Part 10 (2/2)
Had I room for all that might be said upon the subject, I might ill.u.s.trate this intellectual religion from the history of the Emperor Julian, the apostate from Christian Truth, the foe of Christian education. He, in whom every Catholic sees the shadow of the future Anti-Christ, was all but the pattern-man of philosophical virtue. Weak points in his character he had, it is true, even in a merely poetical standard; but, take him all in all, and I cannot but recognize in him a specious beauty and n.o.bleness of moral deportment, which combines in it the rude greatness of Fabricius or Regulus with the accomplishments of Pliny or Antoninus. His simplicity of manners, his frugality, his austerity of life, his singular disdain of sensual pleasure, his military heroism, his application to business, his literary diligence, his modesty, his clemency, his accomplishments, as I view them, go to make him one of the most eminent specimens of pagan virtue which the world has ever seen.(24) Yet how shallow, how meagre, nay, how unamiable is that virtue after all, when brought upon its critical trial by his sudden summons into the presence of his Judge! His last hours form a _unique_ pa.s.sage in history, both as ill.u.s.trating the helplessness of philosophy under the stern realities of our being, and as being reported to us on the evidence of an eye-witness. ”Friends and fellow-soldiers,” he said, to use the words of a writer, well fitted, both from his literary tastes and from his hatred of Christianity, to be his panegyrist, ”the seasonable period of my departure is now arrived, and I discharge, with the cheerfulness of a ready debtor, the demands of nature.... I die without remorse, as I have lived without guilt. I am pleased to reflect on the innocence of my private life; and I can affirm with confidence that the supreme authority, that emanation of the divine Power, has been preserved in my hands pure and immaculate.... I now offer my tribute of grat.i.tude to the Eternal Being, who has not suffered me to perish by the cruelty of a tyrant, by the secret dagger of conspiracy, or by the slow tortures of lingering disease. He has given me, in the midst of an honourable career, a splendid and glorious departure from this world, and I hold it equally absurd, equally base, to solicit, or to decline, the stroke of fate....
”He reproved the immoderate grief of the spectators, and conjured them not to disgrace, by unmanly tears, the fate of a prince who in a few moments would be united with Heaven and with the stars. The spectators were silent; and Julian entered into a metaphysical argument with the philosophers Priscus and Maximus on the nature of the soul. The efforts which he made, of mind as well as body, most probably hastened his death.
His wound began to bleed with great violence; his respiration was embarra.s.sed by the swelling of the veins; he called for a draught of cold water, and as soon as he had drank it expired without pain, about the hour of midnight.”(25) Such, Gentlemen, is the final exhibition of the Religion of Reason: in the insensibility of conscience, in the ignorance of the very idea of sin, in the contemplation of his own moral consistency, in the simple absence of fear, in the cloudless self-confidence, in the serene self-possession, in the cold self-satisfaction, we recognize the mere Philosopher.
7.
Gibbon paints with pleasure what, conformably with the sentiments of a G.o.dless intellectualism, was an historical fulfilment of his own idea of moral perfection; Lord Shaftesbury had already drawn out that idea in a theoretical form, in his celebrated collection of Treatises which he has called ”Characteristics of men, manners, opinions, views;” and it will be a further ill.u.s.tration of the subject before us, if you will allow me, Gentlemen, to make some extracts from this work.
One of his first attacks is directed against the doctrine of reward and punishment, as if it introduced a notion into religion inconsistent with the true apprehension of the beauty of virtue, and with the liberality and n.o.bleness of spirit in which it should be pursued. ”Men have not been content,” he says, ”to show the natural advantages of honesty and virtue.
They have rather lessened these, the better, as they thought, to advance another foundation. They have made virtue so mercenary a thing, and have talked so much of its rewards, that one can hardly tell what there is in it, after all, which can be worth rewarding. For to be _bribed_ only or _terrified_ into an honest practice, bespeaks little of real honesty or worth.” ”If,” he says elsewhere, insinuating what he dare not speak out, ”if through hope merely of reward, or fear of punishment, the creature be inclined to do the good he hates, or restrained from doing the ill to which he is not otherwise in the least degree averse there is in this case no virtue or goodness whatever. There is no more of rect.i.tude, piety, or sanct.i.ty, in a creature thus reformed, than there is meekness or gentleness in a tiger strongly chained, or innocence and sobriety in a monkey under the discipline of the whip.... While the will is neither gained, nor the inclination wrought upon, but awe alone prevails and forces obedience, the obedience is servile, and all which is done through it merely servile.” That is, he says that Christianity is the enemy of moral virtue, as influencing the mind by fear of G.o.d, not by love of good.
The motives then of hope and fear being, to say the least, put far into the background, and nothing being morally good but what springs simply or mainly from a love of virtue for its own sake, this love-inspiring quality in virtue is its beauty, while a bad conscience is not much more than the sort of feeling which makes us shrink from an instrument out of tune.
