belief is absolutely involuntary, since we draw our inferences from
the premises laid before us, and cannot possibly receive any other
impression of things than that which they naturally make upon us. This
theory, that the understanding is purely passive in the reception of
truth, and that our convictions are not in the power of our will, was
probably first invented or insisted upon as a screen against religious
persecution, and as an answer to those who imputed bad motives to all
who differed from the established faith, and thought they could reform
heresy and impiety by the application of fire and the sword. No doubt,
that is not the way: for the will in that case irritates itself and
grows refractory against the doctrines thus absurdly forced upon it;
and as it has been said, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the
Church. But though force and terror may not be always the surest way
to make converts, it does not follow that there may not be other means
of influencing our opinions, besides the naked and abstract evidence
for any proposition: the sun melts the resolution which the storm
could not shake. In such points as, whether an object is black or
white or whether two and two make four,[16] we may not be able to
believe as we please or to deny the evidence of our reason and
senses: but in those points on which mankind differ, or where we can
be at all in suspense as to which side we shall take, the truth is not
quite so plain or palpable; it admits of a variety of views and shades
of colouring, and it should appear that we can dwell upon whichever of
these we choose, and heighten or soften the circumstances adduced in
proof, according as passion and inclination throw their casting-weight
into the scale. Let any one, for instance, have been brought up in an
opinion, let him have remained in it all his life, let him have
attached all his notions of respectability, of the approbation of his
fellow-citizens or his own self-esteem to it, let him then first hear
it called in question, and a strong and unforeseen objection stated to
it, will not this startle and shock him as if he had seen a spectre,
and will he not struggle to resist the arguments that would unsettle
his habitual convictions, as he would resist the divorcing of soul and
body? Will he come to the consideration of the question impartially,
indifferently, and without any wrong bias, or give the painful and
revolting truth the same cordial welcome as the long-cherished and
favourite prejudice? To say that the truth or falsehood of a
proposition is the only circumstance that gains it admittance into the
mind, independently of the pleasure or pain it affords us, is itself
an assertion made in pure caprice or desperation. A person may have a
profession or employment connected with a certain belief, it may be
the means of livelihood to him, and the changing it may require
considerable sacrifices, or may leave him almost without resource (to
say nothing of mortified pride)--this will not mend the matter. The
evidence against his former opinion may be so strong (or may appear so
to him) that he may be obliged to give it up, but not without a pang
and after having tried every artifice and strained every nerve to give
the utmost weight to the arguments favouring his own side, and to make
light of and throw those against him into the background. And nine
times in ten this bias of the will and tampering with the proofs will
prevail. It is only with very vigorous or very candid minds that the
understanding exercises its just and boasted prerogative, and induces
its votaries to relinquish a profitable delusion and embrace the
dowerless truth. Even then they have the sober and discreet part of
the world, all the _bons peres de famille_, who look principally to
the main chance, against them, and they are regarded as little better
than lunatics or profligates to fling up a good salary and a provision
for themselves and families for the sake of that foolish thing, a
_Conscience_! With the herd, belief on all abstract and disputed
topics is voluntary, that is, is determined by considerations of
personal ease and convenience, in the teeth of logical analysis and
demonstration, which are set aside as mere waste of words. In short,
generally speaking, people stick to an opinion that they have long
supported and that supports them. How else shall we account for the
regular order and progression of society: for the maintenance of
certain opinions in particular professions and classes of men, as we
keep water in cisterns, till in fact they stagnate and corrupt: and
that the world and every individual in it is not 'blown about with
every wind of doctrine' and whisper of uncertainty? There is some more
solid ballast required to keep things in their established order than
the restless fluctuation of opinion and 'infinite agitation of wit.'
