The Project Gutenberg eBook of Is Life Worth Living?
Title: Is Life Worth Living?
Author: W. H. Mallock
Release date: December 2, 2005 [eBook #17201]
Most recently updated: December 13, 2020
Language: English
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IS LIFE WORTH LIVING?
BY
WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
AUTHOR OF 'THE NEW REPUBLIC' ETC.
'Man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain.'
'How dieth the wise man? As the fool.... That which befalleth the sons of men befalleth the beasts, even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth so dieth the other, yea they have all one breath; so that man hath no preeminence above a beast; for all is vanity.'
'ταλαιπωρος εγω ανθρωπος, τις με ρυδεται εκ του σωματος του θανατου τουτου;'
NEW YORK
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
182 Fifth Avenue
1879
I INSCRIBE THIS BOOK
TO
JOHN RUSKIN
TO JOHN RUSKIN.
My dear Mr. Ruskin,—You have given me very great pleasure by allowing me to inscribe this book to you, and for two reasons; for I have two kinds of acknowledgment that I wish to make to you—first, that of an intellectual debtor to a public teacher; secondly, that of a private friend to the kindest of private friends. The tribute I have to offer you is, it is true, a small one; and it is possibly more blessed for me to give than it is for you to receive it. In so far, at least, as I represent any influence of yours, you may very possibly not think me a satisfactory representative. But there is one fact—and I will lay all the stress I can on it—which makes me less diffident than I might be, in offering this book either to you or to the world generally.
The import of the book is independent of the book itself, and of the author of it; nor do the arguments it contains stand or fall with my success in stating them; and these last at least I may associate with your name. They are not mine. I have not discovered or invented them. They are so obvious that any one who chooses may see them; and I have been only moved to meddle with them, because, from being so obvious, it seems that no one will so much as deign to look at them, or at any rate to put them together with any care or completeness. They might be before everybody's eyes; but instead they are under everybody's feet. My occupation has been merely to kneel in the mud, and to pick up the truths that are being trampled into it, by a headstrong and uneducated generation.
With what success I have done this, it is not for me to judge. But though I cannot be confident of the value of what I have done, I am confident enough of the value of what I have tried to do. From a literary point of view many faults may be found with me. There may be faults yet deeper, to which possibly I shall have to plead guilty. I may—I cannot tell—have unduly emphasized some points, and not put enough emphasis on others. I may be convicted—nothing is more likely—of many verbal inconsistencies. But let the arguments I have done my best to embody be taken as a whole, and they have a vitality that does not depend upon me; nor can they be proved false, because my ignorance or weakness may here or there have associated them with, or illustrated them by, a falsehood. I am not myself conscious of any such falsehoods in my book; but if such are pointed out to me, I shall do my best to correct them. If what I have done prove not worth correction, others coming after me will be preferred before me, and are sure before long to address themselves successfully to the same task in which I perhaps have failed. What indeed can we each of us look for but a large measure of failure, especially when we are moving not with the tide but against it—when the things we wrestle with are principalities and powers, and spiritual stupidity in high places—and when we are ourselves partly weakened by the very influences against which we are struggling?
But this is not all. There is in the way another difficulty. Writing as the well-wishers of truth and goodness, we find, as the world now stands, that our chief foes are they of our own household. The insolence, the ignorance, and the stupidity of the age has embodied itself, and found its mouthpiece, in men who are personally the negations of all that they represent theoretically. We have men who in private are full of the most gracious modesty, representing in their philosophies the most ludicrous arrogance; we have men who practise every virtue themselves, proclaiming the principles of every vice to others; we have men who have mastered many kinds of knowledge, acting on the world only as embodiments of the completest and most pernicious ignorance. I have had occasion to deal continually with certain of these by name. With the exception of one—who has died prematurely, whilst this book was in the press—those I have named oftenest are still living. Many of them probably are known to you personally, though none of them are so known to me; and you will appreciate the sort of difficulty I have felt, better than I can express it. I can only hope that as the falsehood of their arguments cannot blind any of us to their personal merits, so no intellectual demerits in my case will be prejudicial to the truth of my arguments.
