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 COLLECTED BY 
 
 BENNO LOEWY 
 
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 BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
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 The value of life. 
 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031215696 
 
THE VALUE OF LIFE 
 
 A REPLY TO 
 
 Mr. MALLOCK'S ESSAY 
 
 "IS LIFE WORTH LIVING?" 
 
 *' Toute question philosophlque et morale finira, selon nous, par 
 apparaitre comme une question sociale." 
 
 — Fouill^By Revue des Deux MondeSy 15 Juillet^ 1879 
 
 NEW YORK 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 182 Fifth Avenue 
 
 1879 
 
Copyright by 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. 
 1879- 
 
IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 A REPLY. 
 
 IF we might be permitted to compare small things with 
 great, we would like to compare Mr. Mallock with 
 the Emperor Julian. 
 
 Pause ! mighty shade ! and avert thy impending wrath 
 at this fancied belittlement of thy just renown, while we 
 explain our not disrespectful meaning. 
 
 We mean that if this present age be as truly an eclipse 
 of faith as Mr. Mallock affirms, — an eclipse of the Chris- 
 tian faith, dominant for fifteen centuries, — it can be com- 
 pared with no epoch which has preceded it so much as 
 with the fourth century of the Christian era. Then also 
 a faith dating from more than fifteen centuries had been 
 undermined, — and was threatened with speedy dissolu- 
 tion, — when a final, a supreme effort was made to rein- 
 state it in its old place, — when a man appeared, hardy 
 enough to try to reverse the irrevocable decrees of des- 
 tiny : to revive the ancient faith, — to set up again old 
 gods on their mutilated pedestals. The failure of this 
 
2 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 supreme effort was so complete, that, as every one 
 knows, this champion of the elder gods became branded 
 as an apostate by the victorious disciples of the new, — 
 and hard has it been to rescue his memory from the calum- 
 nies which have been heaped upon it. It would of course 
 be premature to attribute a similar failure to the heroic 
 efforts of Mr. Mallock : it would be cruel to suspect that 
 the halo of calumny would ever encircle his memory. But 
 it is permitted to see that in purpose, in desire, and 
 above all in attitude towards the ideas and forces tending 
 to prevail in their respective generations, the Roman em- 
 peror and the English essayist have very much in com- 
 mon. 
 
 Two strong bases of argument are common to both : 
 the recollection of the glories of the past, and the 
 forecast of the dangers of the future. Every powerful 
 past must have had powers entitling it to respect, and 
 every living future is awaited by dangers, since danger is 
 inseparable from living. At the present day no one 
 denies the power of either Greek polytheism or of 
 mediaeval Catholicism. But in regard to the dangers 
 of Catholicism, which were or might have been foreseen 
 by Julian, and to those of Positivism, so vividly appre- 
 hended by Mr. Mallock, there is a very wide difference 
 of opinion. As a rule, those who would agree with him 
 that Positivism threatens to enwrap the world at nio-ht 
 or at least twilight, are disposed to regard the rise of 
 •Catholicism as the dawn of day. 
 
A REPLY. 3 
 
 It would be incorrect however, to reverse the proposi- 
 tion and say that all those who look upon Positivism as 
 the only means of rescuing the European world from in- 
 tellectual and moral anarchy, were disposed to look upon 
 CathoHc Christianity as a delirious episode in the history 
 of Europe. It is well known that Comte himself enter- 
 tained the profoundest veneration for Catholicism, as a 
 perfect, an admirable type of the regime which it was his 
 mission to inaugurate for the final state of humanity. 
 He even denounced Julian, and associated him with the 
 first Napoleon in a common condemnation, as the two 
 great reactionists of the Christian era ; " of whom the first 
 was the most insensate, and the last the most criminal." 
 This opinion was the consequence of the strong convic- 
 tion held by Comte, that it was the unification of faith 
 and of social life effected by the Catholic church, which 
 first rendered possible the Positivist conception, by which 
 humanity was unified into a living organism. On this 
 account he constantly maintained, that humanity owed a 
 never ceasing debt of gratitude to the Catholic church ; 
 and that the new social polity could only be successfully 
 elaborated by pouring its spirit into the exact forms left 
 vacant by the destruction of the spirit of ecclesiasticism. 
 Thus Comte, by a singular turn of thought which after- 
 wards deepened into a settled perversity, would have 
 been the last to recognize any real evil in the triumph 
 of Catholicism, — such as could in any way have justified 
 Julian's struggle to avert this. On the other hand, his 
 
4 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 disciples, who have developed many of his fundamental 
 principles in full liberty of criticism, have generally been 
 impatient of this detailed comparison between Positivism 
 and Catholicism, and have thought that the latter, " minus 
 Christianity," was less tolerable than when it expressed 
 all the Christain dogma. 
 
 This is probably why ,Mr. Mallock asserts that Prof. 
 Huxley, " one of the most vigorous of our Positivist 
 writers, is a trenchant and contemptuous critic of Positiv- 
 ism in the narrower sense." It is Positivists of this stamp 
 who can see most clearly the real evils inherent in the 
 nature of the Catholic system ; who, after enumerating the 
 crimes and misery which, not as mere accidents, but as 
 logical consequences of its fundamental principles, marked 
 the complete triumph of Catholicism, would be prepared 
 to justify a resistance to its ascendency, even more ener- 
 getic than that offered by Julian, and who yet are con- 
 vinced that this ascendency was absolutely necessary for 
 the destruction of evils, more ultimately fatal to society 
 than those which succeeded them. When the world had 
 run riot from excess of life unchecked by any real knowl- 
 edge, when rank and poisonous growths had everywhere 
 stifled wholesome fruit, until the entire empire seemed 
 changed into a vast morass, at once luxuriant and barren, 
 at such a time it is scarcely possible to imagine a more 
 powerful influence for good than that derived from the 
 forcible wrenching away from earth of supreme desires, 
 hopes and ambitions, in order to attach them to a vision 
 
A REPLY. 5 
 
 of heaven. Difficult to imagine how otherwise the world 
 could have been saved. Easy to see moreover, that this 
 vision would have remained sterile of results, had it not 
 been able to attract the sensuous elements it combated by 
 rewards innately afifiliated to their own nature. The 
 sensuousness everywhere inherent in Catholicism, in its 
 doctrine, its discipline, its polity, was essential to the suc- 
 cess of its great primitive mission, the conquest of social 
 sensuality.* 
 
 Real Catholics, like Mr. Mallock, can never forget that 
 this was the primitive mission of the church ; and cor- 
 relatively can never cease to believe that any relaxation 
 of her influence must immediately be followed by a re- 
 vival of " the buried lusts of paganism." f Real Posi- 
 tivists, however, never forget the truth embodied in the 
 proverb, " Circumstances alter cases ; " never forget that 
 the fulfilment of a mission is in itself the surest portent 
 of the decay of a power; and believe themselves able to 
 demonstrate such a radical change in the conditions of 
 things since the period of the inauguration of Christian- 
 ity, — that the clearest foreboding of evil to come would 
 no more suggest recourse to ancient methods of salvation, 
 than would the surest provisions of war suggest to- a 
 modern city the precaution of laying in a stock of cata- 
 pults and battering rams. Such persons may listen with 
 
 * And to which we believe the mission of "social unification," important 
 though it be, was secondary. 
 
 f We quote Mr. Mallock's own expressions, and shall have abundant oc- 
 casion to refer to his constant preoccupation on this point. 
 
D IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 all patience to the Julians of the day, to those who at- 
 tempt to stem the rising tides on account of the garbage 
 which its waves strew upon the sea shore. They may pre- 
 serve a respectful consideration for those whose opposi- 
 tion to new things is dictated by a sincere horror of the 
 new forms of evil brought in their train ; for those 
 who from the circumstances of their position are unable 
 to perceive the real drift of the current, or to estimate 
 the real strength of the forces which are sweeping it on- 
 ward. Their courtesy however, will not fail to be much 
 shorter lived towards those whose fears shall prove to 
 have been affected, or whose mental limitations shall 
 appear to have been consciously maintained. And in this 
 connection v/e cannot but remember — notwithstanding 
 our own desire to accord to Mr. Mallock all the benefit 
 of every doubt, and even the full share of honorable re- 
 spect now, so tardily paid to Julian ; we cannot, we say, 
 conceal from ourselves that all our contemporaries are 
 not equally courteous. Thus, his colleagues in the 
 NiJicteenth Century do sometimes castigate him se- 
 verely — not for religious or philosophical reactionism, 
 but for wilful coarsness in his interpretation of contem- 
 porary artists.* And a still more recent but anonymous 
 contributor to the Atlantic Monthly, has not hesitated 
 to define our author, not as the heroic champion of a 
 failing faith, but simply as " a gentleman who spends 
 
 * See Nineteenth Century, 1878, criticism of Mr. Mallock's criticism of 
 Burne-Jones and Alma Tadema in the preceding number of the Review. 
 
A REPLY. 7 
 
 a good deal of his time in defaming his betters.* 
 
 The manner in which Mr. Mallock sets forth his ap- 
 prehensions remind us somewhat of those very pictures 
 that he has criticised so savagely, and in which the clear- 
 ness of the outline is a good deal sacrificed to the brill- 
 iancy of the color. The following passage is indeed a 
 quotation, and from some unknown writer ; but our au- 
 thor has endorsed it in such a manner as to make it his 
 own : — 
 
 " Never in the history of man has so terrific a calamity 
 befallen the race as that which all who look may now be- 
 hold, — advancing as a deluge, black with destruction, re- 
 sistless in might, uprooting our most cherished hopes, 
 engulfing our most precious creed, and burying our high- 
 est life in mindless desolation." 
 
 If this passage be not sublime, it certainly is for no lack 
 of the vagueness of sublimity. It is however, the un- 
 gracious task of a reviewer to endeavor to dispel vague- 
 ness by means of interpretation. Like St. Paul, at the 
 very moment of pointing out a "mystery" or "hidden 
 thing," he is compelled to reveal it, and if possible to 
 make it plain. As in justice bound, we will try to make 
 Mr. Mallock's meaning plain, first by means of the defini- 
 tions of it contained in his own book. 
 
 " What I am about to deal with in this book," he says, 
 " is a question which may well strike many, at first sight, 
 as a question that has no serious meaning, or none at any 
 
 * Atlantic Monthly, August, 1879, p. 255. 
 
8 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 rate fbr the sane and healthy mind. I am about to at- 
 tempt inquiring, not sentimentally, but with all calmness 
 and sobriety, into the true value of this human life of 
 ours, as tried by those tests of reality which the modern 
 world is accepting, and to ask dispassionately if it be 
 really worth the living. The inquiry certainly has often 
 been made before ; but it has never been made properly ; 
 it has never been made in the true scientific spirit. It has 
 always been vitiated either by diffidence or by personal 
 feeling; and the positive school, though they rejoice to 
 question everything else, have at least in this country 
 left the worth of life alone.* They may now and then 
 perhaps, have affected to examine it ; but their examina- 
 tion has been merely formal, like that of a custom- 
 house officer, who passes a portmanteau which he has 
 only opened. They have been as tender with it as Don 
 Quixote was with his mended helmet, when he would not 
 put his card-paper vizor to the test of the steel sword. I 
 propose to supply this deficiency in their investigations. 
 I propose to apply exact thought to the only great sub- 
 ject to which it has not been applied already." (pp. i 
 and 2.) 
 
 Mr. Mallock then proceeds to explain that by this ques- 
 tion, he does not mean " the old ejaculation of satiety or 
 despair, as old as human nature itself;" nor does he 
 mean the question whether the " balance of life's pain is 
 
 * This limitation apparently refers to the pessimistic school in Germany, 
 of Schopenhauer and Hartmann, — a school which certainly has little resemb- 
 lance to Positivism. 
 
A REPLY. 9 
 
 necessarily and always in excess of its pleasures." What 
 he proposes to discuss is, " not the superfluous truism 
 that life has been found worth living by many; but 
 the profoundly different proposition that it ought to be 
 found worth living by all." " The meaning of the epi- 
 thets frequently bestowed on life, (sacred, solemn, earnest, 
 significant, etc.), are that life has some deep inherent 
 world of its own, beyond what it can acquire or lose by 
 the caprice of circumstances, a world, which though it 
 may be most fully revealed to a man through certain 
 forms of success, is yet not destroyed or made a minus 
 quantity by failure." " Does the general reverence with 
 which life is at present regarded, (even by the Positivists) 
 rest upon a misconception ?" (Such as the author attri- 
 butes to Miss Martineau, in Tiaving " a grotesque over- 
 estimate of her own social and intellectual importance.") 
 
 Mr. Mallock argues that the belief in life may easily be 
 one day destroyed, because " the belief in God, and in a 
 supernatural order, once supposed to rest on an equally 
 wide basis, has in these days not been questioned only, 
 but has to a great degree been successfully annihilated." 
 " The emotion of reverence towards life will not go fur- 
 ther towards proving that it deserves reverence, than does 
 the fact that men loved God and felt his presence close 
 to them, prove to the positive thinker, God's existence." 
 (p. 8.) 
 
 Mr. Mallock asserts that in modern times, the import 
 of the question, "Is life worth living?" has entirely 
 
lO IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 changed. Formerly when men commented on the mys- 
 teries of life, they consoled themselves by a hope of the 
 future, — " of spiritual and eternal destinies ; they remem- 
 bered that there were triumphs beyond all hope, and por- 
 tentous failures beyond all fear." But the modern Posi- 
 tivists and their work cannot be compared even with the 
 " infidels " of antiquity. " The denial which is spreading 
 itself over the world is far more complete than ever be- 
 fore ; and moreover, into both it and the correlative as- 
 sertion enter certain factors which at once make such 
 comparisons worthless." These factors are, the existence 
 of Christianity, the change in the conception of the 
 world, and the development of an intense social self-con- 
 sciousness. The influence of Christianity depends upon 
 the clearness into which it has " focalised light of the su- 
 pernatural," so that the conception of this possesses a 
 power hitherto unknown, and upon the increased sense 
 of human dignity which has resulted from its views of 
 the relations between God and man. 
 
 The difficulty about the world is, simply, that it has 
 grown practically smaller, because people find it a great 
 deal easier to travel round it. Hence it offers far fewer 
 resources to the imagination, and all happiness depending 
 upon this is by so much diminished. At the very time 
 that Positivism is making greater demands upon the earth 
 for human happiness, the earth is becoming less able to 
 meet them. 
 
 Finally, civilized man has become so self-conscious that 
 
A REPL Y. 1 1 
 
 he has lost much of his old spontaneity of action ; he 
 will admit nothing without question, take to pieces all 
 motives, and, so far as he is influenced by positive thought, 
 reduces all religions to ideals created by his own intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 These three facts, or " factors," as Mr. Mallock calls 
 them rather ambiguously, and whose details we shall con- 
 sider later, so change the modern horizon — that modern 
 and antique thought cannot really resemble each other, 
 even when apparently tending in the same direction. The 
 great danger is that this new and " damning self-con- 
 sciousness " may " contain a negation of the superna- 
 tural." A negation in the consciousness of Lucretius 
 would be of little importance ; he had not known Chris- 
 tianity, and sinned, therefore, with his eyes shut. But 
 for those to whom the Gospel has been preached, the 
 matter is very different ; they sin or deny with their eyes 
 open ; and if the negation be sustained, it is " impossible 
 but what humanity will one day find itself in the position 
 of a man who awakes from a dream, and finds all that he 
 most prized vanished from him," for such an awakening 
 will be a sort of " discovery of man by himself," which 
 " will then certainly be the beginning of his decadence ; 
 he will find himself to be a lesser and a lower thing than 
 he thought he was, and his condition must continue to 
 sink till it tallies with his own conception of it." (p. 199.) 
 
 " The path of thought, as it were, has taken a sudden 
 turn round a mountain, and our bewildered eyes are star- 
 
12 /S LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 ing in undreamed-of prospect. The leaders of progress 
 thus far have greeted the sight with acclamation, and 
 have confidently declared that we are looking on the 
 promised land. But to the more thoughtful and less 
 impulsive it is plain that a mist hangs over it, and 
 that we have no right to be sure whether it is the 
 promised land or no. They see grave reasons for 
 making a closer scrutiny, and for asking if, when the 
 mist lifts, what we see will be not splendor, but deso- 
 lation." 
 
 This is the new import of the " momentous question," 
 into which Mr. Mallock, like the traditional spider, invites 
 the unwary public to walk into his little parlor of laby- 
 rinthine discussion. The labyrinth is not in itself either 
 grim or displeasing : its devious ways appear, at least at 
 first sight, as elegant as those of Rosamond's bower, 
 while the walls are so low and easily surmounted, that 
 anyone who gets tired of strolling along in the regular 
 line of argument, can vault over them in a twinkling and 
 find himself at once in free air. The argument is all the 
 better adapted to popular reading, that it is derived ex- 
 clusively from discussion of popular essays, and reads 
 like one of those drawing-room after-dinner talks of which 
 Mr. Mallock is so fond. He seems more anxious to keep 
 near to the heart of his audience than of his subject, 
 and, perhaps, on this account, avoids grappling with this 
 subject as it is set forth in systematic treatises, and by 
 the founders of doctrine, and only closes with it as pre- 
 
A REPLY. 13 
 
 sented in light armor, in popular essays and reviews. We 
 find in Mr. Mallock's book no mention of Comte, nor 
 Littr6 nor Spencer, nor Lewes, nor Bain, nor Darwin, 
 nor Haeckel. His presentations of philosophy are ob- 
 tained from naturalists, as Huxley and Clifford, or from 
 romance writers, as George Eliot and Theophile Gautier. 
 His illustrations of physiology are quoted from the physi- 
 cist, Tyndall, and for psychology, he quotes no authority 
 at all. Yet if ever theme could be considered psycho- 
 logical, a question on the estimate of life, to be made by 
 the persons enjoying it, would certainly seem to be one. 
 
 Having stated the question in the terms above quoted, 
 Mr. Mallock proceeds to discuss the "claim for life as 
 made by the positive school themselves." * At the out- 
 set he discards the idea that life can possess any intrinsic 
 worth ; he answers, as a matter on which all are agreed, 
 that its significance depends on some " Prize," definite 
 and unique, possibly obtainable by its energies. The real 
 question at issue with the Positivists is, " What is the 
 nature of this Prize? How does their definition of it 
 correspond with that given by other people?" Again, it 
 is assumed as a universally conceded truth, accepted by 
 Positivists as well as by Transcendentalists, that this 
 Prize, or the " worth of life, is closely bound up with what 
 \ve call morality," and the specific difference to be found 
 in Positivist views depends upon their special explanation 
 
 * This error of grammar is not ours ; it lies between the author and the 
 printer. 
 
14 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 of what this supremacy of morality means. Another 
 special character depends on the fact that the Positivists 
 admit the existence of no life for human beings other 
 than that which is visibly passed in this world. This 
 Prize, therefore, whatever it is, must be obtained or 
 obtainable by " flesh and blood creatures," by man be- 
 fore he dies, and during his common daily life. While 
 the Catholic, on the contrary, has all eternity to choose 
 from, and the smaller the prospect of prizes here, the 
 greater the probability of drawing an ineffable prize here- 
 after. 
 
 Narrowing down the definitions, Mr. Mallock decides, 
 by means of two or three quotations from " Positivist " 
 writers, that this " Prize " is some " form of happiness," 
 which must, therefore, be susceptible of exact descrip- 
 tion. Since the Positivists are always insisting upon the 
 possibility of " mental presentation," Mr. Mallock con- 
 siders it but just that they be expected to give a definite 
 picture of this earthly paradise which they propose to 
 substitute for all the Christian hopes of heaven. This is 
 what he calls " applying exact thought." 
 
 But impartial scrutiny of the descriptions of this hap- 
 piness shows that it is at least as vague as the most 
 mystical vision of the saints> and that its attributes are 
 inconsistent with each other. They correspond neither 
 to any internal pattern of what they are said to be, nor 
 to any external model of what we could justly expect 
 them to be. They are not distinct nor " mentally pre- 
 
A REPLY. IS 
 
 sentable ; " they are not even visible to more than a 
 limited part of the world ; they are not capable of being 
 made attractive to any one who does not naturally admire 
 them, — hence, even when confirming the virtuous in his 
 appreciation of virtue, they are useless as a means of con- 
 vincing the vicious of the folly of vice. At this point 
 our author, who has hitherto spoken of the Prize of Life 
 only as being something " closely bound up with moral- 
 ity," now identifies it with morality itself, and clinches his 
 demonstration of the futility of the Positivist's concep- 
 tion of happiness, with the remark : " It is clear that if a 
 morality is incapable of being preached, it is useless to 
 say that it is worthy of being practised." 
 
 The identification once made is continued throughout 
 the remainder of the discussion. Nowhere do we find 
 any attempt to formally distinguish between " happiness " 
 and " morality," although at the outset, even in asserting 
 their close connection, the author acknowledges by im- 
 plication that they are distinct. 
 
 Mr. Mallock does not attempt to define the nature of 
 " morality," according either to a conception of his own 
 or of Positivism. Instead of this, he offers a definition of 
 a code of morals. It consists of a number of restraining 
 orders ; it rigorously bids us walk in certain paths, in 
 preference to a number of other paths in which we are 
 naturally inclined to walk. " The law has arisen because 
 of transgression, and the moralist has to meddle with hu- 
 man nature mainly because it is inconstant and corrupted." 
 
1 6 /S LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 In all this it is assumed that the Positivists and Catholics 
 cannot fail to agree. " Positive morality " only differs 
 from any other kind (as far as we may judge from the 
 exposition of our author,) by " presupposing that life 
 by its very nature contains the possibility in it of some 
 one kind of happiness which is open to all men, and 
 which is better than all others. The proudest, the se- 
 renest, the most successful life of vice, must be miserable 
 when compared with the most painful life of virtue, and 
 miserable in a very high degree ; for morality is moment- 
 ous exactly in proportion to the interval between the 
 things to be gained and escaped by it." (p. 44.) 
 
 Mr. Mallock is not anxious that what the Positivists 
 may mean by the Prize of Life, should be made clear. 
 But it is noteworthy that he terminates his chapter on 
 this subject without making it at all clear what he him- 
 self would mean in contradistinction to them. It is only 
 by implication that we may infer the difference to princi- 
 pally consist in this: that the Positivists expect to obtain 
 the prizes of life in this world or not at all ; while the 
 Catholic Christian professes to believe that nothing in 
 this life is really worth having, but that prizes of untold 
 magnitude are to be obtained after death, during a future 
 life, to be sustained in another locality. It is this con- 
 viction to which Mr. Emerson refers when he says, " We 
 are to have just sitch a good time in the next world as 
 the wicked have in this." The alleged " spirituality" of 
 the Christian hope depends largely on the simple fact 
 
A REPLY. 17 
 
 that it is a hope deferred. The " materialism" of the 
 Positivist enjoyments is seen from the fact that they are 
 obtained by persons yet " clothed upon with flesh and 
 blood." " This is the great question," insists Mr. Mal- 
 lock : " Is such Happiness a reality or a myth ? Can 
 human life, cut off utterly from every hope beyond itself, 
 supply it?" (p. 44-) 
 
 Still oscillating backwards and forwards between 
 morality and happiness — whose connection together he 
 has not yet defined — Mr. Mallock complains that the 
 Positivists oscillate incessantly between definition of per- 
 sonal and of social happiness, which mutually confuse 
 each other so that it is impossible to tell which they 
 really hold to be the crowning achievement of life. 
 Their speculations on happiness are, however, all vitiated 
 " by a subtle but profound defect; they constantly con- 
 fuse the negative condition of happiness with the positive 
 materials of it." Returning then, without line of de- 
 markation to the question of morality, Mr. Mallock tells 
 us that, according to the theory of utilitarianism, " morals 
 possess a positive basis in the acknowledged science of 
 sociology." We are told further that the '' province of 
 the sociologist is the study of human action as produc- 
 tive or non-productive of some certain general good. In- 
 asmuch, however, as Positivists cannot be made to 
 define in an intelligible manner what this general good 
 is, the difificulty of understanding morals by means of 
 sociology, becomes as great as that of understanding 
 
1 8 IS LIFE WOR TH LI VING ? 
 
 the Prize of Life by means of either happiness or 
 morals. 
 
 According to Mr. Mallock's understanding of the mat- 
 ter, sociology, in the minds of the Positivists, means not 
 so much a science as an art for making everybody com- 
 fortable, and the morality of any actions is tested by the 
 degree to which they contribute to this end. The first 
 thing, however, necessary to make people comfortable, is 
 to know what they want, and the trouble is that they are 
 quite as likely to want something very bad as very good. 
 In that case morality must be sacrificed for the sake of 
 the very end which is the basis of morality. Thus, the 
 practice of seduction, sometimes condemned on account 
 of the misery brought by it to its victims and their 
 families, would cease to be so " if the victims were will- 
 ing and the families complacent, though in the eye of the 
 [Catholic] moralist, matters in this last case will be far 
 worse than in the former." The cultivation of the sym- 
 pathetic instincts, which is the aim of sociology, and 
 upon which the Positivists rely for the development of 
 the highest virtue, may as easily lead to the meanest vice. 
 For " vice can be enjoyed in common just as well as vir- 
 tue ; nor, if wisely regulated, will it exhaust the tastes 
 that it appeals to. Regulated with equal skill and equal 
 farsightedness, it will take its place side by side with vir- 
 tue ; nor will sociology or social morality give us any reason 
 for preferring the one to the other " (p. 57). " Morality, it 
 is true, must rest ultimately on proved facts of sociology; 
 
A REPLY. 19 
 
 but it rests upon them as a statue rests upon its pedestal, 
 and the same pedestal will support an Athenfe or a Pria- 
 pus " (p. 59). That is, we persume, that the same facts 
 which can be appealed to in support of a system 
 of morality, can, with equal propriety, be cited in 
 favor of complete immorality, which is certainly a 
 very remarkable and unusual property for facts to pos- 
 sess. 
 
 Besides this difficulty, there is another quite as serious, 
 inherent in any system which relies upon the unselfish 
 instincts ; they are not strong enough for the purpose. 
 "The general conditions of an entirely undefined happi- 
 ness form an ideal utterly unfitted to counterbalance in- 
 dividual temptation, or to give even willingness, let alone 
 ardour, to the self-denials that are required of us. In 
 the first place, the conditions are so vague that even in 
 the extremest cases the individual will find it difificult to 
 realize that he is appreciably disturbing them ; and, in 
 the second place, until he knows that the happiness in 
 question is something of extreme value, he will be un- 
 able to feel much ardor in helping to make it possible " 
 (p. df). * * * " The first question that the common 
 sense of mankind asks is, ' What shall I get ? ' and ' You 
 must promise something to each of us, or very certainly 
 you will be able to promise nothing to all of us.' There 
 is no real escape in saying that we must all work for one 
 another, and that our happiness is to be found in that. 
 * * * But what sort of happiness shall I secure for 
 
20 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 others ? and what sort of happiness will others secure for 
 me?" 
 
 " The Positivists say," observes Mr. Mallock, " that 
 all mankind are made a mighty whole by the fusing power 
 of benevolence. But happiness must plainly be some- 
 thing besides benevolence, else if I know that a man's 
 highest happiness is in knowing that others are happy, 
 all I shall try to procure for others is the knowledge that 
 I am happy, and thus the Utopian happiness would be 
 expressed completely in the somewhat homely formula, 
 ' I am so glad that you are glad that I am glad.' " 
 
 " Many Positivists" (says Mr. Mallock) " attempt to show 
 that goodness is its own reward, and that it is chiefly 
 love which gives to life an incalculable worth." " It will 
 remain a stable possession to us amid the wreck of 
 creeds, and will never fail us as a sure test of conduct. 
 Whatever guides us to this treasure we shall know is 
 moral ; whatever tends to withdraw us from it we shall 
 know is immoral." (p. 102.) 
 
 But the goodness which the Positivists have in view 
 is something that existed in the world before Positivism 
 came into it, and is mixed with an important element 
 which it is their business to get rid of. This element 
 is religion. " If the beauty of holiness, the love of truth, 
 the treasure of human affection be boiled down, so to 
 speak, until every germ of religion in them is destroy- 
 ed," it is extremely doubtful whether they would " gen- 
 erate the same ecstatic happiness." (p. 87.) 
 
A REPLY. 21 
 
 " There are three principal characteristics of the moral 
 end — -its inwardness, its importance, and, within certain 
 limits, its absolute character; " and in all of these " relig- 
 ion is embodied " (p. 88), and for them the theism that 
 modern thought is rejecting, could offer a strictly logical 
 basis." (p. 93.) " But Positivism, although conceiving ol 
 the moral end in the same way, sets out from two prem 
 ises which differ from Theism by consisting of two great 
 denials. These are, there is no personal God, and there 
 is no personal immortality." (p. 96.) 
 
 Starting from negative premises, Positivism eliminates 
 two of the characteristics of the moral end, and materi- 
 ally modifies the third. It changes the importance of 
 the moral end " by confining all the life with which we 
 can have the least moral connection to the surface of the 
 earth, to the limited time for which life and conscious- 
 ness can exist upon it." Thus the moral end has nothing 
 in it whatever of the infinite, and a scientific forecast can 
 already see the end of it. 
 
