Fashionable Philosophy | Page 7

that unseen
force within them, which I have been attempting to describe to Mr
Germsell, for the potency which may enable them to reach it.
Lady Fritterly. Indeed, Mr Rollestone, we are all exceedingly in earnest.
I never felt so serious in my life. Of course this London life must all
seem very frivolous to you; but that we can't help, you know. We can't
all go away and make moral experiments like you. What we feel is, that
we ought all to endeavour as much as possible to introduce a more
serious tone into society. We want to get rid of the selfishness, and the
littlenesses, and the petty ambitions and envyings, and the scandals that
go on. Don't we, Louisa, dear? And you can't think how grateful I am to
Lord Fondleton for having given me the pleasure of your acquaintance.
I hope I may often see you; I am sure you would do us all so much
good. You will always find me at home on Sunday afternoons at this

hour.
Mrs Allmash. It is so refreshing to meet any one so full of information
and earnestness as you are, in this wicked, jaded London. Please go on,
Mr Rollestone; what you were saying was so interesting. Have you
really been experimentalising on your own moral organism? How quite
too extraordinary!
Lord Fondleton [aside to Mrs Gloring]. By Jove! I had no idea old
Rollestone could come out in this line. He is a regular dark horse. I
should never have suspected it. He will be first favourite in London this
season, and win in a canter.
Coldwaite. You will excuse me, Mr Rollestone, but I really am
interested, and I really am serious. It was with no idle curiosity that I
was waiting to hear your answer to Mr Germsell's inquiry, as to the
nature of the moral experiment necessary to test the character of this
unseen force.
Rollestone. I can only say that any experiment which deals with the
affectional and emotional part of one's nature must be painful in the
extreme. There is, indeed, only one motive which would induce one to
undergo the trials, sufferings, sacrifices, and ordeals which it
involves--and that is one in which you will sympathise: it is the hope
that humanity may benefit by the result of one's efforts. Indeed, any
lower motive than this would vitiate them. I will venture to assert to Mr
Germsell, who is so sceptical as to the existence of any other quality in
that force, which he can only fathom so far as to know that it is
physical, that I will put him through a course of experiment which will
cause him more acute moral suffering than his brain could bear, unless
it was sustained by a force which, by that experimental process, will
reveal attributes contained in it not dreamt of in his philosophy.
Germsell. I have no doubt you could strain my mind until it was weak
enough to believe anything, even your fantastic theories. Thank you, I
would rather continue to experiment with my own microscope and
forceps than let you experiment either upon my affections or my brains.

Fussle [aside to Mr Rollestone]. You could not make anything of them
even if he consented--the former don't exist, and the latter are mere
putty--but I can quite understand your desire to begin in corpore vili.
Lord Fondleton [aside to Mrs Gloring]. Allow me freely to offer you
my affections as peculiarly adapted to experiments of this nature.
Rollestone. It has always struck me as strange that men of science, who
don't shrink from testing, for instance, the value of poisons, or the
nature of disease, by heroically subjecting their own external organisms
to their action, should shrink from experimenting on that essential if
remote vitalising force, which can only be reached by moral experiment,
and disorder in which produces not only moral obliquity and mental
alienation, but physical disease as well.
Fussle. Thus a man may die of apoplexy brought on by a fit of passion.
Cure his temper, and you lessen the danger of apoplexy; that, I take it,
is an illustration of what you mean.
Rollestone. In its most external application it is; the question is where
his bad temper comes from, and whether, as Mr Germsell would
maintain, it is entirely due to his cerebral condition, and not to the
moral qualities inherent in the force, which, acting on peculiar cerebral
conditions, causes one man's temper to differ from another's. It is not
the liberated force which generates the temper. For that you have to go
farther back; and the reason why research is limited in this direction is
not because it is impossible to go farther back, but because it must
inevitably entail, as I have already