deliberately do from the moment he seeks to invest his work with a
lofty spirit, with a deep and religious beauty, with the sense of the
infinite. Even though this work of his may be of the sincerest, though
it express as nearly as may be his own most intimate truth, he believes
that this truth is enhanced, and established more firmly, by being
surrounded with phantoms of a forgotten past. Might not the symbols he
needs, the hypotheses, images, the touchstone for all that cannot be
explained, be less frequently sought in that which he knows is not
true, and more often in that which will one day be a truth? Does the
unearthing of bygone terrors, or the borrowing of light from a Hell
that has ceased to be, make death more sublime? Does dependence on a
supreme but imaginary will ennoble our destiny? Does justice--that
vast network woven by human action and reaction over the unchanging
wisdom of nature's moral and physical forces--does justice become more
majestic through being lodged in the hands of a unique judge, whom the
very spirit of the drama dethrones and destroys?
25
Let us ask ourselves whether the hour may not have come for the earnest
revision of the symbols, the images, sentiments, beauty, wherewith we
still seek to glorify in us the spectacle of the world.
This beauty, these feelings and sentiments, to-day unquestionably bear
only the most distant relation to the phenomena, thoughts, nay even the
dreams, of our actual existence; and if they are suffered still to
abide with us, it is rather as tender and innocent memories of a past
that was more credulous, and nearer to the childhood of man. Were it
not well, then, that those whose mission it is to make more evident to
us the beauty and harmony of the world we live in, should march ever
onwards, and let their steps tend to the actual truth of this world?
Their conception of the universe need not be stripped of a single one
of the ornaments wherewith they embellish it; but why seek these
ornaments so often among mere recollections, however smiling or
terrible, and so seldom from among the essential thoughts which have
helped these men to build, and effectively organise, their spiritual
and sentient life?
It can never be right to dwell in the midst of false images, even
though these are known to be false. The time will come when the
illusory image will usurp the place of the just idea it has seemed to
represent. We shall not reduce the part of the infinite and the
mysterious by employing other images, by framing other and juster
conceptions. Do what we may, this part can never be lessened. It will
always be found deep down in the heart of men, at the root of each
problem, pervading the universe. And for all that the substance, the
place of these mysteries, may seem to have changed, their extent and
power remain for ever the same. Has not--to take but one instance--has
not the phenomenon of the existence, everywhere among us, of a kind of
supreme and wholly spiritual justice, unarmed, unadorned, unequipped,
moving slowly but never swerving, stable and changeless in a world
where injustice would seem to reign--has this phenomenon not cause and
effect as deep, as exhaustless--is it not as astounding, as
admirable--as the wisdom of an eternal and omnipresent Judge? Should
this Judge be held more convincing for that He is less conceivable?
Are fewer sources of beauty, or occasions for genius to exercise
insight and power, to be found in what can be explained than in what
is, _a priori_, inexplicable? Does not, for instance, a victorious but
unjust war (such as those of the Romans, of England to-day, the
conquests of Spain in America, and so many others) in the end always
demoralise the victor and thrust upon him errors, habits, and faults
whereby he is made to pay dearly for his triumph; and is not the
minute, the relentless labour of this psychological justice as
absorbing, as vast, as the intervention of a superhuman justice? And
may not the same be said of the justice that lives in each one of us,
that causes the space left for peace, inner happiness, love, to expand
or contract in our mind and our heart in the degree of our striving
towards that which is just or is unjust?
26
And to turn to one mystery more, the most awful of all, that of
death--would any one pretend that our perception of justice, of
goodness and beauty, or our intellectual, sentient power, our eagerness
for all that draws near to the infinite, all-powerful, eternal, has
dwindled since death ceased to be held the immense and exclusive
anguish of life? Does not each new generation find the burden lighter
to bear as the forms of death grow less violent and its posthumous
terrors fade? It is the illness that goes before, the physical pain,
of which we are to-day most afraid. But death is no longer the hour of
the wrathful, inscrutable judge; no longer the one and the terrible
goal, the gulf of misery and eternal punishment. It is slowly
becoming--indeed, in some cases, it has already become--the wished-for
repose of a life that draws to its end. Its weight no longer oppresses
each one of our actions; and, above all--for this is the most striking
change--it has ceased to intrude itself into our morality. And is this
morality of ours less lofty, less pure, less profound, because of the
disinterestedness it has thus acquired? Has the loss of an
overwhelming dread robbed mankind of a single precious, indispensable
feeling? And must not life itself find gain in the importance wrested
from death? Surely: for the neutral forces we hold in reserve within
us are waiting and ready; and every discouragement, sorrow, or fear
that departs has its place quickly filled by a certitude, admiration,
or hope.