 In the second place it is nothing absolute, and not be- 
 ing absolute, is incapable of being enforced. 
 
 In the third place, its value, such as it is, is measured 
 only by the conscious happiness that its possession gives 
 us, or the conscious pain that its loss gives us. 
 
 Thus goodness to the Positivist who professes to claim 
 no other reward for goodness than goodness itself, be- 
 comes, by his system, deprived of all the qualities by 
 which it might become such a reward. It could only be 
 
22 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 SO to the Theist, who retains those qualities, and who, 
 moreover, in his hope of heaven, possesses other rewards 
 over and above whatever goodness itself may be. In 
 this same incisive (?) manner, Mr. Mallock proceeds to 
 destroy the " incalculable worth " of love for Positivism. 
 Love can be of no elevated utility unless it supplies us 
 with a moral standard ; but it can have no moral stand- 
 ard if it be deprived of religious anticipations. " The 
 supposed evils of impurity depend not on any present 
 consciousness, but on the expectations of future con- 
 sciousness, a consciousness that will reveal things to us 
 hereafter which we can only augur here." (p. 124.) In 
 the absence of this anticipation of future punishment 
 for impurity, all love (so, apparently, is the drift of Mr. 
 Mallock's argument) tends to become impure. " Love as 
 a positive pleasure, if it ever be reduced to such, will be 
 a very different thing from what our Positivist moralists 
 at present see it to be. It will perform none of those 
 functions for which they now look to it. It will no long- 
 er supply them as now with any special pinnacle on 
 which human life may raise itself. The one type of it 
 that is at present on an eminence will sink to the same 
 level as the others. All these will be offered to us indis- 
 criminately, and any choice between them will have no 
 moral value." 
 
 Thus Mr. Mallock finds frittered away the " resources 
 which have supposed to impart to life a positive general 
 value." (p. 131). "Positivism if accepted fully, must 
 
A REPLY. 23 
 
 either destroy or paralyze the supernatural moral judg- 
 ment which has become a primary faculty with us, and 
 which mixes with every estimate we form of the world 
 around us." (p. 133.) 
 
 What will then be left in life will not be worth having. 
 All " high art is based upon solemn and profound be- 
 liefs in the supernatural, and will disappear with them. 
 The premises on which all its power and greatness rests 
 is this : The grand relation of man is not first to his 
 brother man, but to something else that is beyond hu- 
 manity, that is at once without and also beyond himself ; 
 to this first, and to his brother men through this. We 
 are not ours, we are bought with a price. Our bodies 
 are God's temples, and the joy and the terror of life de- 
 pends on our keeping these temples pure or defiling 
 them." (p. 139.) 
 
 Not only sublime art, but " cynical, profligate and con- 
 cupiscent art, really appeals to the same motives, but in- 
 verted." " The source of the pleasure in one is an impas- 
 sioned struggle after the supernatural right, or an impas- 
 sioned sense of rest upon attaining it ; the source of the 
 other is the sense of revolt against it, which in various 
 ways flatters or excites us." (p. 43). 
 
 " Art without the moral sense to play upon, is like a 
 pianist whose key-board is reduced to a single octave, and 
 life will lose just the same qualities that art will. There 
 will be no introduction of any new interests, but merely 
 the diminution of certain existing ones. The subtraction 
 
24 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 of the moral sense will not revolutionize human purposes, 
 but merely make them listless. It will reduce to a parti- 
 colored level the whole field of pains and pleasures. 
 * -;:■ -:;- vice and virtue will be set before us in the 
 same gray light ; every deeper feeling either of joy or 
 sorrow, of desire or of repulsion, will lose its vigor, and 
 cease any more to be resonant." (p. I45-) 
 
 Mr. Mallock continues to show, or to assert, that even 
 the life of the senses — the joy in the mere act of living, 
 in the exercising of bodily functions, is unconsciously im- 
 pregnated with a flavor of religion, and by losing this, 
 this joy of living will not indeed " lose existence, but it 
 will lose zest." (p. 147.) 
 
 " The last resource of the modern school is devotion to 
 truth." (p. 150). It seems odd to talk of this as a "re- 
 source," especially in a school that has just been con- 
 demned for destroying "moral judgment," and with it 
 everything that rendered life interesting. Strll more 
 strange to find that this "resource " is denied, not as was 
 the case in speaking of goodness and love and art, be- 
 cause Positivism is supposed to have vitiated its value 
 before having recourse to it, but because it is in itself 
 something foolish and absurd. " Truth, as the Positivists 
 speak of it, is plainly a thing to be worshipped in two 
 ways — firstly, by its discovery ; secondly, by its publica- 
 tion. Thus Prof. Huxley, however much it may pain 
 him (?), will not hide from himself the fact that there is 
 no God ; and however bad this knowledge may be for 
 
A REPLY. 25 
 
 humanity, his highest and most sacred duty still consists 
 in imparting it." But, according to Mr. Mallock, this is 
 as foolish as it would be for a man to inform another that 
 his wife had been seduced by his best friend, or for a 
 chattering nurse to betray his danger to a sick man, who 
 thereupon takes fright and dies. " Clearly the truth that 
 it is sacred to find out and to publish are not all truths, 
 but truths of a certain kind only. They are not particu- 
 lar truths, but the universal and eternal truths that un- 
 derlie them. * * * The Theist of course believes that 
 truth is sacred. But his belief rests on a foundation that 
 has been altogether renounced by the Positivist. He 
 values truth because, in whatever direction it takes him, 
 it takes him either to God or towards him. * * * 
 Nature is cruel, wicked and bewildering when ruined by 
 itself. But behind Nature he sees a vaster power — his 
 father — in whom mysteriously all contradictions are re- 
 conciled. * * * It is not too much to say that with- 
 out a religion, without a belief in God, no fetish worship 
 was ever more ridiculous than this cultus of natural 
 truth." (pp. 150-157). And again, "What Professor 
 Huxley's philosophy really proves to him that it is true 
 nothing is sacred ; not that it is a sacred thing to dis- 
 cover the truth." (p. 219.) 
 
 After a little more consideration of this subject, Mr. 
 Mallock concludes that it is in this last resource of Posi- 
 tivism (i. c, truth,) that religion is embodied as a yet 
 more important element than in any of the others, and 
 
26 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 when this element is driven out of it, it collapses yet 
 more hopelessly than they do." (p. i6i.) 
 
 Hence by the positive system, nothing is left in life but 
 life itself, and " it is impossible to conceive of life as 
 being a very valuable possession, even under the most 
 favorable circumstances, with social progress carried to 
 the utmost perfection ; and access laid open to every 
 happiness of which man may remain capable." 
 
 " The goal to which a purely human progress is capable 
 of conducting us is no more a condition of glory and 
 felicity, in which men shall develop new and ampler pow- 
 ers. Ic is a condition in which the keenest life attainable 
 has continually been far surpassed already, without any- 
 thing having been arrived at that in itself seemed of sur- 
 passing value." (p. i6i.) 
 
 Yet the characteristic " superstition of Positivism," is 
 the belief that man's subjective powers of happiness will 
 go on expanding, in the same proportion as the (natural) 
 course of events tends to lessen the imperfections of life, 
 and thus improve its " negative conditions." " It is the 
 belief that existing pleasures will be more diffused, and 
 also that they will grow more intense in diffusion. It is 
 this belief on which the Positivists rely to create that en- 
 thusiasm, that impassioned benevolence, which is to be 
 the motive power of their whole ethical machinery." 
 (p. 164.) 
 
 According to Mr. Mallock's interpretation, the principle 
 focus of this " impassioned benevolence," is not in the 
 
A REPLY. 27 
 
 present, but in the future glories of humanity, and he un- 
 dertakes .to demonstrate that these are as vague, as un- 
 satisfactory and as absurd as any Christian heaven can 
 be. " The Positivists ask the Christians how they expect 
 to enjoy themselves in heaven. The Christians may, 
 with far more force, ask the Positivists how they expect 
 to enjoy themselves on earth," and Mr. Mallock proves 
 to his own satisfaction that they will not enjoy themselves 
 at all, or at least that their enjoyments will be so dull and 
 lifeless that they are not worth counting. In the argu- 
 ment upon the intrinsic importance of truth upon which 
 we have already touched, Mr. Mallock distinctly intimates 
 that the truth of a doctrine is always of secondary im- 
 portance to its attractiveness and to its supposed utility. 
 Thus the two assertions which constantly reappear as 
 arguments in his pages are to the effect, first, this is 
 very tiresome ; and second, it is very dangerous. In his 
 chapter on the practical prospect of things as they will 
 be in the event of the triumph of Positivism, these two 
 arguments converge. Thus he discusses the effect of the 
 ruin of conscience which he deems inevitable, in a way 
 that leaves it doubtful whether he is most fearful that the 
 world will lose a police force, or an artistic decoration. 
 " The Positivists find themselves powerless to pass any 
 judgment, or extend the law they live by to any beyond 
 themselves. The whole prospect that environs them 
 has become morally colorless. * * * The authority of 
 conscience cannot survive Positivist analysis, though its 
 voice may. 
 
28 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 " The condition of men will be characterized by vain 
 self-reproach, joyless commendation, weary struggle, list- 
 less success, general indifference, and the prospect that, 
 if matters are going thus badly with them, they will go 
 even worse with their children." (p. 197.) In a later 
 chapter, returning to the same theme, Mr. Mallock illus- 
 trates the moral powerlessness of Positivism by means 
 of an imaginary dialogue held between Dr. Tyndall and 
 " some ruined girl, oppressed with a sense of degrada- 
 tion." " I have heard you are a very wise man," she says 
 to him, " and you have proved that the priest is all 
 wrong, who prepared me a year ago for my confirmation.* 
 Now tell me, I beseech you tell me, is mine really the 
 desperate state I have been taught to think it is? May 
 my body be likened to the temple of the Holy Ghost de- 
 filed ? or do I owe it no more reverence than I owe the 
 Alhambra Theatre ? Am I guilty, and must I seek re- 
 pentance? or am I not guilty, and may I go on just as I 
 please ? " 
 
 " My dear girl," Dr. Tyndall replies to her, " I must 
 shake my head in doubt. Come, let us lower our heads 
 and acknowledge our ignorance as to whether you are a 
 wretched girl or not. Materialism is confounded and 
 science rendered dumb by questions such as yours ; they 
 can, therefore, never be answered, and must always re- 
 main open. I may add, however, that if you ask me 
 
 * We think Mr. Mallock might have selected a less prtcocious example 
 of " ruin " tlian this must have been then ; also one that was less derogatory 
 to the strenglli of influence of the priest. 
 
A REPLY. 29 
 
 personally whether I consider you to be degraded, I lean 
 to the affirmative. But I can give you no reason in sup- 
 port of this judgment, so you may attach to it what value 
 you will." 
 
 We confess that this wit seems to us as superficial as 
 that which characterizes the parodies in the " New Re- 
 public." But it is not yet time to criticise ; we wish to 
 first obtain from Mr. Mallock as complete a statement as 
 possible of his position. 
 
 From the considerations which precede, and from 
 which we have omitted nothing essential to the line 
 of argument, Mr. Mallock concludes with great emphasis 
 that " human life will degenerate if the creed of Posi- 
 tivism be ever generally accepted," and that such a 
 degradation has already begun. This is precisely why 
 he comes to the rescue, and tries to open the eyes of his 
 contemporaries to a prospect that becomes the more 
 appalling the more he looks at it. It is true that the 
 present leaders of Positivism are not wicked men, and 
 they will not admit that they are unhappy men. But 
 their integrity is due to their early training in the religion 
 they have discarded ; even Mr. Mill, in spite of his pro- 
 tests, having been submitted to a discipline which could 
 be called " Puritanism minus Christianity." And their 
 apparent happiness is but an heroic assumption of cheer- 
 fulness that hides an aching void within. They are like 
 soldiers fighting heroically, but with the secret conscious- 
 ness of a death wound under their armor. Mr. Mallock 
 
30 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 does not deny that the high moral character of his oppo- 
 nents, lends great weight to their arguments ; and ex- 
 pressly asserts that it is to their intellectual prestige, and 
 directly to its own premises, that the power of Positiv- 
 ism is due. " These men, to the destruction of private judg- 
 ment, are forcing on us their own personal conclusions."* 
 
 Mr. Mallock admits that the immense victories won by 
 the Positivist method in range of physical science, have 
 created a very strong prejudice in favor of the method, 
 and of its intellectual supremacy. 
 
 " The opinion, therefore, that is now abroad in the world 
 is that the positive school are [is] the monopolists of un- 
 biassed reason.f " (p. 208.) It is therefore of extreme im- 
 portance to break down this prestige, and to break up 
 this monopoly, and Mr. Mallock undertakes to do this by 
 attacking what he conceives to be the fundamental prin- 
 ciple of the positive philosophy. This is, that, " the en- 
 tire sensible universe has been brought within the scope 
 of the physicist : that everything that is is matter mov- 
 ing. Life itself is nothing but motion of an infinitely com- 
 plex kind. It is matter in its finest ferment." " Thus 
 science has unified the apparent dualism of things." 
 " Thought and affections have a certain bulk and a cer- 
 tain place in space, and could conceivably be made the 
 subjects of some physical experiment." " Faith, sanc- 
 tity, doubt, sorrow and love, could conceivably be all 
 
 * The italics are ours. 
 
 f Another error of grammar for which we are not responsible. 
 
A REPLY. 31 
 
 guaged and detected by some scientific instrument — by a 
 camera or by a spectroscope." 
 
 " Thus the achievements of science have taken away 
 any external proof of the existence of God, — and still 
 more, every sign- of his daily providence ; and again, the 
 life and soul of a man are presented to us, not as an 
 entity distinct from the body and therefore capable of 
 surviving it, but as a function of it, or as the sum of its 
 functions, which has demonstrably grown with its 
 growth, and is dependent upon its minutest changes, 
 and which, for any sign or hint to the contrary, will be 
 dissolved with its dissolution." " A God therefore that 
 is the master of matter, and a human soul that is inde- 
 pendent of it, any second world, in fact, of alien and 
 trans-material forces, is reduced on physical grounds, to 
 an utterly unsupported hypothesis," (p. 213) — and the 
 whole force of the foregoing argument (?) rests on the 
 following suppressed premise, — " that nothing exists but 
 what the study of matter could conceivably reveal to 
 us : or that, in other words, the immaterial equals the 
 ncin-existent." 
 
 " There is a great modern axiom, namely, that verifica- 
 tion is the test of truth : or that we can build on nothing 
 as certain but what we can prove to be true. * * * 
 A fact is only proved when the evidence it rests upon 
 leaves no room for doubt, when it forces on every mind 
 the same invincible conviction : that is, in other words, 
 when, directly or indirectly, its material equivalent can be 
 
32 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 impressed upon our bodily senses.* This is the fulcrum of 
 the modern intellectual lever." (p. 214.) 
 
 And this is what Mr. Mallock calls " The Logic of 
 Scientific Negation." Formerly when Christians argued 
 with infidels — from Tertullian to Bishop Butler — they 
 entertained no doubt of their ability to demonstrate the 
 truth of their own theme. The proof might be of various 
 kinds, from unimpeachable testimony to conspicuous 
 analogy, but it was always forthcoming. It is not so long 
 since text-books on the " Evidences of Christianity," 
 were entered on the curriculum of the senior class in 
 every well appointed boarding school. 
 
 But this time seems to have passed by, and an era to 
 have dawned which may of course prove to be much 
 worse for the " infidels," but in the meantime is certainly 
 much easier and more convenient for the Christians. 
 Under this regime the laborious search for "proof" and 
 " evidence" is abandoned ; question of fact and ques- 
 tion of analogy are equally laid aside ; neither Bridge- 
 water treatise nor Bampton lecture are any further put 
 into requisition, and the admission quickly made, " We 
 have no proof." " As to the minor premises, that there 
 is no proof of religion, we may concede, at least provis- 
 sionally, that it is completely true." (p. 215.) 
 
 And the rest of Mr. Mallock's essay, is devoted to show- 
 ing how, though without proof of truth, religion, and the 
 Catholic religion, should, can and must be maintained. 
 
 * Italics ours. 
 
A REPLY. 33 
 
 The reason for this, therefore, must be outside of the 
 truth of it, and is to be found in the declaration that if 
 " science can take from man his religious faith, it leaves 
 him a beingwithout any moral guidance ; " more, " by the 
 same argument it will prove him to be not a moral being 
 at all ; that it will prove not only that he has no rule by 
 which to direct his will, but also that he has no will to 
 direct." (p. 220.) " Morality and religion are, so far as 
 science goes on one and the same footing" (p. 243), be- 
 cause they are both immaterial and supernatural, and 
 science, rejecting everything but what is material and 
 natural, has as much reason to reject one as the other, 
 if once allowed to reject either. " Science will allow us 
 to deny or to afifirm both," [but not only one], (p. 246.) 
 
 Thus because there is such a thing as morality, and 
 Positivists admit it, and make themselves " ridiculous by 
 applying to it their great test of verification," Mr. Mal- 
 lock, by means of the above argument, establishes at 
 once that Theism is true, or we should rather say, inevi- 
 table, since for Mr. Mallock truth and necessity are not 
 convertible terms. But, with a candor which has become 
 fashionable in similar discussions, Mr. Mallock admits 
 that serious intellectual and moral difficulties stand in 
 the way of acceptance of the doctrine of Theism. Extri- 
 cation from these difficulties is effected by a judicious 
 exercise of the same ingenuous candor as acknowledged 
 them. They cannot be solved, we are told. They are 
 ways past finding out.* But then these are not the only 
 
 * We confess to a hesitation whether the implied reference is more to Job 
 or to Lord Dundreary. 
 
34 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 difficulties. Our way is beset with them, and it is easier 
 to accept them all in a lump than to make a pretext of 
 solving some, and then rejecting others because they 
 are insoluble. Thus freedom of the will is a mystery , 
 and the connection between the soul and the body is a 
 mystery ; and the relations of the supernatural to the 
 natural are mysteries. Therefore there is no reason that 
 we should reject a belief in God because of the mysterj^ 
 of eternal punishment, or because of the unthinkableness 
 of heaven, or of the difificulty of understanding Providen- 
 tial relations with savages and Bushmen. 
 
 This doctrine of equivalent inexplicablenesses, carries 
 Mr. Mallock smoothly through all the classical difficulties 
 of Natural Theism. " If we suppose ourselves once con- 
 vinced that man will always believe in himself as a 
 moral being, and that he will under no compulsion give 
 up this belief; then it will be plain to us that Theism, 
 should it ever tend to reassert itself, can have no check 
 to fear at the hands of positive thought." (p. 264) * 
 
 Up to this point all the argument of the essay was tend- 
 ed simply towards establishing the probability of Theism, 
 or the at least equal ludicrousness of anything else. 
 But now having reached this somewhat unstable founda- 
 tion, Mr. Mallock, like a gymnast on a flying trapeze, im- 
 mediately begins to go up higher. " There is," he says, 
 " no sharp and well defined argument " in favor of the 
 
 * The italics are ours, as we cannot help calling attention to the inelegant 
 .metaphor on the one hand, and on the other to the unconscious feebleness 
 ,of the hope expressed in a " revival of faith." 
 
A REPLY. 35 
 
 " revival and triumph of any one alleged revelation." 
 Nevertheless the " mass of religious humanity, once pos- 
 sessed of a natural creed,* will be found instinctively and 
 inevitably to ask for more." The only thing a natural 
 creed can do, " is to analyse the worth of life, and of the 
 momentous issues attendant on the way in which they 
 live it," but it is unable to offer any practical guidance. 
 " Natural Theism can tell us with sufficient emphasis 
 that all vice is to be avoided, it is continually at a loss 
 to tell us whether this thing or whether that thing is 
 vicious." (p. 266.) We would notice that this obvious 
 consideration has contributed to render most " Positivists " 
 extremely incredulous in regard to the efificacyof Theism 
 as a consolation and a guide, and thus has led them to 
 reject many promises, such as are made so liberally by 
 Mr. Mallock in the early part of his essay. He tells us 
 at first that belief in God and personal immortality, even 
 when incapable of proof, must nevertheless be strenuous- 
 ly maintained because of its immense practical utility. 
 He tells us now that this belief is of no possible practical 
 use unless there be added to it, belief in an infallible 
 revelation. 
 
 And as the argument (?) proceeds, the different links 
 are crowded at once more rapidly and more closely to- 
 gether. We are told that " once admitted " the necessity 
 of an infallible revelation, it must be met by one that has 
 
 *We cannot help asking how, accoiding to Mr. Mallock's views, a creed 
 about the supernatural, can receive so flighting a designation. 
 
36 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 been already made ; and it must be Christian and it must 
 be Catholic, the only branch of the Christian church that 
 has for " primary doctrine her own perpetual infallibility." 
 This doctrine at once establishes the superiority of the 
 church in accordance with a line of argument that is look- 
 ing not for truth but precisely for infallibility. " Seek, 
 and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto 
 you." Mr. Mallock draws an historical sketch e^ibiting 
 the development of the church as a " Parliament of the 
 believing world " from the original loose agglomeration 
 of dreamers on spiritual matters or " natural Theists," and 
 tells us (here the links of argument are so closely press- 
 ed together that they disappear in a single dogmatic and 
 momentous assertion) "that the church is not only the 
 parliament of spiritual man, but she is such a parliament 
 guided by the spirit of God." (p. 281.) "The analogy of 
 the human brain is here of great help to us. The human 
 brain is an arrangement of material particles which can 
 become connected with consciousness only in virtue of 
 such a special arrangement. The church is theoretically 
 an arrangement of individuals which can become con- 
 nected with the spirit of God only in virtue of an ar- 
 rangement equally special ; " i. c. as is intimated in the 
 preceding paragraph, the arrangement of " intricate ma- 
 chinery systems of representation, etc." 
 
 Mr. Mallock then discusses the "difficulties" of the 
 Catholic dogma, so far he has already discussed the diffi- 
 culties of natural Theism. On every hand are " myster- 
 
A REPLY. 37 
 
 ies " to be " acknowledged frankly," but not on that 
 account to be "rejected," still less cause "rejection" of 
 the system dependent upon them. There is the mystery 
 that revelation should have been confined to such a'Small 
 minority of the human race ; (p. 282) there is the mys- 
 tery of Catholic orthodoxy and of Catholic discipline in 
 regard to heretics ; (p. 285) there is the mystery of the 
 Eucharist, (p. 287) of the invocation of the saints, of 
 purgatory, (p. 290.) Besides these things, there are many 
 details of discipline, which are not matters of authorized 
 or authoritative faith at all, merely " pious opinions." 
 Such is the rule for celibacy of the clergy ; such even, is 
 the temporary belief in the inspiration of the Bible, which, 
 contrary to the Protestant idea, the church has never in- 
 culcated as doctrine. " Rigid as were opinions entertained 
 as to Biblical inspiration throughout the greater part of 
 the church's history, the church has never formally as- 
 sumed them as articles of faith. Had she done so, she 
 might indeed have been convicted of error, for many of 
 these opinions can be shown to be at variance with fact. 
 But though she lived and breathed for so many centuries 
 amongst them, though for ages none of her members per- 
 haps ever doubted their truth, she has not laid them on 
 succeeding ages ; she has left them opinions still. A 
 Catholic might well adduce this as an instance, not indeed 
 of her supernatural selection, but of its counterpart, her 
 supernatural rejection." (p. 308.) 
 
 " The Catholic church," sums up Mr. Mallock, " is the 
 
38 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 only dogmatic religion that has seen what dogmatism 
 really implies, and what will in the long run (!) be de- 
 manded of it, and she contains in herself all appliances 
 for meeting these demands. * * * The Catholic church 
 is the only historical religion that can conceivably thus 
 adapt itself to the works of the present day, without vir- 
 tually ceasing to be itself. * * * All this of course does 
 not prove that Catholicism is the truth ; but it -will show 
 tlie Theist, that for all that the modern world can tell him, 
 it may be." (p. 313.)* 
 
 " The school in question has proceeded from denial to 
 denial, thinking at each successive moment that it had 
 reached its final halting-place, and had struck at last 
 on a solid and firm foundation. First it denied the 
 church to assert the Bible ; then it denied the Bible to 
 assert God ; then it denied God to assert the moral 
 dignity of man ; and there if it could remain it would. 
 But it is compelled to move onwards ; and now, un- 
 der the force of its own relentless logic, this last rest- 
 ing-place is beginning to fail also. * * * So the bat- 
 tle is to be fought at the very threshold at the en- 
 trance to the spiritual world. Are we moral and spir- 
 itual beings, or are we not ? * * * The decision, if 
 we have a will at all,riies with our own will — with our 
 will alone to make. '" * * Can we still resolve to 
 say, " I believe although it is impossible ? Is the will to 
 assert our own moral nature, our own birthright in 
 
 * Italics ours. 
 
A REPL Y. ■ 39 
 
 eternity, strong enough to lead us on ? " (p. 320.) 
 If this will can be found, Mr. Mallock assures us with 
 pathos, " everything else will follow." " From his first as- 
 sent to his own moral nature, man must rise to a Theism, 
 and he may rise to the recognition of a church — to a vis- 
 ible embodiment of that moral nature of his, as directed 
 and joined to its one aim and end, — -to its delight and its 
 desire and its completion. Then he will see all that is 
 high and holy taking a distinct and helping form for him. 
 Grace and mercy will come to him through set and cer- 
 tain channels. His nature will be redeemed visibly from 
 its weakness and from its littleness — redeemed not in 
 dreams or in fancy, but in fact. God himself will be his 
 brother and his father ; he will be near akin to the Power 
 that is always and is everywhere. His love of virtue 
 will be no longer a mere taste of his own ; it will be 
 the discernment and taking to himself of the eternal 
 strength and of the eternal treasure ; and whatever he 
 most reveres in mother or wife, or sister, this he will 
 know is holy everywhere and forever, and is exalted 
 high over all things in one of like nature with theirs, 
 the Mother of Grace, the Parent of sweet clemency, who 
 will protect him from the enemy and save him in the 
 hour of death." (p. 323.) 
 
 And thus, with bowed head and folded hands, Mr. 
 Mallock prostrates himself at the shrine of the Ma- 
 donna, receiving, in the ecstacy of an ineffable medita- 
 tion, the heavenly reward of his long and toilsome 
 
4° IS LIFE WORTH LIVING: 
 
 knight-errantry in this wicked world. And from the con- 
 fessional near the shrine we seem to hear a sonorous 
 voice issue, crying, " Well done, good and faithful ser- 
 vant ! Enter thou into the joy of the church ! 
 
A REPLY. 41 
 
 II. 
 
 We have made this long abstract of Mr. Mallock's 
 essay, in order to set forth his position as far as may- 
 be possible in his own words, and thus avoid a misre- 
 presentation. Condensed in a single paragraph, the ar- 
 gument is : Modern science, and Positivism which re- 
 poses in it, reduces the entire universe of matter to a 
 mass of physical things. In this mass man is included, 
 and consequently loses all the dignity, interest and 
 pathos which attached to him as a spiritual and super- 
 natural being. On this account his conscious life be- 
 comes absolutely worthless, or will become so if Posi- 
 tivism is permitted to triumph. Moreover, the annihi- 
 lation of the influence of the Catholic church must 
 remove all the restraints, established two thousand 
 years ago upon the lusts of Paganism. These are 
 about to arise from their graves, and stalk through the 
 world in the foulest winding-sheets. Morality, art, per- 
 sonal dignity, therefore, all' demand that a vigorous 
 and determined resistance be at once offered to positive 
 thought. This cannot be done by the force of reason, 
 although it is quite untrue that Positivism has a monop- 
 oly of unbiassed reason. But it is impossible really to 
 
42 JS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 prove that religion is true. This fact, however, shows 
 how ridiculous is the attitude of the Positivists in their 
 fetish worship of truth and with their great doctrine of 
 verification, since religion, which must be established 
 without proof, is an infinitely more precious and valuable 
 and beautiful thing than any of the numerous futilities 
 which the Positivists have succeeded in proving. Relig- 
 ion reposes on three postulates placed one above an- 
 other. You must admit that man is a moral being, and 
 to do that you must not hesitate to contradict all the data 
 and all the reasoning of Positivism. You must then admit 
 that there is a God, and that man lives forever. And final- 
 ly, since, after all, these admissions would do no good, ex- 
 cept provisionally, and are of no practical use, you must go 
 on and " admit " a special revelation to interpret and apply 
 them, and admit further that Catholicism is the only 
 revelation which can be said in any consistent manner to 
 sustain the character of one. 
 
