More Pages from a Journal Part 13

So G.o.dwin: 'We shall, therefore, no more be disposed to repent of our own faults than of the faults of others' (i. 315). The noxious thing is now, however, with Wordsworth no longer subject but object, and when a man can cast loose the enemy and survey him, victory is three parts achieved.

There is no evidence that Wordsworth attempted any reasoned confutation of Political Justice. It was falsified in him by Racedown, by better health, by the society of his beloved sister, and finally by the friendship with Coleridge, although there was but little intimacy with him till the summer of 1797, and the Borderers was finished in 1796. This, then, is the moral--to repeat what has been said before--that certain beliefs, at any rate with men of Wordsworth's stamp, are sickness, and that with the restoration of vitality and the influx of joy they disappear.

One other observation. Wordsworth never afterwards vexed himself with free will, necessity, and the like. He knew such matters were not for him. Many problems may appear to be of great consequence, but it is our duty to avoid them if our protecting genius warns us away.

POSTSCRIPT

The most singular portion of Political Justice is that which deals with Population, and some notice of it, by way of postscript, may be pardoned, for it cannot be neglected in our estimate of G.o.dwin, and it is a curious instance of the futility of attempting to comprehend character without searching into corners and examination of facts which, judged by external bulk, are small. These small facts may contain principles which are const.i.tuent of the man. The chapter on Population occupies a few pages at the end of the second volume of the Political Justice.

G.o.dwin would like to see property equalised, or common, and he tries to answer the argument that excessive population would ensue. He quotes (ii. 862) a reported conjecture of Franklin's that 'mind will one day become omnipotent over matter.' If over matter, which is outside us, thinks G.o.dwin, why not over our own bodies, 'in a word, why may not man be one day immortal' (ii. 862). He points out that the mind already has great power over the body, that it can conquer pain, a.s.sist in the cure of disease, and successfully resist old age.

'Why is it that a mature man soon loses that elasticity of limb which characterises the heedless gaiety of youth? Because he desists from youthful habits. He a.s.sumes an air of dignity incompatible with the lightness of childish sallies. He is visited and vexed with all the cares that rise out of our mistaken inst.i.tutions, and his heart is no longer satisfied and gay. Hence his limbs become stiff and unwieldy. This is the forerunner of old age and death' (ii. 863-64). 'Medicine may reasonably be stated to consist of two branches, the animal and intellectual. The latter of these has been infinitely too much neglected' (ii. 869). We may look forward to a time when we shall be 'indifferent to the gratifications of sense. They please at present by their novelty, that is because we know not how to estimate them. They decay in the decline of life indirectly because the system refuses them, but directly and princ.i.p.ally because they no longer excite the ardour and pa.s.sion of mind . . . The gratifications of sense please at present by their imposture. We soon learn to despise the mere animal function, which, apart from the delusions of intellect, would be nearly the same in all cases; and to value it, only as it happens to be relieved by personal charms or mental excellence. We absurdly imagine that no better road can be found to the sympathy and intercourse of minds. But a very slight degree of attention might convince us that this is a false road, full of danger and deception.

Why should I esteem another, or by another be esteemed? For this reason only, because esteem is due, and only so far as it is due.

'The men therefore who exist when the earth shall refuse itself to a more extended population will cease to propagate, for they will no longer have any motive, either of error or duty, to induce them. In addition to this they will perhaps be immortal. The whole will be a people of men, and not of children. Generation will not succeed generation, nor truth have in a certain degree to recommence her career at the end of every thirty years. There will be no war, no crimes, no administration of justice as it is called, and no government. These latter articles are at no great distance; and it is not impossible that some of the present race of men may live to see them in part accomplished. But, besides this, there will be no disease, no anguish, no melancholy, and no resentment. Every man will seek with ineffable ardour the good of all' (ii. 870-72).

A very curious vein, not golden indeed but copper, let us say, is hidden away in the earthy ma.s.s of G.o.dwin. The dull, heavy-featured creature sees an apocalyptic vision and becomes poetical. It is partly absurd, but not because it is ideal, and there are lineaments in it of the true Utopia. G.o.dwin probably would have denounced the Revelation of St. John the Divine as superst.i.tious nonsense, but he saw before him a kind of misty, distorted reflection of the New Jerusalem, in which there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, where there shall be no more curse, no night, no candle, no light of the sun. It might have been thought that it was impossible to establish a connection between Patmos and Skinner Street, but the first postulate of Euclid's elements holds good universally, 'that a straight line may be drawn from any one point to any other point.'

