The instinct of congruity, of subordination of part to whole, the
desire for harmony which is fostered above all things by art, is one
of the most precious parts of our nature, if only, obeying its own
tendency to expand, we apply it to ever wider circles of being; not
merely to the accessories of living, but to life itself.
For this love of harmony and order leads us to seek what is most
necessary in our living: a selection of the congruous, an arrangement
of the mutually dependent in our thoughts and feelings.
Much of the work of the universe is done, no doubt, by what seems the
exercise of mere random energy, by the thinking of apparently
disconnected thoughts and the feeling of apparently sporadic impulses;
but if the thought and the impulse remained really disconnected and
sporadic, half would be lost and half would be distorted. It is one of
the economical adaptations of nature that every part of us tends not
merely to be consistent with itself, to eliminate the hostile, to
beget the similar, but tends also to be connected with other parts; so
that, action coming in contact with action, thought in contact with
thought, and feeling in contact with feeling, each single one will be
strengthened or neutralised by the other. And it is the especial
business of what we may call the central consciousness, the dominant
thought or emotion, to bring these separate thoughts and impulses,
these separate groups thereof, into more complex relations, to
continue on a far vaster scale that vital contact, that trying of all
things by the great trial of affinity or repulsion, of congruity or
incongruity. Thus we make trial of ourselves; and by the selfsame
process, by the test of affinity and congruity, the silent forces of
the universe make trial of _us_, rejecting or accepting, allowing us,
our thoughts, our feelings to live and be fruitful, or condemning us
and them to die in barrenness.
Whither are we going? In what shape shall the various members of our
soul proceed on their journey; which forming the van, which the rear
and centre? Or shall there be neither van, nor rear, nor wedge-like
forward flight?
If this question remains unasked or unanswered, our best qualities,
our truest thoughts and purest impulses, may be hopelessly scattered
into distant regions, become defiled in bad company, or, at least,
barren in isolation; the universal life rejecting or annihilating
them.
How often do we not see this! Natures whose various parts have rambled
asunder, or have come to live, like strangers in an inn, casually,
promiscuously, each refusing to be his brother's keeper: instincts of
kindliness at various ends, unconnected, unable to coalesce and conquer;
thoughts separated from their kind, incapable of application; and, in
consequence, strange superficial comradeships, shoulder-rubbings of
true and false, good and evil, become indifferent to one another,
incapable of looking each other in the face, careless, unblushing.
Nay, worse. For lack of all word of command, of all higher control,
hostile tendencies accommodating themselves to reign alternate,
sharing the individual in distinct halves, till he becomes like unto
that hero of Gautier's witch story, who was a pious priest one-half of
the twenty-four hours and a wicked libertine the other: all power of
selection, of reaction gone in this passive endurance of conflicting
tendencies; all identity gone, save a mere feeble outsider looking on
at the alternations of intentions and lapses, of good and bad. And the
soul of such a person--if, indeed, we can speak of one soul or one
person where there exists no unity--becomes like a jangle of notes
belonging to different tonalities, alternating and mingling in hideous
confusion for lack of a clear thread of melody, a consistent system of
harmony, to select, reject, and keep all things in place.
Melody, harmony: the two great halves of the most purely æsthetic of
all arts, symbolise, as we might expect, the two great forces of life:
consecutiveness and congruity, under their different names of
intention, fitness, selection, adaptation. These are what make the
human soul like a conquering army, a fleet freighted with riches, a
band of priests celebrating a rite. And this is what art, by no paltry
formula, but by the indelible teaching of habit, of requirement, and
expectation become part of our very fibre--this is what art can teach
to those who will receive its highest lesson.