 Whatever the final opinion entertained of a book or of 
 an author, the first impression of it depends a good deal 
 upon the previous ideas existing in the mind of the reader. 
 Sometimes these refer to the subject, sometimes to pre- 
 vious acquaintance with the character of the method. 
 We confess that some prepossessions of this latter sort 
 have lent a certain bias to the expectations with which 
 we approached the perusal of this, the most serious vol- 
 ume that was as yet issued from Mr. Mallock's pen; for 
 we had read the others ; we knew the graceful pessimism 
 
A REPLY. 43 
 
 of his " New Republic," the coarser, much coarser raillery 
 of his " New Paul and Virginia ;" the peculiar paradoxes 
 of his Nineteenth Century essays. From these vari- 
 ous studies we had derived a certain impression of Mr. 
 Mallock's style of thought and drift of argument, im- 
 pression that is now deepened and confirmed by the more 
 ambitious efTort which now invites our attention. 
 
 The nature of his subject, the titles of the different 
 parts into which he divides it, the pathos of his appre- 
 hensions, the apparent fervor of his rhetoric, the piquancy 
 of his eloquence, all suggest a thinker, serious, profound, 
 yet sensitive; one who, below the superficial currents of 
 popular opinion and popular applause, perceives the deep 
 undertow that sweeps back to the sea, whose note of warn- 
 ing is shrill with sincere and well founded alarm. But on 
 the other hand, these abounding metaphors, this in- 
 cessant appeal to sentiment, the very variety of this 
 rhetoric with its frequent flippancies, this drawing-room 
 brilliancy of epigram, these smart sayings, this facile pic- 
 turesqueness, suggest the doubt that the writer be really 
 adequate to a theme so grave, so vast. Somewhat closer 
 inspection detects many flaws in the enamel of the pic- 
 ture ; inaccuracies of expression, more noticeable in a 
 person who trusts so much to his gift of expression: neg- 
 ligencies of language, less pardonable where language is 
 so facile and fluent ; infelicities of metaphor, betraying 
 false perception, and even obtuseness of imagination, 
 serious defect in a scheme of philosophical presentation 
 
44 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 that consists almost entirely in an appeal to the imagi- 
 nation. When we exchange our surface inspection of 
 the style for an analysis of the thought, we find that 
 these superficial defects, continue uninterruptedy into 
 deeper strata of character. We find that the striking but 
 impossible metaphor often conceals an extraordinary 
 slovenliness of thought ; that the rhetoric is often so di- 
 vorced from reality, that it fails to rise into eloquence; 
 that an argument professedly basing itself on higher con- 
 siderations than truth, can hardly fail to awaken supicions 
 of insincerity, and, by the very professions of the writer, 
 of voluntary manipulations of plain things, in the interest 
 of a higher cause. We are reminded of those secret tribu- 
 nals of the holy office, to which people were carried blind- 
 folded, having been kidnapped on specious pretences. We 
 cannot refrain from having something of the same feeling 
 about Mr. Mallock as is always excited by the view of a 
 policeman in plain clothes. We feel that he is on a mis- 
 sion, and that lie is convinced his highest duty consists, 
 not in acquiring a thorough understanding of the subject 
 before him ; but in securing at any price a victory for the 
 powers whose instructions he obeys. Whatever the ap- 
 pearance of candid inquiry and impartial investigation, we 
 feel that Mr. Mallock really looks at positive thought, 
 very much as a British general looks at a Zulu ; and his 
 business in regard to it, is simply to compel a surrender. 
 He tells us himself that "even the Pope is disposed to 
 look upon Positivism as a belligerent rather than as a 
 
A REPLY. 45 
 
 rebel." (p. 204.) In accordance with this attitude, mili- 
 tary rather than philosophic, Mr. Mallock often betrays a 
 bluff ignorance of the real nature of the doctrine he is dis- 
 cussing, quite analogous to that which the British soldier 
 is not ashamed to manifest in regard to the topography 
 of an enemy's country. 
 
 Thus, of the characteristics which go to the making of 
 that type so bitterly well known in Europe — the Jesuit — 
 Mr. Mallock, almost by his own showing, is at once seen 
 to possess two ; an habitual attitude of warfare, and a 
 systematic and avowed contempt for truth. To these 
 we may add a third more subtle, and not at first sight so 
 obvious, peculiarity; we mean a predominant preoccupa- 
 tion about sexual sins. Mr. Mallock's other writings, to 
 which we have alluded, already reveal this preoccupa- 
 tion. His criticism of Burne-Jones and Alma Tadema 
 is unpleasantly suggestive of the famous Tartuffe scene, 
 where Dorinda is requested to draw closer her kerchief. 
 Mr. Mallock's imagination is not quite clean, and, as we 
 have already suggested, it has received a permanent im- 
 press from meditation on the primitive relations between 
 the church and a world plunged in sensual excess. Thus 
 the waning influence of the church at once suggests to 
 him a resurrection " of the buried lusts of Paganism," 
 although at another time, by a singular inconsistency, he 
 fears that Positivism will so weaken all vigorous impulses, 
 that not enough will remain to afford employment for 
 the repressing agencies of either reason or religion. The 
 
46 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 imaginary dialogue with Tyndall, which we have quoted 
 in full, shows how instinctively Mr. Mallock reverts to 
 this theme as to a central problem* — a problem that he 
 cannot conceive of as soluble, except by means of the 
 elaborate fictions invented, and often indeed usefully 
 employed, by the Catholic church. 
 
 A fourth trait of Jesuitism, inherent in Mr. Mal- 
 lock's principles — or else acquired early in the course 
 of his conversion — is the conviction of the legitimacy 
 of persecution as a means of bringing in lambs to the 
 church, when all other means fail. This conviction is 
 not formally announced in the present volume. But 
 in a recent essay in the Nineteenth Century, in the 
 series to which Mr. Mallock himself sends us for 
 the complement of his thought, f we find the theory 
 of persecution systematically defended. Whenever, he 
 says, the immense majority of the wise and good in the 
 community become unanimously agreed upon any doc- 
 trine, and convinced of its supreme importance, it is their 
 duty to enforce this doctrine by all necessary means of 
 compulsion.;]: Mr. Mallock rejects the torture, and other 
 means of physical punishment, apparently because they 
 are too vulgar, and have excited too much prejudice. 
 He insists that the right of interference with private 
 judgment is reserved by all governments, to a greater or 
 less degree ; and that the right claimed by the church 
 
 * Which we are far from denying it to be. 
 
 "I" See preface. 
 
 \%^^ Ninteenth Century. 1878. 
 
A REPLY. 47 
 
 only extends so much further, as the importance of 
 eternal salvation extends beyond the importance of the 
 temporal welfare of a state. But as this is, on Mr. Mal- 
 lock's hypothesis, an infinite extension, it is evident that 
 the rights which may be claimed under it are danger- 
 ously, immeasurably large. 
 
 We would remark in passing, that as no speculative 
 doctrine that was ever broached, can be accused of one 
 thousandth part of the bad consequences which practi- 
 cal experience on the most vast and doleful scale has 
 proved to flow from the doctrine of the right of persecu- 
 tion, as, moreover, this is an opinion in which, at the 
 present day, an immense majority of the wise and good 
 are quite agreed, it follows that, by a rigid application of 
 Mr. Mallock's principle, the Home Secretary would be 
 more than justified in at once arresting him as promulga- 
 tor of a most pestilent heresy, and consigning him to the 
 Tower for the rest of his active life. 
 
 In the volume before us, Mr. Mallock feels that one of 
 the greatest difficulties in the way of commending Roman- 
 ism to a nation to whom " Bloody Mary " and the Popish 
 Plot are still realities, lies in the reputation for cruelty 
 which Romanism has earned for itself. It is absolutely 
 necessary to whiten this reputation, and this is the way 
 Mr. Mallock does it : " There is no point probably," he 
 says, " about which the general world is so misinformed 
 and ignorant, as the sober but boundless charity of what 
 it calls the anathematising church. * * * Never was 
 
48 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 there a religious body except the Roman, that laid the 
 intense stress she does on all her dogmatic teachings, and 
 had yet the justice that comes of symathy for those that 
 [who] cannot receive them. * * * Her anathemas 
 are on none but those who reject her with their eyes 
 open, by tampering with a conviction that she is really 
 the truth. These are condemned, not for not seeing that 
 the teacher is true, but because having really seen this, 
 they continue to close their eyes to it. They will not 
 obey when they know they ought to obey, and thus the 
 moral offence of a Catholic in denying some recondite 
 doctrine, does not lie merely, and need not lie at all, in 
 the immediate bad effects that such a denial would neces- 
 sitate, but in the disobedience, the self-will and the re- 
 bellion that must in such a case be both a cause and a 
 result of it." (p. 283-285.) 
 
 Yes, we know, and all Europe knows, the deadly claws 
 which lie concealed beneath the soft velvet of this gentle 
 distinction ! We know that it means that the church 
 denies itself the luxury of persecuting savages whom it 
 is easy to baptise ; but is compensated by full authority 
 over all those born within the pale of its own dominions, 
 i. e., in all countries included under the title of Christen- 
 dom. For the Peruvian heathen, the baptismal font ; 
 for the baptised European heretic, the spy, the tribunal, 
 the thumb-screw, the rack, the dungeon, the oubliette, 
 the stake. 
 
 *' And all we know, or dream, or fear 
 Of agony, are thine ! " 
 
A REPLY. 49 
 
 May the deep shudder of horror which has convulsed 
 the inmost consciousness of Europe on this subject, never 
 cease to vibrate so long as vitality remains in this deadly 
 principle, — authoritative care of souls, to the salvation 
 of man and the greater glory of God ! 
 
 Yes, we know the type, whether male or female, the 
 stealthy step, the set composure, the downcast eyes, the 
 insinuating voice, the half perceptible deprecatory gesture 
 with which dispute is declined when the proposition ad- 
 vanced has failed of a favorable reception, the apparent 
 acquiescence, the secret resistance, watchfulness and 
 counterplotting, by aid of a silent impersonal agency, 
 invisible, ubiquitous, unfathomably treacherous : whose 
 very good seems evil from the impossibility of testing 
 its sincerity, whose evil seems blacker from its mantle of 
 immaculate good ; — who does not know this hated and 
 hateful type, everywhere the same in essence under any 
 disguise, under the priest's cassock or the nun's robe or 
 the cardinal's hat? No Methodist fanaticism, no Bap- 
 tist uncouthness, no Calvinistic rigidity, no Episcopal 
 inconsistency, ever has or ever can awaken the passionate 
 antagonism aroused by the vision of Jesuit Catholicism 
 in the breasts of those who, either personally or in sym- 
 pathy with her victims of any age, have known what it 
 was to writhe, though but for an instant, in her clutches. 
 She is still the Infamous, and, for our part, we should rue 
 the day when modern toleration ever so far forgot its 
 history as to remove the brand from this gigantic im- 
 personal Personality. 
 
so IS LIFE WOR TH LI VI NG ? 
 
 Mr. Mallock wilfully belittles the matter when he as- 
 serts that Protestants reject Catholicism merely through 
 ignorance of her true doctrines, as that of Biblical inspi- 
 ration, of orthodoxy and the like. Nor does he confound 
 Protestantism when he points out its inconsistencies, its 
 speculative absurdities, its practical limitations and the 
 vulgarity of many of its innumerable sects. Nor when 
 he shows that the movement which " denied the authority 
 of the church to assert the Bible," is the same as that 
 which, carried somewhat further, " has denied the Bible 
 to assert God, and has denied God to assert the dignity 
 of man." We believe, indeed, contrary to the opinions 
 of Comte, who despised Protestantism as thoroughly as 
 Mr. Mallock does, that its disintegrating movement was 
 indispensable even for the establishment of a new unity, 
 destined perhaps to rival that of Catholicism. The es- 
 sential worth of Protestantism is not in its speculative 
 creed, confessedly identical in all essentials with that of 
 Catholicism, but in its practical assertions of manliness, 
 in its effective emancipation from slavery. We should 
 hesitate to repeat what has been said so often and is so 
 well known, were it not that writers from two opposing 
 schools — those of Mr. Mallock's stamp — and others from 
 among the Positivists, are constantly reviving the same 
 superficial charge of inconsistency, constantly persuading 
 others to forget the immense service rendered to human- 
 ity by the brave and determined revolt against the dead- 
 liest tyranny and foulest corruption, which movement 
 
A REPLY. 51 
 
 calls itself Protestantism. Catholicism is a creed, a his- 
 tory and a life ; Protestantism is no creed, but it is a life 
 and a history ; and it still stands pitted against its ancient 
 opponent with all the just vehemence of vigorous life 
 and with the burning recollections of real history. Its 
 active vanguard calls itself now by other names — Free 
 Thought, Rationalism, Positivism ; * its humbler rear- 
 guard is often composed of the middle class — Philistines 
 and " Hebrews," at which Mr. Arnold sneers so profusely. 
 It has many ridiculous prejudices, many untenable doc- 
 trines, but it has honest instincts, and still, we trust, virile 
 fighting power. That these need still to be alert to re- 
 sist an enslavement more effeminate, though for the mo- 
 ment more plausible and less cruel than the ancient one, 
 is sufficiently proved by this latest insidious attempt to 
 weave into an immense net this velvety tissue of worn-out 
 sophistries, and throw it over modern Anglo-Saxondom, 
 to ensnare if possible, the timid, the uncertain, the igno- 
 rant, the superstitious the hysterical. 
 
 We have purposely begun at the climax of Mr. Mal- 
 lock's argument instead of at the beginning, and this for 
 two reasons. In the first place, it is a kind of argument 
 which can only be thoroughly appreciated when its real 
 tendencies are completely known ; and at the outset 
 these tendencies are most carefully concealed. The au- 
 thor professes to be interested in nothing but " natural 
 
 * Of course we do not really overlook the technical differences between 
 Rationalism and Positivism proper. 
 
52 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 Theism," and on this ground is enabled to invite a number 
 of people to meet him, who could never be persuaded 
 within earshot of his real position. Then having (appa- 
 rently) established " natural rehgion " by a " scientific 
 argument," and by " exact thought," he makes a sudden 
 change of base, and shows them that " these highest 
 hopes, this precious creed," which was to save them from 
 being " engulphed in mindless desolation," is after all 
 worthless. It c3xvVi.o\. pass without a " rider " in the form 
 of a special revelation of Catholic theology. When this 
 conclusion is once clearly appreciated at the outset, much 
 of the energetic rhetoric that adorns the early pages falls 
 flat. We know that it is not intended to mean what it 
 says, except with certain mental reservations. We are 
 not told at the outset what grand scheme of thought Mr. 
 Mallock expects to oppose to that he undertakes to dis- 
 integrate ; we are gradually manipulated, and led on from 
 admission to admission, until finally we find ourselves ex- 
 actly opposite our starting point. 
 
 Now this fact is of importance because we do not ad- 
 dress these modest pages to Mr. Mallock himself, but to 
 certain among his readers. One class of these are liable to 
 a disagreeable shock of surprise when they discover that 
 the final result of Mr. Mallock's " science," and the per- 
 oration of his eloquence is only a tender adjuration to 
 return to the worship of the Virgin Mary. Unaccustomed 
 to ritualistic litanies, the phrases, " Parent of sweet clem- 
 ency," and " protecting from the enemy," fall on their 
 
A REPLY. 53 
 
 ears with a strange and unwelcome sound. The per- 
 sonification of the church, the persistent attribution of 
 feminine qualtities to "her," the description of "her" 
 " putting away " of untenable doctrines, " not in petulant 
 anger, but with a composed determined gentleness, as 
 some new light gravely dawns upon her ; " to a large class 
 of readers all this will seem so effeminate as to be ridicu- 
 lous, and the judgment of a person who prizes such ef- 
 feminacies cannot but lose prestige with them ; even when 
 in the intricacies of the early polemic, they had been 
 disposed to admire his subtlety, acuteness and depth. ' 
 Such persons are habituated to consider Catholicism, and 
 the appeal to an infallible church, as an issue entirely 
 closed ; and any one advocating them as one raised from 
 the dead, not worth hearing when history and reason had 
 already pronounced so decisively. The wish to obtain a 
 true perspective for the vision of this class of readers, is 
 therefore our first reason for reversing his order in exam- 
 ining Mr. Mallock's line of argument. 
 
 The second reason also refers to Mr. Mallock's readers, 
 but to a very different class from the first. These are 
 they who, having become dissatisfied with some form of 
 Protestantism, most probably one of its advanced, optim- 
 istic, rationalizing forms, have become much impressed 
 with the promises of rest, comfort and joy held out by 
 the "most venerable communion of Christendom." For 
 reasons that have been often described, these persons find 
 an irresistible charm in the thought that a great many 
 
54 /■S' LiFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 millions of people for many hundred years have believed 
 a certain thing. What that thing may be is of secondary 
 importance. Intrinsically the belief in witch-craft, al- 
 most coextensive with the belief in the Catholic the- 
 ology, should be able to afford the same mysterious con- 
 solation. It is these persons who experience that same 
 kind of pleasure in the personification of the church as is 
 at present so largely afforded by the revival of mediaeval 
 fashions. Above all, the class of minds we are speaking 
 of, are habituated to judge of everything by reference to 
 themselves ; to its effects on their own feelings and states 
 of mind. Whatever seems to them touching, or com- 
 forting or attractive, at once convinces them of its reality. 
 This class of persons, therefore, is entirely disposed to 
 listen to a teacher like Mr. Mallock, whose habitual test 
 or rejection of doctrine is : This is very tiresome : or, 
 this is very dangerous. It is indeed the class to which 
 he himself belongs. It is the class quite capable of float- 
 ing into the bosom of the Catholic church, on nothing 
 more substantial than clouds of fragrant incense, or the 
 sweet voices of boy choristers, or the rich colors of paint- 
 ed windows, or anything indeed that appeals, — even su- 
 perficially, to their aesthetic tastes. 
 
 Now it is evident that to such persons, the fact that 
 Mr. Mallock's lines of argument all converge in this narrow 
 circle, authority, infallibility, submission to spiritual 
 guides securing " grace and mercy through set channels," 
 " idolatrous " worship of the Virgin Mary, this fact we 
 
A REPLY. 55 
 
 say has in it nothing alarming. They look at it as a proof 
 of the broad basis really offered by reason, (though not 
 required by authority,) to the doctrines of the church, 
 since an argument that starts however far away from it, is 
 compelled to terminate within its limits. They have al- 
 ready reached that station in intellectual life, where the 
 argument is sought, not before, but after the creed; 
 whatever seems to confirm this is eagerly accepted, what- 
 ever tends to cast a shadow on it is thrown aside. This 
 class of people would be extremely uninteresting to us 
 but for one reason. Besides the superficial and aesthetic 
 needs, which they are ready to proclaim, there are others, 
 logical, and far more profound, and of which they are often 
 unconscious, but which command Our respect. These are 
 the needs of unity, of conscious membership in some 
 mighty social body, of definite and dignified personal func- 
 tion, of occupation for exalted thought, of assured basis 
 for conviction, of scope for tender and passionate sympa- 
 thies. These are the needs that Catholicism offers to sat- 
 isfy. These are the needs that Catholicism has satisfied 
 in the past, and so long as these longing souls look ex- 
 clusively to the past, they will find means of denying all 
 the accusations which may be brought against it. They 
 will say that Jesuitism is belied, and moreover that 
 Catholicism is not all Jesuitism ; that the errors, even to 
 the rack, of which the mediaeval church may be convicted, 
 were common to the age in which she existed, torture 
 being a practice in civil as well as ecclesiastical tribunals; 
 
56 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 that errors are " put away with a composed gentleness," 
 yet the spirit of the church remains the same ; and to 
 those to whom this sameness is the great charm, this an- 
 swer is all sufficient. Why then should the church not 
 be sufficient for the future ? 
 
 The answer is contained by implication, in a single sen- 
 tence of Mr. Mallock's essay. " Now as to the minor 
 premise that there is no proof of religion, we may con- 
 cede, at least provisionally , that it is completely true." 
 (p. 215.) It is often the fashion, it is a principle with 
 Mr. Mallock, that while proof is justly demanded in mat- 
 ters of science, it is superfluous in matters of faith, and 
 that a religion is even degraded when it is made to re- 
 pose on a demonstration. There is indeed a profound 
 sense in which this is true — sense to which we shall return 
 later. But here we may say, that the degradation comes 
 not when the proof is furnished, but when it is demanded. 
 The principle of authority must be carved out of a single 
 block and self-sustained ; the first line of demarcation 
 which appears to separate it into different parts, is the 
 crack of doom : the first attempt to support it on any- 
 thing but itself, on reason, or natural religion, on argu- 
 ment, is the insertion of one end of a wedge between the 
 pillar and the solid earth with which it had seemed to be 
 continuous, — a wedge destined to become a lever by 
 which it will one day be overthrown. 
 
 The field for the legitimate exercise of the principle of 
 authority is so wide, that it is always easy to distinguish 
 
A REPLY. 57 
 
 by concrete examples its vigor from its decrepitude, its 
 reality from its pretence. The child does not question 
 the authority of the parent, the ignorant that of the 
 savant, the landsman that of the sailor, the sick man that 
 of the doctor, the weak person that of anyone who has 
 acquired a sufificient ascendancy over him. It is in these 
 cases, and not as a rule in those that Mr. Mallock 
 imagines, that the proposition believed " leaves no room 
 for doubt, forces on the mind an invincible conviction," 
 seems as indubitably true as the testimony of the senses. 
 We entirely agree with Mr. Mallock's estimate of what 
 he calls the major premise in the principal " Positivist " 
 argument, (p. 216.) So far from it being impossible "to 
 be certain of anything but what can be supported by 
 proof," there can be no doubt but several large classes of 
 persons are much more capable of being certain in obe- 
 dience to some authoritative statement, than they are 
 of understanding the nature of proof. The question 
 really is : When is this mode of arriving at a conviction 
 of certainty desirable ? and when is it possible ? — and we 
 may say further, that it is never desirable when it has 
 ceased to be possible, and never possible after the ques- 
 tion of possibility has once been seriously raised. 
 
 Everyone knows that the authority of the Catholic 
 church was only slowly consolidated. Mr. Mallock him- 
 self gives us a little historical sketch showing how this 
 was done. 
 
 " Let us suppose nothing, to start with, in the world 
 
5 8 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 but a natural moral sense, and a simple natural Theism. 
 * * * Approached in this way, the religious world will 
 appear to us as a body of natural theists, all agreeing that 
 they must do God's will, but differing widely amongst 
 themselves as to what His will and His nature are. 
 Their moral and religious views will be vague and dream- 
 like, more dream-like than those of the Protestant world 
 at present. Their theories as to the future will be but 
 shadowy hopes and fears. Their practice in the present 
 will vary from_ ascetism to the widest license. And yet 
 in spite of all this confusion and difference, there will be 
 amongst them a vague tendency to unanimity. Each 
 man will be dreaming his own spiritual dream, and the 
 dreams of all will be different * * * Men will begin 
 to compare their dreams together, and try to draw out of 
 them the common element, so that the dream may come 
 slowly to be the same for all, — that if it grows it may 
 grow by some recognizable laws ; that it may, in other 
 words, lose its character of a dream, and assume that of a 
 reality.* We suppose therefore that our natural theists 
 form themselves into a kind of parliament : The Church 
 of Rome is, ideally if not actually, the parliament of the 
 believing world. "f 
 
 * This is Mr. Malloclc's conception of reality ! 
 
 ■)■ The real danger to authority from analysis of lis growth and origin, 
 may perhaps explain the otherwise inexplicable horror entertained by all 
 branches of the church for researches on the development of life and the 
 origin of man. Reason can afford to contemplate insignificant beginnings ; 
 but authority must, under penalty of annihilation, be from the beginning, 
 complete and sacred, final. Who does not know the thrill of horror caused 
 by the famous 15th and i6th chapters of Gibbon ? 
 
A REPLY. 59 
 
 Taken in a more abstract and at the same time more 
 limited sense, this is a correct naturalistic description of 
 the origin and growth of the church. But when the 
 moment has come that such a human origin to authority 
 can be described, the time has ceased when this authority- 
 can impose itself as divine. For that to be possible, the 
 origin must be forgotten as completely, as indeed that of 
 the church was forgotten during the middle ages. To se- 
 cure the complete triumph of authority, no other way of 
 arriving at knowledge must be open, except that of sub- 
 mission to its dictates. To-day, the assumption of such 
 authority as that which the Catholic church must claim for 
 itself, (" The church's primary doctrine is her own perpetual 
 infallibility," p. 277,) is as if a parent should try to per- 
 petuate his original attitude to his child, grown-up : or a 
 savant, to his unlettered disciple, become as wise as he ; 
 or a sailor to the landsman who has been before the mast, 
 or the physician to the sick man who has been made 
 clinical professor ; or the tyrant to the weak man whose 
 moral sinews have grown strong in hardy self-assertion. 
 When Mr. Mallock, to his description of the church of 
 Rome as a natural growth from human dreams, adds, 
 " She is all this, but she is something more ; she is not 
 only the parliament of spiritual man, but she is such a 
 parliament guided by the spirit of God," (p. 281), we are 
 compelled to answer : " Time was when this assertion 
 would have seemed as simple as the remark, the sun is 
 in the heavens. We have not changed, because when 
 
60 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 anything is said to us that seems as obvious, or in regard 
 to some matter that we know we know nothing about, we 
 shall except it as unhesitatingly as ever mediaeval Catho- 
 lic accepted the dicta of a papal bull. It is the times that 
 are changed ; it is the voice of the preacher, who no longer 
 is able to restrict himself to simple affirmation and ex- 
 position, but who tries, like you, to prop this with elab- 
 orate argument and demonstration. If your word is 
 enough, this argument is superfluous; but if you must 
 fall back upon argument, then your unproved word goes 
 for nothing. You have tried to prove to us that our 
 senses cannot be relied upon to tell us whether the sun is 
 above the horizon. We find the reasoning inconclusive. 
 After that, you tell us, on the simple authority of some 
 one you know, that some crab-apple tree is bearing divine 
 fruit. But as we find you reason badly on the subject 
 where j^ou have invited us to reason, by what inducement 
 shall we be persuaded to set our reason aside when you 
 tell us there is no further occasion for it? May we not 
 suspect that this suppression of reason is intended rather 
 for your convenience than for our advantage, or for the 
 necessity of the case ? " Mr. Mallock would insinuate, 
 " Nevertheless you zvish to believe, and you may, if you 
 will to do so," and then he has no other resource but 
 the iteration of the old dogmatisms, the repetition of the 
 old dogma. He mistakes or pretends to mistake the 
 sense of need of believing irrevocably upon something, for 
 a providentially implanted longing for belief in one or 
 
A REPLY. 6l 
 
 two particular things, that he tells us after all, may be 
 found to be the truth. 
 
 It is precisely at this point that Positivism joins issue 
 most definitely with Catholicism, and with the whole sys- 
 tem of thought that Mr. Mallock is advocating. Posi- 
 tivism addresses itself to the same real need, but with 
 real things. It says : " You long for an irreversible basis 
 of belief. Seek it in the realities of existence. There 
 are two sources of knowledges the senses and human con- 
 sciousness.* Unable yourselves, it may be, to unfold doc- 
 trines from these sources, yet in the fact of such origin 
 you may have an infallible criterion of doctrines. Two 
 kinds may be at once rejected ; those which profess to 
 originate in some source other and higher than these ; and 
 those which professing to be derived from them, are 
 found on examination to have no connection with them. 
 But the rejection of doctrine is a matter of secondary im- 
 portance ; the first and vital essential is to build up doc- 
 trine and to establish a positive ground for thought, for 
 action, and for life." 
 
 It is here, and at the very outset, that Mr. Mallock so 
 singularly misrepresents Positivism. " Its premises," he 
 asserts, "' are two great denials, — a denial of a personal 
 God, and a denial of a personal immortality." But Comte 
 says, " So long as mankind persist in trying to solve the 
 questions which characterize its period of infancy, it is ab- 
 surd to reject the naive method employed by the imagina- 
 
 *0r as Locke said, " the senses and reflection." 
 
62 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 tion, the only method really suited to their nature. These 
 spontaneous beliefs could only be radically extinguished 
 in the proportion as humanity, better enlightened in re- 
 gard to its capacities and its needs, has changed irrevoca- 
 bly the general direction of its researches." (Syst. de Poli- 
 tique Positive, 7, I, p. 47). And again : " The true posi- 
 tive method consists in substituting the study of the 
 invariable laws of phenomena, for that of their causes im- 
 mediate or final ; in a word, substituting the determina- 
 tion of ho-di) for that of why." 
 
 It is of the greatest importance to make this cardinal 
 fact perfectly clear, both because it is systematically mys- 
 tified by our author, and because the persons to whom 
 he addresses himself have not, as a rule, requisite knowl- 
 edge on the subject. 
 
 The ultimate basis of Positive Thought is found not in 
 the material universe, but in the laws of the human mind. 
 So soon as any real inquiry was made into these laws, one 
 thing became evident namely, that the only objects ever 
 really present to the mind, were the attributes of things, 
 and the succession of phenomena. The Substance in 
 which attributes were supposed to inhere is simply a con_ 
 venient formula to signify their coherence into some 
 definite individual or unit ; it responds to nothing think- 
 able or mentally presentable. For, whenever a person 
 tries to think of the substance or internal essence of any 
 thing, he really thinks either of one of its attributes or 
 properties, or of their assemblage. If he try to abstract 
 
A REPL Y. 63 
 
 his mind from these, he can only do so by calling up 
 some new attributes, paler and vaguer than before, but 
 still attributes, and stamping the sum of these with the 
 name he had refused to the first collection. This, even 
 for the simplest mental act of presentation. If, however, 
 he attempts to go further, if he wish to discuss the nature 
 of a substance, or to compare it with another, or to judge 
 of it or understand it, he at once finds that he is discuss- 
 ing, and comparing and judging its attributes, through 
 which alone he knows or can imagine anything about it. 
 