NOTES

Ille velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim Credebat libris.--HOR. Sat., II. i. 30.

Nothing is more dangerous than a ma.s.s of discontent which does not know what remedy is to be sought. All sorts of cures will be tried, many of them mere quackery, and their failure will make matters worse.

Whatever may be the meaning of the process of the world, however disheartening some steps in its evolution may be, they are necessary, and without them, perhaps, some evil could not thoroughly have been worked out.

People often manifest a diseased desire to express their will. A theory is adopted, not because the facts force it upon them, but because its adoption shows their power. The larger, the freer the nature, the less there is of this action of the will, the more the mind is led.

A mere dream, a vague hope may be more potent than certainty in a lesser matter. The faintest vision of G.o.d is more determinative of life than a gross earthly certainty.

The more nearly the performer on a musical instrument approaches perfection, the larger is that part of his execution which is unconscious. Consciousness arises with defect, or sense of something to be overcome. How conscious we are when striving to think and work in ill-health!

The highest education is that which teaches us to guide ourselves by motives which are intangible, remote, incapable of direct and material appreciation.

Weak minds find confirmation of their beliefs in the discovery of the same beliefs in other people. They do not take the trouble to find out how their neighbours obtained these beliefs. If they are current at the time, the probability is that the coincidence is worthless as any evidence of validity.

The certainty which comes of intelligent conviction is a tempered certainty. Its possessor knows the difficulty of the path by which he has reached it, and the reasons which on his way have appeared so potent against it. Fanaticism is the accompaniment of conclusions which are not the result of reason.

To understand a thing is to understand all its laws. The thing is then nothing but law, and mere matter seems to disappear.

What is it which governs the selection of truths which make up religions? Why are this and that chosen? Has not the selection a damaging effect upon the great body of truth?

Every action should be an end in itself as well as a means. The end of getting up in the morning, as Goethe says, is getting up.

We are always searching for something extraordinary which shall give life its pleasure and value. The extraordinary must be contributed by our own minds and feelings.

The real object in any human being of my love and worship is that which is not in any table of virtues, nor can I in any way describe it: it is something which perpetually escapes, which is not to be found in anything said or done.

It is a common mistake to demand a definition of that which can have none. We loosely cover a ma.s.s of phenomena which are diverse with a single word. For example, we puzzle over a definition of life, but there is no such thing as life in the sense of a single, distinct ent.i.ty.

Religion has done harm by a.s.signing an artificial urgency to insoluble problems. We are all told that we must be certain on matters concerning which the wisest man is ignorant. When we begin to reflect and to doubt, the urgency unhappily remains and we are distressed.

I know a man who had to encounter three successive trials of all the courage and inventive faculty in him. If he had failed in one he would have been ruined. The odds were desperate against him in each, and against ultimate victory were overwhelming. Nevertheless he made the attempt and was triumphant almost by a miracle in each struggle. How often calculation is folly and cowardice!

Before we can hear the Divine Voice we must shut out all other voices, so that we may be able to listen, to discern its faintest whisper. The most precious messages are those which are whispered.

A negative may be really positive. It depends on the extent of that which the negative excludes. If I say of hydrogen that it is not oxygen, nothing is gained. If I say it is not a fluid nor a solid, more is gained. So in the determinations of Spirit, G.o.d, etc., although we use negatives, the results may be of value.

True mental training is a discipline compelling us to DWELL on that which is presented to us, to discover what unites it to other objects and what differentiates it from them. To the untrained mind creation is a blur. The moral effect on a child of teaching it to express distinction by significant words is great.

'Ought' is a singular instance of the confusion wrought by words and of their inefficiency. There is no single 'ought' and therefore no science of the obligation it implies. 'Ought' in the phrase 'you ought to speak the truth' refers to an instinct in us to report veraciously what we see. 'Ought' of self-sacrifice refers to love, and 'ought' of sobriety to the subordination of desires, to a difference in their authority of which we can give no account, excepting that we are creatures fashioned in a certain way.

In the presence of some people we inevitably depart from ourselves: we are inaccurate, say things we do not feel, and talk nonsense.

When we get home we are conscious that we have made fools of ourselves. Never go near these people.

What cardboard puppets are the creations of fiction compared with a common man or woman intimately known!

How much of what I say is an echo; how little is myself! Sometimes it seems as if my real self were nothing and that what stands for it were a mere miscellany of odds and ends picked up here and there.

What a Self is the Jesus of the Gospels!