THE PRIZE OF LIFE.
'_The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hid in a field._'
Having thus seen broadly what is meant by that claim for life that we
are about to analyse, we must now examine it more minutely, as made by
the positive school themselves.
This will at once make evident one important point. The worth in
question is closely bound up with what we call _morality_. In this
respect our deniers of the supernatural claim to be on as firm a footing
as the believers in it. They will not admit that the earnestness of life
is lessened for them; or that they have opened any door either to levity
or to licentiousness. It is true indeed that it is allowed occasionally
that the loss of a faith in God, and of the life in a future, may, under
certain circumstances, be a real loss to us. Others again contend that
this loss is a gain. Such views as these, however, are not much to the
purpose. For those even, according to whom life has lost most in this
way, do not consider the loss a very important, still less a fatal one.
The _good_ is still to be an aim for us, and our devotion to it will be
more valuable because it will be quite disinterested. Thus Dr. Tyndall
informs us that though he has now rejected the religion of his earlier
years, yet granting him proper health of body, there is '_no spiritual
experience_,' such as he then knew, '_no resolve of duty, no word of
mercy, no act of self-renouncement, no solemnity of thought, no joy in
the life and aspects of nature, that would not still be_' his. The same
is the implicit teaching of all George Eliot's novels; whilst Professor
Huxley tells us that come what may to our '_intellectual beliefs and
even education_,' '_the beauty of holiness and the ugliness of sin_'
will remain for those that have eyes to see them, '_no mere metaphors,
but real and intense feelings_.' These are but a few examples, but the
view of life they illustrate is so well known that these few will
suffice. The point on which the modern positivist school is most
vehement, is that it does not destroy, but that on the contrary it
intensifies, the distinction between right and wrong.
And now let us consider what, according to all positive theories, this
supremacy of morality means. It means that there is a certain course of
active life, and a certain course only, by which life can be made by
everyone a beautiful and a noble thing: and life is called earnest,
because such a prize is within our reach, and solemn because there is a
risk that we may fail to reach it. Were this not so, right and wrong
could have no general and objective meaning. They would be purely
personal matters--mere misleading names, in fact, for the private likes
and the dislikes of each of us; and to talk of right, and good, and
morality, as things that we ought all to conform to, and to live by,
would be simply to talk nonsense. What the very existence of a moral
system implies is, that whatever may be our personal inclinations
naturally, there is some common pattern to which they should be all
adjusted; the reason being that we shall so all become partakers in some
common happiness, which is greater beyond comparison than every other
kind.
Here we are presented with two obvious tasks: the first, to enquire what
this happiness is, what are the qualities and attractions generally
ascribed to it; the second, to analyse it, as it is thus held up to us,
and to see if its professed ingredients are sufficient to make up the
result.
To proceed then, all moral systems must, as we have just seen, postulate
some end of action, an end to which morality is the only road. Further,
this end is the one thing in life that is really worth attaining; and
since we have to do with no life other than this one, it must be found
amongst the days and years of which this short life is the aggregate. On
the adequacy of this universal end depends the whole question of the
positive worth of life, and the essential dignity of man.
That this is at least one way of stating the case has been often
acknowledged by the positive moralists themselves. The following
passage, for instance, is from the autobiography of J.S. Mill. '_From
the winter of 1821_,' he writes, '_when I first read Bentham.... I had
what might truly be called an object in life, to be a reformer of the
world.... I endeavoured to pick up as many flowers as I could by the
way; but as a serious and permanent personal satisfaction to rest upon,
my whole reliance was placed on this.... But the time came when I
awakened from this as from a dream.... It occurred to me to put the
question directly to myself: "Suppose that all your objects in life
realised; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you
were looking forward to, could be completely effected in this very
instant, would this be a very great joy and happiness to you?" And an
irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered "No!" At this my
heart sank within me: the whole foundation on which my life was
constructed fell down.... The end had ceased to charm, and how could
there ever again be any interest in the means? I seemed to have nothing
left to live for.... The lines in Coleridge's "Dejection" exactly
describe my case_:--
"_O grief without a pang, void, dark and drear,
A dreary, stifled, unimpassioned grief,
Which finds no natural outlet nor relief
In word, or sigh, or tear.
