best that is thought and known in the world; for he should remember that his new friends, the Philistines who despise philosophy, contemn letters also.

But it is not only his conscious detachment from the synthesis of the immediate past, nor his policy of fraternizing for the moment, and for the purpose of converting him, with the irreligious Philistine, that leads Mr. Arnold to give up the standing-point of the social consciousness, of the Zeit-Geist, and of the best self as organized and embodied in the State, which he maintained so fruitfully in "Culture and Anarchy" and in "St. Paul and Protestantism." His inability to maintain himself there is partly also the nemesis of his want of method, his desultoriness :

Descartes, says Mr. Arnold in "God and the Bible," 1 had a famous philosophical method. . . . . Quite in a contrary fashion we sometimes flatter ourselves with the hope that we may be of use by the very absence of all scientific pretension, by our very want of " a philosophy based on principles interdependent, subordinate, and coherent;" because we are thus obliged to treat great questions in such a simple way that any one can follow us, &c.

Mr. Arnold here forgets what he said in "St. Paul and Protestantism" " about the scientific sense " which seeks exact knowledge;" that "it never asserted its claims so strongly" as now, and that "the propensity of religion to neglect those claims, and the peril and loss to it from neglecting them, never were so manifest;" and that whatever hinders the filtering of philosophy and criticism into religious doctrine "hinders truth and the natural progress of things." It would seem, then, that if the conversion of the irreligious Philistine is to be accomplished only by a sacrifice of "coherent" and scientific thinking, of method in short, only by a treatment of great questions in a way so simple "that any one can follow us," it is to be bought at a great price. But let 1 "God and the Bible," p. 37. 2 "St. Paul and Protestantism," pp. 71, 72.

us see what Lord Bacon says about the importance of method, and the consequences of neglecting it. Bacon had no more love for metaphysicians than Mr. Arnold manifests in what we may call his second manner, his manner in "Literature and Dogma." But he is far too wise to say that truth is to be found by renouncing method. On the contrary he says:

The intellect left to itself, unless governed and assisted, acts irregularly, and is quite incompetent to overcome the obscurity of things; " (cum) intellectus sibi permissus nisi regatur et juvetur, res inæqualis (sit) est, et omnino inhabilis ad superandam rerum obscuritatem."

And then he goes on to tell us of the different kinds of illusions, or "idola," as after Plato he calls them, which besiege and gain entrance into the mind, unless it be forearmed against them by method; "ita ut veritati aditus difficilis pateat" ("so that it becomes difficult for truth to enter.")

First, there are illusions common to the human race at large, "having their foundation in the very constitution of man." These are called "the idols of the tribe:" the tendency which we all have, by reason of our natural indolence, to believe in first impressions, to think things much simpler than they really are, to look at great questions "ex analogiâ hominis" and not "ex analogiâ universi❞—as we should say, to regard things from the point of view of the individual instead of from the point of view of the Zeit-Geist. We saw in the last chapter how baseless but how common is the opinion that society, the State, has the same moral duties as the individual citizen. This, however, is only a particular case of the tribal "idol:" the general character of this illusion is thus given by Bacon-" The spirit of man being of an equal and uniform substance doth usually suppose and feign in nature a greater equality and uniformity than is in

1 "Novum Organum," xxi.

truth."1

Instead of talking of the mind as an equal and uniform substance, we should say in modern language, that the process of thinking, unless regulated, has a tendency, like all other processes in nature, to move along the line of least resistance. When Mr. Arnold, for instance, makes his fundamental assumption on which "Literature and Dogma" is based, by saying, “The object of religion is conduct, and conduct is really the simplest thing in the world," he is feigning in conduct and religion "a greater equality and uniformity than is in truth." Conduct is a very difficult thing, and by no means simple, not only in the matter of doing but of knowing what ought to be done; and it becomes more difficult and less simple as society increases in complexity; it is again by no means clear or admitted that religion is concerned solely with conduct; that depends upon what religion you are speaking of, and upon the stage of culture at which you are supposing the worshipper to have arrived. In all religions there are other elements mixed, such, for example, as an interested curiosity about man's origin and destiny, or, it may be, disinterested curiosity about the origin and destiny of the world. When we consider that it is out of the nidus of religion that all the sciences have sprung, we shall understand how important a part this disinterested or partly disinterested curiosity has played in religion. Then again, there is the enthusiasm for beauty which we remember was so large an element in the religion of the ancient Greeks; and there are many other factors in religion, such as consolation, quite independent of conduct; not to mention fear and lust and cruelty and magic, which form such large ingredients in the religions of primitive and barbarous peoples. To say, therefore, that religion is solely concerned with conduct, and that conduct is the simplest thing in the world, is to speak with desultoriness, to move along the 1 See "Novum Organum," lii., and Stebbing's note. 2 "Literature and Dogma," p. 14.

