_THE RELIGION OF SELF_
The term egomania is a welcome present from the scientists, which
enriches our language with a verbal representation of a psychological
condition which is certainly characteristic of our time. We trust that
Nordau’s diagnosis of the disease will be carefully studied by its
victims, especially by those who are in the stage where it appears as
egoism, self-sufficiency, indifference to others, to society, to the
State, and as that fashionable and superior pessimism which despairs
of self as an excuse for despairing of others. For, though Nordau
goes very minutely into the psychological aspect of egomania without
indicating its origin or the remedies against it, he evidently does
not reject the theory, which seems constantly to be confirmed by
actualities, that mental diseases may be fostered and aggravated both
by those who suffer from them, as well as by surrounding circumstances.
Putting his opinion as a psychologist together with that of others,
we seem authorized to hope that when our egotistical pessimists have
learned that the aristocratic characteristic on which they pride
themselves is the beginning of a mental disease, they will fly to such
remedies as may be found in the study of useful science and healthy
work.
Such authors as Théophile Gautier, Baudelaire, Rollinat, and others
attract especially Nordau’s attention; but he deals with them in order
to show that they individually had degenerated into egomaniacs, and
he does not once try to realize the relation between their so-called
degeneracy and the general tendencies of our time. Had he done so, he
might have felt inclined to be less hard on these exponents of _fin de
siècle_ corruption. Speaking of the hints which this school of poets
and writers sometimes throws out that they are not quite serious,
Nordau comes very near to discovering their significance when he says
about Baudelaire that perhaps “he sought to make himself believe that,
with his Satanism, he was laughing at the Philistines.” But Nordau does
not follow up the cue he has thus accidentally dropped upon, but adds a
sentence revealing the one-sidedness of his inquiry, when he says: “but
such a tardy palliation does not deceive the psychologist, and it is of
no importance for his judgment.”
That may be so. But it is of the utmost importance to humanity. That
the yielding to the promptings of “unconsciousness,” to the dictates of
instincts bad or good, was on the part of the so-called Parnassians
an experimental plunge in the dark—a challenge to those who pretended
to know better to show them that they were wrong—cannot be denied by
any one who has read their writings with some knowledge of the French
character.
These men took up literature at a time when the world began to perceive
that science could not satisfy its emotional aspirations, that it could
not explain the mysteries of the Universe, or bring about that balance
between our emotional and intellectual natures on which a healthy
life depends. But this was not the only disillusion which humanity
experienced at that time. All the hopes which the altruistic feeling
had prompted us to base on democratic governments and scientific
political economy had vanished. When the Utopias of the economists
turned out to be a _fata morgana_, instead of the solid ladder leading
up to the material heaven promised by the religion of humanity of the
scientists, a Babylonian confusion arose among the people who had first
been told to worship at the shrine of religion, then at the shrine
of science, and now stood without any shrine whatsoever. In France,
more than in any other country, we meet with people whose minds are
too subtle and whose emotions are too genuine to permit them to dwell
contented in that Philistinism which leans on the one side towards
the scientific creed or absence of creed, in order to appear modern,
and, on the other side, on religion, in order to be safe, but whose
real shrine is the money-safe. These French people, mostly authors and
artists, had studied both the religious and the scientific theories,
and had found the causes of their miscarriage.
The Church had said: “Nature is vile, man is naturally bad, instincts
are prompted by the devil, and knowledge is one of the snares of hell.”
But the Roman Church had not only failed in its mission to keep up the
faith and render humanity virtuous and happy, but was responsible for
great social troubles, superstitions, and obstacles to progress. It
had good intentions, but the way in which it tried to carry them out
rendered them valueless. It required power first, much power, complete
power over everything, and the acquisition of power did more harm than
the Church could do good when ever so powerful. The Protestant Churches
in France were gloomy, prudish, anti-artistic, and appealed with
difficulty to any French character. Their dogmas seemed incompatible
with scientific truth, and their mission appeared to be rather to
persuade their members that they were perfect than to render them
perfect. Besides, a great many minds throughout the world, accredited
with scientific accomplishments, had mercilessly opposed dogmatic
religion.
Science, in its turn, when asked, Where is truth? Where is the ideal?
could only point to a pile of facts laboriously built up like a brick
wall, and had to confess that what it wished to give instead of
religion was mere speculations. The ultimate conclusion it pointed
to was selfishness, personal irresponsibility, and a mere animal
existence. It failed entirely to satisfy the great moving power in
the scheme of humanity—emotions—and could not therefore satisfy human
yearnings and aspirations.
The postulates of religion—the wickedness of nature and of man—were
rejected as groundless, and the guidance of intellect and science was
spurned because they were powerless to influence the emotions.
Finding themselves in the plight of a ship driving about in the ocean
without compass or rudder, the Parnassians, the Decadents, and many
others thought it was time to try a desperate course. Perhaps, after
all, they thought, nature is good, perhaps human instincts may be
trusted; let us be natural and follow our instincts. There was much to
encourage the new departure. It had often been found that the purest
joys were the most lasting, that the good was the most beautiful, that
lives and actions prompted by the altruistic feelings best satisfied
selfish yearnings, that vice was disappointing, unhealthy, degrading,
and joy-killing; that virtue improved life, increased the capacity for
enjoyment, and beautified mind and body. These observations encouraged
the belief in the religion of self. The _Ego_ was not bad; but it
required freedom to develop itself.
