most, it may be "restored"--in the manner of the architectural
"restorations," against which Ruskin declaimed. The difficulty of
re-establishing it must needs be greater than that of establishing
it. For it has now been battered by science (people no longer believe
in miracles) and by history (people have read what the Church has
done--or has not done). Christianity has become a Church, and the
Church, an object of criticism. As the body which housed the spirit
of Christianity, men have studied it with secular eyes, and have
found little to reverence, much to censure; and in the disrepute into
which the body has fallen, the spirit, also, has shared. And now the
atmosphere cannot be created in which Christianity may grow young again
and recapture its faith. The necessary credulity, or, at any rate,
the proper kind of credulity, is no longer ours. For Christianity
grew, like the mushrooms, _in the night._ Had there been newspapers in
Judea, there had been no Christianity. And this age of ours, in which
the clank of the printing press drowns all other sounds, is fatal to
any noble mystery, to any noble birth or rebirth. _That_ night, at all
events, we can never pass through again, and, therefore, Christianity
will probably never renew itself.
67
_A Drug for Diseased Souls_
The utmost that can be expected is a "restoration," and in that
direction we have gone already a long way. For Christianity is not now,
as it was at the beginning, a spring of inspiration, a thing spiritual,
spontaneous, Dionysian. It is mainly a remedy, or, more often, a
drug for diseased souls; and, therefore, to be husbanded strictly by
the modern medicine men, to be dispensed carefully, and, yes, to be
advertised as well! Its birth was out of an exuberance of spiritual
life; its "restoration" will be out of a hopeless debility and fatigue.
And, therefore----
68
_The Dogmatists_
All religions may be regarded from two sides; from that of their
creators, and from that of their followers. Among the creators are to
be numbered not only the founders of religion, but the saints, the
inspired prophets and every one who has in some degree the genius for
religion. They are not distinguished by much reverence for dogma, but
by the "religious feeling"; and when this emotion carries them away in
its flood they often treat dogma in a way to make the orthodox gape
with horror. But, in truth, they do not themselves take much account of
dogma; every dogma is a crutch, and they do not feel the need of one.
But the people who are not sustained by this inward spring of emotion,
who can never know what religion really is, these need a crutch; it is
for them that dogma was designed. And, of course, the real religious
men see their advantage also in the adherence of the dogmatists, the
many; for the more widely a religion is spread, the more secure it
becomes, and the greater chance it has of enduring. Dogma, then, is
religion for the irreligious. To the saint religion is a thing inward
and creative; to the dogmatist it is a thing outward, accomplished
and fixed, to which he may cling. The former is the missionary of
religion, the latter, its conserver. The one is religious because he
has religion, the other, because he needs it.
69
_The Religious Impulse_
The time comes in the history of a faith when the "religious feeling"
dies, and nothing is left but dogma. The dogmatists then become the
missionaries of religion. The fount is dried up; there is no longer
an inward force seeking for expression; there is only the fear of the
dogmatist lest his staff, his guide, his horizon should be taken from
him. Religion is then supported most frenziedly by the irreligious;
weakness then speaks with a more poignant eloquence than strength
itself. And that is what is happening with Christianity. Its "religious
feeling" is dead: there has been no great religious figure in Europe
in our time. And the Church is now being defended on grounds neither
religious nor theological, but secular and even utilitarian. The real
religious impulse is now to be found in the movement outside, and,
_therefore,_ against Christianity. But, alas, as Nietzsche feared,
there may not after all be "sufficient religion in the world to destroy
religion."
70
_The Decay of Prophecy_
The past should be studied only in order to divine the future. The new
soothsayers should seek for omens, not, as their ancient brethren did,
in the stars and the entrails of animals, but in the book of history,
past and becoming. "The new soothsayers," for soothsaying has not died;
it has become popular--and degenerate. Every one may now foretell the
future, but no one may believe what is foretold. And that is because
the soothsayers do not themselves believe their auguries; when they
happen to speak the truth, no one is more surprised than they. But
in the antique world the augurs had, at any rate, responsibility; to
foretell the future was not to them an amusement but a vocation.
