CHAPTER I.

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IS LIFE WORTH LIVING?

BY

WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK

AUTHOR OF 'THE NEW REPUBLIC' ETC.

* * * * *

'Man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain.'

'How dieth the wise man? As the fool.... That which befalleth the

sons of men befalleth the beasts, even one thing befalleth them; as

the one dieth so dieth the other, yea they have all one breath; so

that man hath no preeminence above a beast; for all is vanity.'

'[Greek: talaipôros egô anthrôpos, tis me rudetai ek tou sômatos

tou thanatou toutou];'

* * * * *

NEW YORK

G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS

182 Fifth Avenue

1879

I INSCRIBE THIS BOOK

TO

JOHN RUSKIN

_TO JOHN RUSKIN._

My dear Mr. Ruskin,--You have given me very great pleasure

by allowing me to inscribe this book to you, and for two reasons;

for I have two kinds of acknowledgment that I wish to make to

you--first, that of an intellectual debtor to a public teacher;

secondly, that of a private friend to the kindest of private

friends. The tribute I have to offer you is, it is true, a small

one; and it is possibly more blessed for me to give than it is for

you to receive it. In so far, at least, as I represent any

influence of yours, you may very possibly not think me a

satisfactory representative. But there is one fact--and I will lay

all the stress I can on it--which makes me less diffident than I

might be, in offering this book either to you or to the world

generally.

The import of the book is independent of the book itself, and of

the author of it; nor do the arguments it contains stand or fall

with my success in stating them; and these last at least I may

associate with your name. They are not mine. I have not discovered

or invented them. They are so obvious that any one who chooses may

see them; and I have been only moved to meddle with them, because,

from being so obvious, it seems that no one will so much as deign

to look at them, or at any rate to put them together with any care

or completeness. They might be before everybody's eyes; but instead

they are under everybody's feet. My occupation has been merely to

kneel in the mud, and to pick up the truths that are being trampled

into it, by a headstrong and uneducated generation.

With what success I have done this, it is not for me to judge. But

though I cannot be confident of the value of what I have done, I am

confident enough of the value of what I have tried to do. From a

literary point of view many faults may be found with me. There may

be faults yet deeper, to which possibly I shall have to plead

guilty. I may--I cannot tell--have unduly emphasized some points,

and not put enough emphasis on others. I may be convicted--nothing

is more likely--of many verbal inconsistencies. But let the

arguments I have done my best to embody be taken as a whole, and

they have a vitality that does not depend upon me; nor can they be

proved false, because my ignorance or weakness may here or there

have associated them with, or illustrated them by, a falsehood. I

am not myself conscious of any such falsehoods in my book; but if

such are pointed out to me, I shall do my best to correct them. If

what I have done prove not worth correction, others coming after me

will be preferred before me, and are sure before long to address

themselves successfully to the same task in which I perhaps have

failed. What indeed can we each of us look for but a large measure

of failure, especially when we are moving not with the tide but

against it--when the things we wrestle with are principalities and

powers, and spiritual stupidity in high places--and when we are

ourselves partly weakened by the very influences against which we

are struggling?

But this is not all. There is in the way another difficulty.

Writing as the well-wishers of truth and goodness, we find, as the

world now stands, that our chief foes are they of our own

household. The insolence, the ignorance, and the stupidity of the

age has embodied itself, and found its mouthpiece, in men who are

personally the negations of all that they represent theoretically.

We have men who in private are full of the most gracious modesty,

representing in their philosophies the most ludicrous arrogance; we

have men who practise every virtue themselves, proclaiming the

principles of every vice to others; we have men who have mastered

many kinds of knowledge, acting on the world only as embodiments of

the completest and most pernicious ignorance. I have had occasion

to deal continually with certain of these by name. With the

exception of one--who has died prematurely, whilst this book was in

the press--those I have named oftenest are still living. Many of

them probably are known to you personally, though none of them are

so known to me; and you will appreciate the sort of difficulty I

have felt, better than I can express it. I can only hope that as

the falsehood of their arguments cannot blind any of us to their

personal merits, so no intellectual demerits in my case will be

prejudicial to the truth of my arguments.

To me the strange thing is that such arguments should have to be

used all; and perhaps a thing stranger still that it should fall to

me to use them--to me, an outsider in philosophy, in literature,

and in theology. But the justification of my speaking is that there

is any opening for me to speak; and others must be blamed, not I,

if

the lyre so long divine

Degenerates into hands like mine.

At any rate, however all this may be, what I here inscribe to you,

my friend and teacher, I am confident is not unworthy of you. It is

not what I have done; it is what I have tried to do. As such I beg

you to accept it, and to believe me still, though now so seldom

near you,

Your admiring and affectionate friend,

W.H. MALLOCK.

P.S.--Much of the substance of the following book you have seen

already, in two Essays of mine that were published in the

'Contemporary Review,' and in five Essays that were published in

the 'Nineteenth Century.' It had at one time been my intention, by

the kindness of the respective Editors, to have reprinted these

Essays in their original form. But there was so much to add, to

omit, to rearrange, and to join together, that I have found it

necessary to rewrite nearly the whole; and thus you will find the

present volume virtually new.

Torquay, _May, 1879_.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.

THE NEW IMPORT OF THE QUESTION.

PAGE

The question may seem vague and useless; but if we consider its

real meaning we shall see that it is not so 1

In the present day it has acquired a new importance 2

Its exact meaning. It does not question the fact of human happiness 3

But the nature of happiness, and the permanence of its basis 4

For what we call the higher happiness is essentially a complex

thing 5

We cannot be sure that all its elements are permanent 7

Without certain of its elements it has been declared by the wisest

men to be valueless 8

And it is precisely the elements in question that modern thought

is eliminating 11

It is contended that they have often been eliminated before; and

that yet the worth of life has not suffered 13

But this contention is entirely false. They were never before

eliminated as modern thought is eliminating them now 17

The present age can find no genuine parallels in the past 19

Its position is made peculiar by three facts 19

Firstly, by the existence of Christianity 19

Secondly, the insignificance to which science has reduced the

earth 23

Thirdly, the intense self-consciousness that has been developed

in the modern world 25

It is often said that a parallel to our present case is to be found

in Buddhism 27

But this is absolutely false. Buddhist positivism is the exact

reverse of Western positivism 29

In short, the life-problem of our day is distinctly a new and an as

yet unanswered one 31

CHAPTER II.

MORALITY AND THE PRIZE OF LIFE.

The worth the positive school claim for life, is essentially a moral

worth 33

As its most celebrated exponents explicitly tell us 34

This means that life contains some special prize, to which morality

is the only road 34

And the value of life depends on the value of this prize 35

J.S. Mill, G. Eliot, and Professor Huxley admit that this is a

correct way of stating the case 36

But all this language as it stands at present is too vague to be of

any use to us 38

The prize in question is to be won in this life, if anywhere; and

must therefore be more or less describable 39

What then is it? 40

Unless it is describable it cannot be a moral end at all 41

As a consideration of the _raison d'être_ of all moral systems will

show us 42

The value of the prize must be verifiable by positive methods 43

And be verifiably greater, beyond all comparison, than that of

all other prizes 44

Has such a prize any real existence? This is our question 44

It has never yet been answered properly 45

And though two sets of answers have been given it, neither of

them are satisfactory 45

I shall deal with these two questions in order 47

CHAPTER III.

