brave +to drown for others; in the slums of cities, moving among indifferent +millions to mechanical employments, without hope of change in the future, +with scarce a pleasure in the present, and yet true to his virtues, honest +up to his lights, kind to his neighbors, tempted perhaps in vain by the +bright gin-palace, perhaps long-suffering with the drunken wife that ruins +him; in India (a woman this time) kneeling with broken cries and streaming +tears, as she drowns her child in the sacred river; in the brothel, the +discard of society, living mainly on strong drink, fed with affronts, a +fool, a thief, the comrade of thieves, and even here keeping the point of +honor and the touch of pity, often repaying the world's scorn with +service, often standing firm upon a scruple, and at a certain cost, +rejecting riches--everywhere some virtue cherished or affected, everywhere +some decency of thought and carriage, everywhere the ensign of man's +ineffectual goodness. Ah! if I could show you this! if I could show you +these men and women, all the world over, in every stage of history, under +every abuse of error, under every circumstance of failure, without hope, +without help, without thanks, still obscurely fighting the lost fight of +virtue, still clinging, in the brothel or on the scaffold, to some rag of +honor, the poor jewel of their souls! They may seek to escape, and yet +they cannot; it is not alone their privilege and glory, but their doom; +they are condemned to some nobility; all their lives long, the desire of +good is at their heels, the implacable hunter. + +Of all earth's meteors, here at least is the most strange and consoling: +that this ennobled lemur, this hair-crowned bubble of the dust, this +inheritor of a few years and sorrows, should yet deny himself his rare +delights, and add to his frequent pains, and live for an ideal, however +misconceived. Nor can we stop with man. A new doctrine, received with +screams a little while ago by canting moralists, and still not properly +worked into the body of our thoughts, lights us a step further into the +heart of this rough but noble universe. For nowadays the pride of man +denies in vain his kinship with the original dust. He stands no longer +like a thing apart. Close at his heels we see the dog, prince of another +genus: and in him too we see dumbly testified the same cultus of an +unattainable ideal, the same constancy in failure. Does it stop with the +dog? We look at our feet, where the ground is blackened with the swarming +ant: a creature so small, so far from us in the hierarchy of brutes, that +we can scarce trace and scarce comprehend his doings; and here also, in +his ordered polities and rigorous justice, we see confessed the law of +duty and the fact of individual sin. Does it stop, then, with the ant? +Rather, this desire of well-doing and this doom of frailty run through all +the grades of life; rather is this earth, from the frosty top of Everest +to the next margin of the internal fire, one stage of ineffectual virtues +and one temple of pious tears and perseverance. + +The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together. It is the common and +the god-like law of life. The browsers, the biters, the barkers, the hairy +coats of field and forest, the squirrel in the oak, the thousand-footed +creeper in the dust, as they share with us the gift of life, share with us +the love of an ideal: strive like us,--like us are tempted to grow weary +of the struggle,--to do well; like us receive at times unmerited +refreshment, visitings of support, returns of courage; and are condemned +like us to be crucified between that double law of the members and the +will. Are they like us, I wonder, in the timid hope of some reward, some +sugar with the drug? Do they, too, stand aghast at unrewarded virtues, at +the sufferings of those whom, in our partiality, we take to be just, and +the prosperity of such as, in our blindness, we call wicked? It may be; +and yet God knows what they should look for. Even while they look, even +while they repent, the foot of man treads them by thousands in the dust, +the yelping hounds burst upon their trail, the bullet speeds, the knives +are heating in the den of the vivisectionist; or the dew falls, and the +generation of a day is blotted out. For these are creatures compared with +whom our weakness is strength, our ignorance wisdom, our brief span +eternity. + +And as we dwell, we living things, in our isle of terror and under the +imminent hand of death, God forbid it should be man the erected, the +reasoner, the wise in his own eyes--God forbid it should be man that +wearies in well-doing, that despairs of unrewarded effort, or utters the +language of complaint. Let it be enough for faith, that the whole creation +groans in mortal frailty, strives with unconquerable constancy--surely not +all in vain. + + + + +JOHN RUSKIN + +THE MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS[8] + + +When I accepted the privilege of addressing you to-day, I was not aware of +a restriction with respect to the topics of discussion which may be +brought before this Society[9]--a restriction which, though entirely wise +and right under the circumstances contemplated in its introduction, would +necessarily have disabled me, thinking as I think, from preparing any +lecture for you on the subject of art in a form which might be permanently +useful. Pardon me, therefore, in so far as I must transgress such +limitation; for indeed my infringement will be of the letter--not of the +spirit--of your commands. In whatever I may say touching the religion +which has been the foundation of art, or the policy which has contributed +to its power, if I offend one, I shall offend all; for I shall take no +note of any separations in creeds, or antagonisms in parties: neither do I +fear that ultimately I shall offend any, by proving--or at least stating +as capable of positive proof--the connection of all that is best in the +crafts and arts of man, with the simplicity of his faith, and the +sincerity of his patriotism. + +But I speak to you under another disadvantage, by which I am checked in +frankness of utterance, not here only, but everywhere: namely, that I am +never fully aware how far my audiences are disposed to give me credit for +real knowledge of my subject, or how far they grant me attention only +because I have been sometimes thought an ingenious or pleasant essayist +upon it. For I have had what, in many respects, I boldly call the +misfortune, to set my words sometimes prettily together; not without a +foolish vanity in the poor knack that I had of doing so: until I was +heavily punished for this pride, by finding that many people thought of +the words only, and cared nothing for their meaning. Happily, therefore, +the power of using such pleasant language--if, indeed, it ever were +mine--is passing away from me; and whatever I am now able to say at all, I +find myself forced to say with great plainness. For my thoughts have +changed also, as my words have; and whereas in earlier life, what little +influence I obtained was due perhaps chiefly to the enthusiasm with which +I was able to dwell on the beauty of the physical clouds, and of their +colors in the sky; so all the influence I now desire to retain must be due +to the earnestness with which I am endeavoring to trace the form and +beauty of another kind of cloud than those: the bright cloud of which it +is written, "What is your life? It is even as a vapor that appeareth for a +little time, and then vanisheth away." + +I suppose few people reach the middle or latter period of their age, +without having, at some moment of change or disappointment, felt the truth +of those bitter words; and been startled by the fading of the sunshine +from the cloud of their life into the sudden agony of the knowledge that +the fabric of it was as fragile as a dream, and the endurance of it as +transient as the dew. But it is not always that, even at such times of +melancholy surprise, we can enter into any true perception that this human +life shares in the nature of it, not only the evanescence, but the mystery +of the cloud; that its avenues are wreathed in darkness, and its forms and +courses no less fantastic, than spectral and obscure; so that not only in +the vanity which we cannot grasp, but in the shadow which we cannot +pierce, it is true of this cloudy life of ours, that "man walketh in a +vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain." + +And least of all, whatever may have been the eagerness of our passions, or +the height of our pride, are we able to understand in its depths the third +and most solemn character in which our life is like those clouds of +heaven; that to it belongs, not only their transience, not only their +mystery, but also their power; that in the cloud of the human soul there +is a fire stronger than the lightning, and a grace more precious than the +rain; and that, though of the good and evil it shall one day be said +alike, that the place that knew them knows them no more, there is an +infinite separation between those whose brief presence had there been a +blessing, like the mist of Eden that went up from the earth to water the +garden, and those whose place knew them only as a drifting and changeful +shade, of whom the Heavenly sentence is, that they are "wells without +water; clouds that are carried with a tempest, to whom the mist of +darkness is reserved forever." + +To those among us, however, who have lived long enough to form some just +estimate of the rate of the changes which are, hour by hour in +accelerating catastrophe, manifesting themselves in the laws, the arts, +and the creeds of men, it seems to me that, now at least, if never at any +former time, the thoughts of the true nature of our life, and of its +powers and responsibilities, should present themselves with absolute +sadness and sternness. And although I know that this feeling is much +deepened in my own mind by disappointment, which, by chance, has attended +the greater number of my cherished purposes, I do not for that reason +distrust the feeling itself, though I am on my guard against an +exaggerated degree of it; nay, I rather believe that in periods of new +effort and violent change, disappointment is a wholesome medicine; and +that in the secret of it, as in the twilight so beloved by Titian, we may +see the colors of things with deeper truth than in the most dazzling +sunshine.... + +You know, there is a tendency in the minds of many men, when they are +heavily disappointed in the main purposes of their life, to feel, and +perhaps in warning, perhaps in mockery, to declare, that life itself is a +vanity. Because it has disappointed them, they think its nature is of +disappointment always, or at best, of pleasure that can be grasped by +imagination only; that the cloud of it has no strength nor fire within; +but is a painted cloud only, to be delighted in, yet despised. You know +how beautifully Pope has expressed this particular phase of thought:-- + + Meanwhile opinion gilds, with varying rays, + These painted clouds that beautify our days; + Each want of happiness by hope supplied, + And each vacuity of sense, by pride. + Hope builds as fast as Knowledge can destroy; + In Folly's cup, still laughs the bubble joy. + One pleasure past, another still we gain, + And not a vanity is given in vain. + +But the effect of failure upon my own mind has been just the reverse of +this. The more that my life disappointed me, the more solemn and wonderful +it became to me. It seemed, contrarily to Pope's saying, that the vanity +of it _was_ indeed given in vain; but that there was something behind the +veil of it, which was not vanity. It became to me, not a painted cloud, +but a terrible and impenetrable one: not a mirage, which vanished as I +drew near, but a pillar of darkness, to which I was forbidden to draw +near. For I saw that both my own failure, and such success in petty things +as in its poor triumph seemed to me worse than failure, came from the want +of sufficiently earnest effort to understand the whole law and meaning of +existence, and to bring it to noble and due end; as, on the other hand, I +saw more and more clearly that all enduring success in the arts, or in any +other occupation, had come from the ruling of the lower purposes, not by a +conviction of their nothingness, but by a solemn faith in the advancing +power of human nature, or in the promise, however dimly apprehended, that +the mortal part of it would one day be swallowed up in immortality; and +that, indeed, the arts themselves never had reached any vital strength of +honor, but in the effort to proclaim this immortality, and in the service +either of great and just religion, or of some unselfish patriotism, and +law of such national life as must be the foundation of religion. + +Nothing that I have ever said is more true or necessary--nothing has been +more misunderstood or misapplied--than my strong assertion that the arts +can never be right themselves unless their motive is right. It is +misunderstood this way: weak painters, who have never learned their +business, and cannot lay a true line, continually come to me, crying out, +"Look at this picture of mine; it _must_ be good, I had such a lovely +motive. I have put my whole heart into it, and taken years to think over +its treatment." Well, the only answer for these people is,--if one had the +cruelty to make it,--"Sir, you cannot think over _any_thing in any number +of years,--you haven't the head to do it; and though you had fine motives, +strong enough to make you burn yourself in a slow fire, if only first you +could paint a picture, you can't paint one, nor half an inch of one; you +haven't the hand to do it." + +But, far more decisively we have to say to the men who _do_ know their +business, or may know it if they choose, "Sir, you have this gift, and a +mighty one; see that you serve your nation faithfully with it. It is a +greater trust than ships and armies: you might cast _them_ away, if you +were their captain, with less treason to your people than in casting your +own glorious power away, and serving the devil with it instead of men. +Ships and armies you may replace if they are lost, but a great intellect, +once abused, is a curse to the earth forever." + +This, then, I meant by saying that the arts must have noble motive. This +also I said respecting them, that they never had prospered, nor could +prosper, but when they had such true purpose, and were devoted to the +proclamation of divine truth or law. And yet I saw also that they had +always failed in this proclamation--that poetry, and sculpture, and +painting, though great when they strove to teach us something about the +gods, never had taught us anything trustworthy about the gods, but had +always betrayed their trust in the crisis of it, and, with their powers at +the full reach, became ministers to pride and to lust. And I felt also, +with increasing amazement, the unconquerable apathy in ourselves the +hearers, no less than in these the teachers; and that, while the wisdom +and rightness of every act and art of life could only be consistent with a +right understanding of the ends of life, we were all plunged as in a +languid dream--our hearts fat, and our eyes heavy, and our ears closed, +lest the inspiration of hand or voice should reach us--lest we should see +with our eyes, and understand with our hearts, and be healed. + +This intense apathy in all of us is the first great mystery of life; it +stands in the way of every perception, every virtue. There is no making +ourselves feel enough astonishment at it. That the occupations or pastimes +of life should have no motive, is understandable; but--that life itself +should have no motive,--that we neither care to find out what it may lead +to, nor to guard against its being forever taken away from us,--here is a +mystery indeed. For just suppose I were able to call at this moment to +anyone in this audience by name, and to tell him positively that I knew a +large estate had been lately left to him on some curious conditions; but +that though I knew it was large, I did not know how large, nor even where +it was--whether in the East Indies or the West, or in England, or at the +Antipodes. I only knew it was a vast estate, and that there was a chance +of his losing it altogether if he did not soon find out on what terms it +had been left to him. Suppose I were able to say this positively to any +single man in this audience, and he knew that I did not speak without +warrant, do you think that he would rest content with that vague +knowledge, if it were anywise possible to obtain more? Would he not give +every energy to find some trace of the facts, and never rest till he had +ascertained where this place was, and what it was like? And suppose he +were a young man, and all he could discover by his best endeavor was that +the estate was never to be his at all, unless he persevered, during +certain years of probation, in an orderly and industrious life; but that, +according to the rightness of his conduct, the portion of the estate +assigned to him would be greater or less, so that it literally depended on +his behavior from day to day whether he got ten thousand a year, or thirty +thousand a year, or nothing whatever--would you not think it strange if +the youth never troubled himself to satisfy the conditions in any way, nor +even to know what was required of him, but lived exactly as he chose, and +never inquired whether his chances of the estate were increasing or +passing away? + +Well, you know that this is actually and literally so with the greater +number of the educated persons now living in Christian countries. Nearly +every man and woman in any company such as this outwardly professes to +believe--and a large number unquestionably think they believe--much more +than this; not only that a quite unlimited estate is in prospect for them +if they please the Holder of it, but that the infinite contrary of such a +possession--an estate of perpetual misery--is in store for them if they +displease this great Land-Holder, this great Heaven-Holder. And yet there +is not one in a thousand of these human souls that cares to think, for ten +minutes of the day, where this estate is or how beautiful it is, or what +kind of life they are to lead in it, or what kind of life they must lead +to obtain it. + +You fancy that you care to know this; so little do you care that, +probably, at this moment many of you are displeased with me for talking of +the matter! You came to hear about the Art of this world, not about the +Life of the next, and you are provoked with me for talking of what you can +hear any Sunday in church. But do not be afraid. I will tell you something +before you go about pictures, and carvings, and pottery, and what else you +would like better to hear of than the other world. Nay, perhaps you say, +"We want you to talk of pictures and pottery, because we are sure that you +know something of them, and you know nothing of the other world." Well--I +don't. That is quite true. But the very strangeness and mystery of which I +urge you to take notice, is in this--that I do not--nor you either. Can +you answer a single bold question unflinchingly about that other +world?--Are you sure there is a heaven? Sure there is a hell? Sure that +men are dropping before your faces through the pavements of these streets +into eternal fire, or sure that they are not? Sure that, at your own +death, you are going to be delivered from all sorrow, to be endowed with +all virtue, to be gifted with all felicity, and raised into perpetual +companionship with a King, compared to whom the kings of the earth are as +grasshoppers, and the nations as the dust of his feet? Are you sure of +this? or, if not sure, do any of us so much as care to make it sure? and, +if not, how can anything that we do be right--how can anything we think be +wise? what honor can there be in the arts that amuse us, or what profit in +the possessions that please? + +Is not this a mystery of life? + +But further, you may, perhaps, think it a beneficent ordinance for the +generality of men that they do not, with earnestness or anxiety, dwell on +such questions of the future, because the business of the day could not be +done if this kind of thought were taken by all of us for the morrow. Be it +so; but at least we might anticipate that the greatest and wisest of us, +who were evidently the appointed teachers of the rest, would set +themselves apart to seek out whatever could be surely known of the future +destinies of their race; and to teach this in no rhetorical or ambiguous +manner, but in the plainest and most severely earnest words. + +Now, the highest representatives of men who have thus endeavored, during +the Christian era, to search out these deep things, and relate them, are +Dante and Milton. There are none who for earnestness of thought, for +mastery of word, can be classed with these. I am not at present, mind you, +speaking of persons set apart in any priestly or pastoral office, to +deliver creeds to us, or doctrines; but of men who try to discover and set +forth, as far as by human intellect is possible, the facts of the other +world. Divines may perhaps teach us how to arrive there, but only these +two poets have in any powerful manner striven to discover, or in any +definite words professed to tell, what we shall see and become there; or +how those upper and nether worlds are, and have been, inhabited. + +And what have they told us? Milton's account of the most important event +in his whole system of the universe, the fall of the angels, is evidently +unbelievable to himself; and the more so, that it is wholly founded on, +and in a great part spoiled and degraded from, Hesiod's account of the +decisive war of the younger gods with the Titans. The rest of his poem is +a picturesque drama, in which every artifice of invention is visibly and +consciously employed; not a single fact being, for an instant, conceived +as tenable by any living faith. + +Dante's conception is far more intense, and, by himself, for the time, not +to be escaped from; it is indeed a vision, but a vision only, and that one +of the wildest that ever entranced a soul--a dream in which every +grotesque type or fantasy of heathen tradition is renewed, and adorned; +and the destinies of the Christian Church, under their most sacred +symbols, become literally subordinate to the praise, and are only to be +understood by the aid, of one dear Florentine maiden. + +I tell you truly that, as I strive more with this strange lethargy and +trance in myself, and awake to the meaning and power of life, it seems +daily more amazing to me that men such as these should dare to play with +the most precious truths (or the most deadly untruths) by which the whole +human race listening to them could be informed, or deceived--all the world +their audiences forever, with pleased ear, and passionate heart; and yet, +to this submissive infinitude of souls, and evermore succeeding and +succeeding multitude, hungry for bread of life, they do but play upon +sweetly modulated pipes; with pompous nomenclature adorn the councils of +hell; touch a troubadour's guitar to the courses of the suns; and fill the +openings of eternity, before which prophets have veiled their faces, and +which angels desire to look into, with idle puppets of their scholastic +imagination, and melancholy lights of frantic faith in their lost mortal +love. + +Is not this a mystery of life? + +But more. We have to remember that these two great teachers were both of +them warped in their temper, and thwarted in their search for truth. They +were men of intellectual war, unable, through darkness of controversy, or +stress of personal grief, to discern where their own ambition modified +their utterances of the moral law; or their own agony mingled with their +anger at its violation. But greater men than these have +been--innocent-hearted--too great for contest. Men, like Homer and +Shakespeare, of so unrecognized personality, that it disappears in future +ages, and becomes ghostly, like the tradition of a lost heathen god. Men, +therefore, to whose unoffended, uncondemning sight, the whole of human +nature reveals itself in a pathetic weakness, with which they will not +strive; or in mournful and transitory strength, which they dare not +praise. And all Pagan and Christian civilization thus becomes subject to +them. It does not matter how little, or how much, any of us have read, +either of Homer or Shakespeare; everything round us, in substance or in +thought, has been moulded by them. All Greek gentlemen were educated under +Homer. All Roman gentlemen, by Greek literature. All Italian, and French, +and English gentlemen, by Roman literature, and by its principles. Of the +scope of Shakespeare, I will say only that the intellectual measure of +every man since born, in the domains of creative thought, may be assigned +to him according to the degree in which he has been taught by Shakespeare. +Well, what do these two men, centres of mortal intelligence, deliver to us +of conviction respecting what it most behooves that intelligence to grasp? +What is their hope--their crown of rejoicing? what manner of exhortation +have they for us, or of rebuke? what lies next their own hearts, and +dictates their undying words? Have they any peace to promise to our +unrest, any redemption to our misery? + +Take Homer first, and think if there is any sadder image of human fate +than the great Homeric story. The main features in the character of +Achilles are its intense desire of justice and its tenderness of +affection. And in that bitter song of the Iliad, this man, though aided +continually by the wisest of the gods, and burning with the desire of +justice in his heart, becomes yet, through ill-governed passion, the most +unjust of men; and, full of the deepest tenderness in his heart, becomes +yet, through ill-governed passion, the most cruel of men. Intense alike in +love and in friendship, he loses, first his mistress, and then his friend; +for the sake of the one, he surrenders to death the armies of his own +land; for the sake of the other, he surrenders all. Will a man lay down +his life for his friend? Yea, even for his _dead_ friend, this Achilles, +though goddess-born and goddess-taught, gives up his kingdom, his country, +and his life--casts alike the innocent and guilty, with himself, into one +gulf of slaughter, and dies at last by the hand of the basest of his +adversaries. + +Is not this a mystery of life? + +But what, then, is the message to us of our own poet, and searcher of +hearts, after fifteen hundred years of Christian faith have been numbered +over the graves of men? Are his words more cheerful than the Heathen's--is +his hope more near--his trust more sure--his reading of fate more happy? +Ah, no! He differs from the Heathen poet chiefly in this--that he +recognizes, for deliverance, no gods nigh at hand; and that, by petty +chance--by momentary folly--by broken message--by fool's tyranny--or +traitor's snare, the strongest and most righteous are brought to their +ruin, and perish without word of hope. He indeed, as part of his +rendering of character, ascribes the power and modesty of habitual +devotion to the gentle and the just. The death-bed of Katharine is bright +with visions of angels; and the great soldier-king, standing by his few +dead, acknowledges the presence of the Hand that can save alike by many or +by few. But observe that from those who with deepest spirit meditate, and +with deepest passion mourn, there are no such words as these; nor in their +hearts are any such consolations. Instead of the perpetual sense of the +helpful presence of the Deity, which through all heathen tradition is the +source of heroic strength, in battle, in exile, and in the valley of the +shadow of death, we find only, in the great Christian poet, the +consciousness of a moral law, through which "the gods are just, and of our +pleasant vices make instruments to scourge us"; and of the resolved +arbitration of the destinies, that conclude into precision of doom what we +feebly and blindly began; and force us, when our indiscretion serves us, +and our deepest plots do pall, to the confession that "there's a divinity +that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will." + +Is not this a mystery of life? + +Be it so, then. About this human life that is to be, or that is, the wise +religious men tell us nothing that we can trust; and the wise +contemplative men, nothing that can give us peace. But there is yet a +third class to whom we may turn--the wise practical men. We have sat at +the feet of the poets who sang of heaven, and they have told us their +dreams. We have listened to the poets who sang of earth, and they have +chanted to us dirges and words of despair. But there is one class of men +more--men, not capable of vision, nor sensitive to sorrow, but firm of +purpose; practised in business; learned in all that can be (by handling) +known. Men whose hearts and hopes are wholly in this present world; from +whom, therefore, we may surely learn, at least, how, at present, +conveniently to live in it. What will _they_ say to us, or show us by +example? These kings--these councilors--these statesmen and builders of +kingdoms--these capitalists and men of business, who weigh the earth, and +the dust of it, in a balance. They know the world, surely; and what is the +mystery of life to us is none to them. They can surely show us how to +live, while we live, and to gather out of the present world what is best. + +I think I can best tell you their answer by telling you a dream I had +once. For though I am no poet, I have dreams sometimes. I dreamed I was at +a child's May-day party, in which every means of entertainment had been +provided for them by a wise and kind host. It was in a stately house, with +beautiful gardens attached to it; and the children had been set free in +the rooms and gardens, with no care whatever but how to pass their +afternoon rejoicingly. They did not, indeed, know much about what was to +happen next day; and some of them, I thought, were a little frightened, +because there was a chance of their being sent to a new school, where +there were examinations; but they kept the thoughts of that out of their +heads as well as they could, and resolved to enjoy themselves. The house, +I said, was in a beautiful garden, and in the garden were all kinds of +flowers; sweet, grassy banks for rest; and smooth lawns for play; and +pleasant streams and woods; and rocky places for climbing. And the +children were happy for a little while; but presently they separated +themselves into parties; and then each party declared it would have a +piece of the garden for its own, and that none of the others should have +anything to do with that piece. Next, they quarrelled violently which +pieces they would have; and at last the boys took up the thing, as boys +should do, "practically," and fought in the flower-beds till there was +hardly a flower left standing; then they trampled down each other's bits +of the garden out of spite; and the girls cried till they could cry no +more; and so they all lay down at last, breathless, in the ruin, and +waited for the time when they were to be taken home in the evening.[10] + +Meanwhile, the children in the house had been making themselves happy also +in their manner. For them there had been provided every kind of indoor +pleasure: there was music for them to dance to; and the library was open, +with all manner of amusing books; and there was a museum full of the most +curious shells, and animals, and birds; and there was a workshop, with +lathes and carpenter's tools, for the ingenious boys; and there were +pretty fantastic dresses, for the girls to dress in; and there were +microscopes, and kaleidoscopes, and whatever toys a child could fancy; and +a table, in the dining-room, loaded with everything nice to eat. + +But, in the midst of all this, it struck two or three of the more +"practical" children, that they would like some of the brass-headed nails +that studded the chairs; and so they set to work to pull them out. +Presently, the others, who were reading, or looking at shells, took a +fancy to do the like; and, in a little while, all the children, nearly, +were spraining their fingers, in pulling out brass-headed nails. With all +that they could pull out, they were not satisfied; and then, everybody +wanted some of somebody else's. And at last, the really practical and +sensible ones declared, that nothing was of any real consequence, that +afternoon, except to get plenty of brass-headed nails; and that the books, +and the cakes, and the microscopes were of no use at all in themselves, +but only, if they could be exchanged for nail-heads. And at last they +began to fight for nail-heads, as the others fought for the bits of +garden. Only here and there, a despised one shrank away into a corner, and +tried to get a little quiet with a book, in the midst of the noise; but +all the practical ones thought of nothing else but counting nail-heads all +the afternoon, even though they knew they would not be allowed to carry so +much as one brass knob away with them. But no--it was, "Who has most +nails? I have a hundred, and you have fifty"; or, "I have a thousand, and +you have two. I must have as many as you before I leave the house, or I +cannot possibly go home in peace." At last, they made so much noise that I +awoke, and thought to myself, "What a false dream that is, of _children_!" +The child is the father of the man; and wiser. Children never do such +foolish things. Only men do. + +But there is yet one last class of persons to be interrogated. The wise +religious men we have asked in vain; the wise contemplative men, in vain; +the wise worldly men, in vain. But there is another group yet. In the +midst of this vanity of empty religion, of tragic contemplation, of +wrathful and wretched ambition, and dispute for dust, there is yet one +great group of persons, by whom all these disputers live--the persons who +have determined, or have had it by a beneficent Providence determined for +them, that they will do something useful; that whatever may be prepared +for them hereafter, or happen to them here, they will, at least, deserve +the food that God gives them by winning it honorably: and that, however +fallen from the purity, or far from the peace, of Eden, they will carry +out the duty of human dominion, though they have lost its felicity; and +dress and keep the wilderness, though they no more can dress or keep the +garden. + +These--hewers of wood and drawers of water; these--bent under burdens, or +torn of scourges; these--that dig and weave that plant and build; workers +in wood, and in marble, and in iron--by whom all food, clothing, +habitation, furniture, and means of delight are produced, for themselves, +and for all men beside; men, whose deeds are good, though their words may +be few; men, whose lives are serviceable, be they never so short, and +worthy of honor, be they never so humble--from these surely, at least, we +may receive some clear message of teaching; and pierce, for an instant, +into the mystery of life, and of its arts. + +Yes; from these, at last, we do receive a lesson. But I grieve to say,--or +rather, for that is the deeper truth of the matter, I rejoice to +say,--this message of theirs can only be received by joining them, not by +thinking about them. + +You sent for me to talk to you of art; and I have obeyed you in coming. +But the main thing I have to tell you is, that art must not be talked +about. The fact that there is talk about it at all, signifies that it is +ill done, or cannot be done. No true painter ever speaks, or ever has +spoken, much of his art. The greatest speak nothing. Even Reynolds is no +exception, for he wrote of all that he could not himself do, and was +utterly silent respecting all that he himself did. + +The moment a man can really do his work he becomes speechless about it. +All words become idle to him--all theories. Does a bird need to theorize +about building its nest, or boast of it when built? All good work is +essentially done that way--without hesitation, without difficulty, without +boasting; and in the doers of the best, there is an inner and involuntary +power which approximates literally to the instinct of an animal--nay, I +am certain that in the most perfect human artists, reason does _not_ +supersede instinct, but is added to an instinct as much more divine than +that of the lower animals; as the human body is more beautiful than +theirs; that a great singer sings not with less instinct than the +nightingale, but with more--only more various, applicable, and governable; +that a great architect does not build with less instinct than the beaver +or the bee, but with more--with an innate cunning of proportion that +embraces all beauty, and a divine ingenuity of skill that improvises all +construction. + + * * * * * + +And now, returning to the broader question, what these arts and labors of +life have to teach us of its mystery, this is the first of their +lessons--that the more beautiful the art, the more it is essentially the +work of the people who _feel themselves wrong_; who are striving for the +fulfillment of a law, and the grasp of a loveliness, which they have not +yet attained, which they feel even further and further from attaining, the +more they strive for it. And yet, in still deeper sense, it is the work of +people who know also that they are right. The very sense of inevitable +error from their purpose marks the perfectness of that purpose, and the +continued sense of failure arises from the continued opening of the eyes +more clearly to all the sacredest laws of truth. + +This is one lesson. The second is a very plain, and greatly precious one: +namely--that, whenever the arts and labors of life are fulfilled in this +spirit of striving against misrule, and doing whatever we have to do +honorably and perfectly, they invariably bring happiness, as much as seems +possible to the nature of man. In all other paths by which that happiness +is pursued there is disappointment, or destruction: for ambition and for +passion there is no rest--no fruition; the fairest pleasures of youth +perish in a darkness greater than their past light: and the loftiest and +purest love too often does but inflame the cloud of life with endless fire +of pain. But, ascending from lowest to highest, through every scale of +human industry, that industry, worthily followed, gives peace. Ask the +laborer in the field, at the forge, or in the mine; ask the patient, +delicate-fingered artisan, or the strong-armed, fiery-hearted worker in +bronze, and in marble, and with the colors of light; and none of these, +who are true workmen, will ever tell you that they have found the law of +heaven an unkind one--that in the sweat of their face they should eat +bread, till they return to the ground; nor that they ever found it an +unrewarded obedience, if, indeed, it was rendered faithfully to the +command, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do--do it with thy might." + +These are the two great and constant lessons which our laborers teach us +of the mystery of life. But there is another, and a sadder one, which they +cannot teach us, which we must read on their tombstones. + +"Do it with thy might." There have been myriads upon myriads of human +creatures who have obeyed this law,--who have put every breath and nerve +of their being into its toil,--who have devoted every hour, and exhausted +every faculty,--who have bequeathed their unaccomplished thoughts at +death,--who, being dead, have yet spoken, by majesty of memory, and +strength of example. And, at last, what has all this "Might" of humanity +accomplished, in six thousand years of labor and sorrow? What has it +_done_? Take the three chief occupations and arts of men, one by one, and +count their achievements. Begin with the first,--the lord of them +all,--Agriculture. Six thousand years have passed since we were set to +till the ground, from which we were taken. How much of it is tilled? How +much of that which is, wisely or well? In the very centre and chief garden +of Europe,--where the two forms of parent Christianity have had their +fortresses,--where the noble Catholics of the Forest Cantons, and the +noble Protestants of the Vaudois valleys, have maintained, for dateless +ages, their faiths and liberties,--there the unchecked Alpine rivers yet +run wild in devastation; and the marshes, which a few hundred men could +redeem with a year's labor, still blast their helpless inhabitants into +fevered idiotism. That is so, in the centre of Europe! While, on the near +coast of Africa, once the Garden of the Hesperides, an Arab woman, but a +few sunsets since, ate her child, for famine. And, with all the treasures +of the East at our feet, we, in our own dominion, could not find a few +grains of rice for a people that asked of us no more; but stood by, and +saw five hundred thousand of them perish of hunger. + +Then after agriculture, the art of kings, take the next head of human +arts--Weaving; the art of queens, honored of all Heathen women, in the +person of their virgin goddess--honored of all Hebrew women, by the word +of their wisest king--"She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands +hold the distaff; she stretcheth out her hand to the poor. She is not +afraid of the snow for her household, for all her household are clothed +with scarlet. She maketh herself covering of tapestry; her clothing is +silk and purple. She maketh fine linen, and selleth it, and delivereth +girdles to the merchant." What have we done in all these thousands of +years with this bright art of Greek maid and Christian matron? Six +thousand years of weaving, and have we learned to weave? Might not every +naked wall have been purple with tapestry, and every feeble breast fenced +with sweet colors from the cold? What have we done? Our fingers are too +few, it seems, to twist together some poor covering for our bodies. We set +our streams to work for us, and choke the air with fire, to turn our +spinning-wheels--and--_are we yet clothed_? Are not the streets of the +capitals of Europe foul with sale of cast clouts and rotten rags? Is not +the beauty of your sweet children left in wretchedness of disgrace, while, +with better honor, nature clothes the brood of the bird in its nest, and +the suckling of the wolf in her den? And does not every winter's snow robe +what you have not robed, and shroud what you have not shrouded; and every +winter's wind bear up to heaven its wasted souls, to witness against you +hereafter, by the voice of their Christ,--"I was naked, and ye clothed me +not"? + +Lastly--take the Art of Building--the strongest--proudest--most +orderly--most enduring of the arts of man; that of which the produce is in +the surest manner accumulative, and need not perish, or be replaced; but +if once well done, will stand more strongly than the unbalanced +rocks--more prevalently than the crumbling hills. The art which is +associated with all civic pride and sacred principle; with which men +record their power--satisfy their enthusiasm--make sure their +defence--define and make dear their habitation. And in six thousand years +of building, what have we done? Of the greater part of all that skill and +strength, _no_ vestige is left, but fallen stones, that encumber the +fields and impede the streams. But, from this waste of disorder, and of +time, and of rage, what _is_ left to us? Constructive and progressive +creatures that we are, with ruling brains, and forming hands, capable of +fellowship, and thirsting for fame, can we not contend, in comfort, with +the insects of the forest, or, in achievement, with the worm of the sea? +The white surf rages in vain against the ramparts built by poor atoms of +scarcely nascent life; but only ridges of formless ruin mark the places +where once dwelt our noblest multitudes. The ant and the moth have cells +for each of their young, but our little ones lie in festering heaps, in +homes that consume them like graves; and night by night, from the corners +of our streets, rises up the cry of the homeless: "I was a stranger, and +ye took me not in." + +Must it be always thus? Is our life forever to be without profit--without +possession? Shall the strength of its generations be as barren as death; +or cast away their labor, as the wild fig tree casts her untimely figs? Is +it all a dream then--the desire of the eyes and the pride of life--or, if +it be, might we not live in nobler dream than this? The poets and +prophets, the wise men, and the scribes, though they have told us nothing +about a life to come, have told us much about the life that is now. They +have had--they also--their dreams, and we have laughed at them. They have +dreamed of mercy, and of justice; they have dreamed of peace and +good-will; they have dreamed of labor undisappointed, and of rest +undisturbed; they have dreamed of fulness in harvest, and overflowing in +store; they have dreamed of wisdom in council, and of providence in law; +of gladness of parents, and strength of children, and glory of gray hairs. +And at these visions of theirs we have mocked, and held them for idle and +vain, unreal and unaccomplishable. What have we accomplished with our +realities? Is this what has come of our worldly wisdom, tried against +their folly? this, our mightiest possible, against their impotent ideal? +or, have we only wandered among the spectra of a baser felicity, and +chased phantoms of the tombs, instead of visions of the Almighty; and +walked after the imaginations of our evil hearts, instead of after the +counsels of Eternity, until our lives--not in the likeness of the cloud of +heaven, but of the smoke of hell--have become "as a vapor, that appeareth +for a little time, and then vanisheth away"? + +_Does_ it vanish, then? Are you sure of that?--sure that the nothingness +of the grave will be a rest from this troubled nothingness; and that the +coiling shadow, which disquiets itself in vain, cannot change into the +smoke of the torment that ascends forever? Will any answer that they _are_ +sure of it, and that there is no fear, nor hope, nor desire, nor labor, +whither they go? Be it so: will you not, then, make as sure of the Life +that now is, as you are of the Death that is to come? Your hearts are +wholly in this world--will you not give them to it wisely, as well as +perfectly? And see, first of all, that you _have_ hearts, and sound +hearts, too, to give. Because you have no heaven to look for, is that any +reason that you should remain ignorant of this wonderful and infinite +earth, which is firmly and instantly given you in possession? Although +your days are numbered, and the following darkness sure, is it necessary +that you should share the degradation of the brute, because you are +condemned to its mortality; or live the life of the moth, and of the worm, +because you are to companion them in the dust? Not so; we may have but a +few thousands of days to spend, perhaps hundreds only--perhaps tens; nay, +the longest of our time and best, looked back on, will be but as a moment, +as the twinkling of an eye; still we are men, not insects; we are living +spirits, not passing clouds. "He maketh the winds His messengers; the +momentary fire, His minister"; and shall we do less than _these_? Let us +do the work of men while we bear the form of them; and, as we snatch our +narrow portion of time out of Eternity, snatch also our narrow inheritance +of passion out of Immortality--even though our lives _be_ as a vapor, that +appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. + +But there are some of you who believe not this--who think this cloud of +life has no such close--that it is to float, revealed and illumined, upon +the floor of heaven, in the day when He cometh with clouds, and every eye +shall see Him. Some day, you believe, within these five, or ten, or twenty +years, for every one of us the judgment will be set, and the books opened. +If that be true, far more than that must be true. Is there but one day of +judgment? Why, for us every day is a day of judgment--every day is a Dies +Irć, and writes its irrevocable verdict in the flame of its west. Think +you that judgment waits till the doors of the grave are opened? It waits +at the doors of your houses--it waits at the corners of your streets; we +are in the midst of judgment--the insects that we crush are our +judges--the moments we fret away are our judges--the elements that feed +us, judge, as they minister--and the pleasures that deceive us, judge, as +they indulge. Let us, for our lives, do the work of Men while we bear the +form of them, if indeed those lives are _Not_ as a vapor, and do _Not_ +vanish away. + +"The work of men"--and what is that? Well, we may any of us know very +quickly, on the condition of being wholly ready to do it. But many of us +are for the most part thinking, not of what we are to do, but of what we +are to get; and the best of us are sunk into the sin of Ananias, and it is +a mortal one--we want to keep back part of the price; and we continually +talk of taking up our cross, as if the only harm in a cross was the +_weight_ of it--as if it was only a thing to be carried, instead of to +be--crucified upon. "They that are His have crucified the flesh, with the +affections and lusts." Does that mean, think you, that in time of national +distress, of religious trial, of crisis for every interest and hope of +humanity--none of us will cease jesting, none cease idling, none put +themselves to any wholesome work, none take so much as a tag of lace off +their footman's coats, to save the world? Or does it rather mean, that +they are ready to leave houses, lands, and kindreds--yes, and life, if +need be? Life!--some of us are ready enough to throw that away, joyless as +we have made it. But "_station_ in Life,"--how many of us are ready to +quit _that_? Is it not always the great objection, where there is question +of finding something useful to do--"We cannot leave our stations in Life"? + +Those of us who really cannot--that is to say, who can only maintain +themselves by continuing in some business or salaried office, have already +something to do; and all that they have to see to is, that they do it +honestly and with all their might. But with most people who use that +apology, "remaining in the station of life to which Providence has called +them" means keeping all the carriages, and all the footmen and large +houses they can possibly pay for; and, once for all, I say that if ever +Providence _did_ put them into stations of that sort,--which is not at all +a matter of certainty,--Providence is just now very distinctly calling +them out again. Levi's station in life was the receipt of custom; and +Peter's, the shore of Galilee; and Paul's, the antechambers of the High +Priest--which "station in life" each had to leave, with brief notice. + +And whatever our station in life may be, at this crisis, those of us who +mean to fulfil our duty ought first, to live on as little as we can; and, +secondly, to do all the wholesome work for it we can, and to spend all we +can spare in doing all the sure good we can. + +And sure good is, first in feeding people, then in dressing people, then +in lodging people, and lastly in rightly pleasing people, with arts, or +sciences, or any other subject of thought. + +I say first in feeding; and, once for all, do not let yourselves be +deceived by any of the common talk of "indiscriminate charity." The order +to us is not to feed the deserving hungry, nor the industrious hungry, nor +the amiable and well-intentioned hungry, but simply to feed the hungry. It +is quite true, infallibly true, that if any man will not work, neither +should he eat--think of that, and every time you sit down to your dinner, +ladies and gentlemen, say solemnly, before you ask a blessing, "How much +work have I done to-day for my dinner?" But the proper way to enforce that +order on those below you, as well as on yourselves, is not to leave +vagabonds and honest people to starve together, but very distinctly to +discern and seize your vagabond; and shut your vagabond up out of honest +people's way, and very sternly then see that, until he has worked, he does +_not_ eat. But the first thing is to be sure you have the food to give; +and, therefore, to enforce the organization of vast activities in +agriculture and in commerce, for the production of the wholesomest food, +and proper storing and distribution of it, so that no famine shall any +more be possible among civilized beings. There is plenty of work in this +business alone, and at once, for any number of people who like to engage +in it. + +Secondly, dressing people--that is to say, urging everyone within reach of +your influence to be always neat and clean, and giving them means of being +so. In so far as they absolutely refuse, you must give up the effort with +respect to them, only taking care that no children within your sphere of +influence shall any more be brought up with such habits; and that every +person who is willing to dress with propriety shall have encouragement to +do so. And the first absolutely necessary step toward this is the gradual +adoption of a consistent dress for different ranks of persons, so that +their rank shall be known by their dress; and the restriction of the +changes of fashion within certain limits. All which appears for the +present quite impossible; but it is only so far even difficult as it is +difficult to conquer our vanity, frivolity, and desire to appear what we +are not. And it is not, nor ever shall be, creed of mine, that these mean +and shallow vices are unconquerable by Christian women. + +And then, thirdly, lodging people, which you may think should have been +put first, but I put it third, because we must feed and clothe people +where we find them, and lodge them afterwards. And providing lodgment for +them means a great deal of vigorous legislation, and cutting down of +vested interests that stand in the way; and after that, or before that, so +far as we can get it, through sanitary and remedial action in the houses +that we have; and then the building of more, strongly, beautifully, and in +groups of limited extent, kept in proportion to their streams, and walled +round, so that there may be no festering and wretched suburb anywhere, but +clean and busy streets within, and the open country without, with a belt +of beautiful garden and orchard round the walls, so that from any part of +the city perfectly fresh air and grass, and sight of far horizon, might be +reachable in a few minutes' walk. This the final aim; but in immediate +action every minor and possible good to be instantly done, when, and as, +we can; roofs mended that have holes in them--fences patched that have +gaps in them--walls buttressed that totter--and floors propped that shake; +cleanliness and order enforced with our own hands and eyes, till we are +breathless, every day. And all the fine arts will healthily follow. I +myself have washed a flight of stone stairs all down, with bucket and +broom, in a Savoy inn, where they hadn't washed their stairs since they +first went up them; and I never made a better sketch than that afternoon. + +These, then, are the three first needs of civilized life; and the law for +every Christian man and woman is, that they shall be in direct service +toward one of these three needs, as far as is consistent with their own +special occupation, and if they have no special business, then wholly in +one of these services. And out of such exertion in plain duty all other +good will come; for in this direct contention with material evil, you will +find out the real nature of all evil; you will discern by the various +kinds of resistance, what is really the fault and main antagonism to good; +also you will find the most unexpected helps and profound lessons given, +and truths will come thus down to us which the speculation of all our +lives would never have raised us up to. You will find nearly every +educational problem solved, as soon as you truly want to do something; +everybody will become of use in their own fittest way, and will learn what +is best for them to know in that use. Competitive examination will then, +and not till then, be wholesome, because it will be daily, and calm, and +in practice; and on these familiar arts, and minute, but certain and +serviceable knowledges, will be surely edified and sustained the greater +arts and splendid theoretical sciences. + +But much more than this. On such holy and simple practice will be founded, +indeed, at last, an infallible religion. The greatest of all the mysteries +of life, and the most terrible, is the corruption of even the sincerest +religion, which is not daily founded on rational, effective, humble, and +helpful action. Helpful action, observe! for there is just one law, which, +obeyed, keeps all religions pure--forgotten, makes them all false. +Whenever in any religious faith, dark or bright, we allow our minds to +dwell upon the points in which we differ from other people, we are wrong, +and in the devil's power. That is the essence of the Pharisee's +thanksgiving--"Lord, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are." At +every moment of our lives we should be trying to find out, not in what we +differ from other people, but in what we agree with them; and the moment +we find we can agree as to anything that should be done, kind or good (and +who but fools couldn't?) then do it; push at it together: you can't +quarrel in a side-by-side push; but the moment that even the best men stop +pushing, and begin talking, they mistake their pugnacity for piety, and +it's all over. I will not speak of the crimes which in past times have +been committed in the name of Christ, nor of the follies which are at this +hour held to be consistent with obedience to Him; but I _will_ speak of +the morbid corruption and waste of vital power in religious sentiment, by +which the pure strength of that which should be the guiding soul of every +nation, the splendor of its youthful manhood, and spotless light of its +maidenhood, is averted or cast away. You may see continually girls who +have never been taught to do a single useful thing thoroughly; who cannot +sew, who cannot cook, who cannot cast an account, nor prepare a medicine, +whose whole life has been passed either in play or in pride; you will find +girls like these, when they are earnest-hearted, cast all their innate +passion of religious spirit, which was meant by God to support them +through the irksomeness of daily toil, into grievous and vain meditation +over the meaning of the great Book, of which no syllable was ever yet to +be understood but through a deed; all the instinctive wisdom and mercy of +their womanhood made vain, and the glory of their pure consciences warped +into fruitless agony concerning questions which the laws of common +serviceable life would either have solved for them in an instant, or kept +out of their way. Give such a girl any true work that will make her active +in the dawn, and weary at night, with the consciousness that her fellow +creatures have indeed been the better for her day, and the powerless +sorrow of her enthusiasm will transform itself into a majesty of radiant +and beneficent peace. + +So with our youths. We once taught them to make Latin verses, and called +them educated; now we teach them to leap and to row, to hit a ball with a +bat, and call them educated. Can they plough, can they sow, can they plant +at the right time, or build with a steady hand? Is it the effort of their +lives to be chaste, knightly, faithful, holy in thought, lovely in word +and deed? Indeed it is, with some, nay, with many, and the strength of +England is in them, and the hope; but we have to turn their courage from +the toil of war to the toil of mercy; and their intellect from dispute of +words to discernment of things; and their knighthood from the errantry of +adventure to the state and fidelity of a kingly power. And then, indeed, +shall abide, for them and for us, an incorruptible felicity, and an +infallible religion; shall abide for us Faith, no more to be assailed by +temptation, no more to be defended by wrath and by fear;--shall abide with +us Hope, no more to be quenched by the years that overwhelm, or made +ashamed by the shadows that betray:--shall abide for us, and with us, the +greatest of these; the abiding will, the abiding name of our Father. For +the greatest of these is Charity. + + + + +MARCUS AURELIUS + + +Mr. Mill says, in his book on Liberty, that "Christian morality is, in +great part, merely a protest against paganism; its ideal is negative +rather than positive, passive rather than active." He says, that, in +certain most important respects, "it falls far below the best morality of +the ancients." The object of systems of morality is to take possession of +human life, to save it from being abandoned to passion or allowed to drift +at hazard, to give it happiness by establishing it in the practice of +virtue; and this object they seek to attain by prescribing to human life +fixed principles of action, fixed rules of conduct. In its uninspired as +well as in its inspired moments, in its days of languor and gloom as well +as in its days of sunshine and energy, human life has thus always a clue +to follow, and may always be making way towards its goal. Christian +morality has not failed to supply to human life aids of this sort. It has +supplied them far more abundantly than many of its critics imagine. The +most exquisite document, after those of the New Testament, of all the +documents the Christian spirit has ever inspired,--the _Imitation_,--by no +means contains the whole of Christian morality; nay, the disparagers of +this morality would think themselves sure of triumphing if one agreed to +look for it in the _Imitation_ only. But even the _Imitation_ is full of +passages like these: "Vita sine proposito languida et vaga est."--"Omni +die renovare debemus propositum nostrum, dicentes: nunc hodie perfecte +incipiamus, quia nihil est quod hactenus fecimus."--"Secundum propositum +nostrum est cursus profectus nostri."--"Raro etiam unum vitium perfecte +vincimus, et ad _quotidianum_ profectum non accendimur."--"Semper aliquid +certi proponendum est."--"Tibi ipsi violentiam frequenter fac." (_A life +without a purpose is a languid, drifting thing.--Every day we ought to +renew our purpose, saying to ourselves: This day let us make a sound +beginning, for what we have hitherto done is nought.--Our improvement +is in proportion to our purpose.--We hardly ever manage to get +completely rid even of one fault, and do not set our hearts on_ daily +_improvement.--Always place a definite purpose before thee.--Get the habit +of mastering thine inclination._) These are moral precepts, and moral +precepts of the best kind. As rules to hold possession of our conduct, and +to keep us in the right course through outward troubles and inward +perplexity, they are equal to the best ever furnished by the great masters +of morals--Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. + +But moral rules, apprehended as ideas first, and then rigorously followed +as laws, are, and must be, for the sage only. The mass of mankind have +neither force of intellect enough to apprehend them clearly as ideas, nor +force of character enough to follow them strictly as laws. The mass of +mankind can be carried along a course full of hardship for the natural +man, can be borne over the thousand impediments of the narrow way, only by +the tide of a joyful and bounding emotion. It is impossible to rise from +reading Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius without a sense of constraint and +melancholy, without feeling that the burden laid upon man is well-nigh +greater than he can bear. Honor to the sages who have felt this, and yet +have borne it! Yet, even for the sage, this sense of labor and sorrow in +his march toward the goal constitutes a relative inferiority; the noblest +souls of whatever creed, the pagan Empedocles as well as the Christian +Paul, have insisted on the necessity of an inspiration, a living emotion +to make moral action perfect; an obscure indication of this necessity is +the one drop of truth in the ocean of verbiage with which the controversy +on justification by faith has flooded the world. But, for the ordinary +man, this sense of labor and sorrow constitutes an absolute +disqualification; it paralyzes him; under the weight of it, he cannot make +way toward the goal at all. The paramount virtue of religion is, that it +has _lighted up_ morality; that it has supplied the emotion and +inspiration needful for carrying the sage along the narrow way perfectly, +for carrying the ordinary man along it at all. Even the religions with +most dross in them have had something of this virtue; but the Christian +religion manifests it with unexampled splendor. "Lead me, Zeus and +Destiny!" says the prayer of Epictetus, "whithersoever I am appointed to +go: I will follow without wavering; even though I turn coward and shrink, +I shall have to follow all the same." The fortitude of that is for the +strong, for the few; even for them the spiritual atmosphere with which it +surrounds them is bleak and gray. But, "Let Thy loving spirit lead me +forth into the land of righteousness";--"The Lord shall be unto thee an +everlasting light, and thy God thy Glory";--"Unto you that fear My Name +shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings," says the +Old Testament; "born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of +the will of man, but of God";--"Except a man be born again, he cannot see +the kingdom of God";--"Whatsoever is born of God, overcometh the world," +says the New. The ray of sunshine is there, the glow of a divine warmth; +the austerity of the sage melts away under it, the paralysis of the weak +is healed; he who is vivified by it renews his strength; "all things are +possible to Him"; "he is a new creature." + +Epictetus says: "Every matter has two handles, one of which will bear +taking hold of, the other not. If thy brother sin against thee, lay not +hold of the matter by this, that he sins against thee; for by this handle +the matter will not bear taking hold of. But rather lay hold of it by +this, that he is thy brother, thy born mate; and thou wilt take hold of it +by what will bear handling." Jesus, being asked whether a man is bound to +forgive his brother as often as seven times, answers: "I say not unto +thee, until seven times, but until seventy times seven." Epictetus here +suggests to the reason grounds for forgiveness of injuries which Jesus +does not; but it is vain to say that Epictetus is on that account a better +moralist than Jesus, if the warmth, the emotion, of Jesus' answer fires +his hearer to the practice of forgiveness of injuries, while the thought +in Epictetus's leaves him cold. So with Christian morality in general: its +distinction is not that it propounds the maxim, "Thou shalt love God and +thy neighbor," with more development, closer reasoning, truer sincerity, +than other moral systems; it is that it propounds this maxim with an +inspiration which wonderfully catches the hearer and makes him act upon +it. It is because Mr. Mill has attained to the perception of truths of +this nature, that he is--instead of being, like the school from which he +proceeds, doomed to sterility--a writer of distinguished mark and +influence, a writer deserving all attention and respect; it is (I must be +pardoned for saying) because he is not sufficiently leavened with them, +that he falls just short of being a great writer.... + +The man whose thoughts Mr. Long[11] has thus faithfully reproduced is +perhaps the most beautiful figure in history. He is one of those consoling +and hope-inspiring marks, which stand forever to remind our weak and +easily discouraged race how high human goodness and perseverance have +once been carried, and may be carried again. The interest of mankind is +peculiarly attracted by examples of signal goodness in high places; for +that testimony to the worth of goodness is the most striking which is +borne by those to whom all the means of pleasure and self-indulgence lay +open, by those who had at their command the kingdoms of the world and the +glory of them. Marcus Aurelius was the ruler of the grandest of empires; +and he was one of the best of men. Besides him, history presents one or +two sovereigns eminent for their goodness, such as Saint Louis or Alfred. +But Marcus Aurelius has, for us moderns, this great superiority in +interest over Saint Louis or Alfred, that he lived and acted in a state of +society modern by its essential characteristics, in an epoch akin to our +own, in a brilliant centre of civilization. Trajan talks of "our +enlightened age" just as glibly as the "Times" talks of it. Marcus +Aurelius thus becomes for us a man like ourselves, a man in all things +tempted as we are. Saint Louis inhabits an atmosphere of medićval +Catholicism, which the man of the nineteenth century may admire, indeed, +may even passionately wish to inhabit, but which, strive as he will, he +cannot really inhabit. Alfred belongs to a state of society (I say it with +all deference to the "Saturday Review" critic who keeps such jealous watch +over the honor of our Saxon ancestors) half-barbarous. Neither Alfred nor +Saint Louis can be morally and intellectually as near to us as Marcus +Aurelius. + +The record of the outward life of this admirable man has in it little of +striking incident. He was born at Rome on the 26th of April, in the year +121 of the Christian era. He was nephew and son-in-law to his predecessor +on the throne, Antoninus Pius. When Antoninus died, he was forty years +old, but from the time of his earliest manhood he had assisted in +administering public affairs. Then, after his uncle's death in 161, for +nineteen years he reigned as Emperor. The barbarians were pressing on the +Roman frontier, and a great part of Marcus Aurelius's nineteen years of +reign was passed in campaigning. His absences from Rome were numerous and +long. We hear of him in Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Greece; but, above all, +in the countries on the Danube, where the war with the barbarians was +going on--in Austria, Moravia, Hungary. In these countries much of his +"Journal" seems to have been written; parts of it are dated from them; and +there, a few weeks before his fifty-ninth birthday, he fell sick and died. +The record of him on which his fame chiefly rests is the record of his +inward life--his "Journal," or "Commentaries," or "Meditations," or +"Thoughts," for by all these names has the work been called. Perhaps the +most interesting of the records of his outward life is that which the +first book of this work supplies, where he gives an account of his +education, recites the names of those to whom he is indebted for it, and +enumerates his obligations to each of them. It is a refreshing and +consoling picture, a priceless treasure for those, who, sick of the "wild +and dreamlike trade of blood and guile," which seems to be nearly the +whole that history has to offer to our view, seek eagerly for that +substratum of right thinking and well-doing which in all ages must surely +have somewhere existed, for without it the continued life of humanity +would have been impossible. + +"From my mother I learned piety and beneficence, and abstinence not only +from evil deeds but even from evil thoughts; and further, simplicity in my +way of living, far removed from the habits of the rich." Let us remember +that, the next time we are reading the sixth satire of Juvenal. "From my +tutor I learned" (hear it, ye tutors of princes!) "endurance of labor, and +to want little, and to work with my own hands, and not to meddle with +other people's affairs, and not to be ready to listen to slander." The +vices and foibles of the Greek sophist or rhetorician--the _Grćculus +esuriens_--are in everybody's mind; but he who reads Marcus Aurelius's +account of his Greek teachers and masters, will understand how it is that, +in spite of the vices and foibles of individual _Grćculi_, the education +of the human race owes to Greece a debt which can never be overrated. + +The vague and colorless praise of history leaves on the mind hardly any +impression of Antoninus Pius: it is only from the private memoranda of his +nephew that we learn what a disciplined, hard-working, gentle, wise, +virtuous man he was; a man who, perhaps, interests mankind less than his +immortal nephew only because he has left in writing no record of his inner +life--_caret quia vate sacro_. + +Of the outward life and circumstances of Marcus Aurelius, beyond these +notices which he has himself supplied, there are few of much interest and +importance. There is the fine anecdote of his speech when he heard of the +assassination of the revolted Avidius Cassius, against whom he was +marching; _he was sorry_, he said, _to be deprived of the pleasure of +pardoning him_. And there are one or two more anecdotes of him which show +the same spirit. But the great record for the outward life of a man who +has left such a record of his lofty inward aspirations as that which +Marcus Aurelius has left, is the clear consenting voice of all his +contemporaries,--high and low, friend and enemy, pagan and Christian,--in +praise of his sincerity, justice, and goodness. The world's charity does +not err on the side of excess, and here was a man occupying the most +conspicuous station in the world, and professing the highest possible +standard of conduct; yet the world was obliged to declare that he walked +worthily of his profession. Long after his death, his bust was to be seen +in the houses of private men through the wide Roman Empire. It may be the +vulgar part of human nature which busies itself with the semblance and +doings of living sovereigns; it is its nobler part which busies itself +with those of the dead. These busts of Marcus Aurelius, in the homes of +Gaul, Britain, and Italy, bore witness, not to the inmates' frivolous +curiosity about princes and palaces, but to their reverential memory of +the passage of a great man upon the earth. + +Two things, however, before one turns from the outward to the inward life +of Marcus Aurelius, force themselves upon one's notice, and demand a word +of comment: he persecuted the Christians, and he had for his son the +vicious and brutal Commodus. The persecution at Lyons, in which Attalus +and Pothinus suffered, the persecution at Smyrna, in which Polycarp +suffered, took place in his reign. Of his humanity, of his tolerance, of +his horror of cruelty and violence, of his wish to refrain from severe +measures against the Christians, of his anxiety to temper the severity of +these measures when they appeared to him indispensable, there is no doubt; +but, on the one hand, it is certain that the letter, attributed to him, +directing that no Christian should be punished for being a Christian, is +spurious; it is almost certain that his alleged answer to the authorities +of Lyons, in which he directs that Christians persisting in their +profession shall be dealt with according to the law, is genuine. Mr. Long +seems inclined to try to throw doubt over the persecution at Lyons, by +pointing out that the letter of the Lyons Christians relating it alleges +it to have been attended by miraculous and incredible incidents. "A man," +he says, "can only act consistently by accepting all this letter or +rejecting it all, and we cannot blame him for either." But it is contrary +to all experience to say that, because a fact is related with incorrect +additions, and embellishments, therefore it probably never happened at +all; or that it is not, in general, easy for an impartial mind to +distinguish between the fact and the embellishments. I cannot doubt that +the Lyons persecution took place, and that the punishment of Christians +for being Christians was sanctioned by Marcus Aurelius. + +But then I must add that nine modern readers out of ten, when they read +this, will, I believe, have a perfectly false notion of what the moral +action of Marcus Aurelius, in sanctioning that punishment, really was. +They imagine Trajan, or Antoninus Pius, or Marcus Aurelius, fresh from the +perusal of the Gospel, fully aware of the spirit and holiness of the +Christian saints, ordering their extermination because he loved darkness +rather than light. Far from this, the Christianity which these emperors +aimed at repressing was, in their conception of it, something +philosophically contemptible, politically subversive, and morally +abominable. As men, they sincerely regarded it much as well-conditioned +people, with us, regard Mormonism; as rulers, they regarded it much as +Liberal statesmen, with us, regard the Jesuits. A kind of Mormonism, +constituted as a vast secret society, with obscure aims of political and +social subversion, was what Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius believed +themselves to be repressing when they punished Christians. The early +Christian apologists again and again declare to us under what odious +imputations the Christians lay, how general was the belief that these +imputations were well-grounded, how sincere was the horror which the +belief inspired. The multitude, convinced that the Christians were +atheists who ate human flesh and thought incest no crime, displayed +against them a fury so passionate as to embarrass and alarm their rulers. +The severe expressions of Tacitus--"_exitiabilis superstitio_"; "_odio +humani generis convicti_"--show how deeply the prejudices of the multitude +imbued the educated class also. One asks one's self with astonishment how +a doctrine so benign as that of Christ can have incurred misrepresentation +so monstrous. The inner and moving cause of the misrepresentation lay, no +doubt, in this--that Christianity was a new spirit in the Roman world, +destined to act in that world as its dissolvent; and it was inevitable +that Christianity in the Roman world, like democracy in the modern world, +like every new spirit with a similar mission assigned to it, should at its +first appearance occasion an instinctive shrinking and repugnance in the +world which it was to dissolve. The outer and palpable causes of the +misrepresentation were, for the Roman public at large, the confounding of +the Christians with the Jews, that isolated, fierce, and stubborn race, +whose stubbornness, fierceness, and isolation, real as they were, the +fancy of a civilized Roman yet further exaggerated; the atmosphere of +mystery and novelty which surrounded the Christian rites; the very +simplicity of Christian theism; for the Roman statesman, the character of +secret assemblages which the meetings of the Christian community wore, +under a State-system as jealous of unauthorized associations as the Code +Napoleon. + +A Roman of Marcus Aurelius's time and position could not well see the +Christians except through the mist of these prejudices. Seen through such +a mist, the Christians appeared with a thousand faults not their own; but +it has not been sufficiently remarked that faults really their own many of +them assuredly appeared with, besides--faults especially likely to strike +such an observer as Marcus Aurelius, and to confirm him in the prejudices +of his race, station, and rearing. We look back upon Christianity after +it has proved what a future it bore within it, and for us the sole +representatives of its early struggles are the pure and devoted spirits +through whom it proved this; Marcus Aurelius saw it with its future yet +unshown, and with the tares among its professed progeny not less +conspicuous than the wheat. Who can doubt that, among the professing +Christians of the second century, as among the professing Christians of +the nineteenth, there was plenty of folly, plenty of rabid nonsense, +plenty of gross fanaticism? Who will even venture to affirm that, +separated in great measure from the intellect and civilization of the +world for one or two centuries, Christianity, wonderful as have been its +fruits, had the development perfectly worthy of its inestimable germ? Who +will venture to affirm that, by the alliance of Christianity with the +virtue and intelligence of men like the Antonines,--of the best product of +Greek and Roman civilization, while Greek and Roman civilization had yet +life and power,--Christianity and the world, as well as the Antonines +themselves, would not have been gainers? + +That alliance was not to be. The Antonines lived and died with an utter +misconception of Christianity; Christianity grew up in the Catacombs, not +on the Palatine. Marcus Aurelius incurs no moral reproach by having +authorized the punishment of the Christians; he does not thereby become, +in the least, what we mean by a _persecutor_. One may concede that it was +impossible for him to see Christianity as it really was, as impossible as +for even the moderate and sensible Fleury to see the Antonines as they +really were; one may concede that the point of view from which +Christianity appeared something anti-civil and anti-social, which the +State had the faculty to judge and the duty to suppress, was inevitably +his. Still, however, it remains true that this sage, who made perfection +his aim and reason his law, did Christianity an immense injustice and +rested in an idea of State-attributes which was illusive. And this is, in +truth, characteristic of Marcus Aurelius, that he is blameless, yet, in a +certain sense, unfortunate; in his character, beautiful as it is, there is +something melancholy, circumscribed, and ineffectual. + +For of his having such a son as Commodus, too, one must say that he is not +to be blamed on that account, but that he is unfortunate. Disposition and +temperament are inexplicable things; there are natures on which the best +education and example are thrown away; excellent fathers may have, without +any fault of theirs, incurably vicious sons. It is to be remembered also, +that Commodus was left, at the perilous age of nineteen, master of the +whole world; while his father, at that age, was but beginning a twenty +years' apprenticeship to wisdom, labor, and self-command, under the +sheltering teachership of his uncle Antoninus. Commodus was a prince apt +to be led by favorites; and if the story is true which says that he left, +all through his reign, the Christians untroubled, and ascribes this lenity +to the influence of his mistress Marcia, it shows that he could be led to +good as well as to evil; for such a nature to be left at a critical age +with absolute power, and wholly without good counsel and direction, was +the more fatal. Still one cannot help wishing that the example of Marcus +Aurelius could have availed more with his own only son. One cannot but +think that with such virtue as his there should go, too, the ardor that +removes mountains, and that the ardor that removes mountains might have +even won Commodus; the word _ineffectual_ again rises to one's mind; +Marcus Aurelius saved his own soul by his righteousness, and he could do +no more. Happy they who can do this! but still happier, who can do more! + +Yet, when one passes from his outward to his inward life, when one turns +over the pages of his "Meditations," entries jotted down from day to day, +amid the business of the city or the fatigues of the camp, for his own +guidance and support; meant for no eye but his own; without the slightest +attempt at style, with no care, even, for correct writing; not to be +surpassed for naturalness and sincerity--all disposition to carp and cavil +dies away, and one is overpowered by the charm of a character of such +purity, delicacy, and virtue. He fails neither in small things nor in +great; he keeps watch over himself, both that the great springs of action +may be right in him, and that the minute details of action may be right +also. How admirable in a hard-tasked ruler, and a ruler, too, with a +passion for thinking and reading, is such a memorandum as the following:-- + +"Not frequently nor without necessity to say to anyone, or to write in a +letter, that I have no leisure; nor continually to excuse the neglect of +duties required by our relation to those with whom we live, by alleging +urgent occupation." + +And, when that ruler is a Roman emperor, what an "idea" is this to be +written down and meditated by him:-- + +"The idea of a polity in which there is the same law for all, a polity +administered with regard to equal rights and equal freedom of speech, and +the idea of a kingly government which respects most of all the freedom of +the governed." + +And, for all men who "drive at practice," what practical rules may not one +accumulate out of these "Meditations":-- + +"The greatest part of what we say or do being unnecessary, if a man takes +this away, he will have more leisure and less uneasiness. Accordingly, on +every occasion, a man should ask himself, 'Is this one of the unnecessary +things?' Now a man should take away not only unnecessary acts, but also +unnecessary thoughts, for thus superfluous acts will not follow after." + +And again:-- + +"We ought to check in the series of our thoughts everything that is +without a purpose and useless, but most of all the over-curious feeling +and the malignant; and a man should use himself to think of those things +only about which, if one should suddenly ask, 'What hast thou now in thy +thoughts?' with perfect openness thou mightest immediately answer, 'This +or That,' so that from thy words it should be plain that everything in +thee is simple and benevolent, and such as befits a social animal, and one +that cares not for thoughts about sensual enjoyments, or any rivalry or +envy and suspicion, or anything else for which thou wouldst blush if thou +shouldst say thou hadst it in thy mind." + +So, with a stringent practicalness worthy of Franklin, he discourses on +his favorite text, "Let nothing be done without a purpose." But it is when +he enters the region where Franklin cannot follow him, when he utters his +thoughts on the ground-motives of human action, that he is most +interesting; that he becomes the unique, the incomparable Marcus Aurelius. +Christianity uses language very liable to be misunderstood when it seems +to tell men to do good, not, certainly, from the vulgar motives of worldly +interest, or vanity, or love of human praise, but "that their Father which +seeth in secret may reward them openly." The motives of reward and +punishment have come, from the misconception of language of this kind, to +be strangely overpressed by many Christian moralists, to the deterioration +and disfigurement of Christianity. Marcus Aurelius says, truly and +nobly:-- + +"One man, when he has done a service to another, is ready to set it down +to his account as a favor conferred. Another is not ready to do this, but +still in his own mind he thinks of the man as his debtor, and he knows +what he has done. A third, in a manner, does not even know what he has +done, _but he is like a vine which has produced grapes, and seeks for +nothing more after it has once produced its proper fruit_. As a horse when +he has run, a dog when he has caught the game, a bee when it has made its +honey, so a man, when he has done a good act, does not call out for others +to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine goes on to +produce again the grapes in season. Must a man, then, be one of these, who +in a manner acts thus without observing it? Yes." + +And again:-- + +"What more dost thou want when thou hast done a man a service? Art thou +not content that thou hast done something conformable to thy nature, and +dost thou seek to be paid for it, _just as if the eye demanded a +recompense for seeing, or the feet for walking_?" + +Christianity, in order to match morality of this strain, has to correct +its apparent offers of external reward, and to say: "The kingdom of God is +within you." + +I have said that it is by its accent of emotion that the morality of +Marcus Aurelius acquires a special character, and reminds one of Christian +morality. The sentences of Seneca are stimulating to the intellect; the +sentences of Epictetus are fortifying to the character; the sentences of +Marcus Aurelius find their way to the soul. I have said that religious +emotion has the power to _light up_ morality: the emotion of Marcus +Aurelius does not quite light up his morality, but it suffuses it; it has +not power to melt the clouds of effort and austerity quite away, but it +shines through them and glorifies them; it is a spirit, not so much of +gladness and elation, as of gentleness and sweetness; a delicate and +tender sentiment, which is less than joy and more than resignation. He +says that in his youth he learned from Maximus, one of his teachers, +"cheerfulness in all circumstances as well as in illness; _and a just +admixture in the moral character of sweetness and dignity_": and it is +this very admixture of sweetness with his dignity which makes him so +beautiful a moralist. It enables him to carry, even into his observation +of nature, a delicate penetration, a sympathetic tenderness, worthy of +Wordsworth; the spirit of such a remark as the following seems to me to +have no parallel in the whole range of Greek and Roman literature:-- + +"Figs, when they are quite ripe, gape open; and in the ripe olives the +very circumstance of their being near to rottenness adds a peculiar beauty +to the fruit. And the ears of corn bending down, and the lion's eyebrows, +and the foam which flows from the mouth of wild boars, and many other +things,--though they are far from being beautiful, in a certain +sense,--still, because they come in the course of nature, have a beauty in +them, and they please the mind; so that, if a man should have a feeling +and a deeper insight with respect to the things which are produced in the +universe, there is hardly anything which comes in the course of nature +which will not seem to him to be in a manner disposed so as to give +pleasure." + +But it is when his strain passes to directly moral subjects that his +delicacy and sweetness lend to it the greatest charm. Let those who can +feel the beauty of spiritual refinement read this, the reflection of an +emperor who prized mental superiority highly:-- + +"Thou sayest, 'Men cannot admire the sharpness of thy wits.' Be it so; but +there are many other things of which thou canst not say, 'I am not formed +for them by nature.' Show those qualities, then, which are altogether in +thy power--sincerity, gravity, endurance of labor, aversion to pleasure, +contentment with thy portion and with few things, benevolence, frankness, +no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling, magnanimity. Dost thou not +see how many qualities thou art at once able to exhibit, as to which there +is no excuse of natural incapacity and unfitness, and yet thou still +remainest voluntarily below the mark? Or art thou compelled, through being +defectively furnished by nature, to murmur, and to be mean, and to +flatter, and to find fault with thy poor body, and to try to please men, +and to make great display, and to be so restless in thy mind? No, indeed; +but thou mightest have been delivered from these things long ago. Only, if +in truth thou canst be charged with being rather slow and dull of +comprehension, thou must exert thyself about this also, not neglecting nor +yet taking pleasure in thy dulness." + +The same sweetness enables him to fix his mind, when he sees the isolation +and moral death caused by sin, not on the cheerless thought of the misery +of this condition, but on the inspiriting thought that man is blest with +the power to escape from it:-- + +"Suppose that thou hast detached thyself from the natural unity,--for thou +wast made by nature a part, but now thou hast cut thyself off,--yet here +is this beautiful provision, that it is in thy power again to unite +thyself. God has allowed this to no other part--after it has been +separated and cut asunder, to come together again. But consider the +goodness with which he has privileged man; for he has put it in his power, +when he has been separated, to return and to be united and to resume his +place." + +It enables him to control even the passion for retreat and solitude, so +strong in a soul like his, to which the world could offer no abiding +city. + +"Men seek retreat for themselves, houses in the country, seashores, and +mountains; and thou, too, art wont to desire such things very much. But +this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of man, for it is in thy +power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere +either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than +into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that, +by looking into them, he is immediately in perfect tranquillity. +Constantly, then, give to thyself this retreat, and renew thyself; and let +thy principles be brief and fundamental, which, as soon as thou shalt +recur to them, will be sufficient to cleanse the soul completely, and to +send thee back free from all discontent with the things to which thou +returnest." + +Against this feeling of discontent and weariness, so natural to the great +for whom there seems nothing left to desire or to strive after, but so +enfeebling to them, so deteriorating, Marcus Aurelius never ceased to +struggle. With resolute thankfulness he kept in remembrance the blessings +of his lot; the true blessings of it, not the false. + +"I have to thank Heaven that I was subjected to a ruler and a father +[Antoninus Pius] who was able to take away all pride from me, and to bring +me to the knowledge that it is possible for a man to live in a palace +without either guards, or embroidered dresses, or any show of this kind; +but that it is in such a man's power to bring himself very near to the +fashion of a private person, without being for this reason either meaner +in thought or more remiss in action with respect to the things which must +be done for public interest.... I have to be thankful that my children +have not been stupid or deformed in body; that I did not make more +proficiency in rhetoric, poetry, and the other studies, by which I should +perhaps have been completely engrossed, if I had seen that I was making +great progress in them;... that I knew Apollonius, Rusticus, Maximus;... +that I received clear and frequent impressions about living according to +nature, and what kind of a life that is, so that, so far as depended on +Heaven and its gifts, help, and inspiration, nothing hindered me from +forthwith living according to nature, though I still fall short of it +through my own fault, and through not observing the admonitions of Heaven, +and, I may almost say, its direct instructions; that my body has held out +so long in such a kind of life as mine; that, though it was my mother's +lot to die young, she spent the last years of her life with me; that, +whenever I wished to help any man in his need, I was never told that I had +not the means of doing it; that, when I had an inclination to philosophy, +I did not fall into the hands of a sophist." + +And, as he dwelt with gratitude on these helps and blessings vouchsafed to +him, his mind (so, at least, it seems to me) would sometimes revert with +awe to the perils and temptations of the lonely height where he stood, to +the lives of Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian, in their hideous +blackness and ruin; and then he wrote down for himself such a warning +entry as this, significant and terrible in its abruptness:-- + +"A black character, a womanish character, a stubborn character, bestial, +childish, animal, stupid, counterfeit, scurrilous, fraudulent, +tyrannical!" + +Or this:-- + +"About what am I now employing my soul? On every occasion I must ask +myself this question, and inquire, What have I now in this part of me +which they call the ruling principle, and whose soul have I now--that of a +child, or of a young man, or of a weak woman, or of a tyrant, or of one of +the lower animals in the service of man, or of a wild beast?" + +The character he wished to attain he knew well, and beautifully he has +marked it, and marked, too, his sense of shortcoming:-- + +"When thou hast assumed these names,--good, modest, true, rational, +equal-minded, magnanimous,--take care that thou dost not change these +names; and, if thou shouldst lose them, quickly return to them. If thou +maintainest thyself in possession of these names, without desiring that +others should call thee by them, thou wilt be another being, and wilt +enter on another life. For to continue to be such as thou hast hitherto +been, and to be torn in pieces and denied in such a life, is the character +of a very stupid man, and one overfond of his life, and like those +half-devoured fighters with wild beasts, who though covered with wounds +and gore, still entreat to be kept to the following day, though they will +be exposed in the same state to the same claws and bites. Therefore fix +thyself in the possession of these few names; and if thou art able to +abide in them, abide as if thou wast removed to the Happy Islands." + +For all his sweetness and serenity, however, man's point of life "between +two infinities" (of that expression Marcus Aurelius is the real owner) was +to him anything but a Happy Island, and the performances on it he saw +through no veils of illusion. Nothing is in general more gloomy and +monotonous than declamations on the hollowness and transitoriness of human +life and grandeur; but here, too, the great charm of Marcus Aurelius, his +emotion, comes in to relieve the monotony and to break through the gloom; +and even on this eternally used topic he is imaginative, fresh, and +striking:-- + +"Consider, for example, the times of Vespasian. Thou wilt see all these +things, people marrying, bringing up children, sick, dying, warring, +feasting, trafficking, cultivating the ground, flattering, obstinately +arrogant, suspecting, plotting, wishing for somebody to die, grumbling +about the present, loving, heaping up treasure, desiring to be consuls or +kings. Well, then that life of these people no longer exists at all. +Again, go to the times of Trajan. All is again the same. Their life too is +gone. But chiefly thou shouldst think of those whom thou hast thyself +known distracting themselves about idle things, neglecting to do what was +in accordance with their proper constitution, and to hold firmly to this +and to be content with it." + +Again:-- + +"The things which are much valued in life are empty, and rotten, and +trifling; and people are like little dogs, biting one another, and little +children quarreling, crying, and then straightway laughing. But fidelity, +and modesty, and justice and truth are fled + + Up to Olympus from the wide-spread earth. + +What then is there which still detains thee here?" + +And once more:-- + +"Look down from above on the countless herds of men, and their countless +solemnities, and the infinitely varied voyagings in storms and calms, and +the differences among those who are born, who live together and die. And +consider too the life lived by others in olden time, and the life now +lived among barbarous nations, and how many know not even thy name, and +how many will soon forget it, and how they who perhaps now are praising +thee will very soon blame thee, and that neither a posthumous name is of +any value, nor reputation, nor anything else." + +He recognized, indeed, that (to use his own words) "the prime principle in +man's constitution is the social"; and he labored sincerely to make, not +only his acts toward his fellow men, but his thoughts also, suitable to +this conviction. + +"When thou wishest to delight thyself, think of the virtue of those who +live with thee: for instance, the activity of one, and the modesty of +another, and the liberality of a third, and some other good quality of a +fourth." + +Still, it is hard for a pure and thoughtful man to live in a state of +rapture at the spectacle afforded to him by his fellow creatures; above +all it is hard, when such a man is placed as Marcus Aurelius was placed, +and has had the meanness and perversity of his fellow creatures thrust, in +no common measure, upon his notice--has had, time after time, to +experience how "within ten days thou wilt seem a god to those to whom thou +art now a beast and an ape." His true strain of thought as to his +relations with his fellow men is rather the following. He has been +enumerating the higher consolations which may support a man at the +approach of death, and he goes on:-- + +"But if thou requirest also a vulgar kind of comfort which shall reach thy +heart, thou wilt be made best reconciled to death by observing the objects +from which thou art going to be removed, and the morals of those with whom +thy soul will no longer be mingled. For it is no way right to be offended +with men, but it is thy duty to care for them and to bear with them +gently; and yet to remember that thy departure will not be from men who +have the same principles as thyself. For this is the only thing, if there +be any, which could draw us the contrary way and attach us to life--to be +permitted to live with those who have the same principles as ourselves. +But now thou seest how great is the distress caused by the difference of +those who live together, so that thou mayest say: 'Come quick, O death, +lest perchance I too should forget myself.'" + +_O faithless and perverse generation! how long shall I be with you? how +long shall I suffer you?_ Sometimes this strain rises even to passion:-- + +"Short is the little which remains to thee of life. Live as on a mountain. +Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was meant to live. +If they cannot endure him, let them kill him. For that is better than to +live as men do." + +It is remarkable how little of a merely local and temporary character, how +little of those _scorić_ which a reader has to clear away before he gets +to the precious ore, how little that even admits of doubt or question, the +morality of Marcus Aurelius exhibits. In general, the action he prescribes +is action which every sound nature must recognize as right, and the +motives he assigns are motives which every clear reason must recognize as +valid. And so he remains the especial friend and comforter of scrupulous +and difficult, yet pure-hearted and upward-striving souls, in those ages +most especially that walk by sight, not by faith, but yet have no open +vision; he cannot give such souls, perhaps, all they yearn for, but he +gives them much; and what he gives them, they can receive. + +Yet no, it is not for what he thus gives them that such souls love him +most! it is rather because of the emotion which gives to his voice so +touching an accent, it is because he too yearns as they do for something +unattained by him. What an affinity for Christianity had this persecutor +of the Christians! The effusion of Christianity, its relieving tears, its +happy self-sacrifice, were the very element, one feels, for which his soul +longed; they were near him, they brushed him, he touched them, he passed +them by. One feels, too, that the Marcus Aurelius one knows must still +have remained, even had they presented themselves to him, in a great +measure himself; he would have been no Justin. But how would they have +affected him? in what measure would it have changed him? Granted that he +might have found, like the _Alogi_ of modern times, in the most beautiful +of the Gospels, the Gospel which has leavened Christendom most +powerfully,--the Gospel of St. John,--too much Greek metaphysics, too much +_gnosis_; granted that this Gospel might have looked too like what he knew +already to be a total surprise to him: what, then, would he have said to +the Sermon on the Mount, to the twenty-sixth chapter of St. Matthew? What +would have become of his notion of the _exitiabilis superstitio_, of the +"obstinacy of the Christians"? Vain question! yet the greatest charm of +Marcus Aurelius is that he makes us ask it. We see him wise, just, +self-governed, tender, thankful, blameless; yet, with all this, agitated, +stretching out his arms for something beyond--_tendentemque manus ripć +ulterioris amore_. + + + + +MATTHEW ARNOLD + + +DOVER BEACH + + The sea is calm to-night, + The tide is full, the moon lies fair + Upon the straits;--on the French coast the light + Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, + Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. + Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! + Only, from the long line of spray + Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land, + Listen! you hear the grating roar + Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, + At their return, up the high strand, + Begin, and cease, and then again begin, + With tremulous cadence slow, and bring + The eternal note of sadness in. + + Sophocles long ago + Heard it on the Ćgćan, and it brought + Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow + Of human misery; we + Find also in the sound a thought, + Hearing it by this distant northern sea. + + The Sea of Faith + Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore + Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd. + But now I only hear + Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, + Retreating, to the breath + Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear + And naked shingles of the world. + Ah, love, let us be true + To one another! for the world, which seems + To lie before us like a land of dreams, + So various, so beautiful, so new, + Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, + Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; + And we are here as on a darkling plain + Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, + Where ignorant armies clash by night. + + +MORALITY + + We cannot kindle when we will + The fire that in the heart resides; + The spirit bloweth and is still, + In mystery our soul abides; + But tasks in hours of insight will'd + Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd. + + With aching hands and bleeding feet + We dig and heap, lay stone on stone; + We bear the burden and the heat + Of the long day, and wish 'twere done. + Not till the hours of light return, + All we have built do we discern. + + Then, when the clouds are off the soul, + When thou dost bask in Nature's eye, + Ask, how _she_ view'd thy self-control, + Thy struggling task'd morality-- + Nature, whose free, light, cheerful air, + Oft made thee, in thy gloom, despair. + + And she, whose censure thou dost dread, + Whose eye thou wert afraid to seek, + See, on her face a glow is spread, + A strong emotion on her cheek. + "Ah child," she cries, "that strife divine-- + Whence was it, for it is not mine? + + "There is no effort on _my_ brow-- + I do not strive, I do not weep. + I rush with the swift spheres, and glow + In joy, and, when I will, I sleep. + Yet that severe, that earnest air + I saw, I felt it once--but where? + + "I knew not yet the gauge of Time, + Nor wore the manacles of Space. + I felt it in some other clime-- + I saw it in some other place. + --'Twas when the heavenly house I trod, + And lay upon the breast of God." + + +SELF-DEPENDENCE + + Weary of myself, and sick of asking + What I am, and what I ought to be, + At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me + Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea. + + And a look of passionate desire + O'er the sea and to the stars I send: + "Ye who from my childhood up have calmed me, + Calm me, ah, compose me to the end! + + "Ah, once more," I cried, "ye stars, ye waters, + On my heart your mighty charm renew; + Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you, + Feel my soul becoming vast like you!" + + From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven, + Over the lit sea's unquiet way, + In the rustling night-air came the answer: + "Wouldst thou _be_ as these are? _Live_ as they. + + "Unaffrighted by the silence round them, + Undistracted by the sights they see, + These demand not that the things without them + Yield them love, amusement, sympathy. + + "And with joy the stars perform their shining, + And the sea its long moon-silvered roll; + For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting + All the fever of some differing soul. + + "Bounded by themselves, and unregardful + In what state God's other works may be, + In their own tasks all their powers pouring, + These attain the mighty life you see." + + O air-born voice! long since, severely clear, + A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear: + "Resolve to be thyself; and know that he, + Who finds himself, loses his misery!" + + + + +ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH + + +ALL IS WELL + + Whate'er you dream, with doubt possessed, + Keep, keep it snug within your breast, + And lay you down and take your rest; + Forget in sleep the doubt and pain, + And when you wake, to work again. + The wind it blows, the vessel goes, + And where and whither, no ones knows. + + 'Twill all be well: no need of care; + Though how it will, and when, and where, + We cannot see, and can't declare. + In spite of dreams, in spite of thought, + 'Tis not in vain, and not for nought, + The wind it blows, the ship it goes, + Though where and whither, no one knows. + + +TO SPEND UNCOUNTED YEARS OF PAIN + + To spend uncounted years of pain, + Again, again, and yet again, + In working out in heart and brain + The problem of our being here; + To gather facts from far and near, + Upon the mind to hold them clear, + And, knowing more may yet appear, + Unto one's latest breath to fear, + The premature result to draw-- + Is this the object, end, and law, + And purpose of our being here? + + +SAY NOT THE STRUGGLE NOUGHT AVAILETH + + Say not the struggle nought availeth, + The labor and the wounds are vain, + The enemy faints not, nor faileth, + And as things have been they remain. + + If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; + It may be, in yon smoke concealed, + Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, + And, but for you, possess the field. + + For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, + Seem here no painful inch to gain, + Far back, through creeks and inlets making, + Comes silent, flooding in, the main. + + And not by eastern windows only, + When daylight comes, comes in the light; + In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly; + But westward, look, the land is bright. + + + + +ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE + + +THE GARDEN OF PROSERPINE + + Here, where the world is quiet; + Here, where all trouble seems + Dead winds' and spent waves' riot + In doubtful dreams of dreams; + I watch the green field growing + For reaping folk and sowing, + For harvest-time and mowing, + A sleepy world of streams. + + I am tired of tears and laughter, + And men that laugh and weep; + Of what may come hereafter + For men that sow to reap: + I am weary of days and hours, + Blown buds of barren flowers, + Desires and dreams and powers + And everything but sleep. + + Here life has death for neighbor, + And far from eye or ear + Wan waves and wet winds labor, + Weak ships and spirits steer; + They drive adrift, and whither + They wot not who make thither; + But no such winds blow hither, + And no such things grow here. + + No growth of moor or coppice, + No heather-flower or vine, + But bloomless buds of poppies, + Green grapes of Proserpine, + Pale beds of blowing rushes, + Where no leaf blooms or blushes + Save this whereout she crushes + For dead men deadly wine. + + Pale, without name or number, + In fruitless fields of corn, + They bow themselves and slumber + All night till light is born; + And like a soul belated, + In hell and heaven unmated, + By cloud and mist abated + Comes out of darkness morn. + + Though one were strong as seven, + He too with death shall dwell, + Nor wake with wings in heaven, + Nor weep for pains in hell; + Though one were fair as roses, + His beauty clouds and closes; + And well though love reposes, + In the end it is not well. + + Pale, beyond porch and portal, + Crowned with calm leaves, she stands + Who gathers all things mortal + With cold immortal hands; + Her languid lips are sweeter + Than love's who fears to greet her, + To men that mix and meet her + From many times and lands. + + She waits for each and other, + She waits for all men born; + Forgets the earth her mother, + The life of fruits and corn; + And spring and seed and swallow + Take wing for her and follow + Where summer song rings hollow + And flowers are put to scorn. + + There go the loves that wither, + The old loves with wearier wings; + And all dead years draw thither, + And all disastrous things; + Dead dreams of days forsaken, + Blind buds that snows have shaken, + Wild leaves that winds have taken, + Red strays of ruined springs. + + We are not sure of sorrow; + And joy was never sure; + To-day will die to-morrow; + Time stoops to no man's lure; + And love, grown faint and fretful, + With lips but half regretful + Sighs, and with eyes forgetful + Weeps that no loves endure. + + From too much love of living, + From hope and fear set free, + We thank with brief thanksgiving + Whatever gods may be + That no life lives for ever; + That dead men rise up never; + That even the weariest river + Winds somewhere safe to sea. + + Then star nor sun shall waken, + Nor any change of light: + Nor sound of waters shaken, + Nor any sound or sight: + Nor wintry leaves nor vernal, + Nor days nor things diurnal; + Only the sleep eternal + In an eternal night. + + + + +EDWARD FITZGERALD + + +RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM + + I + + Wake! For the Sun, who scatter'd into flight + The Stars before him from the Field of Night, + Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, and strikes + The Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light. + + II + + Before the phantom of False morning died, + Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried, + "When all the Temple is prepared within, + Why nods the drowsy Worshipper outside?" + + III + + And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before + The Tavern shouted--"Open then the Door! + You know how little while we have to stay, + And, once departed, may return no more." + + IV + + Now the New Year reviving old Desires, + The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires, + Where the WHITE HAND OF MOSES on the Bough + Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires. + + V + + Iram indeed is gone with all his Rose, + And Jamshyd's Sev'n-ring'd Cup where no one knows; + But still a Ruby kindles in the Vine, + And many a Garden by the Water blows. + + VI + + And David's lips are lockt; but in divine + High-piping Pehleví, with "Wine! Wine! Wine! + Red Wine!"--the Nightingale cries to the Rose + That sallow cheek of hers to incarnadine. + + VII + + Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring + Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling: + The Bird of Time has but a little way + To flutter--and the Bird is on the Wing. + + VIII + + Whether at Naishápúr or Babylon, + Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run, + The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop, + The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one. + + IX + + Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say; + Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? + And this first Summer month that brings the Rose + Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobád away. + + X + + Well, let it take them! What have we to do + With Kaikobád the Great, or Kaikhosrú? + Let Zál and Rustum bluster as they will, + Or Hátim call to Supper--heed not you. + + XI + + With me along the strip of Herbage strown + That just divides the desert from the sown, + Where name of Slave and Sultán is forgot-- + And Peace to Mahmúd on his golden Throne! + + XII + + A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, + A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou + Beside me singing in the Wilderness-- + Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow! + + XIII + + Some for the Glories of This World; and some + Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come; + Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go, + Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum! + + XIV + + Look to the blowing Rose about us--"Lo, + Laughing," she says, "into the world I blow, + At once the silken tassel of my Purse + Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw." + + XV + + And those who husbanded the Golden grain, + And those who flung it to the winds like Rain, + Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn'd + As, buried once, Men want dug up again. + + XVI + + The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon + Turns Ashes--or it prospers; and anon, + Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face, + Lighting a little hour or two--is gone. + + XVII + + Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai + Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day, + How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp + Abode his destined Hour, and went his way. + + XVIII + + They say the Lion and the Lizard keep + The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep: + And Bahrám, that great Hunter--the Wild Ass + Stamps o'er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep. + + XIX + + I sometimes think that never blows so red + The Rose as where some buried Cćsar bled; + That every Hyacinth the Garden wears + Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head. + + XX + + And this reviving Herb whose tender Green + Fledges the River-Lip on which we lean-- + Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows + From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen! + + XXI + + Ah, my Belovčd, fill the Cup that clears + TO-DAY of past Regrets and future Fears: + _To-morrow!_--Why, To-morrow I may be + Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years. + + XXII + + For some we loved, the loveliest and the best + That from his Vintage rolling Time hath prest, + Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before, + And one by one crept silently to rest. + + XXIII + + And we, that now make merry in the Room + They left, and Summer dresses in new bloom, + Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth + Descend--ourselves to make a Couch--for whom? + + XXIV + + Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend, + Before we too into the Dust descend; + Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie, + Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and--sans End! + + XXV + + Alike for those who for TO-DAY prepare, + And those that after some TO-MORROW stare, + A Muezzín from the Tower of Darkness cries, + "Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor There." + + XXVI + + Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd + Of the Two Worlds so wisely--they are thrust + Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn + Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust. + + XXVII + + Myself when young did eagerly frequent + Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument + About it and about; but evermore + Came out by the same door where in I went. + + XXVIII + + With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow, + And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow; + And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd-- + "I came like Water, and like Wind I go." + + XXIX + + Into this Universe, and _Why_ not knowing + Nor _Whence_, like Water willy-nilly flowing; + And out of it, as Wind along the Waste, + I know not _Whither_, willy-nilly blowing. + + XXX + + What, without asking, hither hurried _Whence_? + And, without asking, _Whither_ hurried hence! + Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine + Must drown the memory of that insolence! + + XXXI + + Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate + I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate, + And many a Knot unravel'd by the Road; + But not the Master-knot of Human Fate. + + XXXII + + There was the Door to which I found no Key; + There was the Veil through which I might not see; + Some little talk awhile of ME and THEE + There was--and then no more of THEE and ME. + + XXXIII + + Earth could not answer; nor the Seas that mourn + In flowing Purple, of their Lord forlorn; + Nor rolling Heaven, with all his Signs reveal'd + And hidden by the sleeve of Night and Morn. + + XXXIV + + Then of the THEE IN ME who works behind + The Veil, I lifted up my hands to find + A Lamp amid the Darkness; and I heard, + As from Without--"THE ME WITHIN THEE BLIND!" + + XXXV + + Then to the Lip of this poor earthen Urn + I lean'd, the Secret of my Life to learn: + And Lip to Lip it murmur'd--"While you live, + Drink!--for, once dead, you never shall return." + + XXXVI + + I think the Vessel, that with fugitive + Articulation answer'd, once did live, + And drink; and Ah! the passive Lip I kiss'd, + How many Kisses might it take--and give! + + XXXVII + + For I remember stopping by the way + To watch a Potter thumping his wet Clay; + And with its all-obliterated Tongue + It murmur'd--"Gently, Brother, gently, pray!" + + XXXVIII + + And has not such a Story from of Old + Down Man's successive generations roll'd + Of such a clod of saturated Earth + Cast by the Maker into Human mould? + + XXXIX + + And not a drop that from our Cups we throw + For Earth to drink of, but may steal below + To quench the fire of Anguish in some Eye + There hidden--far beneath, and long ago. + + XL + + As then the Tulip for her morning sup + Of Heav'nly Vintage from the soil looks up, + Do you devoutly do the like, till Heav'n + To Earth invert you--like an empty Cup. + + XLI + + Perplext no more with Human or Divine, + To-morrow's tangle to the winds resign, + And lose your fingers in the tresses of + The Cypress-slender Minister of Wine. + + XLII + + And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press, + End in what All begins and ends in--Yes; + Think then you are TO-DAY what YESTERDAY + You were--TO-MORROW you shall be not less. + + XLIII + + So when that Angel of the darker Drink + At last shall find you by the river-brink, + And, offering his Cup, invite your Soul + Forth to your Lips to quaff--you shall not shrink. + + XLIV + + Why, if the Soul can fling the Dust aside, + And naked on the Air of Heaven ride, + Were't not a Shame--were't not a Shame for him + In this clay carcass crippled to abide? + + XLV + + 'Tis but a Tent where takes his one day's rest + A Sultan to the realm of Death addrest; + The Sultan rises, and the dark Ferrásh + Strikes, and prepares it for another Guest. + + XLVI + + And fear not lest Existence closing your + Account, and mine, should know the like no more; + The Eternal Sákí from that Bowl has pour'd + Millions of Bubbles like us, and will pour. + + XLVII + + When You and I behind the Veil are past, + Oh, but the long, long while the World shall last, + Which of our Coming and Departure heeds + As the Sea's self should heed a pebble-cast. + + XLVIII + + A Moment's Halt--a momentary taste + Of BEING from the Well amid the Waste-- + And Lo!--the phantom Caravan has reach'd + The NOTHING it set out from--Oh, make haste! + + XLIX + + Would you that spangle of Existence spend + About THE SECRET--quick about it, Friend! + A Hair perhaps divides the False and True-- + And upon what, prithee, may life depend? + + L + + A Hair perhaps divides the False and True; + Yes; and a single Alif were the clue-- + Could you but find it--to the Treasure-house, + And peradventure to THE MASTER too; + + LI + + Whose secret Presence, though Creation's veins + Running Quicksilver-like, eludes your pains; + Taking all shapes from Máh to Máhi; and + They change and perish all--but He remains; + + LII + + A moment guess'd--then back behind the Fold + Immerst of Darkness round the Drama roll'd + Which, for the Pastime of Eternity, + He doth Himself contrive, enact, behold. + + LIII + + But if in vain, down on the stubborn floor + Of Earth, and up to Heav'n's unopening Door, + You gaze TO-DAY, while You are You--how then + TO-MORROW, You when shall be You no more? + + LIV + + Waste not your Hour, nor in the vain pursuit + Of This and That endeavor and dispute; + Better be jocund with the fruitful Grape + Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit. + + LV + + You know, my Friends, with what a brave Carouse + I made a Second Marriage in my house; + Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed, + And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse. + + LVI + + For "IS" and "IS-NOT" though with Rule and Line + And "UP-AND-DOWN" by Logic I define, + Of all that one should care to fathom, I + Was never deep in anything but--Wine. + + LVII + + Ah, but my Computations, People say, + Reduced the Year to better reckoning?--Nay, + 'Twas only striking from the Calendar + Unborn To-morrow, and dead Yesterday. + + LVIII + + And lately, by the Tavern Door agape, + Came shining through the Dusk an Angel Shape + Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and + He bid me taste of it; and 'twas--the Grape! + + LIX + + The Grape that can with Logic absolute + The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute: + The sovereign Alchemist that in a trice + Life's leaden metal into Gold transmute: + + LX + + The mighty Mahmúd, Allah breathing Lord, + That all the misbelieving and black Horde + Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul + Scatters before him with his whirlwind Sword. + + LXI + + Why, be this Juice the growth of God, who dare + Blaspheme the twisted tendril as a Snare? + A Blessing, we should use it, should we not? + And if a Curse--why, then, Who set it there? + + LXII + + I must abjure the Balm of Life, I must, + Scared by some After-reckoning ta'en on trust, + Or lured with Hope of some Diviner Drink, + To fill the Cup--when crumbled into Dust! + + LXIII + + O threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise! + One thing at least is certain--_This_ Life flies; + One thing is certain and the rest is Lies; + The Flower that once has blown for ever dies. + + LXIV + + Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who + Before us pass'd the door of Darkness through, + Not one returns to tell us of the Road, + Which to discover we must travel too. + + LXV + + The Revelations of Devout and Learn'd + Who rose before us, and as Prophets burn'd, + Are all but Stories, which, awoke from Sleep, + They told their comrades, and to Sleep return'd. + + LXVI + + I sent my Soul through the Invisible, + Some letter of that After-life to spell: + And by and by my Soul return'd to me, + And answer'd, "I myself am Heav'n and Hell": + + LXVII + + Heav'n but the Vision of fulfill'd Desire, + And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire, + Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves, + So late emerged from, shall so soon expire. + + LXVIII + + We are no other than a moving row + Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go + Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held + In Midnight by the Master of the Show; + + LXIX + + But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays + Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days; + Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays, + And one by one back in the Closet lays. + + LXX + + The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes, + But Here or There as strikes the Player goes; + And He that toss'd you down into the Field, + _He_ knows about it all--HE knows--HE knows! + + LXXI + + The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, + Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit + Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, + Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it. + + LXXII + + And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky, + Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die, + Lift not your hands to _It_ for help--for It + As impotently moves as you or I. + + LXXIII + + With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead, + And there of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed: + And the first Morning of Creation wrote + What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read. + + LXXIV + + YESTERDAY _This_ Day's Madness did prepare; + TO-MORROW'S Silence, Triumph, or Despair: + Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why: + Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where. + + LXXV + + I tell you this--When, started from the Goal, + Over the flaming shoulders of the Foal + Of Heav'n Parwín and Mushtarí they flung, + In my predestined Plot of Dust and Soul + + LXXVI + + The Vine had struck a fibre: which about + If clings my Being--let the Dervish flout; + Of my Base metal may be filed a Key, + That shall unlock the Door he howls without. + + LXXVII + + And this I know: whether the one True Light + Kindle to Love, or Wrath--consume me quite, + One Flash of It within the Tavern caught + Better than in the Temple lost outright. + + LXXVIII + + What! out of senseless Nothing to provoke + A conscious Something to resent the yoke + Of unpermitted Pleasure, under pain + Of Everlasting Penalties, if broke! + + LXXIX + + What! from his helpless Creature be repaid + Pure Gold for what he lent him dross-allay'd-- + Sue for a Debt he never did contract, + And cannot answer--Oh, the sorry trade! + + LXXX + + O Thou, who didst with pitfall and with gin + Beset the Road I was to wander in, + Thou wilt not with Predestined Evil round + Enmesh, and then impute my Fall to Sin! + + LXXXI + + O Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make, + And ev'n with Paradise devise the Snake: + For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man + Is blacken'd--Man's forgiveness give--and take! + + * * * * * + + LXXXII + + As under cover of departing Day + Slunk hunger-stricken Ramazán away, + Once more within the Potter's house alone + I stood, surrounded by the Shapes of Clay. + + LXXXIII + + Shapes of all Sorts and Sizes, great and small, + That stood along the floor and by the wall; + And some loquacious Vessels were; and some + Listen'd perhaps, but never talk'd at all. + + LXXXIV + + Said one among them--"Surely not in vain + My substance of the common Earth was ta'en + And to this Figure moulded, to be broke, + Or trampled back to Shapeless Earth again." + + LXXXV + + Then said a Second--"Ne'er a peevish Boy + Would break the Bowl from which he drank in joy; + And He that with his hand the Vessel made + Will surely not in after Wrath destroy." + + LXXXVI + + After a momentary silence spake + Some Vessel of a more ungainly Make; + "They sneer at me for leaning all awry: + What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?" + + LXXXVII + + Whereat some one of the loquacious Lot-- + I think a Súfi pipkin--waxing hot-- + "All this of Pot and Potter--Tell me then, + Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?" + + LXXXVIII + + "Why," said another, "Some there are who tell + Of one who threatens he will toss to Hell + The luckless Pots he marr'd in making--Pish! + He's a Good Fellow, and 'twill all be well." + + LXXXIX + + "Well," murmur'd one, "Let whoso make or buy, + My Clay with long Oblivion is gone dry; + But fill me with the old familiar Juice; + Methinks I might recover by and by." + + XC + + So while the Vessels one by one were speaking, + The little Moon look'd in that all were seeking: + And then they jogg'd each other, "Brother! Brother! + Now for the Porter's shoulder-knot a-creaking!" + + * * * * * + + XCI + + Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide, + And wash the Body whence the Life has died, + And lay me, shrouded in the living Leaf, + By some not unfrequented Garden-side. + + XCII + + That ev'n my buried Ashes such a snare + Of Vintage shall fling up into the Air + As not a True-believer passing by + But shall be overtaken unaware. + + XCIII + + Indeed the Idols I have loved so long + Have done my credit in this World much wrong: + Have drown'd my Glory in a shallow Cup, + And sold my Reputation for a Song. + + XCIV + + Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before + I swore--but was I sober when I swore? + And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand + My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore. + + XCV + + And much as Wine has play'd the Infidel, + And robb'd me of my Robe of Honor--Well, + I wonder often what the Vintners buy + One half so precious as the stuff they sell. + + XCVI + + Yet ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose! + That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close! + The Nightingale that in the branches sang, + Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows! + + XCVII + + Would but the Desert of the Fountain yield + One glimpse--if dimly, yet indeed, reveal'd, + To which the fainting Traveler might spring, + As springs the trampled herbage of the field! + + XCVIII + + Would but some wingčd Angel ere too late + Arrest the yet unfolded Roll of Fate, + And make the stern Recorder otherwise + Enregister, or quite obliterate! + + XCIX + + Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire + To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, + Would not we shatter it to bits--and then + Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire! + + * * * * * + + C + + Yon rising Moon that looks for us again-- + How oft hereafter will she wax and wane; + How oft hereafter rising look for us + Through this same Garden--and for _one_ in vain! + + CI + + And when like her, oh Sákí, you shall pass + Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on the Grass, + And in your joyous errand reach the spot + Where I made One--turn down an empty Glass! + + + + +ROBERT BROWNING + + +RABBI BEN EZRA + + I + + Grow old along with me! + The best is yet to be, + The last of life, for which the first was made: + Our times are in His hand + Who saith, "A whole I planned; + Youth shows but half; trust God: see all nor be afraid!" + + II + + Not that, amassing flowers, + Youth sighed, "Which rose make ours, + Which lily leave and then as best recall?" + Not that, admiring stars, + It yearned, "Nor Jove, nor Mars; + Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!" + + III + + Not for such hopes and fears + Annulling youth's brief years, + Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark! + Rather I prize the doubt + Low kinds exist without, + Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark. + + IV + + Poor vaunt of life indeed, + Were man but formed to feed + On joy, to solely seek and find and feast: + Such feasting ended, then + As sure an end to men; + Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast? + + V + + Rejoice we are allied + To That which doth provide + And not partake, effect and not receive! + A spark disturbs our clod; + Nearer we hold of God + Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe. + + VI + + Then, welcome each rebuff + That turns earth's smoothness rough, + Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go! + Be our joys three-parts pain! + Strive, and hold cheap the strain; + Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe! + + VII + + For thence,--a paradox + Which comforts while it mocks,-- + Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail: + What I aspired to be, + And was not, comforts me: + A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale. + + VIII + + What is he but a brute + Whose flesh has soul to suit, + Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play? + To man, propose this test-- + Thy body at its best, + How far can that project thy soul on its lone way? + + IX + + Yet gifts should prove their use: + I own the Past profuse + Of power each side, perfection every turn: + Eyes, ears took in their dole, + Brain treasured up the whole; + Should not the heart beat once, "How good to live and learn?" + + X + + Not once beat "Praise be Thine! + I see the whole design, + I, who saw power, see now love perfect too: + Perfect I call Thy plan: + Thanks that I was a man! + Maker, remake, complete,--I trust what Thou shalt do!" + + XI + + For pleasant is this flesh; + Our soul, in its rose-mesh + Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest; + Would we some prize might hold + To match those manifold + Possessions of the brute,--gain most, as we did best! + + XII + + Let us not always say, + "Spite of this flesh to-day + I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!" + As the bird wings and sings, + Let us cry, "All good things + Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!" + + XIII + + Therefore I summon age + To grant youth's heritage, + Life's struggle having so far reached its term: + Thence shall I pass, approved + A man, for aye removed + From the developed brute; a god though in the germ. + + XIV + + And I shall thereupon + Take rest, ere I be gone + Once more on my adventure brave and new: + Fearless and unperplexed, + When I wage battle next, + What weapons to select, what armor to indue. + + XV + + Youth ended, I shall try + My gain or loss thereby; + Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold: + And I shall weigh the same, + Give life its praise or blame: + Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old. + + XVI + + For note, when evening shuts, + A certain moment cuts + The deed off, calls the glory from the gray: + A whisper from the west + Shoots--"Add this to the rest, + Take it and try its worth: here dies another day." + + XVII + + So, still within this life, + Though lifted o'er its strife, + Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last, + "This rage was right i' the main, + That acquiescence vain: + The Future I may face now I have proved the Past." + + XVIII + + For more is not reserved + To man, with soul just nerved + To act to-morrow what he learns to-day: + Here, work enough to watch + The Master work, and catch + Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play. + + XIX + + As it was better, youth + Should strive, through acts uncouth, + Toward making, than repose on aught found made: + So, better, age, exempt + From strife, should know, than tempt + Further. Thou waitedest age: wait death nor be afraid! + + XX + + Enough now, if the Right + And Good and Infinite + Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own, + With knowledge absolute, + Subject to no dispute + From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone. + + XXI + + Be there, for once and all, + Severed great minds from small, + Announced to each his station in the Past! + Was I, the world arraigned, + Were they, my soul disdained, + Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last! + + XXII + + Now, who shall arbitrate? + Ten men love what I hate, + Shun what I follow, slight what I receive; + Ten, who in ears and eyes + Match me: we all surmise, + They this thing, and I that: whom shall my soul believe? + + XXIII + + Not on the vulgar mass + Called "work," must sentence pass, + Things done, that took the eye and had the price; + O'er which, from level stand, + The low world laid its hand, + Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice: + + XXIV + + But all, the world's coarse thumb + And finger failed to plumb, + So passed in making up the main account; + All instincts immature, + All purposes unsure, + That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount: + + XXV + + Thoughts hardly to be packed + Into a narrow act, + Fancies that broke through language and escaped; + All I could never be, + All, men ignored in me, + This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped. + + XXVI + + Ay, note that Potter's wheel, + That metaphor! and feel + Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,-- + Thou, to whom fools propound, + When the wine makes its round, + "Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!" + + XXVII + + Fool! All that is, at all, + Lasts ever, past recall; + Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure: + What entered into thee, + _That_ was, is, and shall be: + Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure. + + XXVIII + + He fixed thee mid this dance + Of plastic circumstance, + This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest: + Machinery just meant + To give thy soul its bent, + Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed. + + XXIX + + What though the earlier grooves + Which ran the laughing loves + Around thy base, no longer pause and press? + What though, about thy rim, + Skull-things in order grim + Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress? + + XXX + + Look not thou down but up! + To uses of a cup, + The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal, + The new wine's foaming flow, + The Master's lips a-glow! + Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what need'st thou with earth's wheel? + + XXXI + + But I need, now as then, + Thee, God, who mouldest men; + And since, not even while the whirl was worst, + Did I,--to the wheel of life + With shapes and colors rife, + Bound dizzily,--mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst: + + XXXII + + So, take and use Thy work: + Amend what flaws may lurk, + What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim! + My times be in Thy hand! + Perfect the cup as planned! + Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same! + + +AN EPISTLE + +CONTAINING THE STRANGE MEDICAL EXPERIENCE OF KARSHISH, THE ARAB PHYSICIAN + + Karshish, the picker-up of learning's crumbs, + The not-incurious in God's handiwork + (This man's-flesh He hath admirably made, + Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste, + To coop up and keep down on earth a space + That puff of vapor from his mouth, man's soul) + --To Abib, all-sagacious in our art, + Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast, + Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracks + Befall the flesh through too much stress and strain, + Whereby the wily vapor fain would slip + Back and rejoin its source before the term,-- + And aptest in contrivance, under God, + To baffle it by deftly stopping such:-- + The vagrant Scholar to his Sage at home + Sends greeting (health and knowledge, fame with peace), + Three samples of true snake-stone--rarer still, + One of the other sort, the melon-shaped + (But fitter, pounded fine, for charms than drugs), + And writeth now the twenty-second time. + + My journeyings were brought to Jericho; + Thus I resume. Who studious in our art + Shall count a little labor unrepaid? + I have shed sweat enough, left flesh and bone + On many a flinty furlong of this land. + Also the country-side is all on fire + With rumors of a marching hitherward-- + Some say Vespasian cometh, some, his son. + A black lynx snarled and pricked a tufted ear; + Lust of my blood inflamed his yellow balls: + I cried and threw my staff and he was gone. + Twice have the robbers stripped and beaten me, + And once a town declared me for a spy; + But at the end, I reach Jerusalem, + Since this poor covert where I pass the night, + This Bethany, lies scarce the distance thence + A man with plague-sores at the third degree + Runs till he drops down dead. Thou laughest here! + 'Sooth, it elates me, thus reposed and safe, + To void the stuffing of my travel-scrip + And share with thee whatever Jewry yields. + A viscid choler is observable + In tertians, I was nearly bold to say, + And falling-sickness hath a happier cure + Than our school wots of: there's a spider here + Weaves no web, watches on the ledge of tombs, + Sprinkled with mottles on an ash-gray back; + Take five and drop them ... but who knows his mind, + The Syrian runagate I trust this to? + His service payeth me a sublimate + Blown up his nose to help the ailing eye. + Best wait: I reach Jerusalem at morn + There set in order my experiences, + Gather what most deserves and give thee all-- + Or I might add, Judea's gum-tragacanth + Scales off in purer flakes, shines clearer-grained, + Cracks 'twixt the pestle and the porphyry, + In fine exceeds our produce. Scalp disease + Confounds me, crossing so with leprosy-- + Thou hadst admired one sort I gained at Zoar-- + But zeal outruns discretion. Here I end. + + Yet stay: my Syrian blinketh gratefully, + Protesteth his devotion is my price-- + Suppose I write what harms not, though he steal? + I half resolve to tell thee, yet I blush, + What set me off a-writing first of all. + An itch I had, a sting to write, a tang! + For, be it this town's barrenness--or else + The Man had something in the look of him-- + His case has struck me far more than 'tis worth. + So, pardon if (lest presently I lose + In the great press of novelty at hand + The care and pains this somehow stole from me) + I bid thee take the thing while fresh in mind, + Almost in sight--for, wilt thou have the truth? + The very man is gone from me but now, + Whose ailment is the subject of discourse. + Thus then, and let thy better wit help all. + + 'Tis but a case of mania--subinduced + By epilepsy, at the turning-point + Of trance prolonged unduly some three days. + When, by the exhibition of some drug + Or spell, exorcisation, stroke of art + Unknown to me and which 'twere well to know, + The evil thing out-breaking all at once + Left the man whole and sound of body indeed,-- + But, flinging, so to speak, life's gates too wide, + Making a clear house of it too suddenly, + The first conceit that entered pleased to write + Whatever it was minded on the wall + So plainly at that vantage, as it were + (First come, first served), that nothing subsequent + Attaineth to erase the fancy-scrawls + Which the returned and new-established soul + Hath gotten now so thoroughly by heart + That henceforth she will read or these or none. + And first--the man's own firm conviction rests + That he was dead (in fact they buried him), + That he was dead and then restored to life + By a Nazarene physician of his tribe: + --Sayeth, the same bade, "Rise," and he did rise. + "Such cases are diurnal," thou wilt cry. + Not so this figment!--not, that such a fume, + Instead of giving way to time and health, + Should eat itself into the life of life, + As saffron tingeth flesh, blood, bones and all! + For see, how he takes up the after-life. + The man--it is one Lazarus, a Jew, + Sanguine, proportioned, fifty years of age, + The body's habit wholly laudable, + As much, indeed, beyond the common health + As he were made and put aside to show. + Think, could we penetrate by any drug + And bathe the wearied soul and worried flesh, + And bring it clear and fair, by three days' sleep! + Whence has the man the balm that brightens all? + This grown man eyes the world now like a child. + Some elders of his tribe, I should premise, + Let in their friend, obedient as a sheep, + To bear my inquisition. While they spoke, + Now sharply, now with sorrow,--told the case,-- + He listened not except I spoke to him, + But folded his two hands and let them talk, + Watching the flies that buzzed: and yet no fool. + And that's a sample how his years must go. + Look if a beggar, in fixed middle-life, + Should find a treasure, can he use the same + With straightened habits and with tastes starved small, + And take at once to his impoverished brain + The sudden element that changes things, + --That sets the undreamed-of rapture at his hand, + And puts the cheap old joy in the scorned dust? + Is he not such an one as moves to mirth, + Warily parsimonious, when's no need, + Wasteful as drunkenness at undue times? + All prudent counsel, as to what befits + The golden mean, is lost on such an one. + The man's fantastic will is the man's law. + So here--we'll call the treasure knowledge, say-- + Increased beyond the fleshy faculty-- + Heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth, + Earth forced on a soul's use while seeing Heaven. + The man is witless of the size, the sum, + The value in proportion of all things, + Or whether it be little or be much. + Discourse to him of prodigious armaments + Assembled to besiege his city now, + And of the passing of a mule with gourds-- + 'Tis one! Then take it on the other side, + Speak of some trifling fact--he will gaze rapt + With stupor at its very littleness-- + (Far as I see) as if in that indeed + He caught prodigious import, whole results; + And so will turn to us the bystanders + In ever the same stupor (note this point) + That we too see not with his opened eyes! + Wonder and doubt come wrongly into play, + Preposterously, at cross purposes. + Should his child sicken unto death,--why, look + For scarce abatement of his cheerfulness, + Or pretermission of his daily craft,-- + While a word, gesture, glance, from that same child + At play or in the school or laid asleep, + Will start him to an agony of fear, + Exasperation, just as like! demand + The reason why--"'tis but a word," object-- + "A gesture"--he regards thee as our lord + Who lived there in the pyramid alone, + Looked at us, dost thou mind, when being young + We both would unadvisedly recite + Some charm's beginning, from that book of his, + Able to bid the sun throb wide and burst + All into stars, as suns grown old are wont. + Thou and the child have each a veil alike + Thrown o'er your heads from under which ye both + Stretch your blind hands and trifle with a match + Over a mine of Greek fire, did ye know! + He holds on firmly to some thread of life-- + (It is the life to lead perforcedly)-- + Which runs across some vast distracting orb + Of glory on either side that meagre thread, + Which, conscious of, he must not enter yet-- + The spiritual life around the earthly life! + The law of that is known to him as this-- + His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here. + So is the man perplext with impulses + Sudden to start off crosswise, not straight on, + Proclaiming what is Right and Wrong across + And not along this black thread through the blaze-- + "It should be" balked by "here it cannot be." + And oft the man's soul springs into his face + As if he saw again and heard again + His sage that bade him, "Rise," and he did rise. + Something--a word, a tick of the blood within + Admonishes--then back he sinks at once + To ashes, that was very fire before, + In sedulous recurrence to his trade + Whereby he earneth him the daily bread-- + And studiously the humbler for that pride, + Professedly the faultier that he knows + God's secret, while he holds the thread of life. + Indeed the especial marking of the man + Is prone submission to the Heavenly will-- + Seeing it, what it is, and why it is. + Sayeth, he will wait patient to the last + For that same death which will restore his being + To equilibrium, body loosening soul + Divorced even now by premature full growth: + He will live, nay, it pleaseth him to live + So long as God please, and just how God please. + He even seeketh not to please God more + (Which meaneth, otherwise) than as God please. + Hence I perceive not he affects to preach + The doctrine of his sect whate'er it be-- + Make proselytes as madmen thirst to do. + How can he give his neighbor the real ground, + His own conviction? ardent as he is-- + Call his great truth a lie, why still the old + "Be it as God please" reassureth him. + I probed the sore as thy disciple should-- + "How, beast," said I, "this stolid carelessness + Sufficeth thee, when Rome is on her march + To stamp out like a little spark thy town, + Thy tribe, thy crazy tale and thee at once?" + He merely looked with his large eyes on me. + The man is apathetic, you deduce? + Contrariwise he loves both old and young, + Able and weak--affects the very brutes + And birds--how say I? flowers of the field-- + As a wise workman recognizes tools + In a master's workshop, loving what they make. + Thus is the man as harmless as a lamb: + Only impatient, let him do his best, + At ignorance and carelessness and sin-- + An indignation which is promptly curbed. + As when in certain travels I have feigned + To be an ignoramus in our art + According to some preconceived design, + And happed to hear the land's practitioners, + Steeped in conceit sublimed by ignorance, + Prattle fantastically on disease, + Its cause and cure--and I must hold my peace! + + Thou wilt object--why have I not ere this + Sought out the sage himself, the Nazarene + Who wrought this cure, inquiring at the source, + Conferring with the frankness that befits? + Alas! it grieveth me, the learned leech + Perished in a tumult many years ago, + Accused--our learning's fate--of wizardry. + Rebellion, to the setting up a rule + And creed prodigious as described to me. + His death which happened when the earthquake fell + (Prefiguring, as soon appeared, the loss + To occult learning in our lord the sage + That lived there in the pyramid alone) + Was wrought by the mad people--that's their wont-- + On vain recourse, as I conjecture it, + To his tried virtue, for miraculous help-- + How could he stop the earthquake? That's their way! + The other imputations must be lies: + But take one--though I loathe to give it thee, + In mere respect to any good man's fame! + (And after all our patient Lazarus + Is stark mad--should we count on what he says? + Perhaps not--though in writing to a leech + 'Tis well to keep back nothing of a case.--) + This man so cured regards the curer, then, + As--God forgive me--who but God himself, + Creator and Sustainer of the world, + That came and dwelt in flesh on it awhile! + --Sayeth that such an One was born and lived, + Taught, healed the sick, broke bread at his own house, + Then died, with Lazarus by, for aught I know, + And yet was ... what I said nor choose repeat, + And must have so avouched himself, in fact, + In hearing of this very Lazarus + Who saith--But why all this of what he saith? + Why write of trivial matters, things of price + Calling at every moment for remark? + I noticed on the margin of a pool + Blue-flowering borage, the Aleppo sort, + Aboundeth, very nitrous. It is strange! + + Thy pardon for this long and tedious case, + Which, now that I review it, needs must seem + Unduly dwelt on, prolixly set forth. + Nor I myself discern in what is writ + Good cause for the peculiar interest + And awe indeed, this man has touched me with. + Perhaps the journey's end, the weariness + Had wrought upon me first. I met him thus-- + I crossed a ridge of short sharp broken hills + Like an old lion's cheek-teeth. Out there came + A moon made like a face, with certain spots + Multiform, manifold, and menacing: + Then a wind rose behind me. So we met + In this old sleepy town at unaware, + The man and I. I send thee what is writ. + Regard it as a chance, a matter risked + To this ambiguous Syrian--he may lose, + Or steal, or give it thee with equal good. + Jerusalem's repose shall make amends + For time this letter wastes, thy time and mine, + Till when, once more thy pardon and farewell! + + The very God! think, Abib; dost thou think? + So, the All-Great were the All-Loving too-- + So, through the thunder comes a human voice + Saying, "O heart I made, a heart beats here! + Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself. + Thou hast no power nor may'st conceive of mine, + But love I gave thee, with Myself to love, + And thou must love me who have died for thee!" + The madman saith He said so: it is strange. + + +CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS + +OR, NATURAL THEOLOGY IN THE ISLAND + +"_Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself._" + + ['Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best, + Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire, + With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin. + And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush, + And feels about his spine small eft-things course, + Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh: + And while above his head a pompion-plant, + Coating the cave-top as a brow its eye, + Creeps down to touch and tickle hair and beard, + And now a flower drops with a bee inside, + And now a fruit to snap at, catch and crunch,-- + He looks out o'er yon sea which sunbeams cross + And recross till they weave a spider-web + (Meshes of fire, some great fish breaks at times) + And talks to his own self, howe'er he please, + Touching that other, whom his dam called God. + Because to talk about Him vexes--ha, + Could He but know! and time to vex is now, + When talk is safer than in winter-time. + Moreover Prosper and Miranda sleep + In confidence he drudges at their task, + And it is good to cheat the pair, and gibe, + Letting the rank tongue blossom into speech.] + + Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos! + 'Thinketh, He dwelleth i' the cold o' the moon; + 'Thinketh, He made it, with the sun to match, + But not the stars; the stars came otherwise; + Only made clouds, winds, meteors, such as that: + Also this isle, what lives and grows thereon, + And snaky sea which rounds and ends the same. + + 'Thinketh, it came of being ill at ease: + He hated that He cannot change His cold, + Nor cure its ache. 'Hath spied an icy fish + That longed to 'scape the rock-stream where she lived, + And thaw herself within the lukewarm brine + O' the lazy sea her stream thrusts far amid, + A crystal spike 'twixt two warm walls of wave; + Only, she ever sickened, found repulse + At the other kind of water, not her life + (Green-dense and dim-delicious, bred o' the sun), + Flounced back from bliss she was not born to breathe, + And in her old bounds buried her despair, + Hating and loving warmth alike: so He. + + 'Thinketh, He made thereat the sun, this isle, + Trees and the fowls here, beast and creeping thing. + Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech; + Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam, + That floats and feeds; a certain badger brown + He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye + By moonlight; and the pie with the long tongue + That pricks deep into oakwarts for a worm, + And says a plain word when she finds her prize, + But will not eat the ants; the ants themselves + That build a wall of seeds and settled stalks + About their hole--He made all these and more, + Made all we see, and us, in spite: how else? + He could not, Himself, make a second self + To be His mate: as well have made Himself: + He would not make what he mislikes or slights, + An eyesore to Him, or not worth His pains: + But did, in envy, listlessness or sport, + Make what Himself would fain, in a manner, be-- + Weaker in most points, stronger in a few, + Worthy, and yet mere playthings all the while, + Things He admires and mocks too,--that is it. + Because, so brave, so better though they be, + It nothing skills if He begin to plague. + Look now, I melt a gourd-fruit into mash, + Add honeycomb and pods, I have perceived, + Which bite like finches when they bill and kiss,-- + Then, when froth rises bladdery, drink up all, + Quick, quick, till maggots scamper through my brain; + Last, throw me on my back i' the seeded thyme, + And wanton, wishing I were born a bird. + Put case, unable to be what I wish, + I yet could make a live bird out of clay: + Would not I take clay, pinch my Caliban + Able to fly?--for, there, see, he hath wings, + And great comb like the hoopoe's to admire, + And there, a sting to do his foes offence, + There, and I will that he begin to live, + Fly to yon rock-top, nip me off the horns + Of grigs high up that make the merry din, + Saucy through their veined wings, and mind me not. + In which feat, if his leg snapped, brittle clay, + And he lay stupid-like,--why, I should laugh; + And if he, spying me, should fall to weep, + Beseech me to be good, repair his wrong, + Bid his poor leg smart less or grow again,-- + Well, as the chance were, this might take or else + Not take my fancy: I might hear his cry, + And give the mankin three sound legs for one, + Or pluck the other off, leave him like an egg, + And lessoned he was mine and merely clay. + Were this no pleasure, lying in the thyme, + Drinking the mash, with brain become alive, + Making and marring clay at will? So He. + + 'Thinketh, such shows nor right nor wrong in Him, + Nor kind, nor cruel: He is strong and Lord. + 'Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs + That march now from the mountain to the sea; + Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first, + Loving not, hating not, just choosing so. + 'Say, the first straggler that boasts purple spots + Shall join the file, one pincer twisted off; + 'Say, this bruised fellow shall receive a worm, + And two worms he whose nippers end in red; + As it likes me each time, I do: so He. + + Well then, 'supposeth He is good i' the main, + Placable if His mind and ways were guessed, + But rougher than His handiwork, be sure! + Oh, He hath made things worthier than Himself, + And envieth that, so helped, such things do more + Than He who made them! What consoles but this? + That they, unless through Him, do nought at all, + And must submit: what other use in things? + 'Hath cut a pipe of pithless elder joint + That, blown through, gives exact the scream o' the jay + When from her wing you twitch the feathers blue: + Sound this, and little birds that hate the jay + Flock within stone's throw, glad their foe is hurt: + Put case such pipe could prattle and boast forsooth + "I catch the birds, I am the crafty thing, + I make the cry my maker cannot make + With his great round mouth; he must blow through mine!" + Would not I smash it with my foot? So He. + + But wherefore rough, why cold and ill at ease? + Aha, that is a question! Ask, for that, + What knows,--the something over Setebos + That made Him, or He, may be, found and fought, + Worsted, drove off and did to nothing, perchance. + There may be something quiet o'er His head, + Out of His reach, that feels nor joy nor grief, + Since both derive from weakness in some way. + I joy because the quails come; would not joy + Could I bring quails here when I have a mind: + This Quiet, all it hath a mind to, doth. + 'Esteemeth stars the outposts of its couch, + But never spends much thought nor care that way. + It may look up, work up,--the worse for those + It works on! 'Careth but for Setebos + The many-handed as a cuttle-fish, + Who, making Himself feared through what he does, + Looks up, first, and perceives he cannot soar + To what is quiet and hath happy life; + Next looks down here, and out of very spite + Makes this a bauble-world to ape yon real, + These good things to match those as hips do grapes. + 'Tis solace making baubles, ay, and sport. + Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at his books + Careless and lofty, lord now of the isle: + Vexed, 'stitched a book of broad leaves, arrow-shaped, + Wrote thereon, he knows what, prodigious words; + Has peeled a wand and called it by a name; + Weareth at whiles for an enchanter's robe + The eyed skin of a supple oncelot; + And hath an ounce sleeker than youngling mole, + A four-legged serpent he makes cower and couch, + Now snarl, now hold its breath and mind his eye, + And saith she is Miranda and my wife: + 'Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill crane + He bids go wade for fish and straight disgorge; + Also a sea-beast, lumpish, which he snared, + Blinded the eyes of, and brought somewhat tame, + And split its toe-webs, and now pens the drudge + In a hole o' the rock and calls him Caliban; + A bitter heart that bides its time and bites. + 'Plays thus at being Prosper in a way, + Taketh his mirth with make-believes: so He. + + His dam held that the Quiet made all things + Which Setebos vexed only: 'holds not so. + Who made them weak, meant weakness He might vex. + Had He meant other, while His hand was in, + Why not make horny eyes no thorn could prick, + Or plate my scalp with bone against the snow, + Or overscale my flesh 'neath joint and joint, + Like an orc's armor? Ay,--so spoil His sport! + He is the One now: only He doth all. + + 'Saith, He may like, perchance, what profits Him. + Ay, himself loves what does him good; but why? + 'Gets good no otherwise. This blinded beast + Loves whoso places flesh-meat on his nose, + But, had he eyes, would want no help, but hate + Or love, just as it liked him: He hath eyes. + Also it pleaseth Setebos to work, + Use all His hands, and exercise much craft, + By no means for the love of what is worked. + 'Tasteth, himself, no finer good i' the world + When all goes right, in this safe summer-time, + And he wants little, hungers, aches not much, + Than trying what to do with wit and strength. + 'Falls to make something: 'piled yon pile of turfs, + And squared and stuck there squares of soft white chalk, + And, with a fish-tooth, scratched a moon on each, + And set up endwise certain spikes of tree, + And crowned the whole with a sloth's skull a-top, + Found dead i' the woods, too hard for one to kill. + No use at all i' the work, for work's sole sake; + 'Shall some day knock it down again; so He. + + 'Saith He is terrible: watch His feats in proof! + One hurricane will spoil six good months' hope. + He hath a spite against me, that I know, + Just as He favors Prosper, who knows why? + So it is, all the same, as well I find. + 'Wove wattles half the winter, fenced them firm + With stone and stake to stop she-tortoises + Crawling to lay their eggs here: well, one wave, + Feeling the foot of Him upon its neck, + Gaped as a snake does, lolled out its large tongue, + And licked the whole labor flat: so much for spite. + 'Saw a ball flame down late (yonder it lies) + Where, half an hour before, I slept i' the shade: + Often they scatter sparkles: there is force! + 'Dug up a newt He may have envied once + And turned to stone, shut up inside a stone. + Please Him and hinder this?--What Prosper does? + Aha, if He would tell me how! Not He! + There is the sport: discover how or die! + All need not die, for of the things o' the isle + Some flee afar, some dive, some run up trees; + Those at His mercy,--why, they please Him most + When ... when ... well, never try the same way twice! + Repeat what act has pleased, He may grow wroth. + You must not know His ways, and play Him off, + Sure of the issue. 'Doth the like himself: + 'Spareth a squirrel that it nothing fears, + But steals the nut from underneath my thumb, + And when I threat, bites stoutly in defense: + 'Spareth an urchin that contrariwise, + Curls up into a ball, pretending death + For fright at my approach: the two ways please. + But what would move my choler more than this, + That either creature counted on its life + To-morrow and next day and all days to come, + Saying, forsooth, in the inmost of its heart, + "Because he did so yesterday with me, + And otherwise with such another brute, + So must he do henceforth and always."--Ay? + 'Would teach the reasoning couple what "must" means! + 'Doth as he likes, or wherefore Lord? So He. + + 'Conceiveth all things will continue thus, + And we shall have to live in fear of Him + So long as He lives, keeps His strength: no change, + If He have done His best, make no new world + To please Him more, so leave off watching this,-- + If He surprise not even the Quiet's self + Some strange day,--or, suppose, grow into it + As grubs grow butterflies: else, here are we, + And there is He, and nowhere help at all. + + 'Believeth with the life, the pain shall stop. + His dam held different, that after death + He both plagued enemies and feasted friends: + Idly! He doth His worst in this our life, + Giving just respite lest we die through pain, + Saving last pain for worst,--with which, an end. + Meanwhile, the best way to escape His ire + Is, not to seem too happy. 'Sees, himself, + Yonder two flies, with purple films and pink, + Bask on the pompion-bell above; kills both. + 'Sees two black painful beetles roll their ball + On head and tail as if to save their lives: + Moves them the stick away they strive to clear. + + Even so, 'would have Him misconceive, suppose + This Caliban strives hard and ails no less, + And always, above all else, envies Him; + Wherefore he mainly dances on dark nights, + Moans in the sun, gets under holes to laugh, + And never speaks his mind save housed as now: + Outside, groans, curses. If He caught me here, + O'erheard this speech, and asked "What chucklest at?" + 'Would, to appease Him, cut a finger off, + Or of my three kid yearlings burn the best, + Or let the toothsome apples rot on tree, + Or push my tame beast for the orc to taste: + While myself lit a fire, and made a song + And sung it, "_What I hate, be consecrate + To celebrate Thee and Thy state, no mate + For Thee; what see for envy in poor me?_" + Hoping the while, since evils sometimes mend, + Warts rub away and sores are cured with slime, + That some strange day, will either the Quiet catch + And conquer Setebos, or likelier He + Decrepit may doze, doze, as good as die. + + [What, what? A curtain o'er the world at once! + Crickets stop hissing; not a bird--or, yes, + There scuds His raven that has told Him all! + It was fool's play, this prattling! Ha! The wind + Shoulders the pillared dust, death's house o' the move + And fast invading fires begin! White blaze-- + A tree's head snaps--and there, there, there, there, there, + His thunder follows! Fool to gibe at Him! + Lo! 'Lieth flat and loveth Setebos! + 'Maketh his teeth meet through his upper lip, + Will let those quails fly, will not eat this month + One little mess of whelks, so he may 'scape!] + + +A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL + + Let us begin and carry up this corpse, + Singing together. + Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes, + Each in its tether + Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain, + Cared-for till cock-crow. + Look out if yonder's not the day again + Rimming the rock-row! + That's the appropriate country--there, man's thought, + Rarer, intenser, + Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought, + Chafes in the censer! + Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop; + Seek we sepulture + On a tall mountain, citied to the top, + Crowded with culture! + All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels; + Clouds overcome it; + No, yonder sparkle is the citadel's + Circling its summit! + Thither our path lies--wind we up the heights-- + Wait ye the warning? + Our low life was the level's and the night's; + He's for the morning! + Step to a tune, square chests, erect the head, + 'Ware the beholders! + This is our master, famous, calm, and dead, + Borne on our shoulders. + Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft, + Safe from the weather! + He, whom we convey to his grave aloft, + Singing together, + He was a man born with thy face and throat, + Lyric Apollo! + Long he lived nameless: how should spring take note + Winter would follow? + Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone! + Cramped and diminished, + Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon! + My dance is finished?" + No, that's the world's way! (Keep the mountain-side, + Make for the city.) + He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride + Over men's pity; + Left play for work, and grappled with the world + Bent on escaping: + "What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled? + Show me their shaping, + Theirs, who most studied man, the bard and sage,-- + Give!"--So he gowned him, + Straight got by heart that book to its last page: + Learned, we found him! + Yea, but we found him bald too--eyes like lead, + Accents uncertain: + "Time to taste life," another would have said, + "Up with the curtain!" + This man said rather, "Actual life comes next? + Patience a moment! + Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text, + Still, there's the comment. + Let me know all. Prate not of most or least, + Painful or easy: + Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast, + Ay, nor feel queasy!" + Oh, such a life as he resolved to live, + When he had learned it, + When he had gathered all books had to give; + Sooner, he spurned it! + Image the whole, then execute the parts-- + Fancy the fabric + Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz, + Ere mortar dab brick! + + (Here's the town-gate reached: there's the market-place + Gaping before us.) + Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace + (Hearten our chorus), + Still before living he'd learn how to live-- + No end to learning. + Earn the means first--God surely will contrive + Use for our earning. + Others mistrust and say, "But time escapes,-- + Live now or never!" + He said, "What's Time? leave Now for dogs and apes! + Man has Forever." + Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head; + _Calculus_ racked him: + Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead; + _Tussis_ attacked him. + "Now, Master, take a little rest!"--not he! + (Caution redoubled! + Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly.) + Not a whit troubled, + Back to his studies, fresher than at first, + Fierce as a dragon + He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst) + Sucked at the flagon. + Oh, if we draw a circle premature, + Heedless of far gain, + Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure, + Bad is our bargain! + Was it not great? did not he throw on God, + (He loves the burthen--) + God's task to make the heavenly period + Perfect the earthen? + Did not he magnify the mind, shew clear + Just what it all meant? + He would not discount life, as fools do here, + Paid by installment! + He ventured neck or nothing--heaven's success + Found, or earth's failure: + "Wilt thou trust death or not?" he answered "Yes. + Hence with life's pale lure!" + That low man seeks a little thing to do, + Sees it and does it: + This high man, with a great thing to pursue, + Dies ere he knows it. + That low man goes on adding one to one, + His hundred's soon hit: + This high man, aiming at a million, + Misses an unit. + That, has the world here--should he need the next, + Let the world mind him! + This, throws himself on God, and unperplext + Seeking shall find Him. + So, with the throttling hands of Death at strife, + Ground he at grammar; + Still, thro' the rattle, parts of speech were rife. + While he could stammer + He settled _Hoti's_ business--let it be!-- + Properly based _Oun_-- + Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic _De_, + Dead from the waist down. + Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place. + Hail to your purlieus, + All ye highfliers of the feathered race, + Swallows and curlews! + Here's the top-peak! the multitude below + Live, for they can there. + This man decided not to Live but Know-- + Bury this man there? + Here--here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form, + Lightnings are loosened, + Stars come and go! let joy break with the storm-- + Peace let the dew send! + Lofty designs must close in like effects: + Loftily lying, + Leave him--still loftier than the world suspects. + Living and dying. + + +WHY I AM A LIBERAL + + "Why?" Because all I haply can and do, + All that I am now, all I hope to be,-- + Whence comes it save from fortune setting free + Body and soul the purpose to pursue, + God traced for both? If fetters, not a few, + Of prejudice, convention, fall from me, + These shall I bid men--each in his degree + Also God-guided--bear, and gayly too? + + But little do or can the best of us: + That little is achieved thro' Liberty. + Who then dares hold, emancipated thus, + His fellow shall continue bound? not I, + Who live, love, labor freely, nor discuss + A brother's right to freedom. That is "Why." + + +FEARS AND SCRUPLES + + Here's my case. Of old I used to love him, + This same unseen friend, before I knew: + Dream there was none like him, none above him,-- + Wake to hope and trust my dream was true. + + Loved I not his letters full of beauty? + Not his actions famous far and wide? + Absent, he would know I vowed him duty, + Present, he would find me at his side. + + Pleasant fancy! for I had but letters, + Only knew of actions by hearsay: + He himself was busied with my betters; + What of that? My turn must come some day. + + "Some day" proving--no day! Here's the puzzle + Passed and passed my turn is. Why complain? + He's so busied! If I could but muzzle + People's foolish mouths that give me pain! + + "Letters?" (hear them!) "You a judge of writing? + Ask the experts!--How they shake the head + O'er these characters, your friend's inditing-- + Call them forgery from A to Zed!" + + "Actions? Where's your certain proof" (they bother), + "He, of all you find so great and good, + He, he only, claims this, that, the other + Action--claimed by men, a multitude?" + + I can simply wish I might refute you, + Wish my friend would,--by a word, a wink,-- + Bid me stop that foolish mouth,--you brute, you! + He keeps absent,--why, I cannot think. + + Never mind! Tho' foolishness may flout me + One thing's sure enough; 'tis neither frost, + No, nor fire, shall freeze or burn from out me + Thanks for truth--tho' falsehood, gained--tho' lost. + + All my days, I'll go the softlier, sadlier, + For that dream's sake! How forget the thrill + Thro' and thro' me as I thought, "The gladlier + Lives my friend because I love him still!" + + Ah, but there's a menace some one utters! + "What and if your friend at home play tricks? + Peep at hide-and-seek behind the shutters? + Mean your eyes should pierce thro' solid bricks? + + "What and if he, frowning, wake you, dreamy? + Lay on you the blame that bricks--conceal? + Say '_At least I saw who did not see me; + Does see now, and presently shall feel'?_" + + "Why, that makes your friend a monster!" say you: + "Had his house no window? At first nod + Would you not have hailed him?" Hush, I pray you! + What if this friend happen to be--God? + + +EPILOGUE TO "ASOLANDO" + + At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, + When you set your fancies free, + Will they pass to where--by death, fools think, imprisoned-- + Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so, + --Pity me? + + Oh, to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken! + What had I on earth to do + With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly? + Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel + --Being--who? + + One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, + Never doubted clouds would break, + Never dreamed, tho' right were worsted, wrong would triumph. + Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, + Sleep to wake. + + No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time + Greet the unseen with a cheer! + Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, + "Strive and thrive!" cry, "Speed,--fight on, fare ever + There as here!" + + +PROSPICE + + Fear death?--to feel the fog in my throat, + The mist in my face, + When the snows begin, and the blasts denote + I am nearing the place, + The power of the night, the press of the storm, + The post of the foe; + Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, + Yet the strong man must go: + For the journey is done and the summit attained, + And the barriers fall, + Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, + The reward of it all. + I was ever a fighter, so--one fight more, + The best and the last! + I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, + And bade me creep past. + No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers + The heroes of old, + Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears. + Of pain, darkness and cold. + For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, + The black minute's at end, + And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave, + Shall dwindle, shall blend, + Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, + Then a light, then thy breast, + O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, + And with God be the rest! + + + + +ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON + + +WAGES + + Glory of warrior, glory of orator, glory of song, + Paid with a voice flying by to be lost on an endless sea-- + Glory of Virtue, to fight, to struggle, to right the wrong-- + Nay, but she aim'd not at glory, no lover of glory she: + Give her the glory of going on, and still to be. + + The wages of sin is death: if the wages of Virtue be dust, + Would she have heart to endure for the life of the worm and the fly? + She desires no isles of the blest, no quiet seats of the just, + To rest in a golden grove, or to bask in a summer sky: + Give her the wages of going on, and not to die. + + +THE HIGHER PANTHEISM + + The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains-- + Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns? + + Is not the Vision He? tho' He be not that which He seems? + Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams? + + Earth, these solid stars, this weight of body and limb, + Are they not sign and symbol of thy division from Him? + + Dark is the world to thee: thyself art the reason why; + For is He not all but that which has power to feel "I am I"? + + Glory about thee, without thee; and thou fulfillest thy doom, + Making Him broken gleams, and a stifled splendor and gloom. + + Speak to Him thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet-- + Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet. + + God is law, say the wise; O Soul, and let us rejoice, + For, if He thunder by law, the thunder is yet His voice. + + Law is God, say some: no God at all, says the fool; + For all we have power to see is a straight staff bent in a pool; + + And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man cannot see; + But if we could see and hear, this Vision--were it not He? + + +FLOWER IN THE CRANNIED WALL + + Flower in the crannied wall, + I pluck you out of the crannies, + I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, + Little flower--but _if_ I could understand + What you are, root and all, and all in all, + I should know what God and man is. + + +IN MEMORIAM + + PROEM + + Strong Son of God, immortal Love, + Whom we, that have not seen thy face, + By faith, and faith alone, embrace, + Believing where we cannot prove; + + Thine are these orbs of light and shade; + Thou madest Life in man and brute; + Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot + Is on the skull which thou hast made. + + Thou wilt not leave us in the dust: + Thou madest man, he knows not why, + He thinks he was not made to die; + And thou hast made him: thou art just. + + Thou seemest human and divine, + The highest, holiest manhood, thou: + Our wills are ours, we know not how; + Our wills are ours, to make them thine. + + Our little systems have their day; + They have their day and cease to be: + They are but broken lights of thee, + And thou, O Lord, art more than they. + + We have but faith: we cannot know; + For knowledge is of things we see; + And yet we trust it comes from thee, + A beam in darkness: let it grow. + + Let knowledge grow from more to more, + But more of reverence in us dwell; + That mind and soul, according well, + May make one music as before, + + But vaster. We are fools and slight; + We mock thee when we do not fear: + But help thy foolish ones to bear; + Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light. + + Forgive what seem'd my sin in me; + What seem'd my worth since I began; + For merit lives from man to man, + And not from man, O Lord, to thee. + + Forgive my grief for one removed, + Thy creature, whom I found so fair. + I trust he lives in thee, and there + I find him worthier to be loved. + + Forgive these wild and wandering cries, + Confusions of a wasted youth; + Forgive them where they fail in truth, + And in thy wisdom make me wise. + + LIV + + Oh, yet we trust that somehow good + Will be the final goal of ill, + To pangs of nature, sins of will, + Defects of doubt, and taints of blood; + + That nothing walks with aimless feet; + That not one life shall be destroy'd, + Or cast as rubbish to the void, + When God hath made the pile complete; + + That not a worm is cloven in vain; + That not a moth with vain desire + Is shrivel'd in a fruitless fire, + Or but subserves another's gain. + + Behold, we know not anything; + I can but trust that good shall fall + At last--far off--at last, to all, + And every winter change to spring. + + So runs my dream: but what am I? + An infant crying in the night: + An infant crying for the light: + And with no language but a cry. + + LV + + The wish, that of the living whole + No life may fail beyond the grave, + Derives it not from what we have + The likest God within the soul? + + Are God and Nature then at strife, + That Nature lends such evil dreams? + So careful of the type she seems, + So careless of the single life; + + That I, considering everywhere + Her secret meaning in her deeds, + And finding that of fifty seeds + She often brings but one to bear, + + I falter where I firmly trod, + And falling with my weight of cares + Upon the great world's altar-stairs + That slope thro' darkness up to God, + + I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, + And gather dust and chaff, and call + To what I feel is Lord of all, + And faintly trust the larger hope. + + LVI + + "So careful of the type?" but no. + From scarped cliff and quarried stone + She cries, "A thousand types are gone: + I care for nothing, all shall go. + + "Thou makest thine appeal to me: + I bring to life, I bring to death: + The spirit does but mean the breath: + I know no more." And he, shall he, + + Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair, + Such splendid purpose in his eyes, + Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies, + Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, + + Who trusted God was love indeed + And love Creation's final law-- + Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw + With ravine, shriek'd against his creed-- + + Who loved, who suffer'd countless ills, + Who battled for the True, the Just, + Be blown about the desert dust, + Or seal'd within the iron hills? + + No more? A monster then, a dream, + A discord. Dragons of the prime, + That tare each other in their slime, + Were mellow music match'd with him. + + O life as futile, then, as frail! + O for thy voice to soothe and bless! + What hope of answer, or redress? + Behind the veil, behind the veil. + + +CROSSING THE BAR + + Sunset and evening star, + And one clear call for me! + And may there be no moaning of the bar, + When I put out to sea, + + But such a tide as moving seems asleep, + Too full for sound and foam, + When that which drew from out the boundless deep + Turns again home. + + Twilight and evening bell, + And after that the dark! + And may there be no sadness of farewell, + When I embark; + + For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place + The flood may bear me far, + I hope to see my Pilot face to face + When I have crost the bar. + + + + +GEORGE MEREDITH + + +LUCIFER IN STARLIGHT[12] + + On a starred night Prince Lucifer uprose. + Tired of his dark dominion, swung the fiend + Above the rolling ball in cloud part screened, + Where sinners hugged their spectre of repose. + Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those. + And now upon his western wing he leaned, + And now his huge bulk o'er Afric's sands careened, + And now the black planet shadowed Arctic snows. + Soaring through wider zones that pricked his scars + With memory of the old revolt from Awe, + He reached a middle height, and at the stars, + Which are the brain of heaven, he looked, and sank. + Around the ancient track marched, rank on rank, + The army of unalterable law. + + + + +WILLIAM E. HENLEY + + +INVICTUS + + Out of the night that covers me, + Black as a pit from Pole to Pole, + I thank whatever gods may be + For my unconquerable soul. + + In the fell clutch of circumstance + I have not winced nor cried aloud; + Under the bludgeonings of chance + My head is bloody but unbowed. + + Beyond this place of wrath and tears + Looms but the Horror of the Shade; + And yet the menace of the years + Finds and still finds me unafraid. + + It matters not how strait the gate, + How charged with punishments the scroll: + I am the master of my fate; + I am the captain of my soul. + + + + +THOMAS HARDY + + +NEW YEAR'S EVE[13] + + "I have finished another year," said God, + "In gray, green, white, and brown; + I have strewn the leaf upon the sod, + Sealed up the worm within the clod, + And let the last sun down." + + "And what's the good of it?" I said. + "What reasons made you call + From formless void this earth we tread, + When nine-and-ninety can be read + Why nought should be at all? + + "Yea, Sire; why shaped you us, 'who in + This tabernacle groan'? + If ever a joy be found herein, + Such joy no man had wished to win + If he had never known!" + + Then he: "My labors--logicless-- + You may explain; not I: + Sense-sealed I have wrought, without a guess + That I evolved a Consciousness + To ask for reasons why. + + "Strange that ephemeral creatures who + By my own ordering are, + Should see the shortness of my view, + Use ethic tests I never knew, + Or made provision for!" + + He sank to raptness as of yore, + And opening New Year's Day + Wove it by rote as theretofore, + And went on working evermore + In his unweeting way. + + + + +RALPH WALDO EMERSON + + +CIVILIZATION[14] + +A certain degree of progress from the rudest state in which man is +found,--a dweller in caves, or on trees, like an ape,--a cannibal, and +eater of pounded snails, worms, and offal,--a certain degree of progress +from this extreme, is called Civilization. It is a vague, complex name, of +many degrees. Nobody has attempted a definition. M. Guizot, writing a book +on the subject, does not. It implies the evolution of a highly-organized +man, brought to supreme delicacy of sentiment, as in practical power, +religion, liberty, sense of honor, and taste. In the hesitation to define +what it is, we usually suggest it by negations. A nation that has no +clothing, no iron, no alphabet, no marriage, no arts of peace, no abstract +thought, we call barbarous. And after many arts are invented or imported, +as among the Turks and Moorish nations, it is often a little complaisant +to call them civilized. + +Each nation grows after its own genius, and has a civilization of its own. +The Chinese and Japanese, though each complete in his way, is different +from the man of Madrid or the man of New York. The term imports a +mysterious progress. In the brutes is none; and in mankind to-day the +savage tribes are gradually extinguished rather than civilized. The +Indians of this country have not learned the white man's work; and in +Africa, the negro of to-day is the negro of Herodotus. In other races the +growth is not arrested; but the like progress that is made by a boy "when +he cuts his eye-teeth," as we say,--childish illusions passing daily +away, and he seeing things really and comprehensively,--is made by tribes. +It is the learning the secret of cumulative power, of advancing on one's +self. It implies a facility of association, power to compare, the ceasing +from fixed ideas. The Indian is gloomy and distressed when urged to depart +from his habits and traditions. He is overpowered by the gaze of the +white, and his eye sinks. The occasion of one of these starts of growth is +always some novelty that astounds the mind, and provokes it to dare to +change. Thus there is a Cadmus, a Pytheas, a Manco Capac at the beginning +of each improvement--some superior foreigner importing new and wonderful +arts, and teaching them. Of course, he must not know too much, but must +have the sympathy, language, and gods of those he would inform. But +chiefly the sea-shore had been the point of departure to knowledge, as to +commerce. The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the +most. The power which the sea requires in a sailor makes a man of him very +fast, and the change of shores and population clears his head of much +nonsense of his wigwam. + +Where shall we begin or end the list of those feats of liberty and wit, +each of which feats made an epoch of history? Thus, the effect of a framed +or stone house is immense on the tranquillity, power, and refinement of +the builder. A man in a cave or in a camp, a nomad, will die with no more +estate than the wolf or the horse leaves. But so simple a labor as a house +being achieved, his chief enemies are kept at bay. He is safe from the +teeth of wild animals, from frost, sunstroke, and weather; and fine +faculties begin to yield their fine harvest. Invention and art are born, +manners and social beauty and delight. 