Illustrations of Universal Progress Part 21

Such, then, is a general outline of the evidence which justifies, in detail, the comparison of societies to living organisms. That they gradually increase in ma.s.s; that they become little by little more complex; that at the same time their parts grow more mutually dependent; and that they continue to live and grow as wholes, while successive generations of their units appear and disappear; are broad peculiarities which bodies politic display, in common with all living bodies; and in which they and living bodies differ from everything else. And on carrying out the comparison in detail, we find that these major a.n.a.logies involve many minor a.n.a.logies, far closer than might have been expected. To these we would gladly have added others. We had hoped to say something respecting the different types of social organization, and something also on social metamorphoses; but we have reached our a.s.signed limits.

XI. USE AND BEAUTY

In one of his essays, Emerson remarks, that what Nature at one time provides for use, she afterwards turns to ornament; and he cites in ill.u.s.tration the structure of a sea-sh.e.l.l, in which the parts that have for a while formed the mouth are at the next season of growth left behind, and become decorative nodes and spines.

It has often occurred to me that this same remark might be extended to the progress of Humanity. Here, too, the appliances of one era serve as embellishments to the next. Equally in inst.i.tutions, creeds, customs, and superst.i.tions, we may trace this evolution of beauty out of what was once purely utilitarian.

The contrast between the feeling with which we regard portions of the Earth's surface still left in their original state, and the feeling with which the savage regarded them, is an instance that naturally comes first in order of time. If any one walking over Hampstead Heath, will note how strongly its picturesqueness is brought out by contrast with the surrounding cultivated fields and the ma.s.ses of houses lying in the distance; and will further reflect that, had this irregular gorse-covered surface extended on all sides to the horizon, it would have looked dreary and prosaic rather than pleasing; he will see that to the primitive man a country so clothed presented no beauty at all. To him it was merely a haunt of wild animals, and a ground out of which roots might be dug. What have become for us places of relaxation and enjoyment--places for afternoon strolls and for gathering flowers--were his places for labour and food, probably arousing in his mind none but utilitarian a.s.sociations.

Ruined castles afford an obvious instance of this metamorphosis of the useful into the beautiful. To feudal barons and their retainers, security was the chief, if not the only end, sought in choosing the sites and styles of their strongholds. Probably they aimed as little at the picturesque as do the builders of cheap brick houses in our modern towns. Yet what where erected for shelter and safety, and what in those early days fulfilled an important function in the social economy, have now a.s.sumed a purely ornamental character. They serve as scenes for picnics; pictures of them decorate our drawing-rooms; and each supplies its surrounding districts with legends for Christmas Eve.

Following out the train of thought suggested by this last ill.u.s.tration, we may see that not only do the material exuviae of past social states become the ornaments of our landscapes; but that past habits, manners, and arrangements, serve as ornamental elements in our literature. The tyrannies that, to the serfs who bore them, were harsh and dreary facts; the feuds which, to those who took part in them, were very practical life-and-death affairs; the mailed, moated, sentinelled security that was irksome to the n.o.bles who needed it; the imprisonments, and tortures, and escapes, which were stern and quite prosaic realities to all concerned in them; have become to us material for romantic tales--material which when woven into Ivanhoes and Marmions, serves for amus.e.m.e.nt in leisure hours, and become poetical by contrast with our daily lives.

Thus, also, is it with extinct creeds. Stonehenge, which in the hands of the Druids had a governmental influence over men, is in our day a place for antiquarian excursions; and its attendant priests are worked up into an opera. Greek sculptures, preserved for their beauty in our galleries of art, and copied for the decoration of pleasure grounds and entrance halls, once lived in men's minds as G.o.ds demanding obedience; as did also the grotesque idols that now amuse the visitors to our museums.

Equally marked is this change of function in the case of minor superst.i.tions. The fairy lore, which in past times was matter of grave belief, and held sway over people's conduct, has since been transformed into ornament for _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, _The Tempest_, _The Fairy Queen_, and endless small tales and poems; and still affords subjects for children's story-books, themes for ballets, and plots for Planche's burlesques. Gnomes, and genii, and afrits, losing all their terrors, give piquancy to the woodcuts in our ill.u.s.trated edition of the _Arabian Nights_. While ghost-stories, and tales of magic and witchcraft, after serving to amuse boys and girls in their leisure hours, become matter for jocose allusions that enliven tea-table conversation.