SOCIOLOGY AS THE FOUNDATION OF MORALITY.

The positive theory is that the health of the social organism is

the real foundation of morals 49

But social health is nothing but the personal health of all the

members of the society 51

It is not happiness itself, but the negative conditions that make

happiness for all 51

Still less is social health any _high_ kind of happiness 54

It can only be maintained to be so, by supposing 55

Either, that all kinds of happiness are equally _high_ that do not

interfere with others 55

Or, that it is only a _high_ kind of happiness that can be shared

by all 56

Both of which suppositions are false 57

The conditions of social health are a moral end only when we

each feel a personal delight in maintaining them 58

In this case they will supply us with a _small portion_ of the

moral aid needed 59

But this case is not a possible one 60

There is indeed the natural impulse of sympathy that might tend

to make it so 61

But this is counterbalanced by the corresponding impulse of

selfishness 63

And this impulse of sympathy itself is of very limited power 63

Except under very rare conditions 63

The conditions of general happiness are far too vague to do more

than very slightly excite it 64

Or give it power enough to neutralise any personal temptation 66

At all events they would excite no enthusiasm 67

For this purpose there must be some prize before us, of recognised

positive value, more or less definite 67

And before all things, to be enjoyed by us individually 67

Unless this prize be of great value to begin with, its value will

not become great because great numbers obtain it 71

Nor until we know what it is, do we gain anything by the hope

that men may more completely make it their own in the future 72

The modern positive school requires a great general enthusiasm

for the general good 73

They therefore presuppose an extreme value for the individual

good 74

Our first enquiry must be therefore what the higher individual

good is 76

CHAPTER IV.

GOODNESS AS ITS OWN REWARD.

What has been said in the last chapter is really admitted by the

positive school themselves 77

As we can learn explicitly from George Eliot 78

In _Daniel Deronda_ 78

That the fundamental moral question is, '_In what way shall the

individual make life pleasant?_' 79

And the right way, for the positivists, as for the Christians, is

an inward way 80

The moral end is a certain inward state of the heart, and the

positivists say it is a sufficient attraction in itself, without

any aid from religion 81

And they support this view by numerous examples 82

But all such examples are useless 83

Because though we may get rid of religion in its pure form 83

There is much that we have not got rid of, embodied still in the

moral end 84

To test the intrinsic value of the end, we must sublimate this

religion out of it 86

For this purpose we will consider, first, the three general

characteristics of the moral end, viz. 88

Its inwardness 88

Its importance 89

And its absolute character 91

Now all these three characteristics can be explained by religion 93

And cannot be explained without it 96

The positive moral end must therefore be completely divested of

them 100

The next question is, will it be equally attractive then? 100

CHAPTER V.

LOVE AS A TEST OF GOODNESS.

The positivists represent love as a thing whose value is

self-dependent 101

And which gives to life a positive and incalculable worth 103

But this is supposed to be true of one form of love only 104

And the very opposite is supposed to hold good of all other forms 105

The right form depends on the conformity of each of the lovers

to a certain inward standard 105

As we can see exemplified in the case of Othello and Desdemona,

etc. 107

The kind and not the degree of the love is what gives love its

special value 108

And the selection of this kind can be neither made nor justified

on positive principles 109

As the following quotations from Théophile Gautier will show us 110

Which are supposed by many to embody the true view of love 110

According to this view, purity is simply a disease both in man

and woman, or at any rate no merit 116

If love is to be a moral end, this view must be absolutely

condemned 117

But positivism cannot condemn it, or support the opposite view 117

As we shall see by recurring to Professor Huxley's argument 118

Which will show us that all moral language as applied to love is

either distinctly religious or else altogether ludicrous 122

For it is clearly only on moral grounds that we can give that

blame to vice, which is the measure of the praise we give to

virtue 123

The misery of the former depends on religious anticipations 124

And so does also the blessedness of the latter 125

As we can see in numerous literary expressions of it 126

Positivism, by destroying these anticipations, changes the whole

character of the love in question 128

And prevents love from supplying us with any moral standard 131

The loss sustained by love will indicate the general loss

sustained by life 131

CHAPTER VI.

LIFE AS ITS OWN REWARD.

We must now examine what will be the practical result on life

in general of the loss just indicated 132

To do this, we will take life as reflected in the mirror of the

great dramatic art of the world 134

And this will show us how the moral judgment is the chief faculty

to which all that is great or intense in this art appeals 136

We shall see this, for instance, in _Macbeth_ 137

In _Hamlet_ 137

In _Antigone_ 137

In _Measure for Measure_, and in _Faust_ 138

And also in degraded art just as well as in sublime art 139

In profligate and cynical art, such as Congreve's 140

And in concupiscent art 141

Such as _Mademoiselle de Maupin_ 141

Or such works as that of Meursius, or the worst scenes in

Petronius 142

The supernatural moral judgment is the chief thing everywhere 143

Take away this judgment, and art loses all its strange interest 144

And so will it be with life 145

The moral landscape will be ruined 145

Even the mere sensuous joy of living in health will grow duller 146

Nor will culture be of the least avail without the supernatural

moral element 148

Nor will the devotion to truth for its own sake, which is the last

refuge of the positivists when in despair 149

For this last has no meaning whatever, except as a form of

concrete theism 152

The reverence for Nature is but another form of the devotion to

truth, and its only possible meaning is equally theistic 157

Thus all the higher resources of positivism fail together 161

And the highest positive value of life would be something less

than its present value 161

CHAPTER VII.

THE SUPERSTITION OF POSITIVISM.

From what we have just seen, the visionary character of the

positivist conception of progress becomes evident 163

Its object is far more plainly an illusion than the Christian

heaven 164

_All_ the objections urged against the latter apply with far more

force to the former 165

As a matter of fact, there is no possible object sufficient to

start the enthusiasm required by the positivists 167

To make the required enthusiasm possible human nature would

have to be completely changed 168

Two existing qualities, for instance, would have to be magnified

to an impossible extent--imagination 169

And unselfishness 170

If we state the positive system in terms of common life, its

visionary character becomes evident 172

The examples which have suggested its possibility are quite

misleading 173

The positive system is really far more based on superstition than

any religion 175

Its appearance can only be accounted for by the characters and

circumstances of its originators 175

And a consideration of these will help us more than anything to

estimate it rightly 178

And will let us see that its only practical tendency is to deaden

all our present interests, not to create any new ones 179

CHAPTER VIII.

THE PRACTICAL PROSPECT.