We find that people in Protestant countries continue Protestants, and
in Catholic countries Papists. This, it may be answered, is owing to
the ignorance of the great mass of them; but is their faith less
bigoted, because it is not founded on a regular investigation of the
proofs, and is merely an obstinate determination to believe what they
have been told and accustomed to believe? Or is it not the same with
the doctors of the church and its most learned champions, who read the
same texts, turn over the same authorities, and discuss the same
knotty points through their whole lives, only to arrive at opposite
conclusions? How few are shaken in their opinions, or have the grace
to confess it? Shall we then suppose them all impostors, and that they
keep up the farce of a system, of which they do not believe a
syllable? Far from it: there may be individual instances, but the
generality are not only sincere but bigots. Those who are unbelievers
and hypocrites scarcely know it themselves, or if a man is not quite a
knave, what pains will he not take to make a fool of his reason, that
his opinions may tally with his professions? Is there then a Papist
and a Protestant understanding--one prepared to receive the doctrine
of transubstantiation and the other to reject it? No such thing: but
in either case the ground of reason is pre-occupied by passion, habit,
example--_the scales are falsified_. Nothing can therefore be more
inconsequential than to bring the authority of great names in favour
of opinions long established and universally received. Cicero's being
a Pagan was no proof in support of the Heathen mythology, but simply
of his being born at Rome before the Christian era; though his lurking
scepticism on the subject and sneers at the augurs told against it,
for this was an acknowledgment drawn from him in spite of a prevailing
prejudice. Sir Isaac Newton and Napier of Merchiston both wrote on the
_Apocalypse_; but this is neither a ground for a speedy anticipation
of the Millennium, nor does it invalidate the doctrine of the
gravitation of the planets or the theory of logarithms. One party
would borrow the sanction of these great names in support of their
wildest and most mystical opinions; others would arraign them of folly
and weakness for having attended to such subjects at all. Neither
inference is just. It is a simple question of chronology, or of the
time when these celebrated mathematicians lived, and of the studies
and pursuits which were then chiefly in vogue. The wisest man is the
slave of opinion, except on one or two points on which he strikes out
a light for himself and holds a torch to the rest of the world. But
we are disposed to make it out that all opinions are the result of
reason, because they profess to be so; and when they are _right_, that
is, when they agree with ours, that there can be no alloy of human
frailty or perversity in them; the very strength of our prejudice
making it pass for pure reason, and leading us to attribute any
deviation from it to bad faith or some unaccountable singularity or
infatuation. _Alas, poor human nature!_ Opinion is for the most part
only a battle, in which we take part and defend the side we have
adopted, in the one case or the other, with a view to share the honour
of the spoil. Few will stand up for a losing cause, or have the
fortitude to adhere to a proscribed opinion; and when they do, it is
not always from superior strength of understanding or a disinterested
love of truth, but from obstinacy and sullenness of temper. To affirm
that we do not cultivate an acquaintance with truth as she presents
herself to us in a more or less pleasing shape, or is shabbily attired
or well-dressed, is as much as to say that we do not shut our eyes to
the light when it dazzles us, or withdraw our hands from the fire when
it scorches us.
'Masterless passion sways us to the mood
Of what it likes or loathes.'
