I
MR. WELLS’S GENERAL GRIEVANCES
I cannot pretend in so short a pamphlet as this to deal with all the separate lamentations with which Mr. Wells has filled the air. But I can state the principal of them, and try to make him understand how wrong-headed he is in his objections.
Of these general points, the first and, perhaps, most important is that he was refused a right of reply. On page v of his pamphlet he distinctly insinuates that I was afraid of hearing his reply, and had it suppressed. For he says that the Editor of the paper in which my articles appeared would not give him his opportunity, and that he so refused “after various consultations with Mr. Belloc.”
As to the space which was offered, and the exceptional facilities which, I understand, were granted to this angry man, the Editor must, of course, speak for himself, and has, I believe, done so. But as to the part which I took, it can be stated very simply. I was told by the Editor (who had asked to see me on the matter) that Mr. Wells desired to reply in the same columns in which he had been criticised. I was asked what my attitude was in the matter, and I affirmed in the strongest fashion (to which the Editor will bear witness) my belief that the fullest right of reply should always be given to anyone criticised on matters of fact or judgment. The interview did not last ten minutes, but, to give a record of my attitude, I wrote a strong and clear letter to the same effect. So far as I am concerned I asked for nothing better than a reply, and I believe the Editor offered it.
Of two things, one, either Mr. Wells knew my attitude, in which case his insinuation is inexcusable, or he did not, in which case it was only rash; but at any rate he is, in this first grievance of his, quite wrong. I particularly wanted him to have every opportunity for reply. Nothing could suit me better.
Next he complains that I have not given him sufficient praise, or, at any rate, not praised him as continuously, highly and enthusiastically as I ought to have done. He complains that I only give him “slow” and “formal compliments” (page 2) and “patronising praise” (page 5).
He is wounded because I accuse him of violent antagonism to the Catholic Church (page 1) (an accusation which he denies very earnestly).
He indignantly repudiates any bias against the gentry in history—which social class I ask him to revere.
Lastly, he accuses me of using such terms about many passages in the History as “ignorant,” “childish,” “confused.”
I am afraid it is necessary before touching on these grievances to explain to Mr. Wells what criticism is, for it is clear that he has never considered the nature of that literary function.
When you criticise the writing of a man who deals with definite facts and the conclusions to be drawn from them, it is your business to praise what is praiseworthy in his effort, and to condemn what is insufficient, false or bad.
You do not praise (if you are a serious critic) simply as a sort of sop or counterbalance to blame; you praise because you find things worthy of praise—and you blame where you find things worthy of blame.
There was nothing oily or patronising, nor even adventitious and artificial in the praise which I saw fit to offer. It was not vague, it was very definite, and, I think, just. Moreover, it was very strong praise, of which any writer might be proud at the hands of a colleague. I praised Mr. Wells’s lucidity and economy of manner, his sense of proportion, and, above all, his most remarkable talent for presenting a vivid picture to the reader. In this my words were, “None of our contemporaries possesses it” (the gift of lucid and vivid description) “in anything like the same degree.” In other words, I said that he possessed a talent of the most important literary kind, which any writer would envy, and that he possessed it in a degree which made him superior to any contemporary.
I also said that he was conspicuously sincere, that he wrote very clearly, with an “excellent economy in the use of words,” and was unreserved in my hearty appreciation of his accuracy in details of reference, such as dates, spelling of names, etc.
I went on to say how strongly he felt the importance of history to mankind, though it is true that I qualified this by saying that by mankind he meant the only sort of mankind he knew. I said of his honesty of purpose, “that it was a quality apparent in every line of the work.”
Really, if that sort of thing is “oiliness,” Mr. Wells must be very difficult to please! It may be “slow”; it is not a torrent of undiscriminating adulation; it is mixed with justified blame. But it is such a catalogue of remarkable literary powers as I would not make for another writer.
I did much more than this. I specifically praised whole portions of the book as being quite excellent, notably his handling of the story of language, and the précis on many sections of history. I have no space here to give a list of the passages in which I compliment him; but they are numerous, as any one of my readers will see when my book (A Companion to Mr. Wells’s “Outline”) shall appear.
But he is not satisfied; and I am afraid the truth must be that these recent large, popular circulations of his have gone to his head, and now make him think himself much more talented than he is.
Next he has a grievance which I have no doubt is quite sincere in his own mind, but which any impartial observer, I think, would smile at. I have said that he acts with violent antagonism to the Catholic Church, and I have called that his motive. That it is his motive Mr. Wells “earnestly denies.”