* * * * *
Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And life without an object cannot live._"'
And the foregoing confession is made more significant by the author's
subsequent comment on it. '_Though my dejection,' he says, 'honestly
looked at, could not be called other than egotistical, produced by the
ruin, as I thought, of my fabric of happiness, yet the destiny of
mankind was ever in my thoughts, and could not be separated from my own.
I felt that the flaw in my life must be a flaw in life itself; and that
the question was whether, if the reformers of society and government
could succeed in their objects, and every person in the community were
free, and in a state of physical comfort, the pleasures of life being no
longer kept up by struggle and privation, would cease to be pleasures.
And I felt that unless I could see some better hope than this for human
happiness in general, my dejection must continue.'_ It is true that in
Mill's case the dejection did not continue; and that in certain ways at
which it is not yet time to touch, he succeeded, to his own
satisfaction, in finding the end he was thus asking for. I only quote
him to show how necessary he considered such an end to be. He
acknowledged the fact, not only theoretically, or with his lips, but by
months of misery, by intermittent thoughts of suicide, and by years of
recurring melancholy. Some ultimate end of action, some kind of
satisfying happiness--this, and this alone, he felt, could give any
meaning to work, or make possible any kind of virtue. And a yet later
authority has told us precisely the same thing. He has told us that the
one great question that education is of value for answering, is this
very question that was so earnestly asked by Mill. '_The ultimate end of
education_,' says Professor Huxley, '_is to promote morality and
refinement, by teaching men to discipline themselves, and by leading
them to see that the highest, as it is the only content, is to be
attained not by grovelling in the rank and steaming valleys of sense,
but by continually striving towards those high peaks, where, resting in
eternal calm, reason discerns the undefined but bright ideal of the
highest good--"a cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night_."' And these
words are an excellent specimen of the general moral exhortations of the
new school.
Now all this is very well as far as it goes; and were there not one
thing lacking, it would be just the answer that we are at present so
anxious to elicit. But the one thing lacking, is enough to make it
valueless. It may mean a great deal; but there is no possibility of
saying exactly what it means. Before we can begin to strive towards the
'highest good,' we must know something of what this 'highest good' is.
We must make this 'higher ideal' stand and unfold itself. If it cannot
be made to do this, if it vanishes into mist as we near it, and takes a
different shape to each of us as we recede from it; still more, if only
some can see it, and to others it is quite invisible--then we must
simply set it down as an illusion, and waste no more time in pursuit of
it. But that it is not an illusion is the great positivist claim for it.
Heaven and the love of God, we are told, were illusions. This 'highest
good' we are offered, stands out in clear contradistinction to these. It
is an actual attainable thing, a thing for flesh and blood creatures; it
is to be won and enjoyed by them in their common daily life. It is, as
its prophets distinctly and unanimously tell us, some form of happiness
that results in this life to us, from certain conduct; it is a thing
essentially for the present; and '_it is obviously_,' says Professor
Huxley, '_in no way affected by abbreviation or prolongation of our
conscious life_.'
This being the case, it is clearly not unreasonable to demand some
explicit account of it; or if no sound account of it be extant, to
enquire diligently what sort of account of it is possible. And let it be
remembered that to make this demand is in no way to violate the great
rule of Aristotle, and to demand a greater accuracy than the nature of
the subject will admit of. The 'highest good,' it is quite possible, may
be a vague thing; not capable, like a figure in Euclid, of being defined
exactly. But many vague things can be described exactly enough for all
practical purposes. They can be described so that we at once know what
is meant, and so that we can at once find and recognise them. Feelings,
characters, and personal appearance are things of this sort; so too is
the taste of food, the style of furniture, or the general tone and
tenour of our life, under various circumstances. And the 'good' we are
now considering can surely be not less describable than these. When
therefore our exact thinkers speak to us about the highest happiness, we
want to know what meaning they attach to the words. Has Professor
Huxley, for instance, ever enjoyed it himself, or does he ever hope to
do so? If so, when, where, and how? What must be done to get it, and
what must be left undone? And when it is got, what will it be like? Is
it something brief, rapturous, and intermittent, as the language often
used about it might seem to suggest to one? Is it known only in brief
moments of Neoplatonic ecstasy, to which all the acts of life should be
stepping stones? It certainly cannot be that. Our exact thinkers are
essentially no mystics, and the highest happiness must be something far
more solid than transcendental ecstasies. Surely, therefore, if it
exists at all we must be able somewhere to lay our hands upon it. It is
a pillar of fire by night; surely then it will be visible. It is to be
lifted up, and is to draw all men unto it. It is nothing if not this:
and we shall see more clearly if we consider the matter further.