lines of least resistance. It is as much an "idol of the tribe," a fiction of simplicity where simplicity is not, as the assertion of a friend of the late Mr. John Austin, that he found as little difficulty in conceiving of the Trinity in Unity as in thinking of three men in one cart: to which Mr. Austin, a man of strict and logical mind, is said to have replied, "The idea you have to frame is not the idea of three men in one cart, but of one man in three carts." Not assuredly by this short and easy road along the line of least resistance, but only by means of the metaphysical synthesis, the difficult mental process which holds in solution conflicting streams of thinking, can we adequately grasp the greater aspects of life which are of most importance to our lives, conduct, religion and the idea of God.

Take, again, Mr. Arnold's second fundamental proposition in "Literature and Dogma," that "happiness follows conduct," or that "conduct brings happiness."" Mr. Arnold is so sure of this that he says (p. 27) that it is " undeniably" so, and in p. 45 that "we know" it is so, and that "of course" it is so. But the connection of pleasure with conduct is not so simple as all this; nor is it a matter of course at all, either that pleasure always follows conduct, or that it does not follow other things quite different from and even opposed to conduct. What does Mr. Arnold's own Bishop Wilson say, as quoted in "St. Paul and Protestantism." but but now apparently forgotten? If you can be good with pleasure, God

"Literature and Dogma," p. 27.
"St. Paul and Protestantism," p. 166.

2 P. 45.

It may be remarked in passing, that Mr. Arnold nowhere defines happiness or distinguishes it from pleasure. Thus in "St. Paul and Protestanism," p. 119, he says: "Our pleasure from a spring day we do not make; our pleasure even from an approving conscience we do not make. And yet we feel that both the one pleasure and the other can, and often do, work with us in a wonderful way for our good. So we get the thought of an impulsion outside ourselves which is at once awful and beneficent." It is evident that the thought in this passage is the same as that which runs through "Literature and Dogma," we did not provide that happiness should follow conduct (" Literature and Dogma," p. 27). This is not the

does not envy you your joy; but such is our corruption that every man cannot be so. Not to speak of the saying of St. Paul, also adduced by Mr. Arnold in his earlier and more careful book: He who would cease from sin, must suffer in the flesh." But even admitting that it is in the majority of cases pleasant to do right, it is, such is the complexity of our nature, pleasant, very pleasant, also to do wrong. The gratification of all our desires is attended with momentary pleasure. What fruit is so agreeable to the taste as forbidden fruit? Indeed, a thing in itself indifferent may become an object of desire, and its attainment thenceforth pleasant, simply by being forbidden, as we may remember was the case with our first parents in the garden of Eden. If the consciousness, again, of duties performed is pleasant, the consciousness of duties unperformed is also pleasant." Things quite indifferent, again, from the moral point of view, may, in certain temperaments, be attended with considerable pleasure. An American lady once confessed to Mr. Emerson that the consciousness of being well dressed imparted to her an inward tranquillity which religion was powerless to bestow. It is unnecessary to multiply instances to show how complex are the conditions of pleasure, and how obscure is its connection with right conduct. Some persons have conceived that all pleasure is but a particular state of the nervous system, and certain it is that some apparently high sorts of pleasure can be produced by purely physical means, opium for place to enter upon a discussion of the difference between pleasure and happiness; but I think Mr. Arnold, after seeing these two passages in juxtaposition, will scarcely consider that I am doing him an injustice if wherever he uses the words "happiness," "joy," "satisfaction," I simply translate "pleasure."

1 "St. Paul and Protestantism," p. 166.

The late Dean Mansel used to tell a story of a colonel in the Life Guards who had been at the pains to invent a peculiar gratification of this sort for himself. His servant had to wake him every morning at five o'clock with the reminder that the parade was at six, in order that he might enjoy the satisfaction of saying, "D—n the parade!" and of then turning over and going to sleep again.