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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
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