It is not contended that the prospect just described will, as a

fact, ever be realised 183

But only that it will be realised _if_ certain other prospects are

realised 185

Which prospects may or may not be visionary 186

But the progress towards which is already begun 187

And also the other results, that have been described already 187

Positive principles have already produced a moral deterioration,

even in places where we should least imagine it 187

As we shall see if we pierce beneath the surface 189

In the curious condition of men who have lost faith, but have

retained the love of virtue 189

The struggle was hard, when they had all the helps of religion 190

It is harder now 190

Conscience still survives, but it has lost its restraining power 191

Temptation almost inevitably dethrones it 192

And its full prestige can never be recovered 193

It can do nothing but deplore; it cannot remedy 194

In such cases the mind's decadence has begun; and its symptoms

are 194

Self-reproach 195

Life-weariness 195

And indifference 195

The class of men to whom this applies is increasing, and they are

the true representatives of the work of positive thought 196

It is hard to realise this ominous fact 197

But by looking steadily and dispassionately at the characteristics

of the present epoch we may learn to do so 198

We shall see that the opinions now forming will have a weight

and power that no opinions ever had before 199

And their tendency, as yet latent, towards pessimism is therefore

most momentous 200

If it is to be cured, it must be faced 200

It takes the form of a suppressed longing for the religious faith

that is lost 200

And this longing is wide-spread, though only expressed indirectly 201

It is felt even by men of science 202

But the longing seems fruitless 203

This dejection is in fact shared by the believers 203

And is even authoritatively recognised by Catholicism 204

The great question for the world now, and the one on which its

whole future depends, is, will the lost faith ever be recovered? 205

The answer to this will probably have to be decisive, one way or

the other 206

CHAPTER IX.

THE LOGIC OF SCIENTIFIC NEGATION.

What gives the denials of positivism their general weight, is the

impression that they represent reason 208

They are supported by three kinds of arguments: physical, moral,

and historical 209

The two first bear upon all religion; the latter only on special

revelations 210

Natural religion is the belief in God, immortality, and the

possibility of miracles generally 210

Physical science prefers to destroy natural religion by its

connection of mind with matter 210

1st. Making conscious life a function of the brain. 2nd. Evolving

the living organisms from lifeless matter. 3rd. Making this

material evolution automatic 210

Thus all external proofs of God are destroyed 212

And also of the soul's immortality 213

External proof is declared to be the test of reality 213

And therefore all religion is set down as a dream 215

But we believe that proof _is_ the test of reality, not because

it is proved to be so, but because of the authority of those who

tell us so 215

But it will be found that these men do not understand their own

principle 216

And, that in what they consider their most important conclusions

they emphatically disregard it 217

One or other, therefore, of their opinions is worthless--their

denial of religion or their affirmation of morality 219

But we shall see this more clearly in considering the question of

consciousness and will 220

We shall see that, as far as science can inform us, man is nothing

but an automaton 220

But the positive school are afraid to admit this 221

And not daring to meet the question, they make a desperate effort

to confuse it 222

Two problems are involved in the matter: 1st. How is brain

action connected with consciousness 223

2nd. Is the consciousness that is connected with it something

separable from, and independent of it 223

The first of these problems has no bearing at all on any moral

or religious question. It is insoluble. It leaves us not in

doubt but in ignorance 224

The doubt, and the religious question is connected solely with

the second problem 228

To which there are two alternative solutions 228

And modern science is so confused that it will accept neither 228

As Dr. Tyndall's treatment of the subject very forcibly shows us 230

And Dr. Tyndall in this way is a perfect representative of the

whole modern positive school 231

Let us compare the molecules of the brain to the six moving

billiard-balls 231

The question is, are these movements due to the stroke of one

cue or of two 233

The positive school profess to answer this question both ways 234

But this profession is nonsense 236

What they really mean is, 1st. That the connection of consciousness

with matter is a mystery; as to _that_ they _can_ give no

answer. 2nd. That as to whether consciousness is wholly a

material thing or no, they _will_ give no answer 237

But why are they in this state of suspense? 238

Though their system does not in the least require the hypothesis

of an immaterial element in consciousness 239

They see that the moral value of life does 239

The same reasons that will warrant their saying it _may_ exist,

will constrain them to say it _must_ 240

Physical science, with its proofs, can say nothing in the matter,

either as to will, immortality, or God 242

But, on the other hand, it will force us, if we believe in will, to

admit the reality of miracles 243

So far as science goes, morality and religion are both on the same

footing 243

CHAPTER X.

MORALITY AND NATURAL THEISM.

Supposing science not to be inconsistent with theism, may not

theism be inconsistent with morality? 247

It seems to be so; but it is no more so than is morality with

itself. Two difficulties common to both:--1st. The existence of

evil; 2nd. Man's free will and God's free will 248

James Mill's statement of the case represents the popular

anti-religious arguments 249

But his way of putting the case is full of distortion and

exaggeration 250

Though certain of the difficulties he pointed out were real 251

And those we cannot explain away; but if we are to believe in

our moral being at all, we must one and all accept 252

We can escape from them by none of the rationalistic substitutes

for religion 252

A similar difficulty is the freedom of the will 257

This belief is an intellectual impossibility 258

But at the same time a moral necessity 260

It is typical of all the difficulties attendant on an assent

to our own moral nature 260

The vaguer difficulties that appeal to the _moral imagination_ we

must meet in the same way 261

CHAPTER XI.

THE HUMAN RACE AND REVELATION.

Should the intellect of the world return to theism, will it ever

again acknowledge a special revelation? 264

We can see that this is an urgent question 265

By many general considerations 265

Especially the career of Protestantism 267

Which is visibly evaporating into a mere natural theism 268

And, as such, is losing all restraining power in the world 271

Where then shall we look for a revelation? Not in any of the

Eastern creeds 275

The claims of the Roman Church are the only ones worth considering 276

Her position is absolutely distinct from that of Protestantism,

and she is not involved in its fall 277

In theory she is all that the enlightened world could require 279

The only question is, is she so in practice? This brings us to

difficulties 282

1st. The partial success of her revelation; and her supposed

condemnation of the virtues of unbelievers. But her partial

success is simply the old mystery of evil 282

And through her infinite charity, she does nothing to increase

that difficulty 283

The value of orthodoxy is analogous to the value of true physical

science 285

All should try to learn the truth who can; but we do not condemn

others who cannot 286

Even amongst Catholics generally no recondite theological knowledge

is required 287

The facts of the Catholic _religion_ are simple. Theology is the

complex scientific explanation of them 288

Catholicism is misunderstood because the outside world confuses

with its religion--1st. The complex explanations of it 289

2nd. Matters of discipline, and practical rules 290

3rd. The pious opinions, or the scientific errors of private

persons, or particular epochs 291

None of which really are any integral part of the Church 293

Neither are the peculiar exaggerations of moral feeling that have

been prevalent at different times 293

The Church theoretically is a living, growing, self-adapting

organism 295

She is, in fact, the growing, moral sense of mankind organised

and developed under a supernatural tutelage 295

CHAPTER XII.