Are we not averse to believe bad news relating to ourselves--forward
enough if it relates to others? If something is said reflecting on the
character of an intimate friend or near relative, how unwilling we are
to lend an ear to it, how we catch at every excuse or palliating
circumstance, and hold out against the clearest proof, while we
instantly believe any idle report against an enemy, magnify the
commonest trifles into crimes, and torture the evidence against him to
our heart's content! Do not we change our opinion of the same person,
and make him out to be _black_ or _white_ according to the terms we
happen to be on? If we have a favourite author, do we not exaggerate
his beauties and pass over his defects, and _vice versa_? The human
mind plays the interested advocate much oftener than the upright and
inflexible judge, in the colouring and relief it gives to the facts
brought before it. We believe things not more because they are true or
probable, than because we desire, or (if the imagination once takes
that turn) because we dread them. 'Fear has more devils than vast hell
can hold.' The sanguine always hope, the gloomy always despond, from
temperament and not from forethought. Do we not disguise the plainest
facts from ourselves if they are disagreeable? Do we not flatter
ourselves with impossibilities? What girl does not look in the glass
to persuade herself she is handsome? What woman ever believes herself
old, or does not hate to be called so: though she knows the exact year
and day of her age, the more she tries to keep up the appearance of
youth to herself and others? What lover would ever acknowledge a flaw
in the character of his mistress, or would not construe her turning
her back on him into a proof of attachment? The story of _January and
May_ is pat to our purpose; for the credulity of mankind as to what
touches our inclinations has been proverbial in all ages: yet we are
told that the mind is passive in making up these wilful accounts and
is guided by nothing but the _pros_ and _cons_ of evidence. Even in
action and where we may determine by proper precaution the event of
things, instead of being compelled to shut our eyes to what we cannot
help, we still are the dupes of the feeling of the moment, and prefer
amusing ourselves with fair appearances to securing more solid
benefits by a sacrifice of Imagination and stubborn Will to Truth. The
blindness of passion to the most obvious and well-known consequences
is deplorable. There seems to be a particular fatality in this
respect. Because a thing is in our power _till_ we have committed
ourselves, we appear to dally, to trifle with, to make light of it,
and to think it will still be in our power _after_ we have committed
ourselves. Strange perversion of the reasoning faculties, which is
little short of madness, and which yet is one of the constant and
practical sophisms of human life! It is as if one should say--I am in
no danger from a tremendous machine unless I touch such a spring and
therefore I will approach it, I will play with the danger, I will
laugh at it, and at last in pure sport and wantonness of heart, from
my sense of previous security, I _will_ touch it--and _there's an
end_. While the thing remains in contemplation, we may be said to
stand safe and smiling on the brink: as soon as we proceed to action
we are drawn into the vortex of passion and hurried to our
destruction. A person taken up with some one purpose or passion is
intent only upon that: he drives out the thought of everything but its
gratification: in the pursuit of that he is blind to consequences: his
first object being attained, they all at once, and as if by magic,
rush upon his mind. The engine recoils, he is caught in his own snare.
A servant girl, for some pique, or for an angry word, determines to
poison her mistress. She knows beforehand (just as well as she does
afterwards) that it is at least a hundred chances to one she will be
hanged if she succeeds, yet this has no more effect upon her than if
she had never heard of any such matter. The only idea that occupies
her mind and hardens it against every other, is that of the affront
she has received, and the desire of revenge; she broods over it; she
meditates the mode, she is haunted with her scheme night and day; it
works like poison; it grows into a madness, and she can have no peace
till it is accomplished and _off her mind_; but the moment this is the
case, and her passion is assuaged, fear takes place of hatred, the
slightest suspicion alarms her with the certainty of her fate, from
which she before wilfully averted her thoughts; she runs wildly from
the officers before they know anything of the matter; the gallows
stares her in the face, and if none else accuses her, so full is she
of her danger and her guilt, that she probably betrays herself. She at
first would see no consequences to result from her crime but the
getting rid of a present uneasiness; she now sees the very worst. The
whole seems to depend on the turn given to the imagination, on our
immediate disposition to attend to this or that view of the subject,
the evil or the good. As long as our intention is unknown to the
world, before it breaks out into action, it seems to be deposited in
our own bosoms, to be a mere feverish dream, and to be left with all
its consequences under our imaginary control: but no sooner is it
realised and known to others, than it appears to have escaped from our
reach, we fancy the whole world are up in arms against us, and
vengeance is ready to pursue and overtake us. So in the pursuit of
pleasure, we see only that side of the question which we approve; the
disagreeable consequences (which may take place) make no part of our
intention or concern, or of the wayward exercise of our will: if they
should happen we cannot help it; they form an ugly and unwished-for
contrast to our favourite speculation: we turn our thoughts another
way, repeating the adage _Quod sic mihi ostendis incredulus odi_. It
is a good remark in _Vivian Grey_ that a bankrupt walks in the streets
the day before his name is in the Gazette with the same erect and
confident brow as ever, and only feels the mortification of his
situation after it becomes known to others. Such is the force of
sympathy, and its power to take off the edge of internal conviction!