 Again, when he analyses a little further the mental 
 conception of an attribute, he finds that it consists of one 
 of two things : either an image, conceivably appreciated 
 by one of the five senses ; or the cause of some event or 
 series of events. Thus, if we ascribe vastness, to some 
 substance or personality, we have, during all the time 
 that our minds are dwelling on this attribute, a more or 
 less vague image in the mind, derived from the largest 
 sensible objects with which we are acquainted, as the illimi- 
 table ocean, the overarching sky. If on the other hand 
 we ascribe goodness to this personality, we think, if we 
 think at all, of circumstances in which some sentient 
 beings will be treated in a way that will render them con- 
 ciously happy, and yet which will not infringe some 
 law of things which we have learned to know elsewhere. 
 These more abstract conceptions are often rendered vivid 
 by the presence of a distinct mental picture which offers 
 a concrete illustration of the quality in question ; as when 
 
64 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 in thinking of hate, we picture a man striking a violent 
 blow ; or of compassion, we see, in imagination, a woman 
 lifting up a starving infant to her breast. * 
 
 Thus finally, the conception of an attribute is resolved 
 into that of a succession of phenomena, and the whole 
 thinkable universe, or everything with which our minds 
 can in any way occupy themselves, becomes resolved into 
 impressions and actions, into pictures and events. Move- 
 ment, shown to be so inseparable from physical life, is 
 equally so from thought. 
 
 At the close of this analysis, the term substance re- 
 mains exactly where it was at the beginning, a term, 
 convenient, perhaps indispensable, certainly therefore to 
 be retained, but one that adds nothing to our knowl- 
 edge, and can in no way really influence our thoughts. 
 This is equivalent to saying that it is unknowable and 
 unthinkable. \ 
 
 It would be as absurd to deny it, as to take the trouble 
 to contradict the nai've jargon of the child who says, " I 
 did it to-morrow." There is no question but what in the 
 innumerable dicussions that have been held about sub- 
 stances, the speakers have had some ideas in their minds, 
 but these have not been what they thought they were, 
 since to be so would involve a contradiction of terms. 
 
 All this is the elementary psychology of the text 
 
 * This point has been well dwelt upon by C. E. Pierce, in his Illustrations 
 of the Logic of Science. — Popular Science Monthly, 1878. 
 
 \ This is the first element in our doctrine of the unknowable, so lucidly 
 worked out by Herbert Spencer. 
 
A REPLY. 65 
 
 books. For our present purpose however, what is impor- 
 tant, is the corollary, — inevitable, but so generally over- 
 looked and misunderstood. This corollary appears when 
 the foregoing analysis is applied to the two principal 
 substances which have been postulated by the human 
 mind, — God and the human soul. 
 
 According to the simple anthropomorphic hypothesis, 
 God or the gods were merely concealed personages, in 
 every respects analogous to the human beings, whose atr 
 tributes offered the model for theirs. Human will being 
 the only cause for events which experience positively 
 demonstrated, it was perfectly natural for the events^ 
 which evidently escaped this cause, to postulate another 
 entirely similar. The gods of Greek polytheism, and 
 the Jehovah of Jewish monotheism were perfectly think- 
 able : according to the philosophical experience of the 
 time, no philosophical objection could possibly be urged 
 against belief in them. 
 
 Positivism therefore, accords much more respect, for 
 this, the first, and theological state of humanity, than for 
 the metaphysical which succeeded it, and which is filled 
 with contradictions. Here, a person or persons are de- 
 nied, but a divine personality is retained, the eternal Sub- 
 stance, afifirmed to be beneath and behind all the changing 
 phenomena of the world. The Christian conception con- 
 stantly oscillates between pure anthropomorphism and 
 pure metaphysics. In regard to the first. Positivism simply 
 says : It is not proved, we have no data for proof, and must 
 
66 J S LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 wait for data before we can form an intelligible opinion. 
 In regard to the second it says : This substance is as truly 
 unthinkable as any other. It is as impossible to deny such 
 an eternal Substance underlying the phenomena of the 
 world and supporting its attributes, as it is impossible to 
 deny a substance underlying the phenomena of light, or 
 supporting the attributes of a tree. But in the one case 
 as in the others, and for precisely the same reasons, all 
 knowledge of the substance must consist in knowledge of 
 the attributes and phenomena. The substance beneath 
 the phenomena of the world can only be known in these 
 phenomena ; hence, faithful study of them will attain all 
 that is attainable ; while speculations on the substance in 
 itself, must be barren of result, and unthinkable jargon. 
 If we assume a central will as the efficient cause of the 
 events of human history, the manifestations of that will 
 must be inseparable from the events of that history. Even 
 " revealed history " (so called), is not, and cannot be, a 
 history of anything but human actions to which the 
 hypothesis of a superhuman agent is simply added. When 
 this addition is made in certain localities, as when we are 
 told that Abraham prepared to murder his son because a 
 divine voice spoke to him, it has been the custom for 
 centuries to agree with Abraham. When however Mr. 
 Freeman asserts the same thing, we believe indeed that 
 he thinks so, but our belief extends no further in this 
 than in the case of any hallucination of hearing contained 
 :in our insane asylums. Thus, the will of the invisible 
 
A REPLY. 6j 
 
 Supreme Being, becomes confounded with the history of 
 the invisible Etre suprhne. Since everything that has 
 ever been asserted about God, consists in facts of hu- 
 manity, positive thought simply rests upon the indis- 
 putable, instead of pretending to soar into the region of 
 the unthinkable, without result. It claims moreover that 
 all that ever was really known or contemplated under the 
 metaphysical method, is still retained as an object of con- 
 templation and of infinitely more fruitful research under 
 the positive method. " This everywhere substitutes the 
 question of how, for the question of luky." Thus, on the 
 supposition of a providential direction to the development 
 of human history, the Positivist studies as minutely as 
 possible the succession of events, their apparent causal 
 dependencies, their modifications, their consequences. 
 The metaphysician on the contrary, remains enclosed 
 within the barren assertion, "This is, has been, and will 
 be, the design of Providence." But zukat is, has been or 
 will be, he cannot know, except in so far as he follows the 
 Positivist method of observation. The Positivist has no 
 quarrel with the assumption of the metaphysician, except 
 that it is useless, and often tends to substitute an apparent 
 explanation, for one which can really be made available. 
 But it lets this hypothesis alone as not, in any sense, being 
 a working hypothesis. 
 
 To the second important substance, the soul, the same 
 considerations apply — so far, at least, as concerns souls 
 external to the thinker's consciousness, i. e., all but his 
 
68 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 own. He knows human beings by their attributes and 
 by the phenomena of their actions : he coheres this mani- 
 fold knowledge into a unit, an individuality : this nexus 
 of cohesion he calls the soul of the man he is talking to. 
 His own soul he apprehends by a different method — by 
 the operation of consciousness. This coheres the succes- 
 sion of more or less distinct thoughts and feelings and 
 volitions into a unit of definite individuality and perma- 
 nent identity with itself. But it is these internal phen- 
 omena in the one case, as it is the external phenomena in 
 the other, which constitute the real subject of knowledge, 
 — the soul is but the unthinkable substance. The attempt 
 to think of it apart from its attributes, results as before, 
 in framing a conception of paler attributes. As the ther 
 ological conception of the substance of the world is a 
 Person, simply an enlarged human being, so the theolog- 
 ical conception of the soul is simply a ghost — a thin and 
 pale human body. 
 
 The following is a good illustration of the way in which 
 positive science analyses the consciousness of self-iden- 
 tity, not, as Mr. Mallock and his school suppose, by ex- 
 clusive reference to the physiological phenomena which 
 may accompany this consideration, but complementing 
 this by minute observations of the phenomena of con- 
 sciousness itself: 
 
 " Psychical life commences in the organs of the senses ; 
 it is a constant current which passes from without in- 
 wards into perception, and from within outwards into 
 
A HE PLY. 69 
 
 organs of movement. * * * Between the sensation 
 and the motor-impulse is gradually formed an accessory- 
 sphere, and this sphere developing, extending, enlarging 
 little by little, finally becomes itself a powerful and com- 
 plex centre, which, in its turn, diminishes in many res- 
 pects both sensation and movement — and in the midst 
 of which moves the entire spiritual life of man. This 
 sphere is the sphere of the intelligence. * * * All 
 effort, instinct, and volition represent the centrifugal 
 motor force of the activity of the soul. The individual 
 constitution of this aspect of the life of the soul forms 
 in great part what we call personal character. * * * 
 In the course of progressive life, thanks to the progress- 
 ive liaison of ideas, there are gradually formed great com- 
 pounds of ideas — more and more completely consolidated. 
 * * * The child already receives from its relatively sim- 
 ple compounds of ideas a general impression, which he 
 begins, as soon as he possesses the necessary elements, to 
 designate under the abstract expression /. The / is an 
 abstraction in which the traces of each of the previous 
 sensations, thoughts and volitions are contained, enfolded, 
 and which, in the ulterior course of psychic processes, is 
 constantly renewed. This assimilation of new perception 
 to the preexistent /"is not made suddenly, but in slow 
 progression. * * * Our /is at different epochs very 
 different from itself. According to the age, to the various 
 duties of life, to events, to momentary excitements, such 
 and such compounds of ideas which at any given moment 
 
70 JS LIFE WORTH LIVHSTG? 
 
 represent the / develop themselves more than others, 
 and place themselves in the first rank." * 
 
 To the question, " Why can the soul be connected with 
 the body? " Positivism answers : ist. No question of why 
 in regard to the ultimate facts of existence can ever be an- 
 swered ; we can only show how two facts may be mutually 
 dependent or describe their interaction. 2d. The term 
 " soul " is not an abstract term corresponding to an indi- 
 vidual group of attributes which may be contrasted with 
 those corresponding to the " body." On the contrary, 
 universal experience shows that it refers to a much more 
 complex unity, into which the attributes of body always 
 enter as constituent parts. There is therefore as little 
 reason for inquiring wliy these two should be connected 
 as why the color of a block of marble should be connect- 
 ed with its density. t 
 
 If again, the question is asked, " Will the soul survive 
 the body? " Positivism replies that this is a question of 
 a future series of events, for whose solution all our expe- 
 rience of past series affords no data. Science claims to 
 be able to predict the future, only in so far as there 
 is reason to suppose that its sequences will be uniform 
 with those of the past. It does not deny the possibility 
 of some brusque interruption of these sequences, com- 
 
 * Griesinger, Malad. Mentales. Trad. fran. pp. 28-54. 
 
 \ The analogy of course is only partial, since the connections between 
 the attributes appreciated by diiTerent senses differ essentially from that be- 
 tween an attribute perceptible by the senses and another appreciable by 
 [mental] perception. 
 
A REPLY. 71 
 
 ing from some hitherto unknown source ; * but with 
 these, by the hypothesis, it can have nothing to do. Nor 
 can knowledge of such events be obtained by an act of 
 faith, as distinguished from an achievement of science. 
 For faith only differs by acquiring knowledge on the 
 strength of testimony, while science acquires it on the 
 strength of demonstration. Anything, therefore, which 
 could never be a matter of knowledge, could never be a 
 matter of faith, since there would then be no one to give 
 the requisite testimony. And in accordance with this. 
 Theology, so long as it was unsophisticated by metaphys- 
 ics, has always relied for proof of a life after death, on the 
 testimony of those who had risen from the dead, and 
 the central doctrine of Christendom was not an unthink- 
 able isolation of the soul from the body, but the resur- 
 rection of the body with its usual complement of a 
 soul. 
 
 Thus, to metaphysical conceptions of God and of the 
 soul. Positivism opposes the remark, (made as Mr. Mallock 
 would say, " not in petulant anger,") that these concep- 
 tions are unthinkable and therefore do not require to be 
 discussed. If this remark seems "destructive," it is no 
 more so than are the analyses of these same conceptions 
 made, over and over again, by theologians and by meta- 
 physicians themselves, as Mr. Mansel's famous Bampton 
 Lecture on the " Limits of Religious Thought," would 
 alone amply testify. 
 
 * Mr. Stanley Jevons, in his Principles of Science, has clearly shown the 
 true scope of " scientific forecast." 
 
72 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 To the simpler, theological conceptions, properly so 
 called, Positivism opposes an entirely different remark. 
 The conception of an invisible and gigantic man called 
 God, and of an individual whose body is composed of an 
 entirely thin material, exhaling from the old body like 
 the breath, or disengaging from it like an insect from a 
 chrysalis, and going to live in some invisible locality, all 
 this is perfectly thinkable, perfectly intelligible, and not 
 at all mysterious. It is a simple question of fact ; and 
 like every other question of fact must be settled by an 
 appeal to one of two sources of information, the testi- 
 mony of consciousness, or the testimony of the senses. 
 But it cannot be settled by the testimony of conscious- 
 ness, because it refers to facts external to the range of 
 consciousness. It must therefore appeal to the testimony 
 of the senses ; that is to say, some one must have seen 
 God, and some one must have seen the ghosts of persons 
 who had died. We need scarcely remind our readers 
 that it is precisely in this way that these " facts" have 
 been established, from the Mosaic vision of Jehovah to 
 the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Credence on testimony 
 in regard to them, constantly more remote, has been the 
 principle occupation of faith. While Protestantism em- 
 bodies more metaphysical conceptions, so Catholicism 
 being much more purely theological, is also more frankly 
 anthropomorphic. By the inclusion of the Virgin Mary, 
 " Parent of sweet clemency," its Godhead is quadruple 
 instead of a Trinity ; and the hierarchy of Saints is well 
 
A REPLY. 73 
 
 known to fulfil all the functions of the demigods they- 
 displaced. The articles of faith in Catholicism contain, 
 therefore, more of this simple description, questions of 
 fact, reposing on historical testimony, and hence inevit- 
 ably liable to just such demand for proof as meets other 
 questions of fact. 
 
 In the absence of external proof therefore : in the ab- 
 sence of those movements of consciousness, which, as we 
 shall see, replace external proof in matters not susceptible 
 of it. Positivism simply lets these alleged facts alone, as 
 it lets alone alleged metaphysical mysteries. There is no 
 other sense in which any meaning could be found for the 
 assertion, " Positive thought sets out from two great dc- 
 nials." 
 
 On the contrary. Positivism has discovered, or rather it 
 is itself the expression of the discovery, that the attain- 
 ment of certainty means the establishment of a special 
 relation between any human mind and the universe exter- 
 nal to it, which relation may be established in two differ- 
 ent ways. First, a scheme of things may be constructed, 
 complete in itself, internally consistent, but which is 
 never allowed to come in contact or contrast with the 
 things themselves. It is perfectly well-known, that inter- 
 nal consistency and harmony, was the only test of truth 
 known to antique thought ; and that it supplemented the 
 appeal to actual authority characteristic of mediaeval 
 thought. Such a faith is only foresworn, where acci- 
 dental contact with the real things, has rendered too ob- 
 
74 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 vious for mistake, inadequacies or contradictions in the 
 scheme. The way is then laid open for the second method. 
 This consists in constructing a scheme of things, not at 
 once, but gradually, and, at every step comparing it 
 with the real things by performing some action on the 
 real things which must fail, if the theoretical scheme be 
 not in real accordance with them. 
 
 This was done on the vastest scale, when the Copernican 
 was finally substantiated for the Ptolemaic system of as- 
 tronomy. The series of verifications by which this mag. 
 nificent achievement was affected, constitute, as is known 
 a series of actions, sometimes purely mental, as calcula- 
 tions, sometimes involving visible circumstances, as navi- 
 gations which must have failed had the Ptolemaic system 
 been true, but by succeeding, proved it irrevocably to be 
 false. 
 
 No Positivist thinker would ever wish to diminish the 
 just emphasis laid by Comte, on the tested discovery of 
 true astronomical laws, as the basis of all modern sense 
 of truth. Comte considered the knowledge of these laws, 
 and of the method by which they have been established, 
 as the " indispensable preparation " to the Positivist con- 
 ceptions of life ; and insisted that every child should be 
 educated sufficiently to understand the demonstration. 
 The Catholic however, still fails to perceive the true sig- 
 nificance of these momentous discoveries ; or, like Mr. 
 Mallock, sees in them no consequence more important than 
 that the earth now-a-days, from its known relations to the 
 
.•; REPLY. 75 
 
 solar system, appears somewhat smaller than it did before. 
 Mr. Mallock sneers unmitigatedly at " this doctrine of 
 verification," which is " the great fulcrum of the modern 
 intellectual lever," and insists that it has no bearing upon 
 matters alone worth caring about, namely, belief and re- 
 ligion. It is easy to show on the contrary, that the be- 
 lief, now generally diffused, that the earth is round, and 
 that the earth moves, offers such a perfect type of belief, 
 that, since its acquisition, all beliefs claiming to be such, 
 must be brought into comparison with it, in testing the 
 reality of their claim. Thus this is, for the immense ma- 
 jority of those acknowledging it, and more or less con- 
 sciously adjusting their lives to it, a belief upon testi- 
 mony, and not a matter of knowledge personally acquired. 
 Even the demonstration would be incomprehensible to 
 these same persons, yet not the slightest doubt is felt of 
 its correctness, because the testimony of all persons com- 
 petent in the matter is absolutely unanimous in one 
 direction. Hence the belief imposes itself with an au- 
 thority scarcely attained, and certainly never surpassed 
 by any dogma of the church in the days of its most com- 
 plete ascendency. The objects to which this belief re- 
 lates, though conceivably sensible, are practically, im- 
 measurably beyond the apprehension of the senses : the 
 belief, though not technically abstract, as a belief in good- 
 ness or beauty or other abstract quality, is, relatively to 
 the capacity of human imagination, quite as vast as such 
 a supra-mundane concrete belief as that in a personal 
 
76 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 God ; and certainly much vaster than that in an in- 
 dividual life after death, or in the intercession of the 
 Virgin Mary, or various other beliefs in the Catholic the- 
 ology. This belief therefore possesses whatever charac- 
 ters of spirituality can possibly be assigned to such theo- 
 logical beliefs. To all those persons, therefore, who are 
 longing for certainty, for the repose afforded by an irre- 
 vocable basis for belief. Positivism may say : " Here is 
 a certain truth. The earth is round, and the earth 
 moves." 
 
 We are well aware, if by chance we have succeeded in 
 persuading any of Mr. Mallock's readers to follow us to 
 this point, that this proposition is liable to be greeted 
 with a burst of derision. " The earth is round ! Well, 
 what of it ? The earth moves ! We knew that in the 
 primary school ! What comfort, what moral guidance 
 can possibly be derived from such a statement ? " 
 
 Softly. — We did not say that this doctrine would 
 meet all the needs we have enumerated as worthy of 
 respect, and capable of being supplied by Positivism. 
 We have, so far, only spoken of one, but that to which 
 Mr. Mallock and all writers seeking to make proselytes to 
 Catholicism most frequently appeal,— -the need, namely, 
 of some absolute truth announced by imposing authority. 
 For those who find a comfort in authority, the cosmic 
 theory of the earth they live in may surely afford as 
 much exercise for faith and acts of submission as [for in- 
 
A REPL V. 77 
 
 Stance] the recently announced doctrine of the Immacu- 
 late Conception of the Virgin Mary, latest " petal on the 
 half-blown rose " of Catholic doctrine. Or, if we listen 
 to Mr. Mallock, — why should pure Cosmism be less at- 
 tractive and influential than " purely natural Theism, 
 with no organs of human speech, no machinery for mak- 
 ing its spirit articulate." The poet may say, 
 
 " God's in his heaven, 
 All's right with the world," 
 
 But the Catholic thinks this an unwarranted inference, until 
 confirmed by much authoritative addition to the original 
 statement. Theism, therefore, to the Catholic, must stand 
 precisely on the same plane as do the fundamental facts 
 of the cosmic theory. If the latter offer no moral 
 guidance, neither, in itself, does the former. 
 
 The cosmic theory is not Positivism, but it is the basis 
 of positive thought, as the illustration, on the vastest 
 scale, of the complete success which may attend the 
 study of phenomena quite irrespective of any substance 
 or personality which might underly them. 
 
 The demonstration of the position and relations of the 
 earth in space would seem at first sight to so immensely 
 transcend the powers of the human intellect, and at the 
 same time be so useful to human welfa.re, that, on theo- 
 logical grounds, we might justly expect it to be the theme 
 of a special revelation. Yet no revelation was vouch- 
 safed, and the achievement was accomplished by the hu- 
 man intellect alone, once working in accordance with the 
 real laws of its constitution. 
 
78 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 In the original demonstration, therefore, a second is 
 implicitly contained, namely, that the human mind is cor- 
 relative with the universe,* — is capable of really unravel- 
 ling its intricacies, comprehending its relations, and pre- 
 dicting its events. And third consequence, not perhaps 
 so closely connected with the first, the visible universe is 
 shown to constitute a suitable medium for the activity of 
 the faculties of the human mind — a real home for the 
 human soul. Thus the influence of physical science is 
 shown at the very outset to far transcend the scope of 
 physical things. It is a compound into which enters much 
 less the material objects whose relations it defines than 
 the mind which discovers those relations. It furnishes 
 the " indispensable basis of reality " required for the ac- 
 tivity of human lives which begin in the senses, and ex- 
 tend so indefinitely far beyond them. But how, it will 
 be asked with insistance, can these cosmic facts contrib- 
 ute to " moral guidance " or to " personal happiness ? " 
 
 The knowledge of these facts destroys the cosmogony 
 upon which the original anthropomorphic theology rest- 
 ed, and by so doing at once indicates the necessity of 
 some new conception of things, without which no per- 
 manent tranquility is possible for human beings. The 
 method of demonstrating these facts in the material 
 world establishes by its success an important precedent 
 for researches in the internal, spiritual or moral world. 
 
 * Whether or no this correlation be complete evidently remains to be seen. 
 Possibly not. 
 
A REPLY. 79 
 
 It is established that the first way to arrive at truth is to 
 ascertain what are the true relations of things. This 
 method in the moral world consists in studying the ac- 
 tions to which moral approbation or disapprobation have 
 become attached, in their relations to one another, to 
 their personal or social antecedents and consequences, to 
 the physical condition which may coincide with them : 
 finally, to the ideals which have been created during the 
 gradual evolution of the moral world. The moral law 
 becomes understood as the science of such relations. It 
 as little resembles a " code of restraining orders," pro- 
 claimed from the top of Mt. Sinai, or from the recesses 
 of the Sybilline cave, as does the law of gravitation. It 
 cannot therefore be " revealed " or " announced ; " it must 
 be slowly and' laboriously built up ; it must expect to 
 change somewhat with the slow changes which are con- 
 stantly shifting the social relations that form such a large 
 part of its basis. It has an internal coercive force de- 
 rived from the consciousness of the sentient beings who 
 are subject to it, and who, when in a normal condition, 
 cannot but desire to act in accordance with the laws of 
 their normal existence ; and it has an external coercive 
 force derived from public opinion, which, in the interest 
 of the larger existence of society, constantly tends to 
 compel to the normal condition the deviations from it of 
 which abnormal individuals may be guilty. When the 
 sense of social law is lost, no force remains capable of ex- 
 ercising this compulsion ; social existence is threatened 
 
8o /S LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 to the extent of the permitted deviation, and, as repeatr 
 ed experience has shown, may be completely dissolved on 
 account of it.* 
 
 Thus far the moral law may be studied and established 
 by the methods employed with indubitable success in the 
 physical sciences, and first learned from them. But as it 
 belongs to a different world, it is to be expected that it 
 should possess in addition a method especially character- 
 istic. And it has. Consciousness does not merely regis- 
 ter, it creates — creates out of a mass of most complex 
 material, furnished from many sources, but creates, never- 
 theless, something different from them. The moral stand- 
 ard prevailing at any given epoch of society, and to which 
 individual actions are more or less completely compelled 
 to conform, is an ideal which, if long maintained, must 
 be in accordance with the general conditions of existence 
 of that society, and especially with its speculative beliefs. 
 But it is in itself its own excuse for being ; it is the pro- 
 duct of the free creative (though unconscious) impulse of 
 the human beings making up that society ; it is the ulti- 
 mate goal towards which such impulse is directed. An 
 ideal once created, as of honor, or purity, or order, tends 
 to impose itself by an internal coercive force, derived 
 from the correspondence of the ideal to a certai.n degree 
 
 * By this it is not meant that the extensive violation of the moral law is the 
 only cause of social dissolution, but only an efficient one. A community 
 may be broken up by a pestilence which destroys its commercial relations, 
 and thus cuts off its supply of food, or by the dissolute and immoral habits 
 generated during the prevalence of a pestilence, which however, conceivably, 
 could be resisted by an heroic moral sense. 
 
A REPLY. 61 
 
 of development of society. The higher the ideal, the 
 higher the development, and conversely, so that ulti- 
 mately the moral force coalesces with and is sustained by 
 the force of existence, constantly tending to enlarge. 
 Thus this second part of the moral law is strictly analo- 
 gous to the aesthetic law. 
 
 A given social development will involve a given ideal 
 of art, whose beauty, inappreciable to members of a lower 
 society imposes itself without question in its own sphere. 
 Thus, the Dresden Madonna, which says nothing to a 
 Bushman, needs no proof of greatness to enrapture a 
 European. And thus again, the constant love for one 
 woman which belongs to the high type of modern mar- 
 riages, is a folly in the eyes of the licentious, whose ex- 
 istence in modern society is a survival of lower forms, 
 and can only be tolerated because it occupies, after all, 
 a minor part in it. 
 
 It is in this branch of morals and in art that we may 
 justly say. Proof \s not necessary to establish truth. But 
 we shall presently see by what a juggle Mr. Mallock takes 
 this principle from the field in which it is applicable to 
 another, where it makes absolute nonsense. 
 
 To compass the wide range of the Moral Law, in its 
 two parts of Demonstration and Creation, is no more 
 given to every one than is the correlative task of com- 
 passing the demonstrations of science, or of rising to the 
 creations of art. This is done by leading intellects, and 
 the results at which they arrive, summed up in principles 
 
82 /s LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 and in precepts, which, having received the sanction of 
 public opinion, gradually become part of the social con- 
 sciousness, and of that of each member of society. It is 
 the felite of artists, scientists and philosophers which 
 really constitute that " Parliament of spiritually minded 
 men," which Mr. Mallock labors to restrict to so much 
 narrower significance. The Parliament of the church 
 limits its discussions to a technical circle of questions, real 
 interest in which the world has entirely outgrown. The 
 universal Parliament extends its inquiries in every direc- 
 tion that human thought may reach. The first begins 
 with assuming on the basis of tradition, that certain 
 concerns are vital, and then is obliged to devote a large 
 part of its energies to compelling the world to feel their 
 vitality. The second takes up those interests whose vi- 
 tality manifests itself indubitably in the very tumult and 
 disturbance they occasion, and strains to trace out their 
 relations to the fundamental conditions of existence. The 
 church Parliament avowedly disdains the very world in 
 which it sits and operates, and its uniform answer to in- 
 quiry concerning the right direction of terrestrial forces, 
 or the legitimate adjustment of mundane preoccupations, 
 is to let both alone. The Parliament of Humanity, con- 
 scious of a responsible mission in behalf of a powerless 
 constituency, devotes laborious days to seeking out, 
 among the intricacies of a marvellous universe the multi- 
 ple response to the innumerable needs of man. 
 
 Still remains the question : This mission may perhaps 
 
A REPLY. 83 
 
 satisfy the ^lite members of this Parliament ; but what is 
 to be the real occupation of that immense " constituen- 
 cy." The church, while elaborating its dogma, to be 
 offered to the faith of the masses, has known how to oc- 
 cupy these and assign to each a place. Under the regime 
 of Positivism, what are the masses to do, while science is 
 achieving its demonstrations, and art is elaborating its 
 ideals? 
 
 The answer to this question can only be found by com- 
 paring with the vast communion offered by the church, 
 the still vaster organism contemplated by Positivism. 
 
 At the beginning of Mr. Mallock's chapter entitled 
 " Sociology as the formation of morality,' he quotes from 
 Prof. Clifford the remark : " Society is the highest of all 
 organisms ; and its organic nature is one of those great 
 facts which our own generation has been the first to state 
 rationally." 
 
