Heretics | Page 7

each other about the
orthodoxy of the Homoousion were far more sensible than the people
who are quarrelling about the Education Act. For the Christian
dogmatists were trying to establish a reign of holiness, and trying to get
defined, first of all, what was really holy. But our modern educationists
are trying to bring about a religious liberty without attempting to settle
what is religion or what is liberty. If the old priests forced a statement
on mankind, at least they previously took some trouble to make it lucid.
It has been left for the modern mobs of Anglicans and Nonconformists
to persecute for a doctrine without even stating it.
For these reasons, and for many more, I for one have come to believe in
going back to fundamentals. Such is the general idea of this book. I
wish to deal with my most distinguished contemporaries, not personally
or in a merely literary manner, but in relation to the real body of
doctrine which they teach. I am not concerned with Mr. Rudyard
Kipling as a vivid artist or a vigorous personality; I am concerned with
him as a Heretic-- that is to say, a man whose view of things has the
hardihood to differ from mine. I am not concerned with Mr. Bernard
Shaw as one of the most brilliant and one of the most honest men alive;
I am concerned with him as a Heretic--that is to say, a man whose
philosophy is quite solid, quite coherent, and quite wrong. I revert to

the doctrinal methods of the thirteenth century, inspired by the general
hope of getting something done.
Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let
us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull down.
A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached
upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the
Schoolmen, "Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light.
If Light be in itself good--" At this point he is somewhat excusably
knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the
lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating
each other on their unmediaeval practicality. But as things go on they
do not work out so easily. Some people have pulled the lamp-post
down because they wanted the electric light; some because they wanted
old iron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were
evil. Some thought it not enough of a lamp-post, some too much; some
acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery; some
because they wanted to smash something. And there is war in the night,
no man knowing whom he strikes. So, gradually and inevitably, to-day,
to-morrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the
monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy
of Light. Only what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp, we
now must discuss in the dark.
II. On the negative spirit
Much has been said, and said truly, of the monkish morbidity, of the
hysteria which as often gone with the visions of hermits or nuns. But let
us never forget that this visionary religion is, in one sense, necessarily
more wholesome than our modern and reasonable morality. It is more
wholesome for this reason, that it can contemplate the idea of success
or triumph in the hopeless fight towards the ethical ideal, in what
Stevenson called, with his usual startling felicity, "the lost fight of
virtue." A modern morality, on the other hand, can only point with
absolute conviction to the horrors that follow breaches of law; its only
certainty is a certainty of ill. It can only point to imperfection. It has no
perfection to point to. But the monk meditating upon Christ or Buddha

has in his mind an image of perfect health, a thing of clear colours and
clean air. He may contemplate this ideal wholeness and happiness far
more than he ought; he may contemplate it to the neglect of exclusion
of essential THINGS he may contemplate it until he has become a
dreamer or a driveller; but still it is wholeness and happiness that he is
contemplating. He may even go mad; but he is going mad for the love
of sanity. But the modern student of ethics, even if he remains sane,
remains sane from an insane dread of insanity.
The anchorite rolling on the stones in a frenzy of submission is a
healthier person fundamentally than many a sober man in a silk hat
who is walking down Cheapside. For many such are good only through
a withering knowledge of evil. I am not at this moment claiming for the
devotee anything more than