As long we can impose upon the world, we can impose upon ourselves,
and trust to the flattering appearances, though we know them to be
false. We put off the evil day as long as we can, make a jest of it as
the certainty becomes more painful, and refuse to acknowledge the
secret to ourselves till it can no longer be kept from all the world.
In short, we believe just as little or as much as we please of those
things in which our will can be supposed to interfere; and it is only
by setting aside our own interests and inclinations on more general
questions that we stand any chance of arriving at a fair and rational
judgment. Those who have the largest hearts have the soundest
understandings; and he is the truest philosopher who can forget
himself. This is the reason why philosophers are often said to be mad,
for thinking only of the abstract truth and of none of its worldly
adjuncts--it seems like an absence of mind, or as if the devil had got
into them! If belief were not in some degree voluntary, or were
grounded entirely on strict evidence and absolute proof, every one
would be a martyr to his opinions, and we should have no power of
evading or glossing over those matter-of-fact conclusions for which
positive vouchers could be produced, however painful these conclusions
might be to our own feelings, or offensive to the prejudices of
others.
FOOTNOTE:
[16] Hobbes is of opinion that men would deny this, if they had any
interest in doing so.
ESSAY XVII
A FAREWELL TO ESSAY-WRITING
'This life is best, if quiet life is best.'
Food, warmth, sleep, and a book; these are all I at present ask--the
_ultima Thule_ of my wandering desires. Do you not then wish for
'A friend in your retreat,
Whom you may whisper, solitude is sweet?'
Expected, well enough:--gone, still better. Such attractions are
strengthened by distance. Nor a mistress? 'Beautiful mask! I know
thee!' When I can judge of the heart from the face, of the thoughts
from the lips, I may again trust myself. Instead of these give me the
robin red-breast, pecking the crumbs at the door, or warbling on the
leafless spray, the same glancing form that has followed me wherever I
have been, and 'done its spiriting gently'; or the rich notes of the
thrush that startle the ear of winter, and seem to have drunk up the
full draught of joy from the very sense of contrast. To these I
adhere, and am faithful, for they are true to me; and, dear in
themselves, are dearer for the sake of what is departed, leading me
back (by the hand) to that dreaming world, in the innocence of which
they sat and made sweet music, waking the promise of future years, and
answered by the eager throbbings of my own breast. But now 'the
credulous hope of mutual minds is o'er,' and I turn back from the
world that has deceived me, to nature that lent it a false beauty, and
that keeps up the illusion of the past. As I quaff my libations of
tea in a morning, I love to watch the clouds sailing from the west,
and fancy that 'the spring comes slowly up this way.' In this hope,
while 'fields are dank and ways are mire,' I follow the same direction
to a neighbouring wood, where, having gained the dry, level
greensward, I can see my way for a mile before me, closed in on each
side by copse-wood, and ending in a point of light more or less
brilliant, as the day is bright or cloudy. What a walk is this to me!
I have no need of book or companion--the days, the hours, the thoughts
of my youth are at my side, and blend with the air that fans my cheek.
Here I can saunter for hours, bending my eye forward, stopping and
turning to look back, thinking to strike off into some less trodden
path, yet hesitating to quit the one I am in, afraid to snap the
brittle threads of memory. I remark the shining trunks and slender
branches of the birch trees, waving in the idle breeze; or a pheasant
springs up on whirring wing; or I recall the spot where I once found a
wood-pigeon at the foot of a tree, weltering in its gore, and think
how many seasons have flown since 'it left its little life in air.'