 This is indeed a great fact, and it is a cardinal fact in 
 the " Cours de Philosophie Positive " from which Mr. Mal- 
 lock might more appropriately have quoted it. In refer- 
 ring to it Mr. Mallock seems to assume, that the exact 
 nature of an organism is perfectly well understood, first 
 by his readers, and second by himself. To judge by the 
 consequences he deduces from the doctrine of ''organic " 
 social relations, we should infer that this second proposi- 
 tion was at least doubtful. It is possible therefore that 
 the first. is equally uncertain, in which case some prelimi- 
 nary definitions will not be superfluous. An organism is 
 
84 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 a complex unit, susceptible of progressive evolution, 
 whose several parts are successively subordinated to one 
 another, and each of which sustain a double current of 
 activities ; those necessary for the integrity of the indi- 
 vidual existence ; and those which contribute to the main- 
 tenance of the larger individual, in which the smaller is 
 included. An organism is not a mere agglomeration of in- 
 dividuals, nor can it be adequately pictured by any one 
 of them, nor does their maintenance constitute its func- 
 tion, for it can have no function except in so far as it may 
 itself enter into the composition of a larger organism. 
 On the contrary the organic elements have no significance 
 if deprived of their relations to one another, and of their 
 functions in the organism they compose. If therefore 
 society be an organism, as Mr. Mallock appears to admit, 
 it is quite incorrect to say, " that it neither does nor can 
 mean anything but a number of happy individuals, so 
 organized, that their individual happiness is secured to 
 them." (p. 51.) No one familiar with the science of 
 Biology from which the conception of an organism has 
 been derived, would dream of saying : " The social organ- 
 ism is like a yew tree. Science will explain how it has 
 grown up from the ground, and how all its twigs must 
 have fitting room to expand in, but will not show us how 
 to clip the yew tree into a peacock." (p. 59) This is the 
 true Catholic conception of living things, as something to 
 be clipped and tortured into a form that is the most re- 
 mote possible from the natural one. The biological con- 
 
A REPLY. 85 
 
 ception suggests no interference but such as shall secure 
 the most complete and harmonious development of the 
 yew tree, in its own form. 
 
 Of so complex an organism as society, an animal body 
 is the only adequate type. In it, individual human beings 
 may be compared to individual cells ; the primitive natu- 
 ral groups of families to tissues ; the larger groups of 
 classes ranks, orders, etc., correspond to organs, by means 
 of which the life of society is immediately carried on. To 
 know therefore what is essential for human beings, we 
 must first consider what is essential to their prototypes, 
 organic cells. For these three things are essential, nu- 
 trition, reproduction, function. 
 
 Nutrition is required, first to maintain the statical 
 integrity of the cell ; second to provide for its growth 
 and reproduction ; third to render possible its function. 
 The nutrition of a human being must be divided into 
 two kinds : the nutrition of the body and that of the soul, 
 or in other words, satisfaction of physical, and satisfaction 
 of mental or spiritual wants. Many spiritualistic persons, 
 Mr. Mallock we presume among the number, will be ready 
 to eliminate from the present discussion all consideration 
 of physical nutrition, because, in the analysis of happi- 
 ness, such vulgar satisfactions are presupposed. But that 
 the question of this physical nutrition cannot properly be 
 so eliminated will appear when we consider: First that 
 the sentiment of well being, the equilibrium and effective- 
 ness of the moral as of the physical nature, is so largely 
 
86 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 dependent upon physical nutrition, including under this 
 term not only food, but the physical health which should 
 be secured by food. Second, that the task of wresting 
 from a not too bounteous nature the means of physical 
 nutrition, constitutes the primitive occupation of man, 
 cannot be abandoned so long as he inhabits this planet, 
 and so far from becoming easier, constantly tends to in- 
 crease in difficulty, and the intricacy of the means em- 
 ployed, must therefore, to a constantly large extent, ab- 
 sorb the energies of the human race. The habitual 
 oblivion of this fundamental fact, is a curious characteristic 
 of the drawing-room school of philosophers to which Mr. 
 Mallock belongs. These all reason about human nature 
 with the same airy unconsciousness of the practical con- 
 ditions of its existence, as do the luxurious talkers in the 
 " New Republic," who sport with philosophy during the 
 interval between the lunch served by the gilded footman, 
 and the dinner provided by the competent butler. " Why 
 should the people starve when there are such delicious 
 brioches to be had for a sou a piece?" " How can the 
 human race be satisfied with undisturbed ennui and soul- 
 less sensuality ; when the social machinery has come to 
 run more smoothly, and the rose-leaves been better 
 laid." (p. 72.) We reply that the real satisfaction of 
 the physical needs of all the human race, as they 
 never have been hitherto satisfied, would and does 
 leave little time for " undisturbed ennui " except among 
 those who continue to avoid the necessity of getting 
 
A REPLY. 87 
 
 their own living by making some one else work for 
 them. 
 
 Such disturbance of equilibrium as this evasion occa- 
 sions is not possible in a material organism, but only too 
 possible to the social, and source of many of its gravest 
 disorders and widespread individual unhappiness. The 
 homely and oft-quoted advice to the rich hypochondriac, 
 " Live on sixpence a day and earn it," contains a truth so 
 profound as to be worthy of place in at least a practical 
 philosophy. It is the full recognition in however bizarre a 
 fashion, of this necessarily industrial basis for life, that gives 
 such immense value to the socialistic system of Fourier.* 
 
 The provision for physical nutrition is thus inseparable 
 from that for moral sustenance, and that by a circum- 
 stance not peculiar to man, but to which he submits in 
 common with all animals. For moral nutrition comprises 
 three needs, — the need for occupation, for knowledge, 
 for sympathy. Now the first occupation offered to the 
 faculties of any animal — man included — is that of procur- 
 ing food. This elementary want satisfied, others arise, 
 of all degrees of refinement and complexity, but which, 
 so long as they are simply expressions of instinctive 
 tastes or passions, or of desire of appropriation, remain 
 within the class typified by the desire for food. After 
 that, — the need of occupation is met during the process 
 of satisfying other needs, — either secondary, as the nutri- 
 
 * Essentially different from the ''communistic" systems, where the em- 
 phasis is laid, not on working for the goods, but on sharing them. 
 
88 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING?- 
 
 tive needs of knowledge and sympathy, or primary, as 
 the needs of reproduction and function.* 
 
 The second need of moral nutrition is the desire for 
 knowledge. 
 
 The most rudimentary sentiment about knowledge is 
 the desire to utilize it in the attainment of an end, and, 
 of course, first the primitive ends of self-maintenance and 
 self-defence. But long before this utility has been ex- 
 hausted, the sentiment of interest in knowledge for its 
 own sake has been aroused. It certainly possesses con- 
 siderable vivacity at this stage of development at which 
 we are now contemplating human beings, when they 
 have become conscious members of a social organism. 
 The desire for knowledge, and the capacity for acquiring 
 knowledge, varies as extensively as the capacity for work. 
 It ranges from the merest rudiment, as existing in the 
 curious savage, to the powerful and absorbing passion of 
 the civilized scientist. That Mr. Mallock should entirely 
 omit this desire, and the intense delights attendant upon 
 its satisfaction from the enumeration of the " goods " left 
 available for a race that should have ceased to anticipate 
 the joys of heaven, seems to us very singular.f 
 
 * " C'est un fait vrai. bien que triste i dire pour des gens civilises que la 
 faim et I'amour sont les motifs les plus puissants qui dirigent toutes nos 
 actions." Griesinger, loc. cit., p 44. 
 
 \ Yet two far greater writers than Mr. Mallock have been guilty of the 
 same omission. Fourrier was so much absorbed in the task of assigning 
 adequate scope for energies, industries, and passions, that he has failed to 
 notice that the desire of knowledge may become a passion. He allows two 
 and a half hours a day as the utmost limit of time which the most studious 
 person would desire to pass in the library. Corate, on the other hand, was 
 
A REPLY. 89 
 
 It is another illustration of the unnecessary penury of 
 resource to which is reduced a thinker, who substitutes 
 pursuit of an abstract " Higher Good " for the real, con- 
 crete, manifold goods for which human nature is so 
 eager. 
 
 It is in the life of the laboratory, where the secrets of 
 nature are not only divined but reproduced, that the 
 true joy of knowledge can best be learned. Certain it 
 is that from the laboratory this joy has been diffused with 
 immeasurably greater rapidity and intensity than ever 
 was the case where the library was the only centre of dif- 
 fusion. 
 
 The true Positivist conception goes beyond that of 
 Comte. While recognizing with him the inferiority in 
 force of the intellectual faculties as compared with that 
 of the emotions and passions, it recognizes that these are 
 necessary to complete the self-consciousness of the indi- 
 vidual — at least in all classes above the lowest. It pro- 
 
 too thoroughly pre-occupied, with his own passion for discipline and for 
 unity, — passion inherited from Catholicism, — to either sincerely sympathize 
 with or to sincerely believe in genuine intellectual activity among the masses. 
 Indeed he dreaded it, as tending to " anarchy " of opinion and morals ; — as- 
 serted that it was only possible under the stimulus of some passion, which by 
 the force of public opinion'should be restricted to the passion for the welfare 
 of humanity. If this passion were not dominant, egotistic passions would 
 certainly be the real motive for this pretended search after truth for its own 
 sake. All this sounds unpleasantly like the " rebellion, disobedience, and 
 self-will " of the Catholic discipline. But Positivism, however justly grate- 
 ful to Comte, has outgrown his limitations. Its modern disciples, natural- 
 ists rather than mathematicians, have tasted such delights in acquisition of 
 knowledge of the material universe, as Comte never knew. His own pro- 
 found joy of knowledge, he could not imagine as shared by the masses of 
 men whom he looked upon as so immeasurably beneath him. But Huxley 
 and Tyndall are never tired of trying to impart such delight, as far as pos- 
 sible to the unlearned and common people. 
 
go IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 poses a systematic substitution of science for faith, and 
 the habit of demonstration for the habit of credulity, as 
 far as this may be possible, in each individual case. The 
 fundamental effort of education should be directed to- 
 wards making every mind reflect some portions of the real- 
 ities in which it is immersed. The extent of knowledge 
 so reflected may vary infinitely, from the modicum just 
 above what is necessary to direct the tiniest personal life, 
 to the vastest range of speculation ; but the nature of the 
 pleasure, so different in degree, is the same in kind. It is 
 only those who have really for themselves mastered some 
 portion of knowledge, that are able to contrast their 
 modicum with the immense range that escapes mastery. 
 It is precisely this contrast which incessantly reproduces 
 for each person making it, that impression of the infinite 
 from which Mr. Mallock and his school are so fearful lest 
 we escape.* 
 
 As is the case with the need of occupation, so the need 
 for knowledge may not only be gratified in and for itself, 
 but in connection with other needs. The desire for know- 
 ledge originates occupation for its fulfilment; the posses- 
 sion of knowledge offers a field for the occupation of 
 thoughts, and also renders possible further occupations 
 and the fulfilment of function. Finally, knowledge deep- 
 ens sympathies, and, in widening, widens the range of ex- 
 istence in every sphere. 
 
 * This simple observation, taken in the abstract, contributes to that doc- 
 trine of the unknowable to which we have already had occasion to refer. 
 
A REPLY. 91 
 
 The third need which we have defined as belonging to 
 moral nutrition is the need of sympathy. By this we mean 
 the need of coming into emotional relations with fellow be- 
 ings. Sympathy in this wide sense signifies the entire 
 range of feelings whose gratification necessitates the 
 presence and cooperation of one's fellows. Thus self-com- 
 placency, vanity, pride, ambition, all legitimate within a 
 certain limit, are passions inconceivable except in social be- 
 ings ; society is as necessary for their satisfaction as for that 
 of love, friendship, tenderness, benevolence, often alone 
 suggested by the term of sympathy. By the above defi- 
 nition we may even include antipathies, and see in them, 
 as did Fourier, the analogues of the musical discords re- 
 quired for the development of complex harmony. 
 
 To modify a little a remark of Mr. Mallock's already 
 quoted — sympathy reduced to a single species would be 
 like a pianist whose key-board was reduced to a single 
 octave. It really embraces the entire range of feelings 
 developed from the primitive need of escape from primi- 
 tive solitude — the need for one human soul to live in the 
 life and thoughts of another — need so universal, so pro- 
 found, that to thousands its satisfaction sufifices for hap- 
 piness, notwithstanding all other moral privations. 
 
 The foregoing considerations already show that human 
 beings are at least as narrowly dependent on their organic 
 relations as are the elements of any material organism. In 
 these the nutritive phenomena of assimilation cannot be 
 studied, without taking into account the nutritive cur- 
 
92 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 rents, coming from without and dominated, not only by 
 local circumstances, but by the circulation and innervation 
 common to the entire organism. So the various hungers, 
 occupations, knowledges, sympathies of the human cell, 
 which we have likened to movements of individual 
 cellular nutrition, because they sustain its personal 
 moral existence, cannot be thought of without the 
 correlative of other persons, and of a larger social life 
 whose central events dominate the local events around 
 each individual. 
 
 Of the second primary need, that of reproduction, we 
 need say little more than is necessary to signalize the 
 fact that it is a primary necessity with all living beings, 
 and preeminently so with human beings, in whom the in- 
 stinctive love of offspring is reenforced by so much that 
 is most powerful, in feeling, in thought, and in habits of 
 action. Those who stand outside the regular line of suc- 
 cession of the human race are the least fitted to pro- 
 nounce upon its needs, its capacities for virtue or happiness, 
 the prizes towards which its energies may direct them- 
 selves. The celibacy of the Catholic clergy, though Mr. 
 Mallock assures us that its expediency is only "a pious 
 opinion," confers a stamp of immense significance upon its 
 body of doctrine, and would alone sufiSce to consign that 
 to a completely artificial sphere. But this is a well worn 
 theme. Instead of dwelling upon it, we find it more profit- 
 able to notice that in this, as in so many other cases, 
 human nature possesses double resources, and, when the 
 
A KEPLY. 93 
 
 first and simpler fails, can often supply the need with 
 something more remote and more complex. Human 
 beings do not reproduce themselves alone in their chil- 
 dren, but in any creation of individual existence into which 
 they have poured the force of their natures. 
 
 It is a fact, often commented upon, that the greatest 
 geniuses, the greatest benefactors to humanity have so 
 generally been celibate or childless, and often support 
 the privation with little suffering. Even on a humbler 
 scale than that of genius, it is possible, as thousands of 
 modest lives daily testify, through the exercise of gener- 
 ous energies or the expansion of warm affections, to so 
 sustain a real or an ideal life that it shall become like the 
 reproduction of their own. In this task they may at 
 once satisfy this primary longing of their individual 
 nature, and enter into definite relation with the social 
 organism, for whose maintenance, the incessant repro- 
 duction of elements is an essential. 
 
 It is, however, especially by means of its function, that 
 individual elements, whether material or human, are 
 most conspicuously connected with the organism to which 
 they belong. The term function indeed has no meaning 
 for the individual except in relation to the organism : 
 it is thus distinct from the simpler term, activity, which 
 we have already comprised under the need of occupation. 
 
 Further, individual function bears no resemblance to 
 social activities. The function of a liver cell, secreting 
 bile and sugar, does not offer any points of comparison 
 
94 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 with the activity of the man for whose benefit the 
 secretion is accomplished 
 
 The elements of an organism have a function ; the or- 
 ganism can have none unless it be itself considered as an 
 elementary part in another organism. This is a fact of 
 fundamental importance in the theory of the Social Or- 
 ganism, for it at once nullifies questions about the gen- 
 eral aims and duties of society, which, in ignorance of the 
 theory, are so often asked. Society exists ; it manifests 
 spontaneous activities, and possesses an inherent tenden- 
 cy to constantly develop its existence from a simpler to 
 a more complex state ; activity and tendency common to 
 all organisms. Duty, morality, destiny, final purpose, 
 are terms derived from the relations of its elements to 
 it and to one another, relations so fundamental that they 
 involve the conditions of social existence by defining the 
 mode of coexistence of these organic elements. We can- 
 not apply them to society as a whole, because we are ac- 
 quainted with no analogous organism with which it may 
 be brought into relation. 
 
 Mr. Mallock's failure to understand this theory entirely 
 vitiates all he has to say on the subject of sociology, and 
 even renders his definitions grotesque. " The social hap- 
 piness of all of us, means nothing but the personal hap- 
 piness of each of us." (p. 58.) 
 
 This, on the theory of the organism, (which, be it ob- 
 served, Mr. Mallock thinks he admits), is as absurd a 
 statement as would be one that the whole life of a man 
 
A REPLY. 95 
 
 was patterned in that of one of the cells of his liver, and 
 could be at once described by conceiving of an infinitely 
 numerous agglommeration of these cells. But an organ- 
 ism is essentially characterized by the differentiation of 
 its parts. A body whose cells all resemble each other in 
 structure and in function, is not an organism but a honey 
 comb.* What the parts have in common is \h.&fact that 
 they all possess a nutrition, are capable of reproduction, 
 and perform a function ; but these differ as widely in each 
 case as the nutrition and function of connective tissue 
 cells differ from those of ganglionic bodies. So in society. 
 The function of the coal heaver brings him as truly into 
 relation with the social organism, as does that of the Sec- 
 retary of State, since the business of heaving coals is quite 
 indispensable to the welfare of society. But neither in 
 rnatter nor in form, neither in difficulty nor in complexity, 
 does it resemble, nor can it suggest the work of the 
 higher official. In accordance with this we find that the 
 nutrition of the coal heaver, when he is really suited to 
 his work, and neither above or below it, is of a corres- 
 pondingly different order. The physical nutriment he re- 
 
 * Upon this indisputable fact, some theories have, however, been con- 
 structed which afford mucli cause for dispute. The whole system of fixed 
 social hierarchies and castes may plausibly invoke the organic conception 
 of society in its favor. And, as is well known, it is in pursuing the doctrine 
 of differentiation of function that Mr. Spencer has been led to support the 
 theory of permanent and universal differentiation in the social functions of 
 the sexes. We believe, however, that classifications of this kind are really 
 as imperfect as is the caste system of India ; and much inferior to the more 
 flexible system, which, in Europe and still more in America, tends to 
 class individuals according to their real capacities they may manifest, instead 
 of confining them irrevocably to the capacities of the class in which they 
 were born. 
 
96 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 gards is coarser ; his occupation can, without detriment, 
 be harsher and more monotonous, his knowledge much 
 more rudimentary; his sympathies simple and grosser; 
 consequently the " good " required by such a man can 
 only be compared with the good required by the other, 
 in the same way that a lower type can be compared with 
 a higher of which it offers the rudimentary outline. It is 
 true that 
 
 " We are one flesh and need one flannel, 
 With a proper difference as to quality." 
 
 The difficulty in appreciating the effect upon the individ- 
 ual happiness, of the consciousness of social function, is 
 felt precisely in regard to the great mass of human beings, 
 who, to any other view but the Positivist's, are not sup- 
 posed to have any function at all. 
 
 It is conceded that a few quite exceptional persons may 
 have this especial enjoyment, but it is by nature more 
 limited than any other which is known. " Take the world 
 as it is at present," says Mr. Mallock, "and the sense, on 
 the individual's part that he is personally promoting its 
 progress, can belong to and can stimulate exceptional 
 men only, who are doing some public work. * * * The 
 fact indeed that things in general do tend to get better 
 in certain ways, must produce in most men, not effort, 
 but acquiescence. It may, when the imagination brings it 
 home to them, shed a pleasing light occasionally over the 
 surface of their private lives ; but it would be as irrational 
 to count on this as a stimulus to further action, as to 
 
A REPLY. 97 
 
 expect that the summer sunshine would work a steam 
 engine." (p. i68.) 
 
 Again an illustration of the way in which our author, 
 on the professed search for the Positivist conception of 
 things, picks up something else that lies nearer at hand, 
 dubs it " Positivism," and launches it on the stream of 
 controversy. This irrelevance is almost inevitable in a 
 discourse, composed, as it were, to order, without real 
 knowledge of the subject. 
 
 The functions of organic elements are directed to the 
 tnairitenance of the organism in the existing state, and 
 only afterwards to the growth from that state to another. 
 Similarly, the social * functions of human beings are di- 
 rected, first to the maintenance of the existing order of 
 society, and only afterwards to its progress towards any 
 new order. " Order and progress are the watchwords," 
 said Comte. 
 
 Now there are four distinct ways in which human beings 
 can contribute to the existing order of society. In the 
 first place it is evident that the existence of the social 
 organism is impossible without the existence of its indi- 
 vidual elements. Every individual therefore, by the mere 
 fact of his existence, contributes an essential, though in- 
 finitesimal element to the mighty existence including him. 
 Whatever he does moreover to maintain alive other per- 
 
 * Properly speaking it is superfluous to add the term ** social " to the 
 functions of human beings, since, as we have seen, function for them, 
 necessarily implies relation to society. We have permitted the inaccuracy, 
 precisely for the purpose of emphasizing the fact that it is one. 
 
98 * IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 sons, tends in this same direction. Existence, as we have 
 already said, being the highest conceivable necessity, the 
 multiplication of the existences is always a good, until 
 indeed, by excess, it may come to interfere with the de- 
 velopment or well being of those previously created. 
 Here the desirability of existence as multiplied in exten- 
 sion, is checked by the same desirability multiplied in 
 vitension. It is in this sense that the remark holds true, 
 " whoever makes two blades of grass grow, where only 
 one grew before, is a benefactor to humanity." Finally, 
 the multiplication of existence in intension, that is the de- 
 velopment and embellishment of individual existences 
 already established, constitute a simple modification of 
 the same function. 
 
 The second, and also very obvious way in which human 
 beings contribute to the maintenance of society, is by re- 
 production. This has always been recognized, and yet, 
 so powerful are the personal and egotistic * passions in- 
 volved in the birth and in the possession of children, that 
 the recognition is constantly receding into the back 
 ground. Over and over again have state, and church, and 
 public opinion defined the bearing and rearing of children 
 as a social duty, and endeavored, when necessary to en- 
 force it as such. And, over and over again, have either 
 selfish gratification or selfish indifference claimed the right 
 to appropriate or to abandon children, as exclusive per- 
 
 * We use this term in no invidious sense, but in the scientific sense of 
 .opposition to " altruistic." 
 
A REPLY. 99 
 
 sonal property, with which the state could have nothing 
 to do. According to the Positivist conception, which 
 considers reproduction as at once the fulfilment of ,a pro- 
 found personal need and as the establishment of an es- 
 sential organic relation, the rearing of children is ennobled 
 far beyond the scope of the most legitimate and tender 
 personal passion. 
 
 It does not enter into our purpose to show how pro- 
 foundly the birth and the education of children, and the 
 ambitions entertained for them, must be modified by the 
 habit of looking at their possession as a trust held in the 
 service of humanity, trusts whose principal effects are to 
 be felt after the death of the person discharging it. We 
 merely signalize this influence. 
 
 The third way in which the human elements can 
 fulfil their functions is by performing some duty re- 
 cognized as constituting a service for society, and 
 necessitating exertions over and above what may be 
 required for personal maintenance. This involves the 
 whole class of action known as "disinterested " and also 
 the " spirit of disinterestedness " which is recognized as 
 enabling the performance of many fixed duties regarded 
 in themselves as personal occupations. It is the addition 
 of an undefined amount of disinterestedness to strictly 
 necessary exertion, which confers such prestige upon the 
 professions, and also upon public office.* Now in reality, 
 
 * " It is assumed," remarks Ruskin, " that a soldier will always be ready 
 to die rather than desert his post ; and a physician, rather than desert his 
 patient : and a lawyer rather than betray his client ; and a clergyman, rather 
 than forswear the truth." 
 
lOO IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 both the term and the prestige imply a very narrow and 
 incorrect view of what constitutes personal advantage or 
 interest. Taken in an adequate sense, all is of interest to 
 a person that can be made to appear to him interesting. 
 His primary need, is exercise of faculties ; whatever there- 
 fore stimulates and facilitates this exercise is in itself an 
 immense advantage, one in fact that must always be im- 
 plied in any other of the vulgarly recognized advantages, 
 money and fame. The latter is indeed a primary good in 
 itself, but almost inevitably acts by stimulating an ex- 
 tension or repetition of the exertions by which it was 
 originally secured. But money is evidently of use only as 
 it can employ facilities in its expenditure, a remark which 
 is a truism. To sacrifice rewards of money therefore in 
 order to attain some wider satisfaction or " internal re- 
 ward," is simply to treat it in the only way in which it 
 could be possibly utilized in the attainment of satisfac- 
 tion. What Catholicism applauds as a matter of heroism, 
 Positivism often approves as a matter of common sense. 
 The vow of poverty, like the resolution of probity, may 
 be common to both ;_ but the positive method certainly 
 facilitates the diffusion and triumph of a virtue which it 
 plants so firmly on the earth ; while Catholicism increases 
 the dififlculties in the way of what it suspends upon the 
 distant heavens. In an artistic sense, as Mr. Mallock 
 would say, this method may sometimes appear more in- 
 teresting ; except indeed to those who may have suffered 
 real loss by its failure. 
 
A REPLY. lOI 
 
 To the scholar therefore, the philanthropist, the states- 
 man, even to the physician, the soldier, the teacher, the 
 lawyer, the priest, Mr. Mallock would accord the possi- 
 bility of conscious joy in the discharge of honorable func- 
 tions, necessary to the existence of society. But the 
 shoemaker, the butcher, the weaver, the farmer, the ser- 
 vant, can be expected to see no horizon beyond the wall 
 of the little cell in which each lives, and in which the 
 tedium and monotony of his occupation may well lead 
 him to ask, " Is life worth living?" 
 
 But a fourth way is now open for these, the great 
 masses of human beings, to complete their lives by 
 the consciousness of a social function. All real oc- 
 cupations must constitute functions in the social or- 
 ganism, for they minister to the real needs of some of its 
 members. Even the practice of personal virtues involves 
 this social relation, because it raises the efficiency of the 
 person practising them. " Thus," says Comte, " even the 
 habit of personal cleanliness becomes elevated from the 
 rank of a simple hygienic precept, by the recollection 
 that it renders each better adapted to serve the others." * 
 
 It is no sentimentalism, but the simple expression of 
 fact that the individual occupations of the difTerent mem 
 bers of society, cannot be adequately regulated so long 
 
 * This example, however, itself shows very clearly, that the personal virtues 
 are objects of desire in themselves from the development of appropriate 
 tastes for them, and that their value is not defined exclusively by their use. 
 Here, as everywhere in the region of morals, we encounter the double cur- 
 rent of sesthetics and utilitarianism ; the values which must be proved, and 
 the values which must be recognized. 
 
I02 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 as they are regarded merely as the means for each of 
 these persons to get his or her living. 
 
 By a crowd of official acts, from the inspection of mar- 
 kets to taking the census, society, " even as it is," ex- 
 presses its recognition of the fact that this vast mass of 
 activities constituting the " business " of the community, 
 represents the sum of its own vegetative functions, by 
 which all its life, from the lowest to the highest plane of 
 it, is sustained. That in the discharge of these functions 
 the money or "living" earned by each individual is really 
 ■-' the least important consideration. Thus, it is of much 
 less importance that a butcher grow rich, than that the 
 thirty or forty families he supplies with meat receive 
 good meat at fair prices. Whatever value attaches to 
 the individual life of the butcher, is multiplied forty times 
 by the sum of those of his customers : it is, therefore, 
 their welfare and not his profit which must be the first 
 consideration. Or, in other words, the essential thing 
 is that meat should be supplied, — the how and the 
 whence are secondary details, to be regulated, not by 
 the convenience of the producer but by that of the con- 
 sumers. 
 
 By this simple but indisputable line of reasoning 
 Positivism, in its study of the laws of social relations, 
 accomplishes two things. In the first place it overturns 
 the theory that work is performed for the sake of the 
 individual, whose advantage indeed is quite subsidiary, 
 and shows that it is primarily for the benefit of society 
 
A REPLY. 103 
 
 or some group of persons in it. The daily business is 
 thus renioved from the ignominy and pettiness of isolated 
 individualism and elevated into an honorable function, 
 while he who performs it becomes invested with the dig- 
 nity of a public functionary. In the second place, since 
 the welfare of the persons for whom the work is done is 
 the principal thing, and that of the worker secondary to 
 it,* we find at once laid the natural basis for integrity in 
 work, which constitutes indeed one of the principal bases 
 of Positive morality. That the worker receive remuner- 
 ation is necessary, but an incidental necessity only ; that 
 the work be well, thoroughly, honestly done, is so essen- 
 tial that it is inseparable from any typical conception of 
 achievement. By means of work man takes his place 
 among the creative forces of the universe. His work is 
 inevitably liable to the same causes of failure as mar the 
 completeness of other created things ; failures due to in- 
 adequate conception, deficient vitality, unfavorable me- 
 dium, hostile forces, blighted growth. But deliberate 
 dishonesty and carelessness is peculiar to human work 
 alone ; it is as profoundly unnatural as it is antisocial ; 
 it is condemned alike in the world of matter and in the 
 [organic] world of mind. 
 
 Thus the Positive workman enjoys to the full the 
 same motive for conscientiousness that Mr. Ruskin cele- 
 brates in his mediaeval workingmen, at that mythical 
 
 * Of course this worker, by entering into another group, whei'e he is the 
 consumer, finds his own welfare correlatively taken into account. 
 