Well, the whole book is written quite clearly round the object of convincing the reader, by so-called evidence, rather than reasoned argument, that there is no design in nature, and therefore no all-powerful creative God as the Author of nature; therefore, again, no revelation of such a God to men, therefore, naturally, no question of the Incarnation in Jesus Christ. The Atonement is man-made nonsense: The Fall of Man never happened, the Resurrection is a foolish story, and the Eucharist a make-believe.
Now what Body is it which maintains in their entirety the doctrines thus attacked? Can anyone deny that it is the Catholic Church? Many of them have been held by other Bodies schismatical or heretical to it, and therefore the doctrines are often alluded to as those not of the Catholic Church, but of a vague entity, impossible to define, called “Christianity.” Nevertheless, we all know that the denial to-day of those doctrines does not provoke determined resistance in any large organised Body outside the Catholic Church.
Apart from this, there are expressions of contempt which quite clearly show the rabidness of the author’s reaction against the Creed. There is no doubt at all that the Church makes him “see red”—as she does so many others.
He says he is not conscious of any such motive in attacking all the prime dogmas of the Christian Faith.
Well, I will give him a parallel. Suppose a foreigner were to write an Outline of Nineteenth Century History, and to say in it that Islanders were always rascals, that the love of sport and games was degrading—and particularly vicious that of football and cricket—that the English language was an offensive vehicle of thought and had produced nothing worthy; that sea-power was a myth, and that Nelson in particular was a bungler at handling ships; that the administration of India was a failure and a crime; and that the creation of large Overseas Colonies from the Mother Country was a fatuous experiment.
Should we not say that the gentleman had some bias against England?
Were he to tell us that he was not conscious of such a motive, we should answer, “Very well, then, you aren’t—since you say so. But the motive is certainly there, and your case is the most extraordinary case of the subconscious ever presented to a bewildered onlooker.”
Next, Mr. Wells objects most emphatically that I have done him the grievous wrong of calling him a patriot.
I am quite willing to withdraw the words, to admit my blunder, and to apologise to Mr. Wells for having made it. Every man is the judge of his own thoughts, and if he assures me that he hates his country, or is even indifferent to its fate, I will readily accept the statement. I will substitute in my book for the word “patriot” the word “national,” my only point being that Mr. Wells is highly local in his outlook. I was careful to say that the patriotic (or national) motive was, in my opinion, an advantage to the historian; but that its great danger was limitation, and that in the particular case of Mr. Wells the limitation was so narrow as to be disastrous to a general view of Europe: making him unable to understand anything that was not of his own particular suburban world.
He is wounded because I pointed out his odd reaction against the idea of a gentleman, and his dislike of the gentry, and says that I bid him “revere” them. I never asked him to do anything so silly as to revere the gentry. I am sure I do not revere them myself. What I did say was that it weakened an historian and pretty well put him out of court when he wrote, not with balanced judgment, but negatively, out of hatred; and that piece of criticism I must maintain.
As for his attitude towards the type called “a gentleman” in history, and in contemporary life, it would be easy to give examples out of other books from the same pen. But I am rigidly confining myself to this book—the Outline of History—and I submit that right through this work you see this strong dislike appearing. It appears in his treatment of the type, Roman, French or English, ancient, mediæval or modern. To take one instance out of a hundred, his sneer at the late Lord Salisbury in the pamphlet against me is characteristic. He suggests that this great man and considerable scientist was incompetent to discuss a simple question in biology, and had to be coached for the purpose, and badly coached. All our generation is a witness to the great talent of Lord Salisbury and to the range of his learning, and since he was no man’s enemy, and certainly never can have done any harm, direct or indirect, to Mr. Wells, I can only suggest that the word “Lord” was sufficient to throw Mr. Wells off his balance.
Now for the condemnatory words to which he objects,—presumably on account of their force—words which I have, indeed, used in connection with his work, and shall certainly use again: such words as “ignorance,” “blunders,” “childish,” “unscientific,” etc. I see I must again explain to Mr. Wells an obvious principle in criticism which he fails to grasp. A word is not out of place in criticism unless it is either irrelevant or false in statement or in degree. The mere strength of a word does not put it out of court. On the contrary, if the strength of the word is exactly consonant to the degree of error noted the criticism is more just than if a milder word had been used. To say that a man who poisons his mother in order to obtain her fortune is “reprehensible” is bad criticism. To call him an “inhuman criminal” is sound criticism.
