mutilating hand of religious asceticism,"* and in another place, using the same significant phrase, he declares that "every branch of the Church, from the oldest to the youngest and crudest," has in its degree afflicted and retarded mankind" with mutilation." He cites approvingly Diderot's opinion, that "what they call evangelical perfection is only the mischievous art of stifling Nature." Apparently Diderot is for Mr. Morley a special authority upon this subject. He assures us that this indescribably filthy writer, and no less filthy liver, "was keenly alive to the beauty of order [in the relations of the sexes] and domestic piety." There can be no room for the impression that Mr. Morley is poking fun at us. He is nothing if not serious. The judicious reader is therefore driven to the conclusion that order in the relations of the sexes, in the new religion, must be precisely what is called disorder in the old. "This may be new-fashioned modesty," exclaims poor Mr. Hardcastle; "but I never saw anything look so like old-fashioned impudence." Reverse the precepts of "pure religion breathing household laws," which have made the Christian family what it is, and apparently you will get the code of sexual morality and domestic piety prescribed by the Gospel of the Revolution. We should, however, wrong Mr. Morley if we supposed him to approve, or to recommend, unbounded licence in the gratification of the sexual appetite. On the contrary, he solemnly declares that "some continence and order in the relations of men and women is a good thing." || Some!" It is vague. Still, whatever it may amount to, we may be thankful for it. To speak frankly, however-and the occasion calls for plain speaking-I fear it does not amount to much. suggestive passage dealing with the early excesses of "the great preacher of the Declaration of the Rights of Man "-Robespierre -Mr. Morley counsels, not "the chastising, the bringing into subjection," but "the better ordering and governance of the youthful appetite," and insists that thereby "a diviner brightness would be given to the earth."** Again, in describing Rousseau's mock espousals with his filthy concubine, while declining to pronounce authoritatively whether this was or was not, a marriage according to the truth of Nature," he admonishes us "Rousseau," vol. i. p. 16. "Diderot," vol. i. p. 13. + Ibid. vol. ii. p. 16. In a Ibid. vol. ii. p. 22. So in his book on Rousseau (vol. i. p. 306) he speaks of that philosopher as a Puritan." 66 Rousseau," vol. i. p. 218. 66 The "castigo corpus meum et in servitutem redigo," of the Vulgate -emphatic as it is very inadequately represents the force of the original: “ ὑπωπιάζω μου τὸ σῶμα καὶ δουλαγωγώ.” *** Miscellanies," vol. i. p. 7. that "Rousseau was as free to choose his own rites as more sacramental performers."* How deeply the traditions of the English home offend Mr. Morley may be judged from the following passage: There is probably no uglier growth of time than that mean and poor form of domesticity which has always been too apt to fascinate the English imagination ever since the last great effort of the Rebellion, and which rose to the climax of its popularity when George III. won all hearts by living like a farmer. Instead of the fierce light beating about a throne, it played lambently upon a stye.† And the nation who admired, imitated. When the Regent came, and with him that coarse profligacy which has alternated with cloudy insipidity in the annals of the line, the honest part of the world, out of antipathy to the son, was driven even further into domestic sentimentality of a greasy kind, than it had gone from affection for the sire. "Byron," Mr. Morley continues, "helped to clear the air of this." That apparently is his great merit, and brings him within "the progressive formula." "The domestic sentiment almost disappears in those works which made Byron most popular, or else it only appears to be banished with reproach. This is quite in accordance with the revolutionary spirit." So much must suffice to indicate the nature of the new religion, its faith and morals, of which Mr. Morley is the zealous preacher. How burning his zeal is will have been evident from the passages of his works which I have cited. We may truly say of him, as he has truly said of Condorcet, that "there is something theological in his hatred of theology;"§ that "in every page of his writings we hear the ground swell of suppressed passion; that, "urgent, heated, impetuous, with a heavy vehemence all his own," he is "the incarnation