第168章 Chapter VI(32)

There is,however,another remark to be made.If Carlyle's view of a scientific doctrine be correct;if its legitimate result be the destruction of morality,of all our highest aspirations,even of any belief in the reality of the mind or the emotions;if the universe is to be made into a dead mechanism or a huge swine's trough,we are certainly reduced to a most terrible dilemma.It was really the dilemma from which Carlyle could never escape,and the consciousness of which tormented him to the last.He had to choose between allegiance to morality and allegiance to truth.Scientific tendencies,especially as embodied in Utilitarianism,seemed to many men,and,as Carlyle's case shows,to the men of the highest abilities,to have that tendency.The absolute sincerity of that conviction is unmistakable.I do not doubt that men,holding the conviction sincerely,were bound to seek some escape;nor could I condemn them if under so terrible a dilemma they allowed their love of truth to be partly obscured.In fact,too,I think that it cannot be denied that many of the men to whom we owe most,whose morality was the highest and most stimulating,and who,moreover,were most hostile to the lower forms of superstition,did in fact take this position.Though Maurice was far from clear-headed,Ifully believe that his liberal and humane spirit was of the greatest value,and that he did more than most men to raise the social tone in regard to the greatest problems.Carlyle's doctrine is,I equally believe,radically incoherent;but I am also convinced that Carlyle's impetuous and vehement assertion of certain great social,ethical,and political principles was of the highest value.It must be allowed,I think,that such men as Carlyle and Emerson,for example,vague and even contradictory as was their teaching,did more to rouse lofty aspirations and to moralise political creeds,though less for the advancement of sound methods of inquiry,than the teaching of the Utilitarians.

There was somewhere a gap in the Utilitarian system.Its attack upon the mythological statements of fact might be victorious;but it could not supply the place of religion either to the vulgar or to the loftiest minds.Then the problem arises whether the acceptance of scientific method,and of an empirical basis for all knowledge,involves the acceptance of a lower moral standard,and of a materialism which denies the existence or the value of all the unselfish and loftier elements of human nature?Can we adhere to facts without abandoning philosophy;or adopt a lofty code of ethics without losing ourselves in dream-land?Some thinkers sought a different line of escape.

IX.DOGMATISM

The 'Oxford Movement,'according to Newman,was really started on the 14th July 1833by Keble's sermon on 'National Apostasy.'The 'movement'has become the subject-matter of vast masses of literature,as becomes a movement among a cultivated class.While Mill and his friends were under the impression that reason was triumphant and theology effete,the ghost of the old doctrinal disputes suddenly came abroad.Learned scholars once more plunged into dogmatic theology,renewed the old claims of the church,and seriously argued as to what precise charm would save an infant from the wrath of a righteous God.What explanation can be given of this singular phenomenon?There was clearly a 'reaction,'but why should there be a reaction?The Evangelical movement had been mainly ethical or philanthropical.

It protested against evils when the national conscience was already in advance of the actual practice.That was its strength;its weakness was that it accepted,without examination,the current beliefs of the day,and simply did without philosophy.

The Oxford movement,though many of its leaders were keenly awake to social evils,did not start primarily from a desire for social reform.Nor can its origin be traced directly to a philosophical development.Its leaders had,of course,been influenced by literary and speculative developments.They had,as Newman tells us,been stirred by Scott and Wordsworth and by Coleridge's philosophy.And yet it is plain enough that the impulse did not start from philosophical speculation.The movement corresponded to changes which would be part of the whole history of European thought.I have said enough of the Utilitarians to indicate the special English conditions.The Utilitarians saw in the established church the most palpable illustration of a 'sinister interest.'Bentham was attacking 'Church of Englandism';James Mill was proposing to apply Bentham's principles by substituting an ethical department of the State for a church,and replacing the sacrament by tea-parties;the radicals of all varieties regarded disestablishment and disendowment as the natural corollary from the Reform Bill,and a Whig statesman significantly advised the prelates to put their house in order.

It was taken as a hint to prepare for confiscation.

Yet the Church was enormously strong;it was interwoven with the whole political and social organisation,and the genuine radical represented only a fraction of the population.Oxford in particular,the very focus of conservative and aristocratic interests,the favourite place for such culture as was popular with the landowners,the clergy,and all the associated classes,was startled and alarmed,and began to rouse its latent energy.