This chief good, or this highest happiness, being the end of moral
action, one point about it is at once evident. Its value is of course
recognised by those who practise morality, or who enunciate moral
systems. Virtuous men are virtuous because the end gained by virtue is
an end that they desire to gain. But this is not enough; it is not
enough that to men who are already seeking the good the good should
appear in all its full attractiveness. It must be capable of being made
attractive for those who do not know it, and who have never sought it,
but who have, on the contrary, always turned away from everything that
is supposed to lead to it. It must be able, in other words, not only to
satisfy the virtuous of the wisdom of their virtue, it must be able to
convince the vicious of the folly of their vice. Vice is only bad in the
eye of the positive moralist because of the precious _something_ that we
are at the present moment losing by it. He can only convince us of our
error by giving us some picture of our loss. And he must be able to do
this, if his system is worth anything; and in promulgating his system he
professes that he can do it. The physician's work is to heal the sick;
his skill must not end in explaining his own health. It is clear that if
a morality is incapable of being preached, it is useless to say that it
is worthy of being practised. The statement will be meaningless, except
to those for whom it is superfluous. It is therefore essential to the
moral end that in some way or other it be generally presentable, so that
its excellence shall appeal to some common sense in man. And again, be
it observed, that we are demanding no mathematical accuracy. We demand
only that the presentation shall be accurate enough to let us recognise
its corresponding fact in life.
Now what is a code of morals, and why has the world any need of one? A
code of morals is a number of restraining orders; it rigorously bids us
walk in certain paths. But why? What is the use of bidding us? Because
there are a number of other paths that we are naturally inclined to walk
in. The right path is right because it leads to the highest kind of
happiness; the wrong paths are wrong because they lead to lower kinds of
happiness. But when men choose vice instead of virtue, what is
happening? They are considering the lower or the lesser happiness better
than the greater or the higher. It is this mistake that is the essence
and cause of immorality; it is this mistake that mankind is ever
inclined to make, and it is only because of this inclination that any
moral system is of any general value.
Were we all naturally inclined to morality, the analysis of it, it is
true, might have great speculative interest; but a moral system would
not be needed as it is for a great practical purpose. The law, as we all
know, has arisen because of transgressions, and the moralist has to
meddle with human nature mainly because it is inconstant and corrupted.
It is a wild horse that has not so much to be broken, once for all, as
to be driven and reined in perpetually. And the art of the moralist is,
by opening the mind's eye to the true end of life, to make us sharply
conscious of what we lose by losing it. And the men to whom we shall
chiefly want to present this end are not men, let us remember, who
desire to see it, or who will seek for it of their own accord, but men
who are turned away from it, and on whose sight it must be thrust. It is
not the righteous but the sinners that have to be called to repentance.
And not this only: not only must the end in question be thus
presentable, but when presented it must be able to stand the inveterate
criticism of those who fear being allured by it, who are content as they
are, and have no wish to be made discontented. These men will submit it
to every test by which they may hope to prove that its attractions are
delusive. They will test it with reason, as we test a metal by an acid.
They will ask what it is based upon, and of what it is compounded. They
will submit it to an analysis as merciless as that by which their
advisers have dissolved theism.
Here then is a fact that all positive morality presupposes. It
presupposes that life by its very nature contains the possibility in it
of some one kind of happiness, which is open to all men, and which is
better than all others. It is sufficiently presentable even to those who
have not experienced it; and its excellence is not vaguely apparent
only, but can be exactly proved from obvious and acknowledged facts.