of the Revolutionary Spirit." || His absolute sincerity is as patent as his singular literary power. I must do myself the pleasure of citing one more page-a magnificent bit of writing it is-which signally displays both these qualities : And what is this smile of the world, to win which we are bidden to sacrifice our moral manhood: this frown of the world, whose terrors are more awful than the withering up of truth and the slow going out of light within the souls of us? Consider the triviality of life, and conversation, and purpose in the bulk of those whose approval is held Rousseau," vol. i. p. 129. "En It is worth while to compare the judgment of M. le Play. Angleterre les mœurs avaient été restaurées sous la salutaire influence des bons exemples donnés par George III.," writes that publicist. ("L'Organisation de Travail," p. 188.) 66 Miscellanies," vol. i. p. 242. Ibid. p. 181. § Ibid. vol. ii. p. 175. out for our prize, and the mark of our high calling. Measure, if you can, the empire over them of prejudice unadulterated by a single element of rationality, and weigh, if you can, the huge burden of custom, unrelieved by a single leavening particle of fresh thought. Ponder the share which selfishness and love of ease have in the vitality and the maintenance of the opinions that we are forbidden to dispute. Then how pitiful a thing seems the approval or the disapproval of those creatures of the conventions of the hour, as one figures the merciless vastness of the universe of matter sweeping us headlong through viewless space; as one hears the wail of misery that is for ever ascending to the deaf gods; as one counts the little tale of the years that separate us from eternal silence. In the light of these things a man should surely dare to live his small span of life with little heed of the common speech upon him or his life, only caring that his days may be full of reality, and his conversation of truth-speaking and wholeness." .... Mr. Morley tells us: "A person who takes the trouble to form his own opinions and beliefs will feel that he owes no responsibility to the majority for his conclusions. . . . . When he proceeds to apply his beliefs in the practical conduct of life, his position is different." I will not at present discuss the first of these propositions. To the second I unreservedly assent, and I would observe that it has a special application to the case of Mr. Morley himself. He has told us that "literature ought to be rated below action." And we may be quite sure that what has led him to exchange the quiet of his library for the turmoil of politics is no ignoble lust of power, no vulgar craving for titular distinction; but the desire to apply his beliefs "to the practical conduct of life," and so "to render the loftier services to mankind." § We may be quite sure that the same spirit which breathes through his works will animate his political action. It is to his earnest singleness of purpose even more than to his great intellectual gifts that he owes the high position which he has so soon taken in the House of Commons. Hence the importance of correctly apprehending what that purpose is. Now, the Liberalism of which Mr. Morley is so accomplished a representative is a very different thing from the (set of principles and beliefs which have hitherto in the main guided the great historic Liberal party. The watchword of that party has ever been "Civil and Religious Liberty;" and to this watchword, with whatever occasional deflections and shortcomings, it has been loyal. In my judgment we owe to that party, directly or indirectly, every wise reform, every beneficent law which for the last two centuries has found place on the Statute-book. To its دو action, its suffering, we owe it that English freedom has "slowly broadened down," from the Bill of Rights to the last Act for the relief of religious disabilities. Mr. Morley's Liberalism is of a French, not an English type. It is sectarian rather than political. "We have no parties in my country; we have only sects," an accomplished Frenchman once observed to me. The primary object of the Revolution of which Mr. Morley avows himself a child is to efface Christianity, or, in the phrase which he adopts from Voltaire, to crush out "the Infamous." He insists strongly that those who are convinced that the Christian "dogma is not true, and that both dogma and Church must be slowly replaced by higher forms of faith "-" we have seen what those " higher forms of faith" are-have as distinctly a function in the community as the