27
The poet is inclined to personify fatality and justice, and give
outward form to forces really within us, for the reason that to show
them at work in ourselves is a matter of exceeding difficulty; and
further, that the unknown and the infinite, to the extent that they
_are_ unknown and infinite--_i.e._ lacking personality, intelligence,
and morality--are powerless to move us. And here it is curious to note
that we are in no degree affected by material mystery, however
dangerous or obscure, or by psychological justice, however involved its
results. It is not the incomprehensible in nature that masters and
crushes us, but the thought that nature may possibly be governed by a
conscious, superior, reasoning will; one that, although superhuman, has
yet some kinship with the will of man. What we dread, in a word, is
the presence of a God; and speak as we may of fatality, justice, or
mystery, it is always God whom we fear: a being, that is, like
ourselves, though almighty, eternal, invisible, and infinite. A moral
force that was not conceived in the image of man would most likely
inspire no fear. It is not the unknown in nature that fills us with
dread; it is not the mystery of the world we live in. It is the
mystery of another world from which we recoil; it is the moral and not
the material enigma. There is nothing, for instance, more obscure than
the combination of causes which produce the earthquake, that most
terrible of all catastrophes. But the earthquake, though it alarm our
body, will bring no fear to our mind unless we regard it as an act of
justice, of mysterious vengeance, of supernatural punishment. And so
it is, too, with the thunderstorm, with illness, with death, with the
myriad phenomena and accidents of life. It would seem as though the
true alarm of our soul, the great fear which stirs other instincts
within us than that of mere self-preservation, is only called forth by
the thought of a more or less determinate God, of a mysterious
consciousness, a permanent, invisible justice, or a vigilant, eternal
Providence. But does the "interpreter of life," who succeeds in
arousing this fear, bring us nearer to truth; and is it his mission to
convey to us sorrow, and trouble, and painful emotion, or peace,
satisfaction, tranquillity, and light?
28
It is not easy, I know, to free oneself wholly from traditional
interpretation, for it often succeeds in reasserting its sway upon us
at the very moment we strain every nerve to escape from our bondage.
So has it happened with Ibsen, who, in his search for a new and almost
scientific form of fatality, erected the veiled, majestic, tyrannical
figure of heredity in the centre of the very best of his dramas. But
it is not the scientific mystery of heredity which awakens within us
those human fears that lie so much deeper than the mere animal fear;
for heredity alone could no more achieve this result than could the
scientific mystery of a dreaded disease, a stellar or marine
phenomenon. No, the fear that differs so essentially from the one
called forth by an imminent natural danger, is aroused within us by the
obscure idea of justice which heredity assumes in the drama; by the
daring pronouncement that the sins of the fathers are almost invariably
visited on the children; by the suggestion that a sovereign Judge, a
goddess of the species, is for ever watching our actions, inscribing
them on her tablets of bronze, and balancing in her eternal hands
rewards long deferred and never-ending punishment. In a word, even
while we deny it, it is the face of God that reappears; and from
beneath the flagstone one had believed to be sealed for ever comes once
again the murmur of the very ancient flame of Hell.
29
This new form of fatality, or fatal justice, is less defensible, and
less acceptable too, than the ancient and elementary power, which,
being general and undefined, and offering no too strict explanation of
its actions, lent itself to a far greater number of situations. In the
special case selected by Ibsen, it is not impossible that some kind of
accidental justice may be found, as it is not impossible that the arrow
a blind man shoots into a crowd may chance to strike a parricide. But
to found a law upon this accidental justice is a fresh perversion of
mystery, for elements are thereby introduced into human morality which
have no right to be there; elements which we would welcome, which would
be of value, if they stood for definite truths; but seeing that they
are as alien to truth as to actual life, they should be ruthlessly
swept aside. I have shown elsewhere that our experience fails to
detect the most minute trace of justice in the phenomena of heredity;
or, in other words, that it fails to discover the slightest moral
connection between the cause: the fault of the father, and the effect:
the punishment or reward of the child.
The poet has the right to fashion hypotheses, and to forge his way
ahead of reality. But it will often happen that when he imagines
himself to be far in advance, he will truly have done no more than turn
in a circle; that where he believes that he has discovered new truth,
he has merely strayed on to the track of a buried illusion. In the
case I have named, for the poet to have taught us more than experience
teaches, he should have ventured still further, perhaps, in the
negation of justice. But whatever our opinion may be on this point, it
at least is clear that the poet who desires his hypotheses to be
legitimate, and of service, must take heed that they be not too
manifestly contrary to the experience of everyday life; for in that
case they become useless and dangerous--scarcely honourable even, if
the error be deliberately made.
