A Commonplace Book of Thoughts, Memories, and Fancies Part 26

81.

"Si donc aimer nous satisfait mieux que d'etre aime, cela constate la superiorite naturelle des affections desinteressees."

Meaning-what is true-that the love we bear to another, much more fills the whole soul and is more a possession of an actuating principle, than the love of another for us:-but both are necessary to the complement of our moral life. The first is as the air we breathe; the last is as our daily bread.

82.

He says that the only true and firm friendship is that between man and woman, because it is the only affection "exempte de toute concurrence actuelle ou possible."

In this I am inclined to agree with him, and to regret that our conventional morality or immorality, and the too early severance of the two s.e.xes in education, place men and women in such a relation to each other, socially, as to render such friendships difficult and rare.

83.

"En verite l'amour ne saurait etre profond, s'il n'est pas pur."

Christianity, he says, "a favorise l'essor de la veritable pa.s.sion, tandisque le polytheisme consacrait surtout les appet.i.ts."

He is speaking here as teacher, philosopher, and legislator, not as poet or sentimentalist. Perhaps it will come to be recognised sooner or later, that what people are pleased to call the _romance_ of life is founded on the deepest and most immutable laws of our being, and that any system of ecclesiastical polity, or civil legislation, or moral philosophy, which takes no account of the primal instincts and affections, which are the springs of life and on which G.o.d made the continuation of his world to depend, _must_ of necessity fail.

I have just read a volume of Psychological Essays by one of the most celebrated of living surgeons, and closed the book with a feeling of amazement: a long life spent in physiological experiences, dissecting dead bodies, and mending broken bones, has then led him, at last, to some of the most obvious, most commonly known facts in mental philosophy? So some of our profound politicians, after a long life spent in governing and reforming men, may arrive, _at last_, at some of the commonest facts in social morals.

84.

He contends for the indissolubility of marriage, and against divorce; and he thinks that education should be in the hands of women to the age of ten or twelve, "Afin que le cur y prevale toujours sur l'esprit:"

all very excellent principles, but supposing a _hypothetical_ social and moral state, from which we are as yet far removed. What he says, however, of the indissolubility of the marriage bond is so beautiful and eloquent, and so in accordance with my own moral theories, that I cannot help extracting it from a ma.s.s of heavy and sometimes unintelligible matter. He begins by laying it down as a principle that the "amelioration morale de l'homme const.i.tue la princ.i.p.ale mission de la femme," and that "une telle destination indique aussitot que le lien conjugal doit etre unique et indissoluble, afin que les relations domestiques puissent acquerir la plenitude et la fixite qu'exige leur efficacite morale." This, however, supposes the holiest and completest of all bonds to be sealed on terms of equality, not that the latter end of a man's life, _la vie usee et la jeunesse epuisee_, are to be tacked on to the beginning of a woman's fresh and innocent existence; for then influences are reversed, and instead of the amelioration of the masculine, we have the demoralisation of the feminine, nature. He supposes the possibility of circ.u.mstances which demand a personal separation, but even then _sans permettre un nouveau mariage_. In such a case his religion imposes on the innocent victim (whether man or woman) "une chastete compatible d'ailleurs avec la plus profonde tendresse. Si cette condition lui semble rigoureuse, il doit l'accepter, d'abord, en vue de l'ordre general; puis, comme une juste consequence de son erreur primitive."

There would be much to say upon all this, if it were worth while to discuss a theory which it is not possible to reduce to general practice.

We cannot imagine the possibility of a second marriage where the first, though perhaps unhappy or early ruptured, has been, not a personal relation only, but an interfusion of our moral being,-of the deepest impulses of life-with those of another; _these_ we cannot have a second time to surrender to a second object;-but this might be left to Nature and her holy instincts to settle. However, he goes on in a strain of eloquence and dignity, quite unusual with him, to this effect:-"Ce n'est que par l'a.s.surance d'une inalterable perpetuite que les liens intimes peuvent acquerir la consistance et la plenitude indispensable a leur efficacite morale. La plus meprisable des sectes ephemeres que suscita l'anarchie moderne (the Mormons, for instance?) me parait etre celle qui voulut eriger l'inconstance en condition de bonheur.".... "Entre deux etres aussi complexes et aussi divers que l'homme et la femme, ce n'est pas trop de toute la vie pour se bien connaitre et s'aimer dignement.

Loin de taxer d'illusion la haute idee que deux vrais epoux se forment souvent l'un de l'autre, je l'ai presque toujours attribuee a l'appreciation plus profonde que procure seule une pleine intimite, que d'ailleurs developpe des qualites inconnues aux indifferents. On doit meme regarder comme tres-honorable pour notre espece, cette grande estime que ses membres s'inspirent mutuellement quand ils s'etudient beaucoup. _Car la haine et l'indifference meriteraient seules le reproche d'aveuglement qu'une appreciation superficielle applique a l'amour._ Il faut donc juger pleinement conforme a la nature humaine l'inst.i.tution qui prolonge au-dela du tombeau l'indentification de deux dignes epoux."