'Tis wonderful how soon a piano +gets into a log-hut on the frontier. You would think they found it under +a pine-stump. With it comes a Latin Grammar--and one of those tow-head +boys has written a hymn on Sunday. Now let colleges, now let senates, take +heed! for here is one who, opening these fine tastes on the basis of the +pioneer's iron constitution, will gather all their laurels in his strong +hands. + +When the Indian trail gets widened, graded, and bridged to a good road, +there is a benefactor, there is a missionary, a pacificator, a +wealth-bringer, a maker of markets, a vent for industry. Another step in +civility is the change from war, hunting, and pasturage to agriculture. +Our Scandinavian forefathers have left us a significant legend to convey +their sense of the importance of this step. "There was once a giantess who +had a daughter, and the child saw a husbandman ploughing in the field. +Then she ran and picked him up with her finger and thumb, and put him and +his plough and his oxen into her apron, and carried them to her mother, +and said, 'Mother, what sort of a beetle is this that I found wriggling in +the sand?' But the mother said, 'Put it away, my child; we must begone out +of this land, for these people will dwell in it.'" Another success is the +post-office, with its educating energy augmented by cheapness and guarded +by a certain religious sentiment in mankind; so that the power of a wafer +or a drop of wax or gluten to guard a letter, as it flies over sea, over +land, and comes to its address as if a battalion of artillery brought it, +I look upon as a fine metre of civilization. + +The division of labor, the multiplication of the arts of peace, which is +nothing but a large allowance to each man to choose his work according to +his faculty,--to live by his better hand,--fills the State with useful and +happy laborers; and they, creating demand by the very temptation of their +productions, are rapidly and surely rewarded by good sale: and what a +police and ten commandments their work thus becomes! So true is Dr. +Johnson's remark that "men are seldom more innocently employed than when +they are making money." + +The skillful combinations of civil government, though they usually follow +natural leadings, as the lines of race, language, religion, and territory, +yet require wisdom and conduct in the rulers, and in their result delight +the imagination. "We see insurmountable multitudes obeying, in opposition +to their strongest passions, the restraints of a power which they scarcely +perceive, and the crimes of a single individual marked and punished at the +distance of half the earth." + +Right position of woman in the State is another index. Poverty and +industry with a healthy mind read very easily the laws of humanity, and +love them; place the sexes in right relations of mutual respect, and a +severe morality gives that essential charm to woman which educates all +that is delicate, poetic, and self-sacrificing, breeds courtesy and +learning, conversation and wit, in her rough mate; so that I have thought +a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women. + +Another measure of culture is the diffusion of knowledge, overrunning all +the old barriers of caste, and, by the cheap press, bringing the +university to every poor man's door in the newsboy's basket. Scraps of +science, of thought, of poetry, are in the coarsest sheet, so that in +every house we hesitate to burn a newspaper until we have looked it +through. + +The ship, in its latest complete equipment, is an abridgment and compend +of a nation's arts: the ship steered by compass and chart,--longitude +reckoned by lunar observation and by chronometer,--driven by steam; and +in wildest sea-mountains, at vast distances from home,-- + + The pulses of her iron heart + Go beating through the storm. + +No use can lessen the wonder of this control, by so weak a creature, of +forces so prodigious. I remember I watched, in crossing the sea, the +beautiful skill whereby the engine in its constant working was made to +produce two hundred gallons of fresh water out of salt water every +hour--thereby supplying all the ship's wants. + +The skill that pervades complex details; the man that maintains himself; +the chimney taught to burn its own smoke; the farm made to produce all +that is consumed on it; the very prison compelled to maintain itself and +yield a revenue, and, better still, made a reform school, and a +manufactory of honest men out of rogues, as the steamer made fresh water +out of salt--all these are examples of that tendency to combine +antagonisms, and utilize evil, which is the index of high civilization. + +Civilization is the result of highly complex organization. In the snake, +all the organs are sheathed: no hands, no feet, no fins, no wings. In bird +and beast, the organs are released, and begin to play. In man, they are +all unbound, and full of joyful action. With this unswaddling he receives +the absolute illumination we call Reason, and thereby true liberty. + +Climate has much to do with this melioration. The highest civility has +never loved the hot zones. Wherever snows falls, there is usually civil +freedom. Where the banana grows, the animal system is indolent and +pampered at the cost of higher qualities; the man is sensual and cruel. +But this scale is not invariable. High degrees of moral sentiment control +the unfavorable influences of climate; and some of our grandest examples +of men and of races come from the equatorial regions--as the genius of +Egypt, of India, and of Arabia. + +These feats are measures or traits of civility; and temperate climate is +an important influence, though not quite indispensable; for there have +been learning, philosophy, and art in Iceland, and in the tropics. But one +condition is essential to the social education of man, namely, morality. +There can be no high civility without a deep morality, though it may not +always call itself by that name, but sometimes the point of honor, as in +the institution of chivalry; or patriotism, as in the Spartan and Roman +republics; or the enthusiasm of some religious act which imputes its +virtue to its dogma; or the cabalism, or _esprit de corps_, of a masonic +or other association of friends. + +The evolution of a highly-destined society must be moral; it must run in +the grooves of the celestial wheels. It must be catholic in aims. What is +_moral_? It is the respecting in action catholic or universal ends. Hear +the definition which Kant gives of moral conduct: "Act always so that the +immediate motive of thy will may become a universal rule for all +intelligent beings." + +Civilization depends on morality. Everything good in man leans on what is +higher. This rule holds in small as in great. Thus, all our strength and +success in the work of our hands depend on our borrowing the aid of the +elements. You have seen a carpenter on a ladder with a broad axe chopping +upward chips from a beam. How awkward! at what disadvantage he works! But +see him on the ground, dressing his timber under him. Now, not his feeble +muscles, but the force of gravity brings down the axe; that is to say, the +planet itself splits his stick. The farmer had much ill-temper, laziness, +and shirking to endure from his hand-sawyers, until one day he bethought +him to put his saw-mill on the edge of a waterfall; and the river never +tires of turning his wheel: the river is good-natured, and never hints an +objection. + +We had letters to send: couriers could not go fast enough, nor far enough; +broke their wagons, foundered their horses; bad roads in spring, +snow-drifts in winter, heats in summer; could not get the horses out of a +walk. But we found out that the air and earth were full of electricity, +and always going our way--just the way we wanted to send. _Would he take a +message?_ Just as lief as not; had nothing else to do; would carry it in +no time. Only one doubt occurred, one staggering objection--he had no +carpetbag, no visible pockets, no hands, not so much as a mouth, to carry +a letter. But, after much thought and many experiments, we managed to meet +the conditions, and to fold up the letter in such invisible compact form +as he could carry in those invisible pockets of his, never wrought by +needle and thread--and it went like a charm. + +I admire still more than the saw-mill the skill which, on the sea-shore, +makes the tides drive the wheels and grind corn, and which thus engages +the assistance of the moon, like a hired hand, to grind, and wind, and +pump, and saw, and split stone, and roll iron. + +Now that is the wisdom of a man, in every instance of his labor, to hitch +his wagon to a star, and see his chore done by the gods themselves. That +is the way we are strong, by borrowing the might of the elements. The +forces of steam, gravity, galvanism, light, magnets, wind, fire, serve us +day by day, and cost us nothing. + +Our astronomy is full of examples of calling in the aid of these +magnificent helpers. Thus, on a planet so small as ours, the want of an +adequate base for astronomical measurements is early felt; as, for +example, in detecting the parallax of a star. But the astronomer, having +by an observation fixed the place of a star, by so simple an expedient as +waiting six months, and then repeating his observation, contrived to put +the diameter of the earth's orbit, say two hundred millions of miles, +between his first observation and his second, and this line afforded him a +respectable base for his triangle. + +All our arts aim to win this vantage. We cannot bring the heavenly powers +to us; but, if we will only choose our jobs in directions in which they +travel, they will undertake them with the greatest pleasure. It is a +peremptory rule with them, that _they never go out of their road_. We are +dapper little busybodies, and run this way and that way superserviceably; +but they swerve never from their fore-ordained paths--neither the sun, nor +the moon, nor a bubble of air, nor a mote of dust. + +And as our handiworks borrow the elements, so all our social and political +action leans on principles. To accomplish anything excellent, the will +must work for catholic and universal ends. A puny creature, walled in on +every side, as Daniel wrote,-- + + Unless above himself he can + Erect himself, how poor a thing is man! + +But when his will leans on a principle, when he is the vehicle of ideas, +he borrows their omnipotence. Gibraltar may be strong, but ideas are +impregnable, and bestow on the hero their invincibility. "It was a great +instruction," said a saint in Cromwell's war, "that the best courages are +but beams of the Almighty." Hitch your wagon to a star. Let us not fag in +paltry works which serve our pot and bag alone. Let us not lie and steal. +No god will help. We shall find all their teams going the other +way--Charles's Wain, Great Bear, Orion, Leo, Hercules: every god will +leave us. Work rather for those interests which the divinities honor and +promote--justice, love, freedom, knowledge, utility. + +If we can thus ride in Olympian chariots by putting our works in the path +of the celestial circuits, we can harness also evil agents, the powers of +darkness, and force them to serve against their will the ends of wisdom +and virtue. Thus, a wise government puts fines and penalties on pleasant +vices. What a benefit would the American government, not yet relieved of +its extreme need, render to itself, and to every city, village, and hamlet +in the States, if it would tax whiskey and rum almost to the point of +prohibition! Was it Bonaparte who said that he found vices very good +patriots? "He got five millions from the love of brandy, and he should be +glad to know which of the virtues would pay him as much." Tobacco and +opium have broad backs, and will cheerfully carry the load of armies, if +you choose to make them pay high for such joy as they give and such harm +as they do. + +These are traits, and measures, and modes; and the true test of +civilization is, not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the +crops--no, but the kind of man the country turns out. I see the vast +advantages of this country, spanning the breadth of the temperate zone. I +see the immense material prosperity--towns on towns, states on states, and +wealth piled in the massive architecture of cities; California quartz +mountains dumped down in New York to be repiled architecturally +along-shore from Canada to Cuba, and thence westward to California again. +But it is not New York streets, built by the confluence of workmen and +wealth of all nations, though stretching out toward Philadelphia until +they touch it, and northward until they touch New Haven, Hartford, +Springfield, Worcester, and Boston--not these that make the real +estimation. But, when I look over this constellation of cities which +animate and illustrate the land, and see how little the government has to +do with their daily life, how self-helped and self-directed all families +are,--knots of men in purely natural societies,--societies of trade, of +kindred blood, of habitual hospitality, house and house, man acting on man +by weight of opinion of longer or better-directed industry, the refining +influence of women, the invitation which experience and permanent causes +open to youth and labor,--when I see how much each virtuous and gifted +person, whom all men consider, lives affectionately with scores of +excellent people who are not known far from home, and perhaps with great +reason reckons these people his superiors in virtue, and in the symmetry +and force of their qualities, I see what cubic values America has, and in +these a better certificate of civilization than great cities or enormous +wealth. + +In strictness, the vital refinements are the moral and intellectual steps. +The appearance of the Hebrew Moses, of the Indian Buddh,--in Greece, of +the Seven Wise Masters, of the acute and upright Socrates, and of the +Stoic Zeno,--in Judća, the advent of Jesus,--and in modern Christendom, of +the realists Huss, Savonarola, and Luther,--are casual facts which carry +forward races to new convictions, and elevate the rule of life. In the +presence of these agencies, it is frivolous to insist on the invention of +printing or gunpowder, of steam-power or gas-light, percussion-caps and +rubber-shoes, which are toys thrown off from that security, freedom, and +exhilaration which a healthy morality creates in society. These arts add a +comfort and smoothness to house and street life; but a purer morality, +which kindles genius, civilizes civilization, casts backward all that we +held sacred into the profane, as the flame of oil throws a shadow when +shined upon by the flame of the Bude-light. Not the less the popular +measures of progress will ever be the arts and the laws. + +But if there be a country which cannot stand any one of these tests--a +country where knowledge cannot be diffused without perils of mob-law and +statute-law,--where speech is not free,--where the post-office is +violated, mailbags opened, and letters tampered with,--where public debts +and private debts outside of the State are repudiated,--where liberty is +attacked in the primary institution of social life,--where the position of +the white woman is injuriously affected by the outlawry of the black +woman,--where the arts, such as they have, are all imported, having no +indigenous life,--where the laborer is not secured in the earnings of his +own hands,--where suffrage is not free or equal,--that country is, in all +these respects, not civil, but barbarous; and no advantages of soil, +climate, or coast can resist these suicidal mischiefs. + +Morality and all the incidents of morality are essential: as, justice to +the citizen and personal liberty. Montesquieu says: "Countries are well +cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free"; and the remark +holds not less, but more true, of the culture of men, than of the tillage +of land. And the highest proof of civility is, that the whole public +action of the State is directed on securing the greatest good of the +greatest number. + + +ILLUSIONS[15] + + Flow, flow the waves hated, + Accursed, adored, + The waves of mutation: + No anchorage is. + Sleep is not, death is not; + Who seem to die, live. + House you were born in, + Friends of your spring-time, + Old man and young maid, + Day's toil and its guerdon-- + They are all vanishing, + Fleeing to fables, + Cannot be moored. + See the stars through them, + Through treacherous marbles. + Know, the stars yonder, + The stars everlasting + Are fugitive also, + And emulate, vaulted, + The lambent heat-lightning, + And fire-fly's flight. + When thou dost return + On the wave's circulation, + Beholding the shimmer, + The will's dissipation, + And, out of endeavor + To change and to flow, + The gas become solid, + And phantoms and nothings + Return to be things, + And endless imbroglio + Is law and the world,-- + Then first shalt thou know, + That in the wild turmoil, + Horsed on the Proteus, + Thou ridest to power, + And to endurance. + + +Some years ago, in company with an agreeable party, I spent a long summer +day in exploring the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. We traversed, through +spacious galleries affording a solid masonry foundation for the town and +county overhead, the six or eight black miles from the mouth of the cavern +to the innermost recess which tourists visit--a niche or grotto made of +one seamless stalactite and called, I believe, Serena's Bower. I lost the +light of one day. I saw high domes, and bottomless pits; heard the voice +of unseen waterfalls; paddled three quarters of a mile in the deep Echo +River, whose waters are peopled with the blind fish; crossed the streams +"Lethe" and "Styx"; plied with music and guns the echoes in these alarming +galleries; saw every form of stalagmite and stalactite in the sculptured +and fretted chambers--icicle, orange-flower, acanthus, grapes, and +snowball. We shot Bengal lights into the vaults and groins of the sparry +cathedrals, and examined all the masterpieces which the four combined +engineers, water, limestone, gravitation, and time, could make in the +dark. + +The mysteries and scenery of the cave had the same dignity that belongs to +all natural objects, and shames the fine things to which we foppishly +compare them. I remarked, especially, the mimetic habit, with which +Nature, on new instruments, hums her old tunes, making night to mimic day, +and chemistry to ape vegetation. But I then took notice, and still chiefly +remember, that the best thing which the cave had to offer was an illusion. +On arriving at what is called the "Star Chamber," our lamps were taken +from us by the guide, and extinguished or put aside, and, on looking +upwards, I saw or seemed to see the night heaven thick with stars +glimmering more or less brightly over our heads, and even what seemed a +comet flaming among them. All the party were touched with astonishment +and pleasure. Our musical friends sung with much feeling a pretty song, +"The stars are in the quiet sky," etc., and I sat down on the rocky floor +to enjoy the serene picture. Some crystal specks in the black ceiling high +overhead, reflecting the light of a half-hid lamp, yielded this +magnificent effect. + +I own, I did not like the cave so well for eking out its sublimities with +this theatrical trick. But I have had many experiences like it, before and +since; and we must be content to be pleased without too curiously +analyzing the occasions. Our conversation with Nature is not just what it +seems. The cloud-rack, the sunrise and sunset glories, rainbows, and +northern lights, are not quite so spheral as our childhood thought them; +and the part our organization plays in them is too large. The senses +interfere everywhere, and mix their own structure with all they report of. +Once, we fancied the earth a plane, and stationary. In admiring the +sunset, we do not yet deduct the rounding, coördinating, pictorial powers +of the eye. + +The same interference from our organization creates the most of our +pleasure and pain. Our first mistake is the belief that the circumstance +gives the joy which we give to the circumstance. Life is an ecstasy. Life +is sweet as nitrous oxide; and the fisherman dripping all day over a cold +pond, the switchman at the railway intersection, the farmer in the field, +the negro in the rice-swamp, the fop in the street, the hunter in the +woods, the barrister with the jury, the belle at the ball, all ascribe a +certain pleasure to their employment, which they themselves give it. +Health and appetite impart the sweetness to sugar, bread, and meat. We +fancy that our civilization has got on far, but we still come back to our +primers. + +We live by our imaginations, by our admirations, by our sentiments. The +child walks amid heaps of illusions, which he does not like to have +disturbed. The boy, how sweet to him is his fancy! how dear the story of +barons and battles! What a hero he is, whilst he feeds on his heroes! What +a debt is his to imaginative books! He has no better friend or influence +than Scott, Shakespeare, Plutarch, and Homer. The man lives to other +objects, but who dares affirm that they are more real? Even the prose of +the streets is full of refractions. In the life of the dreariest alderman, +fancy enters into all details, and colors them with rosy hue. He imitates +the air and actions of people whom he admires, and is raised in his own +eyes. He pays a debt quicker to a rich man than to a poor man. He wishes +the bow and compliment of some leader in the state, or in society; weighs +what he says; perhaps he never comes nearer to him for that, but dies at +last better contented for this amusement of his eyes and his fancy. + +The world rolls, the din of life is never hushed. In London, in Paris, in +Boston, in San Francisco, the carnival, the masquerade is at its height. +Nobody drops his domino. The unities, the fictions of the piece, it would +be an impertinence to break. The chapter of fascinations is very long. +Great is paint; nay, God is the painter; and we rightly accuse the critic +who destroys too many illusions. Society does not love its unmaskers. It +was wittily, if somewhat bitterly, said by D'Alembert, "qu'un état de +vapeur était un état trčs fâcheux, parcequ'il nous faisait voir les choses +comme elles sont." I find men victims of illusion in all parts of life. +Children, youths, adults, and old men, all are led by one bauble or +another. Yoganidra, the goddess of illusion, Proteus, or Momus, or Gylfi's +Mocking,--for the Power has many names,--is stronger than the Titans, +stronger than Apollo. Few have overheard the gods, or surprised their +secret. Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be +understood. All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle. +There are as many pillows of illusion as flakes in a snowstorm. We wake +from one dream into another dream. The toys, to be sure, are various, and +are graduated in refinement to the quality of the dupe. The intellectual +man requires a fine bait; the sots are easily amused. But everybody is +drugged with his own frenzy, and the pageant marches at all hours, with +music and banner and badge. + +Amid the joyous troop who give in to the charivari, comes now and then a +sad-eyed boy, whose eyes lack the requisite refractions to clothe the show +in due glory, and who is afflicted with a tendency to trace home the +glittering miscellany of fruits and flowers to one root. Science is a +search after identity, and the scientific whim is lurking in all corners. +At the State Fair, a friend of mine complained that all the varieties of +fancy pears in our orchards seem to have been selected by somebody who had +a whim for a particular kind of pear, and only cultivated such as had that +perfume; they were all alike. And I remember the quarrel of another youth +with the confectioners, that, when he racked his wit to choose the best +comfits in the shops, in all the endless varieties of sweetmeat he could +only find three flavors, or two. What then? Pears and cakes are good for +something; and because you, unluckily, have an eye or nose too keen, why +need you spoil the comfort which the rest of us find in them? + +I knew a humorist who, in a good deal of rattle, had a grain or two of +sense. He shocked the company by maintaining that the attributes of God +were two--power and risibility; and that it was the duty of every pious +man to keep up the comedy. And I have known gentlemen of great stake in +the community, but whose sympathies were cold,--presidents of colleges, +and governors, and senators,--who held themselves bound to sign every +temperance pledge, and act with Bible societies, and missions, and +peacemakers, and cry, _Hist-a-boy!_ to every good dog. We must not carry +comity too far, but we all have kind impulses in this direction. When the +boys come into my yard for leave to gather horse-chestnuts, I own I enter +into Nature's game, and affect to grant the permission reluctantly, +fearing that any moment they will find out the imposture of that showy +chaff. But this tenderness is quite unnecessary; the enchantments are laid +on very thick. Their young life is thatched with them. Bare and grim to +tears is the lot of the children in the hovel I saw yesterday; yet not the +less they hung it round with frippery romance, like the children of the +happiest fortune, and talked of "the dear cottage where so many joyful +hours had flown." Well, this thatching of hovels is the custom of the +country. Women, more than all, are the element and kingdom of illusion. +Being fascinated, they fascinate. They see through Claude-Lorraines. And +how dare anyone, if he could, pluck away the _coulisses_, stage-effects, +and ceremonies, by which they live? Too pathetic, too pitiable, is the +region of affection, and its atmosphere always liable to _mirage_. + +We are not very much to blame for our bad marriages. We live amid +hallucinations; and this especial trap is laid to trip up our feet with, +and all are tripped up first or last. But the mighty Mother who had been +so sly with us, as if she felt that she owed us some indemnity, insinuates +into the Pandora-box of marriage some deep and serious benefits, and some +great joys. We find a delight in the beauty and happiness of children that +makes the heart too big for the body. In the worst-assorted connections +there is ever some mixture of true marriage. Teague and his jade get some +just relations of mutual respect, kindly observation, and fostering of +each other, learn something, and would carry themselves wiselier, if they +were now to begin. + +'Tis fine for us to point at one or another fine madman, as if there were +any exempts. The scholar in his library is none. I, who have all my life +heard any number of orations and debates, read poems and miscellaneous +books, conversed with many geniuses, am still the victim of any new page; +and, if Marmaduke, or Hugh, or Moosehead, or any other, invent a new style +or mythology, I fancy that the world will be all brave and right if +dressed in these colors, which I had not thought of. Then at once I will +daub with this new paint: but it will not stick. 'Tis like the cement +which the peddler sells at the door; he makes broken crockery hold with +it, but you can never buy of him a bit of the cement which will make it +hold when he is gone. + +Men who make themselves felt in the world avail themselves of a certain +fate in their constitution, which they know how to use. But they never +deeply interest us, unless they lift a corner of the curtain, or betray +never so slightly their penetration of what is behind it. 'Tis the charm +of practical men, that outside of their practicality are a certain poetry +and play, as if they led the good horse Power by the bridle, and preferred +to walk, though they can ride so fiercely. Bonaparte is intellectual, as +well as Cćsar; and the best soldiers, sea-captains, and railway men have a +gentleness, when off duty; a good-natured admission that there are +illusions, and who shall say that he is not their sport? We stigmatize the +cast-iron fellows, who cannot so detach themselves, as "dragon-ridden," +"thunder-stricken," and fools of fate, with whatever powers endowed. + +Since our tuition is through emblems and indirections, 'tis well to know +that there is method in it, a fixed scale, and rank above rank in the +phantasms. We begin low with coarse masks, and rise to the most subtle and +beautiful. The red men told Columbus, "they had an herb which took away +fatigue"; but he found the illusion of "arriving from the east at the +Indies" more composing to his lofty spirit than any tobacco. Is not our +faith in the impenetrability of matter more sedative than narcotics? You +play with jack-straws, balls, bowls, horse and gun, estates and politics; +but there are finer games before you. Is not time a pretty toy? Life will +show you masks that are worth all your carnivals. Yonder mountain must +migrate into your mind. The fine star-dust and nebulous blur in Orion, +"the portentous year of Mizar and Alcor," must come down and be dealt with +in your household thought. What if you shall come to discern that the play +and playground of all this pompous history are radiations from yourself, +and that the sun borrows his beams? What terrible questions we are +learning to ask! The former men believed in magic, by which temples, +cities, and men were swallowed up and all trace of them gone. We are +coming on the secret of a magic which sweeps out of men's minds all +vestige of theism and beliefs which they and their fathers held and were +framed upon. + +There are deceptions of the senses, deceptions of the passions, and the +structural, beneficent illusions of sentiment and of the intellect. There +is the illusion of love, which attributes to the beloved person all which +that person shares with his or her family, sex, age, or condition, nay, +with the human mind itself. 'Tis these which the lover loves, and Anna +Matilda gets the credit of them. As if one shut up always in a tower, with +one window, through which the face of heaven and earth could be seen, +should fancy that all the marvels he beheld belonged to that window. There +is the illusion of time, which is very deep; who has disposed of it? or +come to the conviction that what seems the _succession_ of thought is only +the distribution of wholes into causal series? The intellect sees that +every atom carries the whole of Nature; that the mind opens to +omnipotence; that, in the endless striving and ascents, the metamorphosis +is entire, so that the soul doth not know itself in its own act, when that +act is perfected. There is illusion that shall deceive even the elect. +There is illusion that shall deceive even the performer of the miracle. +Though he make his body, he denies that he makes it. Though the world +exist from thought, thought is daunted in presence of the world. One after +the other we accept the mental laws, still resisting those which follow, +which however must be accepted. But all our concessions only compel us to +new profusion. And what avails it that science has come to treat space and +time as simply forms of thought, and the material world as hypothetical, +and withal our pretension of _property_ and even of self-hood are fading +with the rest, if, at last, even our thoughts are not finalities; but the +incessant flowing and ascension reach these also, and each thought which +yesterday was a finality to-day is yielding to a larger generalization? + +With such volatile elements to work in, 'tis no wonder if our estimates +are loose and floating. We must work and affirm, but we have no guess of +the value of what we say or do. The cloud is now as big as your hand, and +now it covers a county. That story of Thor, who was set to drain the +drinking-horn in Asgard, and to wrestle with the old woman, and to run +with the runner Lok, and presently found that he had been drinking up the +sea, and wrestling with Time, and racing with Thought, describes us who +are contending, amid these seeming trifles, with the supreme energies of +Nature. We fancy we have fallen into bad company and squalid condition, +low debts, shoe-bills, broken glass to pay for, pots to buy, butcher's +meat, sugar, milk, and coal. "Set me some great task, ye gods! and I will +show my spirit." "Not so," says the good Heaven; "plod and plough, vamp +your old coats and hats, weave a shoestring; great affairs and the best +wine by-and-by." Well, 'tis all phantasm; and if we weave a yard of tape +in all humility, and as well as we can, long hereafter we shall see it was +no cotton tape at all, but some galaxy which we braided, and that the +threads were Time and Nature. + +We cannot write the order of the variable winds. How can we penetrate the +law of our shifting moods and susceptibility? Yet they differ as all and +nothing. Instead of the firmament of yesterday, which our eyes require, it +is to-day an eggshell which coops us in; we cannot even see what or where +our stars of destiny are. From day to day, the capital facts of human life +are hidden from our eyes. Suddenly the mist rolls up, and reveals them, +and we think how much good time is gone, that might have been saved had +any hint of these things been shown. A sudden rise in the road shows us +the system of mountains, and all the summits, which have been just as near +us all the year, but quite out of mind. But these alternations are not +without their order, and we are parties to our various fortune. If life +seem a succession of dreams, yet poetic justice is done in dreams also. +The visions of good men are good; it is the undisciplined will that is +whipped with bad thoughts and bad fortunes. When we break the laws, we +lose our hold on the central reality. Like sick men in hospitals, we +change only from bed to bed, from one folly to another; and it cannot +signify much what becomes of such castaways,--wailing, stupid, comatose +creatures,--lifted from bed to bed, from the nothing of life to the +nothing of death. + +In this kingdom of illusions we grope eagerly for stays and foundations. +There is none but a strict and faithful dealing at home, and a severe +barring out of all duplicity or illusion there. Whatever games are played +with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy +with the last honesty and truth. I look upon the simple and childish +virtues of veracity and honesty as the root of all that is sublime in +character. Speak as you think, be what you are, pay your debts of all +kinds. I prefer to be owned as sound and solvent, and my word as good as +my bond, and to be what cannot be skipped, or dissipated, or undermined, +to all the _éclat_ in the universe. This reality is the foundation of +friendship, religion, poetry, and art. At the top or at the bottom of all +illusions, I set the cheat which still leads us to work and live for +appearances, in spite of our conviction, in all sane hours, that it is +what we really are that avails with friends, with strangers, and with fate +or fortune. + +One would think from the talk of men, that riches and poverty were a great +matter; and our civilization mainly respects it. But the Indians say, that +they do not think the white man with his brow of care, always toiling, +afraid of heat and cold, and keeping within doors, has any advantage of +them. The permanent interest of every man is, never to be in a false +position, but to have the weight of Nature to back him in all that he +does. Riches and poverty are a thick or thin costume; and our life--the +life of all of us--identical. For we transcend the circumstance +continually, and taste the real quality of existence; as in our +employments, which only differ in the manipulations, but express the same +laws; or in our thoughts, which wear no silks and taste no ice-creams. We +see God face to face every hour, and know the savor of Nature. + +The early Greek philosophers Heraclitus and Xenophanes measured their +force on this problem of identity. Diogenes of Apollonia said, that unless +the atoms were made of one stuff, they could never blend and act with one +another. But the Hindoos, in their sacred writings, express the liveliest +feeling, both of the essential identity, and of that illusion which they +conceive variety to be: "The notions, _I am_, and _This is mine_, which +influence mankind, are but delusions of the mother of the world. Dispel, O +Lord of all creatures! the conceit of knowledge which proceeds from +ignorance." And the beatitude of man they hold to lie in being freed from +fascination. + +The intellect is stimulated by the statement of truth in a trope, and the +will by clothing the laws of life in illusions. But the unities of Truth +and of Right are not broken by the disguise. There need never be any +confusion in these. In a crowded life of many parts and performers, on a +stage of nations, or in the obscurest hamlet in Maine or California, the +same elements offer the same choices to each new comer, and, according to +his election, he fixes his fortune in absolute nature. It would be hard to +put more mental and moral philosophy than the Persians have thrown into a +sentence:-- + + Fooled thou must be, though wisest of the wise: + Then be the fool of virtue, not of vice. + +There is no chance, and no anarchy, in the universe. All is system and +gradation. Every god is there sitting in his sphere. The young mortal +enters the hall of the firmament: there is he alone with them alone, they +pouring on him benedictions and gifts, and beckoning him up to their +thrones. On the instant, and incessantly, fall snow-storms of illusions. +He fancies himself in a vast crowd which sways this way and that, and +whose movement and doings he must obey: he fancies himself poor, orphaned, +insignificant. The mad crowd drives hither and thither, now furiously +commanding this thing to be done, now that. What is he that he should +resist their will, and think or act for himself? Every moment, new +changes, and new showers of deceptions, to baffle and distract him. And +when, by-and-by, for an instant, the air clears, and the cloud lifts a +little, there are the gods still sitting around him on their thrones--they +alone with him alone. + + +FATE[16] + + Delicate omens traced in air + To the lone bard true witness bare; + Birds with auguries on their wings + Chanted undeceiving things, + Him to beckon, him to warn; + Well might then the poet scorn + To learn of scribe or courier + Hints writ in vaster character; + And on his mind, at dawn of day, + Soft shadows of the evening lay. + For the prevision is allied + Unto the thing so signified; + Or say, the foresight that awaits + Is the same Genius that creates. + + +It chanced during one winter, a few years ago, that our critics were bent +on discussing the theory of the Age. By an odd coincidence, four or five +noted men were each reading a discourse to the citizens of Boston or New +York, on the Spirit of the Times. It so happened that the subject had the +same prominence in some remarkable pamphlets and journals issued in London +in the same season. To me, however, the question of the times resolved +itself into a practical question of the conduct of life. How shall I live? +We are incompetent to solve the times. Our geometry cannot span the huge +orbits of the prevailing ideas, behold their return, and reconcile their +opposition. We can only obey our own polarity. 'Tis fine for us to +speculate and elect our course, if we must accept an irresistible +dictation. + +In our first steps to gain our wishes, we come upon immovable limitations. +We are fired with the hope to reform men. After many experiments, we find +that we must begin earlier--at school. But the boys and girls are not +docile; we can make nothing of them. We decide that they are not of good +stock. We must begin our reform earlier still--at generation: that is to +say, there is Fate, or laws of the world. + +But, if there be irresistible dictation, this dictation understands +itself. If we must accept Fate, we are not less compelled to affirm +liberty, the significance of the individual, the grandeur of duty, the +power of character. This is true, and that other is true. But our geometry +cannot span these extreme points, and reconcile them. What to do? By +obeying each thought frankly, by harping, or, if you will, pounding on +each string, we learn at last its power. By the same obedience to other +thoughts, we learn theirs, and then comes some reasonable hope of +harmonizing them. We are sure, that, though we know not how, necessity +does comport with liberty, the individual with the world, my polarity with +the spirit of the times. The riddle of the age has for each a private +solution. If one would study his own time, it must be by this method of +taking up in turn each of the leading topics which belong to our scheme of +human life, and, by firmly stating all that is agreeable to experience on +one, and doing the same justice to the opposing facts in the others, the +true limitations will appear. Any excess of emphasis, on one part, would +be corrected, and a just balance would be made. + +But let us honestly state the facts. Our America has a bad name for +superficialness. Great men, great nations, have not been boasters and +buffoons, but perceivers of the terror of life, and have manned themselves +to face it. The Spartan, embodying his religion in his country, dies +before its majesty without a question. The Turk, who believes his doom is +written on the iron leaf in the moment when he entered the world, rushes +on the enemy's sabre with undivided will. The Turk, the Arab, the Persian, +accepts the fore-ordained fate. + + On two days, it steads not to run from thy grave, + The appointed, and the unappointed day; + On the first, neither balm nor physician can save, + Nor thee, on the second, the Universe slay. + +The Hindoo, under the wheel, is as firm. Our Calvinists, in the last +generation, had something of the same dignity. They felt that the weight +of the Universe held them down to their place. What could _they_ do? Wise +men feel that there is something which cannot be talked or voted away--a +strap or belt which girds the world. + + The Destiny, minister general, + That executeth in the world o'er all, + The purveyance which God hath seen beforne, + So strong it is that tho' the world had sworn + The contrary of a thing by yea or nay, + Yet sometime it shall fallen on a day + That falleth not oft in a thousand year, + For, certainly, our appetites here, + Be it of war, or peace, or hate, or love, + All this is rulčd by the sight above. + + CHAUCER: _The Knighte's Tale_. + +The Greek Tragedy expressed the same sense: "Whatever is fated, that will +take place. The great immense mind of Jove is not to be transgressed." + +Savages cling to a local god of one tribe or town. The broad ethics of +Jesus were quickly narrowed to village theologies, which preach an +election or favoritism. And, now and then, an amiable parson, like Jung +Stilling, or Robert Huntington, believes in a pistareen-Providence, which, +whenever the good man wants a dinner, makes that somebody shall knock at +his door, and leave a half-dollar. But Nature is no sentimentalist--does +not cosset or pamper us. We must see that the world is rough and surly, +and will not mind drowning a man or a woman; but swallows your ship like +a grain of dust. The cold, inconsiderate of persons, tingles your blood, +benumbs your feet, freezes a man like an apple. The diseases, the +elements, fortune, gravity, lightning, respect no persons. The way of +Providence is a little rude. The habit of snake and spider, the snap of +the tiger and other leapers and bloody jumpers, the crackle of the bones +of his prey in the coil of the anaconda--these are in the system, and our +habits are like theirs. You have just dined, and, however scrupulously the +slaughter-house is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is +complicity--expensive races--race living at the expense of race. The +planet is liable to shocks from comets, perturbations from planets, +rendings from earthquake and volcano, alterations of climate, precessions +of equinoxes. Rivers dry up by opening of the forest. The sea changes its +bed. Towns and counties fall into it. At Lisbon, an earthquake killed men +like flies. At Naples, three years ago, ten thousand persons were crushed +in a few minutes. The scurvy at sea; the sword of the climate in the west +of Africa, at Cayenne, at Panama, at New Orleans, cut off men like a +massacre. Our Western prairie shakes with fever and ague. The cholera, the +small-pox, have proved as mortal to some tribes, as a frost to the +crickets, which, having filled the summer with noise, are silenced by a +fall of the temperature of one night. Without uncovering what does not +concern us; or counting how many species of parasites hang on a bombyx; or +groping after intestinal parasites, or infusory biters, or the obscurities +of alternate generation;--the forms of the shark, the _labrus_, the jaw of +the sea-wolf paved with crushing teeth, the weapons of the grampus, and +other warriors hidden in the sea--are hints of ferocity in the interiors +of nature. Let us not deny it up and down. Providence has a wild, rough, +incalculable road to its end, and it is of no use to try to whitewash its +huge, mixed instrumentalities, or to dress up that terrific benefactor in +a clean shirt and white neckcloth of a student in divinity. + +Will you say, the disasters which threaten mankind are exceptional, and +one need not lay his account for cataclysms every day? Ay, but what +happens once, may happen again, and so long as these strokes are not to be +parried by us, they must be feared. + +But these shocks and ruins are less destructive to us than the stealthy +power of other laws which act on us daily. An expense of ends to means is +fate--organization tyrannizing over character. The menagerie, or forms and +powers of the spine, is a book of fate: the bill of the bird, the skull of +the snake, determines tyrannically its limits. So is the scale of races, +of temperaments; so is sex; so is climate; so is the reaction of talents +imprisoning the vital power in certain directions. Every spirit makes its +house; but afterwards the house confines the spirit. + +The gross lines are legible to the dull: the cabman is phrenologist so +far: he looks in your face to see if his shilling is sure. A dome of brow +denotes one thing; a pot-belly another; a squint, a pug-nose, mats of +hair, the pigment of the epidermis, betray character. People seem sheathed +in their tough organization. Ask Spurzheim, ask the doctors, ask Quetelet, +if temperaments decide nothing? or if there be anything they do not +decide? Read the description in medical books of the four temperaments, +and you will think you are reading your own thoughts which you had not yet +told. Find the part which black eyes, and which blue eyes, play severally +in the company. How shall a man escape from his ancestors, or draw off +from his veins the black drop which he drew from his father's or his +mother's life? It often appears in a family, as if all the qualities of +the progenitors were potted in several jars--some ruling quality in each +son or daughter of the house--and sometimes the unmixed temperament, the +rank unmitigated elixir, the family vice, is drawn off in a separate +individual, and the others are proportionally relieved. We sometimes see a +change of expression in our companion, and say, his father, or his mother, +comes to the windows of his eyes, and sometimes a remote relative. In +different hours, a man represents each of several of his ancestors, as if +there were seven or eight of us rolled up in each man's skin,--seven or +eight ancestors at least,--and they constitute the variety of notes for +that new piece of music which his life is. At the corner of the street, +you read the possibility of each passenger, in the facial angle, in the +complexion, in the depth of his eye. His parentage determines it. Men are +what their mothers made them. You may as well ask a loom which weaves +huckaback, why it does not make cashmere, as expect poetry from this +engineer or a chemical discovery from that jobber. Ask the digger in the +ditch to explain Newton's laws: the fine organs of his brains have been +pinched by overwork and squalid poverty from father to son, for a hundred +years. When each comes forth from his mother's womb, the gate of gifts +closes behind him. Let him value his hands and feet, he has but one pair. +So he has but one future, and that is already predetermined in his lobes, +and described in that little fatty face, pig-eye, and squat form. All the +privilege and all the legislation of the world cannot meddle or help to +make a poet or a prince of him. + +Jesus said, "When he looketh on her, he hath committed adultery." But he +is an adulterer before he has yet looked on the woman, by the superfluity +of animal, and the defect of thought, in his constitution. Who meets him, +or who meets her, in the street, sees that they are ripe to be each +other's victim. + +In certain men, digestion and sex absorb the vital force, and the stronger +these are, the individual is so much weaker. The more of these drones +perish, the better for the hive. If, later, they give birth to some +superior individual, with force enough to add to this animal a new aim, +and a complete apparatus to work it out, all the ancestors are gladly +forgotten. Most men and most women are merely one couple more. Now and +then, one has a new cell or camarilla opened in his brain--an +architectural, a musical, or a philological knack, some stray taste or +talent for flowers, or chemistry, or pigments, or story-telling, a good +hand for drawing, a good foot for dancing, an athletic frame for wide +journeying, etc.--which skill nowise alters rank in the scale of nature, +but serves to pass the time, the life of sensation going on as before. At +last, these hints and tendencies are fixed in one, or in a succession. +Each absorbs so much food and force as to become itself a new centre. The +new talent draws off so rapidly the vital force, that not enough remains +for the animal functions, hardly enough for health; so that, in the second +generation, if the like genius appear, the health is visibly deteriorated, +and the generative force impaired. + +People are born with the moral or with the material bias; uterine brothers +with this diverging destination; and I suppose, with high magnifiers, Mr. +Frauenhofer or Dr. Carpenter might come to distinguish in the embryo at +the fourth day, this is a Whig, and that a Free-soiler. + +It was a poetic attempt to lift this mountain of Fate, to reconcile this +despotism of race with liberty, which led the Hindoos to say, "Fate is +nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence." I find the +coincidence of the extremes of eastern and western speculation in the +daring statement of Schelling, "There is in every man a certain feeling, +that he has been what he is from all eternity, and by no means became +such in time." To say it less sublimely--in the history of the individual +is always an account of his condition, and he knows himself to be a party +to his present estate. + +A good deal of our politics is physiological. Now and then, a man of +wealth in the heyday of youth adopts the tenet of broadest freedom. In +England, there is always some man of wealth and large connection planting +himself, during all his years of health, on the side of progress, who, as +soon as he begins to die, checks his forward play, calls in his troops, +and becomes conservative. All conservatives are such from personal +defects. They have been effeminated by position or nature, born halt and +blind, through luxury of their parents, and can only, like invalids, act +on the defensive. But strong natures, backwoodsmen, New Hampshire giants, +Napoleons, Burkes, Broughams, Websters, Kossuths, are inevitable patriots, +until their life ebbs, and their defects and gout, palsy and money, warp +them. + +The strongest idea incarnates itself in majorities and nations, in the +healthiest and strongest. Probably, the election goes by avoirdupois +weight, and, if you could weigh bodily the tonnage of any hundred of the +Whig and the Democratic party in a town, on the Dearborn balance, as they +passed the hay scales, you could predict with certainty which party would +carry it. On the whole, it would be rather the speediest way of deciding +the vote, to put the selectmen or the mayor and aldermen at the hayscales. + +In science, we have to consider two things: power and circumstance. All we +know of the egg, from each successive discovery, is, _another vesicle_; +and if, after five hundred years, you get a better observer, or a better +glass, he finds within the last observed another. In vegetable and animal +tissue, it is just alike, and all that the primary power or spasm +operates, is, still, vesicles, vesicles. Yes--but the tyrannical +Circumstance! A vesicle in new circumstances, a vesicle lodged in +darkness, Oken thought, became animal; in light, a plant. Lodged in the +parent animal, it suffers changes, which end in unsheathing miraculous +capability in the unaltered vesicle, and it unlocks itself to fish, bird, +or quadruped, head and foot, eye and claw. The Circumstance is Nature. +Nature is, what you may do. There is much you may not. We have two +things--the circumstance, and the life. Once we thought, positive power +was all. Now we learn, that negative power, or circumstance, is half. +Nature is the tyrannous circumstance, the thick skull, the sheathed snake, +the ponderous, rock-like jaw; necessitated activity; violent direction; +the conditions of a tool, like the locomotive, strong enough on its track, +but which can do nothing but mischief off it; or skates, which are wings +on the ice, but fetters on the ground. + +The book of Nature is the book of Fate. She turns the gigantic pages--leaf +after leaf--never re-turning one. One leaf she lays down, a floor of +granite; then a thousand ages, and a bed of slate; a thousand ages, and a +measure of coal; a thousand ages, and a layer of marl and mud; vegetable +forms appear; her first misshapen animals, zoöphyte, trilobium, fish, +then, saurians--rude forms, in which she has only blocked her future +statue, concealing under these unwieldy monsters the fine type of her +coming king. The face of the planet cools and dries, the races meliorate, +and man is born. But when a race has lived its term, it comes no more +again. + +The population of the world is a conditional population; not the best, but +the best that could live now; and the scale of tribes, and the steadiness +with which victory adheres to one tribe, and defeat to another, is as +uniform as the superposition of strata. We know in history what weight +belongs to race. We see the English, French, and Germans, planting +themselves on every shore and market of America and Australia, and +monopolizing the commerce of these countries. We like the nervous and +victorious habit of our own branch of the family. We follow the step of +the Jew, of the Indian, of the Negro. We see how much will has been +expended to extinguish the Jew, in vain. Look at the unpalatable +conclusions of Knox, in his "Fragment of Races,"--a rash and +unsatisfactory writer, but charged with pungent and unforgettable truths. +"Nature respects race, and not hybrids." "Every race has its own +_habitat_." "Detach a colony from the race, and it deteriorates to the +crab." See the shades of the picture. The German and Irish millions, like +the negro, have a great deal of guano in their destiny. They are ferried +over the Atlantic, and carted over America, to ditch and to drudge, to +make corn cheap, and then to lie down prematurely to make a spot of green +grass on the prairie. + +One more faggot of these adamantine bandages, is, the new science of +Statistics. It is a rule, that the most casual and extraordinary +events--if the basis of population is broad enough--become matter of fixed +calculation. It would not be safe to say when a captain like Bonaparte, a +singer like Jenny Lind, or a navigator like Bowditch, would be born in +Boston: but, on a population of twenty or two hundred millions, something +like accuracy may be had.[17] + +'Tis frivolous to fix pedantically the date of particular inventions. They +have all been invented over and over fifty times. Man is the arch machine, +of which all these shifts drawn from himself are toy models. He helps +himself on each emergency by copying or duplicating his own structure, +just so far as the need is. 'Tis hard to find the right Homer, Zoroaster, +or Menu; harder still to find the Tubal Cain, or Vulcan, or Cadmus, or +Copernicus, or Fust, or Fulton, the indisputable inventor. There are +scores and centuries of them. "The air is full of men." This kind of +talent so abounds, this constructive tool-making efficiency, as if it +adhered to the chemic atoms, as if the air he breathes were made of +Vaucansons, Franklins, and Watts. + +Doubtless, in every million there will be an astronomer, a mathematician, +a comic poet, a mystic. No one can read the history of astronomy, without +perceiving that Copernicus, Newton, Laplace, are not new men, or a new +kind of men, but that Thales, Anaximenes, Hipparchus, Empedocles, +Aristarchus, Pythagoras, OEnopides, had anticipated them; each had the +same tense geometrical brain, apt for the same vigorous computation and +logic, a mind parallel to the movement of the world. The Roman mile +probably rested on a measure of a degree of the meridian. Mahometan and +Chinese know what we know of leap-year, of the Gregorian calendar, and of +the precession of the equinoxes. As, in every barrel of cowries, brought +to New Bedford, there shall be one _orangia_, so there will, in a dozen +millions of Malays and Mahometans, be one or two astronomical skulls. In a +large city, the most casual things, and things whose beauty lies in their +casualty, are produced as punctually and to order as the baker's muffin +for breakfast. "Punch" makes exactly one capital joke a week; and the +journals contrive to furnish one good piece of news every day. + +And not less work the laws of repression, the penalties of violated +functions. Famine, typhus, frost, war, suicide, and effete races, must be +reckoned calculable parts of the system of the world. + +These are pebbles from the mountain, hints of the terms by which our life +is walled up, and which show a kind of mechanical exactness, as of a loom +or mill, in what we call casual or fortuitous events. + +The force with which we resist these torrents of tendency looks so +ridiculously inadequate, that it amounts to little more than a criticism +or a protest made by a minority of one, under compulsion of millions. I +seemed, in the height of a tempest, to see men overboard struggling in the +waves, and driven about here and there. They glanced intelligently at each +other, but 'twas little they could do for one another; 'twas much if each +could keep afloat alone. Well, they had a right to their eye-beams, and +all the rest was Fate. + + * * * * * + +We cannot trifle with this reality, this cropping out in our planted +gardens of the core of the world. No picture of life can have any veracity +that does not admit the odious facts. A man's power is hooped in by a +necessity which, by many experiments, he touches on every side, until he +learns its arc. + +The element running through entire nature, which we popularly call Fate, +is known to us as limitation. Whatever limits us, we call Fate. If we are +brute and barbarous, the fate takes a brute and dreadful shape. As we +refine, our checks become finer. If we rise to spiritual culture, the +antagonism takes a spiritual form. In the Hindoo fables, Vishnu follows +Maya through all her ascending changes, from insect and crawfish up to +elephant; whatever form she took, he took the male form of that kind, +until she became at last woman and goddess, and he a man and a god. The +limitations refine as the soul purifies, but the ring of necessity is +always perched at the top. + +When the gods in the Norse heaven were unable to bind the Fenris Wolf with +steel or with weight of mountains,--the one he snapped and the other he +spurned with his heel,--they put round his foot a limp band softer than +silk or cobweb, and this held him: the more he spurned it, the stiffer it +grew. So soft and so staunch is the ring of Fate. Neither brandy, nor +nectar, nor sulphuric ether, nor hell-fire, nor ichor, nor poetry, nor +genius, can get rid of this limp band. For if we give it the high sense in +which the poets use it, even thought itself is not above Fate: that too +must act according to eternal laws, and all that is willful and fantastic +in it is in opposition to its fundamental essence. + +And, last of all, high over thought, in the world of morals, Fate appears +as vindicator, leveling the high, lifting the low, requiring justice in +man, and always striking soon or late, when justice is not done. What is +useful will last; what is hurtful will sink. "The doer must suffer," said +the Greeks: "you would soothe a Deity not to be soothed." "God himself +cannot procure good for the wicked," said the Welsh triad. "God may +consent, but only for a time," said the bard of Spain. The limitation is +impassable by any insight of man. In its last and loftiest ascensions, +insight itself, and the freedom of the will, is one of its obedient +members. But we must not run into generalizations too large, but show the +natural bounds or essential distinctions, and seek to do justice to the +other elements as well. + + * * * * * + +Thus we trace Fate, in matter, mind, and morals--in race, in retardations +of strata, and in thought and character as well. It is everywhere bound or +limitation. But fate has its lord; limitation its limits; is different +seen from above and from below; from within and from without. For, though +Fate is immense, so is power, which is the other fact in the dual world, +immense. If Fate follows and limits power, power attends and antagonizes +Fate. We must respect Fate as natural history, but there is more than +natural history. For who and what is this criticism that pries into the +matter? Man is not order of nature, sack and sack, belly and members, link +in a chain, nor any ignominious baggage, but a stupendous antagonism, a +dragging together of the poles of the Universe. He betrays his relation to +what is below him--thick-skulled, small-brained, fishy, +quadrumanous--quadruped ill-disguised, hardly escaped into biped, and has +paid for the new powers by loss of some of the old ones. But the lightning +which explodes and fashions planets, maker of planets and suns, is in him. +On one side, elemental order, sandstone and granite, rock-ledges, +peat-bog, forest, sea and shore; and, on the other part, thought, the +spirit which composes and decomposes nature--here they are, side by side, +god and devil, mind and matter, king and conspirator, belt and spasm, +riding peacefully together in the eye and brain of every man. + +Nor can he blink the freewill. To hazard the contradiction--freedom is +necessary. If you please to plant yourself on the side of Fate, and say, +Fate is all; then we say, a part of Fate is the freedom of man. Forever +wells up the impulse of choosing and acting in the soul. Intellect annuls +Fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free. And though nothing is more +disgusting than the crowing about liberty by slaves, as most men are, and +the flippant mistaking for freedom of some paper preamble like a +"Declaration of Independence," or the statute right to vote, by those who +have never dared to think or to act, yet it is wholesome to man to look, +not at Fate, but the other way: the practical view is the other. His sound +relation to these facts is to use and command, not to cringe to them. +"Look not on nature, for her name is fatal," said the oracle. The too much +contemplation of these limits induces meanness. They who talk much of +destiny, their birth-star, etc., are in a lower dangerous plane, and +invite the evils they fear. + +I cited the instinctive and heroic races as proud believers in Destiny. +They conspire with it; a loving resignation is with the event. But the +dogma makes a different impression, when it is held by the weak and lazy. +'Tis weak and vicious people who cast the blame on Fate. The right use of +Fate is to bring up our conduct to the loftiness of nature. Rude and +invincible except by themselves are the elements. So let man be. Let him +empty his breast of his windy conceits, and show his lordship by manners +and deeds on the scale of nature. Let him hold his purpose as with the tug +of gravitation. No power, no persuasion, no bribe shall make him give up +his point. A man ought to compare advantageously with a river, an oak, or +a mountain. He shall have not less the flow, the expansion, and the +resistance of these. + +'Tis the best use of Fate to teach a fatal courage. Go face the fire at +sea, or the cholera in your friend's house, or the burglar in your own, or +what danger lies in the way of duty, knowing you are guarded by the +cherubim of Destiny. If you believe in Fate to your harm, believe it, at +least, for your good. + +For, if Fate is so prevailing, man also is part of it, and can confront +fate with fate. If the Universe have these savage accidents, our atoms are +as savage in resistance. We should be crushed by the atmosphere, but for +the reaction of the air within the body. A tube made of a film of glass +can resist the shock of the ocean, if filled with the same water. If +there be omnipotence in the stroke, there is omnipotence of recoil. + +But Fate against Fate is only parrying and defense: there are, also, the +noble creative forces. The revelation of Thought takes man out of +servitude into freedom. We rightly say of ourselves, we were born, and +afterward we were born again, and many times. We have successive +experiences so important, that the new forgets the old, and hence the +mythology of the seven or the nine heavens. The day of days, the great day +of the feast of life, is that in which the inward eye opens to the Unity +in things, to the omnipresence of law--sees that what is must be, and +ought to be, or is the best. This beatitude dips from on high down to us, +and we see. It is not in us so much as we are in it. If the air come to +our lungs, we breathe and live; if not, we die. If the light come to our +eyes, we see; else not. And if truth come to our mind, we suddenly expand +to its dimensions, as if we grew to worlds. We are as lawgivers; we speak +for Nature; we prophesy and divine. + +This insight throws us on the party and interest of the Universe, against +all and sundry; against ourselves, as much as others. A man speaking from +insight affirms of himself what is true of the mind: seeing its +immortality, he says, I am immortal; seeing its invincibility, he says, I +am strong. It is not in us, but we are in it. It is of the maker, not of +what is made. All things are touched and changed by it. This uses, and is +not used. It distances those who share it, from those who share it not. +Those who share it not are flocks and herds. It dates from itself; not +from former men or better men--gospel, or constitution, or college, or +custom. Where it shines, Nature is no longer intrusive, but all things +make a musical or pictorial impression. The world of men show like a +comedy without laughter:--populations, interests, government, +history;--'tis all toy figures in a toy house. It does not overvalue +particular truths. We hear eagerly every thought and word quoted from an +intellectual man. But, in his presence, our own mind is roused to +activity, and we forget very fast what he says, much more interested in +the new play of our own thought, than in any thought of his. 'Tis the +majesty into which we have suddenly mounted, the impersonality, the scorn +of egotisms, the sphere of laws, that engage us. Once we were stepping a +little this way, and a little that way; now, we are as men in a balloon, +and do not think so much of the point we have left, or the point we would +make, as of the liberty and glory of the way. + +Just as much intellect as you add, so much organic power. He who sees +through the design, presides over it, and must will that which must be. We +sit and rule, and, though we sleep, our dream will come to pass. Our +thought, though it were only an hour old, affirms an oldest necessity, not +to be separated from thought, and not to be separated from will. They must +always have coexisted. It apprises us of its sovereignty and godhead, +which refuse to be severed from it. It is not mine or thine, but the will +of all mind. It is poured into the souls of all men, as the soul itself +which constitutes them men. I know not whether there be, as is alleged, in +the upper region of our atmosphere, a permanent westerly current, which +carries with it all atoms which rise to that height; but I see that, when +souls reach a certain clearness of perception, they accept a knowledge and +motive above selfishness. A breath of will blows eternally through the +universe of souls in the direction of the Right and Necessary. It is the +air which all intellects inhale and exhale, and it is the wind which blows +the worlds into order and orbit. + +Thought dissolves the material universe, by carrying the mind up into a +sphere where all is plastic. Of two men, each obeying his own thought, he +whose thought is deepest will be the strongest character. Always one man +more than another represents the will of Divine Providence to the period. + +If thought makes free, so does the moral sentiment. The mixtures of +spiritual chemistry refuse to be analyzed. Yet we can see that with the +perception of truth is joined the desire that it shall prevail. That +affection is essential to will. Moreover, when a strong will appears, it +usually results from a certain unity of organization, as if the whole +energy of body and mind flowed in one direction. All great force is real +and elemental. There is no manufacturing a strong will. There must be a +pound to balance a pound. Where power is shown in will, it must rest on +the universal force. Alaric and Bonaparte must believe they rest on a +truth, or their will can be bought or bent. There is a bribe possible for +any finite will. But the pure sympathy with universal ends is an infinite +force, and cannot be bribed or bent. Whoever has had experience of the +moral sentiment cannot choose but believe in unlimited power. Each pulse +from that heart is an oath from the Most High. I know not what the word +_sublime_ means, if it be not the intimations in this infant of a terrific +force. A text of heroism, a name and anecdote of courage, are not +arguments, but sallies of freedom. One of these is the verse of the +Persian Hafiz, "'Tis written on the gate of Heaven, 'Woe unto him who +suffers himself to be betrayed by Fate!'" Does the reading of history make +us fatalists? What courage does not the opposite opinion show! A little +whim of will to be free gallantly contending against the universe of +chemistry. + +But insight is not will, nor is affection will. Perception is cold, and +goodness dies in wishes; as Voltaire said, 'tis the misfortune of worthy +people that they are cowards; "_un des plus grands malheurs des honnętes +gens c'est qu'ils sont des lâches_." There must be a fusion of these two +to generate the energy of will. There can be no driving force, except +through the conversion of the man into his will, making him the will, and +the will him. And one may say boldly, that no man has a right perception +of any truth, who has not been reacted on by it, so as to be ready to be +its martyr. + +The one serious and formidable thing in nature is a will. Society is +servile from want of will, and therefore the world wants saviours and +religions. One way is right to go: the hero sees it, and moves on that +aim, and has the world under him for root and support. He is to others as +the world. His approbation is honor; his dissent, infamy. The glance of +his eye has the force of sunbeams. A personal influence towers up in +memory only worthy, and we gladly forget numbers, money, climate, +gravitation, and the rest of Fate. + + * * * * * + +We can afford to allow the limitation, if we know it is the meter of the +growing man. We can stand against Fate, as children stand up against the +wall in their father's house, and notch their height from year to year. +But when the boy grows to man, and is master of the house, he pulls down +that wall, and builds a new and bigger. 'Tis only a question of time. +Every brave youth is in training to ride, and rule this dragon. His +science is to make weapons and wings of these passions and retarding +forces. Now whether, seeing these two things, fate and power, we are +permitted to believe in unity? The bulk of mankind believe in two gods. +They are under one dominion here in the house, as friend and parent, in +social circles, in letters, in art, in love, in religion: but in +mechanics, in dealing with steam and climate, in trade, in politics, they +think they come under another; and that it would be a practical blunder +to transfer the method and way of working of one sphere into the other. +What good, honest, generous men at home, will be wolves and foxes on +change! What pious men in the parlor will vote for what reprobates at the +polls! To a certain point, they believe themselves the care of a +Providence. But in a steamboat, in an epidemic, in war, they believe a +malignant energy rules. + +But relation and connection are not somewhere and sometimes, but +everywhere and always. The divine order does not stop where their sight +stops. The friendly power works on the same rules, in the next farm and +the next planet. But where they have not experience, they run against it, +and hurt themselves. Fate, then, is a name for facts not yet passed under +the fire of thought--for causes which are unpenetrated. + +But every jet of chaos which threatens to exterminate us is convertible by +intellect into wholesome force. Fate is unpenetrated causes. The water +drowns ship and sailor, like a grain of dust. But learn to swim, trim your +bark, and the wave which drowned it will be cloven by it, and carry it, +like its own foam, a plume and a power. The cold is inconsiderate of +persons, tingles your blood, freezes a man like a dew-drop. But learn to +skate, and the ice will give you a graceful, sweet, and poetic motion. The +cold will brace your limbs and brain to genius, and make you foremost men +of time. Cold and sea will train an imperial Saxon race, which nature +cannot bear to lose, and, after cooping it up for a thousand years in +yonder England, gives a hundred Englands, a hundred Mexicos. All the +bloods it shall absorb and domineer: and more than Mexicos--the secrets of +water and steam, the spasms of electricity, the ductility of metals, the +chariot of the air, the ruddered balloon, are awaiting you. + +The annual slaughter from typhus far exceeds that of war; but right +drainage destroys typhus. The plague in the sea-service from scurvy is +healed by lemon juice and other diets portable or procurable; the +depopulation by cholera and small-pox is ended by drainage and +vaccination; and every other pest is not less in the chain of cause and +effect, and may be fought off. And, whilst art draws out the venom, it +commonly extorts some benefits from the vanquished enemy. The mischievous +torrent is taught to drudge for man; the wild beasts he makes useful for +food, or dress, or labor; the chemic explosions are controlled like his +watch. These are now the steeds on which he rides. Man moves in all modes, +by legs of horses, by wings of wind, by steam, by gas of balloon, by +electricity, and stands on tiptoe threatening to hunt the eagle in his own +element. There is nothing he will not make his carrier. + +Steam was, till the other day, the devil which we dreaded. Every pot made +by any human potter or brazier had a hole in its cover, to let off the +enemy, lest he should lift pot and roof, and carry the house away. But the +Marquis of Worcester, Watt, and Fulton bethought themselves that where was +power was not devil, but was God; that it must be availed of, and not by +any means let off and wasted. Could he lift pots and roofs and houses so +handily? he was the workman they were in search of. He could be used to +lift away, chain, and compel other devils, far more reluctant and +dangerous, namely, cubic miles of earth, mountains, weight or resistance +of water, machinery, and the labors of all men in the world; and time he +shall lengthen, and shorten space. + +It has not fared much otherwise with higher kinds of steam. The opinion of +the million was the terror of the world, and it was attempted, either to +dissipate it, by amusing nations, or to pile it over with strata of +society--a layer of soldiers; over that, a layer of lords; and a king on +the top; with clamps and hoops of castles, garrisons, and police. But, +sometimes, the religious principle would get in, and burst the hoops, and +rive every mountain laid on top of it. The Fultons and Watts of politics, +believing in unity, saw that it was a power, and, by satisfying it (as +justice satisfies everybody), through a different disposition of +society,--grouping it on a level, instead of piling it into a +mountain,--they have contrived to make of this terror the most harmless +and energetic form of a State. + +Very odious, I confess, are the lessons of Fate. Who likes to have a +dapper phrenologist pronouncing on his fortunes? Who likes to believe that +he has hidden in his skull, spine, and pelvis, all the vices of a Saxon or +Celtic race, which will be sure to pull him down--with what grandeur of +hope and resolve he is fired--into a selfish, huckstering, servile, +dodging animal? A learned physician tells us, the fact is invariable with +the Neapolitan that, when mature, he assumes the forms of the unmistakable +scoundrel. That is a little overstated--but may pass. + +But these are magazines and arsenals. A man must thank his defects, and +stand in some terror of his talents. A transcendent talent draws so +largely on his forces, as to lame him; a defect pays him revenues on the +other side. The sufferance, which is the badge of the Jew, has made him, +in these days, the ruler of the rulers of the earth. If Fate is ore and +quarry, if evil is good in the making, if limitation is power that shall +be, if calamities, oppositions, and weights are wings and means--we are +reconciled. + +Fate involves the melioration. No statement of the universe can have any +soundness, which does not admit its ascending effort. The direction of the +whole, and of the parts, is toward benefit, and in proportion to the +health. Behind every individual closes organization: before him opens +liberty--the better, the best. The first and worst races are dead. The +second and imperfect races are dying out, or remain for the maturing of +higher. In the latest race, in man, every generosity, every new +perception, the love and praise he extorts from his fellows, are +certificates of advance out of fate into freedom. Liberation of the will +from the sheaths and clogs of organization which he has outgrown, is the +end and aim of this world. Every calamity is a spur and valuable hint; and +where his endeavors do not yet fully avail, they tell as tendency. The +whole circle of animal life,--tooth against tooth,--devouring war, war for +food, a yelp of pain and a grunt of triumph, until, at last, the whole +menagerie, the whole chemical mass, is mellowed and refined for higher +use--pleases at a sufficient perspective. + +But to see how fate slides into freedom, and freedom into fate, observe +how far the roots of every creature run, or find, if you can, a point +where there is no thread of connection. Our life is consentaneous and +far-related. This knot of nature is so well tied, that nobody was ever +cunning enough to find the two ends. Nature is intricate, overlapped, +inter-weaved, and endless. Christopher Wren said of the beautiful King's +College chapel, "that, if anybody would tell him where to lay the first +stone, he would build such another." But where shall we find the first +atom in this house of man, which is all consent, inosculation, and balance +of parts? + +The web of relation is shown in _habitat_, shown in hibernation. When +hibernation was observed, it was found, that, whilst some animals become +torpid in winter, others were torpid in summer: hibernation then was a +false name. The _long sleep_ is not an effect of cold, but is regulated by +the supply of food proper to the animal. It becomes torpid when the fruit +or prey it lives on is not in season, and regains its activity when its +food is ready. + +Eyes are found in light; ears in auricular air; feet on land; fins in +water; wings in air; and each creature where it was meant to be, with a +mutual fitness. Every zone has its own _Fauna_. There is adjustment +between the animal and its food, its parasite, its enemy. Balances are +kept. It is not allowed to diminish in numbers, nor to exceed. The like +adjustments exist for man. His food is cooked when he arrives; his coal in +the pit; the house ventilated; the mud of the deluge dried; his companions +arrived at the same hour, and awaiting him with love, concert, laughter, +and tears. These are coarse adjustments, but the invisible are not less. +There are more belongings to every creature than his air and his food. His +instincts must be met, and he has predisposing power that bends and fits +what is near him to his use. He is not possible until the invisible things +are right for him, as well as the visible. Of what changes, then, in sky +and earth, and in finer skies and earths, does the appearance of some +Dante or Columbus apprise us! + +How is this effected? Nature is no spendthrift, but takes the shortest way +to her ends. As the general says to his soldiers, "If you want a fort, +build a fort," so nature makes every creature do its own work and get its +living--is it planet, animal, or tree. The planet makes itself. The animal +cell makes itself; then, what it wants. Every creature--wren or +dragon--shall make its own lair. As soon as there is life, there is +self-direction, and absorbing and using of material. Life is freedom--life +in the direct ratio of its amount. You may be sure, the new-born man is +not inert. Life works both voluntarily and supernaturally in its +neighborhood. Do you suppose he can be estimated by his weight in pounds, +or that he is contained in his skin--this reaching, radiating, jaculating +fellow? The smallest candle fills a mile with its rays, and the papillć +of a man run out to every star. + +When there is something to be done, the world knows how to get it done. +The vegetable eye makes leaf, pericarp, root, bark, or thorn, as the need +is; the first cell converts itself into stomach, mouth, nose, or nail, +according to the want; the world throws its life into a hero or a +shepherd, and puts him where he is wanted. Dante and Columbus were +Italians in their time: they would be Russians or Americans to-day. Things +ripen, new men come. The adaptation is not capricious. The ulterior aim, +the purpose beyond itself, the correlation by which planets subside and +crystallize, then animate beasts and men, will not stop, but will work +into finer particulars, and from finer to finest. + +The secret of the world is, the tie between person and event. Person makes +event and event person. The "times," "the age," what is that, but a few +profound persons and a few active persons who epitomize the +times?--Goethe, Hegel, Metternich, Adams, Calhoun, Guizot, Peel, Cobden, +Kossuth, Rothschild, Astor, Brunel, and the rest. The same fitness must be +presumed between a man and the time and event, as between the sexes, or +between a race of animals and the food it eats, or the inferior races it +uses. He thinks his fate alien, because the copula is hidden. But the soul +contains the event that shall befall it, for the event is only the +actualization of its thoughts; and what we pray to ourselves for is always +granted. The event is the print of your form. It fits you like your skin. +What each does is proper to him. Events are the children of his body and +mind. We learn that the soul of Fate is the soul of us, as Hafiz sings-- + + Alas! till now I had not known, + My guide and fortune's guide are one. + +All the toys that infatuate men, and which they play for,--houses, land, +money, luxury, power, fame,--are the self-same thing, with a new gauze or +two of illusion overlaid. And of all the drums and rattles by which men +are made willing to have their heads broke, and are led out solemnly every +morning to parade, the most admirable is this by which we are brought to +believe that events are arbitrary, and independent of actions. At the +conjurer's we detect the hair by which he moves his puppet, but we have +not eyes sharp enough to descry the thread that ties cause and effect. + +Nature magically suits the man to his fortunes, by making these the fruit +of his character. Ducks take to the water, eagles to the sky, waders to +the sea margin, hunters to the forest, clerks to counting-rooms, soldiers +to the frontier. Thus events grow on the same stem with persons; are +sub-persons. The pleasure of life is according to the man that lives it, +and not according to the work or the place. Life is an ecstasy. We know +what madness belongs to love--what power to paint a vile object in hues of +heaven. As insane persons are indifferent to their dress, diet, and other +accommodations, and, as we do in dreams, with equanimity, the most absurd +acts, so, a drop more of wine in our cup of life will reconcile us to +strange company and work. Each creature puts forth from itself its own +condition and sphere, as the slug sweats out its slimy house on the +pear-leaf, and the woolly aphides on the apple perspire their own bed, and +the fish its shell. In youth, we clothe ourselves with rainbows, and go as +brave as the zodiac. In age, we put out another sort of +perspiration--gout, fever, rheumatism, caprice, doubt, fretting, and +avarice. + +A man's fortunes are the fruit of his character. A man's friends are his +magnetisms. We go to Herodotus and Plutarch for examples of Fate; but we +are examples. "_Quisque suos patimur manes._" The tendency of every man to +enact all that is in his constitution is expressed in the old belief, that +the efforts which we make to escape from our destiny only serve to lead us +into it; and I have noticed, a man likes better to be complimented on his +position, as the proof of the last or total excellence, than on his +merits. + +A man will see his character emitted in the events that seem to meet, but +which exude from and accompany him. Events expand with the character. As +once he found himself among toys, so now he plays a part in colossal +systems, and his growth is declared in his ambition, his companions, and +his performance. He looks like a piece of luck, but is a piece of +causation--the mosaic, angulated and ground to fit into the gap he fills. +Hence in each town there is some man who is, in his brain and performance, +an explanation of the tillage, production, factories, banks, churches, +ways of living, and society, of that town. If you do not chance to meet +him, all that you see will leave you a little puzzled: if you see him, it +will become plain. We know in Massachusetts who built New Bedford, who +built Lynn, Lowell, Lawrence, Clinton, Fitchburg, Holyoke, Portland, and +many another noisy mart. Each of these men, if they were transparent, +would seem to you not so much men, as walking cities, and, wherever you +put them, they would build one. + +History is the action and reaction of these two,--Nature and Thought,--two +boys pushing each other on the curbstone of the pavement. Everything is +pusher or pushed: and matter and mind are in perpetual tilt and balance +so. Whilst the man is weak, the earth takes him up. He plants his brain +and affections. By-and-by he will take up the earth, and have his gardens +and vineyards in the beautiful order and productiveness of his thought. +Every solid in the universe is ready to become fluid on the approach of +the mind, and the power to flux it is the measure of the mind. If the wall +remain adamant, it accuses the want of thought. To a subtler force, it +will stream into new forms, expressive of the character of the mind. + +What is the city in which we sit here, but an aggregate of incongruous +materials, which have obeyed the will of some man? The granite was +reluctant, but his hands were stronger, and it came. Iron was deep in the +ground, and well combined with stone, but could not hide from his fires. +Wood, lime, stuffs, fruits, gums, were dispersed over the earth and sea, +in vain. Here they are, within the reach of every man's day-labor--what he +wants of them. + +The whole world is the flux of matter over the wires of thought to the +poles or points where it would build. The races of men rise out of the +ground preoccupied with a thought which rules them, and divided into +parties ready armed and angry to fight for this metaphysical abstraction. +The quality of the thought differences the Egyptian and the Roman, the +Austrian and the American. The men who come on the stage at one period are +all found to be related to each other. Certain ideas are in the air. We +are all impressionable, for we are made of them; all impressionable, but +some more than others, and these first express them. This explains the +curious contemporaneousness of inventions and discoveries. The truth is in +the air, and the most impressionable brain will announce it first, but all +will announce it a few minutes later. So women, as most susceptible, are +the best index of the coming hour. So the great man, that is, the man most +imbued with the spirit of the time, is the impressionable man--of a fibre +irritable and delicate, like iodine to light. He feels the infinitesimal +attractions. His mind is righter than others, because he yields to a +current so feeble as can be felt only by a needle delicately poised. + +The correlation is shown in defects. Möller, in his "Essay on +Architecture," taught that the building which was fitted accurately to +answer its end would turn out to be beautiful, though beauty had not been +intended. I find the like unity in human structures rather virulent and +pervasive: that a crudity in the blood will appear in the argument; a hump +in the shoulder will appear in the speech and handiwork. If his mind could +be seen, the hump would be seen. If a man has a seesaw in his voice, it +will run into his sentences, into his poem, into the structure of his +fable, into his speculation, into his charity. And, as every man is hunted +by his own dćmon, vexed by his own disease, this checks all his activity. + +So each man, like each plant, has his parasites. A strong, astringent, +bilious nature, has more truculent enemies than the slugs and moths that +fret my leaves. Such an one has curculios, borers, knife-worms: a swindler +ate him first, then a client, then a quack, then a smooth, plausible +gentleman, bitter and selfish as Moloch. + +This correlation really existing can be divined. If the threads are there, +thought can follow and show them. Especially when a soul is quick and +docile; as Chaucer sings,-- + + Or if the soul of proper kind + Be so perfect as men find, + That it wot what is to come, + And that he warneth all and some, + Of every of their aventures, + By previsions or figures; + But that our flesh hath not might + It to understand aright, + For it is warned too darkly. + +Some people are made up of rhyme, coincidence, omen, periodicity, and +presage: they meet the person they seek: what their companion prepares to +say to them, they first say to him; and a hundred signs apprise them of +what is about to befall. + +Wonderful intricacy in the web, wonderful constancy in the design, this +vagabond life admits. We wonder how the fly finds its mate, and yet year +after year we find two men, two women, without legal or carnal tie, spend +a great part of their best time within a few feet of each other. And the +moral is, that what we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from +us; as Goethe said, "what we wish for in youth, comes in heaps on us in +old age," too often cursed with the granting of our prayer; and hence the +high caution, that, since we are sure of having what we wish, we beware to +ask only for high things. + +One key, one solution to the mysteries of human condition, one solution to +the old knots of fate, freedom, and foreknowledge, exists, the +propounding, namely, of the double consciousness. A man must ride +alternately on the horses of his private and his public nature, as the +equestrians in the circus throw themselves nimbly from horse to horse, or +plant one foot on the back of one, and the other foot on the back of the +other. So when a man is the victim of his fate, has sciatica in his loins, +and cramp in his mind; a club-foot and a club in his wit; a sour face, and +a selfish temper; a strut in his gait, and a conceit in his affection; or +is ground to powder by the vice of his race; he is to rally on his +relation to the universe which his ruin benefits. Leaving the dćmon who +suffers, he is to take sides with the Deity who secures universal benefit +by his pain. + +To offset the drag of temperament and race, which pulls down, learn this +lesson--namely, that by the cunning co-presence of two elements, which is +throughout nature, whatever lames or paralyzes you draws in with it the +divinity, in some form, to repay. A good intention clothes itself with +sudden power. When a god wishes to ride, any chip or pebble will bud and +shoot out winged feet, and serve him for a horse. + +Let us build altars to the Blessed Unity which holds nature and souls in +perfect solution, and compels every atom to serve an universal end. I do +not wonder at a snow-flake, a shell, a summer landscape, or the glory of +the stars; but at the necessity of beauty under which the universe lies; +that all is and must be pictorial; that the rainbow, and the curve of the +horizon, and the arch of the blue vault, are only results from the +organism of the eye. There is no need for foolish amateurs to fetch me to +admire a garden of flowers, or a sun-gilt cloud, or a waterfall, when I +cannot look without seeing splendor and grace. How idle to choose a random +sparkle here or there, when the indwelling necessity plants the rose of +beauty on the brow of chaos, and discloses the central intention of nature +to be harmony and joy. + +Let us build altars to the Beautiful Necessity. If we thought men were +free in the sense that in a single exception one fantastical will could +prevail over the law of things, it were all one as if a child's hand could +pull down the sun. If, in the least particular, one could derange the +order of nature--who would accept the gift of life? + +Let us build altars to the Beautiful Necessity, which secures that all is +made of one piece; that plaintiff and defendant, friend and enemy, animal +and planet, food and eater, are of one kind. In astronomy is vast space, +but no foreign system; in geology, vast time, but the same laws as to-day. +Why should we be afraid of nature, which is no other than "philosophy and +theology embodied"? Why should we fear to be crushed by savage elements, +we who are made up of the same elements? Let us build to the Beautiful +Necessity, which makes man brave in believing that he cannot shun a danger +that is appointed, nor incur one that is not; to the Necessity which +rudely or softly educates him to the perception that there are no +contingencies; that Law rules throughout existence, a Law which is not +intelligent but intelligence,--not personal nor impersonal,--it disdains +words and passes understanding; it dissolves persons; it vivifies nature, +yet solicits the pure in heart to draw on all its omnipotence. + + + + +WALT WHITMAN + + +SONG OF THE OPEN ROAD + + I + + Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, + Healthy, free, the world before me, + The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose. + + Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good fortune, + Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing, + Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms, + Strong and content I travel the open road. + + The earth, that is sufficient, + I do not want the constellations any nearer, + I know they are very well where they are, + I know they suffice for those who belong to them. + + (Still here I carry my old delicious burdens, + I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go, + I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them, + I am fill'd with them, and I will fill them in return.) + + II + + You road I enter upon and look around, I believe you are not all that is + here, + I believe that much unseen is also here. + Here the profound lesson of reception, nor preference nor denial, + The black with his woolly head, the felon, the diseas'd, the illiterate + person, are not denied; + The birth, the hasting after the physician, the beggar's tramp, the + drunkard's stagger, the laughing party of mechanics, + The escap'd youth, the rich person's carriage, the fop, the eloping + couple. + The early market-man, the hearse, the moving of furniture into the town, + the return back from the town, + They pass, I also pass, anything passes, none can be interdicted, + None but are accepted, none but shall be dear to me. + + III + + You air that serves me with breath to speak! + You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give them shape! + You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers! + You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides! + I believe you are latent with unseen existences, you are so dear to me. + + You flagg'd walks of the cities! you strong curbs at the edges! + You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you timber-lin'd sides! + you distant ships! + You rows of houses! you window-pierc'd façades! you roofs! + You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards! + You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much! + You doors and ascending steps! you arches! + You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings! + From all that has touch'd you I believe you have imparted to yourselves, + and now would impart the same secretly to me, + From the living and the dead you have peopled your impassive surfaces, + and the spirits thereof would be evident and amicable with me. + + IV + + The earth expanding right hand and left hand, + The picture alive, every part in its best light, + The music falling in where it is wanted, and stopping where it is not + wanted, + The cheerful voice of the public road, the gay fresh sentiment of the + road. + + O highway I travel, do you say to me, _Do not leave me_? + Do you say, _Venture not--if you leave me you are lost_? + Do you say, _I am already prepared, I am well-beaten and undenied, + adhere to me_? + + O public road, I say back I am not afraid to leave you, yet I love you, + You express me better than I can express myself, + You shall be more to me than my poem. + + I think heroic deeds were all conceiv'd in the open air, and all free + poems also, + I think I could stop here myself and do miracles, + I think whatever I shall meet on the road I shall like, and whoever + beholds me shall like me. + I think whoever I see must be happy. + + V + + From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines, + Going where I list, my own master total and absolute, + Listening to others, considering well what they say, + Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, + Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that + would hold me. + + I inhale great draughts of space, + The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine. + + I am larger, better than I thought, + I did not know I held so much goodness. + + All seems beautiful to me, + I can repeat over to men and women, You have done such good to me I + would do the same to you, + I will recruit for myself and you as I go, + I will scatter myself among men and women as I go, + I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them, + Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me, + Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me. + + VI + + Now if a thousand perfect men were to appear it would not amaze me, + Now if a thousand beautiful forms of women appear'd it would not + astonish me. + + Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons, + It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth. + + Here a great personal deed has room + (Such a deed seizes upon the hearts of the whole race of men, + Its effusion of strength and will overwhelms law and mocks all authority + and all argument against it). + + Here is the test of wisdom, + Wisdom is not finally tested in schools, + Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having it to another not having it, + Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof, + Applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content, + Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the + excellence of things; + Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it + out of the soul. + + Now I reëxamine philosophies and religions, + They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all under the + spacious clouds and along the landscape and flowing currents. + Here is realization, + Here is a man tallied--he realizes here what he has in him, + The past, the future, majesty, love--if they are vacant of you, you are + vacant of them. + + Only the kernel of every object nourishes; + Where is he who tears off the husks for you and me? + Where is he that undoes stratagems and envelopes for you and me? + + Here is adhesiveness, it is not previously fashion'd, it is apropos; + Do you know what it is as you pass to be loved by strangers? + Do you know the talk of those turning eye-balls? + + VII + + Here is the efflux of the soul, + The efflux of the soul comes from within through embower'd gates, ever + provoking questions, + These yearnings why are they? these thoughts in the darkness why are + they? + Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the sunlight + expands my blood? + Why when they leave me do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank? + Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts + descend upon me? + (I think they hang there winter and summer on those trees and always + drop fruit as I pass.) + What is it I interchange so suddenly with strangers? + What with some driver as I ride on the seat by his side? + What with some fisherman drawing his seine by the shore as I walk by and + pause? + What gives me to be free to a woman's and man's good-will? what gives + them to be free to mine? + + VIII + + The efflux of the soul is happiness, here is happiness, + I think it pervades the open air, waiting at all times, + Now it flows unto us, we are rightly charged. + + Here rises the fluid and attaching character, + The fluid and attaching character is the freshness and sweetness of man + and woman + (The herbs of the morning sprout no fresher and sweeter every day out of + the roots of themselves, than it sprouts fresh and sweet continually + out of itself). + Toward the fluid and attaching character exudes the sweat of the love of + young and old, + From it falls distill'd the charm that mocks beauty and attainments, + Toward it heaves the shuddering, longing ache of contact. + + IX + + Allons! whoever you are, come travel with me! + Traveling with me you find what never tires. + + The earth never tires, + The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first, Nature is rude and + incomprehensible at first. + Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well envelop'd, + I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can + tell. + + Allons! we must not stop here, + However sweet these laid-up stores, however convenient this dwelling, we + cannot remain here, + However shelter'd this port and however calm these waters we must not + anchor here, + However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us we are permitted to + receive it but a little while. + + X + + Allons! the inducements shall be greater, + We will sail pathless and wild seas, + We will go where winds blow, waves dash, and the Yankee clipper speeds + by under full sail. + + Allons! with power, liberty, the earth, the elements, + Health, defiance, gayety, self-esteem, curiosity; + Allons! from all formules! + From your formules, O bat-eyed and materialistic priests. + + The stale cadaver blocks up the passage--the burial waits no longer. + + Allons! yet take warning! + He traveling with me needs the best blood, thews, endurance, + None may come to the trial till he or she bring courage and health, + Come not here if you have already spent the best of yourself, + Only those may come who come in sweet and determin'd bodies, + No diseas'd person, no rum-drinker or venereal taint is permitted here. + (I and mine do not convince by arguments, similes, rhymes, + We convince by our presence.) + + XI + + Listen! I will be honest with you, + I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes, + These are the days that must happen to you: + You shall not heap up what is call'd riches, + You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve, + You but arrive at the city to which you were destin'd, you hardly + settle yourself to satisfaction before you are call'd by an + irresistible call to depart, + You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of those who + remain behind you, + What beckonings of love you receive you shall only answer with + passionate kisses of parting, + You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their reach'd hands + toward you. + + XII + + Allons! after the great Companions, and to belong to them! + They too are on the road--they are the swift and majestic men--they are + the greatest women, + Enjoyers of calms of seas and storms of seas, + Sailors of many a ship, walkers of many a mile of land, + Habitués of many distant countries, habitués of far-distant dwellings, + Trusters of men and women, observers of cities, solitary toilers, + Pausers and contemplators of tufts, blossoms, shells of the shore, + Dancers at wedding-dances, kissers of brides, tender helpers of + children, bearers of children, + Soldiers of revolts, standers by gaping graves, lowerers-down of + coffins, + Journeyers over consecutive seasons, over the years, the curious years + each emerging from that which preceded it, + Journeyers as with companions, namely their own diverse phases, + Forth-steppers from the latent unrealized baby-days, + Journeyers gayly with their own youth, journeyers with their bearded and + well-grain'd manhood, + Journeyers with their womanhood, ample, unsurpass'd, content, + Journeyers with their own sublime old age of manhood or womanhood, + Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe, + Old age, flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death. + + XIII + + Allons! to that which is endless as it was beginningless, + To undergo much, tramps of days, rests of nights, + To merge all in the travel they tend to, and the days and nights they + tend to, + Again to merge them in the start of superior journeys, + To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and pass it, + To conceive no time, however distant, but what you may reach it and pass + it, + To look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for you, however + long but it stretches and waits for you, + To see no being, not God's or any, but you also go thither, + To see no possession but you may possess it, enjoying all without labor + or purchase, abstracting the feast yet not abstracting one particle + of it, + To take the best of the farmer's farm and the rich man's elegant villa, + and the chaste blessings of the well-married couple, and the fruits + of orchards and flowers of gardens, + To take to your use out of the compact cities as you pass through, + To carry buildings and streets with you afterward where-ever you go, + To gather the minds of men out of their brains as you encounter them, to + gather the love out of their hearts, + To take your lovers on the road with you, for all that you leave them + behind you, + To know the universe itself as a road, as many roads, as roads for + traveling souls. + + All parts away for the progress of souls, + All religion, all solid things, arts, governments--all that was or is + apparent upon this globe or any globe, falls into niches and corners + before the procession of souls along the grand roads of the universe. + + Of the progress of the souls of men and women along the grand roads of + the universe, all other progress is the needed emblem and + sustenance. + + Forever alive, forever forward, + Stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, baffled, mad, turbulent, feeble, + dissatisfied, + Desperate, proud, fond, sick, accepted by men, rejected by men, + They go! they go! I know that they go, but I know not where they go, + But I know that they go toward the best--toward something great. + + Whoever you are, come forth! or man or woman come forth! + You must not stay sleeping and dallying there in the house, though + you built it, or though it has been built for you. + Out of the dark confinement! out from behind the screen! + It is useless to protest, I know all and expose it. + + Behold through you as bad as the rest, + Through the laughter, dancing, dining, supping of people, + Inside of dresses and ornaments, inside of those wash'd and trimm'd + faces, + Behold a secret silent loathing and despair. + + No husband, no wife, no friend, trusted to hear the confession, + Another self, a duplicate of every one, skulking and hiding it goes, + Formless and wordless through the streets of the cities, polite and + bland in the parlors, + In the cars of railroads, in steamboats, in the public assembly, + Home to the houses of men and women, at the table, in the bedroom, + everywhere, + Smartly attired, countenance smiling, form upright, death under the + breast-bones, hell under the skull-bones, + Under the broadcloth and gloves, under the ribbons and artificial + flowers, + Keeping fair with the customs, speaking not a syllable of itself, + Speaking of anything else but never of itself. + + XIV + + Allons! through struggles and wars! + The goal that was named cannot be countermanded. + + Have the past struggles succeeded? + What has succeeded? yourself? your nation? Nature? + Now understand me well--it is provided in the essence of things that + from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth + something to make a greater struggle necessary. + + My call is the call of battle, I nourish active rebellion, + He going with me must go well arm'd, + He going with me goes often with spare diet, poverty, angry enemies, + desertions. + + XV + + Allons! the road is before us! + It is safe--I have tried it--my own feet have tried it well--be not + detain'd! + Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf + unopen'd! + Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn'd! + Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher! + Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the + court, and the judge expound the law. + + Camerado, I give you my hand! + I give you my love more precious than money, + I give you myself before preaching or law; + Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me? + Shall we stick by each other as long as we live? + + +CROSSING BROOKLYN FERRY + + I + + Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face! + Clouds of the west--sun there half an hour high--I see you also face + to face. + + Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you + are to me! + On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, + are more curious to me than you suppose, + And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, + and more in my meditations, than you might suppose. + + II + + The impalpable sustenance of me from all things at all hours of the day, + The simple, compact, well-join'd scheme, myself disintegrated, everyone + disintegrated yet part of the scheme, + The similitudes of the past and those of the future, + The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings, on the + walk in the street and the passage over the river, + The current rushing so swiftly and swimming with me far away, + The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them, + The certainty of others, the life, love, sight, hearing of others. + Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross from shore to shore, + Others will watch the run of the flood-tide, + Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the + heights of Brooklyn to the south and east, + Others will see the islands large and small; + Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an + hour high, + A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will + see them, + Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the + falling-back to the sea of the ebb-tide. + + III + + It avails not, time nor place--distance avails not, + I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many + generations hence, + Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt, + Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd, + Just as you are refresh'd by the gladness of the river and the bright + flow, I was refresh'd, + Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift + current, I stood yet was hurried, + Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the thick-stemm'd + pipes of steamboats, I look'd. + + I too many and many a time cross'd the river of old, + Watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls, saw them high in the air floating + with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies, + Saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies and left the + rest in strong shadow, + Saw the slow-wheeling circles and the gradual edging toward the south, + Saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water, + Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams, + Look'd at the fine centrifugal spokes of light round the shape of my + head in the sunlit water, + Look'd on the haze on the hills southward and south-westward, + Look'd on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet, + Look'd toward the lower bay to notice the vessels arriving, + Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me, + Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops, saw the ships at anchor, + The sailors at work in the rigging or out astride the spars, + The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender + serpentine pennants, + The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their + pilot-houses, + The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of the + wheels, + The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sunset, + The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the + frolicsome crests and glistening, + The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the gray walls of the + granite storehouses by the docks, + On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flank'd on + each side by the barges, the hay-boat, the belated lighter, + On the neighboring shore the fires from the foundry chimneys burning + high and glaringly into the night, + Casting their flicker of black contrasted with wild red and yellow + light over the tops of houses, and down into the clefts of streets. + + IV + + These and all else were to me the same as they are to you, + I loved well those cities, loved well the stately and rapid river, + The men and women I saw were all near to me, + Others the same--others who look back on me because I look'd forward + to them + (The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night). + + V + + What is it then between us? + What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us? + + Whatever it is, it avails not--distance avails not, and place avails + not, + I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine, + I too walk'd the streets of Manhattan Island, and bathed in the waters + around it, + I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me, + In the day among crowds of people sometimes they came upon me, + In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my bed they came upon me, + I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution, + I too had receiv'd identity by my body, + That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be + I knew I should be of my body. + + VI + + It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall, + The dark threw its patches down upon me also, + The best I had done seem'd to me blank and suspicious, + My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre? + Nor is it you alone who know what it is to be evil, + I am he who knew what it was to be evil, + I too knitted the old knot of contrariety, + Blabb'd, blush'd, resented, lied, stole, grudg'd, + Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak, + Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant, + The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me, + The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not wanting, + Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these + wanting, + Was one with the rest, the days and haps of the rest, + Was call'd by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as they + saw me approaching or passing, + Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of their + flesh against me as I sat, + Saw many I lov'd in the street or ferry-boat or public assembly, yet + never told them a word, + Liv'd the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing, + sleeping, + Play'd the part that still looks back on the actor or actress, + The same old rôle, the rôle that is what we make it, as great as we + like, + Or as small as we like, or both great and small. + + VII + + Closer yet I approach you, + What thought you have of me now, I had as much of you--I laid in my + stores in advance, + I consider'd long and seriously of you before you were born. + + Who was to know what should come home to me? + Who knows but I am enjoying this? + Who knows, for all the distance, but I am as good as looking at you now, + for all you cannot see me? + + VIII + + Ah, what can ever be more stately and admirable to me than mast-hemm'd + Manhattan? + River and sunset and scallop-edg'd waves of flood-tide? + The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the twilight, + and the belated lighter? + + What gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and with voices I + love call me promptly and loudly by my nighest name as I approach? + What is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that + looks in my face? + Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you? + + We understand then, do we not? + What I promis'd without mentioning it, have you not accepted? + What the study could not teach--what the preaching could not accomplish + is accomplish'd, is it not? + + IX + + Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide! + Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg'd waves! + Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor me, or the men + and women generations after me! + Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers! + Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! stand up, beautiful hills of + Brooklyn! + Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers! + Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution! + Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house or street or public + assembly! + Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically call me by my + nighest name! + Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress! + Play the old rôle, the rôle that is great or small according as one + makes it! + Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be + looking upon you; + Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet haste + with the hasting current; + Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the + air; + Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold it till all + downcast eyes have time to take it from you! + Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or anyone's + head, in the sunlit water! + Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sail'd + schooners, sloops, lighters! + Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lower'd at sunset! + Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at nightfall! + cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses! + Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are, + You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul, + About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung our divinest + aromas, + Thrive, cities--bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and + sufficient rivers, + Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual, + Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting. + + You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers, + We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate henceforward, + Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves from + us, + We use you, and do not cast you aside--we plant you permanently within + us, + We fathom you not--we love you--there is perfection in you also, + You furnish your parts toward eternity, + Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul. + + +A SONG OF JOYS + + O to make the most jubilant song! + Full of music--full of manhood, womanhood, infancy! + Full of common employments--full of grain and trees. + + O for the voices of animals--O for the swiftness and balance of fishes! + O for the dropping of raindrops in a song! + O for the sunshine and motion of waves in a song! + + O for the joy of my spirit--it is uncaged--it darts like lightning! + It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time, + I will have thousands of globes and all time. + + O the engineer's joys! to go with a locomotive! + To hear the hiss of steam, the merry shriek, the steam-whistle, the + laughing locomotive! + To push with resistless way and speed off in the distance. + + O the gleesome saunter over fields and hillsides! + The leaves and flowers of the commonest weeds, the moist fresh stillness + of the woods, + The exquisite smell of the earth at daybreak, and all through the + forenoon. + + O the horseman's and horsewoman's joys! + The saddle, the gallop, the pressure upon the seat, the cool gurgling by + the ears and hair. + + O the fireman's joys! + I hear the alarm at dead of night, + I hear bells, shouts! I pass the crowd, I run! + The sight of the flames maddens me with pleasure. + + O the joy of the strong-brawn'd fighter, towering in the arena in + perfect condition, conscious of power, thirsting to meet his + opponent. + O the joy of that vast elemental sympathy which only the human soul is + capable of generating and emitting in steady and limitless floods. + + O the mother's joys! + The watching, the endurance, the precious love, the anguish, the + patiently yielded life. + + O the joy of increase, growth, recuperation, + The joy of soothing and pacifying, the joy of concord and harmony. + + O to go back to the place where I was born, + To hear the birds sing once more, + To ramble about the house and barn and over the fields once more, + And through the orchard and along the old lanes once more. + + O to have been brought up on bays, lagoons, creeks, or along the coast, + To continue and be employ'd there all my life, + The briny and damp smell, the shore, the salt weeds exposed at low + water, + The work of fishermen, the work of the eel-fisher and clam-fisher; + I come with my clam-rake and spade, I come with my eel-spear. + Is the tide out? I join the group of clam-diggers on the flats, + I laugh and work with them, I joke at my work like a mettlesome young + man; + In winter I take my eel-basket and eel-spear and travel out on foot on + the ice--I have a small axe to cut holes in the ice, + Behold me well-clothed going gayly or returning in the afternoon, my + brood of tough boys accompanying me, + My brood of grown and part-grown boys, who love to be with no one else + so well as they love to be with me. + + Another time in warm weather out in a boat, to lift the lobster-pots + where they are sunk with heavy stones (I know the buoys), + O the sweetness of the Fifth-month morning upon the water as I row just + before sunrise toward the buoys, + I pull the wicker pots up slantingly, the dark green lobsters are + desperate with their claws as I take them out, I insert wooden + pegs in the joints of their pincers, + I go to all the places one after another, and then row back to the + shore, + There in a huge kettle of boiling water the lobsters shall be boil'd + till their color becomes scarlet. + + Another time mackerel-taking, + Voracious, mad for the hook, near the surface, they seem to fill the + water for miles; + Another time fishing for rock-fish in Chesapeake bay, I one of the + brown-faced crew; + Another time trailing for blue-fish off Paumanok, I stand with braced + body, + My left foot is on the gunwale, my right arm throws far out the coils + of slender rope, + In sight around me the quick veering and darting of fifty skiffs, my + companions. + + O boat on the rivers, + The voyage down the St. Lawrence, the superb scenery, the steamers, + The ships sailing, the Thousand Islands, the occasional timber-raft and + the raftsmen with long-reaching sweep-oars, + The little huts on the rafts, and the stream of smoke when they cook + supper at evening. + + (O something pernicious and dread! + Something far away from a puny and pious life! + Something unproved! something in a trance! + Something escaped from the anchorage and driving free.) + + O to work in mines, or forging iron, + Foundry casting, the foundry itself, the rude high roof, the ample and + shadow'd space, + The furnace, the hot liquid pour'd out and running. + + O to resume the joys of the soldier! + To feel the presence of a brave commanding officer--to feel his + sympathy! + To behold his calmness--to be warm'd in the rays of his smile! + To go to battle--to hear the bugles play and the drums beat! + To hear the crash of artillery--to see the glittering of the bayonets + and musket-barrels in the sun! + To see men fall and die and not complain! + To taste the savage taste of blood--to be so devilish! + To gloat so over the wounds and deaths of the enemy. + + O the whaleman's joys! O I cruise my old cruise again! + I feel the ship's motion under me, I feel the Atlantic breezes fanning + me, + I hear the cry again sent down from the mast-head, _There--she blows!_ + Again I spring up the rigging to look with the rest--we descend, wild + with excitement, + I leap in the lower'd boat, we row toward our prey where he lies, + We approach stealthy and silent, I see the mountainous mass, lethargic, + basking, + I see the harpooneer standing up, I see the weapon dart from his + vigorous arm; + O swift again far out in the ocean the wounded whale, settling, running + to windward, tows me, + Again I see him rise to breathe, we now close again, + I see a lance driven through his side, press'd deep, turn'd in the + wound, + Again we back off, I see him settle again, the life is leaving him fast, + As he rises he spouts blood, I see him swim in circles narrower and + narrower, swiftly cutting the water--I see him die, + He gives one convulsive leap in the centre of the circle, and then falls + flat and still in the bloody foam. + + O the old manhood of me, my noblest joy of all! + My children and grand-children, my white hair and beard, + My largeness, calmness, majesty, out of the long stretch of my life. + + O ripen'd joy of womanhood! O happiness at last! + I am more than eighty years of age, I am the most venerable mother, + How clear is my mind--how all people draw nigh to me! + What attractions are these beyond any before? what bloom more than the + bloom of youth? + What beauty is this that descends upon me and rises out of me? + + O the orator's joys! + To inflate the chest, to roll the thunder of the voice out from the + ribs and throat, + To make the people rage, weep, hate, desire, with yourself, + To lead America--to quell America with a great tongue. + + O the joy of my soul leaning pois'd on itself, receiving identity + through materials and loving them, observing characters and + absorbing them, + My soul vibrated back to me from them, from sight, hearing, touch, + reason, articulation, comparison, memory, and the like, + The real life of my senses and flesh transcending my senses and flesh, + My body done with materials, my sight done with my material eyes, + Proved to me this day beyond cavil that it is not my material eyes which + finally see, + Nor my material body which finally loves, walks, laughs, shouts, + embraces, procreates. + + O the farmer's joys! + Ohioan's, Illinoisian's, Wisconsinese', Kanadian's, Iowan's, Kansian's, + Missourian's, Oregonese' joys! + To rise at peep of day and pass forth nimbly to work, + To plough land in the fall for winter-sown crops, + To plough land in the spring for maize, + To train orchards, to graft the trees, to gather apples in the fall. + + O to bathe in the swimming-bath, or in a good place along shore, + To splash the water! to walk ankle-deep, or race naked along the shore. + + O to realize space! + The plenteousness of all, that there are no bounds, + To emerge and be of the sky, of the sun and moon and flying clouds, as + one with them. + + O the joy of a manly self-hood! + To be servile to none, to defer to none, not to any tyrant known or + unknown, + To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic, + To look with calm gaze or with a flashing eye, + To speak with a full and sonorous voice out of a broad chest, + To confront with your personality all the other personalities of the + earth. + + Know'st thou the excellent joys of youth? + Joys of the dear companions and of the merry word and laughing face? + Joy of the glad light-beaming day, joy of the wide-breath'd games? + Joy of sweet music, joy of the lighted ball-room and the dancers? + Joy of the plenteous dinner, strong carouse, and drinking? + + Yet O my soul supreme! + Know'st thou the joys of pensive thought? + Joys of the free and lonesome heart, the tender, gloomy heart? + Joys of the solitary walk, the spirit bow'd yet proud, the suffering + and the struggle? + The agonistic throes, the ecstasies, joys of the solemn musings day or + night? + Joys of the thought of Death, the great spheres, Time and Space? + Prophetic joys of better, loftier love's ideals, the divine wife, the + sweet, eternal, perfect comrade? + Joys all thine own, undying one, joys worthy thee, O soul? + + O while I live to be the ruler of life, not a slave, + To meet life as a powerful conqueror, + No fumes, no ennui, no more complaints or scornful criticisms, + To these proud laws of the air, the water and the ground, proving my + interior soul impregnable, + And nothing exterior shall ever take command of me. + + For not life's joys alone I sing, repeating--the joy of death! + The beautiful touch of Death, soothing and benumbing a few moments, for + reasons, + Myself discharging my excrementitious body to be burn'd, or render'd to + powder, or buried, + My real body doubtless left to me for other spheres, + My voided body nothing more to me, returning to the purifications, + further offices, eternal uses of the earth. + + O to attract by more than attraction! + How it is I know not--yet behold! the something which obeys none of + the rest, + It is offensive, never defensive--yet how magnetic it draws. + + O to struggle against great odds, to meet enemies undaunted! + To be entirely alone with them, to find how much one can stand! + To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, face to face! + To mount the scaffold, to advance to the muzzles of guns with perfect + nonchalance! + To be indeed a God! + + O to sail to sea in a ship! + To leave this steady unendurable land, + To leave the tiresome sameness of the streets, the sidewalks and the + houses, + To leave you, O you solid motionless land, and entering a ship, + To sail and sail and sail! + + O to have life henceforth a poem of new joys! + To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on! + To be a sailor of the world bound for all ports, + A ship itself (see indeed these sails I spread to the sun and air), + A swift and swelling ship full of rich words, full of joys. + + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY AND ITS VALUE TO TEACHERS OF ENGLISH + + +Used in place of the formal textbook it exerts a powerful influence in +stimulating and broadening classroom progress. + + +_Send for circular giving full details and special rates_ + + + THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY + 8 Arlington Street + BOSTON (17), MASSACHUSETTS + + + +SOME FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS FROM THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS + + +STORY, ESSAY, AND VERSE + +_Edited by Charles Swain Thomas, of the Editorial Department of the +Atlantic Monthly Press, and Harry G. 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Supplied for one institution, the reprint has created an immediate +market elsewhere. + +The Atlantic Monthly Press most warmly invites conference and +correspondence that will suggest additions to this growing list. It is of +course apparent from the titles below that the material is chosen only in +part from the files of the _Atlantic Monthly_. + +The titles already published follow:-- + + 1. THE LIE + By Mary Antin 15c + + 2. RUGGS--R.O.T.C. + By William Addleman Ganoe 15c + + 3. JUNGLE NIGHT + By William Beebe 15c + + 4. AN ENGLISHWOMAN'S MESSAGE + By Mrs. A. Burnett-Smith 15c + + 5. A FATHER TO HIS FRESHMAN SON + By Edward Sanford Martin 15c + + 6. A PORT SAID MISCELLANY + By William McFee 15c + + 7. EDUCATION: THE MASTERY OF THE ARTS OF LIFE + By Arthur E. Morgan 15c + + 8. INTENSIVE LIVING + By Cornelia A. P. Comer 15c + + 9. THE PRELIMINARIES + By Cornelia A. P. Comer 15c + + 10. THE MORAL EQUIVALENT OF WAR + By William James 15c + + 11. THE STUDY OF POETRY + By Matthew Arnold 15c + + 12. BOOKS + By Arthur C. Benson 15c + + 13. ON COMPOSITION + By Lafcadio Hearn 15c + + 14. THE BASIC PROBLEM OF DEMOCRACY + By Walter Lippmann 15c + + 15. THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH + By Henry Cabot Lodge 25c + + + + +Footnotes: + +[1] Reprinted by permission of the Macmillan Company. + +[2] Abridged from the President's address at the Dover meeting of the +British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1899. + +[3] Some may already know that there is at least a third thing, argon. + +[4] Without phosphorus, no thought. + +[5] From _The Idea of a University_. + +[6] From Macaulay's essay on Von Ranke's _History of the Popes_. + +[7] Reprinted by permission of Charles Scribner's Sons. + +[8] The third lecture in _Sesame and Lilies_. + +[9] That no reference should be made to religious questions. + +[10] I have sometimes been asked what this means. I intended it to set +forth the wisdom of men in war contending for kingdoms, and what follows +to set forth their wisdom in peace, contending for wealth. + +[11] The translator of Marcus Aurelius whom Arnold quotes. + +[12] From the _Poetical Works_ of George Meredith; copyright 1897, 1898, +by George Meredith; published by Charles Scribner's Sons. Reprinted by +permission of the publishers. + +[13] Published by the Macmillan Company, and here reprinted through their +courtesy. + +[14] From _Society and Solitude_. + +[15] From _The Conduct of Life_. + +[16] From _The Conduct of Life_. + +[17] "Everything which pertains to the human species, considered as a +whole, belongs to the order of physical facts. The greater the number of +individuals, the more does the influence of the individual will disappear, +leaving predominance to a series of general facts dependent on causes by +which society exists, and is preserved."--QUETELET. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +Transcriber's note: + +The following misprints have been corrected: + "testimonal" corrected to "testimonial" (page 63) + "and and" corrected to "and" (page 114) + "immage" corrected to "image" (page 127) + "they they" corrected to "they" (page 130) + "eel" corrected to "feel" (page 133) + "furtune" corrected to "fortune" (page 271) + "interchan e" corrected to "interchange" (page 305) + "Geoge" corrected to "George" (advertisements) + +Hyphenation variations have been retained from the original text. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VOICE OF SCIENCE IN +NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE*** + + +******* This file should be named 31871-8.txt or 31871-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/1/8/7/31871 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: The Voice of Science in Nineteenth-Century Literature</p> +<p> Representative Prose and Verse</p> +<p>Author: Various</p> +<p>Editor: Robert Emmons Rogers</p> +<p>Release Date: April 3, 2010 [eBook #31871]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VOICE OF SCIENCE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Suzanne Lybarger, Brian Janes,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1>THE VOICE OF SCIENCE IN<br /> +NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE</h1> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<div class="adverts"><div class="adbox"> +<h3>ATLANTIC TEXTS</h3> +<h4><i>TEXTBOOKS IN LIBRARY FORM</i></h4> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="xyz"> +<tr><td>ATLANTIC CLASSICS, <i>First Series</i></td><td> </td><td align="right">$1.50</td></tr> +<tr><td>ATLANTIC CLASSICS, <i>Second Series</i></td><td> </td><td align="right">1.50</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Both volumes collected and edited by <span class="smcap">Ellery Sedgwick</span>,</span><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Editor of the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">For classes in composition and current literature.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>ESSAYS AND ESSAY-WRITING</td><td> </td><td align="right">1.25</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Collected and edited by <span class="smcap">William M. 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Rogers</span>, Assistant Professor +of English</span><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">With an Introduction by <span class="smcap">Henry G. Pearson</span>, Head of the +English Department</span><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.</span></td></tr></table> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS<br />8 ARLINGTON STREET, BOSTON (17)</p></div></div> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h2>THE VOICE OF SCIENCE</h2> +<h3>IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY<br />LITERATURE</h3> +<p> </p> +<h4>Representative Prose and Verse</h4> +<p> </p> +<h4>SELECTED AND ARRANGED BY</h4> +<p> </p> +<h3>ROBERT EMMONS ROGERS</h3> +<h4><i>Assistant Professor of English in<br /> +Massachusetts Institute of Technology</i></h4> +<p> </p> +<h4>WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY</h4> +<h3>HENRY GREENLEAF PEARSON</h3> +<h4><i>Head of the Department of English and History in<br /> +Massachusetts Institute of Technology</i></h4> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/image003.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<h4>The Atlantic Monthly Press<br />BOSTON</h4> +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h4><i>Copyright, 1921, by</i><br />THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS</h4> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PUBLISHER’S NOTE</h2> + +<p class="note">The nucleus of this collection was a privately printed volume for the use +of the students in the sophomore course in English and History at the +Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The volume was edited by Professor +DeWitt C. Croissant, visiting professor of English at the Institute from +George Washington University, Washington, D.C. The present volume, which +contains some changes and additions, is edited by Robert E. Rogers, +assistant professor of English at the Institute, who is, therefore, +responsible for its present form.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="Table of Contents"> +<tr><td> </td><td><span class="spacer"> </span></td><td align="right"><span class="smcaplc">PAGE</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Introduction</span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_ix">ix</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Matthew Arnold</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>The Function of Criticism</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Sir Michael Foster</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>The Growth of Science in the Nineteenth Century</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Thomas Huxley</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Three Hypotheses Respecting the History of Nature</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_52">52</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>On the Physical Basis of Life</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">John Tyndall</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Scope and Limit of Scientific Materialism</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">John Henry, Cardinal Newman</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Christianity and Physical Science</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_104">104</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Robert Louis Stevenson</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Pulvis et Umbra</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_108">108</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">John Ruskin</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>The Mystery of Life and its Arts</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_116">116</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Matthew Arnold</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Marcus Aurelius</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_146">146</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Dover Beach</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_170">170</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Morality</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_171">171</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Self-Dependence</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_172">172</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Arthur Hugh Clough</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>All is Well</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_174">174</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>To Spend Uncounted Years of Pain</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_174">174</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_175">175</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Algernon Charles Swinburne</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>The Garden of Proserpine</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_176">176</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Edward Fitzgerald</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_180">180</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span><span class="smcap">Robert Browning</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Rabbi Ben Ezra</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_197">197</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>An Epistle</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_204">204</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Caliban upon Setebos</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_214">214</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>A Grammarian’s Funeral</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_224">224</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Why I am a Liberal</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_228">228</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Fears and Scruples</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_229">229</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Epilogue to “Asolando”</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_231">231</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Prospice</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_232">232</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Alfred, Lord Tennyson</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Wages</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_233">233</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>The Higher Pantheism</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_233">233</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Flower in the Crannied Wall</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_234">234</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>In Memoriam</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_235">235</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Crossing the Bar</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_239">239</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">George Meredith</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Lucifer in Starlight</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_240">240</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">William E. Henley</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Invictus</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_241">241</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Thomas Hardy</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>New Year’s Eve</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_242">242</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Ralph Waldo Emerson</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Civilization</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_244">244</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Illusions</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_255">255</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Fate</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_268">268</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Walt Whitman</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Song of the Open Road</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_300">300</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Crossing Brooklyn Ferry</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_313">313</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>A Song of Joys</i></span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_320">320</a></td></tr></table> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></p> +<h2>INTRODUCTION</h2> +<h3><span class="smcap">By Henry Greenleaf Pearson</span></h3> + +<p>“The Voice of Science in Nineteenth-Century Literature” is a volume of +selections put together for use in the third term of a course in English +and History offered to the second-year students at the Massachusetts +Institute of Technology. The plan of the year’s work provides for a study +of the record made in English literature by the great movements of thought +that distinguished the nineteenth century. First John Stuart Mill’s essays +on “Liberty” and “Representative Government” furnish an interpretation of +the political currents of thought in the first half of the century. +Carlyle’s “Past and Present,” which is read in the second third of the +year, is an analysis of economic and social problems in the same period; +in the third term the profound effect of science on the thought of the age +receives illustration in the writings here brought together.</p> + +<p>Broadly stated, the central theme of the book is man’s place in the +universe, considered in the light of the new knowledge and speculation as +to his origin and destiny which the study of science in the nineteenth +century has invoked. Some of the selections are more closely related to +this theme than are others. Between some of the selections the connection +or contrast is obvious (“Rabbi Ben Ezra” and “The Rubaiyat of Omar +Khayyam”); in others it is less immediately evident. In some cases the +background is the group of ideas roughly classed under the word +<i>evolution</i>; in others it is some characteristic phase of religious +feeling or ethical or theological thought. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span> contrast in outlook +between the American writers, Emerson and Whitman, and their English +contemporaries is one of which particularly valuable use may be made. The +discovery of these interrelations is what gives zest to the reading for +both parties in the classroom; for neither teacher nor students should the +work take the form of checking off selections on a minutely correlated +syllabus. The course should be pursued on the assumption that the whole is +greater than the sum of the parts: the total impression, the height gained +at the end, the inspiration of the view there disclosed—these are the +goals to be sought for. And the discerning teacher will not be surprised +that the pupil presses him so closely up the ascent.</p> + +<p>In reading pursued on this plan what should be emphasized on the side of +history is not the marshaling of fact, of things done, but the war of +thought in one field or another. Without being embroiled in the +controversy for this or that belief, the student examines the battleground +to learn how the battle was fought. He discovers what befell truths, +half-truths, and falsehoods, and under what circumstances of glory or +shame. He sees the period with the unity that genius always gives to a +subject; at the same time he learns how to make the correction that a +piece of contemporary interpretation inevitably requires. On the side of +literature, the student’s approach is no less special and with its +appropriate reward. He sees the man of genius primarily in the setting of +his age. The personal adventures and idiosyncracies that often form so +large and so unedifying a portion of the treatment afforded in the +traditional “historical survey course” here fill a modest space in the +background; the attention is concentrated on what this leader did for the +men of his own day. These writers lived intensely in the life of their own +generation; conscious of a clearer perception of the truth and possessing +a voice<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span> that men could hear, they sought to lead their companions out of +the wilderness. It is the man of genius speaking with authority to those +of his own time who is here presented. In such a setting his voice has +still its ancient power.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE VOICE OF SCIENCE IN<br /> +NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE</h2> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h2>MATTHEW ARNOLD</h2> +<h3>THE FUNCTION OF CRITICISM<small><a name="f1.1" id="f1.1" href="#f1">[1]</a></small></h3> + +<p>The critical power is of lower rank than the creative. True; but in +assenting to this proposition, one or two things are to be kept in mind. +It is undeniable that the exercise of a creative power, that a free +creative activity, is the true function of man; it is proved to be so by +man’s finding in it his true happiness. But it is undeniable, also, that +men may have the sense of exercising this free creative activity in other +ways than in producing great works of literature or art; if it were not +so, all but a very few men would be shut out from the true happiness of +all men; they may have it in well-doing, they may have it in learning, +they may have it even in criticizing. This is one thing to be kept in +mind. Another is, that the exercise of the creative power in the +production of great works of literature or art, however high this exercise +of it may rank, is not, at all epochs, and under all conditions, possible; +and that, therefore, labor may be vainly spent in attempting it, and may +with more fruit be used in preparing for it, in rendering it possible. +This creative power works with elements, with materials; what if it has +not those materials, those elements, ready for its use? In that case it +must surely wait till they are ready. Now, in literature,—I will limit +myself to literature, for it is about literature that the question +arises,—the elements with which the creative power <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>works are ideas; the +best ideas on every matter which literature touches, current at the time; +at any rate, we may lay it down as certain that in modern literature no +manifestation of the creative power not working with these can be very +important or fruitful. And I say <i>current</i> at the time, not merely +accessible at the time; for creative literary genius does not principally +show itself in discovering new ideas—that is rather the business of the +philosopher; the grand work of literary genius is a work of synthesis and +exposition, not of analysis and discovery; its gift lies in the faculty of +being happily inspired by a certain intellectual and spiritual atmosphere, +by a certain order of ideas, when it finds itself in them; of dealing +divinely with these ideas, presenting them in the most effective and +attractive combinations, making beautiful works with them, in short. But +it must have the atmosphere, it must find itself amidst the order of +ideas, in order to work freely; and these it is not so easy to command. +This is why great creative epochs in literature are so rare; this is why +there is so much that is unsatisfactory in the productions of many men of +real genius; because, for the creation of a master-work of literature, two +powers must concur, the power of the man and the power of the moment, and +the man is not enough without the moment; the creative power has, for its +happy exercise, appointed elements, and those elements are not in its own +control.</p> + +<p>Nay, they are more within the control of the critical power. It is the +business of the critical power, as I said in the words already quoted, “in +all branches of knowledge, theology, philosophy, history, art, science, to +see the object as in itself it really is.” Thus it tends, at last, to make +an intellectual situation of which the creative power can profitably avail +itself. It tends to establish an order of ideas, if not absolutely true, +yet true by comparison<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> with that which it displaces; to make the best +ideas prevail. Presently these new ideas reach society, the touch of truth +is the touch of life, and there is a stir and growth everywhere; out of +this stir and growth come the creative epochs of literature.</p> + +<p>Or, to narrow our range, and quit these considerations of the general +march of genius and of society,—considerations which are apt to become +too abstract and impalpable,—everyone can see that a poet, for instance, +ought to know life and the world before dealing with them in poetry; and +life and the world being, in modern times, very complex things, the +creation of a modern poet, to be worth much, implies a great critical +effort behind it; else it would be a comparatively poor, barren, and +short-lived affair. This is why Byron’s poetry had so little endurance in +it, and Goethe’s so much; both had a great productive power, but Goethe’s +was nourished by a great critical effort providing the true materials for +it, and Byron’s was not; Goethe knew life and the world, the poet’s +necessary subjects, much more comprehensively and thoroughly than Byron. +He knew a great deal more of them, and he knew them much more as they +really are.</p> + +<p>It has long seemed to me that the burst of creative activity in our +literature, through the first quarter of this century, had about it, in +fact, something premature; and that from this cause its productions are +doomed, most of them, in spite of the sanguine hopes which accompanied and +do still accompany them, to prove hardly more lasting than the productions +of far less splendid epochs. And this prematureness comes from its having +proceeded without having its proper data, without sufficient materials to +work with. In other words, the English poetry of the first quarter of this +century, with plenty of energy, plenty of creative force, did not know +enough. This makes Byron<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> so empty of matter, Shelley so incoherent, +Wordsworth, even, profound as he is, yet so wanting in completeness and +variety. Wordsworth cared little for books, and disparaged Goethe. I +admire Wordsworth, as he is, so much that I cannot wish him different; and +it is vain, no doubt, to imagine such a man different from what he is, to +suppose that he could have been different; but surely the one thing +wanting to make Wordsworth an even greater poet than he is,—his thought +richer, and his influence of wider application,—was that he should have +read more books—among them, no doubt, those of that Goethe whom he +disparaged without reading him.</p> + +<p>But to speak of books and reading may easily lead to a misunderstanding +here. It was not really books and reading that lacked to our poetry at +this epoch; Shelley had plenty of reading, Coleridge had immense reading. +Pindar and Sophocles—as we all say so glibly, and often with so little +discernment of the real import of what we are saying—had not many books; +Shakespeare was no deep reader. True; but in the Greece of Pindar and +Sophocles, in the England of Shakespeare, the poet lived in a current of +ideas in the highest degree animating and nourishing to the creative +power; society was, in the fullest measure, permeated by fresh thought, +intelligent and alive; and this state of things is the true basis for the +creative power’s exercise; in this it finds its data, its materials, truly +ready for its hand; all the books and reading in the world are only +valuable as they are helps to this. Even when this does not actually +exist, books and reading may enable a man to construct a kind of semblance +of it in his own mind, a world of knowledge and intelligence in which he +may live and work. This is by no means an equivalent to the artist for the +nationally diffused life and thought of the epochs of Sophocles or +Shakespeare; but, besides that,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> it may be a means of preparation for such +epochs, it does really constitute, if many share in it, a quickening and +sustaining atmosphere of great value. Such an atmosphere the many-sided +learning and the long and widely combined critical effort of Germany +formed for Goethe, when he lived and worked. There was no national glow of +life and thought there, as in the Athens of Pericles or the England of +Elizabeth. That was the poet’s weakness. But there was a sort of +equivalent for it in the complete culture and unfettered thinking of a +large body of Germans. That was his strength. In the England of the first +quarter of this century there was neither a national glow of life and +thought, such as we had in the age of Elizabeth, nor yet a culture and a +force of learning and criticism such as were to be found in Germany. +Therefore the creative power of poetry wanted, for success in the highest +sense, materials and a basis; a thorough interpretation of the world was +necessarily denied to it.</p> + +<p>At first sight it seems strange that out of the immense stir of the French +Revolution and its age should not have come a crop of works of genius +equal to that which came out of the stir of the great productive time of +Greece, or out of that of the Renaissance, with its powerful episode, the +Reformation. But the truth is that the stir of the French Revolution took +a character which essentially distinguished it from such movements as +these. These were, in the main, disinterestedly intellectual and spiritual +movements; movements in which the human spirit looked for its satisfaction +in itself and in the increased play of its own activity; the French +Revolution took a political, practical character. This Revolution—the +object of so much blind love and so much blind hatred—found, indeed, its +motive-power in the intelligence of men, and not in their practical sense. +This is what distinguishes it from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> English Revolution of Charles the +First’s time; this is what makes it a more spiritual event than our +Revolution, an event of much more powerful and world-wide interest, though +practically less successful—it appeals to an order of ideas which are +universal, certain, permanent. 1789 asked of a thing, Is it rational? 1642 +asked of a thing, Is it legal? or, when it went furthest, Is it according +to conscience? This is the English fashion, a fashion to be treated, +within its own sphere, with the highest respect; for its success, within +its own sphere, has been prodigious.</p> + +<p>But what is law in one place is not law in another; what is law here +to-day is not law even here to-morrow; and as for conscience, what is +binding on one man’s conscience is not binding on another’s; the old woman +who threw her stool at the head of the surpliced minister in the Tron +Church at Edinburgh obeyed an impulse to which millions of the human race +may be permitted to remain strangers. But the prescriptions of reason are +absolute, unchanging, of universal validity; <i>to count by tens is the +easiest way of counting</i>—that is a proposition of which everyone, from +here to the Antipodes, feels the force; at least, I should say so if we +did not live in a country where it is not impossible that any morning we +may find a letter in the “Times” declaring that a decimal coinage is an +absurdity. That a whole nation should have been penetrated with an +enthusiasm for pure reason, and with an ardent zeal for making its +prescriptions triumph, is a very remarkable thing, when we consider how +little of mind, or anything so worthy and quickening as mind, comes into +the motives which alone, in general, <i>impel</i> great masses of men. In spite +of the extravagant direction given to this enthusiasm, in spite of the +crimes and follies in which it lost itself, the French Revolution derives +from the force, truth, and universality of the ideas which it took for its +law, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> from the passion with which it could inspire a multitude for +these ideas, a unique and still living power; it is—it will probably long +remain—the greatest, the most animating event in history. And as no +sincere passion for the things of the mind, even though it turn out in +many respects an unfortunate passion, is ever quite thrown away and quite +barren of good, France has reaped from hers one fruit, the natural and +legitimate fruit, though not precisely the grand fruit she expected: she +is the country in Europe where <i>the people</i> is most alive.</p> + +<p>But the mania for giving an immediate political and practical application +to all these fine ideas of the reason was fatal. Here an Englishman is in +his element: on this theme we can all go for hours. And all we are in the +habit of saying on it has undoubtedly a great deal of truth. Ideas cannot +be too much prized in and for themselves, cannot be too much lived with; +but to transport them abruptly into the world of politics and practice, +violently to revolutionize this world to their bidding—that is quite +another thing. There is the world of ideas and there is the world of +practice; the French are often for suppressing the one and the English the +other; but neither is to be suppressed. A member of the House of Commons +said to me the other day: “That a thing is an anomaly, I consider to be no +objection to it whatever.” I venture to think he was wrong; that a thing +is an anomaly <i>is</i> an objection to it, but absolutely and in the sphere of +ideas; it is not necessarily, under such and such circumstances, or at +such and such a moment, an objection to it in the sphere of politics and +practice. Joubert has said beautifully: “C’est la force et le droit qui +réglent toutes choses dans le monde; la force en attendant le droit.” +Force and right are the governors of this world; force till right is +ready. <i>Force till right is ready</i>; and till right is ready, force, the +existing order of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> things, is justified, is the legitimate ruler. But +right is something moral, and implies inward recognition, free assent of +the will; we are not ready for right,—<i>right</i>, so far as we are +concerned, <i>is not ready</i>,—until we have attained this sense of seeing it +and willing it. The way in which for us it may change and transform force, +the existing order of things, and become, in its turn, the legitimate +ruler of the world, will depend on the way in which, when our time comes, +we see it and will it. Therefore, for other people enamored of their own +newly discerned right, to attempt to impose it upon us as ours, and +violently to substitute their right for our force, is an act of tyranny, +and to be resisted. It sets at nought the second great half of our maxim, +<i>force till right is ready</i>. This was the grand error of the French +Revolution; and its movement of ideas, by quitting the intellectual sphere +and rushing furiously into the political sphere, ran, indeed, a prodigious +and memorable course, but produced no such intellectual fruit as the +movement of ideas of the Renaissance, and created, in opposition to +itself, what I may call an <i>epoch of concentration</i>.</p> + +<p>The great force of that epoch of concentration was England; and the great +voice of that epoch of concentration was Burke. It is the fashion to treat +Burke’s writings on the French Revolution as superannuated and conquered +by the event; as the eloquent but unphilosophical tirades of bigotry and +prejudice. I will not deny that they are often disfigured by the violence +and passion of the moment, and that in some directions Burke’s view was +bounded, and his observation therefore at fault; but on the whole, and for +those who can make the needful corrections, what distinguishes these +writings is their profound, permanent, fruitful, philosophical truth; they +contain the true philosophy of an epoch of concentration, dissipate the +heavy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> atmosphere which its own nature is apt to engender round it, and +make its resistance rational instead of mechanical.</p> + +<p>But Burke is so great because, almost alone in England, he brings thought +to bear upon politics, he saturates politics with thought; it is his +accident that his ideas were at the service of an epoch of concentration, +not of an epoch of expansion; it is his characteristic that he so lived by +ideas, and had such a source of them welling up within him, that he could +float even an epoch of concentration and English Tory politics with them. +It does not hurt him that Dr. Price and the Liberals were displeased with +him; it does not hurt him, even, that George the Third and the Tories were +enchanted with him. His greatness is that he lived in a world which +neither English Liberalism nor English Toryism is apt to enter—the world +of ideas, not the world of catchwords and party habits. So far is it from +being really true of him that he “to party gave up what was meant for +mankind,” that at the very end of his fierce struggle with the French +Revolution, after all his invectives against its false pretensions, +hollowness, and madness, with his sincere conviction of its +mischievousness, he can close a memorandum on the best means of combating +it,—some of the last pages he ever wrote: the <i>Thoughts on French +Affairs</i>, in December, 1791,—with these striking words:—</p> + +<p>“The evil is stated, in my opinion, as it exists. The remedy must be where +power, wisdom, and information, I hope, are more united with good +intentions than they can be with me. I have done with this subject, I +believe, for ever. It has given me many anxious moments for the last two +years. <i>If a great change is to be made in human affairs, the minds of men +will be fitted to it; the general opinions and feelings will draw that +way. Every fear, every hope will forward it; and then they who persist in +opposing this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> mighty current in human affairs will appear rather to +resist the decrees of Providence itself, than the mere designs of men. +They will not be resolute and firm, but perverse and obstinate.</i>”</p> + +<p>That return of Burke upon himself has always seemed to me one of the +finest things in English literature, or indeed, in any literature. That is +what I call living by ideas: when one side of a question has long had your +earnest support, when all your feelings are engaged, when you hear all +round you no language but one, when your party talks this language like a +steam-engine and can imagine no other—still to be able to think, still to +be irresistibly carried, if so it be, by the current of thought to the +opposite side of the question, and, like Balaam, to be unable to speak +anything <i>but what the Lord has put in your mouth</i>. I know nothing more +striking, and I must add that I know nothing more un-English.</p> + +<p>For the Englishman in general is like my friend the Member of Parliament, +and believes, point-blank, that for a thing to be an anomaly is absolutely +no objection to it whatever. He is like the Lord Auckland of Burke’s day, +who, in a memorandum on the French Revolution, talks of “certain +miscreants, assuming the name of philosophers, who have presumed +themselves capable of establishing a new system of society.” The +Englishman has been called a political animal, and he values what is +political and practical so much that ideas easily become objects of +dislike in his eyes, and thinkers “miscreants,” because ideas and thinkers +have rashly meddled with politics and practice. This would be all very +well if the dislike and neglect confined themselves to ideas transported +out of their own sphere, and meddling rashly with practice; but they are +inevitably extended to ideas as such, and to the whole life of +intelligence; practice is everything, a free play of the mind is nothing. +The notion of the free play of the mind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> upon all subjects being a +pleasure in itself, being an object of desire, being an essential provider +of elements without which a nation’s spirit, whatever compensations it may +have for them, must, in the long run, die of inanition, hardly enters into +an Englishman’s thoughts. It is noticeable that the word <i>curiosity</i>, +which in other languages is used in a good sense, to mean, as a high and +fine quality of man’s nature, just this disinterested love of a free play +of the mind on all subjects, for its own sake—it is noticeable, I say, +that this word has in our language no sense of the kind, no sense but a +rather bad and disparaging one. But criticism, real criticism, is +essentially the exercise of this very quality; it obeys an instinct +prompting it to try to know the best that is known and thought in the +world, irrespectively of practice, politics, and everything of the kind; +and to value knowledge and thought as they approach this best, without the +intrusion of any other considerations whatever. This is an instinct for +which there is, I think, little original sympathy in the practical English +nature, and what there was of it has undergone a long, benumbing period of +check and suppression in the epoch of concentration which followed the +French Revolution.</p> + +<p>But epochs of concentration cannot well endure forever; epochs of +expansion, in the due course of things, follow them. Such an epoch of +expansion seems to be open here in England. In the first place, all danger +of a hostile forcible pressure of foreign ideas upon our practice has long +disappeared; like the traveler in the fable, therefore, we begin to wear +our cloak a little more loosely. Then, with a long peace, the ideas of +Europe steal gradually and amicably in, and mingle, though in +infinitesimally small quantities at a time, with our own notions. Then, +too, in spite of all that is said about the absorbing and brutalizing +influence of our passionate material progress, it seems to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> me +indisputable that this progress is likely, though not certain, to lead in +the end to an apparition of intellectual life; and that man, after he has +made himself perfectly comfortable and has now to determine what to do +with himself next, may begin to remember that he has a mind, and that the +mind may be made the source of great pleasure. I grant it is mainly the +privilege of faith, at present, to discern this end to our railways, our +business, and our fortune-making; but we shall see if, here as elsewhere, +faith is not in the end the true prophet. Our ease, our traveling, and our +unbounded liberty to hold just as hard and securely as we please to the +practice to which our notions have given birth, all tend to beget an +inclination to deal a little more freely with these notions themselves, to +canvass them a little, to penetrate a little into their real nature. +Flutterings of curiosity, in the foreign sense of the word, appear amongst +us, and it is in these that criticism must look to find its account. +Criticism first; a time of true creative activity, perhaps,—which, as I +have said, must inevitably be preceded amongst us by a time of +criticism,—hereafter, when criticism has done its work.</p> + +<p>It is of the last importance that English criticism should clearly discern +what rules for its course, in order to avail itself of the field now +opening to it, and to produce fruit for the future, it ought to take. The +rules may be given in one word; by being <i>disinterested</i>. And how is it to +be disinterested? By keeping aloof from practice; by resolutely following +the law of its own nature, which is to be a free play of the mind on all +subjects which it touches; by steadily refusing to lend itself to any of +those ulterior, political, practical considerations about ideas, which +plenty of people will be sure to attach to them, which perhaps ought often +to be attached to them, which in this country, at any rate, are certain to +be attached to them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> quite sufficiently, but which criticism has really +nothing to do with. Its business is, as I have said, simply to know the +best that is known and thought in the world, and by in its turn making +this known, to create a current of true and fresh ideas. Its business is +to do this with inflexible honesty, with due ability; but its business is +to do no more, and to leave alone all questions of practical consequences +and applications, questions which will never fail to have due prominence +given to them. Else criticism, besides being really false to its own +nature, merely continues in the old rut which it has hitherto followed in +this country, and will certainly miss the chance now given to it. For what +is at present the bane of criticism in this country? It is that practical +considerations cling to it and stifle it; it subserves interests not its +own; our organs of criticism are organs of men and parties having +practical ends to serve, and with them those practical ends are the first +thing and the play of mind the second; so much play of mind as is +compatible with the prosecution of those practical ends is all that is +wanted.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>It must needs be that men should act in sects and parties, that each of +these sects and parties should have its organ, and should make this organ +subserve the interests of its action; but it would be well, too, that +there should be a criticism, not the minister of these interests, not +their enemy, but absolutely and entirely independent of them. No other +criticism will ever attain any real authority or make any real way toward +its end—the creating a current of true and fresh ideas.</p> + +<p>It is because criticism has so little kept in the pure intellectual +sphere, has so little detached itself from practice, has been so directly +polemical and controversial, that it has so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> ill accomplished, in England, +its best spiritual work; which is to keep man from a self-satisfaction +which is retarding and vulgarizing, to lead him toward perfection, by +making his mind dwell upon what is excellent in itself, and the absolute +beauty and fitness of things. A polemical practical criticism makes men +blind even to the ideal imperfection of their practice, makes them +willingly assert its ideal perfection, in order the better to secure it +against attack; and clearly this is narrowing and baneful for them. If +they were reassured on the practical side, speculative considerations of +ideal perfection they might be brought to entertain, and their spiritual +horizon would thus gradually widen....</p> + +<p>It will be said that it is a very subtle and indirect action which I am +thus prescribing for criticism, and that, by embracing in this manner the +Indian virtue of detachment and abandoning the sphere of practical life, +it condemns itself to a slow and obscure work. Slow and obscure it may be, +but it is the only proper work of criticism. The mass of mankind will +never have any ardent zeal for seeing things as they are; very inadequate +ideas will always satisfy them. On these inadequate ideas reposes, and +must repose, the general practice of the world. That is as much as saying +that whoever sets himself to see things as they are will find himself one +of a very small circle; but it is only by this small circle resolutely +doing its own work that adequate ideas will ever get current at all. The +rush and roar of practical life will always have a dizzying and attracting +effect upon the most collected spectator, and tend to draw him into its +vortex; most of all will this be the case where that life is so powerful +as it is in England. But it is only by remaining collected, and refusing +to lend himself to the point of view of the practical man, that the critic +can do the practical man any service; and it is only by the greatest +sincerity in pursuing his own course, and by at last<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> convincing even the +practical man of his sincerity, that he can escape misunderstandings which +perpetually threaten him.</p> + +<p>For the practical man is not apt for fine distinctions, and yet in these +distinctions truth and the highest culture greatly find their account. But +it is not easy to lead a practical man—unless you reassure him as to your +practical intentions, you have no chance of leading him—to see that a +thing which he has always been used to look at from one side only, which +he greatly values, and which, looked at from that side, more than +deserves, perhaps, all the prizing and admiring which he bestows upon +it—that this thing, looked at from another side, may appear much less +beneficent and beautiful, and yet retain all its claims to our practical +allegiance. Where shall we find language innocent enough, how shall we +make the spotless purity of our intentions evident enough, to enable us to +say to the political Englishman that the British constitution itself, +which, seen from the practical side, looks such a magnificent organ of +progress and virtue, seen from the speculative side,—with its +compromises, its love of facts, its horror of theory, its studied +avoidance of clear thoughts,—that, seen from this side, our august +constitution sometimes looks—forgive me, shade of Lord Somers!—a +colossal machine for the manufacture of Philistines? How is Cobbett to say +this and not be misunderstood, blackened as he is with the smoke of a +lifelong conflict in the field of political practice? How is Mr. Carlyle +to say it and not be misunderstood, after his furious raid into this field +with his “Latter-day Pamphlets”? How is Mr. Ruskin, after his pugnacious +political economy? I say, the critic must keep out of the region of +immediate practice in the political, social, humanitarian sphere, if he +wants to make a beginning for that more free speculative treatment of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> +things, which may perhaps one day make its benefits felt even in this +sphere, but in a natural and thence irresistible manner.</p> + +<p>Do what he will, however, the critic will still remain exposed to frequent +misunderstandings, and nowhere so much as here in England. For here people +are particularly indisposed even to comprehend that, without this free, +disinterested treatment of things, truth and the highest culture are out +of the question. So immersed are they in practical life, so accustomed to +take all their notions from this life and its processes, that they are apt +to think that truth and culture themselves can be reached by the processes +of this life, and that it is an impertinent singularity to think of +reaching them in any other way. “We are all <i>terræ filii</i>,” cries their +eloquent advocate; “all Philistines together. Away with the notion of +proceeding by any other way than the way dear to the Philistines; let us +have a social movement, let us organize and combine a party to pursue +truth and new thought, let us call it <i>the liberal party</i>, and let us all +stick to each other, and back each other up. Let us have no nonsense about +independent criticism, and intellectual delicacy, and the few and the +many. Don’t let us trouble ourselves about foreign thought; we shall +invent the whole thing for ourselves as we go along. If one of us speaks +well, applaud him; if one of us speaks ill, applaud him too; we are all in +the same movement, we are all liberals, we are all in pursuit of truth.” +In this way the pursuit of truth becomes really a social, practical, +pleasurable affair, almost requiring a chairman, a secretary, and +advertisements; with the excitement of a little resistance, an occasional +scandal, to give the happy sense of difficulty overcome; but, in general, +plenty of bustle and very little thought. To act is so easy, as Goethe +says; to think is so hard! It is true that the critic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> has many +temptations to go with the stream, to make one of the party movement, one +of these <i>terræ filii</i>; it seems ungracious to refuse to be a <i>terræ +filius</i>, when so many excellent people are; but the critic’s duty is to +refuse, or, if resistance is vain, at least to cry with Obermann: +<i>Perissons en resistant</i>.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>What then is the duty of criticism here? To take the practical point of +view, to applaud the liberal movement and all its works ... for their +general utility’s sake? By no means; but to be perpetually dissatisfied +with these works, while they perpetually fall short of a high and perfect +ideal.</p> + +<p>In criticism, these are elementary laws; but they never can be popular, +and in this country they have been very little followed, and one meets +with immense obstacles in following them. That is a reason for asserting +them again and again. Criticism must maintain its independence of the +practical spirit and its aims. Even with well-meant efforts of the +practical spirit, it must express dissatisfaction, if in the sphere of the +ideal they seem impoverishing and limiting. It must not hurry on to the +goal because of its practical importance. It must be patient, and know how +to wait; and flexible, and know how to attach itself to things and how to +withdraw from them. It must be apt to study and praise elements that for +the fulness of spiritual perfection are wanted, even though they belong to +a power that in the practical sphere may be maleficent. It must be apt to +discern the spiritual shortcomings or illusions of powers that in the +practical sphere may be beneficent. And this without any notion of +favoring or injuring, in the practical sphere, one power or the other; +without any notion of playing off, in this sphere, one power against the +other.