Part 23 (2/2)
Quaere, whether the high and mighty Edinburghers, &c., have not been elevated into guardians and overseers of taste and poetry for much the same reason as St. Cecilia was chosen as the guardian G.o.ddess of music, because, forsooth, so far from being able to compose or play herself, she could never endure any other instrument than the jew's-harp or Scotch bag-pipe? No! too eager recensent! you are mistaken, there is no anachronism in this. We are informed by various antique bas-reliefs that the bag-pipe was well known to the Romans, and probably, therefore, that the Picts and Scots were even then fond of seeking their fortune in other countries.
[Sidenote: LOVE AND MUSIC]
”Love is the spirit of life and music the life of the spirit.”
Q. What is music? A. Poetry in its grand sense! Pa.s.sion and order at once! Imperative power in obedience!
Q. What is the first and divinest strain of music? A.--In the intellect--”Be able to will that thy maxims (rules of individual conduct) should be the law of all intelligent being!”
In the heart, or practical reason, ”Do unto others as thou wouldst be done by.” This in the widest extent involves the test, ”Love thy neighbour as thyself, and G.o.d above all things.” For, conceive thy being to be all-including, that is, G.o.d--thou knowest that _thou_ wouldest command thyself to be beloved above all things.
[For the motto at the head of this note see the lines ”Ad Vilmum Axiologum.” _P. W._, 1893, p. 138.]
[Sidenote: CONSCIENCE AND IMMORTALITY]
From what reasons do I believe in _continuous_ and ever-continuable consciousness? From conscience! Not for myself, but for my conscience, that is, my affections and duties towards others, I should have no self--for self is definition, but all boundary implies neighbourhood and is knowable only by neighbourhood or relations. Does the understanding say nothing in favour of immortality? It says nothing for or against; but its silence gives consent, and is better than a thousand arguments such as mere understanding could afford. But miracles! ”Do you speak of them as proofs or as natural consequences of revelation, whose presence is proof only by precluding the disproof that would arise from their absence?” ”Nay, I speak of them as of positive fundamental proofs.”
Then I dare answer you ”Miracles in that sense are blasphemies in morality, contradictions in reason. G.o.d the Truth, the actuality of logic, the very _logos_--He deceive his creatures and demonstrate the properties of a triangle by the confusion of all properties! If a miracle merely means an event before inexperienced, it proves only itself, and the inexperience of mankind. Whatever other definition be given of it, or rather attempted (for no other not involving direct contradiction can be given), it is blasphemy. It calls darkness light, and makes Ignorance the mother of Malignity, the appointed nurse of religion--which is knowledge as opposed to mere calculating and conjectural understanding. Seven years ago, but oh! in what happier times--I wrote thus--
O ye hopes! that stir within me!
Health comes with you from above!
G.o.d is _with_ me! G.o.d is _in_ me!
I _cannot_ die: for life is love!
And now, that I am alone and utterly hopeless for myself, yet still I love--and more strongly than ever feel that conscience or the duty of love is the proof of continuing, as it is the cause and condition of existing consciousness. How beautiful the harmony! Whence could the proof come, so appropriately, so conformly with all nature, in which the cause and condition of each thing is its revealing and infallible prophecy!
And for what reason, say, rather, for what cause, do you believe immortality? Because I _ought_, therefore I _must_!
[The lines ”On revisiting the sea-sh.o.r.e,” of which the last stanza is quoted, were written in August, 1801. [_P.W._, 1893, p. 159.] If the note was written exactly seven years after the date of that poem, it must belong to the summer of 1808, when Coleridge was living over the _Courier_ office in the Strand.]
[Sidenote: THE CAP OF LIBERTY]
Truly, I hope not irreverently, may we apply to the French nation the Scripture text, ”From him that hath nothing shall be taken that which he hath”--that is, their pretences to being free, which are the same as nothing. They, the illuminators, the discoverers and sole possessors of the true philosopher's stone! Alas! it proved both for them and Europe the _Lapis Infernalis_.
[Sidenote: VAIN GLORY]
Lord of light and fire? What is the universal of man in all, but especially in savage states? Fantastic ornament and, in general, the most frightful deformities--slits in the ears and nose, for instance.
What is the solution? Man will not be a mere thing of nature: he will be and shew himself a power of himself. Hence these violent disruptions of himself from all other creatures! What they are made, that they remain--they are Nature's, and wholly Nature's.
<script>