”Some by mere nature,” he says, ”others by art and practice, are masters of an ear in music, an eye in painting, a fancy in the ordinary things of ornament and grace, a judgment in proportions of all kinds, and a general good taste in most of those subjects which make the amus.e.m.e.nt and delight of the ingenious people of the world. Let such gentlemen as these be as extravagant as they please, or as irregular in their morals, they must at the same time discover their _inconsistency_, live at _variance_ with themselves, and in _contradiction_ to that principle on which they ground their highest pleasure and entertainment. Of all other _beauties_ which virtuosos pursue, poets celebrate, musicians sing, and architects or artists of whatever kind describe or form, the most delightful, the most engaging and pathetic, is that which is drawn from real life and from the pa.s.sions. Nothing affects the heart like that which is purely from itself, and of its own nature: such as the beauty of sentiments, the grace of actions, the turn of characters, and the _proportions and features_ of a human mind. This lesson of philosophy, even a romance, a poem, or a play may teach us.... Let poets or the men of harmony deny, if they can, this force of nature, or withstand this _moral magic_.... Every one is a virtuoso of a higher or lower degree; every one pursues a grace ... of one kind or other. The _venustum_, the _honestum_, the _decorum_ of things will force its way.... The most natural beauty in the world is honesty and moral truth; for all beauty is truth.”
Accordingly, virtue being only one kind of beauty, the principle which determines what is virtuous is, not conscience, but _taste_. ”Could we once convince ourselves,” he says, ”of what is in itself so evident, viz., that in the very nature of things there must of necessity be the foundation of a right and wrong _taste_, as well in respect of inward character of features as of outward person, behaviour, and action, we should be far more ashamed of ignorance and wrong judgment in the former than in the latter of these subjects.... One who aspires to the character of a man of breeding and politeness is careful to form his judgment of arts and sciences upon right models of perfection.... He takes particular care to turn his eye from every thing which is gaudy, luscious, and of false taste. Nor is he less careful to turn his ear from every sort of music, besides that which is of the best manner and truest harmony. 'Twere to be wished we had the same regard to a _right taste in life and manners_.... If civility and humanity be a taste; if brutality, insolence, riot, be in the same manner a taste, ... who would not endeavour to force nature as well in this respect as in what relates to a taste or judgment in other arts and sciences?”
Sometimes he distinctly contrasts this taste with principle and conscience, and gives it the preference over them. ”After all,” he says, ”_'tis not merely what we call principle_, but _a taste_, which governs men. They may think for certain, 'This is right,' or 'that wrong;' they may believe 'this is a virtue,' or 'that a sin;' 'this is punishable by man,' or 'that by G.o.d;' yet if the savour of things lies cross to honesty, if the fancy be florid, and the appet.i.te high towards the subaltern beauties and lower orders of worldly symmetries and proportions, the conduct will infallibly turn this latter way.” Thus, somewhat like a Jansenist, he makes the superior pleasure infallibly conquer, and implies that, neglecting principle, we have but to train the taste to a kind of beauty higher than sensual. He adds: ”_Even conscience_, I fear, such as is owing to religious discipline, will make but a slight figure, when this taste is set amiss.”
And hence the well-known doctrine of this author, that ridicule is the test of truth; for truth and virtue being beauty, and falsehood and vice deformity, and the feeling inspired by deformity being that of derision, as that inspired by beauty is admiration, it follows that vice is not a thing to weep about, but to laugh at. ”Nothing is ridiculous,” he says, ”but what is deformed; nor is any thing proof against raillery but what is handsome and just. And therefore 'tis the hardest thing in the world to deny fair honesty the use of this weapon, which can never bear an edge against herself, and bears against every thing contrary.”
And hence again, conscience, which intimates a Law-giver, being superseded by a moral taste or sentiment, which has no sanction beyond the const.i.tution of our nature, it follows that our great rule is to contemplate ourselves, if we would gain a standard of life and morals.
Thus he has ent.i.tled one of his Treatises a ”Soliloquy,” with the motto, ”Nec te quaesiveris extra;” and he observes, ”The chief interest of ambition, avarice, corruption, and every sly insinuating vice, is to prevent this interview and familiarity of discourse, which is consequent upon close retirement and inward recess. 'Tis the grand artifice of villainy and lewdness, _as well as of superst.i.tion and bigotry_, to put us upon terms of greater distance and formality with ourselves, and evade our _proving_ method of soliloquy.... A pa.s.sionate lover, whatever solitude he may affect, can never be truly by himself.... 'Tis the same reason which keeps the imaginary saint or mystic from being capable of this entertainment. Instead of looking narrowly into his own nature and mind, that he may be no longer a mystery to himself, he is taken up with _the contemplation of other mysterious natures_, which he never can explain or comprehend.”
8.