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> When one looks, for instance, at the English Divorce Court,—an +institution which perhaps has its practical conveniences, but which in the +ideal sphere is so hideous; an institution which neither makes divorce +impossible nor makes it decent; which allows a man to get rid of his wife, +or a wife of her husband, but makes them drag one another first, for the +public edification, through a mire of unutterable infamy,—when one looks +at this charming institution, I say, with its crowded trials, its +newspaper reports, and its money compensations, this institution in which +the gross unregenerate British Philistine has indeed stamped an image of +himself, one may be permitted to find the marriage theory of Catholicism +refreshing and elevating. Or when Protestantism, in virtue of its supposed +rational and intellectual origin, gives the law to criticism too +magisterially, criticism may and must remind it that its pretensions, in +this respect, are illusive and do it harm; that the Reformation was a +moral rather than an intellectual event; that Luther’s theory of grace no +more exactly reflects the mind of the spirit than Bossuet’s philosophy of +history reflects it; and that there is no more antecedent probability of +the Bishop of Durham’s stock of ideas being agreeable to perfect reason +than of Pope Pius the Ninth’s. But criticism will not on that account +forget the achievements of Protestantism in the practical and moral +sphere; nor that, even in the intellectual sphere, Protestantism, though +in a blind and stumbling manner, carried forward the Renaissance, while +Catholicism threw itself violently across its path.</p> + +<p>I lately heard a man of thought and energy contrasting the want of ardor +and movement which he now found amongst young men in England with what he +remembered in his own youth, twenty years ago. “What reformers we were +then!” he exclaimed; “what a zeal we had! how we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> canvassed every +institution in Church and State, and were prepared to remodel them all on +first principles!” He was inclined to regret, as a spiritual flagging, the +lull that he saw. I am disposed rather to regard it as a pause in which +the turn to a new mode of spiritual progress is being accomplished. +Everything was long seen, by the young and ardent amongst us, in +inseparable connection with politics and practical life. We have pretty +well exhausted the benefits of seeing things in this connection; we have +got all that can be got by so seeing them. Let us try a more disinterested +mode of seeing them; let us betake ourselves more to the serener life of +the mind and spirit. This life, too, may have its excesses and dangers; +but they are not for us at present. Let us think of quietly enlarging our +stock of true and fresh ideas, and not, as soon as we get an idea or half +an idea, be running out with it into the street, and trying to make it +rule there. Our ideas will, in the end, shape the world all the better for +maturing a little. Perhaps in fifty years’ time it will in the English +House of Commons be an objection to an institution that it is an anomaly, +and my friend the Member of Parliament will shudder in his grave. But let +us in the meanwhile rather endeavor that in twenty years’ time it may, in +English literature, be an objection to a proposition that it is absurd. +That will be a change so vast, that the imagination almost fails to grasp +it. <i>Ab integro sæculorum nascitur ordo.</i></p> + +<p>If I have insisted so much on the course which criticism must take where +politics and religion are concerned, it is because, where these burning +matters are in question, it is most likely to go astray. In general, its +course is determined for it by the idea which is the law of its being: the +idea of a disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is +known and thought in the world, and thus to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> establish a current of fresh +and true ideas. By the very nature of things, as England is not all the +world, much of the best that is known and thought in the world cannot be +of English growth, must be foreign; by the nature of things, again, it is +just this that we are least likely to know, while English thought is +streaming in upon us from all sides, and takes excellent care that we +shall not be ignorant of its existence; the English critic, therefore, +must dwell much on foreign thought, and with particular heed on any part +of it which, while significant and fruitful in itself, is for any reason +specially likely to escape him. Judging is often spoken of as the critic’s +one business, and so in some sense it is; but the judgment which almost +insensibly forms itself in a fair and clear mind, along with fresh +knowledge, is the valuable one; and thus knowledge, and ever fresh +knowledge, must be the critic’s great concern for himself; and it is by +communicating fresh knowledge, and letting his own judgment pass along +with it,—but insensibly, and in the second place, not the first, as a +sort of companion and clue, not as an abstract lawgiver,—that he will +generally do most good to his readers.</p> + +<p>Sometimes, no doubt, for the sake of establishing an author’s place in +literature and his relation to a central standard,—and if this is not +done, how are we to get at our <i>best in the world</i>?—criticism may have to +deal with a subject-matter so familiar that fresh knowledge is out of the +question, and then it must be all judgment; an enunciation and detailed +application of principles. Here the great safeguard is never to let one’s +self become abstract, always to retain an intimate and lively +consciousness of the truth of what one is saying, and, the moment this +fails us, to be sure that something is wrong. Still, under all +circumstances, this mere judgment and application of principles is, in +itself, not the most satisfactory work to the critic; like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> mathematics, +it is tautological, and cannot well give us, like fresh learning, the +sense of creative activity. To have this sense is, as I said at the +beginning, the great happiness and the great proof of being alive, and it +is not denied to criticism to have it; but then criticism must be sincere, +simple, flexible, ardent, ever widening its knowledge. Then it may have, +in no contemptible measure, a joyful sense of creative activity; a sense +which a man of insight and conscience will prefer to what he might derive +from a poor, starved, fragmentary, inadequate creation. And at some epochs +no other creation is possible.</p> + +<p>Still, in full measure, the sense of creative activity belongs only to +genuine creation; in literature we must never forget that. But what true +man of letters ever can forget it? It is no such common matter for a +gifted nature to come into possession of a current of true and living +ideas, and to produce amidst the inspiration of them, that we are likely +to underrate it. The epochs of Æschylus and Shakespeare make us feel their +preëminence. In an epoch like those is, no doubt, the true life of +literature; there is the promised land, toward which criticism can only +beckon. That promised land it will not be ours to enter, and we shall die +in the wilderness; but to have desired to enter it, to have saluted it +from afar, is already, perhaps, the best distinction among contemporaries; +it will certainly be the best title to esteem with posterity.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p> +<h2>SIR MICHAEL FOSTER</h2> +<h3>THE GROWTH OF SCIENCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY<small><a name="f2.1" id="f2.1" href="#f2">[2]</a></small></h3> + +<p>The eyes of the young look ever forward; they take little heed of the +short though ever-lengthening fragment of life which lies behind them; +they are wholly bent on that which is to come. The eyes of the aged turn +wistfully again and again to the past; as the old glide down the +inevitable slope, their present becomes a living over again the life which +has gone before, and the future takes on the shape of a brief lengthening +of the past. May I this evening venture to give rein to the impulses of +advancing years? May I, at this last meeting of the association in the +eighteen hundreds, dare to dwell for a while upon the past, and to call to +mind a few of the changes which have taken place in the world since those +autumn days in which men were saying to each other that the last of the +seventeen hundreds was drawing toward its end?</p> + +<p>Dover, in the year of our Lord 1799, was in many ways unlike the Dover of +to-day. On moonless nights men groped their way in its narrow streets by +the help of swinging lanterns and smoky torches, for no lamps lit the +ways. By day the light of the sun struggled into the houses through narrow +panes of blurred glass. Though the town then, as now, was one of the chief +portals to and from the countries beyond the seas, the means of travel was +scanty and dear, available for the most part to the rich alone, and for +all beset with discomfort and risk. Slow and uncertain <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>was the carriage +of goods, and the news of the world outside came to the town (though it, +from its position, learned more than most towns) tardily, fitfully, and +often falsely. The people of Dover sat then much in dimness, if not in +darkness, and lived in large measure on themselves. They who study the +phenomena of living beings tell us that light is the great stimulus of +life, and that the fullness of the life of a being or of any of its +members may be measured by the variety, the swiftness, and the certainty +of the means by which it is in touch with its surroundings. Judged from +this standpoint, life at Dover then, as indeed elsewhere, must have fallen +far short of the life of to-day.</p> + +<p>The same study of living beings, however, teaches us that while from one +point of view the environment seems to mould the organism, from another +point the organism seems to be master of its environment. Going behind the +change of circumstances, we may raise the question, the old question, Was +life in its essence worth more then than now? Has there been a real +advance?</p> + +<p>Let me at once relieve your minds by saying that I propose to leave this +question in the main unanswered. It may be, or it may not be, that man’s +grasp of the beautiful and of the good, if not looser, is not firmer than +it was a hundred years ago. It may be, or it may not be, that man is no +nearer to absolute truth, to seeing things as they really are, than he was +then. I will merely ask you to consider with me for a few minutes how far +and in what ways man’s laying hold of that aspect of, or part of, truth +which we call natural knowledge, or sometimes science, differed in 1799 +from what it is to-day, and whether that change must not be accounted a +real advance, a real improvement in man.</p> + +<p>I do not propose to weary you by what in my hands would be the rash effort +of attempting a survey of all the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> scientific results of the nineteenth +century. It will be enough if for a little while I dwell on some few of +the salient features distinguishing the way in which we nowadays look +upon, and during the coming week shall speak of, the works of nature +around us—though those works themselves, save for the slight shifting +involved in a secular change, remain exactly the same—from the way in +which they were looked upon and might have been spoken of at a gathering +of philosophers at Dover in 1799, and I ask your leave to do so.</p> + +<p>In the philosophy of the ancients earth, fire, air, and water were called +“the elements.” It was thought, and rightly thought, that a knowledge of +them and of their attributes was a necessary basis of a knowledge of the +ways of nature. Translated into modern language, a knowledge of these +“elements” of old means a knowledge of the composition of the atmosphere, +of water, and of all the other things which we call matter, as well as a +knowledge of the general properties of gases, liquids, and solids, and of +the nature and effects of combustion. Of all these things our knowledge +to-day is large and exact, and, though ever enlarging, in some respects +complete. When did that knowledge begin to become exact?</p> + +<p>To-day the children in our schools know that the air which wraps round the +globe is not a single thing, but is made up of two things, oxygen and +nitrogen,<small><a name="f3.1" id="f3.1" href="#f3">[3]</a></small> mingled together. They know, again, that water is not a +single thing, but the product of two things, oxygen and hydrogen, joined +together. They know that when the air makes the fire burn and gives the +animal life, it is the oxygen in it which does the work. They know that +all round them things are undergoing that union with oxygen which we call +oxidation, and that oxidation is the ordinary source of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>heat and light. +Let me ask you to picture to yourselves what confusion there would be +to-morrow, not only in the discussions at the sectional meetings of our +association, but in the world at large, if it should happen that in the +coming night some destroying touch should wither up certain tender +structures in all our brains and wipe out from our memories all traces of +the ideas which cluster in our minds around the verbal tokens, oxygen and +oxidation. How could any of us—not the so-called man of science alone, +but even the man of business and the man of pleasure—go about his ways +lacking those ideas? Yet those ideas were, in 1799, lacking to all but a +few.</p> + +<p>Although in the third quarter of the seventeenth century the light of +truth about oxidation and combustion had flashed out in the writings of +John Mayow, it came as a flash only, and died away as soon as it had come. +For the rest of that century, and for the greater part of the next, +philosophers stumbled about in darkness, misled for most of the time by +the phantom conception which they called phlogiston. It was not until the +end of the third quarter of the eighteenth century that the new light, +which has burned steadily ever since, lit up the minds of the men of +science. The light came at nearly the same time from England and from +France. Rounding off the sharp corners of controversy, and joining, as we +may fitly do to-day, the two countries as twin bearers of a common crown, +we may say that we owe the truth to Priestley, to Lavoisier, and to +Cavendish. If it was Priestley who was the first to demonstrate the +existence of what we now call oxygen, it is to Lavoisier that we owe the +true conception of the nature of oxidation and the clear exposition of the +full meaning of Priestley’s discovery; while the knowledge of the +composition of water, the necessity complement of the knowledge of oxygen, +came to us through Cavendish and, we may perhaps add, through Watt.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>The date of Priestley’s discovery of oxygen is 1774; Lavoisier’s classic +memoir “On the nature of the principle which enters into combination with +metals during calcination” appeared in 1775, and Cavendish’s paper on the +composition of water did not see the light until 1784.</p> + +<p>During the last quarter of the eighteenth century this new idea of oxygen +and oxidation was struggling into existence. How new was the idea, is +illustrated by the fact that Lavoisier himself at first spoke of that +which he was afterwards, namely, in 1778, led to call oxygen, the name by +which it has since been known, as “the principle which enters into +combination.” What difficulties its acceptance met with is illustrated by +the fact that Priestley himself refused to the end of his life to grasp +the true bearings of the discovery which he had made.</p> + +<p>In the year 1799 the knowledge of oxygen, of the nature of water and of +air, and indeed the true conception of chemical composition and chemical +change, was hardly more than beginning to be; and the century had to pass +wholly away before the next great chemical idea, which we know by the name +of the atomic theory of John Dalton, was made known. We have only to read +the scientific literature of the time to recognize that a truth which is +now not only woven as a master-thread into all our scientific conceptions, +but even enters largely into the everyday talk and thoughts of educated +people, was, a hundred years ago, struggling into existence among the +philosophers themselves. It was all but absolutely unknown to the large +world outside those select few.</p> + +<p>If there be one word of science which is writ large on the life of the +present time, it is the word “electricity.” It is, I take it, writ larger +than any other word. The knowledge which it denotes has carried its +practical results far and wide into our daily life, while the theoretical +conceptions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> which it signifies pierce deep into the nature of things. We +are to-day proud, and justly proud, both of the material triumphs and of +the intellectual gains which it has brought us, and we are full of even +larger hopes of it in the future.</p> + +<p>At what time did this bright child of the nineteenth century have its +birth?</p> + +<p>He who listened to the small group of philosophers of Dover, who in 1799 +might have discoursed of natural knowledge, would perhaps have heard much +of electric machines, of electric sparks, of the electric fluid, and even +of positive and negative electricity; for frictional electricity had long +been known and even carefully studied. Probably one or more of the group, +dwelling on the observations which Galvani, an Italian, had made known +some twenty years before, developed views on the connection of electricity +with the phenomena of living bodies. Possibly one of them was exciting the +rest by telling how he had just heard that a professor at Pavia, one +Volta, had discovered that electricity could be produced, not only by +rubbing together particular bodies, but by the simple contact of two +metals, and had thereby explained Galvani’s remarkable results. For, +indeed, as we shall hear from Professor Fleming, it was in that very year, +1799, that electricity as we now know it took its birth. It was then that +Volta brought to light the apparently simple truths out of which so much +has sprung. The world, it is true, had to wait for yet some twenty years +before both the practical and theoretic worth of Volta’s discovery became +truly pregnant under the fertilizing influence of another discovery. The +loadstone and its magnetic virtues had, like the electrifying power of +rubbed amber, long been an old story. But, save for the compass, not much +had come from it. And even Volta’s discovery might have long remained +relatively barren had it been left to itself. When,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> however, in 1819, +Oersted made known his remarkable observations on the relations of +electricity to magnetism, he made the contact needed for the flow of a new +current of ideas. And it is perhaps not too much to say that those ideas, +developing during the years of the rest of the century with an +ever-accelerating swiftness, have wholly changed man’s material relations +to the circumstances of life, and at the same time carried him far in his +knowledge of the nature of things.</p> + +<p>Of all the various branches of science, none perhaps is to-day, none for +these many years past has been, so well known to, even if not understood +by, most people as that of geology. Its practical lessons have brought +wealth to many; its fairy tales have brought delight to more; and round it +hovers the charm of danger, for the conclusions to which it leads touch on +the nature of man’s beginning.</p> + +<p>In 1799 the science of geology, as we now know it, was struggling into +birth. There had been from of old cosmogonies, theories as to how the +world had taken shape out of primeval chaos. In that fresh spirit which +marked the zealous search after natural knowledge pursued in the middle +and latter part of the seventeenth century, the brilliant Stenson, in +Italy, and Hooke, in England, had laid hold of some of the problems +presented by fossil remains, and Woodward, with others, had labored in the +same field. In the eighteenth century, especially in its latter half, +men’s minds were busy about the physical agencies determining or modifying +the features of the earth’s crust; water and fire, subsidence from a +primeval ocean and transformation by outbursts of the central heat, +Neptune and Pluto were being appealed to, by Werner on the one hand and by +Demarest on the other, in explanation of the earth’s phenomena. The way +was being prepared, theories and views were abundant, and many sound +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>observations had been made; and yet the science of geology, properly so +called, the exact and proved knowledge of the successive phases of the +world’s life, may be said to date from the closing years of the eighteenth +century.</p> + +<p>In 1783 James Hutton put forward in a brief memoir his Theory of the +Earth, which, in 1795, two years before his death, he expanded into a +book; but his ideas failed to lay hold of men’s minds until the century +had passed away, when, in 1802, they found an able expositor in John +Playfair. The very same year that Hutton published his book, Cuvier came +to Paris and almost forthwith began, with Brongniart, his immortal +researches into the fossils of Paris and its neighborhood. And four years +later, in the year 1799 itself, William Smith’s tabular list of strata and +fossils saw the light. It is, I believe, not too much to say that out of +these, geology, as we now know it, sprang.</p> + +<p>It was thus in the closing years of the eighteenth century that was begun +the work which the nineteenth century has carried forward to such great +results; but at this time only the select few had grasped the truth, and +even they only the beginning of it. Outside a narrow circle the thoughts +even of the educated about the history of the globe were bounded by the +story of the Deluge,—though the story was often told in a strange +fashion,—or were guided by fantastic views of the plastic forces of a +sportive nature.</p> + +<p>In another branch of science, in that which deals with the problems +presented by living beings, the thoughts of men in 1799 were also very +different from the thoughts of men to-day. It is a very old quest, the +quest after the knowledge of the nature of living beings, one of the +earliest on which man set out; for it promised to lead him to a knowledge +of himself—a promise which perhaps is still before us, but the +fulfillment of which is yet far off. As<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> time has gone on, the pursuit of +natural knowledge has seemed to lead man away from himself into the +furthermost parts of the universe, and into secret workings of Nature in +which he appears to be of little or no account; and his knowledge of the +nature of living things, and so of his own nature, has advanced slowly, +waiting till the progress of other branches of natural knowledge can bring +it aid. Yet in the past hundred years the biologic sciences, as we now +call them, have marched rapidly onward.</p> + +<p>We may look upon a living body as a machine doing work in accordance with +certain laws, and may seek to trace out the working of the inner wheels: +how these raise up the lifeless dust into living matter, and let the +living matter fall away again into dust, giving out movement and heat. Or +we may look upon the individual life as a link in a long chain, joining +something which went before to something about to come, a chain whose +beginning lies hid in the farthest past, and may seek to know the ties +which bind one life to another. As we call up to view the long series of +living forms, living now or flitting like shadows on the screen of the +past, we may strive to lay hold of the influences which fashion the +garment of life. Whether the problems of life are looked upon from the one +point of view or the other, we to-day, not biologists only, but all of us, +have gained a knowledge hidden even from the philosophers a hundred years +ago.</p> + +<p>Of the problems presented by the living body viewed as a machine, some may +be spoken of as mechanical, others as physical, and yet others as +chemical, while some are, apparently at least, none of these. In the +seventeenth century William Harvey, laying hold of the central mechanism +of the blood stream, opened up a path of inquiry which his own age and the +century which followed trod with marked success. The knowledge of the +mechanism<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> of the animal and of the plant advanced apace, but the physical +and chemical problems had yet to wait. The eighteenth century, it is true, +had its physics and its chemistry; but, in relation at least to the +problems of the living being, a chemistry which knew not oxygen and a +physics which knew not the electricity of chemical action were of little +avail. The philosopher of 1799, when he discussed the functions of the +animal or of the plant involving chemical changes, was fain, for the most +part, as were his predecessors in the century before, to have recourse to +such vague terms as “fermentation” and the like; to-day our treatises on +physiology are largely made up of precise and exact expositions of the +play of physical agencies and chemical bodies in the living organisms. He +made use of the words “vital force” or “vital principle,” not as an +occasional, but as a common, explanation of the phenomena of the living +body. During the present century, especially during its latter half, the +idea embodied in those words has been driven away from one seat after +another; if we use it now when we are dealing with the chemical and +physical events of life, we use it with reluctance, as a <i>deus ex machina</i> +to be appealed to only when everything else has failed.</p> + +<p>Some of the problems—and those, perhaps, the chief problems—of the +living body have to be solved, neither by physical nor by chemical +methods, but by methods of their own. Such are the problems of the nervous +system. In respect to these the men of 1799 were on the threshold of a +pregnant discovery. During the latter part of this nineteenth century, +especially during its last quarter, the analysis of the mysterious +processes in the nervous system, and especially in the brain, which issue +as feeling, thought, and the power to move, has been pushed forward with a +success conspicuous in its practical, and full of promise in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> its +theoretical, gains. That analysis may be briefly described as a following +up of threads. We now know that what takes place along a tiny thread which + +we call a nerve fibre differs from that which takes place along its fellow +threads, that differing nervous impulses travel along different nervous +fibres, and that nervous and physical events are the outcome of the +clashing of nervous impulses as they sweep along the closely woven web of +living threads of which the brain is made. We have learned by experiment +and by observation that the pattern of the web determines the play of the +impulses, and we can already explain many of the obscure problems, not +only of nervous disease, but of nervous life, by an analysis which is a +tracking out of the devious and linked path of nervous threads. The very +beginning of this analysis was unknown in 1799. Men knew that nerves were +the agents of feeling and of the movements of muscles; they had learned +much about what this part or that part of the brain could do; but they did +not know that one nerve fibre differed from another in the very essence of +its work. It was just about the end of the eighteenth century, or the +beginning of the nineteenth, that an English surgeon began to ponder over +a conception which, however, he did not make known until some years later, +and which did not gain complete demonstration and full acceptance until +still more years had passed away. It was in 1811, in a tiny pamphlet +published privately, that Charles Bell put forth his New Idea, that the +nervous system is constructed on the principle that “the nerves are not +single nerves possessing various powers, but bundles of different nerves, +whose filaments are united for the convenience of distribution, but which +are distinct in office, as they are in origin, from the brain.”</p> + +<p>Our present knowledge of the nervous system is to a large extent only an +exemplification and expansion of Charles Bell’s New Idea, and has its +origin in that.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>If we pass from the problems of the living organism viewed as a machine to +those presented by the varied features of the different creatures who have +lived or who still live on the earth, we at once call to mind that the +middle years of the nineteenth century mark an epoch in biologic thought +such as never came before; for it was then that Charles Darwin gave to the +world the “Origin of Species.”</p> + +<p>That work, however, with all the far-reaching effects which it has had, +could have had little or no effect, or, rather, could not have come into +existence, had not the earlier half of the century been in travail +preparing for its coming. For the germinal idea of Darwin appeals, as to +witnesses, to the results of two lines of biologic investigation which +were almost unknown to the men of the eighteenth century.</p> + +<p>To one of these lines I have already referred. Darwin, as we know, +appealed to the geological record; and we also know how that record, +imperfect as it was then, and imperfect as it must always remain, has +since his time yielded the most striking proofs of at least one part of +his general conception. In 1799 there was, as we have seen, no geological +record at all.</p> + +<p>Of the other line I must say a few words.</p> + +<p>To-day the merest beginner in biologic study, or even that exemplar of +acquaintance without knowledge, the general reader, is aware that every +living being, even man himself, begins its independent existence as a tiny +ball, of which we can, even acknowledging to the full the limits of the +optical analysis at our command, assert with confidence that in structure, +using that word in its ordinary sense, it is in all cases absolutely +simple. It is equally well known that the features of form which supply +the characters of a grown-up living being, all the many and varied +features of even the most complex organism, are reached<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> as the goal of a +road, at times a long road, of successive changes; that the life of every +being, from the ovum to its full estate, is a series of shifting scenes, +which come and go, sometimes changing abruptly, sometimes melting the one +into the other, like dissolving views—all so ordained that often the +final shape with which the creature seems to begin, or is said to begin, +its life in the world is the outcome of many shapes, clothed with which it +in turn has lived many lives before its seeming birth.</p> + +<p>All, or nearly all, the exact knowledge of the labored way in which each +living creature puts on its proper shape and structure is the heritage of +the present century. Although the way in which the chick is moulded in the +egg was not wholly unknown even to the ancients, and in later years had +been told, first in the sixteenth century by Fabricius, then in the +seventeenth century, in a more clear and striking manner, by the great +Italian naturalist, Malpighi, the teaching thus offered had been neglected +or misinterpreted. At the close of the eighteenth century the dominant +view was that in the making of a creature out of the egg there was no +putting on of wholly new parts, no epigenesis. It was taught that the +entire creature lay hidden in the egg, hidden by reason of the very +transparency of its substance; lay ready-made, but folded up, as it were; +and that the process of development within the egg or within the womb was +a mere unfolding, a simple evolution. Nor did men shrink from accepting +the logical outcome of such a view—namely, that within the unborn +creature itself lay in like manner, hidden and folded up, its offspring +also, and within that, again, its offspring in turn, after the fashion of +a cluster of ivory balls carved by Chinese hands, one within the other.</p> + +<p>This was no fantastic view, put forward by an imaginative dreamer; it was +seriously held by sober men, even by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> men like the illustrious Haller, in +spite of their recognizing that, as the chick grew in the egg, some +changes of form took place. Though so early as the middle of the +eighteenth century Friedrich Casper Wolff, and, later on, others, had +strenuously opposed such a view, it held its own, not only to the close of +the century, but far on into the next. It was not until a quarter of the +nineteenth century had been added to the past that Von Baer made known the +results of researches which once and for all swept away the old view. He +and others working after him made it clear that each individual puts on +its final form and structure, not by an unfolding of preëxisting hidden +features, but by the formation of new parts through the continued +differentiation of a primitively simple material. It was also made clear +that the successive changes which the embryo undergoes in its progress +from the ovum to maturity are the expression of morphologic laws; that the +progress is one from the general to the special; and that the shifting +scenes of embryonic life are hints and tokens of lives lived by ancestors +in times long past.</p> + +<p>If we wish to measure how far off in biologic thought the end of the +eighteenth century stands, not only from the end, but even from the middle +of the nineteenth, we may imagine Darwin striving to write the “Origin of +Species” in 1799. We may fancy his being told by philosophers how one +group of living beings differed from another group because all its members +and all their ancestors came into existence at one stroke, when the +first-born progenitor of the race, within which all the rest were folded +up, stood forth as the result of a creative act. We may fancy him +listening to a debate between the philosopher who maintained that all the +fossils strewn in the earth were the remains of animals or plants churned +up in the turmoil of a violent universal flood, and dropped in their +places as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> the waters went away, and him who argued that such were not +really the “spoils of living creatures,” but the products of some playful +plastic power which, out of the superabundance of its energy, fashioned +here and there the lifeless earth into forms which imitated, but only +imitated, those of living things. Could he amid such surroundings, by any +flight of genius, have beaten his way to the conception for which his name +will ever be known?</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>Here I may well turn away from the past. It is not my purpose, nor, as I +have said, am I fitted, nor is this perhaps the place, to tell even in +outline the tale of the work of science in the nineteenth century. I am +content to have pointed out that the two great sciences of chemistry and +geology took their birth, or at least began to stand alone, at the close +of the last century, and have grown to be what we know them now within +about a hundred years, and that the study of living beings has within the +same time been so transformed as to be to-day something wholly different +from what it was in 1799. And, indeed, to say more would be to repeat +almost the same story about other things. If our present knowledge of +electricity is essentially the child of the nineteenth century, so also is +our present knowledge of many other branches of physics. And those most +ancient forms of exact knowledge, the knowledge of numbers and of the +heavens, whose beginning is lost in the remote past, have, with all other +kinds of natural knowledge, moved onward during the whole of the hundred +years with a speed which is ever increasing. I have said, I trust, enough +to justify the statement that in respect to natural knowledge a great gulf +lies between 1799 and 1899. That gulf, moreover, is a twofold one: not +only has natural knowledge been increased, but men have run to and fro, +spreading it as they go. Not only have the few<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> driven far back round the +full circle of natural knowledge the dark clouds of the unknown, which +wrap us all about, but also the many walk in the zone of light thus +increasingly gained. If it be true that the few to-day are, in respect to +natural knowledge, far removed from the few of those days, it is also true +that nearly all which the few alone knew then, and much which they did not +know, has now become the common knowledge of the many.</p> + +<p>What, however, I may venture to insist upon here is that the difference in +respect to natural knowledge, whatever be the case with other differences +between then and now, is undoubtedly a difference which means progress. +The span between the science of that time and the science of to-day is +beyond all question a great stride onward.</p> + +<p>We may say this, but we must say it without boasting. For the very story +of the past, which tells of the triumphs of science, bids the man of +science put away from him all thoughts of vainglory, and that by many +tokens.</p> + +<p>Whoever, working at any scientific problem, has occasion to study the +inquiries into the same problem by some fellow worker in the years long +gone by, comes away from that study humbled by one or other of two +different thoughts. On the one hand, he may find, when he has translated +the language of the past into the phraseology of to-day, how near was his +forerunner of old to the conception which he thought, with pride, was all +his own, not only so true but so new. On the other hand, if the ideas of +the investigator of old, viewed in the light of modern knowledge, are +found to be so wide of the mark as to seem absurd, the smile which begins +to play upon the lips of the modern is checked by the thought, Will the +ideas which I am now putting forth, and which I think explain so clearly, +so fully, the problem in hand, seem to some worker in the far future as +wrong and as fantastic as do these of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> my forerunner to me? In either case +his personal pride is checked.</p> + +<p>Further, there is written clearly on each page of the history of science, +in characters which cannot be overlooked, the lesson that no scientific +truth is born anew, coming by itself and of itself. Each new truth is +always the offspring of something which has gone before, becoming in turn +the parent of something coming after. In this aspect the man of science is +unlike, or seems to be unlike, the poet and the artist. The poet is born, +not made; he rises up, no man knowing his beginnings; when he goes away, +though men after him may sing his songs for centuries, he himself goes +away wholly, having taken with him his mantle, for this he can give to +none other. The man of science is not thus creative: he is created. His +work, however great it be, is not wholly his own: it is in part the +outcome of the work of men who have gone before. Again and again a +conception which has made a name great has come not so much by the man’s +own effort as out of the fullness of time. Again and again we may read in +the words of some man of old the outlines of an idea which, in later days, +has shone forth as a great acknowledged truth. From the mouth of the man +of old the idea dropped barren, fruitless; the world was not ready for it, +and heeded it not; the concomitant and abutting truths which could give it +power to work were wanting. Coming back again in later days, the same idea +found the world awaiting it; things were in travail preparing for it, and +someone, seizing the right moment to put it forth again, leaped into fame. +It is not so much the men of science who make science, as some spirit, +which, born of the truths already won, drives the man of science onward +and uses him to win new truths in turn.</p> + +<p>It is because each man of science is not his own master,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> but one of many +obedient servants of an impulse which was at work long before him, and +will work long after him, that in science there is no falling back. In +respect to other things there may be times of darkness and times of light; +there may be risings, decadences, and revivals. In science there is only +progress. The path may not be always a straight line; there may be +swerving to this side and to that; ideas may seem to return again and +again to the same point of the intellectual compass; but it will always be +found that they have reached a higher level—they have moved, not in a +circle, but in a spiral. Moreover, science is not fashioned as is a house, +by putting brick to brick, that which is once put remaining as it was put, +to the end. The growth of science is that of a living being. As in the +embryo, phase follows phase, and each member or body puts on in succession +different appearances, though all the while the same member, so a +scientific conception of one age seems to differ from that of a following +age, though it is the same one in the process of being made; and as the +dim outlines of the early embryo become, as the being grows more distinct +and sharp, like a picture on a screen brought more and more into focus, so +the dim gropings and searchings of the men of science of old are by +repeated approximations wrought into the clear and exact conclusions of +later times.</p> + +<p>The story of natural knowledge, of science, in the nineteenth century, as, +indeed, in preceding centuries, is, I repeat, a story of continued +progress. There is in it not so much as a hint of falling back, not even +of standing still. What is gained by scientific inquiry is gained forever; +it may be added to, it may seem to be covered up, but it can never be +taken away. Confident that the progress will go on, we cannot help peering +into the years to come, and straining our eyes to foresee what science +will become and what it will do as they roll on. While we do so, the +thought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> must come to us: Will all the increasing knowledge of nature +avail only to change the ways of man; will it have no effect on man +himself?</p> + +<p>The material good which mankind has gained and is gaining through the +advance of science is so imposing as to be obvious to everyone, and the +praises of this aspect of science are to be found in the mouths of all. +Beyond all doubt, science has greatly lessened and has markedly narrowed +hardship and suffering; beyond all doubt, science has largely increased +and has widely diffused ease and comfort. The appliances of science have, +as it were, covered with a soft cushion the rough places of life, and that +not for the rich only, but also for the poor. So abundant and so prominent +are the material benefits of science, that in the eyes of many these seem +to be the only benefits which she brings. She is often spoken of as if she +were useful and nothing more; as if her work were only to administer to +the material wants of man.</p> + +<p>Is this so? We may begin to doubt it when we reflect that the triumphs of +science which bring these material advantages are in their very nature +intellectual triumphs. The increasing benefits brought by science are the +results of man’s increasing mastery over nature, and that mastery is +increasingly a mastery of mind; it is an increasing power to use the +forces of what we call inanimate nature in place of the force of his own +or other creatures’ bodies; it is an increasing use of mind in place of +muscle.</p> + +<p>Is it to be thought that that which has brought the mind so greatly into +play has had no effect on the mind itself? Is that part of the mind which +works out scientific truths a mere slavish machine, producing results it +knows not how, having no part in the good which in its workings it brings +forth?</p> + +<p>What are the qualities, the features, of that scientific<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> mind which has +wrought, and is working, such great changes in man’s relation to nature? +In seeking an answer to this question we have not to inquire into the +attributes of genius. Though much of the progress of science seems to take +on the form of a series of great steps, each made by some great man, the +distinction in science between the great discoverer and the humble worker +is one of degree only, not of kind. As I was urging just now, the +greatness of many great names in science is often, in large part, the +greatness of occasion, not of absolute power. The qualities which guide +one man to a small truth silently taking its place among its fellows, as +these go to make up progress, are at bottom the same as those by which +another man is led to something of which the whole world rings.</p> + +<p>The features of the fruitful scientific mind are, in the main, three.</p> + +<p>In the first place, above all other things, his nature must be one which +vibrates in unison with that of which he is in search; the seeker after +truth must himself be truthful, truthful with the truthfulness of nature. +For the truthfulness of nature is not wholly the same as that which man +sometimes calls truthfulness. It is far more imperious, far more exacting. +Man, unscientific man, is often content with the “nearly” and the +“almost.” Nature never is. It is not her way to call the same two things +which differ, though the difference may be measured by less than a +thousandth of a milligramme or of a millimetre, or by any other like +standard of minuteness. And the man who, carrying the ways of the world +into the domain of science, thinks that he may treat nature’s differences +in any other way than she treats them herself, will find that she resents +his conduct; if he, in carelessness or in disdain, overlooks the minute +difference which she holds out to him as a signet to guide him in his +search, the projecting tip, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> it were, of some buried treasure, he is +bound to go astray, and the more strenuously he struggles on, the further +he will find himself from his true goal.</p> + +<p>In the second place, he must be alert of mind. Nature is ever making signs +to us; she is ever whispering to us the beginnings of her secrets; the +scientific man must be ever on the watch, ready at once to lay hold of +nature’s hint, however small; to listen to her whisper, however low.</p> + +<p>In the third place, scientific inquiry, though it be preeminently an +intellectual effort, has need of the moral quality of courage—not so much +the courage which helps a man to face a sudden difficulty as the courage +of steadfast endurance. Almost every inquiry, certainly every prolonged +inquiry, sooner or later goes wrong. The path, at first so straight and +clear, grows crooked and gets blocked; the hope and enthusiasm, or even +the jaunty ease, with which the inquirer set out, leave him, and he falls +into a slough of despond. That is the critical moment calling for courage. +Struggling through the slough, he will find on the other side the wicket +gate opening up the real path; losing heart, he will turn back and add one +more stone to the great cairn of the unaccomplished.</p> + +<p>But, I hear someone say, these qualities are not the peculiar attributes +of the man of science: they may be recognized as belonging to almost +everyone who has commanded or deserved success, whatever may have been his +walk of life. That is so. That is exactly what I desire to insist, that +the men of science have no peculiar virtues, no special powers. They are +ordinary men, their characters are common, even commonplace. Science, as +Huxley said, is organized common sense, and men of science are common men +drilled in the ways of common sense. For their life has this feature. +Though in themselves they are no stronger, no better than other men, they +possess a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> strength which, as I just now urged, is not their own, but is +that of the science whose servants they are. Even in his apprenticeship, +the scientific inquirer, while learning what has been done before his +time, if he learns it aright, so learns it that what is known may serve +him, not only as a vantage-ground whence to push off into the unknown, but +also as a compass to guide him in his course. And when, fitted for his +work, he enters on inquiry itself, what a zealous, anxious guide, what a +strict and, because strict, helpful, schoolmistress does Nature make +herself to him! Under her care every inquiry, whether it bring the +inquirer to a happy issue or seem to end in nought, trains him for the +next effort. She so orders her ways that each act of obedience to her +makes the next act easier for him; and step by step she leads him on +toward that perfect obedience which is complete mastery.</p> + +<p>Indeed, when we reflect on the potency of the discipline of scientific +inquiry, we cease to wonder at the progress of scientific knowledge. The +results actually gained seem to fall so far short of what under such +guidance might have been expected to have been gathered in, that we are +fain to conclude that science has called to follow her, for the most part, +the poor in intellect and the wayward in spirit. Had she called to her +service the many acute minds who have wasted their strength struggling in +vain to solve hopeless problems, or who have turned their energies to +things other than the increase of knowledge; had she called to her service +the many just men who have walked straight without the need of a rod to +guide them, how much greater than it has been would have been the progress +of science, and how many false teachings would the world have been spared! +To men of science themselves, when they consider their favored lot, the +achievements of the past should serve, not as a boast, but as a reproach.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>If there be any truth in what I have been urging, that the pursuit of +scientific inquiry is itself a training of special potency, giving +strength to the feeble and keeping in the path those who are inclined to +stray, it is obvious that the material gains of science, great as they may +be, do not make up all the good which science brings, or may bring, to +man. We especially, perhaps, in these later days, through the rapid +development of the physical sciences, are too apt to dwell on the material +gains alone. As a child in its infancy looks upon its mother only as a +giver of good things, and does not learn till after days how she was also +showing her love by carefully training it in the way it should go, so we, +too, have thought too much of the gifts of science, overlooking her power +to guide.</p> + +<p>Man does not live by bread alone, and science brings him more than bread. +It is a great thing to make two blades of grass grow where before one +alone grew; but it is no less great a thing to help a man to come to a +just conclusion on the questions with which he has to deal. We may claim +for science that, while she is doing the one, she may be so used as to do +the other also. The dictum just quoted, that science is organized common +sense, may be read as meaning that the common problems of life, which +common people have to solve, are to be solved by the same methods by which +the man of science solves his special problems. It follows that the +training which does so much for him may be looked to as promising to do +much for them.</p> + +<p>Such aid can come from science on two conditions only. In the first place, +this her influence must be acknowledged; she must be duly recognized as a +teacher no less than as a hewer of wood and a drawer of water. And the +pursuit of science must be followed, not by the professional few only, but +at least in such measure as will ensure the influence of example by the +many. But this latter point I need not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> urge before this great +association, whose chief object during more than half a century has been +to bring within the fold of science all who would answer to the call. In +the second place, it must be understood that the training to be looked for +from science is the outcome, not of the accumulation of scientific +knowledge, but of the practice of scientific inquiry. Man may have at his +fingers’ ends all the accomplished results and all the current opinions of +any one or of all the branches of science, and yet remain wholly +unscientific in mind; but no one can have carried out even the humblest +research without the spirit of science in some measure resting upon him. +And that spirit may in part be caught even without entering upon an actual +investigation in search of a new truth. The learner may be led to old +truths, even the oldest, in more ways than one. He may be brought abruptly +to a truth in its finished form, coming straight to it like a thief +climbing over the wall; and the hurry and press of modern life tempt many +to adopt this quicker way. Or he may be more slowly guided along the path +by which the truth was reached by him who first laid hold of it. It is by +this latter way of learning the truth, and by this alone, that the learner +may hope to catch something at least of the spirit of the scientific +inquirer.</p> + +<p>This is not the place, nor have I the wish, to plunge into the turmoil of +controversy; but if there be any truth in what I have been urging, then +they are wrong who think that in the schooling of the young science can be +used with profit only to train those for whom science will be the means of +earning their bread. It may be that, from the point of view of pedagogic +art, the experience of generations has fashioned out of the older studies +of literature an instrument of discipline of unusual power, and that the +teaching of science is as yet but a rough tool in unpractised hands. That, +however, is not an adequate reason<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> why scope should not be given for +science to show the value which we claim for it as an intellectual +training fitted for all sorts and conditions of men. Nor need the studies +of humanity and literature fear her presence in the schools; for if her +friends maintain that the teaching is one-sided, and therefore misleading, +which deals with the doings of man only, and is silent about the works of +nature, in the sight of which he and his doings shrink almost to nothing, +she herself would be the first to admit that that teaching is equally +wrong which deals only with the works of nature and says nothing about the +doings of man, who is, to us at least, nature’s centre.</p> + +<p>There is yet another general aspect of science on which I would crave +leave to say a word. In that broad field of human life which we call +politics, in the struggle, not of man with man, but of race with race, +science works for good. If we look only on the surface, it may at first +sight seem otherwise. In no branch of science has there during these later +years been greater activity and more rapid progress than in that which +furnishes the means by which man brings death, suffering, and disaster on +his fellow men. If the healer can look with pride on the increased power +which science has given him to alleviate human suffering and ward off the +miseries of disease, the destroyer can look with still greater pride on +the power which science has given him to sweep away lives and to work +desolation and ruin; while the one has slowly been learning to save units, +the other has quickly learned to slay thousands. But, happily, the very +greatness of the modern power of destruction is already becoming a bar to +its use, and bids fair—may we hope before long—wholly to put an end to +it; in the words of Tacitus, though in another sense, the very +preparations for war, through the character which science gives them, make +for peace.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>Moreover, not in one branch of science only, but in all, there is a deep +undercurrent of influence sapping the very foundations of all war. As I +have already urged, no feature of scientific inquiry is more marked than +the dependence of each step forward on other steps which have been made +before. The man of science cannot sit by himself in his own cave, weaving +out results by his own efforts, unaided by others, heedless of what others +have done and are doing. He is but a bit of a great system, a joint in a +great machine, and he can only work aright when he is in due touch with +his fellow workers. If his labor is to be what it ought to be, and is to +have the weight which it ought to have, he must know what is being done, +not by himself, but by others, and by others not of his own land and +speaking his tongue only, but also of other lands and of other speech. +Hence it comes about that to the man of science the barriers of manners +and of speech which pen men into nations become more and more unreal and +indistinct. He recognizes his fellow worker, wherever he may live, and +whatever tongue he may speak, as one who is pushing forward shoulder to +shoulder with him toward a common goal, as one whom he is helping and who +is helping him. The touch of science makes the whole world kin.</p> + +<p>The history of the past gives us many examples of this brotherhood of +science. In the revival of learning throughout the sixteenth and +seventeenth centuries, and some way on into the eighteenth century, the +common use of the Latin tongue made intercourse easy. In some respects, in +those earlier days science was more cosmopolitan than it afterwards +became. In spite of the difficulties and hardships of travel, the men of +science of different lands again and again met each other face to face, +heard with their ears, and saw with their eyes, what their brethren had to +say or show. The Englishman took the long journey to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> Italy to study +there; the Italian, the Frenchman, and the German wandered from one seat +of learning to another; and many a man held a chair in a country not his +own. There was help, too, as well as intercourse. The Royal Society of +London took upon itself the task of publishing nearly all the works of the +great Italian, Malpighi; and the brilliant Lavoisier, two years before his +own countrymen in their blind fury slew him, received from the same body + +the highest token which it could give of its esteem.</p> + +<p>In these closing years of the nineteenth century this great need of mutual +knowledge and of common action felt by men of science of different lands +is being manifested in a special way. Though nowadays what is done +anywhere is soon known everywhere, the news of a discovery being often +flashed over the globe by telegraph, there is an increasing activity in +the direction of organization to promote international meetings and +international coöperation. In almost every science, inquirers from many +lands now gather together at stated intervals, in international +congresses, to discuss matters which they have in common at heart, and go +away, each one feeling strengthened by having met his brother. The desire +that, in the struggle to lay bare the secrets of nature, the least waste +of human energy should be incurred, is leading more and more to the +concerted action of nations combining to attack problems the solution of +which is difficult and costly. The determination of standards of +measurement, magnetic surveys, the solution of great geodetic problems, +the mapping of the heavens and of the earth—all these are being carried +on by international organizations.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>One international scientific effort demands a word of notice. The need +which every inquirer in science feels to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> know, and to know quickly, what +his fellow worker, wherever on the globe he may be carrying on his work or +making known his results, has done or is doing, led some four years back +to a proposal for carrying out by international coöperation a complete +current index, issued promptly, of the scientific literature of the world. +Though much labor in many lands has been spent upon the undertaking, the +project is not yet an accomplished fact. Nor can this, perhaps, be +wondered at, when the difficulties of the task are weighed. Difficulties +of language, difficulties of driving in one team all the several sciences +which, like young horses, wish each to have its head free with leave to go +its own way, difficulties mechanical and financial, of press and post, +difficulties raised by existing interests—these and yet other +difficulties are obstacles not easy to be overcome. The most striking and +the most encouraging features of the deliberations which have now been +going on for three years have been the repeated expressions, coming not +from this or that quarter only, but from almost all quarters, of an +earnest desire that the effort should succeed, of a sincere belief in the +good of international coöperation, and of a willingness to sink as far as +possible individual interests for the sake of the common cause. In the +face of such a spirit we may surely hope that the many difficulties will +ultimately pass out of sight.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>I make no apology for having thus touched on international coöperation. I +should have been wanting had I not done so on the memorable occasion of +this meeting. A hundred years ago two great nations were grappling with +each other in a fierce struggle, which had lasted, with pauses, for many +years, and which was to last for many years to come; war was on every lip +and in almost every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> heart. To-day this meeting has, by a common wish, +been so arranged that those two nations should, in the persons of their +men of science, draw as near together as they can, with nothing but the +narrow streak of the Channel between them, in order that they may take +counsel together on matters in which they have one interest and a common +hope. May we not look upon this brotherly meeting as one of many signs +that science, though she works in a silent manner and in ways unseen by +many, is steadily making for peace?</p> + +<p>Looking back, then, in this last year of the eighteen hundreds, on the +century which is drawing to a close, while we may see in the history of +scientific inquiry much which, telling the man of science of his +shortcomings and his weakness, bids him be humble, we also see much, +perhaps more, which gives him hope. Hope is, indeed, one of the watchwords +of science. In the latter-day writings of some who know not science much +may be read which shows that the writer is losing, or has lost, hope in +the future of mankind. There are not a few of these; their repeated +utterances make a sign of the times. Seeing in matters lying outside +science few marks of progress and many tokens of decline or decay, +recognizing in science its material benefits only, such men have thoughts +of despair when they look forward to the times to come. But if there be +any truth in what I have attempted to urge to-night, if the intellectual, +if the moral influences of science are no less marked than her material +benefits, if, moreover, that which she has done is but the earnest of that +which she shall do, such men may pluck up courage and gather strength by +laying hold of her garment.</p> + +<p>We men of science at least need not share their views or their fears. Our +feet are set, not on the shifting sands of the opinions and the fancies of +the day, but on a solid foundation of verified truth, which by the labors +of each<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> succeeding age is made broader and more firm. To us the past is a +thing to look back upon, not with regret, not as something which has been +lost never to be regained, but with content, as something whose influence +is with us still, helping us on our further way. With us, indeed, the past +points not to itself, but to the future; the golden age is in front of us, +not behind us; that which we do know is a lamp whose brightest beams are +shed into the unknown before us, showing us how much there is in front, +and lighting up the way to reach it. We are confident in the advance +because, as each one of us feels that any step forward which he may make +is not ordered by himself and is not the result of his own sole efforts in +the present, but is, and that in large measure, the outcome of the labors +of others in the past, so each one of us has the sure and certain hope +that, as the past has helped him, so his efforts, be they great or be they +small, will be a help to those to come.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p> +<h2>THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY</h2> +<h3>THREE HYPOTHESES RESPECTING THE HISTORY OF NATURE</h3> + +<p>So far as I know, there are only three hypotheses which ever have been +entertained, or which well can be entertained, respecting the past history +of nature. I will, in the first place, state the hypotheses, and then I +will consider what evidence bearing upon them is in our possession, and by +what light of criticism that evidence is to be interpreted.</p> + +<p>Upon the first hypothesis, the assumption is, that phenomena of nature +similar to those exhibited by the present world have always existed; in +other words, that the universe has existed from all eternity in what may +be broadly termed its present condition.</p> + +<p>The second hypothesis is, that the present state of things has had only a +limited duration, and that, at some period in the past, a condition of the +world, essentially similar to that which we now know, came into existence, +without any precedent condition from which it could have naturally +proceeded. The assumption that successive states of nature have arisen, +each without any relation of natural causation to an antecedent state, is +a mere modification of this second hypothesis.</p> + +<p>The third hypothesis also assumes that the present state of things has had +but a limited duration; but it supposes that this state has been evolved +by a natural process from an antecedent state, and that from another, and +so on; and, on this hypothesis, the attempt to assign any limit to the +series of past changes is, usually, given up.</p> + +<p>It is so needful to form clear and distinct notions of what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> is really +meant by each of these hypotheses, that I will ask you to imagine what, +according to each, would have been visible to a spectator of the events +which constitute the history of the earth. On the first hypothesis, +however far back in time that spectator might be placed, he would see a +world essentially, though perhaps not in all its details, similar to that +which now exists. The animals which existed would be the ancestors of +those which now live, and similar to them; the plants, in like manner, +would be such as we know; and the mountains, plains, and waters would +foreshadow the salient features of our present land and water. This view +was held more or less distinctly, sometimes combined with the notion of +recurrent cycles of change, in ancient times; and its influence has been +felt down to the present day.</p> + +<p>It is worthy of remark that it is a hypothesis which is not inconsistent +with the doctrine of Uniformitarianism, with which geologists are +familiar. That doctrine was held by Hutton, and in his earlier days by +Lyell. Hutton was struck by the demonstration of astronomers that the +perturbations of the planetary bodies, however great they may be, yet +sooner or later right themselves; and that the solar system possesses a +self-adjusting power by which these aberrations are all brought back to a +mean condition. Hutton imagined that the like might be true of terrestrial +changes; although no one recognized more clearly than he the fact that the +dry land is being constantly washed down by rain and rivers, and deposited +in the sea; and that thus, in a longer or shorter time, the inequalities +of the earth’s surface must be leveled, and its high lands brought down to +the ocean. But, taking into account the internal forces of the earth, +which, upheaving the sea-bottom, give rise to new land, he thought that +these operations of degradation and elevation might compensate each other; +and that thus, for any assignable time, the general features of our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> +planet might remain what they are. And inasmuch as, under these +circumstances, there need be no limit to the propagation of animals and +plants, it is clear that the consistent working-out of the uniformitarian +idea might lead to the conception of the eternity of the world. Not that I +mean to say that either Hutton or Lyell held this conception—assuredly +not; they would have been the first to repudiate it. Nevertheless, the +logical development of their arguments tends directly toward this +hypothesis.</p> + +<p>The second hypothesis supposes that the present order of things, at some +no very remote time, had a sudden origin, and that the world, such as it +now is, had chaos for its phenomenal antecedent. That is the doctrine +which you will find stated most fully and clearly in the immortal poem of +John Milton,—the English “Divina Commœdia,”—“Paradise Lost.” I +believe it is largely to the influence of that remarkable work, combined +with the daily teachings to which we have all listened in our childhood, +that this hypothesis owes its general wide diffusion as one of the current +beliefs of English-speaking people. If you turn to the seventh book of +“Paradise Lost,” you will find there stated the hypothesis to which I +refer, which is briefly this: that this visible universe of ours came into +existence at no great distance of time from the present; and that the +parts of which it is composed made their appearance, in a certain definite +order, in the space of six natural days, in such a manner that, on the +first of these days, light appeared; that, on the second, the firmament, +or sky, separated the waters above from the waters beneath the firmament; +that, on the third day, the waters drew away from the dry land, and upon +it a varied vegetable life, similar to that which now exists, made its +appearance; that the fourth day was signalized by the apparition of the +sun, the stars, the moon, and the planets; that, on the fifth day, aquatic +animals originated within<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> the waters; that, on the sixth day, the earth +gave rise to our four-footed terrestrial creatures, and to all varieties +of terrestrial animals except birds, which had appeared on the preceding +day; and, finally, that man appeared upon the earth, and the emergence of +the universe from chaos was finished. Milton tells us, without the least +ambiguity, what a spectator of these marvelous occurrences would have +witnessed. I doubt not that his poem is familiar to all of you, but I +should like to recall one passage to your minds, in order that I may be +justified in what I have said regarding the perfectly concrete, definite +picture of the origin of the animal world which Milton draws. He says:—</p> + +<p class="poem">The sixth, and of creation last, arose<br /> +With evening harps and matin, when God said,<br /> +“Let the earth bring forth soul living in her kind,<br /> +Cattle and creeping things, and beast of the earth,<br /> +Each in their kind!” The earth obeyed, and, straight<br /> +Opening her fertile womb, teemed at a birth<br /> +Innumerous living creatures, perfect forms,<br /> +Limbed and full-grown. Out of the ground uprose,<br /> +As from his lair, the wild beast, where he wons<br /> +In forest wild, in thicket, brake, or den;<br /> +Among the trees in pairs they rose, they walked;<br /> +The cattle in the fields and meadows green;<br /> +Those rare and solitary; these in flocks<br /> +Pasturing at once, and in broad herds upsprung.<br /> +The grassy clods now calved; now half appears<br /> +The tawny lion, pawing to get free<br /> +His hinder parts—then springs, as broke from bonds,<br /> +And rampant shakes his brinded mane; the ounce,<br /> +The libbard, and the tiger, as the mole<br /> +Rising, the crumbled earth above them threw<br /> +In hillocks; the swift stag from underground<br /> +Bore up his branching head; scarce from his mould<br /> +Behemoth, biggest born of earth, upheaved<br /> +His vastness; fleeced the flocks and bleating rose<br /> +As plants; ambiguous between sea and land,<br /> +The river-horse and scaly crocodile.<br /> +At once came forth whatever creeps the ground,<br /> +Insect or worm.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>There is no doubt as to the meaning of this statement, nor as to what a +man of Milton’s genius expected would have been actually visible to an +eye-witness of this mode of origination of living things.</p> + +<p>The third hypothesis, or the hypothesis of evolution, supposes that, at +any comparatively late period of past time, our imaginary spectator would +meet with a state of things very similar to that which now obtains; but +that the likeness of the past to the present would gradually become less +and less, in proportion to the remoteness of his period of observation +from the present day; that the existing distribution of mountains and +plains, of rivers and seas, would show itself to be the product of a slow +process of natural change operating upon more and more widely different +antecedent conditions of the mineral framework of the earth; until, at +length, in place of that framework, he would behold only a vast nebulous +mass, representing the constituents of the sun and of the planetary +bodies. Preceding the forms of life which now exist, our observer would +see animals and plants, not identical with them, but like them; increasing +their difference with their antiquity and, at the same time, becoming +simpler and simpler; until, finally, the world of life would present +nothing but that undifferentiated protoplasmic matter which, so far as our +present knowledge goes, is the common foundation of all vital activity.</p> + +<p>The hypothesis of evolution supposes that, in all this vast progression, +there would be no breach of continuity, no point at which we could say, +“This is a natural process,” and, “This is not a natural process”; but +that the whole might be compared to that wonderful process of development +which may be seen going on every day under our eyes, in virtue of which +there arises, out of the semifluid, comparatively homogeneous substance +which we call<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> an egg, the complicated organization of one of the higher +animals. That, in a few words, is what is meant by the hypothesis of +evolution.</p> + +<p>I have already suggested that, in dealing with these three hypotheses, in +endeavoring to form a judgment as to which of them is the more worthy of +belief, or whether none is worthy of belief,—in which case our condition +of mind should be that suspension of judgment which is so difficult to all +but trained intellects,—we should be indifferent to all <i>a priori</i> +considerations. The question is a question of historical fact. The +universe has come into existence somehow or other, and the problem is, +whether it came into existence in one fashion, or whether it came into +existence in another; and, as an essential preliminary to further +discussion, permit me to say two or three words as to the nature and the +kinds of historical evidence.</p> + +<p>The evidence as to the occurrence of any event in past time may be ranged +under two heads, which, for convenience’ sake, I will speak of as +testimonial evidence and as circumstantial evidence. By testimonial +evidence I mean human testimony; and by circumstantial evidence I mean +evidence which is not human testimony. Let me illustrate by a familiar +example what I understand by these two kinds of evidence, and what is to +be said respecting their value.</p> + +<p>Suppose that a man tells you that he saw a person strike another and kill +him: that is testimonial evidence of the fact of murder. But it is +possible to have circumstantial evidence of the fact of murder: that is to +say, you may find a man dying with a wound upon his head having exactly +the form and character of the wound which is made by an axe; and, with due +care in taking surrounding circumstances into account, you may conclude +with the utmost certainty that the man has been murdered; that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> his death +is the consequence of a blow inflicted by another man with that implement. +We are very much in the habit of considering circumstantial evidence as of +less value than testimonial evidence; and it may be that, where the +circumstances are not perfectly clear and intelligible, it is a dangerous +and unsafe kind of evidence; but it must not be forgotten that, in many +cases, circumstantial is quite as conclusive as testimonial evidence, and +that, not unfrequently, it is a great deal weightier than testimonial +evidence. For example, take the case to which I referred just now. The +circumstantial evidence may be better and more convincing than the +testimonial evidence; for it may be impossible, under the conditions that +I have defined, to suppose that the man met his death from any cause but +the violent blow of an axe wielded by another man. The circumstantial +evidence in favor of a murder having been committed, in that case, is as +complete and as convincing as evidence can be. It is evidence which is +open to no doubt and to no falsification. But the testimony of a witness +is open to multitudinous doubts. He may have been mistaken. He may have +been actuated by malice. It has constantly happened that even an accurate +man has declared that a thing has happened in this, that, or the other +way, when a careful analysis of the circumstantial evidence has shown that +it did not happen in that way, but in some other way.</p> + +<p>We may now consider the evidence in favor of or against the three +hypotheses. Let me first direct your attention to what is to be said about +the hypotheses of the eternity of the state of things in which we now +live. What will first strike you is, that it is a hypothesis which, +whether true or false, is not capable of verification by any evidence. +For, in order to obtain either circumstantial or testimonial evidence +sufficient to prove the eternity of duration of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> present state of +nature, you must have an eternity of witnesses or an infinity of +circumstances, and neither of these is attainable. It is utterly +impossible that such evidence should be carried beyond a certain point of +time; and all that could be said, at most, would be, that, so far as the +evidence could be traced, there was nothing to contradict the hypothesis. +But when you look, not to the testimonial evidence,—which, considering +the relative insignificance of the antiquity of human records, might not +be good for much in this case,—but to the circumstantial evidence, then +you find that this hypothesis is absolutely incompatible with such +evidence as we have; which is of so plain and so simple a character that +it is impossible in any way to escape from the conclusions which it forces +upon us.</p> + +<p>You are, doubtless, all aware that the outer substance of the earth, which +alone is accessible to direct observation, is not of a homogeneous +character, but that it is made up of a number of layers or strata. Each of +these groups represents a number of beds of sand, of stone, of clay, of +slate, and of various other materials.</p> + +<p>On careful examination, it is found that the materials of which each of +these layers of more or less hard rock is composed are, for the most part, +of the same nature as those which are at present being formed under known +conditions on the surface of the earth. For example, the chalk, which +constitutes a great part of the Cretaceous formation in some parts of the +world, is practically identical in its physical and chemical characters +with a substance which is now being formed at the bottom of the Atlantic +Ocean, and covers an enormous area; other beds of rock are comparable with +the sands which are being formed upon sea-shores, packed together, and so +on. Thus, omitting rocks of igneous origin, it is demonstrable that all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> +these beds of stone, of which a total of not less than seventy thousand +feet is known, have been formed by natural agencies, either out of the +waste and washing of the dry land, or else by the accumulation of the +exuviæ of plants and animals. Many of these strata are full of such +exuviæ—the so-called “fossils.” Remains of thousands of species of +animals and plants, as perfectly recognizable as those of existing forms +of life which you meet with in museums, or as the shells which you pick up +upon the sea-beach, have been imbedded in the ancient sands, or muds, or +limestones, just as they are being imbedded now in sandy, or clayey, or +calcareous subaqueous deposits. They furnish us with a record, the general +nature of which cannot be misinterpreted, of the kinds of things that have +lived upon the surface of the earth during the time that is registered by +this great thickness of stratified rocks.</p> + +<p>But even a superficial study of these fossils shows us that the animals +and plants which live at the present time have had only a temporary +duration; for the remains of such modern forms of life are met with, for +the most part, only in the uppermost, or latest, tertiaries, and their +number rapidly diminishes in the lower deposits of that epoch. In the +older tertiaries, the places of existing animals and plants are taken by +other forms, as numerous and diversified as those which live now in the +same localities, but more or less different from them; in the mesozoic +rocks, these are replaced by others yet more divergent from modern types; +and in the palæozoic formations, the contrast is still more marked. Thus +the circumstantial evidence absolutely negatives the conception of the +eternity of the present condition of things. We can say with certainty +that the present condition of things has existed for a comparatively short +period; and that, so far as animal and vegetable nature are concerned, it +has been preceded by a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> different condition. We can pursue this evidence +until we reach the lowest of the stratified rocks, in which we lose the +indications of life altogether. The hypothesis of the eternity of the +present state of nature may, therefore, be put out of court.</p> + +<p>We now come to what I will term Milton’s hypothesis—the hypothesis that +the present condition of things has endured for a comparatively short +time; and, at the commencement of that time, came into existence within +the course of six days. I doubt not that it may have excited some surprise +in your minds that I should have spoken of this as Milton’s hypothesis, +rather than that I should have chosen the terms which are more customary, +such as “the doctrine of creation,” or “the Biblical doctrine,” or “the +doctrine of Moses,” all of which denominations, as applied to the +hypothesis to which I have just referred, are certainly much more familiar +to you than the title of the Miltonic hypothesis. But I have had what I +cannot but think are very weighty reasons for taking the course which I +have pursued. In the first place, I have discarded the title of the +“doctrine of creation,” because my present business is not with the +question why the objects which constitute nature came into existence, but +when they came into existence, and in what order. This is as strictly a +historical question as the question when the Angles and the Jutes invaded +England, and whether they preceded or followed the Romans. But the +question about creation is a philosophical problem, and one which cannot +be solved, or even approached, by the historical method. What we want to +learn is, whether the facts, so far as they are known, afford evidence +that things arose in the way described by Milton, or whether they do not; +and, when that question is settled, it will be time enough to inquire into +the causes of their origination.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>In the second place, I have not spoken of this doctrine as the Biblical +doctrine. It is quite true that persons as diverse in their general views +as Milton the Protestant and the celebrated Jesuit Father Suarez, each put +upon the first chapter of Genesis the interpretation embodied in Milton’s +poem. It is quite true that this interpretation is that which has been +instilled into every one of us in our childhood; but I do not for one +moment venture to say that it can properly be called the Biblical +doctrine. It is not my business, and does not lie within my competency, to +say what the Hebrew text does, and what it does not signify; moreover, +were I to affirm that this is the Biblical doctrine, I should be met by +the authority of many eminent scholars, to say nothing of men of science, +who, at various times, have absolutely denied that any such doctrine is to +be found in Genesis. If we are to listen to many expositors of no mean +authority, we must believe that what seems so clearly defined in +Genesis—as if very great pains had been taken that there should be no +possibility of mistake—is not the meaning of the text at all. The account +is divided into periods, which we may make just as long or as short as +convenience requires. We are also to understand that it is consistent with +the original text to believe that the most complex plants and animals may +have been evolved by natural processes, lasting for millions of years, out +of structureless rudiments. A person who is not a Hebrew scholar can only +stand aside and admire the marvelous flexibility of a language which +admits of such diverse interpretations. But assuredly, in the face of such +contradictions of authority upon matters respecting which he is +incompetent to form any judgment, he will abstain, as I do, from giving +any opinion.</p> + +<p>In the third place, I have carefully abstained from speaking of this as +the Mosaic doctrine, because we are now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> assured upon the authority of the +highest critics, and even of dignitaries of the Church, that there is no +evidence that Moses wrote the Book of Genesis, or knew anything about it. +You will understand that I give no judgment—it would be an impertinence +upon my part to volunteer even a suggestion—upon such a subject. But, +that being the state of opinion among the scholars and the clergy, it is +well for the unlearned in Hebrew lore, and for the laity, to avoid +entangling themselves in such a vexed question. Happily, Milton leaves us +no excuse for doubting what he means, and I shall therefore be safe in +speaking of the opinion in question as the Miltonic hypothesis.</p> + +<p>Now we have to test that hypothesis. For my part, I have no prejudice one +way or the other. If there is evidence in favor of this view, I am +burdened by no theoretical difficulties in the way of accepting it; but +there must be evidence. Scientific men get an awkward habit—no, I won’t +call it that, for it is a valuable habit—of believing nothing unless +there is evidence for it; and they have a way of looking upon belief which +is not based upon evidence, not only as illogical, but as immoral. We +will, if you please, test this view by the circumstantial evidence alone; +for, from what I have said, you will understand that I do not propose to +discuss the question of what testimonial evidence is to be adduced in +favor of it. If those whose business it is to judge are not at one as to +the authenticity of the only evidence of that kind which is offered, nor +as to the facts to which it bears witness, the discussion of such evidence +is superfluous. But I may be permitted to regret this necessity of +rejecting the <ins class="correction" title="original reads 'testimonal'">testimonial</ins> evidence the less, because the examination of +the circumstantial evidence leads to the conclusion, not only that it is +incompetent to justify the hypothesis, but that, so far as it goes, it is +contrary to the hypothesis.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>The considerations upon which I base this conclusion are of the simplest +possible character. The Miltonic hypothesis contains assertions of a very +definite character relating to the succession of living forms. It is +stated that plants, for example, made their appearance upon the third day, +and not before. And you will understand that what the poet means by plants +are such plants as now live, the ancestors, in the ordinary way of +propagation of like by like, of the trees and shrubs which flourish in the +present world. It must needs be so: for, if they were different, either +the existing plants have been the result of a separate origination since +that described by Milton, of which we have no record, or any ground for +supposition that such an occurrence has taken place; or else they have +arisen by a process of evolution from the original stocks.</p> + +<p>In the second place, it is clear that there was no animal life before the +fifth day, and that, on the fifth day, aquatic animals and birds appeared. +And it is further clear that terrestrial living things, other than birds, +made their appearance upon the sixth day, and not before. Hence, it +follows that if, in the large mass of circumstantial evidence as to what +really has happened in the past history of the globe we find indications +of the existence of terrestrial animals, other than birds, at a certain +period, it is perfectly certain that all that has taken place since that +time must be referred to the sixth day.</p> + +<p>In the great Carboniferous formation, whence America derives so vast a +proportion of her actual and potential wealth, in the beds of coal which +have been formed from the vegetation of that period, we find abundant +evidence of the existence of terrestrial animals. They have been +described, not only by European but by American naturalists. There are to +be found numerous insects allied to our cockroaches. There are to be found +spiders and scorpions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> of large size, the latter so similar to existing +scorpions that it requires the practised eye of the naturalist to +distinguish them. Inasmuch as these animals can be proved to have been +alive in the Carboniferous epoch, it is perfectly clear that, if the +Miltonic account is to be accepted, the huge mass of rocks extending from +the middle of the Palæozoic formations to the uppermost members of the +series must belong to the day which is termed by Milton the sixth.</p> + +<p>But, further, it is expressly stated that aquatic animals took their +origin upon the fifth day, and not before; hence, all formations in which +remains of aquatic animals can be proved to exist, and which therefore +testify that such animals lived at the time when these formations were in +course of deposition, must have been deposited during or since the period +which Milton speaks of as the fifth day. But there is absolutely no +fossiliferous formation in which the remains of aquatic animals are +absent. The oldest fossils in the Silurian rocks are exuviæ of marine +animals; and if the view which is entertained by Principal Dawson and Dr. +Carpenter respecting the nature of the Eozoön be well founded, aquatic +animals existed at a period as far antecedent to the deposition of the +coal as the coal is from us; inasmuch as the Eozoön is met with in those +Laurentian strata which lie at the bottom of the series of stratified +rocks. Hence it follows, plainly enough, that the whole series of +stratified rocks, if they are to be brought into harmony with Milton, must +be referred to the fifth and sixth days, and that we cannot hope to find +the slightest trace of the products of the earlier days in the geological +record. When we consider these simple facts, we see how absolutely futile +are the attempts that have been made to draw a parallel between the story +told by so much of the crust of the earth as is known to us and the story +that Milton tells. The whole series of fossiliferous stratified<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> rocks +must be referred to the last two days; and neither the Carboniferous nor +any other formation can afford evidence of the work of the third day.</p> + +<p>Not only is there this objection to any attempt to establish a harmony +between the Miltonic account and the facts recorded in the fossiliferous +rocks, but there is a further difficulty. According to the Miltonic +account, the order in which animals should have made their appearance in +the stratified rocks would be this: fishes, including the great whales, +and birds; after them, all varieties of terrestrial animals except birds. +Nothing could be further from the facts as we find them; we know of not +the slightest evidence of the existence of birds before the Jurassic, or +perhaps the Triassic, formation; while terrestrial animals, as we have +just seen, occur in the Carboniferous rocks. If there were any harmony +between the Miltonic account and the circumstantial evidence, we ought to +have abundant evidence of the existence of birds in the Carboniferous, the +Devonian, and the Silurian rocks. I need hardly say that this is not the +case, and that not a trace of birds makes its appearance until the far +later period which I have mentioned.</p> + +<p>And again, if it be true that all varieties of fishes and the great +whales, and the like, made their appearance on the fifth day, we ought to +find the remains of these animals in the older rocks—in those which were +deposited before the Carboniferous epoch. Fishes we do find, in +considerable number and variety; but the great whales are absent, and the +fishes are not such as now live. Not one solitary species of fish now in +existence is to be found in the Devonian or Silurian formations. Hence we +are introduced afresh to the dilemma which I have already placed before +you: either the animals which came into existence on the fifth day were +not such as those which are found at present, are not the direct and +immediate ancestors of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> those which now exist,—in which case either fresh +creations of which nothing is said, or a process of evolution, must have +occurred,—or else the whole story must be given up, as not only devoid of +any circumstantial evidence, but as contrary to such evidence as exists.</p> + +<p>I placed before you in a few words, some little time ago, a statement of +the sum and substance of Milton’s hypothesis. Let me now try to state, as +briefly, the effect of the circumstantial evidence bearing upon the past +history of the earth which is furnished, without the possibility of +mistake, with no chance of error as to its chief features, by the +stratified rocks. What we find is that the great series of formations +represents a period of time of which our human chronologies hardly afford +us a unit of measure. I will not pretend to say how we ought to estimate +this time, in millions or in billions of years. For my purpose, the +determination of its absolute duration is wholly unessential; but +unquestionably the time was enormous.</p> + +<p>It results from the simplest methods of interpretation, that, leaving out +of view certain patches of metamorphosed rocks, and certain volcanic +products, all that is now dry land has once been at the bottom of the +waters. It is perfectly certain that, at a comparatively recent period of +the world’s history,—the Cretaceous epoch,—none of the great physical +features, which at present mark the surface of the globe, existed. It is +certain that the Rocky Mountains were not. It is certain that the Himalaya +Mountains were not. It is certain that the Alps and the Pyrenees had no +existence. The evidence is of the plainest possible character, and is +simply this: we find raised up on the flanks of these mountains, elevated +by the forces of upheaval which have given rise to them, masses of +Cretaceous rock which formed the bottom of the sea before those mountains +existed. It is therefore clear that the elevatory<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> forces which gave rise +to the mountains operated subsequently to the Cretaceous epoch; and that +the mountains themselves are largely made up of the materials deposited in +the sea which once occupied their place. As we go back in time, we meet +with constant alternations of sea and land, of estuary and open ocean; +and, in correspondence with these alternations, we observe the changes in +the fauna and flora to which I have referred.</p> + +<p>But the inspection of these changes gives us no right to believe that +there has been any discontinuity in natural processes. There is no trace +of general cataclysms, of universal deluges, or of sudden destructions of +a whole fauna or flora. The appearances which were formerly interpreted in +that way have all been shown to be delusive, as our knowledge has +increased, and as the blanks which formerly appeared to exist between the +different formations have been filled up. That there is no absolute break +between formation and formation, that there has been no sudden +disappearance of all the forms of life and replacement of them by others, +but that changes have gone on slowly and gradually, that one type has died +out and another has taken its place, and that thus, by insensible degrees, +one fauna has been replaced by another, are conclusions strengthened by +constantly increasing evidence. So that within the whole of the immense +period indicated by the fossiliferous stratified rocks there is assuredly +not the slightest proof of any break in the uniformity of nature’s +operations, no indication that events have followed other than a clear and +orderly sequence.</p> + +<p>That, I say, is the natural and obvious teaching of the circumstantial +evidence contained in the stratified rocks. I leave you to consider how +far, by any ingenuity of interpretation, by any stretching of the meaning +of language, it can be brought into harmony with the Miltonic hypothesis.</p> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> +<h3>ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE</h3> + +<p>In order to make the title of this discourse generally intelligible, I +have translated the term “protoplasm,” which is the scientific name of the +substance of which I am about to speak, by the words “the physical basis +of life.” I suppose that, to many, the idea that there is such a thing as +a physical basis, or matter, of life may be novel, so widely spread is the +conception of life as a something which works through matter, but is +independent of it; and even those who are aware that matter and life are +inseparably connected may not be prepared for the conclusion—plainly +suggested by the phrase, “<i>the</i> physical basis or matter of life,”—that +there is some one kind of matter which is common to all living beings, and +that their endless diversities are bound together by a physical, as well +as an ideal, unity. In fact, when first apprehended, such a doctrine as +this appears almost shocking to common sense.</p> + +<p>What, truly, can seem to be more obviously different from one another, in +faculty, in form, and in substance, than the various kinds of living +beings? What community of faculty can there be between the brightly +colored lichen, which so nearly resembles a mere mineral incrustation of +the bare rock on which it grows, and the painter, to whom it is instinct +with beauty, or the botanist, whom it feeds with knowledge?</p> + +<p>Again, think of the microscopic fungus—a mere infinitesimal ovoid +particle, which finds space and duration enough to multiply into countless +millions in the body of a living fly; and then of the wealth of foliage, +the luxuriance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> of flower and fruit, which lies between this bald sketch +of a plant and the giant pine of California, towering to the dimensions of +a cathedral spire, or the Indian fig, which covers acres with its profound +shadow, and endures while nations and empires come and go around its vast +circumference. Or, turning to the other half of the world of life, picture +to yourselves the great Finner whale, hugest of beasts that live or have +lived, disporting his eighty or ninety feet of bone, muscle, and blubber, +with easy roll, among waves in which the stoutest ship that ever left +dockyard would founder hopelessly; and contrast him with the invisible +animalcules—mere gelatinous specks, multitudes of which could, in fact, +dance upon the point of a needle with the same ease as the angels of the +Schoolmen could, in imagination. With these images before your minds, you +may well ask, what community of form, or structure, is there between the +animalcule and the whale, or between the fungus and the fig tree? And, <i>a +fortiori</i>, between all four?</p> + +<p>Finally, if we regard substance, or material composition, what hidden bond +can connect the flower that a girl wears in her hair and the blood that +courses through her youthful veins; or, what is there in common between +the dense and resisting mass of the oak, or the strong fabric of the +tortoise, and those broad disks of glassy jelly which may be seen +pulsating through the waters of a calm sea, but which drain away to mere +films in the hand which raises them out of their element?</p> + +<p>Such objections as these must, I think, arise in the mind of everyone who +ponders, for the first time, upon the conception of a single physical +basis of life underlying all the diversities of vital existence; but I +propose to demonstrate to you that, notwithstanding these apparent +difficulties, a threefold unity—namely, a unity of power or faculty,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> a +unity of form, and a unity of substantial composition—does pervade the +whole living world.</p> + +<p>No very abstruse argumentation is needed, in the first place, to prove +that the powers, or faculties, of all kinds of living matter, diverse as +they may be in degree, are substantially similar in kind.</p> + +<p>Goethe has condensed a survey of all the powers of mankind into the +well-known epigram:—</p> + +<p class="poem">Warum treibt sich das Volk so und schreit? Es will sich ernähren,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kinder zeugen, und die nähren so gut es vermag.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Weiter bringt es kein Mensch, stell’ er sich wie er auch will.</span></p> + +<p>In physiological language this means that all the multifarious and +complicated activities of man are comprehensible under three categories. +Either they are immediately directed toward the maintenance and +development of the body, or they effect transitory changes in the relative +positions of parts of the body, or they tend toward the continuance of the +species. Even those manifestations of intellect, of feeling, and of will, +which we rightly name the higher faculties, are not excluded from this +classification, inasmuch as, to everyone but the subject of them, they are +known only as transitory changes in the relative positions of parts of the +body. Speech, gesture, and every other form of human action are, in the +long run, resolvable into muscular contraction, and muscular contraction +is but a transitory change in the relative positions of the parts of a +muscle. But the scheme which is large enough to embrace the activities of +the highest form of life covers all those of the lower creatures. The +lowest plant, or animalcule, feeds, grows, and reproduces its kind. In +addition, all animals manifest those transitory changes of form which we +class under irritability and contractility; and it is more than probable +that, when the vegetable world is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> thoroughly explored, we shall find all +plants in possession of the same powers, at one time or other of their +existence.</p> + +<p>I am not now alluding to such phenomena, at once rare and conspicuous, as +those exhibited by the leaflets of the sensitive plant, or the stamens of +the barberry, but to such more widely spread, and, at the same time, more +subtle and hidden, manifestations of vegetable contractility. You are +doubtless aware that the common nettle owes its stinging property to the +innumerable stiff and needle-like, though exquisitely delicate, hairs that +cover its surface. Each stinging needle tapers from a broad base to a +slender summit, which, though rounded at the end, is of such microscopic +fineness that it readily penetrates, and breaks off in, the skin. The +whole hair consists of a very delicate outer case of wood, closely applied +to the inner surface of which is a layer of semifluid matter, full of +innumerable granules of extreme minuteness. This semifluid lining is +protoplasm, which thus constitutes a kind of bag, full of a limpid liquid, +and roughly corresponding in form with the interior of the hair which it +fills. When viewed with a sufficiently high magnifying power, the +protoplasmic layer of the nettle hair is seen to be in a condition of +unceasing activity. Local contractions of the whole thickness of its +substance pass slowly and gradually from point to point, and give rise to +the appearance of progressive waves, just as the bending of successive +stalks of corn by a breeze produces the apparent billows of a cornfield.</p> + +<p>But, in addition to these movements, and independently of them, the +granules are driven, in relatively rapid streams, through channels in the +protoplasm which seem to have a considerable amount of persistence. Most +commonly, the currents in adjacent parts of the protoplasm take similar +directions; and, thus, there is a general stream up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> one side of the hair +and down the other. But this does not prevent the existence of partial +currents which take different routes; and, sometimes, trains of granules +may be seen coursing swiftly in opposite directions, within a +twenty-thousandth of an inch of one another; while, occasionally, opposite +streams come into direct collision, and, after a longer or shorter +struggle, one predominates. The cause of these currents seems to lie in +contractions of the protoplasm which bounds the channels in which they +flow, but contractions so minute that the best microscopes show only their +effects, and not themselves.</p> + +<p>The spectacle afforded by the wonderful energies prisoned within the +compass of the microscopic hair of a plant, which we commonly regard as a +merely passive organism, is not easily forgotten by one who has watched +its display, continued hour after hour, without pause or sign of +weakening. The possible complexity of many other organic forms, seemingly +as simple as the protoplasm of the nettle, dawns upon one; and the +comparison of such a protoplasm to a body with an internal circulation, +which has been put forward by an eminent physiologist, loses much of its +startling character. Currents similar to those of the hairs of the nettle +have been observed in a great multitude of very different plants, and +weighty authorities have suggested that they probably occur, in more or +less perfection, in all young vegetable cells. If such be the case, the +wonderful noonday silence of a tropical forest is, after all, due only to +the dullness of our hearing; and could our ears catch the murmur of these +tiny maelstroms, as they whirl in the innumerable myriads of living cells +which constitute each tree, we should be stunned, as with the roar of a +great city.</p> + +<p>Among the lower plants, it is the rule rather than the exception that +contractility should be still more openly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> manifested at some periods of +their existence. The protoplasm of Algæ and Fungi becomes, under many +circumstances, partially, or completely, freed from its woody case, and +exhibits movements of its whole mass, or is propelled by the contractility +of one or more hair-like prolongations of its body, which are called +vibratile <i>cilia</i>. And, so far as the conditions of the manifestation of +the phenomena of contractility have yet been studied, they are the same +for the plant as for the animal. Heat and electric shocks influence both, +and in the same way, though it may be in different degrees. It is by no +means my intention to suggest that there is no difference in faculty +between the lowest plant and the highest, or between plants and animals. +But the difference between the powers of the lowest plant, or animal, and +those of the highest, is one of degree, not of kind, and depends, as +Milne-Edwards long ago so well pointed out, upon the extent to which the +principle of the division of labor is carried out in the living economy. +In the lowest organism all parts are competent to perform all functions, +and one and the same portion of protoplasm may successively take on the +function of feeding, moving, or reproducing apparatus. In the highest, on +the contrary, a great number of parts combine to perform each function, +each part doing its allotted share of the work with great accuracy and +efficiency, but being useless for any other purpose.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, notwithstanding all the fundamental resemblances that +exist between the powers of the protoplasm in plants and in animals, they +present a striking difference (to which I shall advert more at length +presently), in the fact that plants can manufacture fresh protoplasm out +of mineral compounds, whereas animals are obliged to procure it +ready-made, and hence, in the long run, depend upon plants. Upon what +condition this difference<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> in the powers of the two great divisions of the +world of life depends, nothing is at present known.</p> + +<p>With such qualification as arises out of the last-mentioned fact, it may +be truly said that the acts of all living things are fundamentally one. Is +any such unity predictable of their forms? Let us seek in easily verified +facts for a reply to this question. If a drop of blood be drawn by +pricking one’s finger, and viewed with proper precautions and under a +sufficiently high microscopic power, there will be seen, among the +innumerable multitude of little circular, discoidal bodies, or corpuscles, +which float in it and give it its color, a comparatively small number of +colorless corpuscles, of somewhat larger size and very irregular shape. If +the drop of blood be kept at the temperature of the body, these colorless +corpuscles will be seen to exhibit a marvelous activity, changing their +forms with great rapidity, drawing in and thrusting out prolongations of +their substance, and creeping about as if they were independent organisms.</p> + +<p>The substance which is thus active is a mass of protoplasm, and its +activity differs in detail, rather than in principle, from that of the +protoplasm of the nettle. Under sundry circumstances the corpuscle dies +and becomes distended into a round mass, in the midst of which is seen a +smaller spherical body, which existed, but was more or less hidden, in the +living corpuscle, and is called its <i>nucleus</i>. Corpuscles of essentially +similar structure are to be found in the skin, in the lining of the mouth, +and scattered through the whole framework of the body. Nay, more: in the +earliest condition of the human organism, in that state in which it has +but just become distinguishable from the egg in which it arises, it is +nothing but an aggregation of such corpuscles, and every organ of the body +was, once, no more than such an aggregation.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>Thus a nucleated mass of protoplasm turns out to be what may be termed the +structural unit of the human body. As a matter of fact, the body, in its +earliest state, is a mere multiple of such units; and, in its perfect +condition, it is a multiple of such units variously modified.</p> + +<p>But does the formula which expresses the essential structural character of +the highest animal cover all the rest, as the statement of its powers and +faculties covered that of all others? Very nearly. Beast and fowl, reptile +and fish, mollusk, worm, and polyp, are all composed of structural units +of the same character, namely, masses of protoplasm with a nucleus. There +are sundry very low animals, each of which, structurally, is a mere +colorless blood-corpuscle, leading an independent life. But, at the very +bottom of the animal scale, even this simplicity becomes simplified, and +all the phenomena of life are manifested by a particle of protoplasm +without a nucleus. Nor are such organisms insignificant by reason of their +want of complexity. It is a fair question whether the protoplasm of those +simplest forms of life which people an immense extent of the bottom of the +sea would not outweigh that of all the higher living beings which inhabit +the land put together. And in ancient times, no less than at the present +day, such living beings as these have been the greatest of rock-builders.</p> + +<p>What has been said of the animal world is no less true of plants. Imbedded +in the protoplasm at the broad, or attached, end of the nettle hair, there +lies a spheroidal nucleus. Careful examination further proves that the +whole substance of the nettle is made up of a repetition of such masses of +nucleated protoplasm, each contained in a wooden case, which is modified +in form, sometimes into a woody fibre, sometimes into a duct or spiral +vessel, sometimes into a pollen grain, or an ovule. Traced back to its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> +earliest state, the nettle arises, as the man does, in a particle of +nucleated protoplasm. And in the lowest plants, as in the lowest animals, +a single mass of such protoplasm may constitute the whole plant, or the +protoplasm may exist without a nucleus.</p> + +<p>Under these circumstances it may well be asked, how is one mass of +non-nucleated protoplasm to be distinguished from another? Why call one +“plant” and the other “animal”?</p> + +<p>The only reply is that, so far as form is concerned, plants and animals +are not separable, and that, in many cases, it is a mere matter of +convention whether we call a given organism an animal or a plant. There is +a living body called <i>Æthalium septicum</i>, which appears upon decaying +vegetable substances, and, in one of its forms, is common upon the +surfaces of tan-pits. In this condition it is, to all intents and +purposes, a fungus, and formerly was always regarded as such; but the +remarkable investigations of De Bary have shown that, in another +condition, the <i>Æthalium</i> is an actively locomotive creature, and takes in +solid matters, upon which, apparently, it feeds, thus exhibiting the most +characteristic feature of animality. Is this a plant, or is it an animal? +Is it both, or is it neither? Some decide in favor of the last +supposition, and establish an intermediate kingdom, a sort of biological +“No Man’s Land,” for all these questionable forms. But, as it is +admittedly impossible to draw any distinct boundary line between this no +man’s land and the vegetable world, on the one hand, and the animal, on +the other, it appears to me that this proceeding merely doubles the +difficulty which, before, was single.</p> + +<p>Protoplasm, simple or nucleated, is the formal basis of all life. It is +the clay of the potter, which, bake it and paint it as he will, remains +clay, separated by artifice, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> not by nature, from the commonest brick +or sun-dried clod.</p> + +<p>Thus it becomes clear that all living powers are cognate, and that all +living forms are fundamentally of one character. The researches of the +chemist have revealed a no less striking uniformity of material +composition in living matter.</p> + +<p>In perfect strictness, it is true that chemical investigation can tell us +little or nothing, directly, of the composition of living matter, inasmuch +as such matter must needs die in the act of analysis; and upon this very +obvious ground, objections, which I confess seem to me to be somewhat +frivolous, have been raised to the drawing of any conclusions whatever +respecting the composition of actually living matter, from that of the +dead matter of life, which alone is accessible to us. But objectors of +this class do not seem to reflect that it is also, in strictness, true +that we know nothing about the composition of any body whatever, as it is. +The statement that a crystal of calc-spar consists of carbonate of lime is +quite true, if we only mean that, by appropriate processes, it may be +resolved into carbonic acid and quicklime. If you pass the same carbonic +acid over the very quicklime thus obtained, you will obtain carbonate of +lime again; but it will not be calc-spar, or anything like it. Can it, +therefore, be said that chemical analysis teaches nothing about the +chemical composition of calc-spar? Such a statement would be absurd; but +it is hardly more so than the talk one occasionally hears about the +uselessness of applying the results of chemical analysis to the living +bodies that have yielded them.</p> + +<p>One fact, at any rate, is out of reach of such refinements, and this is, +that all the forms of protoplasm which have yet been examined contain the +four elements, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, in very complex +union, and that they behave similarly toward several reagents.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> To this +complex combination, the nature of which has never been determined with +exactness, the name of protein has been applied. And if we use this term +with such caution as may properly arise out of our comparative ignorance +of the things for which it stands, it may be truly said that all +protoplasm is proteinaceous; or, as the white, or albumen, of an egg is +one of the commonest examples of a nearly pure protein matter, we may say +that all living matter is more or less albuminoid.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it would not yet be safe to say that all forms of protoplasm are +affected by the direct action of electric shocks; and yet the number of +cases in which the contraction of protoplasm is shown to be effected by +this agency increases every day.</p> + +<p>Nor can it be affirmed with perfect confidence that all forms of +protoplasm are liable to undergo that peculiar coagulation at a +temperature of from 40 to 50 degrees Centigrade, which has been called +“heat-stiffening”; though Kuhne’s beautiful researches have proved this +occurrence to take place in so many and such diverse living beings, that +it is hardly rash to expect that the law holds good for all.</p> + +<p>Enough has, perhaps, been said to prove the existence of a general +uniformity in the character of the protoplasm, or physical basis of life, +in whatever group of living beings it may be studied. But it will be +understood that this general uniformity by no means excludes any amount of +special modifications of the fundamental substance. The mineral, carbonate +of lime, assumes an immense diversity of characters, though no one doubts +that, under all these protean changes, it is one and the same thing.</p> + +<p>And now, what is the ultimate fate, and what the origin, of the matter of +life?</p> + +<p>Is it, as some of the older naturalists supposed, diffused<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> throughout the +universe in molecules, which are indestructible and unchangeable in +themselves, but, in endless transmigration, unite in innumerable +permutations, into the diversified forms of life we know? Or, is the +matter of life composed of ordinary matter, differing from it only in the +manner in which its atoms are aggregated? Is it built up of ordinary +matter, and again resolved into ordinary matter when its work is done?</p> + +<p>Modern science does not hesitate a moment between these alternatives. +Physiology writes over the portals of life:—</p> + +<p class="poem">Debemur morti nos nostraque,—</p> + +<p>with a profounder meaning than the Roman poet attached to that melancholy +line. Under whatever disguise it takes refuge, whether fungus or oak, worm +or man, the living protoplasm not only ultimately dies and is resolved +into its mineral and lifeless constituents, but is always dying, and, +strange as the paradox may sound, could not live unless it died.</p> + +<p>In the wonderful story of the “Peau de Chagrin,” the hero becomes +possessed of a magical wild ass’s skin, which yields him the means of +gratifying all his wishes. But its surface represents the duration of the +proprietor’s life; and for every satisfied desire the skin shrinks in +proportion to the intensity of fruition, until at length life and the last +handbreadth of the <i>peau de chagrin</i> disappear with the gratification of a +last wish.</p> + +<p>Balzac’s studies had led him over a wide range of thought and speculation, +and his shadowing forth of physiological truth in this strange story may +have been intentional. At any rate, the matter of life is a veritable +<i>peau de chagrin</i>, and for every trivial act it is somewhat the smaller. +All work implies waste, and the work of life results, directly or +indirectly, in the waste of protoplasm.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>Every word uttered by a speaker costs him some physical loss; and, in the +strictest sense, he burns that others may have light—so much eloquence, +so much of his body resolved into carbonic acid, water, and urea. It is +clear that this process of expenditure cannot go on forever. But, happily, +the protoplasmic <i>peau de chagrin</i> differs from Balzac’s in its capacity +of being repaired, and brought back to its full size, after every +exertion.</p> + +<p>For example, this present lecture, whatever its intellectual worth to you, +has a certain physical value to me, which is conceivably expressible by +the number of grains of protoplasm and other bodily substance wasted in +maintaining my vital processes during its delivery. My <i>peau de chagrin</i> +will be distinctly smaller at the end of the discourse than it was at the +beginning. By and by, I shall probably have recourse to the substance +commonly called mutton, for the purpose of stretching it back to its +original size. Now, this mutton was once the living protoplasm, more or +less modified, of another animal—a sheep. As I shall eat it, it is the +same matter altered, not only by death, but by exposure to sundry +artificial operations in the process of cooking.</p> + +<p>But these changes, whatever be their extent, have not rendered it +incompetent to resume its old functions as matter of life. A singular +inward laboratory, which I possess, will dissolve a certain portion of the +modified protoplasm; the solution so formed will pass into my veins; and +the subtle influences to which it will then be subjected will convert the +dead protoplasm into living protoplasm, and transubstantiate sheep into +man.</p> + +<p>Nor is this all. If digestion were a thing to be trifled with, I might sup +on lobster, and the matter of life of the crustacean would undergo the +same wonderful metamorphosis into humanity. And were I to return to my +own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> place by sea, and undergo shipwreck, the crustacea might, and +probably would, return the compliment, and demonstrate our common nature +by turning my protoplasm into living lobster. Or, if nothing better were +to be had, I might supply my wants with mere bread, and I should find the +protoplasm of the wheat-plant to be convertible into man, with no more +trouble than that of the sheep, and with far less, I fancy, than that of +the lobster.</p> + +<p>Hence it appears to be a matter of no great moment what animal, or what +plant, I lay under contribution for protoplasm; and the fact speaks +volumes for the general identity of that substance in all living beings. I +share this catholicity of assimilation with other animals, all of which, +so far as we know, could thrive equally well on the protoplasm of any of +their fellows, or of any plant; but here the assimilative powers of the +animal world cease. A solution of smelling-salts in water, with an +infinitesimal proportion of some other saline matters, contains all the +elementary bodies which enter into the composition of protoplasm; but, as +I need hardly say, a hogshead of that fluid would not keep a hungry man +from starving, nor would it save any animal whatever from a like fate. An +animal cannot make protoplasm, but must take it ready-made from some other +animal, or some plant—the animal’s highest feat of constructive chemistry +being to convert dead protoplasm into that living matter of life which is +appropriate to itself.</p> + +<p>Therefore, in seeking for the origin of protoplasm, we must eventually +turn to the vegetable world. The fluid containing carbonic acid, water, +and ammonia, which offers such a Barmecide feast to the animal, is a table +richly spread to multitudes of plants; and, with a due supply of only such +materials, many a plant will not only maintain itself in vigor, but grow +and multiply until it has increased a million-fold, or a +million-million-fold, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> quantity of protoplasm which it originally +possessed; in this way building up the matter of life, to an indefinite +extent, from the common matter of the universe.</p> + +<p>Thus, the animal can only raise the complex substance of dead protoplasm +to the higher power, as one may say, of living protoplasm; while the plant +can raise the less complex substances—carbonic acid, water, and +ammonia—to the same stage of living protoplasm, if not to the same level. +But the plant also has its limitations. Some of the fungi, for example, +appear to need higher compounds to start with; and no known plant can live +upon the uncompounded elements of protoplasm. A plant supplied with pure +carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur and the like, +would as infallibly die as the animal in his bath of smelling-salts, +though it would be surrounded by all the constituents of protoplasm. Nor, +indeed, need the process of simplification of vegetable food be carried so +far as this, in order to arrive at the limit of the plant’s thaumaturgy. +Let water, carbonic acid, and all the other needful constituents be +supplied with ammonia, and an ordinary plant will still be unable to +manufacture protoplasm.</p> + +<p>Thus the matter of life, so far as we know it (and we have no right to +speculate on any other), breaks up, in consequence of that continual death +which is the condition of its manifesting vitality, into carbonic acid, +water, and ammonia, which certainly possess no properties but those of +ordinary matter. And out of these same forms of ordinary matter, and from +none which are simpler, the vegetable world builds up all the protoplasm +that keeps the animal world a-going. Plants are the accumulators of the +power which animals distribute and disperse.</p> + +<p>But it will be observed that the existence of the matter of life depends +on the preëxistence of certain compounds;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> namely, carbonic acid, water, +and ammonia. Withdraw any one of these three from the world, and all vital +phenomena come to an end. They are related to the protoplasm of the plant, +as the protoplasm of the plant is to that of the animal. Carbon, hydrogen, +oxygen, and nitrogen are all lifeless bodies. Of these, carbon and oxygen +unite in certain proportions, and under certain conditions, to give rise +to carbonic acid; hydrogen and oxygen produce water; nitrogen and hydrogen +give rise to ammonia. These new compounds, like the elementary bodies of +which they are composed, are lifeless. But when they are brought together, +under certain conditions, they give rise to the still more complex body, +protoplasm, and this protoplasm exhibits the phenomena of life.</p> + +<p>I see no break in this series of steps in molecular complication, and I am +unable to understand why the language which is applicable to any one term +of the series may not be used with any of the others. We think fit to call +different kinds of matter carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen, and to +speak of the various powers and activities of these substances as the +properties of the matter of which they are composed.</p> + +<p>When hydrogen and oxygen are mixed in a certain proportion, and an +electric spark is passed through them, they disappear, and a quantity of +water, equal in weight to the sum of their weights, appears in their +place. There is not the slightest parity between the passive and active +powers of the water and those of the oxygen and hydrogen which have given +rise to it. At 32 degrees Fahrenheit, and far below that temperature, +oxygen and hydrogen are elastic gaseous bodies, whose particles tend to +rush away from one another with great force. Water, at the same +temperature, is a strong though brittle solid, whose particles tend to +cohere into definite geometrical shapes, and sometimes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> build up frosty +imitations of the most complex forms of vegetable foliage.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless we call these, and many other strange phenomena, the +properties of the water, and we do not hesitate to believe that, in some +way or another, they result from the properties of the component elements +of the water. We do not assume that a something called “aquosity” entered +into and took possession of the oxide of hydrogen as soon as it was +formed, and then guided the aqueous particles to their places in the +facets of the crystal, or among the leaflets of the hoar-frost. On the +contrary, we live in the hope and in the faith that, by the advance of +molecular physics, we shall by-and-by be able to see our way as clearly +from the constituents of water to the properties of water, as we are now +able to deduce the operations of a watch from the form of its parts and +the manner in which they are put together.</p> + +<p>Is the case in any way changed when carbonic acid, water, and ammonia +disappear, and in their place, under the influence of preëxisting living +protoplasm, an equivalent weight of the matter of life makes its +appearance?</p> + +<p>It is true that there is no sort of parity between the properties of the +components and the properties of the resultant; but neither was there in +the case of the water. It is also true that what I have spoken of as the +influence of preëxisting living matter is something quite unintelligible; +but does anybody quite comprehend the <i>modus operandi</i> of an electric +spark, which traverses a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen?</p> + +<p>What justification is there, then, for the assumption of the existence in +the living matter of a something which has no representative, or +correlative, in the not-living matter which gave rise to it? What better +philosophical status has “vitality” than “aquosity”? And why should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> +“vitality” hope for a better fate than the other “itys” which have +disappeared since Martinus Scriblerus accounted for the operation of the +meat-jack by its inherent “meat-roasting quality,” and scorned the +“materialism” of those who explained the turning of the spit by a certain +mechanism worked by the draught of the chimney?</p> + +<p>If scientific language is to possess a definite and constant signification +whenever it is employed, it seems to me that we are logically bound to +apply to the protoplasm, or physical basis of life, the same conceptions +as those which are held to be legitimate elsewhere. If the phenomena +exhibited by water are its properties, so are those presented by +protoplasm, living or dead, its properties.</p> + +<p>If the properties of water may be properly said to result from the nature +and disposition of its component molecules, I can find no intelligible +ground for refusing to say that the properties of protoplasm result from +the nature and disposition of its molecules.</p> + +<p>But I bid you beware lest, in accepting these conclusions, you are placing +your feet on the first rung of a ladder which, in most people’s +estimation, is the reverse of Jacob’s, and leads to the antipodes of +heaven. It may seem a small thing to admit that the dull, vital actions of +a fungus are the properties of its protoplasm, and are the direct results +of the nature of the matter of which it is composed. But if, as I have +endeavored to prove to you, its protoplasm is essentially identical with, +and most readily converted into, that of any animal, I can discover no +logical halting-place between the admission that such is the case, and the +further concession that all vital action may, with equal propriety, be +said to be the result of the molecular forces of the protoplasm which +displays it. And if so, it must be true, in the same sense and to the same +extent, that the thoughts to which I am now giving utterance,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> and your +thoughts regarding them, are the expression of molecular changes in that +matter of life which is the source of our other vital phenomena.</p> + +<p>Past experience leads me to be tolerably certain that, when the +propositions I have just placed before you are accessible to public +comment and criticism, they will be condemned by many zealous persons, and +perhaps by some few of the wise and thoughtful. I should not wonder if +“gross and brutal materialism” were the mildest phrase applied to them in +certain quarters. And, most undoubtedly, the terms of the propositions are +distinctly materialistic. Nevertheless two things are certain: the one, +that I hold the statements to be substantially true; the other, that I, +individually, am no materialist, but, on the contrary, believe materialism +to involve grave philosophical error.</p> + +<p>This union of materialistic terminology with the repudiation of +materialistic philosophy I share with some of the most thoughtful men with +whom I am acquainted. And, when I first undertook to deliver the present +discourse, it appeared to me to be fitting opportunity to explain how such +a union is not only consistent with, but necessitated by, sound logic. I +purposed to lead you through the territory of vital phenomena to the +materialistic slough in which you find yourselves now plunged, and then to +point out to you the sole path by which, in my judgment, extrication is +possible.</p> + +<p>Let us suppose that knowledge is absolute, and not relative, and, +therefore, that our conception of matter represents that which it really +is. Let us suppose, further, that we do know more of cause and effect than +a certain definite order of succession among facts, and that we have a +knowledge of the necessity of that succession,—and hence, of necessary +laws,—and I, for my part, do not see<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> what escape there is from utter +materialism and necessarianism. For it is obvious that our knowledge of +what we call the material world is, to begin with, at least as certain and +definite as that of the spiritual world, and that our acquaintance with +law is of as old a date as our knowledge of spontaneity. Further, I take +it to be demonstrable that it is utterly impossible to prove that anything +whatever may not be the effect of a material and necessary cause, and that +human logic is equally incompetent to prove that any act is really +spontaneous. A really spontaneous act is one which, by the assumption, has +no cause; and the attempt to prove such a negative as this is, on the face +of the matter, absurd. And while it is thus a philosophical impossibility +to demonstrate that any given phenomenon is not the effect of a material +cause, anyone who is acquainted with the history of science will admit, +that its progress has, in all ages, meant, and now, more than ever, means, +the extension of the province of what we call matter and causation, and +the concomitant gradual banishment from all regions of human thought of +what we call spirit and spontaneity.</p> + +<p>I have endeavored, in the first part of this discourse, to give you a +conception of the direction in which modern physiology is tending; and I +ask you, what is the difference between the conception of life as the +product of a certain disposition of material molecules, and the old notion +of an Archæus governing and directing blind matter within each living +body, except this—that here, as elsewhere, matter and law have devoured +spirit and spontaneity? And as surely as every future grows out of past +and present, so will the physiology of the future gradually extend the +realm of matter and law until it is coextensive with knowledge, with +feeling, and with action.</p> + +<p>The consciousness of this great truth weighs like a nightmare,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> I believe, +upon many of the best minds of these days. They watch what they conceive +to be the progress of materialism, in such fear and powerless anger as a +savage feels, when, during an eclipse, the great shadow creeps over the +face of the sun. The advancing tide of matter threatens to drown their +souls; the tightening grasp of law impedes their freedom; they are alarmed +lest man’s moral nature be debased by the increase of his wisdom.</p> + +<p>If the “New Philosophy” be worthy of the reprobation with which it is +visited, I confess their fears seem to me to be well founded. While, on +the contrary, could David Hume be consulted, I think he would smile at +their perplexities, and chide them for doing even as the heathen, and +falling down in terror before the hideous idols their own hands have +raised.</p> + +<p>For, after all, what do we know of this terrible “matter,” except as a +name for the unknown and hypothetical cause of states of our own +consciousness? And what do we know of that “spirit” over whose threatened +extinction by matter a great lamentation is arising, like that which was +heard at the death of Pan, except that it is also a name for an unknown +and hypothetical cause, or condition, of states of consciousness? In other +words, matter and spirit are but names for the imaginary substrata of +groups of natural phenomena.</p> + +<p>And what are the dire necessity and “iron” law under which men groan? +Truly, most gratuitously invented bugbears. I suppose if there be an +“iron” law, it is that of gravitation; and if there be a physical +necessity, it is that a stone, unsupported, must fall to the ground. But +what is all we really know, and can know, about the latter phenomenon? +Simply, that, in all human experience, stones have fallen to the ground +under these conditions; that we have not the smallest reason for believing +that any stone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> so circumstanced will not fall to the ground; and that we +have, on the contrary, every reason to believe that it will so fall. It is +very convenient to indicate that all the conditions of belief have been +fulfilled in this case, by calling the statement that unsupported stones +will fall to the ground “a law of nature.” But when, as commonly happens, +we change <i>will</i> into <i>must</i>, we introduce an idea of necessity which most +assuredly does not lie in the observed facts, and has no warranty that I +can discover elsewhere. For my part, I utterly repudiate and anathematize +the intruder. Fact I know, and Law I know, but what is this Necessity, +save an empty shadow of my own mind’s throwing?</p> + +<p>But, if it is certain that we can have no knowledge of the nature of +either matter or spirit, and that the notion of necessity is something +illegitimately thrust into the perfectly legitimate conception of law, the +materialistic position that there is nothing in the world but matter, +force, and necessity, is as utterly devoid of justification as the most +baseless of theological dogmas. The fundamental doctrines of materialism, +like those of spiritualism, and most other “isms,” lie outside “the limits +of philosophical inquiry”; and David Hume’s great service to humanity is +his irrefragable demonstration of what these limits are. Hume called +himself a skeptic, and therefore others cannot be blamed if they apply the +same title to him; but that does not alter the fact that the name, with +its existing implications, does him gross injustice.</p> + +<p>If a man asks me what the politics of the inhabitants of the moon are, and +I reply that I do not know; that neither I, nor anyone else, has any means +of knowing; and that, under these circumstances, I decline to trouble +myself about the subject at all, I do not think he has any right to call +me a skeptic. On the contrary, in replying thus, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> conceive that I am +simply honest and truthful, and show a proper regard for the economy of +time. So Hume’s strong and subtle intellect takes up a great many problems +about which we are naturally curious, and shows us that they are +essentially questions of lunar politics, in their essence incapable of +being answered, and therefore not worth the attention of men who have work +to do in the world. And he thus ends one of his essays:—</p> + +<p>“If we take in hand any volume of Divinity, or school metaphysics, for +instance, let us ask, <i>Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning +quantity or number?</i> No. <i>Does it contain any experimental reasoning +concerning matter of fact and existence?</i> No. Commit it then to the +flames; for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”</p> + +<p>Permit me to enforce this most wise advice. Why trouble ourselves about +matters of which, however important they may be, we do know nothing, and +can know nothing? We live in a world which is full of misery and +ignorance, and the plain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the +little corner he can influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less +ignorant than it was before he entered it. To do this effectually, it is +necessary to be fully possessed of only two beliefs: the first, that the +order of nature is ascertainable by our faculties to an extent which is +practically unlimited; the second, that our volition counts for something +as a condition of the course of events.</p> + +<p>Each of these beliefs can be verified experimentally, as often as we like +to try. Each, therefore, stands upon the strongest foundation upon which +any belief can rest, and forms one of our highest truths. If we find that +the ascertainment of the order of nature is facilitated by using one +terminology, or one set of symbols, rather than another, it is our clear +duty to use the former; and no harm can accrue,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> so long as we bear in +mind that we are dealing merely with terms and symbols.</p> + +<p>In itself it is of little moment whether we express the phenomena of +matter in terms of spirit, or the phenomena of spirit in terms of matter: +matter may be regarded as a form of thought, thought may be regarded as a +property of matter—each statement has a certain relative truth. But with +a view to the progress of science, the materialistic terminology is in +every way to be preferred. For it connects thought with the other +phenomena of the universe, and suggests inquiry into the nature of those +physical conditions, or concomitants of thought, which are more or less +accessible to us, and a knowledge of which may, in future, help us to +exercise the same kind of control over the world of thought that we +already possess in respect of the material world; whereas, the +alternative, or spiritualistic, terminology is utterly barren, and leads +to nothing but obscurity and confusion of ideas.</p> + +<p>Thus there can be little doubt that the further science advances, the more +extensively and consistently will all the phenomena of nature be +represented by materialistic formulæ and symbols.</p> + +<p>But the man of science who, forgetting the limits of philosophical +inquiry, slides from these formulæ and symbols into what is commonly +understood by materialism, seems to me to place himself on a level with +the mathematician who should mistake the <i>x</i>’s and <i>y</i>’s with which he +works his problems for real entities—and with this further disadvantage, +as compared with the mathematician, that the blunders of the latter are of +no practical consequence, while the errors of systematic materialism may +paralyze the energies and destroy the beauty of a life.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p> +<h2>JOHN TYNDALL</h2> +<h3>SCOPE AND LIMIT OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM</h3> + +<p>Partly through mathematical and partly through experimental research, +physical science has of late years assumed a momentous position in the +world. Both in a material and in an intellectual point of view it has +produced, and is designed to produce, immense changes—vast social +ameliorations, and vast alterations in the popular conception of the +origin, rule, and governance of natural things. By science, in the +physical world, miracles are wrought; while philosophy is forsaking its +ancient metaphysical channels and pursuing others which have been opened +or indicated by scientific research. This must become more and more the +case as philosophical writers become more deeply imbued with the methods +of science, better acquainted with the facts which scientific men have won +and with the great theories which they have elaborated.</p> + +<p>If you look at the face of a watch, you see the hour- and minute-hands, +and possibly also a second-hand, moving over the graduated dial. Why do +these hands move, and why are their relative motions such as they are +observed to be? These questions cannot be answered without opening the +watch, mastering its various parts, and ascertaining their relationship to +each other. When this is done, we find that the observed motion of the +hands follows of necessity from the inner mechanism of the watch, when +acted upon by the force invested in the spring.</p> + +<p>The motion of the hands may be called a phenomenon of art, but the case is +similar with the phenomena of nature. These also have their inner +mechanism and their store of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> force to set that mechanism going. The +ultimate problem of physical science is to reveal this mechanism, to +discern this store, and to show that, from the combined action of both, +the phenomena of which they constitute the basis must of necessity flow.</p> + +<p>I thought that an attempt to give you even a brief and sketchy +illustration of the manner in which scientific thinkers regard this +problem would not be uninteresting to you on the present occasion; more +especially as it will give me occasion to say a word or two on the +tendencies and limits of modern science; to point out the region which men +of science claim as their own, and where it is mere waste of time to +oppose their advance; and also to define, if possible, the bourne between +this and that other region to which the questionings and yearnings of the +scientific intellect are directed in vain.</p> + +<p>But here your tolerance will be needed. It was the American Emerson, I +think, who said that it is hardly possible to state any truth strongly +without apparent injustice to some other truth. Truth is often of a dual +character, taking the form of a magnet with two poles; and many of the +differences which agitate the thinking part of mankind are to be traced to +the exclusiveness with which partisan reasoners dwell upon one half of the +duality in forgetfulness of the other half. The proper course appears to +be to state both halves strongly, and allow each its fair share in the +formation of the resultant conviction. But this waiting for the statement +of the two sides of the question implies patience. It implies a resolution +to suppress indignation if the statement of the one half should clash with +our convictions, and to repress equally undue elation if the +half-statement should happen to chime in with our views. It implies a +determination to wait calmly for the statement of the whole, before we +pronounce judgment in the form of either acquiescence or dissent.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>This premised and, I trust, accepted, let us enter upon our task. There +have been writers who affirmed that the pyramids of Egypt were the +productions of nature; and in his early youth Alexander von Humboldt wrote +a learned essay with the express object of refuting this notion. We now +regard the pyramids as the work of men’s hands, aided probably by +machinery of which no record remains. We picture to ourselves the swarming +workers toiling at these vast erections, lifting the inert stones, and, +guided by the volition, the skill, and possibly at times by the whip, of +the architect, placing them in their proper positions. The blocks in this +case were moved and posited by a power external to themselves, and the +final form of the pyramid expresses the thought of its human builder.</p> + +<p>Let us pass from this illustration of constructive power to another of a +different kind. When a solution of common salt is slowly evaporated, the +water which holds the salt in solution disappears, but the salt itself +remains behind. At a certain stage of concentration the salt can no longer +retain the liquid form: its particles, or molecules, as they are called, +begin to deposit themselves as minute solids, so minute, indeed, as to +defy all microscopic power. As evaporation continues, solidification goes +on, and we finally obtain, through the clustering together of innumerable +molecules, a finite crystalline mass of a definite form. What is this +form? It sometimes seems a mimicry of the architecture of Egypt. We have +little pyramids built by the salt, terrace above terrace from base to +apex, forming a series of steps resembling those up which the Egyptian +traveler is dragged by his guides. The human is as little disposed to look +unquestioning at these pyramidal salt-crystals as to look at the pyramids +of Egypt without inquiring whence they came. How, then, are those salt +pyramids built up?</p> + +<p>Guided by analogy, you may, if you like, suppose that,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> swarming among the +constituent molecules of the salt, there is an invisible population, +controlled and coerced by some invisible master, and placing the atomic +blocks in their positions. This, however, is not the scientific idea, nor +do I think your good sense will accept it as a likely one. The scientific +idea is that the molecules act upon each other without the intervention of +slave labor; that they attract each other and repel each other at certain +definite points, or poles, and in certain definite directions; and that +the pyramidal form is the result of this play of attraction and repulsion. +While, then, the blocks of Egypt were laid down by a power external to +themselves, these molecular blocks of salt are self-posited, being fixed +in their places by the forces with which they act upon each other.</p> + +<p>I take common salt as an illustration because it is so familiar to us all; +but any other crystalline substance would answer my purpose equally well. +Everywhere, in fact, throughout inorganic nature, we have this formative +power, as Fichte would call it—this structural energy ready to come into +play and build the ultimate particles of matter into definite shapes. The +ice of our winters and of our polar regions is its handiwork, and so +equally are the quartz, feldspar, and mica of our rocks. Our chalk-beds +are for the most part composed of minute shells, which are almost the +product of structural energy; but behind the shell, as a whole, lies a +more remote and subtle formative act. These shells are built up of little +crystals of calc-spar, and to form these crystals the structural force had +to deal with the intangible molecules of carbonate of lime. This tendency +on the part of matter to organize itself, to grow into shape, to assume +definite forms in obedience to the definite action of force, is, as I have +said, all-pervading. It is in the ground on which you tread, in the water +you drink, in the air you breathe. Incipient life, as it were, manifests<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> +itself throughout the whole of what we call inorganic nature.</p> + +<p>The forms of the minerals resulting from this play of polar forces are +various, and exhibit different degrees of complexity. Men of science avail +themselves of all possible means of exploring their molecular +architecture. For this purpose they employ in turn, as agents of +exploration, light, heat, magnetism, electricity, and sound. Polarized +light is especially useful and powerful here. A beam of such light, when +sent in among the molecules of a crystal, is acted on by them, and from +this action we infer with more or less of clearness the manner in which +the molecules are arranged. That differences, for example, exist between +the inner structure of rock salt and crystallized sugar or sugar-candy, is +thus strikingly revealed. These differences may be made to display +themselves in chromatic phenomena of great splendor, the play of molecular +force being so regulated as to remove some of the colored constituents of +white light, and to leave others with increased intensity behind.</p> + +<p>And now let us pass from what we are accustomed to regard as a dead +mineral to a living grain of corn. When <i>it</i> is examined by polarized +light, chromatic phenomena similar to those noticed in crystals are +observed. And why? Because the architecture of the grain resembles the +architecture of the crystal. In the grain also the molecules are set in +definite positions, and in accordance with their arrangement they act upon +the light. But what has built together the molecules of the corn? I have +already said regarding crystalline architecture that you may, if you +please, consider the atoms and molecules to be placed in position by a +power external to themselves. The same hypothesis is open to you now. But +if, in the case of crystals, you have rejected this notion of an external +architect, I think you are bound to reject it now, and to conclude that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> +the molecules of the corn are self-posited by the forces with which they +act upon each other. It would be poor philosophy to invoke an external +agent in the one case and reject it in the other.</p> + +<p>Instead of cutting our grain of corn into slices and subjecting it to the +action of polarized light, let us place it in the earth and subject it to +a certain degree of warmth. In other words, let the molecules, both of the +corn and of the surrounding earth, be kept in that state of agitation +which we call warmth. Under these circumstances, the grain and the +substances which surround it interact, and a definite molecular +architecture is the result. A bud is formed; this bud reaches the surface, +where it is exposed to the sun’s rays, which are also to be regarded as a +kind of vibratory motion. And as the motion of common heat, with which the +grain and the substances surrounding it were first endowed, enabled the +grain and these substances to exercise their attractions and repulsions, +and thus to coalesce in definite forms, so the specific motion of the +sun’s rays now enables the green bud to feed upon the carbonic acid and +the aqueous vapor of the air. The bud appropriates those constituents of +both for which it has an elective attraction, and permits the other +constituent to resume its place in the air. Thus the architecture is +carried on. Forces are active at the root, forces are active in the blade, +the matter of the earth and the matter of the atmosphere are drawn toward +both, and the plant augments in size. We have in succession the bud, the +stalk, the ear, the full corn in the ear; the cycle of molecular action +being completed by the production of grains similar to that with which the +process began.</p> + +<p>Now there is nothing in this process which necessarily eludes the +conceptive or imagining power of the purely human mind. An intellect the +same in kind as our own would, if only sufficiently expanded, be able to +follow the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> whole process from beginning to end. It would see every +molecule placed in its position by the specific attractions and repulsions +exerted between it and other molecules, the whole process and its +consummation being an instance of the play of molecular force. Given the +grain and its environment, the purely human intellect might, if +sufficiently expanded, trace out <i>a priori</i> every step of the process of +growth, and by the application of purely mechanical principles demonstrate +that the cycle must end, as it is seen to end, in the reproduction of +forms like that with which it began. A similar necessity rules here to +that which rules the planets in their circuits round the sun.</p> + +<p>You will notice that I am stating my truth strongly, as at the beginning +we agreed it should be stated. But I must go still further, and affirm +that in the eye of science <i>the animal body</i> is just as much a product of +molecular force as the stalk and ear of corn, or as the crystal of salt or +sugar. Many of the parts of the body are obviously mechanical. Take the +human heart, for example, with its system of valves; or take the exquisite +mechanism of the eye or hand. Animal heat, moreover, is the same in kind +as the heat of a fire, being produced by the same chemical process. Animal +motion, too, is as directly derived from the food of the animal as the +motion of Trevethyck’s walking engine from the fuel in its furnace. As +regards matter, the animal body creates nothing; as regards force, it +creates nothing. Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his +stature? All that has been said, then, regarding the plant may be restated +with regard to the animal. Every particle that enters into the composition +of a muscle, a nerve, or a bone has been placed in its position by +molecular force. And, unless the existence of law in these matters is +denied, and the element of caprice introduced, we must conclude that, +given the relation of any molecule of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> body to its environment, its +position in the body might be determined mathematically. Our difficulty is +not with the <i>quality</i> of the problem, but with its <i>complexity</i>; and this +difficulty might be met by the simple expansion of the faculties which we +now possess. Given this expansion, with the necessary data, and the chick +might be deduced as rigorously and as logically from the egg as the +existence of Neptune was deduced from the disturbances of Uranus, or as +conical refraction was deduced from the undulatory theory of light.</p> + +<p>You see, I am not mincing matters, but avowing nakedly what many +scientific thinkers more or less distinctively believe. The formation of a +crystal, a plant, or an animal is, in their eyes, a purely mechanical +problem, which differs from the problems of ordinary mechanics in the +smallness of the masses and the complexity of the processes involved. Here +you have one half of our dual truth; let us now glance at the other half. +Associated with this wonderful mechanism of the animal body, we have +phenomena no less certain than those of physics, but between which and the +mechanism we discern no necessary connection. A man, for example, can say +<i>I feel</i>, <i>I think</i>, <i>I love</i>; but how does <i>consciousness</i> infuse itself +into the problem? The human brain is said to be the organ of thought and +feeling; when we are hurt, the brain feels it; when we ponder, it is the +brain that thinks; when our passions or affections are excited, it is +through the instrumentality of the brain. Let us endeavor to be a little +more precise here. I hardly imagine that there exists a profound +scientific thinker, who has reflected upon the subject, unwilling to admit +the extreme probability of the hypothesis that, for every fact of +consciousness, whether in the domain of sense, of thought, or of emotion, +a certain definite molecular condition is set up in the brain; who does +not hold this relation of physics to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> consciousness to be invariable, so +that, given the state of the brain, the corresponding thought or feeling +might be inferred; or, given the thought or feeling, the corresponding +state of the brain might be inferred.</p> + +<p>But how inferred? It is at bottom not a case of logical inference at all, +but of empirical association. You may reply that many of the inferences of +science are of this character; the inference, for example, that an +electric current of a given direction will deflect a magnetic needle in a +definite way; but the cases differ in this, that the passage from the +current to the needle, if not demonstrable, is thinkable, and that we +entertain no doubt as to the final mechanical solution of the problem. But +the passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of +consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a definite thought and a +definite molecular action in the brain occur simultaneously; we do not +possess the intellectual organ, nor apparently any rudiment of the organ, +which would enable us to pass, by a process of reasoning, from the one to +the other. They appear together, but we do not know why. Were our minds +and senses so expanded, strengthened, and illuminated as to enable us to +see and feel the very molecules of the brain; were we capable of following +all their motions, all their groupings, all their electric discharges, if +such there be; and were we intimately acquainted with the corresponding +states of thought and feeling, we should be as far as ever from the +solution of the problem, “How are these physical processes connected with +the facts of consciousness?” The chasm between the two classes of +phenomena would still remain intellectually impassable. Let the +consciousness of <i>love</i>, for example, be associated with a right-handed +spiral motion of the molecules of the brain, and the consciousness of +<i>hate</i> with a left-handed spiral motion. We should then know, when we +love, that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> motion is in one direction, and when we hate, that the +motion is in the other; but the <i>Why?</i> would remain as unanswerable as +before.</p> + +<p>In affirming that the growth of the body is mechanical, and that thought, +as exercised by us, has its correlative in the physics of the brain, I +think the position of the “Materialist” is stated, as far as that position +is a tenable one. I think the materialist will be able finally to maintain +this position against all attacks; but I do not think, in the present +condition of the human mind, that he can pass beyond this position. I do +not think he is entitled to say that his molecular groupings and his +molecular motions <i>explain</i> everything. In reality, they explain nothing. +The utmost he can affirm is the association of two classes of phenomena, +of whose real bond of union he is in absolute ignorance.</p> + +<p>The problem of the connection of body and soul is as insoluble in its +modern form as it was in the pre-scientific ages. Phosphorus is known to +enter into the composition of the human brain, and a trenchant German +writer has exclaimed, “Ohne Phosphor, kein Gedanke.”<small><a name="f4.1" id="f4.1" href="#f4">[4]</a></small> That may or may +not be the case; but, even if we knew it to be the case, the knowledge +would not lighten our darkness. On both sides of the zone here assigned to +the materialist he is equally helpless. If you ask him whence is this +“Matter” of which we have been discoursing, who or what divided it into +molecules, who or what impressed upon them this necessity of running into +organic forms, he has no answer. Science is mute in reply to these +questions.</p> + +<p>But if the materialist is confounded and science rendered dumb, who else +is prepared with a solution? To whom has this arm of the Lord been +revealed? Let us lower our heads and acknowledge our ignorance, priest and +philosopher,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> one and all. Perhaps the mystery may resolve itself into +knowledge at some future day. The process of things upon this earth has +been one of amelioration. It is a long way from the iguanodon and his +contemporaries to the President and the Members of the British +Association. And whether we regard the improvement from the scientific or +from the theological point of view, as the result of progressive +development, or as the result of successive exhibitions of creative +energy, neither view entitles us to assume that man’s present faculties +end the series—that the process of amelioration stops at him.</p> + +<p>A time may therefore come when this ultra-scientific region by which we +are now enfolded may offer itself to terrestrial, if not to human, +investigation. Two thirds of the rays emitted by the sun fail to arouse in +the eye the sense of vision. The rays exist, but the visual organ +requisite for their translation into light does not exist. And so, from +this region of darkness and mystery which surrounds us, rays may now be +darting which require but the development of the proper intellectual +organs to translate them into knowledge as far surpassing ours as ours +surpasses that of the wallowing reptiles which once held possession of +this planet. Meanwhile the mystery is not without its uses. It certainly +may be made a power in the human soul; but it is a power which has +feeling, not knowledge, for its base. It may be, and will be, and we hope +is, turned to account, both in steadying and strengthening the intellect, +and in rescuing man from that littleness to which in the struggle for +existence or for precedence in the world he is continually prone.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p> +<h2>JOHN HENRY, CARDINAL NEWMAN</h2> +<h3>CHRISTIANITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE<small><a name="f5.1" id="f5.1" href="#f5">[5]</a></small></h3> + +<p>So far, then, as these remarks have gone, Theology and Physics cannot +touch each other, have no intercommunion, have no ground of difference or +agreement, of jealousy or of sympathy. As well may musical truths be said +to interfere with the doctrines of architectural science; as well may +there be a collision between the mechanist and the geologist, the engineer +and the grammarian; as well might the British Parliament or the French +nation be jealous of some possible belligerent power upon the surface of +the moon, as Physics pick a quarrel with Theology. And it may be +well—before I proceed to fill up in detail this outline, and to explain +what has to be explained in this statement—to corroborate it, as it +stands, by the remarkable words upon the subject of a writer of the +day:<small><a name="f6.1" id="f6.1" href="#f6">[6]</a></small>—</p> + +<p>“We often hear it said,” he observes, writing as a Protestant (and here +let me assure you, gentlemen, that though his words have a controversial +tone with them, I do not quote them in that aspect, or as wishing here to +urge anything against Protestants, but merely in pursuance of my own +point, that Revelation and Physical Science cannot really come into +collision), “we often hear it said that the world is constantly becoming +more and more enlightened, and that this enlightenment must be favorable +to Protestantism, and unfavorable to Catholicism. We wish that we could +think so. But we see great reason to doubt whether this is a well-founded +expectation. We see that <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>during the last two hundred and fifty years the +human mind has been in the highest degree active; that it has made great +advances in every branch of natural philosophy; that it has produced +innumerable inventions tending to promote the convenience of life; that +medicine, surgery, chemistry, engineering, have been very greatly +improved, that government, police, and law have been improved, though not +to so great an extent as the physical sciences. Yet we see that, during +these two hundred and fifty years, Protestantism has made no conquests +worth speaking of. Nay, we believe that, as far as there has been change, +that change has, on the whole, been in favor of the Church of Rome. We +cannot, therefore, feel confident that the progress of knowledge will +necessarily be fatal to a system which has, to say the least, stood its +ground in spite of the immense progress made by the human race in +knowledge since the days of Queen Elizabeth.</p> + +<p>“Indeed, the argument which we are considering seems to us to be founded +on an entire mistake. There are branches of knowledge with respect to +which the law of the human mind is progress. In mathematics, when once a +proposition has been demonstrated, it is never afterwards contested. Every +fresh story is as solid a basis for a new superstructure as the original +foundation was. Here, therefore, there is a constant addition to the stock +of truth. In the inductive sciences, again, the law is progress....</p> + +<p>“But with theology the case is very different. As respects natural +religion (Revelation being for the present altogether left out of the +question), it is not easy to see that a philosopher of the present day is +more favorably situated than Thales or Simonides. He has before him just +the same evidences of design in the structure of the universe which the +early Greeks had.... As to the other great question, what becomes of man +after death, we do not see<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> that a highly educated European, left to his +unassisted reason, is more likely to be in the right than a Blackfoot +Indian. Not a single one of the many sciences, in which we surpass the +Blackfoot Indians, throws the smallest light on the state of the soul +after the animal life is extinct....</p> + +<p>“Natural Theology, then, is not a progressive science. That knowledge of +our origin and of our destiny which we derive from Revelation is indeed of +very different clearness, and of very different importance. But neither is +Revealed Religion of the nature of a progressive science.... In divinity +there cannot be a progress analogous to that which is constantly taking +place in pharmacy, geology, and navigation. A Christian of the fifth +century with a Bible is neither better nor worse situated than a Christian +of the nineteenth century with a Bible, candor and natural acuteness +being, of course, supposed equal. It matters not at all that the compass, +printing, gunpowder, steam, gas, vaccination, and a thousand other +discoveries and inventions, which were unknown in the fifth century, are +familiar to the nineteenth. None of these discoveries and inventions has +the smallest bearing on the question whether man is justified by faith +alone, or whether the invocation of saints is an orthodox practice.... We +are confident that the world will never go back to the solar system of +Ptolemy; nor is our confidence in the least shaken by the circumstance +that so great a man as Bacon rejected the theory of Galileo with scorn; +for Bacon had not all the means of arriving at a sound conclusion. But +when we reflect that Sir Thomas More was ready to die for the doctrine of +Transubstantiation, we cannot but feel some doubt whether the doctrine of +Transubstantiation may not triumph over all opposition. More was a man of +eminent talents. He had all the information on the subject that we have, +or <i>that, while the world lasts, any human being will have.... No<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> +progress that science has made, or will make</i>, can add to what seems to us +the overwhelming force of the argument against the Real Presence. We are +therefore unable to understand why what Sir Thomas More believed +respecting Transubstantiation may not be believed, to the end of time, by +men equal in abilities and honesty to Sir Thomas More. But Sir Thomas More +is one of the choice specimens of human wisdom and virtue; and the +doctrine of Transubstantiation is a kind of proof charge. The faith which +stands that test will stand any test....</p> + +<p>“The history of Catholicism strikingly illustrates these observations. +During the last seven centuries the public mind of Europe has made +constant progress in every department of secular knowledge; but in +religion we can trace no constant progress.... Four times since the +authority of the Church of Rome was established in Western Christendom, +has the human intellect risen up against her yoke. Twice that Church +remained completely victorious. Twice she came forth from the conflict +bearing the marks of cruel wounds, but with the principle of life still +strong within her. When we reflect on the tremendous assaults she has +survived, we find it difficult to conceive in what way she is to perish.”</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>You see, gentlemen, if you trust the judgment of a sagacious mind, deeply +read in history, Catholic Theology has nothing to fear from the progress +of Physical Science, even independently of the divinity of its doctrines. +It speaks of things supernatural; and these, by the very force of the +words, research into nature cannot touch.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p> +<h2>ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON</h2> +<h3>PULVIS ET UMBRA<small><a name="f7.1" id="f7.1" href="#f7">[7]</a></small></h3> + +<p>We look for some reward of our endeavors, and are disappointed; not +success, not happiness, not even peace of conscience, crowns our +ineffectual efforts to do well. Our frailties are invincible, our virtues +barren; the battle goes sore against us to the going down of the sun. The +canting moralist tells us of right and wrong; and we look abroad, even on +the face of our small earth, and find them change with every climate, and +no country where some action is not honored for a virtue and none where it +is not branded for a vice; and we look in our experience, and find no +vital congruity in the wisest rules, but at the best a municipal fitness. +It is not strange if we are tempted to despair of good. We ask too much. +Our religions and moralities have been trimmed to flatter us, till they +are all emasculate and sentimentalized, and only please and weaken. Truth +is of a rougher strain. In the harsh face of life, faith can read a +bracing gospel. The human race is a thing more ancient than the ten +commandments; and the bones and revolutions of the Kosmos, in whose joints +we are but moss and fungus, more ancient still.</p> + +<p>Of the Kosmos in the last resort, science reports many doubtful things, +and all of them appalling. There seems no substance to this solid globe on +which we stamp: nothing but symbols and ratios. Symbols and ratios carry +us and bring us forth and beat us down; gravity, which swings the +incommensurable suns and worlds through space, is but a figment varying +inversely as the squares of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> distances; and the suns and worlds +themselves, imponderable figures of abstraction, NH<sub>3</sub> and H<sub>2</sub>O. +Consideration dares not dwell upon this view; that way madness lies; +science carries us into zones of speculation, where there is no habitable +city for the mind of man.</p> + +<p>But take the Kosmos with a grosser faith, as our senses give it us. We +behold space sown with rotatory islands, suns and worlds and the shards +and wrecks of systems: some, like the sun, still blazing; some rotting, +like the earth; others, like the moon, stable in desolation. All of these +we take to be made of something we call matter: a thing which no analysis +can help us to conceive; to whose incredible properties no familiarity can +reconcile our minds. This stuff, when not purified by the lustration of +fire, rots uncleanly into something we call life; seized through all its +atoms with a pediculous malady; swelling in tumors that become +independent, sometimes even (by an abhorrent prodigy) locomotory; one +splitting into millions, millions cohering into one, as the malady +proceeds through varying stages. This vital putrescence of the dust, used +as we are to it, yet strikes us with occasional disgust; and the profusion +of worms in a piece of ancient turf, or the air of a marsh darkened with +insects, will sometimes check our breathing so that we aspire for cleaner +places. But none is clean: the moving sand is infected with lice; the pure +spring, where it bursts out of the mountain, is a mere issue of worms; +even in the hard rock the crystal is forming.</p> + +<p>In two main shapes this eruption covers the countenance of the earth: the +animal and the vegetable; one in some degree the inversion of the other; +the second rooted to the spot; the first coming detached out of its natal +mud, and scurrying abroad with the myriad feet of insects, or towering +into the heavens on the wings of birds; a thing so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> inconceivable that, if +it be well considered, the heart stops. To what passes with the anchored +vermin, we have little clue; doubtless they have their joys and sorrows, +their delights and killing agonies; it appears not how. But of the +locomotory, to which we ourselves belong, we can tell more. These share +with us a thousand miracles: the miracles of sight, of hearing, of the +projection of sound; things that bridge space; the miracles of memory and +reason, by which the present is conceived, and, when it is gone, its image +kept living in the brains of man and brute; the miracle of reproduction, +with its imperious desires and staggering consequences. And to put the +last touch upon this mountain mass of the revolting and the inconceivable, +all these prey upon each other, lives tearing other lives in pieces, +cramming them inside themselves, and by that summary process, growing fat: +the vegetarian, the whale, perhaps the tree, not less than the lion of the +desert; for the vegetarian is only the eater of the dumb.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile our rotatory island, loaded with predatory life, and more +drenched with blood, both animal and vegetable, than ever mutinied ship, +scuds through space with unimaginable speed, and turns alternate cheeks to +the reverberation of a blazing world, ninety million miles away.</p> + +<p>What a monstrous spectre is this man, the disease of the agglutinated +dust, lifting alternate feet or lying drugged with slumber; killing, +feeding, growing, bringing forth small copies of himself; grown upon with +hair like grass, fitted with eyes that move and glitter in his face; a +thing to set children screaming; and yet, looked at nearlier, known as his +fellows know him, how surprising are his attributes! Poor soul, here for +so little, cast among so many hardships, filled with desires so +incommensurate and so inconsistent, savagely surrounded, savagely +descended,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> irremediably condemned to prey upon his fellow lives: who +should have blamed him, had he been of a piece with his destiny, and a +being merely barbarous? And we look and behold him instead filled with +imperfect virtues: infinitely childish, often admirably valiant, often +touchingly kind; sitting down, amidst his momentary life, to debate of +right and wrong and the attributes of the deity; rising up to do battle +for an egg or die for an idea; singling out his friends and his mate with +cordial affection; bringing forth in pain; rearing, with long-suffering +solicitude, his young.</p> + +<p>To touch the heart of his mystery, we find in him one thought, strange to +the point of lunacy: the thought of duty; the thought of something owing +to himself, to his neighbor, to his God; an ideal of decency, to which he +would rise if it were possible; a limit of shame, below which, if it be +possible, he will not stoop. The design in most men is one of conformity; +here and there, in picked natures, it transcends itself and soars on the +other side, arming martyrs with independence; but in all, in their +degrees, it is a bosom thought. Not in man alone, for we trace it in dogs +and cats whom we know fairly well; and doubtless some similar point of +honor sways the elephant, the oyster, and the louse, of whom we know so +little. But in man, at least, it sways with so complete an empire that +merely selfish things come second, even with the selfish; that appetites +are starved, fears are conquered, pains supported; that almost the dullest +shrinks from the reproof of a glance, although it were a child’s; and all +but the most cowardly stand amid the risks of war; and the more noble, +having strongly conceived an act as due to their ideal, affront and +embrace death. Strange enough, if, with their singular origin and +perverted practice, they think they are to be rewarded in some future +life; stranger still, if they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> are persuaded of the contrary, and think +this blow, which they solicit, will strike them senseless for eternity.</p> + +<p>I shall be reminded what a tragedy of misconception and misconduct man at +large presents: of organized injustice, cowardly violence, and treacherous +crime; and of the damning imperfections of the best. They cannot be too +darkly drawn. Man is indeed marked for failure in his efforts to do right. +But where the best consistently miscarry, how tenfold more remarkable that +all should continue to strive; and surely we should find it both touching +and inspiriting that, in a field from which success is banished, our race +should not cease to labor.</p> + +<p>If the first view of this creature, stalking in his rotatory isle, be a +thing to shake the courage of the stoutest, on this nearer sight he +startles us with an admiring wonder. It matters not where we look, under +what climate we observe him, in what stage of society, in what depth of +ignorance, burthened with what erroneous morality: by camp-fires in +Assiniboia, the snow powdering his shoulders, the wind plucking his +blanket, as he sits, passing the ceremonial calumet and uttering his grave +opinions like a Roman senator: in ships at sea, a man inured to hardship +and vile pleasures, his brightest hope a fiddle in a tavern and a +bedizened trull who sells herself to rob him, and he, for all that, +simple, innocent, cheerful, kindly like a child, constant to toil, brave +to drown for others; in the slums of cities, moving among indifferent +millions to mechanical employments, without hope of change in the future, +with scarce a pleasure in the present, and yet true to his virtues, honest +up to his lights, kind to his neighbors, tempted perhaps in vain by the +bright gin-palace, perhaps long-suffering with the drunken wife that ruins +him; in India (a woman this time) kneeling with broken cries and streaming +tears, as she drowns her child in the sacred<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> river; in the brothel, the +discard of society, living mainly on strong drink, fed with affronts, a +fool, a thief, the comrade of thieves, and even here keeping the point of +honor and the touch of pity, often repaying the world’s scorn with +service, often standing firm upon a scruple, and at a certain cost, +rejecting riches—everywhere some virtue cherished or affected, everywhere +some decency of thought and carriage, everywhere the ensign of man’s +ineffectual goodness. Ah! if I could show you this! if I could show you +these men and women, all the world over, in every stage of history, under +every abuse of error, under every circumstance of failure, without hope, +without help, without thanks, still obscurely fighting the lost fight of +virtue, still clinging, in the brothel or on the scaffold, to some rag of +honor, the poor jewel of their souls! They may seek to escape, and yet +they cannot; it is not alone their privilege and glory, but their doom; +they are condemned to some nobility; all their lives long, the desire of +good is at their heels, the implacable hunter.</p> + +<p>Of all earth’s meteors, here at least is the most strange and consoling: +that this ennobled lemur, this hair-crowned bubble of the dust, this +inheritor of a few years and sorrows, should yet deny himself his rare +delights, and add to his frequent pains, and live for an ideal, however +misconceived. Nor can we stop with man. A new doctrine, received with +screams a little while ago by canting moralists, and still not properly +worked into the body of our thoughts, lights us a step further into the +heart of this rough but noble universe. For nowadays the pride of man +denies in vain his kinship with the original dust. He stands no longer +like a thing apart. Close at his heels we see the dog, prince of another +genus: and in him too we see dumbly testified the same cultus of an +unattainable ideal, the same constancy in failure. Does it stop with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> the +dog? We look at our feet, where the ground is blackened with the swarming +ant: a creature so small, so far from us in the hierarchy of brutes, that +we can scarce trace and scarce comprehend his doings; and here also, in +his ordered polities and rigorous justice, we see confessed the law of +duty and the fact of individual sin. Does it stop, then, with the ant? +Rather, this desire of well-doing and this doom of frailty run through all +the grades of life; rather is this earth, from the frosty top of Everest +to the next margin of the internal fire, one stage of ineffectual virtues +and one temple of pious tears and perseverance.</p> + +<p>The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together. It is the common and +the god-like law of life. The browsers, the biters, the barkers, the hairy +coats of field <ins class="correction" title="original reads 'and and'">and</ins> forest, the squirrel in the oak, the thousand-footed +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>creeper in the dust, as they share with us the gift of life, share with us +the love of an ideal: strive like us,—like us are tempted to grow weary +of the struggle,—to do well; like us receive at times unmerited +refreshment, visitings of support, returns of courage; and are condemned +like us to be crucified between that double law of the members and the +will. Are they like us, I wonder, in the timid hope of some reward, some +sugar with the drug? Do they, too, stand aghast at unrewarded virtues, at +the sufferings of those whom, in our partiality, we take to be just, and +the prosperity of such as, in our blindness, we call wicked? It may be; +and yet God knows what they should look for. Even while they look, even +while they repent, the foot of man treads them by thousands in the dust, +the yelping hounds burst upon their trail, the bullet speeds, the knives +are heating in the den of the vivisectionist; or the dew falls, and the +generation of a day is blotted out. For these are creatures compared with +whom our weakness is strength, our ignorance wisdom, our brief span +eternity.