Sweetness and light / by Matthew Arnold

76 Pages·2017·8.6 MB·English

by  Matthew Arnold

f pf?fs r-4
i ('í2iL{
O^CCT^S.ZZi
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT
AND
AN ESSAY ON STYLE
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT
By matthew arn«ld
(Reprinted from “ Culture a?id Anarchy ”)
AND
AN ESSAY ®N STYLE
By WALTER PATER
(.Reprinted from “ Appreciations ”)
Nehj Bork
THE MACMILLAN C©MPANY
London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.
1910
AU rights reserved
Copyright, 1895,
By MACMILLAN AND CO.
L
Copyright, 1899,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. SWEETNESS AND LlGHT
Set up and electrotyped March, 1899. Reprinted
March, 1902 ; March, 1904 ; May, 1905 ; February,
1909 ; August, 1910.
Nortoootr ^ress
J. S. Cushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith
Norwood Mass. U.S.A.
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT.
THE disparagers of culture make
its motive curiosity; sometimes,
indeed, they make its motive mere
exclusiveness and vanity. The culture
which is supposed to plume itself on
a smattering of Greek and Latin is a
culture which is begotten by nothing
so intellectual as curiosity; it is valued
either out of sheer vanity and igno-
rance or else as an engine of social
and class distinction, separating its
holder, like a badge or title, from
other people who have not got it. No
serious man would call this culture, or
3
4 SWEETNESS AND LIGHT. SWEETNESS AND LIGHT. S
attach any valué to it, as culture, at celebrated French critic, M. Sainte-
all. To find the real ground for the Beuve, and a very inadequate estímate
very different estímate which serious it in my judgment was. And its in-
people will set upon culture, we must adequacy consisted chiefly in this:
find some motive for culture in the that in our English way it left out of
terms of which may lie a real ambi- sight the double sense really involved
guity; and such a motive the word in the word curiosity, thinking enough
curiosity gives us. was said to stamp M. Sainte-Beuve
I have before now pointed out that with blame if it was said that he was
we English do not, like the foreigners, impelled in his operations as a critic
use this word in a good sense as well by curiosity, and omitting either to
as in a bad sense. With us the word perceive that M. Sainte-Beuve himself,
is ahvays used in a somewhat disap- and many other people with him,
proving sense. A liberal and intelli- would consider that this was praise-
gent eagerness about the things of the worthy and not blameworthy, or to
mind may be meant by a foreigner point out why it ought really to be
when he speaks of curiosity, but with accounted worthy of blame and not
us the word always conveys a certain of praise. For as there is a curiosity
notion of frivolous and unedifying ac- about intellectual matters which is
tivity. In the Quarterly Review, some futile, and merely a disease, so there
little time ago, was an estímate of the is certainly a curiosity,— a desire aftei
6 SWEETNESS AND LIGHT. SWEETNESS AND LIGHT. 7
the things of the mind simply for their even though we let the term curiosity
own sakes and for the pleasure of see- stand to describe it.
ing them as they are, — which is, in But there is of culture another view,
an intel·ligent being, natural and laud­ in which not solely the scientific pas­
able. Nay, and the very desire to see sion, the sheer desire to see things as
things as they are implies a balance they are, natural and proper in an in-
and regulation of mind which is not telligent being, appears as the ground
often attained without fruitful effort, of it. There is a view in which all
and which is the very opposite of the the love of our neighbour, the impulses
blind and diseased impulse of mind towards action, help, and beneficence,
which is what we mean to blame when the desire for removing human error,
we blame curiosity. Montesquieu says : clearing human confusión, and dimin-
“The first motive which ought to im- ishing human misery, the noble aspi-
pel us to study is the desire to aug­ ration to leave the world better and
ment the excellence of our nature, and happier than we found it, motives
to render an intel·ligent being yet more eminently such as are called social,
intel·ligent.” This is the true ground come in as part of the grounds of
to assign for the genuine scientific pas- culture, and the main and preeminent
sion, however manifested, and for cul­ part. Culture is then properly de-
ture, viewed simply as a fruit of this scribed not as having its origin in curi­
passion; and it is a worthy ground, osity, but as having its origin in the
8 SWEETNESS AND LIGHT. SWEETNESS AND LIGHT. 9