To what is due the decay of the art of soothsaying? Partly, no doubt,
to the dissemination of popular knowledge, by which people have become
less credulous; partly to the "scientific temper" of those who, had
they lived in the old world, would have been the soothsayers; partly to
other causes known to every one. But, allowing for these, may there not
be _something_ due to the fact that people are no longer interested,
as they used to be, in the future? They know the past, ah, perhaps too
well: they have looked into it so long that at length they feel that
the future holds nothing which it has not held, that Fate has now no
fresh metamorphosis or apotheosis, and that Time must henceforth be
content to plagiarize itself. And so the future has lost the seduction
which it once held for the noblest spirits. It is true, men still amuse
themselves by guessing which of Time's well-thumbed and greasy cards
will turn up at the next deal, or by playing at patience with the
immemorial possibilities. But that is not soothsaying, nor is it even
playing with the future: it is playing with the past. And the great
modern discovery is not the discovery of the future, but the discovery
of the past.
And as with soothsaying, so with prophecy. If we could but look for a
moment into the soul of an old prophet and see his deepest thoughts and
visions, what a conception of the future would be ours! But that is
impossible. We cannot now understand the faith of the men who, unmoved,
prophesied the advent of supernatural beings, the Christ or another;
to whom the future was a new world more strange than America was to
Columbus. That attitude of mind has been killed; and now comes one who
says the belief in the future is a weakness. Would he, perchance, have
said that to John the Baptist, the great modern of his time? Had he
lived in that pre-Christian world, would he have believed in the God
in whom he now believes? The orthodox Christian here finds himself in
a laughable dilemma. Admitting nothing wonderful in the future, he is
yet constrained to believe in a past wonderful beyond the dreams of
poets or of madmen--a past in which supernatural beings, miracles and
portents were almost the rule. And so the future is to him not even
so wonderful as the past. It is an expurgated edition of the past--an
edition with the incidents and marvels left out, a novel without a hero
or a plot.
So, for good or for evil, we no longer believe in the future as we did:
it is steadily becoming less marvellous, and, therefore, less seductive
for us. But, without the bait of the strange and the new to lure it
on, must not humanity halt on its way? _Can_ man act at all without
believing in the future in some fashion? Must not things be _foreseen_
before they can be accomplished? Is not soothsaying implicit in every
deliberate act? Are not all sincere ideals involuntary auguries? Is it
not the future rather than the prophecy which "comes true"? Did not
the old prophecies "come true" _because_ they were prophesied? Did not
Christ arise _because_ He was foretold? And are not the believers in
the future, then, the creators of the future, and the true priests of
progress? When we can envisage a future noble enough, it will not then
be weakness to believe in it.
71
_The Great Immoralists_
The morality of Nietzsche is more strict and exacting than that of
Christianity. When the Christians argue against it, therefore, they
are arguing in favour of a morality more comfortable, pleasing and
indulgent to the natural man; consequently, even on religious grounds,
of a morality more immoral. What! is Nietzsche, then, the great
moralist, and are the Christians the great immoralists?
This notion may appear to us absurd, or merely ingenious, but will it
appear so to future generations? Will timidity, conformity, mediocrity,
judicious blindness, unwillingness to offend, be synonymous, to them
also, with morality? Or will they look back upon Christianity as a
creed too indulgent and not noble enough? As a sort of Epicureanism,
for instance?
72
_The First and the Last_
We all know what the weak have suffered from the strong; but who shall
compute what the strong have suffered from the weak? "The last shall
be first"; but when they become first they become also the worst
tyrants--impalpable, anonymous and petty.
73
_Humility in Pride_
The pride of some gifted men is not pride in their person, but in
something within them, of which they regard themselves the guardians
and servants. If there is dignity in their demeanour it is a
reflected, impersonal dignity. Just so a peasant might feel ennobled
who guarded a king in danger and exile.
74
_The Modern Devil_
The devil is not wicked but corrupt, in modern phraseology, decadent.