To me the strange thing is that such arguments should have to be used all; and perhaps a thing stranger still that it should fall to me to use them—to me, an outsider in philosophy, in literature, and in theology. But the justification of my speaking is that there is any opening for me to speak; and others must be blamed, not I, if
Degenerates into hands like mine.
At any rate, however all this may be, what I here inscribe to you, my friend and teacher, I am confident is not unworthy of you. It is not what I have done; it is what I have tried to do. As such I beg you to accept it, and to believe me still, though now so seldom near you,
Your admiring and affectionate friend,
W. H. MALLOCK.
P.S.—Much of the substance of the following book you have seen already, in two Essays of mine that were published in the 'Contemporary Review,' and in five Essays that were published in the 'Nineteenth Century.' It had at one time been my intention, by the kindness of the respective Editors, to have reprinted these Essays in their original form. But there was so much to add, to omit, to rearrange, and to join together, that I have found it necessary to rewrite nearly the whole; and thus you will find the present volume virtually new.
Torquay, May, 1879.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
THE NEW IMPORT OF THE QUESTION.
| The question may seem vague and useless; but if we consider its real meaning we shall see that it is not so | 1 |
| In the present day it has acquired a new importance | 2 |
| Its exact meaning. It does not question the fact of human happiness | 3 |
| But the nature of happiness, and the permanence of its basis | 4 |
| For what we call the higher happiness is essentially a complex thing | 5 |
| We cannot be sure that all its elements are permanent | 7 |
| Without certain of its elements it has been declared by the wisest men to be valueless | 8 |
| And it is precisely the elements in question that modern thought is eliminating | 11 |
| It is contended that they have often been eliminated before; and that yet the worth of life has not suffered | 13 |
| But this contention is entirely false. They were never before eliminated as modern thought is eliminating them now | 17 |
| The present age can find no genuine parallels in the past | 19 |
| Its position is made peculiar by three facts | 19 |
| Firstly, by the existence of Christianity | 19 |
| Secondly, the insignificance to which science has reduced the earth | 23 |
| Thirdly, the intense self-consciousness that has been developed in the modern world | 25 |
| It is often said that a parallel to our present case is to be found in Buddhism | 27 |
| But this is absolutely false. Buddhist positivism is the exact reverse of Western positivism | 29 |
| In short, the life-problem of our day is distinctly a new and an as yet unanswered one | 31 |
CHAPTER II.
MORALITY AND THE PRIZE OF LIFE.
| The worth the positive school claim for life, is essentially a moral worth | 33 |
| As its most celebrated exponents explicitly tell us | 34 |
| This means that life contains some special prize, to which morality is the only road | 34 |
| And the value of life depends on the value of this prize | 35 |
| J. S. Mill, G. Eliot, and Professor Huxley admit that this is a correct way of stating the case | 36 |
| But all this language as it stands at present is too vague to be of any use to us | 38 |
| The prize in question is to be won in this life, if anywhere; and must therefore be more or less describable | 39 |
| What then is it? | 40 |
| Unless it is describable it cannot be a moral end at all | 41 |
| As a consideration of the raison d'être of all moral systems will show us | 42 |
| The value of the prize must be verifiable by positive methods | 43 |
| And be verifiably greater, beyond all comparison, than that of all other prizes | 44 |
| Has such a prize any real existence? This is our question | 44 |
| It has never yet been answered properly | 45 |
| And though two sets of answers have been given it, neither of them are satisfactory | 45 |
| I shall deal with these two questions in order | 47 |
CHAPTER III.