Even our serious literature and our speeches are very generally relieved by ornaments drawn from such sources. A Greek myth is often used as a parallel by which to vary the monotony of some grave argument. The lecturer breaks the dead level of his practical discourse by ill.u.s.trations drawn from bygone customs, events, or beliefs. And metaphors, similarly derived, give brilliancy to political orations, and to _Times_ leading articles.

Indeed, on careful inquiry, I think it will be found that we turn to purposes of beauty most bygone phenomena that are at all conspicuous. The busts of great men in our libraries, and their tombs in our churches; the once useful but now purely ornamental heraldic symbols; the monks, nuns, and convents, that give interest to a certain cla.s.s of novels; the bronze mediaeval soldiers used for embellishing drawing-rooms; the gilt Apollos that recline on time-pieces; the narratives that serve as plots for our great dramas; and the events that afford subjects for historical pictures;--these and such like ill.u.s.trations of the metamorphosis of the useful into the beautiful, are so numerous as to suggest that, did we search diligently enough, we should find that in some place, or under some circ.u.mstances, nearly every notable product of the past has a.s.sumed a decorative character.

And here the mention of historical pictures reminds me that an inference may be drawn from all this, bearing directly on the practice of art. It has of late years been a frequent criticism upon our historical painters, that they err in choosing their subjects from the past; and that, would they found a genuine and vital school, they must render on canvas the life and deeds and aims of our own time. If, however, there be any significance in the foregoing facts, it seems doubtful whether this criticism is a just one. For if it be the process of things, that what has performed some practical function in society during one era, becomes available for ornament in a subsequent one; it almost follows that, conversely, whatever is performing some practical function now, or has very recently performed one, does not possess the ornamental character; and is, consequently, inapplicable to any purpose of which beauty is the aim, or of which it is a needful ingredient.

Still more reasonable will this conclusion appear, when we consider the nature of this process by which the useful is changed into the ornamental.

An essential pre-requisite to all beauty is _contrast_. To obtain artistic effect, light must be put in juxtaposition with shade, bright colours with dull colours, a fretted surface with a plain one. _Forte_ pa.s.sages in music must have _piano_ pa.s.sages to relieve them; concerted pieces need interspersing with solos; and rich chords must not be continuously repeated. In the drama we demand contrast of characters, of scenes, of sentiment, of style. In prose composition an eloquent pa.s.sage should have a comparatively plain setting; and in poems great effect is obtained by occasional change of versification. This general principle will, I think, explain the transformation of the bygone useful into the present beautiful.

It is by virtue of their contrast with our present modes of life, that past modes of life look interesting and romantic. Just as a picnic, which is a temporary return to an aboriginal condition, derives, from its unfamiliarity, a certain poetry which it would not have were it habitual; so, everything ancient gains, from its relative novelty to us, an element of interest. Gradually as, by the growth of society, we leave behind the customs, manners, arrangements, and all the products, material and mental, of a bygone age--gradually as we recede from these so far that there arises a conspicuous difference between them and those we are familiar with; so gradually do they begin to a.s.sume to us a poetical aspect, and become applicable for ornament. And hence it follows that things and events which are close to us, and which are accompanied by a.s.sociations of ideas not markedly contrasted with our ordinary a.s.sociations are relatively inappropriate for purposes of art.

XII. THE SOURCES OF ARCHITECTURAL TYPES.

When lately looking through the gallery of the Old Water-Colour Society, I was struck with the incongruity produced by putting regular architecture into irregular scenery. In one case, where the artist had introduced a perfectly symmetrical Grecian edifice into a mountainous and somewhat wild landscape, the discordant effect was particularly marked. "How very unpicturesque," said a lady to her friend, as they pa.s.sed; showing that I was not alone in my opinion. Her phrase, however, set me speculating. Why unpicturesque? Picturesque means, like a picture--like what men choose for pictures. Why then should this be not fit for a picture?