</p> + +<p>And as we dwell, we living things, in our isle of terror and under the +imminent hand of death, God forbid it should be man the erected, the +reasoner, the wise in his own eyes—God forbid it should be man that +wearies in well-doing, that despairs of unrewarded effort, or utters the +language of complaint. Let it be enough for faith, that the whole creation +groans in mortal frailty, strives with unconquerable constancy—surely not +all in vain.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> +<h2>JOHN RUSKIN</h2> +<h3>THE MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS<small><a name="f8.1" id="f8.1" href="#f8">[8]</a></small></h3> + +<p>When I accepted the privilege of addressing you to-day, I was not aware of +a restriction with respect to the topics of discussion which may be +brought before this Society<small><a name="f9.1" id="f9.1" href="#f9">[9]</a></small>—a restriction which, though entirely wise +and right under the circumstances contemplated in its introduction, would +necessarily have disabled me, thinking as I think, from preparing any +lecture for you on the subject of art in a form which might be permanently +useful. Pardon me, therefore, in so far as I must transgress such +limitation; for indeed my infringement will be of the letter—not of the +spirit—of your commands. In whatever I may say touching the religion +which has been the foundation of art, or the policy which has contributed +to its power, if I offend one, I shall offend all; for I shall take no +note of any separations in creeds, or antagonisms in parties: neither do I +fear that ultimately I shall offend any, by proving—or at least stating +as capable of positive proof—the connection of all that is best in the +crafts and arts of man, with the simplicity of his faith, and the +sincerity of his patriotism.</p> + +<p>But I speak to you under another disadvantage, by which I am checked in +frankness of utterance, not here only, but everywhere: namely, that I am +never fully aware how far my audiences are disposed to give me credit for +real knowledge of my subject, or how far they grant me attention only +because I have been sometimes thought an <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>ingenious or pleasant essayist +upon it. For I have had what, in many respects, I boldly call the +misfortune, to set my words sometimes prettily together; not without a +foolish vanity in the poor knack that I had of doing so: until I was +heavily punished for this pride, by finding that many people thought of +the words only, and cared nothing for their meaning. Happily, therefore, +the power of using such pleasant language—if, indeed, it ever were +mine—is passing away from me; and whatever I am now able to say at all, I +find myself forced to say with great plainness. For my thoughts have +changed also, as my words have; and whereas in earlier life, what little +influence I obtained was due perhaps chiefly to the enthusiasm with which +I was able to dwell on the beauty of the physical clouds, and of their +colors in the sky; so all the influence I now desire to retain must be due +to the earnestness with which I am endeavoring to trace the form and +beauty of another kind of cloud than those: the bright cloud of which it +is written, “What is your life? It is even as a vapor that appeareth for a +little time, and then vanisheth away.”</p> + +<p>I suppose few people reach the middle or latter period of their age, +without having, at some moment of change or disappointment, felt the truth +of those bitter words; and been startled by the fading of the sunshine +from the cloud of their life into the sudden agony of the knowledge that +the fabric of it was as fragile as a dream, and the endurance of it as +transient as the dew. But it is not always that, even at such times of +melancholy surprise, we can enter into any true perception that this human +life shares in the nature of it, not only the evanescence, but the mystery +of the cloud; that its avenues are wreathed in darkness, and its forms and +courses no less fantastic, than spectral and obscure; so that not only in +the vanity which we cannot grasp, but in the shadow which we cannot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> +pierce, it is true of this cloudy life of ours, that “man walketh in a +vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain.”</p> + +<p>And least of all, whatever may have been the eagerness of our passions, or +the height of our pride, are we able to understand in its depths the third +and most solemn character in which our life is like those clouds of +heaven; that to it belongs, not only their transience, not only their +mystery, but also their power; that in the cloud of the human soul there +is a fire stronger than the lightning, and a grace more precious than the +rain; and that, though of the good and evil it shall one day be said +alike, that the place that knew them knows them no more, there is an +infinite separation between those whose brief presence had there been a +blessing, like the mist of Eden that went up from the earth to water the +garden, and those whose place knew them only as a drifting and changeful +shade, of whom the Heavenly sentence is, that they are “wells without +water; clouds that are carried with a tempest, to whom the mist of +darkness is reserved forever.”</p> + +<p>To those among us, however, who have lived long enough to form some just +estimate of the rate of the changes which are, hour by hour in +accelerating catastrophe, manifesting themselves in the laws, the arts, +and the creeds of men, it seems to me that, now at least, if never at any +former time, the thoughts of the true nature of our life, and of its +powers and responsibilities, should present themselves with absolute +sadness and sternness. And although I know that this feeling is much +deepened in my own mind by disappointment, which, by chance, has attended +the greater number of my cherished purposes, I do not for that reason +distrust the feeling itself, though I am on my guard against an +exaggerated degree of it; nay, I rather believe that in periods of new +effort and violent change, disappointment is a wholesome medicine; and +that in the secret of it, as in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> the twilight so beloved by Titian, we may +see the colors of things with deeper truth than in the most dazzling +sunshine....</p> + +<p>You know, there is a tendency in the minds of many men, when they are +heavily disappointed in the main purposes of their life, to feel, and +perhaps in warning, perhaps in mockery, to declare, that life itself is a +vanity. Because it has disappointed them, they think its nature is of +disappointment always, or at best, of pleasure that can be grasped by +imagination only; that the cloud of it has no strength nor fire within; +but is a painted cloud only, to be delighted in, yet despised. You know +how beautifully Pope has expressed this particular phase of thought:—</p> + +<p class="poem">Meanwhile opinion gilds, with varying rays,<br /> +These painted clouds that beautify our days;<br /> +Each want of happiness by hope supplied,<br /> +And each vacuity of sense, by pride.<br /> +Hope builds as fast as Knowledge can destroy;<br /> +In Folly’s cup, still laughs the bubble joy.<br /> +One pleasure past, another still we gain,<br /> +And not a vanity is given in vain.</p> + +<p>But the effect of failure upon my own mind has been just the reverse of +this. The more that my life disappointed me, the more solemn and wonderful +it became to me. It seemed, contrarily to Pope’s saying, that the vanity +of it <i>was</i> indeed given in vain; but that there was something behind the +veil of it, which was not vanity. It became to me, not a painted cloud, +but a terrible and impenetrable one: not a mirage, which vanished as I +drew near, but a pillar of darkness, to which I was forbidden to draw +near. For I saw that both my own failure, and such success in petty things +as in its poor triumph seemed to me worse than failure, came from the want +of sufficiently earnest effort to understand the whole law and meaning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> of +existence, and to bring it to noble and due end; as, on the other hand, I +saw more and more clearly that all enduring success in the arts, or in any +other occupation, had come from the ruling of the lower purposes, not by a +conviction of their nothingness, but by a solemn faith in the advancing +power of human nature, or in the promise, however dimly apprehended, that +the mortal part of it would one day be swallowed up in immortality; and +that, indeed, the arts themselves never had reached any vital strength of +honor, but in the effort to proclaim this immortality, and in the service +either of great and just religion, or of some unselfish patriotism, and +law of such national life as must be the foundation of religion.</p> + +<p>Nothing that I have ever said is more true or necessary—nothing has been +more misunderstood or misapplied—than my strong assertion that the arts +can never be right themselves unless their motive is right. It is +misunderstood this way: weak painters, who have never learned their +business, and cannot lay a true line, continually come to me, crying out, +“Look at this picture of mine; it <i>must</i> be good, I had such a lovely +motive. I have put my whole heart into it, and taken years to think over +its treatment.” Well, the only answer for these people is,—if one had the +cruelty to make it,—“Sir, you cannot think over <i>any</i>thing in any number +of years,—you haven’t the head to do it; and though you had fine motives, +strong enough to make you burn yourself in a slow fire, if only first you +could paint a picture, you can’t paint one, nor half an inch of one; you +haven’t the hand to do it.”</p> + +<p>But, far more decisively we have to say to the men who <i>do</i> know their +business, or may know it if they choose, “Sir, you have this gift, and a +mighty one; see that you serve your nation faithfully with it. It is a +greater trust<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> than ships and armies: you might cast <i>them</i> away, if you +were their captain, with less treason to your people than in casting your +own glorious power away, and serving the devil with it instead of men. +Ships and armies you may replace if they are lost, but a great intellect, +once abused, is a curse to the earth forever.”</p> + +<p>This, then, I meant by saying that the arts must have noble motive. This +also I said respecting them, that they never had prospered, nor could +prosper, but when they had such true purpose, and were devoted to the +proclamation of divine truth or law. And yet I saw also that they had +always failed in this proclamation—that poetry, and sculpture, and +painting, though great when they strove to teach us something about the +gods, never had taught us anything trustworthy about the gods, but had +always betrayed their trust in the crisis of it, and, with their powers at +the full reach, became ministers to pride and to lust. And I felt also, +with increasing amazement, the unconquerable apathy in ourselves the +hearers, no less than in these the teachers; and that, while the wisdom +and rightness of every act and art of life could only be consistent with a +right understanding of the ends of life, we were all plunged as in a +languid dream—our hearts fat, and our eyes heavy, and our ears closed, +lest the inspiration of hand or voice should reach us—lest we should see +with our eyes, and understand with our hearts, and be healed.</p> + +<p>This intense apathy in all of us is the first great mystery of life; it +stands in the way of every perception, every virtue. There is no making +ourselves feel enough astonishment at it. That the occupations or pastimes +of life should have no motive, is understandable; but—that life itself +should have no motive,—that we neither care to find out what it may lead +to, nor to guard against its being forever taken away from us,—here is a +mystery indeed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> For just suppose I were able to call at this moment to +anyone in this audience by name, and to tell him positively that I knew a +large estate had been lately left to him on some curious conditions; but +that though I knew it was large, I did not know how large, nor even where +it was—whether in the East Indies or the West, or in England, or at the +Antipodes. I only knew it was a vast estate, and that there was a chance +of his losing it altogether if he did not soon find out on what terms it +had been left to him. Suppose I were able to say this positively to any +single man in this audience, and he knew that I did not speak without +warrant, do you think that he would rest content with that vague +knowledge, if it were anywise possible to obtain more? Would he not give +every energy to find some trace of the facts, and never rest till he had +ascertained where this place was, and what it was like? And suppose he +were a young man, and all he could discover by his best endeavor was that +the estate was never to be his at all, unless he persevered, during +certain years of probation, in an orderly and industrious life; but that, +according to the rightness of his conduct, the portion of the estate +assigned to him would be greater or less, so that it literally depended on +his behavior from day to day whether he got ten thousand a year, or thirty +thousand a year, or nothing whatever—would you not think it strange if +the youth never troubled himself to satisfy the conditions in any way, nor +even to know what was required of him, but lived exactly as he chose, and +never inquired whether his chances of the estate were increasing or +passing away?</p> + +<p>Well, you know that this is actually and literally so with the greater +number of the educated persons now living in Christian countries. Nearly +every man and woman in any company such as this outwardly professes to +believe—and a large number unquestionably think they believe<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>—much more +than this; not only that a quite unlimited estate is in prospect for them +if they please the Holder of it, but that the infinite contrary of such a +possession—an estate of perpetual misery—is in store for them if they +displease this great Land-Holder, this great Heaven-Holder. And yet there +is not one in a thousand of these human souls that cares to think, for ten +minutes of the day, where this estate is or how beautiful it is, or what +kind of life they are to lead in it, or what kind of life they must lead +to obtain it.</p> + +<p>You fancy that you care to know this; so little do you care that, +probably, at this moment many of you are displeased with me for talking of +the matter! You came to hear about the Art of this world, not about the +Life of the next, and you are provoked with me for talking of what you can +hear any Sunday in church. But do not be afraid. I will tell you something +before you go about pictures, and carvings, and pottery, and what else you +would like better to hear of than the other world. Nay, perhaps you say, +“We want you to talk of pictures and pottery, because we are sure that you +know something of them, and you know nothing of the other world.” Well—I +don’t. That is quite true. But the very strangeness and mystery of which I +urge you to take notice, is in this—that I do not—nor you either. Can +you answer a single bold question unflinchingly about that other +world?—Are you sure there is a heaven? Sure there is a hell? Sure that +men are dropping before your faces through the pavements of these streets +into eternal fire, or sure that they are not? Sure that, at your own +death, you are going to be delivered from all sorrow, to be endowed with +all virtue, to be gifted with all felicity, and raised into perpetual +companionship with a King, compared to whom the kings of the earth are as +grasshoppers, and the nations as the dust of his feet?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> Are you sure of +this? or, if not sure, do any of us so much as care to make it sure? and, +if not, how can anything that we do be right—how can anything we think be +wise? what honor can there be in the arts that amuse us, or what profit in +the possessions that please?</p> + +<p>Is not this a mystery of life?</p> + +<p>But further, you may, perhaps, think it a beneficent ordinance for the +generality of men that they do not, with earnestness or anxiety, dwell on +such questions of the future, because the business of the day could not be +done if this kind of thought were taken by all of us for the morrow. Be it +so; but at least we might anticipate that the greatest and wisest of us, +who were evidently the appointed teachers of the rest, would set +themselves apart to seek out whatever could be surely known of the future +destinies of their race; and to teach this in no rhetorical or ambiguous +manner, but in the plainest and most severely earnest words.</p> + +<p>Now, the highest representatives of men who have thus endeavored, during +the Christian era, to search out these deep things, and relate them, are +Dante and Milton. There are none who for earnestness of thought, for +mastery of word, can be classed with these. I am not at present, mind you, +speaking of persons set apart in any priestly or pastoral office, to +deliver creeds to us, or doctrines; but of men who try to discover and set +forth, as far as by human intellect is possible, the facts of the other +world. Divines may perhaps teach us how to arrive there, but only these +two poets have in any powerful manner striven to discover, or in any +definite words professed to tell, what we shall see and become there; or +how those upper and nether worlds are, and have been, inhabited.</p> + +<p>And what have they told us? Milton’s account of the most important event +in his whole system of the universe,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> the fall of the angels, is evidently +unbelievable to himself; and the more so, that it is wholly founded on, +and in a great part spoiled and degraded from, Hesiod’s account of the +decisive war of the younger gods with the Titans. The rest of his poem is +a picturesque drama, in which every artifice of invention is visibly and +consciously employed; not a single fact being, for an instant, conceived +as tenable by any living faith.</p> + +<p>Dante’s conception is far more intense, and, by himself, for the time, not +to be escaped from; it is indeed a vision, but a vision only, and that one +of the wildest that ever entranced a soul—a dream in which every +grotesque type or fantasy of heathen tradition is renewed, and adorned; +and the destinies of the Christian Church, under their most sacred +symbols, become literally subordinate to the praise, and are only to be +understood by the aid, of one dear Florentine maiden.</p> + +<p>I tell you truly that, as I strive more with this strange lethargy and +trance in myself, and awake to the meaning and power of life, it seems +daily more amazing to me that men such as these should dare to play with +the most precious truths (or the most deadly untruths) by which the whole +human race listening to them could be informed, or deceived—all the world +their audiences forever, with pleased ear, and passionate heart; and yet, +to this submissive infinitude of souls, and evermore succeeding and +succeeding multitude, hungry for bread of life, they do but play upon +sweetly modulated pipes; with pompous nomenclature adorn the councils of +hell; touch a troubadour’s guitar to the courses of the suns; and fill the +openings of eternity, before which prophets have veiled their faces, and +which angels desire to look into, with idle puppets of their scholastic +imagination, and melancholy lights of frantic faith in their lost mortal +love.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>Is not this a mystery of life?</p> + +<p>But more. We have to remember that these two great teachers were both of +them warped in their temper, and thwarted in their search for truth. They +were men of intellectual war, unable, through darkness of controversy, or +stress of personal grief, to discern where their own ambition modified +their utterances of the moral law; or their own agony mingled with their +anger at its violation. But greater men than these have +been—innocent-hearted—too great for contest. Men, like Homer and +Shakespeare, of so unrecognized personality, that it disappears in future +ages, and becomes ghostly, like the tradition of a lost heathen god. Men, +therefore, to whose unoffended, uncondemning sight, the whole of human +nature reveals itself in a pathetic weakness, with which they will not +strive; or in mournful and transitory strength, which they dare not +praise. And all Pagan and Christian civilization thus becomes subject to +them. It does not matter how little, or how much, any of us have read, +either of Homer or Shakespeare; everything round us, in substance or in +thought, has been moulded by them. All Greek gentlemen were educated under +Homer. All Roman gentlemen, by Greek literature. All Italian, and French, +and English gentlemen, by Roman literature, and by its principles. Of the +scope of Shakespeare, I will say only that the intellectual measure of +every man since born, in the domains of creative thought, may be assigned +to him according to the degree in which he has been taught by Shakespeare. +Well, what do these two men, centres of mortal intelligence, deliver to us +of conviction respecting what it most behooves that intelligence to grasp? +What is their hope—their crown of rejoicing? what manner of exhortation +have they for us, or of rebuke? what lies next their own hearts, and +dictates their undying words? Have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> they any peace to promise to our +unrest, any redemption to our misery?</p> + +<p>Take Homer first, and think if there is any sadder <ins class="correction" title="original reads 'immage'">image</ins> of human fate +than the great Homeric story. The main features in the character of +Achilles are its intense desire of justice and its tenderness of +affection. And in that bitter song of the Iliad, this man, though aided +continually by the wisest of the gods, and burning with the desire of +justice in his heart, becomes yet, through ill-governed passion, the most +unjust of men; and, full of the deepest tenderness in his heart, becomes +yet, through ill-governed passion, the most cruel of men. Intense alike in +love and in friendship, he loses, first his mistress, and then his friend; +for the sake of the one, he surrenders to death the armies of his own +land; for the sake of the other, he surrenders all. Will a man lay down +his life for his friend? Yea, even for his <i>dead</i> friend, this Achilles, +though goddess-born and goddess-taught, gives up his kingdom, his country, +and his life—casts alike the innocent and guilty, with himself, into one +gulf of slaughter, and dies at last by the hand of the basest of his +adversaries.</p> + +<p>Is not this a mystery of life?</p> + +<p>But what, then, is the message to us of our own poet, and searcher of +hearts, after fifteen hundred years of Christian faith have been numbered +over the graves of men? Are his words more cheerful than the Heathen’s—is +his hope more near—his trust more sure—his reading of fate more happy? +Ah, no! He differs from the Heathen poet chiefly in this—that he +recognizes, for deliverance, no gods nigh at hand; and that, by petty +chance—by momentary folly—by broken message—by fool’s tyranny—or +traitor’s snare, the strongest and most righteous are brought to their +ruin, and perish without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> word of hope. He indeed, as part of his +rendering of character, ascribes the power and modesty of habitual +devotion to the gentle and the just. The death-bed of Katharine is bright +with visions of angels; and the great soldier-king, standing by his few +dead, acknowledges the presence of the Hand that can save alike by many or +by few. But observe that from those who with deepest spirit meditate, and +with deepest passion mourn, there are no such words as these; nor in their +hearts are any such consolations. Instead of the perpetual sense of the +helpful presence of the Deity, which through all heathen tradition is the +source of heroic strength, in battle, in exile, and in the valley of the +shadow of death, we find only, in the great Christian poet, the +consciousness of a moral law, through which “the gods are just, and of our +pleasant vices make instruments to scourge us”; and of the resolved +arbitration of the destinies, that conclude into precision of doom what we +feebly and blindly began; and force us, when our indiscretion serves us, +and our deepest plots do pall, to the confession that “there’s a divinity +that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will.”</p> + +<p>Is not this a mystery of life?</p> + +<p>Be it so, then. About this human life that is to be, or that is, the wise +religious men tell us nothing that we can trust; and the wise +contemplative men, nothing that can give us peace. But there is yet a +third class to whom we may turn—the wise practical men. We have sat at +the feet of the poets who sang of heaven, and they have told us their +dreams. We have listened to the poets who sang of earth, and they have +chanted to us dirges and words of despair. But there is one class of men +more—men, not capable of vision, nor sensitive to sorrow, but firm of +purpose; practised in business; learned in all that can be (by handling) +known. Men whose hearts and hopes are wholly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> in this present world; from +whom, therefore, we may surely learn, at least, how, at present, +conveniently to live in it. What will <i>they</i> say to us, or show us by +example? These kings—these councilors—these statesmen and builders of +kingdoms—these capitalists and men of business, who weigh the earth, and +the dust of it, in a balance. They know the world, surely; and what is the +mystery of life to us is none to them. They can surely show us how to +live, while we live, and to gather out of the present world what is best.</p> + +<p>I think I can best tell you their answer by telling you a dream I had +once. For though I am no poet, I have dreams sometimes. I dreamed I was at +a child’s May-day party, in which every means of entertainment had been +provided for them by a wise and kind host. It was in a stately house, with +beautiful gardens attached to it; and the children had been set free in +the rooms and gardens, with no care whatever but how to pass their +afternoon rejoicingly. They did not, indeed, know much about what was to +happen next day; and some of them, I thought, were a little frightened, +because there was a chance of their being sent to a new school, where +there were examinations; but they kept the thoughts of that out of their +heads as well as they could, and resolved to enjoy themselves. The house, +I said, was in a beautiful garden, and in the garden were all kinds of +flowers; sweet, grassy banks for rest; and smooth lawns for play; and +pleasant streams and woods; and rocky places for climbing. And the +children were happy for a little while; but presently they separated +themselves into parties; and then each party declared it would have a +piece of the garden for its own, and that none of the others should have +anything to do with that piece. Next, they quarrelled violently which +pieces they would have; and at last the boys took up the thing, as boys<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> +should do, “practically,” and fought in the flower-beds till there was +hardly a flower left standing; then they trampled down each other’s bits +of the garden out of spite; and the girls cried till they could cry no +more; and so they all lay down at last, breathless, in the ruin, and +waited for the time when they were to be taken home in the evening.<small><a name="f10.1" id="f10.1" href="#f10">[10]</a></small></p> + +<p>Meanwhile, the children in the house had been making themselves happy also +in their manner. For them there had been provided every kind of indoor +pleasure: there was music for them to dance to; and the library was open, +with all manner of amusing books; and there was a museum full of the most +curious shells, and animals, and birds; and there was a workshop, with +lathes and carpenter’s tools, for the ingenious boys; and there were +pretty fantastic dresses, for the girls to dress in; and there were +microscopes, and kaleidoscopes, and whatever toys a child could fancy; and +a table, in the dining-room, loaded with everything nice to eat.</p> + +<p>But, in the midst of all this, it struck two or three of the more +“practical” children, that they would like some of the brass-headed nails +that studded the chairs; and so <ins class="correction" title="original reads 'they they'">they</ins> set to work to pull them out. +Presently, the others, who were reading, or looking at shells, took a +fancy to do the like; and, in a little while, all the children, nearly, +were spraining their fingers, in pulling out brass-headed nails. With all +that they could pull out, they were not satisfied; and then, everybody +wanted some of somebody else’s. And at last, the really practical and +sensible ones declared, that nothing was of any real consequence, that +afternoon, except to get plenty of brass-headed nails; and that the books, +and the cakes, and the microscopes were of no use <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>at all in themselves, +but only, if they could be exchanged for nail-heads. And at last they +began to fight for nail-heads, as the others fought for the bits of +garden. Only here and there, a despised one shrank away into a corner, and +tried to get a little quiet with a book, in the midst of the noise; but +all the practical ones thought of nothing else but counting nail-heads all +the afternoon, even though they knew they would not be allowed to carry so +much as one brass knob away with them. But no—it was, “Who has most +nails? I have a hundred, and you have fifty”; or, “I have a thousand, and +you have two. I must have as many as you before I leave the house, or I +cannot possibly go home in peace.” At last, they made so much noise that I +awoke, and thought to myself, “What a false dream that is, of <i>children</i>!” +The child is the father of the man; and wiser. Children never do such +foolish things. Only men do.</p> + +<p>But there is yet one last class of persons to be interrogated. The wise +religious men we have asked in vain; the wise contemplative men, in vain; +the wise worldly men, in vain. But there is another group yet. In the +midst of this vanity of empty religion, of tragic contemplation, of +wrathful and wretched ambition, and dispute for dust, there is yet one +great group of persons, by whom all these disputers live—the persons who +have determined, or have had it by a beneficent Providence determined for +them, that they will do something useful; that whatever may be prepared +for them hereafter, or happen to them here, they will, at least, deserve +the food that God gives them by winning it honorably: and that, however +fallen from the purity, or far from the peace, of Eden, they will carry +out the duty of human dominion, though they have lost its felicity; and +dress and keep the wilderness, though they no more can dress or keep the +garden.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>These—hewers of wood and drawers of water; these—bent under burdens, or +torn of scourges; these—that dig and weave that plant and build; workers +in wood, and in marble, and in iron—by whom all food, clothing, +habitation, furniture, and means of delight are produced, for themselves, +and for all men beside; men, whose deeds are good, though their words may +be few; men, whose lives are serviceable, be they never so short, and +worthy of honor, be they never so humble—from these surely, at least, we +may receive some clear message of teaching; and pierce, for an instant, +into the mystery of life, and of its arts.</p> + +<p>Yes; from these, at last, we do receive a lesson. But I grieve to say,—or +rather, for that is the deeper truth of the matter, I rejoice to +say,—this message of theirs can only be received by joining them, not by +thinking about them.</p> + +<p>You sent for me to talk to you of art; and I have obeyed you in coming. +But the main thing I have to tell you is, that art must not be talked +about. The fact that there is talk about it at all, signifies that it is +ill done, or cannot be done. No true painter ever speaks, or ever has +spoken, much of his art. The greatest speak nothing. Even Reynolds is no +exception, for he wrote of all that he could not himself do, and was +utterly silent respecting all that he himself did.</p> + +<p>The moment a man can really do his work he becomes speechless about it. +All words become idle to him—all theories. Does a bird need to theorize +about building its nest, or boast of it when built? All good work is +essentially done that way—without hesitation, without difficulty, without +boasting; and in the doers of the best, there is an inner and involuntary +power which approximates literally to the instinct of an animal—nay, I +am<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> certain that in the most perfect human artists, reason does <i>not</i> +supersede instinct, but is added to an instinct as much more divine than +that of the lower animals; as the human body is more beautiful than +theirs; that a great singer sings not with less instinct than the +nightingale, but with more—only more various, applicable, and governable; +that a great architect does not build with less instinct than the beaver +or the bee, but with more—with an innate cunning of proportion that +embraces all beauty, and a divine ingenuity of skill that improvises all +construction.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>And now, returning to the broader question, what these arts and labors of +life have to teach us of its mystery, this is the first of their +lessons—that the more beautiful the art, the more it is essentially the +work of the people who <i><ins class="correction" title="original reads 'eel'">feel</ins> themselves wrong</i>; who are striving for the +fulfillment of a law, and the grasp of a loveliness, which they have not +yet attained, which they feel even further and further from attaining, the +more they strive for it. And yet, in still deeper sense, it is the work of +people who know also that they are right. The very sense of inevitable +error from their purpose marks the perfectness of that purpose, and the +continued sense of failure arises from the continued opening of the eyes +more clearly to all the sacredest laws of truth.</p> + +<p>This is one lesson. The second is a very plain, and greatly precious one: +namely—that, whenever the arts and labors of life are fulfilled in this +spirit of striving against misrule, and doing whatever we have to do +honorably and perfectly, they invariably bring happiness, as much as seems +possible to the nature of man. In all other paths by which that happiness +is pursued there is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> disappointment, or destruction: for ambition and for +passion there is no rest—no fruition; the fairest pleasures of youth +perish in a darkness greater than their past light: and the loftiest and +purest love too often does but inflame the cloud of life with endless fire +of pain. But, ascending from lowest to highest, through every scale of +human industry, that industry, worthily followed, gives peace. Ask the +laborer in the field, at the forge, or in the mine; ask the patient, +delicate-fingered artisan, or the strong-armed, fiery-hearted worker in +bronze, and in marble, and with the colors of light; and none of these, +who are true workmen, will ever tell you that they have found the law of +heaven an unkind one—that in the sweat of their face they should eat +bread, till they return to the ground; nor that they ever found it an +unrewarded obedience, if, indeed, it was rendered faithfully to the +command, “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do—do it with thy might.”</p> + +<p>These are the two great and constant lessons which our laborers teach us +of the mystery of life. But there is another, and a sadder one, which they +cannot teach us, which we must read on their tombstones.</p> + +<p>“Do it with thy might.” There have been myriads upon myriads of human +creatures who have obeyed this law,—who have put every breath and nerve +of their being into its toil,—who have devoted every hour, and exhausted +every faculty,—who have bequeathed their unaccomplished thoughts at +death,—who, being dead, have yet spoken, by majesty of memory, and +strength of example. And, at last, what has all this “Might” of humanity +accomplished, in six thousand years of labor and sorrow? What has it +<i>done</i>? Take the three chief occupations and arts of men, one by one, and +count their achievements. Begin with the first,—the lord of them +all,—Agriculture. Six thousand years have passed since<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> we were set to +till the ground, from which we were taken. How much of it is tilled? How +much of that which is, wisely or well? In the very centre and chief garden +of Europe,—where the two forms of parent Christianity have had their +fortresses,—where the noble Catholics of the Forest Cantons, and the +noble Protestants of the Vaudois valleys, have maintained, for dateless +ages, their faiths and liberties,—there the unchecked Alpine rivers yet +run wild in devastation; and the marshes, which a few hundred men could +redeem with a year’s labor, still blast their helpless inhabitants into +fevered idiotism. That is so, in the centre of Europe! While, on the near +coast of Africa, once the Garden of the Hesperides, an Arab woman, but a +few sunsets since, ate her child, for famine. And, with all the treasures +of the East at our feet, we, in our own dominion, could not find a few +grains of rice for a people that asked of us no more; but stood by, and +saw five hundred thousand of them perish of hunger.</p> + +<p>Then after agriculture, the art of kings, take the next head of human +arts—Weaving; the art of queens, honored of all Heathen women, in the +person of their virgin goddess—honored of all Hebrew women, by the word +of their wisest king—“She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands +hold the distaff; she stretcheth out her hand to the poor. She is not +afraid of the snow for her household, for all her household are clothed +with scarlet. She maketh herself covering of tapestry; her clothing is +silk and purple. She maketh fine linen, and selleth it, and delivereth +girdles to the merchant.” What have we done in all these thousands of +years with this bright art of Greek maid and Christian matron? Six +thousand years of weaving, and have we learned to weave? Might not every +naked wall have been purple with tapestry, and every feeble breast fenced +with sweet colors<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> from the cold? What have we done? Our fingers are too +few, it seems, to twist together some poor covering for our bodies. We set +our streams to work for us, and choke the air with fire, to turn our +spinning-wheels—and—<i>are we yet clothed</i>? Are not the streets of the +capitals of Europe foul with sale of cast clouts and rotten rags? Is not +the beauty of your sweet children left in wretchedness of disgrace, while, +with better honor, nature clothes the brood of the bird in its nest, and +the suckling of the wolf in her den? And does not every winter’s snow robe +what you have not robed, and shroud what you have not shrouded; and every +winter’s wind bear up to heaven its wasted souls, to witness against you +hereafter, by the voice of their Christ,—“I was naked, and ye clothed me +not”?</p> + +<p>Lastly—take the Art of Building—the strongest—proudest—most +orderly—most enduring of the arts of man; that of which the produce is in +the surest manner accumulative, and need not perish, or be replaced; but +if once well done, will stand more strongly than the unbalanced +rocks—more prevalently than the crumbling hills. The art which is +associated with all civic pride and sacred principle; with which men +record their power—satisfy their enthusiasm—make sure their +defence—define and make dear their habitation. And in six thousand years +of building, what have we done? Of the greater part of all that skill and +strength, <i>no</i> vestige is left, but fallen stones, that encumber the +fields and impede the streams. But, from this waste of disorder, and of +time, and of rage, what <i>is</i> left to us? Constructive and progressive +creatures that we are, with ruling brains, and forming hands, capable of +fellowship, and thirsting for fame, can we not contend, in comfort, with +the insects of the forest, or, in achievement, with the worm of the sea? +The white surf rages in vain against the ramparts built by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> poor atoms of +scarcely nascent life; but only ridges of formless ruin mark the places +where once dwelt our noblest multitudes. The ant and the moth have cells +for each of their young, but our little ones lie in festering heaps, in +homes that consume them like graves; and night by night, from the corners +of our streets, rises up the cry of the homeless: “I was a stranger, and +ye took me not in.”</p> + +<p>Must it be always thus? Is our life forever to be without profit—without +possession? Shall the strength of its generations be as barren as death; +or cast away their labor, as the wild fig tree casts her untimely figs? Is +it all a dream then—the desire of the eyes and the pride of life—or, if +it be, might we not live in nobler dream than this? The poets and +prophets, the wise men, and the scribes, though they have told us nothing +about a life to come, have told us much about the life that is now. They +have had—they also—their dreams, and we have laughed at them. They have +dreamed of mercy, and of justice; they have dreamed of peace and +good-will; they have dreamed of labor undisappointed, and of rest +undisturbed; they have dreamed of fulness in harvest, and overflowing in +store; they have dreamed of wisdom in council, and of providence in law; +of gladness of parents, and strength of children, and glory of gray hairs. +And at these visions of theirs we have mocked, and held them for idle and +vain, unreal and unaccomplishable. What have we accomplished with our +realities? Is this what has come of our worldly wisdom, tried against +their folly? this, our mightiest possible, against their impotent ideal? +or, have we only wandered among the spectra of a baser felicity, and +chased phantoms of the tombs, instead of visions of the Almighty; and +walked after the imaginations of our evil hearts, instead of after the +counsels of Eternity, until our lives—not in the likeness of the cloud of +heaven,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> but of the smoke of hell—have become “as a vapor, that appeareth +for a little time, and then vanisheth away”?</p> + +<p><i>Does</i> it vanish, then? Are you sure of that?—sure that the nothingness +of the grave will be a rest from this troubled nothingness; and that the +coiling shadow, which disquiets itself in vain, cannot change into the +smoke of the torment that ascends forever? Will any answer that they <i>are</i> +sure of it, and that there is no fear, nor hope, nor desire, nor labor, +whither they go? Be it so: will you not, then, make as sure of the Life +that now is, as you are of the Death that is to come? Your hearts are +wholly in this world—will you not give them to it wisely, as well as +perfectly? And see, first of all, that you <i>have</i> hearts, and sound +hearts, too, to give. Because you have no heaven to look for, is that any +reason that you should remain ignorant of this wonderful and infinite +earth, which is firmly and instantly given you in possession? Although +your days are numbered, and the following darkness sure, is it necessary +that you should share the degradation of the brute, because you are +condemned to its mortality; or live the life of the moth, and of the worm, +because you are to companion them in the dust? Not so; we may have but a +few thousands of days to spend, perhaps hundreds only—perhaps tens; nay, +the longest of our time and best, looked back on, will be but as a moment, +as the twinkling of an eye; still we are men, not insects; we are living +spirits, not passing clouds. “He maketh the winds His messengers; the +momentary fire, His minister”; and shall we do less than <i>these</i>? Let us +do the work of men while we bear the form of them; and, as we snatch our +narrow portion of time out of Eternity, snatch also our narrow inheritance +of passion out of Immortality—even though our lives <i>be</i> as a vapor, that +appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>But there are some of you who believe not this—who think this cloud of +life has no such close—that it is to float, revealed and illumined, upon +the floor of heaven, in the day when He cometh with clouds, and every eye +shall see Him. Some day, you believe, within these five, or ten, or twenty +years, for every one of us the judgment will be set, and the books opened. +If that be true, far more than that must be true. Is there but one day of +judgment? Why, for us every day is a day of judgment—every day is a Dies +Iræ, and writes its irrevocable verdict in the flame of its west. Think +you that judgment waits till the doors of the grave are opened? It waits +at the doors of your houses—it waits at the corners of your streets; we +are in the midst of judgment—the insects that we crush are our +judges—the moments we fret away are our judges—the elements that feed +us, judge, as they minister—and the pleasures that deceive us, judge, as +they indulge. Let us, for our lives, do the work of Men while we bear the +form of them, if indeed those lives are <i>Not</i> as a vapor, and do <i>Not</i> +vanish away.</p> + +<p>“The work of men”—and what is that? Well, we may any of us know very +quickly, on the condition of being wholly ready to do it. But many of us +are for the most part thinking, not of what we are to do, but of what we +are to get; and the best of us are sunk into the sin of Ananias, and it is +a mortal one—we want to keep back part of the price; and we continually +talk of taking up our cross, as if the only harm in a cross was the +<i>weight</i> of it—as if it was only a thing to be carried, instead of to +be—crucified upon. “They that are His have crucified the flesh, with the +affections and lusts.” Does that mean, think you, that in time of national +distress, of religious trial, of crisis for every interest and hope of +humanity—none of us will cease jesting, none cease idling, none put<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> +themselves to any wholesome work, none take so much as a tag of lace off +their footman’s coats, to save the world? Or does it rather mean, that +they are ready to leave houses, lands, and kindreds—yes, and life, if +need be? Life!—some of us are ready enough to throw that away, joyless as +we have made it. But “<i>station</i> in Life,”—how many of us are ready to +quit <i>that</i>? Is it not always the great objection, where there is question +of finding something useful to do—“We cannot leave our stations in Life”?</p> + +<p>Those of us who really cannot—that is to say, who can only maintain +themselves by continuing in some business or salaried office, have already +something to do; and all that they have to see to is, that they do it +honestly and with all their might. But with most people who use that +apology, “remaining in the station of life to which Providence has called +them” means keeping all the carriages, and all the footmen and large +houses they can possibly pay for; and, once for all, I say that if ever +Providence <i>did</i> put them into stations of that sort,—which is not at all +a matter of certainty,—Providence is just now very distinctly calling +them out again. Levi’s station in life was the receipt of custom; and +Peter’s, the shore of Galilee; and Paul’s, the antechambers of the High +Priest—which “station in life” each had to leave, with brief notice.</p> + +<p>And whatever our station in life may be, at this crisis, those of us who +mean to fulfil our duty ought first, to live on as little as we can; and, +secondly, to do all the wholesome work for it we can, and to spend all we +can spare in doing all the sure good we can.</p> + +<p>And sure good is, first in feeding people, then in dressing people, then +in lodging people, and lastly in rightly pleasing people, with arts, or +sciences, or any other subject of thought.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>I say first in feeding; and, once for all, do not let yourselves be +deceived by any of the common talk of “indiscriminate charity.” The order +to us is not to feed the deserving hungry, nor the industrious hungry, nor +the amiable and well-intentioned hungry, but simply to feed the hungry. It +is quite true, infallibly true, that if any man will not work, neither +should he eat—think of that, and every time you sit down to your dinner, +ladies and gentlemen, say solemnly, before you ask a blessing, “How much +work have I done to-day for my dinner?” But the proper way to enforce that +order on those below you, as well as on yourselves, is not to leave +vagabonds and honest people to starve together, but very distinctly to +discern and seize your vagabond; and shut your vagabond up out of honest +people’s way, and very sternly then see that, until he has worked, he does +<i>not</i> eat. But the first thing is to be sure you have the food to give; +and, therefore, to enforce the organization of vast activities in +agriculture and in commerce, for the production of the wholesomest food, +and proper storing and distribution of it, so that no famine shall any +more be possible among civilized beings. There is plenty of work in this +business alone, and at once, for any number of people who like to engage +in it.</p> + +<p>Secondly, dressing people—that is to say, urging everyone within reach of +your influence to be always neat and clean, and giving them means of being +so. In so far as they absolutely refuse, you must give up the effort with +respect to them, only taking care that no children within your sphere of +influence shall any more be brought up with such habits; and that every +person who is willing to dress with propriety shall have encouragement to +do so. And the first absolutely necessary step toward this is the gradual +adoption of a consistent dress for different ranks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> of persons, so that +their rank shall be known by their dress; and the restriction of the +changes of fashion within certain limits. All which appears for the +present quite impossible; but it is only so far even difficult as it is +difficult to conquer our vanity, frivolity, and desire to appear what we +are not. And it is not, nor ever shall be, creed of mine, that these mean +and shallow vices are unconquerable by Christian women.</p> + +<p>And then, thirdly, lodging people, which you may think should have been +put first, but I put it third, because we must feed and clothe people +where we find them, and lodge them afterwards. And providing lodgment for +them means a great deal of vigorous legislation, and cutting down of +vested interests that stand in the way; and after that, or before that, so +far as we can get it, through sanitary and remedial action in the houses +that we have; and then the building of more, strongly, beautifully, and in +groups of limited extent, kept in proportion to their streams, and walled +round, so that there may be no festering and wretched suburb anywhere, but +clean and busy streets within, and the open country without, with a belt +of beautiful garden and orchard round the walls, so that from any part of +the city perfectly fresh air and grass, and sight of far horizon, might be +reachable in a few minutes’ walk. This the final aim; but in immediate +action every minor and possible good to be instantly done, when, and as, +we can; roofs mended that have holes in them—fences patched that have +gaps in them—walls buttressed that totter—and floors propped that shake; +cleanliness and order enforced with our own hands and eyes, till we are +breathless, every day. And all the fine arts will healthily follow. I +myself have washed a flight of stone stairs all down, with bucket and +broom, in a Savoy inn, where they hadn’t washed their stairs since they +first<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> went up them; and I never made a better sketch than that afternoon.</p> + +<p>These, then, are the three first needs of civilized life; and the law for +every Christian man and woman is, that they shall be in direct service +toward one of these three needs, as far as is consistent with their own +special occupation, and if they have no special business, then wholly in +one of these services. And out of such exertion in plain duty all other +good will come; for in this direct contention with material evil, you will +find out the real nature of all evil; you will discern by the various +kinds of resistance, what is really the fault and main antagonism to good; +also you will find the most unexpected helps and profound lessons given, +and truths will come thus down to us which the speculation of all our +lives would never have raised us up to. You will find nearly every +educational problem solved, as soon as you truly want to do something; +everybody will become of use in their own fittest way, and will learn what +is best for them to know in that use. Competitive examination will then, +and not till then, be wholesome, because it will be daily, and calm, and +in practice; and on these familiar arts, and minute, but certain and +serviceable knowledges, will be surely edified and sustained the greater +arts and splendid theoretical sciences.</p> + +<p>But much more than this. On such holy and simple practice will be founded, +indeed, at last, an infallible religion. The greatest of all the mysteries +of life, and the most terrible, is the corruption of even the sincerest +religion, which is not daily founded on rational, effective, humble, and +helpful action. Helpful action, observe! for there is just one law, which, +obeyed, keeps all religions pure—forgotten, makes them all false. +Whenever in any religious faith, dark or bright, we allow our minds to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> +dwell upon the points in which we differ from other people, we are wrong, +and in the devil’s power. That is the essence of the Pharisee’s +thanksgiving—“Lord, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are.” At +every moment of our lives we should be trying to find out, not in what we +differ from other people, but in what we agree with them; and the moment +we find we can agree as to anything that should be done, kind or good (and +who but fools couldn’t?) then do it; push at it together: you can’t +quarrel in a side-by-side push; but the moment that even the best men stop +pushing, and begin talking, they mistake their pugnacity for piety, and +it’s all over. I will not speak of the crimes which in past times have +been committed in the name of Christ, nor of the follies which are at this +hour held to be consistent with obedience to Him; but I <i>will</i> speak of +the morbid corruption and waste of vital power in religious sentiment, by +which the pure strength of that which should be the guiding soul of every +nation, the splendor of its youthful manhood, and spotless light of its +maidenhood, is averted or cast away. You may see continually girls who +have never been taught to do a single useful thing thoroughly; who cannot +sew, who cannot cook, who cannot cast an account, nor prepare a medicine, +whose whole life has been passed either in play or in pride; you will find +girls like these, when they are earnest-hearted, cast all their innate +passion of religious spirit, which was meant by God to support them +through the irksomeness of daily toil, into grievous and vain meditation +over the meaning of the great Book, of which no syllable was ever yet to +be understood but through a deed; all the instinctive wisdom and mercy of +their womanhood made vain, and the glory of their pure consciences warped +into fruitless agony concerning questions which the laws of common +serviceable life would either have solved for them in an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> instant, or kept +out of their way. Give such a girl any true work that will make her active +in the dawn, and weary at night, with the consciousness that her fellow +creatures have indeed been the better for her day, and the powerless +sorrow of her enthusiasm will transform itself into a majesty of radiant +and beneficent peace.</p> + +<p>So with our youths. We once taught them to make Latin verses, and called +them educated; now we teach them to leap and to row, to hit a ball with a +bat, and call them educated. Can they plough, can they sow, can they plant +at the right time, or build with a steady hand? Is it the effort of their +lives to be chaste, knightly, faithful, holy in thought, lovely in word +and deed? Indeed it is, with some, nay, with many, and the strength of +England is in them, and the hope; but we have to turn their courage from +the toil of war to the toil of mercy; and their intellect from dispute of +words to discernment of things; and their knighthood from the errantry of +adventure to the state and fidelity of a kingly power. And then, indeed, +shall abide, for them and for us, an incorruptible felicity, and an +infallible religion; shall abide for us Faith, no more to be assailed by +temptation, no more to be defended by wrath and by fear;—shall abide with +us Hope, no more to be quenched by the years that overwhelm, or made +ashamed by the shadows that betray:—shall abide for us, and with us, the +greatest of these; the abiding will, the abiding name of our Father. For +the greatest of these is Charity.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p> +<h2>MATTHEW ARNOLD</h2> +<h3>MARCUS AURELIUS</h3> + +<p>Mr. Mill says, in his book on Liberty, that “Christian morality is, in +great part, merely a protest against paganism; its ideal is negative +rather than positive, passive rather than active.” He says, that, in +certain most important respects, “it falls far below the best morality of +the ancients.” The object of systems of morality is to take possession of +human life, to save it from being abandoned to passion or allowed to drift +at hazard, to give it happiness by establishing it in the practice of +virtue; and this object they seek to attain by prescribing to human life +fixed principles of action, fixed rules of conduct. In its uninspired as +well as in its inspired moments, in its days of languor and gloom as well +as in its days of sunshine and energy, human life has thus always a clue +to follow, and may always be making way towards its goal. Christian +morality has not failed to supply to human life aids of this sort. It has +supplied them far more abundantly than many of its critics imagine. The +most exquisite document, after those of the New Testament, of all the +documents the Christian spirit has ever inspired,—the <i>Imitation</i>,—by no +means contains the whole of Christian morality; nay, the disparagers of +this morality would think themselves sure of triumphing if one agreed to +look for it in the <i>Imitation</i> only. But even the <i>Imitation</i> is full of +passages like these: “Vita sine proposito languida et vaga est.”—“Omni +die renovare debemus propositum nostrum, dicentes: nunc hodie perfecte +incipiamus, quia nihil est quod hactenus fecimus.”—“Secundum propositum +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>nostrum est cursus profectus nostri.”—“Raro etiam unum vitium perfecte +vincimus, et ad <i>quotidianum</i> profectum non accendimur.”—“Semper aliquid +certi proponendum est.”—“Tibi ipsi violentiam frequenter fac.” (<i>A life +without a purpose is a languid, drifting thing.—Every day we ought to +renew our purpose, saying to ourselves: This day let us make a sound +beginning, for what we have hitherto done is nought.—Our improvement is +in proportion to our purpose.—We hardly ever manage to get completely rid +even of one fault, and do not set our hearts on</i> daily +<i>improvement.—Always place a definite purpose before thee.—Get the habit +of mastering thine inclination.</i>) These are moral precepts, and moral +precepts of the best kind. As rules to hold possession of our conduct, and +to keep us in the right course through outward troubles and inward +perplexity, they are equal to the best ever furnished by the great masters +of morals—Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius.</p> + +<p>But moral rules, apprehended as ideas first, and then rigorously followed +as laws, are, and must be, for the sage only. The mass of mankind have +neither force of intellect enough to apprehend them clearly as ideas, nor +force of character enough to follow them strictly as laws. The mass of +mankind can be carried along a course full of hardship for the natural +man, can be borne over the thousand impediments of the narrow way, only by +the tide of a joyful and bounding emotion. It is impossible to rise from +reading Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius without a sense of constraint and +melancholy, without feeling that the burden laid upon man is well-nigh +greater than he can bear. Honor to the sages who have felt this, and yet +have borne it! Yet, even for the sage, this sense of labor and sorrow in +his march toward the goal constitutes a relative inferiority; the noblest +souls of whatever creed, the pagan Empedocles as well as the Christian +Paul, have insisted on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> necessity of an inspiration, a living emotion +to make moral action perfect; an obscure indication of this necessity is +the one drop of truth in the ocean of verbiage with which the controversy +on justification by faith has flooded the world. But, for the ordinary +man, this sense of labor and sorrow constitutes an absolute +disqualification; it paralyzes him; under the weight of it, he cannot make +way toward the goal at all. The paramount virtue of religion is, that it +has <i>lighted up</i> morality; that it has supplied the emotion and +inspiration needful for carrying the sage along the narrow way perfectly, +for carrying the ordinary man along it at all. Even the religions with +most dross in them have had something of this virtue; but the Christian +religion manifests it with unexampled splendor. “Lead me, Zeus and +Destiny!” says the prayer of Epictetus, “whithersoever I am appointed to +go: I will follow without wavering; even though I turn coward and shrink, +I shall have to follow all the same.” The fortitude of that is for the +strong, for the few; even for them the spiritual atmosphere with which it +surrounds them is bleak and gray. But, “Let Thy loving spirit lead me +forth into the land of righteousness”;—“The Lord shall be unto thee an +everlasting light, and thy God thy Glory”;—“Unto you that fear My Name +shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings,” says the +Old Testament; “born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of +the will of man, but of God”;—“Except a man be born again, he cannot see +the kingdom of God”;—“Whatsoever is born of God, overcometh the world,” +says the New. The ray of sunshine is there, the glow of a divine warmth; +the austerity of the sage melts away under it, the paralysis of the weak +is healed; he who is vivified by it renews his strength; “all things are +possible to Him”; “he is a new creature.”</p> + +<p>Epictetus says: “Every matter has two handles, one of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> which will bear +taking hold of, the other not. If thy brother sin against thee, lay not +hold of the matter by this, that he sins against thee; for by this handle +the matter will not bear taking hold of. But rather lay hold of it by +this, that he is thy brother, thy born mate; and thou wilt take hold of it +by what will bear handling.” Jesus, being asked whether a man is bound to +forgive his brother as often as seven times, answers: “I say not unto +thee, until seven times, but until seventy times seven.” Epictetus here +suggests to the reason grounds for forgiveness of injuries which Jesus +does not; but it is vain to say that Epictetus is on that account a better +moralist than Jesus, if the warmth, the emotion, of Jesus’ answer fires +his hearer to the practice of forgiveness of injuries, while the thought +in Epictetus’s leaves him cold. So with Christian morality in general: its +distinction is not that it propounds the maxim, “Thou shalt love God and +thy neighbor,” with more development, closer reasoning, truer sincerity, +than other moral systems; it is that it propounds this maxim with an +inspiration which wonderfully catches the hearer and makes him act upon +it. It is because Mr. Mill has attained to the perception of truths of +this nature, that he is—instead of being, like the school from which he +proceeds, doomed to sterility—a writer of distinguished mark and +influence, a writer deserving all attention and respect; it is (I must be +pardoned for saying) because he is not sufficiently leavened with them, +that he falls just short of being a great writer....</p> + +<p>The man whose thoughts Mr. Long<small><a name="f11.1" id="f11.1" href="#f11">[11]</a></small> has thus faithfully reproduced is +perhaps the most beautiful figure in history. He is one of those consoling +and hope-inspiring marks, which stand forever to remind our weak and +easily discouraged race how high human goodness and perseverance <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>have +once been carried, and may be carried again. The interest of mankind is +peculiarly attracted by examples of signal goodness in high places; for +that testimony to the worth of goodness is the most striking which is +borne by those to whom all the means of pleasure and self-indulgence lay +open, by those who had at their command the kingdoms of the world and the +glory of them. Marcus Aurelius was the ruler of the grandest of empires; +and he was one of the best of men. Besides him, history presents one or +two sovereigns eminent for their goodness, such as Saint Louis or Alfred. +But Marcus Aurelius has, for us moderns, this great superiority in +interest over Saint Louis or Alfred, that he lived and acted in a state of +society modern by its essential characteristics, in an epoch akin to our +own, in a brilliant centre of civilization. Trajan talks of “our +enlightened age” just as glibly as the “Times” talks of it. Marcus +Aurelius thus becomes for us a man like ourselves, a man in all things +tempted as we are. Saint Louis inhabits an atmosphere of mediæval +Catholicism, which the man of the nineteenth century may admire, indeed, +may even passionately wish to inhabit, but which, strive as he will, he +cannot really inhabit. Alfred belongs to a state of society (I say it with +all deference to the “Saturday Review” critic who keeps such jealous watch +over the honor of our Saxon ancestors) half-barbarous. Neither Alfred nor +Saint Louis can be morally and intellectually as near to us as Marcus +Aurelius.</p> + +<p>The record of the outward life of this admirable man has in it little of +striking incident. He was born at Rome on the 26th of April, in the year +121 of the Christian era. He was nephew and son-in-law to his predecessor +on the throne, Antoninus Pius. When Antoninus died, he was forty years +old, but from the time of his earliest manhood he had assisted in +administering public affairs. Then,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> after his uncle’s death in 161, for +nineteen years he reigned as Emperor. The barbarians were pressing on the +Roman frontier, and a great part of Marcus Aurelius’s nineteen years of +reign was passed in campaigning. His absences from Rome were numerous and +long. We hear of him in Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Greece; but, above all, +in the countries on the Danube, where the war with the barbarians was +going on—in Austria, Moravia, Hungary. In these countries much of his +“Journal” seems to have been written; parts of it are dated from them; and +there, a few weeks before his fifty-ninth birthday, he fell sick and died. +The record of him on which his fame chiefly rests is the record of his +inward life—his “Journal,” or “Commentaries,” or “Meditations,” or +“Thoughts,” for by all these names has the work been called. Perhaps the +most interesting of the records of his outward life is that which the +first book of this work supplies, where he gives an account of his +education, recites the names of those to whom he is indebted for it, and +enumerates his obligations to each of them. It is a refreshing and +consoling picture, a priceless treasure for those, who, sick of the “wild +and dreamlike trade of blood and guile,” which seems to be nearly the +whole that history has to offer to our view, seek eagerly for that +substratum of right thinking and well-doing which in all ages must surely +have somewhere existed, for without it the continued life of humanity +would have been impossible.</p> + +<p>“From my mother I learned piety and beneficence, and abstinence not only +from evil deeds but even from evil thoughts; and further, simplicity in my +way of living, far removed from the habits of the rich.” Let us remember +that, the next time we are reading the sixth satire of Juvenal. “From my +tutor I learned” (hear it, ye tutors of princes!) “endurance of labor, and +to want little, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> to work with my own hands, and not to meddle with +other people’s affairs, and not to be ready to listen to slander.” The +vices and foibles of the Greek sophist or rhetorician—the <i>Græculus +esuriens</i>—are in everybody’s mind; but he who reads Marcus Aurelius’s +account of his Greek teachers and masters, will understand how it is that, +in spite of the vices and foibles of individual <i>Græculi</i>, the education +of the human race owes to Greece a debt which can never be overrated.</p> + +<p>The vague and colorless praise of history leaves on the mind hardly any +impression of Antoninus Pius: it is only from the private memoranda of his +nephew that we learn what a disciplined, hard-working, gentle, wise, +virtuous man he was; a man who, perhaps, interests mankind less than his +immortal nephew only because he has left in writing no record of his inner +life—<i>caret quia vate sacro</i>.</p> + +<p>Of the outward life and circumstances of Marcus Aurelius, beyond these +notices which he has himself supplied, there are few of much interest and +importance. There is the fine anecdote of his speech when he heard of the +assassination of the revolted Avidius Cassius, against whom he was +marching; <i>he was sorry</i>, he said, <i>to be deprived of the pleasure of +pardoning him</i>. And there are one or two more anecdotes of him which show +the same spirit. But the great record for the outward life of a man who +has left such a record of his lofty inward aspirations as that which +Marcus Aurelius has left, is the clear consenting voice of all his +contemporaries,—high and low, friend and enemy, pagan and Christian,—in +praise of his sincerity, justice, and goodness. The world’s charity does +not err on the side of excess, and here was a man occupying the most +conspicuous station in the world, and professing the highest possible +standard of conduct; yet the world was obliged to declare that he walked +worthily of his profession.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> Long after his death, his bust was to be seen +in the houses of private men through the wide Roman Empire. It may be the +vulgar part of human nature which busies itself with the semblance and +doings of living sovereigns; it is its nobler part which busies itself +with those of the dead. These busts of Marcus Aurelius, in the homes of +Gaul, Britain, and Italy, bore witness, not to the inmates’ frivolous +curiosity about princes and palaces, but to their reverential memory of +the passage of a great man upon the earth.</p> + +<p>Two things, however, before one turns from the outward to the inward life +of Marcus Aurelius, force themselves upon one’s notice, and demand a word +of comment: he persecuted the Christians, and he had for his son the +vicious and brutal Commodus. The persecution at Lyons, in which Attalus +and Pothinus suffered, the persecution at Smyrna, in which Polycarp +suffered, took place in his reign. Of his humanity, of his tolerance, of +his horror of cruelty and violence, of his wish to refrain from severe +measures against the Christians, of his anxiety to temper the severity of +these measures when they appeared to him indispensable, there is no doubt; +but, on the one hand, it is certain that the letter, attributed to him, +directing that no Christian should be punished for being a Christian, is +spurious; it is almost certain that his alleged answer to the authorities +of Lyons, in which he directs that Christians persisting in their +profession shall be dealt with according to the law, is genuine. Mr. Long +seems inclined to try to throw doubt over the persecution at Lyons, by +pointing out that the letter of the Lyons Christians relating it alleges +it to have been attended by miraculous and incredible incidents. “A man,” +he says, “can only act consistently by accepting all this letter or +rejecting it all, and we cannot blame him for either.” But it is contrary +to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> all experience to say that, because a fact is related with incorrect +additions, and embellishments, therefore it probably never happened at +all; or that it is not, in general, easy for an impartial mind to +distinguish between the fact and the embellishments. I cannot doubt that +the Lyons persecution took place, and that the punishment of Christians +for being Christians was sanctioned by Marcus Aurelius.</p> + +<p>But then I must add that nine modern readers out of ten, when they read +this, will, I believe, have a perfectly false notion of what the moral +action of Marcus Aurelius, in sanctioning that punishment, really was. +They imagine Trajan, or Antoninus Pius, or Marcus Aurelius, fresh from the +perusal of the Gospel, fully aware of the spirit and holiness of the +Christian saints, ordering their extermination because he loved darkness +rather than light. Far from this, the Christianity which these emperors +aimed at repressing was, in their conception of it, something +philosophically contemptible, politically subversive, and morally +abominable. As men, they sincerely regarded it much as well-conditioned +people, with us, regard Mormonism; as rulers, they regarded it much as +Liberal statesmen, with us, regard the Jesuits. A kind of Mormonism, +constituted as a vast secret society, with obscure aims of political and +social subversion, was what Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius believed +themselves to be repressing when they punished Christians. The early +Christian apologists again and again declare to us under what odious +imputations the Christians lay, how general was the belief that these +imputations were well-grounded, how sincere was the horror which the +belief inspired. The multitude, convinced that the Christians were +atheists who ate human flesh and thought incest no crime, displayed +against them a fury so passionate as to embarrass and alarm their rulers.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> +The severe expressions of Tacitus—“<i>exitiabilis superstitio</i>”; “<i>odio +humani generis convicti</i>”—show how deeply the prejudices of the multitude +imbued the educated class also. One asks one’s self with astonishment how +a doctrine so benign as that of Christ can have incurred misrepresentation +so monstrous. The inner and moving cause of the misrepresentation lay, no +doubt, in this—that Christianity was a new spirit in the Roman world, +destined to act in that world as its dissolvent; and it was inevitable +that Christianity in the Roman world, like democracy in the modern world, +like every new spirit with a similar mission assigned to it, should at its +first appearance occasion an instinctive shrinking and repugnance in the +world which it was to dissolve. The outer and palpable causes of the +misrepresentation were, for the Roman public at large, the confounding of +the Christians with the Jews, that isolated, fierce, and stubborn race, +whose stubbornness, fierceness, and isolation, real as they were, the +fancy of a civilized Roman yet further exaggerated; the atmosphere of +mystery and novelty which surrounded the Christian rites; the very +simplicity of Christian theism; for the Roman statesman, the character of +secret assemblages which the meetings of the Christian community wore, +under a State-system as jealous of unauthorized associations as the Code +Napoleon.</p> + +<p>A Roman of Marcus Aurelius’s time and position could not well see the +Christians except through the mist of these prejudices. Seen through such +a mist, the Christians appeared with a thousand faults not their own; but +it has not been sufficiently remarked that faults really their own many of +them assuredly appeared with, besides—faults especially likely to strike +such an observer as Marcus Aurelius, and to confirm him in the prejudices +of his race, station, and rearing. We look back upon Christianity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> after +it has proved what a future it bore within it, and for us the sole +representatives of its early struggles are the pure and devoted spirits +through whom it proved this; Marcus Aurelius saw it with its future yet +unshown, and with the tares among its professed progeny not less +conspicuous than the wheat. Who can doubt that, among the professing +Christians of the second century, as among the professing Christians of +the nineteenth, there was plenty of folly, plenty of rabid nonsense, +plenty of gross fanaticism? Who will even venture to affirm that, +separated in great measure from the intellect and civilization of the +world for one or two centuries, Christianity, wonderful as have been its +fruits, had the development perfectly worthy of its inestimable germ? Who +will venture to affirm that, by the alliance of Christianity with the +virtue and intelligence of men like the Antonines,—of the best product of +Greek and Roman civilization, while Greek and Roman civilization had yet +life and power,—Christianity and the world, as well as the Antonines +themselves, would not have been gainers?</p> + +<p>That alliance was not to be. The Antonines lived and died with an utter +misconception of Christianity; Christianity grew up in the Catacombs, not +on the Palatine. Marcus Aurelius incurs no moral reproach by having +authorized the punishment of the Christians; he does not thereby become, +in the least, what we mean by a <i>persecutor</i>. One may concede that it was +impossible for him to see Christianity as it really was, as impossible as +for even the moderate and sensible Fleury to see the Antonines as they +really were; one may concede that the point of view from which +Christianity appeared something anti-civil and anti-social, which the +State had the faculty to judge and the duty to suppress, was inevitably +his. Still, however, it remains true that this sage, who made perfection +his aim<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> and reason his law, did Christianity an immense injustice and +rested in an idea of State-attributes which was illusive. And this is, in +truth, characteristic of Marcus Aurelius, that he is blameless, yet, in a +certain sense, unfortunate; in his character, beautiful as it is, there is +something melancholy, circumscribed, and ineffectual.</p> + +<p>For of his having such a son as Commodus, too, one must say that he is not +to be blamed on that account, but that he is unfortunate. Disposition and +temperament are inexplicable things; there are natures on which the best +education and example are thrown away; excellent fathers may have, without +any fault of theirs, incurably vicious sons. It is to be remembered also, +that Commodus was left, at the perilous age of nineteen, master of the +whole world; while his father, at that age, was but beginning a twenty +years’ apprenticeship to wisdom, labor, and self-command, under the +sheltering teachership of his uncle Antoninus. Commodus was a prince apt +to be led by favorites; and if the story is true which says that he left, +all through his reign, the Christians untroubled, and ascribes this lenity +to the influence of his mistress Marcia, it shows that he could be led to +good as well as to evil; for such a nature to be left at a critical age +with absolute power, and wholly without good counsel and direction, was +the more fatal. Still one cannot help wishing that the example of Marcus +Aurelius could have availed more with his own only son. One cannot but +think that with such virtue as his there should go, too, the ardor that +removes mountains, and that the ardor that removes mountains might have +even won Commodus; the word <i>ineffectual</i> again rises to one’s mind; +Marcus Aurelius saved his own soul by his righteousness, and he could do +no more. Happy they who can do this! but still happier, who can do more!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>Yet, when one passes from his outward to his inward life, when one turns +over the pages of his “Meditations,” entries jotted down from day to day, +amid the business of the city or the fatigues of the camp, for his own +guidance and support; meant for no eye but his own; without the slightest +attempt at style, with no care, even, for correct writing; not to be +surpassed for naturalness and sincerity—all disposition to carp and cavil +dies away, and one is overpowered by the charm of a character of such +purity, delicacy, and virtue. He fails neither in small things nor in +great; he keeps watch over himself, both that the great springs of action +may be right in him, and that the minute details of action may be right +also. How admirable in a hard-tasked ruler, and a ruler, too, with a +passion for thinking and reading, is such a memorandum as the following:—</p> + +<p>“Not frequently nor without necessity to say to anyone, or to write in a +letter, that I have no leisure; nor continually to excuse the neglect of +duties required by our relation to those with whom we live, by alleging +urgent occupation.”</p> + +<p>And, when that ruler is a Roman emperor, what an “idea” is this to be +written down and meditated by him:—</p> + +<p>“The idea of a polity in which there is the same law for all, a polity +administered with regard to equal rights and equal freedom of speech, and +the idea of a kingly government which respects most of all the freedom of +the governed.”</p> + +<p>And, for all men who “drive at practice,” what practical rules may not one +accumulate out of these “Meditations”:—</p> + +<p>“The greatest part of what we say or do being unnecessary, if a man takes +this away, he will have more leisure and less uneasiness. Accordingly, on +every occasion, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> man should ask himself, ‘Is this one of the unnecessary +things?’ Now a man should take away not only unnecessary acts, but also +unnecessary thoughts, for thus superfluous acts will not follow after.”</p> + +<p>And again:—</p> + +<p>“We ought to check in the series of our thoughts everything that is +without a purpose and useless, but most of all the over-curious feeling +and the malignant; and a man should use himself to think of those things +only about which, if one should suddenly ask, ‘What hast thou now in thy +thoughts?’ with perfect openness thou mightest immediately answer, ‘This +or That,’ so that from thy words it should be plain that everything in +thee is simple and benevolent, and such as befits a social animal, and one +that cares not for thoughts about sensual enjoyments, or any rivalry or +envy and suspicion, or anything else for which thou wouldst blush if thou +shouldst say thou hadst it in thy mind.”</p> + +<p>So, with a stringent practicalness worthy of Franklin, he discourses on +his favorite text, “Let nothing be done without a purpose.” But it is when +he enters the region where Franklin cannot follow him, when he utters his +thoughts on the ground-motives of human action, that he is most +interesting; that he becomes the unique, the incomparable Marcus Aurelius. +Christianity uses language very liable to be misunderstood when it seems +to tell men to do good, not, certainly, from the vulgar motives of worldly +interest, or vanity, or love of human praise, but “that their Father which +seeth in secret may reward them openly.” The motives of reward and +punishment have come, from the misconception of language of this kind, to +be strangely overpressed by many Christian moralists, to the deterioration +and disfigurement of Christianity. Marcus Aurelius says, truly and +nobly:—</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>“One man, when he has done a service to another, is ready to set it down +to his account as a favor conferred. Another is not ready to do this, but +still in his own mind he thinks of the man as his debtor, and he knows +what he has done. A third, in a manner, does not even know what he has +done, <i>but he is like a vine which has produced grapes, and seeks for +nothing more after it has once produced its proper fruit</i>. As a horse when +he has run, a dog when he has caught the game, a bee when it has made its +honey, so a man, when he has done a good act, does not call out for others +to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine goes on to +produce again the grapes in season. Must a man, then, be one of these, who +in a manner acts thus without observing it? Yes.”</p> + +<p>And again:—</p> + +<p>“What more dost thou want when thou hast done a man a service? Art thou +not content that thou hast done something conformable to thy nature, and +dost thou seek to be paid for it, <i>just as if the eye demanded a +recompense for seeing, or the feet for walking</i>?”</p> + +<p>Christianity, in order to match morality of this strain, has to correct +its apparent offers of external reward, and to say: “The kingdom of God is +within you.”</p> + +<p>I have said that it is by its accent of emotion that the morality of +Marcus Aurelius acquires a special character, and reminds one of Christian +morality. The sentences of Seneca are stimulating to the intellect; the +sentences of Epictetus are fortifying to the character; the sentences of +Marcus Aurelius find their way to the soul. I have said that religious +emotion has the power to <i>light up</i> morality: the emotion of Marcus +Aurelius does not quite light up his morality, but it suffuses it; it has +not power to melt the clouds of effort and austerity quite away, but it +shines through them and glorifies them; it is a spirit, not so much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> of +gladness and elation, as of gentleness and sweetness; a delicate and +tender sentiment, which is less than joy and more than resignation. He +says that in his youth he learned from Maximus, one of his teachers, +“cheerfulness in all circumstances as well as in illness; <i>and a just +admixture in the moral character of sweetness and dignity</i>”: and it is +this very admixture of sweetness with his dignity which makes him so +beautiful a moralist. It enables him to carry, even into his observation +of nature, a delicate penetration, a sympathetic tenderness, worthy of +Wordsworth; the spirit of such a remark as the following seems to me to +have no parallel in the whole range of Greek and Roman literature:—</p> + +<p>“Figs, when they are quite ripe, gape open; and in the ripe olives the +very circumstance of their being near to rottenness adds a peculiar beauty +to the fruit. And the ears of corn bending down, and the lion’s eyebrows, +and the foam which flows from the mouth of wild boars, and many other +things,—though they are far from being beautiful, in a certain +sense,—still, because they come in the course of nature, have a beauty in +them, and they please the mind; so that, if a man should have a feeling +and a deeper insight with respect to the things which are produced in the +universe, there is hardly anything which comes in the course of nature +which will not seem to him to be in a manner disposed so as to give +pleasure.”</p> + +<p>But it is when his strain passes to directly moral subjects that his +delicacy and sweetness lend to it the greatest charm. Let those who can +feel the beauty of spiritual refinement read this, the reflection of an +emperor who prized mental superiority highly:—</p> + +<p>“Thou sayest, ‘Men cannot admire the sharpness of thy wits.’ Be it so; but +there are many other things of which thou canst not say, ‘I am not formed +for them by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> nature.’ Show those qualities, then, which are altogether in +thy power—sincerity, gravity, endurance of labor, aversion to pleasure, +contentment with thy portion and with few things, benevolence, frankness, +no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling, magnanimity. Dost thou not +see how many qualities thou art at once able to exhibit, as to which there +is no excuse of natural incapacity and unfitness, and yet thou still +remainest voluntarily below the mark? Or art thou compelled, through being +defectively furnished by nature, to murmur, and to be mean, and to +flatter, and to find fault with thy poor body, and to try to please men, +and to make great display, and to be so restless in thy mind? No, indeed; +but thou mightest have been delivered from these things long ago. Only, if +in truth thou canst be charged with being rather slow and dull of +comprehension, thou must exert thyself about this also, not neglecting nor +yet taking pleasure in thy dulness.”</p> + +<p>The same sweetness enables him to fix his mind, when he sees the isolation +and moral death caused by sin, not on the cheerless thought of the misery +of this condition, but on the inspiriting thought that man is blest with +the power to escape from it:—</p> + +<p>“Suppose that thou hast detached thyself from the natural unity,—for thou +wast made by nature a part, but now thou hast cut thyself off,—yet here +is this beautiful provision, that it is in thy power again to unite +thyself. God has allowed this to no other part—after it has been +separated and cut asunder, to come together again. But consider the +goodness with which he has privileged man; for he has put it in his power, +when he has been separated, to return and to be united and to resume his +place.”</p> + +<p>It enables him to control even the passion for retreat and solitude, so +strong in a soul like his, to which the world could offer no abiding +city.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>“Men seek retreat for themselves, houses in the country, seashores, and +mountains; and thou, too, art wont to desire such things very much. But +this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of man, for it is in thy +power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere +either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than +into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that, +by looking into them, he is immediately in perfect tranquillity. +Constantly, then, give to thyself this retreat, and renew thyself; and let +thy principles be brief and fundamental, which, as soon as thou shalt +recur to them, will be sufficient to cleanse the soul completely, and to +send thee back free from all discontent with the things to which thou +returnest.”</p> + +<p>Against this feeling of discontent and weariness, so natural to the great +for whom there seems nothing left to desire or to strive after, but so +enfeebling to them, so deteriorating, Marcus Aurelius never ceased to +struggle. With resolute thankfulness he kept in remembrance the blessings +of his lot; the true blessings of it, not the false.</p> + +<p>“I have to thank Heaven that I was subjected to a ruler and a father +[Antoninus Pius] who was able to take away all pride from me, and to bring +me to the knowledge that it is possible for a man to live in a palace +without either guards, or embroidered dresses, or any show of this kind; +but that it is in such a man’s power to bring himself very near to the +fashion of a private person, without being for this reason either meaner +in thought or more remiss in action with respect to the things which must +be done for public interest.... I have to be thankful that my children +have not been stupid or deformed in body; that I did not make more +proficiency in rhetoric, poetry, and the other studies, by which I should +perhaps have been completely engrossed, if I had seen that I was making +great progress<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> in them;... that I knew Apollonius, Rusticus, Maximus;... +that I received clear and frequent impressions about living according to +nature, and what kind of a life that is, so that, so far as depended on +Heaven and its gifts, help, and inspiration, nothing hindered me from +forthwith living according to nature, though I still fall short of it +through my own fault, and through not observing the admonitions of Heaven, +and, I may almost say, its direct instructions; that my body has held out +so long in such a kind of life as mine; that, though it was my mother’s +lot to die young, she spent the last years of her life with me; that, +whenever I wished to help any man in his need, I was never told that I had +not the means of doing it; that, when I had an inclination to philosophy, +I did not fall into the hands of a sophist.”</p> + +<p>And, as he dwelt with gratitude on these helps and blessings vouchsafed to +him, his mind (so, at least, it seems to me) would sometimes revert with +awe to the perils and temptations of the lonely height where he stood, to +the lives of Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian, in their hideous +blackness and ruin; and then he wrote down for himself such a warning +entry as this, significant and terrible in its abruptness:—</p> + +<p>“A black character, a womanish character, a stubborn character, bestial, +childish, animal, stupid, counterfeit, scurrilous, fraudulent, +tyrannical!”</p> + +<p>Or this:—</p> + +<p>“About what am I now employing my soul? On every occasion I must ask +myself this question, and inquire, What have I now in this part of me +which they call the ruling principle, and whose soul have I now—that of a +child, or of a young man, or of a weak woman, or of a tyrant, or of one of +the lower animals in the service of man, or of a wild beast?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>The character he wished to attain he knew well, and beautifully he has +marked it, and marked, too, his sense of shortcoming:—</p> + +<p>“When thou hast assumed these names,—good, modest, true, rational, +equal-minded, magnanimous,—take care that thou dost not change these +names; and, if thou shouldst lose them, quickly return to them. If thou +maintainest thyself in possession of these names, without desiring that +others should call thee by them, thou wilt be another being, and wilt +enter on another life. For to continue to be such as thou hast hitherto +been, and to be torn in pieces and denied in such a life, is the character +of a very stupid man, and one overfond of his life, and like those +half-devoured fighters with wild beasts, who though covered with wounds +and gore, still entreat to be kept to the following day, though they will +be exposed in the same state to the same claws and bites. Therefore fix +thyself in the possession of these few names; and if thou art able to +abide in them, abide as if thou wast removed to the Happy Islands.”</p> + +<p>For all his sweetness and serenity, however, man’s point of life “between +two infinities” (of that expression Marcus Aurelius is the real owner) was +to him anything but a Happy Island, and the performances on it he saw +through no veils of illusion. Nothing is in general more gloomy and +monotonous than declamations on the hollowness and transitoriness of human +life and grandeur; but here, too, the great charm of Marcus Aurelius, his +emotion, comes in to relieve the monotony and to break through the gloom; +and even on this eternally used topic he is imaginative, fresh, and +striking:—</p> + +<p>“Consider, for example, the times of Vespasian. Thou wilt see all these +things, people marrying, bringing up children, sick, dying, warring, +feasting, trafficking,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> cultivating the ground, flattering, obstinately +arrogant, suspecting, plotting, wishing for somebody to die, grumbling +about the present, loving, heaping up treasure, desiring to be consuls or +kings. Well, then that life of these people no longer exists at all. +Again, go to the times of Trajan. All is again the same. Their life too is +gone. But chiefly thou shouldst think of those whom thou hast thyself +known distracting themselves about idle things, neglecting to do what was +in accordance with their proper constitution, and to hold firmly to this +and to be content with it.”</p> + +<p>Again:—</p> + +<p>“The things which are much valued in life are empty, and rotten, and +trifling; and people are like little dogs, biting one another, and little +children quarreling, crying, and then straightway laughing. But fidelity, +and modesty, and justice and truth are fled</p> + +<p class="poem">Up to Olympus from the wide-spread earth.</p> + +<p>What then is there which still detains thee here?”</p> + +<p>And once more:—</p> + +<p>“Look down from above on the countless herds of men, and their countless +solemnities, and the infinitely varied voyagings in storms and calms, and +the differences among those who are born, who live together and die. And +consider too the life lived by others in olden time, and the life now +lived among barbarous nations, and how many know not even thy name, and +how many will soon forget it, and how they who perhaps now are praising +thee will very soon blame thee, and that neither a posthumous name is of +any value, nor reputation, nor anything else.”</p> + +<p>He recognized, indeed, that (to use his own words) “the prime principle in +man’s constitution is the social”; and he labored sincerely to make, not +only his acts toward his fellow men, but his thoughts also, suitable to +this conviction.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>“When thou wishest to delight thyself, think of the virtue of those who +live with thee: for instance, the activity of one, and the modesty of +another, and the liberality of a third, and some other good quality of a +fourth.”</p> + +<p>Still, it is hard for a pure and thoughtful man to live in a state of +rapture at the spectacle afforded to him by his fellow creatures; above +all it is hard, when such a man is placed as Marcus Aurelius was placed, +and has had the meanness and perversity of his fellow creatures thrust, in +no common measure, upon his notice—has had, time after time, to +experience how “within ten days thou wilt seem a god to those to whom thou +art now a beast and an ape.” His true strain of thought as to his +relations with his fellow men is rather the following. He has been +enumerating the higher consolations which may support a man at the +approach of death, and he goes on:—</p> + +<p>“But if thou requirest also a vulgar kind of comfort which shall reach thy +heart, thou wilt be made best reconciled to death by observing the objects +from which thou art going to be removed, and the morals of those with whom +thy soul will no longer be mingled. For it is no way right to be offended +with men, but it is thy duty to care for them and to bear with them +gently; and yet to remember that thy departure will not be from men who +have the same principles as thyself. For this is the only thing, if there +be any, which could draw us the contrary way and attach us to life—to be +permitted to live with those who have the same principles as ourselves. +But now thou seest how great is the distress caused by the difference of +those who live together, so that thou mayest say: ‘Come quick, O death, +lest perchance I too should forget myself.’”</p> + +<p><i>O faithless and perverse generation! how long shall I be with you? how +long shall I suffer you?</i> Sometimes this strain rises even to passion:—</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>“Short is the little which remains to thee of life. Live as on a mountain. +Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was meant to live. +If they cannot endure him, let them kill him. For that is better than to +live as men do.”</p> + +<p>It is remarkable how little of a merely local and temporary character, how +little of those <i>scoriæ</i> which a reader has to clear away before he gets +to the precious ore, how little that even admits of doubt or question, the +morality of Marcus Aurelius exhibits. In general, the action he prescribes +is action which every sound nature must recognize as right, and the +motives he assigns are motives which every clear reason must recognize as +valid. And so he remains the especial friend and comforter of scrupulous +and difficult, yet pure-hearted and upward-striving souls, in those ages +most especially that walk by sight, not by faith, but yet have no open +vision; he cannot give such souls, perhaps, all they yearn for, but he +gives them much; and what he gives them, they can receive.</p> + +<p>Yet no, it is not for what he thus gives them that such souls love him +most! it is rather because of the emotion which gives to his voice so +touching an accent, it is because he too yearns as they do for something +unattained by him. What an affinity for Christianity had this persecutor +of the Christians! The effusion of Christianity, its relieving tears, its +happy self-sacrifice, were the very element, one feels, for which his soul +longed; they were near him, they brushed him, he touched them, he passed +them by. One feels, too, that the Marcus Aurelius one knows must still +have remained, even had they presented themselves to him, in a great +measure himself; he would have been no Justin. But how would they have +affected him? in what measure would it have changed him? Granted that he +might have found, like the <i>Alogi</i> of modern times, in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> most beautiful +of the Gospels, the Gospel which has leavened Christendom most +powerfully,—the Gospel of St. John,—too much Greek metaphysics, too much +<i>gnosis</i>; granted that this Gospel might have looked too like what he knew +already to be a total surprise to him: what, then, would he have said to +the Sermon on the Mount, to the twenty-sixth chapter of St. Matthew? What +would have become of his notion of the <i>exitiabilis superstitio</i>, of the +“obstinacy of the Christians”? Vain question! yet the greatest charm of +Marcus Aurelius is that he makes us ask it. We see him wise, just, +self-governed, tender, thankful, blameless; yet, with all this, agitated, +stretching out his arms for something beyond—<i>tendentemque manus ripæ +ulterioris amore</i>.</p> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p> +<h3>DOVER BEACH</h3> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="dover"> +<tr><td>The sea is calm to-night,<br /> +The tide is full, the moon lies fair<br /> +Upon the straits;—on the French coast the light<br /> +Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,<br /> +Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.<br /> +Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!<br /> +Only, from the long line of spray<br /> +Where the sea meets the moon-blanch’d land,<br /> +Listen! you hear the grating roar<br /> +Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,<br /> +At their return, up the high strand,<br /> +Begin, and cease, and then again begin,<br /> +With tremulous cadence slow, and bring<br /> +The eternal note of sadness in.<br /> +<br /> +Sophocles long ago<br /> +Heard it on the Ægæan, and it brought<br /> +Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow<br /> +Of human misery; we<br /> +Find also in the sound a thought,<br /> +Hearing it by this distant northern sea.<br /> +<br /> +The Sea of Faith<br /> +Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore<br /> +Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d.<br /> +But now I only hear<br /> +Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>Retreating, to the breath<br /> +Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear<br /> +And naked shingles of the world.<br /> +Ah, love, let us be true<br /> +To one another! for the world, which seems<br /> +To lie before us like a land of dreams,<br /> +So various, so beautiful, so new,<br /> +Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,<br /> +Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;<br /> +And we are here as on a darkling plain<br /> +Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,<br /> +Where ignorant armies clash by night.</td></tr></table> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h3>MORALITY</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="mortality"> +<tr><td>We cannot kindle when we will<br /> +The fire that in the heart resides;<br /> +The spirit bloweth and is still,<br /> +In mystery our soul abides;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But tasks in hours of insight will’d</span><br /> +Can be through hours of gloom fulfill’d.<br /> +<br /> +With aching hands and bleeding feet<br /> +We dig and heap, lay stone on stone;<br /> +We bear the burden and the heat<br /> +Of the long day, and wish ’twere done.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Not till the hours of light return,</span><br /> +All we have built do we discern.<br /> +<br /> +Then, when the clouds are off the soul,<br /> +When thou dost bask in Nature’s eye,<br /> +Ask, how <i>she</i> view’d thy self-control,<br /> +Thy struggling task’d morality—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nature, whose free, light, cheerful air,</span><br /> +Oft made thee, in thy gloom, despair.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span><br /> +And she, whose censure thou dost dread,<br /> +Whose eye thou wert afraid to seek,<br /> +See, on her face a glow is spread,<br /> +A strong emotion on her cheek.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Ah child,” she cries, “that strife divine—</span><br /> +Whence was it, for it is not mine?<br /> +<br /> +“There is no effort on <i>my</i> brow—<br /> +I do not strive, I do not weep.<br /> +I rush with the swift spheres, and glow<br /> +In joy, and, when I will, I sleep.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet that severe, that earnest air</span><br /> +I saw, I felt it once—but where?<br /> +<br /> +“I knew not yet the gauge of Time,<br /> +Nor wore the manacles of Space.<br /> +I felt it in some other clime—<br /> +I saw it in some other place.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">—’Twas when the heavenly house I trod,</span><br /> +And lay upon the breast of God.”</td></tr></table> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h3>SELF-DEPENDENCE</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="dependence"> +<tr><td>Weary of myself, and sick of asking<br /> +What I am, and what I ought to be,<br /> +At this vessel’s prow I stand, which bears me<br /> +Forwards, forwards, o’er the starlit sea.<br /> +<br /> +And a look of passionate desire<br /> +O’er the sea and to the stars I send:<br /> +“Ye who from my childhood up have calmed me,<br /> +Calm me, ah, compose me to the end!<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span><br /> +“Ah, once more,” I cried, “ye stars, ye waters,<br /> +On my heart your mighty charm renew;<br /> +Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you,<br /> +Feel my soul becoming vast like you!”<br /> +<br /> +From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven,<br /> +Over the lit sea’s unquiet way,<br /> +In the rustling night-air came the answer:<br /> +“Wouldst thou <i>be</i> as these are? <i>Live</i> as they.<br /> +<br /> +“Unaffrighted by the silence round them,<br /> +Undistracted by the sights they see,<br /> +These demand not that the things without them<br /> +Yield them love, amusement, sympathy.<br /> +<br /> +“And with joy the stars perform their shining,<br /> +And the sea its long moon-silvered roll;<br /> +For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting<br /> +All the fever of some differing soul.<br /> +<br /> +“Bounded by themselves, and unregardful<br /> +In what state God’s other works may be,<br /> +In their own tasks all their powers pouring,<br /> +These attain the mighty life you see.”<br /> +<br /> +O air-born voice! long since, severely clear,<br /> +A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear:<br /> +“Resolve to be thyself; and know that he,<br /> +Who finds himself, loses his misery!”</td></tr></table> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p> +<h2>ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH</h2> +<h3>ALL IS WELL</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="clough"> +<tr><td>Whate’er you dream, with doubt possessed,<br /> +Keep, keep it snug within your breast,<br /> +And lay you down and take your rest;<br /> +Forget in sleep the doubt and pain,<br /> +And when you wake, to work again.<br /> +The wind it blows, the vessel goes,<br /> +And where and whither, no ones knows.<br /> +<br /> +’Twill all be well: no need of care;<br /> +Though how it will, and when, and where,<br /> +We cannot see, and can’t declare.<br /> +In spite of dreams, in spite of thought,<br /> +’Tis not in vain, and not for nought,<br /> +The wind it blows, the ship it goes,<br /> +Though where and whither, no one knows.</td></tr></table> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h3>TO SPEND UNCOUNTED YEARS OF PAIN</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="uncounted"> +<tr><td>To spend uncounted years of pain,<br /> +Again, again, and yet again,<br /> +In working out in heart and brain<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The problem of our being here;</span><br /> +To gather facts from far and near,<br /> +Upon the mind to hold them clear,<br /> +And, knowing more may yet appear,<br /> +Unto one’s latest breath to fear,<br /> +The premature result to draw—<br /> +Is this the object, end, and law,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And purpose of our being here?</span></td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p> +<h3>SAY NOT THE STRUGGLE NOUGHT AVAILETH</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="struggle"> +<tr><td>Say not the struggle nought availeth,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The labor and the wounds are vain,</span><br /> +The enemy faints not, nor faileth,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And as things have been they remain.</span><br /> +<br /> +If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It may be, in yon smoke concealed,</span><br /> +Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And, but for you, possess the field.</span><br /> +<br /> +For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Seem here no painful inch to gain,</span><br /> +Far back, through creeks and inlets making,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Comes silent, flooding in, the main.</span><br /> +<br /> +And not by eastern windows only,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When daylight comes, comes in the light;</span><br /> +In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But westward, look, the land is bright.</span></td></tr></table> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p> +<h2>ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE</h2> +<h3>THE GARDEN OF PROSERPINE</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="proserpine"> +<tr><td>Here, where the world is quiet;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Here, where all trouble seems</span><br /> +Dead winds’ and spent waves’ riot<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In doubtful dreams of dreams;</span><br /> +I watch the green field growing<br /> +For reaping folk and sowing,<br /> +For harvest-time and mowing,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A sleepy world of streams.</span><br /> +<br /> +I am tired of tears and laughter,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And men that laugh and weep;</span><br /> +Of what may come hereafter<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For men that sow to reap:</span><br /> +I am weary of days and hours,<br /> +Blown buds of barren flowers,<br /> +Desires and dreams and powers<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And everything but sleep.</span><br /> +<br /> +Here life has death for neighbor,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And far from eye or ear</span><br /> +Wan waves and wet winds labor,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Weak ships and spirits steer;</span><br /> +They drive adrift, and whither<br /> +They wot not who make thither;<br /> +But no such winds blow hither,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And no such things grow here.</span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span><br /> +No growth of moor or coppice,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">No heather-flower or vine,</span><br /> +But bloomless buds of poppies,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Green grapes of Proserpine,</span><br /> +Pale beds of blowing rushes,<br /> +Where no leaf blooms or blushes<br /> +Save this whereout she crushes<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For dead men deadly wine.</span><br /> +<br /> +Pale, without name or number,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In fruitless fields of corn,</span><br /> +They bow themselves and slumber<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All night till light is born;</span><br /> +And like a soul belated,<br /> +In hell and heaven unmated,<br /> +By cloud and mist abated<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Comes out of darkness morn.</span><br /> +<br /> +Though one were strong as seven,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He too with death shall dwell,</span><br /> +Nor wake with wings in heaven,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor weep for pains in hell;</span><br /> +Though one were fair as roses,<br /> +His beauty clouds and closes;<br /> +And well though love reposes,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In the end it is not well.</span><br /> +<br /> +Pale, beyond porch and portal,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Crowned with calm leaves, she stands</span><br /> +Who gathers all things mortal<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With cold immortal hands;</span><br /> +Her languid lips are sweeter<br /> +Than love’s who fears to greet her,<br /> +To men that mix and meet her<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">From many times and lands.</span><br /> +<br /> +She waits for each and other,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She waits for all men born;</span><br /> +Forgets the earth her mother,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The life of fruits and corn;</span><br /> +And spring and seed and swallow<br /> +Take wing for her and follow<br /> +Where summer song rings hollow<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And flowers are put to scorn.</span><br /> +<br /> +There go the loves that wither,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The old loves with wearier wings;</span><br /> +And all dead years draw thither,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And all disastrous things;</span><br /> +Dead dreams of days forsaken,<br /> +Blind buds that snows have shaken,<br /> +Wild leaves that winds have taken,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Red strays of ruined springs.</span><br /> +<br /> +We are not sure of sorrow;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And joy was never sure;</span><br /> +To-day will die to-morrow;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Time stoops to no man’s lure;</span><br /> +And love, grown faint and fretful,<br /> +With lips but half regretful<br /> +Sighs, and with eyes forgetful<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Weeps that no loves endure.</span><br /> +<br /> +From too much love of living,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From hope and fear set free,</span><br /> +We thank with brief thanksgiving<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whatever gods may be</span><br /> +That no life lives for ever;<br /> +That dead men rise up never;<br /> +That even the weariest river<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Winds somewhere safe to sea.</span><br /> +<br /> +Then star nor sun shall waken,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor any change of light:</span><br /> +Nor sound of waters shaken,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor any sound or sight:</span><br /> +Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,<br /> +Nor days nor things diurnal;<br /> +Only the sleep eternal<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In an eternal night.</span></td></tr></table> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p> +<h2>EDWARD FITZGERALD</h2> +<h3>RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM</h3> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="rubaiyat"> +<tr><td align="center">I</td></tr> +<tr><td>Wake! For the Sun, who scatter’d into flight<br /> +The Stars before him from the Field of Night,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Drives Night along with them from Heav’n, and strikes</span><br /> +The Sultan’s Turret with a Shaft of Light.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">II</td></tr> +<tr><td>Before the phantom of False morning died,<br /> +Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“When all the Temple is prepared within,</span><br /> +Why nods the drowsy Worshipper outside?”</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">III</td></tr> +<tr><td>And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before<br /> +The Tavern shouted—“Open then the Door!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">You know how little while we have to stay,</span><br /> +And, once departed, may return no more.”</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">IV</td></tr> +<tr><td>Now the New Year reviving old Desires,<br /> +The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where the <span class="smcap">White Hand of Moses</span> on the Bough</span><br /> +Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">V</td></tr> +<tr><td>Iram indeed is gone with all his Rose,<br /> +And Jamshyd’s Sev’n-ring’d Cup where no one knows;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But still a Ruby kindles in the Vine,</span><br /> +And many a Garden by the Water blows.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>VI</td></tr> +<tr><td>And David’s lips are lockt; but in divine<br /> +High-piping Pehleví, with “Wine! Wine! Wine!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Red Wine!”—the Nightingale cries to the Rose</span><br /> +That sallow cheek of hers to incarnadine.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">VII</td></tr> +<tr><td>Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring<br /> +Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Bird of Time has but a little way</span><br /> +To flutter—and the Bird is on the Wing.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">VIII</td></tr> +<tr><td>Whether at Naishápúr or Babylon,<br /> +Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,</span><br /> +The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">IX</td></tr> +<tr><td>Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say;<br /> +Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And this first Summer month that brings the Rose</span><br /> +Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobád away.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">X</td></tr> +<tr><td>Well, let it take them! What have we to do<br /> +With Kaikobád the Great, or Kaikhosrú?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let Zál and Rustum bluster as they will,</span><br /> +Or Hátim call to Supper—heed not you.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XI</td></tr> +<tr><td>With me along the strip of Herbage strown<br /> +That just divides the desert from the sown,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where name of Slave and Sultán is forgot—</span><br /> +And Peace to Mahmúd on his golden Throne!</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>XII</td></tr> +<tr><td>A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,<br /> +A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beside me singing in the Wilderness—</span><br /> +Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XIII</td></tr> +<tr><td>Some for the Glories of This World; and some<br /> +Sigh for the Prophet’s Paradise to come;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go,</span><br /> +Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XIV</td></tr> +<tr><td>Look to the blowing Rose about us—“Lo,<br /> +Laughing,” she says, “into the world I blow,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">At once the silken tassel of my Purse</span><br /> +Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw.”</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XV</td></tr> +<tr><td>And those who husbanded the Golden grain,<br /> +And those who flung it to the winds like Rain,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn’d</span><br /> +As, buried once, Men want dug up again.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XVI</td></tr> +<tr><td>The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon<br /> +Turns Ashes—or it prospers; and anon,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face,</span><br /> +Lighting a little hour or two—is gone.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XVII</td></tr> +<tr><td>Think, in this batter’d Caravanserai<br /> +Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp</span><br /> +Abode his destined Hour, and went his way.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>XVIII</td></tr> +<tr><td>They say the Lion and the Lizard keep<br /> +The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And Bahrám, that great Hunter—the Wild Ass</span><br /> +Stamps o’er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XIX</td></tr> +<tr><td>I sometimes think that never blows so red<br /> +The Rose as where some buried Cæsar bled;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That every Hyacinth the Garden wears</span><br /> +Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XX</td></tr> +<tr><td>And this reviving Herb whose tender Green<br /> +Fledges the River-Lip on which we lean—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows</span><br /> +From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen!</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXI</td></tr> +<tr><td>Ah, my Belovèd, fill the Cup that clears<br /> +<span class="smcap">To-day</span> of past Regrets and future Fears:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>To-morrow!</i>—Why, To-morrow I may be</span><br /> +Myself with Yesterday’s Sev’n Thousand Years.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXII</td></tr> +<tr><td>For some we loved, the loveliest and the best<br /> +That from his Vintage rolling Time hath prest,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,</span><br /> +And one by one crept silently to rest.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXIII</td></tr> +<tr><td>And we, that now make merry in the Room<br /> +They left, and Summer dresses in new bloom,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth</span><br /> +Descend—ourselves to make a Couch—for whom?</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>XXIV</td></tr> +<tr><td>Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,<br /> +Before we too into the Dust descend;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie,</span><br /> +Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and—sans End!</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXV</td></tr> +<tr><td>Alike for those who for <span class="smcap">To-day</span> prepare,<br /> +And those that after some <span class="smcap">To-morrow</span> stare,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A Muezzín from the Tower of Darkness cries,</span><br /> +“Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor There.”</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXVI</td></tr> +<tr><td>Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss’d<br /> +Of the Two Worlds so wisely—they are thrust<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn</span><br /> +Are scatter’d, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXVII</td></tr> +<tr><td>Myself when young did eagerly frequent<br /> +Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">About it and about; but evermore</span><br /> +Came out by the same door where in I went.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXVIII</td></tr> +<tr><td>With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow,<br /> +And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And this was all the Harvest that I reap’d—</span><br /> +“I came like Water, and like Wind I go.”</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXIX</td></tr> +<tr><td>Into this Universe, and <i>Why</i> not knowing<br /> +Nor <i>Whence</i>, like Water willy-nilly flowing;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,</span><br /> +I know not <i>Whither</i>, willy-nilly blowing.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>XXX</td></tr> +<tr><td>What, without asking, hither hurried <i>Whence</i>?<br /> +And, without asking, <i>Whither</i> hurried hence!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine</span><br /> +Must drown the memory of that insolence!</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXXI</td></tr> +<tr><td>Up from Earth’s Centre through the Seventh Gate<br /> +I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And many a Knot unravel’d by the Road;</span><br /> +But not the Master-knot of Human Fate.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXXII</td></tr> +<tr><td>There was the Door to which I found no Key;<br /> +There was the Veil through which I might not see;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Some little talk awhile of <span class="smcap">Me</span> and <span class="smcap">Thee</span></span><br /> +There was—and then no more of <span class="smcap">Thee</span> and <span class="smcap">Me</span>.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXXIII</td></tr> +<tr><td>Earth could not answer; nor the Seas that mourn<br /> +In flowing Purple, of their Lord forlorn;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor rolling Heaven, with all his Signs reveal’d</span><br /> +And hidden by the sleeve of Night and Morn.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXXIV</td></tr> +<tr><td>Then of the <span class="smcap">Thee in Me</span> who works behind<br /> +The Veil, I lifted up my hands to find<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A Lamp amid the Darkness; and I heard,</span><br /> +As from Without—“<span class="smcap">The Me within Thee blind!</span>”</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXXV</td></tr> +<tr><td>Then to the Lip of this poor earthen Urn<br /> +I lean’d, the Secret of my Life to learn:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And Lip to Lip it murmur’d—“While you live,</span><br /> +Drink!—for, once dead, you never shall return.”</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>XXXVI</td></tr> +<tr><td>I think the Vessel, that with fugitive<br /> +Articulation answer’d, once did live,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And drink; and Ah! the passive Lip I kiss’d,</span><br /> +How many Kisses might it take—and give!</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXXVII</td></tr> +<tr><td>For I remember stopping by the way<br /> +To watch a Potter thumping his wet Clay;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And with its all-obliterated Tongue</span><br /> +It murmur’d—“Gently, Brother, gently, pray!”</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXXVIII</td></tr> +<tr><td>And has not such a Story from of Old<br /> +Down Man’s successive generations roll’d<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of such a clod of saturated Earth</span><br /> +Cast by the Maker into Human mould?</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXXIX</td></tr> +<tr><td>And not a drop that from our Cups we throw<br /> +For Earth to drink of, but may steal below<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To quench the fire of Anguish in some Eye</span><br /> +There hidden—far beneath, and long ago.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XL</td></tr> +<tr><td>As then the Tulip for her morning sup<br /> +Of Heav’nly Vintage from the soil looks up,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Do you devoutly do the like, till Heav’n</span><br /> +To Earth invert you—like an empty Cup.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XLI</td></tr> +<tr><td>Perplext no more with Human or Divine,<br /> +To-morrow’s tangle to the winds resign,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And lose your fingers in the tresses of</span><br /> +The Cypress-slender Minister of Wine.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>XLII</td></tr> +<tr><td>And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press,<br /> +End in what All begins and ends in—Yes;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Think then you are <span class="smcap">To-day</span> what <span class="smcap">Yesterday</span></span><br /> +You were—<span class="smcap">To-morrow</span> you shall be not less.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XLIII</td></tr> +<tr><td>So when that Angel of the darker Drink<br /> +At last shall find you by the river-brink,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And, offering his Cup, invite your Soul</span><br /> +Forth to your Lips to quaff—you shall not shrink.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XLIV</td></tr> +<tr><td>Why, if the Soul can fling the Dust aside,<br /> +And naked on the Air of Heaven ride,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Were’t not a Shame—were’t not a Shame for him</span><br /> +In this clay carcass crippled to abide?</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XLV</td></tr> +<tr><td>’Tis but a Tent where takes his one day’s rest<br /> +A Sultan to the realm of Death addrest;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Sultan rises, and the dark Ferrásh</span><br /> +Strikes, and prepares it for another Guest.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XLVI</td></tr> +<tr><td>And fear not lest Existence closing your<br /> +Account, and mine, should know the like no more;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Eternal Sákí from that Bowl has pour’d</span><br /> +Millions of Bubbles like us, and will pour.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XLVII</td></tr> +<tr><td>When You and I behind the Veil are past,<br /> +Oh, but the long, long while the World shall last,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which of our Coming and Departure heeds</span><br /> +As the Sea’s self should heed a pebble-cast.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>XLVIII</td></tr> +<tr><td>A Moment’s Halt—a momentary taste<br /> +Of <span class="smcap">Being</span> from the Well amid the Waste—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And Lo!—the phantom Caravan has reach’d</span><br /> +The <span class="smcap">Nothing</span> it set out from—Oh, make haste!</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XLIX</td></tr> +<tr><td>Would you that spangle of Existence spend<br /> +About <span class="smcap">the secret</span>—quick about it, Friend!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A Hair perhaps divides the False and True—</span><br /> +And upon what, prithee, may life depend?</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">L</td></tr> +<tr><td>A Hair perhaps divides the False and True;<br /> +Yes; and a single Alif were the clue—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Could you but find it—to the Treasure-house,</span><br /> +And peradventure to <span class="smcap">The Master</span> too;</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LI</td></tr> +<tr><td>Whose secret Presence, though Creation’s veins<br /> +Running Quicksilver-like, eludes your pains;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Taking all shapes from Máh to Máhi; and</span><br /> +They change and perish all—but He remains;</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LII</td></tr> +<tr><td>A moment guess’d—then back behind the Fold<br /> +Immerst of Darkness round the Drama roll’d<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which, for the Pastime of Eternity,</span><br /> +He doth Himself contrive, enact, behold.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LIII</td></tr> +<tr><td>But if in vain, down on the stubborn floor<br /> +Of Earth, and up to Heav’n’s unopening Door,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">You gaze <span class="smcap">To-day</span>, while You are You—how then</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">To-morrow</span>, You when shall be You no more?</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>LIV</td></tr> +<tr><td>Waste not your Hour, nor in the vain pursuit<br /> +Of This and That endeavor and dispute;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Better be jocund with the fruitful Grape</span><br /> +Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LV</td></tr> +<tr><td>You know, my Friends, with what a brave Carouse<br /> +I made a Second Marriage in my house;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed,</span><br /> +And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LVI</td></tr> +<tr><td>For “<span class="smcap">Is</span>” and “<span class="smcap">Is-not</span>” though with Rule and Line<br /> +And “<span class="smcap">Up-and-down</span>” by Logic I define,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of all that one should care to fathom, I</span><br /> +Was never deep in anything but—Wine.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LVII</td></tr> +<tr><td>Ah, but my Computations, People say,<br /> +Reduced the Year to better reckoning?—Nay,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">’Twas only striking from the Calendar</span><br /> +Unborn To-morrow, and dead Yesterday.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LVIII</td></tr> +<tr><td>And lately, by the Tavern Door agape,<br /> +Came shining through the Dusk an Angel Shape<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and</span><br /> +He bid me taste of it; and ’twas—the Grape!</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LIX</td></tr> +<tr><td>The Grape that can with Logic absolute<br /> +The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The sovereign Alchemist that in a trice</span><br /> +Life’s leaden metal into Gold transmute:</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>LX</td></tr> +<tr><td>The mighty Mahmúd, Allah breathing Lord,<br /> +That all the misbelieving and black Horde<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul</span><br /> +Scatters before him with his whirlwind Sword.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LXI</td></tr> +<tr><td>Why, be this Juice the growth of God, who dare<br /> +Blaspheme the twisted tendril as a Snare?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A Blessing, we should use it, should we not?</span><br /> +And if a Curse—why, then, Who set it there?</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LXII</td></tr> +<tr><td>I must abjure the Balm of Life, I must,<br /> +Scared by some After-reckoning ta’en on trust,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or lured with Hope of some Diviner Drink,</span><br /> +To fill the Cup—when crumbled into Dust!</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LXIII</td></tr> +<tr><td>O threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!<br /> +One thing at least is certain—<i>This</i> Life flies;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">One thing is certain and the rest is Lies;</span><br /> +The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LXIV</td></tr> +<tr><td>Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who<br /> +Before us pass’d the door of Darkness through,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Not one returns to tell us of the Road,</span><br /> +Which to discover we must travel too.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LXV</td></tr> +<tr><td>The Revelations of Devout and Learn’d<br /> +Who rose before us, and as Prophets burn’d,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Are all but Stories, which, awoke from Sleep,</span><br /> +They told their comrades, and to Sleep return’d.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>LXVI</td></tr> +<tr><td>I sent my Soul through the Invisible,<br /> +Some letter of that After-life to spell:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And by and by my Soul return’d to me,</span><br /> +And answer’d, “I myself am Heav’n and Hell”:</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LXVII</td></tr> +<tr><td>Heav’n but the Vision of fulfill’d Desire,<br /> +And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves,</span><br /> +So late emerged from, shall so soon expire.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LXVIII</td></tr> +<tr><td>We are no other than a moving row<br /> +Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held</span><br /> +In Midnight by the Master of the Show;</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LXIX</td></tr> +<tr><td>But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays<br /> +Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,</span><br /> +And one by one back in the Closet lays.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LXX</td></tr> +<tr><td>The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes,<br /> +But Here or There as strikes the Player goes;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And He that toss’d you down into the Field,</span><br /> +<i>He</i> knows about it all—<span class="smcap">he</span> knows—HE knows!</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LXXI</td></tr> +<tr><td>The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,<br /> +Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,</span><br /> +Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>LXXII</td></tr> +<tr><td>And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky,<br /> +Whereunder crawling coop’d we live and die,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lift not your hands to <i>It</i> for help—for It</span><br /> +As impotently moves as you or I.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LXXIII</td></tr> +<tr><td>With Earth’s first Clay They did the Last Man knead,<br /> +And there of the Last Harvest sow’d the Seed:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the first Morning of Creation wrote</span><br /> +What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LXXIV</td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Yesterday</span> <i>This</i> Day’s Madness did prepare;<br /> +<span class="smcap">To-morrow’s</span> Silence, Triumph, or Despair:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why:</span><br /> +Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LXXV</td></tr> +<tr><td>I tell you this—When, started from the Goal,<br /> +Over the flaming shoulders of the Foal<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of Heav’n Parwín and Mushtarí they flung,</span><br /> +In my predestined Plot of Dust and Soul</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LXXVI</td></tr> +<tr><td>The Vine had struck a fibre: which about<br /> +If clings my Being—let the Dervish flout;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of my Base metal may be filed a Key,</span><br /> +That shall unlock the Door he howls without.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LXXVII</td></tr> +<tr><td>And this I know: whether the one True Light<br /> +Kindle to Love, or Wrath—consume me quite,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">One Flash of It within the Tavern caught</span><br /> +Better than in the Temple lost outright.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>LXXVIII</td></tr> +<tr><td>What! out of senseless Nothing to provoke<br /> +A conscious Something to resent the yoke<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of unpermitted Pleasure, under pain</span><br /> +Of Everlasting Penalties, if broke!</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LXXIX</td></tr> +<tr><td>What! from his helpless Creature be repaid<br /> +Pure Gold for what he lent him dross-allay’d—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sue for a Debt he never did contract,</span><br /> +And cannot answer—Oh, the sorry trade!</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LXXX</td></tr> +<tr><td>O Thou, who didst with pitfall and with gin<br /> +Beset the Road I was to wander in,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou wilt not with Predestined Evil round</span><br /> +Enmesh, and then impute my Fall to Sin!</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LXXXI</td></tr> +<tr><td>O Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make,<br /> +And ev’n with Paradise devise the Snake:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man</span><br /> +Is blacken’d—Man’s forgiveness give—and take!</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LXXXII</td></tr> +<tr><td>As under cover of departing Day<br /> +Slunk hunger-stricken Ramazán away,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Once more within the Potter’s house alone</span><br /> +I stood, surrounded by the Shapes of Clay.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LXXXIII</td></tr> +<tr><td>Shapes of all Sorts and Sizes, great and small,<br /> +That stood along the floor and by the wall;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And some loquacious Vessels were; and some</span><br /> +Listen’d perhaps, but never talk’d at all.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>LXXXIV</td></tr> +<tr><td>Said one among them—“Surely not in vain<br /> +My substance of the common Earth was ta’en<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And to this Figure moulded, to be broke,</span><br /> +Or trampled back to Shapeless Earth again.”</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LXXXV</td></tr> +<tr><td>Then said a Second—“Ne’er a peevish Boy<br /> +Would break the Bowl from which he drank in joy;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And He that with his hand the Vessel made</span><br /> +Will surely not in after Wrath destroy.”</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LXXXVI</td></tr> +<tr><td>After a momentary silence spake<br /> +Some Vessel of a more ungainly Make;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“They sneer at me for leaning all awry:</span><br /> +What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?”</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LXXXVII</td></tr> +<tr><td>Whereat some one of the loquacious Lot—<br /> +I think a Súfi pipkin—waxing hot—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“All this of Pot and Potter—Tell me then,</span><br /> +Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?”</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LXXXVIII</td></tr> +<tr><td>“Why,” said another, “Some there are who tell<br /> +Of one who threatens he will toss to Hell<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The luckless Pots he marr’d in making—Pish!</span><br /> +He’s a Good Fellow, and ’twill all be well.”</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LXXXIX</td></tr> +<tr><td>“Well,” murmur’d one, “Let whoso make or buy,<br /> +My Clay with long Oblivion is gone dry;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But fill me with the old familiar Juice;</span><br /> +Methinks I might recover by and by.”</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>XC</td></tr> +<tr><td>So while the Vessels one by one were speaking,<br /> +The little Moon look’d in that all were seeking:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And then they jogg’d each other, “Brother! Brother!</span><br /> +Now for the Porter’s shoulder-knot a-creaking!”</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XCI</td></tr> +<tr><td>Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide,<br /> +And wash the Body whence the Life has died,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And lay me, shrouded in the living Leaf,</span><br /> +By some not unfrequented Garden-side.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XCII</td></tr> +<tr><td>That ev’n my buried Ashes such a snare<br /> +Of Vintage shall fling up into the Air<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As not a True-believer passing by</span><br /> +But shall be overtaken unaware.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XCIII</td></tr> +<tr><td>Indeed the Idols I have loved so long<br /> +Have done my credit in this World much wrong:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Have drown’d my Glory in a shallow Cup,</span><br /> +And sold my Reputation for a Song.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XCIV</td></tr> +<tr><td>Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before<br /> +I swore—but was I sober when I swore?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand</span><br /> +My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XCV</td></tr> +<tr><td>And much as Wine has play’d the Infidel,<br /> +And robb’d me of my Robe of Honor—Well,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I wonder often what the Vintners buy</span><br /> +One half so precious as the stuff they sell.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>XCVI</td></tr> +<tr><td>Yet ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!<br /> +That Youth’s sweet-scented manuscript should close!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Nightingale that in the branches sang,</span><br /> +Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows!</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XCVII</td></tr> +<tr><td>Would but the Desert of the Fountain yield<br /> +One glimpse—if dimly, yet indeed, reveal’d,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To which the fainting Traveler might spring,</span><br /> +As springs the trampled herbage of the field!</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XCVIII</td></tr> +<tr><td>Would but some wingèd Angel ere too late<br /> +Arrest the yet unfolded Roll of Fate,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And make the stern Recorder otherwise</span><br /> +Enregister, or quite obliterate!</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XCIX</td></tr> +<tr><td>Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire<br /> +To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Would not we shatter it to bits—and then</span><br /> +Re-mould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire!</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">C</td></tr> +<tr><td>Yon rising Moon that looks for us again—<br /> +How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How oft hereafter rising look for us</span><br /> +Through this same Garden—and for <i>one</i> in vain!</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">CI</td></tr> +<tr><td>And when like her, oh Sákí, you shall pass<br /> +Among the Guests Star-scatter’d on the Grass,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And in your joyous errand reach the spot</span><br /> +Where I made One—turn down an empty Glass!</td></tr></table> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p> +<h2>ROBERT BROWNING</h2> +<h3>RABBI BEN EZRA</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="rabbi"> +<tr><td align="center">I</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Grow old along with me!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The best is yet to be,</span><br /> +The last of life, for which the first was made:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Our times are in His hand</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Who saith, “A whole I planned;</span><br /> +Youth shows but half; trust God: see all nor be afraid!”</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">II</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Not that, amassing flowers,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Youth sighed, “Which rose make ours,</span><br /> +Which lily leave and then as best recall?”<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Not that, admiring stars,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">It yearned, “Nor Jove, nor Mars;</span><br /> +Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!”</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">III</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Not for such hopes and fears</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Annulling youth’s brief years,</span><br /> +Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Rather I prize the doubt</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Low kinds exist without,</span><br /> +Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">IV</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Poor vaunt of life indeed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Were man but formed to feed</span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>On joy, to solely seek and find and feast:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Such feasting ended, then</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">As sure an end to men;</span><br /> +Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">V</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Rejoice we are allied</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To That which doth provide</span><br /> +And not partake, effect and not receive!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A spark disturbs our clod;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nearer we hold of God</span><br /> +Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">VI</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then, welcome each rebuff</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That turns earth’s smoothness rough,</span><br /> +Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Be our joys three-parts pain!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Strive, and hold cheap the strain;</span><br /> +Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">VII</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">For thence,—a paradox</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Which comforts while it mocks,—</span><br /> +Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What I aspired to be,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And was not, comforts me:</span><br /> +A brute I might have been, but would not sink i’ the scale.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">VIII</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">What is he but a brute</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whose flesh has soul to suit,</span><br /> +Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To man, propose this test—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thy body at its best,</span><br /> +How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>IX</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yet gifts should prove their use:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I own the Past profuse</span><br /> +Of power each side, perfection every turn:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Eyes, ears took in their dole,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Brain treasured up the whole;</span><br /> +Should not the heart beat once, “How good to live and learn?”</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">X</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Not once beat “Praise be Thine!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I see the whole design,</span><br /> +I, who saw power, see now love perfect too:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Perfect I call Thy plan:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thanks that I was a man!</span><br /> +Maker, remake, complete,—I trust what Thou shalt do!”</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XI</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">For pleasant is this flesh;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Our soul, in its rose-mesh</span><br /> +Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Would we some prize might hold</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To match those manifold</span><br /> +Possessions of the brute,—gain most, as we did best!</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XII</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let us not always say,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">“Spite of this flesh to-day</span><br /> +I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!”<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">As the bird wings and sings,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let us cry, “All good things</span><br /> +Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!”</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>XIII</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Therefore I summon age</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To grant youth’s heritage,</span><br /> +Life’s struggle having so far reached its term:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thence shall I pass, approved</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A man, for aye removed</span><br /> +From the developed brute; a god though in the germ.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XIV</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">And I shall thereupon</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Take rest, ere I be gone</span><br /> +Once more on my adventure brave and new:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fearless and unperplexed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">When I wage battle next,</span><br /> +What weapons to select, what armor to indue.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XV</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Youth ended, I shall try</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My gain or loss thereby;</span><br /> +Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And I shall weigh the same,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Give life its praise or blame:</span><br /> +Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XVI</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">For note, when evening shuts,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A certain moment cuts</span><br /> +The deed off, calls the glory from the gray:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A whisper from the west</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Shoots—“Add this to the rest,</span><br /> +Take it and try its worth: here dies another day.”</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>XVII</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">So, still within this life,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Though lifted o’er its strife,</span><br /> +Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">“This rage was right i’ the main,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That acquiescence vain:</span><br /> +The Future I may face now I have proved the Past.”</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XVIII</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">For more is not reserved</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To man, with soul just nerved</span><br /> +To act to-morrow what he learns to-day:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Here, work enough to watch</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Master work, and catch</span><br /> +Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool’s true play.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XIX</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">As it was better, youth</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Should strive, through acts uncouth,</span><br /> +Toward making, than repose on aught found made:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So, better, age, exempt</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From strife, should know, than tempt</span><br /> +Further. Thou waitedest age: wait death nor be afraid!</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XX</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Enough now, if the Right</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And Good and Infinite</span><br /> +Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With knowledge absolute,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Subject to no dispute</span><br /> +From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXI</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Be there, for once and all,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Severed great minds from small,</span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>Announced to each his station in the Past!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Was I, the world arraigned,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Were they, my soul disdained,</span><br /> +Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXII</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Now, who shall arbitrate?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ten men love what I hate,</span><br /> +Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ten, who in ears and eyes</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Match me: we all surmise,</span><br /> +They this thing, and I that: whom shall my soul believe?</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXIII</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Not on the vulgar mass</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Called “work,” must sentence pass,</span><br /> +Things done, that took the eye and had the price;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">O’er which, from level stand,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The low world laid its hand,</span><br /> +Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXIV</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">But all, the world’s coarse thumb</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And finger failed to plumb,</span><br /> +So passed in making up the main account;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">All instincts immature,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">All purposes unsure,</span><br /> +That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man’s amount:</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXV</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thoughts hardly to be packed</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Into a narrow act,</span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>Fancies that broke through language and escaped;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">All I could never be,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">All, men ignored in me,</span><br /> +This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXVI</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ay, note that Potter’s wheel,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That metaphor! and feel</span><br /> +Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thou, to whom fools propound,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">When the wine makes its round,</span><br /> +“Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!”</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXVII</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fool! All that is, at all,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lasts ever, past recall;</span><br /> +Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What entered into thee,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>That</i> was, is, and shall be:</span><br /> +Time’s wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXVIII</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">He fixed thee mid this dance</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of plastic circumstance,</span><br /> +This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Machinery just meant</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To give thy soul its bent,</span><br /> +Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXIX</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">What though the earlier grooves</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Which ran the laughing loves</span><br /> +Around thy base, no longer pause and press?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What though, about thy rim,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Skull-things in order grim</span><br /> +Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>XXX</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Look not thou down but up!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To uses of a cup,</span><br /> +The festal board, lamp’s flash and trumpet’s peal,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The new wine’s foaming flow,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Master’s lips a-glow!</span><br /> +Thou, heaven’s consummate cup, what need’st thou with earth’s wheel?</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXXI</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">But I need, now as then,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thee, God, who mouldest men;</span><br /> +And since, not even while the whirl was worst,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Did I,—to the wheel of life</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With shapes and colors rife,</span><br /> +Bound dizzily,—mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst:</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XXXII</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">So, take and use Thy work:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Amend what flaws may lurk,</span><br /> +What strain o’ the stuff, what warpings past the aim!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My times be in Thy hand!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Perfect the cup as planned!</span><br /> +Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h3>AN EPISTLE<br /> +CONTAINING THE STRANGE MEDICAL EXPERIENCE OF KARSHISH, THE ARAB PHYSICIAN</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="epistle"> +<tr><td>Karshish, the picker-up of learning’s crumbs,<br /> +The not-incurious in God’s handiwork<br /> +(This man’s-flesh He hath admirably made,<br /> +Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>To coop up and keep down on earth a space<br /> +That puff of vapor from his mouth, man’s soul)<br /> +—To Abib, all-sagacious in our art,<br /> +Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast,<br /> +Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracks<br /> +Befall the flesh through too much stress and strain,<br /> +Whereby the wily vapor fain would slip<br /> +Back and rejoin its source before the term,—<br /> +And aptest in contrivance, under God,<br /> +To baffle it by deftly stopping such:—<br /> +The vagrant Scholar to his Sage at home<br /> +Sends greeting (health and knowledge, fame with peace),<br /> +Three samples of true snake-stone—rarer still,<br /> +One of the other sort, the melon-shaped<br /> +(But fitter, pounded fine, for charms than drugs),<br /> +And writeth now the twenty-second time.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My journeyings were brought to Jericho;</span><br /> +Thus I resume. Who studious in our art<br /> +Shall count a little labor unrepaid?<br /> +I have shed sweat enough, left flesh and bone<br /> +On many a flinty furlong of this land.<br /> +Also the country-side is all on fire<br /> +With rumors of a marching hitherward—<br /> +Some say Vespasian cometh, some, his son.<br /> +A black lynx snarled and pricked a tufted ear;<br /> +Lust of my blood inflamed his yellow balls:<br /> +I cried and threw my staff and he was gone.<br /> +Twice have the robbers stripped and beaten me,<br /> +And once a town declared me for a spy;<br /> +But at the end, I reach Jerusalem,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>Since this poor covert where I pass the night,<br /> +This Bethany, lies scarce the distance thence<br /> +A man with plague-sores at the third degree<br /> +Runs till he drops down dead. Thou laughest here!<br /> +’Sooth, it elates me, thus reposed and safe,<br /> +To void the stuffing of my travel-scrip<br /> +And share with thee whatever Jewry yields.<br /> +A viscid choler is observable<br /> +In tertians, I was nearly bold to say,<br /> +And falling-sickness hath a happier cure<br /> +Than our school wots of: there’s a spider here<br /> +Weaves no web, watches on the ledge of tombs,<br /> +Sprinkled with mottles on an ash-gray back;<br /> +Take five and drop them ... but who knows his mind,<br /> +The Syrian runagate I trust this to?<br /> +His service payeth me a sublimate<br /> +Blown up his nose to help the ailing eye.<br /> +Best wait: I reach Jerusalem at morn<br /> +There set in order my experiences,<br /> +Gather what most deserves and give thee all—<br /> +Or I might add, Judea’s gum-tragacanth<br /> +Scales off in purer flakes, shines clearer-grained,<br /> +Cracks ’twixt the pestle and the porphyry,<br /> +In fine exceeds our produce. Scalp disease<br /> +Confounds me, crossing so with leprosy—<br /> +Thou hadst admired one sort I gained at Zoar—<br /> +But zeal outruns discretion. Here I end.<br /> +<br /> +Yet stay: my Syrian blinketh gratefully,<br /> +Protesteth his devotion is my price—<br /> +Suppose I write what harms not, though he steal?<br /> +I half resolve to tell thee, yet I blush,<br /> +What set me off a-writing first of all.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>An itch I had, a sting to write, a tang!<br /> +For, be it this town’s barrenness—or else<br /> +The Man had something in the look of him—<br /> +His case has struck me far more than ’tis worth.<br /> +So, pardon if (lest presently I lose<br /> +In the great press of novelty at hand<br /> +The care and pains this somehow stole from me)<br /> +I bid thee take the thing while fresh in mind,<br /> +Almost in sight—for, wilt thou have the truth?<br /> +The very man is gone from me but now,<br /> +Whose ailment is the subject of discourse.<br /> +Thus then, and let thy better wit help all.<br /> +<br /> +’Tis but a case of mania—subinduced<br /> +By epilepsy, at the turning-point<br /> +Of trance prolonged unduly some three days.<br /> +When, by the exhibition of some drug<br /> +Or spell, exorcisation, stroke of art<br /> +Unknown to me and which ’twere well to know,<br /> +The evil thing out-breaking all at once<br /> +Left the man whole and sound of body indeed,—<br /> +But, flinging, so to speak, life’s gates too wide,<br /> +Making a clear house of it too suddenly,<br /> +The first conceit that entered pleased to write<br /> +Whatever it was minded on the wall<br /> +So plainly at that vantage, as it were<br /> +(First come, first served), that nothing subsequent<br /> +Attaineth to erase the fancy-scrawls<br /> +Which the returned and new-established soul<br /> +Hath gotten now so thoroughly by heart<br /> +That henceforth she will read or these or none.<br /> +And first—the man’s own firm conviction rests<br /> +That he was dead (in fact they buried him),<br /> +That he was dead and then restored to life<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>By a Nazarene physician of his tribe:<br /> +—Sayeth, the same bade, “Rise,” and he did rise.<br /> +“Such cases are diurnal,” thou wilt cry.<br /> +Not so this figment!—not, that such a fume,<br /> +Instead of giving way to time and health,<br /> +Should eat itself into the life of life,<br /> +As saffron tingeth flesh, blood, bones and all!<br /> +For see, how he takes up the after-life.<br /> +The man—it is one Lazarus, a Jew,<br /> +Sanguine, proportioned, fifty years of age,<br /> +The body’s habit wholly laudable,<br /> +As much, indeed, beyond the common health<br /> +As he were made and put aside to show.<br /> +Think, could we penetrate by any drug<br /> +And bathe the wearied soul and worried flesh,<br /> +And bring it clear and fair, by three days’ sleep!<br /> +Whence has the man the balm that brightens all?<br /> +This grown man eyes the world now like a child.<br /> +Some elders of his tribe, I should premise,<br /> +Let in their friend, obedient as a sheep,<br /> +To bear my inquisition. While they spoke,<br /> +Now sharply, now with sorrow,—told the case,—<br /> +He listened not except I spoke to him,<br /> +But folded his two hands and let them talk,<br /> +Watching the flies that buzzed: and yet no fool.<br /> +And that’s a sample how his years must go.<br /> +Look if a beggar, in fixed middle-life,<br /> +Should find a treasure, can he use the same<br /> +With straightened habits and with tastes starved small,<br /> +And take at once to his impoverished brain<br /> +The sudden element that changes things,<br /> +—That sets the undreamed-of rapture at his hand,<br /> +And puts the cheap old joy in the scorned dust?<br /> +Is he not such an one as moves to mirth,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>Warily parsimonious, when’s no need,<br /> +Wasteful as drunkenness at undue times?<br /> +All prudent counsel, as to what befits<br /> +The golden mean, is lost on such an one.<br /> +The man’s fantastic will is the man’s law.<br /> +So here—we’ll call the treasure knowledge, say—<br /> +Increased beyond the fleshy faculty—<br /> +Heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth,<br /> +Earth forced on a soul’s use while seeing Heaven.<br /> +The man is witless of the size, the sum,<br /> +The value in proportion of all things,<br /> +Or whether it be little or be much.<br /> +Discourse to him of prodigious armaments<br /> +Assembled to besiege his city now,<br /> +And of the passing of a mule with gourds—<br /> +’Tis one! Then take it on the other side,<br /> +Speak of some trifling fact—he will gaze rapt<br /> +With stupor at its very littleness—<br /> +(Far as I see) as if in that indeed<br /> +He caught prodigious import, whole results;<br /> +And so will turn to us the bystanders<br /> +In ever the same stupor (note this point)<br /> +That we too see not with his opened eyes!<br /> +Wonder and doubt come wrongly into play,<br /> +Preposterously, at cross purposes.<br /> +Should his child sicken unto death,—why, look<br /> +For scarce abatement of his cheerfulness,<br /> +Or pretermission of his daily craft,—<br /> +While a word, gesture, glance, from that same child<br /> +At play or in the school or laid asleep,<br /> +Will start him to an agony of fear,<br /> +Exasperation, just as like! demand<br /> +The reason why—“’tis but a word,” object—<br /> +“A gesture”—he regards thee as our lord<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>Who lived there in the pyramid alone,<br /> +Looked at us, dost thou mind, when being young<br /> +We both would unadvisedly recite<br /> +Some charm’s beginning, from that book of his,<br /> +Able to bid the sun throb wide and burst<br /> +All into stars, as suns grown old are wont.<br /> +Thou and the child have each a veil alike<br /> +Thrown o’er your heads from under which ye both<br /> +Stretch your blind hands and trifle with a match<br /> +Over a mine of Greek fire, did ye know!<br /> +He holds on firmly to some thread of life—<br /> +(It is the life to lead perforcedly)—<br /> +Which runs across some vast distracting orb<br /> +Of glory on either side that meagre thread,<br /> +Which, conscious of, he must not enter yet—<br /> +The spiritual life around the earthly life!<br /> +The law of that is known to him as this—<br /> +His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here.<br /> +So is the man perplext with impulses<br /> +Sudden to start off crosswise, not straight on,<br /> +Proclaiming what is Right and Wrong across<br /> +And not along this black thread through the blaze—<br /> +“It should be” balked by “here it cannot be.”<br /> +And oft the man’s soul springs into his face<br /> +As if he saw again and heard again<br /> +His sage that bade him, “Rise,” and he did rise.<br /> +Something—a word, a tick of the blood within<br /> +Admonishes—then back he sinks at once<br /> +To ashes, that was very fire before,<br /> +In sedulous recurrence to his trade<br /> +Whereby he earneth him the daily bread—<br /> +And studiously the humbler for that pride,<br /> +Professedly the faultier that he knows<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>God’s secret, while he holds the thread of life.<br /> +Indeed the especial marking of the man<br /> +Is prone submission to the Heavenly will—<br /> +Seeing it, what it is, and why it is.<br /> +Sayeth, he will wait patient to the last<br /> +For that same death which will restore his being<br /> +To equilibrium, body loosening soul<br /> +Divorced even now by premature full growth:<br /> +He will live, nay, it pleaseth him to live<br /> +So long as God please, and just how God please.<br /> +He even seeketh not to please God more<br /> +(Which meaneth, otherwise) than as God please.<br /> +Hence I perceive not he affects to preach<br /> +The doctrine of his sect whate’er it be—<br /> +Make proselytes as madmen thirst to do.<br /> +How can he give his neighbor the real ground,<br /> +His own conviction? ardent as he is—<br /> +Call his great truth a lie, why still the old<br /> +“Be it as God please” reassureth him.<br /> +I probed the sore as thy disciple should—<br /> +“How, beast,” said I, “this stolid carelessness<br /> +Sufficeth thee, when Rome is on her march<br /> +To stamp out like a little spark thy town,<br /> +Thy tribe, thy crazy tale and thee at once?”<br /> +He merely looked with his large eyes on me.<br /> +The man is apathetic, you deduce?<br /> +Contrariwise he loves both old and young,<br /> +Able and weak—affects the very brutes<br /> +And birds—how say I? flowers of the field—<br /> +As a wise workman recognizes tools<br /> +In a master’s workshop, loving what they make.<br /> +Thus is the man as harmless as a lamb:<br /> +Only impatient, let him do his best,<br /> +At ignorance and carelessness and sin—<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>An indignation which is promptly curbed.<br /> +As when in certain travels I have feigned<br /> +To be an ignoramus in our art<br /> +According to some preconceived design,<br /> +And happed to hear the land’s practitioners,<br /> +Steeped in conceit sublimed by ignorance,<br /> +Prattle fantastically on disease,<br /> +Its cause and cure—and I must hold my peace!<br /> +<br /> +Thou wilt object—why have I not ere this<br /> +Sought out the sage himself, the Nazarene<br /> +Who wrought this cure, inquiring at the source,<br /> +Conferring with the frankness that befits?<br /> +Alas! it grieveth me, the learned leech<br /> +Perished in a tumult many years ago,<br /> +Accused—our learning’s fate—of wizardry.<br /> +Rebellion, to the setting up a rule<br /> +And creed prodigious as described to me.<br /> +His death which happened when the earthquake fell<br /> +(Prefiguring, as soon appeared, the loss<br /> +To occult learning in our lord the sage<br /> +That lived there in the pyramid alone)<br /> +Was wrought by the mad people—that’s their wont—<br /> +On vain recourse, as I conjecture it,<br /> +To his tried virtue, for miraculous help—<br /> +How could he stop the earthquake? That’s their way!<br /> +The other imputations must be lies:<br /> +But take one—though I loathe to give it thee,<br /> +In mere respect to any good man’s fame!<br /> +(And after all our patient Lazarus<br /> +Is stark mad—should we count on what he says?<br /> +Perhaps not—though in writing to a leech<br /> +’Tis well to keep back nothing of a case.—)<br /> +This man so cured regards the curer, then,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>As—God forgive me—who but God himself,<br /> +Creator and Sustainer of the world,<br /> +That came and dwelt in flesh on it awhile!<br /> +—Sayeth that such an One was born and lived,<br /> +Taught, healed the sick, broke bread at his own house,<br /> +Then died, with Lazarus by, for aught I know,<br /> +And yet was ... what I said nor choose repeat,<br /> +And must have so avouched himself, in fact,<br /> +In hearing of this very Lazarus<br /> +Who saith—But why all this of what he saith?<br /> +Why write of trivial matters, things of price<br /> +Calling at every moment for remark?<br /> +I noticed on the margin of a pool<br /> +Blue-flowering borage, the Aleppo sort,<br /> +Aboundeth, very nitrous. It is strange!<br /> +<br /> +Thy pardon for this long and tedious case,<br /> +Which, now that I review it, needs must seem<br /> +Unduly dwelt on, prolixly set forth.<br /> +Nor I myself discern in what is writ<br /> +Good cause for the peculiar interest<br /> +And awe indeed, this man has touched me with.<br /> +Perhaps the journey’s end, the weariness<br /> +Had wrought upon me first. I met him thus—<br /> +I crossed a ridge of short sharp broken hills<br /> +Like an old lion’s cheek-teeth. Out there came<br /> +A moon made like a face, with certain spots<br /> +Multiform, manifold, and menacing:<br /> +Then a wind rose behind me. So we met<br /> +In this old sleepy town at unaware,<br /> +The man and I. I send thee what is writ.<br /> +Regard it as a chance, a matter risked<br /> +To this ambiguous Syrian—he may lose,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>Or steal, or give it thee with equal good.<br /> +Jerusalem’s repose shall make amends<br /> +For time this letter wastes, thy time and mine,<br /> +Till when, once more thy pardon and farewell!<br /> +<br /> +The very God! think, Abib; dost thou think?<br /> +So, the All-Great were the All-Loving too—<br /> +So, through the thunder comes a human voice<br /> +Saying, “O heart I made, a heart beats here!<br /> +Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself.<br /> +Thou hast no power nor may’st conceive of mine,<br /> +But love I gave thee, with Myself to love,<br /> +And thou must love me who have died for thee!”<br /> +The madman saith He said so: it is strange.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h3>CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS<br />OR, NATURAL THEOLOGY IN THE ISLAND</h3> + +<p class="center">“<i>Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself.</i>”</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="caliban"> +<tr><td>[’Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best,<br /> +Flat on his belly in the pit’s much mire,<br /> +With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin.<br /> +And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush,<br /> +And feels about his spine small eft-things course,<br /> +Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh:<br /> +And while above his head a pompion-plant,<br /> +Coating the cave-top as a brow its eye,<br /> +Creeps down to touch and tickle hair and beard,<br /> +And now a flower drops with a bee inside,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>And now a fruit to snap at, catch and crunch,—<br /> +He looks out o’er yon sea which sunbeams cross<br /> +And recross till they weave a spider-web<br /> +(Meshes of fire, some great fish breaks at times)<br /> +And talks to his own self, howe’er he please,<br /> +Touching that other, whom his dam called God.<br /> +Because to talk about Him vexes—ha,<br /> +Could He but know! and time to vex is now,<br /> +When talk is safer than in winter-time.<br /> +Moreover Prosper and Miranda sleep<br /> +In confidence he drudges at their task,<br /> +And it is good to cheat the pair, and gibe,<br /> +Letting the rank tongue blossom into speech.]<br /> +<br /> +Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos!<br /> +’Thinketh, He dwelleth i’ the cold o’ the moon;<br /> +’Thinketh, He made it, with the sun to match,<br /> +But not the stars; the stars came otherwise;<br /> +Only made clouds, winds, meteors, such as that:<br /> +Also this isle, what lives and grows thereon,<br /> +And snaky sea which rounds and ends the same.<br /> +<br /> +’Thinketh, it came of being ill at ease:<br /> +He hated that He cannot change His cold,<br /> +Nor cure its ache. ’Hath spied an icy fish<br /> +That longed to ’scape the rock-stream where she lived,<br /> +And thaw herself within the lukewarm brine<br /> +O’ the lazy sea her stream thrusts far amid,<br /> +A crystal spike ’twixt two warm walls of wave;<br /> +Only, she ever sickened, found repulse<br /> +At the other kind of water, not her life<br /> +(Green-dense and dim-delicious, bred o’ the sun),<br /> +Flounced back from bliss she was not born to breathe,<br /> +And in her old bounds buried her despair,<br /> +Hating and loving warmth alike: so He.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span><br /> +’Thinketh, He made thereat the sun, this isle,<br /> +Trees and the fowls here, beast and creeping thing.<br /> +Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech;<br /> +Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam,<br /> +That floats and feeds; a certain badger brown<br /> +He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye<br /> +By moonlight; and the pie with the long tongue<br /> +That pricks deep into oakwarts for a worm,<br /> +And says a plain word when she finds her prize,<br /> +But will not eat the ants; the ants themselves<br /> +That build a wall of seeds and settled stalks<br /> +About their hole—He made all these and more,<br /> +Made all we see, and us, in spite: how else?<br /> +He could not, Himself, make a second self<br /> +To be His mate: as well have made Himself:<br /> +He would not make what he mislikes or slights,<br /> +An eyesore to Him, or not worth His pains:<br /> +But did, in envy, listlessness or sport,<br /> +Make what Himself would fain, in a manner, be—<br /> +Weaker in most points, stronger in a few,<br /> +Worthy, and yet mere playthings all the while,<br /> +Things He admires and mocks too,—that is it.<br /> +Because, so brave, so better though they be,<br /> +It nothing skills if He begin to plague.<br /> +Look now, I melt a gourd-fruit into mash,<br /> +Add honeycomb and pods, I have perceived,<br /> +Which bite like finches when they bill and kiss,—<br /> +Then, when froth rises bladdery, drink up all,<br /> +Quick, quick, till maggots scamper through my brain;<br /> +Last, throw me on my back i’ the seeded thyme,<br /> +And wanton, wishing I were born a bird.<br /> +Put case, unable to be what I wish,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>I yet could make a live bird out of clay:<br /> +Would not I take clay, pinch my Caliban<br /> +Able to fly?—for, there, see, he hath wings,<br /> +And great comb like the hoopoe’s to admire,<br /> +And there, a sting to do his foes offence,<br /> +There, and I will that he begin to live,<br /> +Fly to yon rock-top, nip me off the horns<br /> +Of grigs high up that make the merry din,<br /> +Saucy through their veined wings, and mind me not.<br /> +In which feat, if his leg snapped, brittle clay,<br /> +And he lay stupid-like,—why, I should laugh;<br /> +And if he, spying me, should fall to weep,<br /> +Beseech me to be good, repair his wrong,<br /> +Bid his poor leg smart less or grow again,—<br /> +Well, as the chance were, this might take or else<br /> +Not take my fancy: I might hear his cry,<br /> +And give the mankin three sound legs for one,<br /> +Or pluck the other off, leave him like an egg,<br /> +And lessoned he was mine and merely clay.<br /> +Were this no pleasure, lying in the thyme,<br /> +Drinking the mash, with brain become alive,<br /> +Making and marring clay at will? So He.<br /> +<br /> +’Thinketh, such shows nor right nor wrong in Him,<br /> +Nor kind, nor cruel: He is strong and Lord.<br /> +’Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs<br /> +That march now from the mountain to the sea;<br /> +Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first,<br /> +Loving not, hating not, just choosing so.<br /> +’Say, the first straggler that boasts purple spots<br /> +Shall join the file, one pincer twisted off;<br /> +’Say, this bruised fellow shall receive a worm,<br /> +And two worms he whose nippers end in red;<br /> +As it likes me each time, I do: so He.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span><br /> +Well then, ’supposeth He is good i’ the main,<br /> +Placable if His mind and ways were guessed,<br /> +But rougher than His handiwork, be sure!<br /> +Oh, He hath made things worthier than Himself,<br /> +And envieth that, so helped, such things do more<br /> +Than He who made them! What consoles but this?<br /> +That they, unless through Him, do nought at all,<br /> +And must submit: what other use in things?<br /> +’Hath cut a pipe of pithless elder joint<br /> +That, blown through, gives exact the scream o’ the jay<br /> +When from her wing you twitch the feathers blue:<br /> +Sound this, and little birds that hate the jay<br /> +Flock within stone’s throw, glad their foe is hurt:<br /> +Put case such pipe could prattle and boast forsooth<br /> +“I catch the birds, I am the crafty thing,<br /> +I make the cry my maker cannot make<br /> +With his great round mouth; he must blow through mine!”<br /> +Would not I smash it with my foot? So He.<br /> +<br /> +But wherefore rough, why cold and ill at ease?<br /> +Aha, that is a question! Ask, for that,<br /> +What knows,—the something over Setebos<br /> +That made Him, or He, may be, found and fought,<br /> +Worsted, drove off and did to nothing, perchance.<br /> +There may be something quiet o’er His head,<br /> +Out of His reach, that feels nor joy nor grief,<br /> +Since both derive from weakness in some way.<br /> +I joy because the quails come; would not joy<br /> +Could I bring quails here when I have a mind:<br /> +This Quiet, all it hath a mind to, doth.<br /> +’Esteemeth stars the outposts of its couch,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>But never spends much thought nor care that way.<br /> +It may look up, work up,—the worse for those<br /> +It works on! ’Careth but for Setebos<br /> +The many-handed as a cuttle-fish,<br /> +Who, making Himself feared through what he does,<br /> +Looks up, first, and perceives he cannot soar<br /> +To what is quiet and hath happy life;<br /> +Next looks down here, and out of very spite<br /> +Makes this a bauble-world to ape yon real,<br /> +These good things to match those as hips do grapes.<br /> +’Tis solace making baubles, ay, and sport.