UNIVERSAL HISTORY AND THE CLAIMS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

We must now consider the Church in relation to history and external

historical criticism 297

1st. The history of Christianity; 2nd. The history of other

religions 298

Criticism has robbed the Bible of nearly all the supposed internal

evidences of its supernatural character 298

It has traced the chief Christian dogmas to non-Christian sources 300

It has shown that the histories of other religions are strangely

analogous to the history of Christianity 300

And to Protestantism these discoveries are fatal 302

But they are not fatal to Catholicism, whose attitude to history

is made utterly different by the doctrine of the perpetual

infallibility of the Church 305

The Catholic Church teaches us to believe the Bible for her sake,

not her for the Bible's 305

And even though her dogmas may have existed in some form

elsewhere, they become new _revelations_ to us, by her

supernatural selection of them 306

The Church is a living organism, for ever selecting and

assimilating fresh nutriment 307

Even from amongst the wisdom of her bitterest enemies 309

All false revelations, in so far as they have professed to be

infallible, are, from the Catholic standpoint, abortive

Catholicisms 311

Catholicism has succeeded in the same attempt in which they

have failed 313

CHAPTER XIII.

BELIEF AND WILL.

The aim of this book 315

Has been to clear the great question as to man's nature, and the

proper way of regarding him, from the confusion at present

surrounding it 317

And to show that the answer will finally rest, not on outer

evidence, but on himself, and on his own _will_, if he have

a will 319

NOTE.

In this book the words '_positive_,' '_positivist_,' and '_positivism_'

are of constant occurrence as applied to modern thought and thinkers. To

avoid any chance of confusion or misconception, it will be well to say

that these words as used by me have no special reference to the system

of Comte or his disciples, but are applied to the common views and

position of the whole scientific school, one of the most eminent members

of which--I mean Professor Huxley--has been the most trenchant and

contemptuous critic that 'positivism' in its narrower sense has met

with. Over 'positivism' in this sense Professor Huxley and Mr. Frederic

Harrison have had some public battles. Positivism in the sense in which

it is used by me, applies to the principles as to which the above

writers explicitly agree, not to those as to which they differ.

W.H.M.

Is Life Worth Living?

CHAPTER I.

THE NEW IMPORT OF THE QUESTION.

_A change was coming over the world, the meaning and direction of

which even still is hidden from us, a change from era to

era._--Froude's _History of England_, ch. i.

What I am about to deal with in this book is a question which may well

strike many, at first sight, as a question that has no serious meaning,

or none at any rate for the sane and healthy mind. I am about to attempt

inquiring, not sentimentally, but with all calmness and sobriety, into

the true value of this human life of ours, as tried by those tests of

reality which the modern world is accepting, and to ask dispassionately

if it be really worth the living. The inquiry certainly has often been

made before; but it has never been made properly; it has never been made

in the true scientific spirit. It has always been vitiated either by

diffidence or by personal feeling; and the positive school, though they

rejoice to question everything else, have, at least in this country,

left the worth of life alone. They may now and then, perhaps, have

affected to examine it; but their examination has been merely formal,

like that of a customs-house officer, who passes a portmanteau, which he

has only opened. They have been as tender with it as Don Quixote was

with his mended helmet, when he would not put his card-paper vizor to

the test of the steel sword. I propose to supply this deficiency in

their investigations. I propose to apply exact thought to the only great

subject to which it has not been applied already.

To numbers, as I have just said, this will of course seem useless. They

will think that the question never really was an open one; or that, if

it ever were so, the common sense of mankind has long ago finally

settled it. To ask it again, they will think idle, or worse than idle.

It will express to them, if it expresses anything, no perplexity of the

intellect, but merely some vague disease of the feelings. They will say

that it is but the old ejaculation of satiety or despair, as old as

human nature itself; it is a kind of maundering common to all moral

dyspepsia; they have often heard it before, and they wish they may never

hear it again.

But let them be a little less impatient. Let them look at the question

closer, and more calmly; and it will not be long before its import

begins to change for them. They will see that though it may have often

been asked idly, it is yet capable of a meaning that is very far from

idle; and that however old they may think it, yet as asked by our

generation it is really completely new--that it bears a meaning which is

indeed not far from any one of them, but which is practical and

pressing--I might almost say portentous--and which is something

literally unexampled in the past history of mankind.

I am aware that this position is not only not at first sight obvious,

but that, even when better understood, it will probably be called false.

My first care, therefore, will be to explain it at length, and clearly.

For this purpose we must consider two points in order; first, what is

the exact doubt we intend to express by our question; and next, why in

our day this doubt should have such a special and fresh significance.

Let us then make it quite plain, at starting, that when we ask 'Is life

worth living?' we are not asking whether its balance of pains is

necessarily and always in excess of its balance of pleasures. We are not

asking whether any one has been, or whether any one is happy. To the

unjaundiced eye nothing is more clear than that happiness of various

kinds has been, and is, continually attained by men. And ingenious

pessimists do but waste their labour when they try to convince a happy

man that he really must be miserable. What I am going to discuss is not

the superfluous truism that life has been found worth living by many;

but the profoundly different proposition that it ought to be found worth

living by all. For this is what life is pronounced to be, when those

claims are made for it that at present universally are made; when, as a

general truth, it is said to be worth living; or when any of those

august epithets are applied to it that are at present applied so

constantly. At present, as we all know, it is called sacred, solemn,

earnest, significant, and so forth. To withhold such epithets is

considered a kind of blasphemy. And the meaning of all such language is

this: it means that life has some deep inherent worth of its own, beyond

what it can acquire or lose by the caprice of circumstance--a worth,

which though it may be most fully revealed to a man, through certain

forms of success, is yet not destroyed or made a minus quantity by

failure. Certain forms of love, for instance, are held in a special way

to reveal this worth to us; but the worth that a successful love is thus

supposed to reveal is a worth that a hopeless love is supposed not to

destroy. The worth is a part of life's essence, not a mere chance

accident, as health or riches are; and we are supposed to lose it by no

acts but our own.

Now it is evident that such a worth as this, is, in one sense, no mere

fancy. Numbers actually have found it; and numbers actually still

continue to find it. The question is not whether the worth exists, but

on what is the worth based. How far is the treasure incorruptible; and

how far will our increasing knowledge act as moth and rust to it? There

are some things whose value is completely established by the mere fact

that men do value them. They appeal to single tastes, they defy further

analysis, and they thus form, as it were, the _bases_ of all pleasures

and happiness. But these are few in number; they are hardly ever met

with in a perfectly pure state; and their effect, when they are so met,

is either momentary, or far from vivid. As a rule they are found in

combinations of great complexity, fused into an infinity of new

substances by the action of beliefs and associations; and these two

agents are often of more importance in the result than are the things

they act upon. Take for instance a boy at Eton or Oxford, who affects a

taste in wine. Give him a bottle of gooseberry champagne; tell him it is

of the finest brand, and that it cost two hundred shillings a dozen. He

will sniff, and wink at it in ecstasy; he will sip it slowly with an air

of knowing reverence; and his enjoyment of it probably will be far

keener, than it would be, were the wine really all he fancies it, and he

had lived years enough to have come to discern its qualities. Here the

part played by belief and associations is of course evident. The boy's

enjoyment is real, and it rests to a certain extent on a foundation of

solid fact; the taste of the gooseberry champagne is an actual pleasure

to his palate. Anything nauseous, black dose for instance, could never

raise him to the state of delight in question. But this simple pleasure

of sense is but a small part of the pleasure he actually experiences.