I04 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 period when " all England awoke every morning and 
 went to its daily work with a prayer." * While the 
 absence of such integrity is a most conspicuous fact in 
 the operations of modern industry, it is none the less 
 certain that the principles of Positivism are logically di- 
 rected towards the cultivation of a most acute sense of 
 honor in regard to them, — principles now prevailing so 
 little because true Positivism is as yet so little under- 
 stood. It is true that Catholicism also condemns cheating, 
 and commends the 
 
 " Servant who witli this clause 
 Makes drudgery divine, 
 Who sweeps a room as by God's laws, 
 Makes that and the action fine." 
 
 But the distinction established between secular and 
 religious duties, cannot fail to weaken the influence of 
 the Church over the duties stamped as inferior. Whereas 
 Positivism, transferring the sense of spirituality to secu- 
 lar duties, welds into one all moral forces for their direc- 
 tion that hitherto have been dispersed. 
 
 From what precedes, it is evident that we use the term 
 " occupation " in a double sense. We have already 
 spoken of the need of occupation or action as an ele- 
 mentary need, so essential to the life of a human being 
 as to be strictly analogous to the physical nutriment so 
 essential to the life of his body.f We have also said that 
 
 * Fors Clavigera. 
 
 I This thesis might be developed at great length, even more than has al- 
 ready been done by other writers. 
 
A REPLY. 105 
 
 an elementary field for activity was, normally, afforded to 
 every one by the necessity of procuring food or of " get- 
 ting a living." It may now seem as if we declared that 
 this occupation was itself a function, although elsewhere 
 we have described function as being more exalted in 
 character. 
 
 The identity, however, is only apparent. Even when 
 the technical business of a man, whose remuneration is 
 his means of support, occupies all his time, there remains 
 a surplus of activity, which may be directed from the 
 occupation to the function. In the most rudimentary 
 cases this surplus consists entirely of the thoughts and 
 feelings with which the work is regarded by the work- 
 man. A thought is as decidedly an expression of human 
 activity as is a piece of handiwork. It is possible that 
 the thought about work shall be merely such as is need- 
 ed for carrying it on, and of securing some personal ad- 
 vantage from it for the worker. In this case it remains, 
 as far as his consciousness is concerned, only an element 
 of personal nutrition. Or he may regard its performance 
 as it really is, if useful work, namely, as the discharge of 
 a function of society. He may then, for all but the low- 
 est work,* indefinitely increase the expenditure of energy, 
 ingenuity and painstaking bestowed upon it, thus increas- 
 ing at once the efficiency of the work for the social welfare, 
 and its area as a dwelling-place for his own thoughts. 
 
 * Such routine, manual labor as machinery should remove altogether from 
 human hands. 
 
I06 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 All that has been said of the discharge of functions for 
 the maintenance of social order, applies cczteris paribus 
 to such modification of function as may be required in 
 the furtherance of social progress. 
 
 Progress may be considered in two aspects. There is 
 the vast and slow progress of the social organism as a 
 whole, and which is principally effected by the 61ite of 
 humanity — constantly engaged in the discovery of new 
 laws and in the creation of new ideals. The masses con- 
 tribute to this principally by openheartedness towards 
 new truth, and by loyal seconding of the efforts of their 
 natural leaders. But progress may also be perceived in 
 the developments of individual lives, which, on however 
 small a scale, offer a field for the activity of creative im- 
 pulse. Whoever freely shapes his life and circumstances 
 according to distinct purposes, that have been tested by 
 the moral and social law and found legitimate, contributes 
 towards the incessant rf-creation of the social organism 
 through some of its elements ; he is an artist in life, 
 greater or smaller according to the scope of his origin- 
 ality, but in any case truly an artist. 
 
 In the foregoing exposition we have said nothing of the 
 sentiment of Altruism which is known to occupy a large 
 place in the Positivist social policy. Mr. Mallock does 
 not refer to this sentiment under its technical name, but 
 under other names he is continually falling foul of it, as 
 it were, and accusing it of the consequences of his own 
 misconception. Thus, as we have seen, he tells us that Pes- 
 
A REPLY. 107 
 
 itivism thinks that " all mankind are made a mighty whole 
 by the fusing power of benevolence. Benevolence, how- 
 ever, means simply the wishing that our neighbors were 
 happy, the helping to make them so, and lastly the being 
 glad that they are so." (p. 69.)* But Positivism says on 
 the contrary that mankind is a mighty whole, and that a 
 certain portion of it — the European, with its expansions 
 — have risen into an organic unity through an internal 
 principle of growth. f These are facts of existence and 
 quite independent of the thoughts or feelings that may 
 be entertained about them. Thus, the common destiny 
 and thence the organic unity of Europe was a fact, even 
 when every European nation looked at every other as its 
 natural and permanent enemy. In the same way the or- 
 ganic relations of human beings persist, whether through 
 sentiments of friendship and benevolence these relations 
 occasion a lively happiness, or whether by the influence 
 of egotism and hate, they become a permanent source of 
 pain. Organic relations which have once originated life, 
 are necessarily indissoluble.:]: Stated less technically, 
 the assertion of Positivism is that the dependence of the 
 spiritual life of one man upon others is demonstrated 
 practically by the fact that the immense majority of his 
 thoughts and feelings are directed towards these others; 
 
 * See remainder of quotation as given on p. 20. 
 
 f See Appendix 
 
 \ Thus no growth of hatred can really dissolve the union by vi'hich the 
 lives of two human beings have become fused into that of offspring. This 
 is why Comte so fully endorsed the Catholic doctrine on the indissolubility 
 of marringe. 
 
1 08 /5 LIFE WOR TH LI VING ? 
 
 whether these feelings be amiable or unamiable. And theo- 
 retically the same fact is explained by the doctrine of the 
 social organism, which shows how the real isolation o{ 
 elements is impossible. Thus, the man who betrays a 
 trust in order to secure a fortune, can spend but little of 
 this in physical, sensuous and esthetic enjoyments ; the 
 greater portion must go towards securing prestige, con- 
 sideration, applause, companionship of human beings 
 similar to those whom he may have ruined, and whose 
 sentiments of consideration cannot be more than an 
 equivalent for the sentiments of confidence he has for- 
 feited. Moreover, this forfeiture has not annihilated 
 social relations even with this group of persons, but has 
 established them upon undying sentiments of hate and 
 distrust. In trying, therefore, to escape from human be- 
 ings, he finds himself permanently, inevitably confronted 
 by humanity. 
 
 Anti-social conduct does not represent a reality, but a 
 desire, and a tendency, which can only be realized by 
 death. All injury of human beings expresses a tendency 
 which points steadily towards their murder : for it ex- 
 presses a more or less intense desire to rupture relations, 
 which nevertheless cannot be ruptured but only changed 
 as long as the persons between whom they have been es- 
 tablished remain alive.* Thus, long ago it was said, 
 " Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer." It is 
 
 * Thus there is a sense in which De Quincey's paradoxical advice, — 
 not to begin with murder lest it might lead to incivility, — ceases to be a 
 paradox. 
 
A REPLY. 109 
 
 this sense of the indissolubility, in some form or another 
 of human relations, which constitutes the essence of the 
 sentiment of Altruism. It is not a mere sentimentality, 
 but a strict deduction from a scientific theory of life. 
 
 The sentiment of benevolence is not the foundation of 
 Altruism, but is deduced from it. It begins ultimately 
 in the reflection that since our lives are so inseparably 
 united it is reasonable to make the union a source of 
 pleasure instead of suffering. This reflection having 
 originated certain actions which tend to repeat them- 
 selves, the emotion is generated, according to the general 
 psychological law, that the constant repetition of the 
 same thoughts or actions is invariably attended by the 
 generation of a sentiment appropriate to them, and which 
 grows more intense with every repetition of the actions. 
 Similarly with the sentiments of justice, of compassion, 
 of sympathy,* of tenderness, etc. These all ultimately 
 depend on the more or less conscious appreciation of a 
 community in nature and destiny between the persons 
 entertaining these sentiments and those in whose behalf 
 they are entertained. f They have therefore the most 
 profound basis possible, not " resting on a pedestal," 
 
 * In the narrower sense. 
 
 ■f In the abstract line of reasoning we are pursuing, we may not pause for 
 concrete illustrations. But we have often pondered on one historical fact 
 which most curiously demonstrates the influence of supposed community of 
 destiny on the sentiments of justice and compassion. This fact is that the 
 practice of infanticide as an acknowledged right, so long survived the prac- 
 tice, at first co-existent with it, of murder of aged and infirm parents. The 
 reason is, that the homicides learned to look forward to the day when they 
 also should be old, but always knew that they never again could be babies. 
 
I lO IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 but rooting themselves in the primary conditions of 
 existence. 
 
 Before proceeding to show how the questions of moral- 
 ity and of the prize of Hfe are to be solved in accordance 
 with the positive conceptions of Altruism and of the 
 Social Organism, we must return for a moment to our 
 starting-point. It will be remembered that, among Mr. 
 Mallock's readers, we claimed to especially address 
 ourselves to those who were liable to be attracted to 
 Catholicism by its promises of unity, certainty, authority, 
 and mighty communion. We asserted that, however suc- 
 cessfully in the past Catholicism had fulfilled these prom- 
 ises, in the present day Positive thought was really alone 
 capable of doing so. Let us compare the two in their 
 principal details : 
 
 " The primary doctrine of the church," says Mr. Mal- 
 lock, " is her own perpetual infallibility. * * * The 
 Church of Rome essentially is the spiritual sense of hu- 
 manity speaking to men through its proper and only pos- 
 sible organ. * * * The church, it is undeniable, has 
 for a long time lived and moved amongst countless false 
 opinions ; and to the external age they have naturally 
 seemed a part of her. But science (!) moves on, and it 
 is shown that she can cast them off. It may absorb 
 ideas that we should consider broader, bolder, and more 
 natural than any it seems to possess at present. * * * 
 The church is a living organism, still full of vigor and 
 power of self-adaptation, and will be able to develop as 
 
A REPLY. Ill 
 
 the world develops around her, and yet lose nothing of 
 her supernatural sameness." 
 
 If for the unmeaning clause, "supernatural sameness," 
 we substitute the words " permanent identity," we shall 
 find in the above a real description of the far greater 
 " living organism " of humanity. Humanity is infallible, 
 not in the sense of never having fallen into error, but as 
 being the only conceivable source of truth. For what 
 truth can be named or was ever known that did not ema- 
 nate from a human breast and brain? The "proper and 
 only possible organ " through which " the spiritual sense 
 of humanity can speak to men," is the voice of man him- 
 self. For, from the moment that argument has once been 
 thought necessary, what argument has ever demonstrated 
 a radical difference between the natures of the speakers 
 standing in the line of apostolic succession and those out- 
 side of it? It is the message which tests the worth of 
 the speaker, and not the reverse. And it is preeminently 
 true of humanity that it is an organism " full of vigor and 
 power of self-adaptation," with indefinite possibilities of 
 expansion and development. 
 
 What comfort is to be derived from the sense of mem- 
 bersTiip in the church that is not to be found in the sense 
 of membership in humanity, when that is once really un- 
 derstood? How does the communion of technical saints 
 differ in essence or in sweetness from the communion of 
 all the righteous ? Why should the church militant for 
 the propagation of an artifical theology or the aggran- 
 
112 IS LIFE WOR TH LI VI NG ? 
 
 disement of an anonymous priesthood awaken more en- 
 thusiasm than human heroism mihtant against tyrannies 
 and wrong and oppression and suffering? Is this "grace 
 and mercy which comes through the set channels " of the 
 parish priest of the neighborhood any more precious than 
 that which reaches us by the natural channels of gracious 
 and merciful human beings wherever found? 
 
 To the Catholic, the priesthood is the appointed organ 
 of Providence, the special medium for the goodness of 
 God. To the Positivist, for whom the designs of Provi- 
 dence are identified with the will of humanity, all good- 
 ness is divine, and known not only in that which he may 
 receive, but in that of which he may himself be the au- 
 thor. It is no assertion of modern " materialism " when 
 a man, flushed with the glow of generous action or a great 
 thought, declares himself to be the instrument of God. 
 Positive thought, far from condemning this audacity, ap- 
 plauds it as the literal expression of the truth. It does 
 more ; for into the heart of him who is discouraged by 
 waiting for the slow purpose of Providence to be reveal- 
 ed, it breathes the suggestion : Be your own providence ; 
 create your own good. All the good that ever came into 
 the world came through some man of like nature with 
 yourself. Why not then through you ? Renew in your 
 own person the eternal mystery of the incarnation, of the 
 descent of divine truth in the flesh among men ! ' 
 
 It is difficult to see how this conception of the position 
 of man is less dignified than that he held under the old 
 
A J^EPL V. 113 
 
 theology. Yet Mr. Mallock's first, second and last accu- 
 sation against Positivism is that it deprives man of all the 
 pathetic dignity which he had acquired by Christianity. 
 " Under the light of [its] conceptions man appeared an 
 ampler being. His thoughts were forever being gazed 
 upon by the controller of all things ; he was made in the 
 likeness of the Lord of lords; he was akin to the power 
 before which all the visible world trembled ; and every 
 detail in the life of the human soul became vaster beyond 
 all comparison than the depths of space and time." 
 (p. 21.) 
 
 We might notice in passing, that whoever has been in 
 the habit of considering space and time as categories or 
 conditions of human thought, would not find this last 
 comparison of any especial significance. But this is by 
 the way. It cannot of course be denied, and Positivists 
 would be the last to question, that the glory belonging 
 to man as the lowest of the angels, may be amplified to 
 the imagination, as well as that of being the real lord of 
 creation.* Indeed there are few conceptions of the human 
 intelligence which are not susceptible of being glorified 
 by the human imagination, — the wife of the understand- 
 ing. But who goes to a man's wife to learn how he stands 
 in business, or what is his real rank in science ? This is 
 the fatal error which vitiates all Mr. Mallock's eloquence ; 
 he relies on it not only to adorn but to support. To use 
 
 * Comte observes somewhere, " This is looking at man as the first of the 
 animals, instead of as the lowest of the angels." 
 
114 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 one of his own illustrations slightly altered : " If my friend 
 says such a view of things is beautiful and noble and in- 
 spiring, and I find myself inspired by the exact opposite, 
 how shall I prove that my state of mind is more rational 
 than his? " For a state of imagination cannot be either 
 rational or irrational. The question is whether the objects 
 which occasion it are real or fantastic ; whether the 
 scheme of thought which it clothes is true or untrue. 
 
 This test we have seen Mr. Mallock deliberately rejects, 
 and we shall have occasion in a few moments to dis- 
 cuss seriously the theory of his rejection. But at this 
 moment we would prefer to call attention to an internal 
 inconsistency in the conception whose dignity he invokes, 
 — inconsistency which has had serious practical conse- 
 quences. 
 
 No one can know better than Mr. Mallock that the 
 belief that the " thoughts of man were constantly being 
 gazed upon by the great controller of all things," is a belief 
 which has served quite as often to crush as to inspire. 
 He himself, when he sees it in the interest of another 
 line of argument, holds out as an inducement to the 
 Catholic theology, that by it " man's nature will be re- 
 deemed visibly from its weakness and its littleness." He 
 cannot but know that, except to pure Deism, the cor- 
 relative of the belief in question has always been the 
 absolute worthlessness, wickedness and ruined condition 
 of man ; has been a theory of the complete degradation 
 of every faculty and impulse of his nature ; so much so 
 
A REPLY. IIS 
 
 that his eternal salvation depended on his denying and 
 mortifying this nature, and that every natural crisis of his 
 earthly career, from birth to death, must be looked upon 
 as exposing to the deadliest dangers until they had been 
 redeemed by a sacrament of the Church. We must 
 never forget that, in Mr. Mallock's view at least, the 
 simple conception of Theism is only like "' an alluring 
 voice, heard far off through a fog, and calling ' Follow 
 me,' only to leave its followers to be killed or crippled 
 among rocks and streams and pitfalls." (p. 266.) While 
 the Christian or Catholic conception, whose introduction 
 into the world is alleged as conferring such an immense 
 increase of human dignity, has, indisputably, been at- 
 tended by conceptions of human vileness, perhaps more 
 intense than have ever existed anywhere except in Hin- 
 dustan. 
 
 There is however a sense in which the assertion is true, 
 " that man became an ampler being in the light of this 
 conception." Against this native vileness and natural 
 tendency to perdition, were to be contrasted the salvation 
 and hope of glory which had been procured for him at 
 the expense of a stupendous celestial drama, enacted for 
 his benefit ages before he came into existence. The con- 
 templation of this imaginary scheme of salvation, the task 
 of connecting with it an innumerable mass of details of 
 daily life, have unquestionably occupied thousands, per- 
 haps millions of minds, in a way to greatly enlarge to 
 their appreciation, the sense of the importance of their 
 
Il6' IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 own lives, for which so much pains had been expended. 
 But after all, the sense of glowing gratitude for redemp- 
 tion, which has certainly ravished the heart of many a 
 saint, cannot more than balance the terrors of perdition. 
 The note of praise and the note of despair combine in 
 the concerto executed by skilful musicians. When they 
 cease to play, despair and praise vanish together.* 
 
 Again : Catholicism has often been praised, and justly, 
 for its intervention in favor of the weak things of this 
 world and the despised, whom it lifted upon a plane with 
 the strong on account of the equality of both before the 
 tribunal for eternal salvation. Catholicism is thus cele- 
 brated as the liberator of the slave, as the emancipator of 
 women, as the succor of the poor, the sick, and the op- 
 pressed, — and, we repeat, with justice. But it is just also 
 to notice that this liberation was not effected by bestow- 
 ing strength upon weakness, but by placing weakness on 
 a forced equality with strength. Above all virtues the 
 church has cultivated those of humility and obedience, 
 and these are naturally more easy to cultivate in the 
 weak than in the strong, — hence the weak received at 
 once a hitherto unparalleled consideration. If the human 
 rights of a slave could only be secured after protection 
 had been obtained for him as a member of the church ; 
 and if the intrinsic worth of human nature could only be 
 recognized after it had been stamped as worthless, then 
 
 * As Defoe long ago remarked as an excuse for writing a " History of the 
 Devil ; " " Forit is generally observed that those who cease to believe in the 
 Devil soon disbelieve in God also." 
 
A REPLY. 117 
 
 on the whole humanity has gained by the inconsistency.* 
 But our line of argument will not permit us to forget the 
 abject degradation of thought and life which, as most 
 logical consequence of its cardinal doctrines of human 
 . nature, marked the period of complete ascendency of the 
 church. Whatever in the middle ages was great, or rich, 
 or strong, or beautiful, was obtained in spite of these doc- 
 trines. It was conflict with them which nourished the 
 most robust virtues ; it was forgetfulness of them that 
 permitted the first growth of art ; it was defiance of them 
 which hewed out the first steps of science. And these are 
 the doctrines which, we are now told, can alone save the 
 dignity of man, menaced by the ravages of Positivism. 
 Mr. Mallock strikes his key-note falsely. He decks me- 
 dijeval Catholicism in the transparent robes of modern 
 Unitarian optimism, and expects the anachronism to pass 
 undetected. He forgets that the " focalization of the 
 diffused light of the supernatural " has often served 
 merely to efface the natural sunshine in its lurid glare ! 
 
 It is characteristic of nearly all modern theistic discus- 
 sions on the doctrine of a future life, that this is assumed 
 to be a doctrine of invariable comfort and promise. The 
 reverse of the medal is kept out of sight. Now, the ser- 
 mons against " infidels " of the seventeenth and eighteenth 
 centuries assume, on the contrary, that this doctrine of a 
 
 * Although it is not for this generation to forget that the chains which the 
 Spanish church forged for the negro in the interest of the Indian, were after- 
 wards padlocked by the American church in the interest of commerce. 
 
Il8 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 future life is a terrible one. There are so many more 
 people to be lost than there are to be saved, that the 
 prospect of immortality cannot fail to cast a huge shadow 
 over all mortal existence. Then " infidels " were warned 
 not to "lull themselves in fancied security," not to enjoy 
 life too much, since they could not tell what might be in 
 store for them, which, in a short time, would more than 
 prevent them from enjoying at all. But to-day the ad- 
 juration is made, as if the anticipation of immortality 
 were the only thing that lent value to mortality, and gave 
 the hope which alone could make " life worth living." 
 
 Mr. Mallock, in making this adjuration, passes in the 
 most airy manner possible over the " difficulties " once 
 felt in the way of responding to it. As to the second 
 question, — that of eternal punishment — he remarks " we 
 may certainly here g^ei rid of one difficulty* by adopting 
 the doctrine of a final restitution." (p. 255). But it cer- 
 tainly never occurred to either Bossuet or Massillon, 
 either to Jeremy Taylor or to Richard Baxter, that " diffi- 
 culties " could be" thus bowled out of the way as easily 
 as billiard balls, merely by " adopting" some other view 
 of them. For they would have believed that they dis- 
 honored their cause if they once admitted, as Mr. Mallock 
 does, that " reason and observation " justify the position 
 of the obdurates whom they were trying to summon to 
 salvation, (p. 254.) " If we believe in heaven, we believe 
 in something the imagination fails to grasp. If we be- 
 
 * Italics ours. 
 
A REPLY. 119 
 
 lieve in hell, we believe in something the imagination re- 
 volts at. * * * From these difficulties it is impos- 
 sible to escape. * * * We can only show that they 
 are inevitable, not that they are not insoluble. If we 
 condemn a belief in heaven because it is unthinkable, we 
 must for the same reason condemn a Utopia upon earth." 
 (p. 254-255.) 
 
 This doctrine of what we have already called " equiva- 
 lent inexplicablenesses," is so important for Mr. Mallock's 
 purposes that we may not longer delay a formal exami- 
 tion of it. This examination will lead us away from the 
 climax of Catholicism into which we have followed Mr. 
 Mallock's reasoning, into the devious ways of that rea- 
 soning itself. With it, therefore, we may very properly 
 open the third and last portion of our review. 
 
120 JS LIFE WORTH LIVING! 
 
 III. 
 
 Stated simply, we might almost say, brutally, the 
 doctrine of equivalent inexplicableness runs thus : " Here 
 is something that I cannot explain, but you cannot ex- 
 plain it either. Therefore when I assert something else 
 that I still am not able to explain, you can say nothing 
 against it." 
 
 This is the gist of Mr. Mallock's chapter on " Morality 
 and Natural Theism," which is headed by the too famous 
 motto, " credo quia impossibile est." 
 
 Mr. Mallock wishes to discuss the "moral objections" 
 that have been brought against the Catholic conception 
 of God. To obtain a concrete and forcible presentation 
 of these objections, he quotes from James Mill, what he 
 calls " the vulgar view of the matter." " Mr. Mill " says 
 his son, " looked upon religion /as the greatest enemy 
 of morality; first, by setting up fictitious excellences; 
 * * * but above all by radically vitiating the standard 
 of morals, making it consist in doing the will of a being, 
 on whom indeed it lavishes all the praises of adulation, 
 but whom in sober truth, it depicts as eminently hateful. 
 I have a hundred times heard him say that all ages and 
 nations have represented their gods as wicked in a con- 
 
A REPLY. 121 
 
 stantly increasing progression : * * * but the ne plus 
 ultra of wickedness he considered to be embodied in what 
 is commonly presented to mankind as the creed of Chris- 
 tianity. Think, (he used to say), of a being who would 
 make a hell, who would create the human race with the 
 infallible fore-knowledge, and therefore with the intention 
 that the great majority of them should be consigned to 
 horrible and everlasting torment." Mr. Mallock considers 
 that this way of putting things is " vulgar," and contains 
 a great deal of " coarse and exaggerated acrimony." In 
 order to refine the matter sufficiently to be brought within 
 reach of his own delicate handling, he sums up Mr. Mill's 
 position thus : " His main difficulty is nothing more than 
 this : How can an infinite will that rules everywhere, find 
 room for a finite will not in harmony with itself? Whilst 
 the only further perplexity (!) that the passage indicates, 
 is the existence of those evil conditions by which the 
 finite will, already so weak and wavering is yet further 
 hampered." (p. 251.) 
 
 By this euphemistic translation of Mr. Mill's more vig- 
 orous language, Mr. Mallock believes that he has accom- 
 plished a great feat ; he has shown that these are " not 
 moral difficulties at all, but merely''' intellectual difficulties." 
 (p. 251.) 
 
 The naivete of this assertion is astonishing. " Merely 
 intellectual difficulties ! " How could our author speak 
 more contemptuously of the human intelligence if he had 
 
 * Italics ours. 
 
122 /S LIFE WOR TH LI VING ? 
 
 imitated the wicked Positivists and reduced it to a lump 
 of clay? And do "moral difficulties" involve no ques- 
 tions of thought? Are questions of morals nothing but 
 ripples of feeling? 
 
 However it may be, Mr. Mallock is evidently convinced 
 that by this single assertion he has disposed of the whole 
 matter in admitting that the theology in question " in- 
 volves a contradiction in terms." (p. 25 1.) He continues 
 in the next paragraph to observe that " theology accepts 
 it [this contradiction], with its eyes wide open, making no 
 attempt to explain the inexplicable ; and the human will 
 it treats in the same way " [/. e., as the doctrine of eter- 
 nal damnation]. " It makes no offer to us to clear up 
 everything, or to enable thought to put a girdle round 
 universe. On the contrary, it proclaims with emphasis 
 that its first axioms are unthinkable, and its most re- 
 nowned philosophic (?) motto is, ' I believe because it is 
 impossible.' " 
 
 The logical consequence of this position should be, as 
 we should imagine, that the theologian would perempto- 
 rily decline all controversy, which must be carried on in 
 thinkable terms, under pain of degenerating into gib- 
 berish. But, as is well known, theology has never been 
 in the habit of declining controversy, and perhaps for 
 that very reason, has not always avoided the penalty in 
 question. 
 
 Still less does Mr. Mallock, theologian, lined or veneered 
 with a philosopher, decline controversy or elaborate think- 
 
A REPLY. 123 
 
 ing in terms which he announces as " unthinkable." He is 
 like a man in a wrestling match, ignorant of the principles 
 of the art of wrestling, but who has learned a special trick 
 by which he confidently expects to thr-ow his antagonist. 
 This trick is an ct hi quoque. " It" (theology) " will not 
 deny its own condition, but it will show his opponent that 
 his is really the same. * * * If good be a thing of 
 any spiritual value, if it be, in other words, what every 
 moral system supposes it to be, that good can co-exist 
 with evil is just as unthinkable as that God can," etc. 
 (p. 252.) 
 
 The " mysteries " which Mr. Mallock signalizes as off- 
 setting all the doctrines of the church, are the freedom of 
 will, the connection of consciousness with the brain, the 
 interference of volition with the uniform course of na- 
 ture. We will consider these topics in their place. But 
 in this place we must return to the principle in whose 
 support they are brought forward. 
 
 The principle rests on a double confusion : first a con- 
 fusion between facts and theories, and then a confusion 
 between assumed and indubitable facts. 
 
 Now, in regard to the first : Our inability to explain a 
 fact cannot throw the least doubt upon its existence, 
 if this has been testified to us in the legitimate way ; 
 but the inability of a theory to satisfactorily explain the 
 fact to which it relates, or without contradiction of 
 other facts equally well attested, or by necessitating the 
 existence of facts not well attested at all, such inability. 
 
124 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 we say, is sufficient reason for rejection of the theory. 
 
 Thus the existence of the spleen is a fact, whose ex- 
 istence is attested by our senses in the most indubit- 
 able manner. But the theory of the function of a 
 spleen -which attributes to it the manufacture of a 
 " cold and peccant humor," necessitates the demonstra- 
 tion to the senses of the existence of such a fluid — 
 demonstration which has not and never can be furnish- 
 ed. Hence the theory falls to the ground. But no 
 perfectly satisfactory theory has yet been suggested to 
 take its place : hence, provisionally, we remain in doubt 
 about some of the functions of the spleen. Yet this 
 doubt cannot invalidate by one tittle the fact of the 
 spleen's existence. 
 
 Again, facts are indubitable, either when they are 
 themselves the direct objects of mental perception or 
 of the activity of some of the senses,* or when, by a 
 simple or complex series of equivalents, they can be 
 brought into relation with that perception or with those 
 senses. Thus the emotion of anger is a real fact, be- 
 because directly perceived in consciousness ; and the 
 stomach is a real fact, because, under certain circum- 
 stances, it can be seen and handled. Again, injustice is 
 a complex real fact, one of whose equivalents, or one 
 chain in the link connecting it with consciousness, is the 
 emotion of anger it excites. And the digestion of food 
 by the stomach is a real fact, although it becomes known 
 
 * See pp. 6l and 72. 
 
A REPLY. 125 
 
 only by means of a long series of intermediate facts 
 or impressions made on the senses, not one of which 
 alone would sufifice to suggest it. 
 
 Thus, in regard to material facts, Mr. Mallock is quite 
 right when he says that they are only supposed to be 
 proved, " when, directly or indirectly, their material equiva- 
 lent can be impressed upon our bodily senses." (p. 214.) 
 But he is quite wrong, and quite disingenuous, moreover, 
 when he pretends that the only facts known to Positiv- 
 ists are of this description. Of this more anon. 
 