<br /> +Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at his books<br /> +Careless and lofty, lord now of the isle:<br /> +Vexed, ’stitched a book of broad leaves, arrow-shaped,<br /> +Wrote thereon, he knows what, prodigious words;<br /> +Has peeled a wand and called it by a name;<br /> +Weareth at whiles for an enchanter’s robe<br /> +The eyed skin of a supple oncelot;<br /> +And hath an ounce sleeker than youngling mole,<br /> +A four-legged serpent he makes cower and couch,<br /> +Now snarl, now hold its breath and mind his eye,<br /> +And saith she is Miranda and my wife:<br /> +’Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill crane<br /> +He bids go wade for fish and straight disgorge;<br /> +Also a sea-beast, lumpish, which he snared,<br /> + +Blinded the eyes of, and brought somewhat tame,<br /> +And split its toe-webs, and now pens the drudge<br /> +In a hole o’ the rock and calls him Caliban;<br /> +A bitter heart that bides its time and bites.<br /> +’Plays thus at being Prosper in a way,<br /> +Taketh his mirth with make-believes: so He.<br /> +<br /> +His dam held that the Quiet made all things<br /> +Which Setebos vexed only: ’holds not so.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>Who made them weak, meant weakness He might vex.<br /> +Had He meant other, while His hand was in,<br /> +Why not make horny eyes no thorn could prick,<br /> +Or plate my scalp with bone against the snow,<br /> +Or overscale my flesh ’neath joint and joint,<br /> +Like an orc’s armor? Ay,—so spoil His sport!<br /> +He is the One now: only He doth all.<br /> +<br /> +’Saith, He may like, perchance, what profits Him.<br /> +Ay, himself loves what does him good; but why?<br /> +’Gets good no otherwise. This blinded beast<br /> +Loves whoso places flesh-meat on his nose,<br /> +But, had he eyes, would want no help, but hate<br /> +Or love, just as it liked him: He hath eyes.<br /> +Also it pleaseth Setebos to work,<br /> +Use all His hands, and exercise much craft,<br /> +By no means for the love of what is worked.<br /> +’Tasteth, himself, no finer good i’ the world<br /> +When all goes right, in this safe summer-time,<br /> +And he wants little, hungers, aches not much,<br /> +Than trying what to do with wit and strength.<br /> +’Falls to make something: ’piled yon pile of turfs,<br /> +And squared and stuck there squares of soft white chalk,<br /> +And, with a fish-tooth, scratched a moon on each,<br /> +And set up endwise certain spikes of tree,<br /> +And crowned the whole with a sloth’s skull a-top,<br /> +Found dead i’ the woods, too hard for one to kill.<br /> +No use at all i’ the work, for work’s sole sake;<br /> +’Shall some day knock it down again; so He.<br /> +<br /> +’Saith He is terrible: watch His feats in proof!<br /> +One hurricane will spoil six good months’ hope.<br /> +He hath a spite against me, that I know,<br /> +Just as He favors Prosper, who knows why?<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>So it is, all the same, as well I find.<br /> +’Wove wattles half the winter, fenced them firm<br /> +With stone and stake to stop she-tortoises<br /> +Crawling to lay their eggs here: well, one wave,<br /> +Feeling the foot of Him upon its neck,<br /> +Gaped as a snake does, lolled out its large tongue,<br /> +And licked the whole labor flat: so much for spite.<br /> +’Saw a ball flame down late (yonder it lies)<br /> +Where, half an hour before, I slept i’ the shade:<br /> +Often they scatter sparkles: there is force!<br /> +’Dug up a newt He may have envied once<br /> +And turned to stone, shut up inside a stone.<br /> +Please Him and hinder this?—What Prosper does?<br /> +Aha, if He would tell me how! Not He!<br /> +There is the sport: discover how or die!<br /> +All need not die, for of the things o’ the isle<br /> +Some flee afar, some dive, some run up trees;<br /> +Those at His mercy,—why, they please Him most<br /> +When ... when ... well, never try the same way twice!<br /> +Repeat what act has pleased, He may grow wroth.<br /> +You must not know His ways, and play Him off,<br /> +Sure of the issue. ’Doth the like himself:<br /> +’Spareth a squirrel that it nothing fears,<br /> +But steals the nut from underneath my thumb,<br /> +And when I threat, bites stoutly in defense:<br /> +’Spareth an urchin that contrariwise,<br /> +Curls up into a ball, pretending death<br /> +For fright at my approach: the two ways please.<br /> +But what would move my choler more than this,<br /> +That either creature counted on its life<br /> +To-morrow and next day and all days to come,<br /> +Saying, forsooth, in the inmost of its heart,<br /> +“Because he did so yesterday with me,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>And otherwise with such another brute,<br /> +So must he do henceforth and always.”—Ay?<br /> +’Would teach the reasoning couple what “must” means!<br /> +’Doth as he likes, or wherefore Lord? So He.<br /> +<br /> +’Conceiveth all things will continue thus,<br /> +And we shall have to live in fear of Him<br /> +So long as He lives, keeps His strength: no change,<br /> +If He have done His best, make no new world<br /> +To please Him more, so leave off watching this,—<br /> +If He surprise not even the Quiet’s self<br /> +Some strange day,—or, suppose, grow into it<br /> +As grubs grow butterflies: else, here are we,<br /> +And there is He, and nowhere help at all.<br /> +<br /> +’Believeth with the life, the pain shall stop.<br /> +His dam held different, that after death<br /> +He both plagued enemies and feasted friends:<br /> +Idly! He doth His worst in this our life,<br /> +Giving just respite lest we die through pain,<br /> +Saving last pain for worst,—with which, an end.<br /> +Meanwhile, the best way to escape His ire<br /> +Is, not to seem too happy. ’Sees, himself,<br /> +Yonder two flies, with purple films and pink,<br /> +Bask on the pompion-bell above; kills both.<br /> +’Sees two black painful beetles roll their ball<br /> +On head and tail as if to save their lives:<br /> +Moves them the stick away they strive to clear.<br /> +<br /> +Even so, ’would have Him misconceive, suppose<br /> +This Caliban strives hard and ails no less,<br /> +And always, above all else, envies Him;<br /> +Wherefore he mainly dances on dark nights,<br /> +Moans in the sun, gets under holes to laugh,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>And never speaks his mind save housed as now:<br /> +Outside, groans, curses. If He caught me here,<br /> +O’erheard this speech, and asked “What chucklest at?”<br /> +’Would, to appease Him, cut a finger off,<br /> +Or of my three kid yearlings burn the best,<br /> +Or let the toothsome apples rot on tree,<br /> +Or push my tame beast for the orc to taste:<br /> +While myself lit a fire, and made a song<br /> +And sung it, “<i>What I hate, be consecrate<br /> +To celebrate Thee and Thy state, no mate<br /> +For Thee; what see for envy in poor me?</i>”<br /> +Hoping the while, since evils sometimes mend,<br /> +Warts rub away and sores are cured with slime,<br /> +That some strange day, will either the Quiet catch<br /> +And conquer Setebos, or likelier He<br /> +Decrepit may doze, doze, as good as die.<br /> +<br /> +[What, what? A curtain o’er the world at once!<br /> +Crickets stop hissing; not a bird—or, yes,<br /> +There scuds His raven that has told Him all!<br /> +It was fool’s play, this prattling! Ha! The wind<br /> +Shoulders the pillared dust, death’s house o’ the move<br /> +And fast invading fires begin! White blaze—<br /> +A tree’s head snaps—and there, there, there, there, there,<br /> +His thunder follows! Fool to gibe at Him!<br /> +Lo! ’Lieth flat and loveth Setebos!<br /> +’Maketh his teeth meet through his upper lip,<br /> +Will let those quails fly, will not eat this month<br /> +One little mess of whelks, so he may ’scape!]</td></tr></table> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p> +<h3>A GRAMMARIAN’S FUNERAL</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="funeral"> +<tr><td>Let us begin and carry up this corpse,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Singing together.</span><br /> +Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Each in its tether</span><br /> +Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cared-for till cock-crow.</span><br /> +Look out if yonder’s not the day again<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Rimming the rock-row!</span><br /> +That’s the appropriate country—there, man’s thought,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Rarer, intenser,</span><br /> +Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Chafes in the censer!</span><br /> +Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Seek we sepulture</span><br /> +On a tall mountain, citied to the top,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Crowded with culture!</span><br /> +All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Clouds overcome it;</span><br /> +No, yonder sparkle is the citadel’s<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Circling its summit!</span><br /> +Thither our path lies—wind we up the heights—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Wait ye the warning?</span><br /> +Our low life was the level’s and the night’s;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">He’s for the morning!</span><br /> +Step to a tune, square chests, erect the head,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">’Ware the beholders!</span><br /> +This is our master, famous, calm, and dead,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Borne on our shoulders.</span><br /> +Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Safe from the weather!</span><br /> +He, whom we convey to his grave aloft,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Singing together,</span><br /> +He was a man born with thy face and throat,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lyric Apollo!</span><br /> +Long he lived nameless: how should spring take note<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Winter would follow?</span><br /> +Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cramped and diminished,</span><br /> +Moaned he, “New measures, other feet anon!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My dance is finished?”</span><br /> +No, that’s the world’s way! (Keep the mountain-side,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Make for the city.)</span><br /> +He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Over men’s pity;</span><br /> +Left play for work, and grappled with the world<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Bent on escaping:</span><br /> +“What’s in the scroll,” quoth he, “thou keepest furled?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Show me their shaping,</span><br /> +Theirs, who most studied man, the bard and sage,—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Give!”—So he gowned him,</span><br /> +Straight got by heart that book to its last page:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Learned, we found him!</span><br /> +Yea, but we found him bald too—eyes like lead,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Accents uncertain:</span><br /> +“Time to taste life,” another would have said,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">“Up with the curtain!”</span><br /> +This man said rather, “Actual life comes next?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Patience a moment!</span><br /> +Grant I have mastered learning’s crabbed text,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Still, there’s the comment.</span><br /> +Let me know all. Prate not of most or least,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Painful or easy:</span><br /> +Even to the crumbs I’d fain eat up the feast,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ay, nor feel queasy!”</span><br /> +Oh, such a life as he resolved to live,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 2em;">When he had learned it,</span><br /> +When he had gathered all books had to give;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sooner, he spurned it!</span><br /> +Image the whole, then execute the parts—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fancy the fabric</span><br /> +Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ere mortar dab brick!</span><br /> +<br /> +(Here’s the town-gate reached: there’s the market-place<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Gaping before us.)</span><br /> +Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">(Hearten our chorus),</span><br /> +Still before living he’d learn how to live—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">No end to learning.</span><br /> +Earn the means first—God surely will contrive<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Use for our earning.</span><br /> +Others mistrust and say, “But time escapes,—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Live now or never!”</span><br /> +He said, “What’s Time? leave Now for dogs and apes!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Man has Forever.”</span><br /> +Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Calculus</i> racked him:</span><br /> +Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Tussis</i> attacked him.</span><br /> +“Now, Master, take a little rest!”—not he!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">(Caution redoubled!</span><br /> +Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly.)<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Not a whit troubled,</span><br /> +Back to his studies, fresher than at first,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fierce as a dragon</span><br /> +He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst)<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sucked at the flagon.</span><br /> +Oh, if we draw a circle premature,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Heedless of far gain,</span><br /> +Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Bad is our bargain!</span><br /> +Was it not great? did not he throw on God,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">(He loves the burthen—)</span><br /> +God’s task to make the heavenly period<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Perfect the earthen?</span><br /> +Did not he magnify the mind, shew clear<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Just what it all meant?</span><br /> +He would not discount life, as fools do here,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Paid by installment!</span><br /> +He ventured neck or nothing—heaven’s success<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Found, or earth’s failure:</span><br /> +“Wilt thou trust death or not?” he answered “Yes.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hence with life’s pale lure!”</span><br /> +That low man seeks a little thing to do,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sees it and does it:</span><br /> +This high man, with a great thing to pursue,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Dies ere he knows it.</span><br /> +That low man goes on adding one to one,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">His hundred’s soon hit:</span><br /> +This high man, aiming at a million,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Misses an unit.</span><br /> +That, has the world here—should he need the next,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let the world mind him!</span><br /> +This, throws himself on God, and unperplext<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Seeking shall find Him.</span><br /> +So, with the throttling hands of Death at strife,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ground he at grammar;</span><br /> +Still, thro’ the rattle, parts of speech were rife.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">While he could stammer</span><br /> +He settled <i>Hoti’s</i> business—let it be!—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Properly based <i>Oun</i>—</span><br /> +Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic <i>De</i>,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Dead from the waist down.</span><br /> +Well, here’s the platform, here’s the proper place.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hail to your purlieus,</span><br /> +All ye highfliers of the feathered race,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Swallows and curlews!</span><br /> +Here’s the top-peak! the multitude below<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Live, for they can there.</span><br /> +This man decided not to Live but Know—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Bury this man there?</span><br /> +Here—here’s his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lightnings are loosened,</span><br /> +Stars come and go! let joy break with the storm—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Peace let the dew send!</span><br /> +Lofty designs must close in like effects:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Loftily lying,</span><br /> +Leave him—still loftier than the world suspects.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Living and dying.</span></td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h3>WHY I AM A LIBERAL</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="liberal"> +<tr><td>“Why?” Because all I haply can and do,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All that I am now, all I hope to be,—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whence comes it save from fortune setting free</span><br /> +Body and soul the purpose to pursue,<br /> +God traced for both? If fetters, not a few,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of prejudice, convention, fall from me,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">These shall I bid men—each in his degree</span><br /> +Also God-guided—bear, and gayly too?<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But little do or can the best of us:</span><br /> +That little is achieved thro’ Liberty.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who then dares hold, emancipated thus,</span><br /> +His fellow shall continue bound? not I,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who live, love, labor freely, nor discuss</span><br /> +A brother’s right to freedom. That is “Why.”</td></tr></table> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p> +<h3>FEARS AND SCRUPLES</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="scruples"> +<tr><td>Here’s my case. Of old I used to love him,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">This same unseen friend, before I knew:</span><br /> +Dream there was none like him, none above him,—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wake to hope and trust my dream was true.</span><br /> +<br /> +Loved I not his letters full of beauty?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Not his actions famous far and wide?</span><br /> +Absent, he would know I vowed him duty,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Present, he would find me at his side.</span><br /> +<br /> +Pleasant fancy! for I had but letters,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Only knew of actions by hearsay:</span><br /> +He himself was busied with my betters;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What of that? My turn must come some day.</span><br /> +<br /> +“Some day” proving—no day! Here’s the puzzle<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Passed and passed my turn is. Why complain?</span><br /> +He’s so busied! If I could but muzzle<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">People’s foolish mouths that give me pain!</span><br /> +<br /> +“Letters?” (hear them!) “You a judge of writing?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ask the experts!—How they shake the head</span><br /> +O’er these characters, your friend’s inditing—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Call them forgery from A to Zed!”</span><br /> +<br /> +“Actions? Where’s your certain proof” (they bother),<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“He, of all you find so great and good,</span><br /> +He, he only, claims this, that, the other<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Action—claimed by men, a multitude?”</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I can simply wish I might refute you,</span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wish my friend would,—by a word, a wink,—</span><br /> +Bid me stop that foolish mouth,—you brute, you!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He keeps absent,—why, I cannot think.</span><br /> +<br /> +Never mind! Tho’ foolishness may flout me<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">One thing’s sure enough; ’tis neither frost,</span><br /> +No, nor fire, shall freeze or burn from out me<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thanks for truth—tho’ falsehood, gained—tho’ lost.</span><br /> +<br /> +All my days, I’ll go the softlier, sadlier,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For that dream’s sake! How forget the thrill</span><br /> +Thro’ and thro’ me as I thought, “The gladlier<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lives my friend because I love him still!”</span><br /> +<br /> +Ah, but there’s a menace some one utters!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“What and if your friend at home play tricks?</span><br /> +Peep at hide-and-seek behind the shutters?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mean your eyes should pierce thro’ solid bricks?</span><br /> +<br /> +“What and if he, frowning, wake you, dreamy?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lay on you the blame that bricks—conceal?</span><br /> +Say ‘<i>At least I saw who did not see me;</i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Does see now, and presently shall feel’?</i>”</span><br /> +<br /> +“Why, that makes your friend a monster!” say you:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Had his house no window? At first nod</span><br /> +Would you not have hailed him?” Hush, I pray you!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What if this friend happen to be—God?</span></td></tr></table> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p> + +<h3>EPILOGUE TO “ASOLANDO”</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="epilogue"> +<tr><td>At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When you set your fancies free,</span><br /> +Will they pass to where—by death, fools think, imprisoned—<br /> +Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">—Pity me?</span><br /> +<br /> +Oh, to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What had I on earth to do</span><br /> +With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly?<br /> +Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">—Being—who?</span><br /> +<br /> +One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Never doubted clouds would break,</span><br /> +Never dreamed, tho’ right were worsted, wrong would triumph.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">Sleep to wake.</span><br /> +<br /> +No, at noonday in the bustle of man’s work-time<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Greet the unseen with a cheer!</span><br /> +Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be,<br /> +“Strive and thrive!” cry, “Speed,—fight on, fare ever<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">There as here!”</span></td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p> + +<h3>PROSPICE</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="prospice"> +<tr><td>Fear death?—to feel the fog in my throat,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The mist in my face,</span><br /> +When the snows begin, and the blasts denote<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I am nearing the place,</span><br /> +The power of the night, the press of the storm,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The post of the foe;</span><br /> +Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yet the strong man must go:</span><br /> +For the journey is done and the summit attained,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And the barriers fall,</span><br /> +Though a battle’s to fight ere the guerdon be gained,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The reward of it all.</span><br /> +I was ever a fighter, so—one fight more,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The best and the last!</span><br /> +I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And bade me creep past.</span><br /> +No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The heroes of old,</span><br /> +Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life’s arrears.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of pain, darkness and cold.</span><br /> +For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The black minute’s at end,</span><br /> +And the elements’ rage, the fiend-voices that rave,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Shall dwindle, shall blend,</span><br /> +Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then a light, then thy breast,</span><br /> +O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And with God be the rest!</span></td></tr></table> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p> +<h2>ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON</h2> + +<h3>WAGES</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="wages"> +<tr><td>Glory of warrior, glory of orator, glory of song,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Paid with a voice flying by to be lost on an endless sea—</span><br /> +Glory of Virtue, to fight, to struggle, to right the wrong—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nay, but she aim’d not at glory, no lover of glory she:</span><br /> +Give her the glory of going on, and still to be.<br /> +<br /> +The wages of sin is death: if the wages of Virtue be dust,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Would she have heart to endure for the life of the worm and the fly?</span><br /> +She desires no isles of the blest, no quiet seats of the just,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To rest in a golden grove, or to bask in a summer sky:</span><br /> +Give her the wages of going on, and not to die.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h3>THE HIGHER PANTHEISM</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="higher"> +<tr><td>The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains—<br /> +Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns?<br /> +<br /> +Is not the Vision He? tho’ He be not that which He seems?<br /> +Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?<br /> +<br /> +Earth, these solid stars, this weight of body and limb,<br /> +Are they not sign and symbol of thy division from Him?<br /> +<br /> +Dark is the world to thee: thyself art the reason why;<br /> +For is He not all but that which has power to feel “I am I”?<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span><br /> +Glory about thee, without thee; and thou fulfillest thy doom,<br /> +Making Him broken gleams, and a stifled splendor and gloom.<br /> +<br /> +Speak to Him thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet—<br /> +Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.<br /> +<br /> +God is law, say the wise; O Soul, and let us rejoice,<br /> +For, if He thunder by law, the thunder is yet His voice.<br /> +<br /> +Law is God, say some: no God at all, says the fool;<br /> +For all we have power to see is a straight staff bent in a pool;<br /> +<br /> +And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man cannot see;<br /> +But if we could see and hear, this Vision—were it not He?</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h3>FLOWER IN THE CRANNIED WALL</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="flower"> +<tr><td>Flower in the crannied wall,<br /> +I pluck you out of the crannies,<br /> +I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,<br /> +Little flower—but <i>if</i> I could understand<br /> +What you are, root and all, and all in all,<br /> +I should know what God and man is.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p> +<h3>IN MEMORIAM</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="memoriam"> +<tr><td align="center">PROEM</td></tr> +<tr><td>Strong Son of God, immortal Love,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whom we, that have not seen thy face,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">By faith, and faith alone, embrace,</span><br /> +Believing where we cannot prove;<br /> +<br /> +Thine are these orbs of light and shade;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou madest Life in man and brute;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot</span><br /> +Is on the skull which thou hast made.<br /> +<br /> +Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou madest man, he knows not why,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He thinks he was not made to die;</span><br /> +And thou hast made him: thou art just.<br /> +<br /> +Thou seemest human and divine,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The highest, holiest manhood, thou:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Our wills are ours, we know not how;</span><br /> +Our wills are ours, to make them thine.<br /> +<br /> +Our little systems have their day;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They have their day and cease to be:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They are but broken lights of thee,</span><br /> +And thou, O Lord, art more than they.<br /> +<br /> +We have but faith: we cannot know;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For knowledge is of things we see;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And yet we trust it comes from thee,</span><br /> +A beam in darkness: let it grow.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span><br /> +Let knowledge grow from more to more,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But more of reverence in us dwell;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That mind and soul, according well,</span><br /> +May make one music as before,<br /> +<br /> +But vaster. We are fools and slight;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">We mock thee when we do not fear:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But help thy foolish ones to bear;</span><br /> +Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.<br /> +<br /> +Forgive what seem’d my sin in me;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What seem’d my worth since I began;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For merit lives from man to man,</span><br /> +And not from man, O Lord, to thee.<br /> +<br /> +Forgive my grief for one removed,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thy creature, whom I found so fair.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I trust he lives in thee, and there</span><br /> +I find him worthier to be loved.<br /> +<br /> +Forgive these wild and wandering cries,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Confusions of a wasted youth;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Forgive them where they fail in truth,</span><br /> +And in thy wisdom make me wise.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LIV</td></tr> +<tr><td>Oh, yet we trust that somehow good<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Will be the final goal of ill,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To pangs of nature, sins of will,</span><br /> +Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;<br /> +<br /> +That nothing walks with aimless feet;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That not one life shall be destroy’d,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or cast as rubbish to the void,</span><br /> +When God hath made the pile complete;<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span><br /> +That not a worm is cloven in vain;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That not a moth with vain desire</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is shrivel’d in a fruitless fire,</span><br /> +Or but subserves another’s gain.<br /> +<br /> +Behold, we know not anything;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I can but trust that good shall fall</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">At last—far off—at last, to all,</span><br /> +And every winter change to spring.<br /> +<br /> +So runs my dream: but what am I?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">An infant crying in the night:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">An infant crying for the light:</span><br /> +And with no language but a cry.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LV</td></tr> +<tr><td>The wish, that of the living whole<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">No life may fail beyond the grave,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Derives it not from what we have</span><br /> +The likest God within the soul?<br /> +<br /> +Are God and Nature then at strife,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That Nature lends such evil dreams?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So careful of the type she seems,</span><br /> +So careless of the single life;<br /> +<br /> +That I, considering everywhere<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Her secret meaning in her deeds,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And finding that of fifty seeds</span><br /> +She often brings but one to bear,<br /> +<br /> +I falter where I firmly trod,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And falling with my weight of cares</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Upon the great world’s altar-stairs</span><br /> +That slope thro’ darkness up to God,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span><br /> +I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And gather dust and chaff, and call</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To what I feel is Lord of all,</span><br /> +And faintly trust the larger hope.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">LVI</td></tr> +<tr><td>“So careful of the type?” but no.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From scarped cliff and quarried stone</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She cries, “A thousand types are gone:</span><br /> +I care for nothing, all shall go.<br /> +<br /> +“Thou makest thine appeal to me:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I bring to life, I bring to death:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The spirit does but mean the breath:</span><br /> +I know no more.” And he, shall he,<br /> +<br /> +Man, her last work, who seem’d so fair,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Such splendid purpose in his eyes,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who roll’d the psalm to wintry skies,</span><br /> +Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,<br /> +<br /> +Who trusted God was love indeed<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And love Creation’s final law—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw</span><br /> +With ravine, shriek’d against his creed—<br /> +<br /> +Who loved, who suffer’d countless ills,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who battled for the True, the Just,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Be blown about the desert dust,</span><br /> +Or seal’d within the iron hills?<br /> +<br /> +No more? A monster then, a dream,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A discord. Dragons of the prime,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That tare each other in their slime,</span><br /> +Were mellow music match’d with him.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span><br /> +O life as futile, then, as frail!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O for thy voice to soothe and bless!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What hope of answer, or redress?</span><br /> +Behind the veil, behind the veil.</td></tr></table> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h3>CROSSING THE BAR</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="crossing"> +<tr><td>Sunset and evening star,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And one clear call for me!</span><br /> +And may there be no moaning of the bar,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When I put out to sea,</span><br /> +<br /> +But such a tide as moving seems asleep,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Too full for sound and foam,</span><br /> +When that which drew from out the boundless deep<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Turns again home.</span><br /> +<br /> +Twilight and evening bell,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And after that the dark!</span><br /> +And may there be no sadness of farewell,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When I embark;</span><br /> +<br /> +For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The flood may bear me far,</span><br /> +I hope to see my Pilot face to face<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When I have crost the bar.</span></td></tr></table> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span></p> +<h2>GEORGE MEREDITH</h2> + +<h3>LUCIFER IN STARLIGHT<small><a name="f12.1" id="f12.1" href="#f12">[12]</a></small></h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="lucifer"> +<tr><td>On a starred night Prince Lucifer uprose.<br /> +Tired of his dark dominion, swung the fiend<br /> +Above the rolling ball in cloud part screened,<br /> +Where sinners hugged their spectre of repose.<br /> +Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those.<br /> +And now upon his western wing he leaned,<br /> +And now his huge bulk o’er Afric’s sands careened,<br /> +And now the black planet shadowed Arctic snows.<br /> +Soaring through wider zones that pricked his scars<br /> +With memory of the old revolt from Awe,<br /> +He reached a middle height, and at the stars,<br /> +Which are the brain of heaven, he looked, and sank.<br /> +Around the ancient track marched, rank on rank,<br /> +The army of unalterable law.</td></tr></table> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p> +<h2>WILLIAM E. HENLEY</h2> + +<h3>INVICTUS</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="invictus"> +<tr><td>Out of the night that covers me,<br /> +Black as a pit from Pole to Pole,<br /> +I thank whatever gods may be<br /> +For my unconquerable soul.<br /> +<br /> +In the fell clutch of circumstance<br /> +I have not winced nor cried aloud;<br /> +Under the bludgeonings of chance<br /> +My head is bloody but unbowed.<br /> +<br /> +Beyond this place of wrath and tears<br /> +Looms but the Horror of the Shade;<br /> +And yet the menace of the years<br /> +Finds and still finds me unafraid.<br /> +<br /> +It matters not how strait the gate,<br /> +How charged with punishments the scroll:<br /> +I am the master of my fate;<br /> +I am the captain of my soul.</td></tr></table> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p> +<h2>THOMAS HARDY</h2> + +<h3>NEW YEAR’S EVE<small><a name="f13.1" id="f13.1" href="#f13">[13]</a></small></h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="new year"> +<tr><td>“I have finished another year,” said God,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“In gray, green, white, and brown;</span><br /> +I have strewn the leaf upon the sod,<br /> +Sealed up the worm within the clod,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And let the last sun down.”</span><br /> +<br /> +“And what’s the good of it?” I said.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“What reasons made you call</span><br /> +From formless void this earth we tread,<br /> +When nine-and-ninety can be read<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Why nought should be at all?</span><br /> +<br /> +“Yea, Sire; why shaped you us, ‘who in<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">This tabernacle groan’?</span><br /> +If ever a joy be found herein,<br /> +Such joy no man had wished to win<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If he had never known!”</span><br /> +<br /> +Then he: “My labors—logicless—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">You may explain; not I:</span><br /> +Sense-sealed I have wrought, without a guess<br /> +That I evolved a Consciousness<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To ask for reasons why.</span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span><br /> +“Strange that ephemeral creatures who<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">By my own ordering are,</span><br /> +Should see the shortness of my view,<br /> +Use ethic tests I never knew,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Or made provision for!”</span><br /> +<br /> +He sank to raptness as of yore,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And opening New Year’s Day</span><br /> +Wove it by rote as theretofore,<br /> +And went on working evermore<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">In his unweeting way.</span></td></tr></table> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p> +<h2>RALPH WALDO EMERSON</h2> + +<h3>CIVILIZATION<small><a name="f14.1" id="f14.1" href="#f14">[14]</a></small></h3> + +<p>A certain degree of progress from the rudest state in which man is +found,—a dweller in caves, or on trees, like an ape,—a cannibal, and +eater of pounded snails, worms, and offal,—a certain degree of progress +from this extreme, is called Civilization. It is a vague, complex name, of +many degrees. Nobody has attempted a definition. M. Guizot, writing a book +on the subject, does not. It implies the evolution of a highly-organized +man, brought to supreme delicacy of sentiment, as in practical power, +religion, liberty, sense of honor, and taste. In the hesitation to define +what it is, we usually suggest it by negations. A nation that has no +clothing, no iron, no alphabet, no marriage, no arts of peace, no abstract +thought, we call barbarous. And after many arts are invented or imported, +as among the Turks and Moorish nations, it is often a little complaisant +to call them civilized.</p> + +<p>Each nation grows after its own genius, and has a civilization of its own. +The Chinese and Japanese, though each complete in his way, is different +from the man of Madrid or the man of New York. The term imports a +mysterious progress. In the brutes is none; and in mankind to-day the +savage tribes are gradually extinguished rather than civilized. The +Indians of this country have not learned the white man’s work; and in +Africa, the negro of to-day is the negro of Herodotus. In other races the +growth is not arrested; but the like progress that is made by a boy “when +he cuts his eye-teeth,” as we say,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>—childish illusions passing daily +away, and he seeing things really and comprehensively,—is made by tribes. +It is the learning the secret of cumulative power, of advancing on one’s +self. It implies a facility of association, power to compare, the ceasing +from fixed ideas. The Indian is gloomy and distressed when urged to depart +from his habits and traditions. He is overpowered by the gaze of the +white, and his eye sinks. The occasion of one of these starts of growth is +always some novelty that astounds the mind, and provokes it to dare to +change. Thus there is a Cadmus, a Pytheas, a Manco Capac at the beginning +of each improvement—some superior foreigner importing new and wonderful +arts, and teaching them. Of course, he must not know too much, but must +have the sympathy, language, and gods of those he would inform. But +chiefly the sea-shore had been the point of departure to knowledge, as to +commerce. The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the +most. The power which the sea requires in a sailor makes a man of him very +fast, and the change of shores and population clears his head of much +nonsense of his wigwam.</p> + +<p>Where shall we begin or end the list of those feats of liberty and wit, +each of which feats made an epoch of history? Thus, the effect of a framed +or stone house is immense on the tranquillity, power, and refinement of +the builder. A man in a cave or in a camp, a nomad, will die with no more +estate than the wolf or the horse leaves. But so simple a labor as a house +being achieved, his chief enemies are kept at bay. He is safe from the +teeth of wild animals, from frost, sunstroke, and weather; and fine +faculties begin to yield their fine harvest. Invention and art are born, +manners and social beauty and delight. ’Tis wonderful how soon a piano +gets into a log-hut on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> frontier. You would think they found it under +a pine-stump. With it comes a Latin Grammar—and one of those tow-head +boys has written a hymn on Sunday. Now let colleges, now let senates, take +heed! for here is one who, opening these fine tastes on the basis of the +pioneer’s iron constitution, will gather all their laurels in his strong +hands.</p> + +<p>When the Indian trail gets widened, graded, and bridged to a good road, +there is a benefactor, there is a missionary, a pacificator, a +wealth-bringer, a maker of markets, a vent for industry. Another step in +civility is the change from war, hunting, and pasturage to agriculture. +Our Scandinavian forefathers have left us a significant legend to convey +their sense of the importance of this step. “There was once a giantess who +had a daughter, and the child saw a husbandman ploughing in the field. +Then she ran and picked him up with her finger and thumb, and put him and +his plough and his oxen into her apron, and carried them to her mother, +and said, ‘Mother, what sort of a beetle is this that I found wriggling in +the sand?’ But the mother said, ‘Put it away, my child; we must begone out +of this land, for these people will dwell in it.’” Another success is the +post-office, with its educating energy augmented by cheapness and guarded +by a certain religious sentiment in mankind; so that the power of a wafer +or a drop of wax or gluten to guard a letter, as it flies over sea, over +land, and comes to its address as if a battalion of artillery brought it, +I look upon as a fine metre of civilization.</p> + +<p>The division of labor, the multiplication of the arts of peace, which is +nothing but a large allowance to each man to choose his work according to +his faculty,—to live by his better hand,—fills the State with useful and +happy laborers; and they, creating demand by the very temptation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> of their +productions, are rapidly and surely rewarded by good sale: and what a +police and ten commandments their work thus becomes! So true is Dr. +Johnson’s remark that “men are seldom more innocently employed than when +they are making money.”</p> + +<p>The skillful combinations of civil government, though they usually follow +natural leadings, as the lines of race, language, religion, and territory, +yet require wisdom and conduct in the rulers, and in their result delight +the imagination. “We see insurmountable multitudes obeying, in opposition +to their strongest passions, the restraints of a power which they scarcely +perceive, and the crimes of a single individual marked and punished at the +distance of half the earth.”</p> + +<p>Right position of woman in the State is another index. Poverty and +industry with a healthy mind read very easily the laws of humanity, and +love them; place the sexes in right relations of mutual respect, and a +severe morality gives that essential charm to woman which educates all +that is delicate, poetic, and self-sacrificing, breeds courtesy and +learning, conversation and wit, in her rough mate; so that I have thought +a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women.</p> + +<p>Another measure of culture is the diffusion of knowledge, overrunning all +the old barriers of caste, and, by the cheap press, bringing the +university to every poor man’s door in the newsboy’s basket. Scraps of +science, of thought, of poetry, are in the coarsest sheet, so that in +every house we hesitate to burn a newspaper until we have looked it +through.</p> + +<p>The ship, in its latest complete equipment, is an abridgment and compend +of a nation’s arts: the ship steered by compass and chart,—longitude +reckoned by lunar<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> observation and by chronometer,—driven by steam; and +in wildest sea-mountains, at vast distances from home,—</p> + +<p class="poem">The pulses of her iron heart<br /> +Go beating through the storm.</p> + +<p>No use can lessen the wonder of this control, by so weak a creature, of +forces so prodigious. I remember I watched, in crossing the sea, the +beautiful skill whereby the engine in its constant working was made to +produce two hundred gallons of fresh water out of salt water every +hour—thereby supplying all the ship’s wants.</p> + +<p>The skill that pervades complex details; the man that maintains himself; +the chimney taught to burn its own smoke; the farm made to produce all +that is consumed on it; the very prison compelled to maintain itself and +yield a revenue, and, better still, made a reform school, and a +manufactory of honest men out of rogues, as the steamer made fresh water +out of salt—all these are examples of that tendency to combine +antagonisms, and utilize evil, which is the index of high civilization.</p> + +<p>Civilization is the result of highly complex organization. In the snake, +all the organs are sheathed: no hands, no feet, no fins, no wings. In bird +and beast, the organs are released, and begin to play. In man, they are +all unbound, and full of joyful action. With this unswaddling he receives +the absolute illumination we call Reason, and thereby true liberty.</p> + +<p>Climate has much to do with this melioration. The highest civility has +never loved the hot zones. Wherever snows falls, there is usually civil +freedom. Where the banana grows, the animal system is indolent and +pampered at the cost of higher qualities; the man is sensual and cruel. +But this scale is not invariable. High degrees of moral sentiment control +the unfavorable influences of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> climate; and some of our grandest examples +of men and of races come from the equatorial regions—as the genius of +Egypt, of India, and of Arabia.</p> + +<p>These feats are measures or traits of civility; and temperate climate is +an important influence, though not quite indispensable; for there have +been learning, philosophy, and art in Iceland, and in the tropics. But one +condition is essential to the social education of man, namely, morality. +There can be no high civility without a deep morality, though it may not +always call itself by that name, but sometimes the point of honor, as in +the institution of chivalry; or patriotism, as in the Spartan and Roman +republics; or the enthusiasm of some religious act which imputes its +virtue to its dogma; or the cabalism, or <i>esprit de corps</i>, of a masonic +or other association of friends.</p> + +<p>The evolution of a highly-destined society must be moral; it must run in +the grooves of the celestial wheels. It must be catholic in aims. What is +<i>moral</i>? It is the respecting in action catholic or universal ends. Hear +the definition which Kant gives of moral conduct: “Act always so that the +immediate motive of thy will may become a universal rule for all +intelligent beings.”</p> + +<p>Civilization depends on morality. Everything good in man leans on what is +higher. This rule holds in small as in great. Thus, all our strength and +success in the work of our hands depend on our borrowing the aid of the +elements. You have seen a carpenter on a ladder with a broad axe chopping +upward chips from a beam. How awkward! at what disadvantage he works! But +see him on the ground, dressing his timber under him. Now, not his feeble +muscles, but the force of gravity brings down the axe; that is to say, the +planet itself splits his stick. The farmer had much ill-temper, laziness, +and shirking to endure from his hand-sawyers, until one day he bethought +him to put his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> saw-mill on the edge of a waterfall; and the river never +tires of turning his wheel: the river is good-natured, and never hints an +objection.</p> + +<p>We had letters to send: couriers could not go fast enough, nor far enough; +broke their wagons, foundered their horses; bad roads in spring, +snow-drifts in winter, heats in summer; could not get the horses out of a +walk. But we found out that the air and earth were full of electricity, +and always going our way—just the way we wanted to send. <i>Would he take a +message?</i> Just as lief as not; had nothing else to do; would carry it in +no time. Only one doubt occurred, one staggering objection—he had no +carpetbag, no visible pockets, no hands, not so much as a mouth, to carry +a letter. But, after much thought and many experiments, we managed to meet +the conditions, and to fold up the letter in such invisible compact form +as he could carry in those invisible pockets of his, never wrought by +needle and thread—and it went like a charm.</p> + +<p>I admire still more than the saw-mill the skill which, on the sea-shore, +makes the tides drive the wheels and grind corn, and which thus engages +the assistance of the moon, like a hired hand, to grind, and wind, and +pump, and saw, and split stone, and roll iron.</p> + +<p>Now that is the wisdom of a man, in every instance of his labor, to hitch +his wagon to a star, and see his chore done by the gods themselves. That +is the way we are strong, by borrowing the might of the elements. The +forces of steam, gravity, galvanism, light, magnets, wind, fire, serve us +day by day, and cost us nothing.</p> + +<p>Our astronomy is full of examples of calling in the aid of these +magnificent helpers. Thus, on a planet so small as ours, the want of an +adequate base for astronomical measurements is early felt; as, for +example, in detecting the parallax of a star. But the astronomer, having +by an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> observation fixed the place of a star, by so simple an expedient as +waiting six months, and then repeating his observation, contrived to put +the diameter of the earth’s orbit, say two hundred millions of miles, +between his first observation and his second, and this line afforded him a +respectable base for his triangle.</p> + +<p>All our arts aim to win this vantage. We cannot bring the heavenly powers +to us; but, if we will only choose our jobs in directions in which they +travel, they will undertake them with the greatest pleasure. It is a +peremptory rule with them, that <i>they never go out of their road</i>. We are +dapper little busybodies, and run this way and that way superserviceably; +but they swerve never from their fore-ordained paths—neither the sun, nor +the moon, nor a bubble of air, nor a mote of dust.</p> + +<p>And as our handiworks borrow the elements, so all our social and political +action leans on principles. To accomplish anything excellent, the will +must work for catholic and universal ends. A puny creature, walled in on +every side, as Daniel wrote,—</p> + +<p class="poem"><span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Unless above himself he can</span><br /> +Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!</p> + +<p>But when his will leans on a principle, when he is the vehicle of ideas, +he borrows their omnipotence. Gibraltar may be strong, but ideas are +impregnable, and bestow on the hero their invincibility. “It was a great +instruction,” said a saint in Cromwell’s war, “that the best courages are +but beams of the Almighty.” Hitch your wagon to a star. Let us not fag in +paltry works which serve our pot and bag alone. Let us not lie and steal. +No god will help. We shall find all their teams going the other +way—Charles’s Wain, Great Bear, Orion, Leo, Hercules: every god will +leave us. Work rather for those interests which the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> divinities honor and +promote—justice, love, freedom, knowledge, utility.</p> + +<p>If we can thus ride in Olympian chariots by putting our works in the path +of the celestial circuits, we can harness also evil agents, the powers of +darkness, and force them to serve against their will the ends of wisdom +and virtue. Thus, a wise government puts fines and penalties on pleasant +vices. What a benefit would the American government, not yet relieved of +its extreme need, render to itself, and to every city, village, and hamlet +in the States, if it would tax whiskey and rum almost to the point of +prohibition! Was it Bonaparte who said that he found vices very good +patriots? “He got five millions from the love of brandy, and he should be +glad to know which of the virtues would pay him as much.” Tobacco and +opium have broad backs, and will cheerfully carry the load of armies, if +you choose to make them pay high for such joy as they give and such harm +as they do.</p> + +<p>These are traits, and measures, and modes; and the true test of +civilization is, not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the +crops—no, but the kind of man the country turns out. I see the vast +advantages of this country, spanning the breadth of the temperate zone. I +see the immense material prosperity—towns on towns, states on states, and +wealth piled in the massive architecture of cities; California quartz +mountains dumped down in New York to be repiled architecturally +along-shore from Canada to Cuba, and thence westward to California again. +But it is not New York streets, built by the confluence of workmen and +wealth of all nations, though stretching out toward Philadelphia until +they touch it, and northward until they touch New Haven, Hartford, +Springfield, Worcester, and Boston—not these that make the real +estimation. But, when I look over this constellation of cities which +animate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> and illustrate the land, and see how little the government has to +do with their daily life, how self-helped and self-directed all families +are,—knots of men in purely natural societies,—societies of trade, of +kindred blood, of habitual hospitality, house and house, man acting on man +by weight of opinion of longer or better-directed industry, the refining +influence of women, the invitation which experience and permanent causes +open to youth and labor,—when I see how much each virtuous and gifted +person, whom all men consider, lives affectionately with scores of +excellent people who are not known far from home, and perhaps with great +reason reckons these people his superiors in virtue, and in the symmetry +and force of their qualities, I see what cubic values America has, and in +these a better certificate of civilization than great cities or enormous +wealth.</p> + +<p>In strictness, the vital refinements are the moral and intellectual steps. +The appearance of the Hebrew Moses, of the Indian Buddh,—in Greece, of +the Seven Wise Masters, of the acute and upright Socrates, and of the +Stoic Zeno,—in Judæa, the advent of Jesus,—and in modern Christendom, of +the realists Huss, Savonarola, and Luther,—are casual facts which carry +forward races to new convictions, and elevate the rule of life. In the +presence of these agencies, it is frivolous to insist on the invention of +printing or gunpowder, of steam-power or gas-light, percussion-caps and +rubber-shoes, which are toys thrown off from that security, freedom, and +exhilaration which a healthy morality creates in society. These arts add a +comfort and smoothness to house and street life; but a purer morality, +which kindles genius, civilizes civilization, casts backward all that we +held sacred into the profane, as the flame of oil throws a shadow when +shined upon by the flame of the Bude-light. Not the less the popular +measures of progress will ever be the arts and the laws.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>But if there be a country which cannot stand any one of these tests—a +country where knowledge cannot be diffused without perils of mob-law and +statute-law,—where speech is not free,—where the post-office is +violated, mailbags opened, and letters tampered with,—where public debts +and private debts outside of the State are repudiated,—where liberty is +attacked in the primary institution of social life,—where the position of +the white woman is injuriously affected by the outlawry of the black +woman,—where the arts, such as they have, are all imported, having no +indigenous life,—where the laborer is not secured in the earnings of his +own hands,—where suffrage is not free or equal,—that country is, in all +these respects, not civil, but barbarous; and no advantages of soil, +climate, or coast can resist these suicidal mischiefs.</p> + +<p>Morality and all the incidents of morality are essential: as, justice to +the citizen and personal liberty. Montesquieu says: “Countries are well +cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free”; and the remark +holds not less, but more true, of the culture of men, than of the tillage +of land. And the highest proof of civility is, that the whole public +action of the State is directed on securing the greatest good of the +greatest number.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p> +<h3>ILLUSIONS<small><a name="f15.1" id="f15.1" href="#f15">[15]</a></small></h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="illusions"> +<tr><td>Flow, flow the waves hated,<br /> +Accursed, adored,<br /> +The waves of mutation:<br /> +No anchorage is.<br /> +Sleep is not, death is not;<br /> +Who seem to die, live.<br /> +House you were born in,<br /> +Friends of your spring-time,<br /> +Old man and young maid,<br /> +Day’s toil and its guerdon—<br /> +They are all vanishing,<br /> +Fleeing to fables,<br /> +Cannot be moored.<br /> +See the stars through them,<br /> +Through treacherous marbles.<br /> +Know, the stars yonder,<br /> +The stars everlasting<br /> +Are fugitive also,<br /> +And emulate, vaulted,<br /> +The lambent heat-lightning,<br /> +And fire-fly’s flight.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When thou dost return</span><br /> +On the wave’s circulation,<br /> +Beholding the shimmer,<br /> +The will’s dissipation,<br /> +And, out of endeavor<br /> +To change and to flow,<br /> +The gas become solid,<br /> +And phantoms and nothings<br /> +Return to be things,<br /> +And endless imbroglio<br /> +Is law and the world,—<br /> +Then first shalt thou know,<br /> +That in the wild turmoil,<br /> +Horsed on the Proteus,<br /> +Thou ridest to power,<br /> +And to endurance.</td></tr></table> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>Some years ago, in company with an agreeable party, I spent a long summer +day in exploring the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. We traversed, through +spacious galleries affording a solid masonry foundation for the town and +county overhead, the six or eight black miles from the mouth of the cavern +to the innermost recess which tourists visit—a niche or grotto made of +one seamless stalactite and called, I believe, Serena’s Bower. I lost the +light of one day. I saw high domes, and bottomless pits; heard the voice +of unseen waterfalls; paddled three quarters of a mile in the deep Echo +River, whose waters are peopled with the blind fish; crossed the streams +“Lethe” and “Styx”; plied with music and guns the echoes in these alarming +galleries; saw every form of stalagmite and stalactite in the sculptured +and fretted chambers—icicle, orange-flower, acanthus, grapes, and +snowball. We shot Bengal lights into the vaults and groins of the sparry +cathedrals, and examined all the masterpieces which the four combined +engineers, water, limestone, gravitation, and time, could make in the +dark.</p> + +<p>The mysteries and scenery of the cave had the same dignity that belongs to +all natural objects, and shames the fine things to which we foppishly +compare them. I remarked, especially, the mimetic habit, with which +Nature, on new instruments, hums her old tunes, making night to mimic day, +and chemistry to ape vegetation. But I then took notice, and still chiefly +remember, that the best thing which the cave had to offer was an illusion. +On arriving at what is called the “Star Chamber,” our lamps were taken +from us by the guide, and extinguished or put aside, and, on looking +upwards, I saw or seemed to see the night heaven thick with stars +glimmering more or less brightly over our heads, and even what seemed a +comet flaming among them. All the party were touched with astonishment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> +and pleasure. Our musical friends sung with much feeling a pretty song, +“The stars are in the quiet sky,” etc., and I sat down on the rocky floor +to enjoy the serene picture. Some crystal specks in the black ceiling high +overhead, reflecting the light of a half-hid lamp, yielded this +magnificent effect.</p> + +<p>I own, I did not like the cave so well for eking out its sublimities with +this theatrical trick. But I have had many experiences like it, before and +since; and we must be content to be pleased without too curiously +analyzing the occasions. Our conversation with Nature is not just what it +seems. The cloud-rack, the sunrise and sunset glories, rainbows, and +northern lights, are not quite so spheral as our childhood thought them; +and the part our organization plays in them is too large. The senses +interfere everywhere, and mix their own structure with all they report of. +Once, we fancied the earth a plane, and stationary. In admiring the +sunset, we do not yet deduct the rounding, coördinating, pictorial powers +of the eye.</p> + +<p>The same interference from our organization creates the most of our +pleasure and pain. Our first mistake is the belief that the circumstance +gives the joy which we give to the circumstance. Life is an ecstasy. Life +is sweet as nitrous oxide; and the fisherman dripping all day over a cold +pond, the switchman at the railway intersection, the farmer in the field, +the negro in the rice-swamp, the fop in the street, the hunter in the +woods, the barrister with the jury, the belle at the ball, all ascribe a +certain pleasure to their employment, which they themselves give it. +Health and appetite impart the sweetness to sugar, bread, and meat. We +fancy that our civilization has got on far, but we still come back to our +primers.</p> + +<p>We live by our imaginations, by our admirations, by our sentiments. The +child walks amid heaps of illusions, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> he does not like to have +disturbed. The boy, how sweet to him is his fancy! how dear the story of +barons and battles! What a hero he is, whilst he feeds on his heroes! What +a debt is his to imaginative books! He has no better friend or influence +than Scott, Shakespeare, Plutarch, and Homer. The man lives to other +objects, but who dares affirm that they are more real? Even the prose of +the streets is full of refractions. In the life of the dreariest alderman, +fancy enters into all details, and colors them with rosy hue. He imitates +the air and actions of people whom he admires, and is raised in his own +eyes. He pays a debt quicker to a rich man than to a poor man. He wishes +the bow and compliment of some leader in the state, or in society; weighs +what he says; perhaps he never comes nearer to him for that, but dies at +last better contented for this amusement of his eyes and his fancy.</p> + +<p>The world rolls, the din of life is never hushed. In London, in Paris, in +Boston, in San Francisco, the carnival, the masquerade is at its height. +Nobody drops his domino. The unities, the fictions of the piece, it would +be an impertinence to break. The chapter of fascinations is very long. +Great is paint; nay, God is the painter; and we rightly accuse the critic +who destroys too many illusions. Society does not love its unmaskers. It +was wittily, if somewhat bitterly, said by D’Alembert, “qu’un état de +vapeur était un état très fâcheux, parcequ’il nous faisait voir les choses +comme elles sont.” I find men victims of illusion in all parts of life. +Children, youths, adults, and old men, all are led by one bauble or +another. Yoganidra, the goddess of illusion, Proteus, or Momus, or Gylfi’s +Mocking,—for the Power has many names,—is stronger than the Titans, +stronger than Apollo. Few have overheard the gods, or surprised their +secret. Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be +understood.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle. +There are as many pillows of illusion as flakes in a snowstorm. We wake +from one dream into another dream. The toys, to be sure, are various, and +are graduated in refinement to the quality of the dupe. The intellectual +man requires a fine bait; the sots are easily amused. But everybody is +drugged with his own frenzy, and the pageant marches at all hours, with +music and banner and badge.</p> + +<p>Amid the joyous troop who give in to the charivari, comes now and then a +sad-eyed boy, whose eyes lack the requisite refractions to clothe the show +in due glory, and who is afflicted with a tendency to trace home the +glittering miscellany of fruits and flowers to one root. Science is a +search after identity, and the scientific whim is lurking in all corners. +At the State Fair, a friend of mine complained that all the varieties of +fancy pears in our orchards seem to have been selected by somebody who had +a whim for a particular kind of pear, and only cultivated such as had that +perfume; they were all alike. And I remember the quarrel of another youth +with the confectioners, that, when he racked his wit to choose the best +comfits in the shops, in all the endless varieties of sweetmeat he could +only find three flavors, or two. What then? Pears and cakes are good for +something; and because you, unluckily, have an eye or nose too keen, why +need you spoil the comfort which the rest of us find in them?</p> + +<p>I knew a humorist who, in a good deal of rattle, had a grain or two of +sense. He shocked the company by maintaining that the attributes of God +were two—power and risibility; and that it was the duty of every pious +man to keep up the comedy. And I have known gentlemen of great stake in +the community, but whose sympathies were cold,—presidents of colleges, +and governors, and senators,—who held themselves bound to sign every +temperance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> pledge, and act with Bible societies, and missions, and +peacemakers, and cry, <i>Hist-a-boy!</i> to every good dog. We must not carry +comity too far, but we all have kind impulses in this direction. When the +boys come into my yard for leave to gather horse-chestnuts, I own I enter +into Nature’s game, and affect to grant the permission reluctantly, +fearing that any moment they will find out the imposture of that showy +chaff. But this tenderness is quite unnecessary; the enchantments are laid +on very thick. Their young life is thatched with them. Bare and grim to +tears is the lot of the children in the hovel I saw yesterday; yet not the +less they hung it round with frippery romance, like the children of the +happiest fortune, and talked of “the dear cottage where so many joyful +hours had flown.” Well, this thatching of hovels is the custom of the +country. Women, more than all, are the element and kingdom of illusion. +Being fascinated, they fascinate. They see through Claude-Lorraines. And +how dare anyone, if he could, pluck away the <i>coulisses</i>, stage-effects, +and ceremonies, by which they live? Too pathetic, too pitiable, is the +region of affection, and its atmosphere always liable to <i>mirage</i>.</p> + +<p>We are not very much to blame for our bad marriages. We live amid +hallucinations; and this especial trap is laid to trip up our feet with, +and all are tripped up first or last. But the mighty Mother who had been +so sly with us, as if she felt that she owed us some indemnity, insinuates +into the Pandora-box of marriage some deep and serious benefits, and some +great joys. We find a delight in the beauty and happiness of children that +makes the heart too big for the body. In the worst-assorted connections +there is ever some mixture of true marriage. Teague and his jade get some +just relations of mutual respect, kindly observation,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> and fostering of +each other, learn something, and would carry themselves wiselier, if they +were now to begin.</p> + +<p>’Tis fine for us to point at one or another fine madman, as if there were +any exempts. The scholar in his library is none. I, who have all my life +heard any number of orations and debates, read poems and miscellaneous +books, conversed with many geniuses, am still the victim of any new page; +and, if Marmaduke, or Hugh, or Moosehead, or any other, invent a new style +or mythology, I fancy that the world will be all brave and right if +dressed in these colors, which I had not thought of. Then at once I will +daub with this new paint: but it will not stick. ’Tis like the cement +which the peddler sells at the door; he makes broken crockery hold with +it, but you can never buy of him a bit of the cement which will make it +hold when he is gone.</p> + +<p>Men who make themselves felt in the world avail themselves of a certain +fate in their constitution, which they know how to use. But they never +deeply interest us, unless they lift a corner of the curtain, or betray +never so slightly their penetration of what is behind it. ’Tis the charm +of practical men, that outside of their practicality are a certain poetry +and play, as if they led the good horse Power by the bridle, and preferred +to walk, though they can ride so fiercely. Bonaparte is intellectual, as +well as Cæsar; and the best soldiers, sea-captains, and railway men have a +gentleness, when off duty; a good-natured admission that there are +illusions, and who shall say that he is not their sport? We stigmatize the +cast-iron fellows, who cannot so detach themselves, as “dragon-ridden,” +“thunder-stricken,” and fools of fate, with whatever powers endowed.</p> + +<p>Since our tuition is through emblems and indirections, ’tis well to know +that there is method in it, a fixed scale,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> and rank above rank in the +phantasms. We begin low with coarse masks, and rise to the most subtle and +beautiful. The red men told Columbus, “they had an herb which took away +fatigue”; but he found the illusion of “arriving from the east at the +Indies” more composing to his lofty spirit than any tobacco. Is not our +faith in the impenetrability of matter more sedative than narcotics? You +play with jack-straws, balls, bowls, horse and gun, estates and politics; +but there are finer games before you. Is not time a pretty toy? Life will +show you masks that are worth all your carnivals. Yonder mountain must +migrate into your mind. The fine star-dust and nebulous blur in Orion, +“the portentous year of Mizar and Alcor,” must come down and be dealt with +in your household thought. What if you shall come to discern that the play +and playground of all this pompous history are radiations from yourself, +and that the sun borrows his beams? What terrible questions we are +learning to ask! The former men believed in magic, by which temples, +cities, and men were swallowed up and all trace of them gone. We are +coming on the secret of a magic which sweeps out of men’s minds all +vestige of theism and beliefs which they and their fathers held and were +framed upon.</p> + +<p>There are deceptions of the senses, deceptions of the passions, and the +structural, beneficent illusions of sentiment and of the intellect. There +is the illusion of love, which attributes to the beloved person all which +that person shares with his or her family, sex, age, or condition, nay, +with the human mind itself. ’Tis these which the lover loves, and Anna +Matilda gets the credit of them. As if one shut up always in a tower, with +one window, through which the face of heaven and earth could be seen, +should fancy that all the marvels he beheld belonged to that window. There +is the illusion of time, which is very deep;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> who has disposed of it? or +come to the conviction that what seems the <i>succession</i> of thought is only +the distribution of wholes into causal series? The intellect sees that +every atom carries the whole of Nature; that the mind opens to +omnipotence; that, in the endless striving and ascents, the metamorphosis +is entire, so that the soul doth not know itself in its own act, when that +act is perfected. There is illusion that shall deceive even the elect. +There is illusion that shall deceive even the performer of the miracle. +Though he make his body, he denies that he makes it. Though the world +exist from thought, thought is daunted in presence of the world. One after +the other we accept the mental laws, still resisting those which follow, +which however must be accepted. But all our concessions only compel us to +new profusion. And what avails it that science has come to treat space and +time as simply forms of thought, and the material world as hypothetical, +and withal our pretension of <i>property</i> and even of self-hood are fading +with the rest, if, at last, even our thoughts are not finalities; but the +incessant flowing and ascension reach these also, and each thought which +yesterday was a finality to-day is yielding to a larger generalization?</p> + +<p>With such volatile elements to work in, ’tis no wonder if our estimates +are loose and floating. We must work and affirm, but we have no guess of +the value of what we say or do. The cloud is now as big as your hand, and +now it covers a county. That story of Thor, who was set to drain the +drinking-horn in Asgard, and to wrestle with the old woman, and to run +with the runner Lok, and presently found that he had been drinking up the +sea, and wrestling with Time, and racing with Thought, describes us who +are contending, amid these seeming trifles, with the supreme energies of +Nature. We fancy we have fallen into bad<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> company and squalid condition, +low debts, shoe-bills, broken glass to pay for, pots to buy, butcher’s +meat, sugar, milk, and coal. “Set me some great task, ye gods! and I will +show my spirit.” “Not so,” says the good Heaven; “plod and plough, vamp +your old coats and hats, weave a shoestring; great affairs and the best +wine by-and-by.” Well, ’tis all phantasm; and if we weave a yard of tape +in all humility, and as well as we can, long hereafter we shall see it was +no cotton tape at all, but some galaxy which we braided, and that the +threads were Time and Nature.</p> + +<p>We cannot write the order of the variable winds. How can we penetrate the +law of our shifting moods and susceptibility? Yet they differ as all and +nothing. Instead of the firmament of yesterday, which our eyes require, it +is to-day an eggshell which coops us in; we cannot even see what or where +our stars of destiny are. From day to day, the capital facts of human life +are hidden from our eyes. Suddenly the mist rolls up, and reveals them, +and we think how much good time is gone, that might have been saved had +any hint of these things been shown. A sudden rise in the road shows us +the system of mountains, and all the summits, which have been just as near +us all the year, but quite out of mind. But these alternations are not +without their order, and we are parties to our various fortune. If life +seem a succession of dreams, yet poetic justice is done in dreams also. +The visions of good men are good; it is the undisciplined will that is +whipped with bad thoughts and bad fortunes. When we break the laws, we +lose our hold on the central reality. Like sick men in hospitals, we +change only from bed to bed, from one folly to another; and it cannot +signify much what becomes of such castaways,—wailing, stupid, comatose +creatures,—lifted from bed to bed, from the nothing of life to the +nothing of death.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>In this kingdom of illusions we grope eagerly for stays and foundations. +There is none but a strict and faithful dealing at home, and a severe +barring out of all duplicity or illusion there. Whatever games are played +with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy +with the last honesty and truth. I look upon the simple and childish +virtues of veracity and honesty as the root of all that is sublime in +character. Speak as you think, be what you are, pay your debts of all +kinds. I prefer to be owned as sound and solvent, and my word as good as +my bond, and to be what cannot be skipped, or dissipated, or undermined, +to all the <i>éclat</i> in the universe. This reality is the foundation of +friendship, religion, poetry, and art. At the top or at the bottom of all +illusions, I set the cheat which still leads us to work and live for +appearances, in spite of our conviction, in all sane hours, that it is +what we really are that avails with friends, with strangers, and with fate +or fortune.</p> + +<p>One would think from the talk of men, that riches and poverty were a great +matter; and our civilization mainly respects it. But the Indians say, that +they do not think the white man with his brow of care, always toiling, +afraid of heat and cold, and keeping within doors, has any advantage of +them. The permanent interest of every man is, never to be in a false +position, but to have the weight of Nature to back him in all that he +does. Riches and poverty are a thick or thin costume; and our life—the +life of all of us—identical. For we transcend the circumstance +continually, and taste the real quality of existence; as in our +employments, which only differ in the manipulations, but express the same +laws; or in our thoughts, which wear no silks and taste no ice-creams. We +see God face to face every hour, and know the savor of Nature.</p> + +<p>The early Greek philosophers Heraclitus and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> Xenophanes measured their +force on this problem of identity. Diogenes of Apollonia said, that unless +the atoms were made of one stuff, they could never blend and act with one +another. But the Hindoos, in their sacred writings, express the liveliest +feeling, both of the essential identity, and of that illusion which they +conceive variety to be: “The notions, <i>I am</i>, and <i>This is mine</i>, which +influence mankind, are but delusions of the mother of the world. Dispel, O +Lord of all creatures! the conceit of knowledge which proceeds from +ignorance.” And the beatitude of man they hold to lie in being freed from +fascination.</p> + +<p>The intellect is stimulated by the statement of truth in a trope, and the +will by clothing the laws of life in illusions. But the unities of Truth +and of Right are not broken by the disguise. There need never be any +confusion in these. In a crowded life of many parts and performers, on a +stage of nations, or in the obscurest hamlet in Maine or California, the +same elements offer the same choices to each new comer, and, according to +his election, he fixes his fortune in absolute nature. It would be hard to +put more mental and moral philosophy than the Persians have thrown into a +sentence:—</p> + +<p class="poem">Fooled thou must be, though wisest of the wise:<br /> +Then be the fool of virtue, not of vice.</p> + +<p>There is no chance, and no anarchy, in the universe. All is system and +gradation. Every god is there sitting in his sphere. The young mortal +enters the hall of the firmament: there is he alone with them alone, they +pouring on him benedictions and gifts, and beckoning him up to their +thrones. On the instant, and incessantly, fall snow-storms of illusions. +He fancies himself in a vast crowd which sways this way and that, and +whose movement and doings he must obey: he fancies himself poor, orphaned, +insignificant. The mad crowd drives hither and thither,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> now furiously +commanding this thing to be done, now that. What is he that he should +resist their will, and think or act for himself? Every moment, new +changes, and new showers of deceptions, to baffle and distract him. And +when, by-and-by, for an instant, the air clears, and the cloud lifts a +little, there are the gods still sitting around him on their thrones—they +alone with him alone.</p> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p> +<h3>FATE<small><a name="f16.1" id="f16.1" href="#f16">[16]</a></small></h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="fate"> +<tr><td>Delicate omens traced in air<br /> +To the lone bard true witness bare;<br /> +Birds with auguries on their wings<br /> +Chanted undeceiving things,<br /> +Him to beckon, him to warn;<br /> +Well might then the poet scorn<br /> +To learn of scribe or courier<br /> +Hints writ in vaster character;<br /> +And on his mind, at dawn of day,<br /> +Soft shadows of the evening lay.<br /> +For the prevision is allied<br /> +Unto the thing so signified;<br /> +Or say, the foresight that awaits<br /> +Is the same Genius that creates.</td></tr></table> + +<p>It chanced during one winter, a few years ago, that our critics were bent +on discussing the theory of the Age. By an odd coincidence, four or five +noted men were each reading a discourse to the citizens of Boston or New +York, on the Spirit of the Times. It so happened that the subject had the +same prominence in some remarkable pamphlets and journals issued in London +in the same season. To me, however, the question of the times resolved +itself into a practical question of the conduct of life. How shall I live? +We are incompetent to solve the times. Our geometry cannot span the huge +orbits of the prevailing ideas, behold their return, and reconcile their +opposition. We can only obey our own polarity. ’Tis fine for us to +speculate and elect our course, if we must accept an irresistible +dictation.</p> + +<p>In our first steps to gain our wishes, we come upon immovable limitations. +We are fired with the hope to <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>reform men. After many experiments, we find +that we must begin earlier—at school. But the boys and girls are not +docile; we can make nothing of them. We decide that they are not of good +stock. We must begin our reform earlier still—at generation: that is to +say, there is Fate, or laws of the world.</p> + +<p>But, if there be irresistible dictation, this dictation understands +itself. If we must accept Fate, we are not less compelled to affirm +liberty, the significance of the individual, the grandeur of duty, the +power of character. This is true, and that other is true. But our geometry +cannot span these extreme points, and reconcile them. What to do? By +obeying each thought frankly, by harping, or, if you will, pounding on +each string, we learn at last its power. By the same obedience to other +thoughts, we learn theirs, and then comes some reasonable hope of +harmonizing them. We are sure, that, though we know not how, necessity +does comport with liberty, the individual with the world, my polarity with +the spirit of the times. The riddle of the age has for each a private +solution. If one would study his own time, it must be by this method of +taking up in turn each of the leading topics which belong to our scheme of +human life, and, by firmly stating all that is agreeable to experience on +one, and doing the same justice to the opposing facts in the others, the +true limitations will appear. Any excess of emphasis, on one part, would +be corrected, and a just balance would be made.</p> + +<p>But let us honestly state the facts. Our America has a bad name for +superficialness. Great men, great nations, have not been boasters and +buffoons, but perceivers of the terror of life, and have manned themselves +to face it. The Spartan, embodying his religion in his country, dies +before its majesty without a question. The Turk, who believes his doom is +written on the iron leaf in the moment when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> he entered the world, rushes +on the enemy’s sabre with undivided will. The Turk, the Arab, the Persian, +accepts the fore-ordained fate.</p> + +<p class="poem">On two days, it steads not to run from thy grave,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The appointed, and the unappointed day;</span><br /> +On the first, neither balm nor physician can save,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor thee, on the second, the Universe slay.</span></p> + +<p>The Hindoo, under the wheel, is as firm. Our Calvinists, in the last +generation, had something of the same dignity. They felt that the weight +of the Universe held them down to their place. What could <i>they</i> do? Wise +men feel that there is something which cannot be talked or voted away—a +strap or belt which girds the world.</p> + +<p class="poem">The Destiny, minister general,<br /> +That executeth in the world o’er all,<br /> +The purveyance which God hath seen beforne,<br /> +So strong it is that tho’ the world had sworn<br /> +The contrary of a thing by yea or nay,<br /> +Yet sometime it shall fallen on a day<br /> +That falleth not oft in a thousand year,<br /> +For, certainly, our appetites here,<br /> +Be it of war, or peace, or hate, or love,<br /> +All this is rulèd by the sight above.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8.5em;"><span class="smcap">Chaucer</span>: <i>The Knighte’s Tale</i>.</span></p> + +<p>The Greek Tragedy expressed the same sense: “Whatever is fated, that will +take place. The great immense mind of Jove is not to be transgressed.”</p> + +<p>Savages cling to a local god of one tribe or town. The broad ethics of +Jesus were quickly narrowed to village theologies, which preach an +election or favoritism. And, now and then, an amiable parson, like Jung +Stilling, or Robert Huntington, believes in a pistareen-Providence, which, +whenever the good man wants a dinner, makes that somebody shall knock at +his door, and leave a half-dollar. But Nature is no sentimentalist—does +not cosset or pamper us. We must see that the world is rough and surly, +and will not mind drowning a man or a woman; but swallows<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> your ship like +a grain of dust. The cold, inconsiderate of persons, tingles your blood, +benumbs your feet, freezes a man like an apple. The diseases, the +elements, <ins class="correction" title="original reads 'furtune'">fortune</ins>, gravity, lightning, respect no persons. The way of +Providence is a little rude. The habit of snake and spider, the snap of +the tiger and other leapers and bloody jumpers, the crackle of the bones +of his prey in the coil of the anaconda—these are in the system, and our +habits are like theirs. You have just dined, and, however scrupulously the +slaughter-house is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is +complicity—expensive races—race living at the expense of race. The +planet is liable to shocks from comets, perturbations from planets, +rendings from earthquake and volcano, alterations of climate, precessions +of equinoxes. Rivers dry up by opening of the forest. The sea changes its +bed. Towns and counties fall into it. At Lisbon, an earthquake killed men +like flies. At Naples, three years ago, ten thousand persons were crushed +in a few minutes. The scurvy at sea; the sword of the climate in the west +of Africa, at Cayenne, at Panama, at New Orleans, cut off men like a +massacre. Our Western prairie shakes with fever and ague. The cholera, the +small-pox, have proved as mortal to some tribes, as a frost to the +crickets, which, having filled the summer with noise, are silenced by a +fall of the temperature of one night. Without uncovering what does not +concern us; or counting how many species of parasites hang on a bombyx; or +groping after intestinal parasites, or infusory biters, or the obscurities +of alternate generation;—the forms of the shark, the <i>labrus</i>, the jaw of +the sea-wolf paved with crushing teeth, the weapons of the grampus, and +other warriors hidden in the sea—are hints of ferocity in the interiors +of nature. Let us not deny it up and down. Providence has a wild, rough, +incalculable road to its end, and it is of no use to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> try to whitewash its +huge, mixed instrumentalities, or to dress up that terrific benefactor in +a clean shirt and white neckcloth of a student in divinity.</p> + +<p>Will you say, the disasters which threaten mankind are exceptional, and +one need not lay his account for cataclysms every day? Ay, but what +happens once, may happen again, and so long as these strokes are not to be +parried by us, they must be feared.</p> + +<p>But these shocks and ruins are less destructive to us than the stealthy +power of other laws which act on us daily. An expense of ends to means is +fate—organization tyrannizing over character. The menagerie, or forms and +powers of the spine, is a book of fate: the bill of the bird, the skull of +the snake, determines tyrannically its limits. So is the scale of races, +of temperaments; so is sex; so is climate; so is the reaction of talents +imprisoning the vital power in certain directions. Every spirit makes its +house; but afterwards the house confines the spirit.</p> + +<p>The gross lines are legible to the dull: the cabman is phrenologist so +far: he looks in your face to see if his shilling is sure. A dome of brow +denotes one thing; a pot-belly another; a squint, a pug-nose, mats of +hair, the pigment of the epidermis, betray character. People seem sheathed +in their tough organization. Ask Spurzheim, ask the doctors, ask Quetelet, +if temperaments decide nothing? or if there be anything they do not +decide? Read the description in medical books of the four temperaments, +and you will think you are reading your own thoughts which you had not yet +told. Find the part which black eyes, and which blue eyes, play severally +in the company. How shall a man escape from his ancestors, or draw off +from his veins the black drop which he drew from his father’s or his +mother’s life? It often appears in a family, as if all the qualities of +the progenitors were potted in several jars<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>—some ruling quality in each +son or daughter of the house—and sometimes the unmixed temperament, the +rank unmitigated elixir, the family vice, is drawn off in a separate +individual, and the others are proportionally relieved. We sometimes see a +change of expression in our companion, and say, his father, or his mother, +comes to the windows of his eyes, and sometimes a remote relative. In +different hours, a man represents each of several of his ancestors, as if +there were seven or eight of us rolled up in each man’s skin,—seven or +eight ancestors at least,—and they constitute the variety of notes for +that new piece of music which his life is. At the corner of the street, +you read the possibility of each passenger, in the facial angle, in the +complexion, in the depth of his eye. His parentage determines it. Men are +what their mothers made them. You may as well ask a loom which weaves +huckaback, why it does not make cashmere, as expect poetry from this +engineer or a chemical discovery from that jobber. Ask the digger in the +ditch to explain Newton’s laws: the fine organs of his brains have been +pinched by overwork and squalid poverty from father to son, for a hundred +years. When each comes forth from his mother’s womb, the gate of gifts +closes behind him. Let him value his hands and feet, he has but one pair. +So he has but one future, and that is already predetermined in his lobes, +and described in that little fatty face, pig-eye, and squat form. All the +privilege and all the legislation of the world cannot meddle or help to +make a poet or a prince of him.</p> + +<p>Jesus said, “When he looketh on her, he hath committed adultery.” But he +is an adulterer before he has yet looked on the woman, by the superfluity +of animal, and the defect of thought, in his constitution. Who meets him, +or who meets her, in the street, sees that they are ripe to be each +other’s victim.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>In certain men, digestion and sex absorb the vital force, and the stronger +these are, the individual is so much weaker. The more of these drones +perish, the better for the hive. If, later, they give birth to some +superior individual, with force enough to add to this animal a new aim, +and a complete apparatus to work it out, all the ancestors are gladly +forgotten. Most men and most women are merely one couple more. Now and +then, one has a new cell or camarilla opened in his brain—an +architectural, a musical, or a philological knack, some stray taste or +talent for flowers, or chemistry, or pigments, or story-telling, a good +hand for drawing, a good foot for dancing, an athletic frame for wide +journeying, etc.—which skill nowise alters rank in the scale of nature, +but serves to pass the time, the life of sensation going on as before. At +last, these hints and tendencies are fixed in one, or in a succession. +Each absorbs so much food and force as to become itself a new centre. The +new talent draws off so rapidly the vital force, that not enough remains +for the animal functions, hardly enough for health; so that, in the second +generation, if the like genius appear, the health is visibly deteriorated, +and the generative force impaired.</p> + +<p>People are born with the moral or with the material bias; uterine brothers +with this diverging destination; and I suppose, with high magnifiers, Mr. +Frauenhofer or Dr. Carpenter might come to distinguish in the embryo at +the fourth day, this is a Whig, and that a Free-soiler.</p> + +<p>It was a poetic attempt to lift this mountain of Fate, to reconcile this +despotism of race with liberty, which led the Hindoos to say, “Fate is +nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence.” I find the +coincidence of the extremes of eastern and western speculation in the +daring statement of Schelling, “There is in every man a certain feeling, +that he has been what he is from all eternity, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> by no means became +such in time.” To say it less sublimely—in the history of the individual +is always an account of his condition, and he knows himself to be a party +to his present estate.</p> + +<p>A good deal of our politics is physiological. Now and then, a man of +wealth in the heyday of youth adopts the tenet of broadest freedom. In +England, there is always some man of wealth and large connection planting +himself, during all his years of health, on the side of progress, who, as +soon as he begins to die, checks his forward play, calls in his troops, +and becomes conservative. All conservatives are such from personal +defects. They have been effeminated by position or nature, born halt and +blind, through luxury of their parents, and can only, like invalids, act +on the defensive. But strong natures, backwoodsmen, New Hampshire giants, +Napoleons, Burkes, Broughams, Websters, Kossuths, are inevitable patriots, +until their life ebbs, and their defects and gout, palsy and money, warp +them.</p> + +<p>The strongest idea incarnates itself in majorities and nations, in the +healthiest and strongest. Probably, the election goes by avoirdupois +weight, and, if you could weigh bodily the tonnage of any hundred of the +Whig and the Democratic party in a town, on the Dearborn balance, as they +passed the hay scales, you could predict with certainty which party would +carry it. On the whole, it would be rather the speediest way of deciding +the vote, to put the selectmen or the mayor and aldermen at the hayscales.</p> + +<p>In science, we have to consider two things: power and circumstance. All we +know of the egg, from each successive discovery, is, <i>another vesicle</i>; +and if, after five hundred years, you get a better observer, or a better +glass, he finds within the last observed another. In vegetable and animal +tissue, it is just alike, and all that the primary power or spasm +operates, is, still, vesicles, vesicles. Yes—but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> the tyrannical +Circumstance! A vesicle in new circumstances, a vesicle lodged in +darkness, Oken thought, became animal; in light, a plant. Lodged in the +parent animal, it suffers changes, which end in unsheathing miraculous +capability in the unaltered vesicle, and it unlocks itself to fish, bird, +or quadruped, head and foot, eye and claw. The Circumstance is Nature. +Nature is, what you may do. There is much you may not. We have two +things—the circumstance, and the life. Once we thought, positive power +was all. Now we learn, that negative power, or circumstance, is half. +Nature is the tyrannous circumstance, the thick skull, the sheathed snake, +the ponderous, rock-like jaw; necessitated activity; violent direction; +the conditions of a tool, like the locomotive, strong enough on its track, +but which can do nothing but mischief off it; or skates, which are wings +on the ice, but fetters on the ground.</p> + +<p>The book of Nature is the book of Fate. She turns the gigantic pages—leaf +after leaf—never re-turning one. One leaf she lays down, a floor of +granite; then a thousand ages, and a bed of slate; a thousand ages, and a +measure of coal; a thousand ages, and a layer of marl and mud; vegetable +forms appear; her first misshapen animals, zoöphyte, trilobium, fish, +then, saurians—rude forms, in which she has only blocked her future +statue, concealing under these unwieldy monsters the fine type of her +coming king. The face of the planet cools and dries, the races meliorate, +and man is born. But when a race has lived its term, it comes no more +again.</p> + +<p>The population of the world is a conditional population; not the best, but +the best that could live now; and the scale of tribes, and the steadiness +with which victory adheres to one tribe, and defeat to another, is as +uniform as the superposition of strata. We know in history what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> weight +belongs to race. We see the English, French, and Germans, planting +themselves on every shore and market of America and Australia, and +monopolizing the commerce of these countries. We like the nervous and +victorious habit of our own branch of the family. We follow the step of +the Jew, of the Indian, of the Negro. We see how much will has been +expended to extinguish the Jew, in vain. Look at the unpalatable +conclusions of Knox, in his “Fragment of Races,”—a rash and +unsatisfactory writer, but charged with pungent and unforgettable truths. +“Nature respects race, and not hybrids.” “Every race has its own +<i>habitat</i>.” “Detach a colony from the race, and it deteriorates to the +crab.” See the shades of the picture. The German and Irish millions, like +the negro, have a great deal of guano in their destiny. They are ferried +over the Atlantic, and carted over America, to ditch and to drudge, to +make corn cheap, and then to lie down prematurely to make a spot of green +grass on the prairie.</p> + +<p>One more faggot of these adamantine bandages, is, the new science of +Statistics. It is a rule, that the most casual and extraordinary +events—if the basis of population is broad enough—become matter of fixed +calculation. It would not be safe to say when a captain like Bonaparte, a +singer like Jenny Lind, or a navigator like Bowditch, would be born in +Boston: but, on a population of twenty or two hundred millions, something +like accuracy may be had.<small><a name="f17.1" id="f17.1" href="#f17">[17]</a></small></p> + +<p>’Tis frivolous to fix pedantically the date of particular inventions. They +have all been invented over and over fifty times. Man is the arch machine, +of which all these <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>shifts drawn from himself are toy models. He helps +himself on each emergency by copying or duplicating his own structure, +just so far as the need is. ’Tis hard to find the right Homer, Zoroaster, +or Menu; harder still to find the Tubal Cain, or Vulcan, or Cadmus, or +Copernicus, or Fust, or Fulton, the indisputable inventor. There are +scores and centuries of them. “The air is full of men.” This kind of +talent so abounds, this constructive tool-making efficiency, as if it +adhered to the chemic atoms, as if the air he breathes were made of +Vaucansons, Franklins, and Watts.</p> + +<p>Doubtless, in every million there will be an astronomer, a mathematician, +a comic poet, a mystic. No one can read the history of astronomy, without +perceiving that Copernicus, Newton, Laplace, are not new men, or a new +kind of men, but that Thales, Anaximenes, Hipparchus, Empedocles, +Aristarchus, Pythagoras, Œnopides, had anticipated them; each had the +same tense geometrical brain, apt for the same vigorous computation and +logic, a mind parallel to the movement of the world. The Roman mile +probably rested on a measure of a degree of the meridian. Mahometan and +Chinese know what we know of leap-year, of the Gregorian calendar, and of +the precession of the equinoxes. As, in every barrel of cowries, brought +to New Bedford, there shall be one <i>orangia</i>, so there will, in a dozen +millions of Malays and Mahometans, be one or two astronomical skulls. In a +large city, the most casual things, and things whose beauty lies in their +casualty, are produced as punctually and to order as the baker’s muffin +for breakfast. “Punch” makes exactly one capital joke a week; and the +journals contrive to furnish one good piece of news every day.</p> + +<p>And not less work the laws of repression, the penalties of violated +functions. Famine, typhus, frost, war, suicide,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> and effete races, must be +reckoned calculable parts of the system of the world.</p> + +<p>These are pebbles from the mountain, hints of the terms by which our life +is walled up, and which show a kind of mechanical exactness, as of a loom +or mill, in what we call casual or fortuitous events.</p> + +<p>The force with which we resist these torrents of tendency looks so +ridiculously inadequate, that it amounts to little more than a criticism +or a protest made by a minority of one, under compulsion of millions. I +seemed, in the height of a tempest, to see men overboard struggling in the +waves, and driven about here and there. They glanced intelligently at each +other, but ’twas little they could do for one another; ’twas much if each +could keep afloat alone. Well, they had a right to their eye-beams, and +all the rest was Fate.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>We cannot trifle with this reality, this cropping out in our planted +gardens of the core of the world. No picture of life can have any veracity +that does not admit the odious facts. A man’s power is hooped in by a +necessity which, by many experiments, he touches on every side, until he +learns its arc.</p> + +<p>The element running through entire nature, which we popularly call Fate, +is known to us as limitation. Whatever limits us, we call Fate. If we are +brute and barbarous, the fate takes a brute and dreadful shape. As we +refine, our checks become finer. If we rise to spiritual culture, the +antagonism takes a spiritual form. In the Hindoo fables, Vishnu follows +Maya through all her ascending changes, from insect and crawfish up to +elephant; whatever form she took, he took the male form of that kind, +until she became at last woman and goddess, and he a man and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> a god. The +limitations refine as the soul purifies, but the ring of necessity is +always perched at the top.</p> + +<p>When the gods in the Norse heaven were unable to bind the Fenris Wolf with +steel or with weight of mountains,—the one he snapped and the other he +spurned with his heel,—they put round his foot a limp band softer than +silk or cobweb, and this held him: the more he spurned it, the stiffer it +grew. So soft and so staunch is the ring of Fate. Neither brandy, nor +nectar, nor sulphuric ether, nor hell-fire, nor ichor, nor poetry, nor +genius, can get rid of this limp band. For if we give it the high sense in +which the poets use it, even thought itself is not above Fate: that too +must act according to eternal laws, and all that is willful and fantastic +in it is in opposition to its fundamental essence.</p> + +<p>And, last of all, high over thought, in the world of morals, Fate appears +as vindicator, leveling the high, lifting the low, requiring justice in +man, and always striking soon or late, when justice is not done. What is +useful will last; what is hurtful will sink. “The doer must suffer,” said +the Greeks: “you would soothe a Deity not to be soothed.” “God himself +cannot procure good for the wicked,” said the Welsh triad. “God may +consent, but only for a time,” said the bard of Spain. The limitation is +impassable by any insight of man. In its last and loftiest ascensions, +insight itself, and the freedom of the will, is one of its obedient +members. But we must not run into generalizations too large, but show the +natural bounds or essential distinctions, and seek to do justice to the +other elements as well.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>Thus we trace Fate, in matter, mind, and morals—in race, in retardations +of strata, and in thought and character as well. It is everywhere bound or +limitation. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> fate has its lord; limitation its limits; is different +seen from above and from below; from within and from without. For, though +Fate is immense, so is power, which is the other fact in the dual world, +immense. If Fate follows and limits power, power attends and antagonizes +Fate. We must respect Fate as natural history, but there is more than +natural history. For who and what is this criticism that pries into the +matter? Man is not order of nature, sack and sack, belly and members, link +in a chain, nor any ignominious baggage, but a stupendous antagonism, a +dragging together of the poles of the Universe. He betrays his relation to +what is below him—thick-skulled, small-brained, fishy, +quadrumanous—quadruped ill-disguised, hardly escaped into biped, and has +paid for the new powers by loss of some of the old ones. But the lightning +which explodes and fashions planets, maker of planets and suns, is in him. +On one side, elemental order, sandstone and granite, rock-ledges, +peat-bog, forest, sea and shore; and, on the other part, thought, the +spirit which composes and decomposes nature—here they are, side by side, +god and devil, mind and matter, king and conspirator, belt and spasm, +riding peacefully together in the eye and brain of every man.</p> + +<p>Nor can he blink the freewill. To hazard the contradiction—freedom is +necessary. If you please to plant yourself on the side of Fate, and say, +Fate is all; then we say, a part of Fate is the freedom of man. Forever +wells up the impulse of choosing and acting in the soul. Intellect annuls +Fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free. And though nothing is more +disgusting than the crowing about liberty by slaves, as most men are, and +the flippant mistaking for freedom of some paper preamble like a +“Declaration of Independence,” or the statute right to vote, by those who +have never dared to think or to act, yet it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> wholesome to man to look, +not at Fate, but the other way: the practical view is the other. His sound +relation to these facts is to use and command, not to cringe to them. +“Look not on nature, for her name is fatal,” said the oracle. The too much +contemplation of these limits induces meanness. They who talk much of +destiny, their birth-star, etc., are in a lower dangerous plane, and +invite the evils they fear.</p> + +<p>I cited the instinctive and heroic races as proud believers in Destiny. +They conspire with it; a loving resignation is with the event. But the +dogma makes a different impression, when it is held by the weak and lazy. +’Tis weak and vicious people who cast the blame on Fate. The right use of +Fate is to bring up our conduct to the loftiness of nature. Rude and +invincible except by themselves are the elements. So let man be. Let him +empty his breast of his windy conceits, and show his lordship by manners +and deeds on the scale of nature. Let him hold his purpose as with the tug +of gravitation. No power, no persuasion, no bribe shall make him give up +his point. A man ought to compare advantageously with a river, an oak, or +a mountain. He shall have not less the flow, the expansion, and the +resistance of these.</p> + +<p>’Tis the best use of Fate to teach a fatal courage. Go face the fire at +sea, or the cholera in your friend’s house, or the burglar in your own, or +what danger lies in the way of duty, knowing you are guarded by the +cherubim of Destiny. If you believe in Fate to your harm, believe it, at +least, for your good.</p> + +<p>For, if Fate is so prevailing, man also is part of it, and can confront +fate with fate. If the Universe have these savage accidents, our atoms are +as savage in resistance. We should be crushed by the atmosphere, but for +the reaction of the air within the body. A tube made of a film of glass +can resist the shock of the ocean, if filled with the same<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> water. If +there be omnipotence in the stroke, there is omnipotence of recoil.</p> + +<p>But Fate against Fate is only parrying and defense: there are, also, the +noble creative forces. The revelation of Thought takes man out of +servitude into freedom. We rightly say of ourselves, we were born, and +afterward we were born again, and many times. We have successive +experiences so important, that the new forgets the old, and hence the +mythology of the seven or the nine heavens. The day of days, the great day +of the feast of life, is that in which the inward eye opens to the Unity +in things, to the omnipresence of law—sees that what is must be, and +ought to be, or is the best. This beatitude dips from on high down to us, +and we see. It is not in us so much as we are in it. If the air come to +our lungs, we breathe and live; if not, we die. If the light come to our +eyes, we see; else not. And if truth come to our mind, we suddenly expand +to its dimensions, as if we grew to worlds. We are as lawgivers; we speak +for Nature; we prophesy and divine.</p> + +<p>This insight throws us on the party and interest of the Universe, against +all and sundry; against ourselves, as much as others. A man speaking from +insight affirms of himself what is true of the mind: seeing its +immortality, he says, I am immortal; seeing its invincibility, he says, I +am strong. It is not in us, but we are in it. It is of the maker, not of +what is made. All things are touched and changed by it. This uses, and is +not used. It distances those who share it, from those who share it not. +Those who share it not are flocks and herds. It dates from itself; not +from former men or better men—gospel, or constitution, or college, or +custom. Where it shines, Nature is no longer intrusive, but all things +make a musical or pictorial impression. The world of men show like a +comedy without laughter:—populations, interests, government, +history;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>—’tis all toy figures in a toy house. It does not overvalue +particular truths. We hear eagerly every thought and word quoted from an +intellectual man. But, in his presence, our own mind is roused to +activity, and we forget very fast what he says, much more interested in +the new play of our own thought, than in any thought of his. ’Tis the +majesty into which we have suddenly mounted, the impersonality, the scorn +of egotisms, the sphere of laws, that engage us. Once we were stepping a +little this way, and a little that way; now, we are as men in a balloon, +and do not think so much of the point we have left, or the point we would +make, as of the liberty and glory of the way.</p> + +<p>Just as much intellect as you add, so much organic power. He who sees +through the design, presides over it, and must will that which must be. We +sit and rule, and, though we sleep, our dream will come to pass. Our +thought, though it were only an hour old, affirms an oldest necessity, not +to be separated from thought, and not to be separated from will. They must +always have coexisted. It apprises us of its sovereignty and godhead, +which refuse to be severed from it. It is not mine or thine, but the will +of all mind. It is poured into the souls of all men, as the soul itself +which constitutes them men. I know not whether there be, as is alleged, in +the upper region of our atmosphere, a permanent westerly current, which +carries with it all atoms which rise to that height; but I see that, when +souls reach a certain clearness of perception, they accept a knowledge and +motive above selfishness. A breath of will blows eternally through the +universe of souls in the direction of the Right and Necessary. It is the +air which all intellects inhale and exhale, and it is the wind which blows +the worlds into order and orbit.</p> + +<p>Thought dissolves the material universe, by carrying the mind up into a +sphere where all is plastic. Of two men,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> each obeying his own thought, he +whose thought is deepest will be the strongest character. Always one man +more than another represents the will of Divine Providence to the period.</p> + +<p>If thought makes free, so does the moral sentiment. The mixtures of +spiritual chemistry refuse to be analyzed. Yet we can see that with the +perception of truth is joined the desire that it shall prevail. That +affection is essential to will. Moreover, when a strong will appears, it +usually results from a certain unity of organization, as if the whole +energy of body and mind flowed in one direction. All great force is real +and elemental. There is no manufacturing a strong will. There must be a +pound to balance a pound. Where power is shown in will, it must rest on +the universal force. Alaric and Bonaparte must believe they rest on a +truth, or their will can be bought or bent. There is a bribe possible for +any finite will. But the pure sympathy with universal ends is an infinite +force, and cannot be bribed or bent. Whoever has had experience of the +moral sentiment cannot choose but believe in unlimited power. Each pulse +from that heart is an oath from the Most High. I know not what the word +<i>sublime</i> means, if it be not the intimations in this infant of a terrific +force. A text of heroism, a name and anecdote of courage, are not +arguments, but sallies of freedom. One of these is the verse of the +Persian Hafiz, “’Tis written on the gate of Heaven, ‘Woe unto him who +suffers himself to be betrayed by Fate!’” Does the reading of history make +us fatalists? What courage does not the opposite opinion show! A little +whim of will to be free gallantly contending against the universe of +chemistry.</p> + +<p>But insight is not will, nor is affection will. Perception is cold, and +goodness dies in wishes; as Voltaire said, ’tis the misfortune of worthy +people that they are cowards;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> “<i>un des plus grands malheurs des honnêtes +gens c’est qu’ils sont des lâches</i>.” There must be a fusion of these two +to generate the energy of will. There can be no driving force, except +through the conversion of the man into his will, making him the will, and +the will him. And one may say boldly, that no man has a right perception +of any truth, who has not been reacted on by it, so as to be ready to be +its martyr.</p> + +<p>The one serious and formidable thing in nature is a will. Society is +servile from want of will, and therefore the world wants saviours and +religions. One way is right to go: the hero sees it, and moves on that +aim, and has the world under him for root and support. He is to others as +the world. His approbation is honor; his dissent, infamy. The glance of +his eye has the force of sunbeams. A personal influence towers up in +memory only worthy, and we gladly forget numbers, money, climate, +gravitation, and the rest of Fate.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>We can afford to allow the limitation, if we know it is the meter of the +growing man. We can stand against Fate, as children stand up against the +wall in their father’s house, and notch their height from year to year. +But when the boy grows to man, and is master of the house, he pulls down +that wall, and builds a new and bigger. ’Tis only a question of time. +Every brave youth is in training to ride, and rule this dragon. His +science is to make weapons and wings of these passions and retarding +forces. Now whether, seeing these two things, fate and power, we are +permitted to believe in unity? The bulk of mankind believe in two gods. +They are under one dominion here in the house, as friend and parent, in +social circles, in letters, in art, in love, in religion: but in +mechanics, in dealing with steam and climate, in trade, in politics, they +think they come<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> under another; and that it would be a practical blunder +to transfer the method and way of working of one sphere into the other. +What good, honest, generous men at home, will be wolves and foxes on +change! What pious men in the parlor will vote for what reprobates at the +polls! To a certain point, they believe themselves the care of a +Providence. But in a steamboat, in an epidemic, in war, they believe a +malignant energy rules.</p> + +<p>But relation and connection are not somewhere and sometimes, but +everywhere and always. The divine order does not stop where their sight +stops. The friendly power works on the same rules, in the next farm and +the next planet. But where they have not experience, they run against it, +and hurt themselves. Fate, then, is a name for facts not yet passed under +the fire of thought—for causes which are unpenetrated.</p> + +<p>But every jet of chaos which threatens to exterminate us is convertible by +intellect into wholesome force. Fate is unpenetrated causes. The water +drowns ship and sailor, like a grain of dust. But learn to swim, trim your +bark, and the wave which drowned it will be cloven by it, and carry it, +like its own foam, a plume and a power. The cold is inconsiderate of +persons, tingles your blood, freezes a man like a dew-drop. But learn to +skate, and the ice will give you a graceful, sweet, and poetic motion. The +cold will brace your limbs and brain to genius, and make you foremost men +of time. Cold and sea will train an imperial Saxon race, which nature +cannot bear to lose, and, after cooping it up for a thousand years in +yonder England, gives a hundred Englands, a hundred Mexicos. All the +bloods it shall absorb and domineer: and more than Mexicos—the secrets of +water and steam, the spasms of electricity, the ductility of metals, the +chariot of the air, the ruddered balloon, are awaiting you.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>The annual slaughter from typhus far exceeds that of war; but right +drainage destroys typhus. The plague in the sea-service from scurvy is +healed by lemon juice and other diets portable or procurable; the +depopulation by cholera and small-pox is ended by drainage and +vaccination; and every other pest is not less in the chain of cause and +effect, and may be fought off. And, whilst art draws out the venom, it +commonly extorts some benefits from the vanquished enemy. The mischievous +torrent is taught to drudge for man; the wild beasts he makes useful for +food, or dress, or labor; the chemic explosions are controlled like his +watch. These are now the steeds on which he rides. Man moves in all modes, +by legs of horses, by wings of wind, by steam, by gas of balloon, by +electricity, and stands on tiptoe threatening to hunt the eagle in his own +element. There is nothing he will not make his carrier.</p> + +<p>Steam was, till the other day, the devil which we dreaded. Every pot made +by any human potter or brazier had a hole in its cover, to let off the +enemy, lest he should lift pot and roof, and carry the house away. But the +Marquis of Worcester, Watt, and Fulton bethought themselves that where was +power was not devil, but was God; that it must be availed of, and not by +any means let off and wasted. Could he lift pots and roofs and houses so +handily? he was the workman they were in search of. He could be used to +lift away, chain, and compel other devils, far more reluctant and +dangerous, namely, cubic miles of earth, mountains, weight or resistance +of water, machinery, and the labors of all men in the world; and time he +shall lengthen, and shorten space.</p> + +<p>It has not fared much otherwise with higher kinds of steam. The opinion of +the million was the terror of the world, and it was attempted, either to +dissipate it, by amusing nations, or to pile it over with strata of +society<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>—a layer of soldiers; over that, a layer of lords; and a king on +the top; with clamps and hoops of castles, garrisons, and police. But, +sometimes, the religious principle would get in, and burst the hoops, and +rive every mountain laid on top of it. The Fultons and Watts of politics, +believing in unity, saw that it was a power, and, by satisfying it (as +justice satisfies everybody), through a different disposition of +society,—grouping it on a level, instead of piling it into a +mountain,—they have contrived to make of this terror the most harmless +and energetic form of a State.</p> + +<p>Very odious, I confess, are the lessons of Fate. Who likes to have a +dapper phrenologist pronouncing on his fortunes? Who likes to believe that +he has hidden in his skull, spine, and pelvis, all the vices of a Saxon or +Celtic race, which will be sure to pull him down—with what grandeur of +hope and resolve he is fired—into a selfish, huckstering, servile, +dodging animal? A learned physician tells us, the fact is invariable with +the Neapolitan that, when mature, he assumes the forms of the unmistakable +scoundrel. That is a little overstated—but may pass.</p> + +<p>But these are magazines and arsenals. A man must thank his defects, and +stand in some terror of his talents. A transcendent talent draws so +largely on his forces, as to lame him; a defect pays him revenues on the +other side. The sufferance, which is the badge of the Jew, has made him, +in these days, the ruler of the rulers of the earth. If Fate is ore and +quarry, if evil is good in the making, if limitation is power that shall +be, if calamities, oppositions, and weights are wings and means—we are +reconciled.</p> + +<p>Fate involves the melioration. No statement of the universe can have any +soundness, which does not admit its ascending effort. The direction of the +whole, and of the parts, is toward benefit, and in proportion to the +health. Behind every individual closes organization: before him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> opens +liberty—the better, the best. The first and worst races are dead. The +second and imperfect races are dying out, or remain for the maturing of +higher. In the latest race, in man, every generosity, every new +perception, the love and praise he extorts from his fellows, are +certificates of advance out of fate into freedom. Liberation of the will +from the sheaths and clogs of organization which he has outgrown, is the +end and aim of this world. Every calamity is a spur and valuable hint; and +where his endeavors do not yet fully avail, they tell as tendency. The +whole circle of animal life,—tooth against tooth,—devouring war, war for +food, a yelp of pain and a grunt of triumph, until, at last, the whole +menagerie, the whole chemical mass, is mellowed and refined for higher +use—pleases at a sufficient perspective.</p> + +<p>But to see how fate slides into freedom, and freedom into fate, observe +how far the roots of every creature run, or find, if you can, a point +where there is no thread of connection. Our life is consentaneous and +far-related. This knot of nature is so well tied, that nobody was ever +cunning enough to find the two ends. Nature is intricate, overlapped, +inter-weaved, and endless. Christopher Wren said of the beautiful King’s +College chapel, “that, if anybody would tell him where to lay the first +stone, he would build such another.” But where shall we find the first +atom in this house of man, which is all consent, inosculation, and balance +of parts?</p> + +<p>The web of relation is shown in <i>habitat</i>, shown in hibernation. When +hibernation was observed, it was found, that, whilst some animals become +torpid in winter, others were torpid in summer: hibernation then was a +false name. The <i>long sleep</i> is not an effect of cold, but is regulated by +the supply of food proper to the animal. It becomes torpid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> when the fruit +or prey it lives on is not in season, and regains its activity when its +food is ready.</p> + +<p>Eyes are found in light; ears in auricular air; feet on land; fins in +water; wings in air; and each creature where it was meant to be, with a +mutual fitness. Every zone has its own <i>Fauna</i>. There is adjustment +between the animal and its food, its parasite, its enemy. Balances are +kept. It is not allowed to diminish in numbers, nor to exceed. The like +adjustments exist for man. His food is cooked when he arrives; his coal in +the pit; the house ventilated; the mud of the deluge dried; his companions +arrived at the same hour, and awaiting him with love, concert, laughter, +and tears. These are coarse adjustments, but the invisible are not less. +There are more belongings to every creature than his air and his food. His +instincts must be met, and he has predisposing power that bends and fits +what is near him to his use. He is not possible until the invisible things +are right for him, as well as the visible. Of what changes, then, in sky +and earth, and in finer skies and earths, does the appearance of some +Dante or Columbus apprise us!</p> + +<p>How is this effected? Nature is no spendthrift, but takes the shortest way +to her ends. As the general says to his soldiers, “If you want a fort, +build a fort,” so nature makes every creature do its own work and get its +living—is it planet, animal, or tree. The planet makes itself. The animal +cell makes itself; then, what it wants. Every creature—wren or +dragon—shall make its own lair. As soon as there is life, there is +self-direction, and absorbing and using of material. Life is freedom—life +in the direct ratio of its amount. You may be sure, the new-born man is +not inert. Life works both voluntarily and supernaturally in its +neighborhood. Do you suppose he can be estimated by his weight in pounds, +or that he is contained in his skin—this reaching, radiating, jaculating +fellow? The smallest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> candle fills a mile with its rays, and the papillæ +of a man run out to every star.</p> + +<p>When there is something to be done, the world knows how to get it done. +The vegetable eye makes leaf, pericarp, root, bark, or thorn, as the need +is; the first cell converts itself into stomach, mouth, nose, or nail, +according to the want; the world throws its life into a hero or a +shepherd, and puts him where he is wanted. Dante and Columbus were +Italians in their time: they would be Russians or Americans to-day. Things +ripen, new men come. The adaptation is not capricious. The ulterior aim, +the purpose beyond itself, the correlation by which planets subside and +crystallize, then animate beasts and men, will not stop, but will work +into finer particulars, and from finer to finest.</p> + +<p>The secret of the world is, the tie between person and event. Person makes +event and event person. The “times,” “the age,” what is that, but a few +profound persons and a few active persons who epitomize the +times?—Goethe, Hegel, Metternich, Adams, Calhoun, Guizot, Peel, Cobden, +Kossuth, Rothschild, Astor, Brunel, and the rest. The same fitness must be +presumed between a man and the time and event, as between the sexes, or +between a race of animals and the food it eats, or the inferior races it +uses. He thinks his fate alien, because the copula is hidden. But the soul +contains the event that shall befall it, for the event is only the +actualization of its thoughts; and what we pray to ourselves for is always +granted. The event is the print of your form. It fits you like your skin. +What each does is proper to him. Events are the children of his body and +mind. We learn that the soul of Fate is the soul of us, as Hafiz sings—</p> + +<p class="poem">Alas! till now I had not known,<br /> +My guide and fortune’s guide are one.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>All the toys that infatuate men, and which they play for,—houses, land, +money, luxury, power, fame,—are the self-same thing, with a new gauze or +two of illusion overlaid. And of all the drums and rattles by which men +are made willing to have their heads broke, and are led out solemnly every +morning to parade, the most admirable is this by which we are brought to +believe that events are arbitrary, and independent of actions. At the +conjurer’s we detect the hair by which he moves his puppet, but we have +not eyes sharp enough to descry the thread that ties cause and effect.</p> + +<p>Nature magically suits the man to his fortunes, by making these the fruit +of his character. Ducks take to the water, eagles to the sky, waders to +the sea margin, hunters to the forest, clerks to counting-rooms, soldiers +to the frontier. Thus events grow on the same stem with persons; are +sub-persons. The pleasure of life is according to the man that lives it, +and not according to the work or the place. Life is an ecstasy. We know +what madness belongs to love—what power to paint a vile object in hues of +heaven. As insane persons are indifferent to their dress, diet, and other +accommodations, and, as we do in dreams, with equanimity, the most absurd +acts, so, a drop more of wine in our cup of life will reconcile us to +strange company and work. Each creature puts forth from itself its own +condition and sphere, as the slug sweats out its slimy house on the +pear-leaf, and the woolly aphides on the apple perspire their own bed, and +the fish its shell. In youth, we clothe ourselves with rainbows, and go as +brave as the zodiac. In age, we put out another sort of +perspiration—gout, fever, rheumatism, caprice, doubt, fretting, and +avarice.</p> + +<p>A man’s fortunes are the fruit of his character. A man’s friends are his +magnetisms. We go to Herodotus<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> and Plutarch for examples of Fate; but we +are examples. “<i>Quisque suos patimur manes.</i>” The tendency of every man to +enact all that is in his constitution is expressed in the old belief, that +the efforts which we make to escape from our destiny only serve to lead us +into it; and I have noticed, a man likes better to be complimented on his +position, as the proof of the last or total excellence, than on his +merits.</p> + +<p>A man will see his character emitted in the events that seem to meet, but +which exude from and accompany him. Events expand with the character. As +once he found himself among toys, so now he plays a part in colossal +systems, and his growth is declared in his ambition, his companions, and +his performance. He looks like a piece of luck, but is a piece of +causation—the mosaic, angulated and ground to fit into the gap he fills. +Hence in each town there is some man who is, in his brain and performance, +an explanation of the tillage, production, factories, banks, churches, +ways of living, and society, of that town. If you do not chance to meet +him, all that you see will leave you a little puzzled: if you see him, it +will become plain. We know in Massachusetts who built New Bedford, who +built Lynn, Lowell, Lawrence, Clinton, Fitchburg, Holyoke, Portland, and +many another noisy mart. Each of these men, if they were transparent, +would seem to you not so much men, as walking cities, and, wherever you +put them, they would build one.</p> + +<p>History is the action and reaction of these two,—Nature and Thought,—two +boys pushing each other on the curbstone of the pavement. Everything is +pusher or pushed: and matter and mind are in perpetual tilt and balance +so. Whilst the man is weak, the earth takes him up. He plants his brain +and affections. By-and-by he will take up the earth, and have his gardens +and vineyards in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> beautiful order and productiveness of his thought. +Every solid in the universe is ready to become fluid on the approach of +the mind, and the power to flux it is the measure of the mind. If the wall +remain adamant, it accuses the want of thought. To a subtler force, it +will stream into new forms, expressive of the character of the mind.</p> + +<p>What is the city in which we sit here, but an aggregate of incongruous +materials, which have obeyed the will of some man? The granite was +reluctant, but his hands were stronger, and it came. Iron was deep in the +ground, and well combined with stone, but could not hide from his fires. +Wood, lime, stuffs, fruits, gums, were dispersed over the earth and sea, +in vain. Here they are, within the reach of every man’s day-labor—what he +wants of them.</p> + +<p>The whole world is the flux of matter over the wires of thought to the +poles or points where it would build. The races of men rise out of the +ground preoccupied with a thought which rules them, and divided into +parties ready armed and angry to fight for this metaphysical abstraction. +The quality of the thought differences the Egyptian and the Roman, the +Austrian and the American. The men who come on the stage at one period are +all found to be related to each other. Certain ideas are in the air. We +are all impressionable, for we are made of them; all impressionable, but +some more than others, and these first express them. This explains the +curious contemporaneousness of inventions and discoveries. The truth is in +the air, and the most impressionable brain will announce it first, but all +will announce it a few minutes later. So women, as most susceptible, are +the best index of the coming hour. So the great man, that is, the man most +imbued with the spirit of the time, is the impressionable man—of a fibre +irritable and delicate, like iodine to light. He feels the infinitesimal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> +attractions. His mind is righter than others, because he yields to a +current so feeble as can be felt only by a needle delicately poised.</p> + +<p>The correlation is shown in defects. Möller, in his “Essay on +Architecture,” taught that the building which was fitted accurately to +answer its end would turn out to be beautiful, though beauty had not been +intended. I find the like unity in human structures rather virulent and +pervasive: that a crudity in the blood will appear in the argument; a hump +in the shoulder will appear in the speech and handiwork. If his mind could +be seen, the hump would be seen. If a man has a seesaw in his voice, it +will run into his sentences, into his poem, into the structure of his +fable, into his speculation, into his charity. And, as every man is hunted +by his own dæmon, vexed by his own disease, this checks all his activity.</p> + +<p>So each man, like each plant, has his parasites. A strong, astringent, +bilious nature, has more truculent enemies than the slugs and moths that +fret my leaves. Such an one has curculios, borers, knife-worms: a swindler +ate him first, then a client, then a quack, then a smooth, plausible +gentleman, bitter and selfish as Moloch.</p> + +<p>This correlation really existing can be divined. If the threads are there, +thought can follow and show them. Especially when a soul is quick and +docile; as Chaucer sings,—</p> + +<p class="poem">Or if the soul of proper kind<br /> +Be so perfect as men find,<br /> +That it wot what is to come,<br /> +And that he warneth all and some,<br /> +Of every of their aventures,<br /> +By previsions or figures;<br /> +But that our flesh hath not might<br /> +It to understand aright,<br /> +For it is warned too darkly.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>Some people are made up of rhyme, coincidence, omen, periodicity, and +presage: they meet the person they seek: what their companion prepares to +say to them, they first say to him; and a hundred signs apprise them of +what is about to befall.</p> + +<p>Wonderful intricacy in the web, wonderful constancy in the design, this +vagabond life admits. We wonder how the fly finds its mate, and yet year +after year we find two men, two women, without legal or carnal tie, spend +a great part of their best time within a few feet of each other. And the +moral is, that what we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from +us; as Goethe said, “what we wish for in youth, comes in heaps on us in +old age,” too often cursed with the granting of our prayer; and hence the +high caution, that, since we are sure of having what we wish, we beware to +ask only for high things.</p> + +<p>One key, one solution to the mysteries of human condition, one solution to +the old knots of fate, freedom, and foreknowledge, exists, the +propounding, namely, of the double consciousness. A man must ride +alternately on the horses of his private and his public nature, as the +equestrians in the circus throw themselves nimbly from horse to horse, or +plant one foot on the back of one, and the other foot on the back of the +other. So when a man is the victim of his fate, has sciatica in his loins, +and cramp in his mind; a club-foot and a club in his wit; a sour face, and +a selfish temper; a strut in his gait, and a conceit in his affection; or +is ground to powder by the vice of his race; he is to rally on his +relation to the universe which his ruin benefits. Leaving the dæmon who +suffers, he is to take sides with the Deity who secures universal benefit +by his pain.</p> + +<p>To offset the drag of temperament and race, which pulls down, learn this +lesson—namely, that by the cunning co-presence of two elements, which is +throughout nature,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> whatever lames or paralyzes you draws in with it the +divinity, in some form, to repay. A good intention clothes itself with +sudden power. When a god wishes to ride, any chip or pebble will bud and +shoot out winged feet, and serve him for a horse.</p> + +<p>Let us build altars to the Blessed Unity which holds nature and souls in +perfect solution, and compels every atom to serve an universal end. I do +not wonder at a snow-flake, a shell, a summer landscape, or the glory of +the stars; but at the necessity of beauty under which the universe lies; +that all is and must be pictorial; that the rainbow, and the curve of the +horizon, and the arch of the blue vault, are only results from the +organism of the eye. There is no need for foolish amateurs to fetch me to +admire a garden of flowers, or a sun-gilt cloud, or a waterfall, when I +cannot look without seeing splendor and grace. How idle to choose a random +sparkle here or there, when the indwelling necessity plants the rose of +beauty on the brow of chaos, and discloses the central intention of nature +to be harmony and joy.</p> + +<p>Let us build altars to the Beautiful Necessity. If we thought men were +free in the sense that in a single exception one fantastical will could +prevail over the law of things, it were all one as if a child’s hand could +pull down the sun. If, in the least particular, one could derange the +order of nature—who would accept the gift of life?</p> + +<p>Let us build altars to the Beautiful Necessity, which secures that all is +made of one piece; that plaintiff and defendant, friend and enemy, animal +and planet, food and eater, are of one kind. In astronomy is vast space, +but no foreign system; in geology, vast time, but the same laws as to-day. +Why should we be afraid of nature, which is no other than “philosophy and +theology embodied”? Why should we fear to be crushed by savage elements, +we who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> are made up of the same elements? Let us build to the Beautiful +Necessity, which makes man brave in believing that he cannot shun a danger +that is appointed, nor incur one that is not; to the Necessity which +rudely or softly educates him to the perception that there are no +contingencies; that Law rules throughout existence, a Law which is not +intelligent but intelligence,—not personal nor impersonal,—it disdains +words and passes understanding; it dissolves persons; it vivifies nature, +yet solicits the pure in heart to draw on all its omnipotence.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p> +<h2>WALT WHITMAN</h2> + +<h3>SONG OF THE OPEN ROAD</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="xyz"> +<tr><td align="center">I</td></tr> +<tr><td>Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,<br /> +Healthy, free, the world before me,<br /> +The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.<br /> +<br /> +Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good fortune,<br /> +Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,<br /> +Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,<br /> +Strong and content I travel the open road.<br /> +<br /> +The earth, that is sufficient,<br /> +I do not want the constellations any nearer,<br /> +I know they are very well where they are,<br /> +I know they suffice for those who belong to them.<br /> +<br /> +(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,<br /> +I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,<br /> +I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,<br /> +I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">II</td></tr> +<tr><td>You road I enter upon and look around, I believe you are not all that is here,<br /> +I believe that much unseen is also here.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>Here the profound lesson of reception, nor preference nor denial,<br /> +The black with his woolly head, the felon, the diseas’d, the illiterate person,<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">are not denied;</span><br /> +The birth, the hasting after the physician, the beggar’s tramp, the drunkard’s<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">stagger, the laughing party of mechanics,</span><br /> +The escap’d youth, the rich person’s carriage, the fop, the eloping couple.<br /> +The early market-man, the hearse, the moving of furniture into the town,<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">the return back from the town,</span><br /> +They pass, I also pass, anything passes, none can be interdicted,<br /> +None but are accepted, none but shall be dear to me.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">III</td></tr> +<tr><td>You air that serves me with breath to speak!<br /> +You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give them shape!<br /> +You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers!<br /> +You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides!<br /> +I believe you are latent with unseen existences, you are so dear to me.<br /> +<br /> +You flagg’d walks of the cities! you strong curbs at the edges!<br /> +You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you timber-lin’d sides! you<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">distant ships!</span><br /> +You rows of houses! you window-pierc’d façades! you roofs!<br /> +You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards!<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much!<br /> +You doors and ascending steps! you arches!<br /> +You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings!<br /> +From all that has touch’d you I believe you have imparted to yourselves, and<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">now would impart the same secretly to me,</span><br /> +From the living and the dead you have peopled your impassive surfaces, and<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">the spirits thereof would be evident and amicable with me.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">IV</td></tr> +<tr><td>The earth expanding right hand and left hand,<br /> +The picture alive, every part in its best light,<br /> +The music falling in where it is wanted, and stopping where it is not wanted,<br /> +The cheerful voice of the public road, the gay fresh sentiment of the road.<br /> +<br /> +O highway I travel, do you say to me, <i>Do not leave me</i>?<br /> +Do you say, <i>Venture not—if you leave me you are lost</i>?<br /> +Do you say, <i>I am already prepared, I am well-beaten and undenied,</i><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>adhere to me</i>?</span><br /> +<br /> +O public road, I say back I am not afraid to leave you, yet I love you,<br /> +You express me better than I can express myself,<br /> +You shall be more to me than my poem.<br /> +<br /> +I think heroic deeds were all conceiv’d in the open air, and all free poems also,<br /> +I think I could stop here myself and do miracles,<br /> +I think whatever I shall meet on the road I shall like, and whoever beholds me<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">shall like me.</span><br /> +I think whoever I see must be happy.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>V</td></tr> +<tr><td>From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines,<br /> +Going where I list, my own master total and absolute,<br /> +Listening to others, considering well what they say,<br /> +Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,<br /> +Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.<br /> +<br /> +I inhale great draughts of space,<br /> +The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.<br /> +<br /> +I am larger, better than I thought,<br /> +I did not know I held so much goodness.<br /> +<br /> +All seems beautiful to me,<br /> +I can repeat over to men and women, You have done such good to me<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">I would do the same to you,</span><br /> +I will recruit for myself and you as I go,<br /> +I will scatter myself among men and women as I go,<br /> +I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them,<br /> +Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me,<br /> +Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">VI</td></tr> +<tr><td>Now if a thousand perfect men were to appear it would not amaze me,<br /> +Now if a thousand beautiful forms of women appear’d it would not astonish me.<br /> +<br /> +Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons,<br /> +It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span><br /> +Here a great personal deed has room<br /> +(Such a deed seizes upon the hearts of the whole race of men,<br /> +Its effusion of strength and will overwhelms law and mocks all authority and<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">all argument against it).</span><br /> +<br /> +Here is the test of wisdom,<br /> +Wisdom is not finally tested in schools,<br /> +Wisdom cannot be pass’d from one having it to another not having it,<br /> +Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof,<br /> +Applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content,<br /> +Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the excellence of<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">things;</span><br /> +Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it out of the soul.<br /> +<br /> +Now I reëxamine philosophies and religions,<br /> +They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all under the spacious<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">clouds and along the landscape and flowing currents.</span><br /> +Here is realization,<br /> +Here is a man tallied—he realizes here what he has in him,<br /> +The past, the future, majesty, love—if they are vacant of you, you are vacant<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">of them.</span><br /> +<br /> +Only the kernel of every object nourishes;<br /> +Where is he who tears off the husks for you and me?<br /> +Where is he that undoes stratagems and envelopes for you and me?<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span><br /> +Here is adhesiveness, it is not previously fashion’d, it is apropos;<br /> +Do you know what it is as you pass to be loved by strangers?<br /> +Do you know the talk of those turning eye-balls?</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">VII</td></tr> +<tr><td>Here is the efflux of the soul,<br /> +The efflux of the soul comes from within through embower’d gates, ever<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">provoking questions,</span><br /> +These yearnings why are they? these thoughts in the darkness why are they?<br /> +Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the sunlight expands<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">my blood?</span><br /> +Why when they leave me do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?<br /> +Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">descend upon me?</span><br /> +(I think they hang there winter and summer on those trees and always drop fruit<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">as I pass.)</span><br /> +What is it I <ins class="correction" title="original reads 'interchan e'">interchange</ins> so suddenly with strangers?<br /> +What with some driver as I ride on the seat by his side?<br /> +What with some fisherman drawing his seine by the shore as I walk by and<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">pause?</span><br /> +What gives me to be free to a woman’s and man’s good-will? what gives them<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">to be free to mine?</span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">VIII</td></tr> +<tr><td>The efflux of the soul is happiness, here is happiness,<br /> +I think it pervades the open air, waiting at all times,<br /> +Now it flows unto us, we are rightly charged.<br /> +<br /> +Here rises the fluid and attaching character,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>The fluid and attaching character is the freshness and sweetness of man and<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">woman</span><br /> +(The herbs of the morning sprout no fresher and sweeter every day out of the<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">roots of themselves, than it sprouts fresh and sweet continually out of itself).</span><br /> +Toward the fluid and attaching character exudes the sweat of the love of young<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">and old,</span><br /> +From it falls distill’d the charm that mocks beauty and attainments,<br /> +Toward it heaves the shuddering, longing ache of contact.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">IX</td></tr> +<tr><td>Allons! whoever you are, come travel with me!<br /> +Traveling with me you find what never tires.<br /> +<br /> +The earth never tires,<br /> +The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first, Nature is rude and<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">incomprehensible at first.</span><br /> +Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well envelop’d,<br /> +I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.<br /> +<br /> +Allons! we must not stop here,<br /> +However sweet these laid-up stores, however convenient this dwelling, we<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">cannot remain here,</span><br /> +However shelter’d this port and however calm these waters we must not anchor<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">here,</span><br /> +However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us we are permitted to receive it<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">but a little while.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">X</td></tr> +<tr><td>Allons! the inducements shall be greater,<br /> +We will sail pathless and wild seas,<br /> +We will go where winds blow, waves dash, and the Yankee clipper speeds by<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">under full sail.</span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span><br /> +Allons! with power, liberty, the earth, the elements,<br /> +Health, defiance, gayety, self-esteem, curiosity;<br /> +Allons! from all formules!<br /> +From your formules, O bat-eyed and materialistic priests.<br /> +<br /> +The stale cadaver blocks up the passage—the burial waits no longer.<br /> +<br /> +Allons! yet take warning!<br /> +He traveling with me needs the best blood, thews, endurance,<br /> +None may come to the trial till he or she bring courage and health,<br /> +Come not here if you have already spent the best of yourself,<br /> +Only those may come who come in sweet and determin’d bodies,<br /> +No diseas’d person, no rum-drinker or venereal taint is permitted here.<br /> +(I and mine do not convince by arguments, similes, rhymes,<br /> +We convince by our presence.)</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XI</td></tr> +<tr><td>Listen! I will be honest with you,<br /> +I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes,<br /> +These are the days that must happen to you:<br /> +You shall not heap up what is call’d riches,<br /> +You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve,<br /> +You but arrive at the city to which you were destin’d,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> you hardly settle yourself<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"> to satisfaction before you are call’d by an irresistible call to depart,</span><br /> +You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of those who remain<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">behind you,</span><br /> +What beckonings of love you receive you shall only answer with passionate<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">kisses of parting,</span><br /> +You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their reach’d hands toward you.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XII</td></tr> +<tr><td>Allons! after the great Companions, and to belong to them!<br /> +They too are on the road—they are the swift and majestic men—they are the<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">greatest women,</span><br /> +Enjoyers of calms of seas and storms of seas,<br /> +Sailors of many a ship, walkers of many a mile of land,<br /> +Habitués of many distant countries, habitués of far-distant dwellings,<br /> +Trusters of men and women, observers of cities, solitary toilers,<br /> +Pausers and contemplators of tufts, blossoms, shells of the shore,<br /> +Dancers at wedding-dances, kissers of brides, tender helpers of children,<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">bearers of children,</span><br /> +Soldiers of revolts, standers by gaping graves, lowerers-down of coffins,<br /> +Journeyers over consecutive seasons, over the years, the curious years each<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">emerging from that which preceded it,</span><br /> +Journeyers as with companions, namely their own diverse phases,<br /> +Forth-steppers from the latent unrealized baby-days,<br /> +Journeyers gayly with their own youth, journeyers with their bearded and<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">well-grain’d manhood,</span><br /> +Journeyers with their womanhood, ample, unsurpass’d, content,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>Journeyers with their own sublime old age of manhood or womanhood,<br /> +Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe,<br /> +Old age, flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XIII</td></tr> +<tr><td>Allons! to that which is endless as it was beginningless,<br /> +To undergo much, tramps of days, rests of nights,<br /> +To merge all in the travel they tend to, and the days and nights they tend to,<br /> +Again to merge them in the start of superior journeys,<br /> +To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and pass it,<br /> +To conceive no time, however distant, but what you may reach it and pass it,<br /> +To look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for you, however long but<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">it stretches and waits for you,</span><br /> +To see no being, not God’s or any, but you also go thither,<br /> +To see no possession but you may possess it, enjoying all without labor or<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">purchase, abstracting the feast yet not abstracting one particle of it,</span><br /> +To take the best of the farmer’s farm and the rich man’s elegant villa, and the<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">chaste blessings of the well-married couple, and the fruits of orchards</span><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">and flowers of gardens,</span><br /> +To take to your use out of the compact cities as you pass through,<br /> +To carry buildings and streets with you afterward where-ever you go,<br /> +To gather the minds of men out of their brains as you encounter them, to gather<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">the love out of their hearts,</span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>To take your lovers on the road with you, for all that you leave them behind you,<br /> +To know the universe itself as a road, as many roads, as roads for traveling souls.<br /> +<br /> +All parts away for the progress of souls,<br /> +All religion, all solid things, arts, governments—all that was or is apparent upon<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">this globe or any globe, falls +into niches and corners before the procession</span><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">of souls along the grand roads of the universe.</span><br /> +<br /> +Of the progress of the souls of men and women along the grand roads of the<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">universe, all other progress is the needed emblem and sustenance.</span><br /> +<br /> +Forever alive, forever forward,<br /> +Stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, baffled, mad, turbulent, feeble, dissatisfied,<br /> +Desperate, proud, fond, sick, accepted by men, rejected by men,<br /> +They go! they go! I know that they go, but I know not where they go,<br /> +But I know that they go toward the best—toward something great.<br /> +<br /> +Whoever you are, come forth! or man or woman come forth!<br /> +You must not stay sleeping and dallying there in the house, though you built it,<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">or though it has been built for you.</span><br /> +Out of the dark confinement! out from behind the screen!<br /> +It is useless to protest, I know all and expose it.<br /> +<br /> +Behold through you as bad as the rest,<br /> +Through the laughter, dancing, dining, supping of people,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>Inside of dresses and ornaments, inside of those wash’d and trimm’d faces,<br /> +Behold a secret silent loathing and despair.<br /> +<br /> +No husband, no wife, no friend, trusted to hear the confession,<br /> +Another self, a duplicate of every one, skulking and hiding it goes,<br /> +Formless and wordless through the streets of the cities, polite and bland in the<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">parlors,</span><br /> +In the cars of railroads, in steamboats, in the public assembly,<br /> +Home to the houses of men and women, at the table, in the bedroom,<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">everywhere,</span><br /> +Smartly attired, countenance smiling, form upright, death under the breast-bones,<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">hell under the skull-bones,</span><br /> +Under the broadcloth and gloves, under the ribbons and artificial flowers,<br /> +Keeping fair with the customs, speaking not a syllable of itself,<br /> +Speaking of anything else but never of itself.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XIV</td></tr> +<tr><td>Allons! through struggles and wars!<br /> +The goal that was named cannot be countermanded.<br /> +<br /> +Have the past struggles succeeded?<br /> +What has succeeded? yourself? your nation? Nature?<br /> +Now understand me well—it is provided in the essence of things that from any<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth something to make a</span><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">greater struggle necessary.</span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span><br /> +My call is the call of battle, I nourish active rebellion,<br /> +He going with me must go well arm’d,<br /> +He going with me goes often with spare diet, poverty, angry enemies, desertions.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">XV</td></tr> +<tr><td>Allons! the road is before us!<br /> +It is safe—I have tried it—my own feet have tried it well—be not detain’d!<br /> +Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopen’d!<br /> +Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn’d!<br /> +Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!<br /> +Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the court, and the<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">judge expound the law.</span><br /> +<br /> +Camerado, I give you my hand!<br /> +I give you my love more precious than money,<br /> +I give you myself before preaching or law;<br /> +Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?<br /> +Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?</td></tr></table> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h3>CROSSING BROOKLYN FERRY</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="xyz"> +<tr><td align="center">I</td></tr> +<tr><td>Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face!<br /> +Clouds of the west—sun there half an hour high—I see you also face to face.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">to me!</span><br /> +On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">more curious to me than you suppose,</span><br /> +And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">more in my meditations, than you might suppose.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">II</td></tr> +<tr><td>The impalpable sustenance of me from all things at all hours of the day,<br /> +The simple, compact, well-join’d scheme, myself disintegrated, everyone<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">disintegrated yet part of the scheme,</span><br /> +The similitudes of the past and those of the future,<br /> +The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings, on the walk in<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">the street and the passage over the river,</span><br /> +The current rushing so swiftly and swimming with me far away,<br /> +The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them,<br /> +The certainty of others, the life, love, sight, hearing of others.<br /> +Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross from shore to shore,<br /> +Others will watch the run of the flood-tide,<br /> +Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights of<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Brooklyn to the south and east,</span><br /> +Others will see the islands large and small;<br /> +Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high,<br /> +A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">them,</span><br /> +Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the falling-back to the sea<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">of the ebb-tide.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span>III</td></tr> +<tr><td>It avails not, time nor place—distance avails not,<br /> +I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">hence,</span><br /> +Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt,<br /> +Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd,<br /> +Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">refresh’d,</span><br /> +Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood yet<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">was hurried,</span><br /> +Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the thick-stemm’d pipes<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">of steamboats, I look’d.</span><br /> +<br /> +I too many and many a time cross’d the river of old,<br /> +Watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls, saw them high in the air floating with<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">motionless wings, oscillating their bodies,</span><br /> +Saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies and left the rest in strong<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">shadow,</span><br /> +Saw the slow-wheeling circles and the gradual edging toward the south,<br /> +Saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water,<br /> +Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams,<br /> +Look’d at the fine centrifugal spokes of light round the shape of my head in the<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">sunlit water,</span><br /> +Look’d on the haze on the hills southward and south-westward,<br /> +Look’d on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet,<br /> +Look’d toward the lower bay to notice the vessels arriving,<br /> +Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me,<br /> +Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops, saw the ships at anchor,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>The sailors at work in the rigging or out astride the spars,<br /> +The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender serpentine<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">pennants,</span><br /> +The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their pilot-houses,<br /> +The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of the wheels,<br /> +The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sunset,<br /> +The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the frolicsome crests<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">and glistening,</span><br /> +The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the gray walls of the granite<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">storehouses by the docks,</span><br /> +On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flank’d on each side<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">by the barges, the hay-boat, the belated lighter,</span><br /> +On the neighboring shore the fires from the foundry chimneys burning high and<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">glaringly into the night,</span><br /> +Casting their flicker of black contrasted with wild red and yellow light over the<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">tops of houses, and down into the clefts of streets.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">IV</td></tr> +<tr><td>These and all else were to me the same as they are to you,<br /> +I loved well those cities, loved well the stately and rapid river,<br /> +The men and women I saw were all near to me,<br /> +Others the same—others who look back on me because I look’d forward<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">to them</span><br /> +(The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night).</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">V</td></tr> +<tr><td>What is it then between us?<br /> +What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span><br /> +Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not,<br /> +I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine,<br /> +I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan Island, and bathed in the waters around it,<br /> +I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me,<br /> +In the day among crowds of people sometimes they came upon me,<br /> +In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my bed they came upon me,<br /> +I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution,<br /> +I too had receiv’d identity by my body,<br /> +That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be<br /> +I knew I should be of my body.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">VI</td></tr> +<tr><td>It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,<br /> +The dark threw its patches down upon me also,<br /> +The best I had done seem’d to me blank and suspicious,<br /> +My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre?<br /> +Nor is it you alone who know what it is to be evil,<br /> +I am he who knew what it was to be evil,<br /> +I too knitted the old knot of contrariety,<br /> +Blabb’d, blush’d, resented, lied, stole, grudg’d,<br /> +Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak,<br /> +Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant,<br /> +The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me,<br /> +The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not wanting,<br /> +Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these wanting,<br /> +Was one with the rest, the days and haps of the rest,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>Was call’d by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as they saw<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">me approaching or passing,</span><br /> +Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of their flesh against<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">me as I sat,</span><br /> +Saw many I lov’d in the street or ferry-boat or public assembly, yet never told<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">them a word,</span><br /> +Liv’d the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing, sleeping,<br /> +Play’d the part that still looks back on the actor or actress,<br /> +The same old rôle, the rôle that is what we make it, as great as we like,<br /> +Or as small as we like, or both great and small.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">VII</td></tr> +<tr><td>Closer yet I approach you,<br /> +What thought you have of me now, I had as much of you—I laid in my stores in<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">advance,</span><br /> +I consider’d long and seriously of you before you were born.<br /> +<br /> +Who was to know what should come home to me?<br /> +Who knows but I am enjoying this?<br /> +Who knows, for all the distance, but I am as good as looking at you now, for all<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">you cannot see me?</span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">VIII</td></tr> +<tr><td>Ah, what can ever be more stately and admirable to me than mast-hemm’d<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Manhattan?</span><br /> +River and sunset and scallop-edg’d waves of flood-tide?<br /> +The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the twilight, and the belated<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">lighter?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>What gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and with voices I love<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">call me promptly and loudly by my nighest name as I approach?</span><br /> +What is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that looks in<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">my face?</span><br /> +Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you?<br /> +<br /> +We understand then, do we not?<br /> +What I promis’d without mentioning it, have you not accepted?<br /> +What the study could not teach—what the preaching could not accomplish is<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">accomplish’d, is it not?</span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">IX</td></tr> +<tr><td>Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide!<br /> +Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg’d waves!<br /> +Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor me, or the men and<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">women generations after me!</span><br /> +Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers!<br /> +Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn!<br /> +Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers!<br /> +Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution!<br /> +Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house or street or public assembly!<br /> +Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically call me by my nighest<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">name!</span><br /> +Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress!<br /> +Play the old rôle, the rôle that is great or small according as one makes it!<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be looking<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">upon you;</span><br /> +Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet haste with the<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">hasting current;</span><br /> +Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air;<br /> +Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold it till all downcast eyes<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">have time to take it from you!</span><br /> +Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or anyone’s head, in the<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">sunlit water!</span><br /> +Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sail’d schooners,<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">sloops, lighters!</span><br /> +Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lower’d at sunset!<br /> +Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at nightfall! cast red<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">and yellow light over the tops of the houses!</span><br /> +Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are,<br /> +You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul,<br /> +About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung our divinest aromas,<br /> +Thrive, cities—bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and sufficient rivers,<br /> +Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual,<br /> +Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting.<br /> +<br /> +You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers,<br /> +We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate henceforward,<br /> +Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves from us,<br /> +We use you, and do not cast you aside—we plant you permanently within us,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>We fathom you not—we love you—there is perfection in you also,<br /> +You furnish your parts toward eternity,<br /> +Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul.</td></tr></table> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h3>A SONG OF JOYS</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="joys"> +<tr><td>O to make the most jubilant song!<br /> +Full of music—full of manhood, womanhood, infancy!<br /> +Full of common employments—full of grain and trees.<br /> +<br /> +O for the voices of animals—O for the swiftness and balance of fishes!<br /> +O for the dropping of raindrops in a song!<br /> +O for the sunshine and motion of waves in a song!<br /> +<br /> +O for the joy of my spirit—it is uncaged—it darts like lightning!<br /> +It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time,<br /> +I will have thousands of globes and all time.<br /> +<br /> +O the engineer’s joys! to go with a locomotive!<br /> +To hear the hiss of steam, the merry shriek, the steam-whistle, the laughing<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">locomotive!</span><br /> +To push with resistless way and speed off in the distance.<br /> +<br /> +O the gleesome saunter over fields and hillsides!<br /> +The leaves and flowers of the commonest weeds, the moist fresh stillness of the<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">woods,</span><br /> +The exquisite smell of the earth at daybreak, and all through the forenoon.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span><br /> +O the horseman’s and horsewoman’s joys!<br /> +The saddle, the gallop, the pressure upon the seat, the cool gurgling by the ears<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">and hair.</span><br /> +<br /> +O the fireman’s joys!<br /> +I hear the alarm at dead of night,<br /> +I hear bells, shouts! I pass the crowd, I run!<br /> +The sight of the flames maddens me with pleasure.<br /> +<br /> +O the joy of the strong-brawn’d fighter, towering in the arena in perfect condition,<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">conscious of power, thirsting to meet his opponent.</span><br /> +O the joy of that vast elemental sympathy which only the human soul is capable of<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">generating and emitting in steady and limitless floods.</span><br /> +<br /> +O the mother’s joys!<br /> +The watching, the endurance, the precious love, the anguish, the patiently yielded<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">life.</span><br /> +<br /> +O the joy of increase, growth, recuperation,<br /> +The joy of soothing and pacifying, the joy of concord and harmony.<br /> +<br /> +O to go back to the place where I was born,<br /> +To hear the birds sing once more,<br /> +To ramble about the house and barn and over the fields once more,<br /> +And through the orchard and along the old lanes once more.<br /> +<br /> +O to have been brought up on bays, lagoons, creeks, or along the coast,<br /> +To continue and be employ’d there all my life,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span>The briny and damp smell, the shore, the salt weeds exposed at low water,<br /> +The work of fishermen, the work of the eel-fisher and clam-fisher;<br /> +I come with my clam-rake and spade, I come with my eel-spear.<br /> +Is the tide out? I join the group of clam-diggers on the flats,<br /> +I laugh and work with them, I joke at my work like a mettlesome young man;<br /> +In winter I take my eel-basket and eel-spear and travel out on foot on the ice—I<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">have a small axe to cut holes in the ice,</span><br /> +Behold me well-clothed going gayly or returning in the afternoon, my brood of<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">tough boys accompanying me,</span><br /> +My brood of grown and part-grown boys, who love to be with no one else so<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">well as they love to be with me.</span><br /> +<br /> +Another time in warm weather out in a boat, to lift the lobster-pots where they<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">are sunk with heavy stones (I know the buoys),</span><br /> +O the sweetness of the Fifth-month morning upon the water as I row just before<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">sunrise toward the buoys,</span><br /> +I pull the wicker pots up slantingly, the dark green lobsters are desperate with<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">their claws as I take them out, I insert wooden pegs in the joints of their</span><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">pincers,</span><br /> +I go to all the places one after another, and then row back to the shore,<br /> +There in a huge kettle of boiling water the lobsters shall be boil’d till their color<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">becomes scarlet.</span><br /> +<br /> +Another time mackerel-taking,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span>Voracious, mad for the hook, near the surface, they seem to fill the water for<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">miles;</span><br /> +Another time fishing for rock-fish in Chesapeake bay, I one of the brown-faced<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">crew;</span><br /> +Another time trailing for blue-fish off Paumanok, I stand with braced body,<br /> +My left foot is on the gunwale, my right arm throws far out the coils of slender<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">rope,</span><br /> +In sight around me the quick veering and darting of fifty skiffs, my companions.<br /> +<br /> +O boat on the rivers,<br /> +The voyage down the St. Lawrence, the superb scenery, the steamers,<br /> +The ships sailing, the Thousand Islands, the occasional timber-raft and the<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">raftsmen with long-reaching sweep-oars,</span><br /> +The little huts on the rafts, and the stream of smoke when they cook supper at<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">evening.</span><br /> +<br /> +(O something pernicious and dread!<br /> +Something far away from a puny and pious life!<br /> +Something unproved! something in a trance!<br /> +Something escaped from the anchorage and driving free.)<br /> +<br /> +O to work in mines, or forging iron,<br /> +Foundry casting, the foundry itself, the rude high roof, the ample and shadow’d<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">space,</span><br /> +The furnace, the hot liquid pour’d out and running.<br /> +<br /> +O to resume the joys of the soldier!<br /> +To feel the presence of a brave commanding officer—to feel his sympathy!<br /> +To behold his calmness—to be warm’d in the rays of his smile!<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>To go to battle—to hear the bugles play and the drums beat!<br /> +To hear the crash of artillery—to see the glittering of the bayonets and<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">musket-barrels in the sun!</span><br /> +To see men fall and die and not complain!<br /> +To taste the savage taste of blood—to be so devilish!<br /> +To gloat so over the wounds and deaths of the enemy.<br /> +<br /> +O the whaleman’s joys! O I cruise my old cruise again!<br /> +I feel the ship’s motion under me, I feel the Atlantic breezes fanning me,<br /> +I hear the cry again sent down from the mast-head, <i>There—she blows!</i><br /> +Again I spring up the rigging to look with the rest—we descend, wild with<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">excitement,</span><br /> +I leap in the lower’d boat, we row toward our prey where he lies,<br /> +We approach stealthy and silent, I see the mountainous mass, lethargic, basking,<br /> +I see the harpooneer standing up, I see the weapon dart from his vigorous arm;<br /> +O swift again far out in the ocean the wounded whale, settling, running to<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">windward, tows me,</span><br /> +Again I see him rise to breathe, we now close again,<br /> +I see a lance driven through his side, press’d deep, turn’d in the wound,<br /> +Again we back off, I see him settle again, the life is leaving him fast,<br /> +As he rises he spouts blood, I see him swim in circles narrower and narrower,<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">swiftly cutting the water—I see him die,</span><br /> +He gives one convulsive leap in the centre of the circle, and then falls flat and still<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">in the bloody foam.</span><br /> +<br /> +O the old manhood of me, my noblest joy of all!<br /> +My children and grand-children, my white hair and beard,<br /> +My largeness, calmness, majesty, out of the long stretch of my life.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span><br /> +O ripen’d joy of womanhood! O happiness at last!<br /> +I am more than eighty years of age, I am the most venerable mother,<br /> +How clear is my mind—how all people draw nigh to me!<br /> +What attractions are these beyond any before? what bloom more than the bloom<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">of youth?</span><br /> +What beauty is this that descends upon me and rises out of me?