Thinking the matter over, it seemed to me that the artist had sinned against that unity which is essential to a good picture. When the other const.i.tuents of a landscape have irregular forms, any artificial structure introduced must have an irregular form, that it may seem _part_ of the landscape. The same general character must pervade it and surrounding objects; otherwise it, and the scene amid which it stands, become not _one_ thing but _two_ things; and we say it looks out of place. Or, speaking psychologically, the a.s.sociated ideas called up by a building with its wings, windows, and all its parts symmetrically disposed, differ widely from the ideas a.s.sociated with an entirely irregular landscape; and the one set of ideas tends to banish the other.

Pursuing the train of thought, sundry ill.u.s.trative facts came to my mind. I remembered that a castle, which is more irregular in outline than any other kind of building, pleases us most when seated amid crags and precipices; while a castle on a plain seems an incongruity. The partly-regular and partly-irregular forms of our old farm-houses, and our gabled gothic manors and abbeys, appear quite in harmony with an undulating, wooded country. In towns we prefer symmetrical architecture; and in towns it produces in us no feeling of incongruity, because all surrounding things--men, horses, vehicles--are symmetrical also.

And here I was reminded of a notion that has frequently recurred to me; namely, that there is some relationship between the several kinds of architecture and the several cla.s.ses of natural objects. Buildings in the Greek and Roman styles seem, in virtue of their symmetry, to take their type from animal life. In the partly-irregular Gothic, ideas derived from the vegetable world appear to predominate. And wholly irregular buildings, such as castles, may be considered as having inorganic forms for their basis.

Whimsical as this speculation looks at first sight, it is countenanced by numerous facts. The connexion between symmetrical architecture and animal forms, may be inferred from the _kind_ of symmetry we expect, and are satisfied with, in regular buildings. Thus in a Greek temple we require that the front shall be symmetrical in itself, and that the two flanks shall be alike; but we do not look for uniformity between the flanks and the front, nor between the front and the back. The ident.i.ty of this symmetry with that found in animals is obvious. Again, why is it that a building making any pretension to symmetry displeases us if not quite symmetrical? Probably the reply will be--Because we see that the designer's idea is not fully carried out; and that hence our love of completeness is offended. But then there come the further questions--How do we know that the architect's conception was symmetrical? Whence comes this notion of symmetry which we have, and which we attribute to him? Unless we fall back upon the old doctrine of innate ideas, we must admit that the idea of bilateral symmetry is derived from without; and to admit this is to admit that it is derived from the higher animals.

That there is some relationship between Gothic architecture and vegetable forms is a position generally admitted. The often-remarked a.n.a.logy between a groined nave and an avenue of trees with interlacing branches, shows that the fact has forced itself on men's observation. It is not only in this a.n.a.logy, however, that the kinship is seen. It is seen still better in the essential characteristic of Gothic; namely, what is termed its _aspiring_ tendency. That predominance of vertical lines which so strongly distinguishes Gothic from other styles, is the most marked peculiarity of trees, when compared with animals or rocks. To persons of active imagination, a tall Gothic tower, with its elongated apertures and cl.u.s.ters of thin projections running from bottom to top, suggests a vague notion of growth.

Of the alleged connexion between inorganic forms and the wholly irregular and the castellated styles of building, we have, I think, some proof in the fact that when an edifice is irregular, the _more_ irregular it is the more it pleases us. I see no way of accounting for this fact, save by supposing that the greater the irregularity the more strongly are we reminded of the inorganic forms typified, and the more vividly are aroused the agreeable ideas of rugged and romantic scenery a.s.sociated with those forms.

Further evidence of these several relationships of styles of architecture to cla.s.ses of natural objects, is supplied by the kinds of decoration they respectively represent. The public buildings of Greece, while characterized in their outlines by the bilateral symmetry seen in the higher animals, have their pediments and entablatures covered with sculptured men and beasts. Egyptian temples and a.s.syrian palaces, while similarly symmetrical in their general plan, are similarly ornamented on their walls and at their doors. In Gothic, again, with its grove-like ranges of cl.u.s.tered columns, we find rich foliated ornaments abundantly employed. And accompanying the totally irregular, inorganic outlines of old castles, we see neither vegetable nor animal decorations. The bare, rock-like walls are surmounted by battlements, consisting of almost plain blocks, which remind us of the projections on the edge of a rugged cliff.