 All facts, claiming to be such, but not answering to the 
 above definitions, are assumed facts. Assumption of fact 
 is often legitimate, but only on one condition. The as- 
 sumption must either be permanently maintained as such, 
 as in the region of professed imagination ; or else it must 
 constitute a provisional hypothesis, adopted in explana- 
 tion of some real fact, and which may be abandoned 
 either if it fails to explain or it fails itself to be verified 
 in the usual manner. Even when it affords a satisfactory 
 explanation, it cannot be fully accepted, i. e., the mind 
 cannot repose on it as true until this external verification 
 has been obtained. To say otherwise would be to return 
 at once to the antique test of truth, internal harmony 
 and consistency.* On the other hand, if the assumed 
 facts do not explain but rather contradict the undoubted 
 fact, all ground for the assumption is taken away. 
 
 Thus, in a word, failure to explain a fact cannot in- 
 
 * See p. 73, 
 
126 /S LIFE WORTH LIV^ING? 
 
 validate a fact, and an assumed fact that is inexplicable 
 or contradictory or useless, cannot be compared with a 
 real fact that has not been explained. Concerning a real 
 fact, we are not obliged to ask about its utility ; but 
 the utility of an assumed fact is its only excuse for 
 being. 
 
 But Mr. Mallock's proposition is : There are certain 
 facts that, on their own showing, the Positivists cannot 
 explain. Therefore they have not the shadow of a right 
 to object when we assume a few facts that we are quite 
 ready to admit are inexplicable and contradictory. We 
 do it with our eyes wide open. 
 
 Thus : " If good be a thing of any spiritual value, 
 that good can coexist with evil is Just as unthinkable as 
 that God can." (p. 252.) Let us transpose a little. It is 
 a fact, perceptible to every one so as to admit of no dis- 
 pute, that good and evil are found coexisting in the uni- 
 verse. But " good " is something of spiritual value. 
 Therefore it is impossible to conceive of such coexistence 
 of good and evil — it is unthinkable. It is also impossible 
 to conceive of God coexisting with evil. But as we have 
 just been forced to admit one impossibility, there is no 
 reason why we should not admit two. Therefore we do 
 admit two impossibilities. 
 
 If it were not for the gravity of the subject, we could 
 not refrain from remarking that this reason for a second 
 " admission " suggests the reasons sometimes urged in 
 favor of drinking a second bottle. It certainly seems to 
 
A REPLY. 127 
 
 lead to a mental condition the reverse of " truth and 
 soberness." 
 
 A faci is never " unthinkable." The coexistence of 
 good and evil in this world is a fact, attested by such 
 manifold evidence that it cannot be doubted. That 
 " good " is a " spiritual thing " emanating from a personal 
 God, who, though omnipotent and with infinite detesta- 
 tion of evil, permits its continuance, — this is not a fact, 
 but the statement of a theory to explain the real fact, 
 i. c, the coexistence of good and evil. There is not, 
 therefore, the least parallelism between the two state- 
 ments. As moreover the second statement, or the 
 theory, far from explaining the fact, enshrouds it in 
 much greater mystery than it naturally possessed, we 
 are left without any inducement to take this theory into 
 consideration. 
 
 Again : " Free will," says Mr. Mallock, " is a moral 
 necessity: [but] it is an intellectual impossibility: [never- 
 theless] though it be impossible, we yet, in defiance of 
 intellect, continue as moral beings to believe in it. Let 
 us but once realize that we do this, that all mankind 
 universally do this and have done it, and the difficulties 
 offered us by Theism will no longer stagger us. * * * 
 If in spite of my reason I can believe that my will is 
 free, — in spite of my reason I can believe that God is 
 good." (p. 260.) And again we say : It is absurd for a 
 person who announces his intention of " defying reason " 
 with all the hardihood of a moral Ajax, to attempt to 
 
128 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 reason with the public and to show persuasive reasons 
 for saying, " I believe though it is impossible." 
 
 Deferring for a moment the real consideration of these 
 " difificulties," let us here confine our attention to one 
 point only, namely, the reason alleged by Mr. Mallock 
 for referring in this place to the Freedom of the Will. 
 This reason is that as it is a fact of consciousness, and 
 yet unintelligible, unintelligibility constitutes no reason 
 for rejecting credence in any alleged fact whatever. The 
 syllogism runs thus : 
 
 The Freedom of the Will is unintelligible. 
 (x=y). 
 
 The moral attributes of God are unintelligible. 
 {z=y). 
 
 But the Freedom of the Will is a fact of human con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 (;tr= li). 
 
 Therefore the moral attributes of God as described in 
 theology are facts external to human consciousness. 
 
 Here is a double fallacy. In the first place the middle 
 term is not distributed, and it does not follow, though 
 any particular number of facts were unintelligible, that 
 conversely, anything unintelligible could be assumed to 
 be a matter of fact ; and in the second place the term 
 " fact" is used ambiguously, and in a way to imply either 
 an internal fact of consciousness, or a fact of the world 
 external to consciousness. If any cpnclusion could be 
 
A REPLY. 129 
 
 drawn from this reasoning it would be that the theologi- 
 cal assertion of the moral attributes of God was exclu- 
 sively a fact of human consciousness. This is indeed the 
 only correct conclusion, but it is categorically opposed to 
 the external reality, which we are told at the outset, is to 
 be established. But, as seen by the rules of logic, no 
 conclusion could be drawn. Nor could it even if we give 
 the implied extension to the true fact and said, " The 
 Freedom of the Will, though a fact, is unintelligible." 
 
 {x^u), and 
 Therefore the moral attributes of God, which are also un- 
 intelligible, are facts. 
 
 For to draw this conclusion we should have to introduce 
 a clause containing the particular term (unintelligible) en- 
 larged to a universal, thus ; 
 
 All unintelligible things are facts. 
 
 («=J')- 
 Freedom of the will and the moral attributes of God are 
 
 facts. 
 
 {x and s=y). 
 
 But we think even Mr. Mallock's hardihood would re- 
 coil before this necessary clause. 
 
 Therefore, even though it should be true that the Free- 
 dom of the Will were a fact so difficult of comprehension 
 as to be called " unintelligible," the existence of such a 
 fact would not offer the slightest warrant for any theo- 
 logical mysteries whatever. And that, first, because it 
 
I30 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 •has nothing to do with them, and " unintelligibility " is 
 no common ground for inference. Second, because if a 
 fact, it is a fact of internal consciousness, and therefore 
 not to be paralleled with facts external to consciousness.* 
 
 In reality, however, as we have already seen, it is im- 
 possible that a fact should be unintelligible, even when its 
 origin and relations are temporarily or permanently inex- 
 plicable. The coexistence of evil and good, the freedom of 
 the will, the connection of consciousness with the brain, 
 the disturbance of uniformities of nature by human vo- 
 lition, least of all the Positivist's " Utopia," are all subjects 
 involving problems of varying degrees of difficulty, but 
 which, in so far as they involve facts, are not unintelligi- 
 ble at all. 
 
 But what perception of consciousness, or what impress- 
 ion on the senses, or what reliable testimony demons- 
 trates the reality of the "Hell at which our moral sense 
 revolts," and of the omnipotent yet powerless Person 
 who, from all eternity, watches myriads of sentient beings 
 falling into it, like flies into a Gehenna of molasses? 
 
 Mr. Mallock does not pretend to adduce any. He 
 merely asserts that this doctrine, though disagreeable, is 
 inseparably bound up with other doctrines so agreeable 
 and so comforting, that we could not possibly wish to re- 
 ject them. 
 
 And it is in regard to these assumed facts that he brings 
 forward his famous doctrine, " Proof is not necessary for 
 
 * .See p. 6i. 
 
A REPLY. 131 
 
 the establishment of truth." Now we have already seen* 
 that for the acceptance of internal ideals, the creation of 
 consciousness, external proof was not necessary. It al- 
 ways is desirable to establish a real corelation between 
 the internal ideal, and the external conditions in the 
 midst of which it has been evolved ; but the final reason 
 for an ideal of conduct as of art, lies in itself, and in its 
 internal adaptation to the approval of the human mind. 
 The transfer of this doctrine from the internal world of 
 consciousness to the world of external facts, where it is no 
 longer in the least applicable, is the central jitggle of all Mr. 
 Malloclcs reasoning. " You believe in pure actions ; this 
 is the same thing as admitting a substance called Purity, 
 created by a Being living somewhere where he cannot be 
 seen." 
 
 To the original mystification caused by the establish- 
 ment of a false parallelism between facts and theories, 
 and between real and assumed facts, he adds another, 
 caused by an equally false parallelism between internal 
 truth, the creation of the mind ; and external truth, or 
 the true relations of things external to the mind, and only 
 perceived by it.f 
 
 Let us now examine in turn, each of these alleged " un- 
 intelligibilities." And first, the Freedom of the Will. Mr. 
 
 * See page 81. 
 
 \ By " external to the mind" we of course mean external to the person- 
 ality of the person perceiving. We leave on one side the profoundly inter- 
 esting conceptions of idealism, and the question whether these apparently 
 external things do not after all lie in the mind. 
 
132 JS LIFE IVOR TH LI VING ? 
 
 Mallock touches upon this weighty topic several times in 
 the course of his book. In his chapter on the Logic of 
 Scientific Negation, he denounces the Positivist attempt 
 to reduce man to an automaton, and is particularly se- 
 vere on the " iron strength of logic " by which he thinks 
 that this has been done. In the same chapter however 
 he appeals to logic, to show that " every exertion of the 
 human will is a miracle in the strictest sense of the word : 
 only it takes place privately within the walls of the brain." 
 (p. 243.) This ingenious suggestion' has been borrowed 
 from our American theologian BushnelL* In an earlier 
 chapter, entitled " Life as its own reward," we are told 
 that "a certain supernatural moral judgment has become 
 a primary faculty with us;" (p. 193) and gives to art, 
 among other things, all its value. But this faculty of 
 moral judgment will be destroyed or paralyzed by Posi- 
 tivism, which intends to reduce man to an automaton, 
 i. c, to deprive him of free will. Because Positivism 
 means to reduce everything to science, and science is 
 only possible when nature is uniform, but " morality is 
 only possible when this uniformity is interfered with 
 by the will." (p. 246.) 
 
 And this antithesis between science and morality is 
 repeated in the sentence we have now recently quoted: 
 " Free will is a moral necessity ; it is an intellectual impos- 
 sibility, [but] though it be impossible we yet, in defiance 
 of intellect, continue as moral beings to believe in it." 
 
 * Essay on the Natural and the Supernatural. 
 
A REPLY. 133 
 
 (p. 260.) In this last sentence Mr. Mallock undesignedly 
 contradicts the reason previously given for referring to 
 the freedom of the will as an offset to theological mys- 
 teries. He then asserted that this was 2. fact, seen to be 
 indubitable the moment any one abandoned speculation 
 and interrogated his own consciousness. He now says 
 on the contrary that it is not a fact which imposes itself on 
 the mind, indeed the mind would not believe in it at all 
 were it not forced to do so by a " moral necessity," i. e., 
 we presume, by conviction that this belief is necessary for 
 the maintenance of morals. To say that we can compel 
 to belief a mind that cannot believe, sounds like a claim 
 to be able to make a paralyzed man walk by an alarm of 
 fire. Only hysterical paralysis can be dissipated by such 
 alarms. 
 
 The "moral necessity" is that of recognizing per- 
 sons as responsible for their actions, and able to choose 
 between doing or not doing any particular thing. 
 The " intellectual impossibility " Mr. Mallock does not 
 define; he merely alludes to it as something perfectly 
 well known. We presume, therefore, he means the im- 
 possibility of thinking of the determination of the will 
 except in obedience to the strongest motive, and the im- 
 possibility in that case of looking at the will as self-de- 
 termined enough to be free. 
 
 In addition to these standard, recognized, and respect- 
 able difficulties which Mr. Mallock is, as it were, ready to 
 admit into good company, there are others which he con- 
 
134 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 siders merely as inventions of the Positivist, considera- 
 tions involving the physical conditions of volition, which 
 tend " to reduce man to an automatic part of nature." 
 
 Let us apply the Positive method to these two cases. 
 
 The " self-determination of the will " is an idea involv- 
 ing all the confusion inherent in the conception of en- 
 tities. Here is one inside the other, like the boxes in 
 a Chinese puzzle. First there is the soul, an " entity 
 separable from the body." Then there is the Will inside 
 the soul, another entity, absolute and without relations 
 to any thing, not even with other parts of the soul. For 
 to be closely allied with feelings, or tastes, or judgments, 
 would subject the Will to the injurious suspicion of be- 
 ing guided by something instead of being like — it is im- 
 possible to think of any other simile for a self-deter- 
 mined will, — some automatic toy which, once wound up, 
 propels itself indefinitely, in unforseeable directions. 
 
 What does the interrogation of consciousness really re- 
 veal ? A continuous succession of ideas and feelings, 
 linked together by more or less close bonds of association, 
 appearing in series more or less habitual, offering weaker 
 or stronger attractions towards practical activities. What 
 events take place, according to our consciousness, when 
 we decide in favor of one line of action rather than 
 of another ? The motives in favor of this course, perhaps 
 at first repulsed, continue to return to consciousness ; 
 gradually establish themselves there to the exclusion 
 
A REPLY. 135 
 
 of the others opposing, which recede in proportion. 
 When we become exclusively conscious of motives 
 in one direction, retaining of their opposites noth- 
 ing but an inoperative reminiscence, the decision is 
 already made. Nothing intervenes between our con- 
 scious mental desire and its practical realization ex- 
 cept the obstacles external to our personality, which 
 we proceed to remove by successive actions. Or, as 
 it might be and has been technically expressed, by suc- 
 cessive movements which, in the absence of external hin- 
 derance, are the direct result of the state of sensibility 
 known as desire.* 
 
 But it will be asked, what is this force, who is this in- 
 dividual who summons or repulses these series of mo- 
 tives? Either he does so voluntarily, in which case alone 
 he is free ; or he submits to their influence involuntarily, 
 in which case he is an automaton, devoid of moral respon- 
 sibility. 
 
 In this as in all other cases of conflict between the 
 Positive method and what, by a permissible ellipsis we 
 may call the Catholic, the first essential for a solution of 
 the problem is its restatement, and a definition of terms. 
 What then is an automaton ? 
 
 Goltzf in the lucid researches, which so well illus- 
 
 * As for our purpose it is necessary to avoid technicalities as much as pos- 
 sible, we refrain from pursuing the profoundly interesting analysis by which 
 the original reflex arc of sensibility and movement is developed by the in- 
 terposition of the " accessory sphere " of the intelligence. See p. 69. 
 
 + Ueber den Sitz der Seele des Frosches. l368. 
 
136 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 trate the Positive method, defines an automaton to be, 
 something whose movements can be submitted to cal- 
 culation. The movements of a creature possessed of 
 individual will cannot be calculated ; they occur spon- 
 taneously, without direct reference to any external stim-- 
 ulus or suggestion. Indirectly, remotely, such external 
 stimulus may be found ; but its influence is experienced 
 in the individual character and habits which may have 
 become determined by it, and not in any specific 
 act. 
 
 This difference between voluntary and automatic act- 
 ion is so precise, that it admits of being demonstrated 
 even in so " rudimentary a soul," * as that of a frog. An 
 ordinary frog, kept under observation, will be found at 
 irregular intervals to enter spontaneously into movement, 
 in obedience to impulses of exclusively internal origin. 
 These impulses are in accordance with habits generated 
 by long contact of the frog's organism with a fixed medi- 
 um ; but they are the direct expression only of the spon- 
 taneous activity of the organism. If now a certain por- 
 tion of the brain be removed, (the cerebral hemispheres,) 
 these spontaneous movements cease. An automatic 
 mechanism remains, of such exquisite adjustment, that 
 many complex actions will still be performed in obedience 
 to special stimuli. The frog will rub away a drop of 
 irritating acid from his back, will leap out of the way of 
 an obstacle, etc., but he never takes any initiative of 
 
 * We quote Goltz's expression. 
 
A REPLY. 137 
 
 action, * and while undisturbed from without remains 
 motionless. This is the essential characteristic of volun- 
 tary power or of free will, extending from the lowest 
 animal existence to man. The belief in free will is 
 founded, not as Mr. Mallock crudely supposes, in moral 
 utility, but in a fact of observation as well as of con- 
 sciousness. Consciousness shows the successive series 
 or " compounds " of ideas and feelings cohering into an 
 individual /. Observation shows that as a final result 
 of internal conflict between these ideas and feelings, 
 an action results, which we call spontaneous because 
 no other origin can be found for it than the mental 
 activity of this complex individual. As neither con- 
 sciousness nor observation reveal the existence of any 
 "self-determining entity" called will, the positive me- 
 thod consigns it to the limbo of other entities, retain- 
 ing the name as a necessary formula for expressing the 
 parts of volition. 
 
 " Yes," cries Mr. Mallock reproachfully, " that is exactly 
 what you do do, and hence away with moral responsibility 
 and the moral law, and the struggles of conscience, 
 and the dignity of art, and the beauty of life. No one 
 need do anything but resign himself to the soulless task 
 of passively watching the thoughts and feelings that arise 
 in his own mind, and drifting with their current. No one 
 can blame him for going in any direction, any more than 
 
 * Of course it would be inappropriate here to discuss the experiments of 
 Pfluger and Lewes, and their, as we believe unsuccessful, attempt to contro- 
 vert this position. 
 
138 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 one cari blame a wretch whose boat is carried over the 
 falls of Niagara. " * Observation shows however, that the 
 sense of responsibility is attached to many other things 
 besides volitions. The responsibility for ignorance, in 
 circumstances where knowledge is required, is universally 
 recognized. A physician who, through ignorance and in 
 spite of the best intentions, maltreats a patient, may 
 be sued for malpractice. An engineer who wrecks a train 
 because he has neglected to acquaint himself with the sig- 
 nals, is removed from his position with disgrace. In the 
 innumerable cases where no definite injury of other per- 
 sons demands the infliction of legal punishment, ignorance 
 continues to draw down fatal vengeance on the heads of 
 well-meaning fools. Life has no pardon for those who 
 are ignorant of the right way of living ; nature and society 
 combine to mete out punishment, which is precisely the 
 only method known to the civil law for defining moral 
 responsibility. 
 
 Nor for ignorance alone. If the civil law limit itself to 
 the punishment of overt acts, the moral law, as expres- 
 sive of public opinion, condemns quite as strenuously the 
 wicked feelings which have been the immediate ante- 
 cedents of the act. Mr. Mallock points out this himself 
 when he insists on the " inwardness " of the moral end. 
 " By calling the moral end inward, I mean that it resides 
 primarily not in action but in motives to action : in the' 
 
 * For once we do not make a literal quotation, but we certainly express 
 the sense. 
 
A REPLY. 139 
 
 will \i. e., desire,] not in the deed ; not in what we actu- 
 ally do, but in what we actually endeavor to do." (p. 88.) 
 Mr. Mallock admits that at least .some Positivists would 
 agree with him that " the moral end is a certain inward 
 state of the heart or mind — a state which will of necessity, 
 if possible, express itself in action, but whose value is not 
 to be measured by the success of that expression. The 
 battle-ground of good and evil is within us : and the great 
 human event is the issue of the struggle between them." 
 (p. 89.) Very well put, Mr. Mallock ; but in that case 
 what becomes of the " moral necessity " for believing in 
 a will " free " from the influence of motives ? The moral 
 responsibility is shown to attach, not only to the external 
 action which will result from the final issue of this internal 
 conflict, but to the nature of the motives sustaining it. 
 " Whosoever Jiateth his brother is a murderer : " Although 
 quoting argument from one Positivist, Mr. Mallock insists 
 that Positivism destroys the inwardness of the moral end. 
 He is to be condemned for the feeling of hate which has 
 arisen spontaneously in his consciousness, even though he 
 successfully struggle against the voluntary impulse towards 
 which the feehng directs itself. And if it can be shown 
 that the feeling of hate is the unavoidable result of feel- 
 ings of suspicion, or envy, or jealousy, the condemnation 
 is not lessened but increased. Still further, although 
 there is a sense in which human compassion intervenes to 
 mitigate the severity of condemnation for acts or charac- 
 
14° IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 teristics which result from inherited tendencies of organ- 
 ization, or depend upon physical infirmities, the laws of 
 nature (which to the Catholic must be the laws of God) 
 admit of no such mitigation. The man who yields to an 
 inherited impulse to drink, sinks to perdition as fast or 
 faster than one who becomes a drunkard through a 
 vicious taste for low companionship. He whose sus- 
 picions and irritable temper come to him as his share in 
 a family tendency to insanity, finishes none the less by 
 embittering his life with needless enemies. 
 
 " Nature forgets no debt and fears no grave." 
 
 And again we say, it is impossible to distinguish by the 
 results such retribution for organic defects, from the 
 " punishment '' inflicted on violated " voluntary" respon- 
 sibilities. 
 
 When we say, therefore, that a human being is respon- 
 sible for his actions, we mean that he will and must bear 
 the consequences of them. This law of responsibility is 
 innate in the relations of things, and is so much wider 
 and more exact than any which could be devised by a 
 human tribunal, civil or ecclesiastic, that it admits no 
 palliating circumstances, no excuse of ignorance or weak- 
 ness, except such as may be secured by the intervention 
 of human compassion. '' Whatsoever a man soweth that 
 shall he also reap." 
 
 The mystery — for there is one — does not lie in any 
 " entity" inside of the spiritual individuality of man, but 
 in that individuality itself ; in the nexus which coheres 
 
A REPLY. 141 
 
 into one definite unit, the succession of thoughts and 
 feelings of which we are conscious in ourselves; and into 
 another the succession of actions of which we observe in 
 our neighbor.* In the one case and in the other we are 
 able to trace manifold series of phenomena in constantly 
 converging lines ; but the point of convergence escapes 
 us. Yet it is this point of convergence of thoughts, feel- 
 ings, instincts, habits, physical and mental conditions and 
 tendencies, which constitutes the / and the thou. The 
 scientific test of freedom, spontaneous activity, applies 
 to the whole of this individuality, and not merely to a 
 part of it. For of the whole it must be said, that how- 
 ever nearly we may approximate, we can never positively 
 calculate on the future direction of that activity — whether 
 of thoughts, or of feelings, or of volitions. It is as easy to 
 foresee how a man will act, as how he will feel, and in 
 neither case is it, with scientific precision, possible. The 
 impossibility depends on the individuality, and not on 
 the spirituality of the individual, as is shown by the fact 
 that it is as characteristic of the events of his body as 
 of his soul. It is impossible to foresee exactly how a 
 man will act ; it is equally impossible to foresee, even in 
 a given illness, how he will recover or die. We may ob- 
 tain a statistic of the average mortality of the disease, as 
 we may obtain another of the average line of conduct of 
 men in certain circumstances ; but the individual case can 
 never be perfectly covered. 
 
 * See analysis on p. 68. 
 
142 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 The simple, yet profound reason for this, is, that the 
 spontaneous activities of individuals — mental or physical 
 or both — are themselves the data, and the only data 
 upon which we can construct laws. When we formulate 
 a general law of action, we are sinriply classing together 
 the circumstances in which the actions or activities of 
 different individual existences agree. But we thereby 
 imply that there must be many more in which they 
 differ, and that each must differ in some respect from all 
 the rest, otherwise there would not be many individuals, 
 but only one. 
 
 Thus, in the evident philosophical sense, the assertion, 
 which seems so desolating to Mr. Mallock, that a man 
 was " as automatic as a tree," would be true, because the 
 tree is no more automatic than he. That is to say, the 
 tree being also an individual, the activities of which it is 
 capable, also defy precise calculation. We can only tell 
 approximately that a tree of such a species will be about 
 such a height and shape and color, and bear about such 
 kind of fruit. So long as our knowledge extends no 
 further, we have no knowledge of an individual tree, or 
 real existence, but only of an abstract nominal existence 
 — a class, a genus, a species. When the individual exists,' 
 it is a proof that definite currents of life have been 
 started in a definite direction, whose course we can only 
 divine from the characters it will have in common with 
 individual currents already known ; which therefore we 
 cannot foresee completely. 
 
A REPLY. 143 
 
 The rise in individuality from inorganic to organic na- 
 ture, from the vegetable to the animal, and from beast to 
 man, is marked by a constant increase in the manifesta- 
 tion of spontaneous activities, consequently in individu- 
 alization. This progress is continued through successive 
 ranks of human beings. Of the lowest, we can predict 
 their actions with tolerable approach to certainty ; but the 
 more highly developed the spiritual nature of a man, the 
 greater the difficulty of foreseeing his thoughts, feelings, 
 or conduct under given circumstances. 
 
 Conversely, degradation of human character is marked 
 by successive loss of such power of individualization. The 
 person of weak character conforms passively to the social 
 conditions in which he finds himself ; imitates as near as 
 may be the tastes and habits of his associates, until as a 
 technical " imbecile," he reflects "automatically" the ac- 
 tions he sees, without conferring upon them any indi- 
 vidual imprint. The insane person becomes completely 
 dominated by some one idea or motion, which effaces the 
 individual peculiarities his personality had previously pre- 
 sented.* The drunkard, in whom, previously to his fit of 
 intoxication, ideas of prudence or compassion may have 
 held in check suggestions of revenge, becomes, when drink 
 has obliterated a part of his personal consciousness, the 
 
 * The ideas of the insane, often popularly supposed to be iUimited in fan- 
 tasy, really revolve in an extremely narrow circle ; the same delusion reap- 
 pearing in thousands of cases. 
 
144 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING! 
 
 unresisting prey of a single passion, and kills while under 
 its influence.* 
 
 Common opinion and common law, recognize therefore 
 a difference in the actions committed by drunkards and 
 by the insane ; although also recognizing that the mental 
 condition of such persons is connected by a continuous 
 series of insensible gradations with that of the passionate, 
 the weak, the ignorant, who are held technically respoHr 
 sible. For these latter possess their full personality, such 
 as it is ; the others are deprived of a part ; they are hu- 
 man beings in the condition of frogs of the Goltz experi- 
 ment. But what is very noteworthy for the present dis- 
 cussion, the part of which they are deprived is not the 
 will, but a number of the motives which habitually act 
 upon the will, and as a counterpoise to the others now 
 remaining. 
 
 From the foregoing consideration it appears that moral 
 responsibility is in no wise diminished by Positive analy- 
 sis of the phenomena of voluntary action, for any one 
 who is really concerned about the consequences of actions 
 or feelings. It is to these consequences that the Positive 
 method directs attention. It says : " It makes very lit- 
 tle difference whether that ugly temper of yours comes 
 from your digestion, or from your insane ancestor, or from 
 evil suspicions from your own mind : it is in any case an 
 equally bad thing, immoral, because constantly disturbing 
 
 * We are again much indebted to Griesinger's admirable analysis of the 
 "cessation of the normal internal conflict of ideas," as an essential condition 
 of insanity. 
 
A REPLY. 145 
 
 your relations with your fellow beings and injuring them ; 
 and it is inherently liable to occasion some greater injury, 
 to which, as a matter of expediency, the civil law limits its 
 punishment. Your responsibility, however, is not limited 
 to a voluntary act which your temper may lead you to 
 commit ; it begins already with the inward state of your 
 mind, and demands that you summon to your mind trains 
 of thought and feeling antagonistic to those which have 
 hitherto nourished your evil state of consciousness." * 
 
 The " you" that is called upon to make this effort is 
 a mystery because an individual. The effort itself, of 
 which all thinking people have had at least a few occa- 
 sions to be conscious, is difficult to describe. For our 
 purpose, which is far below the ambition of scientific 
 psychological analysis, and does not rise beyond the de- 
 sire to prick some of Mr. Mallock's facile fallacies, it is 
 sufficient to notice that this effort is not an effort of voli- 
 tion, but simply an effort of attention. Secondly, that 
 the threat of punishment enters as a motive seconding 
 the effort. Finally it is comparatively rare, even for the 
 best disciplined persons, that such distinct efforts are 
 made during the development of moral character. Char- 
 acter is formed by insensible influences, and in almost 
 imperceptible movements, which are incomparably more 
 often involuntary than voluntary. The choice of a man 
 
 * It has been noticed that in the great majority of cases insanity begins, 
 not by senseless speeches nor by extravagant acts, but by anomalies of 
 feeling and by the emotional conditions which result from them. Thus 
 the progress to insanity and to vice is made along analogous routes. 
 
146 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 who wishes to improve himself in any direction, is to 
 place himself deliberately in a position where he will be 
 exposed to certain influences, or be induced to repeat 
 certain acts rather than others. Mr. Mallock says: "It 
 is clear that if a morality is incapable of being preached, 
 it is useless to say that it is worthy of being practised." 
 (p. 42.) But the Positivist is well aware, on the testi- 
 mony both of observation and of psychological analysis, 
 that the " preaching of morality" is an agency of uncer- 
 tain operation and varying strength ; an agency more- 
 over that can only influence what is already partly con- 
 verted. He is inclined to rely upon educational training 
 of the entire nature of a man for the guidance of his 
 moral conduct, so much the more, as he becomes better 
 acquainted with the obscure, unconscious, organic basis, 
 which underlies his distinct consciousness, and whence 
 impulses rise into thoughts, like dim forms rising through 
 deep waters to the surface. 
 