The qualities of the mediæval devil, rage, cruelty, hatred, pride,
avarice, are in their measure necessary to Life, necessary to virtue
itself. But corruption is wholly bad; it contaminates even those who
fight it. Hell relaxes: Mr. Shaw's conception is profoundly true.
But if the devil is corruption, cannot the devil be abolished? It is
true, Man cannot extirpate cruelty, hatred and pride without destroying
Life; but Life is made more powerful by the destruction of the corrupt.
God created Man; but it was Man that created the devil.
75
_Master and Servant_
To summon out of the void a task, and then incontinently to make of
himself its slave: that is the happiness of many a man. A great means
of happiness!
76
_Criterions_
It is not expedient to choose on _every_ occasion the higher rather
than the lower, for one may not be able to endure too much living on
the heights. If will and capacity were always equal! Then, it is true,
there would not be any difficulty; but Life is Life, after all--that
is, our will _is_ greater than our capacity. On the other hand, it is
not well to develop equally all our faculties--the formula of the
Humanist--for among them there is a hierarchy, and some are more worthy
of development than others. What course is left? To act always in the
interest of what is highest in us, and when we partake of a lower
pleasure to regard it as a form of sleep, of necessary forgetting? For
even the mind must slumber occasionally if it is to remain healthy.
77
_Intellectual Prudence_
Among athletes there is a thing known as over-training: if it is
persisted in it wrecks the body. A similar phenomenon is to be found
among thinkers: thought too severe and protracted may ruin the mind.
Was this the explanation of Nietzsche's downfall? Certainly, his
intellectual health was that of the athlete who remains vigorous by
virtue of a never-sleeping discipline, who maintains his balance by
a continuous effort. This is perhaps the highest, the most exquisite
form of health, but it is at the same time the most dangerous--a
little more, a little less, and the engine of thought is destroyed. It
is important that the thinker should discover exactly how far he may
discipline himself, and how far permit indulgence. What in the ordinary
man--conscious of no _secondary raison d'être_--is performed without
fuss by the instincts, must by him be _thought out_--a task of great
peril.
78
_A Dilemma_
To be a man is easy: to be a purpose is more difficult; but, on the
whole--easy. In the first instance, one has but to exist; in the
second, to act. But to unite man and purpose in the same person--to
be a type--is both difficult and precarious. For that a balance is
imperative: "being" and "doing" must be prevented from injuring each
other: action must become rhythm, and rest, a form of energy. To be in
doing, to do in being--that is the task of the future man. The danger
of our being mere man is that mankind may remain forever stationary,
without a goal. The danger of our being mere purpose is that our
humanity may altogether drop out and nothing but the purpose be left.
And would not that defeat the purpose?
79
_Dangers of Genius_
Why is it that so many men of genius have been destroyed by falling
into chasms of desire which are safely trodden by common men? Is it
because there is within the exceptional man greater compass, and,
therefore, greater danger? The genius has left the animal further
behind than the ordinary man; indeed, in the genius of the nobler sort
there is an almost passionate avoidance and disavowal of the animal. In
this disavowal lie at once his safety and his danger: by means of it
he climbs to perilous heights, and is also secure upon them. But let
him abrogate even once this denial of kinship, and he is in the utmost
danger. He now finds himself stationed on the edge of a precipice up to
which he seems to have climbed in a dream, a dreadful dizziness assails
him, along with a mad desire to fling himself into the depths. It was
perhaps a leap of this kind that Marlowe made, and Shelley. Meantime,
the ordinary man lives in safety at the foot of the precipice: he
is never so far above the animal as to be injured by a fall into
animalism. Only to the noble does spiritual _danger_ come.
80
_A Strange Failure_
He failed; for the task was too _small_ for him--a common tale among
men of genius. You have been unsuccessful in trivial things? There is
always a remedy left: to essay the great. How often has Man become
impotent simply because there was no task heroic enough to demand
greatness of him!