SOCIOLOGY AS THE FOUNDATION OF MORALITY.
| The positive theory is that the health of the social organism is the real foundation of morals | 49 |
| But social health is nothing but the personal health of all the members of the society | 51 |
| It is not happiness itself, but the negative conditions that make happiness for all | 51 |
| Still less is social health any high kind of happiness | 54 |
| It can only be maintained to be so, by supposing | 55 |
| Either, that all kinds of happiness are equally high that do not interfere with others | 55 |
| Or, that it is only a high kind of happiness that can be shared by all | 56 |
| Both of which suppositions are false | 57 |
| The conditions of social health are a moral end only when we each feel a personal delight in maintaining them | 58 |
| In this case they will supply us with a small portion of the moral aid needed | 59 |
| But this case is not a possible one | 60 |
| There is indeed the natural impulse of sympathy that might tend to make it so | 61 |
| But this is counterbalanced by the corresponding impulse of selfishness | 63 |
| And this impulse of sympathy itself is of very limited power | 63 |
| Except under very rare conditions | 63 |
| The conditions of general happiness are far too vague to do more than very slightly excite it | 64 |
| Or give it power enough to neutralise any personal temptation | 66 |
| At all events they would excite no enthusiasm | 67 |
| For this purpose there must be some prize before us, of recognised positive value, more or less definite | 67 |
| And before all things, to be enjoyed by us individually | 67 |
| Unless this prize be of great value to begin with, its value will not become great because great numbers obtain it | 71 |
| Nor until we know what it is, do we gain anything by the hope that men may more completely make it their own in the future | 72 |
| The modern positive school requires a great general enthusiasm for the general good | 73 |
| They therefore presuppose an extreme value for the individual good | 74 |
| Our first enquiry must be therefore what the higher individual good is | 76 |
CHAPTER IV.
GOODNESS AS ITS OWN REWARD.
| What has been said in the last chapter is really admitted by the positive school themselves | 77 |
| As we can learn explicitly from George Eliot | 78 |
| In Daniel Deronda | 78 |
| That the fundamental moral question is, 'In what way shall the individual make life pleasant?' | 79 |
| And the right way, for the positivists, as for the Christians, is an inward way | 80 |
| The moral end is a certain inward state of the heart, and the positivists say it is a sufficient attraction in itself, without any aid from religion | 81 |
| And they support this view by numerous examples | 82 |
| But all such examples are useless | 83 |
| Because though we may get rid of religion in its pure form | 83 |
| There is much that we have not got rid of, embodied still in the moral end | 84 |
| To test the intrinsic value of the end, we must sublimate this religion out of it | 86 |
| For this purpose we will consider, first, the three general characteristics of the moral end, viz. | 88 |
| Its inwardness | 88 |
| Its importance | 89 |
| And its absolute character | 91 |
| Now all these three characteristics can be explained by religion | 93 |
| And cannot be explained without it | 96 |
| The positive moral end must therefore be completely divested of them | 100 |
| The next question is, will it be equally attractive then? | 100 |
CHAPTER V.
LOVE AS A TEST OF GOODNESS.
| The positivists represent love as a thing whose value is self-dependent | 101 |
| And which gives to life a positive and incalculable worth | 103 |
| But this is supposed to be true of one form of love only | 104 |
| And the very opposite is supposed to hold good of all other forms | 105 |
| The right form depends on the conformity of each of the lovers to a certain inward standard | 105 |
| As we can see exemplified in the case of Othello and Desdemona, etc. | 107 |
| The kind and not the degree of the love is what gives love its special value | 108 |
| And the selection of this kind can be neither made nor justified on positive principles | 109 |
| As the following quotations from Théophile Gautier will show us | 110 |
| Which are supposed by many to embody the true view of love | 110 |
| According to this view, purity is simply a disease both in man and woman, or at any rate no merit | 116 |
| If love is to be a moral end, this view must be absolutely condemned | 117 |
| But positivism cannot condemn it, or support the opposite view | 117 |
| As we shall see by recurring to Professor Huxley's argument | 118 |
| Which will show us that all moral language as applied to love is either distinctly religious or else altogether ludicrous | 122 |
| For it is clearly only on moral grounds that we can give that blame to vice, which is the measure of the praise we give to virtue | 123 |
| The misery of the former depends on religious anticipations | 124 |
| And so does also the blessedness of the latter | 125 |
| As we can see in numerous literary expressions of it | 126 |
| Positivism, by destroying these anticipations, changes the whole character of the love in question | 128 |
| And prevents love from supplying us with any moral standard | 131 |
| The loss sustained by love will indicate the general loss sustained by life | 131 |
CHAPTER VI.
