British love of "realized ideals," we are con-
vinced that Mr. Arnold errs through his
meditative bias. The mere play of conscious-
ness upon a problem that concerns duty will
not solve it, unless action is contemplated as
a sequel to thought. Hellenic contempla-
tion, presenting all the possible sides of each
question, and weighing them in delicate in-
tellectual balances, may directly enfeeble the
will and enervate the practical worker. Mr.
Arnold would recall our statesmen from
practical reforms to the meditative state.
He counsels the leaders of opinion and of
party, not only to care less about mere party
(advice most opportune), but not to busy
themselves with the redress of evils which
they feel to be the immediate duty of the
hour to them, to preserve a soul at leisure
from itself, a consciousness unobscured by
the mists which gather round and cloud all
minds restless for action.
"Let your con
sciousness play with the problem," he says,
"let thought stream in upon it." "Good,"
reply the practical reformers, "we have done
so, we have studied its conditions, we have
sought its solution, but have found that the
problems are not to be solved by thought
alone. The mysteries of moral action do not
yield up their secrets of light, while we

totle's moral system is from first to last a |
eulogy of the practice of virtue. On the
other hand, there is much to justify Mr. Ar-
nold's phraseology. It signalizes a radical
distinction between two tendencies of our
nature. His terms Hellenism and Hebra-
ism may be held as descriptive of the two
main streams of human effort, as these tend
respectively to thought and to action. It is
undeniable that they often act as counter
currents in the sea of human life, producing
storm; while they ought ever to blend and
co-operate to one result. Mr. Arnold thinks
that a predominance of Hebraism now me-
naces our English national life, and all our
modern culture; and he would correct this
by a strong infusion of the Hellenic element,
that spirit which sits apart from practical
questions, and lets the mind and consciousness
play around the problems which are raised.
"Now, and for us, it is time to Hellenize,
and to praise knowing; for we have Hebra-
ized too much, and have over-valued doing."
We heartily respond to all that Mr. Arnold
so powerfully and beautifully teaches as to
the need of increased light, and of a larger
amount of the Hellenic spirit in our time.
But we may ask if there is no risk of our
culture degenerating, and losing the vigour
of its tone from that subtile quietism which
steals over the mind that is always contem-
plating, and hence postponing action.
is there not a further risk of missing the The enigmas of the spiritual universe do
very light, which flows only in the wake of not reveal themselves to the speculative fa-
action? Let your "thought and conscious-culty roaming in search of them, as the me-
ness play freely around the problem," says
Mr. Arnold; whatever that problem may be,
of graver or of lighter character. If this be
but a summons to thoroughness of investiga-
tion, and freedom from all bias in the dis-
cussion of the problem, if it be merely to call
to exercise a just and rational insight into
every question, we cordially assent to it.
But it is evident that Mr. Arnold would
postpone all practical action till thoroughly
assured of the wisdom, not only of the result
aimed at, but also of all the steps to be taken
towards that end. It is in this that we de-
tect the Hellenic bias, But is not light
frequently denied to a man or to a nation
till they begin to act? Does not mental
clearness sometimes follow practical action,
and not precede it? Is it not sometimes
morally fatal to postpone an action till all
its issues are intellectually seen? And in
this advice tendered to modern Englishmen,
to allow their thought and consciousness to
remain in a lambent state, to let their facul-
ties play around all problems, if it really
means anything beyond a summons to clear
ness, to thoughtfulness, to thoroughness, and
to catholicity,-if meant as a check to our

And

'Sit apart holding no form of creed, But contemplating all.'

diæval knights wandered in search of the sangreal but found it not. And while we continue to meditate, there is some risk of our being 'sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.'

The contrast between the two tendencies is seen in its sharpest form in the way in which they would respectively deal with the practical evils which menace every human life. "Sit still, and profoundly contemplate them," exclaims the meditative sage with the Hellenic spirit. "Arise and abolish them," says the deeper wisdom of the Hebrew nature. Let your consciousness play freely around the problems, lest you fall and worship the fetish of some practical reform," says the man of thought. "Get thee forth into their midst, and whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might,'" says the nobler law of Hebrew action. It seems evident that to continue thinking over problems that relate to action, without proceeding to act, is to become speedily paralyzed. Our faculties of thought may refuse to play longer around the problem, lest in that very process it becomes a different but more unworthy fetish than the other.