Dates, names, faces come back--to what purpose? Or why think of them
now? Or rather why not think of them oftener? We walk through life, as
through a narrow path, with a thin curtain drawn around it; behind are
ranged rich portraits, airy harps are strung--yet we will not stretch
forth our hands and lift aside the veil, to catch glimpses of the one,
or sweep the chords of the other. As in a theatre, when the
old-fashioned green curtain drew up, groups of figures, fantastic
dresses, laughing faces, rich banquets, stately columns, gleaming
vistas appeared beyond; so we have only at any time to 'peep through
the blanket of the past,' to possess ourselves at once of all that has
regaled our senses, that is stored up in our memory, that has struck
our fancy, that has pierced our hearts:--yet to all this we are
indifferent, insensible, and seem intent only on the present
vexation, the future disappointment. If there is a Titian hanging up
in the room with me, I scarcely regard it: how then should I be
expected to strain the mental eye so far, or to throw down, by the
magic spells of the will, the stone walls that enclose it in the
Louvre? There is one head there of which I have often thought, when
looking at it, that nothing should ever disturb me again, and I would
become the character it represents--such perfect calmness and
self-possession reigns in it! Why do I not hang all image of this in
some dusky corner of my brain, and turn all eye upon it ever and anon,
as I have need of some such talisman to calm my troubled thoughts? The
attempt is fruitless, if not natural; or, like that of the French, to
hang garlands on the grave, and to conjure back the dead by miniature
pictures of them while living! It is only some actual coincidence or
local association that tends, without violence, to 'open all the cells
where memory slept.' I can easily, by stooping over the long-sprent
grass and clay cold clod, recall the tufts of primroses, or purple
hyacinths, that formerly grew on the same spot, and cover the bushes
with leaves and singing-birds, as they were eighteen summers ago; or
prolonging my walk and hearing the sighing gale rustle through a tall,
straight wood at the end of it, call fancy that I distinguish the cry
of hounds, and the fatal group issuing from it, as in the tale of
Theodore and Honoria. A moaning gust of wind aids the belief; I look
once more to see whether the trees before me answer to the idea of the
horror-stricken grove, and an air-built city towers over their grey
tops.
'Of all the cities in Romanian lands,
The chief and most renown'd Ravenna stands.'[17]
I return home resolved to read the entire poem through, and, after
dinner, drawing my chair to the fire, and holding a small print close
to my eyes, launch into the full tide of Dryden's couplets (a stream
of sound), comparing his didactic and descriptive pomp with the simple
pathos and picturesque truth of Boccaccio's story, and tasting with a
pleasure, which none but all habitual reader can feel, some quaint
examples of pronunciation in this accomplished versifier.
'Which when Honoria view'd,
The fresh _impulse_ her former fright renew'd.'[18]
'And made th' _insult_, which in his grief appears,
The means to mourn thee with my pious tears.'[19]
These trifling instances of the wavering and unsettled state of the
language give double effect to the firm and stately march of the
verse, and make me dwell with a sort of tender interest on the
difficulties and doubts of all earlier period of literature. They
pronounced words then in a manner which we should laugh at now; and
they wrote verse in a manner which we can do anything but laugh at.
The pride of a new acquisition seems to give fresh confidence to it;
to impel the rolling syllables through the moulds provided for them,
and to overflow the envious bounds of rhyme into time-honoured
triplets.
What sometimes surprises me in looking back to the past, is, with the
exception already stated, to find myself so little changed in the
time. The same images and trains of thought stick by me: I have the
same tastes, likings, sentiments, and wishes that I had then. One
great ground of confidence and support has, indeed, been struck from
under my feet; but I have made it up to myself by proportionable
pertinacity of opinion. The success of the great cause, to which I had
vowed myself, was to me more than all the world: I had a strength in
its strength, a resource which I knew not of, till it failed me for
the second time.
'Fall'n was Glenartny's stately tree!
Oh! ne'er to see Lord Ronald more!'
It was not till I saw the axe laid to the root, that I found the full
extent of what I had to lose and suffer. But my conviction of the
right was only established by the triumph of the wrong; and my
earliest hopes will be my last regrets. One source of this
unbendingness (which some may call obstinacy), is that, though living
much alone, I have never worshipped the Echo. I see plainly enough
that black is not white, that the grass is green, that kings are not
their subjects; and, in such self-evident cases, do not think it
necessary to collate my opinions with the received prejudices. In
subtler questions, and matters that admit of doubt, as I do not impose
my opinion on others without a reason, so I will not give up mine to
them without a better reason; and a person calling me names, or giving
himself airs of authority, does not convince me of his having taken
more pains to find out the truth than I have, but the contrary. Mr.