LIFE AS ITS OWN REWARD.
| We must now examine what will be the practical result on life in general of the loss just indicated | 132 |
| To do this, we will take life as reflected in the mirror of the great dramatic art of the world | 134 |
| And this will show us how the moral judgment is the chief faculty to which all that is great or intense in this art appeals | 136 |
| We shall see this, for instance, in Macbeth | 137 |
| In Hamlet | 137 |
| In Antigone | 137 |
| In Measure for Measure, and in Faust | 138 |
| And also in degraded art just as well as in sublime art | 139 |
| In profligate and cynical art, such as Congreve's | 140 |
| And in concupiscent art | 141 |
| Such as Mademoiselle de Maupin | 141 |
| Or such works as that of Meursius, or the worst scenes in Petronius | 142 |
| The supernatural moral judgment is the chief thing everywhere | 143 |
| Take away this judgment, and art loses all its strange interest | 144 |
| And so will it be with life | 145 |
| The moral landscape will be ruined | 145 |
| Even the mere sensuous joy of living in health will grow duller | 146 |
| Nor will culture be of the least avail without the supernatural moral element | 148 |
| Nor will the devotion to truth for its own sake, which is the last refuge of the positivists when in despair | 149 |
| For this last has no meaning whatever, except as a form of concrete theism | 152 |
| The reverence for Nature is but another form of the devotion to truth, and its only possible meaning is equally theistic | 157 |
| Thus all the higher resources of positivism fail together | 161 |
| And the highest positive value of life would be something less than its present value | 161 |
CHAPTER VII.
THE SUPERSTITION OF POSITIVISM.
| From what we have just seen, the visionary character of the positivist conception of progress becomes evident | 163 |
| Its object is far more plainly an illusion than the Christian heaven | 164 |
| All the objections urged against the latter apply with far more force to the former | 165 |
| As a matter of fact, there is no possible object sufficient to start the enthusiasm required by the positivists | 167 |
| To make the required enthusiasm possible human nature would have to be completely changed | 168 |
| Two existing qualities, for instance, would have to be magnified to an impossible extent—imagination | 169 |
| And unselfishness | 170 |
| If we state the positive system in terms of common life, its visionary character becomes evident | 172 |
| The examples which have suggested its possibility are quite misleading | 173 |
| The positive system is really far more based on superstition than any religion | 175 |
| Its appearance can only be accounted for by the characters and circumstances of its originators | 175 |
| And a consideration of these will help us more than anything to estimate it rightly | 178 |
| And will let us see that its only practical tendency is to deaden all our present interests, not to create any new ones | 179 |
CHAPTER VIII.
THE PRACTICAL PROSPECT.
| It is not contended that the prospect just described will, as a fact, ever be realised | 183 |
| But only that it will be realised if certain other prospects are realised | 185 |
| Which prospects may or may not be visionary | 186 |
| But the progress towards which is already begun | 187 |
| And also the other results, that have been described already | 187 |
| Positive principles have already produced a moral deterioration, even in places where we should least imagine it | 187 |
| As we shall see if we pierce beneath the surface | 189 |
| In the curious condition of men who have lost faith, but have retained the love of virtue | 189 |
| The struggle was hard, when they had all the helps of religion | 190 |
| It is harder now | 190 |
| Conscience still survives, but it has lost its restraining power | 191 |
| Temptation almost inevitably dethrones it | 192 |
| And its full prestige can never be recovered | 193 |
| It can do nothing but deplore; it cannot remedy | 194 |
| In such cases the mind's decadence has begun; and its symptoms are | 194 |
| Self-reproach | 195 |
| Life-weariness | 195 |
| And indifference | 195 |
| The class of men to whom this applies is increasing, and they are the true representatives of the work of positive thought | 196 |
| It is hard to realise this ominous fact | 197 |
| But by looking steadily and dispassionately at the characteristics of the present epoch we may learn to do so | 198 |
| We shall see that the opinions now forming will have a weight and power that no opinions ever had before | 199 |
| And their tendency, as yet latent, towards pessimism is therefore most momentous | 200 |
| If it is to be cured, it must be faced | 200 |
| It takes the form of a suppressed longing for the religious faith that is lost | 200 |
| And this longing is wide-spread, though only expressed indirectly | 201 |
| It is felt even by men of science | 202 |
| But the longing seems fruitless | 203 |
| This dejection is in fact shared by the believers | 203 |
| And is even authoritatively recognised by Catholicism | 204 |
| The great question for the world now, and the one on which its whole future depends, is, will the lost faith ever be recovered? | 205 |
| The answer to this will probably have to be decisive, one way or the other | 206 |
CHAPTER IX.