It might

to become disgusted with practical life al- | promise in order to succeed at all. He may
together; and in his anxiety to escape have to descend, with his ideal somewhat
from the whirlpool of blind endeavour, he veiled, to a level where, if fully displayed,
runs the risk of being left high and dry on it would not be understood; and by slowly
the rock of a listless inactivity. That evil unveiling it, he strives to raise the tone of
menaces human culture in every age. Though society by degrees. It might even seem as
we may admit in words that thoughtful action if the worker's own ideal would suffer from
is as necessary as active thought can be, we his contact with the masses of mankind; and
may unduly circumscribe the sphere of action, it is perhaps for this reason that Mr. Arnold
and find ourselves biassed towards that Hel- shrinks from identifying himself with prac-
lenism which rests and thinks that it may tical schemes of reform. He fears that all
not work unwisely, in our nervous horror reformers lay down their Hellenic complete-
of that Hebraism which works promptly ness on an altar unworthy of the sacrifice.
(though it may be awkwardly) that it may at But no such fear ever characterized any
length see aright and wisely. And this is great leader of men, any true prophet of the
the extreme to which teachers such as Mr. past, any powerful educator of his race.
Arnold tend. He admires all calm repose, Can we imagine St. Paul, Chrysostom, or
self-centred, dignified, serene; undisturbed Cromwell (to select very different types of
by the roar and strife of time. He pities men), tarrying in the execution of a great
all the minute and toilsome workers who and sacred task, lest they should transgress
lack profounder vision, and labour in a groove the rules of philosophic calm, after their
because they see but one thing they ought to voice had once been raised against the prac-
do, and do it eagerly. He seems to overlook tical abuses of their day? We admit that
the fact that in all moral problems the legis- all leaders of the people have been defective
lative function of the intellect is the mere on many sides of their character. Inevita-
herald of the executive function of the will, bly, they are men of one, or at most a few
and that we must sometimes act and obey, in ideas. If burdened with many, they would
order that we may see and know.
be proportionably hampered in the carrying
out of each. Let it be granted that practi-
cal action is one-sided, that it involves a
sacrifice to the completeness of the indivi-
dual or the nation. The want of it is equally
one-sided, and involves an equal sacrifice.
And both the world and individuals have
hitherto advanced by a series of one-sided-
nesses. Time, however, tends to rectify these.
Reactions are inevitable, from the very fact
that the extreme has been approached; and
thus both Nature and Humanity readjust
themselves. But the man or the nation that
would rest in the centre of intellectual calm,
and dread activity from the risk of one-sided-
ness, stagnate in the repose they love, and
miss the gain of the extremes when the mean
state is reached.

We do not wonder that Mr. Arnold is somewhat sad in his anticipations of the future. The prospects which he sees a head are not encouraging, and he has few words of cheer to address to this generation. He laments our modern British "Philistinism," with its sordid worship of machinery and comfort. But he offers no scheme of redress. He is confessedly without a system, and distrusts all system-builders. The substance of his message to his contemporaries is, "It is light and sweetness that you all need, therefore get light and get sweetness, both within you and around you." But he does not tell the generation of the "Philistines" how they are to get these inestimable gifts, except by bidding them look back to Greece, and "let their mind and consciousness play around all problems." He shrinks from counselling men to take part in any practical scheme for the amelioration of their fellows, from his antipathy to all rough and coarse movements. Yet every worker, who strives to carry the ideal into practice, must come into close contact with the ungainliness and awkward movements of those who are acting without an ideal around him. And this is precisely the difficulty which the man of the highest culture finds in all his efforts to translate his ideal into actual life. The moment he begins to act amongst the raw unidealized portions of humanity, that moment he meets with an arrest; and it may be sometimes necessary to make a com