Like all founders of systems and philosophies, the Parnassians and
Decadents sought for confirmation of their theories in the possibility
of a Utopia. In imagining a state of things under which the self should
have unlimited latitude for self-realization, where man could satisfy
his highest aspirations and enjoy the greatest possible happiness under
the guidance of his altruistic promptings, where his instincts should
be so sharpened and developed as to unfailingly select the greatest and
the most lasting, and therefore the noblest, pleasures—in imagining
such a state of things these experimentalists perceived that society,
such as it was around them, offered thousands of obstacles to every
attempt at practical realization of their theories. They thus came to
look upon themselves as at war with society, its old standards, its
prejudices, its religions, and its morals.
Their writings were at once weapons, challenges, rallying-cries. They
were intended to deride, to shock, and to draw attention to the new
philosophy. The distinction between good and bad was obliterated. The
artist and the poet should henceforth express their true feelings and
nought else. Instinct should take the place of principles. The devil
might be worshipped as well as God. Art should have no other object
than art. Nature might be abhorred as well as loved. And so on.
From this moral chaos the self was to rise in all its glory. For the
present it was distorted by surrounding circumstances. The ugliness and
morbidness of the subjects they wrote about and the distortion of their
own feelings were the proofs of the decayed state upon which humanity
had entered. Characters such as Huysman’s Duc des Esseintes were
intended to illustrate what the present state of society was, and what
its present tenets would lead to. He is intended to represent the final
result of our civilization, and to show that disgust of our race may be
so great as to inspire a man with the belief that by fostering evil and
creating criminals he does a good action in so far as he accelerates
the destruction of society.
The Parnassians and the Decadents have no proclaimed creed or any
programme, and their own opinion of their philosophy is of the haziest
kind. We are therefore far from asserting that we have here interpreted
them as they would interpret themselves. Whatever may be said of their
style and their writings, they have, at least, the merit of being
frank and unsophisticated, and we think it must be recognised that,
whether they know it or not, they hold themselves up as the “frightful
examples” of the chaotic state into which creeds, principles, morals,
are falling at the end of this century. To us the moral, both of their
existence and of their writing, is that the world, and especially
France, stands in sore need of better churches, of a better system of
philosophy, and better principles of government. These authors have
rendered a great service in tearing away the hypocritical mask which
society is so anxious to maintain, and thus demonstrating the great
need of regenerating agencies.
Of late, England has been considerably influenced by France, and the
æsthetic revolt just referred to naturally affected the English, but
merely as a faint echo.
When Nordau, who correctly points out the connection between the
Decadents in France and the extreme æsthetes in England, insinuates
that the whole of English society is affected by it, he labours under a
wrong impression. We have had here—and we speak purposely in the past
tense—a knot of people who have believed, as Nordau states, that a work
of art is its own aim, that it may be immoral. But, as he himself has
stated, the æsthetic awakening in England has forced art almost in the
opposite direction. We have had poets who have imitated Baudelaire and
other writers of the same class, but these imitators have, by imitating
many others, displayed a weakness which debars them from any great
influence. There was a time with us when a thoroughly immoral decadence
had a spell of influence and created a sickly literature. But the
influence of this sham æstheticism is fast vanishing, since its essence
has been mercilessly exposed.
While the influence of the Parnassians and Decadents in France was only
small, in England the circumstances which produced them have been in
existence among us and have produced effects to some extent similar.
The struggle between science and religion, the distrust of both, the
failure of social panaceas, and the irresistible pushing of the working
class against old social barriers have produced in a great number of
educated men a peculiar state of mind which we wish that Nordau had
noticed. Whether he would have placed those thus affected among his
degenerates as egomaniacs it is impossible for us to decide, but there
can be little doubt that egoism is the chief characteristic of a new
religion or a new mental disease, which has made large inroads among
educated men. It becomes manifest in their pessimism and in their
indifferentism. They believe that everything is bad, that the classes
are bad, that the masses are bad, that the country is in a bad state,
and that everything will finish badly. At the same time they do not
care. They will do nothing to avert the coming evils. They hope that
none will think them foolish enough to make themselves martyrs. They
wish it to be clearly understood that they care only for themselves
and that they take no heed of what happens to others. They loathe
the working class, and affect a desire to crush them out of existence
at one blow. They belong to the few Englishmen who suspect women of
vile things, except of course their mothers, sisters, _fiancées_, and
wives. They think life hardly worth living, and certainly not worth any
special exertions, but their main preoccupation is the state of their
health. They study nothing save their own inclinations and cravings
and certain excrescences of the most modern literature. Their capacity
for hatred is stupendous in its scope but meek in its expression. They
claim to enjoy all the benefits of social life without considering
themselves obliged to perform any of its duties. They manage to be
spendthrifts without being generous, and to be mean without being
economical.
But we are strongly averse to classing these social phenomena among
the hopeless egomaniacs. They exaggerate their egotism to such an
extent as to suggest that they are rather following a foolish fashion
than undergoing moral decay, and that the existence of pinchbeck
patriots, political charlatans, sham enthusiasts, and professional
philanthropists has frightened them from showing their best side and
using their best abilities, and causes them to flout their pessimism
and selfishness in every one’s face lest they should be taken for one
of these.
In spite of their infatuated posing as degenerate egomaniacs, we
believe that many of them may be counted upon as part of those
elements from which the future regeneration may spring, when the cloud
of scepticism has cleared away, and a goal worthy to strive for is
discernible.