ministers and upholders of the Churches." And that function of course is to destroy the dogma and the Church. That is the great end. The means must vary according to time and place. But there is one means just now of universal application throughout Europe, which is recommended both by its obvious efficacy and by the authority of those whose praise is in all the revolutionary churches. What this means is, let us learn from a personage who being dead yet speaketh-the late M. Paul Bert-" a new glory of the Revolution," as he has been recently designated by a sorrowful and admiring countryman. The designation seems to me very just. I discern in him a worthy successor of Chaumette, not inferior either in impiety or in ferocity to his great prototype. Unpropitious fates withheld from him the power of rivalling the exploits of that Apostle of the guillotine. He was reduced to seek his solace during the intervals of blasphemy, in the blood and cries of creatures lower than man in the scale of sentient existence. Possibly, he may have found some consolation for the inferiority of his victims in the exquisite refinements of prolonged cruelty, whereby he was wont to torture out their poor lives. He rests from his labours; and can any one, whose moral sense is not hopelessly blunted, doubt that his works do follow him? Nay, if we may accept the revelation of the Unseen given us in what, I suppose, must be accounted the Cantica Canticorum † among the Sacred Books of the new Compromise," p. 221. †The Song of Songs, which is Voltaire's : Mon cher lecteur, il est temps de te dire Qu'un jour Satan, seigneur du sombre empire, A ses vassaux donnait un grand régal, Il était fête au manoir infernal. religion, may we not conceive of him as welcomed with an emphatic "Chauffez-vous" by the master whom he had so long and faithfully served? He has gone to his reward; but his words remain, a light to the feet and a lantern to the paths of those who have obtained like precious faith with him. The great work immediately before them, he solemnly insisted upon a memorable occasion, is to banish religion from primary education.* What has been done in France to carry out this counsel we all know. We know also what it is desired to do in England. Let us hear what Mr. Morley has to say upon this momentous subject, in words written originally in 1874, and reprinted, unaltered, in 1886 Ou fredonnait quelques chansons à boire, ("La Pucelle d'Orléans," chant v.) *"Les religions n'ont pas qualité pour parler de morale; car elles reposent sur des bases fausses, sur des hypothèses injustifiables, sur des conceptions erronées de la nature de l'homme, de son rôle dans la société et dans le monde physique. . L'enseignement religieux est l'école de l'imbécillité, du fanatisme, de l'antipatriotisme et de l'immoralité. Nous avons bien fait de le chasser de l'école. ... Plus les sociétés s'acheminent vers la morale, plus elles s'éloignent de la religion." (Speech at the Cirque d'Hiver, 28th August, 1881.) I will give an extract from another speech of M. Bert, which may with advantage be compared with some of the passages cited from Mr. Morley in this article: "Ici, les abstracteurs de quintessence's s'exclament de bonne ou de mauvaise foi. Ils nous disent: vous n'avez pas le droit de donner, l'enseignement moral tant que vous n'aurez pas défini la base de la morale, tant que vous n'aurez pas catégorisé d'une facon nette ce qui est le bien, ce qui est le mal; tant que vous n'aurez pas trouvé le mobile et la sanction, vous ne pourrez pas édifier votre enseignement moral. Et alors ils nous font cette condition étrange qui rappelle les contes de fées; il faut perforer à travers le marais de la métaphysique jusqu'à ce qu'on ait trouvé le roc solide-s'il y en a un. connais. "A ceux qui sont de mauvaise foi, en parlant ainsi, il n'y a qu'a tourner le dos. Quant aux autres, il faut leur répondre et je leur réponds: vous avez pendant des siècles, reculé la marche de l'esprit humain. Je vous Nous laissons là votre métaphysique. Continuez à tourner votre roue d'écureuil; quant à nous, nous avons fait une physique et une chimie qui se portent assez bien et qui font bonne figure dans le monde des sciences. Ce qu'on a fait pour les sciences physiques on le fera pour les sciences morales, et les métaphysiciens continueront pendant l'éternité cet étrange jeu qui ressemble à un jeu de bilboquet dont la boule n'aurait pas de trou.' (Speech at a banquet of five hundred schoolmasters and schoolmistresses at Véfours, 18th September, 1881.) |