But perhaps the most significant fact is the harmony that may be observed between each type of architecture and the scenes in which it is indigenous.

For what is the explanation of this harmony, unless it be that the predominant character of surrounding things has, in some way, determined the mode of building adopted?

That the harmony exists is clear. Equally in the cases of Egypt, a.s.syria, Greece, and Rome, town life preceded the construction of the symmetrical buildings that have come down to us. And town life is one in which, as already observed, the majority of familiar objects are symmetrical. We instinctively feel the naturalness of this a.s.sociation. Out amid the fields, a formal house, with a central door flanked by an equal number of windows to right and left, strikes us as unrural--looks as though transplanted from a street; and we cannot look at one of those stuccoed villas, with mock windows carefully arranged to balance the real ones, without being reminded of the suburban residence of a retired tradesman.

In styles indigenous in the country, we not only find the general irregularity characteristic of surrounding things, but we may trace some kinship between each kind of irregularity and the local circ.u.mstances. We see the broken rocky ma.s.ses amid which castles are commonly placed, mirrored in their stern, inorganic forms. In abbeys, and such-like buildings, which are commonly found in comparatively sheltered districts, we find no such violent dislocations of ma.s.ses and outlines; and the nakedness appropriate to the fortress is replaced by decorations reflecting the neighbouring woods. Between a Swiss cottage and a Swiss view there is an evident relationship. The angular roof, so bold and so disproportionately large when compared to other roofs, reminds one of the adjacent mountain peaks; and the broad overhanging eaves have a sweep and inclination like those of the lower branches of a pine tree. Consider, too, the apparent kinship between the flat roofs that prevail in Eastern cities, interspersed with occasional minarets, and the plains that commonly surround them, dotted here and there by palm trees. You cannot contemplate a picture of one of these places, without being struck by the predominance of horizontal lines, and their harmony with the wide stretch of the landscape.

That the congruity here pointed out should hold in every case must not be expected. The Pyramids, for example, do not seem to come under this generalization. Their repeated horizontal lines do indeed conform to the flatness of the neighbouring desert; but their general contour seems to have no adjacent a.n.a.logue. Considering, however, that migrating races, carrying their architectural systems with them, would naturally produce buildings having no relationship to their new localities; and that it is not always possible to distinguish styles which are indigenous, from those which are naturalized; numerous anomalies must be looked for.

The general idea above ill.u.s.trated will perhaps be somewhat misinterpreted.

Possibly some will take the proposition to be that men _intentionally_ gave to their buildings the leading characteristics of neighbouring objects. But this is not what is meant. I do not suppose that they did so in times past, any more than they do so now. The hypothesis is, that in their choice of forms men are unconsciously influenced by the forms encircling them. That flat-roofed, symmetrical architecture should have originated in the East, among pastoral tribes surrounded by their herds and by wide plains, seems to imply that the builders were swayed by the horizontality and symmetry to which they were habituated. And the harmony which we have found to exist in other cases between indigenous styles and their localities, implies the general action of like influences. Indeed, on considering the matter psychologically, I do not see how it could well be otherwise. For as all conceptions must be made up of images, and parts of images, received through the senses--as it is impossible for a man to conceive any design save one of which the elements have come into his mind from without; and as his imagination will most readily run in the direction of his habitual perceptions; it follows, almost necessarily, that the characteristic which predominates in these habitual perceptions must impress itself on his design.