<br /> +<br /> +O the orator’s joys!<br /> +To inflate the chest, to roll the thunder of the voice out from the ribs and throat,<br /> +To make the people rage, weep, hate, desire, with yourself,<br /> +To lead America—to quell America with a great tongue.<br /> +<br /> +O the joy of my soul leaning pois’d on itself, receiving identity through materials<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">and loving them, observing characters and absorbing them,</span><br /> +My soul vibrated back to me from them, from sight, hearing, touch, reason,<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">articulation, comparison, memory, and the like,</span><br /> +The real life of my senses and flesh transcending my senses and flesh,<br /> +My body done with materials, my sight done with my material eyes,<br /> +Proved to me this day beyond cavil that it is not my material eyes which finally<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">see,</span><br /> +Nor my material body which finally loves, walks, laughs, shouts, embraces,<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">procreates.</span><br /> +<br /> +O the farmer’s joys!<br /> +Ohioan’s, Illinoisian’s, Wisconsinese’, Kanadian’s, Iowan’s, Kansian’s,<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Missourian’s, Oregonese’ joys!</span><br /> +To rise at peep of day and pass forth nimbly to work,<br /> +To plough land in the fall for winter-sown crops,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span>To plough land in the spring for maize,<br /> +To train orchards, to graft the trees, to gather apples in the fall.<br /> +<br /> +O to bathe in the swimming-bath, or in a good place along shore,<br /> +To splash the water! to walk ankle-deep, or race naked along the shore.<br /> +<br /> +O to realize space!<br /> +The plenteousness of all, that there are no bounds,<br /> +To emerge and be of the sky, of the sun and moon and flying clouds, as one with<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">them.</span><br /> +<br /> +O the joy of a manly self-hood!<br /> +To be servile to none, to defer to none, not to any tyrant known or unknown,<br /> +To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic,<br /> +To look with calm gaze or with a flashing eye,<br /> +To speak with a full and sonorous voice out of a broad chest,<br /> +To confront with your personality all the other personalities of the earth.<br /> +<br /> +Know’st thou the excellent joys of youth?<br /> +Joys of the dear companions and of the merry word and laughing face?<br /> +Joy of the glad light-beaming day, joy of the wide-breath’d games?<br /> +Joy of sweet music, joy of the lighted ball-room and the dancers?<br /> +Joy of the plenteous dinner, strong carouse, and drinking?<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span><br /> +Yet O my soul supreme!<br /> +Know’st thou the joys of pensive thought?<br /> +Joys of the free and lonesome heart, the tender, gloomy heart?<br /> +Joys of the solitary walk, the spirit bow’d yet proud, the suffering and the<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">struggle?</span><br /> +The agonistic throes, the ecstasies, joys of the solemn musings day or night?<br /> +Joys of the thought of Death, the great spheres, Time and Space?<br /> +Prophetic joys of better, loftier love’s ideals, the divine wife, the sweet, eternal,<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">perfect comrade?</span><br /> +Joys all thine own, undying one, joys worthy thee, O soul?<br /> +<br /> +O while I live to be the ruler of life, not a slave,<br /> +To meet life as a powerful conqueror,<br /> +No fumes, no ennui, no more complaints or scornful criticisms,<br /> +To these proud laws of the air, the water and the ground, proving my interior soul<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">impregnable,</span><br /> +And nothing exterior shall ever take command of me.<br /> +<br /> +For not life’s joys alone I sing, repeating—the joy of death!<br /> +The beautiful touch of Death, soothing and benumbing a few moments, for<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">reasons,</span><br /> +Myself discharging my excrementitious body to be burn’d, or render’d to<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">powder, or buried,</span><br /> +My real body doubtless left to me for other spheres,<br /> +My voided body nothing more to me, returning to the purifications, further offices,<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">eternal uses of the earth.</span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span><br /> +O to attract by more than attraction!<br /> +How it is I know not—yet behold! the something which obeys none of the rest,<br /> +It is offensive, never defensive—yet how magnetic it draws.<br /> +<br /> +O to struggle against great odds, to meet enemies undaunted!<br /> +To be entirely alone with them, to find how much one can stand!<br /> +To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, face to face!<br /> +To mount the scaffold, to advance to the muzzles of guns with perfect<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">nonchalance!</span><br /> +To be indeed a God!<br /> +<br /> +O to sail to sea in a ship!<br /> +To leave this steady unendurable land,<br /> +To leave the tiresome sameness of the streets, the sidewalks and the houses,<br /> +To leave you, O you solid motionless land, and entering a ship,<br /> +To sail and sail and sail!<br /> +<br /> +O to have life henceforth a poem of new joys!<br /> +To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on!<br /> +To be a sailor of the world bound for all ports,<br /> +A ship itself (see indeed these sails I spread to the sun and air),<br /> +A swift and swelling ship full of rich words, full of joys.</td></tr></table> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="adverts"><div class="adbox"> +<h3>THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY<br /> +AND<br /> +ITS VALUE TO TEACHERS<br /> +OF ENGLISH</h3> +<p> </p> +<p class="center">Used in place of the formal textbook<br />it exerts a powerful influence in<br /> +stimulating and broadening<br />classroom progress.</p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>Send for circular giving full details<br />and special rates</i></p> +<p> </p> +<h4>THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY<br />8 Arlington Street<br />BOSTON (17), MASSACHUSETTS</h4> +</div></div> +<p> </p><p> </p> + +<div class="adverts"><div class="adbox"> +<h3>SOME FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS<br /> +FROM THE<br />ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS</h3> +<p> </p> +<p>STORY, ESSAY, AND VERSE</p> +<p class="dent"><i>Edited by Charles Swain Thomas, of the Editorial Department of the +Atlantic Monthly Press, and Harry G. Paul, of the University of Illinois.</i></p> + +<p class="dent">An anthology from the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, designed for colleges and senior +high schools. Here are exhilarating tales that will hold every student’s +interest, essays and poems of vigor and delicacy—the whole a collection +that is “literature” in the fine old sense of the word, and “all <i>right</i>” +in the vernacular of the wide-awake youth of to-day.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p>YOUTH AND THE NEW WORLD</p> + +<p class="dent"><i>An anthology of “Atlantic Monthly” articles collected and edited for +colleges and senior high schools by Ralph P. Boas of the Central High +School, Springfield, Massachusetts.</i></p> + +<p class="dent">Now, as perhaps seldom before, it is vital to society that young people +should face and think through the demands of their day. This collection of +personal reactions to economic, social, educational, and religious +problems challenges attention, arouses steady interest in definite +problems, and starts young minds on their necessary quest of logical and +constructive ideas. It will make classroom discussion enthusiastic and +incisive and will keenly stimulate the student’s powers in oral and +written composition.</p> +</div></div> +<p> </p><p> </p> + +<div class="adverts"><div class="adbox"> +<p>THE ATLANTIC BOOK OF MODERN PLAYS</p> + +<p class="dent"><i>Edited by Sterling A. Leonard of the University of Wisconsin.</i></p> + +<p class="dent">For colleges, senior high schools, and the general reader; with notes for +school use and an introduction helpful to anyone interested in the study +of dramatic technique.</p> + +<p class="dent">The best of modern drama is represented in this carefully selected volume. +The names of Dunsany, Yeats, Synge, Lady Gregory, Galsworthy indicate +somewhat the consistent merit of the collection and the certain stimulus +of the chosen plays.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p>ATLANTIC USAGE</p> + +<p class="dent"><i>By <ins class="correction" title="original reads 'Geoge'">George</ins> B. Ives</i></p> + +<p class="dent">A practical guide to the best usage in matters of punctuation, spelling, +syllabification, and other technical points in the preparation of +manuscripts and of magazines and books. It is based upon the traditions of +the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i> and the experience of the author, through whose +hands the copy and proof of the magazine have passed for the last +seventeen years.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p>SHACKLED YOUTH</p> + +<p class="dent"><i>By Edward Yeomans</i></p> + +<p class="dent">Readers of the <i>Atlantic</i> will recall the stimulating articles on +<i>History</i>, <i>Geography</i>, and <i>The School Shop</i>, by Edward Yeomans, a +Chicago manufacturer. To these he has added other papers, dealing in a +liberal spirit with various aspects of American education. They are +certain to arouse wide and fruitful discussion.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>(<i>Prices to be announced later</i>)</b></p></div></div> +<p> </p><p> </p> + +<div class="adverts"><div class="adbox"> +<h3>ATLANTIC READINGS</h3> +<p> </p> + +<p>Teachers everywhere are cordially welcoming our series of <i>Atlantic +Readings</i>; for material not otherwise available is here published for +classroom use in convenient and inexpensive form. In most cases the +selections reprinted have been suggested by teachers in schools and +colleges where a need for a particular essay or story has been urgently +felt. Supplied for one institution, the reprint has created an immediate +market elsewhere.</p> + +<p>The Atlantic Monthly Press most warmly invites conference and +correspondence that will suggest additions to this growing list. It is of +course apparent from the titles below that the material is chosen only in +part from the files of the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>.</p> + +<p>The titles already published follow:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="titles"> +<tr><td>1. THE LIE</td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">By Mary Antin</td><td align="right">15c</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>2. RUGGS—R.O.T.C.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">By William Addleman Ganoe</td><td align="right">15c</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>3. JUNGLE NIGHT</td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">By William Beebe</td><td align="right">15c</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>4. AN ENGLISHWOMAN’S MESSAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">By Mrs. A. Burnett-Smith</td><td align="right">15c</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>5. A FATHER TO HIS FRESHMAN SON</td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">By Edward Sanford Martin</td><td align="right">15c</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>6. A PORT SAID MISCELLANY</td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">By William McFee</td><td align="right">15c</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>7. EDUCATION: <span class="smcap">The Mastery of the Arts of Life</span></td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">By Arthur E. Morgan</td><td align="right">15c</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>8. INTENSIVE LIVING</td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">By Cornelia A. P. Comer</td><td align="right">15c</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>9. THE PRELIMINARIES</td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">By Cornelia A. P. Comer</td><td align="right">15c</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>10. THE MORAL EQUIVALENT OF WAR</td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">By William James</td><td align="right">15c</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>11. THE STUDY OF POETRY</td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">By Matthew Arnold</td><td align="right">15c</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>12. BOOKS</td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">By Arthur C. Benson</td><td align="right">15c</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>13. ON COMPOSITION</td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">By Lafcadio Hearn</td><td align="right">15c</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>14. THE BASIC PROBLEM OF DEMOCRACY</td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">By Walter Lippmann</td><td align="right">15c</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>15. THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH</td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">By Henry Cabot Lodge</td><td align="right">25c</td></tr></table> +</div></div> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><b>Footnotes:</b></p> + +<p><a name="f1" id="f1" href="#f1.1">[1]</a> Reprinted by permission of the Macmillan Company.</p> + +<p><a name="f2" id="f2" href="#f2.1">[2]</a> Abridged from the President’s address at the Dover meeting of the +British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1899.</p> + +<p><a name="f3" id="f3" href="#f3.1">[3]</a> Some may already know that there is at least a third thing, argon.</p> + +<p><a name="f4" id="f4" href="#f4.1">[4]</a> Without phosphorus, no thought.</p> + +<p><a name="f5" id="f5" href="#f5.1">[5]</a> From <i>The Idea of a University</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="f6" id="f6" href="#f6.1">[6]</a> From Macaulay’s essay on Von Ranke’s <i>History of the Popes</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="f7" id="f7" href="#f7.1">[7]</a> Reprinted by permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons.</p> + +<p><a name="f8" id="f8" href="#f8.1">[8]</a> The third lecture in <i>Sesame and Lilies</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="f9" id="f9" href="#f9.1">[9]</a> That no reference should be made to religious questions.</p> + +<p><a name="f10" id="f10" href="#f10.1">[10]</a> I have sometimes been asked what this means. I intended it to set +forth the wisdom of men in war contending for kingdoms, and what follows +to set forth their wisdom in peace, contending for wealth.</p> + +<p><a name="f11" id="f11" href="#f11.1">[11]</a> The translator of Marcus Aurelius whom Arnold quotes.</p> + +<p><a name="f12" id="f12" href="#f12.1">[12]</a> From the <i>Poetical Works</i> of George Meredith; copyright 1897, 1898, +by George Meredith; published by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Reprinted by +permission of the publishers.</p> + +<p><a name="f13" id="f13" href="#f13.1">[13]</a> Published by the Macmillan Company, and here reprinted through their +courtesy.</p> + +<p><a name="f14" id="f14" href="#f14.1">[14]</a> From <i>Society and Solitude</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="f15" id="f15" href="#f15.1">[15]</a> From <i>The Conduct of Life</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="f16" id="f16" href="#f16.1">[16]</a> From <i>The Conduct of Life</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="f17" id="f17" href="#f17.1">[17]</a> “Everything which pertains to the human species, considered as a +whole, belongs to the order of physical facts. The greater the number of +individuals, the more does the influence of the individual will disappear, +leaving predominance to a series of general facts dependent on causes by +which society exists, and is preserved.”—<span class="smcap">Quetelet.</span></p> + +<p> </p> + +<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;" cellpadding="10"> + <tr> + <td> + Transcriber's note:<br /> + <br /> + The following misprints have been corrected. They are indicated + in the text by pale underlining. If the cursor is moved over the + underlined text, the nature of the correction will be displayed.<br /> + <br /> + "testimonal" corrected to "testimonial" (page 63)<br /> + "and and" corrected to "and" (page 114)<br /> + "immage" corrected to "image" (page 127)<br /> + "they they" corrected to "they" (page 130)<br /> + "eel" corrected to "feel" (page 133)<br /> + "furtune" corrected to "fortune" (page 271)<br /> + "interchan e" corrected to "interchange" (page 305)<br /> + "Geoge" corrected to "George" (advertisements)<br /> + <br /> + Hyphenation variations have been retained from the original text. + </td> + </tr> +</table> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VOICE OF SCIENCE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 31871-h.txt or 31871-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/1/8/7/31871">http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/8/7/31871</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Voice of Science in Nineteenth-Century Literature + Representative Prose and Verse + + +Author: Various + +Editor: Robert Emmons Rogers + +Release Date: April 3, 2010 [eBook #31871] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VOICE OF SCIENCE IN +NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Lybarger, Brian Janes, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Transcriber's note: + + Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). + + Subscripted numbers are enclosed by curly brackets + (example: H{2}O). + + + + + +THE VOICE OF SCIENCE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE + + + * * * * * + + + ATLANTIC TEXTS + + _TEXTBOOKS IN LIBRARY FORM_ + + + ATLANTIC CLASSICS, _First Series_ $1.50 + + ATLANTIC CLASSICS, _Second Series_ 1.50 + + Both volumes collected and edited by ELLERY SEDGWICK, + Editor of the _Atlantic Monthly_. + + For classes in composition and current literature. + + ESSAYS AND ESSAY-WRITING 1.25 + + Collected and edited by WILLIAM M. TANNER, University of + Texas. + + For literature and composition classes. + + ATLANTIC NARRATIVES, _First Series_ 1.25 + + For college use in classes studying the short story. + + ATLANTIC NARRATIVES, _Second Series_ 1.25 + + For secondary schools. + + Both volumes collected and edited by CHARLES SWAIN THOMAS, + Editorial department of the Atlantic Monthly Press, and + Lecturer in Harvard University. + + ATLANTIC PROSE AND POETRY 1.00 + + Collected and edited by CHARLES SWAIN THOMAS and HARRY G. + PAUL of the University of Illinois. + + A literary reader for upper grammar grades and junior high + schools. + + THE PROFESSION OF JOURNALISM 1.25 + + Significant Atlantic articles on journalism collected and + edited by WILLARD G. BLEYER, University of Wisconsin. + + For use in courses in journalism. + + THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY AND ITS MAKERS 1.00 + + By M. A. DEWOLFE HOWE, Editorial department of the Atlantic + Monthly Press. + + Biographical and literary matter for the English class. + + WRITING THROUGH READING .90 + + By ROBERT M. GAY, Simmons College. + + A short course in English Composition for colleges and + schools. + + THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS: The Principle and the Practice. 2.50 + + Edited by STEPHEN P. DUGGAN, College of the City of New York. + + A basic text on international relations. + + THE LIGHT: An Educational Pageant .65 + + By CATHERINE T. BRYCE, Yale University. + + Especially suitable for public presentation at Teachers' + Conventions. + + PATRONS OF DEMOCRACY .80 + + By DALLAS LORE SHARP, Boston University. + + For classes interested in discussing democracy in our public + schools. + + AMERICANS BY ADOPTION 1.50 + + By JOSEPH HUSBAND. + + For Americanization courses. + + THE VOICE OF SCIENCE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE 2.00 + + An anthology of prose and poetry. + + Collected and edited by ROBERT E. ROGERS, Assistant + Professor of English at Massachusetts Institute of + Technology. + + With an Introduction by HENRY G. PEARSON, Head of the + English Department at Massachusetts Institute of + Technology. + + THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS + 8 ARLINGTON STREET, BOSTON (17) + + * * * * * + + +THE VOICE OF SCIENCE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE + +Representative Prose and Verse + +Selected and Arranged by + +ROBERT EMMONS ROGERS + +Assistant Professor of English in +Massachusetts Institute of Technology + +With an Introduction by Henry Greenleaf Pearson + +Head of the Department of English and History in +Massachusetts Institute of Technology + + + + + + + +The Atlantic Monthly Press +Boston + +Copyright, 1921, by +The Atlantic Monthly Press + + + + +PUBLISHER'S NOTE + + +The nucleus of this collection was a privately printed volume for the use +of the students in the sophomore course in English and History at the +Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The volume was edited by Professor +DeWitt C. Croissant, visiting professor of English at the Institute from +George Washington University, Washington, D.C. The present volume, which +contains some changes and additions, is edited by Robert E. Rogers, +assistant professor of English at the Institute, who is, therefore, +responsible for its present form. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + INTRODUCTION ix + + MATTHEW ARNOLD + _The Function of Criticism_ 1 + + SIR MICHAEL FOSTER + _The Growth of Science in the Nineteenth Century_ 22 + + THOMAS HUXLEY + _Three Hypotheses Respecting the History of Nature_ 52 + _On the Physical Basis of Life_ 69 + + JOHN TYNDALL + _Scope and Limit of Scientific Materialism_ 93 + + JOHN HENRY, CARDINAL NEWMAN + _Christianity and Physical Science_ 104 + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + _Pulvis et Umbra_ 108 + + JOHN RUSKIN + _The Mystery of Life and its Arts_ 116 + + MATTHEW ARNOLD + _Marcus Aurelius_ 146 + _Dover Beach_ 170 + _Morality_ 171 + _Self-Dependence_ 172 + + ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH + _All is Well_ 174 + _To Spend Uncounted Years of Pain_ 174 + _Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth_ 175 + + ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE + _The Garden of Proserpine_ 176 + + EDWARD FITZGERALD + _Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam_ 180 + + ROBERT BROWNING + _Rabbi Ben Ezra_ 197 + _An Epistle_ 204 + _Caliban upon Setebos_ 214 + _A Grammarian's Funeral_ 224 + _Why I am a Liberal_ 228 + _Fears and Scruples_ 229 + _Epilogue to "Asolando"_ 231 + _Prospice_ 232 + + ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON + _Wages_ 233 + _The Higher Pantheism_ 233 + _Flower in the Crannied Wall_ 234 + _In Memoriam_ 235 + _Crossing the Bar_ 239 + + GEORGE MEREDITH + _Lucifer in Starlight_ 240 + + WILLIAM E. HENLEY + _Invictus_ 241 + + THOMAS HARDY + _New Year's Eve_ 242 + + RALPH WALDO EMERSON + _Civilization_ 244 + _Illusions_ 255 + _Fate_ 268 + + WALT WHITMAN + _Song of the Open Road_ 300 + _Crossing Brooklyn Ferry_ 313 + _A Song of Joys_ 320 + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +BY HENRY GREENLEAF PEARSON + + +"The Voice of Science in Nineteenth-Century Literature" is a volume of +selections put together for use in the third term of a course in English +and History offered to the second-year students at the Massachusetts +Institute of Technology. The plan of the year's work provides for a study +of the record made in English literature by the great movements of thought +that distinguished the nineteenth century. First John Stuart Mill's essays +on "Liberty" and "Representative Government" furnish an interpretation of +the political currents of thought in the first half of the century. +Carlyle's "Past and Present," which is read in the second third of the +year, is an analysis of economic and social problems in the same period; +in the third term the profound effect of science on the thought of the age +receives illustration in the writings here brought together. + +Broadly stated, the central theme of the book is man's place in the +universe, considered in the light of the new knowledge and speculation as +to his origin and destiny which the study of science in the nineteenth +century has invoked. Some of the selections are more closely related to +this theme than are others. Between some of the selections the connection +or contrast is obvious ("Rabbi Ben Ezra" and "The Rubaiyat of Omar +Khayyam"); in others it is less immediately evident. In some cases the +background is the group of ideas roughly classed under the word +_evolution_; in others it is some characteristic phase of religious +feeling or ethical or theological thought. The contrast in outlook +between the American writers, Emerson and Whitman, and their English +contemporaries is one of which particularly valuable use may be made. The +discovery of these interrelations is what gives zest to the reading for +both parties in the classroom; for neither teacher nor students should the +work take the form of checking off selections on a minutely correlated +syllabus. The course should be pursued on the assumption that the whole is +greater than the sum of the parts: the total impression, the height gained +at the end, the inspiration of the view there disclosed--these are the +goals to be sought for. And the discerning teacher will not be surprised +that the pupil presses him so closely up the ascent. + +In reading pursued on this plan what should be emphasized on the side of +history is not the marshaling of fact, of things done, but the war of +thought in one field or another. Without being embroiled in the +controversy for this or that belief, the student examines the battleground +to learn how the battle was fought. He discovers what befell truths, +half-truths, and falsehoods, and under what circumstances of glory or +shame. He sees the period with the unity that genius always gives to a +subject; at the same time he learns how to make the correction that a +piece of contemporary interpretation inevitably requires. On the side of +literature, the student's approach is no less special and with its +appropriate reward. He sees the man of genius primarily in the setting of +his age. The personal adventures and idiosyncracies that often form so +large and so unedifying a portion of the treatment afforded in the +traditional "historical survey course" here fill a modest space in the +background; the attention is concentrated on what this leader did for the +men of his own day. These writers lived intensely in the life of their own +generation; conscious of a clearer perception of the truth and possessing +a voice that men could hear, they sought to lead their companions out of +the wilderness. It is the man of genius speaking with authority to those +of his own time who is here presented. In such a setting his voice has +still its ancient power. + + + + +THE VOICE OF SCIENCE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE + + + + +MATTHEW ARNOLD + +THE FUNCTION OF CRITICISM[1] + + +The critical power is of lower rank than the creative. True; but in +assenting to this proposition, one or two things are to be kept in mind. +It is undeniable that the exercise of a creative power, that a free +creative activity, is the true function of man; it is proved to be so by +man's finding in it his true happiness. But it is undeniable, also, that +men may have the sense of exercising this free creative activity in other +ways than in producing great works of literature or art; if it were not +so, all but a very few men would be shut out from the true happiness of +all men; they may have it in well-doing, they may have it in learning, +they may have it even in criticizing. This is one thing to be kept in +mind. Another is, that the exercise of the creative power in the +production of great works of literature or art, however high this exercise +of it may rank, is not, at all epochs, and under all conditions, possible; +and that, therefore, labor may be vainly spent in attempting it, and may +with more fruit be used in preparing for it, in rendering it possible. +This creative power works with elements, with materials; what if it has +not those materials, those elements, ready for its use? In that case it +must surely wait till they are ready. Now, in literature,--I will limit +myself to literature, for it is about literature that the question +arises,--the elements with which the creative power works are ideas; the +best ideas on every matter which literature touches, current at the time; +at any rate, we may lay it down as certain that in modern literature no +manifestation of the creative power not working with these can be very +important or fruitful. And I say _current_ at the time, not merely +accessible at the time; for creative literary genius does not principally +show itself in discovering new ideas--that is rather the business of the +philosopher; the grand work of literary genius is a work of synthesis and +exposition, not of analysis and discovery; its gift lies in the faculty of +being happily inspired by a certain intellectual and spiritual atmosphere, +by a certain order of ideas, when it finds itself in them; of dealing +divinely with these ideas, presenting them in the most effective and +attractive combinations, making beautiful works with them, in short. But +it must have the atmosphere, it must find itself amidst the order of +ideas, in order to work freely; and these it is not so easy to command. +This is why great creative epochs in literature are so rare; this is why +there is so much that is unsatisfactory in the productions of many men of +real genius; because, for the creation of a master-work of literature, two +powers must concur, the power of the man and the power of the moment, and +the man is not enough without the moment; the creative power has, for its +happy exercise, appointed elements, and those elements are not in its own +control. + +Nay, they are more within the control of the critical power. It is the +business of the critical power, as I said in the words already quoted, "in +all branches of knowledge, theology, philosophy, history, art, science, to +see the object as in itself it really is." Thus it tends, at last, to make +an intellectual situation of which the creative power can profitably avail +itself. It tends to establish an order of ideas, if not absolutely true, +yet true by comparison with that which it displaces; to make the best +ideas prevail. Presently these new ideas reach society, the touch of truth +is the touch of life, and there is a stir and growth everywhere; out of +this stir and growth come the creative epochs of literature. + +Or, to narrow our range, and quit these considerations of the general +march of genius and of society,--considerations which are apt to become +too abstract and impalpable,--everyone can see that a poet, for instance, +ought to know life and the world before dealing with them in poetry; and +life and the world being, in modern times, very complex things, the +creation of a modern poet, to be worth much, implies a great critical +effort behind it; else it would be a comparatively poor, barren, and +short-lived affair. This is why Byron's poetry had so little endurance in +it, and Goethe's so much; both had a great productive power, but Goethe's +was nourished by a great critical effort providing the true materials for +it, and Byron's was not; Goethe knew life and the world, the poet's +necessary subjects, much more comprehensively and thoroughly than Byron. +He knew a great deal more of them, and he knew them much more as they +really are. + +It has long seemed to me that the burst of creative activity in our +literature, through the first quarter of this century, had about it, in +fact, something premature; and that from this cause its productions are +doomed, most of them, in spite of the sanguine hopes which accompanied and +do still accompany them, to prove hardly more lasting than the productions +of far less splendid epochs. And this prematureness comes from its having +proceeded without having its proper data, without sufficient materials to +work with. In other words, the English poetry of the first quarter of this +century, with plenty of energy, plenty of creative force, did not know +enough. This makes Byron so empty of matter, Shelley so incoherent, +Wordsworth, even, profound as he is, yet so wanting in completeness and +variety. Wordsworth cared little for books, and disparaged Goethe. I +admire Wordsworth, as he is, so much that I cannot wish him different; and +it is vain, no doubt, to imagine such a man different from what he is, to +suppose that he could have been different; but surely the one thing +wanting to make Wordsworth an even greater poet than he is,--his thought +richer, and his influence of wider application,--was that he should have +read more books--among them, no doubt, those of that Goethe whom he +disparaged without reading him. + +But to speak of books and reading may easily lead to a misunderstanding +here. It was not really books and reading that lacked to our poetry at +this epoch; Shelley had plenty of reading, Coleridge had immense reading. +Pindar and Sophocles--as we all say so glibly, and often with so little +discernment of the real import of what we are saying--had not many books; +Shakespeare was no deep reader. True; but in the Greece of Pindar and +Sophocles, in the England of Shakespeare, the poet lived in a current of +ideas in the highest degree animating and nourishing to the creative +power; society was, in the fullest measure, permeated by fresh thought, +intelligent and alive; and this state of things is the true basis for the +creative power's exercise; in this it finds its data, its materials, truly +ready for its hand; all the books and reading in the world are only +valuable as they are helps to this. Even when this does not actually +exist, books and reading may enable a man to construct a kind of semblance +of it in his own mind, a world of knowledge and intelligence in which he +may live and work. This is by no means an equivalent to the artist for the +nationally diffused life and thought of the epochs of Sophocles or +Shakespeare; but, besides that, it may be a means of preparation for such +epochs, it does really constitute, if many share in it, a quickening and +sustaining atmosphere of great value. Such an atmosphere the many-sided +learning and the long and widely combined critical effort of Germany +formed for Goethe, when he lived and worked. There was no national glow of +life and thought there, as in the Athens of Pericles or the England of +Elizabeth. That was the poet's weakness. But there was a sort of +equivalent for it in the complete culture and unfettered thinking of a +large body of Germans. That was his strength. In the England of the first +quarter of this century there was neither a national glow of life and +thought, such as we had in the age of Elizabeth, nor yet a culture and a +force of learning and criticism such as were to be found in Germany. +Therefore the creative power of poetry wanted, for success in the highest +sense, materials and a basis; a thorough interpretation of the world was +necessarily denied to it. + +At first sight it seems strange that out of the immense stir of the French +Revolution and its age should not have come a crop of works of genius +equal to that which came out of the stir of the great productive time of +Greece, or out of that of the Renaissance, with its powerful episode, the +Reformation. But the truth is that the stir of the French Revolution took +a character which essentially distinguished it from such movements as +these. These were, in the main, disinterestedly intellectual and spiritual +movements; movements in which the human spirit looked for its satisfaction +in itself and in the increased play of its own activity; the French +Revolution took a political, practical character. This Revolution--the +object of so much blind love and so much blind hatred--found, indeed, its +motive-power in the intelligence of men, and not in their practical sense. +This is what distinguishes it from the English Revolution of Charles the +First's time; this is what makes it a more spiritual event than our +Revolution, an event of much more powerful and world-wide interest, though +practically less successful--it appeals to an order of ideas which are +universal, certain, permanent. 1789 asked of a thing, Is it rational? 1642 +asked of a thing, Is it legal? or, when it went furthest, Is it according +to conscience? This is the English fashion, a fashion to be treated, +within its own sphere, with the highest respect; for its success, within +its own sphere, has been prodigious. + +But what is law in one place is not law in another; what is law here +to-day is not law even here to-morrow; and as for conscience, what is +binding on one man's conscience is not binding on another's; the old woman +who threw her stool at the head of the surpliced minister in the Tron +Church at Edinburgh obeyed an impulse to which millions of the human race +may be permitted to remain strangers. But the prescriptions of reason are +absolute, unchanging, of universal validity; _to count by tens is the +easiest way of counting_--that is a proposition of which everyone, from +here to the Antipodes, feels the force; at least, I should say so if we +did not live in a country where it is not impossible that any morning we +may find a letter in the "Times" declaring that a decimal coinage is an +absurdity. That a whole nation should have been penetrated with an +enthusiasm for pure reason, and with an ardent zeal for making its +prescriptions triumph, is a very remarkable thing, when we consider how +little of mind, or anything so worthy and quickening as mind, comes into +the motives which alone, in general, _impel_ great masses of men. In spite +of the extravagant direction given to this enthusiasm, in spite of the +crimes and follies in which it lost itself, the French Revolution derives +from the force, truth, and universality of the ideas which it took for its +law, and from the passion with which it could inspire a multitude for +these ideas, a unique and still living power; it is--it will probably long +remain--the greatest, the most animating event in history. And as no +sincere passion for the things of the mind, even though it turn out in +many respects an unfortunate passion, is ever quite thrown away and quite +barren of good, France has reaped from hers one fruit, the natural and +legitimate fruit, though not precisely the grand fruit she expected: she +is the country in Europe where _the people_ is most alive. + +But the mania for giving an immediate political and practical application +to all these fine ideas of the reason was fatal. Here an Englishman is in +his element: on this theme we can all go for hours. And all we are in the +habit of saying on it has undoubtedly a great deal of truth. Ideas cannot +be too much prized in and for themselves, cannot be too much lived with; +but to transport them abruptly into the world of politics and practice, +violently to revolutionize this world to their bidding--that is quite +another thing. There is the world of ideas and there is the world of +practice; the French are often for suppressing the one and the English the +other; but neither is to be suppressed. A member of the House of Commons +said to me the other day: "That a thing is an anomaly, I consider to be no +objection to it whatever." I venture to think he was wrong; that a thing +is an anomaly _is_ an objection to it, but absolutely and in the sphere of +ideas; it is not necessarily, under such and such circumstances, or at +such and such a moment, an objection to it in the sphere of politics and +practice. Joubert has said beautifully: "C'est la force et le droit qui +reglent toutes choses dans le monde; la force en attendant le droit." +Force and right are the governors of this world; force till right is +ready. _Force till right is ready_; and till right is ready, force, the +existing order of things, is justified, is the legitimate ruler. But +right is something moral, and implies inward recognition, free assent of +the will; we are not ready for right,--_right_, so far as we are +concerned, _is not ready_,--until we have attained this sense of seeing it +and willing it. The way in which for us it may change and transform force, +the existing order of things, and become, in its turn, the legitimate +ruler of the world, will depend on the way in which, when our time comes, +we see it and will it. Therefore, for other people enamored of their own +newly discerned right, to attempt to impose it upon us as ours, and +violently to substitute their right for our force, is an act of tyranny, +and to be resisted. It sets at nought the second great half of our maxim, +_force till right is ready_. This was the grand error of the French +Revolution; and its movement of ideas, by quitting the intellectual sphere +and rushing furiously into the political sphere, ran, indeed, a prodigious +and memorable course, but produced no such intellectual fruit as the +movement of ideas of the Renaissance, and created, in opposition to +itself, what I may call an _epoch of concentration_. + +The great force of that epoch of concentration was England; and the great +voice of that epoch of concentration was Burke. It is the fashion to treat +Burke's writings on the French Revolution as superannuated and conquered +by the event; as the eloquent but unphilosophical tirades of bigotry and +prejudice. I will not deny that they are often disfigured by the violence +and passion of the moment, and that in some directions Burke's view was +bounded, and his observation therefore at fault; but on the whole, and for +those who can make the needful corrections, what distinguishes these +writings is their profound, permanent, fruitful, philosophical truth; they +contain the true philosophy of an epoch of concentration, dissipate the +heavy atmosphere which its own nature is apt to engender round it, and +make its resistance rational instead of mechanical. + +But Burke is so great because, almost alone in England, he brings thought +to bear upon politics, he saturates politics with thought; it is his +accident that his ideas were at the service of an epoch of concentration, +not of an epoch of expansion; it is his characteristic that he so lived by +ideas, and had such a source of them welling up within him, that he could +float even an epoch of concentration and English Tory politics with them. +It does not hurt him that Dr. Price and the Liberals were displeased with +him; it does not hurt him, even, that George the Third and the Tories were +enchanted with him. His greatness is that he lived in a world which +neither English Liberalism nor English Toryism is apt to enter--the world +of ideas, not the world of catchwords and party habits. So far is it from +being really true of him that he "to party gave up what was meant for +mankind," that at the very end of his fierce struggle with the French +Revolution, after all his invectives against its false pretensions, +hollowness, and madness, with his sincere conviction of its +mischievousness, he can close a memorandum on the best means of combating +it,--some of the last pages he ever wrote: the _Thoughts on French +Affairs_, in December, 1791,--with these striking words:-- + +"The evil is stated, in my opinion, as it exists. The remedy must be where +power, wisdom, and information, I hope, are more united with good +intentions than they can be with me. I have done with this subject, I +believe, for ever. It has given me many anxious moments for the last two +years. _If a great change is to be made in human affairs, the minds of men +will be fitted to it; the general opinions and feelings will draw that +way. Every fear, every hope will forward it; and then they who persist in +opposing this mighty current in human affairs will appear rather to +resist the decrees of Providence itself, than the mere designs of men. +They will not be resolute and firm, but perverse and obstinate._" + +That return of Burke upon himself has always seemed to me one of the +finest things in English literature, or indeed, in any literature. That is +what I call living by ideas: when one side of a question has long had your +earnest support, when all your feelings are engaged, when you hear all +round you no language but one, when your party talks this language like a +steam-engine and can imagine no other--still to be able to think, still to +be irresistibly carried, if so it be, by the current of thought to the +opposite side of the question, and, like Balaam, to be unable to speak +anything _but what the Lord has put in your mouth_. I know nothing more +striking, and I must add that I know nothing more un-English. + +For the Englishman in general is like my friend the Member of Parliament, +and believes, point-blank, that for a thing to be an anomaly is absolutely +no objection to it whatever. He is like the Lord Auckland of Burke's day, +who, in a memorandum on the French Revolution, talks of "certain +miscreants, assuming the name of philosophers, who have presumed +themselves capable of establishing a new system of society." The +Englishman has been called a political animal, and he values what is +political and practical so much that ideas easily become objects of +dislike in his eyes, and thinkers "miscreants," because ideas and thinkers +have rashly meddled with politics and practice. This would be all very +well if the dislike and neglect confined themselves to ideas transported +out of their own sphere, and meddling rashly with practice; but they are +inevitably extended to ideas as such, and to the whole life of +intelligence; practice is everything, a free play of the mind is nothing. +The notion of the free play of the mind upon all subjects being a +pleasure in itself, being an object of desire, being an essential provider +of elements without which a nation's spirit, whatever compensations it may +have for them, must, in the long run, die of inanition, hardly enters into +an Englishman's thoughts. It is noticeable that the word _curiosity_, +which in other languages is used in a good sense, to mean, as a high and +fine quality of man's nature, just this disinterested love of a free play +of the mind on all subjects, for its own sake--it is noticeable, I say, +that this word has in our language no sense of the kind, no sense but a +rather bad and disparaging one. But criticism, real criticism, is +essentially the exercise of this very quality; it obeys an instinct +prompting it to try to know the best that is known and thought in the +world, irrespectively of practice, politics, and everything of the kind; +and to value knowledge and thought as they approach this best, without the +intrusion of any other considerations whatever. This is an instinct for +which there is, I think, little original sympathy in the practical English +nature, and what there was of it has undergone a long, benumbing period of +check and suppression in the epoch of concentration which followed the +French Revolution. + +But epochs of concentration cannot well endure forever; epochs of +expansion, in the due course of things, follow them. Such an epoch of +expansion seems to be open here in England. In the first place, all danger +of a hostile forcible pressure of foreign ideas upon our practice has long +disappeared; like the traveler in the fable, therefore, we begin to wear +our cloak a little more loosely. Then, with a long peace, the ideas of +Europe steal gradually and amicably in, and mingle, though in +infinitesimally small quantities at a time, with our own notions. Then, +too, in spite of all that is said about the absorbing and brutalizing +influence of our passionate material progress, it seems to me +indisputable that this progress is likely, though not certain, to lead in +the end to an apparition of intellectual life; and that man, after he has +made himself perfectly comfortable and has now to determine what to do +with himself next, may begin to remember that he has a mind, and that the +mind may be made the source of great pleasure. I grant it is mainly the +privilege of faith, at present, to discern this end to our railways, our +business, and our fortune-making; but we shall see if, here as elsewhere, +faith is not in the end the true prophet. Our ease, our traveling, and our +unbounded liberty to hold just as hard and securely as we please to the +practice to which our notions have given birth, all tend to beget an +inclination to deal a little more freely with these notions themselves, to +canvass them a little, to penetrate a little into their real nature. +Flutterings of curiosity, in the foreign sense of the word, appear amongst +us, and it is in these that criticism must look to find its account. +Criticism first; a time of true creative activity, perhaps,--which, as I +have said, must inevitably be preceded amongst us by a time of +criticism,--hereafter, when criticism has done its work. + +It is of the last importance that English criticism should clearly discern +what rules for its course, in order to avail itself of the field now +opening to it, and to produce fruit for the future, it ought to take. The +rules may be given in one word; by being _disinterested_. And how is it to +be disinterested? By keeping aloof from practice; by resolutely following +the law of its own nature, which is to be a free play of the mind on all +subjects which it touches; by steadily refusing to lend itself to any of +those ulterior, political, practical considerations about ideas, which +plenty of people will be sure to attach to them, which perhaps ought often +to be attached to them, which in this country, at any rate, are certain to +be attached to them quite sufficiently, but which criticism has really +nothing to do with. Its business is, as I have said, simply to know the +best that is known and thought in the world, and by in its turn making +this known, to create a current of true and fresh ideas. Its business is +to do this with inflexible honesty, with due ability; but its business is +to do no more, and to leave alone all questions of practical consequences +and applications, questions which will never fail to have due prominence +given to them. Else criticism, besides being really false to its own +nature, merely continues in the old rut which it has hitherto followed in +this country, and will certainly miss the chance now given to it. For what +is at present the bane of criticism in this country? It is that practical +considerations cling to it and stifle it; it subserves interests not its +own; our organs of criticism are organs of men and parties having +practical ends to serve, and with them those practical ends are the first +thing and the play of mind the second; so much play of mind as is +compatible with the prosecution of those practical ends is all that is +wanted. + + * * * * * + +It must needs be that men should act in sects and parties, that each of +these sects and parties should have its organ, and should make this organ +subserve the interests of its action; but it would be well, too, that +there should be a criticism, not the minister of these interests, not +their enemy, but absolutely and entirely independent of them. No other +criticism will ever attain any real authority or make any real way toward +its end--the creating a current of true and fresh ideas. + +It is because criticism has so little kept in the pure intellectual +sphere, has so little detached itself from practice, has been so directly +polemical and controversial, that it has so ill accomplished, in England, +its best spiritual work; which is to keep man from a self-satisfaction +which is retarding and vulgarizing, to lead him toward perfection, by +making his mind dwell upon what is excellent in itself, and the absolute +beauty and fitness of things. A polemical practical criticism makes men +blind even to the ideal imperfection of their practice, makes them +willingly assert its ideal perfection, in order the better to secure it +against attack; and clearly this is narrowing and baneful for them. If +they were reassured on the practical side, speculative considerations of +ideal perfection they might be brought to entertain, and their spiritual +horizon would thus gradually widen.... + +It will be said that it is a very subtle and indirect action which I am +thus prescribing for criticism, and that, by embracing in this manner the +Indian virtue of detachment and abandoning the sphere of practical life, +it condemns itself to a slow and obscure work. Slow and obscure it may be, +but it is the only proper work of criticism. The mass of mankind will +never have any ardent zeal for seeing things as they are; very inadequate +ideas will always satisfy them. On these inadequate ideas reposes, and +must repose, the general practice of the world. That is as much as saying +that whoever sets himself to see things as they are will find himself one +of a very small circle; but it is only by this small circle resolutely +doing its own work that adequate ideas will ever get current at all. The +rush and roar of practical life will always have a dizzying and attracting +effect upon the most collected spectator, and tend to draw him into its +vortex; most of all will this be the case where that life is so powerful +as it is in England. But it is only by remaining collected, and refusing +to lend himself to the point of view of the practical man, that the critic +can do the practical man any service; and it is only by the greatest +sincerity in pursuing his own course, and by at last convincing even the +practical man of his sincerity, that he can escape misunderstandings which +perpetually threaten him. + +For the practical man is not apt for fine distinctions, and yet in these +distinctions truth and the highest culture greatly find their account. But +it is not easy to lead a practical man--unless you reassure him as to your +practical intentions, you have no chance of leading him--to see that a +thing which he has always been used to look at from one side only, which +he greatly values, and which, looked at from that side, more than +deserves, perhaps, all the prizing and admiring which he bestows upon +it--that this thing, looked at from another side, may appear much less +beneficent and beautiful, and yet retain all its claims to our practical +allegiance. Where shall we find language innocent enough, how shall we +make the spotless purity of our intentions evident enough, to enable us to +say to the political Englishman that the British constitution itself, +which, seen from the practical side, looks such a magnificent organ of +progress and virtue, seen from the speculative side,--with its +compromises, its love of facts, its horror of theory, its studied +avoidance of clear thoughts,--that, seen from this side, our august +constitution sometimes looks--forgive me, shade of Lord Somers!--a +colossal machine for the manufacture of Philistines? How is Cobbett to say +this and not be misunderstood, blackened as he is with the smoke of a +lifelong conflict in the field of political practice? How is Mr. Carlyle +to say it and not be misunderstood, after his furious raid into this field +with his "Latter-day Pamphlets"? How is Mr. Ruskin, after his pugnacious +political economy? I say, the critic must keep out of the region of +immediate practice in the political, social, humanitarian sphere, if he +wants to make a beginning for that more free speculative treatment of +things, which may perhaps one day make its benefits felt even in this +sphere, but in a natural and thence irresistible manner. + +Do what he will, however, the critic will still remain exposed to frequent +misunderstandings, and nowhere so much as here in England. For here people +are particularly indisposed even to comprehend that, without this free, +disinterested treatment of things, truth and the highest culture are out +of the question. So immersed are they in practical life, so accustomed to +take all their notions from this life and its processes, that they are apt +to think that truth and culture themselves can be reached by the processes +of this life, and that it is an impertinent singularity to think of +reaching them in any other way. "We are all _terrae filii_," cries their +eloquent advocate; "all Philistines together. Away with the notion of +proceeding by any other way than the way dear to the Philistines; let us +have a social movement, let us organize and combine a party to pursue +truth and new thought, let us call it _the liberal party_, and let us all +stick to each other, and back each other up. Let us have no nonsense about +independent criticism, and intellectual delicacy, and the few and the +many. Don't let us trouble ourselves about foreign thought; we shall +invent the whole thing for ourselves as we go along. If one of us speaks +well, applaud him; if one of us speaks ill, applaud him too; we are all in +the same movement, we are all liberals, we are all in pursuit of truth." +In this way the pursuit of truth becomes really a social, practical, +pleasurable affair, almost requiring a chairman, a secretary, and +advertisements; with the excitement of a little resistance, an occasional +scandal, to give the happy sense of difficulty overcome; but, in general, +plenty of bustle and very little thought. To act is so easy, as Goethe +says; to think is so hard! It is true that the critic has many +temptations to go with the stream, to make one of the party movement, one +of these _terrae filii_; it seems ungracious to refuse to be a _terrae +filius_, when so many excellent people are; but the critic's duty is to +refuse, or, if resistance is vain, at least to cry with Obermann: +_Perissons en resistant_. + + * * * * * + +What then is the duty of criticism here? To take the practical point of +view, to applaud the liberal movement and all its works ... for their +general utility's sake? By no means; but to be perpetually dissatisfied +with these works, while they perpetually fall short of a high and perfect +ideal. + +In criticism, these are elementary laws; but they never can be popular, +and in this country they have been very little followed, and one meets +with immense obstacles in following them. That is a reason for asserting +them again and again. Criticism must maintain its independence of the +practical spirit and its aims. Even with well-meant efforts of the +practical spirit, it must express dissatisfaction, if in the sphere of the +ideal they seem impoverishing and limiting. It must not hurry on to the +goal because of its practical importance. It must be patient, and know how +to wait; and flexible, and know how to attach itself to things and how to +withdraw from them. It must be apt to study and praise elements that for +the fulness of spiritual perfection are wanted, even though they belong to +a power that in the practical sphere may be maleficent. It must be apt to +discern the spiritual shortcomings or illusions of powers that in the +practical sphere may be beneficent. And this without any notion of +favoring or injuring, in the practical sphere, one power or the other; +without any notion of playing off, in this sphere, one power against the +other. When one looks, for instance, at the English Divorce Court,--an +institution which perhaps has its practical conveniences, but which in the +ideal sphere is so hideous; an institution which neither makes divorce +impossible nor makes it decent; which allows a man to get rid of his wife, +or a wife of her husband, but makes them drag one another first, for the +public edification, through a mire of unutterable infamy,--when one looks +at this charming institution, I say, with its crowded trials, its +newspaper reports, and its money compensations, this institution in which +the gross unregenerate British Philistine has indeed stamped an image of +himself, one may be permitted to find the marriage theory of Catholicism +refreshing and elevating. Or when Protestantism, in virtue of its supposed +rational and intellectual origin, gives the law to criticism too +magisterially, criticism may and must remind it that its pretensions, in +this respect, are illusive and do it harm; that the Reformation was a +moral rather than an intellectual event; that Luther's theory of grace no +more exactly reflects the mind of the spirit than Bossuet's philosophy of +history reflects it; and that there is no more antecedent probability of +the Bishop of Durham's stock of ideas being agreeable to perfect reason +than of Pope Pius the Ninth's. But criticism will not on that account +forget the achievements of Protestantism in the practical and moral +sphere; nor that, even in the intellectual sphere, Protestantism, though +in a blind and stumbling manner, carried forward the Renaissance, while +Catholicism threw itself violently across its path. + +I lately heard a man of thought and energy contrasting the want of ardor +and movement which he now found amongst young men in England with what he +remembered in his own youth, twenty years ago. "What reformers we were +then!" he exclaimed; "what a zeal we had! how we canvassed every +institution in Church and State, and were prepared to remodel them all on +first principles!" He was inclined to regret, as a spiritual flagging, the +lull that he saw. I am disposed rather to regard it as a pause in which +the turn to a new mode of spiritual progress is being accomplished. +Everything was long seen, by the young and ardent amongst us, in +inseparable connection with politics and practical life. We have pretty +well exhausted the benefits of seeing things in this connection; we have +got all that can be got by so seeing them. Let us try a more disinterested +mode of seeing them; let us betake ourselves more to the serener life of +the mind and spirit. This life, too, may have its excesses and dangers; +but they are not for us at present. Let us think of quietly enlarging our +stock of true and fresh ideas, and not, as soon as we get an idea or half +an idea, be running out with it into the street, and trying to make it +rule there. Our ideas will, in the end, shape the world all the better for +maturing a little. Perhaps in fifty years' time it will in the English +House of Commons be an objection to an institution that it is an anomaly, +and my friend the Member of Parliament will shudder in his grave. But let +us in the meanwhile rather endeavor that in twenty years' time it may, in +English literature, be an objection to a proposition that it is absurd. +That will be a change so vast, that the imagination almost fails to grasp +it. _Ab integro saeculorum nascitur ordo._ + +If I have insisted so much on the course which criticism must take where +politics and religion are concerned, it is because, where these burning +matters are in question, it is most likely to go astray. In general, its +course is determined for it by the idea which is the law of its being: the +idea of a disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is +known and thought in the world, and thus to establish a current of fresh +and true ideas. By the very nature of things, as England is not all the +world, much of the best that is known and thought in the world cannot be +of English growth, must be foreign; by the nature of things, again, it is +just this that we are least likely to know, while English thought is +streaming in upon us from all sides, and takes excellent care that we +shall not be ignorant of its existence; the English critic, therefore, +must dwell much on foreign thought, and with particular heed on any part +of it which, while significant and fruitful in itself, is for any reason +specially likely to escape him. Judging is often spoken of as the critic's +one business, and so in some sense it is; but the judgment which almost +insensibly forms itself in a fair and clear mind, along with fresh +knowledge, is the valuable one; and thus knowledge, and ever fresh +knowledge, must be the critic's great concern for himself; and it is by +communicating fresh knowledge, and letting his own judgment pass along +with it,--but insensibly, and in the second place, not the first, as a +sort of companion and clue, not as an abstract lawgiver,--that he will +generally do most good to his readers. + +Sometimes, no doubt, for the sake of establishing an author's place in +literature and his relation to a central standard,--and if this is not +done, how are we to get at our _best in the world_?--criticism may have to +deal with a subject-matter so familiar that fresh knowledge is out of the +question, and then it must be all judgment; an enunciation and detailed +application of principles. Here the great safeguard is never to let one's +self become abstract, always to retain an intimate and lively +consciousness of the truth of what one is saying, and, the moment this +fails us, to be sure that something is wrong. Still, under all +circumstances, this mere judgment and application of principles is, in +itself, not the most satisfactory work to the critic; like mathematics, +it is tautological, and cannot well give us, like fresh learning, the +sense of creative activity. To have this sense is, as I said at the +beginning, the great happiness and the great proof of being alive, and it +is not denied to criticism to have it; but then criticism must be sincere, +simple, flexible, ardent, ever widening its knowledge. Then it may have, +in no contemptible measure, a joyful sense of creative activity; a sense +which a man of insight and conscience will prefer to what he might derive +from a poor, starved, fragmentary, inadequate creation. And at some epochs +no other creation is possible. + +Still, in full measure, the sense of creative activity belongs only to +genuine creation; in literature we must never forget that. But what true +man of letters ever can forget it? It is no such common matter for a +gifted nature to come into possession of a current of true and living +ideas, and to produce amidst the inspiration of them, that we are likely +to underrate it. The epochs of Aeschylus and Shakespeare make us feel their +preeminence. In an epoch like those is, no doubt, the true life of +literature; there is the promised land, toward which criticism can only +beckon. That promised land it will not be ours to enter, and we shall die +in the wilderness; but to have desired to enter it, to have saluted it +from afar, is already, perhaps, the best distinction among contemporaries; +it will certainly be the best title to esteem with posterity. + + + + +SIR MICHAEL FOSTER + +THE GROWTH OF SCIENCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY[2] + + +The eyes of the young look ever forward; they take little heed of the +short though ever-lengthening fragment of life which lies behind them; +they are wholly bent on that which is to come. The eyes of the aged turn +wistfully again and again to the past; as the old glide down the +inevitable slope, their present becomes a living over again the life which +has gone before, and the future takes on the shape of a brief lengthening +of the past. May I this evening venture to give rein to the impulses of +advancing years? May I, at this last meeting of the association in the +eighteen hundreds, dare to dwell for a while upon the past, and to call to +mind a few of the changes which have taken place in the world since those +autumn days in which men were saying to each other that the last of the +seventeen hundreds was drawing toward its end? + +Dover, in the year of our Lord 1799, was in many ways unlike the Dover of +to-day. On moonless nights men groped their way in its narrow streets by +the help of swinging lanterns and smoky torches, for no lamps lit the +ways. By day the light of the sun struggled into the houses through narrow +panes of blurred glass. Though the town then, as now, was one of the chief +portals to and from the countries beyond the seas, the means of travel was +scanty and dear, available for the most part to the rich alone, and for +all beset with discomfort and risk. Slow and uncertain was the carriage +of goods, and the news of the world outside came to the town (though it, +from its position, learned more than most towns) tardily, fitfully, and +often falsely. The people of Dover sat then much in dimness, if not in +darkness, and lived in large measure on themselves. They who study the +phenomena of living beings tell us that light is the great stimulus of +life, and that the fullness of the life of a being or of any of its +members may be measured by the variety, the swiftness, and the certainty +of the means by which it is in touch with its surroundings. Judged from +this standpoint, life at Dover then, as indeed elsewhere, must have fallen +far short of the life of to-day. + +The same study of living beings, however, teaches us that while from one +point of view the environment seems to mould the organism, from another +point the organism seems to be master of its environment. Going behind the +change of circumstances, we may raise the question, the old question, Was +life in its essence worth more then than now? Has there been a real +advance? + +Let me at once relieve your minds by saying that I propose to leave this +question in the main unanswered. It may be, or it may not be, that man's +grasp of the beautiful and of the good, if not looser, is not firmer than +it was a hundred years ago. It may be, or it may not be, that man is no +nearer to absolute truth, to seeing things as they really are, than he was +then. I will merely ask you to consider with me for a few minutes how far +and in what ways man's laying hold of that aspect of, or part of, truth +which we call natural knowledge, or sometimes science, differed in 1799 +from what it is to-day, and whether that change must not be accounted a +real advance, a real improvement in man. + +I do not propose to weary you by what in my hands would be the rash effort +of attempting a survey of all the scientific results of the nineteenth +century. It will be enough if for a little while I dwell on some few of +the salient features distinguishing the way in which we nowadays look +upon, and during the coming week shall speak of, the works of nature +around us--though those works themselves, save for the slight shifting +involved in a secular change, remain exactly the same--from the way in +which they were looked upon and might have been spoken of at a gathering +of philosophers at Dover in 1799, and I ask your leave to do so. + +In the philosophy of the ancients earth, fire, air, and water were called +"the elements." It was thought, and rightly thought, that a knowledge of +them and of their attributes was a necessary basis of a knowledge of the +ways of nature. Translated into modern language, a knowledge of these +"elements" of old means a knowledge of the composition of the atmosphere, +of water, and of all the other things which we call matter, as well as a +knowledge of the general properties of gases, liquids, and solids, and of +the nature and effects of combustion. Of all these things our knowledge +to-day is large and exact, and, though ever enlarging, in some respects +complete. When did that knowledge begin to become exact? + +To-day the children in our schools know that the air which wraps round the +globe is not a single thing, but is made up of two things, oxygen and +nitrogen,[3] mingled together. They know, again, that water is not a +single thing, but the product of two things, oxygen and hydrogen, joined +together. They know that when the air makes the fire burn and gives the +animal life, it is the oxygen in it which does the work. They know that +all round them things are undergoing that union with oxygen which we call +oxidation, and that oxidation is the ordinary source of heat and light. +Let me ask you to picture to yourselves what confusion there would be +to-morrow, not only in the discussions at the sectional meetings of our +association, but in the world at large, if it should happen that in the +coming night some destroying touch should wither up certain tender +structures in all our brains and wipe out from our memories all traces of +the ideas which cluster in our minds around the verbal tokens, oxygen and +oxidation. How could any of us--not the so-called man of science alone, +but even the man of business and the man of pleasure--go about his ways +lacking those ideas? Yet those ideas were, in 1799, lacking to all but a +few. + +Although in the third quarter of the seventeenth century the light of +truth about oxidation and combustion had flashed out in the writings of +John Mayow, it came as a flash only, and died away as soon as it had come. +For the rest of that century, and for the greater part of the next, +philosophers stumbled about in darkness, misled for most of the time by +the phantom conception which they called phlogiston. It was not until the +end of the third quarter of the eighteenth century that the new light, +which has burned steadily ever since, lit up the minds of the men of +science. The light came at nearly the same time from England and from +France. Rounding off the sharp corners of controversy, and joining, as we +may fitly do to-day, the two countries as twin bearers of a common crown, +we may say that we owe the truth to Priestley, to Lavoisier, and to +Cavendish. If it was Priestley who was the first to demonstrate the +existence of what we now call oxygen, it is to Lavoisier that we owe the +true conception of the nature of oxidation and the clear exposition of the +full meaning of Priestley's discovery; while the knowledge of the +composition of water, the necessity complement of the knowledge of oxygen, +came to us through Cavendish and, we may perhaps add, through Watt. + +The date of Priestley's discovery of oxygen is 1774; Lavoisier's classic +memoir "On the nature of the principle which enters into combination with +metals during calcination" appeared in 1775, and Cavendish's paper on the +composition of water did not see the light until 1784. + +During the last quarter of the eighteenth century this new idea of oxygen +and oxidation was struggling into existence. How new was the idea, is +illustrated by the fact that Lavoisier himself at first spoke of that +which he was afterwards, namely, in 1778, led to call oxygen, the name by +which it has since been known, as "the principle which enters into +combination." What difficulties its acceptance met with is illustrated by +the fact that Priestley himself refused to the end of his life to grasp +the true bearings of the discovery which he had made. + +In the year 1799 the knowledge of oxygen, of the nature of water and of +air, and indeed the true conception of chemical composition and chemical +change, was hardly more than beginning to be; and the century had to pass +wholly away before the next great chemical idea, which we know by the name +of the atomic theory of John Dalton, was made known. We have only to read +the scientific literature of the time to recognize that a truth which is +now not only woven as a master-thread into all our scientific conceptions, +but even enters largely into the everyday talk and thoughts of educated +people, was, a hundred years ago, struggling into existence among the +philosophers themselves. It was all but absolutely unknown to the large +world outside those select few. + +If there be one word of science which is writ large on the life of the +present time, it is the word "electricity." It is, I take it, writ larger +than any other word. The knowledge which it denotes has carried its +practical results far and wide into our daily life, while the theoretical +conceptions which it signifies pierce deep into the nature of things. We +are to-day proud, and justly proud, both of the material triumphs and of +the intellectual gains which it has brought us, and we are full of even +larger hopes of it in the future. + +At what time did this bright child of the nineteenth century have its +birth? + +He who listened to the small group of philosophers of Dover, who in 1799 +might have discoursed of natural knowledge, would perhaps have heard much +of electric machines, of electric sparks, of the electric fluid, and even +of positive and negative electricity; for frictional electricity had long +been known and even carefully studied. Probably one or more of the group, +dwelling on the observations which Galvani, an Italian, had made known +some twenty years before, developed views on the connection of electricity +with the phenomena of living bodies. Possibly one of them was exciting the +rest by telling how he had just heard that a professor at Pavia, one +Volta, had discovered that electricity could be produced, not only by +rubbing together particular bodies, but by the simple contact of two +metals, and had thereby explained Galvani's remarkable results. For, +indeed, as we shall hear from Professor Fleming, it was in that very year, +1799, that electricity as we now know it took its birth. It was then that +Volta brought to light the apparently simple truths out of which so much +has sprung. The world, it is true, had to wait for yet some twenty years +before both the practical and theoretic worth of Volta's discovery became +truly pregnant under the fertilizing influence of another discovery. The +loadstone and its magnetic virtues had, like the electrifying power of +rubbed amber, long been an old story. But, save for the compass, not much +had come from it. And even Volta's discovery might have long remained +relatively barren had it been left to itself. When, however, in 1819, +Oersted made known his remarkable observations on the relations of +electricity to magnetism, he made the contact needed for the flow of a new +current of ideas. And it is perhaps not too much to say that those ideas, +developing during the years of the rest of the century with an +ever-accelerating swiftness, have wholly changed man's material relations +to the circumstances of life, and at the same time carried him far in his +knowledge of the nature of things. + +Of all the various branches of science, none perhaps is to-day, none for +these many years past has been, so well known to, even if not understood +by, most people as that of geology. Its practical lessons have brought +wealth to many; its fairy tales have brought delight to more; and round it +hovers the charm of danger, for the conclusions to which it leads touch on +the nature of man's beginning. + +In 1799 the science of geology, as we now know it, was struggling into +birth. There had been from of old cosmogonies, theories as to how the +world had taken shape out of primeval chaos. In that fresh spirit which +marked the zealous search after natural knowledge pursued in the middle +and latter part of the seventeenth century, the brilliant Stenson, in +Italy, and Hooke, in England, had laid hold of some of the problems +presented by fossil remains, and Woodward, with others, had labored in the +same field. In the eighteenth century, especially in its latter half, +men's minds were busy about the physical agencies determining or modifying +the features of the earth's crust; water and fire, subsidence from a +primeval ocean and transformation by outbursts of the central heat, +Neptune and Pluto were being appealed to, by Werner on the one hand and by +Demarest on the other, in explanation of the earth's phenomena. The way +was being prepared, theories and views were abundant, and many sound +observations had been made; and yet the science of geology, properly so +called, the exact and proved knowledge of the successive phases of the +world's life, may be said to date from the closing years of the eighteenth +century. + +In 1783 James Hutton put forward in a brief memoir his Theory of the +Earth, which, in 1795, two years before his death, he expanded into a +book; but his ideas failed to lay hold of men's minds until the century +had passed away, when, in 1802, they found an able expositor in John +Playfair. The very same year that Hutton published his book, Cuvier came +to Paris and almost forthwith began, with Brongniart, his immortal +researches into the fossils of Paris and its neighborhood. And four years +later, in the year 1799 itself, William Smith's tabular list of strata and +fossils saw the light. It is, I believe, not too much to say that out of +these, geology, as we now know it, sprang. + +It was thus in the closing years of the eighteenth century that was begun +the work which the nineteenth century has carried forward to such great +results; but at this time only the select few had grasped the truth, and +even they only the beginning of it. Outside a narrow circle the thoughts +even of the educated about the history of the globe were bounded by the +story of the Deluge,--though the story was often told in a strange +fashion,--or were guided by fantastic views of the plastic forces of a +sportive nature. + +In another branch of science, in that which deals with the problems +presented by living beings, the thoughts of men in 1799 were also very +different from the thoughts of men to-day. It is a very old quest, the +quest after the knowledge of the nature of living beings, one of the +earliest on which man set out; for it promised to lead him to a knowledge +of himself--a promise which perhaps is still before us, but the +fulfillment of which is yet far off. As time has gone on, the pursuit of +natural knowledge has seemed to lead man away from himself into the +furthermost parts of the universe, and into secret workings of Nature in +which he appears to be of little or no account; and his knowledge of the +nature of living things, and so of his own nature, has advanced slowly, +waiting till the progress of other branches of natural knowledge can bring +it aid. Yet in the past hundred years the biologic sciences, as we now +call them, have marched rapidly onward. + +We may look upon a living body as a machine doing work in accordance with +certain laws, and may seek to trace out the working of the inner wheels: +how these raise up the lifeless dust into living matter, and let the +living matter fall away again into dust, giving out movement and heat. Or +we may look upon the individual life as a link in a long chain, joining +something which went before to something about to come, a chain whose +beginning lies hid in the farthest past, and may seek to know the ties +which bind one life to another. As we call up to view the long series of +living forms, living now or flitting like shadows on the screen of the +past, we may strive to lay hold of the influences which fashion the +garment of life. Whether the problems of life are looked upon from the one +point of view or the other, we to-day, not biologists only, but all of us, +have gained a knowledge hidden even from the philosophers a hundred years +ago. + +Of the problems presented by the living body viewed as a machine, some may +be spoken of as mechanical, others as physical, and yet others as +chemical, while some are, apparently at least, none of these. In the +seventeenth century William Harvey, laying hold of the central mechanism +of the blood stream, opened up a path of inquiry which his own age and the +century which followed trod with marked success. The knowledge of the +mechanism of the animal and of the plant advanced apace, but the physical +and chemical problems had yet to wait. The eighteenth century, it is true, +had its physics and its chemistry; but, in relation at least to the +problems of the living being, a chemistry which knew not oxygen and a +physics which knew not the electricity of chemical action were of little +avail. The philosopher of 1799, when he discussed the functions of the +animal or of the plant involving chemical changes, was fain, for the most +part, as were his predecessors in the century before, to have recourse to +such vague terms as "fermentation" and the like; to-day our treatises on +physiology are largely made up of precise and exact expositions of the +play of physical agencies and chemical bodies in the living organisms. He +made use of the words "vital force" or "vital principle," not as an +occasional, but as a common, explanation of the phenomena of the living +body. During the present century, especially during its latter half, the +idea embodied in those words has been driven away from one seat after +another; if we use it now when we are dealing with the chemical and +physical events of life, we use it with reluctance, as a _deus ex machina_ +to be appealed to only when everything else has failed. + +Some of the problems--and those, perhaps, the chief problems--of the +living body have to be solved, neither by physical nor by chemical +methods, but by methods of their own. Such are the problems of the nervous +system. In respect to these the men of 1799 were on the threshold of a +pregnant discovery. During the latter part of this nineteenth century, +especially during its last quarter, the analysis of the mysterious +processes in the nervous system, and especially in the brain, which issue +as feeling, thought, and the power to move, has been pushed forward with a +success conspicuous in its practical, and full of promise in its +theoretical, gains. That analysis may be briefly described as a following +up of threads. We now know that what takes place along a tiny thread which +we call a nerve fibre differs from that which takes place along its fellow +threads, that differing nervous impulses travel along different nervous +fibres, and that nervous and physical events are the outcome of the +clashing of nervous impulses as they sweep along the closely woven web of +living threads of which the brain is made. We have learned by experiment +and by observation that the pattern of the web determines the play of the +impulses, and we can already explain many of the obscure problems, not +only of nervous disease, but of nervous life, by an analysis which is a +tracking out of the devious and linked path of nervous threads. The very +beginning of this analysis was unknown in 1799. Men knew that nerves were +the agents of feeling and of the movements of muscles; they had learned +much about what this part or that part of the brain could do; but they did +not know that one nerve fibre differed from another in the very essence of +its work. It was just about the end of the eighteenth century, or the +beginning of the nineteenth, that an English surgeon began to ponder over +a conception which, however, he did not make known until some years later, +and which did not gain complete demonstration and full acceptance until +still more years had passed away. It was in 1811, in a tiny pamphlet +published privately, that Charles Bell put forth his New Idea, that the +nervous system is constructed on the principle that "the nerves are not +single nerves possessing various powers, but bundles of different nerves, +whose filaments are united for the convenience of distribution, but which +are distinct in office, as they are in origin, from the brain." + +Our present knowledge of the nervous system is to a large extent only an +exemplification and expansion of Charles Bell's New Idea, and has its +origin in that. + +If we pass from the problems of the living organism viewed as a machine to +those presented by the varied features of the different creatures who have +lived or who still live on the earth, we at once call to mind that the +middle years of the nineteenth century mark an epoch in biologic thought +such as never came before; for it was then that Charles Darwin gave to the +world the "Origin of Species." + +That work, however, with all the far-reaching effects which it has had, +could have had little or no effect, or, rather, could not have come into +existence, had not the earlier half of the century been in travail +preparing for its coming. For the germinal idea of Darwin appeals, as to +witnesses, to the results of two lines of biologic investigation which +were almost unknown to the men of the eighteenth century. + +To one of these lines I have already referred. Darwin, as we know, +appealed to the geological record; and we also know how that record, +imperfect as it was then, and imperfect as it must always remain, has +since his time yielded the most striking proofs of at least one part of +his general conception. In 1799 there was, as we have seen, no geological +record at all. + +Of the other line I must say a few words. + +To-day the merest beginner in biologic study, or even that exemplar of +acquaintance without knowledge, the general reader, is aware that every +living being, even man himself, begins its independent existence as a tiny +ball, of which we can, even acknowledging to the full the limits of the +optical analysis at our command, assert with confidence that in structure, +using that word in its ordinary sense, it is in all cases absolutely +simple. It is equally well known that the features of form which supply +the characters of a grown-up living being, all the many and varied +features of even the most complex organism, are reached as the goal of a +road, at times a long road, of successive changes; that the life of every +being, from the ovum to its full estate, is a series of shifting scenes, +which come and go, sometimes changing abruptly, sometimes melting the one +into the other, like dissolving views--all so ordained that often the +final shape with which the creature seems to begin, or is said to begin, +its life in the world is the outcome of many shapes, clothed with which it +in turn has lived many lives before its seeming birth. + +All, or nearly all, the exact knowledge of the labored way in which each +living creature puts on its proper shape and structure is the heritage of +the present century. Although the way in which the chick is moulded in the +egg was not wholly unknown even to the ancients, and in later years had +been told, first in the sixteenth century by Fabricius, then in the +seventeenth century, in a more clear and striking manner, by the great +Italian naturalist, Malpighi, the teaching thus offered had been neglected +or misinterpreted. At the close of the eighteenth century the dominant +view was that in the making of a creature out of the egg there was no +putting on of wholly new parts, no epigenesis. It was taught that the +entire creature lay hidden in the egg, hidden by reason of the very +transparency of its substance; lay ready-made, but folded up, as it were; +and that the process of development within the egg or within the womb was +a mere unfolding, a simple evolution. Nor did men shrink from accepting +the logical outcome of such a view--namely, that within the unborn +creature itself lay in like manner, hidden and folded up, its offspring +also, and within that, again, its offspring in turn, after the fashion of +a cluster of ivory balls carved by Chinese hands, one within the other. + +This was no fantastic view, put forward by an imaginative dreamer; it was +seriously held by sober men, even by men like the illustrious Haller, in +spite of their recognizing that, as the chick grew in the egg, some +changes of form took place. Though so early as the middle of the +eighteenth century Friedrich Casper Wolff, and, later on, others, had +strenuously opposed such a view, it held its own, not only to the close of +the century, but far on into the next. It was not until a quarter of the +nineteenth century had been added to the past that Von Baer made known the +results of researches which once and for all swept away the old view. He +and others working after him made it clear that each individual puts on +its final form and structure, not by an unfolding of preexisting hidden +features, but by the formation of new parts through the continued +differentiation of a primitively simple material. It was also made clear +that the successive changes which the embryo undergoes in its progress +from the ovum to maturity are the expression of morphologic laws; that the +progress is one from the general to the special; and that the shifting +scenes of embryonic life are hints and tokens of lives lived by ancestors +in times long past. + +If we wish to measure how far off in biologic thought the end of the +eighteenth century stands, not only from the end, but even from the middle +of the nineteenth, we may imagine Darwin striving to write the "Origin of +Species" in 1799. We may fancy his being told by philosophers how one +group of living beings differed from another group because all its members +and all their ancestors came into existence at one stroke, when the +first-born progenitor of the race, within which all the rest were folded +up, stood forth as the result of a creative act. We may fancy him +listening to a debate between the philosopher who maintained that all the +fossils strewn in the earth were the remains of animals or plants churned +up in the turmoil of a violent universal flood, and dropped in their +places as the waters went away, and him who argued that such were not +really the "spoils of living creatures," but the products of some playful +plastic power which, out of the superabundance of its energy, fashioned +here and there the lifeless earth into forms which imitated, but only +imitated, those of living things. Could he amid such surroundings, by any +flight of genius, have beaten his way to the conception for which his name +will ever be known? + + * * * * * + +Here I may well turn away from the past. It is not my purpose, nor, as I +have said, am I fitted, nor is this perhaps the place, to tell even in +outline the tale of the work of science in the nineteenth century. I am +content to have pointed out that the two great sciences of chemistry and +geology took their birth, or at least began to stand alone, at the close +of the last century, and have grown to be what we know them now within +about a hundred years, and that the study of living beings has within the +same time been so transformed as to be to-day something wholly different +from what it was in 1799. And, indeed, to say more would be to repeat +almost the same story about other things. If our present knowledge of +electricity is essentially the child of the nineteenth century, so also is +our present knowledge of many other branches of physics. And those most +ancient forms of exact knowledge, the knowledge of numbers and of the +heavens, whose beginning is lost in the remote past, have, with all other +kinds of natural knowledge, moved onward during the whole of the hundred +years with a speed which is ever increasing. I have said, I trust, enough +to justify the statement that in respect to natural knowledge a great gulf +lies between 1799 and 1899. That gulf, moreover, is a twofold one: not +only has natural knowledge been increased, but men have run to and fro, +spreading it as they go. Not only have the few driven far back round the +full circle of natural knowledge the dark clouds of the unknown, which +wrap us all about, but also the many walk in the zone of light thus +increasingly gained. If it be true that the few to-day are, in respect to +natural knowledge, far removed from the few of those days, it is also true +that nearly all which the few alone knew then, and much which they did not +know, has now become the common knowledge of the many. + +What, however, I may venture to insist upon here is that the difference in +respect to natural knowledge, whatever be the case with other differences +between then and now, is undoubtedly a difference which means progress. +The span between the science of that time and the science of to-day is +beyond all question a great stride onward. + +We may say this, but we must say it without boasting. For the very story +of the past, which tells of the triumphs of science, bids the man of +science put away from him all thoughts of vainglory, and that by many +tokens. + +Whoever, working at any scientific problem, has occasion to study the +inquiries into the same problem by some fellow worker in the years long +gone by, comes away from that study humbled by one or other of two +different thoughts. On the one hand, he may find, when he has translated +the language of the past into the phraseology of to-day, how near was his +forerunner of old to the conception which he thought, with pride, was all +his own, not only so true but so new. On the other hand, if the ideas of +the investigator of old, viewed in the light of modern knowledge, are +found to be so wide of the mark as to seem absurd, the smile which begins +to play upon the lips of the modern is checked by the thought, Will the +ideas which I am now putting forth, and which I think explain so clearly, +so fully, the problem in hand, seem to some worker in the far future as +wrong and as fantastic as do these of my forerunner to me? In either case +his personal pride is checked. + +Further, there is written clearly on each page of the history of science, +in characters which cannot be overlooked, the lesson that no scientific +truth is born anew, coming by itself and of itself. Each new truth is +always the offspring of something which has gone before, becoming in turn +the parent of something coming after. In this aspect the man of science is +unlike, or seems to be unlike, the poet and the artist. The poet is born, +not made; he rises up, no man knowing his beginnings; when he goes away, +though men after him may sing his songs for centuries, he himself goes +away wholly, having taken with him his mantle, for this he can give to +none other. The man of science is not thus creative: he is created. His +work, however great it be, is not wholly his own: it is in part the +outcome of the work of men who have gone before. Again and again a +conception which has made a name great has come not so much by the man's +own effort as out of the fullness of time. Again and again we may read in +the words of some man of old the outlines of an idea which, in later days, +has shone forth as a great acknowledged truth. From the mouth of the man +of old the idea dropped barren, fruitless; the world was not ready for it, +and heeded it not; the concomitant and abutting truths which could give it +power to work were wanting. Coming back again in later days, the same idea +found the world awaiting it; things were in travail preparing for it, and +someone, seizing the right moment to put it forth again, leaped into fame. +It is not so much the men of science who make science, as some spirit, +which, born of the truths already won, drives the man of science onward +and uses him to win new truths in turn. + +It is because each man of science is not his own master, but one of many +obedient servants of an impulse which was at work long before him, and +will work long after him, that in science there is no falling back. In +respect to other things there may be times of darkness and times of light; +there may be risings, decadences, and revivals. In science there is only +progress. The path may not be always a straight line; there may be +swerving to this side and to that; ideas may seem to return again and +again to the same point of the intellectual compass; but it will always be +found that they have reached a higher level--they have moved, not in a +circle, but in a spiral. Moreover, science is not fashioned as is a house, +by putting brick to brick, that which is once put remaining as it was put, +to the end. The growth of science is that of a living being. As in the +embryo, phase follows phase, and each member or body puts on in succession +different appearances, though all the while the same member, so a +scientific conception of one age seems to differ from that of a following +age, though it is the same one in the process of being made; and as the +dim outlines of the early embryo become, as the being grows more distinct +and sharp, like a picture on a screen brought more and more into focus, so +the dim gropings and searchings of the men of science of old are by +repeated approximations wrought into the clear and exact conclusions of +later times. + +The story of natural knowledge, of science, in the nineteenth century, as, +indeed, in preceding centuries, is, I repeat, a story of continued +progress. There is in it not so much as a hint of falling back, not even +of standing still. What is gained by scientific inquiry is gained forever; +it may be added to, it may seem to be covered up, but it can never be +taken away. Confident that the progress will go on, we cannot help peering +into the years to come, and straining our eyes to foresee what science +will become and what it will do as they roll on. While we do so, the +thought must come to us: Will all the increasing knowledge of nature +avail only to change the ways of man; will it have no effect on man +himself? + +The material good which mankind has gained and is gaining through the +advance of science is so imposing as to be obvious to everyone, and the +praises of this aspect of science are to be found in the mouths of all. +Beyond all doubt, science has greatly lessened and has markedly narrowed +hardship and suffering; beyond all doubt, science has largely increased +and has widely diffused ease and comfort. The appliances of science have, +as it were, covered with a soft cushion the rough places of life, and that +not for the rich only, but also for the poor. So abundant and so prominent +are the material benefits of science, that in the eyes of many these seem +to be the only benefits which she brings. She is often spoken of as if she +were useful and nothing more; as if her work were only to administer to +the material wants of man. + +Is this so? We may begin to doubt it when we reflect that the triumphs of +science which bring these material advantages are in their very nature +intellectual triumphs. The increasing benefits brought by science are the +results of man's increasing mastery over nature, and that mastery is +increasingly a mastery of mind; it is an increasing power to use the +forces of what we call inanimate nature in place of the force of his own +or other creatures' bodies; it is an increasing use of mind in place of +muscle. + +Is it to be thought that that which has brought the mind so greatly into +play has had no effect on the mind itself? Is that part of the mind which +works out scientific truths a mere slavish machine, producing results it +knows not how, having no part in the good which in its workings it brings +forth? + +What are the qualities, the features, of that scientific mind which has +wrought, and is working, such great changes in man's relation to nature? +In seeking an answer to this question we have not to inquire into the +attributes of genius. Though much of the progress of science seems to take +on the form of a series of great steps, each made by some great man, the +distinction in science between the great discoverer and the humble worker +is one of degree only, not of kind. As I was urging just now, the +greatness of many great names in science is often, in large part, the +greatness of occasion, not of absolute power. The qualities which guide +one man to a small truth silently taking its place among its fellows, as +these go to make up progress, are at bottom the same as those by which +another man is led to something of which the whole world rings. + +The features of the fruitful scientific mind are, in the main, three. + +In the first place, above all other things, his nature must be one which +vibrates in unison with that of which he is in search; the seeker after +truth must himself be truthful, truthful with the truthfulness of nature. +For the truthfulness of nature is not wholly the same as that which man +sometimes calls truthfulness. It is far more imperious, far more exacting. +Man, unscientific man, is often content with the "nearly" and the +"almost." Nature never is. It is not her way to call the same two things +which differ, though the difference may be measured by less than a +thousandth of a milligramme or of a millimetre, or by any other like +standard of minuteness. And the man who, carrying the ways of the world +into the domain of science, thinks that he may treat nature's differences +in any other way than she treats them herself, will find that she resents +his conduct; if he, in carelessness or in disdain, overlooks the minute +difference which she holds out to him as a signet to guide him in his +search, the projecting tip, as it were, of some buried treasure, he is +bound to go astray, and the more strenuously he struggles on, the further +he will find himself from his true goal. + +In the second place, he must be alert of mind. Nature is ever making signs +to us; she is ever whispering to us the beginnings of her secrets; the +scientific man must be ever on the watch, ready at once to lay hold of +nature's hint, however small; to listen to her whisper, however low. + +In the third place, scientific inquiry, though it be preeminently an +intellectual effort, has need of the moral quality of courage--not so much +the courage which helps a man to face a sudden difficulty as the courage +of steadfast endurance. Almost every inquiry, certainly every prolonged +inquiry, sooner or later goes wrong. The path, at first so straight and +clear, grows crooked and gets blocked; the hope and enthusiasm, or even +the jaunty ease, with which the inquirer set out, leave him, and he falls +into a slough of despond. That is the critical moment calling for courage. +Struggling through the slough, he will find on the other side the wicket +gate opening up the real path; losing heart, he will turn back and add one +more stone to the great cairn of the unaccomplished. + +But, I hear someone say, these qualities are not the peculiar attributes +of the man of science: they may be recognized as belonging to almost +everyone who has commanded or deserved success, whatever may have been his +walk of life. That is so. That is exactly what I desire to insist, that +the men of science have no peculiar virtues, no special powers. They are +ordinary men, their characters are common, even commonplace. Science, as +Huxley said, is organized common sense, and men of science are common men +drilled in the ways of common sense. For their life has this feature. +Though in themselves they are no stronger, no better than other men, they +possess a strength which, as I just now urged, is not their own, but is +that of the science whose servants they are. Even in his apprenticeship, +the scientific inquirer, while learning what has been done before his +time, if he learns it aright, so learns it that what is known may serve +him, not only as a vantage-ground whence to push off into the unknown, but +also as a compass to guide him in his course. And when, fitted for his +work, he enters on inquiry itself, what a zealous, anxious guide, what a +strict and, because strict, helpful, schoolmistress does Nature make +herself to him! Under her care every inquiry, whether it bring the +inquirer to a happy issue or seem to end in nought, trains him for the +next effort. She so orders her ways that each act of obedience to her +makes the next act easier for him; and step by step she leads him on +toward that perfect obedience which is complete mastery. + +Indeed, when we reflect on the potency of the discipline of scientific +inquiry, we cease to wonder at the progress of scientific knowledge. The +results actually gained seem to fall so far short of what under such +guidance might have been expected to have been gathered in, that we are +fain to conclude that science has called to follow her, for the most part, +the poor in intellect and the wayward in spirit. Had she called to her +service the many acute minds who have wasted their strength struggling in +vain to solve hopeless problems, or who have turned their energies to +things other than the increase of knowledge; had she called to her service +the many just men who have walked straight without the need of a rod to +guide them, how much greater than it has been would have been the progress +of science, and how many false teachings would the world have been spared! +To men of science themselves, when they consider their favored lot, the +achievements of the past should serve, not as a boast, but as a reproach. + +If there be any truth in what I have been urging, that the pursuit of +scientific inquiry is itself a training of special potency, giving +strength to the feeble and keeping in the path those who are inclined to +stray, it is obvious that the material gains of science, great as they may +be, do not make up all the good which science brings, or may bring, to +man. We especially, perhaps, in these later days, through the rapid +development of the physical sciences, are too apt to dwell on the material +gains alone. As a child in its infancy looks upon its mother only as a +giver of good things, and does not learn till after days how she was also +showing her love by carefully training it in the way it should go, so we, +too, have thought too much of the gifts of science, overlooking her power +to guide. + +Man does not live by bread alone, and science brings him more than bread. +It is a great thing to make two blades of grass grow where before one +alone grew; but it is no less great a thing to help a man to come to a +just conclusion on the questions with which he has to deal. We may claim +for science that, while she is doing the one, she may be so used as to do +the other also. The dictum just quoted, that science is organized common +sense, may be read as meaning that the common problems of life, which +common people have to solve, are to be solved by the same methods by which +the man of science solves his special problems. It follows that the +training which does so much for him may be looked to as promising to do +much for them. + +Such aid can come from science on two conditions only. In the first place, +this her influence must be acknowledged; she must be duly recognized as a +teacher no less than as a hewer of wood and a drawer of water. And the +pursuit of science must be followed, not by the professional few only, but +at least in such measure as will ensure the influence of example by the +many. But this latter point I need not urge before this great +association, whose chief object during more than half a century has been +to bring within the fold of science all who would answer to the call. In +the second place, it must be understood that the training to be looked for +from science is the outcome, not of the accumulation of scientific +knowledge, but of the practice of scientific inquiry. Man may have at his +fingers' ends all the accomplished results and all the current opinions of +any one or of all the branches of science, and yet remain wholly +unscientific in mind; but no one can have carried out even the humblest +research without the spirit of science in some measure resting upon him. +And that spirit may in part be caught even without entering upon an actual +investigation in search of a new truth. The learner may be led to old +truths, even the oldest, in more ways than one. He may be brought abruptly +to a truth in its finished form, coming straight to it like a thief +climbing over the wall; and the hurry and press of modern life tempt many +to adopt this quicker way. Or he may be more slowly guided along the path +by which the truth was reached by him who first laid hold of it. It is by +this latter way of learning the truth, and by this alone, that the learner +may hope to catch something at least of the spirit of the scientific +inquirer. + +This is not the place, nor have I the wish, to plunge into the turmoil of +controversy; but if there be any truth in what I have been urging, then +they are wrong who think that in the schooling of the young science can be +used with profit only to train those for whom science will be the means of +earning their bread. It may be that, from the point of view of pedagogic +art, the experience of generations has fashioned out of the older studies +of literature an instrument of discipline of unusual power, and that the +teaching of science is as yet but a rough tool in unpractised hands. That, +however, is not an adequate reason why scope should not be given for +science to show the value which we claim for it as an intellectual +training fitted for all sorts and conditions of men. Nor need the studies +of humanity and literature fear her presence in the schools; for if her +friends maintain that the teaching is one-sided, and therefore misleading, +which deals with the doings of man only, and is silent about the works of +nature, in the sight of which he and his doings shrink almost to nothing, +she herself would be the first to admit that that teaching is equally +wrong which deals only with the works of nature and says nothing about the +doings of man, who is, to us at least, nature's centre. + +There is yet another general aspect of science on which I would crave +leave to say a word. In that broad field of human life which we call +politics, in the struggle, not of man with man, but of race with race, +science works for good. If we look only on the surface, it may at first +sight seem otherwise. In no branch of science has there during these later +years been greater activity and more rapid progress than in that which +furnishes the means by which man brings death, suffering, and disaster on +his fellow men. If the healer can look with pride on the increased power +which science has given him to alleviate human suffering and ward off the +miseries of disease, the destroyer can look with still greater pride on +the power which science has given him to sweep away lives and to work +desolation and ruin; while the one has slowly been learning to save units, +the other has quickly learned to slay thousands. But, happily, the very +greatness of the modern power of destruction is already becoming a bar to +its use, and bids fair--may we hope before long--wholly to put an end to +it; in the words of Tacitus, though in another sense, the very +preparations for war, through the character which science gives them, make +for peace. + +Moreover, not in one branch of science only, but in all, there is a deep +undercurrent of influence sapping the very foundations of all war. As I +have already urged, no feature of scientific inquiry is more marked than +the dependence of each step forward on other steps which have been made +before. The man of science cannot sit by himself in his own cave, weaving +out results by his own efforts, unaided by others, heedless of what others +have done and are doing. He is but a bit of a great system, a joint in a +great machine, and he can only work aright when he is in due touch with +his fellow workers. If his labor is to be what it ought to be, and is to +have the weight which it ought to have, he must know what is being done, +not by himself, but by others, and by others not of his own land and +speaking his tongue only, but also of other lands and of other speech. +Hence it comes about that to the man of science the barriers of manners +and of speech which pen men into nations become more and more unreal and +indistinct. He recognizes his fellow worker, wherever he may live, and +whatever tongue he may speak, as one who is pushing forward shoulder to +shoulder with him toward a common goal, as one whom he is helping and who +is helping him. The touch of science makes the whole world kin. + +The history of the past gives us many examples of this brotherhood of +science. In the revival of learning throughout the sixteenth and +seventeenth centuries, and some way on into the eighteenth century, the +common use of the Latin tongue made intercourse easy. In some respects, in +those earlier days science was more cosmopolitan than it afterwards +became. In spite of the difficulties and hardships of travel, the men of +science of different lands again and again met each other face to face, +heard with their ears, and saw with their eyes, what their brethren had to +say or show. The Englishman took the long journey to Italy to study +there; the Italian, the Frenchman, and the German wandered from one seat +of learning to another; and many a man held a chair in a country not his +own. There was help, too, as well as intercourse. The Royal Society of +London took upon itself the task of publishing nearly all the works of the +great Italian, Malpighi; and the brilliant Lavoisier, two years before his +own countrymen in their blind fury slew him, received from the same body +the highest token which it could give of its esteem. + +In these closing years of the nineteenth century this great need of mutual +knowledge and of common action felt by men of science of different lands +is being manifested in a special way. Though nowadays what is done +anywhere is soon known everywhere, the news of a discovery being often +flashed over the globe by telegraph, there is an increasing activity in +the direction of organization to promote international meetings and +international cooperation. In almost every science, inquirers from many +lands now gather together at stated intervals, in international +congresses, to discuss matters which they have in common at heart, and go +away, each one feeling strengthened by having met his brother. The desire +that, in the struggle to lay bare the secrets of nature, the least waste +of human energy should be incurred, is leading more and more to the +concerted action of nations combining to attack problems the solution of +which is difficult and costly. The determination of standards of +measurement, magnetic surveys, the solution of great geodetic problems, +the mapping of the heavens and of the earth--all these are being carried +on by international organizations. + + * * * * * + +One international scientific effort demands a word of notice. The need +which every inquirer in science feels to know, and to know quickly, what +his fellow worker, wherever on the globe he may be carrying on his work or +making known his results, has done or is doing, led some four years back +to a proposal for carrying out by international cooperation a complete +current index, issued promptly, of the scientific literature of the world. +Though much labor in many lands has been spent upon the undertaking, the +project is not yet an accomplished fact. Nor can this, perhaps, be +wondered at, when the difficulties of the task are weighed. Difficulties +of language, difficulties of driving in one team all the several sciences +which, like young horses, wish each to have its head free with leave to go +its own way, difficulties mechanical and financial, of press and post, +difficulties raised by existing interests--these and yet other +difficulties are obstacles not easy to be overcome. The most striking and +the most encouraging features of the deliberations which have now been +going on for three years have been the repeated expressions, coming not +from this or that quarter only, but from almost all quarters, of an +earnest desire that the effort should succeed, of a sincere belief in the +good of international cooperation, and of a willingness to sink as far as +possible individual interests for the sake of the common cause. In the +face of such a spirit we may surely hope that the many difficulties will +ultimately pass out of sight. + + * * * * * + +I make no apology for having thus touched on international cooperation. I +should have been wanting had I not done so on the memorable occasion of +this meeting. A hundred years ago two great nations were grappling with +each other in a fierce struggle, which had lasted, with pauses, for many +years, and which was to last for many years to come; war was on every lip +and in almost every heart. To-day this meeting has, by a common wish, +been so arranged that those two nations should, in the persons of their +men of science, draw as near together as they can, with nothing but the +narrow streak of the Channel between them, in order that they may take +counsel together on matters in which they have one interest and a common +hope. May we not look upon this brotherly meeting as one of many signs +that science, though she works in a silent manner and in ways unseen by +many, is steadily making for peace? + +Looking back, then, in this last year of the eighteen hundreds, on the +century which is drawing to a close, while we may see in the history of +scientific inquiry much which, telling the man of science of his +shortcomings and his weakness, bids him be humble, we also see much, +perhaps more, which gives him hope. Hope is, indeed, one of the watchwords +of science. In the latter-day writings of some who know not science much +may be read which shows that the writer is losing, or has lost, hope in +the future of mankind. There are not a few of these; their repeated +utterances make a sign of the times. Seeing in matters lying outside +science few marks of progress and many tokens of decline or decay, +recognizing in science its material benefits only, such men have thoughts +of despair when they look forward to the times to come. But if there be +any truth in what I have attempted to urge to-night, if the intellectual, +if the moral influences of science are no less marked than her material +benefits, if, moreover, that which she has done is but the earnest of that +which she shall do, such men may pluck up courage and gather strength by +laying hold of her garment. + +We men of science at least need not share their views or their fears. Our +feet are set, not on the shifting sands of the opinions and the fancies of +the day, but on a solid foundation of verified truth, which by the labors +of each succeeding age is made broader and more firm. To us the past is a +thing to look back upon, not with regret, not as something which has been +lost never to be regained, but with content, as something whose influence +is with us still, helping us on our further way. With us, indeed, the past +points not to itself, but to the future; the golden age is in front of us, +not behind us; that which we do know is a lamp whose brightest beams are +shed into the unknown before us, showing us how much there is in front, +and lighting up the way to reach it. We are confident in the advance +because, as each one of us feels that any step forward which he may make +is not ordered by himself and is not the result of his own sole efforts in +the present, but is, and that in large measure, the outcome of the labors +of others in the past, so each one of us has the sure and certain hope +that, as the past has helped him, so his efforts, be they great or be they +small, will be a help to those to come. + + + + +THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY + +THREE HYPOTHESES RESPECTING THE HISTORY OF NATURE + + +So far as I know, there are only three hypotheses which ever have been +entertained, or which well can be entertained, respecting the past history +of nature. I will, in the first place, state the hypotheses, and then I +will consider what evidence bearing upon them is in our possession, and by +what light of criticism that evidence is to be interpreted. + +Upon the first hypothesis, the assumption is, that phenomena of nature +similar to those exhibited by the present world have always existed; in +other words, that the universe has existed from all eternity in what may +be broadly termed its present condition. + +The second hypothesis is, that the present state of things has had only a +limited duration, and that, at some period in the past, a condition of the +world, essentially similar to that which we now know, came into existence, +without any precedent condition from which it could have naturally +proceeded. The assumption that successive states of nature have arisen, +each without any relation of natural causation to an antecedent state, is +a mere modification of this second hypothesis. + +The third hypothesis also assumes that the present state of things has had +but a limited duration; but it supposes that this state has been evolved +by a natural process from an antecedent state, and that from another, and +so on; and, on this hypothesis, the attempt to assign any limit to the +series of past changes is, usually, given up. + +It is so needful to form clear and distinct notions of what is really +meant by each of these hypotheses, that I will ask you to imagine what, +according to each, would have been visible to a spectator of the events +which constitute the history of the earth. On the first hypothesis, +however far back in time that spectator might be placed, he would see a +world essentially, though perhaps not in all its details, similar to that +which now exists. The animals which existed would be the ancestors of +those which now live, and similar to them; the plants, in like manner, +would be such as we know; and the mountains, plains, and waters would +foreshadow the salient features of our present land and water. This view +was held more or less distinctly, sometimes combined with the notion of +recurrent cycles of change, in ancient times; and its influence has been +felt down to the present day. + +It is worthy of remark that it is a hypothesis which is not inconsistent +with the doctrine of Uniformitarianism, with which geologists are +familiar. That doctrine was held by Hutton, and in his earlier days by +Lyell. Hutton was struck by the demonstration of astronomers that the +perturbations of the planetary bodies, however great they may be, yet +sooner or later right themselves; and that the solar system possesses a +self-adjusting power by which these aberrations are all brought back to a +mean condition. Hutton imagined that the like might be true of terrestrial +changes; although no one recognized more clearly than he the fact that the +dry land is being constantly washed down by rain and rivers, and deposited +in the sea; and that thus, in a longer or shorter time, the inequalities +of the earth's surface must be leveled, and its high lands brought down to +the ocean. But, taking into account the internal forces of the earth, +which, upheaving the sea-bottom, give rise to new land, he thought that +these operations of degradation and elevation might compensate each other; +and that thus, for any assignable time, the general features of our +planet might remain what they are. And inasmuch as, under these +circumstances, there need be no limit to the propagation of animals and +plants, it is clear that the consistent working-out of the uniformitarian +idea might lead to the conception of the eternity of the world. Not that I +mean to say that either Hutton or Lyell held this conception--assuredly +not; they would have been the first to repudiate it. Nevertheless, the +logical development of their arguments tends directly toward this +hypothesis. + +The second hypothesis supposes that the present order of things, at some +no very remote time, had a sudden origin, and that the world, such as it +now is, had chaos for its phenomenal antecedent. That is the doctrine +which you will find stated most fully and clearly in the immortal poem of +John Milton,--the English "Divina Commoedia,"--"Paradise Lost." I +believe it is largely to the influence of that remarkable work, combined +with the daily teachings to which we have all listened in our childhood, +that this hypothesis owes its general wide diffusion as one of the current +beliefs of English-speaking people. If you turn to the seventh book of +"Paradise Lost," you will find there stated the hypothesis to which I +refer, which is briefly this: that this visible universe of ours came into +existence at no great distance of time from the present; and that the +parts of which it is composed made their appearance, in a certain definite +order, in the space of six natural days, in such a manner that, on the +first of these days, light appeared; that, on the second, the firmament, +or sky, separated the waters above from the waters beneath the firmament; +that, on the third day, the waters drew away from the dry land, and upon +it a varied vegetable life, similar to that which now exists, made its +appearance; that the fourth day was signalized by the apparition of the +sun, the stars, the moon, and the planets; that, on the fifth day, aquatic +animals originated within the waters; that, on the sixth day, the earth +gave rise to our four-footed terrestrial creatures, and to all varieties +of terrestrial animals except birds, which had appeared on the preceding +day; and, finally, that man appeared upon the earth, and the emergence of +the universe from chaos was finished. Milton tells us, without the least +ambiguity, what a spectator of these marvelous occurrences would have +witnessed. I doubt not that his poem is familiar to all of you, but I +should like to recall one passage to your minds, in order that I may be +justified in what I have said regarding the perfectly concrete, definite +picture of the origin of the animal world which Milton draws. He says:-- + + The sixth, and of creation last, arose + With evening harps and matin, when God said, + "Let the earth bring forth soul living in her kind, + Cattle and creeping things, and beast of the earth, + Each in their kind!" The earth obeyed, and, straight + Opening her fertile womb, teemed at a birth + Innumerous living creatures, perfect forms, + Limbed and full-grown. Out of the ground uprose, + As from his lair, the wild beast, where he wons + In forest wild, in thicket, brake, or den; + Among the trees in pairs they rose, they walked; + The cattle in the fields and meadows green; + Those rare and solitary; these in flocks + Pasturing at once, and in broad herds upsprung. + The grassy clods now calved; now half appears + The tawny lion, pawing to get free + His hinder parts--then springs, as broke from bonds, + And rampant shakes his brinded mane; the ounce, + The libbard, and the tiger, as the mole + Rising, the crumbled earth above them threw + In hillocks; the swift stag from underground + Bore up his branching head; scarce from his mould + Behemoth, biggest born of earth, upheaved + His vastness; fleeced the flocks and bleating rose + As plants; ambiguous between sea and land, + The river-horse and scaly crocodile. + At once came forth whatever creeps the ground, + Insect or worm. + +There is no doubt as to the meaning of this statement, nor as to what a +man of Milton's genius expected would have been actually visible to an +eye-witness of this mode of origination of living things. + +The third hypothesis, or the hypothesis of evolution, supposes that, at +any comparatively late period of past time, our imaginary spectator would +meet with a state of things very similar to that which now obtains; but +that the likeness of the past to the present would gradually become less +and less, in proportion to the remoteness of his period of observation +from the present day; that the existing distribution of mountains and +plains, of rivers and seas, would show itself to be the product of a slow +process of natural change operating upon more and more widely different +antecedent conditions of the mineral framework of the earth; until, at +length, in place of that framework, he would behold only a vast nebulous +mass, representing the constituents of the sun and of the planetary +bodies. Preceding the forms of life which now exist, our observer would +see animals and plants, not identical with them, but like them; increasing +their difference with their antiquity and, at the same time, becoming +simpler and simpler; until, finally, the world of life would present +nothing but that undifferentiated protoplasmic matter which, so far as our +present knowledge goes, is the common foundation of all vital activity. + +The hypothesis of evolution supposes that, in all this vast progression, +there would be no breach of continuity, no point at which we could say, +"This is a natural process," and, "This is not a natural process"; but +that the whole might be compared to that wonderful process of development +which may be seen going on every day under our eyes, in virtue of which +there arises, out of the semifluid, comparatively homogeneous substance +which we call an egg, the complicated organization of one of the higher +animals. That, in a few words, is what is meant by the hypothesis of +evolution. + +I have already suggested that, in dealing with these three hypotheses, in +endeavoring to form a judgment as to which of them is the more worthy of +belief, or whether none is worthy of belief,--in which case our condition +of mind should be that suspension of judgment which is so difficult to all +but trained intellects,--we should be indifferent to all _a priori_ +considerations. The question is a question of historical fact. The +universe has come into existence somehow or other, and the problem is, +whether it came into existence in one fashion, or whether it came into +existence in another; and, as an essential preliminary to further +discussion, permit me to say two or three words as to the nature and the +kinds of historical evidence. + +The evidence as to the occurrence of any event in past time may be ranged +under two heads, which, for convenience' sake, I will speak of as +testimonial evidence and as circumstantial evidence. By testimonial +evidence I mean human testimony; and by circumstantial evidence I mean +evidence which is not human testimony. Let me illustrate by a familiar +example what I understand by these two kinds of evidence, and what is to +be said respecting their value. + +Suppose that a man tells you that he saw a person strike another and kill +him: that is testimonial evidence of the fact of murder. But it is +possible to have circumstantial evidence of the fact of murder: that is to +say, you may find a man dying with a wound upon his head having exactly +the form and character of the wound which is made by an axe; and, with due +care in taking surrounding circumstances into account, you may conclude +with the utmost certainty that the man has been murdered; that his death +is the consequence of a blow inflicted by another man with that implement. +We are very much in the habit of considering circumstantial evidence as of +less value than testimonial evidence; and it may be that, where the +circumstances are not perfectly clear and intelligible, it is a dangerous +and unsafe kind of evidence; but it must not be forgotten that, in many +cases, circumstantial is quite as conclusive as testimonial evidence, and +that, not unfrequently, it is a great deal weightier than testimonial +evidence. For example, take the case to which I referred just now. The +circumstantial evidence may be better and more convincing than the +testimonial evidence; for it may be impossible, under the conditions that +I have defined, to suppose that the man met his death from any cause but +the violent blow of an axe wielded by another man. The circumstantial +evidence in favor of a murder having been committed, in that case, is as +complete and as convincing as evidence can be. It is evidence which is +open to no doubt and to no falsification. But the testimony of a witness +is open to multitudinous doubts. He may have been mistaken. He may have +been actuated by malice. It has constantly happened that even an accurate +man has declared that a thing has happened in this, that, or the other +way, when a careful analysis of the circumstantial evidence has shown that +it did not happen in that way, but in some other way. + +We may now consider the evidence in favor of or against the three +hypotheses. Let me first direct your attention to what is to be said about +the hypotheses of the eternity of the state of things in which we now +live. What will first strike you is, that it is a hypothesis which, +whether true or false, is not capable of verification by any evidence. +For, in order to obtain either circumstantial or testimonial evidence +sufficient to prove the eternity of duration of the present state of +nature, you must have an eternity of witnesses or an infinity of +circumstances, and neither of these is attainable. It is utterly +impossible that such evidence should be carried beyond a certain point of +time; and all that could be said, at most, would be, that, so far as the +evidence could be traced, there was nothing to contradict the hypothesis. +But when you look, not to the testimonial evidence,--which, considering +the relative insignificance of the antiquity of human records, might not +be good for much in this case,--but to the circumstantial evidence, then +you find that this hypothesis is absolutely incompatible with such +evidence as we have; which is of so plain and so simple a character that +it is impossible in any way to escape from the conclusions which it forces +upon us. + +You are, doubtless, all aware that the outer substance of the earth, which +alone is accessible to direct observation, is not of a homogeneous +character, but that it is made up of a number of layers or strata. Each of +these groups represents a number of beds of sand, of stone, of clay, of +slate, and of various other materials. + +On careful examination, it is found that the materials of which each of +these layers of more or less hard rock is composed are, for the most part, +of the same nature as those which are at present being formed under known +conditions on the surface of the earth. For example, the chalk, which +constitutes a great part of the Cretaceous formation in some parts of the +world, is practically identical in its physical and chemical characters +with a substance which is now being formed at the bottom of the Atlantic +Ocean, and covers an enormous area; other beds of rock are comparable with +the sands which are being formed upon sea-shores, packed together, and so +on. Thus, omitting rocks of igneous origin, it is demonstrable that all +these beds of stone, of which a total of not less than seventy thousand +feet is known, have been formed by natural agencies, either out of the +waste and washing of the dry land, or else by the accumulation of the +exuviae of plants and animals. Many of these strata are full of such +exuviae--the so-called "fossils." Remains of thousands of species of +animals and plants, as perfectly recognizable as those of existing forms +of life which you meet with in museums, or as the shells which you pick up +upon the sea-beach, have been imbedded in the ancient sands, or muds, or +limestones, just as they are being imbedded now in sandy, or clayey, or +calcareous subaqueous deposits. They furnish us with a record, the general +nature of which cannot be misinterpreted, of the kinds of things that have +lived upon the surface of the earth during the time that is registered by +this great thickness of stratified rocks. + +But even a superficial study of these fossils shows us that the animals +and plants which live at the present time have had only a temporary +duration; for the remains of such modern forms of life are met with, for +the most part, only in the uppermost, or latest, tertiaries, and their +number rapidly diminishes in the lower deposits of that epoch. In the +older tertiaries, the places of existing animals and plants are taken by +other forms, as numerous and diversified as those which live now in the +same localities, but more or less different from them; in the mesozoic +rocks, these are replaced by others yet more divergent from modern types; +and in the palaeozoic formations, the contrast is still more marked. Thus +the circumstantial evidence absolutely negatives the conception of the +eternity of the present condition of things. We can say with certainty +that the present condition of things has existed for a comparatively short +period; and that, so far as animal and vegetable nature are concerned, it +has been preceded by a different condition. We can pursue this evidence +until we reach the lowest of the stratified rocks, in which we lose the +indications of life altogether. The hypothesis of the eternity of the +present state of nature may, therefore, be put out of court. + +We now come to what I will term Milton's hypothesis--the hypothesis that +the present condition of things has endured for a comparatively short +time; and, at the commencement of that time, came into existence within +the course of six days. I doubt not that it may have excited some surprise +in your minds that I should have spoken of this as Milton's hypothesis, +rather than that I should have chosen the terms which are more customary, +such as "the doctrine of creation," or "the Biblical doctrine," or "the +doctrine of Moses," all of which denominations, as applied to the +hypothesis to which I have just referred, are certainly much more familiar +to you than the title of the Miltonic hypothesis. But I have had what I +cannot but think are very weighty reasons for taking the course which I +have pursued. In the first place, I have discarded the title of the +"doctrine of creation," because my present business is not with the +question why the objects which constitute nature came into existence, but +when they came into existence, and in what order. This is as strictly a +historical question as the question when the Angles and the Jutes invaded +England, and whether they preceded or followed the Romans. But the +question about creation is a philosophical problem, and one which cannot +be solved, or even approached, by the historical method. What we want to +learn is, whether the facts, so far as they are known, afford evidence +that things arose in the way described by Milton, or whether they do not; +and, when that question is settled, it will be time enough to inquire into +the causes of their origination. + +In the second place, I have not spoken of this doctrine as the Biblical +doctrine. It is quite true that persons as diverse in their general views +as Milton the Protestant and the celebrated Jesuit Father Suarez, each put +upon the first chapter of Genesis the interpretation embodied in Milton's +poem. It is quite true that this interpretation is that which has been +instilled into every one of us in our childhood; but I do not for one +moment venture to say that it can properly be called the Biblical +doctrine. It is not my business, and does not lie within my competency, to +say what the Hebrew text does, and what it does not signify; moreover, +were I to affirm that this is the Biblical doctrine, I should be met by +the authority of many eminent scholars, to say nothing of men of science, +who, at various times, have absolutely denied that any such doctrine is to +be found in Genesis. If we are to listen to many expositors of no mean +authority, we must believe that what seems so clearly defined in +Genesis--as if very great pains had been taken that there should be no +possibility of mistake--is not the meaning of the text at all. The account +is divided into periods, which we may make just as long or as short as +convenience requires. We are also to understand that it is consistent with +the original text to believe that the most complex plants and animals may +have been evolved by natural processes, lasting for millions of years, out +of structureless rudiments. A person who is not a Hebrew scholar can only +stand aside and admire the marvelous flexibility of a language which +admits of such diverse interpretations. But assuredly, in the face of such +contradictions of authority upon matters respecting which he is +incompetent to form any judgment, he will abstain, as I do, from giving +any opinion. + +In the third place, I have carefully abstained from speaking of this as +the Mosaic doctrine, because we are now assured upon the authority of the +highest critics, and even of dignitaries of the Church, that there is no +evidence that Moses wrote the Book of Genesis, or knew anything about it. +You will understand that I give no judgment--it would be an impertinence +upon my part to volunteer even a suggestion--upon such a subject. But, +that being the state of opinion among the scholars and the clergy, it is +well for the unlearned in Hebrew lore, and for the laity, to avoid +entangling themselves in such a vexed question. Happily, Milton leaves us +no excuse for doubting what he means, and I shall therefore be safe in +speaking of the opinion in question as the Miltonic hypothesis. + +Now we have to test that hypothesis. For my part, I have no prejudice one +way or the other. If there is evidence in favor of this view, I am +burdened by no theoretical difficulties in the way of accepting it; but +there must be evidence. Scientific men get an awkward habit--no, I won't +call it that, for it is a valuable habit--of believing nothing unless +there is evidence for it; and they have a way of looking upon belief which +is not based upon evidence, not only as illogical, but as immoral. We +will, if you please, test this view by the circumstantial evidence alone; +for, from what I have said, you will understand that I do not propose to +discuss the question of what testimonial evidence is to be adduced in +favor of it. If those whose business it is to judge are not at one as to +the authenticity of the only evidence of that kind which is offered, nor +as to the facts to which it bears witness, the discussion of such evidence +is superfluous. But I may be permitted to regret this necessity of +rejecting the testimonial evidence the less, because the examination of +the circumstantial evidence leads to the conclusion, not only that it is +incompetent to justify the hypothesis, but that, so far as it goes, it is +contrary to the hypothesis. + +The considerations upon which I base this conclusion are of the simplest +possible character. The Miltonic hypothesis contains assertions of a very +definite character relating to the succession of living forms. It is +stated that plants, for example, made their appearance upon the third day, +and not before. And you will understand that what the poet means by plants +are such plants as now live, the ancestors, in the ordinary way of +propagation of like by like, of the trees and shrubs which flourish in the +present world. It must needs be so: for, if they were different, either +the existing plants have been the result of a separate origination since +that described by Milton, of which we have no record, or any ground for +supposition that such an occurrence has taken place; or else they have +arisen by a process of evolution from the original stocks. + +In the second place, it is clear that there was no animal life before the +fifth day, and that, on the fifth day, aquatic animals and birds appeared. +And it is further clear that terrestrial living things, other than birds, +made their appearance upon the sixth day, and not before. Hence, it +follows that if, in the large mass of circumstantial evidence as to what +really has happened in the past history of the globe we find indications +of the existence of terrestrial animals, other than birds, at a certain +period, it is perfectly certain that all that has taken place since that +time must be referred to the sixth day. + +In the great Carboniferous formation, whence America derives so vast a +proportion of her actual and potential wealth, in the beds of coal which +have been formed from the vegetation of that period, we find abundant +evidence of the existence of terrestrial animals. They have been +described, not only by European but by American naturalists. There are to +be found numerous insects allied to our cockroaches. There are to be found +spiders and scorpions of large size, the latter so similar to existing +scorpions that it requires the practised eye of the naturalist to +distinguish them. Inasmuch as these animals can be proved to have been +alive in the Carboniferous epoch, it is perfectly clear that, if the +Miltonic account is to be accepted, the huge mass of rocks extending from +the middle of the Palaeozoic formations to the uppermost members of the +series must belong to the day which is termed by Milton the sixth. + +But, further, it is expressly stated that aquatic animals took their +origin upon the fifth day, and not before; hence, all formations in which +remains of aquatic animals can be proved to exist, and which therefore +testify that such animals lived at the time when these formations were in +course of deposition, must have been deposited during or since the period +which Milton speaks of as the fifth day. But there is absolutely no +fossiliferous formation in which the remains of aquatic animals are +absent. The oldest fossils in the Silurian rocks are exuviae of marine +animals; and if the view which is entertained by Principal Dawson and Dr. +Carpenter respecting the nature of the Eozoon be well founded, aquatic +animals existed at a period as far antecedent to the deposition of the +coal as the coal is from us; inasmuch as the Eozoon is met with in those +Laurentian strata which lie at the bottom of the series of stratified +rocks. Hence it follows, plainly enough, that the whole series of +stratified rocks, if they are to be brought into harmony with Milton, must +be referred to the fifth and sixth days, and that we cannot hope to find +the slightest trace of the products of the earlier days in the geological +record. When we consider these simple facts, we see how absolutely futile +are the attempts that have been made to draw a parallel between the story +told by so much of the crust of the earth as is known to us and the story +that Milton tells. The whole series of fossiliferous stratified rocks +must be referred to the last two days; and neither the Carboniferous nor +any other formation can afford evidence of the work of the third day. + +Not only is there this objection to any attempt to establish a harmony +between the Miltonic account and the facts recorded in the fossiliferous +rocks, but there is a further difficulty. According to the Miltonic +account, the order in which animals should have made their appearance in +the stratified rocks would be this: fishes, including the great whales, +and birds; after them, all varieties of terrestrial animals except birds. +Nothing could be further from the facts as we find them; we know of not +the slightest evidence of the existence of birds before the Jurassic, or +perhaps the Triassic, formation; while terrestrial animals, as we have +just seen, occur in the Carboniferous rocks. If there were any harmony +between the Miltonic account and the circumstantial evidence, we ought to +have abundant evidence of the existence of birds in the Carboniferous, the +Devonian, and the Silurian rocks. I need hardly say that this is not the +case, and that not a trace of birds makes its appearance until the far +later period which I have mentioned. + +And again, if it be true that all varieties of fishes and the great +whales, and the like, made their appearance on the fifth day, we ought to +find the remains of these animals in the older rocks--in those which were +deposited before the Carboniferous epoch. Fishes we do find, in +considerable number and variety; but the great whales are absent, and the +fishes are not such as now live. Not one solitary species of fish now in +existence is to be found in the Devonian or Silurian formations. Hence we +are introduced afresh to the dilemma which I have already placed before +you: either the animals which came into existence on the fifth day were +not such as those which are found at present, are not the direct and +immediate ancestors of those which now exist,--in which case either fresh +creations of which nothing is said, or a process of evolution, must have +occurred,--or else the whole story must be given up, as not only devoid of +any circumstantial evidence, but as contrary to such evidence as exists. + +I placed before you in a few words, some little time ago, a statement of +the sum and substance of Milton's hypothesis. Let me now try to state, as +briefly, the effect of the circumstantial evidence bearing upon the past +history of the earth which is furnished, without the possibility of +mistake, with no chance of error as to its chief features, by the +stratified rocks. What we find is that the great series of formations +represents a period of time of which our human chronologies hardly afford +us a unit of measure. I will not pretend to say how we ought to estimate +this time, in millions or in billions of years. For my purpose, the +determination of its absolute duration is wholly unessential; but +unquestionably the time was enormous. + +It results from the simplest methods of interpretation, that, leaving out +of view certain patches of metamorphosed rocks, and certain volcanic +products, all that is now dry land has once been at the bottom of the +waters. It is perfectly certain that, at a comparatively recent period of +the world's history,--the Cretaceous epoch,--none of the great physical +features, which at present mark the surface of the globe, existed. It is +certain that the Rocky Mountains were not. It is certain that the Himalaya +Mountains were not. It is certain that the Alps and the Pyrenees had no +existence. The evidence is of the plainest possible character, and is +simply this: we find raised up on the flanks of these mountains, elevated +by the forces of upheaval which have given rise to them, masses of +Cretaceous rock which formed the bottom of the sea before those mountains +existed. It is therefore clear that the elevatory forces which gave rise +to the mountains operated subsequently to the Cretaceous epoch; and that +the mountains themselves are largely made up of the materials deposited in +the sea which once occupied their place. As we go back in time, we meet +with constant alternations of sea and land, of estuary and open ocean; +and, in correspondence with these alternations, we observe the changes in +the fauna and flora to which I have referred. + +But the inspection of these changes gives us no right to believe that +there has been any discontinuity in natural processes. There is no trace +of general cataclysms, of universal deluges, or of sudden destructions of +a whole fauna or flora. The appearances which were formerly interpreted in +that way have all been shown to be delusive, as our knowledge has +increased, and as the blanks which formerly appeared to exist between the +different formations have been filled up. That there is no absolute break +between formation and formation, that there has been no sudden +disappearance of all the forms of life and replacement of them by others, +but that changes have gone on slowly and gradually, that one type has died +out and another has taken its place, and that thus, by insensible degrees, +one fauna has been replaced by another, are conclusions strengthened by +constantly increasing evidence. So that within the whole of the immense +period indicated by the fossiliferous stratified rocks there is assuredly +not the slightest proof of any break in the uniformity of nature's +operations, no indication that events have followed other than a clear and +orderly sequence. + +That, I say, is the natural and obvious teaching of the circumstantial +evidence contained in the stratified rocks. I leave you to consider how +far, by any ingenuity of interpretation, by any stretching of the meaning +of language, it can be brought into harmony with the Miltonic hypothesis. + + + + +ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE + + +In order to make the title of this discourse generally intelligible, I +have translated the term "protoplasm," which is the scientific name of the +substance of which I am about to speak, by the words "the physical basis +of life." I suppose that, to many, the idea that there is such a thing as +a physical basis, or matter, of life may be novel, so widely spread is the +conception of life as a something which works through matter, but is +independent of it; and even those who are aware that matter and life are +inseparably connected may not be prepared for the conclusion--plainly +suggested by the phrase, "_the_ physical basis or matter of life,"--that +there is some one kind of matter which is common to all living beings, and +that their endless diversities are bound together by a physical, as well +as an ideal, unity. In fact, when first apprehended, such a doctrine as +this appears almost shocking to common sense. + +What, truly, can seem to be more obviously different from one another, in +faculty, in form, and in substance, than the various kinds of living +beings? What community of faculty can there be between the brightly +colored lichen, which so nearly resembles a mere mineral incrustation of +the bare rock on which it grows, and the painter, to whom it is instinct +with beauty, or the botanist, whom it feeds with knowledge? + +Again, think of the microscopic fungus--a mere infinitesimal ovoid +particle, which finds space and duration enough to multiply into countless +millions in the body of a living fly; and then of the wealth of foliage, +the luxuriance of flower and fruit, which lies between this bald sketch +of a plant and the giant pine of California, towering to the dimensions of +a cathedral spire, or the Indian fig, which covers acres with its profound +shadow, and endures while nations and empires come and go around its vast +circumference. Or, turning to the other half of the world of life, picture +to yourselves the great Finner whale, hugest of beasts that live or have +lived, disporting his eighty or ninety feet of bone, muscle, and blubber, +with easy roll, among waves in which the stoutest ship that ever left +dockyard would founder hopelessly; and contrast him with the invisible +animalcules--mere gelatinous specks, multitudes of which could, in fact, +dance upon the point of a needle with the same ease as the angels of the +Schoolmen could, in imagination. With these images before your minds, you +may well ask, what community of form, or structure, is there between the +animalcule and the whale, or between the fungus and the fig tree? And, _a +fortiori_, between all four? + +Finally, if we regard substance, or material composition, what hidden bond +can connect the flower that a girl wears in her hair and the blood that +courses through her youthful veins; or, what is there in common between +the dense and resisting mass of the oak, or the strong fabric of the +tortoise, and those broad disks of glassy jelly which may be seen +pulsating through the waters of a calm sea, but which drain away to mere +films in the hand which raises them out of their element? + +Such objections as these must, I think, arise in the mind of everyone who +ponders, for the first time, upon the conception of a single physical +basis of life underlying all the diversities of vital existence; but I +propose to demonstrate to you that, notwithstanding these apparent +difficulties, a threefold unity--namely, a unity of power or faculty, a +unity of form, and a unity of substantial composition--does pervade the +whole living world. + +No very abstruse argumentation is needed, in the first place, to prove +that the powers, or faculties, of all kinds of living matter, diverse as +they may be in degree, are substantially similar in kind. + +Goethe has condensed a survey of all the powers of mankind into the +well-known epigram:-- + + Warum treibt sich das Volk so und schreit? Es will sich ernaehren, + Kinder zeugen, und die naehren so gut es vermag. + + * * * * * + + Weiter bringt es kein Mensch, stell' er sich wie er auch will. + +In physiological language this means that all the multifarious and +complicated activities of man are comprehensible under three categories. +Either they are immediately directed toward the maintenance and +development of the body, or they effect transitory changes in the relative +positions of parts of the body, or they tend toward the continuance of the +species. Even those manifestations of intellect, of feeling, and of will, +which we rightly name the higher faculties, are not excluded from this +classification, inasmuch as, to everyone but the subject of them, they are +known only as transitory changes in the relative positions of parts of the +body. Speech, gesture, and every other form of human action are, in the +long run, resolvable into muscular contraction, and muscular contraction +is but a transitory change in the relative positions of the parts of a +muscle. But the scheme which is large enough to embrace the activities of +the highest form of life covers all those of the lower creatures. The +lowest plant, or animalcule, feeds, grows, and reproduces its kind. In +addition, all animals manifest those transitory changes of form which we +class under irritability and contractility; and it is more than probable +that, when the vegetable world is thoroughly explored, we shall find all +plants in possession of the same powers, at one time or other of their +existence. + +I am not now alluding to such phenomena, at once rare and conspicuous, as +those exhibited by the leaflets of the sensitive plant, or the stamens of +the barberry, but to such more widely spread, and, at the same time, more +subtle and hidden, manifestations of vegetable contractility. You are +doubtless aware that the common nettle owes its stinging property to the +innumerable stiff and needle-like, though exquisitely delicate, hairs that +cover its surface. Each stinging needle tapers from a broad base to a +slender summit, which, though rounded at the end, is of such microscopic +fineness that it readily penetrates, and breaks off in, the skin. The +whole hair consists of a very delicate outer case of wood, closely applied +to the inner surface of which is a layer of semifluid matter, full of +innumerable granules of extreme minuteness. This semifluid lining is +protoplasm, which thus constitutes a kind of bag, full of a limpid liquid, +and roughly corresponding in form with the interior of the hair which it +fills. When viewed with a sufficiently high magnifying power, the +protoplasmic layer of the nettle hair is seen to be in a condition of +unceasing activity. Local contractions of the whole thickness of its +substance pass slowly and gradually from point to point, and give rise to +the appearance of progressive waves, just as the bending of successive +stalks of corn by a breeze produces the apparent billows of a cornfield. + +But, in addition to these movements, and independently of them, the +granules are driven, in relatively rapid streams, through channels in the +protoplasm which seem to have a considerable amount of persistence. Most +commonly, the currents in adjacent parts of the protoplasm take similar +directions; and, thus, there is a general stream up one side of the hair +and down the other. But this does not prevent the existence of partial +currents which take different routes; and, sometimes, trains of granules +may be seen coursing swiftly in opposite directions, within a +twenty-thousandth of an inch of one another; while, occasionally, opposite +streams come into direct collision, and, after a longer or shorter +struggle, one predominates. The cause of these currents seems to lie in +contractions of the protoplasm which bounds the channels in which they +flow, but contractions so minute that the best microscopes show only their +effects, and not themselves. + +The spectacle afforded by the wonderful energies prisoned within the +compass of the microscopic hair of a plant, which we commonly regard as a +merely passive organism, is not easily forgotten by one who has watched +its display, continued hour after hour, without pause or sign of +weakening. The possible complexity of many other organic forms, seemingly +as simple as the protoplasm of the nettle, dawns upon one; and the +comparison of such a protoplasm to a body with an internal circulation, +which has been put forward by an eminent physiologist, loses much of its +startling character. Currents similar to those of the hairs of the nettle +have been observed in a great multitude of very different plants, and +weighty authorities have suggested that they probably occur, in more or +less perfection, in all young vegetable cells. If such be the case, the +wonderful noonday silence of a tropical forest is, after all, due only to +the dullness of our hearing; and could our ears catch the murmur of these +tiny maelstroms, as they whirl in the innumerable myriads of living cells +which constitute each tree, we should be stunned, as with the roar of a +great city. + +Among the lower plants, it is the rule rather than the exception that +contractility should be still more openly manifested at some periods of +their existence. The protoplasm of Algae and Fungi becomes, under many +circumstances, partially, or completely, freed from its woody case, and +exhibits movements of its whole mass, or is propelled by the contractility +of one or more hair-like prolongations of its body, which are called +vibratile _cilia_. And, so far as the conditions of the manifestation of +the phenomena of contractility have yet been studied, they are the same +for the plant as for the animal. Heat and electric shocks influence both, +and in the same way, though it may be in different degrees. It is by no +means my intention to suggest that there is no difference in faculty +between the lowest plant and the highest, or between plants and animals. +But the difference between the powers of the lowest plant, or animal, and +those of the highest, is one of degree, not of kind, and depends, as +Milne-Edwards long ago so well pointed out, upon the extent to which the +principle of the division of labor is carried out in the living economy. +In the lowest organism all parts are competent to perform all functions, +and one and the same portion of protoplasm may successively take on the +function of feeding, moving, or reproducing apparatus. In the highest, on +the contrary, a great number of parts combine to perform each function, +each part doing its allotted share of the work with great accuracy and +efficiency, but being useless for any other purpose. + +On the other hand, notwithstanding all the fundamental resemblances that +exist between the powers of the protoplasm in plants and in animals, they +present a striking difference (to which I shall advert more at length +presently), in the fact that plants can manufacture fresh protoplasm out +of mineral compounds, whereas animals are obliged to procure it +ready-made, and hence, in the long run, depend upon plants. Upon what +condition this difference in the powers of the two great divisions of the +world of life depends, nothing is at present known. + +With such qualification as arises out of the last-mentioned fact, it may +be truly said that the acts of all living things are fundamentally one. Is +any such unity predictable of their forms? Let us seek in easily verified +facts for a reply to this question. If a drop of blood be drawn by +pricking one's finger, and viewed with proper precautions and under a +sufficiently high microscopic power, there will be seen, among the +innumerable multitude of little circular, discoidal bodies, or corpuscles, +which float in it and give it its color, a comparatively small number of +colorless corpuscles, of somewhat larger size and very irregular shape. If +the drop of blood be kept at the temperature of the body, these colorless +corpuscles will be seen to exhibit a marvelous activity, changing their +forms with great rapidity, drawing in and thrusting out prolongations of +their substance, and creeping about as if they were independent organisms. + +The substance which is thus active is a mass of protoplasm, and its +activity differs in detail, rather than in principle, from that of the +protoplasm of the nettle. Under sundry circumstances the corpuscle dies +and becomes distended into a round mass, in the midst of which is seen a +smaller spherical body, which existed, but was more or less hidden, in the +living corpuscle, and is called its _nucleus_. Corpuscles of essentially +similar structure are to be found in the skin, in the lining of the mouth, +and scattered through the whole framework of the body. Nay, more: in the +earliest condition of the human organism, in that state in which it has +but just become distinguishable from the egg in which it arises, it is +nothing but an aggregation of such corpuscles, and every organ of the body +was, once, no more than such an aggregation. + +Thus a nucleated mass of protoplasm turns out to be what may be termed the +structural unit of the human body. As a matter of fact, the body, in its +earliest state, is a mere multiple of such units; and, in its perfect +condition, it is a multiple of such units variously modified. + +But does the formula which expresses the essential structural character of +the highest animal cover all the rest, as the statement of its powers and +faculties covered that of all others? Very nearly. Beast and fowl, reptile +and fish, mollusk, worm, and polyp, are all composed of structural units +of the same character, namely, masses of protoplasm with a nucleus. There +are sundry very low animals, each of which, structurally, is a mere +colorless blood-corpuscle, leading an independent life. But, at the very +bottom of the animal scale, even this simplicity becomes simplified, and +all the phenomena of life are manifested by a particle of protoplasm +without a nucleus. Nor are such organisms insignificant by reason of their +want of complexity. It is a fair question whether the protoplasm of those +simplest forms of life which people an immense extent of the bottom of the +sea would not outweigh that of all the higher living beings which inhabit +the land put together. And in ancient times, no less than at the present +day, such living beings as these have been the greatest of rock-builders. + +What has been said of the animal world is no less true of plants. Imbedded +in the protoplasm at the broad, or attached, end of the nettle hair, there +lies a spheroidal nucleus. Careful examination further proves that the +whole substance of the nettle is made up of a repetition of such masses of +nucleated protoplasm, each contained in a wooden case, which is modified +in form, sometimes into a woody fibre, sometimes into a duct or spiral +vessel, sometimes into a pollen grain, or an ovule. Traced back to its +earliest state, the nettle arises, as the man does, in a particle of +nucleated protoplasm. And in the lowest plants, as in the lowest animals, +a single mass of such protoplasm may constitute the whole plant, or the +protoplasm may exist without a nucleus. + +Under these circumstances it may well be asked, how is one mass of +non-nucleated protoplasm to be distinguished from another? Why call one +"plant" and the other "animal"? + +The only reply is that, so far as form is concerned, plants and animals +are not separable, and that, in many cases, it is a mere matter of +convention whether we call a given organism an animal or a plant. There is +a living body called _Aethalium septicum_, which appears upon decaying +vegetable substances, and, in one of its forms, is common upon the +surfaces of tan-pits. In this condition it is, to all intents and +purposes, a fungus, and formerly was always regarded as such; but the +remarkable investigations of De Bary have shown that, in another +condition, the _Aethalium_ is an actively locomotive creature, and takes in +solid matters, upon which, apparently, it feeds, thus exhibiting the most +characteristic feature of animality. Is this a plant, or is it an animal? +Is it both, or is it neither? Some decide in favor of the last +supposition, and establish an intermediate kingdom, a sort of biological +"No Man's Land," for all these questionable forms. But, as it is +admittedly impossible to draw any distinct boundary line between this no +man's land and the vegetable world, on the one hand, and the animal, on +the other, it appears to me that this proceeding merely doubles the +difficulty which, before, was single. + +Protoplasm, simple or nucleated, is the formal basis of all life. It is +the clay of the potter, which, bake it and paint it as he will, remains +clay, separated by artifice, and not by nature, from the commonest brick +or sun-dried clod. + +Thus it becomes clear that all living powers are cognate, and that all +living forms are fundamentally of one character. The researches of the +chemist have revealed a no less striking uniformity of material +composition in living matter. + +In perfect strictness, it is true that chemical investigation can tell us +little or nothing, directly, of the composition of living matter, inasmuch +as such matter must needs die in the act of analysis; and upon this very +obvious ground, objections, which I confess seem to me to be somewhat +frivolous, have been raised to the drawing of any conclusions whatever +respecting the composition of actually living matter, from that of the +dead matter of life, which alone is accessible to us. But objectors of +this class do not seem to reflect that it is also, in strictness, true +that we know nothing about the composition of any body whatever, as it is. +The statement that a crystal of calc-spar consists of carbonate of lime is +quite true, if we only mean that, by appropriate processes, it may be +resolved into carbonic acid and quicklime. If you pass the same carbonic +acid over the very quicklime thus obtained, you will obtain carbonate of +lime again; but it will not be calc-spar, or anything like it. Can it, +therefore, be said that chemical analysis teaches nothing about the +chemical composition of calc-spar? Such a statement would be absurd; but +it is hardly more so than the talk one occasionally hears about the +uselessness of applying the results of chemical analysis to the living +bodies that have yielded them. + +One fact, at any rate, is out of reach of such refinements, and this is, +that all the forms of protoplasm which have yet been examined contain the +four elements, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, in very complex +union, and that they behave similarly toward several reagents. To this +complex combination, the nature of which has never been determined with +exactness, the name of protein has been applied. And if we use this term +with such caution as may properly arise out of our comparative ignorance +of the things for which it stands, it may be truly said that all +protoplasm is proteinaceous; or, as the white, or albumen, of an egg is +one of the commonest examples of a nearly pure protein matter, we may say +that all living matter is more or less albuminoid. + +Perhaps it would not yet be safe to say that all forms of protoplasm are +affected by the direct action of electric shocks; and yet the number of +cases in which the contraction of protoplasm is shown to be effected by +this agency increases every day. + +Nor can it be affirmed with perfect confidence that all forms of +protoplasm are liable to undergo that peculiar coagulation at a +temperature of from 40 to 50 degrees Centigrade, which has been called +"heat-stiffening"; though Kuhne's beautiful researches have proved this +occurrence to take place in so many and such diverse living beings, that +it is hardly rash to expect that the law holds good for all. + +Enough has, perhaps, been said to prove the existence of a general +uniformity in the character of the protoplasm, or physical basis of life, +in whatever group of living beings it may be studied. But it will be +understood that this general uniformity by no means excludes any amount of +special modifications of the fundamental substance. The mineral, carbonate +of lime, assumes an immense diversity of characters, though no one doubts +that, under all these protean changes, it is one and the same thing. + +And now, what is the ultimate fate, and what the origin, of the matter of +life? + +Is it, as some of the older naturalists supposed, diffused throughout the +universe in molecules, which are indestructible and unchangeable in +themselves, but, in endless transmigration, unite in innumerable +permutations, into the diversified forms of life we know? Or, is the +matter of life composed of ordinary matter, differing from it only in the +manner in which its atoms are aggregated? Is it built up of ordinary +matter, and again resolved into ordinary matter when its work is done? + +Modern science does not hesitate a moment between these alternatives. +Physiology writes over the portals of life:-- + + Debemur morti nos nostraque,-- + +with a profounder meaning than the Roman poet attached to that melancholy +line. Under whatever disguise it takes refuge, whether fungus or oak, worm +or man, the living protoplasm not only ultimately dies and is resolved +into its mineral and lifeless constituents, but is always dying, and, +strange as the paradox may sound, could not live unless it died. + +In the wonderful story of the "Peau de Chagrin," the hero becomes +possessed of a magical wild ass's skin, which yields him the means of +gratifying all his wishes. But its surface represents the duration of the +proprietor's life; and for every satisfied desire the skin shrinks in +proportion to the intensity of fruition, until at length life and the last +handbreadth of the _peau de chagrin_ disappear with the gratification of a +last wish. + +Balzac's studies had led him over a wide range of thought and speculation, +and his shadowing forth of physiological truth in this strange story may +have been intentional. At any rate, the matter of life is a veritable +_peau de chagrin_, and for every trivial act it is somewhat the smaller. +All work implies waste, and the work of life results, directly or +indirectly, in the waste of protoplasm. + +Every word uttered by a speaker costs him some physical loss; and, in the +strictest sense, he burns that others may have light--so much eloquence, +so much of his body resolved into carbonic acid, water, and urea. It is +clear that this process of expenditure cannot go on forever. But, happily, +the protoplasmic _peau de chagrin_ differs from Balzac's in its capacity +of being repaired, and brought back to its full size, after every +exertion. + +For example, this present lecture, whatever its intellectual worth to you, +has a certain physical value to me, which is conceivably expressible by +the number of grains of protoplasm and other bodily substance wasted in +maintaining my vital processes during its delivery. My _peau de chagrin_ +will be distinctly smaller at the end of the discourse than it was at the +beginning. By and by, I shall probably have recourse to the substance +commonly called mutton, for the purpose of stretching it back to its +original size. Now, this mutton was once the living protoplasm, more or +less modified, of another animal--a sheep. As I shall eat it, it is the +same matter altered, not only by death, but by exposure to sundry +artificial operations in the process of cooking. + +But these changes, whatever be their extent, have not rendered it +incompetent to resume its old functions as matter of life. A singular +inward laboratory, which I possess, will dissolve a certain portion of the +modified protoplasm; the solution so formed will pass into my veins; and +the subtle influences to which it will then be subjected will convert the +dead protoplasm into living protoplasm, and transubstantiate sheep into +man. + +Nor is this all. If digestion were a thing to be trifled with, I might sup +on lobster, and the matter of life of the crustacean would undergo the +same wonderful metamorphosis into humanity. And were I to return to my +own place by sea, and undergo shipwreck, the crustacea might, and +probably would, return the compliment, and demonstrate our common nature +by turning my protoplasm into living lobster. Or, if nothing better were +to be had, I might supply my wants with mere bread, and I should find the +protoplasm of the wheat-plant to be convertible into man, with no more +trouble than that of the sheep, and with far less, I fancy, than that of +the lobster. + +Hence it appears to be a matter of no great moment what animal, or what +plant, I lay under contribution for protoplasm; and the fact speaks +volumes for the general identity of that substance in all living beings. I +share this catholicity of assimilation with other animals, all of which, +so far as we know, could thrive equally well on the protoplasm of any of +their fellows, or of any plant; but here the assimilative powers of the +animal world cease. A solution of smelling-salts in water, with an +infinitesimal proportion of some other saline matters, contains all the +elementary bodies which enter into the composition of protoplasm; but, as +I need hardly say, a hogshead of that fluid would not keep a hungry man +from starving, nor would it save any animal whatever from a like fate. An +animal cannot make protoplasm, but must take it ready-made from some other +animal, or some plant--the animal's highest feat of constructive chemistry +being to convert dead protoplasm into that living matter of life which is +appropriate to itself. + +Therefore, in seeking for the origin of protoplasm, we must eventually +turn to the vegetable world. The fluid containing carbonic acid, water, +and ammonia, which offers such a Barmecide feast to the animal, is a table +richly spread to multitudes of plants; and, with a due supply of only such +materials, many a plant will not only maintain itself in vigor, but grow +and multiply until it has increased a million-fold, or a +million-million-fold, the quantity of protoplasm which it originally +possessed; in this way building up the matter of life, to an indefinite +extent, from the common matter of the universe. + +Thus, the animal can only raise the complex substance of dead protoplasm +to the higher power, as one may say, of living protoplasm; while the plant +can raise the less complex substances--carbonic acid, water, and +ammonia--to the same stage of living protoplasm, if not to the same level. +But the plant also has its limitations. Some of the fungi, for example, +appear to need higher compounds to start with; and no known plant can live +upon the uncompounded elements of protoplasm. A plant supplied with pure +carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur and the like, +would as infallibly die as the animal in his bath of smelling-salts, +though it would be surrounded by all the constituents of protoplasm. Nor, +indeed, need the process of simplification of vegetable food be carried so +far as this, in order to arrive at the limit of the plant's thaumaturgy. +Let water, carbonic acid, and all the other needful constituents be +supplied with ammonia, and an ordinary plant will still be unable to +manufacture protoplasm. + +Thus the matter of life, so far as we know it (and we have no right to +speculate on any other), breaks up, in consequence of that continual death +which is the condition of its manifesting vitality, into carbonic acid, +water, and ammonia, which certainly possess no properties but those of +ordinary matter. And out of these same forms of ordinary matter, and from +none which are simpler, the vegetable world builds up all the protoplasm +that keeps the animal world a-going. Plants are the accumulators of the +power which animals distribute and disperse. + +But it will be observed that the existence of the matter of life depends +on the preexistence of certain compounds; namely, carbonic acid, water, +and ammonia. Withdraw any one of these three from the world, and all vital +phenomena come to an end. They are related to the protoplasm of the plant, +as the protoplasm of the plant is to that of the animal. Carbon, hydrogen, +oxygen, and nitrogen are all lifeless bodies. Of these, carbon and oxygen +unite in certain proportions, and under certain conditions, to give rise +to carbonic acid; hydrogen and oxygen produce water; nitrogen and hydrogen +give rise to ammonia. These new compounds, like the elementary bodies of +which they are composed, are lifeless. But when they are brought together, +under certain conditions, they give rise to the still more complex body, +protoplasm, and this protoplasm exhibits the phenomena of life. + +I see no break in this series of steps in molecular complication, and I am +unable to understand why the language which is applicable to any one term +of the series may not be used with any of the others. We think fit to call +different kinds of matter carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen, and to +speak of the various powers and activities of these substances as the +properties of the matter of which they are composed. + +When hydrogen and oxygen are mixed in a certain proportion, and an +electric spark is passed through them, they disappear, and a quantity of +water, equal in weight to the sum of their weights, appears in their +place. There is not the slightest parity between the passive and active +powers of the water and those of the oxygen and hydrogen which have given +rise to it. At 32 degrees Fahrenheit, and far below that temperature, +oxygen and hydrogen are elastic gaseous bodies, whose particles tend to +rush away from one another with great force. Water, at the same +temperature, is a strong though brittle solid, whose particles tend to +cohere into definite geometrical shapes, and sometimes build up frosty +imitations of the most complex forms of vegetable foliage. + +Nevertheless we call these, and many other strange phenomena, the +properties of the water, and we do not hesitate to believe that, in some +way or another, they result from the properties of the component elements +of the water. We do not assume that a something called "aquosity" entered +into and took possession of the oxide of hydrogen as soon as it was +formed, and then guided the aqueous particles to their places in the +facets of the crystal, or among the leaflets of the hoar-frost. On the +contrary, we live in the hope and in the faith that, by the advance of +molecular physics, we shall by-and-by be able to see our way as clearly +from the constituents of water to the properties of water, as we are now +able to deduce the operations of a watch from the form of its parts and +the manner in which they are put together. + +Is the case in any way changed when carbonic acid, water, and ammonia +disappear, and in their place, under the influence of preexisting living +protoplasm, an equivalent weight of the matter of life makes its +appearance? + +It is true that there is no sort of parity between the properties of the +components and the properties of the resultant; but neither was there in +the case of the water. It is also true that what I have spoken of as the +influence of preexisting living matter is something quite unintelligible; +but does anybody quite comprehend the _modus operandi_ of an electric +spark, which traverses a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen? + +What justification is there, then, for the assumption of the existence in +the living matter of a something which has no representative, or +correlative, in the not-living matter which gave rise to it? What better +philosophical status has "vitality" than "aquosity"? And why should +"vitality" hope for a better fate than the other "itys" which have +disappeared since Martinus Scriblerus accounted for the operation of the +meat-jack by its inherent "meat-roasting quality," and scorned the +"materialism" of those who explained the turning of the spit by a certain +mechanism worked by the draught of the chimney? + +If scientific language is to possess a definite and constant signification +whenever it is employed, it seems to me that we are logically bound to +apply to the protoplasm, or physical basis of life, the same conceptions +as those which are held to be legitimate elsewhere. If the phenomena +exhibited by water are its properties, so are those presented by +protoplasm, living or dead, its properties. + +If the properties of water may be properly said to result from the nature +and disposition of its component molecules, I can find no intelligible +ground for refusing to say that the properties of protoplasm result from +the nature and disposition of its molecules. + +But I bid you beware lest, in accepting these conclusions, you are placing +your feet on the first rung of a ladder which, in most people's +estimation, is the reverse of Jacob's, and leads to the antipodes of +heaven. It may seem a small thing to admit that the dull, vital actions of +a fungus are the properties of its protoplasm, and are the direct results +of the nature of the matter of which it is composed. But if, as I have +endeavored to prove to you, its protoplasm is essentially identical with, +and most readily converted into, that of any animal, I can discover no +logical halting-place between the admission that such is the case, and the +further concession that all vital action may, with equal propriety, be +said to be the result of the molecular forces of the protoplasm which +displays it. And if so, it must be true, in the same sense and to the same +extent, that the thoughts to which I am now giving utterance, and your +thoughts regarding them, are the expression of molecular changes in that +matter of life which is the source of our other vital phenomena. + +Past experience leads me to be tolerably certain that, when the +propositions I have just placed before you are accessible to public +comment and criticism, they will be condemned by many zealous persons, and +perhaps by some few of the wise and thoughtful. I should not wonder if +"gross and brutal materialism" were the mildest phrase applied to them in +certain quarters. And, most undoubtedly, the terms of the propositions are +distinctly materialistic. Nevertheless two things are certain: the one, +that I hold the statements to be substantially true; the other, that I, +individually, am no materialist, but, on the contrary, believe materialism +to involve grave philosophical error. + +This union of materialistic terminology with the repudiation of +materialistic philosophy I share with some of the most thoughtful men with +whom I am acquainted. And, when I first undertook to deliver the present +discourse, it appeared to me to be fitting opportunity to explain how such +a union is not only consistent with, but necessitated by, sound logic. I +purposed to lead you through the territory of vital phenomena to the +materialistic slough in which you find yourselves now plunged, and then to +point out to you the sole path by which, in my judgment, extrication is +possible. + +Let us suppose that knowledge is absolute, and not relative, and, +therefore, that our conception of matter represents that which it really +is. Let us suppose, further, that we do know more of cause and effect than +a certain definite order of succession among facts, and that we have a +knowledge of the necessity of that succession,--and hence, of necessary +laws,--and I, for my part, do not see what escape there is from utter +materialism and necessarianism. For it is obvious that our knowledge of +what we call the material world is, to begin with, at least as certain and +definite as that of the spiritual world, and that our acquaintance with +law is of as old a date as our knowledge of spontaneity. Further, I take +it to be demonstrable that it is utterly impossible to prove that anything +whatever may not be the effect of a material and necessary cause, and that +human logic is equally incompetent to prove that any act is really +spontaneous. A really spontaneous act is one which, by the assumption, has +no cause; and the attempt to prove such a negative as this is, on the face +of the matter, absurd. And while it is thus a philosophical impossibility +to demonstrate that any given phenomenon is not the effect of a material +cause, anyone who is acquainted with the history of science will admit, +that its progress has, in all ages, meant, and now, more than ever, means, +the extension of the province of what we call matter and causation, and +the concomitant gradual banishment from all regions of human thought of +what we call spirit and spontaneity. + +I have endeavored, in the first part of this discourse, to give you a +conception of the direction in which modern physiology is tending; and I +ask you, what is the difference between the conception of life as the +product of a certain disposition of material molecules, and the old notion +of an Archaeus governing and directing blind matter within each living +body, except this--that here, as elsewhere, matter and law have devoured +spirit and spontaneity? And as surely as every future grows out of past +and present, so will the physiology of the future gradually extend the +realm of matter and law until it is coextensive with knowledge, with +feeling, and with action. + +The consciousness of this great truth weighs like a nightmare, I believe, +upon many of the best minds of these days. They watch what they conceive +to be the progress of materialism, in such fear and powerless anger as a +savage feels, when, during an eclipse, the great shadow creeps over the +face of the sun. The advancing tide of matter threatens to drown their +souls; the tightening grasp of law impedes their freedom; they are alarmed +lest man's moral nature be debased by the increase of his wisdom. + +If the "New Philosophy" be worthy of the reprobation with which it is +visited, I confess their fears seem to me to be well founded. While, on +the contrary, could David Hume be consulted, I think he would smile at +their perplexities, and chide them for doing even as the heathen, and +falling down in terror before the hideous idols their own hands have +raised. + +For, after all, what do we know of this terrible "matter," except as a +name for the unknown and hypothetical cause of states of our own +consciousness? And what do we know of that "spirit" over whose threatened +extinction by matter a great lamentation is arising, like that which was +heard at the death of Pan, except that it is also a name for an unknown +and hypothetical cause, or condition, of states of consciousness? In other +words, matter and spirit are but names for the imaginary substrata of +groups of natural phenomena. + +And what are the dire necessity and "iron" law under which men groan? +Truly, most gratuitously invented bugbears. I suppose if there be an +"iron" law, it is that of gravitation; and if there be a physical +necessity, it is that a stone, unsupported, must fall to the ground. But +what is all we really know, and can know, about the latter phenomenon? +Simply, that, in all human experience, stones have fallen to the ground +under these conditions; that we have not the smallest reason for believing +that any stone so circumstanced will not fall to the ground; and that we +have, on the contrary, every reason to believe that it will so fall. It is +very convenient to indicate that all the conditions of belief have been +fulfilled in this case, by calling the statement that unsupported stones +will fall to the ground "a law of nature." But when, as commonly happens, +we change _will_ into _must_, we introduce an idea of necessity which most +assuredly does not lie in the observed facts, and has no warranty that I +can discover elsewhere. For my part, I utterly repudiate and anathematize +the intruder. Fact I know, and Law I know, but what is this Necessity, +save an empty shadow of my own mind's throwing? + +But, if it is certain that we can have no knowledge of the nature of +either matter or spirit, and that the notion of necessity is something +illegitimately thrust into the perfectly legitimate conception of law, the +materialistic position that there is nothing in the world but matter, +force, and necessity, is as utterly devoid of justification as the most +baseless of theological dogmas. The fundamental doctrines of materialism, +like those of spiritualism, and most other "isms," lie outside "the limits +of philosophical inquiry"; and David Hume's great service to humanity is +his irrefragable demonstration of what these limits are. Hume called +himself a skeptic, and therefore others cannot be blamed if they apply the +same title to him; but that does not alter the fact that the name, with +its existing implications, does him gross injustice. + +If a man asks me what the politics of the inhabitants of the moon are, and +I reply that I do not know; that neither I, nor anyone else, has any means +of knowing; and that, under these circumstances, I decline to trouble +myself about the subject at all, I do not think he has any right to call +me a skeptic. On the contrary, in replying thus, I conceive that I am +simply honest and truthful, and show a proper regard for the economy of +time. So Hume's strong and subtle intellect takes up a great many problems +about which we are naturally curious, and shows us that they are +essentially questions of lunar politics, in their essence incapable of +being answered, and therefore not worth the attention of men who have work +to do in the world. And he thus ends one of his essays:-- + +"If we take in hand any volume of Divinity, or school metaphysics, for +instance, let us ask, _Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning +quantity or number?