81
_Dangers of the Spiritual_
If you are _swept off your feet_ by a strongly sensuous book, it is
probably a sign that you have become too highly spiritualized. For
a sensualist would simply have enjoyed it, while feeling, perhaps, a
little bored and dissatisfied. It was only a religious anchorite who
could have lost his _soul_ to Anatole France's Thaïs. For the salvation
of Man it is more than ever imperative that a reconciliation should be
effected between the spirit and the senses. Until it is, the highest
men--the most spiritual--will be in the very greatest peril, and will
almost inevitably be wrecked or frustrated. It is for the good of the
_soul_ that this reconciliation must now be sought.
82
_Again_
From the diabolization of the senses innumerable evils have flowed;
physical and mental disease, disgust with the world, cruelty towards
everything natural. But, worst of all, it has made sensuality a greater
_danger_ than it was ever before. In the anchorite, seeking to live
entirely in the spirit, and ignoring or chastising the body, sensuality
was driven into the very soul, and there was magnified a hundredfold.
To the thinker avoiding the senses as much as possible--for he had
been taught to distrust them--sensuality, in the moments when he was
brought face to face with it, had acquired a unique seductiveness, and
had become a problem and a danger. If he yielded, it was perilous in a
degree unknown to the average sensual man; if he resisted, a good half
of his spiritual energy was wasted in keeping the senses at bay. In
either case, the thinker suffered. So that now it is the spirit that
has become the champion of the senses, but for the good of the spirit.
83
_God and Animal_
Until the marriage of the soul and the senses has been accomplished,
Man cannot manifest himself in any _new_ type. What has been the
history of humanity during the last two thousand years? The history
of humanity, that is, as distinct from the history of communities? A
record of antithetic tyrannies, the spiritual alternating with the
sensual; an uncertain tussle between God and animal, now one uppermost,
now the other; not a tragedy--for in Tragedy there is significance--but
a gloomy farce. And this farce must continue so long as the spirit
contems sense as evil in itself--for neither of them can be abolished!
Whether we like it or not, the senses, so long as they are oppressed
and defamed, will continue to break out in terrible insurrections of
sensuality and excess, until, tired and satiated, they return again
under the tyranny of the spirit--at the appointed time, however, to
revolt once more. From this double _cul de sac_ Man can be freed only
by a reconciliation between the two. When this happens, however, it
will be the beginning of a higher era in the history of humanity; Man
will then become spiritual in a new sense. Spirit will then affirm
Life, instead of, as now, slandering it; existence will become joyful
and tragic; for to live in accordance with Life itself--voluntarily
to approve struggle, suffering and change--is the most difficult
and heroic of lives. The softening of the rigour of existence, its
reduction and weakening by asceticism, humility, "sin," is the _easier_
path; _narrow_ is the way that leads to Nihilism! The error of Heine
was that he prophesied a _happier_ future from the reconciliation of
the body and the soul: his belief in the efficacy of happiness was
excessive. But this reconciliation is, nevertheless, of importance for
_nothing else_ than its _spiritual_ significance: by means of it Man
is freed from his labyrinth, and can at last _move forward_--he becomes
more tragic.
84
_Ultimate Pessimism_
To the most modern man must have come at some time the thought, What if
this thing spirit be _essentially_ the enemy of the senses? What if,
like the vampire, it _can_ live only by drinking blood? What if the
conflict between spirit and "life" is and must forever be an implacable
and destructive one? He is then for a moment a Christian, but with an
added bitterness which few Christians have known. For if his thought be
true, then the weakening and final nullification of Life must be our
object.
To prove that the spirit and the senses are not eternally
irreconcilable enemies is still a task. Those who believe they are, do
so as an act of faith: their opponents are in the same case. We should
never cease to read spirit into Life-affirming things, such as pride,
heroism and love, and to magnify and exalt these aspects of the spirit.
85
_Leisure and Productiveness_
Granted that the society which produces the highest goods in the
greatest profusion is the best--let us not argue from this that
society should be organized with the direct aim of producing goods. For
what if goods be to society what happiness is said to be to men--things
to be attained only by striving for something else? In all good
things--whether it be in art, literature or philosophy--there is much
of the free, the perverse, the unique, the incalculable. In short, good
things can only be produced by great men--and these are exceptions. The
best we can do, then, is to inaugurate a society in which great men
will find it possible to live, will be even encouraged to live. Can
a society in which rights are affixed to functions serve for that? A
function, in practice, in a democratic state--that will mean something
which can be seen to be useful for today, but not for tomorrow, far
less for any distant future. The more subtle, spiritual, posthumous the
activity of a man the less it will be seen to be a function. Art and
philosophy arise when leisure and not work is the ruling convention.