That pleasure, as a whole, is a highly complex thing, and rests mainly

on a basis that, by a little knowledge, could be annihilated in a

moment. Tell the boy what the champagne really is, he has been praising;

and the state of his mind and face will undergo a curious

transformation. Our sense of the worth of life is similar in its

complexity to the boy's sense of the worth of his wine. Beliefs and

associations play exactly the same part in it. The beliefs in this last

case may of course be truer. The question that I have to ask is, are

they? In some individual cases certainly, they have not been. Miss

Harriet Martineau, for instance, judging life from her own experience of

it, was quite persuaded that it was a most solemn and satisfactory

thing, and she has told the world as much, in no hesitating manner. But

a part at least of the solemn satisfaction she felt in it was due to a

grotesque over-estimate of her own social and intellectual importance.

Here, then, was a worth in life, real enough to the person who found it,

but which a little knowledge of the world would have at once taken away

from her. Does the general reverence with which life is at present

regarded rest in any degree upon any similar misconception? And if so,

to what extent does it? Will it fall to pieces before the breath of a

larger knowledge? or has it that firm foundation in fact that will

enable it to survive in spite of all enlightenment, and perhaps even to

increase in consequence of it?

Such is the outline of the question I propose to deal with. I will now

show why it is so pressing, and why, in the present crisis of thought,

it is so needful that it should be dealt with. The first impression it

produces, as I have said, is that it is superfluous. Our belief in life

seems to rest on too wide an experience for us to entertain any genuine

doubt of the truth of it. But this first impression does not go for

much. It is a mere superficial thing, and will wear off immediately. We

have but to remember that a belief that was supposed to rest on an

equally wide basis--the belief in God, and in a supernatural order--has

in these days, not been questioned only, but has been to a great degree,

successfully annihilated. The only philosophy that belongs to the

present age, the only philosophy that is a really new agent in progress,

has declared this belief to be a dissolving dream of the past. And this

belief, as we shall see presently, is, amongst civilized men at least,

far older than the belief in life; it has been far more widely spread,

and experience has been held to confirm it with an equal certainty. If

this then is inevitably disintegrated by the action of a widening

knowledge, it cannot be taken for granted that the belief in life will

not fare likewise. It may do so; but until we have examined it more

closely we cannot be certain that it will. Common consent and

experience, until they are analysed, are fallacious tests for the

seekers after positive truth. The emotions may forbid us to ask our

question; but in modern philosophy the emotions play no part as organs

of discovery. They are facts in themselves, and as such are of course of

value; but they point to no facts beyond themselves. That men loved God

and felt his presence close to them proves nothing, to the positive

thinker, as to God's existence. Nor will the mere emotion of reverence

towards life necessarily go any farther towards proving that it deserves

reverence. It is distinctly asserted by the modern school that the right

state in which to approach everything is a state of enlightened

scepticism. We are to consider everything doubtful, until it is proved

certain, or unless, from its very nature, it is not possible to doubt

it.

Nor is this all; for, apart from these modern canons, the question of

life's worth has, as a matter of fact, been always recognised as in a

certain sense an open one. The greatest intellects of the world, in all

ages, have been at times inclined to doubt it. And these times have not

seemed to them times of blindness; but on the contrary, of specially

clear insight. Scales, as it were, have fallen from their eyes for a

moment or two, and the beauty and worth of existence has appeared to

them as but a deceiving show. An entire book of the Hebrew Scriptures is

devoted to a deliberate exposition of this philosophy. In '_the most

high and palmy state_' of Athens it was expressed fitfully also as the

deepest wisdom of her most triumphant dramatist.[1] And in Shakspeare it

appears so constantly, that it must evidently have had for him some

directly personal meaning.

This view, however, even by most of those who have held it, has been

felt to be really only a half-view in the guise of a whole one. To

Shakspeare, for instance, it was full of a profound terror. It crushed,

and appalled, and touched him; and there was not only implied in it that

for us life does mean little, but that by some possibility it might have

meant much. Or else, if the pessimism has been more complete than this,

it has probably been adopted as a kind of solemn affectation, or has

else been lamented as a form of diseased melancholy. It is a view that

healthy intellects have hitherto declined to entertain. Its advocates

have been met with neglect, contempt, or castigation, not with

arguments. They have been pitied as insane, avoided as cynical, or

passed over as frivolous. And yet, but for one reason, to that whole

European world whose progress we are now inheriting, this view would

have seemed not only not untenable, but even obvious. The emptiness of

the things of this life, the incompleteness of even its highest

pleasures, and their utter powerlessness to make us really happy, has

been, at least for fifteen hundred years, a commonplace, both with

saints and sages. The conception that anything in this life could of

itself be of any great moment to us, was considered as much a puerility

unworthy of a man of the world, as a disloyalty to God. Experience of

life, and meditation on life, seemed to teach nothing but the same

lesson, seemed to preach a sermon _de contemptu mundi_. The view the

eager monk began with, the sated monarch ended with. But matters did not

end here. There was something more to come, by which this view was

altogether transmuted, and which made the wilderness and the waste place

at once blossom as the rose. Judged of by itself, this life would indeed

be vanity; but it was not to be judged of by itself. All its ways seemed

to break short aimlessly into precipices, or to be lost hopelessly in

deserts. They led to no visible end. True; but they led to ends that

were invisible--to spiritual and eternal destinies, to triumphs beyond

all hope, and portentous failures beyond all fear. This all men might

see, if they would only choose to see. The most trivial of our daily

actions became thus invested with an immeasurable meaning. Life was thus

evidently not vanity, not an idiot's tale, not unprofitable; those who

affected to think it was, were naturally disregarded as either insane or

insincere: and we may thus admit that hitherto, for the progressive

nations of the world, the worth of life has been capable of

demonstration, and safe beyond the reach of any rational questioning.

But now, under the influence of positive thought, all this is changing.

Life, as we have all of us inherited it, is coloured with the intense

colours of Christianity; let us ourselves be personally Christians or

not, we are instinct with feelings with regard to it that were

applicable to it in its Christian state: and these feelings it is that

we are still resolved to retain. As the most popular English exponent of

the new school says: '_All positive methods of treating man, of a

comprehensive kind, adopt to the full all that has ever been said about

the dignity of man's moral and spiritual life._' But here comes the

difficulty. This adoption we speak of must be justified upon quite new

reasons. Indeed it is practically the boast of its advocates that it

must be. An extreme value, as we see, they are resolved to give to

life; they will not tolerate those who deny its existence. But they are

obliged to find it in the very place where hitherto it has been thought

to be conspicuous by its absence. It is to be found in no better or

wider future, where injustice shall be turned to justice, trouble into

rest, and blindness into clear sight; for no such future awaits us. It

is to be found in life itself, in this earthly life, this life between

the cradle and the grave; and though imagination and sympathy may

enlarge and extend this for the individual, yet the limits of its

extension are very soon arrived at. It is limited by the time the human

race can exist, by the space in the universe that the human race

occupies, and the capacities of enjoyment that the human race possesses.