THE LOGIC OF SCIENTIFIC NEGATION.
| What gives the denials of positivism their general weight, is the impression that they represent reason | 208 |
| They are supported by three kinds of arguments: physical, moral, and historical | 209 |
| The two first bear upon all religion; the latter only on special revelations | 210 |
| Natural religion is the belief in God, immortality, and the possibility of miracles generally | 210 |
| Physical science prefers to destroy natural religion by its connection of mind with matter | 210 |
| 1st. Making conscious life a function of the brain. 2nd. Evolving the living organisms from lifeless matter. 3rd. Making this material evolution automatic | 210 |
| Thus all external proofs of God are destroyed | 212 |
| And also of the soul's immortality | 213 |
| External proof is declared to be the test of reality | 213 |
| And therefore all religion is set down as a dream | 215 |
| But we believe that proof is the test of reality, not because it is proved to be so, but because of the authority of those who tell us so | 215 |
| But it will be found that these men do not understand their own principle | 216 |
| And, that in what they consider their most important conclusions they emphatically disregard it | 217 |
| One or other, therefore, of their opinions is worthless—their denial of religion or their affirmation of morality | 219 |
| But we shall see this more clearly in considering the question of consciousness and will | 220 |
| We shall see that, as far as science can inform us, man is nothing but an automaton | 220 |
| But the positive school are afraid to admit this | 221 |
| And not daring to meet the question, they make a desperate effort to confuse it | 222 |
| Two problems are involved in the matter: 1st. How is brain action connected with consciousness | 223 |
| 2nd. Is the consciousness that is connected with it something separable from, and independent of it | 223 |
| The first of these problems has no bearing at all on any moral or religious question. It is insoluble. It leaves us not in doubt but in ignorance | 224 |
| The doubt, and the religious question is connected solely with the second problem | 228 |
| To which there are two alternative solutions | 228 |
| And modern science is so confused that it will accept neither | 228 |
| As Dr. Tyndall's treatment of the subject very forcibly shows us | 230 |
| And Dr. Tyndall in this way is a perfect representative of the whole modern positive school | 231 |
| Let us compare the molecules of the brain to the six moving billiard-balls | 231 |
| The question is, are these movements due to the stroke of one cue or of two | 233 |
| The positive school profess to answer this question both ways | 234 |
| But this profession is nonsense | 236 |
| What they really mean is, 1st. That the connection of consciousness with matter is a mystery; as to that they can give no answer. 2nd. That as to whether consciousness is wholly a material thing or no, they will give no answer | 237 |
| But why are they in this state of suspense? | 238 |
| Though their system does not in the least require the hypothesis of an immaterial element in consciousness | 239 |
| They see that the moral value of life does | 239 |
| The same reasons that will warrant their saying it may exist, will constrain them to say it must | 240 |
| Physical science, with its proofs, can say nothing in the matter, either as to will, immortality, or God | 242 |
| But, on the other hand, it will force us, if we believe in will, to admit the reality of miracles | 243 |
| So far as science goes, morality and religion are both on the same footing | 243 |
CHAPTER X.