He lays down as one of the primal instincts of human kind "_l'homme doit nourrir la femme_." This may have been, as he says, a universal _instinct_; perhaps it ought to be one of our social ordinations; perhaps it may be so at some future time; but we know that it is not a present fact; that the woman must in many cases maintain herself or perish, and she asks nothing more than to be allowed to do so.

However, I agree with Comte that the position of a woman, enriched and independent by her own labour, is anomalous and seldom happy. It is a remark I have heard somewhere, and it appears to me true, that there exists no being so hard, so keen, so calculating, so unscrupulous, so merciless in money matters as the wife of a Parisian shopkeeper, where she holds the purse and manages the concern, as is generally the case.

85.

Here is a pa.s.sage wherein he attacks that egotism which with many good people enters so largely into the notion of another world:-which Paley inculcated, and which Coleridge ridiculed, when he spoke of "_this_ worldliness," and the "_other_ worldliness."

"La sagesse sacerdotale, digne organe de l'instinct public, y avait intimement rattache les princ.i.p.ales obligations sociales a t.i.tre de condition indispensable du salut personnel: mais la recompense infinie promise ainsi a tous les sacrifices ne pouvait jamais permettre une affection pleinement desinteressee."

This perpetual iteration of a system of future reward and punishment, as a principle of our religion and a motive of action, has in some sort demoralised Christianity; especially in minds where love is not a chief element, and which do not love Christ for his love's sake, but for his power's sake, and because judgment and punishment are supposed to be in his hand.

86.

Putting the test of revelation out of the question, and dealing with the philosopher philosophically, the best refutation of Comte's system is contained in the following criticism: it seems to me final.

"In limiting religion to the relations in which we stand to each other, and towards _Humanity_, Comte omits one very important consideration.

Even upon his own showing, this _Humanity_ can only be the _supreme being_ of _our_ planet, it cannot be the _Supreme Being_ of the Universe. Now, although in this our terrestrial sojourn, all we can distinctly know must be limited to the sphere of our planet; yet, standing on this ball and looking forth into infinitude, we know that it is but an atom of the infinitude, and that the humanity we worship _here_, cannot extend its dominion _there_. If our relations to humanity may be systematised into a cultus, and made a religion as they have formerly been made a morality, and if the whole of our practical priesthood be limited to this religion, there will, nevertheless remain for us, outlying this terrestrial sphere,-the sphere of the infinite, in which our thoughts must wander, and our emotions will follow our thoughts; so that besides the religion of humanity there must ever be a religion of the Universe. Or, to bring this conception within ordinary language, there must ever remain the old distinctions between _religion_ and _morality_, our relations to G.o.d, and our relations towards man. The only difference being, that in the _old_ theology moral precepts were inculcated with a view to a celestial habitat; in the _new_, the moral precepts are inculcated with a view to the general progress of the race."-_Westminster Review._

In fact the doctrine of the non-plurality of worlds as recently set forth by an eminent professor and D. D. would exactly harmonise with Comte's "Culte du Positif," as not merely limiting our sympathies to this one form of intellectual being, but our religious notions to this one habitable orb.

But to those who take other views, the argument above contains the _philosophical_ objection to Comte's _system_, as such; and I repeat, that it seems to me unanswerable; but there are excellent things in his theory, notwithstanding;-things that make us pause and think. In some parts it is like Christianity with Christ, as a _personalite_, omitted.

For Christ the humanised divine, he subst.i.tutes an abstract deified humanity. 1854.

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GOETHE.

(DICHTUNG UND WAHRHEIT.)

87.

"As a man embraces the determination to become a soldier and go to the wars, bravely resolved to bear dangers, and difficulties, and wounds, and death itself, but at the same time never antic.i.p.ating the particular form in which those evils may surprise us in an extremely unpleasant manner;-just so we rush into authorship!"

88.

Goethe says of Lavater, "that the conception of humanity which had been formed in himself, and in his own humanity, was so akin to the living image of Christ, that it was impossible for him to conceive how a man could live and breathe without being a Christian. He had, so to speak, a physical affinity with Christianity; it was to him a necessity, not only morally, but from organisation."

Lavater's individual feeling was, perhaps, but an antic.i.p.ation of that which may become general, universal. As we rise in the scale of being, as we become more gentle, spiritualised, refined, and intelligent, will not our "physical affinity" with the religion of Christ become more and more apparent, till it is less a doctrine than a principle of life? So its Divine Author knew, who prepared it for us, and is preparing and moulding us through progressive improvement to comprehend and receive it.

89.

Goethe speaks of "polishing up life with the varnish of fiction;" the artistic turn of the man's mind showed itself in this love of creating an effect in his own eyes and in the eyes of others. But what can fiction-what can poetry do for life, but present some one or two out of the mult.i.tudinous aspects of that grand, beautiful, terrible, and infinite mystery? or by _life_, does he mean here the mere external forms of society?-for it is not clear.

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HAZLITT'S "LIBER AMORIS."

1827.

90.