30
And now, what are we to conclude from all this? Many things, if one
will, but this above all: that it behoves the "interpreter of life," no
less than those who are living that life, to exercise greatest care in
their manner of handling and admitting mystery, and to discard the
belief that whatever is noblest and best in life or in drama must of
necessity rest in the part that admits of no explanation. There are
many most beautiful, most human, most admirable works which are almost
entirely free from this "disquiet of universal mystery." We derive no
greatness, sublimity, or depth from unceasingly fixing our thoughts on
the infinite and the unknown. Such meditation becomes truly helpful
only when it is the unexpected reward of the mind that has loyally,
unreservedly, given itself to the study of the finite and the knowable;
and to such a mind it will soon be revealed how strangely different is
the mystery which precedes what one does not know from the mystery that
follows closely on what one has learned. The first would seem to
contain many sorrows, but that is only because the sorrows are grouped
there too closely, and have their home upon two of three peaks that
stand too nearly together. In the second is far less sadness, for its
area is vast; and when the horizon is wide, there exists no sorrow so
great but it takes the form of a hope.
31
Yes, human life, viewed as a whole, may appear somewhat sorrowful; and
it is easier, in a manner pleasanter even, to speak of its sorrows and
let the mind dwell on them, than to go in search of, and bring into
prominence, the consolations life has to offer. Sorrows
abound--infallible, evident sorrows; consolations, or rather the
reasons wherefore we accept with some gladness the duty of life, are
rare and uncertain, and hard of detection. Sorrows seem noble, and
lofty, and fraught with deep mystery; with mystery that almost is
personal, that we feel to be near to us. Consolations appear
egotistical, squalid, at times almost base. But for all that, and
whatever their ephemeral likeness may be, we have only to draw closer
to them to find that they too have their mystery; and if this seem less
visible and less comprehensible, it is only because it lies deeper and
is far more mysterious. The desire to live, the acceptance of life as
it is, may perhaps be mere vulgar expressions; but yet they are
probably in unconscious harmony with laws that are vaster, more
conformable with the spirit of the universe, and therefore more sacred,
than is the desire to escape the sorrows of life, or the lofty but
disenchanted wisdom that for ever dwells on those sorrows.
32
Our impulse is always to depict life as more sorrowful than truly it
is; and this is a serious error, to be excused only by the doubts that
at present hang over us. No satisfying explanation has so far been
found. The destiny of man is as subject to unknown forces to-day as it
was in the days of old; and though it be true that some of these forces
have vanished, others have arisen in their stead. The number of those
that are really all-powerful has in no way diminished. Many attempts
have been made, and in countless fashions, to explain the action of
these forces and account for their intervention; and one might almost
believe that the poets, aware of the futility of these explanations in
face of a reality which, all things notwithstanding, is ever revealing
more and more of itself, have fallen back on fatality as in some
measure representing the inexplicable, or at least the sadness of the
inexplicable. This is all that we find in Ibsen, the Russian novels,
the highest class of modern fiction, Flaubert, &c. (see "War and
Peace," for instance, _L'Education Sentimentale_, and many others).
It is true that the fatality shown is no longer the goddess of old, or
rather (at least to the bulk of mankind) the clearly determinate God,
inflexible, implacable, arbitrary, blind, although constantly watchful;
the fatality of to-day is vaster, more formless, more vague, less human
or actively personal, more indifferent and more universal. In a word,
it is now no more than a provisional appellation bestowed, until better
be found, on the general and inexplicable misery of man. In this sense
we may accept it, perhaps, though we do no more than give a new name to
the unchanging enigma, and throw no light on the darkness. But we have
no right to exaggerate its importance or the part that it plays; no
right to believe that we are truly surveying mankind and events from a
point of some loftiness, beneath a definitive light, or that there is
nothing to seek beyond, because at times we become deeply conscious of
the obscure and invincible force that lies at the end of every
existence. Doubtless, from one point of view, unhappiness must always
remain the portion of man, and the fatal abyss be ever open before him,
vowed as he is to death, to the fickleness of matter, to old age and
disease. If we fix our eyes only upon the end of a life, the happiest
and most triumphant existence must of necessity contain its elements of
misery and fatality. But let us not make a wrong use of these words;
above all, let us not, through listlessness or undue inclination to
mystic sorrow, be induced to lessen the part of what could be explained
if we would only give more eager attention to the ideas, the passions
and feelings of the life of man and the nature of things. Let us
always remember that we are steeped in the unknown; for this thought is
the most fruitful of all, the most sustaining and salutary. But the
neutrality of the unknown does not warrant our attributing to it a
force, or designs, or hostility, which it cannot be proved to possess.
