The Interpretation of Idealism.
Idealism has so often been associated in recent years with vagueness
of thought, slovenly construction, and a weak sentimentalism, that it
has been discredited, even among those who have recognised the reality
behind it and the great place it must hold in all rich and noble
living. It is the misfortune of what is called Idealism, that, like
other spiritual principles, it attracts those who mistake the longings
of unintelligent discontent for aspiration, or the changing outlines
of vapory fancies for the firm and consistent form and shape of real
conceptions deeply realised in the imagination. Idealism has suffered
much at the hands of feeble practitioners who have substituted
irrational dreams for those far-reaching visions and those penetrating
insights which are characteristic of its true use and illustration in
the arts. The height of the reaction so vigorously and impressively
illustrated in a great group of modern realistic works is due largely
to the weakness and extravagance of the idealistic movement. When
sentiment is exchanged for its corrupting counterfeit, sentimentalism,
and clear and definite thinking gives place to vague and elusive
emotions and fancies, reaction is not only inevitable but wholesome;
the instinct for sanity in men will always prevent them from becoming
mere dreamers and star-gazers.
The true Idealist has his feet firmly planted on reality, and his
idealism discloses itself not in a disposition to dream dreams and see
visions, but in the largeness of a vision which sees realities in the
totality of their relations and not merely in their obvious and
superficial relations. It is a great mistake to discern in men nothing
more substantial than that movement of hopes and longings which is so
often mistaken for aspiration; it is equally a mistake to discern in
men nothing more enduring and aspiring than the animal nature; either
report, standing by itself, would be fundamentally untrue. Man is an
animal; but he is an animal with a soul, and the sane view of him
takes both body and soul into account. The defect of a good deal of
current Realism lies in its lack of veracity; it is essentially
untrue, and it is, therefore, fundamentally unreal. The love of truth,
the passion for the fact, the determination to follow life wherever
life leads, are noble, artistic instincts, and have borne noble fruit;
but what is often called Realism has suffered quite as much as
Idealism from weak practitioners, and stands quite as much in need of
rectification and restatement.
The essence of Idealism is the application of the imagination to
realities; it is not a play of fancy, a golden vision arbitrarily
projected upon the clouds and treated as if it had an objective
existence. Goethe, who had such a vigorous hold upon the realities of
existence, and who had also an artist's horror of mere abstractions,
touched the heart of the matter when he defined the Ideal as the
completion of the real. In this simple but luminous statement he
condensed the faith and practice not only of the greater artists of
every age, but of the greater thinkers as well. In the order of life
there can be no real break between things as they now exist and things
as they will exist in the remotest future; the future cannot
contradict the present, nor falsify it; for the future must be the
realisation of the full possibilities of the present. The present is
related to it as the seed is related to the flower and fruit in which
its development culminates. There are vast changes of form and
dimension between the seed and the tree hanging ripe with fruit, but
there is no contradiction between the germ and its final unfolding.
A rigid Realism, however, sees in the seed nothing but its present
hardness, littleness, ugliness; a true and rational Idealism sees all
these things, but it sees also not only appearances but
potentialities; or, to recall another of Goethe's phrases, it sees the
object whole.
To see life clearly and to see it whole is not only to see distinctly
the obvious facts of life, but to see these facts in sequence and
order; in other words, to explain and interpret them. The power to do
this is one of the signs of a great imagination; and, other things
being equal, the rank of a work of art may, in the last analysis, be
determined by the clearness and veracity with which explanation and
interpretation are suggested. Homer is, for this reason, the foremost
writer of the Greek race. He is wholly free from any purpose to give
ethical instruction; he is absolutely delivered from the temptation to
didacticism; and yet he reveals to us the secret of the temperament
and genius of his race. And he does this because he sees in his race
the potentialities of the seed; the vitality, beauty, fragrance, and
growth which lie enfolded in its tiny and unpromising substance. If
the reality of a thing is not so much its appearance as the totality
of that which is to issue out of it, then nothing can be truly seen
without the use of the imagination. All that the Idealist asks is that
life shall be seen not only with his eyes but with his imagination.
His descriptions are accurate, but they are also vital; they give us
the thing not only as it looked standing by itself, but as it appeared
in the complete life of which it was a part; he makes us see the
physical side of the fact with great distinctness, but he makes us see
its spiritual side as well. As a result, there is left in our minds by
the intelligent reading of Homer a clear impression of the spiritual,
political, and social aptitudes and characteristics of the Greek
people of his age,--an impression which no exact report of mere
appearances could have conveyed; an impression which is due to the
constant play of the poet's imagination upon the facts with which he
is dealing.
This is true Idealism; but it is also true Realism. It is not only the
fact, but the truth. The fact may be observed, but the truth must be
discerned by insight,--it is not within the range of mere observation;
and it is this insight, this discernment of realities in their
relation to the whole order of things, which characterises true
Idealism, and which makes all the greater writers Idealists in the
fundamental if not in the technical sense. Tolstoi has often been
called a Realist by those who are eager to label everything and
everybody succinctly; but Tolstoi is one of the representative
Idealists of his time, and his "Master and Man" is one of the most
touching and sincere bits of true Idealism which has been given the
world for many a day.
There is nothing which needs such constant reinforcement as this
faculty of seeing things in their totality; for we are largely at the
mercy of the hour unless we invoke the aid of the imagination to set
the appearances of the moment in their large relations. To the man who
sees things as they rush like a stream before him, there is no order,
progression, or intelligent movement in human affairs; but to the
student who brings to the study of current events wide and deep
knowledge of the great historic movements, these apparently unrelated
phenomena disclose the most intimate inter-relations and connections.
The most despairing pessimism would be born in the heart of the man
who should be fated to see to-day apart from yesterday and to-morrow;
a rational and inspiring hope may be born in the soul of the man who
sees the day as part of the year and the year as part of the century.
The great writers are a refuge from the point of view of the moment,
because they set the events of life in a fundamental order, and make
us aware of the finer potentialities of our race. They are Idealists
in the breadth of their vision and the nobility of the interpretation
of events which they offer us.