Taking these pa.s.sages as specimens of what I call the Religion of Philosophy, it is obvious to observe that there is no doctrine contained in them which is not in a certain sense true; yet, on the other hand, that almost every statement is perverted and made false, because it is not the whole truth. They are exhibitions of truth under one aspect, and therefore insufficient; conscience is most certainly a moral sense, but it is more; vice again, is a deformity, but it is worse. Lord Shaftesbury may insist, if he will, that simple and solitary fear cannot effect a moral conversion, and we are not concerned to answer him; but he will have a difficulty in proving that any real conversion follows from a doctrine which makes virtue a mere point of good taste, and vice vulgar and ungentlemanlike.
Such a doctrine is essentially superficial, and such will be its effects.
It has no better measure of right and wrong than that of visible beauty and tangible fitness. Conscience indeed inflicts an acute pang, but that pang, forsooth, is irrational, and to reverence it is an illiberal superst.i.tion. But, if we will make light of what is deepest within us, nothing is left but to pay homage to what is more upon the surface. To _seem_ becomes to _be_; what looks fair will be good, what causes offence will be evil; virtue will be what pleases, vice what pains. As well may we measure virtue by utility as by such a rule. Nor is this an imaginary apprehension; we all must recollect the celebrated sentiment into which a great and wise man was betrayed, in the glowing eloquence of his valediction to the spirit of chivalry. ”It is gone,” cries Mr. Burke; ”that sensibility of principle, that chast.i.ty of honour, which felt a stain like a wound; which inspired courage, while it mitigated ferocity; which enn.o.bled whatever it touched, and under which _vice lost half its evil by losing all its grossness_.” In the last clause of this beautiful sentence we have too apt an ill.u.s.tration of the ethical temperament of a civilized age. It is detection, not the sin, which is the crime; private life is sacred, and inquiry into it is intolerable; and decency is virtue.
Scandals, vulgarities, whatever shocks, whatever disgusts, are offences of the first order. Drinking and swearing, squalid poverty, improvidence, laziness, slovenly disorder, make up the idea of profligacy: poets may say any thing, however wicked, with impunity; works of genius may be read without danger or shame, whatever their principles; fas.h.i.+on, celebrity, the beautiful, the heroic, will suffice to force any evil upon the community. The splendours of a court, and the charms of good society, wit, imagination, taste, and high breeding, the _prestige_ of rank, and the resources of wealth, are a screen, an instrument, and an apology for vice and irreligion. And thus at length we find, surprising as the change may be, that that very refinement of Intellectualism, which began by repelling sensuality, ends by excusing it. Under the shadow indeed of the Church, and in its due development, Philosophy does service to the cause of morality; but, when it is strong enough to have a will of its own, and is lifted up with an idea of its own importance, and attempts to form a theory, and to lay down a principle, and to carry out a system of ethics, and undertakes the moral education of the man, then it does but abet evils to which at first it seemed instinctively opposed. True Religion is slow in growth, and, when once planted, is difficult of dislodgement; but its intellectual counterfeit has no root in itself: it springs up suddenly, it suddenly withers. It appeals to what is in nature, and it falls under the dominion of the old Adam. Then, like dethroned princes, it keeps up a state and majesty, when it has lost the real power. Deformity is its abhorrence; accordingly, since it cannot dissuade men from vice, therefore in order to escape the sight of its deformity, it embellishes it. It ”skins and films the ulcerous place,” which it cannot probe or heal,
”Whiles rank corruption, mining all within, Infects unseen.”
And from this shallowness of philosophical Religion it comes to pa.s.s that its disciples seem able to fulfil certain precepts of Christianity more readily and exactly than Christians themselves. St. Paul, as I have said, gives us a pattern of evangelical perfection; he draws the Christian character in its most graceful form, and its most beautiful hues. He discourses of that charity which is patient and meek, humble and single-minded, disinterested, contented, and persevering. He tells us to prefer each the other before himself, to give way to each other, to abstain from rude words and evil speech, to avoid self-conceit, to be calm and grave, to be cheerful and happy, to observe peace with all men, truth and justice, courtesy and gentleness, all that is modest, amiable, virtuous, and of good repute. Such is St. Paul's exemplar of the Christian in his external relations; and, I repeat, the school of the world seems to send out living copies of this typical excellence with greater success than the Church. At this day the ”gentleman” is the creation, not of Christianity, but of civilization. But the reason is obvious. The world is content with setting right the surface of things; the Church aims at regenerating the very depths of the heart. She ever begins with the beginning; and, as regards the mult.i.tude of her children, is never able to get beyond the beginning, but is continually employed in laying the foundation. She is engaged with what is essential, as previous and as introductory to the ornamental and the attractive. She is curing men and keeping them clear of mortal sin; she is ”treating of justice and chast.i.ty, and the judgment to come:” she is insisting on faith and hope, and devotion, and honesty, and the elements of charity; and has so much to do with precept, that she almost leaves it to inspirations from Heaven to suggest what is of counsel and perfection. She aims at what is necessary rather than at what is desirable. She is for the many as well as for the few. She is putting souls in the way of salvation, that they may then be in a condition, if they shall be called upon, to aspire to the heroic, and to attain the full proportions, as well as the rudiments, of the beautiful.
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