Irrelevant condemnatory words are very properly objected to by their victims. But relevant condemnatory words are not only admissible, but just and even necessary.
I must not fill the whole of this little reply of mine with a mass of quotation illustrating the justice of the words I have used, but I can give a few examples which are conclusive, and which the reader has only to hear to be convinced.
As to “ignorance.” This is a word exactly applicable to point after point in the Outline which I have thoroughly exposed. For instance, it is ignorance not to appreciate the overwhelming effect of Latin literature upon all our civilisation. It is not mere omission which has left out this capital factor from Mr. Wells’s strange idea of Rome; it is, and could only be, an insufficient knowledge of what that factor was. If a schoolboy, writing an outline of the Battle of Waterloo, leave out all mention of Blücher, that is not a mere omission, it is ignorance.
There is an example of ignorance on a very wide general point. Next let me give an example of a highly particular point. It is really startling in its effect.
Mr. Wells nourishes the idea that the technical name for the Incarnation is the Immaculate Conception!
It is perfectly legitimate to say that the man of average education is not bound to be familiar with technical terms in a special department, such as that of religious terminology; but when he sets out to discuss that particular department, he must at least have the alphabet of it. Had he never mentioned the Immaculate Conception at all, the accusation would not lie: as he has foolishly blundered into mentioning it, the accusation does lie. A Frenchman who has never been to England cannot be called ignorant because he is unfamiliar with the streets of London. But what of a Frenchman who writes a guide to London and mixes up Victoria Station with Buckingham Palace?
But by far the most striking example of ignorance in his work, an example upon so astonishing a scale that one could hardly believe it even of popular “scientific” stuff, is to be found in Mr. Wells’s complete ignorance of the modern destructive criticism of Darwinian Natural Selection. He not only (as we shall see in a moment) has never heard of this European, English and American work—he actually denies its existence and imagines I have made it up!
Again, I have used the word “childish” of his attitude on more than one occasion.
Is the word “childish” too strong? I will give examples. In his fury against me he suggests that I cannot “count beyond zero,” and he admits, with a sneer, that I perhaps understand the meaning of the word “strata.”
He tries to make capital of my giving the name of the very eminent anthropologist, E. Boule, without putting “Monsieur” before it, and says that I “elevate Monsieur Boule to the eminence of ‘Boule.’” That is childish. All the world cites eminent men by their unsupported name. It is a sign of honour. For instance, that great authority, Sir Arthur Keith (whom Mr. Wells sets up to have read and followed), says “Boule.” Didn’t Mr. Wells know that?
He says that he uses the term “Roman” Catholic because it is the only one he knows with which to distinguish between the many kinds of Catholics. Whereas (and everybody knows it, including Mr. Wells in his more sober moments) the term is only used either because it is the legal and traditional word of English Protestantism, or, much more legitimately, to distinguish between us of the world-wide Roman Communion and those sincere men (many of whom I am proud to count my friends) who emphasise Catholic doctrine in the English Church and call themselves “Anglo-Catholics.” This wild protest, that there are any number of other Catholics—Scotto-Catholics, Americano-Catholics, Morisco-Catholics, Indo-Catholics, Mongolo-Catholics—is frankly ridiculous, and ridiculous after a fashion which it is legitimate to call “childish”: the mere explosion of a man in a passion.
Yet another example. Finding me to have overlooked a tiny misprint (“ai” for “ia”) in the printing of a proper name, he writes a whole page about it.
The proper adjective for absurdities of that kind is the adjective “childish.” I could give any number of other examples, but I think these are quite enough.
In point of fact, I only use the word “childish” rarely—I do not know how often in my whole book, but at a guess I should say not more than three times. But each time I am sure that it is well deserved. However, if he prefer a more dignified adjective, such as “immature” or “unstable” or “puerile,” or any other, I am quite willing to meet him, so long as he allows me to say that he only too often in his violence does write things which make him ridiculous from their lack of poise.