Here, then, is a distinct and intelligible task that the positive

thinkers have set themselves. They have taken everything away from life

that to wise men hitherto has seemed to redeem it from vanity. They have

to prove to us that they have not left it vain. They have to prove those

things to be solid that have hitherto been thought hollow; those things

to be serious that have hitherto been thought contemptible. They must

prove to us that we shall be contented with what has never yet contented

us, and that the widest minds will thrive within limits that have

hitherto been thought too narrow for the narrowest.

Now, of course, so far as we can tell without examining the matter,

they may be able to accomplish this revolution. There is nothing on the

face of it that is impossible. It may be that our eyes are only blinded

to the beauty of the earth by having gazed so long and so vainly into an

empty heaven, and that when we have learnt to use them a little more to

the purpose, we shall see close at hand in this life what we had been

looking for, all this while, in another. But still, even if this

revolution be possible, the fact remains that it is a revolution, and it

cannot be accomplished without some effort. Our positive thinkers have a

case to be proved. They must not beg the very point that is most open to

contradiction, and which, when once duly apprehended, will be most sure

to provoke it. If this life be not incapable of satisfying us, let them

show us conclusively that it is not. But they can hardly expect that,

without any such showing at all, the world will deliberately repel as a

blasphemy what it has hitherto accepted as a commonplace.

This objection is itself so obvious that it has not escaped notice. But

the very fact of its obviousness has tended to hide the true force of

it, and coming so readily to the surface, it has been set down as

superficial. It is, however, very constantly recognised, and is being

met on all sides with a very elaborate answer. It is this answer that I

shall now proceed to consider. It is a very important one, and it

deserves our most close attention, as it contains the chief present

argument for the positive faith in life. I shall show how this argument

is vitiated by a fundamental fallacy.

It is admitted that to a hasty glance there may certainly seem some

danger of our faith in life's value collapsing, together with our belief

in God. It is admitted that this is not in the least irrational. But it

is contended that a scientific study of the past will show us that these

fears are groundless, and will reassure us as to the future. We are

referred to a new branch of knowledge, the philosophy of history, and we

are assured that by this all our doubts will be set at rest. This

philosophy of history resembles, on an extended scale, the practical

wisdom learnt by the man of the world. As long as a man is inexperienced

and new to life, each calamity as it comes to him seems something unique

and overwhelming, but as he lives on, suffers more of them, and yet

finds that he is not overwhelmed, he learns to reduce them to their

right dimensions, and is able, with sufficient self-possession, to let

each of them teach some useful lesson to him.

Thus we, it is said, if we were not better instructed, might naturally

take the present decline of faith to be an unprecedented calamity that

was ushering in an eve of darkness and utter ruin. But the philosophy

of history puts the whole matter in a different light. It teaches us

that the condition of the world in our day, though not normal, is yet by

no means peculiar. It points to numerous parallels in former ages, and

treats the rise and fall of creeds as regular phenomena in human

history, whose causes and recurrence we can distinctly trace. Other

nations and races have had creeds, and have lost them; they have

thought, as some of us think, that the loss would ruin them: and yet

they have not been ruined. Creeds, it is contended, were imaginative,

provisional, and mistaken expressions of the underlying and

indestructible sense of the nobility of human life. They were artistic,

not scientific. A statue of Apollo, for instance, or a picture of the

Madonna, were really representations of what men aimed at producing on

earth, not of what actually had any existence in heaven. And if we look

back at the greatest civilisations of antiquity, we shall find, it is

said, that what gave them vigour and intensity were purely human

interests: and though religion may certainly have had some reflex action

on life, this action was either merely political or was else injurious.

It is thus that intense Greek life is presented to us, the influence of

which is still felt in the world. Its main stimulus we are told was

frankly human. It would have lost none of its keenness if its theology

had been taken from it. And there, it is said, we see the positive

worth of life; we see already realised what we are now growing to

realise once more. Christianity, with its supernatural aims and objects,

is spoken of as an '_episode of disease and delirium_;' it is a

confusing dream, from which we are at last awaking; and the feelings of

the modern school are expressed in the following sentence of a

distinguished modern writer:[2] '_Just as the traveller_,' he says,

'_who has been worn to the bone by years of weary striving among men of

another skin, suddenly gazes with doubting eyes upon the white face of a

brother, so if we travel backwards in thought over the darker ages of

the history of Europe we at length reach back with such bounding heart

to men who had like hopes with ourselves, and shake hands across that

vast with ... our own spiritual ancestors._'

Nor are the Greeks the only nation whose history is supposed to be thus

so reassuring to us. The early Jews are pointed to, in the same way, as

having felt pre-eminently the dignity of this life, and having yet been

absolutely without any belief in another. But the example, which for us

is perhaps the most forcible of all, is to be found in the history of

Rome, during her years of widest activity. We are told to look at such

men as Cicero or as Cæsar--above all to such men as Cæsar--and to

remember what a reality life was to them. Cæsar certainly had little

religion enough; and what he may have had, played no part in making his

life earnest. He took the world as he found it, as all healthy men have

taken it; and, as it is said, all healthy men will still continue to

take it. Nor was such a life as Cæsar's peculiar to himself. It

represents that purely human life that flourished generally in such

vigour amongst the Romans. And the consideration of it is said to be all

the more instructive, because it flourished in the face of just the same

conditions that we think so disheartening now. There was in those times,

as there is in ours, a wide disintegration of the old faiths; and to

many, then as now, this fact seemed at once sad and terrifying. As we

read Juvenal, Petronius, Lucian, or Apuleius, we are astounded at the

likeness of those times to these. Even in minute details, they

correspond with a marvellous exactness. And hence there seems a strange

force in the statement that history repeats itself, and that the wisdom

learnt from the past can be applied to the present and the future.

But all this, though it is doubtless true, is in reality only half the

truth; and as used in the arguments of the day, it amounts practically

to a profound falsehood. History in a certain sense, of course, does

repeat itself; and the thing that has been is in a certain sense the

thing that shall be. But there is a deeper and a wider sense in which,

this is not so. Let us take the life of an individual man, for instance.

A man of fifty will retain very likely many of the tastes and tricks

that were his, when a boy of ten: and people who have known him long

will often exclaim that he is just the same as he always was. But in

spite of this, they will know that he is very different. His hopes will

have dwindled down; the glow, the colour, and the bright haze will have

gone from them; things that once amused him will amuse him no more:

things he once thought important, he will consider weary trifles; and if

he thinks anything serious at all, they will not be things he thought

serious when a boy. The same thing is true of the year, and its changing

seasons. The history of a single year may be, in one sense, said to

repeat itself every day. There is the same recurrence of light and

darkness, of sunrise and of sunset: and a man who had lived only for a

month or two, might fancy that this recurrence was complete. But let him

live a little longer, and he will come to see that this is not so.

Slowly through the summer he will begin to discern a change; until at

last he can contrast the days and nights of winter with the days and

nights of summer, and see how flowers that once opened fresh every

morning, now never open or close at all. Then he will see that the two

seasons, though in many points so like each other, are yet, in a far

deeper way, different.