_ No. _Does it contain any experimental reasoning +concerning matter of fact and existence?_ No. Commit it then to the +flames; for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion." + +Permit me to enforce this most wise advice. Why trouble ourselves about +matters of which, however important they may be, we do know nothing, and +can know nothing? We live in a world which is full of misery and +ignorance, and the plain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the +little corner he can influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less +ignorant than it was before he entered it. To do this effectually, it is +necessary to be fully possessed of only two beliefs: the first, that the +order of nature is ascertainable by our faculties to an extent which is +practically unlimited; the second, that our volition counts for something +as a condition of the course of events. + +Each of these beliefs can be verified experimentally, as often as we like +to try. Each, therefore, stands upon the strongest foundation upon which +any belief can rest, and forms one of our highest truths. If we find that +the ascertainment of the order of nature is facilitated by using one +terminology, or one set of symbols, rather than another, it is our clear +duty to use the former; and no harm can accrue, so long as we bear in +mind that we are dealing merely with terms and symbols. + +In itself it is of little moment whether we express the phenomena of +matter in terms of spirit, or the phenomena of spirit in terms of matter: +matter may be regarded as a form of thought, thought may be regarded as a +property of matter--each statement has a certain relative truth. But with +a view to the progress of science, the materialistic terminology is in +every way to be preferred. For it connects thought with the other +phenomena of the universe, and suggests inquiry into the nature of those +physical conditions, or concomitants of thought, which are more or less +accessible to us, and a knowledge of which may, in future, help us to +exercise the same kind of control over the world of thought that we +already possess in respect of the material world; whereas, the +alternative, or spiritualistic, terminology is utterly barren, and leads +to nothing but obscurity and confusion of ideas. + +Thus there can be little doubt that the further science advances, the more +extensively and consistently will all the phenomena of nature be +represented by materialistic formulae and symbols. + +But the man of science who, forgetting the limits of philosophical +inquiry, slides from these formulae and symbols into what is commonly +understood by materialism, seems to me to place himself on a level with +the mathematician who should mistake the _x_'s and _y_'s with which he +works his problems for real entities--and with this further disadvantage, +as compared with the mathematician, that the blunders of the latter are of +no practical consequence, while the errors of systematic materialism may +paralyze the energies and destroy the beauty of a life. + + + + +JOHN TYNDALL + +SCOPE AND LIMIT OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM + + +Partly through mathematical and partly through experimental research, +physical science has of late years assumed a momentous position in the +world. Both in a material and in an intellectual point of view it has +produced, and is designed to produce, immense changes--vast social +ameliorations, and vast alterations in the popular conception of the +origin, rule, and governance of natural things. By science, in the +physical world, miracles are wrought; while philosophy is forsaking its +ancient metaphysical channels and pursuing others which have been opened +or indicated by scientific research. This must become more and more the +case as philosophical writers become more deeply imbued with the methods +of science, better acquainted with the facts which scientific men have won +and with the great theories which they have elaborated. + +If you look at the face of a watch, you see the hour- and minute-hands, +and possibly also a second-hand, moving over the graduated dial. Why do +these hands move, and why are their relative motions such as they are +observed to be? These questions cannot be answered without opening the +watch, mastering its various parts, and ascertaining their relationship to +each other. When this is done, we find that the observed motion of the +hands follows of necessity from the inner mechanism of the watch, when +acted upon by the force invested in the spring. + +The motion of the hands may be called a phenomenon of art, but the case is +similar with the phenomena of nature. These also have their inner +mechanism and their store of force to set that mechanism going. The +ultimate problem of physical science is to reveal this mechanism, to +discern this store, and to show that, from the combined action of both, +the phenomena of which they constitute the basis must of necessity flow. + +I thought that an attempt to give you even a brief and sketchy +illustration of the manner in which scientific thinkers regard this +problem would not be uninteresting to you on the present occasion; more +especially as it will give me occasion to say a word or two on the +tendencies and limits of modern science; to point out the region which men +of science claim as their own, and where it is mere waste of time to +oppose their advance; and also to define, if possible, the bourne between +this and that other region to which the questionings and yearnings of the +scientific intellect are directed in vain. + +But here your tolerance will be needed. It was the American Emerson, I +think, who said that it is hardly possible to state any truth strongly +without apparent injustice to some other truth. Truth is often of a dual +character, taking the form of a magnet with two poles; and many of the +differences which agitate the thinking part of mankind are to be traced to +the exclusiveness with which partisan reasoners dwell upon one half of the +duality in forgetfulness of the other half. The proper course appears to +be to state both halves strongly, and allow each its fair share in the +formation of the resultant conviction. But this waiting for the statement +of the two sides of the question implies patience. It implies a resolution +to suppress indignation if the statement of the one half should clash with +our convictions, and to repress equally undue elation if the +half-statement should happen to chime in with our views. It implies a +determination to wait calmly for the statement of the whole, before we +pronounce judgment in the form of either acquiescence or dissent. + +This premised and, I trust, accepted, let us enter upon our task. There +have been writers who affirmed that the pyramids of Egypt were the +productions of nature; and in his early youth Alexander von Humboldt wrote +a learned essay with the express object of refuting this notion. We now +regard the pyramids as the work of men's hands, aided probably by +machinery of which no record remains. We picture to ourselves the swarming +workers toiling at these vast erections, lifting the inert stones, and, +guided by the volition, the skill, and possibly at times by the whip, of +the architect, placing them in their proper positions. The blocks in this +case were moved and posited by a power external to themselves, and the +final form of the pyramid expresses the thought of its human builder. + +Let us pass from this illustration of constructive power to another of a +different kind. When a solution of common salt is slowly evaporated, the +water which holds the salt in solution disappears, but the salt itself +remains behind. At a certain stage of concentration the salt can no longer +retain the liquid form: its particles, or molecules, as they are called, +begin to deposit themselves as minute solids, so minute, indeed, as to +defy all microscopic power. As evaporation continues, solidification goes +on, and we finally obtain, through the clustering together of innumerable +molecules, a finite crystalline mass of a definite form. What is this +form? It sometimes seems a mimicry of the architecture of Egypt. We have +little pyramids built by the salt, terrace above terrace from base to +apex, forming a series of steps resembling those up which the Egyptian +traveler is dragged by his guides. The human is as little disposed to look +unquestioning at these pyramidal salt-crystals as to look at the pyramids +of Egypt without inquiring whence they came. How, then, are those salt +pyramids built up? + +Guided by analogy, you may, if you like, suppose that, swarming among the +constituent molecules of the salt, there is an invisible population, +controlled and coerced by some invisible master, and placing the atomic +blocks in their positions. This, however, is not the scientific idea, nor +do I think your good sense will accept it as a likely one. The scientific +idea is that the molecules act upon each other without the intervention of +slave labor; that they attract each other and repel each other at certain +definite points, or poles, and in certain definite directions; and that +the pyramidal form is the result of this play of attraction and repulsion. +While, then, the blocks of Egypt were laid down by a power external to +themselves, these molecular blocks of salt are self-posited, being fixed +in their places by the forces with which they act upon each other. + +I take common salt as an illustration because it is so familiar to us all; +but any other crystalline substance would answer my purpose equally well. +Everywhere, in fact, throughout inorganic nature, we have this formative +power, as Fichte would call it--this structural energy ready to come into +play and build the ultimate particles of matter into definite shapes. The +ice of our winters and of our polar regions is its handiwork, and so +equally are the quartz, feldspar, and mica of our rocks. Our chalk-beds +are for the most part composed of minute shells, which are almost the +product of structural energy; but behind the shell, as a whole, lies a +more remote and subtle formative act. These shells are built up of little +crystals of calc-spar, and to form these crystals the structural force had +to deal with the intangible molecules of carbonate of lime. This tendency +on the part of matter to organize itself, to grow into shape, to assume +definite forms in obedience to the definite action of force, is, as I have +said, all-pervading. It is in the ground on which you tread, in the water +you drink, in the air you breathe. Incipient life, as it were, manifests +itself throughout the whole of what we call inorganic nature. + +The forms of the minerals resulting from this play of polar forces are +various, and exhibit different degrees of complexity. Men of science avail +themselves of all possible means of exploring their molecular +architecture. For this purpose they employ in turn, as agents of +exploration, light, heat, magnetism, electricity, and sound. Polarized +light is especially useful and powerful here. A beam of such light, when +sent in among the molecules of a crystal, is acted on by them, and from +this action we infer with more or less of clearness the manner in which +the molecules are arranged. That differences, for example, exist between +the inner structure of rock salt and crystallized sugar or sugar-candy, is +thus strikingly revealed. These differences may be made to display +themselves in chromatic phenomena of great splendor, the play of molecular +force being so regulated as to remove some of the colored constituents of +white light, and to leave others with increased intensity behind. + +And now let us pass from what we are accustomed to regard as a dead +mineral to a living grain of corn. When _it_ is examined by polarized +light, chromatic phenomena similar to those noticed in crystals are +observed. And why? Because the architecture of the grain resembles the +architecture of the crystal. In the grain also the molecules are set in +definite positions, and in accordance with their arrangement they act upon +the light. But what has built together the molecules of the corn? I have +already said regarding crystalline architecture that you may, if you +please, consider the atoms and molecules to be placed in position by a +power external to themselves. The same hypothesis is open to you now. But +if, in the case of crystals, you have rejected this notion of an external +architect, I think you are bound to reject it now, and to conclude that +the molecules of the corn are self-posited by the forces with which they +act upon each other. It would be poor philosophy to invoke an external +agent in the one case and reject it in the other. + +Instead of cutting our grain of corn into slices and subjecting it to the +action of polarized light, let us place it in the earth and subject it to +a certain degree of warmth. In other words, let the molecules, both of the +corn and of the surrounding earth, be kept in that state of agitation +which we call warmth. Under these circumstances, the grain and the +substances which surround it interact, and a definite molecular +architecture is the result. A bud is formed; this bud reaches the surface, +where it is exposed to the sun's rays, which are also to be regarded as a +kind of vibratory motion. And as the motion of common heat, with which the +grain and the substances surrounding it were first endowed, enabled the +grain and these substances to exercise their attractions and repulsions, +and thus to coalesce in definite forms, so the specific motion of the +sun's rays now enables the green bud to feed upon the carbonic acid and +the aqueous vapor of the air. The bud appropriates those constituents of +both for which it has an elective attraction, and permits the other +constituent to resume its place in the air. Thus the architecture is +carried on. Forces are active at the root, forces are active in the blade, +the matter of the earth and the matter of the atmosphere are drawn toward +both, and the plant augments in size. We have in succession the bud, the +stalk, the ear, the full corn in the ear; the cycle of molecular action +being completed by the production of grains similar to that with which the +process began. + +Now there is nothing in this process which necessarily eludes the +conceptive or imagining power of the purely human mind. An intellect the +same in kind as our own would, if only sufficiently expanded, be able to +follow the whole process from beginning to end. It would see every +molecule placed in its position by the specific attractions and repulsions +exerted between it and other molecules, the whole process and its +consummation being an instance of the play of molecular force. Given the +grain and its environment, the purely human intellect might, if +sufficiently expanded, trace out _a priori_ every step of the process of +growth, and by the application of purely mechanical principles demonstrate +that the cycle must end, as it is seen to end, in the reproduction of +forms like that with which it began. A similar necessity rules here to +that which rules the planets in their circuits round the sun. + +You will notice that I am stating my truth strongly, as at the beginning +we agreed it should be stated. But I must go still further, and affirm +that in the eye of science _the animal body_ is just as much a product of +molecular force as the stalk and ear of corn, or as the crystal of salt or +sugar. Many of the parts of the body are obviously mechanical. Take the +human heart, for example, with its system of valves; or take the exquisite +mechanism of the eye or hand. Animal heat, moreover, is the same in kind +as the heat of a fire, being produced by the same chemical process. Animal +motion, too, is as directly derived from the food of the animal as the +motion of Trevethyck's walking engine from the fuel in its furnace. As +regards matter, the animal body creates nothing; as regards force, it +creates nothing. Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his +stature? All that has been said, then, regarding the plant may be restated +with regard to the animal. Every particle that enters into the composition +of a muscle, a nerve, or a bone has been placed in its position by +molecular force. And, unless the existence of law in these matters is +denied, and the element of caprice introduced, we must conclude that, +given the relation of any molecule of the body to its environment, its +position in the body might be determined mathematically. Our difficulty is +not with the _quality_ of the problem, but with its _complexity_; and this +difficulty might be met by the simple expansion of the faculties which we +now possess. Given this expansion, with the necessary data, and the chick +might be deduced as rigorously and as logically from the egg as the +existence of Neptune was deduced from the disturbances of Uranus, or as +conical refraction was deduced from the undulatory theory of light. + +You see, I am not mincing matters, but avowing nakedly what many +scientific thinkers more or less distinctively believe. The formation of a +crystal, a plant, or an animal is, in their eyes, a purely mechanical +problem, which differs from the problems of ordinary mechanics in the +smallness of the masses and the complexity of the processes involved. Here +you have one half of our dual truth; let us now glance at the other half. +Associated with this wonderful mechanism of the animal body, we have +phenomena no less certain than those of physics, but between which and the +mechanism we discern no necessary connection. A man, for example, can say +_I feel_, _I think_, _I love_; but how does _consciousness_ infuse itself +into the problem? The human brain is said to be the organ of thought and +feeling; when we are hurt, the brain feels it; when we ponder, it is the +brain that thinks; when our passions or affections are excited, it is +through the instrumentality of the brain. Let us endeavor to be a little +more precise here. I hardly imagine that there exists a profound +scientific thinker, who has reflected upon the subject, unwilling to admit +the extreme probability of the hypothesis that, for every fact of +consciousness, whether in the domain of sense, of thought, or of emotion, +a certain definite molecular condition is set up in the brain; who does +not hold this relation of physics to consciousness to be invariable, so +that, given the state of the brain, the corresponding thought or feeling +might be inferred; or, given the thought or feeling, the corresponding +state of the brain might be inferred. + +But how inferred? It is at bottom not a case of logical inference at all, +but of empirical association. You may reply that many of the inferences of +science are of this character; the inference, for example, that an +electric current of a given direction will deflect a magnetic needle in a +definite way; but the cases differ in this, that the passage from the +current to the needle, if not demonstrable, is thinkable, and that we +entertain no doubt as to the final mechanical solution of the problem. But +the passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of +consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a definite thought and a +definite molecular action in the brain occur simultaneously; we do not +possess the intellectual organ, nor apparently any rudiment of the organ, +which would enable us to pass, by a process of reasoning, from the one to +the other. They appear together, but we do not know why. Were our minds +and senses so expanded, strengthened, and illuminated as to enable us to +see and feel the very molecules of the brain; were we capable of following +all their motions, all their groupings, all their electric discharges, if +such there be; and were we intimately acquainted with the corresponding +states of thought and feeling, we should be as far as ever from the +solution of the problem, "How are these physical processes connected with +the facts of consciousness?" The chasm between the two classes of +phenomena would still remain intellectually impassable. Let the +consciousness of _love_, for example, be associated with a right-handed +spiral motion of the molecules of the brain, and the consciousness of +_hate_ with a left-handed spiral motion. We should then know, when we +love, that the motion is in one direction, and when we hate, that the +motion is in the other; but the _Why?_ would remain as unanswerable as +before. + +In affirming that the growth of the body is mechanical, and that thought, +as exercised by us, has its correlative in the physics of the brain, I +think the position of the "Materialist" is stated, as far as that position +is a tenable one. I think the materialist will be able finally to maintain +this position against all attacks; but I do not think, in the present +condition of the human mind, that he can pass beyond this position. I do +not think he is entitled to say that his molecular groupings and his +molecular motions _explain_ everything. In reality, they explain nothing. +The utmost he can affirm is the association of two classes of phenomena, +of whose real bond of union he is in absolute ignorance. + +The problem of the connection of body and soul is as insoluble in its +modern form as it was in the pre-scientific ages. Phosphorus is known to +enter into the composition of the human brain, and a trenchant German +writer has exclaimed, "Ohne Phosphor, kein Gedanke."[4] That may or may +not be the case; but, even if we knew it to be the case, the knowledge +would not lighten our darkness. On both sides of the zone here assigned to +the materialist he is equally helpless. If you ask him whence is this +"Matter" of which we have been discoursing, who or what divided it into +molecules, who or what impressed upon them this necessity of running into +organic forms, he has no answer. Science is mute in reply to these +questions. + +But if the materialist is confounded and science rendered dumb, who else +is prepared with a solution? To whom has this arm of the Lord been +revealed? Let us lower our heads and acknowledge our ignorance, priest and +philosopher, one and all. Perhaps the mystery may resolve itself into +knowledge at some future day. The process of things upon this earth has +been one of amelioration. It is a long way from the iguanodon and his +contemporaries to the President and the Members of the British +Association. And whether we regard the improvement from the scientific or +from the theological point of view, as the result of progressive +development, or as the result of successive exhibitions of creative +energy, neither view entitles us to assume that man's present faculties +end the series--that the process of amelioration stops at him. + +A time may therefore come when this ultra-scientific region by which we +are now enfolded may offer itself to terrestrial, if not to human, +investigation. Two thirds of the rays emitted by the sun fail to arouse in +the eye the sense of vision. The rays exist, but the visual organ +requisite for their translation into light does not exist. And so, from +this region of darkness and mystery which surrounds us, rays may now be +darting which require but the development of the proper intellectual +organs to translate them into knowledge as far surpassing ours as ours +surpasses that of the wallowing reptiles which once held possession of +this planet. Meanwhile the mystery is not without its uses. It certainly +may be made a power in the human soul; but it is a power which has +feeling, not knowledge, for its base. It may be, and will be, and we hope +is, turned to account, both in steadying and strengthening the intellect, +and in rescuing man from that littleness to which in the struggle for +existence or for precedence in the world he is continually prone. + + + + +JOHN HENRY, CARDINAL NEWMAN + +CHRISTIANITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE[5] + + +So far, then, as these remarks have gone, Theology and Physics cannot +touch each other, have no intercommunion, have no ground of difference or +agreement, of jealousy or of sympathy. As well may musical truths be said +to interfere with the doctrines of architectural science; as well may +there be a collision between the mechanist and the geologist, the engineer +and the grammarian; as well might the British Parliament or the French +nation be jealous of some possible belligerent power upon the surface of +the moon, as Physics pick a quarrel with Theology. And it may be +well--before I proceed to fill up in detail this outline, and to explain +what has to be explained in this statement--to corroborate it, as it +stands, by the remarkable words upon the subject of a writer of the +day:[6]-- + +"We often hear it said," he observes, writing as a Protestant (and here +let me assure you, gentlemen, that though his words have a controversial +tone with them, I do not quote them in that aspect, or as wishing here to +urge anything against Protestants, but merely in pursuance of my own +point, that Revelation and Physical Science cannot really come into +collision), "we often hear it said that the world is constantly becoming +more and more enlightened, and that this enlightenment must be favorable +to Protestantism, and unfavorable to Catholicism. We wish that we could +think so. But we see great reason to doubt whether this is a well-founded +expectation. We see that during the last two hundred and fifty years the +human mind has been in the highest degree active; that it has made great +advances in every branch of natural philosophy; that it has produced +innumerable inventions tending to promote the convenience of life; that +medicine, surgery, chemistry, engineering, have been very greatly +improved, that government, police, and law have been improved, though not +to so great an extent as the physical sciences. Yet we see that, during +these two hundred and fifty years, Protestantism has made no conquests +worth speaking of. Nay, we believe that, as far as there has been change, +that change has, on the whole, been in favor of the Church of Rome. We +cannot, therefore, feel confident that the progress of knowledge will +necessarily be fatal to a system which has, to say the least, stood its +ground in spite of the immense progress made by the human race in +knowledge since the days of Queen Elizabeth. + +"Indeed, the argument which we are considering seems to us to be founded +on an entire mistake. There are branches of knowledge with respect to +which the law of the human mind is progress. In mathematics, when once a +proposition has been demonstrated, it is never afterwards contested. Every +fresh story is as solid a basis for a new superstructure as the original +foundation was. Here, therefore, there is a constant addition to the stock +of truth. In the inductive sciences, again, the law is progress.... + +"But with theology the case is very different. As respects natural +religion (Revelation being for the present altogether left out of the +question), it is not easy to see that a philosopher of the present day is +more favorably situated than Thales or Simonides. He has before him just +the same evidences of design in the structure of the universe which the +early Greeks had.... As to the other great question, what becomes of man +after death, we do not see that a highly educated European, left to his +unassisted reason, is more likely to be in the right than a Blackfoot +Indian. Not a single one of the many sciences, in which we surpass the +Blackfoot Indians, throws the smallest light on the state of the soul +after the animal life is extinct.... + +"Natural Theology, then, is not a progressive science. That knowledge of +our origin and of our destiny which we derive from Revelation is indeed of +very different clearness, and of very different importance. But neither is +Revealed Religion of the nature of a progressive science.... In divinity +there cannot be a progress analogous to that which is constantly taking +place in pharmacy, geology, and navigation. A Christian of the fifth +century with a Bible is neither better nor worse situated than a Christian +of the nineteenth century with a Bible, candor and natural acuteness +being, of course, supposed equal. It matters not at all that the compass, +printing, gunpowder, steam, gas, vaccination, and a thousand other +discoveries and inventions, which were unknown in the fifth century, are +familiar to the nineteenth. None of these discoveries and inventions has +the smallest bearing on the question whether man is justified by faith +alone, or whether the invocation of saints is an orthodox practice.... We +are confident that the world will never go back to the solar system of +Ptolemy; nor is our confidence in the least shaken by the circumstance +that so great a man as Bacon rejected the theory of Galileo with scorn; +for Bacon had not all the means of arriving at a sound conclusion. But +when we reflect that Sir Thomas More was ready to die for the doctrine of +Transubstantiation, we cannot but feel some doubt whether the doctrine of +Transubstantiation may not triumph over all opposition. More was a man of +eminent talents. He had all the information on the subject that we have, +or _that, while the world lasts, any human being will have.... No +progress that science has made, or will make_, can add to what seems to us +the overwhelming force of the argument against the Real Presence. We are +therefore unable to understand why what Sir Thomas More believed +respecting Transubstantiation may not be believed, to the end of time, by +men equal in abilities and honesty to Sir Thomas More. But Sir Thomas More +is one of the choice specimens of human wisdom and virtue; and the +doctrine of Transubstantiation is a kind of proof charge. The faith which +stands that test will stand any test.... + +"The history of Catholicism strikingly illustrates these observations. +During the last seven centuries the public mind of Europe has made +constant progress in every department of secular knowledge; but in +religion we can trace no constant progress.... Four times since the +authority of the Church of Rome was established in Western Christendom, +has the human intellect risen up against her yoke. Twice that Church +remained completely victorious. Twice she came forth from the conflict +bearing the marks of cruel wounds, but with the principle of life still +strong within her. When we reflect on the tremendous assaults she has +survived, we find it difficult to conceive in what way she is to perish." + + * * * * * + +You see, gentlemen, if you trust the judgment of a sagacious mind, deeply +read in history, Catholic Theology has nothing to fear from the progress +of Physical Science, even independently of the divinity of its doctrines. +It speaks of things supernatural; and these, by the very force of the +words, research into nature cannot touch. + + + + +ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + +PULVIS ET UMBRA[7] + + +We look for some reward of our endeavors, and are disappointed; not +success, not happiness, not even peace of conscience, crowns our +ineffectual efforts to do well. Our frailties are invincible, our virtues +barren; the battle goes sore against us to the going down of the sun. The +canting moralist tells us of right and wrong; and we look abroad, even on +the face of our small earth, and find them change with every climate, and +no country where some action is not honored for a virtue and none where it +is not branded for a vice; and we look in our experience, and find no +vital congruity in the wisest rules, but at the best a municipal fitness. +It is not strange if we are tempted to despair of good. We ask too much. +Our religions and moralities have been trimmed to flatter us, till they +are all emasculate and sentimentalized, and only please and weaken. Truth +is of a rougher strain. In the harsh face of life, faith can read a +bracing gospel. The human race is a thing more ancient than the ten +commandments; and the bones and revolutions of the Kosmos, in whose joints +we are but moss and fungus, more ancient still. + +Of the Kosmos in the last resort, science reports many doubtful things, +and all of them appalling. There seems no substance to this solid globe on +which we stamp: nothing but symbols and ratios. Symbols and ratios carry +us and bring us forth and beat us down; gravity, which swings the +incommensurable suns and worlds through space, is but a figment varying +inversely as the squares of distances; and the suns and worlds +themselves, imponderable figures of abstraction, NH{3} and H{2}O. +Consideration dares not dwell upon this view; that way madness lies; +science carries us into zones of speculation, where there is no habitable +city for the mind of man. + +But take the Kosmos with a grosser faith, as our senses give it us. We +behold space sown with rotatory islands, suns and worlds and the shards +and wrecks of systems: some, like the sun, still blazing; some rotting, +like the earth; others, like the moon, stable in desolation. All of these +we take to be made of something we call matter: a thing which no analysis +can help us to conceive; to whose incredible properties no familiarity can +reconcile our minds. This stuff, when not purified by the lustration of +fire, rots uncleanly into something we call life; seized through all its +atoms with a pediculous malady; swelling in tumors that become +independent, sometimes even (by an abhorrent prodigy) locomotory; one +splitting into millions, millions cohering into one, as the malady +proceeds through varying stages. This vital putrescence of the dust, used +as we are to it, yet strikes us with occasional disgust; and the profusion +of worms in a piece of ancient turf, or the air of a marsh darkened with +insects, will sometimes check our breathing so that we aspire for cleaner +places. But none is clean: the moving sand is infected with lice; the pure +spring, where it bursts out of the mountain, is a mere issue of worms; +even in the hard rock the crystal is forming. + +In two main shapes this eruption covers the countenance of the earth: the +animal and the vegetable; one in some degree the inversion of the other; +the second rooted to the spot; the first coming detached out of its natal +mud, and scurrying abroad with the myriad feet of insects, or towering +into the heavens on the wings of birds; a thing so inconceivable that, if +it be well considered, the heart stops. To what passes with the anchored +vermin, we have little clue; doubtless they have their joys and sorrows, +their delights and killing agonies; it appears not how. But of the +locomotory, to which we ourselves belong, we can tell more. These share +with us a thousand miracles: the miracles of sight, of hearing, of the +projection of sound; things that bridge space; the miracles of memory and +reason, by which the present is conceived, and, when it is gone, its image +kept living in the brains of man and brute; the miracle of reproduction, +with its imperious desires and staggering consequences. And to put the +last touch upon this mountain mass of the revolting and the inconceivable, +all these prey upon each other, lives tearing other lives in pieces, +cramming them inside themselves, and by that summary process, growing fat: +the vegetarian, the whale, perhaps the tree, not less than the lion of the +desert; for the vegetarian is only the eater of the dumb. + +Meanwhile our rotatory island, loaded with predatory life, and more +drenched with blood, both animal and vegetable, than ever mutinied ship, +scuds through space with unimaginable speed, and turns alternate cheeks to +the reverberation of a blazing world, ninety million miles away. + +What a monstrous spectre is this man, the disease of the agglutinated +dust, lifting alternate feet or lying drugged with slumber; killing, +feeding, growing, bringing forth small copies of himself; grown upon with +hair like grass, fitted with eyes that move and glitter in his face; a +thing to set children screaming; and yet, looked at nearlier, known as his +fellows know him, how surprising are his attributes! Poor soul, here for +so little, cast among so many hardships, filled with desires so +incommensurate and so inconsistent, savagely surrounded, savagely +descended, irremediably condemned to prey upon his fellow lives: who +should have blamed him, had he been of a piece with his destiny, and a +being merely barbarous? And we look and behold him instead filled with +imperfect virtues: infinitely childish, often admirably valiant, often +touchingly kind; sitting down, amidst his momentary life, to debate of +right and wrong and the attributes of the deity; rising up to do battle +for an egg or die for an idea; singling out his friends and his mate with +cordial affection; bringing forth in pain; rearing, with long-suffering +solicitude, his young. + +To touch the heart of his mystery, we find in him one thought, strange to +the point of lunacy: the thought of duty; the thought of something owing +to himself, to his neighbor, to his God; an ideal of decency, to which he +would rise if it were possible; a limit of shame, below which, if it be +possible, he will not stoop. The design in most men is one of conformity; +here and there, in picked natures, it transcends itself and soars on the +other side, arming martyrs with independence; but in all, in their +degrees, it is a bosom thought. Not in man alone, for we trace it in dogs +and cats whom we know fairly well; and doubtless some similar point of +honor sways the elephant, the oyster, and the louse, of whom we know so +little. But in man, at least, it sways with so complete an empire that +merely selfish things come second, even with the selfish; that appetites +are starved, fears are conquered, pains supported; that almost the dullest +shrinks from the reproof of a glance, although it were a child's; and all +but the most cowardly stand amid the risks of war; and the more noble, +having strongly conceived an act as due to their ideal, affront and +embrace death. Strange enough, if, with their singular origin and +perverted practice, they think they are to be rewarded in some future +life; stranger still, if they are persuaded of the contrary, and think +this blow, which they solicit, will strike them senseless for eternity. + +I shall be reminded what a tragedy of misconception and misconduct man at +large presents: of organized injustice, cowardly violence, and treacherous +crime; and of the damning imperfections of the best. They cannot be too +darkly drawn. Man is indeed marked for failure in his efforts to do right. +But where the best consistently miscarry, how tenfold more remarkable that +all should continue to strive; and surely we should find it both touching +and inspiriting that, in a field from which success is banished, our race +should not cease to labor. + +If the first view of this creature, stalking in his rotatory isle, be a +thing to shake the courage of the stoutest, on this nearer sight he +startles us with an admiring wonder. It matters not where we look, under +what climate we observe him, in what stage of society, in what depth of +ignorance, burthened with what erroneous morality: by camp-fires in +Assiniboia, the snow powdering his shoulders, the wind plucking his +blanket, as he sits, passing the ceremonial calumet and uttering his grave +opinions like a Roman senator: in ships at sea, a man inured to hardship +and vile pleasures, his brightest hope a fiddle in a tavern and a +bedizened trull who sells herself to rob him, and he, for all that, +simple, innocent, cheerful, kindly like a child, constant to toil, brave +to drown for others; in the slums of cities, moving among indifferent +millions to mechanical employments, without hope of change in the future, +with scarce a pleasure in the present, and yet true to his virtues, honest +up to his lights, kind to his neighbors, tempted perhaps in vain by the +bright gin-palace, perhaps long-suffering with the drunken wife that ruins +him; in India (a woman this time) kneeling with broken cries and streaming +tears, as she drowns her child in the sacred river; in the brothel, the +discard of society, living mainly on strong drink, fed with affronts, a +fool, a thief, the comrade of thieves, and even here keeping the point of +honor and the touch of pity, often repaying the world's scorn with +service, often standing firm upon a scruple, and at a certain cost, +rejecting riches--everywhere some virtue cherished or affected, everywhere +some decency of thought and carriage, everywhere the ensign of man's +ineffectual goodness. Ah! if I could show you this! if I could show you +these men and women, all the world over, in every stage of history, under +every abuse of error, under every circumstance of failure, without hope, +without help, without thanks, still obscurely fighting the lost fight of +virtue, still clinging, in the brothel or on the scaffold, to some rag of +honor, the poor jewel of their souls! They may seek to escape, and yet +they cannot; it is not alone their privilege and glory, but their doom; +they are condemned to some nobility; all their lives long, the desire of +good is at their heels, the implacable hunter. + +Of all earth's meteors, here at least is the most strange and consoling: +that this ennobled lemur, this hair-crowned bubble of the dust, this +inheritor of a few years and sorrows, should yet deny himself his rare +delights, and add to his frequent pains, and live for an ideal, however +misconceived. Nor can we stop with man. A new doctrine, received with +screams a little while ago by canting moralists, and still not properly +worked into the body of our thoughts, lights us a step further into the +heart of this rough but noble universe. For nowadays the pride of man +denies in vain his kinship with the original dust. He stands no longer +like a thing apart. Close at his heels we see the dog, prince of another +genus: and in him too we see dumbly testified the same cultus of an +unattainable ideal, the same constancy in failure. Does it stop with the +dog? We look at our feet, where the ground is blackened with the swarming +ant: a creature so small, so far from us in the hierarchy of brutes, that +we can scarce trace and scarce comprehend his doings; and here also, in +his ordered polities and rigorous justice, we see confessed the law of +duty and the fact of individual sin. Does it stop, then, with the ant? +Rather, this desire of well-doing and this doom of frailty run through all +the grades of life; rather is this earth, from the frosty top of Everest +to the next margin of the internal fire, one stage of ineffectual virtues +and one temple of pious tears and perseverance. + +The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together. It is the common and +the god-like law of life. The browsers, the biters, the barkers, the hairy +coats of field and forest, the squirrel in the oak, the thousand-footed +creeper in the dust, as they share with us the gift of life, share with us +the love of an ideal: strive like us,--like us are tempted to grow weary +of the struggle,--to do well; like us receive at times unmerited +refreshment, visitings of support, returns of courage; and are condemned +like us to be crucified between that double law of the members and the +will. Are they like us, I wonder, in the timid hope of some reward, some +sugar with the drug? Do they, too, stand aghast at unrewarded virtues, at +the sufferings of those whom, in our partiality, we take to be just, and +the prosperity of such as, in our blindness, we call wicked? It may be; +and yet God knows what they should look for. Even while they look, even +while they repent, the foot of man treads them by thousands in the dust, +the yelping hounds burst upon their trail, the bullet speeds, the knives +are heating in the den of the vivisectionist; or the dew falls, and the +generation of a day is blotted out. For these are creatures compared with +whom our weakness is strength, our ignorance wisdom, our brief span +eternity. + +And as we dwell, we living things, in our isle of terror and under the +imminent hand of death, God forbid it should be man the erected, the +reasoner, the wise in his own eyes--God forbid it should be man that +wearies in well-doing, that despairs of unrewarded effort, or utters the +language of complaint. Let it be enough for faith, that the whole creation +groans in mortal frailty, strives with unconquerable constancy--surely not +all in vain. + + + + +JOHN RUSKIN + +THE MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS[8] + + +When I accepted the privilege of addressing you to-day, I was not aware of +a restriction with respect to the topics of discussion which may be +brought before this Society[9]--a restriction which, though entirely wise +and right under the circumstances contemplated in its introduction, would +necessarily have disabled me, thinking as I think, from preparing any +lecture for you on the subject of art in a form which might be permanently +useful. Pardon me, therefore, in so far as I must transgress such +limitation; for indeed my infringement will be of the letter--not of the +spirit--of your commands. In whatever I may say touching the religion +which has been the foundation of art, or the policy which has contributed +to its power, if I offend one, I shall offend all; for I shall take no +note of any separations in creeds, or antagonisms in parties: neither do I +fear that ultimately I shall offend any, by proving--or at least stating +as capable of positive proof--the connection of all that is best in the +crafts and arts of man, with the simplicity of his faith, and the +sincerity of his patriotism. + +But I speak to you under another disadvantage, by which I am checked in +frankness of utterance, not here only, but everywhere: namely, that I am +never fully aware how far my audiences are disposed to give me credit for +real knowledge of my subject, or how far they grant me attention only +because I have been sometimes thought an ingenious or pleasant essayist +upon it. For I have had what, in many respects, I boldly call the +misfortune, to set my words sometimes prettily together; not without a +foolish vanity in the poor knack that I had of doing so: until I was +heavily punished for this pride, by finding that many people thought of +the words only, and cared nothing for their meaning. Happily, therefore, +the power of using such pleasant language--if, indeed, it ever were +mine--is passing away from me; and whatever I am now able to say at all, I +find myself forced to say with great plainness. For my thoughts have +changed also, as my words have; and whereas in earlier life, what little +influence I obtained was due perhaps chiefly to the enthusiasm with which +I was able to dwell on the beauty of the physical clouds, and of their +colors in the sky; so all the influence I now desire to retain must be due +to the earnestness with which I am endeavoring to trace the form and +beauty of another kind of cloud than those: the bright cloud of which it +is written, "What is your life? It is even as a vapor that appeareth for a +little time, and then vanisheth away." + +I suppose few people reach the middle or latter period of their age, +without having, at some moment of change or disappointment, felt the truth +of those bitter words; and been startled by the fading of the sunshine +from the cloud of their life into the sudden agony of the knowledge that +the fabric of it was as fragile as a dream, and the endurance of it as +transient as the dew. But it is not always that, even at such times of +melancholy surprise, we can enter into any true perception that this human +life shares in the nature of it, not only the evanescence, but the mystery +of the cloud; that its avenues are wreathed in darkness, and its forms and +courses no less fantastic, than spectral and obscure; so that not only in +the vanity which we cannot grasp, but in the shadow which we cannot +pierce, it is true of this cloudy life of ours, that "man walketh in a +vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain." + +And least of all, whatever may have been the eagerness of our passions, or +the height of our pride, are we able to understand in its depths the third +and most solemn character in which our life is like those clouds of +heaven; that to it belongs, not only their transience, not only their +mystery, but also their power; that in the cloud of the human soul there +is a fire stronger than the lightning, and a grace more precious than the +rain; and that, though of the good and evil it shall one day be said +alike, that the place that knew them knows them no more, there is an +infinite separation between those whose brief presence had there been a +blessing, like the mist of Eden that went up from the earth to water the +garden, and those whose place knew them only as a drifting and changeful +shade, of whom the Heavenly sentence is, that they are "wells without +water; clouds that are carried with a tempest, to whom the mist of +darkness is reserved forever." + +To those among us, however, who have lived long enough to form some just +estimate of the rate of the changes which are, hour by hour in +accelerating catastrophe, manifesting themselves in the laws, the arts, +and the creeds of men, it seems to me that, now at least, if never at any +former time, the thoughts of the true nature of our life, and of its +powers and responsibilities, should present themselves with absolute +sadness and sternness. And although I know that this feeling is much +deepened in my own mind by disappointment, which, by chance, has attended +the greater number of my cherished purposes, I do not for that reason +distrust the feeling itself, though I am on my guard against an +exaggerated degree of it; nay, I rather believe that in periods of new +effort and violent change, disappointment is a wholesome medicine; and +that in the secret of it, as in the twilight so beloved by Titian, we may +see the colors of things with deeper truth than in the most dazzling +sunshine.... + +You know, there is a tendency in the minds of many men, when they are +heavily disappointed in the main purposes of their life, to feel, and +perhaps in warning, perhaps in mockery, to declare, that life itself is a +vanity. Because it has disappointed them, they think its nature is of +disappointment always, or at best, of pleasure that can be grasped by +imagination only; that the cloud of it has no strength nor fire within; +but is a painted cloud only, to be delighted in, yet despised. You know +how beautifully Pope has expressed this particular phase of thought:-- + + Meanwhile opinion gilds, with varying rays, + These painted clouds that beautify our days; + Each want of happiness by hope supplied, + And each vacuity of sense, by pride. + Hope builds as fast as Knowledge can destroy; + In Folly's cup, still laughs the bubble joy. + One pleasure past, another still we gain, + And not a vanity is given in vain. + +But the effect of failure upon my own mind has been just the reverse of +this. The more that my life disappointed me, the more solemn and wonderful +it became to me. It seemed, contrarily to Pope's saying, that the vanity +of it _was_ indeed given in vain; but that there was something behind the +veil of it, which was not vanity. It became to me, not a painted cloud, +but a terrible and impenetrable one: not a mirage, which vanished as I +drew near, but a pillar of darkness, to which I was forbidden to draw +near. For I saw that both my own failure, and such success in petty things +as in its poor triumph seemed to me worse than failure, came from the want +of sufficiently earnest effort to understand the whole law and meaning of +existence, and to bring it to noble and due end; as, on the other hand, I +saw more and more clearly that all enduring success in the arts, or in any +other occupation, had come from the ruling of the lower purposes, not by a +conviction of their nothingness, but by a solemn faith in the advancing +power of human nature, or in the promise, however dimly apprehended, that +the mortal part of it would one day be swallowed up in immortality; and +that, indeed, the arts themselves never had reached any vital strength of +honor, but in the effort to proclaim this immortality, and in the service +either of great and just religion, or of some unselfish patriotism, and +law of such national life as must be the foundation of religion. + +Nothing that I have ever said is more true or necessary--nothing has been +more misunderstood or misapplied--than my strong assertion that the arts +can never be right themselves unless their motive is right. It is +misunderstood this way: weak painters, who have never learned their +business, and cannot lay a true line, continually come to me, crying out, +"Look at this picture of mine; it _must_ be good, I had such a lovely +motive. I have put my whole heart into it, and taken years to think over +its treatment." Well, the only answer for these people is,--if one had the +cruelty to make it,--"Sir, you cannot think over _any_thing in any number +of years,--you haven't the head to do it; and though you had fine motives, +strong enough to make you burn yourself in a slow fire, if only first you +could paint a picture, you can't paint one, nor half an inch of one; you +haven't the hand to do it." + +But, far more decisively we have to say to the men who _do_ know their +business, or may know it if they choose, "Sir, you have this gift, and a +mighty one; see that you serve your nation faithfully with it. It is a +greater trust than ships and armies: you might cast _them_ away, if you +were their captain, with less treason to your people than in casting your +own glorious power away, and serving the devil with it instead of men. +Ships and armies you may replace if they are lost, but a great intellect, +once abused, is a curse to the earth forever." + +This, then, I meant by saying that the arts must have noble motive. This +also I said respecting them, that they never had prospered, nor could +prosper, but when they had such true purpose, and were devoted to the +proclamation of divine truth or law. And yet I saw also that they had +always failed in this proclamation--that poetry, and sculpture, and +painting, though great when they strove to teach us something about the +gods, never had taught us anything trustworthy about the gods, but had +always betrayed their trust in the crisis of it, and, with their powers at +the full reach, became ministers to pride and to lust. And I felt also, +with increasing amazement, the unconquerable apathy in ourselves the +hearers, no less than in these the teachers; and that, while the wisdom +and rightness of every act and art of life could only be consistent with a +right understanding of the ends of life, we were all plunged as in a +languid dream--our hearts fat, and our eyes heavy, and our ears closed, +lest the inspiration of hand or voice should reach us--lest we should see +with our eyes, and understand with our hearts, and be healed. + +This intense apathy in all of us is the first great mystery of life; it +stands in the way of every perception, every virtue. There is no making +ourselves feel enough astonishment at it. That the occupations or pastimes +of life should have no motive, is understandable; but--that life itself +should have no motive,--that we neither care to find out what it may lead +to, nor to guard against its being forever taken away from us,--here is a +mystery indeed. For just suppose I were able to call at this moment to +anyone in this audience by name, and to tell him positively that I knew a +large estate had been lately left to him on some curious conditions; but +that though I knew it was large, I did not know how large, nor even where +it was--whether in the East Indies or the West, or in England, or at the +Antipodes. I only knew it was a vast estate, and that there was a chance +of his losing it altogether if he did not soon find out on what terms it +had been left to him. Suppose I were able to say this positively to any +single man in this audience, and he knew that I did not speak without +warrant, do you think that he would rest content with that vague +knowledge, if it were anywise possible to obtain more? Would he not give +every energy to find some trace of the facts, and never rest till he had +ascertained where this place was, and what it was like? And suppose he +were a young man, and all he could discover by his best endeavor was that +the estate was never to be his at all, unless he persevered, during +certain years of probation, in an orderly and industrious life; but that, +according to the rightness of his conduct, the portion of the estate +assigned to him would be greater or less, so that it literally depended on +his behavior from day to day whether he got ten thousand a year, or thirty +thousand a year, or nothing whatever--would you not think it strange if +the youth never troubled himself to satisfy the conditions in any way, nor +even to know what was required of him, but lived exactly as he chose, and +never inquired whether his chances of the estate were increasing or +passing away? + +Well, you know that this is actually and literally so with the greater +number of the educated persons now living in Christian countries. Nearly +every man and woman in any company such as this outwardly professes to +believe--and a large number unquestionably think they believe--much more +than this; not only that a quite unlimited estate is in prospect for them +if they please the Holder of it, but that the infinite contrary of such a +possession--an estate of perpetual misery--is in store for them if they +displease this great Land-Holder, this great Heaven-Holder. And yet there +is not one in a thousand of these human souls that cares to think, for ten +minutes of the day, where this estate is or how beautiful it is, or what +kind of life they are to lead in it, or what kind of life they must lead +to obtain it. + +You fancy that you care to know this; so little do you care that, +probably, at this moment many of you are displeased with me for talking of +the matter! You came to hear about the Art of this world, not about the +Life of the next, and you are provoked with me for talking of what you can +hear any Sunday in church. But do not be afraid. I will tell you something +before you go about pictures, and carvings, and pottery, and what else you +would like better to hear of than the other world. Nay, perhaps you say, +"We want you to talk of pictures and pottery, because we are sure that you +know something of them, and you know nothing of the other world." Well--I +don't. That is quite true. But the very strangeness and mystery of which I +urge you to take notice, is in this--that I do not--nor you either. Can +you answer a single bold question unflinchingly about that other +world?--Are you sure there is a heaven? Sure there is a hell? Sure that +men are dropping before your faces through the pavements of these streets +into eternal fire, or sure that they are not? Sure that, at your own +death, you are going to be delivered from all sorrow, to be endowed with +all virtue, to be gifted with all felicity, and raised into perpetual +companionship with a King, compared to whom the kings of the earth are as +grasshoppers, and the nations as the dust of his feet? Are you sure of +this? or, if not sure, do any of us so much as care to make it sure? and, +if not, how can anything that we do be right--how can anything we think be +wise? what honor can there be in the arts that amuse us, or what profit in +the possessions that please? + +Is not this a mystery of life? + +But further, you may, perhaps, think it a beneficent ordinance for the +generality of men that they do not, with earnestness or anxiety, dwell on +such questions of the future, because the business of the day could not be +done if this kind of thought were taken by all of us for the morrow. Be it +so; but at least we might anticipate that the greatest and wisest of us, +who were evidently the appointed teachers of the rest, would set +themselves apart to seek out whatever could be surely known of the future +destinies of their race; and to teach this in no rhetorical or ambiguous +manner, but in the plainest and most severely earnest words. + +Now, the highest representatives of men who have thus endeavored, during +the Christian era, to search out these deep things, and relate them, are +Dante and Milton. There are none who for earnestness of thought, for +mastery of word, can be classed with these. I am not at present, mind you, +speaking of persons set apart in any priestly or pastoral office, to +deliver creeds to us, or doctrines; but of men who try to discover and set +forth, as far as by human intellect is possible, the facts of the other +world. Divines may perhaps teach us how to arrive there, but only these +two poets have in any powerful manner striven to discover, or in any +definite words professed to tell, what we shall see and become there; or +how those upper and nether worlds are, and have been, inhabited. + +And what have they told us? Milton's account of the most important event +in his whole system of the universe, the fall of the angels, is evidently +unbelievable to himself; and the more so, that it is wholly founded on, +and in a great part spoiled and degraded from, Hesiod's account of the +decisive war of the younger gods with the Titans. The rest of his poem is +a picturesque drama, in which every artifice of invention is visibly and +consciously employed; not a single fact being, for an instant, conceived +as tenable by any living faith. + +Dante's conception is far more intense, and, by himself, for the time, not +to be escaped from; it is indeed a vision, but a vision only, and that one +of the wildest that ever entranced a soul--a dream in which every +grotesque type or fantasy of heathen tradition is renewed, and adorned; +and the destinies of the Christian Church, under their most sacred +symbols, become literally subordinate to the praise, and are only to be +understood by the aid, of one dear Florentine maiden. + +I tell you truly that, as I strive more with this strange lethargy and +trance in myself, and awake to the meaning and power of life, it seems +daily more amazing to me that men such as these should dare to play with +the most precious truths (or the most deadly untruths) by which the whole +human race listening to them could be informed, or deceived--all the world +their audiences forever, with pleased ear, and passionate heart; and yet, +to this submissive infinitude of souls, and evermore succeeding and +succeeding multitude, hungry for bread of life, they do but play upon +sweetly modulated pipes; with pompous nomenclature adorn the councils of +hell; touch a troubadour's guitar to the courses of the suns; and fill the +openings of eternity, before which prophets have veiled their faces, and +which angels desire to look into, with idle puppets of their scholastic +imagination, and melancholy lights of frantic faith in their lost mortal +love. + +Is not this a mystery of life? + +But more. We have to remember that these two great teachers were both of +them warped in their temper, and thwarted in their search for truth. They +were men of intellectual war, unable, through darkness of controversy, or +stress of personal grief, to discern where their own ambition modified +their utterances of the moral law; or their own agony mingled with their +anger at its violation. But greater men than these have +been--innocent-hearted--too great for contest. Men, like Homer and +Shakespeare, of so unrecognized personality, that it disappears in future +ages, and becomes ghostly, like the tradition of a lost heathen god. Men, +therefore, to whose unoffended, uncondemning sight, the whole of human +nature reveals itself in a pathetic weakness, with which they will not +strive; or in mournful and transitory strength, which they dare not +praise. And all Pagan and Christian civilization thus becomes subject to +them. It does not matter how little, or how much, any of us have read, +either of Homer or Shakespeare; everything round us, in substance or in +thought, has been moulded by them. All Greek gentlemen were educated under +Homer. All Roman gentlemen, by Greek literature. All Italian, and French, +and English gentlemen, by Roman literature, and by its principles. Of the +scope of Shakespeare, I will say only that the intellectual measure of +every man since born, in the domains of creative thought, may be assigned +to him according to the degree in which he has been taught by Shakespeare. +Well, what do these two men, centres of mortal intelligence, deliver to us +of conviction respecting what it most behooves that intelligence to grasp? +What is their hope--their crown of rejoicing? what manner of exhortation +have they for us, or of rebuke? what lies next their own hearts, and +dictates their undying words? Have they any peace to promise to our +unrest, any redemption to our misery? + +Take Homer first, and think if there is any sadder image of human fate +than the great Homeric story. The main features in the character of +Achilles are its intense desire of justice and its tenderness of +affection. And in that bitter song of the Iliad, this man, though aided +continually by the wisest of the gods, and burning with the desire of +justice in his heart, becomes yet, through ill-governed passion, the most +unjust of men; and, full of the deepest tenderness in his heart, becomes +yet, through ill-governed passion, the most cruel of men. Intense alike in +love and in friendship, he loses, first his mistress, and then his friend; +for the sake of the one, he surrenders to death the armies of his own +land; for the sake of the other, he surrenders all. Will a man lay down +his life for his friend? Yea, even for his _dead_ friend, this Achilles, +though goddess-born and goddess-taught, gives up his kingdom, his country, +and his life--casts alike the innocent and guilty, with himself, into one +gulf of slaughter, and dies at last by the hand of the basest of his +adversaries. + +Is not this a mystery of life? + +But what, then, is the message to us of our own poet, and searcher of +hearts, after fifteen hundred years of Christian faith have been numbered +over the graves of men? Are his words more cheerful than the Heathen's--is +his hope more near--his trust more sure--his reading of fate more happy? +Ah, no! He differs from the Heathen poet chiefly in this--that he +recognizes, for deliverance, no gods nigh at hand; and that, by petty +chance--by momentary folly--by broken message--by fool's tyranny--or +traitor's snare, the strongest and most righteous are brought to their +ruin, and perish without word of hope. He indeed, as part of his +rendering of character, ascribes the power and modesty of habitual +devotion to the gentle and the just. The death-bed of Katharine is bright +with visions of angels; and the great soldier-king, standing by his few +dead, acknowledges the presence of the Hand that can save alike by many or +by few. But observe that from those who with deepest spirit meditate, and +with deepest passion mourn, there are no such words as these; nor in their +hearts are any such consolations. Instead of the perpetual sense of the +helpful presence of the Deity, which through all heathen tradition is the +source of heroic strength, in battle, in exile, and in the valley of the +shadow of death, we find only, in the great Christian poet, the +consciousness of a moral law, through which "the gods are just, and of our +pleasant vices make instruments to scourge us"; and of the resolved +arbitration of the destinies, that conclude into precision of doom what we +feebly and blindly began; and force us, when our indiscretion serves us, +and our deepest plots do pall, to the confession that "there's a divinity +that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will." + +Is not this a mystery of life? + +Be it so, then. About this human life that is to be, or that is, the wise +religious men tell us nothing that we can trust; and the wise +contemplative men, nothing that can give us peace. But there is yet a +third class to whom we may turn--the wise practical men. We have sat at +the feet of the poets who sang of heaven, and they have told us their +dreams. We have listened to the poets who sang of earth, and they have +chanted to us dirges and words of despair. But there is one class of men +more--men, not capable of vision, nor sensitive to sorrow, but firm of +purpose; practised in business; learned in all that can be (by handling) +known. Men whose hearts and hopes are wholly in this present world; from +whom, therefore, we may surely learn, at least, how, at present, +conveniently to live in it. What will _they_ say to us, or show us by +example? These kings--these councilors--these statesmen and builders of +kingdoms--these capitalists and men of business, who weigh the earth, and +the dust of it, in a balance. They know the world, surely; and what is the +mystery of life to us is none to them. They can surely show us how to +live, while we live, and to gather out of the present world what is best. + +I think I can best tell you their answer by telling you a dream I had +once. For though I am no poet, I have dreams sometimes. I dreamed I was at +a child's May-day party, in which every means of entertainment had been +provided for them by a wise and kind host. It was in a stately house, with +beautiful gardens attached to it; and the children had been set free in +the rooms and gardens, with no care whatever but how to pass their +afternoon rejoicingly. They did not, indeed, know much about what was to +happen next day; and some of them, I thought, were a little frightened, +because there was a chance of their being sent to a new school, where +there were examinations; but they kept the thoughts of that out of their +heads as well as they could, and resolved to enjoy themselves. The house, +I said, was in a beautiful garden, and in the garden were all kinds of +flowers; sweet, grassy banks for rest; and smooth lawns for play; and +pleasant streams and woods; and rocky places for climbing. And the +children were happy for a little while; but presently they separated +themselves into parties; and then each party declared it would have a +piece of the garden for its own, and that none of the others should have +anything to do with that piece. Next, they quarrelled violently which +pieces they would have; and at last the boys took up the thing, as boys +should do, "practically," and fought in the flower-beds till there was +hardly a flower left standing; then they trampled down each other's bits +of the garden out of spite; and the girls cried till they could cry no +more; and so they all lay down at last, breathless, in the ruin, and +waited for the time when they were to be taken home in the evening.[10] + +Meanwhile, the children in the house had been making themselves happy also +in their manner. For them there had been provided every kind of indoor +pleasure: there was music for them to dance to; and the library was open, +with all manner of amusing books; and there was a museum full of the most +curious shells, and animals, and birds; and there was a workshop, with +lathes and carpenter's tools, for the ingenious boys; and there were +pretty fantastic dresses, for the girls to dress in; and there were +microscopes, and kaleidoscopes, and whatever toys a child could fancy; and +a table, in the dining-room, loaded with everything nice to eat. + +But, in the midst of all this, it struck two or three of the more +"practical" children, that they would like some of the brass-headed nails +that studded the chairs; and so they set to work to pull them out. +Presently, the others, who were reading, or looking at shells, took a +fancy to do the like; and, in a little while, all the children, nearly, +were spraining their fingers, in pulling out brass-headed nails. With all +that they could pull out, they were not satisfied; and then, everybody +wanted some of somebody else's. And at last, the really practical and +sensible ones declared, that nothing was of any real consequence, that +afternoon, except to get plenty of brass-headed nails; and that the books, +and the cakes, and the microscopes were of no use at all in themselves, +but only, if they could be exchanged for nail-heads. And at last they +began to fight for nail-heads, as the others fought for the bits of +garden. Only here and there, a despised one shrank away into a corner, and +tried to get a little quiet with a book, in the midst of the noise; but +all the practical ones thought of nothing else but counting nail-heads all +the afternoon, even though they knew they would not be allowed to carry so +much as one brass knob away with them. But no--it was, "Who has most +nails? I have a hundred, and you have fifty"; or, "I have a thousand, and +you have two. I must have as many as you before I leave the house, or I +cannot possibly go home in peace." At last, they made so much noise that I +awoke, and thought to myself, "What a false dream that is, of _children_!" +The child is the father of the man; and wiser. Children never do such +foolish things. Only men do. + +But there is yet one last class of persons to be interrogated. The wise +religious men we have asked in vain; the wise contemplative men, in vain; +the wise worldly men, in vain. But there is another group yet. In the +midst of this vanity of empty religion, of tragic contemplation, of +wrathful and wretched ambition, and dispute for dust, there is yet one +great group of persons, by whom all these disputers live--the persons who +have determined, or have had it by a beneficent Providence determined for +them, that they will do something useful; that whatever may be prepared +for them hereafter, or happen to them here, they will, at least, deserve +the food that God gives them by winning it honorably: and that, however +fallen from the purity, or far from the peace, of Eden, they will carry +out the duty of human dominion, though they have lost its felicity; and +dress and keep the wilderness, though they no more can dress or keep the +garden. + +These--hewers of wood and drawers of water; these--bent under burdens, or +torn of scourges; these--that dig and weave that plant and build; workers +in wood, and in marble, and in iron--by whom all food, clothing, +habitation, furniture, and means of delight are produced, for themselves, +and for all men beside; men, whose deeds are good, though their words may +be few; men, whose lives are serviceable, be they never so short, and +worthy of honor, be they never so humble--from these surely, at least, we +may receive some clear message of teaching; and pierce, for an instant, +into the mystery of life, and of its arts. + +Yes; from these, at last, we do receive a lesson. But I grieve to say,--or +rather, for that is the deeper truth of the matter, I rejoice to +say,--this message of theirs can only be received by joining them, not by +thinking about them. + +You sent for me to talk to you of art; and I have obeyed you in coming. +But the main thing I have to tell you is, that art must not be talked +about. The fact that there is talk about it at all, signifies that it is +ill done, or cannot be done. No true painter ever speaks, or ever has +spoken, much of his art. The greatest speak nothing. Even Reynolds is no +exception, for he wrote of all that he could not himself do, and was +utterly silent respecting all that he himself did. + +The moment a man can really do his work he becomes speechless about it. +All words become idle to him--all theories. Does a bird need to theorize +about building its nest, or boast of it when built? All good work is +essentially done that way--without hesitation, without difficulty, without +boasting; and in the doers of the best, there is an inner and involuntary +power which approximates literally to the instinct of an animal--nay, I +am certain that in the most perfect human artists, reason does _not_ +supersede instinct, but is added to an instinct as much more divine than +that of the lower animals; as the human body is more beautiful than +theirs; that a great singer sings not with less instinct than the +nightingale, but with more--only more various, applicable, and governable; +that a great architect does not build with less instinct than the beaver +or the bee, but with more--with an innate cunning of proportion that +embraces all beauty, and a divine ingenuity of skill that improvises all +construction. + + * * * * * + +And now, returning to the broader question, what these arts and labors of +life have to teach us of its mystery, this is the first of their +lessons--that the more beautiful the art, the more it is essentially the +work of the people who _feel themselves wrong_; who are striving for the +fulfillment of a law, and the grasp of a loveliness, which they have not +yet attained, which they feel even further and further from attaining, the +more they strive for it. And yet, in still deeper sense, it is the work of +people who know also that they are right. The very sense of inevitable +error from their purpose marks the perfectness of that purpose, and the +continued sense of failure arises from the continued opening of the eyes +more clearly to all the sacredest laws of truth. + +This is one lesson. The second is a very plain, and greatly precious one: +namely--that, whenever the arts and labors of life are fulfilled in this +spirit of striving against misrule, and doing whatever we have to do +honorably and perfectly, they invariably bring happiness, as much as seems +possible to the nature of man. In all other paths by which that happiness +is pursued there is disappointment, or destruction: for ambition and for +passion there is no rest--no fruition; the fairest pleasures of youth +perish in a darkness greater than their past light: and the loftiest and +purest love too often does but inflame the cloud of life with endless fire +of pain. But, ascending from lowest to highest, through every scale of +human industry, that industry, worthily followed, gives peace. Ask the +laborer in the field, at the forge, or in the mine; ask the patient, +delicate-fingered artisan, or the strong-armed, fiery-hearted worker in +bronze, and in marble, and with the colors of light; and none of these, +who are true workmen, will ever tell you that they have found the law of +heaven an unkind one--that in the sweat of their face they should eat +bread, till they return to the ground; nor that they ever found it an +unrewarded obedience, if, indeed, it was rendered faithfully to the +command, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do--do it with thy might." + +These are the two great and constant lessons which our laborers teach us +of the mystery of life. But there is another, and a sadder one, which they +cannot teach us, which we must read on their tombstones. + +"Do it with thy might." There have been myriads upon myriads of human +creatures who have obeyed this law,--who have put every breath and nerve +of their being into its toil,--who have devoted every hour, and exhausted +every faculty,--who have bequeathed their unaccomplished thoughts at +death,--who, being dead, have yet spoken, by majesty of memory, and +strength of example. And, at last, what has all this "Might" of humanity +accomplished, in six thousand years of labor and sorrow? What has it +_done_? Take the three chief occupations and arts of men, one by one, and +count their achievements. Begin with the first,--the lord of them +all,--Agriculture. Six thousand years have passed since we were set to +till the ground, from which we were taken. How much of it is tilled? How +much of that which is, wisely or well? In the very centre and chief garden +of Europe,--where the two forms of parent Christianity have had their +fortresses,--where the noble Catholics of the Forest Cantons, and the +noble Protestants of the Vaudois valleys, have maintained, for dateless +ages, their faiths and liberties,--there the unchecked Alpine rivers yet +run wild in devastation; and the marshes, which a few hundred men could +redeem with a year's labor, still blast their helpless inhabitants into +fevered idiotism. That is so, in the centre of Europe! While, on the near +coast of Africa, once the Garden of the Hesperides, an Arab woman, but a +few sunsets since, ate her child, for famine. And, with all the treasures +of the East at our feet, we, in our own dominion, could not find a few +grains of rice for a people that asked of us no more; but stood by, and +saw five hundred thousand of them perish of hunger. + +Then after agriculture, the art of kings, take the next head of human +arts--Weaving; the art of queens, honored of all Heathen women, in the +person of their virgin goddess--honored of all Hebrew women, by the word +of their wisest king--"She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands +hold the distaff; she stretcheth out her hand to the poor. She is not +afraid of the snow for her household, for all her household are clothed +with scarlet. She maketh herself covering of tapestry; her clothing is +silk and purple. She maketh fine linen, and selleth it, and delivereth +girdles to the merchant." What have we done in all these thousands of +years with this bright art of Greek maid and Christian matron? Six +thousand years of weaving, and have we learned to weave? Might not every +naked wall have been purple with tapestry, and every feeble breast fenced +with sweet colors from the cold? What have we done? Our fingers are too +few, it seems, to twist together some poor covering for our bodies. We set +our streams to work for us, and choke the air with fire, to turn our +spinning-wheels--and--_are we yet clothed_? Are not the streets of the +capitals of Europe foul with sale of cast clouts and rotten rags? Is not +the beauty of your sweet children left in wretchedness of disgrace, while, +with better honor, nature clothes the brood of the bird in its nest, and +the suckling of the wolf in her den? And does not every winter's snow robe +what you have not robed, and shroud what you have not shrouded; and every +winter's wind bear up to heaven its wasted souls, to witness against you +hereafter, by the voice of their Christ,--"I was naked, and ye clothed me +not"? + +Lastly--take the Art of Building--the strongest--proudest--most +orderly--most enduring of the arts of man; that of which the produce is in +the surest manner accumulative, and need not perish, or be replaced; but +if once well done, will stand more strongly than the unbalanced +rocks--more prevalently than the crumbling hills. The art which is +associated with all civic pride and sacred principle; with which men +record their power--satisfy their enthusiasm--make sure their +defence--define and make dear their habitation. And in six thousand years +of building, what have we done? Of the greater part of all that skill and +strength, _no_ vestige is left, but fallen stones, that encumber the +fields and impede the streams. But, from this waste of disorder, and of +time, and of rage, what _is_ left to us? Constructive and progressive +creatures that we are, with ruling brains, and forming hands, capable of +fellowship, and thirsting for fame, can we not contend, in comfort, with +the insects of the forest, or, in achievement, with the worm of the sea? +The white surf rages in vain against the ramparts built by poor atoms of +scarcely nascent life; but only ridges of formless ruin mark the places +where once dwelt our noblest multitudes. The ant and the moth have cells +for each of their young, but our little ones lie in festering heaps, in +homes that consume them like graves; and night by night, from the corners +of our streets, rises up the cry of the homeless: "I was a stranger, and +ye took me not in." + +Must it be always thus? Is our life forever to be without profit--without +possession? Shall the strength of its generations be as barren as death; +or cast away their labor, as the wild fig tree casts her untimely figs? Is +it all a dream then--the desire of the eyes and the pride of life--or, if +it be, might we not live in nobler dream than this? The poets and +prophets, the wise men, and the scribes, though they have told us nothing +about a life to come, have told us much about the life that is now. They +have had--they also--their dreams, and we have laughed at them. They have +dreamed of mercy, and of justice; they have dreamed of peace and +good-will; they have dreamed of labor undisappointed, and of rest +undisturbed; they have dreamed of fulness in harvest, and overflowing in +store; they have dreamed of wisdom in council, and of providence in law; +of gladness of parents, and strength of children, and glory of gray hairs. +And at these visions of theirs we have mocked, and held them for idle and +vain, unreal and unaccomplishable. What have we accomplished with our +realities? Is this what has come of our worldly wisdom, tried against +their folly? this, our mightiest possible, against their impotent ideal? +or, have we only wandered among the spectra of a baser felicity, and +chased phantoms of the tombs, instead of visions of the Almighty; and +walked after the imaginations of our evil hearts, instead of after the +counsels of Eternity, until our lives--not in the likeness of the cloud of +heaven, but of the smoke of hell--have become "as a vapor, that appeareth +for a little time, and then vanisheth away"? + +_Does_ it vanish, then? Are you sure of that?--sure that the nothingness +of the grave will be a rest from this troubled nothingness; and that the +coiling shadow, which disquiets itself in vain, cannot change into the +smoke of the torment that ascends forever? Will any answer that they _are_ +sure of it, and that there is no fear, nor hope, nor desire, nor labor, +whither they go? Be it so: will you not, then, make as sure of the Life +that now is, as you are of the Death that is to come? Your hearts are +wholly in this world--will you not give them to it wisely, as well as +perfectly? And see, first of all, that you _have_ hearts, and sound +hearts, too, to give. Because you have no heaven to look for, is that any +reason that you should remain ignorant of this wonderful and infinite +earth, which is firmly and instantly given you in possession? Although +your days are numbered, and the following darkness sure, is it necessary +that you should share the degradation of the brute, because you are +condemned to its mortality; or live the life of the moth, and of the worm, +because you are to companion them in the dust? Not so; we may have but a +few thousands of days to spend, perhaps hundreds only--perhaps tens; nay, +the longest of our time and best, looked back on, will be but as a moment, +as the twinkling of an eye; still we are men, not insects; we are living +spirits, not passing clouds. "He maketh the winds His messengers; the +momentary fire, His minister"; and shall we do less than _these_? Let us +do the work of men while we bear the form of them; and, as we snatch our +narrow portion of time out of Eternity, snatch also our narrow inheritance +of passion out of Immortality--even though our lives _be_ as a vapor, that +appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. + +But there are some of you who believe not this--who think this cloud of +life has no such close--that it is to float, revealed and illumined, upon +the floor of heaven, in the day when He cometh with clouds, and every eye +shall see Him. Some day, you believe, within these five, or ten, or twenty +years, for every one of us the judgment will be set, and the books opened. +If that be true, far more than that must be true. Is there but one day of +judgment? Why, for us every day is a day of judgment--every day is a Dies +Irae, and writes its irrevocable verdict in the flame of its west. Think +you that judgment waits till the doors of the grave are opened? It waits +at the doors of your houses--it waits at the corners of your streets; we +are in the midst of judgment--the insects that we crush are our +judges--the moments we fret away are our judges--the elements that feed +us, judge, as they minister--and the pleasures that deceive us, judge, as +they indulge. Let us, for our lives, do the work of Men while we bear the +form of them, if indeed those lives are _Not_ as a vapor, and do _Not_ +vanish away. + +"The work of men"--and what is that? Well, we may any of us know very +quickly, on the condition of being wholly ready to do it. But many of us +are for the most part thinking, not of what we are to do, but of what we +are to get; and the best of us are sunk into the sin of Ananias, and it is +a mortal one--we want to keep back part of the price; and we continually +talk of taking up our cross, as if the only harm in a cross was the +_weight_ of it--as if it was only a thing to be carried, instead of to +be--crucified upon. "They that are His have crucified the flesh, with the +affections and lusts." Does that mean, think you, that in time of national +distress, of religious trial, of crisis for every interest and hope of +humanity--none of us will cease jesting, none cease idling, none put +themselves to any wholesome work, none take so much as a tag of lace off +their footman's coats, to save the world? Or does it rather mean, that +they are ready to leave houses, lands, and kindreds--yes, and life, if +need be? Life!--some of us are ready enough to throw that away, joyless as +we have made it. But "_station_ in Life,"--how many of us are ready to +quit _that_? Is it not always the great objection, where there is question +of finding something useful to do--"We cannot leave our stations in Life"? + +Those of us who really cannot--that is to say, who can only maintain +themselves by continuing in some business or salaried office, have already +something to do; and all that they have to see to is, that they do it +honestly and with all their might. But with most people who use that +apology, "remaining in the station of life to which Providence has called +them" means keeping all the carriages, and all the footmen and large +houses they can possibly pay for; and, once for all, I say that if ever +Providence _did_ put them into stations of that sort,--which is not at all +a matter of certainty,--Providence is just now very distinctly calling +them out again. Levi's station in life was the receipt of custom; and +Peter's, the shore of Galilee; and Paul's, the antechambers of the High +Priest--which "station in life" each had to leave, with brief notice. + +And whatever our station in life may be, at this crisis, those of us who +mean to fulfil our duty ought first, to live on as little as we can; and, +secondly, to do all the wholesome work for it we can, and to spend all we +can spare in doing all the sure good we can. + +And sure good is, first in feeding people, then in dressing people, then +in lodging people, and lastly in rightly pleasing people, with arts, or +sciences, or any other subject of thought. + +I say first in feeding; and, once for all, do not let yourselves be +deceived by any of the common talk of "indiscriminate charity." The order +to us is not to feed the deserving hungry, nor the industrious hungry, nor +the amiable and well-intentioned hungry, but simply to feed the hungry. It +is quite true, infallibly true, that if any man will not work, neither +should he eat--think of that, and every time you sit down to your dinner, +ladies and gentlemen, say solemnly, before you ask a blessing, "How much +work have I done to-day for my dinner?" But the proper way to enforce that +order on those below you, as well as on yourselves, is not to leave +vagabonds and honest people to starve together, but very distinctly to +discern and seize your vagabond; and shut your vagabond up out of honest +people's way, and very sternly then see that, until he has worked, he does +_not_ eat. But the first thing is to be sure you have the food to give; +and, therefore, to enforce the organization of vast activities in +agriculture and in commerce, for the production of the wholesomest food, +and proper storing and distribution of it, so that no famine shall any +more be possible among civilized beings. There is plenty of work in this +business alone, and at once, for any number of people who like to engage +in it. + +Secondly, dressing people--that is to say, urging everyone within reach of +your influence to be always neat and clean, and giving them means of being +so. In so far as they absolutely refuse, you must give up the effort with +respect to them, only taking care that no children within your sphere of +influence shall any more be brought up with such habits; and that every +person who is willing to dress with propriety shall have encouragement to +do so. And the first absolutely necessary step toward this is the gradual +adoption of a consistent dress for different ranks of persons, so that +their rank shall be known by their dress; and the restriction of the +changes of fashion within certain limits. All which appears for the +present quite impossible; but it is only so far even difficult as it is +difficult to conquer our vanity, frivolity, and desire to appear what we +are not. And it is not, nor ever shall be, creed of mine, that these mean +and shallow vices are unconquerable by Christian women. + +And then, thirdly, lodging people, which you may think should have been +put first, but I put it third, because we must feed and clothe people +where we find them, and lodge them afterwards. And providing lodgment for +them means a great deal of vigorous legislation, and cutting down of +vested interests that stand in the way; and after that, or before that, so +far as we can get it, through sanitary and remedial action in the houses +that we have; and then the building of more, strongly, beautifully, and in +groups of limited extent, kept in proportion to their streams, and walled +round, so that there may be no festering and wretched suburb anywhere, but +clean and busy streets within, and the open country without, with a belt +of beautiful garden and orchard round the walls, so that from any part of +the city perfectly fresh air and grass, and sight of far horizon, might be +reachable in a few minutes' walk. This the final aim; but in immediate +action every minor and possible good to be instantly done, when, and as, +we can; roofs mended that have holes in them--fences patched that have +gaps in them--walls buttressed that totter--and floors propped that shake; +cleanliness and order enforced with our own hands and eyes, till we are +breathless, every day. And all the fine arts will healthily follow. I +myself have washed a flight of stone stairs all down, with bucket and +broom, in a Savoy inn, where they hadn't washed their stairs since they +first went up them; and I never made a better sketch than that afternoon. + +These, then, are the three first needs of civilized life; and the law for +every Christian man and woman is, that they shall be in direct service +toward one of these three needs, as far as is consistent with their own +special occupation, and if they have no special business, then wholly in +one of these services. And out of such exertion in plain duty all other +good will come; for in this direct contention with material evil, you will +find out the real nature of all evil; you will discern by the various +kinds of resistance, what is really the fault and main antagonism to good; +also you will find the most unexpected helps and profound lessons given, +and truths will come thus down to us which the speculation of all our +lives would never have raised us up to. You will find nearly every +educational problem solved, as soon as you truly want to do something; +everybody will become of use in their own fittest way, and will learn what +is best for them to know in that use. Competitive examination will then, +and not till then, be wholesome, because it will be daily, and calm, and +in practice; and on these familiar arts, and minute, but certain and +serviceable knowledges, will be surely edified and sustained the greater +arts and splendid theoretical sciences. + +But much more than this. On such holy and simple practice will be founded, +indeed, at last, an infallible religion. The greatest of all the mysteries +of life, and the most terrible, is the corruption of even the sincerest +religion, which is not daily founded on rational, effective, humble, and +helpful action. Helpful action, observe! for there is just one law, which, +obeyed, keeps all religions pure--forgotten, makes them all false. +Whenever in any religious faith, dark or bright, we allow our minds to +dwell upon the points in which we differ from other people, we are wrong, +and in the devil's power. That is the essence of the Pharisee's +thanksgiving--"Lord, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are." At +every moment of our lives we should be trying to find out, not in what we +differ from other people, but in what we agree with them; and the moment +we find we can agree as to anything that should be done, kind or good (and +who but fools couldn't?) then do it; push at it together: you can't +quarrel in a side-by-side push; but the moment that even the best men stop +pushing, and begin talking, they mistake their pugnacity for piety, and +it's all over. I will not speak of the crimes which in past times have +been committed in the name of Christ, nor of the follies which are at this +hour held to be consistent with obedience to Him; but I _will_ speak of +the morbid corruption and waste of vital power in religious sentiment, by +which the pure strength of that which should be the guiding soul of every +nation, the splendor of its youthful manhood, and spotless light of its +maidenhood, is averted or cast away. You may see continually girls who +have never been taught to do a single useful thing thoroughly; who cannot +sew, who cannot cook, who cannot cast an account, nor prepare a medicine, +whose whole life has been passed either in play or in pride; you will find +girls like these, when they are earnest-hearted, cast all their innate +passion of religious spirit, which was meant by God to support them +through the irksomeness of daily toil, into grievous and vain meditation +over the meaning of the great Book, of which no syllable was ever yet to +be understood but through a deed; all the instinctive wisdom and mercy of +their womanhood made vain, and the glory of their pure consciences warped +into fruitless agony concerning questions which the laws of common +serviceable life would either have solved for them in an instant, or kept +out of their way. Give such a girl any true work that will make her active +in the dawn, and weary at night, with the consciousness that her fellow +creatures have indeed been the better for her day, and the powerless +sorrow of her enthusiasm will transform itself into a majesty of radiant +and beneficent peace. + +So with our youths. We once taught them to make Latin verses, and called +them educated; now we teach them to leap and to row, to hit a ball with a +bat, and call them educated. Can they plough, can they sow, can they plant +at the right time, or build with a steady hand? Is it the effort of their +lives to be chaste, knightly, faithful, holy in thought, lovely in word +and deed? Indeed it is, with some, nay, with many, and the strength of +England is in them, and the hope; but we have to turn their courage from +the toil of war to the toil of mercy; and their intellect from dispute of +words to discernment of things; and their knighthood from the errantry of +adventure to the state and fidelity of a kingly power. And then, indeed, +shall abide, for them and for us, an incorruptible felicity, and an +infallible religion; shall abide for us Faith, no more to be assailed by +temptation, no more to be defended by wrath and by fear;--shall abide with +us Hope, no more to be quenched by the years that overwhelm, or made +ashamed by the shadows that betray:--shall abide for us, and with us, the +greatest of these; the abiding will, the abiding name of our Father. For +the greatest of these is Charity. + + + + +MARCUS AURELIUS + + +Mr. Mill says, in his book on Liberty, that "Christian morality is, in +great part, merely a protest against paganism; its ideal is negative +rather than positive, passive rather than active." He says, that, in +certain most important respects, "it falls far below the best morality of +the ancients." The object of systems of morality is to take possession of +human life, to save it from being abandoned to passion or allowed to drift +at hazard, to give it happiness by establishing it in the practice of +virtue; and this object they seek to attain by prescribing to human life +fixed principles of action, fixed rules of conduct. In its uninspired as +well as in its inspired moments, in its days of languor and gloom as well +as in its days of sunshine and energy, human life has thus always a clue +to follow, and may always be making way towards its goal. Christian +morality has not failed to supply to human life aids of this sort. It has +supplied them far more abundantly than many of its critics imagine. The +most exquisite document, after those of the New Testament, of all the +documents the Christian spirit has ever inspired,--the _Imitation_,--by no +means contains the whole of Christian morality; nay, the disparagers of +this morality would think themselves sure of triumphing if one agreed to +look for it in the _Imitation_ only. But even the _Imitation_ is full of +passages like these: "Vita sine proposito languida et vaga est."--"Omni +die renovare debemus propositum nostrum, dicentes: nunc hodie perfecte +incipiamus, quia nihil est quod hactenus fecimus."--"Secundum propositum +nostrum est cursus profectus nostri."--"Raro etiam unum vitium perfecte +vincimus, et ad _quotidianum_ profectum non accendimur."--"Semper aliquid +certi proponendum est."--"Tibi ipsi violentiam frequenter fac." (_A life +without a purpose is a languid, drifting thing.--Every day we ought to +renew our purpose, saying to ourselves: This day let us make a sound +beginning, for what we have hitherto done is nought.--Our improvement +is in proportion to our purpose.--We hardly ever manage to get +completely rid even of one fault, and do not set our hearts on_ daily +_improvement.--Always place a definite purpose before thee.--Get the habit +of mastering thine inclination._) These are moral precepts, and moral +precepts of the best kind. As rules to hold possession of our conduct, and +to keep us in the right course through outward troubles and inward +perplexity, they are equal to the best ever furnished by the great masters +of morals--Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. + +But moral rules, apprehended as ideas first, and then rigorously followed +as laws, are, and must be, for the sage only. The mass of mankind have +neither force of intellect enough to apprehend them clearly as ideas, nor +force of character enough to follow them strictly as laws. The mass of +mankind can be carried along a course full of hardship for the natural +man, can be borne over the thousand impediments of the narrow way, only by +the tide of a joyful and bounding emotion. It is impossible to rise from +reading Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius without a sense of constraint and +melancholy, without feeling that the burden laid upon man is well-nigh +greater than he can bear. Honor to the sages who have felt this, and yet +have borne it! Yet, even for the sage, this sense of labor and sorrow in +his march toward the goal constitutes a relative inferiority; the noblest +souls of whatever creed, the pagan Empedocles as well as the Christian +Paul, have insisted on the necessity of an inspiration, a living emotion +to make moral action perfect; an obscure indication of this necessity is +the one drop of truth in the ocean of verbiage with which the controversy +on justification by faith has flooded the world. But, for the ordinary +man, this sense of labor and sorrow constitutes an absolute +disqualification; it paralyzes him; under the weight of it, he cannot make +way toward the goal at all. The paramount virtue of religion is, that it +has _lighted up_ morality; that it has supplied the emotion and +inspiration needful for carrying the sage along the narrow way perfectly, +for carrying the ordinary man along it at all. Even the religions with +most dross in them have had something of this virtue; but the Christian +religion manifests it with unexampled splendor. "Lead me, Zeus and +Destiny!" says the prayer of Epictetus, "whithersoever I am appointed to +go: I will follow without wavering; even though I turn coward and shrink, +I shall have to follow all the same." The fortitude of that is for the +strong, for the few; even for them the spiritual atmosphere with which it +surrounds them is bleak and gray. But, "Let Thy loving spirit lead me +forth into the land of righteousness";--"The Lord shall be unto thee an +everlasting light, and thy God thy Glory";--"Unto you that fear My Name +shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings," says the +Old Testament; "born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of +the will of man, but of God";--"Except a man be born again, he cannot see +the kingdom of God";--"Whatsoever is born of God, overcometh the world," +says the New. The ray of sunshine is there, the glow of a divine warmth; +the austerity of the sage melts away under it, the paralysis of the weak +is healed; he who is vivified by it renews his strength; "all things are +possible to Him"; "he is a new creature." + +Epictetus says: "Every matter has two handles, one of which will bear +taking hold of, the other not. If thy brother sin against thee, lay not +hold of the matter by this, that he sins against thee; for by this handle +the matter will not bear taking hold of. But rather lay hold of it by +this, that he is thy brother, thy born mate; and thou wilt take hold of it +by what will bear handling." Jesus, being asked whether a man is bound to +forgive his brother as often as seven times, answers: "I say not unto +thee, until seven times, but until seventy times seven." Epictetus here +suggests to the reason grounds for forgiveness of injuries which Jesus +does not; but it is vain to say that Epictetus is on that account a better +moralist than Jesus, if the warmth, the emotion, of Jesus' answer fires +his hearer to the practice of forgiveness of injuries, while the thought +in Epictetus's leaves him cold. So with Christian morality in general: its +distinction is not that it propounds the maxim, "Thou shalt love God and +thy neighbor," with more development, closer reasoning, truer sincerity, +than other moral systems; it is that it propounds this maxim with an +inspiration which wonderfully catches the hearer and makes him act upon +it. It is because Mr. Mill has attained to the perception of truths of +this nature, that he is--instead of being, like the school from which he +proceeds, doomed to sterility--a writer of distinguished mark and +influence, a writer deserving all attention and respect; it is (I must be +pardoned for saying) because he is not sufficiently leavened with them, +that he falls just short of being a great writer.... + +The man whose thoughts Mr. Long[11] has thus faithfully reproduced is +perhaps the most beautiful figure in history. He is one of those consoling +and hope-inspiring marks, which stand forever to remind our weak and +easily discouraged race how high human goodness and perseverance have +once been carried, and may be carried again. The interest of mankind is +peculiarly attracted by examples of signal goodness in high places; for +that testimony to the worth of goodness is the most striking which is +borne by those to whom all the means of pleasure and self-indulgence lay +open, by those who had at their command the kingdoms of the world and the +glory of them. Marcus Aurelius was the ruler of the grandest of empires; +and he was one of the best of men. Besides him, history presents one or +two sovereigns eminent for their goodness, such as Saint Louis or Alfred. +But Marcus Aurelius has, for us moderns, this great superiority in +interest over Saint Louis or Alfred, that he lived and acted in a state of +society modern by its essential characteristics, in an epoch akin to our +own, in a brilliant centre of civilization. Trajan talks of "our +enlightened age" just as glibly as the "Times" talks of it. Marcus +Aurelius thus becomes for us a man like ourselves, a man in all things +tempted as we are. Saint Louis inhabits an atmosphere of mediaeval +Catholicism, which the man of the nineteenth century may admire, indeed, +may even passionately wish to inhabit, but which, strive as he will, he +cannot really inhabit. Alfred belongs to a state of society (I say it with +all deference to the "Saturday Review" critic who keeps such jealous watch +over the honor of our Saxon ancestors) half-barbarous. Neither Alfred nor +Saint Louis can be morally and intellectually as near to us as Marcus +Aurelius. + +The record of the outward life of this admirable man has in it little of +striking incident. He was born at Rome on the 26th of April, in the year +121 of the Christian era. He was nephew and son-in-law to his predecessor +on the throne, Antoninus Pius. When Antoninus died, he was forty years +old, but from the time of his earliest manhood he had assisted in +administering public affairs. Then, after his uncle's death in 161, for +nineteen years he reigned as Emperor. The barbarians were pressing on the +Roman frontier, and a great part of Marcus Aurelius's nineteen years of +reign was passed in campaigning. His absences from Rome were numerous and +long. We hear of him in Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Greece; but, above all, +in the countries on the Danube, where the war with the barbarians was +going on--in Austria, Moravia, Hungary. In these countries much of his +"Journal" seems to have been written; parts of it are dated from them; and +there, a few weeks before his fifty-ninth birthday, he fell sick and died. +The record of him on which his fame chiefly rests is the record of his +inward life--his "Journal," or "Commentaries," or "Meditations," or +"Thoughts," for by all these names has the work been called. Perhaps the +most interesting of the records of his outward life is that which the +first book of this work supplies, where he gives an account of his +education, recites the names of those to whom he is indebted for it, and +enumerates his obligations to each of them. It is a refreshing and +consoling picture, a priceless treasure for those, who, sick of the "wild +and dreamlike trade of blood and guile," which seems to be nearly the +whole that history has to offer to our view, seek eagerly for that +substratum of right thinking and well-doing which in all ages must surely +have somewhere existed, for without it the continued life of humanity +would have been impossible. + +"From my mother I learned piety and beneficence, and abstinence not only +from evil deeds but even from evil thoughts; and further, simplicity in my +way of living, far removed from the habits of the rich." Let us remember +that, the next time we are reading the sixth satire of Juvenal. "From my +tutor I learned" (hear it, ye tutors of princes!) "endurance of labor, and +to want little, and to work with my own hands, and not to meddle with +other people's affairs, and not to be ready to listen to slander." The +vices and foibles of the Greek sophist or rhetorician--the _Graeculus +esuriens_--are in everybody's mind; but he who reads Marcus Aurelius's +account of his Greek teachers and masters, will understand how it is that, +in spite of the vices and foibles of individual _Graeculi_, the education +of the human race owes to Greece a debt which can never be overrated. + +The vague and colorless praise of history leaves on the mind hardly any +impression of Antoninus Pius: it is only from the private memoranda of his +nephew that we learn what a disciplined, hard-working, gentle, wise, +virtuous man he was; a man who, perhaps, interests mankind less than his +immortal nephew only because he has left in writing no record of his inner +life--_caret quia vate sacro_. + +Of the outward life and circumstances of Marcus Aurelius, beyond these +notices which he has himself supplied, there are few of much interest and +importance. There is the fine anecdote of his speech when he heard of the +assassination of the revolted Avidius Cassius, against whom he was +marching; _he was sorry_, he said, _to be deprived of the pleasure of +pardoning him_. And there are one or two more anecdotes of him which show +the same spirit. But the great record for the outward life of a man who +has left such a record of his lofty inward aspirations as that which +Marcus Aurelius has left, is the clear consenting voice of all his +contemporaries,--high and low, friend and enemy, pagan and Christian,--in +praise of his sincerity, justice, and goodness. The world's charity does +not err on the side of excess, and here was a man occupying the most +conspicuous station in the world, and professing the highest possible +standard of conduct; yet the world was obliged to declare that he walked +worthily of his profession. Long after his death, his bust was to be seen +in the houses of private men through the wide Roman Empire. It may be the +vulgar part of human nature which busies itself with the semblance and +doings of living sovereigns; it is its nobler part which busies itself +with those of the dead. These busts of Marcus Aurelius, in the homes of +Gaul, Britain, and Italy, bore witness, not to the inmates' frivolous +curiosity about princes and palaces, but to their reverential memory of +the passage of a great man upon the earth. + +Two things, however, before one turns from the outward to the inward life +of Marcus Aurelius, force themselves upon one's notice, and demand a word +of comment: he persecuted the Christians, and he had for his son the +vicious and brutal Commodus. The persecution at Lyons, in which Attalus +and Pothinus suffered, the persecution at Smyrna, in which Polycarp +suffered, took place in his reign. Of his humanity, of his tolerance, of +his horror of cruelty and violence, of his wish to refrain from severe +measures against the Christians, of his anxiety to temper the severity of +these measures when they appeared to him indispensable, there is no doubt; +but, on the one hand, it is certain that the letter, attributed to him, +directing that no Christian should be punished for being a Christian, is +spurious; it is almost certain that his alleged answer to the authorities +of Lyons, in which he directs that Christians persisting in their +profession shall be dealt with according to the law, is genuine. Mr. Long +seems inclined to try to throw doubt over the persecution at Lyons, by +pointing out that the letter of the Lyons Christians relating it alleges +it to have been attended by miraculous and incredible incidents. "A man," +he says, "can only act consistently by accepting all this letter or +rejecting it all, and we cannot blame him for either." But it is contrary +to all experience to say that, because a fact is related with incorrect +additions, and embellishments, therefore it probably never happened at +all; or that it is not, in general, easy for an impartial mind to +distinguish between the fact and the embellishments. I cannot doubt that +the Lyons persecution took place, and that the punishment of Christians +for being Christians was sanctioned by Marcus Aurelius. + +But then I must add that nine modern readers out of ten, when they read +this, will, I believe, have a perfectly false notion of what the moral +action of Marcus Aurelius, in sanctioning that punishment, really was. +They imagine Trajan, or Antoninus Pius, or Marcus Aurelius, fresh from the +perusal of the Gospel, fully aware of the spirit and holiness of the +Christian saints, ordering their extermination because he loved darkness +rather than light. Far from this, the Christianity which these emperors +aimed at repressing was, in their conception of it, something +philosophically contemptible, politically subversive, and morally +abominable. As men, they sincerely regarded it much as well-conditioned +people, with us, regard Mormonism; as rulers, they regarded it much as +Liberal statesmen, with us, regard the Jesuits. A kind of Mormonism, +constituted as a vast secret society, with obscure aims of political and +social subversion, was what Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius believed +themselves to be repressing when they punished Christians. The early +Christian apologists again and again declare to us under what odious +imputations the Christians lay, how general was the belief that these +imputations were well-grounded, how sincere was the horror which the +belief inspired. The multitude, convinced that the Christians were +atheists who ate human flesh and thought incest no crime, displayed +against them a fury so passionate as to embarrass and alarm their rulers. +The severe expressions of Tacitus--"_exitiabilis superstitio_"; "_odio +humani generis convicti_"--show how deeply the prejudices of the multitude +imbued the educated class also. One asks one's self with astonishment how +a doctrine so benign as that of Christ can have incurred misrepresentation +so monstrous. The inner and moving cause of the misrepresentation lay, no +doubt, in this--that Christianity was a new spirit in the Roman world, +destined to act in that world as its dissolvent; and it was inevitable +that Christianity in the Roman world, like democracy in the modern world, +like every new spirit with a similar mission assigned to it, should at its +first appearance occasion an instinctive shrinking and repugnance in the +world which it was to dissolve. The outer and palpable causes of the +misrepresentation were, for the Roman public at large, the confounding of +the Christians with the Jews, that isolated, fierce, and stubborn race, +whose stubbornness, fierceness, and isolation, real as they were, the +fancy of a civilized Roman yet further exaggerated; the atmosphere of +mystery and novelty which surrounded the Christian rites; the very +simplicity of Christian theism; for the Roman statesman, the character of +secret assemblages which the meetings of the Christian community wore, +under a State-system as jealous of unauthorized associations as the Code +Napoleon. + +A Roman of Marcus Aurelius's time and position could not well see the +Christians except through the mist of these prejudices. Seen through such +a mist, the Christians appeared with a thousand faults not their own; but +it has not been sufficiently remarked that faults really their own many of +them assuredly appeared with, besides--faults especially likely to strike +such an observer as Marcus Aurelius, and to confirm him in the prejudices +of his race, station, and rearing. We look back upon Christianity after +it has proved what a future it bore within it, and for us the sole +representatives of its early struggles are the pure and devoted spirits +through whom it proved this; Marcus Aurelius saw it with its future yet +unshown, and with the tares among its professed progeny not less +conspicuous than the wheat. Who can doubt that, among the professing +Christians of the second century, as among the professing Christians of +the nineteenth, there was plenty of folly, plenty of rabid nonsense, +plenty of gross fanaticism? Who will even venture to affirm that, +separated in great measure from the intellect and civilization of the +world for one or two centuries, Christianity, wonderful as have been its +fruits, had the development perfectly worthy of its inestimable germ? Who +will venture to affirm that, by the alliance of Christianity with the +virtue and intelligence of men like the Antonines,--of the best product of +Greek and Roman civilization, while Greek and Roman civilization had yet +life and power,--Christianity and the world, as well as the Antonines +themselves, would not have been gainers? + +That alliance was not to be. The Antonines lived and died with an utter +misconception of Christianity; Christianity grew up in the Catacombs, not +on the Palatine. Marcus Aurelius incurs no moral reproach by having +authorized the punishment of the Christians; he does not thereby become, +in the least, what we mean by a _persecutor_. One may concede that it was +impossible for him to see Christianity as it really was, as impossible as +for even the moderate and sensible Fleury to see the Antonines as they +really were; one may concede that the point of view from which +Christianity appeared something anti-civil and anti-social, which the +State had the faculty to judge and the duty to suppress, was inevitably +his. Still, however, it remains true that this sage, who made perfection +his aim and reason his law, did Christianity an immense injustice and +rested in an idea of State-attributes which was illusive. And this is, in +truth, characteristic of Marcus Aurelius, that he is blameless, yet, in a +certain sense, unfortunate; in his character, beautiful as it is, there is +something melancholy, circumscribed, and ineffectual. + +For of his having such a son as Commodus, too, one must say that he is not +to be blamed on that account, but that he is unfortunate. Disposition and +temperament are inexplicable things; there are natures on which the best +education and example are thrown away; excellent fathers may have, without +any fault of theirs, incurably vicious sons. It is to be remembered also, +that Commodus was left, at the perilous age of nineteen, master of the +whole world; while his father, at that age, was but beginning a twenty +years' apprenticeship to wisdom, labor, and self-command, under the +sheltering teachership of his uncle Antoninus. Commodus was a prince apt +to be led by favorites; and if the story is true which says that he left, +all through his reign, the Christians untroubled, and ascribes this lenity +to the influence of his mistress Marcia, it shows that he could be led to +good as well as to evil; for such a nature to be left at a critical age +with absolute power, and wholly without good counsel and direction, was +the more fatal. Still one cannot help wishing that the example of Marcus +Aurelius could have availed more with his own only son. One cannot but +think that with such virtue as his there should go, too, the ardor that +removes mountains, and that the ardor that removes mountains might have +even won Commodus; the word _ineffectual_ again rises to one's mind; +Marcus Aurelius saved his own soul by his righteousness, and he could do +no more. Happy they who can do this! but still happier, who can do more! + +Yet, when one passes from his outward to his inward life, when one turns +over the pages of his "Meditations," entries jotted down from day to day, +amid the business of the city or the fatigues of the camp, for his own +guidance and support; meant for no eye but his own; without the slightest +attempt at style, with no care, even, for correct writing; not to be +surpassed for naturalness and sincerity--all disposition to carp and cavil +dies away, and one is overpowered by the charm of a character of such +purity, delicacy, and virtue. He fails neither in small things nor in +great; he keeps watch over himself, both that the great springs of action +may be right in him, and that the minute details of action may be right +also. How admirable in a hard-tasked ruler, and a ruler, too, with a +passion for thinking and reading, is such a memorandum as the following:-- + +"Not frequently nor without necessity to say to anyone, or to write in a +letter, that I have no leisure; nor continually to excuse the neglect of +duties required by our relation to those with whom we live, by alleging +urgent occupation." + +And, when that ruler is a Roman emperor, what an "idea" is this to be +written down and meditated by him:-- + +"The idea of a polity in which there is the same law for all, a polity +administered with regard to equal rights and equal freedom of speech, and +the idea of a kingly government which respects most of all the freedom of +the governed." + +And, for all men who "drive at practice," what practical rules may not one +accumulate out of these "Meditations":-- + +"The greatest part of what we say or do being unnecessary, if a man takes +this away, he will have more leisure and less uneasiness. Accordingly, on +every occasion, a man should ask himself, 'Is this one of the unnecessary +things?' Now a man should take away not only unnecessary acts, but also +unnecessary thoughts, for thus superfluous acts will not follow after." + +And again:-- + +"We ought to check in the series of our thoughts everything that is +without a purpose and useless, but most of all the over-curious feeling +and the malignant; and a man should use himself to think of those things +only about which, if one should suddenly ask, 'What hast thou now in thy +thoughts?' with perfect openness thou mightest immediately answer, 'This +or That,' so that from thy words it should be plain that everything in +thee is simple and benevolent, and such as befits a social animal, and one +that cares not for thoughts about sensual enjoyments, or any rivalry or +envy and suspicion, or anything else for which thou wouldst blush if thou +shouldst say thou hadst it in thy mind." + +So, with a stringent practicalness worthy of Franklin, he discourses on +his favorite text, "Let nothing be done without a purpose." But it is when +he enters the region where Franklin cannot follow him, when he utters his +thoughts on the ground-motives of human action, that he is most +interesting; that he becomes the unique, the incomparable Marcus Aurelius. +Christianity uses language very liable to be misunderstood when it seems +to tell men to do good, not, certainly, from the vulgar motives of worldly +interest, or vanity, or love of human praise, but "that their Father which +seeth in secret may reward them openly." The motives of reward and +punishment have come, from the misconception of language of this kind, to +be strangely overpressed by many Christian moralists, to the deterioration +and disfigurement of Christianity. Marcus Aurelius says, truly and +nobly:-- + +"One man, when he has done a service to another, is ready to set it down +to his account as a favor conferred. Another is not ready to do this, but +still in his own mind he thinks of the man as his debtor, and he knows +what he has done. A third, in a manner, does not even know what he has +done, _but he is like a vine which has produced grapes, and seeks for +nothing more after it has once produced its proper fruit_. As a horse when +he has run, a dog when he has caught the game, a bee when it has made its +honey, so a man, when he has done a good act, does not call out for others +to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine goes on to +produce again the grapes in season. Must a man, then, be one of these, who +in a manner acts thus without observing it? Yes." + +And again:-- + +"What more dost thou want when thou hast done a man a service? Art thou +not content that thou hast done something conformable to thy nature, and +dost thou seek to be paid for it, _just as if the eye demanded a +recompense for seeing, or the feet for walking_?" + +Christianity, in order to match morality of this strain, has to correct +its apparent offers of external reward, and to say: "The kingdom of God is +within you." + +I have said that it is by its accent of emotion that the morality of +Marcus Aurelius acquires a special character, and reminds one of Christian +morality. The sentences of Seneca are stimulating to the intellect; the +sentences of Epictetus are fortifying to the character; the sentences of +Marcus Aurelius find their way to the soul. I have said that religious +emotion has the power to _light up_ morality: the emotion of Marcus +Aurelius does not quite light up his morality, but it suffuses it; it has +not power to melt the clouds of effort and austerity quite away, but it +shines through them and glorifies them; it is a spirit, not so much of +gladness and elation, as of gentleness and sweetness; a delicate and +tender sentiment, which is less than joy and more than resignation. He +says that in his youth he learned from Maximus, one of his teachers, +"cheerfulness in all circumstances as well as in illness; _and a just +admixture in the moral character of sweetness and dignity_": and it is +this very admixture of sweetness with his dignity which makes him so +beautiful a moralist. It enables him to carry, even into his observation +of nature, a delicate penetration, a sympathetic tenderness, worthy of +Wordsworth; the spirit of such a remark as the following seems to me to +have no parallel in the whole range of Greek and Roman literature:-- + +"Figs, when they are quite ripe, gape open; and in the ripe olives the +very circumstance of their being near to rottenness adds a peculiar beauty +to the fruit. And the ears of corn bending down, and the lion's eyebrows, +and the foam which flows from the mouth of wild boars, and many other +things,--though they are far from being beautiful, in a certain +sense,--still, because they come in the course of nature, have a beauty in +them, and they please the mind; so that, if a man should have a feeling +and a deeper insight with respect to the things which are produced in the +universe, there is hardly anything which comes in the course of nature +which will not seem to him to be in a manner disposed so as to give +pleasure." + +But it is when his strain passes to directly moral subjects that his +delicacy and sweetness lend to it the greatest charm. Let those who can +feel the beauty of spiritual refinement read this, the reflection of an +emperor who prized mental superiority highly:-- + +"Thou sayest, 'Men cannot admire the sharpness of thy wits.' Be it so; but +there are many other things of which thou canst not say, 'I am not formed +for them by nature.' Show those qualities, then, which are altogether in +thy power--sincerity, gravity, endurance of labor, aversion to pleasure, +contentment with thy portion and with few things, benevolence, frankness, +no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling, magnanimity. Dost thou not +see how many qualities thou art at once able to exhibit, as to which there +is no excuse of natural incapacity and unfitness, and yet thou still +remainest voluntarily below the mark? Or art thou compelled, through being +defectively furnished by nature, to murmur, and to be mean, and to +flatter, and to find fault with thy poor body, and to try to please men, +and to make great display, and to be so restless in thy mind? No, indeed; +but thou mightest have been delivered from these things long ago. Only, if +in truth thou canst be charged with being rather slow and dull of +comprehension, thou must exert thyself about this also, not neglecting nor +yet taking pleasure in thy dulness." + +The same sweetness enables him to fix his mind, when he sees the isolation +and moral death caused by sin, not on the cheerless thought of the misery +of this condition, but on the inspiriting thought that man is blest with +the power to escape from it:-- + +"Suppose that thou hast detached thyself from the natural unity,--for thou +wast made by nature a part, but now thou hast cut thyself off,--yet here +is this beautiful provision, that it is in thy power again to unite +thyself. God has allowed this to no other part--after it has been +separated and cut asunder, to come together again. But consider the +goodness with which he has privileged man; for he has put it in his power, +when he has been separated, to return and to be united and to resume his +place." + +It enables him to control even the passion for retreat and solitude, so +strong in a soul like his, to which the world could offer no abiding +city. + +"Men seek retreat for themselves, houses in the country, seashores, and +mountains; and thou, too, art wont to desire such things very much. But +this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of man, for it is in thy +power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere +either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than +into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that, +by looking into them, he is immediately in perfect tranquillity. +Constantly, then, give to thyself this retreat, and renew thyself; and let +thy principles be brief and fundamental, which, as soon as thou shalt +recur to them, will be sufficient to cleanse the soul completely, and to +send thee back free from all discontent with the things to which thou +returnest." + +Against this feeling of discontent and weariness, so natural to the great +for whom there seems nothing left to desire or to strive after, but so +enfeebling to them, so deteriorating, Marcus Aurelius never ceased to +struggle. With resolute thankfulness he kept in remembrance the blessings +of his lot; the true blessings of it, not the false. + +"I have to thank Heaven that I was subjected to a ruler and a father +[Antoninus Pius] who was able to take away all pride from me, and to bring +me to the knowledge that it is possible for a man to live in a palace +without either guards, or embroidered dresses, or any show of this kind; +but that it is in such a man's power to bring himself very near to the +fashion of a private person, without being for this reason either meaner +in thought or more remiss in action with respect to the things which must +be done for public interest.... I have to be thankful that my children +have not been stupid or deformed in body; that I did not make more +proficiency in rhetoric, poetry, and the other studies, by which I should +perhaps have been completely engrossed, if I had seen that I was making +great progress in them;... that I knew Apollonius, Rusticus, Maximus;... +that I received clear and frequent impressions about living according to +nature, and what kind of a life that is, so that, so far as depended on +Heaven and its gifts, help, and inspiration, nothing hindered me from +forthwith living according to nature, though I still fall short of it +through my own fault, and through not observing the admonitions of Heaven, +and, I may almost say, its direct instructions; that my body has held out +so long in such a kind of life as mine; that, though it was my mother's +lot to die young, she spent the last years of her life with me; that, +whenever I wished to help any man in his need, I was never told that I had +not the means of doing it; that, when I had an inclination to philosophy, +I did not fall into the hands of a sophist." + +And, as he dwelt with gratitude on these helps and blessings vouchsafed to +him, his mind (so, at least, it seems to me) would sometimes revert with +awe to the perils and temptations of the lonely height where he stood, to +the lives of Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian, in their hideous +blackness and ruin; and then he wrote down for himself such a warning +entry as this, significant and terrible in its abruptness:-- + +"A black character, a womanish character, a stubborn character, bestial, +childish, animal, stupid, counterfeit, scurrilous, fraudulent, +tyrannical!" + +Or this:-- + +"About what am I now employing my soul? On every occasion I must ask +myself this question, and inquire, What have I now in this part of me +which they call the ruling principle, and whose soul have I now--that of a +child, or of a young man, or of a weak woman, or of a tyrant, or of one of +the lower animals in the service of man, or of a wild beast?" + +The character he wished to attain he knew well, and beautifully he has +marked it, and marked, too, his sense of shortcoming:-- + +"When thou hast assumed these names,--good, modest, true, rational, +equal-minded, magnanimous,--take care that thou dost not change these +names; and, if thou shouldst lose them, quickly return to them. If thou +maintainest thyself in possession of these names, without desiring that +others should call thee by them, thou wilt be another being, and wilt +enter on another life. For to continue to be such as thou hast hitherto +been, and to be torn in pieces and denied in such a life, is the character +of a very stupid man, and one overfond of his life, and like those +half-devoured fighters with wild beasts, who though covered with wounds +and gore, still entreat to be kept to the following day, though they will +be exposed in the same state to the same claws and bites. Therefore fix +thyself in the possession of these few names; and if thou art able to +abide in them, abide as if thou wast removed to the Happy Islands." + +For all his sweetness and serenity, however, man's point of life "between +two infinities" (of that expression Marcus Aurelius is the real owner) was +to him anything but a Happy Island, and the performances on it he saw +through no veils of illusion. Nothing is in general more gloomy and +monotonous than declamations on the hollowness and transitoriness of human +life and grandeur; but here, too, the great charm of Marcus Aurelius, his +emotion, comes in to relieve the monotony and to break through the gloom; +and even on this eternally used topic he is imaginative, fresh, and +striking:-- + +"Consider, for example, the times of Vespasian. Thou wilt see all these +things, people marrying, bringing up children, sick, dying, warring, +feasting, trafficking, cultivating the ground, flattering, obstinately +arrogant, suspecting, plotting, wishing for somebody to die, grumbling +about the present, loving, heaping up treasure, desiring to be consuls or +kings. Well, then that life of these people no longer exists at all. +Again, go to the times of Trajan. All is again the same. Their life too is +gone. But chiefly thou shouldst think of those whom thou hast thyself +known distracting themselves about idle things, neglecting to do what was +in accordance with their proper constitution, and to hold firmly to this +and to be content with it." + +Again:-- + +"The things which are much valued in life are empty, and rotten, and +trifling; and people are like little dogs, biting one another, and little +children quarreling, crying, and then straightway laughing. But fidelity, +and modesty, and justice and truth are fled + + Up to Olympus from the wide-spread earth. + +What then is there which still detains thee here?" + +And once more:-- + +"Look down from above on the countless herds of men, and their countless +solemnities, and the infinitely varied voyagings in storms and calms, and +the differences among those who are born, who live together and die. And +consider too the life lived by others in olden time, and the life now +lived among barbarous nations, and how many know not even thy name, and +how many will soon forget it, and how they who perhaps now are praising +thee will very soon blame thee, and that neither a posthumous name is of +any value, nor reputation, nor anything else." + +He recognized, indeed, that (to use his own words) "the prime principle in +man's constitution is the social"; and he labored sincerely to make, not +only his acts toward his fellow men, but his thoughts also, suitable to +this conviction. + +"When thou wishest to delight thyself, think of the virtue of those who +live with thee: for instance, the activity of one, and the modesty of +another, and the liberality of a third, and some other good quality of a +fourth." + +Still, it is hard for a pure and thoughtful man to live in a state of +rapture at the spectacle afforded to him by his fellow creatures; above +all it is hard, when such a man is placed as Marcus Aurelius was placed, +and has had the meanness and perversity of his fellow creatures thrust, in +no common measure, upon his notice--has had, time after time, to +experience how "within ten days thou wilt seem a god to those to whom thou +art now a beast and an ape." His true strain of thought as to his +relations with his fellow men is rather the following. He has been +enumerating the higher consolations which may support a man at the +approach of death, and he goes on:-- + +"But if thou requirest also a vulgar kind of comfort which shall reach thy +heart, thou wilt be made best reconciled to death by observing the objects +from which thou art going to be removed, and the morals of those with whom +thy soul will no longer be mingled. For it is no way right to be offended +with men, but it is thy duty to care for them and to bear with them +gently; and yet to remember that thy departure will not be from men who +have the same principles as thyself. For this is the only thing, if there +be any, which could draw us the contrary way and attach us to life--to be +permitted to live with those who have the same principles as ourselves. +But now thou seest how great is the distress caused by the difference of +those who live together, so that thou mayest say: 'Come quick, O death, +lest perchance I too should forget myself.'" + +_O faithless and perverse generation! how long shall I be with you? how +long shall I suffer you?_ Sometimes this strain rises even to passion:-- + +"Short is the little which remains to thee of life. Live as on a mountain. +Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was meant to live. +If they cannot endure him, let them kill him. For that is better than to +live as men do." + +It is remarkable how little of a merely local and temporary character, how +little of those _scoriae_ which a reader has to clear away before he gets +to the precious ore, how little that even admits of doubt or question, the +morality of Marcus Aurelius exhibits. In general, the action he prescribes +is action which every sound nature must recognize as right, and the +motives he assigns are motives which every clear reason must recognize as +valid. And so he remains the especial friend and comforter of scrupulous +and difficult, yet pure-hearted and upward-striving souls, in those ages +most especially that walk by sight, not by faith, but yet have no open +vision; he cannot give such souls, perhaps, all they yearn for, but he +gives them much; and what he gives them, they can receive. + +Yet no, it is not for what he thus gives them that such souls love him +most! it is rather because of the emotion which gives to his voice so +touching an accent, it is because he too yearns as they do for something +unattained by him. What an affinity for Christianity had this persecutor +of the Christians! The effusion of Christianity, its relieving tears, its +happy self-sacrifice, were the very element, one feels, for which his soul +longed; they were near him, they brushed him, he touched them, he passed +them by. One feels, too, that the Marcus Aurelius one knows must still +have remained, even had they presented themselves to him, in a great +measure himself; he would have been no Justin. But how would they have +affected him? in what measure would it have changed him? Granted that he +might have found, like the _Alogi_ of modern times, in the most beautiful +of the Gospels, the Gospel which has leavened Christendom most +powerfully,--the Gospel of St. John,--too much Greek metaphysics, too much +_gnosis_; granted that this Gospel might have looked too like what he knew +already to be a total surprise to him: what, then, would he have said to +the Sermon on the Mount, to the twenty-sixth chapter of St. Matthew? What +would have become of his notion of the _exitiabilis superstitio_, of the +"obstinacy of the Christians"? Vain question! yet the greatest charm of +Marcus Aurelius is that he makes us ask it. We see him wise, just, +self-governed, tender, thankful, blameless; yet, with all this, agitated, +stretching out his arms for something beyond--_tendentemque manus ripae +ulterioris amore_. + + + + +MATTHEW ARNOLD + + +DOVER BEACH + + The sea is calm to-night, + The tide is full, the moon lies fair + Upon the straits;--on the French coast the light + Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, + Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. + Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! + Only, from the long line of spray + Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land, + Listen! you hear the grating roar + Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, + At their return, up the high strand, + Begin, and cease, and then again begin, + With tremulous cadence slow, and bring + The eternal note of sadness in. + + Sophocles long ago + Heard it on the Aegaean, and it brought + Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow + Of human misery; we + Find also in the sound a thought, + Hearing it by this distant northern sea. + + The Sea of Faith + Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore + Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd. + But now I only hear + Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, + Retreating, to the breath + Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear + And naked shingles of the world. + Ah, love, let us be true + To one another! for the world, which seems + To lie before us like a land of dreams, + So various, so beautiful, so new, + Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, + Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; + And we are here as on a darkling plain + Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, + Where ignorant armies clash by night. + + +MORALITY + + We cannot kindle when we will + The fire that in the heart resides; + The spirit bloweth and is still, + In mystery our soul abides; + But tasks in hours of insight will'd + Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd. + + With aching hands and bleeding feet + We dig and heap, lay stone on stone; + We bear the burden and the heat + Of the long day, and wish 'twere done. + Not till the hours of light return, + All we have built do we discern. + + Then, when the clouds are off the soul, + When thou dost bask in Nature's eye, + Ask, how _she_ view'd thy self-control, + Thy struggling task'd morality-- + Nature, whose free, light, cheerful air, + Oft made thee, in thy gloom, despair. + + And she, whose censure thou dost dread, + Whose eye thou wert afraid to seek, + See, on her face a glow is spread, + A strong emotion on her cheek. + "Ah child," she cries, "that strife divine-- + Whence was it, for it is not mine? + + "There is no effort on _my_ brow-- + I do not strive, I do not weep. + I rush with the swift spheres, and glow + In joy, and, when I will, I sleep. + Yet that severe, that earnest air + I saw, I felt it once--but where? + + "I knew not yet the gauge of Time, + Nor wore the manacles of Space. + I felt it in some other clime-- + I saw it in some other place. + --'Twas when the heavenly house I trod, + And lay upon the breast of God." + + +SELF-DEPENDENCE + + Weary of myself, and sick of asking + What I am, and what I ought to be, + At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me + Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea. + + And a look of passionate desire + O'er the sea and to the stars I send: + "Ye who from my childhood up have calmed me, + Calm me, ah, compose me to the end! + + "Ah, once more," I cried, "ye stars, ye waters, + On my heart your mighty charm renew; + Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you, + Feel my soul becoming vast like you!" + + From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven, + Over the lit sea's unquiet way, + In the rustling night-air came the answer: + "Wouldst thou _be_ as these are? _Live_ as they. + + "Unaffrighted by the silence round them, + Undistracted by the sights they see, + These demand not that the things without them + Yield them love, amusement, sympathy. + + "And with joy the stars perform their shining, + And the sea its long moon-silvered roll; + For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting + All the fever of some differing soul. + + "Bounded by themselves, and unregardful + In what state God's other works may be, + In their own tasks all their powers pouring, + These attain the mighty life you see." + + O air-born voice! long since, severely clear, + A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear: + "Resolve to be thyself; and know that he, + Who finds himself, loses his misery!" + + + + +ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH + + +ALL IS WELL + + Whate'er you dream, with doubt possessed, + Keep, keep it snug within your breast, + And lay you down and take your rest; + Forget in sleep the doubt and pain, + And when you wake, to work again. + The wind it blows, the vessel goes, + And where and whither, no ones knows. + + 'Twill all be well: no need of care; + Though how it will, and when, and where, + We cannot see, and can't declare. + In spite of dreams, in spite of thought, + 'Tis not in vain, and not for nought, + The wind it blows, the ship it goes, + Though where and whither, no one knows. + + +TO SPEND UNCOUNTED YEARS OF PAIN + + To spend uncounted years of pain, + Again, again, and yet again, + In working out in heart and brain + The problem of our being here; + To gather facts from far and near, + Upon the mind to hold them clear, + And, knowing more may yet appear, + Unto one's latest breath to fear, + The premature result to draw-- + Is this the object, end, and law, + And purpose of our being here? + + +SAY NOT THE STRUGGLE NOUGHT AVAILETH + + Say not the struggle nought availeth, + The labor and the wounds are vain, + The enemy faints not, nor faileth, + And as things have been they remain. + + If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; + It may be, in yon smoke concealed, + Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, + And, but for you, possess the field. + + For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, + Seem here no painful inch to gain, + Far back, through creeks and inlets making, + Comes silent, flooding in, the main. + + And not by eastern windows only, + When daylight comes, comes in the light; + In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly; + But westward, look, the land is bright. + + + + +ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE + + +THE GARDEN OF PROSERPINE + + Here, where the world is quiet; + Here, where all trouble seems + Dead winds' and spent waves' riot + In doubtful dreams of dreams; + I watch the green field growing + For reaping folk and sowing, + For harvest-time and mowing, + A sleepy world of streams. + + I am tired of tears and laughter, + And men that laugh and weep; + Of what may come hereafter + For men that sow to reap: + I am weary of days and hours, + Blown buds of barren flowers, + Desires and dreams and powers + And everything but sleep. + + Here life has death for neighbor, + And far from eye or ear + Wan waves and wet winds labor, + Weak ships and spirits steer; + They drive adrift, and whither + They wot not who make thither; + But no such winds blow hither, + And no such things grow here. + + No growth of moor or coppice, + No heather-flower or vine, + But bloomless buds of poppies, + Green grapes of Proserpine, + Pale beds of blowing rushes, + Where no leaf blooms or blushes + Save this whereout she crushes + For dead men deadly wine. + + Pale, without name or number, + In fruitless fields of corn, + They bow themselves and slumber + All night till light is born; + And like a soul belated, + In hell and heaven unmated, + By cloud and mist abated + Comes out of darkness morn. + + Though one were strong as seven, + He too with death shall dwell, + Nor wake with wings in heaven, + Nor weep for pains in hell; + Though one were fair as roses, + His beauty clouds and closes; + And well though love reposes, + In the end it is not well. + + Pale, beyond porch and portal, + Crowned with calm leaves, she stands + Who gathers all things mortal + With cold immortal hands; + Her languid lips are sweeter + Than love's who fears to greet her, + To men that mix and meet her + From many times and lands. + + She waits for each and other, + She waits for all men born; + Forgets the earth her mother, + The life of fruits and corn; + And spring and seed and swallow + Take wing for her and follow + Where summer song rings hollow + And flowers are put to scorn. + + There go the loves that wither, + The old loves with wearier wings; + And all dead years draw thither, + And all disastrous things; + Dead dreams of days forsaken, + Blind buds that snows have shaken, + Wild leaves that winds have taken, + Red strays of ruined springs. + + We are not sure of sorrow; + And joy was never sure; + To-day will die to-morrow; + Time stoops to no man's lure; + And love, grown faint and fretful, + With lips but half regretful + Sighs, and with eyes forgetful + Weeps that no loves endure. + + From too much love of living, + From hope and fear set free, + We thank with brief thanksgiving + Whatever gods may be + That no life lives for ever; + That dead men rise up never; + That even the weariest river + Winds somewhere safe to sea. + + Then star nor sun shall waken, + Nor any change of light: + Nor sound of waters shaken, + Nor any sound or sight: + Nor wintry leaves nor vernal, + Nor days nor things diurnal; + Only the sleep eternal + In an eternal night. + + + + +EDWARD FITZGERALD + + +RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM + + I + + Wake! For the Sun, who scatter'd into flight + The Stars before him from the Field of Night, + Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, and strikes + The Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light. + + II + + Before the phantom of False morning died, + Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried, + "When all the Temple is prepared within, + Why nods the drowsy Worshipper outside?" + + III + + And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before + The Tavern shouted--"Open then the Door! + You know how little while we have to stay, + And, once departed, may return no more." + + IV + + Now the New Year reviving old Desires, + The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires, + Where the WHITE HAND OF MOSES on the Bough + Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires. + + V + + Iram indeed is gone with all his Rose, + And Jamshyd's Sev'n-ring'd Cup where no one knows; + But still a Ruby kindles in the Vine, + And many a Garden by the Water blows. + + VI + + And David's lips are lockt; but in divine + High-piping Pehlevi, with "Wine! Wine! Wine! + Red Wine!"--the Nightingale cries to the Rose + That sallow cheek of hers to incarnadine. + + VII + + Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring + Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling: + The Bird of Time has but a little way + To flutter--and the Bird is on the Wing. + + VIII + + Whether at Naishapur or Babylon, + Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run, + The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop, + The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one. + + IX + + Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say; + Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? + And this first Summer month that brings the Rose + Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobad away. + + X + + Well, let it take them! What have we to do + With Kaikobad the Great, or Kaikhosru? + Let Zal and Rustum bluster as they will, + Or Hatim call to Supper--heed not you. + + XI + + With me along the strip of Herbage strown + That just divides the desert from the sown, + Where name of Slave and Sultan is forgot-- + And Peace to Mahmud on his golden Throne! + + XII + + A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, + A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou + Beside me singing in the Wilderness-- + Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow! + + XIII + + Some for the Glories of This World; and some + Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come; + Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go, + Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum! + + XIV + + Look to the blowing Rose about us--"Lo, + Laughing," she says, "into the world I blow, + At once the silken tassel of my Purse + Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw." + + XV + + And those who husbanded the Golden grain, + And those who flung it to the winds like Rain, + Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn'd + As, buried once, Men want dug up again. + + XVI + + The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon + Turns Ashes--or it prospers; and anon, + Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face, + Lighting a little hour or two--is gone. + + XVII + + Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai + Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day, + How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp + Abode his destined Hour, and went his way. + + XVIII + + They say the Lion and the Lizard keep + The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep: + And Bahram, that great Hunter--the Wild Ass + Stamps o'er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep. + + XIX + + I sometimes think that never blows so red + The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled; + That every Hyacinth the Garden wears + Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head. + + XX + + And this reviving Herb whose tender Green + Fledges the River-Lip on which we lean-- + Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows + From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen! + + XXI + + Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears + TO-DAY of past Regrets and future Fears: + _To-morrow!_--Why, To-morrow I may be + Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years. + + XXII + + For some we loved, the loveliest and the best + That from his Vintage rolling Time hath prest, + Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before, + And one by one crept silently to rest. + + XXIII + + And we, that now make merry in the Room + They left, and Summer dresses in new bloom, + Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth + Descend--ourselves to make a Couch--for whom? + + XXIV + + Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend, + Before we too into the Dust descend; + Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie, + Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and--sans End! + + XXV + + Alike for those who for TO-DAY prepare, + And those that after some TO-MORROW stare, + A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries, + "Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor There." + + XXVI + + Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd + Of the Two Worlds so wisely--they are thrust + Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn + Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust. + + XXVII + + Myself when young did eagerly frequent + Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument + About it and about; but evermore + Came out by the same door where in I went. + + XXVIII + + With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow, + And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow; + And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd-- + "I came like Water, and like Wind I go." + + XXIX + + Into this Universe, and _Why_ not knowing + Nor _Whence_, like Water willy-nilly flowing; + And out of it, as Wind along the Waste, + I know not _Whither_, willy-nilly blowing. + + XXX + + What, without asking, hither hurried _Whence_? + And, without asking, _Whither_ hurried hence! + Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine + Must drown the memory of that insolence! + + XXXI + + Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate + I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate, + And many a Knot unravel'd by the Road; + But not the Master-knot of Human Fate. + + XXXII + + There was the Door to which I found no Key; + There was the Veil through which I might not see; + Some little talk awhile of ME and THEE + There was--and then no more of THEE and ME. + + XXXIII + + Earth could not answer; nor the Seas that mourn + In flowing Purple, of their Lord forlorn; + Nor rolling Heaven, with all his Signs reveal'd + And hidden by the sleeve of Night and Morn. + + XXXIV + + Then of the THEE IN ME who works behind + The Veil, I lifted up my hands to find + A Lamp amid the Darkness; and I heard, + As from Without--"THE ME WITHIN THEE BLIND!" + + XXXV + + Then to the Lip of this poor earthen Urn + I lean'd, the Secret of my Life to learn: + And Lip to Lip it murmur'd--"While you live, + Drink!--for, once dead, you never shall return." + + XXXVI + + I think the Vessel, that with fugitive + Articulation answer'd, once did live, + And drink; and Ah! the passive Lip I kiss'd, + How many Kisses might it take--and give! + + XXXVII + + For I remember stopping by the way + To watch a Potter thumping his wet Clay; + And with its all-obliterated Tongue + It murmur'd--"Gently, Brother, gently, pray!" + + XXXVIII + + And has not such a Story from of Old + Down Man's successive generations roll'd + Of such a clod of saturated Earth + Cast by the Maker into Human mould? + + XXXIX + + And not a drop that from our Cups we throw + For Earth to drink of, but may steal below + To quench the fire of Anguish in some Eye + There hidden--far beneath, and long ago. + + XL + + As then the Tulip for her morning sup + Of Heav'nly Vintage from the soil looks up, + Do you devoutly do the like, till Heav'n + To Earth invert you--like an empty Cup. + + XLI + + Perplext no more with Human or Divine, + To-morrow's tangle to the winds resign, + And lose your fingers in the tresses of + The Cypress-slender Minister of Wine. + + XLII + + And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press, + End in what All begins and ends in--Yes; + Think then you are TO-DAY what YESTERDAY + You were--TO-MORROW you shall be not less. + + XLIII + + So when that Angel of the darker Drink + At last shall find you by the river-brink, + And, offering his Cup, invite your Soul + Forth to your Lips to quaff--you shall not shrink. + + XLIV + + Why, if the Soul can fling the Dust aside, + And naked on the Air of Heaven ride, + Were't not a Shame--were't not a Shame for him + In this clay carcass crippled to abide? + + XLV + + 'Tis but a Tent where takes his one day's rest + A Sultan to the realm of Death addrest; + The Sultan rises, and the dark Ferrash + Strikes, and prepares it for another Guest. + + XLVI + + And fear not lest Existence closing your + Account, and mine, should know the like no more; + The Eternal Saki from that Bowl has pour'd + Millions of Bubbles like us, and will pour. + + XLVII + + When You and I behind the Veil are past, + Oh, but the long, long while the World shall last, + Which of our Coming and Departure heeds + As the Sea's self should heed a pebble-cast. + + XLVIII + + A Moment's Halt--a momentary taste + Of BEING from the Well amid the Waste-- + And Lo!--the phantom Caravan has reach'd + The NOTHING it set out from--Oh, make haste! + + XLIX + + Would you that spangle of Existence spend + About THE SECRET--quick about it, Friend! + A Hair perhaps divides the False and True-- + And upon what, prithee, may life depend? + + L + + A Hair perhaps divides the False and True; + Yes; and a single Alif were the clue-- + Could you but find it--to the Treasure-house, + And peradventure to THE MASTER too; + + LI + + Whose secret Presence, though Creation's veins + Running Quicksilver-like, eludes your pains; + Taking all shapes from Mah to Mahi; and + They change and perish all--but He remains; + + LII + + A moment guess'd--then back behind the Fold + Immerst of Darkness round the Drama roll'd + Which, for the Pastime of Eternity, + He doth Himself contrive, enact, behold. + + LIII + + But if in vain, down on the stubborn floor + Of Earth, and up to Heav'n's unopening Door, + You gaze TO-DAY, while You are You--how then + TO-MORROW, You when shall be You no more? + + LIV + + Waste not your Hour, nor in the vain pursuit + Of This and That endeavor and dispute; + Better be jocund with the fruitful Grape + Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit. + + LV + + You know, my Friends, with what a brave Carouse + I made a Second Marriage in my house; + Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed, + And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse. + + LVI + + For "IS" and "IS-NOT" though with Rule and Line + And "UP-AND-DOWN" by Logic I define, + Of all that one should care to fathom, I + Was never deep in anything but--Wine. + + LVII + + Ah, but my Computations, People say, + Reduced the Year to better reckoning?--Nay, + 'Twas only striking from the Calendar + Unborn To-morrow, and dead Yesterday. + + LVIII + + And lately, by the Tavern Door agape, + Came shining through the Dusk an Angel Shape + Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and + He bid me taste of it; and 'twas--the Grape! + + LIX + + The Grape that can with Logic absolute + The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute: + The sovereign Alchemist that in a trice + Life's leaden metal into Gold transmute: + + LX + + The mighty Mahmud, Allah breathing Lord, + That all the misbelieving and black Horde + Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul + Scatters before him with his whirlwind Sword. + + LXI + + Why, be this Juice the growth of God, who dare + Blaspheme the twisted tendril as a Snare? + A Blessing, we should use it, should we not? + And if a Curse--why, then, Who set it there? + + LXII + + I must abjure the Balm of Life, I must, + Scared by some After-reckoning ta'en on trust, + Or lured with Hope of some Diviner Drink, + To fill the Cup--when crumbled into Dust! + + LXIII + + O threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise! + One thing at least is certain--_This_ Life flies; + One thing is certain and the rest is Lies; + The Flower that once has blown for ever dies. + + LXIV + + Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who + Before us pass'd the door of Darkness through, + Not one returns to tell us of the Road, + Which to discover we must travel too. + + LXV + + The Revelations of Devout and Learn'd + Who rose before us, and as Prophets burn'd, + Are all but Stories, which, awoke from Sleep, + They told their comrades, and to Sleep return'd. + + LXVI + + I sent my Soul through the Invisible, + Some letter of that After-life to spell: + And by and by my Soul return'd to me, + And answer'd, "I myself am Heav'n and Hell": + + LXVII + + Heav'n but the Vision of fulfill'd Desire, + And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire, + Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves, + So late emerged from, shall so soon expire. + + LXVIII + + We are no other than a moving row + Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go + Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held + In Midnight by the Master of the Show; + + LXIX + + But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays + Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days; + Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays, + And one by one back in the Closet lays. + + LXX + + The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes, + But Here or There as strikes the Player goes; + And He that toss'd you down into the Field, + _He_ knows about it all--HE knows--HE knows! + + LXXI + + The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, + Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit + Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, + Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it. + + LXXII + + And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky, + Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die, + Lift not your hands to _It_ for help--for It + As impotently moves as you or I. + + LXXIII + + With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead, + And there of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed: + And the first Morning of Creation wrote + What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read. + + LXXIV + + YESTERDAY _This_ Day's Madness did prepare; + TO-MORROW'S Silence, Triumph, or Despair: + Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why: + Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where. + + LXXV + + I tell you this--When, started from the Goal, + Over the flaming shoulders of the Foal + Of Heav'n Parwin and Mushtari they flung, + In my predestined Plot of Dust and Soul + + LXXVI + + The Vine had struck a fibre: which about + If clings my Being--let the Dervish flout; + Of my Base metal may be filed a Key, + That shall unlock the Door he howls without. + + LXXVII + + And this I know: whether the one True Light + Kindle to Love, or Wrath--consume me quite, + One Flash of It within the Tavern caught + Better than in the Temple lost outright. + + LXXVIII + + What! out of senseless Nothing to provoke + A conscious Something to resent the yoke + Of unpermitted Pleasure, under pain + Of Everlasting Penalties, if broke! + + LXXIX + + What! from his helpless Creature be repaid + Pure Gold for what he lent him dross-allay'd-- + Sue for a Debt he never did contract, + And cannot answer--Oh, the sorry trade! + + LXXX + + O Thou, who didst with pitfall and with gin + Beset the Road I was to wander in, + Thou wilt not with Predestined Evil round + Enmesh, and then impute my Fall to Sin! + + LXXXI + + O Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make, + And ev'n with Paradise devise the Snake: + For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man + Is blacken'd--Man's forgiveness give--and take! + + * * * * * + + LXXXII + + As under cover of departing Day + Slunk hunger-stricken Ramazan away, + Once more within the Potter's house alone + I stood, surrounded by the Shapes of Clay. + + LXXXIII + + Shapes of all Sorts and Sizes, great and small, + That stood along the floor and by the wall; + And some loquacious Vessels were; and some + Listen'd perhaps, but never talk'd at all. + + LXXXIV + + Said one among them--"Surely not in vain + My substance of the common Earth was ta'en + And to this Figure moulded, to be broke, + Or trampled back to Shapeless Earth again." + + LXXXV + + Then said a Second--"Ne'er a peevish Boy + Would break the Bowl from which he drank in joy; + And He that with his hand the Vessel made + Will surely not in after Wrath destroy." + + LXXXVI + + After a momentary silence spake + Some Vessel of a more ungainly Make; + "They sneer at me for leaning all awry: + What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?" + + LXXXVII + + Whereat some one of the loquacious Lot-- + I think a Sufi pipkin--waxing hot-- + "All this of Pot and Potter--Tell me then, + Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?" + + LXXXVIII + + "Why," said another, "Some there are who tell + Of one who threatens he will toss to Hell + The luckless Pots he marr'd in making--Pish! + He's a Good Fellow, and 'twill all be well." + + LXXXIX + + "Well," murmur'd one, "Let whoso make or buy, + My Clay with long Oblivion is gone dry; + But fill me with the old familiar Juice; + Methinks I might recover by and by." + + XC + + So while the Vessels one by one were speaking, + The little Moon look'd in that all were seeking: + And then they jogg'd each other, "Brother! Brother! + Now for the Porter's shoulder-knot a-creaking!" + + * * * * * + + XCI + + Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide, + And wash the Body whence the Life has died, + And lay me, shrouded in the living Leaf, + By some not unfrequented Garden-side. + + XCII + + That ev'n my buried Ashes such a snare + Of Vintage shall fling up into the Air + As not a True-believer passing by + But shall be overtaken unaware. + + XCIII + + Indeed the Idols I have loved so long + Have done my credit in this World much wrong: + Have drown'd my Glory in a shallow Cup, + And sold my Reputation for a Song. + + XCIV + + Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before + I swore--but was I sober when I swore? + And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand + My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore. + + XCV + + And much as Wine has play'd the Infidel, + And robb'd me of my Robe of Honor--Well, + I wonder often what the Vintners buy + One half so precious as the stuff they sell. + + XCVI + + Yet ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose! + That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close! + The Nightingale that in the branches sang, + Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows! + + XCVII + + Would but the Desert of the Fountain yield + One glimpse--if dimly, yet indeed, reveal'd, + To which the fainting Traveler might spring, + As springs the trampled herbage of the field! + + XCVIII + + Would but some winged Angel ere too late + Arrest the yet unfolded Roll of Fate, + And make the stern Recorder otherwise + Enregister, or quite obliterate! + + XCIX + + Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire + To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, + Would not we shatter it to bits--and then + Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire! + + * * * * * + + C + + Yon rising Moon that looks for us again-- + How oft hereafter will she wax and wane; + How oft hereafter rising look for us + Through this same Garden--and for _one_ in vain! + + CI + + And when like her, oh Saki, you shall pass + Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on the Grass, + And in your joyous errand reach the spot + Where I made One--turn down an empty Glass! + + + + +ROBERT BROWNING + + +RABBI BEN EZRA + + I + + Grow old along with me! + The best is yet to be, + The last of life, for which the first was made: + Our times are in His hand + Who saith, "A whole I planned; + Youth shows but half; trust God: see all nor be afraid!" + + II + + Not that, amassing flowers, + Youth sighed, "Which rose make ours, + Which lily leave and then as best recall?" + Not that, admiring stars, + It yearned, "Nor Jove, nor Mars; + Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!" + + III + + Not for such hopes and fears + Annulling youth's brief years, + Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark! + Rather I prize the doubt + Low kinds exist without, + Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark. + + IV + + Poor vaunt of life indeed, + Were man but formed to feed + On joy, to solely seek and find and feast: + Such feasting ended, then + As sure an end to men; + Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast? + + V + + Rejoice we are allied + To That which doth provide + And not partake, effect and not receive! + A spark disturbs our clod; + Nearer we hold of God + Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe. + + VI + + Then, welcome each rebuff + That turns earth's smoothness rough, + Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go! + Be our joys three-parts pain! + Strive, and hold cheap the strain; + Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe! + + VII + + For thence,--a paradox + Which comforts while it mocks,-- + Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail: + What I aspired to be, + And was not, comforts me: + A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale. + + VIII + + What is he but a brute + Whose flesh has soul to suit, + Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play? + To man, propose this test-- + Thy body at its best, + How far can that project thy soul on its lone way? + + IX + + Yet gifts should prove their use: + I own the Past profuse + Of power each side, perfection every turn: + Eyes, ears took in their dole, + Brain treasured up the whole; + Should not the heart beat once, "How good to live and learn?" + + X + + Not once beat "Praise be Thine! + I see the whole design, + I, who saw power, see now love perfect too: + Perfect I call Thy plan: + Thanks that I was a man! + Maker, remake, complete,--I trust what Thou shalt do!" + + XI + + For pleasant is this flesh; + Our soul, in its rose-mesh + Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest; + Would we some prize might hold + To match those manifold + Possessions of the brute,--gain most, as we did best! + + XII + + Let us not always say, + "Spite of this flesh to-day + I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!" + As the bird wings and sings, + Let us cry, "All good things + Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!" + + XIII + + Therefore I summon age + To grant youth's heritage, + Life's struggle having so far reached its term: + Thence shall I pass, approved + A man, for aye removed + From the developed brute; a god though in the germ. + + XIV + + And I shall thereupon + Take rest, ere I be gone + Once more on my adventure brave and new: + Fearless and unperplexed, + When I wage battle next, + What weapons to select, what armor to indue. + + XV + + Youth ended, I shall try + My gain or loss thereby; + Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold: + And I shall weigh the same, + Give life its praise or blame: + Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old. + + XVI + + For note, when evening shuts, + A certain moment cuts + The deed off, calls the glory from the gray: + A whisper from the west + Shoots--"Add this to the rest, + Take it and try its worth: here dies another day." + + XVII + + So, still within this life, + Though lifted o'er its strife, + Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last, + "This rage was right i' the main, + That acquiescence vain: + The Future I may face now I have proved the Past." + + XVIII + + For more is not reserved + To man, with soul just nerved + To act to-morrow what he learns to-day: + Here, work enough to watch + The Master work, and catch + Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play. + + XIX + + As it was better, youth + Should strive, through acts uncouth, + Toward making, than repose on aught found made: + So, better, age, exempt + From strife, should know, than tempt + Further. Thou waitedest age: wait death nor be afraid! + + XX + + Enough now, if the Right + And Good and Infinite + Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own, + With knowledge absolute, + Subject to no dispute + From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone. + + XXI + + Be there, for once and all, + Severed great minds from small, + Announced to each his station in the Past! + Was I, the world arraigned, + Were they, my soul disdained, + Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last! + + XXII + + Now, who shall arbitrate? + Ten men love what I hate, + Shun what I follow, slight what I receive; + Ten, who in ears and eyes + Match me: we all surmise, + They this thing, and I that: whom shall my soul believe? + + XXIII + + Not on the vulgar mass + Called "work," must sentence pass, + Things done, that took the eye and had the price; + O'er which, from level stand, + The low world laid its hand, + Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice: + + XXIV + + But all, the world's coarse thumb + And finger failed to plumb, + So passed in making up the main account; + All instincts immature, + All purposes unsure, + That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount: + + XXV + + Thoughts hardly to be packed + Into a narrow act, + Fancies that broke through language and escaped; + All I could never be, + All, men ignored in me, + This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped. + + XXVI + + Ay, note that Potter's wheel, + That metaphor! and feel + Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,-- + Thou, to whom fools propound, + When the wine makes its round, + "Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!" + + XXVII + + Fool! All that is, at all, + Lasts ever, past recall; + Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure: + What entered into thee, + _That_ was, is, and shall be: + Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure. + + XXVIII + + He fixed thee mid this dance + Of plastic circumstance, + This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest: + Machinery just meant + To give thy soul its bent, + Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed. + + XXIX + + What though the earlier grooves + Which ran the laughing loves + Around thy base, no longer pause and press? + What though, about thy rim, + Skull-things in order grim + Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress? + + XXX + + Look not thou down but up! + To uses of a cup, + The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal, + The new wine's foaming flow, + The Master's lips a-glow! + Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what need'st thou with earth's wheel? + + XXXI + + But I need, now as then, + Thee, God, who mouldest men; + And since, not even while the whirl was worst, + Did I,--to the wheel of life + With shapes and colors rife, + Bound dizzily,--mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst: + + XXXII + + So, take and use Thy work: + Amend what flaws may lurk, + What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim! + My times be in Thy hand! + Perfect the cup as planned! + Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same! + + +AN EPISTLE + +CONTAINING THE STRANGE MEDICAL EXPERIENCE OF KARSHISH, THE ARAB PHYSICIAN + + Karshish, the picker-up of learning's crumbs, + The not-incurious in God's handiwork + (This man's-flesh He hath admirably made, + Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste, + To coop up and keep down on earth a space + That puff of vapor from his mouth, man's soul) + --To Abib, all-sagacious in our art, + Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast, + Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracks + Befall the flesh through too much stress and strain, + Whereby the wily vapor fain would slip + Back and rejoin its source before the term,-- + And aptest in contrivance, under God, + To baffle it by deftly stopping such:-- + The vagrant Scholar to his Sage at home + Sends greeting (health and knowledge, fame with peace), + Three samples of true snake-stone--rarer still, + One of the other sort, the melon-shaped + (But fitter, pounded fine, for charms than drugs), + And writeth now the twenty-second time. + + My journeyings were brought to Jericho; + Thus I resume. Who studious in our art + Shall count a little labor unrepaid? + I have shed sweat enough, left flesh and bone + On many a flinty furlong of this land. + Also the country-side is all on fire + With rumors of a marching hitherward-- + Some say Vespasian cometh, some, his son. + A black lynx snarled and pricked a tufted ear; + Lust of my blood inflamed his yellow balls: + I cried and threw my staff and he was gone. + Twice have the robbers stripped and beaten me, + And once a town declared me for a spy; + But at the end, I reach Jerusalem, + Since this poor covert where I pass the night, + This Bethany, lies scarce the distance thence + A man with plague-sores at the third degree + Runs till he drops down dead. Thou laughest here! + 'Sooth, it elates me, thus reposed and safe, + To void the stuffing of my travel-scrip + And share with thee whatever Jewry yields. + A viscid choler is observable + In tertians, I was nearly bold to say, + And falling-sickness hath a happier cure + Than our school wots of: there's a spider here + Weaves no web, watches on the ledge of tombs, + Sprinkled with mottles on an ash-gray back; + Take five and drop them ... but who knows his mind, + The Syrian runagate I trust this to? + His service payeth me a sublimate + Blown up his nose to help the ailing eye. + Best wait: I reach Jerusalem at morn + There set in order my experiences, + Gather what most deserves and give thee all-- + Or I might add, Judea's gum-tragacanth + Scales off in purer flakes, shines clearer-grained, + Cracks 'twixt the pestle and the porphyry, + In fine exceeds our produce. Scalp disease + Confounds me, crossing so with leprosy-- + Thou hadst admired one sort I gained at Zoar-- + But zeal outruns discretion. Here I end. + + Yet stay: my Syrian blinketh gratefully, + Protesteth his devotion is my price-- + Suppose I write what harms not, though he steal? + I half resolve to tell thee, yet I blush, + What set me off a-writing first of all. + An itch I had, a sting to write, a tang! + For, be it this town's barrenness--or else + The Man had something in the look of him-- + His case has struck me far more than 'tis worth. + So, pardon if (lest presently I lose + In the great press of novelty at hand + The care and pains this somehow stole from me) + I bid thee take the thing while fresh in mind, + Almost in sight--for, wilt thou have the truth? + The very man is gone from me but now, + Whose ailment is the subject of discourse. + Thus then, and let thy better wit help all. + + 'Tis but a case of mania--subinduced + By epilepsy, at the turning-point + Of trance prolonged unduly some three days. + When, by the exhibition of some drug + Or spell, exorcisation, stroke of art + Unknown to me and which 'twere well to know, + The evil thing out-breaking all at once + Left the man whole and sound of body indeed,-- + But, flinging, so to speak, life's gates too wide, + Making a clear house of it too suddenly, + The first conceit that entered pleased to write + Whatever it was minded on the wall + So plainly at that vantage, as it were + (First come, first served), that nothing subsequent + Attaineth to erase the fancy-scrawls + Which the returned and new-established soul + Hath gotten now so thoroughly by heart + That henceforth she will read or these or none. + And first--the man's own firm conviction rests + That he was dead (in fact they buried him), + That he was dead and then restored to life + By a Nazarene physician of his tribe: + --Sayeth, the same bade, "Rise," and he did rise. + "Such cases are diurnal," thou wilt cry. + Not so this figment!