love of perfection; it is a sñidy of which proceed from its own state of
perfection. It moves by the forcé, not development and share in all the ím-
merely or primarily of the scientific perfections and immaturities of this,
passion for pure knowledge, but also for a basis of action; what distin-
of the moral and social passion for guishes culture is, that it is possessed
doing good. As, in the first view of by the scientific passion as well as by
it, we took for its worthy motto Mon- the passion of doing good; that it
tesquieu’s words: “ To render an in­ demands worthy notions of reason and
tel·ligent being yet more intel·ligent! ” the will of God, and does not readily
so, in the second view of it, there is suffer its own crude conceptions to
no better motto which it can have substitute themselves for them. And
than these words of Bishop Wilson : knowing that no action or institution
“To make reason and the will of God can be salutary and stable which is
prevail! ” not based on reason and the will of
Only, whereas the passion for doing God, it is not so bent on acting and
good is apt to be overhasty in deter- instituting, even with the great aim of
mining what reason and the will of diminishing human error and misery
God say, because its turn is for acting ever before its thoughts, but that it can
rather than thinking and it wants to remember that acting and instituting
be beginning to act; and whereas it are of little use, unless we know how and
is apt to take its own conceptions what we ought to act and to institute.
IO SWEETNESS AND LIGHT. SWEETNESS AND LIGHT. II
I his culture is more interesting an'd bound, and beyond which they had
more far reaching than that other, no power of looking? But now the
which is founded solely on the scien- iron forcé of adhesión to the old rou­
tific passion for knowing. But it needs tine, — social, political, religious, —
times of faith and ardour, times when has wonderfully yielded; the iron
the inteilectual horizon is opening and forcé of exclusión of all which is new
widening ali round us, to flourish in. has wonderfully yielded. The danger
And is not the close and bounded now is, not that people should ob-
inteilectual horizon vvithin which we stinately refuse to allow anything but
have long lived and moved now lift- their old routine to pass for reason
ing up, and are not new lights finding and the will of God, but either that
free passage to shine in upon us ? For they should allow some novelty or
a long time there was no passage for other to pass for these too easily, or
them to make their way in upon us, else that they should underrate the
and then it was of no use to think of importance of them altogether, and
adapting the world’s action to them. think it enough to follow action for
Where was the hope of making reason its own sake, without troubling them-
and the will of God prevalí among selves to make reason and the will of
people who had a routine which they God prevail therein. Now, then, is
had chnstened reason and the will of the moment for culture to be of Ser­
God, in which they were inextricably vice, culture which believes in making
12 SWEETNESS AND LIGHi.
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT. »3
reason and the will of God prevail,
and beneficent character of culture
believes in perfection, is the study and
becomes manifest. The mere endeav­
pursuit of perfection, and is no longer
our to see and learn the truth for our
debarred, by a rigid, invincible exclu­
own personal satisfaction is indeed a
sión of whatever is nevv, from getting
commencement for making it prevail,
acceptance for its ideas, simply be-
cause they are new. a preparing the way for this, which
always serves this, and is wrongly,
The moment this view of culture is
therefore, stamped with blame abso-
seized, the moment it is regarded not
lutely in itself and not only in its cari­
solely as the endeavour to see things
cature and degeneration. But perhaps
as they are, to draw towards a know-
it has got stamped with blame, and
ledge of the universal order vvhich
disparaged with the dubious title of
seems to be intended and aimed at
curiosity, because in comparison with
in the world, and which it is a man’s
this wider endeavour of such great and
happiness to go along with or his
plain utility it looks selfish, petty, and
misery to go counter to, — to learn,
unprofitable.
in short, the will of God, — the mo­
/And religión, the greatest and most
ment, I say, culture is considered not
important of the efforts by which the
merely as the endeavour to see and
human race has manifested its impulse
learn this, but as the endeavour, also,
to perfect itself, — religión, that voice
to make it prevail, the moral, social,
of the deepest human experience, —