--

It is not difficult to explain the melancholy undertone of Mr. Arnold's teaching, and the helplessness of his Hellenic ideal to touch the miseries of the world, and rectify its disorder. He confines us, after all, to individual perfection, and never carries us out of the charmed circle of self. He leaves no scope for the centrifugal tendency of human nature. True, he does not directly enforce the utilitarian creed, but its aroma (if it can be said to possess one) is felt throughout. He even recognises "the love of our neighbour, impulses towards action, help and beneficence, the desire of stopping human error, clearing human confusion, and diminishing the sum of human misery," as parts of human culture. But it is in their relation to self-perfection that

these are valued; the motive that urges to | ideals, he finds that they agree in the precept, their cultivation is, according to the Helle- "Be ye perfect." We think that in this nic ideal, the desire of individual complete- statement of the case, he has unduly narness. This contraction of the area of culture rowed the range of culture, and exposed attenuates while it refines the spirit, and himself needlessly to a flank movement of dries up some of the purest springs of human attack. It is at once simpler, and philoso energy and hopefulness. When the Greek phically more accurate, to regard religion as ideal is exclusively present to the soul, it one part of the universal culture, which, in restrains unnatural fervour, it represses fire its totality, is the true end and ideal of hu and enthusiasm, but it also begets a distinc-man life; or, as we have suggested in an eartive type of sadness, intellectual languor, and ennui. We trace this in some of Mr. Arnold's subtlest and finest poems, as well as in his prose essays. Exquisite and delicate thought is exquisitely and delicately expressed; but a sad refrain of life-weariness seems to underlie or to haunt them all. It is partly the absence of faith in the power of unselfish action which imparts this tone of sadness; and partly the tendency of the Hellenic ideal to isolate its votary from his fellows. We miss the spring of creative joy which wells up in that man's heart, who grapples with the evil he laments, in heroic self-forgetfulness, and in the patience of hope.

For the same reason we find that some of the most exquisite phrases of culture are overlooked by Mr. Arnold altogether. The conscious pursuit of self-perfection necessarily fails in those regions where greatness, to be sublime, must be unconscious; and we never find the unconscious grace of culture when the individual does not act, as well as think. Our thought is most vigorous when it is most conscious; our actions are the fairest when they are least consciously performed; and by far the larger portion of moral culture is unconscious. Even in those cases in which an effort of the will is needed, self-consciousness, and the desire to perfect our being by the act, is fatal to the act's perfection. For example, if in benevolence we think of any after gain arising from its practice, the moral quality of our deed disappears. It ceases to be charity, and sinks to the level of almsgiving. So with the gain resulting from acts of self-control and sacrifice. It is only to be won when the very process of winning it, and the compensations which it brings, are altogether forgotten. We must discount these from our calculations, or rather make no account of them at all, if we would secure their richest bloom and fruit.

Several minor points in Mr. Arnold's teaching remain to be noticed. One of these is his separation of Culture from Religion, and even from Poetry, Philosophy, and Science; though he maintains that they all cooperate to one end. In vindicating his doctrine from assault, he seeks to prove that an enlightened religion and culture have a common tendency; comparing their respective

lier page, to broaden the meaning of the term Religion, and regard it as the homage of all the powers in their uprise towards God. Either the term Culture should be used generi cally as inclusive of all the human faculties and all their tendencies-in which case it will include the religious instincts within itor the term Religion should be widened to embrace the action of all the faculties when they ascend in the tribute of adoration. In either case Mr. Arnold's limitation is unwise.

scope

Further, we think that he has put himself into a position of needless and (at times) of almost cynical antagonism to what he calls "machinery." He uses the term in a double sense,-the ordinary one of mechanical contrivance, with its new inventions and large industrial results; and (as an idea derived from this) the routine or stock notions, and processes of action, which have been mechanically adopted to secure certain ends. As to the former, we cannot think that human na ture, in finding an outlet for its many-sided activity in the direction of "machinery," acts in a way that is hostile to culture. We prefer (as in the case of religion) to include the practical tendency which finds in new inventions to accelerate labour, and to supersede manual toil by mechanical contrivance, within the sphere of culture. Let it be admitted, that it is intrinsically of much lower value than any other kind of effort, bearing on the perfection of the individual. Still, as it implies the victory of man over nature, insight into her laws, and the utilization of her processes, it is the condition of other and higher grades of culture; and iuasmuch as it is a virtual necessity of human. life, let us concede its value and respect its tendency. As to the latter, we think that what Mr. Arnold would substitute in place of the machinery he rejects, runs no small risk of becoming itself mechanical. Fre quently he speaks of culture as if it were some magical instrument or weapon which its fol lowers must wield to effect certain ends otherwise unattainable, to get rid of certain blemishes otherwise ineradicable. Culture, he says, does this, culture asks that; culture forbids this, culture enjoys that. We become weary of the reiteration; and though the