MORALITY AND NATURAL THEISM.
| Supposing science not to be inconsistent with theism, may not theism be inconsistent with morality? | 247 |
| It seems to be so; but it is no more so than is morality with itself. Two difficulties common to both:—1st. The existence of evil; 2nd. Man's free will and God's free will | 248 |
| James Mill's statement of the case represents the popular anti-religious arguments | 249 |
| But his way of putting the case is full of distortion and exaggeration | 250 |
| Though certain of the difficulties he pointed out were real | 251 |
| And those we cannot explain away; but if we are to believe in our moral being at all, we must one and all accept | 252 |
| We can escape from them by none of the rationalistic substitutes for religion | 252 |
| A similar difficulty is the freedom of the will | 257 |
| This belief is an intellectual impossibility | 258 |
| But at the same time a moral necessity | 260 |
| It is typical of all the difficulties attendant on an assent to our own moral nature | 260 |
| The vaguer difficulties that appeal to the moral imagination we must meet in the same way | 261 |
CHAPTER XI.
THE HUMAN RACE AND REVELATION.
| Should the intellect of the world return to theism, will it ever again acknowledge a special revelation? | 264 |
| We can see that this is an urgent question | 265 |
| By many general considerations | 265 |
| Especially the career of Protestantism | 267 |
| Which is visibly evaporating into a mere natural theism | 268 |
| And, as such, is losing all restraining power in the world | 271 |
| Where then shall we look for a revelation? Not in any of the Eastern creeds | 275 |
| The claims of the Roman Church are the only ones worth considering | 276 |
| Her position is absolutely distinct from that of Protestantism, and she is not involved in its fall | 277 |
| In theory she is all that the enlightened world could require | 279 |
| The only question is, is she so in practice? This brings us to difficulties | 282 |
| 1st. The partial success of her revelation; and her supposed condemnation of the virtues of unbelievers. But her partial success is simply the old mystery of evil | 282 |
| And through her infinite charity, she does nothing to increase that difficulty | 283 |
| The value of orthodoxy is analogous to the value of true physical science | 285 |
| All should try to learn the truth who can; but we do not condemn others who cannot | 286 |
| Even amongst Catholics generally no recondite theological knowledge is required | 287 |
| The facts of the Catholic religion are simple. Theology is the complex scientific explanation of them | 288 |
| Catholicism is misunderstood because the outside world confuses with its religion—1st. The complex explanations of it | 289 |
| 2nd. Matters of discipline, and practical rules | 290 |
| 3rd. The pious opinions, or the scientific errors of private persons, or particular epochs | 291 |
| None of which really are any integral part of the Church | 293 |
| Neither are the peculiar exaggerations of moral feeling that have been prevalent at different times | 293 |
| The Church theoretically is a living, growing, self-adapting organism | 295 |
| She is, in fact, the growing, moral sense of mankind organised and developed under a supernatural tutelage | 295 |
CHAPTER XII.
UNIVERSAL HISTORY AND THE CLAIMS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
| We must now consider the Church in relation to history and external historical criticism | 297 |
| 1st. The history of Christianity; 2nd. The history of other religions | 298 |
| Criticism has robbed the Bible of nearly all the supposed internal evidences of its supernatural character | 298 |
| It has traced the chief Christian dogmas to non-Christian sources | 300 |
| It has shown that the histories of other religions are strangely analogous to the history of Christianity | 300 |
| And to Protestantism these discoveries are fatal | 302 |
| But they are not fatal to Catholicism, whose attitude to history is made utterly different by the doctrine of the perpetual infallibility of the Church | 305 |
| The Catholic Church teaches us to believe the Bible for her sake, not her for the Bible's | 305 |
| And even though her dogmas may have existed in some form elsewhere, they become new revelations to us, by her supernatural selection of them | 306 |
| The Church is a living organism, for ever selecting and assimilating fresh nutriment | 307 |
| Even from amongst the wisdom of her bitterest enemies | 309 |
| All false revelations, in so far as they have professed to be infallible, are, from the Catholic standpoint, abortive Catholicisms | 311 |
| Catholicism has succeeded in the same attempt in which they have failed | 313 |
CHAPTER XIII.
BELIEF AND WILL.
| The aim of this book | 315 |
| Has been to clear the great question as to man's nature, and the proper way of regarding him, from the confusion at present surrounding it | 317 |
| And to show that the answer will finally rest, not on outer evidence, but on himself, and on his own will, if he have a will | 319 |