|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 23
This was my first conviction; made by the shock of my childish
emotions meeting the modern creed in mid-career. I had always vaguely
felt facts to be miracles in the sense that they are wonderful:
now I began to think them miracles in the stricter sense that they
were WILFUL. I mean that they were, or might be, repeated exercises
of some will. In short, I had always believed that the world
involved magic: now I thought that perhaps it involved a magician.
And this pointed a profound emotion always present and sub-conscious;
that this world of ours has some purpose; and if there is a purpose,
there is a person. I had always felt life first as a story:
and if there is a story there is a story-teller.
But modern thought also hit my second human tradition.
It went against the fairy feeling about strict limits and conditions.
The one thing it loved to talk about was expansion and largeness.
Herbert Spencer would have been greatly annoyed if any one had
called him an imperialist, and therefore it is highly regrettable
that nobody did. But he was an imperialist of the lowest type.
He popularized this contemptible notion that the size of the solar
system ought to over-awe the spiritual dogma of man. Why should
a man surrender his dignity to the solar system any more than to
a whale? If mere size proves that man is not the image of God,
then a whale may be the image of God; a somewhat formless image;
what one might call an impressionist portrait. It is quite futile
to argue that man is small compared to the cosmos; for man was
always small compared to the nearest tree. But Herbert Spencer,
in his headlong imperialism, would insist that we had in some
way been conquered and annexed by the astronomical universe.
He spoke about men and their ideals exactly as the most insolent
Unionist talks about the Irish and their ideals. He turned mankind
into a small nationality. And his evil influence can be seen even
in the most spirited and honourable of later scientific authors;
notably in the early romances of Mr. H.G.Wells. Many moralists
have in an exaggerated way represented the earth as wicked.
But Mr. Wells and his school made the heavens wicked.
We should lift up our eyes to the stars from whence would come
our ruin.
But the expansion of which I speak was much more evil than all this.
I have remarked that the materialist, like the madman, is in prison;
in the prison of one thought. These people seemed to think it
singularly inspiring to keep on saying that the prison was very large.
The size of this scientific universe gave one no novelty, no relief.
The cosmos went on for ever, but not in its wildest constellation
could there be anything really interesting; anything, for instance,
such as forgiveness or free will. The grandeur or infinity
of the secret of its cosmos added nothing to it. It was like
telling a prisoner in Reading gaol that he would be glad to hear
that the gaol now covered half the county. The warder would
have nothing to show the man except more and more long corridors
of stone lit by ghastly lights and empty of all that is human.
So these expanders of the universe had nothing to show us except
more and more infinite corridors of space lit by ghastly suns
and empty of all that is divine.
In fairyland there had been a real law; a law that could be broken,
for the definition of a law is something that can be broken.
But the machinery of this cosmic prison was something that could
not be broken; for we ourselves were only a part of its machinery.
We were either unable to do things or we were destined to do them.
The idea of the mystical condition quite disappeared; one can neither
have the firmness of keeping laws nor the fun of breaking them.
The largeness of this universe had nothing of that freshness and
airy outbreak which we have praised in the universe of the poet.
This modern universe is literally an empire; that is, it was vast,
but it is not free. One went into larger and larger windowless rooms,
rooms big with Babylonian perspective; but one never found the smallest
window or a whisper of outer air.
Their infernal parallels seemed to expand with distance;
but for me all good things come to a point, swords for instance.
So finding the boast of the big cosmos so unsatisfactory to my
emotions I began to argue about it a little; and I soon found that
the whole attitude was even shallower than could have been expected.
According to these people the cosmos was one thing since it had
one unbroken rule. Only (they would say) while it is one thing,
it is also the only thing there is. Why, then, should one worry
particularly to call it large? There is nothing to compare it with.
It would be just as sensible to call it small. A man may say,
"I like this vast cosmos, with its throng of stars and its crowd
of varied creatures." But if it comes to that why should not a
man say, "I like this cosy little cosmos, with its decent number
of stars and as neat a provision of live stock as I wish to see"?
One is as good as the other; they are both mere sentiments.
It is mere sentiment to rejoice that the sun is larger than the earth;
it is quite as sane a sentiment to rejoice that the sun is no larger
than it is. A man chooses to have an emotion about the largeness
of the world; why should he not choose to have an emotion about
its smallness?
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|