Further, this happiness must be removed from its alternatives by some
very great interval. The proudest, the serenest, the most successful
life of vice, must be miserable when compared with the most painful life
of virtue, and miserable in a very high degree; for morality is
momentous exactly in proportion to the interval between the things to be
gained and escaped by it. And unless this interval be a very profound
one, the language at present current as to the importance of virtue, the
dignity of life, and the earnestness of the moral struggle, will be
altogether overstrained and ludicrous.
Now is such a happiness a reality or is it a myth? That is the great
question. Can human life, cut off utterly from every hope beyond
itself--can human life supply it? If it cannot, then evidently there
can be no morality without religion. But perhaps it can. Perhaps life
has greater capacities than we have hitherto given it credit for.
Perhaps this happiness may be really close at hand for each of us, and
we have only overlooked it hitherto because it was too directly before
our eyes. At all events, wherever it is let it be pointed out to us. It
is useless, as we have seen, if not generally presentable. To those who
most need it, it is useless until presented. Indeed, until it is
presented we are but acting on the maxim of its advocates by refusing to
believe in its existence. '_No simplicity of mind_,' says Professor
Clifford, '_no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of
questioning all that we believe_.'
The question, then, that we want answered has by this time, I think,
been stated with sufficient clearness, and its importance and its
legitimacy been placed beyond a doubt. I shall now go on to explain in
detail how completely unsatisfactory are the answers that are at present
given it; how it is evaded by some and begged by others; and how those
that are most plausible are really made worthless, by a subtle but
profound defect.
These answers divide themselves into two classes, which, though
invariably confused by those that give them, are in reality quite
distinct and separable. Professor Huxley, one of the most vigorous of
our positive thinkers, shall help us to understand these. He is going to
tell us, let us remember, about the '_highest good_'--the happiness, in
other words, that we have just been discussing--the secret of our life's
worth, and the test of all our conduct. This happiness he divides into
two kinds.[8] He says that there are two things that we may mean when we
speak about it. We may mean the happiness of a society of men, or we may
mean the happiness of the members of that society. And when we speak of
morality, we may mean two things also; and these two things must be kept
distinct. We may mean what Professor Huxley calls '_social morality_,'
and of this the test and object is the happiness of societies; or we may
mean what he calls '_personal morality_,' and of this the test and
object is the happiness of individuals. And the answers which our
positive moralists make to us divide themselves into two classes,
according to the sort of happiness they refer to.
It is before all things important that this division be understood, and
be kept quite clear in our minds, if we would see honestly what our
positive modern systems amount to. For what makes them at present so
very hard to deal with, is the fact that their exponents are perpetually
perplexing themselves between these two classes of answers, first
giving one, and then the other, and imagining that, by a kind of
confusion of substance, they can both afford solutions of the same
questions. Thus they continually speak of life as though its crowning
achievement were some kind of personal happiness; and then being asked
to explain the nature and basis of this, they at once shift their
ground, and talk to us of the laws and conditions of social happiness.
Professor Huxley will again supply us with a very excellent example. He
starts with the thesis that _both_ sorts of morality are strong enough
to hold their own, without supernatural aid; and when we look to see on
what ground he holds they are, we find it to consist in the following
explanation that _one_ is. '_Given_,' he says, '_a society of human
beings under certain circumstances, and the question whether a
particular action on the part of one of its members will tend to
increase the general happiness or not, is a question of natural
knowledge, and as such is a perfectly legitimate subject of scientific
inquiry.... If it can be shown by observation or experiment, that theft,
murder, and adultery do not tend to diminish the happiness of society,
then, in the absence of any but natural knowledge, they are not social
immoralities._'
Now, in the above passage we have at least one thing. We have a short
epitome of one of those classes of answers that our positive moralists
are offering us. It is with this class that I shall deal in the
following chapter; and point out as briefly as may be its complete
irrelevance. After that, I shall go on to the other.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] Vide _Nineteenth Century_, No. 3, pp. 536, 537.