to utilize the tremendous power of its equipment, prestige, and authority, in the furtherance of general progress and the establishment of a genuine kingdom of God here upon earth. For from the spiritualte as well as the temporalte the new humanitarian spirit demands recognition and service.
These modifications in form and substance were induced by a modification, probably unconscious, of the idea of satire itself, and they in turn reacted on it to strengthen the changing conception. The two main elements,—a wider socialization in the point of view, and a firmer insistence on an understanding of conditions such as could not be secured under the old artless habit of accepting the premises,—stand for that union of feeling and intelligence which was the ideal of the nineteenth century. "Men," says Meredith, "and the ideas of men, which are * * * actually the motives of men in a greater degree than their appetites; these are my theme;"[1] and again, "The Gods of this world's contests demand it of us, in relation to them, that the mind, and not the instincts, shall be at work."[2] The corollary of this is that though satire may be "a passion to sting and tear," it must do so "on rational grounds."[3] "Satire," says Trollope, "though it may exaggerate the vice it lashes, is not justified in creating it in order that it may be lashed. Caricature may too easily become a slander, and satire a libel."[4] Sympathy and in-*
- ↑ Beauchamp's Career, 7.
- ↑ Diana of the Crossways, 153.
- ↑ One of Our Conquerors, 70. Etymologically, it is only the sarcastic variety which pushes the attack so far.
- ↑ Autobiography, 86. Even the ingenuous Mr. Brooke of Middlemarch had made the subtle discovery that "Satire, you know, should be true up to a certain point." And a century before, satire's warmest defender, John Brown, had cautioned the wits against degrading her "to a scold."
