The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits | Page 9

abomination and an anathema?
Could so many young men of talent, of education, and of principle have
been hurried away by what had neither truth, nor nature, not one
particle of honest feeling nor the least shew of reason in it? Is the
Modern Philosophy (as it has been called) at one moment a youthful
bride, and the next a withered beldame, like the false Duessa in Spenser?
Or is the vaunted edifice of Reason, like his House of Pride, gorgeous
in front, and dazzling to approach, while "its hinder parts are ruinous,
decayed, and old?" Has the main prop, which supported the mighty
fabric, been shaken and given way under the strong grasp of some
Samson; or has it not rather been undermined by rats and vermin? At
one time, it almost seemed, that "if this failed,
"The pillar'd firmament was rottenness, And earth's base built of
stubble:"
now scarce a shadow of it remains, it is crumbled to dust, nor is it even
talked of! "What then, went ye forth for to see, a reed shaken with the
wind?" Was it for this that our young gownsmen of the greatest

expectation and promise, versed in classic lore, steeped in dialectics,
armed at all points for the foe, well read, well nurtured, well provided
for, left the University and the prospect of lawn sleeves, tearing asunder
the shackles of the free born spirit, and the cobwebs of school-divinity,
to throw themselves at the feet of the new Gamaliel, and learn wisdom
from him? Was it for this, that students at the bar, acute, inquisitive,
sceptical (here only wild enthusiasts) neglected for a while the paths of
preferment and the law as too narrow, tortuous, and unseemly to bear
the pure and broad light of reason? Was it for this, that students in
medicine missed their way to Lecturerships and the top of their
profession, deeming lightly of the health of the body, and dreaming
only of the renovation of society and the march of mind? Was it to this
that Mr. Southey's Inscriptions pointed? to this that Mr. Coleridge's
Religious Musings tended? Was it for this, that Mr. Godwin himself sat
with arms folded, and, "like Cato, gave his little senate laws?" Or rather,
like another Prospero, uttered syllables that with their enchanted breath
were to change the world, and might almost stop the stars in their
courses? Oh! and is all forgot? Is this sun of intellect blotted from the
sky? Or has it suffered total eclipse? Or is it we who make the fancied
gloom, by looking at it through the paltry, broken, stained fragments of
our own interests and prejudices? Were we fools then, or are we
dishonest now? Or was the impulse of the mind less likely to be true
and sound when it arose from high thought and warm feeling, than
afterwards, when it was warped and debased by the example, the vices,
and follies of the world?
The fault, then, of Mr. Godwin's philosophy, in one word, was too
much ambition--"by that sin fell the angels!" He conceived too nobly of
his fellows (the most unpardonable crime against them, for there is
nothing that annoys our self-love so much as being complimented on
imaginary achievements, to which we are wholly unequal)--he raised
the standard of morality above the reach of humanity, and by directing
virtue to the most airy and romantic heights, made her path dangerous,
solitary, and impracticable. The author of the Political Justice took
abstract reason for the rule of conduct, and abstract good for its end. He
places the human mind on an elevation, from which it commands a
view of the whole line of moral consequences; and requires it to
conform its acts to the larger and more enlightened conscience which it

has thus acquired. He absolves man from the gross and narrow ties of
sense, custom, authority, private and local attachment, in order that he
may devote himself to the boundless pursuit of universal benevolence.
Mr. Godwin gives no quarter to the amiable weaknesses of our nature,
nor does he stoop to avail himself of the supplementary aids of an
imperfect virtue. Gratitude, promises, friendship, family affection give
way, not that they may be merged in the opposite vices or in want of
principle; but that the void may be filled up by the disinterested love of
good, and the dictates of inflexible justice, which is "the law of laws,
and sovereign of sovereigns." All minor considerations yield, in his
system, to the stern sense of duty, as they do, in the ordinary and
established ones, to the voice of necessity. Mr. Godwin's theory and
that of more approved reasoners differ only in this, that what are with
them the exceptions, the extreme cases, he makes the every-day rule.
No