--not, that such a fume, + Instead of giving way to time and health, + Should eat itself into the life of life, + As saffron tingeth flesh, blood, bones and all! + For see, how he takes up the after-life. + The man--it is one Lazarus, a Jew, + Sanguine, proportioned, fifty years of age, + The body's habit wholly laudable, + As much, indeed, beyond the common health + As he were made and put aside to show. + Think, could we penetrate by any drug + And bathe the wearied soul and worried flesh, + And bring it clear and fair, by three days' sleep! + Whence has the man the balm that brightens all? + This grown man eyes the world now like a child. + Some elders of his tribe, I should premise, + Let in their friend, obedient as a sheep, + To bear my inquisition. While they spoke, + Now sharply, now with sorrow,--told the case,-- + He listened not except I spoke to him, + But folded his two hands and let them talk, + Watching the flies that buzzed: and yet no fool. + And that's a sample how his years must go. + Look if a beggar, in fixed middle-life, + Should find a treasure, can he use the same + With straightened habits and with tastes starved small, + And take at once to his impoverished brain + The sudden element that changes things, + --That sets the undreamed-of rapture at his hand, + And puts the cheap old joy in the scorned dust? + Is he not such an one as moves to mirth, + Warily parsimonious, when's no need, + Wasteful as drunkenness at undue times? + All prudent counsel, as to what befits + The golden mean, is lost on such an one. + The man's fantastic will is the man's law. + So here--we'll call the treasure knowledge, say-- + Increased beyond the fleshy faculty-- + Heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth, + Earth forced on a soul's use while seeing Heaven. + The man is witless of the size, the sum, + The value in proportion of all things, + Or whether it be little or be much. + Discourse to him of prodigious armaments + Assembled to besiege his city now, + And of the passing of a mule with gourds-- + 'Tis one! Then take it on the other side, + Speak of some trifling fact--he will gaze rapt + With stupor at its very littleness-- + (Far as I see) as if in that indeed + He caught prodigious import, whole results; + And so will turn to us the bystanders + In ever the same stupor (note this point) + That we too see not with his opened eyes! + Wonder and doubt come wrongly into play, + Preposterously, at cross purposes. + Should his child sicken unto death,--why, look + For scarce abatement of his cheerfulness, + Or pretermission of his daily craft,-- + While a word, gesture, glance, from that same child + At play or in the school or laid asleep, + Will start him to an agony of fear, + Exasperation, just as like! demand + The reason why--"'tis but a word," object-- + "A gesture"--he regards thee as our lord + Who lived there in the pyramid alone, + Looked at us, dost thou mind, when being young + We both would unadvisedly recite + Some charm's beginning, from that book of his, + Able to bid the sun throb wide and burst + All into stars, as suns grown old are wont. + Thou and the child have each a veil alike + Thrown o'er your heads from under which ye both + Stretch your blind hands and trifle with a match + Over a mine of Greek fire, did ye know! + He holds on firmly to some thread of life-- + (It is the life to lead perforcedly)-- + Which runs across some vast distracting orb + Of glory on either side that meagre thread, + Which, conscious of, he must not enter yet-- + The spiritual life around the earthly life! + The law of that is known to him as this-- + His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here. + So is the man perplext with impulses + Sudden to start off crosswise, not straight on, + Proclaiming what is Right and Wrong across + And not along this black thread through the blaze-- + "It should be" balked by "here it cannot be." + And oft the man's soul springs into his face + As if he saw again and heard again + His sage that bade him, "Rise," and he did rise. + Something--a word, a tick of the blood within + Admonishes--then back he sinks at once + To ashes, that was very fire before, + In sedulous recurrence to his trade + Whereby he earneth him the daily bread-- + And studiously the humbler for that pride, + Professedly the faultier that he knows + God's secret, while he holds the thread of life. + Indeed the especial marking of the man + Is prone submission to the Heavenly will-- + Seeing it, what it is, and why it is. + Sayeth, he will wait patient to the last + For that same death which will restore his being + To equilibrium, body loosening soul + Divorced even now by premature full growth: + He will live, nay, it pleaseth him to live + So long as God please, and just how God please. + He even seeketh not to please God more + (Which meaneth, otherwise) than as God please. + Hence I perceive not he affects to preach + The doctrine of his sect whate'er it be-- + Make proselytes as madmen thirst to do. + How can he give his neighbor the real ground, + His own conviction? ardent as he is-- + Call his great truth a lie, why still the old + "Be it as God please" reassureth him. + I probed the sore as thy disciple should-- + "How, beast," said I, "this stolid carelessness + Sufficeth thee, when Rome is on her march + To stamp out like a little spark thy town, + Thy tribe, thy crazy tale and thee at once?" + He merely looked with his large eyes on me. + The man is apathetic, you deduce? + Contrariwise he loves both old and young, + Able and weak--affects the very brutes + And birds--how say I? flowers of the field-- + As a wise workman recognizes tools + In a master's workshop, loving what they make. + Thus is the man as harmless as a lamb: + Only impatient, let him do his best, + At ignorance and carelessness and sin-- + An indignation which is promptly curbed. + As when in certain travels I have feigned + To be an ignoramus in our art + According to some preconceived design, + And happed to hear the land's practitioners, + Steeped in conceit sublimed by ignorance, + Prattle fantastically on disease, + Its cause and cure--and I must hold my peace! + + Thou wilt object--why have I not ere this + Sought out the sage himself, the Nazarene + Who wrought this cure, inquiring at the source, + Conferring with the frankness that befits? + Alas! it grieveth me, the learned leech + Perished in a tumult many years ago, + Accused--our learning's fate--of wizardry. + Rebellion, to the setting up a rule + And creed prodigious as described to me. + His death which happened when the earthquake fell + (Prefiguring, as soon appeared, the loss + To occult learning in our lord the sage + That lived there in the pyramid alone) + Was wrought by the mad people--that's their wont-- + On vain recourse, as I conjecture it, + To his tried virtue, for miraculous help-- + How could he stop the earthquake? That's their way! + The other imputations must be lies: + But take one--though I loathe to give it thee, + In mere respect to any good man's fame! + (And after all our patient Lazarus + Is stark mad--should we count on what he says? + Perhaps not--though in writing to a leech + 'Tis well to keep back nothing of a case.--) + This man so cured regards the curer, then, + As--God forgive me--who but God himself, + Creator and Sustainer of the world, + That came and dwelt in flesh on it awhile! + --Sayeth that such an One was born and lived, + Taught, healed the sick, broke bread at his own house, + Then died, with Lazarus by, for aught I know, + And yet was ... what I said nor choose repeat, + And must have so avouched himself, in fact, + In hearing of this very Lazarus + Who saith--But why all this of what he saith? + Why write of trivial matters, things of price + Calling at every moment for remark? + I noticed on the margin of a pool + Blue-flowering borage, the Aleppo sort, + Aboundeth, very nitrous. It is strange! + + Thy pardon for this long and tedious case, + Which, now that I review it, needs must seem + Unduly dwelt on, prolixly set forth. + Nor I myself discern in what is writ + Good cause for the peculiar interest + And awe indeed, this man has touched me with. + Perhaps the journey's end, the weariness + Had wrought upon me first. I met him thus-- + I crossed a ridge of short sharp broken hills + Like an old lion's cheek-teeth. Out there came + A moon made like a face, with certain spots + Multiform, manifold, and menacing: + Then a wind rose behind me. So we met + In this old sleepy town at unaware, + The man and I. I send thee what is writ. + Regard it as a chance, a matter risked + To this ambiguous Syrian--he may lose, + Or steal, or give it thee with equal good. + Jerusalem's repose shall make amends + For time this letter wastes, thy time and mine, + Till when, once more thy pardon and farewell! + + The very God! think, Abib; dost thou think? + So, the All-Great were the All-Loving too-- + So, through the thunder comes a human voice + Saying, "O heart I made, a heart beats here! + Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself. + Thou hast no power nor may'st conceive of mine, + But love I gave thee, with Myself to love, + And thou must love me who have died for thee!" + The madman saith He said so: it is strange. + + +CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS + +OR, NATURAL THEOLOGY IN THE ISLAND + +"_Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself._" + + ['Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best, + Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire, + With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin. + And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush, + And feels about his spine small eft-things course, + Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh: + And while above his head a pompion-plant, + Coating the cave-top as a brow its eye, + Creeps down to touch and tickle hair and beard, + And now a flower drops with a bee inside, + And now a fruit to snap at, catch and crunch,-- + He looks out o'er yon sea which sunbeams cross + And recross till they weave a spider-web + (Meshes of fire, some great fish breaks at times) + And talks to his own self, howe'er he please, + Touching that other, whom his dam called God. + Because to talk about Him vexes--ha, + Could He but know! and time to vex is now, + When talk is safer than in winter-time. + Moreover Prosper and Miranda sleep + In confidence he drudges at their task, + And it is good to cheat the pair, and gibe, + Letting the rank tongue blossom into speech.] + + Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos! + 'Thinketh, He dwelleth i' the cold o' the moon; + 'Thinketh, He made it, with the sun to match, + But not the stars; the stars came otherwise; + Only made clouds, winds, meteors, such as that: + Also this isle, what lives and grows thereon, + And snaky sea which rounds and ends the same. + + 'Thinketh, it came of being ill at ease: + He hated that He cannot change His cold, + Nor cure its ache. 'Hath spied an icy fish + That longed to 'scape the rock-stream where she lived, + And thaw herself within the lukewarm brine + O' the lazy sea her stream thrusts far amid, + A crystal spike 'twixt two warm walls of wave; + Only, she ever sickened, found repulse + At the other kind of water, not her life + (Green-dense and dim-delicious, bred o' the sun), + Flounced back from bliss she was not born to breathe, + And in her old bounds buried her despair, + Hating and loving warmth alike: so He. + + 'Thinketh, He made thereat the sun, this isle, + Trees and the fowls here, beast and creeping thing. + Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech; + Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam, + That floats and feeds; a certain badger brown + He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye + By moonlight; and the pie with the long tongue + That pricks deep into oakwarts for a worm, + And says a plain word when she finds her prize, + But will not eat the ants; the ants themselves + That build a wall of seeds and settled stalks + About their hole--He made all these and more, + Made all we see, and us, in spite: how else? + He could not, Himself, make a second self + To be His mate: as well have made Himself: + He would not make what he mislikes or slights, + An eyesore to Him, or not worth His pains: + But did, in envy, listlessness or sport, + Make what Himself would fain, in a manner, be-- + Weaker in most points, stronger in a few, + Worthy, and yet mere playthings all the while, + Things He admires and mocks too,--that is it. + Because, so brave, so better though they be, + It nothing skills if He begin to plague. + Look now, I melt a gourd-fruit into mash, + Add honeycomb and pods, I have perceived, + Which bite like finches when they bill and kiss,-- + Then, when froth rises bladdery, drink up all, + Quick, quick, till maggots scamper through my brain; + Last, throw me on my back i' the seeded thyme, + And wanton, wishing I were born a bird. + Put case, unable to be what I wish, + I yet could make a live bird out of clay: + Would not I take clay, pinch my Caliban + Able to fly?--for, there, see, he hath wings, + And great comb like the hoopoe's to admire, + And there, a sting to do his foes offence, + There, and I will that he begin to live, + Fly to yon rock-top, nip me off the horns + Of grigs high up that make the merry din, + Saucy through their veined wings, and mind me not. + In which feat, if his leg snapped, brittle clay, + And he lay stupid-like,--why, I should laugh; + And if he, spying me, should fall to weep, + Beseech me to be good, repair his wrong, + Bid his poor leg smart less or grow again,-- + Well, as the chance were, this might take or else + Not take my fancy: I might hear his cry, + And give the mankin three sound legs for one, + Or pluck the other off, leave him like an egg, + And lessoned he was mine and merely clay. + Were this no pleasure, lying in the thyme, + Drinking the mash, with brain become alive, + Making and marring clay at will? So He. + + 'Thinketh, such shows nor right nor wrong in Him, + Nor kind, nor cruel: He is strong and Lord. + 'Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs + That march now from the mountain to the sea; + Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first, + Loving not, hating not, just choosing so. + 'Say, the first straggler that boasts purple spots + Shall join the file, one pincer twisted off; + 'Say, this bruised fellow shall receive a worm, + And two worms he whose nippers end in red; + As it likes me each time, I do: so He. + + Well then, 'supposeth He is good i' the main, + Placable if His mind and ways were guessed, + But rougher than His handiwork, be sure! + Oh, He hath made things worthier than Himself, + And envieth that, so helped, such things do more + Than He who made them! What consoles but this? + That they, unless through Him, do nought at all, + And must submit: what other use in things? + 'Hath cut a pipe of pithless elder joint + That, blown through, gives exact the scream o' the jay + When from her wing you twitch the feathers blue: + Sound this, and little birds that hate the jay + Flock within stone's throw, glad their foe is hurt: + Put case such pipe could prattle and boast forsooth + "I catch the birds, I am the crafty thing, + I make the cry my maker cannot make + With his great round mouth; he must blow through mine!" + Would not I smash it with my foot? So He. + + But wherefore rough, why cold and ill at ease? + Aha, that is a question! Ask, for that, + What knows,--the something over Setebos + That made Him, or He, may be, found and fought, + Worsted, drove off and did to nothing, perchance. + There may be something quiet o'er His head, + Out of His reach, that feels nor joy nor grief, + Since both derive from weakness in some way. + I joy because the quails come; would not joy + Could I bring quails here when I have a mind: + This Quiet, all it hath a mind to, doth. + 'Esteemeth stars the outposts of its couch, + But never spends much thought nor care that way. + It may look up, work up,--the worse for those + It works on! 'Careth but for Setebos + The many-handed as a cuttle-fish, + Who, making Himself feared through what he does, + Looks up, first, and perceives he cannot soar + To what is quiet and hath happy life; + Next looks down here, and out of very spite + Makes this a bauble-world to ape yon real, + These good things to match those as hips do grapes. + 'Tis solace making baubles, ay, and sport. + Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at his books + Careless and lofty, lord now of the isle: + Vexed, 'stitched a book of broad leaves, arrow-shaped, + Wrote thereon, he knows what, prodigious words; + Has peeled a wand and called it by a name; + Weareth at whiles for an enchanter's robe + The eyed skin of a supple oncelot; + And hath an ounce sleeker than youngling mole, + A four-legged serpent he makes cower and couch, + Now snarl, now hold its breath and mind his eye, + And saith she is Miranda and my wife: + 'Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill crane + He bids go wade for fish and straight disgorge; + Also a sea-beast, lumpish, which he snared, + Blinded the eyes of, and brought somewhat tame, + And split its toe-webs, and now pens the drudge + In a hole o' the rock and calls him Caliban; + A bitter heart that bides its time and bites. + 'Plays thus at being Prosper in a way, + Taketh his mirth with make-believes: so He. + + His dam held that the Quiet made all things + Which Setebos vexed only: 'holds not so. + Who made them weak, meant weakness He might vex. + Had He meant other, while His hand was in, + Why not make horny eyes no thorn could prick, + Or plate my scalp with bone against the snow, + Or overscale my flesh 'neath joint and joint, + Like an orc's armor? Ay,--so spoil His sport! + He is the One now: only He doth all. + + 'Saith, He may like, perchance, what profits Him. + Ay, himself loves what does him good; but why? + 'Gets good no otherwise. This blinded beast + Loves whoso places flesh-meat on his nose, + But, had he eyes, would want no help, but hate + Or love, just as it liked him: He hath eyes. + Also it pleaseth Setebos to work, + Use all His hands, and exercise much craft, + By no means for the love of what is worked. + 'Tasteth, himself, no finer good i' the world + When all goes right, in this safe summer-time, + And he wants little, hungers, aches not much, + Than trying what to do with wit and strength. + 'Falls to make something: 'piled yon pile of turfs, + And squared and stuck there squares of soft white chalk, + And, with a fish-tooth, scratched a moon on each, + And set up endwise certain spikes of tree, + And crowned the whole with a sloth's skull a-top, + Found dead i' the woods, too hard for one to kill. + No use at all i' the work, for work's sole sake; + 'Shall some day knock it down again; so He. + + 'Saith He is terrible: watch His feats in proof! + One hurricane will spoil six good months' hope. + He hath a spite against me, that I know, + Just as He favors Prosper, who knows why? + So it is, all the same, as well I find. + 'Wove wattles half the winter, fenced them firm + With stone and stake to stop she-tortoises + Crawling to lay their eggs here: well, one wave, + Feeling the foot of Him upon its neck, + Gaped as a snake does, lolled out its large tongue, + And licked the whole labor flat: so much for spite. + 'Saw a ball flame down late (yonder it lies) + Where, half an hour before, I slept i' the shade: + Often they scatter sparkles: there is force! + 'Dug up a newt He may have envied once + And turned to stone, shut up inside a stone. + Please Him and hinder this?--What Prosper does? + Aha, if He would tell me how! Not He! + There is the sport: discover how or die! + All need not die, for of the things o' the isle + Some flee afar, some dive, some run up trees; + Those at His mercy,--why, they please Him most + When ... when ... well, never try the same way twice! + Repeat what act has pleased, He may grow wroth. + You must not know His ways, and play Him off, + Sure of the issue. 'Doth the like himself: + 'Spareth a squirrel that it nothing fears, + But steals the nut from underneath my thumb, + And when I threat, bites stoutly in defense: + 'Spareth an urchin that contrariwise, + Curls up into a ball, pretending death + For fright at my approach: the two ways please. + But what would move my choler more than this, + That either creature counted on its life + To-morrow and next day and all days to come, + Saying, forsooth, in the inmost of its heart, + "Because he did so yesterday with me, + And otherwise with such another brute, + So must he do henceforth and always."--Ay? + 'Would teach the reasoning couple what "must" means! + 'Doth as he likes, or wherefore Lord? So He. + + 'Conceiveth all things will continue thus, + And we shall have to live in fear of Him + So long as He lives, keeps His strength: no change, + If He have done His best, make no new world + To please Him more, so leave off watching this,-- + If He surprise not even the Quiet's self + Some strange day,--or, suppose, grow into it + As grubs grow butterflies: else, here are we, + And there is He, and nowhere help at all. + + 'Believeth with the life, the pain shall stop. + His dam held different, that after death + He both plagued enemies and feasted friends: + Idly! He doth His worst in this our life, + Giving just respite lest we die through pain, + Saving last pain for worst,--with which, an end. + Meanwhile, the best way to escape His ire + Is, not to seem too happy. 'Sees, himself, + Yonder two flies, with purple films and pink, + Bask on the pompion-bell above; kills both. + 'Sees two black painful beetles roll their ball + On head and tail as if to save their lives: + Moves them the stick away they strive to clear. + + Even so, 'would have Him misconceive, suppose + This Caliban strives hard and ails no less, + And always, above all else, envies Him; + Wherefore he mainly dances on dark nights, + Moans in the sun, gets under holes to laugh, + And never speaks his mind save housed as now: + Outside, groans, curses. If He caught me here, + O'erheard this speech, and asked "What chucklest at?" + 'Would, to appease Him, cut a finger off, + Or of my three kid yearlings burn the best, + Or let the toothsome apples rot on tree, + Or push my tame beast for the orc to taste: + While myself lit a fire, and made a song + And sung it, "_What I hate, be consecrate + To celebrate Thee and Thy state, no mate + For Thee; what see for envy in poor me?_" + Hoping the while, since evils sometimes mend, + Warts rub away and sores are cured with slime, + That some strange day, will either the Quiet catch + And conquer Setebos, or likelier He + Decrepit may doze, doze, as good as die. + + [What, what? A curtain o'er the world at once! + Crickets stop hissing; not a bird--or, yes, + There scuds His raven that has told Him all! + It was fool's play, this prattling! Ha! The wind + Shoulders the pillared dust, death's house o' the move + And fast invading fires begin! White blaze-- + A tree's head snaps--and there, there, there, there, there, + His thunder follows! Fool to gibe at Him! + Lo! 'Lieth flat and loveth Setebos! + 'Maketh his teeth meet through his upper lip, + Will let those quails fly, will not eat this month + One little mess of whelks, so he may 'scape!] + + +A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL + + Let us begin and carry up this corpse, + Singing together. + Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes, + Each in its tether + Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain, + Cared-for till cock-crow. + Look out if yonder's not the day again + Rimming the rock-row! + That's the appropriate country--there, man's thought, + Rarer, intenser, + Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought, + Chafes in the censer! + Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop; + Seek we sepulture + On a tall mountain, citied to the top, + Crowded with culture! + All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels; + Clouds overcome it; + No, yonder sparkle is the citadel's + Circling its summit! + Thither our path lies--wind we up the heights-- + Wait ye the warning? + Our low life was the level's and the night's; + He's for the morning! + Step to a tune, square chests, erect the head, + 'Ware the beholders! + This is our master, famous, calm, and dead, + Borne on our shoulders. + Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft, + Safe from the weather! + He, whom we convey to his grave aloft, + Singing together, + He was a man born with thy face and throat, + Lyric Apollo! + Long he lived nameless: how should spring take note + Winter would follow? + Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone! + Cramped and diminished, + Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon! + My dance is finished?" + No, that's the world's way! (Keep the mountain-side, + Make for the city.) + He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride + Over men's pity; + Left play for work, and grappled with the world + Bent on escaping: + "What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled? + Show me their shaping, + Theirs, who most studied man, the bard and sage,-- + Give!"--So he gowned him, + Straight got by heart that book to its last page: + Learned, we found him! + Yea, but we found him bald too--eyes like lead, + Accents uncertain: + "Time to taste life," another would have said, + "Up with the curtain!" + This man said rather, "Actual life comes next? + Patience a moment! + Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text, + Still, there's the comment. + Let me know all. Prate not of most or least, + Painful or easy: + Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast, + Ay, nor feel queasy!" + Oh, such a life as he resolved to live, + When he had learned it, + When he had gathered all books had to give; + Sooner, he spurned it! + Image the whole, then execute the parts-- + Fancy the fabric + Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz, + Ere mortar dab brick! + + (Here's the town-gate reached: there's the market-place + Gaping before us.) + Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace + (Hearten our chorus), + Still before living he'd learn how to live-- + No end to learning. + Earn the means first--God surely will contrive + Use for our earning. + Others mistrust and say, "But time escapes,-- + Live now or never!" + He said, "What's Time? leave Now for dogs and apes! + Man has Forever." + Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head; + _Calculus_ racked him: + Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead; + _Tussis_ attacked him. + "Now, Master, take a little rest!"--not he! + (Caution redoubled! + Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly.) + Not a whit troubled, + Back to his studies, fresher than at first, + Fierce as a dragon + He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst) + Sucked at the flagon. + Oh, if we draw a circle premature, + Heedless of far gain, + Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure, + Bad is our bargain! + Was it not great? did not he throw on God, + (He loves the burthen--) + God's task to make the heavenly period + Perfect the earthen? + Did not he magnify the mind, shew clear + Just what it all meant? + He would not discount life, as fools do here, + Paid by installment! + He ventured neck or nothing--heaven's success + Found, or earth's failure: + "Wilt thou trust death or not?" he answered "Yes. + Hence with life's pale lure!" + That low man seeks a little thing to do, + Sees it and does it: + This high man, with a great thing to pursue, + Dies ere he knows it. + That low man goes on adding one to one, + His hundred's soon hit: + This high man, aiming at a million, + Misses an unit. + That, has the world here--should he need the next, + Let the world mind him! + This, throws himself on God, and unperplext + Seeking shall find Him. + So, with the throttling hands of Death at strife, + Ground he at grammar; + Still, thro' the rattle, parts of speech were rife. + While he could stammer + He settled _Hoti's_ business--let it be!-- + Properly based _Oun_-- + Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic _De_, + Dead from the waist down. + Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place. + Hail to your purlieus, + All ye highfliers of the feathered race, + Swallows and curlews! + Here's the top-peak! the multitude below + Live, for they can there. + This man decided not to Live but Know-- + Bury this man there? + Here--here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form, + Lightnings are loosened, + Stars come and go! let joy break with the storm-- + Peace let the dew send! + Lofty designs must close in like effects: + Loftily lying, + Leave him--still loftier than the world suspects. + Living and dying. + + +WHY I AM A LIBERAL + + "Why?" Because all I haply can and do, + All that I am now, all I hope to be,-- + Whence comes it save from fortune setting free + Body and soul the purpose to pursue, + God traced for both? If fetters, not a few, + Of prejudice, convention, fall from me, + These shall I bid men--each in his degree + Also God-guided--bear, and gayly too? + + But little do or can the best of us: + That little is achieved thro' Liberty. + Who then dares hold, emancipated thus, + His fellow shall continue bound? not I, + Who live, love, labor freely, nor discuss + A brother's right to freedom. That is "Why." + + +FEARS AND SCRUPLES + + Here's my case. Of old I used to love him, + This same unseen friend, before I knew: + Dream there was none like him, none above him,-- + Wake to hope and trust my dream was true. + + Loved I not his letters full of beauty? + Not his actions famous far and wide? + Absent, he would know I vowed him duty, + Present, he would find me at his side. + + Pleasant fancy! for I had but letters, + Only knew of actions by hearsay: + He himself was busied with my betters; + What of that? My turn must come some day. + + "Some day" proving--no day! Here's the puzzle + Passed and passed my turn is. Why complain? + He's so busied! If I could but muzzle + People's foolish mouths that give me pain! + + "Letters?" (hear them!) "You a judge of writing? + Ask the experts!--How they shake the head + O'er these characters, your friend's inditing-- + Call them forgery from A to Zed!" + + "Actions? Where's your certain proof" (they bother), + "He, of all you find so great and good, + He, he only, claims this, that, the other + Action--claimed by men, a multitude?" + + I can simply wish I might refute you, + Wish my friend would,--by a word, a wink,-- + Bid me stop that foolish mouth,--you brute, you! + He keeps absent,--why, I cannot think. + + Never mind! Tho' foolishness may flout me + One thing's sure enough; 'tis neither frost, + No, nor fire, shall freeze or burn from out me + Thanks for truth--tho' falsehood, gained--tho' lost. + + All my days, I'll go the softlier, sadlier, + For that dream's sake! How forget the thrill + Thro' and thro' me as I thought, "The gladlier + Lives my friend because I love him still!" + + Ah, but there's a menace some one utters! + "What and if your friend at home play tricks? + Peep at hide-and-seek behind the shutters? + Mean your eyes should pierce thro' solid bricks? + + "What and if he, frowning, wake you, dreamy? + Lay on you the blame that bricks--conceal? + Say '_At least I saw who did not see me; + Does see now, and presently shall feel'?_" + + "Why, that makes your friend a monster!" say you: + "Had his house no window? At first nod + Would you not have hailed him?" Hush, I pray you! + What if this friend happen to be--God? + + +EPILOGUE TO "ASOLANDO" + + At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, + When you set your fancies free, + Will they pass to where--by death, fools think, imprisoned-- + Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so, + --Pity me? + + Oh, to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken! + What had I on earth to do + With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly? + Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel + --Being--who? + + One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, + Never doubted clouds would break, + Never dreamed, tho' right were worsted, wrong would triumph. + Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, + Sleep to wake. + + No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time + Greet the unseen with a cheer! + Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, + "Strive and thrive!" cry, "Speed,--fight on, fare ever + There as here!" + + +PROSPICE + + Fear death?--to feel the fog in my throat, + The mist in my face, + When the snows begin, and the blasts denote + I am nearing the place, + The power of the night, the press of the storm, + The post of the foe; + Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, + Yet the strong man must go: + For the journey is done and the summit attained, + And the barriers fall, + Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, + The reward of it all. + I was ever a fighter, so--one fight more, + The best and the last! + I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, + And bade me creep past. + No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers + The heroes of old, + Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears. + Of pain, darkness and cold. + For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, + The black minute's at end, + And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave, + Shall dwindle, shall blend, + Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, + Then a light, then thy breast, + O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, + And with God be the rest! + + + + +ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON + + +WAGES + + Glory of warrior, glory of orator, glory of song, + Paid with a voice flying by to be lost on an endless sea-- + Glory of Virtue, to fight, to struggle, to right the wrong-- + Nay, but she aim'd not at glory, no lover of glory she: + Give her the glory of going on, and still to be. + + The wages of sin is death: if the wages of Virtue be dust, + Would she have heart to endure for the life of the worm and the fly? + She desires no isles of the blest, no quiet seats of the just, + To rest in a golden grove, or to bask in a summer sky: + Give her the wages of going on, and not to die. + + +THE HIGHER PANTHEISM + + The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains-- + Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns? + + Is not the Vision He? tho' He be not that which He seems? + Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams? + + Earth, these solid stars, this weight of body and limb, + Are they not sign and symbol of thy division from Him? + + Dark is the world to thee: thyself art the reason why; + For is He not all but that which has power to feel "I am I"? + + Glory about thee, without thee; and thou fulfillest thy doom, + Making Him broken gleams, and a stifled splendor and gloom. + + Speak to Him thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet-- + Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet. + + God is law, say the wise; O Soul, and let us rejoice, + For, if He thunder by law, the thunder is yet His voice. + + Law is God, say some: no God at all, says the fool; + For all we have power to see is a straight staff bent in a pool; + + And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man cannot see; + But if we could see and hear, this Vision--were it not He? + + +FLOWER IN THE CRANNIED WALL + + Flower in the crannied wall, + I pluck you out of the crannies, + I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, + Little flower--but _if_ I could understand + What you are, root and all, and all in all, + I should know what God and man is. + + +IN MEMORIAM + + PROEM + + Strong Son of God, immortal Love, + Whom we, that have not seen thy face, + By faith, and faith alone, embrace, + Believing where we cannot prove; + + Thine are these orbs of light and shade; + Thou madest Life in man and brute; + Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot + Is on the skull which thou hast made. + + Thou wilt not leave us in the dust: + Thou madest man, he knows not why, + He thinks he was not made to die; + And thou hast made him: thou art just. + + Thou seemest human and divine, + The highest, holiest manhood, thou: + Our wills are ours, we know not how; + Our wills are ours, to make them thine. + + Our little systems have their day; + They have their day and cease to be: + They are but broken lights of thee, + And thou, O Lord, art more than they. + + We have but faith: we cannot know; + For knowledge is of things we see; + And yet we trust it comes from thee, + A beam in darkness: let it grow. + + Let knowledge grow from more to more, + But more of reverence in us dwell; + That mind and soul, according well, + May make one music as before, + + But vaster. We are fools and slight; + We mock thee when we do not fear: + But help thy foolish ones to bear; + Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light. + + Forgive what seem'd my sin in me; + What seem'd my worth since I began; + For merit lives from man to man, + And not from man, O Lord, to thee. + + Forgive my grief for one removed, + Thy creature, whom I found so fair. + I trust he lives in thee, and there + I find him worthier to be loved. + + Forgive these wild and wandering cries, + Confusions of a wasted youth; + Forgive them where they fail in truth, + And in thy wisdom make me wise. + + LIV + + Oh, yet we trust that somehow good + Will be the final goal of ill, + To pangs of nature, sins of will, + Defects of doubt, and taints of blood; + + That nothing walks with aimless feet; + That not one life shall be destroy'd, + Or cast as rubbish to the void, + When God hath made the pile complete; + + That not a worm is cloven in vain; + That not a moth with vain desire + Is shrivel'd in a fruitless fire, + Or but subserves another's gain. + + Behold, we know not anything; + I can but trust that good shall fall + At last--far off--at last, to all, + And every winter change to spring. + + So runs my dream: but what am I? + An infant crying in the night: + An infant crying for the light: + And with no language but a cry. + + LV + + The wish, that of the living whole + No life may fail beyond the grave, + Derives it not from what we have + The likest God within the soul? + + Are God and Nature then at strife, + That Nature lends such evil dreams? + So careful of the type she seems, + So careless of the single life; + + That I, considering everywhere + Her secret meaning in her deeds, + And finding that of fifty seeds + She often brings but one to bear, + + I falter where I firmly trod, + And falling with my weight of cares + Upon the great world's altar-stairs + That slope thro' darkness up to God, + + I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, + And gather dust and chaff, and call + To what I feel is Lord of all, + And faintly trust the larger hope. + + LVI + + "So careful of the type?" but no. + From scarped cliff and quarried stone + She cries, "A thousand types are gone: + I care for nothing, all shall go. + + "Thou makest thine appeal to me: + I bring to life, I bring to death: + The spirit does but mean the breath: + I know no more." And he, shall he, + + Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair, + Such splendid purpose in his eyes, + Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies, + Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, + + Who trusted God was love indeed + And love Creation's final law-- + Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw + With ravine, shriek'd against his creed-- + + Who loved, who suffer'd countless ills, + Who battled for the True, the Just, + Be blown about the desert dust, + Or seal'd within the iron hills? + + No more? A monster then, a dream, + A discord. Dragons of the prime, + That tare each other in their slime, + Were mellow music match'd with him. + + O life as futile, then, as frail! + O for thy voice to soothe and bless! + What hope of answer, or redress? + Behind the veil, behind the veil. + + +CROSSING THE BAR + + Sunset and evening star, + And one clear call for me! + And may there be no moaning of the bar, + When I put out to sea, + + But such a tide as moving seems asleep, + Too full for sound and foam, + When that which drew from out the boundless deep + Turns again home. + + Twilight and evening bell, + And after that the dark! + And may there be no sadness of farewell, + When I embark; + + For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place + The flood may bear me far, + I hope to see my Pilot face to face + When I have crost the bar. + + + + +GEORGE MEREDITH + + +LUCIFER IN STARLIGHT[12] + + On a starred night Prince Lucifer uprose. + Tired of his dark dominion, swung the fiend + Above the rolling ball in cloud part screened, + Where sinners hugged their spectre of repose. + Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those. + And now upon his western wing he leaned, + And now his huge bulk o'er Afric's sands careened, + And now the black planet shadowed Arctic snows. + Soaring through wider zones that pricked his scars + With memory of the old revolt from Awe, + He reached a middle height, and at the stars, + Which are the brain of heaven, he looked, and sank. + Around the ancient track marched, rank on rank, + The army of unalterable law. + + + + +WILLIAM E. HENLEY + + +INVICTUS + + Out of the night that covers me, + Black as a pit from Pole to Pole, + I thank whatever gods may be + For my unconquerable soul. + + In the fell clutch of circumstance + I have not winced nor cried aloud; + Under the bludgeonings of chance + My head is bloody but unbowed. + + Beyond this place of wrath and tears + Looms but the Horror of the Shade; + And yet the menace of the years + Finds and still finds me unafraid. + + It matters not how strait the gate, + How charged with punishments the scroll: + I am the master of my fate; + I am the captain of my soul. + + + + +THOMAS HARDY + + +NEW YEAR'S EVE[13] + + "I have finished another year," said God, + "In gray, green, white, and brown; + I have strewn the leaf upon the sod, + Sealed up the worm within the clod, + And let the last sun down." + + "And what's the good of it?" I said. + "What reasons made you call + From formless void this earth we tread, + When nine-and-ninety can be read + Why nought should be at all? + + "Yea, Sire; why shaped you us, 'who in + This tabernacle groan'? + If ever a joy be found herein, + Such joy no man had wished to win + If he had never known!" + + Then he: "My labors--logicless-- + You may explain; not I: + Sense-sealed I have wrought, without a guess + That I evolved a Consciousness + To ask for reasons why. + + "Strange that ephemeral creatures who + By my own ordering are, + Should see the shortness of my view, + Use ethic tests I never knew, + Or made provision for!" + + He sank to raptness as of yore, + And opening New Year's Day + Wove it by rote as theretofore, + And went on working evermore + In his unweeting way. + + + + +RALPH WALDO EMERSON + + +CIVILIZATION[14] + +A certain degree of progress from the rudest state in which man is +found,--a dweller in caves, or on trees, like an ape,--a cannibal, and +eater of pounded snails, worms, and offal,--a certain degree of progress +from this extreme, is called Civilization. It is a vague, complex name, of +many degrees. Nobody has attempted a definition. M. Guizot, writing a book +on the subject, does not. It implies the evolution of a highly-organized +man, brought to supreme delicacy of sentiment, as in practical power, +religion, liberty, sense of honor, and taste. In the hesitation to define +what it is, we usually suggest it by negations. A nation that has no +clothing, no iron, no alphabet, no marriage, no arts of peace, no abstract +thought, we call barbarous. And after many arts are invented or imported, +as among the Turks and Moorish nations, it is often a little complaisant +to call them civilized. + +Each nation grows after its own genius, and has a civilization of its own. +The Chinese and Japanese, though each complete in his way, is different +from the man of Madrid or the man of New York. The term imports a +mysterious progress. In the brutes is none; and in mankind to-day the +savage tribes are gradually extinguished rather than civilized. The +Indians of this country have not learned the white man's work; and in +Africa, the negro of to-day is the negro of Herodotus. In other races the +growth is not arrested; but the like progress that is made by a boy "when +he cuts his eye-teeth," as we say,--childish illusions passing daily +away, and he seeing things really and comprehensively,--is made by tribes. +It is the learning the secret of cumulative power, of advancing on one's +self. It implies a facility of association, power to compare, the ceasing +from fixed ideas. The Indian is gloomy and distressed when urged to depart +from his habits and traditions. He is overpowered by the gaze of the +white, and his eye sinks. The occasion of one of these starts of growth is +always some novelty that astounds the mind, and provokes it to dare to +change. Thus there is a Cadmus, a Pytheas, a Manco Capac at the beginning +of each improvement--some superior foreigner importing new and wonderful +arts, and teaching them. Of course, he must not know too much, but must +have the sympathy, language, and gods of those he would inform. But +chiefly the sea-shore had been the point of departure to knowledge, as to +commerce. The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the +most. The power which the sea requires in a sailor makes a man of him very +fast, and the change of shores and population clears his head of much +nonsense of his wigwam. + +Where shall we begin or end the list of those feats of liberty and wit, +each of which feats made an epoch of history? Thus, the effect of a framed +or stone house is immense on the tranquillity, power, and refinement of +the builder. A man in a cave or in a camp, a nomad, will die with no more +estate than the wolf or the horse leaves. But so simple a labor as a house +being achieved, his chief enemies are kept at bay. He is safe from the +teeth of wild animals, from frost, sunstroke, and weather; and fine +faculties begin to yield their fine harvest. Invention and art are born, +manners and social beauty and delight. 'Tis wonderful how soon a piano +gets into a log-hut on the frontier. You would think they found it under +a pine-stump. With it comes a Latin Grammar--and one of those tow-head +boys has written a hymn on Sunday. Now let colleges, now let senates, take +heed! for here is one who, opening these fine tastes on the basis of the +pioneer's iron constitution, will gather all their laurels in his strong +hands. + +When the Indian trail gets widened, graded, and bridged to a good road, +there is a benefactor, there is a missionary, a pacificator, a +wealth-bringer, a maker of markets, a vent for industry. Another step in +civility is the change from war, hunting, and pasturage to agriculture. +Our Scandinavian forefathers have left us a significant legend to convey +their sense of the importance of this step. "There was once a giantess who +had a daughter, and the child saw a husbandman ploughing in the field. +Then she ran and picked him up with her finger and thumb, and put him and +his plough and his oxen into her apron, and carried them to her mother, +and said, 'Mother, what sort of a beetle is this that I found wriggling in +the sand?' But the mother said, 'Put it away, my child; we must begone out +of this land, for these people will dwell in it.'" Another success is the +post-office, with its educating energy augmented by cheapness and guarded +by a certain religious sentiment in mankind; so that the power of a wafer +or a drop of wax or gluten to guard a letter, as it flies over sea, over +land, and comes to its address as if a battalion of artillery brought it, +I look upon as a fine metre of civilization. + +The division of labor, the multiplication of the arts of peace, which is +nothing but a large allowance to each man to choose his work according to +his faculty,--to live by his better hand,--fills the State with useful and +happy laborers; and they, creating demand by the very temptation of their +productions, are rapidly and surely rewarded by good sale: and what a +police and ten commandments their work thus becomes! So true is Dr. +Johnson's remark that "men are seldom more innocently employed than when +they are making money." + +The skillful combinations of civil government, though they usually follow +natural leadings, as the lines of race, language, religion, and territory, +yet require wisdom and conduct in the rulers, and in their result delight +the imagination. "We see insurmountable multitudes obeying, in opposition +to their strongest passions, the restraints of a power which they scarcely +perceive, and the crimes of a single individual marked and punished at the +distance of half the earth." + +Right position of woman in the State is another index. Poverty and +industry with a healthy mind read very easily the laws of humanity, and +love them; place the sexes in right relations of mutual respect, and a +severe morality gives that essential charm to woman which educates all +that is delicate, poetic, and self-sacrificing, breeds courtesy and +learning, conversation and wit, in her rough mate; so that I have thought +a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women. + +Another measure of culture is the diffusion of knowledge, overrunning all +the old barriers of caste, and, by the cheap press, bringing the +university to every poor man's door in the newsboy's basket. Scraps of +science, of thought, of poetry, are in the coarsest sheet, so that in +every house we hesitate to burn a newspaper until we have looked it +through. + +The ship, in its latest complete equipment, is an abridgment and compend +of a nation's arts: the ship steered by compass and chart,--longitude +reckoned by lunar observation and by chronometer,--driven by steam; and +in wildest sea-mountains, at vast distances from home,-- + + The pulses of her iron heart + Go beating through the storm. + +No use can lessen the wonder of this control, by so weak a creature, of +forces so prodigious. I remember I watched, in crossing the sea, the +beautiful skill whereby the engine in its constant working was made to +produce two hundred gallons of fresh water out of salt water every +hour--thereby supplying all the ship's wants. + +The skill that pervades complex details; the man that maintains himself; +the chimney taught to burn its own smoke; the farm made to produce all +that is consumed on it; the very prison compelled to maintain itself and +yield a revenue, and, better still, made a reform school, and a +manufactory of honest men out of rogues, as the steamer made fresh water +out of salt--all these are examples of that tendency to combine +antagonisms, and utilize evil, which is the index of high civilization. + +Civilization is the result of highly complex organization. In the snake, +all the organs are sheathed: no hands, no feet, no fins, no wings. In bird +and beast, the organs are released, and begin to play. In man, they are +all unbound, and full of joyful action. With this unswaddling he receives +the absolute illumination we call Reason, and thereby true liberty. + +Climate has much to do with this melioration. The highest civility has +never loved the hot zones. Wherever snows falls, there is usually civil +freedom. Where the banana grows, the animal system is indolent and +pampered at the cost of higher qualities; the man is sensual and cruel. +But this scale is not invariable. High degrees of moral sentiment control +the unfavorable influences of climate; and some of our grandest examples +of men and of races come from the equatorial regions--as the genius of +Egypt, of India, and of Arabia. + +These feats are measures or traits of civility; and temperate climate is +an important influence, though not quite indispensable; for there have +been learning, philosophy, and art in Iceland, and in the tropics. But one +condition is essential to the social education of man, namely, morality. +There can be no high civility without a deep morality, though it may not +always call itself by that name, but sometimes the point of honor, as in +the institution of chivalry; or patriotism, as in the Spartan and Roman +republics; or the enthusiasm of some religious act which imputes its +virtue to its dogma; or the cabalism, or _esprit de corps_, of a masonic +or other association of friends. + +The evolution of a highly-destined society must be moral; it must run in +the grooves of the celestial wheels. It must be catholic in aims. What is +_moral_? It is the respecting in action catholic or universal ends. Hear +the definition which Kant gives of moral conduct: "Act always so that the +immediate motive of thy will may become a universal rule for all +intelligent beings." + +Civilization depends on morality. Everything good in man leans on what is +higher. This rule holds in small as in great. Thus, all our strength and +success in the work of our hands depend on our borrowing the aid of the +elements. You have seen a carpenter on a ladder with a broad axe chopping +upward chips from a beam. How awkward! at what disadvantage he works! But +see him on the ground, dressing his timber under him. Now, not his feeble +muscles, but the force of gravity brings down the axe; that is to say, the +planet itself splits his stick. The farmer had much ill-temper, laziness, +and shirking to endure from his hand-sawyers, until one day he bethought +him to put his saw-mill on the edge of a waterfall; and the river never +tires of turning his wheel: the river is good-natured, and never hints an +objection. + +We had letters to send: couriers could not go fast enough, nor far enough; +broke their wagons, foundered their horses; bad roads in spring, +snow-drifts in winter, heats in summer; could not get the horses out of a +walk. But we found out that the air and earth were full of electricity, +and always going our way--just the way we wanted to send. _Would he take a +message?_ Just as lief as not; had nothing else to do; would carry it in +no time. Only one doubt occurred, one staggering objection--he had no +carpetbag, no visible pockets, no hands, not so much as a mouth, to carry +a letter. But, after much thought and many experiments, we managed to meet +the conditions, and to fold up the letter in such invisible compact form +as he could carry in those invisible pockets of his, never wrought by +needle and thread--and it went like a charm. + +I admire still more than the saw-mill the skill which, on the sea-shore, +makes the tides drive the wheels and grind corn, and which thus engages +the assistance of the moon, like a hired hand, to grind, and wind, and +pump, and saw, and split stone, and roll iron. + +Now that is the wisdom of a man, in every instance of his labor, to hitch +his wagon to a star, and see his chore done by the gods themselves. That +is the way we are strong, by borrowing the might of the elements. The +forces of steam, gravity, galvanism, light, magnets, wind, fire, serve us +day by day, and cost us nothing. + +Our astronomy is full of examples of calling in the aid of these +magnificent helpers. Thus, on a planet so small as ours, the want of an +adequate base for astronomical measurements is early felt; as, for +example, in detecting the parallax of a star. But the astronomer, having +by an observation fixed the place of a star, by so simple an expedient as +waiting six months, and then repeating his observation, contrived to put +the diameter of the earth's orbit, say two hundred millions of miles, +between his first observation and his second, and this line afforded him a +respectable base for his triangle. + +All our arts aim to win this vantage. We cannot bring the heavenly powers +to us; but, if we will only choose our jobs in directions in which they +travel, they will undertake them with the greatest pleasure. It is a +peremptory rule with them, that _they never go out of their road_. We are +dapper little busybodies, and run this way and that way superserviceably; +but they swerve never from their fore-ordained paths--neither the sun, nor +the moon, nor a bubble of air, nor a mote of dust. + +And as our handiworks borrow the elements, so all our social and political +action leans on principles. To accomplish anything excellent, the will +must work for catholic and universal ends. A puny creature, walled in on +every side, as Daniel wrote,-- + + Unless above himself he can + Erect himself, how poor a thing is man! + +But when his will leans on a principle, when he is the vehicle of ideas, +he borrows their omnipotence. Gibraltar may be strong, but ideas are +impregnable, and bestow on the hero their invincibility. "It was a great +instruction," said a saint in Cromwell's war, "that the best courages are +but beams of the Almighty." Hitch your wagon to a star. Let us not fag in +paltry works which serve our pot and bag alone. Let us not lie and steal. +No god will help. We shall find all their teams going the other +way--Charles's Wain, Great Bear, Orion, Leo, Hercules: every god will +leave us. Work rather for those interests which the divinities honor and +promote--justice, love, freedom, knowledge, utility. + +If we can thus ride in Olympian chariots by putting our works in the path +of the celestial circuits, we can harness also evil agents, the powers of +darkness, and force them to serve against their will the ends of wisdom +and virtue. Thus, a wise government puts fines and penalties on pleasant +vices. What a benefit would the American government, not yet relieved of +its extreme need, render to itself, and to every city, village, and hamlet +in the States, if it would tax whiskey and rum almost to the point of +prohibition! Was it Bonaparte who said that he found vices very good +patriots? "He got five millions from the love of brandy, and he should be +glad to know which of the virtues would pay him as much." Tobacco and +opium have broad backs, and will cheerfully carry the load of armies, if +you choose to make them pay high for such joy as they give and such harm +as they do. + +These are traits, and measures, and modes; and the true test of +civilization is, not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the +crops--no, but the kind of man the country turns out. I see the vast +advantages of this country, spanning the breadth of the temperate zone. I +see the immense material prosperity--towns on towns, states on states, and +wealth piled in the massive architecture of cities; California quartz +mountains dumped down in New York to be repiled architecturally +along-shore from Canada to Cuba, and thence westward to California again. +But it is not New York streets, built by the confluence of workmen and +wealth of all nations, though stretching out toward Philadelphia until +they touch it, and northward until they touch New Haven, Hartford, +Springfield, Worcester, and Boston--not these that make the real +estimation. But, when I look over this constellation of cities which +animate and illustrate the land, and see how little the government has to +do with their daily life, how self-helped and self-directed all families +are,--knots of men in purely natural societies,--societies of trade, of +kindred blood, of habitual hospitality, house and house, man acting on man +by weight of opinion of longer or better-directed industry, the refining +influence of women, the invitation which experience and permanent causes +open to youth and labor,--when I see how much each virtuous and gifted +person, whom all men consider, lives affectionately with scores of +excellent people who are not known far from home, and perhaps with great +reason reckons these people his superiors in virtue, and in the symmetry +and force of their qualities, I see what cubic values America has, and in +these a better certificate of civilization than great cities or enormous +wealth. + +In strictness, the vital refinements are the moral and intellectual steps. +The appearance of the Hebrew Moses, of the Indian Buddh,--in Greece, of +the Seven Wise Masters, of the acute and upright Socrates, and of the +Stoic Zeno,--in Judaea, the advent of Jesus,--and in modern Christendom, of +the realists Huss, Savonarola, and Luther,--are casual facts which carry +forward races to new convictions, and elevate the rule of life. In the +presence of these agencies, it is frivolous to insist on the invention of +printing or gunpowder, of steam-power or gas-light, percussion-caps and +rubber-shoes, which are toys thrown off from that security, freedom, and +exhilaration which a healthy morality creates in society. These arts add a +comfort and smoothness to house and street life; but a purer morality, +which kindles genius, civilizes civilization, casts backward all that we +held sacred into the profane, as the flame of oil throws a shadow when +shined upon by the flame of the Bude-light. Not the less the popular +measures of progress will ever be the arts and the laws. + +But if there be a country which cannot stand any one of these tests--a +country where knowledge cannot be diffused without perils of mob-law and +statute-law,--where speech is not free,--where the post-office is +violated, mailbags opened, and letters tampered with,--where public debts +and private debts outside of the State are repudiated,--where liberty is +attacked in the primary institution of social life,--where the position of +the white woman is injuriously affected by the outlawry of the black +woman,--where the arts, such as they have, are all imported, having no +indigenous life,--where the laborer is not secured in the earnings of his +own hands,--where suffrage is not free or equal,--that country is, in all +these respects, not civil, but barbarous; and no advantages of soil, +climate, or coast can resist these suicidal mischiefs. + +Morality and all the incidents of morality are essential: as, justice to +the citizen and personal liberty. Montesquieu says: "Countries are well +cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free"; and the remark +holds not less, but more true, of the culture of men, than of the tillage +of land. And the highest proof of civility is, that the whole public +action of the State is directed on securing the greatest good of the +greatest number. + + +ILLUSIONS[15] + + Flow, flow the waves hated, + Accursed, adored, + The waves of mutation: + No anchorage is. + Sleep is not, death is not; + Who seem to die, live. + House you were born in, + Friends of your spring-time, + Old man and young maid, + Day's toil and its guerdon-- + They are all vanishing, + Fleeing to fables, + Cannot be moored. + See the stars through them, + Through treacherous marbles. + Know, the stars yonder, + The stars everlasting + Are fugitive also, + And emulate, vaulted, + The lambent heat-lightning, + And fire-fly's flight. + When thou dost return + On the wave's circulation, + Beholding the shimmer, + The will's dissipation, + And, out of endeavor + To change and to flow, + The gas become solid, + And phantoms and nothings + Return to be things, + And endless imbroglio + Is law and the world,-- + Then first shalt thou know, + That in the wild turmoil, + Horsed on the Proteus, + Thou ridest to power, + And to endurance. + + +Some years ago, in company with an agreeable party, I spent a long summer +day in exploring the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. We traversed, through +spacious galleries affording a solid masonry foundation for the town and +county overhead, the six or eight black miles from the mouth of the cavern +to the innermost recess which tourists visit--a niche or grotto made of +one seamless stalactite and called, I believe, Serena's Bower. I lost the +light of one day. I saw high domes, and bottomless pits; heard the voice +of unseen waterfalls; paddled three quarters of a mile in the deep Echo +River, whose waters are peopled with the blind fish; crossed the streams +"Lethe" and "Styx"; plied with music and guns the echoes in these alarming +galleries; saw every form of stalagmite and stalactite in the sculptured +and fretted chambers--icicle, orange-flower, acanthus, grapes, and +snowball. We shot Bengal lights into the vaults and groins of the sparry +cathedrals, and examined all the masterpieces which the four combined +engineers, water, limestone, gravitation, and time, could make in the +dark. + +The mysteries and scenery of the cave had the same dignity that belongs to +all natural objects, and shames the fine things to which we foppishly +compare them. I remarked, especially, the mimetic habit, with which +Nature, on new instruments, hums her old tunes, making night to mimic day, +and chemistry to ape vegetation. But I then took notice, and still chiefly +remember, that the best thing which the cave had to offer was an illusion. +On arriving at what is called the "Star Chamber," our lamps were taken +from us by the guide, and extinguished or put aside, and, on looking +upwards, I saw or seemed to see the night heaven thick with stars +glimmering more or less brightly over our heads, and even what seemed a +comet flaming among them. All the party were touched with astonishment +and pleasure. Our musical friends sung with much feeling a pretty song, +"The stars are in the quiet sky," etc., and I sat down on the rocky floor +to enjoy the serene picture. Some crystal specks in the black ceiling high +overhead, reflecting the light of a half-hid lamp, yielded this +magnificent effect. + +I own, I did not like the cave so well for eking out its sublimities with +this theatrical trick. But I have had many experiences like it, before and +since; and we must be content to be pleased without too curiously +analyzing the occasions. Our conversation with Nature is not just what it +seems. The cloud-rack, the sunrise and sunset glories, rainbows, and +northern lights, are not quite so spheral as our childhood thought them; +and the part our organization plays in them is too large. The senses +interfere everywhere, and mix their own structure with all they report of. +Once, we fancied the earth a plane, and stationary. In admiring the +sunset, we do not yet deduct the rounding, coordinating, pictorial powers +of the eye. + +The same interference from our organization creates the most of our +pleasure and pain. Our first mistake is the belief that the circumstance +gives the joy which we give to the circumstance. Life is an ecstasy. Life +is sweet as nitrous oxide; and the fisherman dripping all day over a cold +pond, the switchman at the railway intersection, the farmer in the field, +the negro in the rice-swamp, the fop in the street, the hunter in the +woods, the barrister with the jury, the belle at the ball, all ascribe a +certain pleasure to their employment, which they themselves give it. +Health and appetite impart the sweetness to sugar, bread, and meat. We +fancy that our civilization has got on far, but we still come back to our +primers. + +We live by our imaginations, by our admirations, by our sentiments. The +child walks amid heaps of illusions, which he does not like to have +disturbed. The boy, how sweet to him is his fancy! how dear the story of +barons and battles! What a hero he is, whilst he feeds on his heroes! What +a debt is his to imaginative books! He has no better friend or influence +than Scott, Shakespeare, Plutarch, and Homer. The man lives to other +objects, but who dares affirm that they are more real? Even the prose of +the streets is full of refractions. In the life of the dreariest alderman, +fancy enters into all details, and colors them with rosy hue. He imitates +the air and actions of people whom he admires, and is raised in his own +eyes. He pays a debt quicker to a rich man than to a poor man. He wishes +the bow and compliment of some leader in the state, or in society; weighs +what he says; perhaps he never comes nearer to him for that, but dies at +last better contented for this amusement of his eyes and his fancy. + +The world rolls, the din of life is never hushed. In London, in Paris, in +Boston, in San Francisco, the carnival, the masquerade is at its height. +Nobody drops his domino. The unities, the fictions of the piece, it would +be an impertinence to break. The chapter of fascinations is very long. +Great is paint; nay, God is the painter; and we rightly accuse the critic +who destroys too many illusions. Society does not love its unmaskers. It +was wittily, if somewhat bitterly, said by D'Alembert, "qu'un etat de +vapeur etait un etat tres facheux, parcequ'il nous faisait voir les choses +comme elles sont." I find men victims of illusion in all parts of life. +Children, youths, adults, and old men, all are led by one bauble or +another. Yoganidra, the goddess of illusion, Proteus, or Momus, or Gylfi's +Mocking,--for the Power has many names,--is stronger than the Titans, +stronger than Apollo. Few have overheard the gods, or surprised their +secret. Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be +understood. All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle. +There are as many pillows of illusion as flakes in a snowstorm. We wake +from one dream into another dream. The toys, to be sure, are various, and +are graduated in refinement to the quality of the dupe. The intellectual +man requires a fine bait; the sots are easily amused. But everybody is +drugged with his own frenzy, and the pageant marches at all hours, with +music and banner and badge. + +Amid the joyous troop who give in to the charivari, comes now and then a +sad-eyed boy, whose eyes lack the requisite refractions to clothe the show +in due glory, and who is afflicted with a tendency to trace home the +glittering miscellany of fruits and flowers to one root. Science is a +search after identity, and the scientific whim is lurking in all corners. +At the State Fair, a friend of mine complained that all the varieties of +fancy pears in our orchards seem to have been selected by somebody who had +a whim for a particular kind of pear, and only cultivated such as had that +perfume; they were all alike. And I remember the quarrel of another youth +with the confectioners, that, when he racked his wit to choose the best +comfits in the shops, in all the endless varieties of sweetmeat he could +only find three flavors, or two. What then? Pears and cakes are good for +something; and because you, unluckily, have an eye or nose too keen, why +need you spoil the comfort which the rest of us find in them? + +I knew a humorist who, in a good deal of rattle, had a grain or two of +sense. He shocked the company by maintaining that the attributes of God +were two--power and risibility; and that it was the duty of every pious +man to keep up the comedy. And I have known gentlemen of great stake in +the community, but whose sympathies were cold,--presidents of colleges, +and governors, and senators,--who held themselves bound to sign every +temperance pledge, and act with Bible societies, and missions, and +peacemakers, and cry, _Hist-a-boy!_ to every good dog. We must not carry +comity too far, but we all have kind impulses in this direction. When the +boys come into my yard for leave to gather horse-chestnuts, I own I enter +into Nature's game, and affect to grant the permission reluctantly, +fearing that any moment they will find out the imposture of that showy +chaff. But this tenderness is quite unnecessary; the enchantments are laid +on very thick. Their young life is thatched with them. Bare and grim to +tears is the lot of the children in the hovel I saw yesterday; yet not the +less they hung it round with frippery romance, like the children of the +happiest fortune, and talked of "the dear cottage where so many joyful +hours had flown." Well, this thatching of hovels is the custom of the +country. Women, more than all, are the element and kingdom of illusion. +Being fascinated, they fascinate. They see through Claude-Lorraines. And +how dare anyone, if he could, pluck away the _coulisses_, stage-effects, +and ceremonies, by which they live? Too pathetic, too pitiable, is the +region of affection, and its atmosphere always liable to _mirage_. + +We are not very much to blame for our bad marriages. We live amid +hallucinations; and this especial trap is laid to trip up our feet with, +and all are tripped up first or last. But the mighty Mother who had been +so sly with us, as if she felt that she owed us some indemnity, insinuates +into the Pandora-box of marriage some deep and serious benefits, and some +great joys. We find a delight in the beauty and happiness of children that +makes the heart too big for the body. In the worst-assorted connections +there is ever some mixture of true marriage. Teague and his jade get some +just relations of mutual respect, kindly observation, and fostering of +each other, learn something, and would carry themselves wiselier, if they +were now to begin. + +'Tis fine for us to point at one or another fine madman, as if there were +any exempts. The scholar in his library is none. I, who have all my life +heard any number of orations and debates, read poems and miscellaneous +books, conversed with many geniuses, am still the victim of any new page; +and, if Marmaduke, or Hugh, or Moosehead, or any other, invent a new style +or mythology, I fancy that the world will be all brave and right if +dressed in these colors, which I had not thought of. Then at once I will +daub with this new paint: but it will not stick. 'Tis like the cement +which the peddler sells at the door; he makes broken crockery hold with +it, but you can never buy of him a bit of the cement which will make it +hold when he is gone. + +Men who make themselves felt in the world avail themselves of a certain +fate in their constitution, which they know how to use. But they never +deeply interest us, unless they lift a corner of the curtain, or betray +never so slightly their penetration of what is behind it. 'Tis the charm +of practical men, that outside of their practicality are a certain poetry +and play, as if they led the good horse Power by the bridle, and preferred +to walk, though they can ride so fiercely. Bonaparte is intellectual, as +well as Caesar; and the best soldiers, sea-captains, and railway men have a +gentleness, when off duty; a good-natured admission that there are +illusions, and who shall say that he is not their sport? We stigmatize the +cast-iron fellows, who cannot so detach themselves, as "dragon-ridden," +"thunder-stricken," and fools of fate, with whatever powers endowed. + +Since our tuition is through emblems and indirections, 'tis well to know +that there is method in it, a fixed scale, and rank above rank in the +phantasms. We begin low with coarse masks, and rise to the most subtle and +beautiful. The red men told Columbus, "they had an herb which took away +fatigue"; but he found the illusion of "arriving from the east at the +Indies" more composing to his lofty spirit than any tobacco. Is not our +faith in the impenetrability of matter more sedative than narcotics? You +play with jack-straws, balls, bowls, horse and gun, estates and politics; +but there are finer games before you. Is not time a pretty toy? Life will +show you masks that are worth all your carnivals. Yonder mountain must +migrate into your mind. The fine star-dust and nebulous blur in Orion, +"the portentous year of Mizar and Alcor," must come down and be dealt with +in your household thought. What if you shall come to discern that the play +and playground of all this pompous history are radiations from yourself, +and that the sun borrows his beams? What terrible questions we are +learning to ask! The former men believed in magic, by which temples, +cities, and men were swallowed up and all trace of them gone. We are +coming on the secret of a magic which sweeps out of men's minds all +vestige of theism and beliefs which they and their fathers held and were +framed upon. + +There are deceptions of the senses, deceptions of the passions, and the +structural, beneficent illusions of sentiment and of the intellect. There +is the illusion of love, which attributes to the beloved person all which +that person shares with his or her family, sex, age, or condition, nay, +with the human mind itself. 'Tis these which the lover loves, and Anna +Matilda gets the credit of them. As if one shut up always in a tower, with +one window, through which the face of heaven and earth could be seen, +should fancy that all the marvels he beheld belonged to that window. There +is the illusion of time, which is very deep; who has disposed of it? or +come to the conviction that what seems the _succession_ of thought is only +the distribution of wholes into causal series? The intellect sees that +every atom carries the whole of Nature; that the mind opens to +omnipotence; that, in the endless striving and ascents, the metamorphosis +is entire, so that the soul doth not know itself in its own act, when that +act is perfected. There is illusion that shall deceive even the elect. +There is illusion that shall deceive even the performer of the miracle. +Though he make his body, he denies that he makes it. Though the world +exist from thought, thought is daunted in presence of the world. One after +the other we accept the mental laws, still resisting those which follow, +which however must be accepted. But all our concessions only compel us to +new profusion. And what avails it that science has come to treat space and +time as simply forms of thought, and the material world as hypothetical, +and withal our pretension of _property_ and even of self-hood are fading +with the rest, if, at last, even our thoughts are not finalities; but the +incessant flowing and ascension reach these also, and each thought which +yesterday was a finality to-day is yielding to a larger generalization? + +With such volatile elements to work in, 'tis no wonder if our estimates +are loose and floating. We must work and affirm, but we have no guess of +the value of what we say or do. The cloud is now as big as your hand, and +now it covers a county. That story of Thor, who was set to drain the +drinking-horn in Asgard, and to wrestle with the old woman, and to run +with the runner Lok, and presently found that he had been drinking up the +sea, and wrestling with Time, and racing with Thought, describes us who +are contending, amid these seeming trifles, with the supreme energies of +Nature. We fancy we have fallen into bad company and squalid condition, +low debts, shoe-bills, broken glass to pay for, pots to buy, butcher's +meat, sugar, milk, and coal. "Set me some great task, ye gods! and I will +show my spirit." "Not so," says the good Heaven; "plod and plough, vamp +your old coats and hats, weave a shoestring; great affairs and the best +wine by-and-by." Well, 'tis all phantasm; and if we weave a yard of tape +in all humility, and as well as we can, long hereafter we shall see it was +no cotton tape at all, but some galaxy which we braided, and that the +threads were Time and Nature. + +We cannot write the order of the variable winds. How can we penetrate the +law of our shifting moods and susceptibility? Yet they differ as all and +nothing. Instead of the firmament of yesterday, which our eyes require, it +is to-day an eggshell which coops us in; we cannot even see what or where +our stars of destiny are. From day to day, the capital facts of human life +are hidden from our eyes. Suddenly the mist rolls up, and reveals them, +and we think how much good time is gone, that might have been saved had +any hint of these things been shown. A sudden rise in the road shows us +the system of mountains, and all the summits, which have been just as near +us all the year, but quite out of mind. But these alternations are not +without their order, and we are parties to our various fortune. If life +seem a succession of dreams, yet poetic justice is done in dreams also. +The visions of good men are good; it is the undisciplined will that is +whipped with bad thoughts and bad fortunes. When we break the laws, we +lose our hold on the central reality. Like sick men in hospitals, we +change only from bed to bed, from one folly to another; and it cannot +signify much what becomes of such castaways,--wailing, stupid, comatose +creatures,--lifted from bed to bed, from the nothing of life to the +nothing of death. + +In this kingdom of illusions we grope eagerly for stays and foundations. +There is none but a strict and faithful dealing at home, and a severe +barring out of all duplicity or illusion there. Whatever games are played +with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy +with the last honesty and truth. I look upon the simple and childish +virtues of veracity and honesty as the root of all that is sublime in +character. Speak as you think, be what you are, pay your debts of all +kinds. I prefer to be owned as sound and solvent, and my word as good as +my bond, and to be what cannot be skipped, or dissipated, or undermined, +to all the _eclat_ in the universe. This reality is the foundation of +friendship, religion, poetry, and art. At the top or at the bottom of all +illusions, I set the cheat which still leads us to work and live for +appearances, in spite of our conviction, in all sane hours, that it is +what we really are that avails with friends, with strangers, and with fate +or fortune. + +One would think from the talk of men, that riches and poverty were a great +matter; and our civilization mainly respects it. But the Indians say, that +they do not think the white man with his brow of care, always toiling, +afraid of heat and cold, and keeping within doors, has any advantage of +them. The permanent interest of every man is, never to be in a false +position, but to have the weight of Nature to back him in all that he +does. Riches and poverty are a thick or thin costume; and our life--the +life of all of us--identical. For we transcend the circumstance +continually, and taste the real quality of existence; as in our +employments, which only differ in the manipulations, but express the same +laws; or in our thoughts, which wear no silks and taste no ice-creams. We +see God face to face every hour, and know the savor of Nature. + +The early Greek philosophers Heraclitus and Xenophanes measured their +force on this problem of identity. Diogenes of Apollonia said, that unless +the atoms were made of one stuff, they could never blend and act with one +another. But the Hindoos, in their sacred writings, express the liveliest +feeling, both of the essential identity, and of that illusion which they +conceive variety to be: "The notions, _I am_, and _This is mine_, which +influence mankind, are but delusions of the mother of the world. Dispel, O +Lord of all creatures! the conceit of knowledge which proceeds from +ignorance." And the beatitude of man they hold to lie in being freed from +fascination. + +The intellect is stimulated by the statement of truth in a trope, and the +will by clothing the laws of life in illusions. But the unities of Truth +and of Right are not broken by the disguise. There need never be any +confusion in these. In a crowded life of many parts and performers, on a +stage of nations, or in the obscurest hamlet in Maine or California, the +same elements offer the same choices to each new comer, and, according to +his election, he fixes his fortune in absolute nature. It would be hard to +put more mental and moral philosophy than the Persians have thrown into a +sentence:-- + + Fooled thou must be, though wisest of the wise: + Then be the fool of virtue, not of vice. + +There is no chance, and no anarchy, in the universe. All is system and +gradation. Every god is there sitting in his sphere. The young mortal +enters the hall of the firmament: there is he alone with them alone, they +pouring on him benedictions and gifts, and beckoning him up to their +thrones. On the instant, and incessantly, fall snow-storms of illusions. +He fancies himself in a vast crowd which sways this way and that, and +whose movement and doings he must obey: he fancies himself poor, orphaned, +insignificant. The mad crowd drives hither and thither, now furiously +commanding this thing to be done, now that. What is he that he should +resist their will, and think or act for himself? Every moment, new +changes, and new showers of deceptions, to baffle and distract him. And +when, by-and-by, for an instant, the air clears, and the cloud lifts a +little, there are the gods still sitting around him on their thrones--they +alone with him alone. + + +FATE[16] + + Delicate omens traced in air + To the lone bard true witness bare; + Birds with auguries on their wings + Chanted undeceiving things, + Him to beckon, him to warn; + Well might then the poet scorn + To learn of scribe or courier + Hints writ in vaster character; + And on his mind, at dawn of day, + Soft shadows of the evening lay. + For the prevision is allied + Unto the thing so signified; + Or say, the foresight that awaits + Is the same Genius that creates. + + +It chanced during one winter, a few years ago, that our critics were bent +on discussing the theory of the Age. By an odd coincidence, four or five +noted men were each reading a discourse to the citizens of Boston or New +York, on the Spirit of the Times. It so happened that the subject had the +same prominence in some remarkable pamphlets and journals issued in London +in the same season. To me, however, the question of the times resolved +itself into a practical question of the conduct of life. How shall I live? +We are incompetent to solve the times. Our geometry cannot span the huge +orbits of the prevailing ideas, behold their return, and reconcile their +opposition. We can only obey our own polarity. 'Tis fine for us to +speculate and elect our course, if we must accept an irresistible +dictation. + +In our first steps to gain our wishes, we come upon immovable limitations. +We are fired with the hope to reform men. After many experiments, we find +that we must begin earlier--at school. But the boys and girls are not +docile; we can make nothing of them. We decide that they are not of good +stock. We must begin our reform earlier still--at generation: that is to +say, there is Fate, or laws of the world. + +But, if there be irresistible dictation, this dictation understands +itself. If we must accept Fate, we are not less compelled to affirm +liberty, the significance of the individual, the grandeur of duty, the +power of character. This is true, and that other is true. But our geometry +cannot span these extreme points, and reconcile them. What to do? By +obeying each thought frankly, by harping, or, if you will, pounding on +each string, we learn at last its power. By the same obedience to other +thoughts, we learn theirs, and then comes some reasonable hope of +harmonizing them. We are sure, that, though we know not how, necessity +does comport with liberty, the individual with the world, my polarity with +the spirit of the times. The riddle of the age has for each a private +solution. If one would study his own time, it must be by this method of +taking up in turn each of the leading topics which belong to our scheme of +human life, and, by firmly stating all that is agreeable to experience on +one, and doing the same justice to the opposing facts in the others, the +true limitations will appear. Any excess of emphasis, on one part, would +be corrected, and a just balance would be made. + +But let us honestly state the facts. Our America has a bad name for +superficialness. Great men, great nations, have not been boasters and +buffoons, but perceivers of the terror of life, and have manned themselves +to face it. The Spartan, embodying his religion in his country, dies +before its majesty without a question. The Turk, who believes his doom is +written on the iron leaf in the moment when he entered the world, rushes +on the enemy's sabre with undivided will. The Turk, the Arab, the Persian, +accepts the fore-ordained fate. + + On two days, it steads not to run from thy grave, + The appointed, and the unappointed day; + On the first, neither balm nor physician can save, + Nor thee, on the second, the Universe slay. + +The Hindoo, under the wheel, is as firm. Our Calvinists, in the last +generation, had something of the same dignity. They felt that the weight +of the Universe held them down to their place. What could _they_ do? Wise +men feel that there is something which cannot be talked or voted away--a +strap or belt which girds the world. + + The Destiny, minister general, + That executeth in the world o'er all, + The purveyance which God hath seen beforne, + So strong it is that tho' the world had sworn + The contrary of a thing by yea or nay, + Yet sometime it shall fallen on a day + That falleth not oft in a thousand year, + For, certainly, our appetites here, + Be it of war, or peace, or hate, or love, + All this is ruled by the sight above. + + CHAUCER: _The Knighte's Tale_. + +The Greek Tragedy expressed the same sense: "Whatever is fated, that will +take place. The great immense mind of Jove is not to be transgressed." + +Savages cling to a local god of one tribe or town. The broad ethics of +Jesus were quickly narrowed to village theologies, which preach an +election or favoritism. And, now and then, an amiable parson, like Jung +Stilling, or Robert Huntington, believes in a pistareen-Providence, which, +whenever the good man wants a dinner, makes that somebody shall knock at +his door, and leave a half-dollar. But Nature is no sentimentalist--does +not cosset or pamper us. We must see that the world is rough and surly, +and will not mind drowning a man or a woman; but swallows your ship like +a grain of dust. The cold, inconsiderate of persons, tingles your blood, +benumbs your feet, freezes a man like an apple. The diseases, the +elements, fortune, gravity, lightning, respect no persons. The way of +Providence is a little rude. The habit of snake and spider, the snap of +the tiger and other leapers and bloody jumpers, the crackle of the bones +of his prey in the coil of the anaconda--these are in the system, and our +habits are like theirs. You have just dined, and, however scrupulously the +slaughter-house is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is +complicity--expensive races--race living at the expense of race. The +planet is liable to shocks from comets, perturbations from planets, +rendings from earthquake and volcano, alterations of climate, precessions +of equinoxes. Rivers dry up by opening of the forest. The sea changes its +bed. Towns and counties fall into it. At Lisbon, an earthquake killed men +like flies. At Naples, three years ago, ten thousand persons were crushed +in a few minutes. The scurvy at sea; the sword of the climate in the west +of Africa, at Cayenne, at Panama, at New Orleans, cut off men like a +massacre. Our Western prairie shakes with fever and ague. The cholera, the +small-pox, have proved as mortal to some tribes, as a frost to the +crickets, which, having filled the summer with noise, are silenced by a +fall of the temperature of one night. Without uncovering what does not +concern us; or counting how many species of parasites hang on a bombyx; or +groping after intestinal parasites, or infusory biters, or the obscurities +of alternate generation;--the forms of the shark, the _labrus_, the jaw of +the sea-wolf paved with crushing teeth, the weapons of the grampus, and +other warriors hidden in the sea--are hints of ferocity in the interiors +of nature. Let us not deny it up and down. Providence has a wild, rough, +incalculable road to its end, and it is of no use to try to whitewash its +huge, mixed instrumentalities, or to dress up that terrific benefactor in +a clean shirt and white neckcloth of a student in divinity. + +Will you say, the disasters which threaten mankind are exceptional, and +one need not lay his account for cataclysms every day? Ay, but what +happens once, may happen again, and so long as these strokes are not to be +parried by us, they must be feared. + +But these shocks and ruins are less destructive to us than the stealthy +power of other laws which act on us daily. An expense of ends to means is +fate--organization tyrannizing over character. The menagerie, or forms and +powers of the spine, is a book of fate: the bill of the bird, the skull of +the snake, determines tyrannically its limits. So is the scale of races, +of temperaments; so is sex; so is climate; so is the reaction of talents +imprisoning the vital power in certain directions. Every spirit makes its +house; but afterwards the house confines the spirit. + +The gross lines are legible to the dull: the cabman is phrenologist so +far: he looks in your face to see if his shilling is sure. A dome of brow +denotes one thing; a pot-belly another; a squint, a pug-nose, mats of +hair, the pigment of the epidermis, betray character. People seem sheathed +in their tough organization. Ask Spurzheim, ask the doctors, ask Quetelet, +if temperaments decide nothing? or if there be anything they do not +decide? Read the description in medical books of the four temperaments, +and you will think you are reading your own thoughts which you had not yet +told. Find the part which black eyes, and which blue eyes, play severally +in the company. How shall a man escape from his ancestors, or draw off +from his veins the black drop which he drew from his father's or his +mother's life? It often appears in a family, as if all the qualities of +the progenitors were potted in several jars--some ruling quality in each +son or daughter of the house--and sometimes the unmixed temperament, the +rank unmitigated elixir, the family vice, is drawn off in a separate +individual, and the others are proportionally relieved. We sometimes see a +change of expression in our companion, and say, his father, or his mother, +comes to the windows of his eyes, and sometimes a remote relative. In +different hours, a man represents each of several of his ancestors, as if +there were seven or eight of us rolled up in each man's skin,--seven or +eight ancestors at least,--and they constitute the variety of notes for +that new piece of music which his life is. At the corner of the street, +you read the possibility of each passenger, in the facial angle, in the +complexion, in the depth of his eye. His parentage determines it. Men are +what their mothers made them. You may as well ask a loom which weaves +huckaback, why it does not make cashmere, as expect poetry from this +engineer or a chemical discovery from that jobber. Ask the digger in the +ditch to explain Newton's laws: the fine organs of his brains have been +pinched by overwork and squalid poverty from father to son, for a hundred +years. When each comes forth from his mother's womb, the gate of gifts +closes behind him. Let him value his hands and feet, he has but one pair. +So he has but one future, and that is already predetermined in his lobes, +and described in that little fatty face, pig-eye, and squat form. All the +privilege and all the legislation of the world cannot meddle or help to +make a poet or a prince of him. + +Jesus said, "When he looketh on her, he hath committed adultery." But he +is an adulterer before he has yet looked on the woman, by the superfluity +of animal, and the defect of thought, in his constitution. Who meets him, +or who meets her, in the street, sees that they are ripe to be each +other's victim. + +In certain men, digestion and sex absorb the vital force, and the stronger +these are, the individual is so much weaker. The more of these drones +perish, the better for the hive. If, later, they give birth to some +superior individual, with force enough to add to this animal a new aim, +and a complete apparatus to work it out, all the ancestors are gladly +forgotten. Most men and most women are merely one couple more. Now and +then, one has a new cell or camarilla opened in his brain--an +architectural, a musical, or a philological knack, some stray taste or +talent for flowers, or chemistry, or pigments, or story-telling, a good +hand for drawing, a good foot for dancing, an athletic frame for wide +journeying, etc.--which skill nowise alters rank in the scale of nature, +but serves to pass the time, the life of sensation going on as before. At +last, these hints and tendencies are fixed in one, or in a succession. +Each absorbs so much food and force as to become itself a new centre. The +new talent draws off so rapidly the vital force, that not enough remains +for the animal functions, hardly enough for health; so that, in the second +generation, if the like genius appear, the health is visibly deteriorated, +and the generative force impaired. + +People are born with the moral or with the material bias; uterine brothers +with this diverging destination; and I suppose, with high magnifiers, Mr. +Frauenhofer or Dr. Carpenter might come to distinguish in the embryo at +the fourth day, this is a Whig, and that a Free-soiler. + +It was a poetic attempt to lift this mountain of Fate, to reconcile this +despotism of race with liberty, which led the Hindoos to say, "Fate is +nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence." I find the +coincidence of the extremes of eastern and western speculation in the +daring statement of Schelling, "There is in every man a certain feeling, +that he has been what he is from all eternity, and by no means became +such in time." To say it less sublimely--in the history of the individual +is always an account of his condition, and he knows himself to be a party +to his present estate. + +A good deal of our politics is physiological. Now and then, a man of +wealth in the heyday of youth adopts the tenet of broadest freedom. In +England, there is always some man of wealth and large connection planting +himself, during all his years of health, on the side of progress, who, as +soon as he begins to die, checks his forward play, calls in his troops, +and becomes conservative. All conservatives are such from personal +defects. They have been effeminated by position or nature, born halt and +blind, through luxury of their parents, and can only, like invalids, act +on the defensive. But strong natures, backwoodsmen, New Hampshire giants, +Napoleons, Burkes, Broughams, Websters, Kossuths, are inevitable patriots, +until their life ebbs, and their defects and gout, palsy and money, warp +them. + +The strongest idea incarnates itself in majorities and nations, in the +healthiest and strongest. Probably, the election goes by avoirdupois +weight, and, if you could weigh bodily the tonnage of any hundred of the +Whig and the Democratic party in a town, on the Dearborn balance, as they +passed the hay scales, you could predict with certainty which party would +carry it. On the whole, it would be rather the speediest way of deciding +the vote, to put the selectmen or the mayor and aldermen at the hayscales. + +In science, we have to consider two things: power and circumstance. All we +know of the egg, from each successive discovery, is, _another vesicle_; +and if, after five hundred years, you get a better observer, or a better +glass, he finds within the last observed another. In vegetable and animal +tissue, it is just alike, and all that the primary power or spasm +operates, is, still, vesicles, vesicles. Yes--but the tyrannical +Circumstance! A vesicle in new circumstances, a vesicle lodged in +darkness, Oken thought, became animal; in light, a plant. Lodged in the +parent animal, it suffers changes, which end in unsheathing miraculous +capability in the unaltered vesicle, and it unlocks itself to fish, bird, +or quadruped, head and foot, eye and claw. The Circumstance is Nature. +Nature is, what you may do. There is much you may not. We have two +things--the circumstance, and the life. Once we thought, positive power +was all. Now we learn, that negative power, or circumstance, is half. +Nature is the tyrannous circumstance, the thick skull, the sheathed snake, +the ponderous, rock-like jaw; necessitated activity; violent direction; +the conditions of a tool, like the locomotive, strong enough on its track, +but which can do nothing but mischief off it; or skates, which are wings +on the ice, but fetters on the ground. + +The book of Nature is the book of Fate. She turns the gigantic pages--leaf +after leaf--never re-turning one. One leaf she lays down, a floor of +granite; then a thousand ages, and a bed of slate; a thousand ages, and a +measure of coal; a thousand ages, and a layer of marl and mud; vegetable +forms appear; her first misshapen animals, zoophyte, trilobium, fish, +then, saurians--rude forms, in which she has only blocked her future +statue, concealing under these unwieldy monsters the fine type of her +coming king. The face of the planet cools and dries, the races meliorate, +and man is born. But when a race has lived its term, it comes no more +again. + +The population of the world is a conditional population; not the best, but +the best that could live now; and the scale of tribes, and the steadiness +with which victory adheres to one tribe, and defeat to another, is as +uniform as the superposition of strata. We know in history what weight +belongs to race. We see the English, French, and Germans, planting +themselves on every shore and market of America and Australia, and +monopolizing the commerce of these countries. We like the nervous and +victorious habit of our own branch of the family. We follow the step of +the Jew, of the Indian, of the Negro. We see how much will has been +expended to extinguish the Jew, in vain. Look at the unpalatable +conclusions of Knox, in his "Fragment of Races,"--a rash and +unsatisfactory writer, but charged with pungent and unforgettable truths. +"Nature respects race, and not hybrids." "Every race has its own +_habitat_." "Detach a colony from the race, and it deteriorates to the +crab." See the shades of the picture. The German and Irish millions, like +the negro, have a great deal of guano in their destiny. They are ferried +over the Atlantic, and carted over America, to ditch and to drudge, to +make corn cheap, and then to lie down prematurely to make a spot of green +grass on the prairie. + +One more faggot of these adamantine bandages, is, the new science of +Statistics. It is a rule, that the most casual and extraordinary +events--if the basis of population is broad enough--become matter of fixed +calculation. It would not be safe to say when a captain like Bonaparte, a +singer like Jenny Lind, or a navigator like Bowditch, would be born in +Boston: but, on a population of twenty or two hundred millions, something +like accuracy may be had.[17] + +'Tis frivolous to fix pedantically the date of particular inventions. They +have all been invented over and over fifty times. Man is the arch machine, +of which all these shifts drawn from himself are toy models. He helps +himself on each emergency by copying or duplicating his own structure, +just so far as the need is. 'Tis hard to find the right Homer, Zoroaster, +or Menu; harder still to find the Tubal Cain, or Vulcan, or Cadmus, or +Copernicus, or Fust, or Fulton, the indisputable inventor. There are +scores and centuries of them. "The air is full of men." This kind of +talent so abounds, this constructive tool-making efficiency, as if it +adhered to the chemic atoms, as if the air he breathes were made of +Vaucansons, Franklins, and Watts. + +Doubtless, in every million there will be an astronomer, a mathematician, +a comic poet, a mystic. No one can read the history of astronomy, without +perceiving that Copernicus, Newton, Laplace, are not new men, or a new +kind of men, but that Thales, Anaximenes, Hipparchus, Empedocles, +Aristarchus, Pythagoras, OEnopides, had anticipated them; each had the +same tense geometrical brain, apt for the same vigorous computation and +logic, a mind parallel to the movement of the world. The Roman mile +probably rested on a measure of a degree of the meridian. Mahometan and +Chinese know what we know of leap-year, of the Gregorian calendar, and of +the precession of the equinoxes. As, in every barrel of cowries, brought +to New Bedford, there shall be one _orangia_, so there will, in a dozen +millions of Malays and Mahometans, be one or two astronomical skulls. In a +large city, the most casual things, and things whose beauty lies in their +casualty, are produced as punctually and to order as the baker's muffin +for breakfast. "Punch" makes exactly one capital joke a week; and the +journals contrive to furnish one good piece of news every day. + +And not less work the laws of repression, the penalties of violated +functions. Famine, typhus, frost, war, suicide, and effete races, must be +reckoned calculable parts of the system of the world. + +These are pebbles from the mountain, hints of the terms by which our life +is walled up, and which show a kind of mechanical exactness, as of a loom +or mill, in what we call casual or fortuitous events. + +The force with which we resist these torrents of tendency looks so +ridiculously inadequate, that it amounts to little more than a criticism +or a protest made by a minority of one, under compulsion of millions. I +seemed, in the height of a tempest, to see men overboard struggling in the +waves, and driven about here and there. They glanced intelligently at each +other, but 'twas little they could do for one another; 'twas much if each +could keep afloat alone. Well, they had a right to their eye-beams, and +all the rest was Fate. + + * * * * * + +We cannot trifle with this reality, this cropping out in our planted +gardens of the core of the world. No picture of life can have any veracity +that does not admit the odious facts. A man's power is hooped in by a +necessity which, by many experiments, he touches on every side, until he +learns its arc. + +The element running through entire nature, which we popularly call Fate, +is known to us as limitation. Whatever limits us, we call Fate. If we are +brute and barbarous, the fate takes a brute and dreadful shape. As we +refine, our checks become finer. If we rise to spiritual culture, the +antagonism takes a spiritual form. In the Hindoo fables, Vishnu follows +Maya through all her ascending changes, from insect and crawfish up to +elephant; whatever form she took, he took the male form of that kind, +until she became at last woman and goddess, and he a man and a god. The +limitations refine as the soul purifies, but the ring of necessity is +always perched at the top. + +When the gods in the Norse heaven were unable to bind the Fenris Wolf with +steel or with weight of mountains,--the one he snapped and the other he +spurned with his heel,--they put round his foot a limp band softer than +silk or cobweb, and this held him: the more he spurned it, the stiffer it +grew. So soft and so staunch is the ring of Fate. Neither brandy, nor +nectar, nor sulphuric ether, nor hell-fire, nor ichor, nor poetry, nor +genius, can get rid of this limp band. For if we give it the high sense in +which the poets use it, even thought itself is not above Fate: that too +must act according to eternal laws, and all that is willful and fantastic +in it is in opposition to its fundamental essence. + +And, last of all, high over thought, in the world of morals, Fate appears +as vindicator, leveling the high, lifting the low, requiring justice in +man, and always striking soon or late, when justice is not done. What is +useful will last; what is hurtful will sink. "The doer must suffer," said +the Greeks: "you would soothe a Deity not to be soothed." "God himself +cannot procure good for the wicked," said the Welsh triad. "God may +consent, but only for a time," said the bard of Spain. The limitation is +impassable by any insight of man. In its last and loftiest ascensions, +insight itself, and the freedom of the will, is one of its obedient +members. But we must not run into generalizations too large, but show the +natural bounds or essential distinctions, and seek to do justice to the +other elements as well. + + * * * * * + +Thus we trace Fate, in matter, mind, and morals--in race, in retardations +of strata, and in thought and character as well. It is everywhere bound or +limitation. But fate has its lord; limitation its limits; is different +seen from above and from below; from within and from without. For, though +Fate is immense, so is power, which is the other fact in the dual world, +immense. If Fate follows and limits power, power attends and antagonizes +Fate. We must respect Fate as natural history, but there is more than +natural history. For who and what is this criticism that pries into the +matter? Man is not order of nature, sack and sack, belly and members, link +in a chain, nor any ignominious baggage, but a stupendous antagonism, a +dragging together of the poles of the Universe. He betrays his relation to +what is below him--thick-skulled, small-brained, fishy, +quadrumanous--quadruped ill-disguised, hardly escaped into biped, and has +paid for the new powers by loss of some of the old ones. But the lightning +which explodes and fashions planets, maker of planets and suns, is in him. +On one side, elemental order, sandstone and granite, rock-ledges, +peat-bog, forest, sea and shore; and, on the other part, thought, the +spirit which composes and decomposes nature--here they are, side by side, +god and devil, mind and matter, king and conspirator, belt and spasm, +riding peacefully together in the eye and brain of every man. + +Nor can he blink the freewill. To hazard the contradiction--freedom is +necessary. If you please to plant yourself on the side of Fate, and say, +Fate is all; then we say, a part of Fate is the freedom of man. Forever +wells up the impulse of choosing and acting in the soul. Intellect annuls +Fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free. And though nothing is more +disgusting than the crowing about liberty by slaves, as most men are, and +the flippant mistaking for freedom of some paper preamble like a +"Declaration of Independence," or the statute right to vote, by those who +have never dared to think or to act, yet it is wholesome to man to look, +not at Fate, but the other way: the practical view is the other. His sound +relation to these facts is to use and command, not to cringe to them. +"Look not on nature, for her name is fatal," said the oracle. The too much +contemplation of these limits induces meanness. They who talk much of +destiny, their birth-star, etc., are in a lower dangerous plane, and +invite the evils they fear. + +I cited the instinctive and heroic races as proud believers in Destiny. +They conspire with it; a loving resignation is with the event. But the +dogma makes a different impression, when it is held by the weak and lazy. +'Tis weak and vicious people who cast the blame on Fate. The right use of +Fate is to bring up our conduct to the loftiness of nature. Rude and +invincible except by themselves are the elements. So let man be. Let him +empty his breast of his windy conceits, and show his lordship by manners +and deeds on the scale of nature. Let him hold his purpose as with the tug +of gravitation. No power, no persuasion, no bribe shall make him give up +his point. A man ought to compare advantageously with a river, an oak, or +a mountain. He shall have not less the flow, the expansion, and the +resistance of these. + +'Tis the best use of Fate to teach a fatal courage. Go face the fire at +sea, or the cholera in your friend's house, or the burglar in your own, or +what danger lies in the way of duty, knowing you are guarded by the +cherubim of Destiny. If you believe in Fate to your harm, believe it, at +least, for your good. + +For, if Fate is so prevailing, man also is part of it, and can confront +fate with fate. If the Universe have these savage accidents, our atoms are +as savage in resistance. We should be crushed by the atmosphere, but for +the reaction of the air within the body. A tube made of a film of glass +can resist the shock of the ocean, if filled with the same water. If +there be omnipotence in the stroke, there is omnipotence of recoil. + +But Fate against Fate is only parrying and defense: there are, also, the +noble creative forces. The revelation of Thought takes man out of +servitude into freedom. We rightly say of ourselves, we were born, and +afterward we were born again, and many times. We have successive +experiences so important, that the new forgets the old, and hence the +mythology of the seven or the nine heavens. The day of days, the great day +of the feast of life, is that in which the inward eye opens to the Unity +in things, to the omnipresence of law--sees that what is must be, and +ought to be, or is the best. This beatitude dips from on high down to us, +and we see. It is not in us so much as we are in it. If the air come to +our lungs, we breathe and live; if not, we die. If the light come to our +eyes, we see; else not. And if truth come to our mind, we suddenly expand +to its dimensions, as if we grew to worlds. We are as lawgivers; we speak +for Nature; we prophesy and divine. + +This insight throws us on the party and interest of the Universe, against +all and sundry; against ourselves, as much as others. A man speaking from +insight affirms of himself what is true of the mind: seeing its +immortality, he says, I am immortal; seeing its invincibility, he says, I +am strong. It is not in us, but we are in it. It is of the maker, not of +what is made. All things are touched and changed by it. This uses, and is +not used. It distances those who share it, from those who share it not. +Those who share it not are flocks and herds. It dates from itself; not +from former men or better men--gospel, or constitution, or college, or +custom. Where it shines, Nature is no longer intrusive, but all things +make a musical or pictorial impression. The world of men show like a +comedy without laughter:--populations, interests, government, +history;--'tis all toy figures in a toy house. It does not overvalue +particular truths. We hear eagerly every thought and word quoted from an +intellectual man. But, in his presence, our own mind is roused to +activity, and we forget very fast what he says, much more interested in +the new play of our own thought, than in any thought of his. 'Tis the +majesty into which we have suddenly mounted, the impersonality, the scorn +of egotisms, the sphere of laws, that engage us. Once we were stepping a +little this way, and a little that way; now, we are as men in a balloon, +and do not think so much of the point we have left, or the point we would +make, as of the liberty and glory of the way. + +Just as much intellect as you add, so much organic power. He who sees +through the design, presides over it, and must will that which must be. We +sit and rule, and, though we sleep, our dream will come to pass. Our +thought, though it were only an hour old, affirms an oldest necessity, not +to be separated from thought, and not to be separated from will. They must +always have coexisted. It apprises us of its sovereignty and godhead, +which refuse to be severed from it. It is not mine or thine, but the will +of all mind. It is poured into the souls of all men, as the soul itself +which constitutes them men. I know not whether there be, as is alleged, in +the upper region of our atmosphere, a permanent westerly current, which +carries with it all atoms which rise to that height; but I see that, when +souls reach a certain clearness of perception, they accept a knowledge and +motive above selfishness. A breath of will blows eternally through the +universe of souls in the direction of the Right and Necessary. It is the +air which all intellects inhale and exhale, and it is the wind which blows +the worlds into order and orbit. + +Thought dissolves the material universe, by carrying the mind up into a +sphere where all is plastic. Of two men, each obeying his own thought, he +whose thought is deepest will be the strongest character. Always one man +more than another represents the will of Divine Providence to the period. + +If thought makes free, so does the moral sentiment. The mixtures of +spiritual chemistry refuse to be analyzed. Yet we can see that with the +perception of truth is joined the desire that it shall prevail. That +affection is essential to will. Moreover, when a strong will appears, it +usually results from a certain unity of organization, as if the whole +energy of body and mind flowed in one direction. All great force is real +and elemental. There is no manufacturing a strong will. There must be a +pound to balance a pound. Where power is shown in will, it must rest on +the universal force. Alaric and Bonaparte must believe they rest on a +truth, or their will can be bought or bent. There is a bribe possible for +any finite will. But the pure sympathy with universal ends is an infinite +force, and cannot be bribed or bent. Whoever has had experience of the +moral sentiment cannot choose but believe in unlimited power. Each pulse +from that heart is an oath from the Most High. I know not what the word +_sublime_ means, if it be not the intimations in this infant of a terrific +force. A text of heroism, a name and anecdote of courage, are not +arguments, but sallies of freedom. One of these is the verse of the +Persian Hafiz, "'Tis written on the gate of Heaven, 'Woe unto him who +suffers himself to be betrayed by Fate!'" Does the reading of history make +us fatalists? What courage does not the opposite opinion show! A little +whim of will to be free gallantly contending against the universe of +chemistry. + +But insight is not will, nor is affection will. Perception is cold, and +goodness dies in wishes; as Voltaire said, 'tis the misfortune of worthy +people that they are cowards; "_un des plus grands malheurs des honnetes +gens c'est qu'ils sont des laches_." There must be a fusion of these two +to generate the energy of will. There can be no driving force, except +through the conversion of the man into his will, making him the will, and +the will him. And one may say boldly, that no man has a right perception +of any truth, who has not been reacted on by it, so as to be ready to be +its martyr. + +The one serious and formidable thing in nature is a will. Society is +servile from want of will, and therefore the world wants saviours and +religions. One way is right to go: the hero sees it, and moves on that +aim, and has the world under him for root and support. He is to others as +the world. His approbation is honor; his dissent, infamy. The glance of +his eye has the force of sunbeams. A personal influence towers up in +memory only worthy, and we gladly forget numbers, money, climate, +gravitation, and the rest of Fate. + + * * * * * + +We can afford to allow the limitation, if we know it is the meter of the +growing man. We can stand against Fate, as children stand up against the +wall in their father's house, and notch their height from year to year. +But when the boy grows to man, and is master of the house, he pulls down +that wall, and builds a new and bigger. 'Tis only a question of time. +Every brave youth is in training to ride, and rule this dragon. His +science is to make weapons and wings of these passions and retarding +forces. Now whether, seeing these two things, fate and power, we are +permitted to believe in unity? The bulk of mankind believe in two gods. +They are under one dominion here in the house, as friend and parent, in +social circles, in letters, in art, in love, in religion: but in +mechanics, in dealing with steam and climate, in trade, in politics, they +think they come under another; and that it would be a practical blunder +to transfer the method and way of working of one sphere into the other. +What good, honest, generous men at home, will be wolves and foxes on +change! What pious men in the parlor will vote for what reprobates at the +polls! To a certain point, they believe themselves the care of a +Providence. But in a steamboat, in an epidemic, in war, they believe a +malignant energy rules. + +But relation and connection are not somewhere and sometimes, but +everywhere and always. The divine order does not stop where their sight +stops. The friendly power works on the same rules, in the next farm and +the next planet. But where they have not experience, they run against it, +and hurt themselves. Fate, then, is a name for facts not yet passed under +the fire of thought--for causes which are unpenetrated. + +But every jet of chaos which threatens to exterminate us is convertible by +intellect into wholesome force. Fate is unpenetrated causes. The water +drowns ship and sailor, like a grain of dust. But learn to swim, trim your +bark, and the wave which drowned it will be cloven by it, and carry it, +like its own foam, a plume and a power. The cold is inconsiderate of +persons, tingles your blood, freezes a man like a dew-drop. But learn to +skate, and the ice will give you a graceful, sweet, and poetic motion. The +cold will brace your limbs and brain to genius, and make you foremost men +of time. Cold and sea will train an imperial Saxon race, which nature +cannot bear to lose, and, after cooping it up for a thousand years in +yonder England, gives a hundred Englands, a hundred Mexicos. All the +bloods it shall absorb and domineer: and more than Mexicos--the secrets of +water and steam, the spasms of electricity, the ductility of metals, the +chariot of the air, the ruddered balloon, are awaiting you. + +The annual slaughter from typhus far exceeds that of war; but right +drainage destroys typhus. The plague in the sea-service from scurvy is +healed by lemon juice and other diets portable or procurable; the +depopulation by cholera and small-pox is ended by drainage and +vaccination; and every other pest is not less in the chain of cause and +effect, and may be fought off. And, whilst art draws out the venom, it +commonly extorts some benefits from the vanquished enemy. The mischievous +torrent is taught to drudge for man; the wild beasts he makes useful for +food, or dress, or labor; the chemic explosions are controlled like his +watch. These are now the steeds on which he rides. Man moves in all modes, +by legs of horses, by wings of wind, by steam, by gas of balloon, by +electricity, and stands on tiptoe threatening to hunt the eagle in his own +element. There is nothing he will not make his carrier. + +Steam was, till the other day, the devil which we dreaded. Every pot made +by any human potter or brazier had a hole in its cover, to let off the +enemy, lest he should lift pot and roof, and carry the house away. But the +Marquis of Worcester, Watt, and Fulton bethought themselves that where was +power was not devil, but was God; that it must be availed of, and not by +any means let off and wasted. Could he lift pots and roofs and houses so +handily? he was the workman they were in search of. He could be used to +lift away, chain, and compel other devils, far more reluctant and +dangerous, namely, cubic miles of earth, mountains, weight or resistance +of water, machinery, and the labors of all men in the world; and time he +shall lengthen, and shorten space. + +It has not fared much otherwise with higher kinds of steam. The opinion of +the million was the terror of the world, and it was attempted, either to +dissipate it, by amusing nations, or to pile it over with strata of +society--a layer of soldiers; over that, a layer of lords; and a king on +the top; with clamps and hoops of castles, garrisons, and police. But, +sometimes, the religious principle would get in, and burst the hoops, and +rive every mountain laid on top of it. The Fultons and Watts of politics, +believing in unity, saw that it was a power, and, by satisfying it (as +justice satisfies everybody), through a different disposition of +society,--grouping it on a level, instead of piling it into a +mountain,--they have contrived to make of this terror the most harmless +and energetic form of a State. + +Very odious, I confess, are the lessons of Fate. Who likes to have a +dapper phrenologist pronouncing on his fortunes? Who likes to believe that +he has hidden in his skull, spine, and pelvis, all the vices of a Saxon or +Celtic race, which will be sure to pull him down--with what grandeur of +hope and resolve he is fired--into a selfish, huckstering, servile, +dodging animal? A learned physician tells us, the fact is invariable with +the Neapolitan that, when mature, he assumes the forms of the unmistakable +scoundrel. That is a little overstated--but may pass. + +But these are magazines and arsenals. A man must thank his defects, and +stand in some terror of his talents. A transcendent talent draws so +largely on his forces, as to lame him; a defect pays him revenues on the +other side. The sufferance, which is the badge of the Jew, has made him, +in these days, the ruler of the rulers of the earth. If Fate is ore and +quarry, if evil is good in the making, if limitation is power that shall +be, if calamities, oppositions, and weights are wings and means--we are +reconciled. + +Fate involves the melioration. No statement of the universe can have any +soundness, which does not admit its ascending effort. The direction of the +whole, and of the parts, is toward benefit, and in proportion to the +health. Behind every individual closes organization: before him opens +liberty--the better, the best. The first and worst races are dead. The +second and imperfect races are dying out, or remain for the maturing of +higher. In the latest race, in man, every generosity, every new +perception, the love and praise he extorts from his fellows, are +certificates of advance out of fate into freedom. Liberation of the will +from the sheaths and clogs of organization which he has outgrown, is the +end and aim of this world. Every calamity is a spur and valuable hint; and +where his endeavors do not yet fully avail, they tell as tendency. The +whole circle of animal life,--tooth against tooth,--devouring war, war for +food, a yelp of pain and a grunt of triumph, until, at last, the whole +menagerie, the whole chemical mass, is mellowed and refined for higher +use--pleases at a sufficient perspective. + +But to see how fate slides into freedom, and freedom into fate, observe +how far the roots of every creature run, or find, if you can, a point +where there is no thread of connection. Our life is consentaneous and +far-related. This knot of nature is so well tied, that nobody was ever +cunning enough to find the two ends. Nature is intricate, overlapped, +inter-weaved, and endless. Christopher Wren said of the beautiful King's +College chapel, "that, if anybody would tell him where to lay the first +stone, he would build such another." But where shall we find the first +atom in this house of man, which is all consent, inosculation, and balance +of parts? + +The web of relation is shown in _habitat_, shown in hibernation. When +hibernation was observed, it was found, that, whilst some animals become +torpid in winter, others were torpid in summer: hibernation then was a +false name. The _long sleep_ is not an effect of cold, but is regulated by +the supply of food proper to the animal. It becomes torpid when the fruit +or prey it lives on is not in season, and regains its activity when its +food is ready. + +Eyes are found in light; ears in auricular air; feet on land; fins in +water; wings in air; and each creature where it was meant to be, with a +mutual fitness. Every zone has its own _Fauna_. There is adjustment +between the animal and its food, its parasite, its enemy. Balances are +kept. It is not allowed to diminish in numbers, nor to exceed. The like +adjustments exist for man. His food is cooked when he arrives; his coal in +the pit; the house ventilated; the mud of the deluge dried; his companions +arrived at the same hour, and awaiting him with love, concert, laughter, +and tears. These are coarse adjustments, but the invisible are not less. +There are more belongings to every creature than his air and his food. His +instincts must be met, and he has predisposing power that bends and fits +what is near him to his use. He is not possible until the invisible things +are right for him, as well as the visible. Of what changes, then, in sky +and earth, and in finer skies and earths, does the appearance of some +Dante or Columbus apprise us! + +How is this effected? Nature is no spendthrift, but takes the shortest way +to her ends. As the general says to his soldiers, "If you want a fort, +build a fort," so nature makes every creature do its own work and get its +living--is it planet, animal, or tree. The planet makes itself. The animal +cell makes itself; then, what it wants. Every creature--wren or +dragon--shall make its own lair. As soon as there is life, there is +self-direction, and absorbing and using of material. Life is freedom--life +in the direct ratio of its amount. You may be sure, the new-born man is +not inert. Life works both voluntarily and supernaturally in its +neighborhood. Do you suppose he can be estimated by his weight in pounds, +or that he is contained in his skin--this reaching, radiating, jaculating +fellow? The smallest candle fills a mile with its rays, and the papillae +of a man run out to every star. + +When there is something to be done, the world knows how to get it done. +The vegetable eye makes leaf, pericarp, root, bark, or thorn, as the need +is; the first cell converts itself into stomach, mouth, nose, or nail, +according to the want; the world throws its life into a hero or a +shepherd, and puts him where he is wanted. Dante and Columbus were +Italians in their time: they would be Russians or Americans to-day. Things +ripen, new men come. The adaptation is not capricious. The ulterior aim, +the purpose beyond itself, the correlation by which planets subside and +crystallize, then animate beasts and men, will not stop, but will work +into finer particulars, and from finer to finest. + +The secret of the world is, the tie between person and event. Person makes +event and event person. The "times," "the age," what is that, but a few +profound persons and a few active persons who epitomize the +times?--Goethe, Hegel, Metternich, Adams, Calhoun, Guizot, Peel, Cobden, +Kossuth, Rothschild, Astor, Brunel, and the rest. The same fitness must be +presumed between a man and the time and event, as between the sexes, or +between a race of animals and the food it eats, or the inferior races it +uses. He thinks his fate alien, because the copula is hidden. But the soul +contains the event that shall befall it, for the event is only the +actualization of its thoughts; and what we pray to ourselves for is always +granted. The event is the print of your form. It fits you like your skin. +What each does is proper to him. Events are the children of his body and +mind. We learn that the soul of Fate is the soul of us, as Hafiz sings-- + + Alas! till now I had not known, + My guide and fortune's guide are one. + +All the toys that infatuate men, and which they play for,--houses, land, +money, luxury, power, fame,--are the self-same thing, with a new gauze or +two of illusion overlaid. And of all the drums and rattles by which men +are made willing to have their heads broke, and are led out solemnly every +morning to parade, the most admirable is this by which we are brought to +believe that events are arbitrary, and independent of actions. At the +conjurer's we detect the hair by which he moves his puppet, but we have +not eyes sharp enough to descry the thread that ties cause and effect. + +Nature magically suits the man to his fortunes, by making these the fruit +of his character. Ducks take to the water, eagles to the sky, waders to +the sea margin, hunters to the forest, clerks to counting-rooms, soldiers +to the frontier. Thus events grow on the same stem with persons; are +sub-persons. The pleasure of life is according to the man that lives it, +and not according to the work or the place. Life is an ecstasy. We know +what madness belongs to love--what power to paint a vile object in hues of +heaven. As insane persons are indifferent to their dress, diet, and other +accommodations, and, as we do in dreams, with equanimity, the most absurd +acts, so, a drop more of wine in our cup of life will reconcile us to +strange company and work. Each creature puts forth from itself its own +condition and sphere, as the slug sweats out its slimy house on the +pear-leaf, and the woolly aphides on the apple perspire their own bed, and +the fish its shell. In youth, we clothe ourselves with rainbows, and go as +brave as the zodiac. In age, we put out another sort of +perspiration--gout, fever, rheumatism, caprice, doubt, fretting, and +avarice. + +A man's fortunes are the fruit of his character. A man's friends are his +magnetisms. We go to Herodotus and Plutarch for examples of Fate; but we +are examples. "_Quisque suos patimur manes._" The tendency of every man to +enact all that is in his constitution is expressed in the old belief, that +the efforts which we make to escape from our destiny only serve to lead us +into it; and I have noticed, a man likes better to be complimented on his +position, as the proof of the last or total excellence, than on his +merits. + +A man will see his character emitted in the events that seem to meet, but +which exude from and accompany him. Events expand with the character. As +once he found himself among toys, so now he plays a part in colossal +systems, and his growth is declared in his ambition, his companions, and +his performance. He looks like a piece of luck, but is a piece of +causation--the mosaic, angulated and ground to fit into the gap he fills. +Hence in each town there is some man who is, in his brain and performance, +an explanation of the tillage, production, factories, banks, churches, +ways of living, and society, of that town. If you do not chance to meet +him, all that you see will leave you a little puzzled: if you see him, it +will become plain. We know in Massachusetts who built New Bedford, who +built Lynn, Lowell, Lawrence, Clinton, Fitchburg, Holyoke, Portland, and +many another noisy mart. Each of these men, if they were transparent, +would seem to you not so much men, as walking cities, and, wherever you +put them, they would build one. + +History is the action and reaction of these two,--Nature and Thought,--two +boys pushing each other on the curbstone of the pavement. Everything is +pusher or pushed: and matter and mind are in perpetual tilt and balance +so. Whilst the man is weak, the earth takes him up. He plants his brain +and affections. By-and-by he will take up the earth, and have his gardens +and vineyards in the beautiful order and productiveness of his thought. +Every solid in the universe is ready to become fluid on the approach of +the mind, and the power to flux it is the measure of the mind. If the wall +remain adamant, it accuses the want of thought. To a subtler force, it +will stream into new forms, expressive of the character of the mind. + +What is the city in which we sit here, but an aggregate of incongruous +materials, which have obeyed the will of some man? The granite was +reluctant, but his hands were stronger, and it came. Iron was deep in the +ground, and well combined with stone, but could not hide from his fires. +Wood, lime, stuffs, fruits, gums, were dispersed over the earth and sea, +in vain. Here they are, within the reach of every man's day-labor--what he +wants of them. + +The whole world is the flux of matter over the wires of thought to the +poles or points where it would build. The races of men rise out of the +ground preoccupied with a thought which rules them, and divided into +parties ready armed and angry to fight for this metaphysical abstraction. +The quality of the thought differences the Egyptian and the Roman, the +Austrian and the American. The men who come on the stage at one period are +all found to be related to each other. Certain ideas are in the air. We +are all impressionable, for we are made of them; all impressionable, but +some more than others, and these first express them. This explains the +curious contemporaneousness of inventions and discoveries. The truth is in +the air, and the most impressionable brain will announce it first, but all +will announce it a few minutes later. So women, as most susceptible, are +the best index of the coming hour. So the great man, that is, the man most +imbued with the spirit of the time, is the impressionable man--of a fibre +irritable and delicate, like iodine to light. He feels the infinitesimal +attractions. His mind is righter than others, because he yields to a +current so feeble as can be felt only by a needle delicately poised. + +The correlation is shown in defects. Moeller, in his "Essay on +Architecture," taught that the building which was fitted accurately to +answer its end would turn out to be beautiful, though beauty had not been +intended. I find the like unity in human structures rather virulent and +pervasive: that a crudity in the blood will appear in the argument; a hump +in the shoulder will appear in the speech and handiwork. If his mind could +be seen, the hump would be seen. If a man has a seesaw in his voice, it +will run into his sentences, into his poem, into the structure of his +fable, into his speculation, into his charity. And, as every man is hunted +by his own daemon, vexed by his own disease, this checks all his activity. + +So each man, like each plant, has his parasites. A strong, astringent, +bilious nature, has more truculent enemies than the slugs and moths that +fret my leaves. Such an one has curculios, borers, knife-worms: a swindler +ate him first, then a client, then a quack, then a smooth, plausible +gentleman, bitter and selfish as Moloch. + +This correlation really existing can be divined. If the threads are there, +thought can follow and show them. Especially when a soul is quick and +docile; as Chaucer sings,-- + + Or if the soul of proper kind + Be so perfect as men find, + That it wot what is to come, + And that he warneth all and some, + Of every of their aventures, + By previsions or figures; + But that our flesh hath not might + It to understand aright, + For it is warned too darkly. + +Some people are made up of rhyme, coincidence, omen, periodicity, and +presage: they meet the person they seek: what their companion prepares to +say to them, they first say to him; and a hundred signs apprise them of +what is about to befall. + +Wonderful intricacy in the web, wonderful constancy in the design, this +vagabond life admits. We wonder how the fly finds its mate, and yet year +after year we find two men, two women, without legal or carnal tie, spend +a great part of their best time within a few feet of each other. And the +moral is, that what we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from +us; as Goethe said, "what we wish for in youth, comes in heaps on us in +old age," too often cursed with the granting of our prayer; and hence the +high caution, that, since we are sure of having what we wish, we beware to +ask only for high things. + +One key, one solution to the mysteries of human condition, one solution to +the old knots of fate, freedom, and foreknowledge, exists, the +propounding, namely, of the double consciousness. A man must ride +alternately on the horses of his private and his public nature, as the +equestrians in the circus throw themselves nimbly from horse to horse, or +plant one foot on the back of one, and the other foot on the back of the +other. So when a man is the victim of his fate, has sciatica in his loins, +and cramp in his mind; a club-foot and a club in his wit; a sour face, and +a selfish temper; a strut in his gait, and a conceit in his affection; or +is ground to powder by the vice of his race; he is to rally on his +relation to the universe which his ruin benefits. Leaving the daemon who +suffers, he is to take sides with the Deity who secures universal benefit +by his pain. + +To offset the drag of temperament and race, which pulls down, learn this +lesson--namely, that by the cunning co-presence of two elements, which is +throughout nature, whatever lames or paralyzes you draws in with it the +divinity, in some form, to repay. A good intention clothes itself with +sudden power. When a god wishes to ride, any chip or pebble will bud and +shoot out winged feet, and serve him for a horse. + +Let us build altars to the Blessed Unity which holds nature and souls in +perfect solution, and compels every atom to serve an universal end. I do +not wonder at a snow-flake, a shell, a summer landscape, or the glory of +the stars; but at the necessity of beauty under which the universe lies; +that all is and must be pictorial; that the rainbow, and the curve of the +horizon, and the arch of the blue vault, are only results from the +organism of the eye. There is no need for foolish amateurs to fetch me to +admire a garden of flowers, or a sun-gilt cloud, or a waterfall, when I +cannot look without seeing splendor and grace. How idle to choose a random +sparkle here or there, when the indwelling necessity plants the rose of +beauty on the brow of chaos, and discloses the central intention of nature +to be harmony and joy. + +Let us build altars to the Beautiful Necessity. If we thought men were +free in the sense that in a single exception one fantastical will could +prevail over the law of things, it were all one as if a child's hand could +pull down the sun. If, in the least particular, one could derange the +order of nature--who would accept the gift of life? + +Let us build altars to the Beautiful Necessity, which secures that all is +made of one piece; that plaintiff and defendant, friend and enemy, animal +and planet, food and eater, are of one kind. In astronomy is vast space, +but no foreign system; in geology, vast time, but the same laws as to-day. +Why should we be afraid of nature, which is no other than "philosophy and +theology embodied"? Why should we fear to be crushed by savage elements, +we who are made up of the same elements? Let us build to the Beautiful +Necessity, which makes man brave in believing that he cannot shun a danger +that is appointed, nor incur one that is not; to the Necessity which +rudely or softly educates him to the perception that there are no +contingencies; that Law rules throughout existence, a Law which is not +intelligent but intelligence,--not personal nor impersonal,--it disdains +words and passes understanding; it dissolves persons; it vivifies nature, +yet solicits the pure in heart to draw on all its omnipotence. + + + + +WALT WHITMAN + + +SONG OF THE OPEN ROAD + + I + + Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, + Healthy, free, the world before me, + The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose. + + Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good fortune, + Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing, + Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms, + Strong and content I travel the open road. + + The earth, that is sufficient, + I do not want the constellations any nearer, + I know they are very well where they are, + I know they suffice for those who belong to them. + + (Still here I carry my old delicious burdens, + I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go, + I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them, + I am fill'd with them, and I will fill them in return.) + + II + + You road I enter upon and look around, I believe you are not all that is + here, + I believe that much unseen is also here. + Here the profound lesson of reception, nor preference nor denial, + The black with his woolly head, the felon, the diseas'd, the illiterate + person, are not denied; + The birth, the hasting after the physician, the beggar's tramp, the + drunkard's stagger, the laughing party of mechanics, + The escap'd youth, the rich person's carriage, the fop, the eloping + couple. + The early market-man, the hearse, the moving of furniture into the town, + the return back from the town, + They pass, I also pass, anything passes, none can be interdicted, + None but are accepted, none but shall be dear to me. + + III + + You air that serves me with breath to speak! + You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give them shape! + You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers! + You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides! + I believe you are latent with unseen existences, you are so dear to me. + + You flagg'd walks of the cities! you strong curbs at the edges! + You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you timber-lin'd sides! + you distant ships! + You rows of houses! you window-pierc'd facades! you roofs! + You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards! + You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much! + You doors and ascending steps! you arches! + You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings! + From all that has touch'd you I believe you have imparted to yourselves, + and now would impart the same secretly to me, + From the living and the dead you have peopled your impassive surfaces, + and the spirits thereof would be evident and amicable with me. + + IV + + The earth expanding right hand and left hand, + The picture alive, every part in its best light, + The music falling in where it is wanted, and stopping where it is not + wanted, + The cheerful voice of the public road, the gay fresh sentiment of the + road. + + O highway I travel, do you say to me, _Do not leave me_? + Do you say, _Venture not--if you leave me you are lost_? + Do you say, _I am already prepared, I am well-beaten and undenied, + adhere to me_? + + O public road, I say back I am not afraid to leave you, yet I love you, + You express me better than I can express myself, + You shall be more to me than my poem. + + I think heroic deeds were all conceiv'd in the open air, and all free + poems also, + I think I could stop here myself and do miracles, + I think whatever I shall meet on the road I shall like, and whoever + beholds me shall like me. + I think whoever I see must be happy. + + V + + From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines, + Going where I list, my own master total and absolute, + Listening to others, considering well what they say, + Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, + Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that + would hold me. + + I inhale great draughts of space, + The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine. + + I am larger, better than I thought, + I did not know I held so much goodness. + + All seems beautiful to me, + I can repeat over to men and women, You have done such good to me I + would do the same to you, + I will recruit for myself and you as I go, + I will scatter myself among men and women as I go, + I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them, + Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me, + Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me. + + VI + + Now if a thousand perfect men were to appear it would not amaze me, + Now if a thousand beautiful forms of women appear'd it would not + astonish me. + + Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons, + It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth. + + Here a great personal deed has room + (Such a deed seizes upon the hearts of the whole race of men, + Its effusion of strength and will overwhelms law and mocks all authority + and all argument against it). + + Here is the test of wisdom, + Wisdom is not finally tested in schools, + Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having it to another not having it, + Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof, + Applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content, + Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the + excellence of things; + Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it + out of the soul. + + Now I reexamine philosophies and religions, + They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all under the + spacious clouds and along the landscape and flowing currents. + Here is realization, + Here is a man tallied--he realizes here what he has in him, + The past, the future, majesty, love--if they are vacant of you, you are + vacant of them. + + Only the kernel of every object nourishes; + Where is he who tears off the husks for you and me? + Where is he that undoes stratagems and envelopes for you and me? + + Here is adhesiveness, it is not previously fashion'd, it is apropos; + Do you know what it is as you pass to be loved by strangers? + Do you know the talk of those turning eye-balls? + + VII + + Here is the efflux of the soul, + The efflux of the soul comes from within through embower'd gates, ever + provoking questions, + These yearnings why are they? these thoughts in the darkness why are + they? + Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the sunlight + expands my blood? + Why when they leave me do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank? + Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts + descend upon me? + (I think they hang there winter and summer on those trees and always + drop fruit as I pass.) + What is it I interchange so suddenly with strangers? + What with some driver as I ride on the seat by his side? + What with some fisherman drawing his seine by the shore as I walk by and + pause? + What gives me to be free to a woman's and man's good-will? what gives + them to be free to mine? + + VIII + + The efflux of the soul is happiness, here is happiness, + I think it pervades the open air, waiting at all times, + Now it flows unto us, we are rightly charged. + + Here rises the fluid and attaching character, + The fluid and attaching character is the freshness and sweetness of man + and woman + (The herbs of the morning sprout no fresher and sweeter every day out of + the roots of themselves, than it sprouts fresh and sweet continually + out of itself). + Toward the fluid and attaching character exudes the sweat of the love of + young and old, + From it falls distill'd the charm that mocks beauty and attainments, + Toward it heaves the shuddering, longing ache of contact. + + IX + + Allons! whoever you are, come travel with me! + Traveling with me you find what never tires. + + The earth never tires, + The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first, Nature is rude and + incomprehensible at first. + Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well envelop'd, + I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can + tell. + + Allons! we must not stop here, + However sweet these laid-up stores, however convenient this dwelling, we + cannot remain here, + However shelter'd this port and however calm these waters we must not + anchor here, + However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us we are permitted to + receive it but a little while. + + X + + Allons! the inducements shall be greater, + We will sail pathless and wild seas, + We will go where winds blow, waves dash, and the Yankee clipper speeds + by under full sail. + + Allons! with power, liberty, the earth, the elements, + Health, defiance, gayety, self-esteem, curiosity; + Allons! from all formules! + From your formules, O bat-eyed and materialistic priests. + + The stale cadaver blocks up the passage--the burial waits no longer. + + Allons! yet take warning! + He traveling with me needs the best blood, thews, endurance, + None may come to the trial till he or she bring courage and health, + Come not here if you have already spent the best of yourself, + Only those may come who come in sweet and determin'd bodies, + No diseas'd person, no rum-drinker or venereal taint is permitted here. + (I and mine do not convince by arguments, similes, rhymes, + We convince by our presence.) + + XI + + Listen! I will be honest with you, + I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes, + These are the days that must happen to you: + You shall not heap up what is call'd riches, + You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve, + You but arrive at the city to which you were destin'd, you hardly + settle yourself to satisfaction before you are call'd by an + irresistible call to depart, + You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of those who + remain behind you, + What beckonings of love you receive you shall only answer with + passionate kisses of parting, + You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their reach'd hands + toward you. + + XII + + Allons! after the great Companions, and to belong to them! + They too are on the road--they are the swift and majestic men--they are + the greatest women, + Enjoyers of calms of seas and storms of seas, + Sailors of many a ship, walkers of many a mile of land, + Habitues of many distant countries, habitues of far-distant dwellings, + Trusters of men and women, observers of cities, solitary toilers, + Pausers and contemplators of tufts, blossoms, shells of the shore, + Dancers at wedding-dances, kissers of brides, tender helpers of + children, bearers of children, + Soldiers of revolts, standers by gaping graves, lowerers-down of + coffins, + Journeyers over consecutive seasons, over the years, the curious years + each emerging from that which preceded it, + Journeyers as with companions, namely their own diverse phases, + Forth-steppers from the latent unrealized baby-days, + Journeyers gayly with their own youth, journeyers with their bearded and + well-grain'd manhood, + Journeyers with their womanhood, ample, unsurpass'd, content, + Journeyers with their own sublime old age of manhood or womanhood, + Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe, + Old age, flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death. + + XIII + + Allons! to that which is endless as it was beginningless, + To undergo much, tramps of days, rests of nights, + To merge all in the travel they tend to, and the days and nights they + tend to, + Again to merge them in the start of superior journeys, + To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and pass it, + To conceive no time, however distant, but what you may reach it and pass + it, + To look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for you, however + long but it stretches and waits for you, + To see no being, not God's or any, but you also go thither, + To see no possession but you may possess it, enjoying all without labor + or purchase, abstracting the feast yet not abstracting one particle + of it, + To take the best of the farmer's farm and the rich man's elegant villa, + and the chaste blessings of the well-married couple, and the fruits + of orchards and flowers of gardens, + To take to your use out of the compact cities as you pass through, + To carry buildings and streets with you afterward where-ever you go, + To gather the minds of men out of their brains as you encounter them, to + gather the love out of their hearts, + To take your lovers on the road with you, for all that you leave them + behind you, + To know the universe itself as a road, as many roads, as roads for + traveling souls. + + All parts away for the progress of souls, + All religion, all solid things, arts, governments--all that was or is + apparent upon this globe or any globe, falls into niches and corners + before the procession of souls along the grand roads of the universe. + + Of the progress of the souls of men and women along the grand roads of + the universe, all other progress is the needed emblem and + sustenance. + + Forever alive, forever forward, + Stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, baffled, mad, turbulent, feeble, + dissatisfied, + Desperate, proud, fond, sick, accepted by men, rejected by men, + They go! they go! I know that they go, but I know not where they go, + But I know that they go toward the best--toward something great. + + Whoever you are, come forth! or man or woman come forth! + You must not stay sleeping and dallying there in the house, though + you built it, or though it has been built for you. + Out of the dark confinement! out from behind the screen! + It is useless to protest, I know all and expose it. + + Behold through you as bad as the rest, + Through the laughter, dancing, dining, supping of people, + Inside of dresses and ornaments, inside of those wash'd and trimm'd + faces, + Behold a secret silent loathing and despair. + + No husband, no wife, no friend, trusted to hear the confession, + Another self, a duplicate of every one, skulking and hiding it goes, + Formless and wordless through the streets of the cities, polite and + bland in the parlors, + In the cars of railroads, in steamboats, in the public assembly, + Home to the houses of men and women, at the table, in the bedroom, + everywhere, + Smartly attired, countenance smiling, form upright, death under the + breast-bones, hell under the skull-bones, + Under the broadcloth and gloves, under the ribbons and artificial + flowers, + Keeping fair with the customs, speaking not a syllable of itself, + Speaking of anything else but never of itself. + + XIV + + Allons! through struggles and wars! + The goal that was named cannot be countermanded. + + Have the past struggles succeeded? + What has succeeded? yourself? your nation? Nature? + Now understand me well--it is provided in the essence of things that + from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth + something to make a greater struggle necessary. + + My call is the call of battle, I nourish active rebellion, + He going with me must go well arm'd, + He going with me goes often with spare diet, poverty, angry enemies, + desertions. + + XV + + Allons! the road is before us! + It is safe--I have tried it--my own feet have tried it well--be not + detain'd! + Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf + unopen'd! + Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn'd! + Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher! + Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the + court, and the judge expound the law. + + Camerado, I give you my hand! + I give you my love more precious than money, + I give you myself before preaching or law; + Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me? + Shall we stick by each other as long as we live? + + +CROSSING BROOKLYN FERRY + + I + + Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face! + Clouds of the west--sun there half an hour high--I see you also face + to face. + + Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you + are to me! + On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, + are more curious to me than you suppose, + And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, + and more in my meditations, than you might suppose. + + II + + The impalpable sustenance of me from all things at all hours of the day, + The simple, compact, well-join'd scheme, myself disintegrated, everyone + disintegrated yet part of the scheme, + The similitudes of the past and those of the future, + The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings, on the + walk in the street and the passage over the river, + The current rushing so swiftly and swimming with me far away, + The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them, + The certainty of others, the life, love, sight, hearing of others. + Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross from shore to shore, + Others will watch the run of the flood-tide, + Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the + heights of Brooklyn to the south and east, + Others will see the islands large and small; + Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an + hour high, + A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will + see them, + Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the + falling-back to the sea of the ebb-tide. + + III + + It avails not, time nor place--distance avails not, + I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many + generations hence, + Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt, + Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd, + Just as you are refresh'd by the gladness of the river and the bright + flow, I was refresh'd, + Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift + current, I stood yet was hurried, + Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the thick-stemm'd + pipes of steamboats, I look'd. + + I too many and many a time cross'd the river of old, + Watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls, saw them high in the air floating + with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies, + Saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies and left the + rest in strong shadow, + Saw the slow-wheeling circles and the gradual edging toward the south, + Saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water, + Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams, + Look'd at the fine centrifugal spokes of light round the shape of my + head in the sunlit water, + Look'd on the haze on the hills southward and south-westward, + Look'd on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet, + Look'd toward the lower bay to notice the vessels arriving, + Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me, + Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops, saw the ships at anchor, + The sailors at work in the rigging or out astride the spars, + The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender + serpentine pennants, + The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their + pilot-houses, + The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of the + wheels, + The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sunset, + The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the + frolicsome crests and glistening, + The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the gray walls of the + granite storehouses by the docks, + On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flank'd on + each side by the barges, the hay-boat, the belated lighter, + On the neighboring shore the fires from the foundry chimneys burning + high and glaringly into the night, + Casting their flicker of black contrasted with wild red and yellow + light over the tops of houses, and down into the clefts of streets. + + IV + + These and all else were to me the same as they are to you, + I loved well those cities, loved well the stately and rapid river, + The men and women I saw were all near to me, + Others the same--others who look back on me because I look'd forward + to them + (The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night). + + V + + What is it then between us? + What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us? + + Whatever it is, it avails not--distance avails not, and place avails + not, + I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine, + I too walk'd the streets of Manhattan Island, and bathed in the waters + around it, + I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me, + In the day among crowds of people sometimes they came upon me, + In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my bed they came upon me, + I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution, + I too had receiv'd identity by my body, + That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be + I knew I should be of my body. + + VI + + It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall, + The dark threw its patches down upon me also, + The best I had done seem'd to me blank and suspicious, + My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre? + Nor is it you alone who know what it is to be evil, + I am he who knew what it was to be evil, + I too knitted the old knot of contrariety, + Blabb'd, blush'd, resented, lied, stole, grudg'd, + Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak, + Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant, + The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me, + The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not wanting, + Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these + wanting, + Was one with the rest, the days and haps of the rest, + Was call'd by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as they + saw me approaching or passing, + Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of their + flesh against me as I sat, + Saw many I lov'd in the street or ferry-boat or public assembly, yet + never told them a word, + Liv'd the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing, + sleeping, + Play'd the part that still looks back on the actor or actress, + The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as we + like, + Or as small as we like, or both great and small. + + VII + + Closer yet I approach you, + What thought you have of me now, I had as much of you--I laid in my + stores in advance, + I consider'd long and seriously of you before you were born. + + Who was to know what should come home to me? + Who knows but I am enjoying this? + Who knows, for all the distance, but I am as good as looking at you now, + for all you cannot see me? + + VIII + + Ah, what can ever be more stately and admirable to me than mast-hemm'd + Manhattan? + River and sunset and scallop-edg'd waves of flood-tide? + The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the twilight, + and the belated lighter? + + What gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and with voices I + love call me promptly and loudly by my nighest name as I approach? + What is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that + looks in my face? + Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you? + + We understand then, do we not? + What I promis'd without mentioning it, have you not accepted? + What the study could not teach--what the preaching could not accomplish + is accomplish'd, is it not? + + IX + + Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide! + Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg'd waves! + Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor me, or the men + and women generations after me! + Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers! + Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! stand up, beautiful hills of + Brooklyn! + Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers! + Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution! + Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house or street or public + assembly! + Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically call me by my + nighest name! + Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress! + Play the old role, the role that is great or small according as one + makes it! + Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be + looking upon you; + Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet haste + with the hasting current; + Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the + air; + Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold it till all + downcast eyes have time to take it from you! + Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or anyone's + head, in the sunlit water! + Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sail'd + schooners, sloops, lighters! + Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lower'd at sunset! + Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at nightfall! + cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses! + Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are, + You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul, + About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung our divinest + aromas, + Thrive, cities--bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and + sufficient rivers, + Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual, + Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting. + + You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers, + We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate henceforward, + Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves from + us, + We use you, and do not cast you aside--we plant you permanently within + us, + We fathom you not--we love you--there is perfection in you also, + You furnish your parts toward eternity, + Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul. + + +A SONG OF JOYS + + O to make the most jubilant song! + Full of music--full of manhood, womanhood, infancy! + Full of common employments--full of grain and trees. + + O for the voices of animals--O for the swiftness and balance of fishes! + O for the dropping of raindrops in a song! + O for the sunshine and motion of waves in a song! + + O for the joy of my spirit--it is uncaged--it darts like lightning! + It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time, + I will have thousands of globes and all time. + + O the engineer's joys! to go with a locomotive! + To hear the hiss of steam, the merry shriek, the steam-whistle, the + laughing locomotive! + To push with resistless way and speed off in the distance. + + O the gleesome saunter over fields and hillsides! + The leaves and flowers of the commonest weeds, the moist fresh stillness + of the woods, + The exquisite smell of the earth at daybreak, and all through the + forenoon. + + O the horseman's and horsewoman's joys! + The saddle, the gallop, the pressure upon the seat, the cool gurgling by + the ears and hair. + + O the fireman's joys! + I hear the alarm at dead of night, + I hear bells, shouts! I pass the crowd, I run! + The sight of the flames maddens me with pleasure. + + O the joy of the strong-brawn'd fighter, towering in the arena in + perfect condition, conscious of power, thirsting to meet his + opponent. + O the joy of that vast elemental sympathy which only the human soul is + capable of generating and emitting in steady and limitless floods. + + O the mother's joys! + The watching, the endurance, the precious love, the anguish, the + patiently yielded life. + + O the joy of increase, growth, recuperation, + The joy of soothing and pacifying, the joy of concord and harmony. + + O to go back to the place where I was born, + To hear the birds sing once more, + To ramble about the house and barn and over the fields once more, + And through the orchard and along the old lanes once more. + + O to have been brought up on bays, lagoons, creeks, or along the coast, + To continue and be employ'd there all my life, + The briny and damp smell, the shore, the salt weeds exposed at low + water, + The work of fishermen, the work of the eel-fisher and clam-fisher; + I come with my clam-rake and spade, I come with my eel-spear. + Is the tide out? I join the group of clam-diggers on the flats, + I laugh and work with them, I joke at my work like a mettlesome young + man; + In winter I take my eel-basket and eel-spear and travel out on foot on + the ice--I have a small axe to cut holes in the ice, + Behold me well-clothed going gayly or returning in the afternoon, my + brood of tough boys accompanying me, + My brood of grown and part-grown boys, who love to be with no one else + so well as they love to be with me. + + Another time in warm weather out in a boat, to lift the lobster-pots + where they are sunk with heavy stones (I know the buoys), + O the sweetness of the Fifth-month morning upon the water as I row just + before sunrise toward the buoys, + I pull the wicker pots up slantingly, the dark green lobsters are + desperate with their claws as I take them out, I insert wooden + pegs in the joints of their pincers, + I go to all the places one after another, and then row back to the + shore, + There in a huge kettle of boiling water the lobsters shall be boil'd + till their color becomes scarlet. + + Another time mackerel-taking, + Voracious, mad for the hook, near the surface, they seem to fill the + water for miles; + Another time fishing for rock-fish in Chesapeake bay, I one of the + brown-faced crew; + Another time trailing for blue-fish off Paumanok, I stand with braced + body, + My left foot is on the gunwale, my right arm throws far out the coils + of slender rope, + In sight around me the quick veering and darting of fifty skiffs, my + companions. + + O boat on the rivers, + The voyage down the St. Lawrence, the superb scenery, the steamers, + The ships sailing, the Thousand Islands, the occasional timber-raft and + the raftsmen with long-reaching sweep-oars, + The little huts on the rafts, and the stream of smoke when they cook + supper at evening. + + (O something pernicious and dread! + Something far away from a puny and pious life! + Something unproved! something in a trance! + Something escaped from the anchorage and driving free.) + + O to work in mines, or forging iron, + Foundry casting, the foundry itself, the rude high roof, the ample and + shadow'd space, + The furnace, the hot liquid pour'd out and running. + + O to resume the joys of the soldier! + To feel the presence of a brave commanding officer--to feel his + sympathy! + To behold his calmness--to be warm'd in the rays of his smile! + To go to battle--to hear the bugles play and the drums beat! + To hear the crash of artillery--to see the glittering of the bayonets + and musket-barrels in the sun! + To see men fall and die and not complain! + To taste the savage taste of blood--to be so devilish! + To gloat so over the wounds and deaths of the enemy. + + O the whaleman's joys! O I cruise my old cruise again! + I feel the ship's motion under me, I feel the Atlantic breezes fanning + me, + I hear the cry again sent down from the mast-head, _There--she blows!_ + Again I spring up the rigging to look with the rest--we descend, wild + with excitement, + I leap in the lower'd boat, we row toward our prey where he lies, + We approach stealthy and silent, I see the mountainous mass, lethargic, + basking, + I see the harpooneer standing up, I see the weapon dart from his + vigorous arm; + O swift again far out in the ocean the wounded whale, settling, running + to windward, tows me, + Again I see him rise to breathe, we now close again, + I see a lance driven through his side, press'd deep, turn'd in the + wound, + Again we back off, I see him settle again, the life is leaving him fast, + As he rises he spouts blood, I see him swim in circles narrower and + narrower, swiftly cutting the water--I see him die, + He gives one convulsive leap in the centre of the circle, and then falls + flat and still in the bloody foam. + + O the old manhood of me, my noblest joy of all! + My children and grand-children, my white hair and beard, + My largeness, calmness, majesty, out of the long stretch of my life. + + O ripen'd joy of womanhood! O happiness at last! + I am more than eighty years of age, I am the most venerable mother, + How clear is my mind--how all people draw nigh to me! + What attractions are these beyond any before? what bloom more than the + bloom of youth? + What beauty is this that descends upon me and rises out of me? + + O the orator's joys! + To inflate the chest, to roll the thunder of the voice out from the + ribs and throat, + To make the people rage, weep, hate, desire, with yourself, + To lead America--to quell America with a great tongue. + + O the joy of my soul leaning pois'd on itself, receiving identity + through materials and loving them, observing characters and + absorbing them, + My soul vibrated back to me from them, from sight, hearing, touch, + reason, articulation, comparison, memory, and the like, + The real life of my senses and flesh transcending my senses and flesh, + My body done with materials, my sight done with my material eyes, + Proved to me this day beyond cavil that it is not my material eyes which + finally see, + Nor my material body which finally loves, walks, laughs, shouts, + embraces, procreates. + + O the farmer's joys! + Ohioan's, Illinoisian's, Wisconsinese', Kanadian's, Iowan's, Kansian's, + Missourian's, Oregonese' joys! + To rise at peep of day and pass forth nimbly to work, + To plough land in the fall for winter-sown crops, + To plough land in the spring for maize, + To train orchards, to graft the trees, to gather apples in the fall. + + O to bathe in the swimming-bath, or in a good place along shore, + To splash the water! to walk ankle-deep, or race naked along the shore. + + O to realize space! + The plenteousness of all, that there are no bounds, + To emerge and be of the sky, of the sun and moon and flying clouds, as + one with them. + + O the joy of a manly self-hood! + To be servile to none, to defer to none, not to any tyrant known or + unknown, + To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic, + To look with calm gaze or with a flashing eye, + To speak with a full and sonorous voice out of a broad chest, + To confront with your personality all the other personalities of the + earth. + + Know'st thou the excellent joys of youth? + Joys of the dear companions and of the merry word and laughing face? + Joy of the glad light-beaming day, joy of the wide-breath'd games? + Joy of sweet music, joy of the lighted ball-room and the dancers? + Joy of the plenteous dinner, strong carouse, and drinking? + + Yet O my soul supreme! + Know'st thou the joys of pensive thought? + Joys of the free and lonesome heart, the tender, gloomy heart? + Joys of the solitary walk, the spirit bow'd yet proud, the suffering + and the struggle? + The agonistic throes, the ecstasies, joys of the solemn musings day or + night? + Joys of the thought of Death, the great spheres, Time and Space? + Prophetic joys of better, loftier love's ideals, the divine wife, the + sweet, eternal, perfect comrade? + Joys all thine own, undying one, joys worthy thee, O soul? + + O while I live to be the ruler of life, not a slave, + To meet life as a powerful conqueror, + No fumes, no ennui, no more complaints or scornful criticisms, + To these proud laws of the air, the water and the ground, proving my + interior soul impregnable, + And nothing exterior shall ever take command of me. + + For not life's joys alone I sing, repeating--the joy of death! + The beautiful touch of Death, soothing and benumbing a few moments, for + reasons, + Myself discharging my excrementitious body to be burn'd, or render'd to + powder, or buried, + My real body doubtless left to me for other spheres, + My voided body nothing more to me, returning to the purifications, + further offices, eternal uses of the earth. + + O to attract by more than attraction! + How it is I know not--yet behold! the something which obeys none of + the rest, + It is offensive, never defensive--yet how magnetic it draws. + + O to struggle against great odds, to meet enemies undaunted! + To be entirely alone with them, to find how much one can stand! + To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, face to face! + To mount the scaffold, to advance to the muzzles of guns with perfect + nonchalance! + To be indeed a God! + + O to sail to sea in a ship! + To leave this steady unendurable land, + To leave the tiresome sameness of the streets, the sidewalks and the + houses, + To leave you, O you solid motionless land, and entering a ship, + To sail and sail and sail! + + O to have life henceforth a poem of new joys! + To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on! + To be a sailor of the world bound for all ports, + A ship itself (see indeed these sails I spread to the sun and air), + A swift and swelling ship full of rich words, full of joys. + + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY AND ITS VALUE TO TEACHERS OF ENGLISH + + +Used in place of the formal textbook it exerts a powerful influence in +stimulating and broadening classroom progress. + + +_Send for circular giving full details and special rates_ + + + THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY + 8 Arlington Street + BOSTON (17), MASSACHUSETTS + + + +SOME FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS FROM THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS + + +STORY, ESSAY, AND VERSE + +_Edited by Charles Swain Thomas, of the Editorial Department of the +Atlantic Monthly Press, and Harry G. 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Supplied for one institution, the reprint has created an immediate +market elsewhere. + +The Atlantic Monthly Press most warmly invites conference and +correspondence that will suggest additions to this growing list. It is of +course apparent from the titles below that the material is chosen only in +part from the files of the _Atlantic Monthly_. + +The titles already published follow:-- + + 1. THE LIE + By Mary Antin 15c + + 2. RUGGS--R.O.T.C. + By William Addleman Ganoe 15c + + 3. JUNGLE NIGHT + By William Beebe 15c + + 4. AN ENGLISHWOMAN'S MESSAGE + By Mrs. A. Burnett-Smith 15c + + 5. A FATHER TO HIS FRESHMAN SON + By Edward Sanford Martin 15c + + 6. A PORT SAID MISCELLANY + By William McFee 15c + + 7. EDUCATION: THE MASTERY OF THE ARTS OF LIFE + By Arthur E. Morgan 15c + + 8. INTENSIVE LIVING + By Cornelia A. P. Comer 15c + + 9. THE PRELIMINARIES + By Cornelia A. P. Comer 15c + + 10. THE MORAL EQUIVALENT OF WAR + By William James 15c + + 11. THE STUDY OF POETRY + By Matthew Arnold 15c + + 12. BOOKS + By Arthur C. Benson 15c + + 13. ON COMPOSITION + By Lafcadio Hearn 15c + + 14. THE BASIC PROBLEM OF DEMOCRACY + By Walter Lippmann 15c + + 15. THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH + By Henry Cabot Lodge 25c + + + + +Footnotes: + +[1] Reprinted by permission of the Macmillan Company. + +[2] Abridged from the President's address at the Dover meeting of the +British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1899. + +[3] Some may already know that there is at least a third thing, argon. + +[4] Without phosphorus, no thought. + +[5] From _The Idea of a University_. + +[6] From Macaulay's essay on Von Ranke's _History of the Popes_. + +[7] Reprinted by permission of Charles Scribner's Sons. + +[8] The third lecture in _Sesame and Lilies_. + +[9] That no reference should be made to religious questions. + +[10] I have sometimes been asked what this means. I intended it to set +forth the wisdom of men in war contending for kingdoms, and what follows +to set forth their wisdom in peace, contending for wealth. + +[11] The translator of Marcus Aurelius whom Arnold quotes. + +[12] From the _Poetical Works_ of George Meredith; copyright 1897, 1898, +by George Meredith; published by Charles Scribner's Sons. Reprinted by +permission of the publishers. + +[13] Published by the Macmillan Company, and here reprinted through their +courtesy. + +[14] From _Society and Solitude_. + +[15] From _The Conduct of Life_. + +[16] From _The Conduct of Life_. + +[17] "Everything which pertains to the human species, considered as a +whole, belongs to the order of physical facts. The greater the number of +individuals, the more does the influence of the individual will disappear, +leaving predominance to a series of general facts dependent on causes by +which society exists, and is preserved."--QUETELET. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +Transcriber's note: + +The following misprints have been corrected: + "testimonal" corrected to "testimonial" (page 63) + "and and" corrected to "and" (page 114) + "immage" corrected to "image" (page 127) + "they they" corrected to "they" (page 130) + "eel" corrected to "feel" (page 133) + "furtune" corrected to "fortune" (page 271) + "interchan e" corrected to "interchange" (page 305) + "Geoge" corrected to "George" (advertisements) + +Hyphenation variations have been retained from the original text. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VOICE OF SCIENCE IN +NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE*** + + +******* This file should be named 31871.txt or 31871.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/1/8/7/31871 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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