And so it is with the world's history. Isolate certain phenomena, and

they do, without doubt, repeat themselves; but it is only when isolated

that they can be said to do so. In many points the European thought and

civilisation of to-day may seem to be a repetition of what has been

before; we may fancy that we recognise our brothers in the past, and

that we can, as the writer above quoted says, shake hands with them

across the intervening years. But this is really only a deceiving fancy,

when applied to such deep and universal questions as those we have now

to deal with--to religion, to positive thought, and to the worth of

life. The positivists and the unbelievers of the modern world, are not

the same as those of the ancient world. Even when their language is

identical, there is an immeasurable gulf between them. In our denials

and assertions there are certain new factors, which at once make all

such comparisons worthless. The importance of these will by-and-by

appear more clearly, but I shall give a brief account of them now.

The first of these factors is the existence of Christianity, and that

vast and undoubted change in the world of which it has been at once the

cause and the index. It has done a work, and that work still remains:

and we all feel the effects of it, whether we will or no. Described in

the most general way, that work has been this. The supernatural, in the

ancient world, was something vague and indefinite: and the classical

theologies at any rate, though they were to some extent formal

embodiments of it, could embody really but a very small part. Zeus and

the Olympian hierarchies were dimly perceived to be encircled by some

vaster mystery; which to the popular mind was altogether formless, and

which even such men as Plato could only describe inadequately. The

supernatural was like a dim and diffused light, brighter in some places,

and darker in others, but focalised and concentrated nowhere.

Christianity has focalised it, united into one the scattered points of

brightness, and collected other rays that were before altogether

imperceptible. That vague '_idea of the good_,' of which Plato said most

men dimly augured the existence, but could not express their augury, has

been given a definite shape to by Christianity in the form of its Deity.

That Deity, from an external point of view, may be said to have acquired

His sovereignty as did the Roman Cæsar. He absorbed into His own person

the offices of all the gods that were before him, as the Roman Cæsar

absorbed all the offices of the state; and in His case also, as has been

said of the Roman Cæsar, the whole was immeasurably greater than the

mere sum of the parts. Scientifically and philosophically He became the

first cause of the world; He became the father of the human soul, and

its judge; and what is more, its rest and its delight, and its desire.

Under the light of this conception, man appeared an ampler being. His

thoughts were for ever being gazed on by the great controller of all

things; he was made in the likeness of the Lord of lords; he was of kin

to the power before which all the visible world trembled; and every

detail in the life of a human soul became vaster, beyond all comparison,

than the depths of space and time. But not only did the sense of man's

dignity thus develop, and become definite. The accompanying sense of his

degradation became intenser and more definite also. The gloom of a sense

of sin is to be found in Æschylus, but this gloom was vague and

formless. Christianity gave to it both depth and form; only the despair

that might have been produced in this way was now softened by hope.

Christianity has, in fact, declared clearly a supernatural of which men

before were more or less ignorantly conscious. The declaration may or

may not have been a complete one, but at any rate it is the completest

that the world has yet known. And the practical result is this: when we,

in these days, deny the supernatural, we are denying it in a way in

which it was never denied before. Our denial is beyond all comparison

more complete. The supernatural, for the ancient world, was like a

perfume scenting life, out of a hundred different vessels, of which only

two or three were visible to the same men or nations. They therefore

might get rid of these, and yet the larger part of the scent would still

remain to them. But for us, it is as though all the perfume had been

collected into a single vessel; and if we get rid of this, we shall get

rid of the scent altogether. Our air will be altogether odourless.

The materialism of Lucretius is a good instance of this. In many ways

his denials bear a strong resemblance to ours. But the resemblance

ceases a little below the surface. He denied the theology of his time as

strongly as our positive thinkers deny the theology of ours. But the

theology he denied was incomplete and puerile. He was not denying any

'All-embracer and All-sustainer,' for he knew of none such. And his

denial of the gods he did deny left him room for the affirmation of

others, whose existence, if considered accurately, was equally

inconsistent with his own scientific premisses. Again, in his denial of

any immortality for man, what he denied is not the future that we are

denying. The only future he knew of was one a belief in which had no

influence on us, except for sadness. It was a protraction only of what

is worst in life; it was in no way a completion of what is best in it.

But with us the case is altogether different. Formerly the supernatural

could not be denied completely, because it was not known completely. Not

to affirm is a very different thing from to deny. And many beliefs which

the positivists of the modern world are denying, the positivists of the

ancient world more or less consciously lived by.

Next, there is this point to remember. Whilst during the Christian

centuries, the devotion to a supernatural and extramundane aim has been

engendering, as a recent writer has observed with indignation, a

degrading '_pessimism as to the essential dignity of man_,'[3] the world

which we have been to a certain extent disregarding has been changing

its character for us. In a number of ways, whilst we have not been

perceiving it, its objective grandeur has been dwindling; and the

imagination, when again called to the feat, cannot reinvest it with its

old gorgeous colouring. Once the world, with the human race, who were

the masters of it, was a thing of vast magnitude--the centre of the

whole creation. The mind had no larger conceptions that were vivid

enough to dwarf it. But now all this has changed. In the words of a

well-known modern English historian, _'The floor of heaven, inlaid with

stars, has sunk back into an infinite abyss of immeasurable space; and

the firm earth itself, unfixed from its foundations, is seen to be but

a small atom in the awful easiness of the universe.'_[4] The whole

position, indeed, is reversed. The skies once seemed to pay the earth

homage, and to serve it with light and shelter. Now they do nothing, so

far as the imagination is concerned, but spurn and dwarf it. And when we

come to the details of the earth's surface itself, the case is just the

same. It, in its extent, has grown little and paltry to us. The wonder

and the mystery has gone from it. A Cockney excursionist goes round it

in a holiday trip; there are no

_Golden cities, ten months journey deep,

In far Tartarian wilds_;[5]

nor do the confines of civilisation, melt as they once did, into any

unknown and unexplored wonderlands. And thus a large mass of sentiment

that was once powerful in the world is now rapidly dwindling, and, so

far as we can see, there is nothing that can ever exactly replace it.

Patriotism, for instance, can never again be the religion it was to

Athens, or the pride it was to Rome. Men are not awed and moved as once

they were by local and material splendours. The pride of life, it is

true, is still eagerly coveted; but by those at least who are most

familiar with it, it is courted and sought for with a certain contempt

and cynicism. It is treated like a courtesan, rather than like a

goddess. Whilst as to the higher enthusiasm that was once excited by

external things, the world in its present state could no more work

itself up to this than a girl, after three seasons, could again go for

dissipation to her dolls. She might look back to the time of dolls with

regret. She might see that the interest they excited in her was,

perhaps, far more pleasing than any she had found in love. But the dolls

would never rival her lovers, none the less. And with man, and his aims

and objects, the case is just the same. And we must remember that to

realise keenly the potency of a past ideal, is no indication that

practically it will ever again be powerful.

Briefly, then, the positive school of to-day we see thus far to be in

this position. It has to make demands upon human life that were never

made before; and human life is, in many ways, less able than it ever was

to answer to them.