XIII. THE USE OF ANTHROPOMORPHISM.

That long fit of indignation which seizes all generous natures when in youth they begin contemplating human affairs, having fairly spent itself, there slowly grows up a perception that the inst.i.tutions, beliefs, and forms so vehemently condemned are not wholly bad. This reaction runs to various lengths. In some, merely to a comparative contentment with the arrangements under which they live. In others to a recognition of the fitness that exists between each people and its government, tyrannical as that may be. In some, again, to the conviction, that hateful though it is to us, and injurious as it would be now, slavery was once beneficial--was one of the necessary phases of human progress. Again, in others, to the suspicion that great benefit has indirectly arisen from the perpetual warfare of past times; insuring as this did the spread of the strongest races, and so providing good raw material for civilization. And in a few this reaction ends in the generalization that all modes of human thought and action subserve, in the times and places in which they occur, some useful function: that though bad in the abstract, they are relatively good--are the best which the then existing conditions admit of.

A startling conclusion to which this faith in the essential beneficence of things commits us, is that the religious creeds through which mankind successively pa.s.s, are, during the eras in which they are severally held, the best that could be held; and that this is true, not only of the latest and most refined creeds, but of all, even to the earliest and most gross.

Those who regard men's faiths as given to them from without--as having origins either directly divine or diabolical, and who, considering their own as the sole example of the one, cla.s.s all the rest under the other, will think this a very shocking opinion. I can imagine, too, that many of those who have abandoned current theologies, and now regard religions as so many natural products of human nature--men who, having lost that antagonism towards their old creed which they felt while shaking themselves free from it, can now see that it was highly beneficial to past generations, and is beneficial still to a large part of mankind;--I can imagine even these hardly prepared to admit that all religions, down to the lowest Fetichism, have, in their places, fulfilled useful functions. If such, however, will consistently develop their ideas, they will find this inference involved.

For if it be true that humanity in its corporate as well as in its individual aspect, is a growth and not a manufacture, it is obvious that during each phase men's theologies, as well as their political and social arrangements, must be determined into such forms as the conditions require.

In the one case as in the other, by a tentative process, things from time to time re-settle themselves in a way that best consists with national equilibrium. As out of plots and the struggles of chieftains, it continually results that the strongest gets to the top, and by virtue of his proved superiority ensures a period of quiet, and gives society time to grow; as out of incidental expedients there periodically arise new divisions of labour, which get permanently established only by serving men's wants better than the previous arrangements did; so, the creed which each period evolves is one more in conformity with the needs of the time than the creed which preceded it. Not to rest in general statements, however, let us consider why this must be so. Let us see whether, in the genesis of men's ideas of deity, there is not involved a necessity to conceive of deity under the aspect most influential with them.

It is now generally admitted that a more or less idealized humanity is the form which every conception of a personal G.o.d must take. Anthropomorphism is an inevitable result of the laws of thought. We cannot take a step towards constructing an idea of G.o.d without the ascription of human attributes. We cannot even speak of a divine will without a.s.similating the divine nature to our own; for we know nothing of volition save as a property of our own minds.

While this anthropomorphic tendency, or rather necessity, is manifested by themselves with sufficient grossness--a grossness that is offensive to those more advanced--Christians are indignant at the still grosser manifestations of it seen among uncivilized men. Certainly, such conceptions as those of some Polynesians, who believe that their G.o.ds feed on the souls of the dead, or as those of the Greeks, who ascribed to the personages of their Pantheon every vice, from domestic cannibalism downward, are repulsive enough. But if, ceasing to regard these notions from the outside, we more philosophically regard them from the inside--if we consider how they looked to believers, and observe the relationships they bore to the natures and needs of such; we shall begin to think of them with some tolerance. The question to be answered is, whether these beliefs were beneficent in their effects on those who held them; not whether they would be beneficent for us, or for perfect men; and to this question the answer must be that while absolutely bad, they were relatively good.

For is it not obvious that the savage man will be most effectually controlled by his fears of a savage deity? Must it not happen, that if his nature requires great restraint, the supposed consequences of transgression, to be a check upon him, must be proportionately terrible; and for these to be proportionately terrible, must not his G.o.d be conceived as proportionately cruel and revengeful? Is it not well that the treacherous, thievish, lying Hindoo should believe in a h.e.l.l where the wicked are boiled in cauldrons, rolled down mountains bristling with knives, and sawn asunder between flaming iron posts? And that there may be provided such a h.e.l.l, is it not needful that he should believe in a divinity delighting in human immolations and the self-torture of fakirs?

