The summary of the contents of the whole book, beginning, "You may
at least earnestly believe," at p. 215, is thus the clearest
exposition I have ever yet given of the general conditions under
which the Personal Creative Power manifests itself in the forms of
matter; and the analysis of heathen conceptions of Deity,
beginning at p. 217, and closing at p. 229, not only prefaces, but
very nearly supersedes, all that in more lengthy terms I have
since asserted, or pleaded for, in "Aratra Pentelici," and the
"Queen of the Air."
And thus, however the book may fail in its intention of suggesting
new occupations or interests to its younger readers, I think it
worth reprinting, in the way I have also reprinted "Unto this
Last,"--page for page; that the students of my more advanced works
may be able to refer to these as the original documents of them;
of which the most essential in this book are these following.
I. The explanation of the baseness of the avaricious functions of
the Lower Pthah, p. 54, with his beetle-gospel, p. 59, "that a
nation can stand on its vices better than on its virtues,"
explains the main motive of all my books on Political Economy.
II. The examination of the connection between stupidity and crime,
pp. 87-96, anticipated all that I have had to urge in Fors
Clavigera against the commonly alleged excuse for public
wickedness,--"They don't mean it--they don't know any better."
III. The examination of the roots of Moral Power, pp. 145-149, is
a summary of what is afterwards developed with utmost care in my
inaugural lecture at Oxford on the relation of Art to Morals;
compare in that lecture, sections 83-85, with the sentence in p.
147 of this book, "Nothing is ever done so as really to please our
Father, unless we would also have done it, though we had had no
Father to know of it."
This sentence, however, it must be observed, regards only the
general conditions of action in the children of God, in
consequence of which it is foretold of them by Christ that they
will say at the Judgment, "When saw we thee?" It does not refer to
the distinct cases in which virtue consists in faith given to
command, appearing to foolish human judgment inconsistent with the
Moral Law, as in the sacrifice of Isaac; nor to those in which any
directly-given command requires nothing more of virtue than
obedience.
IV. The subsequent pages, 149-158, were written especially to
check the dangerous impulses natural to the minds of many amiable
young women, in the direction of narrow and selfish religious
sentiment: and they contain, therefore, nearly everything which I
believe it necessary that young people should be made to observe,
respecting the errors of monastic life. But they in nowise enter
on the reverse, or favorable side: of which indeed I did not, and
as yet do not, feel myself able to speak with any decisiveness;
the evidence on that side, as stated in the text, having "never
yet been dispassionately examined."
V. The dialogue with Lucilla, beginning at p. 96, is, to my own
fancy, the best bit of conversation in the book; and the issue of
it, at p. 103, the most practically and immediately useful. For on
the idea of the inevitable weakness and corruption of human
nature, has logically followed, in our daily life, the horrible
creed of modern "Social science," that all social action must be
scientifically founded on vicious impulses. But on the habit of
measuring and reverencing our powers and talents that we may
kindly use them, will be founded a true Social science,
developing, by the employment of them, all the real powers and
honorable feelings of the race.
VI. Finally, the account given in the second and third lectures,
of the real nature and marvelousness of the laws of
crystallization, is necessary to the understanding of what farther
teaching of the beauty of inorganic form I may be able to give,
either in "Deucalion," or in my "Elements of Drawing." I wish
however that the second lecture had been made the beginning of the
book; and would fain now cancel the first altogether, which I
perceive to be both obscure and dull. It was meant for a
metaphorical description of the pleasures and dangers in the
kingdom of Mammon, or of worldly wealth; its waters mixed with
blood, its fruits entangled in thickets of trouble, and poisonous
when gathered; and the final captivity of its inhabitants within
frozen walls of cruelty and disdain. But the imagery is stupid and
ineffective throughout; and I retain this chapter only because I
am resolved to leave no room for any one to say that I have
withdrawn, as erroneous in principle, so much as a single sentence
of any of my books written since 1860.
One license taken in this book, however, though often permitted to
essay-writers for the relief of their dullness, I never mean to
take more,--the relation of composed metaphor as of actual dream,
pp. 27 and 171. I assumed, it is true, that in these places the
supposed dream would be easily seen to be an invention; but must
not any more, even under so transparent disguise, pretend to any
share in the real powers of Vision possessed by great poets and
true painters.