the fittest is worked out; or that moral sentiment and dogma have been evolved through prehistoric conditions, although it must be doubted whether Mr. Darwin ever properly apprehended the essential But these facts are fatal to the fundamental propositions of the Revolutionary dogma; to its doctrine of the natural, inalienable, and imprescriptible rights of the individual; to its doctrine of absolute reason; The absolute antinomy between the postulates of the Re- volution and the truths summed up in the evolu- tionary formula is certain. Does the like antinomy exist between those truths and the transcendental conceptions on which religion is based? All religions rest upon an ethical feeling. The central idea of Christianity is this: of the root of moral Religion, and especially Christianity, proclaims Deity and Immortality as the crown of the moral law, whose existence, and dictates, and absolute character reason discloses. How do these transcendental conceptions 119 The answer is indicated in the dictum of Aquinas, that "there is no knowledge without phantasmata;" that is, that phenomena, to be really apprehended, must be presented to the understanding by the imaginative faculty PAGE 124 The domain of physical science is the sphere of sense perception 124 The evolutionary formula is not concerned with the origin of spirtual or vital forces 124 The moral sense may have been evolved as Mr. Darwin supposes, but you do not explain a thing by tracing it back to its rudimentary forms, or by exhibiting the course of its development. 124 In the moral sense there is something transcending organic life and sensation. Relativity is the last word of Darwinism. The Categorical Imperative is absolute. 125 Mr. Darwin's facts point to, and harmonise with, a psychic basis of life and Directive Intelligence Thus the whole universe is transfigured before us, and we catch some glimpse of its real meaning. The supreme law which rules through it, is a law of tendency upwards, of striving after perfection. This is the true law of evolution These considerations commended to men of good will who rage against Mr. Darwin's doctrine without under- 126 127 128 CHAPTER V. THE REVOLUTION AND ART. Naturalism in art a note of the Revolution M. Zola's Nana may be regarded as a type of Natural PAGE 131 M. Zola's apology for Naturalism as the manifestation in art of the Revolutionary idea. 134 M. Zola contends that the object of Naturalism is a return to nature; his view of nature 136 139 141 The old view of nature Difference between the old and the new æstheticism M. Zola contends that the novelistic and dramatic art, like all other art, must be scientific, physiological, M. Zola does, in some sort, represent the movement in His parallel between his school in literature, and the school in medicine of which Claude Bernard was the great light, is fair enough 142 143 147 SUMMARY. And his claim that his school is the popular artistic expression of the Revolution seems unquestionably true This is the especial value of his writings The true mission of the artist CHAPTER VI. xix PAGE 153 155 157 THE REVOLUTION AND DEMOCRACY. The word Democracy is commonly used to denote the polity in contemporary Europe which is informed by the Revolutionary dogma This Democracy has very little in common with the democracies of pre-Christian Europe or of the Middle Ages Ancient and medieval democracies were the result of fierce struggles, and of the triumph of the most highly endowed races; they rested upon a basis of fact, and were, even in their most popular form, essentially aristocratic; citizenship in them being regarded not as a natural right but as a hardly won privilege The Revolutionary Democracy of the present day, on the other hand, starts with the proposition that man, quà man, possesses all the highest attributes of citizenship, and is based on Rousseau's theory of the abstract rights, innate, inalienable, and imprescriptible, of humanity in an imaginary state of nature 163 166 166 167 PAGE Its issue cannot be doubtful; the doctrines of absolute political equality, and of the supreme right of the numerical majority-relatively poor-must issue in Socialism This is the hell which awaiteth the nation that loveth and maketh a lie. And a lie the Revolutionary dogma assuredly is. Every one of the propositions which constitute its ideal of man and of society, is demonstrably, is obviously, false 1 169 171 Bishop Butler's question, whether nations can go mad, is answered by a Century of Revolution. A nation given over to the strong delusion to believe the Revolutionary dogma, can hardly be accounted sane. 176 Still, not by its mendacity, but by the truth latent in it, does any lie live. In the Revolutionary dogma are hidden various verities But the great fact called Modern Democracy is one thing. The Revolutionary dogma is another. There is no necessary connection between them. In truth, the work of the Revolution for Modern Democracy has been chiefly to pervert and falsify it, and to retard indefinitely its development. The phase called Democracy into which Europe has entered, is the latest term in a movement which has been in progress since the beginning of our civilisa 178 179 tion 180 |