And what of the adjective “confused” or (for I am afraid I allowed myself that licence) “muddle-headed”? Well, I can give examples of that innumerable. For instance, he cannot conceive that I should call him unscientific, seeing that he was one of Huxley’s students. What on earth has that got to do with my accusation? If a man should call me a very poor Latin scholar (which I am—but then I do not write popular manuals on Latin poetry), would it be any reply to tell him that I had been as a boy at a school of which Cardinal Newman was the head, or as a young man that I had been at Balliol; or that among my intimate acquaintances whom I listen to fascinated upon classical themes were some of the greatest scholars of my time? Whether Mr. Wells is a scientific man or not must be decided, not by his having attended classes under Huxley, but by the use he has made of his reading; and it is easy to prove that that use has been deplorable.
Mr. Wells is unscientific because he does not survey the whole of evidence upon a point, and weigh it, and especially because he is perpetually putting forward hypothesis as fact—which may be called the very criterion of an unscientific temper; because he introduces mere fiction as an illustration of supposed fact (e.g. the nonsense about human sacrifice at Stonehenge) and the material for a magazine shocker as though it were history.
It is quite unscientific to tell people that a point highly debated and not yet concluded ranks as ascertained scientific fact.
It is quite unscientific, in talking of early Christian doctrine, to leave out tradition; still more is it unscientific to work on it without any knowledge of the sub-Apostolic period. It is unscientific in the highest degree to leave out an elementary mathematical argument as though it were mere juggling with figures, and to play to the gallery by saying that your critic has got some wonderful system of figures or other which nobody can follow.
The words “science” and “scientific” do not imply a smattering of biology or geology; still less do they imply mere popular materialism. They imply real knowledge, finally accepted after full enquiry upon complete evidence; and that is why there is nothing less scientific in the world than this so-called popular “science,” which is perpetually putting forward exploded guesses of the last century as ascertained facts.
As for muddle-headedness, what can be more muddle-headed than mixing up the general theory of evolution with the particular (and now moribund) materialist theory of Natural Selection? And yet that is what Mr. Wells is perpetually doing!
It is true that a great many other people do it too, but that is no excuse. The whole of his argument on pages 18, 19 and 20 is precisely of that kind. It would be incredible to me that any man could get confused between two such completely separate ideas had I not most wearisome and repeated experience of it—and here is Mr. Wells repeating it again!
The general theory of transformism (which itself is now subjected to a very heavy and increasing modern attack) may be compared to saying that a man travelled from London to Birmingham. But the theory of Natural Selection may be compared to saying that he travelled by motor-car and not by railway.
Now suppose a man on trial for his life for a murder which had taken place not on the railway, but by the roadside between the two towns. The whole issue turns upon whether the prisoner had travelled by motor-car or by railway. What should we say of Counsel for the Defence who confused these two issues and thought that the prosecution was concerned merely with the man’s going from one town to the other, and not with the road he travelled? I do not know whether the judge would stop him or no, but I know that Counsel for the Crown would walk round him. He would say, “The issue is not whether the man went from London to Birmingham; we grant that. The point is whether he went by motor-car or by railway.” The only issue in the controversy, which Mr. Wells has both misunderstood and rashly engaged in, is upon the agency of Evolution, not upon Evolution itself. Yet he has confused the two!
Another example of bad muddle-headedness is his mixing up the Catholic use of relics and the Catholic use of sacred images with the unwarranted illustration of the unknown prehistoric past, and the unwarranted basing of a detailed conclusion upon the insufficient evidence of a few bones.
I say in my criticism of Mr. Wells, and I say quite rightly, that to put forward a picture of an imaginary being called “Eoanthropus,” giving him a particular weapon and gait and gesture, and an expression (which, as I have said, made him very like one of my acquaintance), was utterly unwarranted upon the exceedingly doubtful evidence of the fragments called “The Piltdown skull.” Sacred images in Catholic use are not—and surely everybody ought to know that—attempts at reconstruction, still less are they fakes to try and get people to believe that, for instance, an Archangel has goose wings and curly hair. They are symbols; are powerful and useful aids to devotion, not reconstructions.
Nor are relics in any way parallel to fossil evidences. We venerate a relic of St. Agnes (such as I am glad to say I have in my house), both because it is a striking memorial of that very holy witness to the Faith, who gave up her life for it, and because (what I will not debate here) we believe that the sanctity of the person can upon occasion give virtue and power to such things. But we do not say, “In case you do not believe St. Agnes ever existed, here is a fragment of her bone.” To mix up two things so entirely different is muddle-headedness turned glorious.
I could add not only further examples justifying the terms I have used, but a great many other terms equally justified. I must leave it to the ampler space of my book, The Companion to his work, which Mr. Wells will have the pleasure of seeing before him in a very few weeks.