Does it not seem clear that during the earlier ages in Christendom, when men's feelings were so hard that a holy father could describe one of the delights of heaven to be the contemplation of the torments of the d.a.m.ned--does it not seem clear that while the general nature was so unsympathetic, there needed, to keep men in order, all the prospective tortures described by Dante, and a deity implacable enough to inflict them?

And if, as we thus see, it is well for the savage man to believe in a savage G.o.d, then we may also see the great usefulness of this anthropomorphic tendency; or, as before said, necessity. We have in it another ill.u.s.tration of that essential beneficence of things visible everywhere throughout nature. From this inability under which we labour to conceive of a deity save as some idealization of ourselves, it inevitably results that in each age, among each people, and to a great extent in each individual, there must arise just that conception of deity best adapted to the needs of the case. If, being violent and bloodthirsty, the nature be one calling for stringent control, it evolves the idea of a ruler still more violent and bloodthirsty, and fitted to afford this control. When, by ages of social discipline, the nature has been partially humanized, and the degree of restraint required has become less, the diabolical characteristics before ascribed to the deity cease to be so predominant in the conception of him. And gradually, as all need for restraint disappears, this conception approximates towards that of a purely beneficent necessity.

Thus, man's const.i.tution is in this, as in other respects, self-adjusting, self-balancing. The mind itself evolves a compensating check to its own movements; varying always in proportion to the requirement. Its centrifugal and its centripetal forces are necessarily in correspondence, because the one generates the other. And so we find that the forms of both religious and secular rule follow the same law. As an ill-controlled national character produces a despotic terrestrial government, so also does it produce a despotic celestial government--the one acting through the senses, the other through the imagination; and in the converse case the same relationship holds good.

Organic as this relationship is in its origin, no artificial interference can permanently affect it. Whatever perturbations an external agency may seem to produce, they are soon neutralized in fact, if not in appearance. I was recently struck with this in reading a missionary account of the "gracious visitations of the Holy Spirit at Vewa," one of the Feejee islands. Describing a "penitent meeting," the account says:--

"Certainly the feelings of the Vewa people were not ordinary. They literally roared for hours together for the disquietude of their souls. This frequently terminated in fainting from exhaustion, which was the only respite some of them had till they found peace. They no sooner recovered their consciousness than they prayed themselves first into an agony, then again into a state of entire insensibility."

Now these Feejee islanders are the most savage of all the uncivilized races. They are given to cannibalism, infanticide, and human sacrifices; they are so bloodthirsty and so treacherous, that members of the same family dare not trust each other; and, in harmony with these characteristics, they have for their aboriginal G.o.d, a serpent. Is it not clear then, that these violent emotions which the missionaries describe, these terrors and agonies of despair which they rejoiced over, were nothing but the worship of the old G.o.d under a new name? Is it not clear that these Feejees had simply understood those parts of the Christian creed which agree in spirit with their own--the vengeance, the perpetual torments, the diabolism of it; that these, harmonizing with their natural conceptions of divine rule, were realized by them with extreme vividness; and that the extremity of the fear which made them "literally roar for hours together,"

arose from the fact that while they could fully take in and believe the punitive element, the merciful one was beyond their comprehension? This is the obvious inference. And it carries with it the further one, that in essence their new belief was merely their old one under a new form--the same substantial conception with a different history and different names.

However great, therefore, may be the seeming change advent.i.tiously produced in a people's religion, the anthropomorphic tendency prevents it from being other than a superficial change--insures such modifications of the new religion as to give it all the potency of the old one--obscures whatever higher elements there may be in it until the people have reached the capability of being acted upon by them: and so, re-establishes the equilibrium between the impulses and the control they need. If any one requires detailed ill.u.s.trations of this, he will find them in abundance in the history of the modifications of Christianity throughout Europe.

Ceasing then to regard heathen theologies from the personal point of view, and considering them solely with reference to the function they fulfil where they are indigenous, we must recognise them in common with all theologies, as good for their time and places; and this mental necessity which disables us from conceiving a deity save as some idealization of ourselves, we must recognise as the agency by which harmony is produced and maintained between every phase of human character and its religious creed.