At Erfurt, in his famous interview with Goethe, Napoleon is said to
have spoken disparagingly of the dramas in which fatality plays a great
part--the plays that we, in our "passion for calamity," are apt to
consider the finest. "They belong," he remarked, "to an epoch of
darkness; but how can fatality touch us to-day? Policy--_that_ is
fatality!" Napoleon's dictum is not very profound: policy is only the
merest fragment of fatality; and his destiny very soon made it manifest
to him that the desire to contain fatality within the narrow bounds of
policy was no more than a vain endeavour to imprison in a fragile vase
the mightiest of the spiritual rivers that bathe our globe. And yet,
incomplete as this thought of Napoleon's may have been, it still throws
some light on a tributary of the great river. It was a little thing,
perhaps, but on these uncertain shores it is the difference between a
little thing and nothing that kindles the energy of man and confirms
his destiny. By this ray of light, such as it was, he long was enabled
to dominate all that portion of the unknown which he declined to term
fatality. To us who come after him, the portion of the unknown that he
controlled may well seem insufficient, if surveyed from an eminence,
and yet it was truly one of the vastest that the eye of man has ever
embraced. Through its means every action of his was accomplished, for
evil or good. This is not the place to judge him, or even to wonder
whether the happiness of a century might not have been better served
had he allowed events to guide him; what we are considering here is the
docility of the unknown. For us, with our humbler destinies, the
problem still is the same, and the principle too; the principle being
that of Goethe: "to stand on the outermost limit of the conceivable;
but never to overstep this line, for beyond it begins at once the land
of chimeras, the phantoms and mists of which are fraught with danger to
the mind." It is only when the intervention of the mysterious,
invisible, or irresistible becomes strikingly real, actually
perceptible, intelligent, and moral, that we are entitled to yield or
lay down our arms, meekly accepting the inactive silence they bring;
but their intervention, within these limits, is rarer than one
imagines. Let us recognise that mystery of this kind exists; but,
until it reveal itself, we have not the right to halt, or relax our
efforts; not the right to cast down our eyes in submission, or resign
ourselves to silence.
III
THE KINGDOM OF MATTER
1
In a preceding essay we were compelled to admit that, eager as man
might be to discover in the universe a sanction for his virtues,
neither heaven nor earth displayed the least interest in human
morality; and that all things would combine to persuade the upright
among us that they merely are dupes, were it not for the fact that they
have in themselves an approval words cannot describe, and a reward so
intangible that we should in vain endeavour to portray its least
evanescent delights. Is that all, some may ask, is that all we may
hope in return for this mighty effort of ours, for our constant denial
and pain, for our sacrifice of instincts, of pleasures, that seemed so
legitimate, necessary even, and would certainly have added to our
happiness had there not been within us the desire for Justice--a desire
arising we know not whence, belonging, perhaps, to our nature, and yet
in apparent conflict with the vaster nature whereof we all form part?
Yes, it is open to you, if you choose, to regard as a very poor thing
this unsubstantial justice: since its only reward is a vague
satisfaction, and that this satisfaction even grows hateful, and
destroys itself, the moment its presence becomes too perceptibly felt.
Bear in mind, however, that all things that happen in our moral being
must be equally lightly held, if regarded from the point of view whence
you deliver this judgment. Love is a paltry affair, the moment of
possession once over that alone is real and ensures the perpetuity of
the race; and yet we find that as man grows more civilised, the act of
possession assumes ever less value in his eyes if there go not with it,
if there do not precede, accompany, and follow it, the insignificant
emotion built up of our thoughts and our feelings, of our sweetest and
tenderest hours and years. Beauty, too, is a trivial matter: a
beautiful spectacle, a beautiful face, or body, or gesture: a melodious
voice, or noble statue--sunrise at sea, flowers in a garden, stars
shining over the forest, the river by moonlight--or a lofty thought, an
exquisite poem, an heroic sacrifice hidden in a profound and pitiful
soul. We may admire these things for an instant; they may bring us a
sense of completeness no other joy can convey; but at the same time
there will steal over us a tinge of strange sorrow, unrest; nor will
they give happiness to us, as men use the word, should other events
have contrived to make us unhappy. They produce nothing the eye can
measure, or weigh; nothing that others can see, or will envy; and yet,
were a magician suddenly to appear, capable of depriving one of us of
this sense of beauty that may chance to be in him, possessed of the
power of extinguishing it for ever, with no trace remaining, no hope
that it ever will spring into being again--would we not rather lose
riches, tranquillity, health even, and many years of our life, than
this strange faculty which none can espy, and we ourselves can scarcely
define? Not less intangible, not less elusive, is the sweetness of
tender friendship, of a dear recollection we cling to and reverence;
and countless other thoughts and feelings, that traverse no mountain,
dispel no cloud, that do not even dislodge a grain of sand by the
roadside. But these are the things that build up what is best and
happiest in us; they are we, ourselves; they are precisely what those
who have them not should envy in those who have. The more we emerge
from the animal, and approach what seems the surest ideal of our race,
the more evident does it become that these things, trifling as they
well may appear by the side of nature's stupendous laws, do yet
constitute our sole inheritance; and that, happen what may to the end
of time, they are the hearth, the centre of light, to which mankind
will draw ever more and more closely.
2