Gifford once said, that 'while I was sitting over my gin and
tobacco-pipes, I fancied myself a Leibnitz.' He did not so much as
know that I had ever read a metaphysical book:--was I therefore, out
of complaisance or deference to him, to forget whether I had or not?
Leigh Hunt is puzzled to reconcile the shyness of my pretensions with
the inveteracy and sturdiness of my principles. I should have thought
they were nearly the same thing. Both from disposition and habit, I
can _assume_ nothing in word, look, or manner. I cannot steal a march
upon public opinion in any way. My standing upright, speaking loud,
entering a room gracefully, proves nothing; therefore I neglect these
ordinary means of recommending myself to the good graces and
admiration of strangers (and, as it appears, even of philosophers and
friends). Why? Because I have other resources, or, at least, am
absorbed in other studies and pursuits. Suppose this absorption to be
extreme, and even morbid--that I have brooded over an idea till it has
become a kind of substance in my brain, that I have reasons for a
thing which I have found out with much labour and pains, and to which
I can scarcely do justice without the utmost violence of exertion (and
that only to a few persons)--is this a reason for my playing off my
out-of-the-way notions in all companies, wearing a prim and
self-complacent air, as if I were 'the admired of all observers'? or
is it not rather an argument (together with a want of animal spirits),
why I should retire into myself, and perhaps acquire a nervous and
uneasy look, from a consciousness of the disproportion between the
interest and conviction I feel on certain subjects, and my ability to
communicate what weighs upon my own mind to others? If my ideas, which
I do not avouch, but suppose, lie below the surface, why am I to be
always attempting to dazzle superficial people with them, or smiling,
delighted, at my own want of success?
In matters of taste and feeling, one proof that my conclusions have
not been quite shallow or hasty, is the circumstance of their having
been lasting. I have the same favourite books, pictures, passages that
I ever had: I may therefore presume that they will last me my
life--nay, I may indulge a hope that my thoughts will survive me. This
continuity of impression is the only thing on which I pride myself.
Even Lamb, whose relish of certain things is as keen and earnest as
possible, takes a surfeit of admiration, and I should be afraid to ask
about his select authors or particular friends, after a lapse of ten
years. As to myself, any one knows where to have me. What I have once
made up my mind to, I abide by to the end of the chapter. One cause of
my independence of opinion is, I believe, the liberty I give to
others, or the very diffidence and distrust of making converts. I
should be an excellent man on a jury. I might say little, but should
starve 'the other eleven obstinate fellows' out. I remember Mr.
Godwin writing to Mr. Wordsworth, that 'his tragedy of _Antonio_ could
not fail of success.' It was damned past all redemption. I said to Mr.
Wordsworth that I thought this a natural consequence; for how could
any one have a dramatic turn of mind who judged entirely of others
from himself? Mr. Godwin might be convinced of the excellence of his
work; but how could he know that others would be convinced of it,
unless by supposing that they were as wise as himself, and as
infallible critics of dramatic poetry--so many Aristotles sitting in
judgment on Euripides! This shows why pride is connected with shyness
and reserve; for the really proud have not so high an opinion of the
generality as to suppose that they can understand them, or that there
is any common measure between them. So Dryden exclaims of his
opponents with bitter disdain--
'Nor can I think what thoughts they can conceive.'
I have not sought to make partisans, still less did I dream of making
enemies; and have therefore kept my opinions myself, whether they were
currently adopted or not. To get others to come into our ways of
thinking, we must go over to theirs; and it is necessary to follow, in
order to lead. At the time I lived here formerly, I had no suspicion
that I should ever become a voluminous writer, yet I had just the same
confidence in my feelings before I had ventured to air them in public
as I have now. Neither the outcry _for_ or _against_ moves me a jot: I
do not say that the one is not more agreeable than the other.