well stated these objections in a few brilliant sentences, that we cannot do better than to quote from his recent article on “The Dilemma of Determinism”:[1] —
“Every one must at some time have wondered at that
strange paradox of our moral nature, that, though the
pursuit of outward good is the breath of its nostrils, the
attainment of outward good would seem to be its suffocation
and death. Why does the painting of any paradise
or Utopia, in heaven or on earth, awaken such yawnings
for Nnvana and escape? The white-robed, harp-playing
heaven of our Sabbath-schools, and the ladylike tea-table
elysium represented in Mr. Spencer’s ‘Data of Ethics,’ as
the final consummation of progress, are exactly on a par
in this respect, — lubberlands, pure and simple, one and
all. We look upon them from this delicious mess of
insanities and realities, strivings and deadnesses, hopes and
fears, and agonies and exultations, which form our
present state; and tedium vitæ is the only sentiment they
awaken in our breasts. To our crepuscular natures, born
for the conflict, the Rembrandtesque moral chiaroscuro,
the shifting struggle of the sunbeam in the gloom, such
pictures of light upon light are vacuous and expressionless,
and neither to be enjoyed nor understood. If this
be the whole fruit of the victory, we say; if the generations
of mankind suffered and laid down their lives; if
prophets confessed and martyrs sang in the fire, and all
the sacred tears were shed for no other end than that a
race of creatures of such unexampled insipidity should
succeed, and protract in sæcula sæculorum their contented
and inoffensive lives, — why, at such a rate, better lose
than win the battle, or at all events better ring down the
curtain before the last act of the play, so that a business
- ↑ Unitarian Review for September, 1884.