It is true that artists and philosophers work, and at a higher tension
than other men; but it is in leisure that they must _conceive_ their
works: what obvious function do they then fulfil? Even the most
harassed of geniuses, even Burns would never have become immortal
had he not had the leisure to ponder, dream and love. Idleness is as
necessary for the production of a work of art as labour. And with some
men perhaps whole years of idleness are needed. Artists must always be
privileged creatures. It is privileges, and not rights, that they want.
86
_What is Freedom?_
The athlete, by the disciplining of his body, creates for himself a new
world of actions; he can now do things which before were prohibited to
him; in consequence, he has enlarged the sphere of his freedom. The
thinker and the artist by discipline of a different kind are rewarded
in the same way. They are now more free, because they have now more
capacity.
There are people, however, who think one can be free whether one
has the capacity for freedom or not--a characteristically modern
fallacy. But a man the muscles of whose body and mind are weak cannot
do _anything;_ how can he be free? The concept of Freedom cannot be
separated from that of Power.
87
_Freedom, in the Dance_
Even the most unbridled dance is a form of constraint. The completest
freedom of movement is the reward of the severest discipline.
88
_A Moral for Moderns_
A spring gushed forth here on the airy height; but the soil was not
hard enough to retain it; and the water sapped away among the soft
moss. One day a man came and laid down a hard channel for the spring.
Imprisoned on both sides, it now imperiously sought an outlet and--a
miracle!--leapt glittering into the sunshine. The history of Freedom.
89
_The Renaissance: A Thesis_
How unsatisfactory are those explanations of the Renaissance which
give as its cause the breaking up of the restrictive intellectual
canons of the Middle Ages--as if a mere negation could explain such a
unique creative era! What has here to be discovered is how freedom and
the _capacity_ for freedom should have appeared at the same moment.
Perhaps the Middle Ages have now been sufficiently reviled by the
admirers of the Renaissance; perhaps that event owed more than we are
willing to acknowledge to the centuries of mediæval repression and
discipline. During these centuries the human spirit had been confined
in the granite channel cut for it by mediæval Christianity, a channel
of which even the mouth was stopped. In the fifteenth century the
stream swept away every obstacle and leapt forth, a brilliant cascade,
scattering almost pagan warmth and light. The fall of Constantinople
and the other circumstances usually given as the explanation of this
outburst were only its occasion; the cause lay much deeper, in the
long storing up, conserving and strengthening of human powers. The
freedom of which the Renaissance was an expression was more, then,
than the simple removal of restriction. It was a freedom not political
or moral, but vital; a positive enhancement if the natural power of
man, who could now do things which hitherto he could not do--an event
in the history, not merely of society, but of Man. Accordingly, the
"freedom of the individual," so dear to some moderns, does not teach us
much here. It was not because freedom was given to them that men now
created: the freedom was claimed because they now possessed more power,
could do more, and had, therefore, the _right_ to a larger sphere of
freedom. The more naturally free--that is, individually powerful--a
people become, the more they will demand and obtain of "individual
freedom"; but it is perhaps inexpedient to offer to a people
individually weak any more freedom than they can use. They are still
at the disciplinary stage; they are preparing for their renaissance;
and to the student of human culture the periods of preparation, of
unproductiveness, are more worthy of consideration than the productive
periods. For in the future we must prepare for our eras of fruition,
and not leave them, as in the past, to pure chance.
At the Renaissance, however, it was not even individual freedom in
the modern democratic sense that was claimed and allowed; it was at
the most the freedom of certain individuals, the naturally free, the
powerful. Not until a later time was this claim to be universalized by
the unconditional theorists, the generalizers _sans_ distinction, the
egalitarians. The French Revolution was the Renaissance rationalized
and popularized.
90
_The Unproductive Periods_