Heretics | Page 6

downstairs, they
thought of the end like men, not of the process like paralytics. They did
not say, "Efficiently elevating my right leg, using, you will notice, the
muscles of the thigh and calf, which are in excellent order, I--" Their
feeling was quite different. They were so filled with the beautiful vision
of the man lying flat at the foot of the staircase that in that ecstasy the
rest followed in a flash. In practice, the habit of generalizing and
idealizing did not by any means mean worldly weakness. The time of
big theories was the time of big results. In the era of sentiment and fine
words, at the end of the eighteenth century, men were really robust and
effective. The sentimentalists conquered Napoleon. The cynics could
not catch De Wet. A hundred years ago our affairs for good or evil
were wielded triumphantly by rhetoricians. Now our affairs are
hopelessly muddled by strong, silent men. And just as this repudiation
of big words and big visions has brought forth a race of small men in
politics, so it has brought forth a race of small men in the arts. Our

modern politicians claim the colossal license of Caesar and the
Superman, claim that they are too practical to be pure and too patriotic
to be moral; but the upshot of it all is that a mediocrity is Chancellor of
the Exchequer. Our new artistic philosophers call for the same moral
license, for a freedom to wreck heaven and earth with their energy; but
the upshot of it all is that a mediocrity is Poet Laureate. I do not say
that there are no stronger men than these; but will any one say that
there are any men stronger than those men of old who were dominated
by their philosophy and steeped in their religion? Whether bondage be
better than freedom may be discussed. But that their bondage came to
more than our freedom it will be difficult for any one to deny.
The theory of the unmorality of art has established itself firmly in the
strictly artistic classes. They are free to produce anything they like.
They are free to write a "Paradise Lost" in which Satan shall conquer
God. They are free to write a "Divine Comedy" in which heaven shall
be under the floor of hell. And what have they done? Have they
produced in their universality anything grander or more beautiful than
the things uttered by the fierce Ghibbeline Catholic, by the rigid Puritan
schoolmaster? We know that they have produced only a few roundels.
Milton does not merely beat them at his piety, he beats them at their
own irreverence. In all their little books of verse you will not find a
finer defiance of God than Satan's. Nor will you find the grandeur of
paganism felt as that fiery Christian felt it who described Faranata
lifting his head as in disdain of hell. And the reason is very obvious.
Blasphemy is an artistic effect, because blasphemy depends upon a
philosophical conviction. Blasphemy depends upon belief and is fading
with it. If any one doubts this, let him sit down seriously and try to
think blasphemous thoughts about Thor. I think his family will find him
at the end of the day in a state of some exhaustion.
Neither in the world of politics nor that of literature, then, has the
rejection of general theories proved a success. It may be that there have
been many moonstruck and misleading ideals that have from time to
time perplexed mankind. But assuredly there has been no ideal in
practice so moonstruck and misleading as the ideal of practicality.
Nothing has lost so many opportunities as the opportunism of Lord

Rosebery. He is, indeed, a standing symbol of this epoch--the man who
is theoretically a practical man, and practically more unpractical than
any theorist. Nothing in this universe is so unwise as that kind of
worship of worldly wisdom. A man who is perpetually thinking of
whether this race or that race is strong, of whether this cause or that
cause is promising, is the man who will never believe in anything long
enough to make it succeed. The opportunist politician is like a man
who should abandon billiards because he was beaten at billiards, and
abandon golf because he was beaten at golf. There is nothing which is
so weak for working purposes as this enormous importance attached to
immediate victory. There is nothing that fails like success.
And having discovered that opportunism does fail, I have been induced
to look at it more largely, and in consequence to see that it must fail. I
perceive that it is far more practical to begin at the beginning and
discuss theories. I see that the men who killed