Twelve Types | Page 9

of ultimate
physics and metaphysics, in the two facts that we cannot imagine a
space that is infinite, and that we cannot imagine a space that is finite.
It runs through the inmost complications of divinity, in that we cannot
conceive that Christ in the wilderness was truly pure, unless we also
conceive that he desired to sin. It runs, in the same manner, through all
the minor matters of morals, so that we cannot imagine courage
existing except in conjunction with fear, or magnanimity existing
except in conjunction with some temptation to meanness. If Pope and
his followers caught this echo of natural irrationality, they were not any
the more artificial. Their antitheses were fully in harmony with
existence, which is itself a contradiction in terms.
Pope was really a great poet; he was the last great poet of civilisation.
Immediately after the fall of him and his school come Burns and Byron,
and the reaction towards the savage and the elemental. But to Pope
civilisation was still an exciting experiment. Its perruques and ruffles
were to him what feathers and bangles are to a South Sea Islander--the

real romance of civilisation. And in all the forms of art which
peculiarly belong to civilisation, he was supreme. In one especially he
was supreme--the great and civilised art of satire. And in this we have
fallen away utterly.
We have had a great revival in our time of the cult of violence and
hostility. Mr Henley and his young men have an infinite number of
furious epithets with which to overwhelm any one who differs from
them. It is not a placid or untroubled position to be Mr Henley's enemy,
though we know that it is certainly safer than to be his friend. And yet,
despite all this, these people produce no satire. Political and social
satire is a lost art, like pottery and stained glass. It may be worth while
to make some attempt to point out a reason for this.
It may seem a singular observation to say that we are not generous
enough to write great satire. This, however, is approximately a very
accurate way of describing the case. To write great satire, to attack a
man so that he feels the attack and half acknowledges its justice, it is
necessary to have a certain intellectual magnanimity which realises the
merits of the opponent as well as his defects. This is, indeed, only
another way of putting the simple truth that in order to attack an army
we must know not only its weak points, but also its strong points.
England in the present season and spirit fails in satire for the same
simple reason that it fails in war: it despises the enemy. In matters of
battle and conquest we have got firmly rooted in our minds the idea (an
idea fit for the philosophers of Bedlam) that we can best trample on a
people by ignoring all the particular merits which give them a chance
of trampling upon us. It has become a breach of etiquette to praise the
enemy; whereas when the enemy is strong every honest scout ought to
praise the enemy. It is impossible to vanquish an army without having a
full account of its strength. It is impossible to satirise a man without
having a full account of his virtues. It is too much the custom in politics
to describe a political opponent as utterly inhumane, as utterly careless
of his country, as utterly cynical, which no man ever was since the
beginning of the world. This kind of invective may often have a great
superficial success: it may hit the mood of the moment; it may raise
excitement and applause; it may impress millions. But there is one man

among all those millions whom it does not impress, whom it hardly
even touches; that is the man against whom it is directed. The one
person for whom the whole satire has been written in vain is the man
whom it is the whole object of the institution of satire to reach. He
knows that such a description of him is not true. He knows that he is
not utterly unpatriotic, or utterly self-seeking, or utterly barbarous and
revengeful. He knows that he is an ordinary man, and that he can count
as many kindly memories, as many humane instincts, as many hours of
decent work and responsibility as any other ordinary man. But behind
all this he has his real weaknesses, the real ironies of his soul: behind
all these ordinary merits lie the mean compromises, the craven silences,
the sullen vanities, the secret brutalities, the unmanly visions of
revenge. It is to these that satire should reach if it is to touch the man at
whom it is aimed. And to