But this is not all. There is a third matter yet left to consider--a

third factor in the case, peculiar to the present crisis. That is the

intense self-consciousness that is now developed in the world, and which

is something altogether new to it. During the last few generations man

has been curiously changing. Much of his old spontaneity of action has

gone from him. He has become a creature looking before and after; and

his native hue of resolution has been sickled over by thought. We admit

nothing now without question; we have learnt to take to pieces all

motives to actions. We not only know more than we have done before, but

we are perpetually chewing the cud of our knowledge. Thus positive

thought reduces all religions to ideals created by man; and as such, not

only admits that they have had vast influence, but teaches us also that

we in the future must construct new ideals for ourselves. Only there

will be this difference. We shall now know that they are ideals, we

shall no longer mistake them for objective facts. But our positive

thinkers forget this. They forget that the ideals that were once active

in the world were active amongst people who thought that they were more

than ideals, and who very certainly did mistake them for facts; and they

forget how different their position will be, as soon as their true

nature is recognised. There is no example, so far as I know, to be found

in all history, of men having been stimulated or affected in any

important way--none, at any rate, of their having been restrained or

curbed--by a mere ideal that was known to have no reality to correspond

to it. A child is frightened when its nurse tells it that a black man

will come down the chimney and take it away. The black man, it is true,

is only an ideal; and yet the child is affected. But it would cease to

be affected the instant it knew this.

As we go on with our enquiry these considerations will become plainer to

us. But enough has even now been said to show how distinct the present

position is from any that have gone before it, and how little the

experience of the past is really fitted to reassure us. Greek and Roman

thought was positive, in our sense of the word, only in a very small

degree. The thought of the other ancient empires was not positive at

all. The oldest civilisation of which any record is left to us--the

civilisation of Egypt--was based on a theism which, of all other

theisms, most nearly approaches ours. And the doctrine of a future life

was first learnt by the Jews from their masters during the Captivity. We

search utterly in vain through history for any parallel to our own

negations.

I have spoken hitherto of those peoples only whose history more or less

directly has affected ours. But there is a vast portion of the human

race with which, roughly speaking, our progress has had no connection;

and the religions of these races, which are now for the first time

beginning to be accurately studied, are constantly being appealed to in

support of the positive doctrines. Thus it is urged by Mr. Leslie

Stephen that _'the briefest outline of the religious history of mankind

shows that creeds which can count more adherents than Christianity, and

have flourished through a longer period, have omitted all that makes the

Christian doctrine of a future state 'valuable in the eyes of the

supporters_;' and Dr. Tyndall points with the same delighted confidence

to the gospel of Buddhism, as one of '_pure human ethics, divorced not

only from Brahma and the Brahminic Trinity, but even from the existence

of God_.'[6] Many other such appeals are made to what are somewhat

vaguely called '_the multitudinous creeds of the East_;' but it is to

Buddhism, in its various forms, that they would all seem to apply. Let

us now consider the real result of them. Our positivists have appealed

to Buddhism, and to Buddhism they shall certainly go. It is one of the

vastest and most significant of all human facts. But its significance is

somewhat different from what it is popularly supposed to be.

That the Buddhist religion has had a wide hold on the world is true.

Indeed, forty per cent. of the whole human race at this moment profess

it. Except the Judaic, it is the oldest of existing creeds; and beyond

all comparison it numbers most adherents. And it is quite true also that

it does not, in its pure state, base its teaching on the belief in any

personal God, or offer as an end of action any happiness in any

immortal life. But it does not for this reason bear any real resemblance

to our modern Western positivism, nor give it any reason to be sanguine.

On the contrary, it is most absolutely opposed to it; and its success is

due to doctrines which Western positivism most emphatically repudiates.

In the first place, so far from being based on exact thought, Buddhism

takes for its very foundation four great mysteries, that are explicitly

beyond the reach either of proof or reason; and of these the foremost

and most intelligible is the transmigration and renewal of the existence

of the individual. It is by this mystical doctrine, and by this alone,

that Buddhism gains a hold on the common heart of man. This is the great

fulcrum of its lever. Then further--and this is more important

still--whereas the doctrine of Western positivism is that human life is

good, or may be made good; and that in the possibility of the enjoyment

of it consists the great stimulus to action; the doctrine of Buddhism is

that human life is evil, and that man's right aim is not to gratify, but

to extinguish, his desire for it. Love, for instance, as I have said

before, is by most Western positivists held to be a high blessing.

Buddhism tells us we should avoid it '_as though it were a pit of

burning coals_.' The most influential positive writer in England[7] has

said: '_I desire no future that will break the ties of the past_.'

Buddhism says that we should desire no present that will create any ties

for the future. The beginning of the Buddhist teaching is the intense

misery of life; the reward of Buddhist holiness is to, at last, live no

longer. If we die in our sins, we shall be obliged to live again on the

earth; and it will not be, perhaps, till after many lives that the

necessity for fresh births will be exhausted. But when we have attained

perfection, the evil spell is broken; and '_then the wise man_,' it is

said, '_is extinguished as this lamp_.' The highest life was one of

seclusion and asceticism. The founder of Buddhism was met, during his

first preaching, with the objection that his system, if carried out

fully, would be the ruin and the extermination of humanity. And he did

not deny the charge; but said that what his questioners called ruin, was

in reality the highest good.

It is then hard to conceive an appeal more singularly infelicitous than

that which our modern positivists make to Buddhism. It is the appeal of

optimists to inveterate pessimists, and of exact thinkers to inveterate

mystics. If the consideration of it tells us anything of importance, it

tells us this--that by far the largest mass of mankind that has ever

been united by a single creed has explicitly denied every chief point

that our Western teachers assert. So far then from helping to close the

question we are to deal with--the question as to the positive worth of

life, the testimony of Buddhism, if it be of any weight at all, can only

go to convince us that the question is at once new and open--new,

because it has never yet been asked so fully; and open, because in so

far as it has been asked, nearly half mankind has repudiated the answer

that we are so desirous of giving it. Mr. Leslie Stephen calls Buddhism

'a stupendous fact,' and I quite agree with him that it is so; but taken

in connection with the present philosophy of Europe, it is hardly a fact

to strengthen our confidence in the essential dignity of man, or the

worth of man's life.

In short, the more we consider the matter, and the more various the

points from which we do so, the more plain will it become to us that the

problem the present age is confronted by is an altogether unanswered

one; and that the closest seeming parallels to be found amongst other

times and races, have far less really of parallelism in them than of

contrast. The path of thought, as it were, has taken a sudden turn round

a mountain; and our bewildered eyes are staring on an undreamed-of

prospect. The leaders of progress thus far have greeted the sight with

acclamation, and have confidently declared that we are looking on the

promised land. But to the more thoughtful, and to the less impulsive, it

is plain that a mist hangs over it, and that we have no right to be

sure whether it is the promised land or no. They see grave reasons for

making a closer scrutiny, and for asking if, when the mist lifts, what

we see will be not splendour, but desolation.

Such, in brief outline, is the question we are to deal with. We will now

go on to approach it in a more detailed way.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Vide Sophocles, _OEdipus Coloneus_.

[2] Professor Clifford, whose study of history leads him to regard

Catholicism as nothing more than an 'episode' in the history of Western

progress.

[3] Mr. Frederic Harrison.

[4] Mr. Froude, _History of England_, chap. i.

[5] Wordsworth.

[6] Quoted by Dr. Tyndall from Professor Blackie.

[7] George Eliot.