 The Positivist preaches no " revival ; " but he projects 
 schemes on a vast scale for the development of the moral 
 nature of man ; schemes embracing entire generations — 
 involving social institutions — touching upon everything 
 that touches on him, from the clod of earth in which 
 grows the rye or wheat of his bread, to the speculative 
 belief that encloses his life and shapes his actions. 
 
 When after this brief analysis, we return to Mr. Mal- 
 lock's dictum : The Freedom of the will is unintelligible, 
 but as moral beings we must believe in it. We reply : 
 
A REPLY. 14/ 
 
 " There' is a sense in which the Freedom of the Will is 
 so unintelligible as to be gibberish, and therefore not to 
 be mentioned in a serious discussion. There is another 
 sense, in which it means the responsibility of conscious 
 beings for their own actions, in which it is not unin- 
 telligible at all. The spontaneous action of any indi- 
 vidual involves a mystery, that is a hitherto inexplicable, 
 an ultimate fact. But this mystery is the fact of the 
 individuality, and not that of the unimpeded or free 
 action of the individual." 
 
 We have not, however, finished with the discussion of 
 will and of free will, for Mr. Mallock continues to con- 
 sider both under several other aspects than that of 
 " moral necessity." One of these is presented in the 
 form of an ingenious theory, which, as already noticed, 
 the English essayist has borrowed (without acknowledge- 
 ment) from our Am-erican theologian, Bushnell. This is 
 the theory for establishing the supernatural on a basis of 
 fact, by the easy assertion that certain portions of the 
 natural really belong to it. Thus, .says Mr. Mallock, as 
 we have already quoted : * " Every action of the human 
 will is a miracle in the strictest sense of the word ; only 
 it takes place privately, within the close walls of the 
 brain. The molecules of the brain are arranged and 
 ordered by a supernatural agency. Their natural auto- 
 matic movements are suspended, or directed and inter- 
 fered with. * * * God's will is conceived of as dis- 
 
 * See p. 132. 
 
148 IS LIFE WOR TH LI VING ? 
 
 turbing the automatic movements of matter without the- 
 skull, in just the same way as man's will is conceived of 
 as disturbing those of the brain within it. * * * The 
 erection of a pyramid at the will of an Egyptian king 
 would as much disturb the course of nature as the re- 
 moval of a mountain by the faith of a Galilean fisher- 
 man." (p. 243.) 
 
 This is one of the numerous passages in Mr. Mallock's 
 essay which leaves us in doubt whether the author be 
 really as ignorant as he appears, or whether he only pre- 
 sumes on so much ignorance in his readers as may save 
 him the trouble of real thought or acquaintance with 
 what has been often thought, or is perfectly well known. 
 
 Mr. Mallock's references to the brain are invariably be- 
 wildering. Whether he talks of the brain in a metaphor, 
 or describes what he supposes to be a fact, he betrays a 
 depth of unacquaintance with his subject that is equally 
 dangerous to rhetoric and to argument. 
 
 Let us inquire in what the " natural automatic move- 
 ments of the molecules of the brain " are supposed to re- 
 sult, when they are not interfered with by a supernatural 
 agency, or whether this same supernatural agency may 
 be expected to " suspend or direct or interfere with " the 
 movements of the molecules of blood which nourish the 
 brain, or of the arterial walls, or of the heart which 
 throw this blood to the brain, and without which no act 
 of the human will, and therefore no miracle, can possibly 
 take place. When a man becomes unconscious in a faint- 
 
A REPLY. 149 
 
 ing fit, where is the supernatural agency? Is it driven 
 out or temporarily annihilated, or has it been so busy with 
 the molecules of the brain that it has forgotten the heart ; 
 or does its jurisdiction extend no further than the " closed 
 walls " of its dwelling-place, so that it is liable to be over- 
 whelmed from without by unforeseen combinations? 
 
 The whole statement that we have quoted from Mr. 
 Mallock on this matter is so excessively silly that it would 
 seem at first sight hardly worth while to contradict. But 
 to those upon whom by chance it should make the im- 
 pression of something profound, we would note, that the 
 act of volition, which is supposed to constitute the su- 
 pernatural agency above mentioned, is itself the result of 
 the very molecular movements of the brain, which are 
 supposed to be suspended. In the absence of volition no 
 movements take place — a certain part of the brain re- 
 mains quiescent. In saying that the volition " results " 
 from these molecular movements, we mean, simply, that 
 the mental and physical conditions are constantly coexist- 
 ent — the " concave and convex sides of a curve." * If the 
 molecular vtovements do not occur, no act of volition is 
 framed ; and conversely, if there is no act of volition, there 
 are no molecular movements proceeding "automatically." 
 What every tyro in physiology knows, but of what Mr. 
 Mallock appears to be naively ignorant, is, that the mole- 
 cular movements which accompany volition and conscious 
 thought are limited to a certain part of the brain — the 
 
 * Lewes. — Physical Basis of Mind. 
 
15° IS LIFE WOR TH LI VING ? 
 
 cerebral hemispheres — while the " automatic " movements 
 take place in another part, in a series of ganglia situated 
 below those correlated to the sphere of consciousness. 
 This separation between the voluntary and involuntary 
 or " automatic " portions of the brain, is a fact establish- 
 ed in the most varied manner by the phenomena of dis- 
 ease and by the results of experiments, analogous to 
 those to which we have already had occasion to refer. 
 
 Mr. Mallock quotes a remark from Dr. Tyndall, which, 
 as he does not give us the precise reference, we are 
 unable to compare with the context, and cannot therefore 
 really know the sense in which the great physicist makes 
 it. But our author manipulates the remark in such a 
 fashion as to make it signify that Dr. Tyndall is question- 
 ing whether a " state of consciousness can be interposed 
 between the molecules of the brain, and influence the 
 transference of motion among the molecules." (p. 228.) 
 This is exactly as if one should inquire whether a beam 
 of light could be interposed between a couple of the un- 
 dulations of which itself is composed, and influence the 
 passage of one of those undulations into another. To 
 such an inquiry no answer could possibly be given, and, 
 for obvious reasons we are much more inclined to at- 
 tribute the question to Mr. Mallock than to Dr. Tyndall. 
 To another quotation from the latter, however, the an- 
 swer is plain : " Do states of consciousness enter as links 
 into the chain of antecedence and sequence which gives 
 
A REPLY. 151 
 
 rise to bodily actions ? " (p. 228.) From the facts of the 
 case we are able to answer unhesitatingly, " Sometimes 
 they do, and sometimes they do not." When, impelled by 
 a sensation of hunger, a man bites on a piece of meat, his 
 conscious resolve to do so is a link in the chain of 
 sequences between the fact of an empty stomach and the 
 bodily action of taking food. But when the same man 
 during a tetanic spasm, clenches his jaws on a piece of 
 meat, which may, without his resolve, have been placed 
 between them, his consciousness, though acutely sensible 
 of the fact, has nothing to do with its causation. The 
 whole series of sequences lies in the reflex sphere : is ac- 
 complished by molecular movements in a series of nervo- 
 muscular organs lying apart from the nerve centres whose 
 activity is essential to consciousness and volition. This 
 upper sphere is disturbed in a certain manner by the 
 nervous actions accomplished below, so that conscious 
 sensibility is awakened. But this is incidental to the 
 series of events itself, external to it, instead of lying with- 
 in it : and the muscular movement which in health is 
 initiated by a conscious volition, is now caused by a 
 motor impulse with which volition has nothing to do. 
 It is therefore automatic ; the will cannot control it, and, 
 if we may judge from the melancholy history of cases of 
 tetanus, no " supernatural agency," has yet been found 
 able or willing to interfere. 
 
 Why the extension of molecular vibrations to a partic- 
 ular part of the brain is accompanied by a manifestation 
 
152 IS LIFE WOR TH LIVING ? 
 
 of consciousness, which will remain completely suppress- 
 ed .so long as molecular movements are limited to other 
 parts of the nervous system ; why it is possible on one 
 occasion to awaken the sensibility of consciousness while 
 leaving quiescent the volition, which on other occasions 
 so readily follow it ; whether sensibility is excited only in 
 one part of the hemispheres, and volition in another; 
 whether the molecular vibrations attended by these ex- 
 traordinary phenomena differ from others in form, or 
 merely in locality in some especial disposition of cerebral 
 structure which enables all vibrations to be focussed into 
 some new and special combination ; these are questions 
 some of which we may hope to answer more or less com- 
 pletely by further researches. Some of the questions 
 which really are of " Why" instead of " How" are prob- 
 ably unanswerable, for reasons already stated.* But al- 
 ready enough is known to throw into contempt the 
 shallow wit with which Mr. Mallock fills so many pages 
 in his chapter on " The Logic of Scientific Negation." 
 And we repeat, the two essential facts known which bear 
 upon the subject, are : First, That the activity of a cer- 
 tain part of the brain constitutes a double phenomenon, 
 whose two parts are inseparably, although inexplicably 
 associated ; the one part being the physical changes which 
 we infer, the other the state of consciousness which we 
 directly perceive. Second, That the immense mass of 
 bodily actions are capable of originating in two different 
 
 * See pp. 67 and 70. 
 
A REPLY. 153 
 
 ways : (a) In parts of the nervous system or " centres " 
 lying below the cerebral hemispheres. These actions are 
 automatic, and many of them then cannot be in the least 
 degree controlled by the will ; none can be more than 
 slightly influenced, {b) These same actions may originate 
 in the cerebral hemispheres, and as these cannot enter 
 into activity or function without a development of con- 
 sciousness, it is absolutely indifferent whether we say, 
 "A state of consciousness, a volition, the mental aspect of 
 certain molecular movements in the brain, originated such 
 a movement," or, " The physical aspect of this state of 
 consciousness, molecular movements in the cerebral hem- 
 ispheres originated it." 
 
 After this, we deem it superfluous to follow Mr. Mal- 
 lock into his childish simile of billiard balls, by which he 
 further attempts to demonstrate "a bewilderment, not 
 peculiar to Dr. Tyndall, but characteristic of the whole 
 school he belongs to ; inherent in our whole modern Pos- 
 itivism, the whole of our exact and enlightened thought." 
 (p. 231.) Before returning to the question of " miracle " 
 as involved in the human will on the external world, we 
 must however notice two further questions of Mr. Mal- 
 lock's, because he assures us, that for one of them at least 
 we iimst make a choice. " The first question is, Why 
 should consciousness be connected with the brain at all ? " 
 This, Mr. Mallock is kind enough to tell us, " cannot be 
 answered at all," and in relation to it, " we must rest in 
 wonder.'' " The second question is. What is it when con- 
 
154 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 nected ? Is it simply the product of the brain's move- 
 ment ; or is the brain's movement in any degree produced 
 by it ? " (p. 223.) Mr. Mallock proceeds to tell us that we 
 know the noise made by " the working of the brain's 
 machinery as the crash, the roar, or the whisper of its 
 restless colliding molecules." (p. 224.) 
 
 If Mr. Mallock really has heard this, and not imagined 
 it during some fit of sea sickness, he has done more than 
 any authentic person we ever heard of. We can only 
 compare him with clever Alice in Grimm's story, who 
 could see the wind run in the street and hear the flies 
 cough. If he were in the slightest degree acquainted 
 with the laborious researches by which the fact of func- 
 tional activity of certain portions of the brain, and its 
 co-relation with mental states, has been established, he 
 would know that this is as a matter of inference, while the 
 state of consciousness itself, which is directly perceived, 
 was necessarily known long before, in fact was the first 
 thing that ever could be known, as Positivists are 
 perfectly well aware. Mr. Mallock's only idea of an in- 
 vestigation seems to be that of a little boy, who in 
 obedience to orders, goes out to buy cherries, and who, 
 failing to find them, is bound to bring in strawberries in- 
 stead. Thus he tells us, that " our confessed impotence 
 to form any conjecture at all as to the first " (question), 
 i. e., why consciousness should be connected with the 
 prain, " does not in the least exonerate us from choosing 
 between conjectures as to the second." (p. 224.) '• Our 
 
A REPLY. 15s 
 
 utter inability to account for the (first) fact, has really no 
 bearing at all upon the great dilemma, the dilemma as to 
 the unity or the dualism of existence, and the indepen- 
 dence or automatism of the life and will of man." (p. 224) 
 
 Now we confess we do not feel ourselves in the least 
 compelled to limit speculation on the dualism of exist- 
 ence, to such crude conjectures as Mr. Mallock may have 
 to offer us. To modify a little a remark made by him a 
 few pages further on, this demand to stand and deliver a 
 choice, sounds as if one should say : " It is indeed impos- 
 sible for you to decide whether green cheese is eaten for 
 supper by the inhabitants of the dog star Sirius : but this 
 confessed inability does not in the least exonerate you 
 from the necessity of choosing between two opposite con- 
 jectures concerning the shape of the night caps worn by 
 the inhabitants of the star Alpha Hercules." " Are you 
 a Big-endian or a Little-endian?" asked the fiery Lillipu- 
 tians of Gulliver. We respectfully but firmly reply, 
 " Neither the one nor the other." 
 
 Without any " admissions " or " concessions " of in- 
 comprehensibles, we may, out of the mouth of Mr. Mal- 
 lock himself, show a very simple reason why it is impossi- 
 ble to answer the question, "What is consciousness?" 
 For to say what a thing is, is to assign it a place in a class 
 of similar things. Now as Mr. Mallock himself tells us, 
 "The phenomenon of consciousness is in one way unique." 
 (p. 221.) We should be more bold, we should drop the 
 modifying clauses and declare that, consciousness being 
 
156 IS LIFE WOR TH LI VIN G ? 
 
 an entirely unique phenomenon, can be compared with 
 nothing else. It cannot be classified, for there is nothing 
 else to be put into the same class with it. When we say, 
 "what is a rose?" the answer can be given, "a rose is a 
 flower." But when we are asked, "what is conscious- 
 ness?" We can only reply, " consciousness is conscious- 
 ness." Or, the nearest approach to classification which 
 can be made, " consciousness is an ultimate fact, the first 
 with which we are acquainted, the fact of which we are 
 more sure than of anything else, even than of the testi- 
 timony of our senses." We would remind Mr. Mallock if 
 it be necessary, that it was not a Positivist who said, " I 
 think, therefore I am." But Positivism would reject as 
 superfluous the implication of an inference contained in 
 the " therefore ; " would content itself with saying, " I am." 
 And it is a principle of Positivism, in emphatic contradic- 
 tions here as elsewhere with the principles of Catholicism, 
 that the existence of one ultimate fact can never be invali- 
 dated by knowledge of the existence of another, whatever 
 obscurity may rest on the relations between them. 
 
 Hence we are at a loss to imagine whence Mr. Mallock 
 finds the grounds for his assertion that physical science 
 " is supposed to have triumphantly unified the apparent 
 dualism of things," (p. 220). It is true that Mr. Mallock 
 cannot mention this subject without involving himself in 
 palpable contradictions ; for, in the very sentence just 
 quoted, where he tells us that physical science has unified 
 dualism, he says that this is because it has " completely 
 
A REPLY. 157 
 
 connected mind with matter." Now two things which are 
 connected, remain two ; only upon further information 
 must we suppose that they have been made into one. 
 
 Again, this same physical science " has revealed con- 
 sciousness to us as a function of the brain, and as alto- 
 gether inseparable from it." It is true we cannot think of 
 a function apart from the organ exercising it ; but still less 
 (if possible,) can we think of a function as being the same 
 thing as that organ. As well assert that a symphony was 
 identical with the violins of the orchestra which played it, 
 or that all the ideas and emotions awakened by the music 
 were simply pieces of the resin with which the performers 
 rubbed their bows. 
 
 Precisely this ridiculous assertion is what Mr. Mallock 
 does attribute constantly and gratuitously to the Posi- 
 tivists. He does so for two reasons, which, though real 
 enough in themselves, are very different from the phil- 
 osophical and moral ones he pretends them to be. In 
 the first place he wishes to prove, not only that conscious- 
 ness is something different from the brain, but that the 
 soul is an entity capable of surviving the body ; and he 
 will not forgive the Positivists for insisting that this is 
 not a philosophical question at all, but, if anything, a 
 question of fact, to be decided by future experience. 
 And in the second place, it is perfectly impossible for 
 Mr. Mallock, in his utter destitution of biological training, 
 to conceive of a function, to think of it as an immaterial 
 relation, or to think of combined relations as resulting in 
 
158 IS LIFE WOR Til LI VI NG ? 
 
 something radically and necessarily different from the 
 elements which enter into them. He cannot believe that 
 anything can ever grow or develop into something which 
 it had not always been. Although the commonest ex- 
 perience of every day life shows him absolutely uncon- 
 scious and passive new born babies, developing into beings 
 so different as to seem scarcely to belong to the same 
 order of things ; when a slight extension of this common 
 observation, would show that the development had pro- 
 ceeded from an even lower plane than appeared at birth ; 
 that it proceeded from a more senseless mass, — from an 
 almost inperceptible cell ; — -in spite of this simple, indis- 
 putable observation, Mr. Mallock, and others like him, 
 persist in asserting that whatever establishes relations 
 between mental and physical conditions, asserts their 
 identity ; and whoever shows how to a world of matter 
 has become superadded a world of mind, has tried to 
 demonstrate that no world of mind ever existed. "Mat- 
 ter existed and fermented* long before the evolution 
 of mind ; mind is not an exhibition of new forces, but 
 the outcome of a special combination of the old." 
 (p. 220). So far as observation can teach us, the chro- 
 nology of this statement is correct ; but the doctrine of 
 evolution does not deny the newness of the forces which 
 are the outcome of the old, any more than it denies the 
 neivness of the young which are the offspring of parents. 
 
 * Does Mr. Mallock think that the matter in the body of a developing 
 foetus is " fermenting ? " 
 
A REPLY. 159 
 
 Where is the new to come from if not from the old? 
 In respect to consciousness, however, "physical obser- 
 vations " are not, as Mr. Mallock supposes, " the only- 
 things to guide us." Physical observations, indeed, ac- 
 quire for us an immense amount of valuable information 
 about the relations of consciousness with the physical 
 condition of the body of the conscious individual, and 
 even with the medium in which that body is placed. But 
 the phenomena of consciousness themselves, their mutual 
 relations and their laws, are the subject of psychical ob- 
 servation. To suppose that the finest physiological an- 
 alysis would ever suffice for the study of mental laws, 
 would be like supposing that chemical analysis would 
 suffice to explain the laws of the position of bodies in 
 space.* As already said, this physical and mental side of 
 consciousness once developed must be studied along two 
 indefinitely converging lines, whose point of convergence 
 is known positively to exist, is felt, but cannot be seen. 
 But no Positivist thinker would dream of coalescing these 
 two lines, nor of asserting that '' sorrow'' was a molecule, 
 because a profound melancholy may be engendered by 
 a disordered digestion. Nor that " thoughts " and " af- 
 fections have a certain bulk in space," because they may 
 not only be studied psychically, but be made the subject 
 of " physical experiment," f when a dose of opium 
 quickens the imagination, or a dose of alcohol has pro- 
 
 * We do not deny that some rasli persons have supposed this, but it is far 
 from being a principle of Positivism, 
 f See p. 212 of Mallock's Essay. 
 
l6o IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 duced a state of maudlin sentiment. And the "suppress- 
 ed premise, that nothing exists but what the study of 
 matter conceivably could reveal to us : or that, in other 
 words, the immaterial equals the non-existent," (p. 214) is 
 a premise which exists nowhere except in the fancy of 
 such speculators as Mr. Mallock. No study of matter 
 could reveal our consciousness to us if that were not al- 
 ready known long before we began any serious and de- 
 liberate study of matter. And even in the study of mat- 
 ter, the immaterial relations of things, as they are con- 
 ceived by the mind, are studied with at least as much in- 
 terest and belief as are its sensible properties. 
 
 So much for " supernatural " disturbance of the auto- 
 matic molecules of the brain by which "miracles" are 
 supposed to be wrought " privately within its closed 
 walls." Let us now consider the external miracle, alleged 
 almost in the same breath — the disturbance of the uni- 
 form course of nature by human volition. 
 
 It is one of many illustrations of the impossibility ex- 
 perienced by theological thought of keeping entirely 
 clear from the influences of modern times, that the idea 
 of a uniform course of nature has become so important 
 and necessary that any one may now venture to call any 
 disturbance of uniformities a miracle. 
 
 It is well known that the original conception of mira- 
 cles was very different from this: it suggested no extra- 
 ordinary interference with a " uniform course of nature," 
 because nobody was at all sure that the course of nature 
 
A ME PLY. IDI 
 
 was uniform. A miracle was simply a wonder, and a 
 wonder without any real point of comparison with 
 events held to be non-miraculous. The course of nature 
 is only uniform so long as all the conditions remain the 
 same. Any line of invariable sequence may be changed 
 by starting another line which crosses it at any point. 
 This new line may be under the operation of precisely 
 the same law as the old : as when a barrel which was 
 rolled down hill by the force of gravitation, remains in 
 stable equilibrium through the operation of the same 
 force ; or it may involve a simpler law, as when a bullet 
 passed through a man's heart, withdraws his body from 
 the domain of laws of living organisms, and places it 
 under the operation of laws of the chemical affinities of 
 organized but dead matter. Or finally, it may bring into 
 play a more complex law, as when the chemical affinities 
 of an acid suffice to overcome the molecular cohesion of 
 a stone ; or when the vital action of the heart distributes 
 blood in a vertical direction, notwithstanding the influ- 
 ence of gravity ; or when molecular movements in the 
 volitional centres of the brain result in a discharge of 
 nerve force, by means of which the habitual tonus of a 
 muscle is overcome, and thereby a limb displaced. 
 
 What does the Egyptian king do when he builds a 
 pyramid, and raises a structure towards the sky in " de- 
 fiance" of the law of gravity which should make it fall to 
 the earth ? Mr. Mallock cannot be so ignorant as not to 
 know that he accomplishes this feat by obedience to this 
 
1 62 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 same law of gravity ; and if that were really suspended, 
 his pyramid might as easily float off into the air. We 
 are almost ashamed to repeat what has been pointed out 
 so often, namely, that the operation of man's will in dis- 
 turbing the uniformities of nature, is only possible so 
 long as he can rely on analogous or identical uniformi- 
 ties. That the " fixed course of nature" does not mean 
 that all natural circumstances must always remain as 
 they are ; but that any series of events tends to repeat 
 itself in the same manner until interrupted by some other 
 series. That combinations of circumstances governed by 
 simple laws, are stable in proportion to their simplicity ; 
 and that conversely, every increase in the complexity of 
 the combination renders the equilibrium more unstable, 
 and the circumstances more easily modifiable. Thus, as 
 Comte has observed, the combinations of circumstances 
 which we can most readily predict, are those over which 
 we have the least influence ; while others, whose extreme 
 complexity defies calculation, are precisely those which 
 can be changed most readily by the human will, effecting 
 new combinations. Examples of the first are the cosmic 
 conditions of the universe ; of the second, physiological, 
 psychological and social events, the proper sphere for the 
 free action of the human will.* 
 
 The Positivist conception of the power of human 
 .thought and will to change the condition of the world 
 
 * Physical and chemical phenomena occupy an intermediate position in 
 .both these respects. 
 
A REPLY. 163 
 
 rises far above that of a capricious thaumaturgy. It is 
 understood tliat wlienever tlie elements of a situation 
 have become thoroughly known, they may be combined 
 into a different situation, into something entirely new. 
 Thus a double incentive is offered to analysis ; intensely 
 interesting in itself, it is of immeasurable value as the 
 only possible road to synthesis. Knowledge is the step- 
 ping stone to creation, and science finds its complement 
 and ultimate horizon in art. From the fact above men- 
 tioned, that it is the most complex conditions which are 
 the most liable to modification, it follows that the condi- 
 tions of life, individual and social, which are the most in- 
 teresting to human beings, are precisely those which are 
 the most amenable to his control. Yet, not only theory 
 but experience shows that his power of control extends 
 beyond and below this human sphere — extends into the 
 physical world, into which human agency enters as a per- 
 manently modifying force, together with the winds and 
 the waves, with the currents of air and of sea, with storms 
 and sunshine, and with blind, far-reaching instincts in tree 
 and flower, in insect, bird and beast. It is not undigni- 
 ned companionship, and it is one recognized but recently. 
 The moment of such recognition is also the moment for 
 recognizing the immense supremacy of the human force, 
 conscious and guided by knowledge, over that of the blind, 
 unconscious forces by which it is surrounded, and in the 
 midst of which it works. 
 
 The consideration of free will as a " miraculous " agency 
 
i6a. is life worth living? 
 
 I 
 
 might be called, in Mr. Mallock's terminology, the " in- 
 tellectual aspect " of the case. We are aware, however, 
 that for him the " moral necessities " are the most im- 
 portant. Besides the " individual necessity " we have al- 
 ready discussed, there is another of wider range which we 
 must now consider. 
 
 Mr. Mallock affirms, as the result of various observa- 
 tions, that "a certain supernatural moral judgment has 
 become a primary faculty with us, and mixes with every 
 estimate we form of the world around us." (p. 133.) 
 
 We will not stop to ask how any faculty can become 
 primary if it is not so from the beginning. It is more 
 important to consider the succeeding assertion : " It is 
 this faculty which Positivism, if accepted fully, must de- 
 stroy or paralyze." The following is the argument : 
 " Happiness naturally would seem the test of right, [but] 
 right has come supernaturally to be the test of happi- 
 ness.* * * In all our deeper views of life, whether we 
 be saints or sinners, right and wrong are the things 
 that first appeal to us, not happiness or misery." (p. 133.) 
 That is, this is what happens until the blighting influence 
 of Positivism comes in the way. Then all sense of moral 
 distinctness is destroyed, and the only test of the cor- 
 rectness of any line of conduct is the amount of happi- 
 ness, i.e. pleasure, it may obtain. Thus this '' supernatural " 
 moral judgment is eliminated from life, or rather would 
 be if Positivism were allowed to succeed.* 
 
 * Still the saine semi-military idea, that Positive thought is not a specula- 
 tion to be investigated, but an enemy to be put down. 
 
A REPLY. 165 
 
 In order to obtain some idea of the state of life after 
 such elimination, Mr. Mallock passes in review certain 
 great works of art in order to show that the interest in them 
 centres about some moral conflict, which becomes mean- 
 ingless so soon as we imagine for a moment that the " im- 
 passioned struggle for a supernatural right is suspended." 
 Thus our author shows, as it is easy to show, that the real 
 tragedy of " Macbeth " " does not lie in the fact that Dun- 
 can is murdered, but in the fact that Macbeth is the mur- 
 derer. * * * What our minds are made to dwell 
 upon is not that Duncan shall sleep forever, but that 
 Macbeth shall sleep no more." "In ' Hamlet' the action 
 that an interest centres in, is the hero's struggle to con- 
 form to an internal personal standard of right, utterly ir- 
 respective of use to others, or of natural happiness to 
 himself." " In the 'Antigone ' we have for the central in- 
 terest the same personal struggle after right, not after use 
 or happiness." '' In ' Measure for Measure ' and ' Faust ' 
 we can see at once that one moral judgment, at least, is, 
 before all things, presupposed in us. This is a hard and 
 fixed judgment with regard to female chastity and the 
 supernatural value of it." 
 
 Two reasons are alleged to show that Positivism must 
 destroy interest in these dramas and in the life correspond- 
 mg to them. 1st. That the Positive conception of moral- 
 ity is not moral at all, but refers to something that is con- 
 tradicted by these dramas and by all life which is on as 
 high a plane as they ; and, 2d, that " the grand relation of 
 
1 66 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 man is not first to his brother men, but to something else 
 that is beyond humanity — that is at once without and 
 also beyond himself; to this first, and to his brother men 
 through this. We are not our own ; we are bought with 
 a price. Our bodies are God's temples, and the joy and 
 the terror of life depends on our keeping these temples 
 pure or defiling them." (p. 139.) 
 
 To speak of this second assertion first, we may observe 
 that it would be scarcely possible to choose more unfor- 
 tunate examples for the thesis. In every one of the 
 dramas selected, the motive involves a most profound 
 moral relation to a fellow creature. Now it is a treach- 
 erous violation of confidence, as when Macbeth murders 
 his royal guest, or Faust seduces and abandons his inno- 
 cent and helpless lover. Now it is an heroic and stead- 
 fast loyalty, as when Antigone, at the peril of her life, 
 performs the funeral rites of her brother. Now it is the 
 cowardly failure to perform an act of vengeance, justly 
 demanded by fiJial piety, as when Hamlet, in the very 
 fruition of his project, recoils from the exposure of the 
 king. In " Measure for Measure " alone the heroism is not 
 aroused for the sake of another, but in self-defense against 
 an act of intolerable baseness on the part of a person 
 above all to be trusted — a brother. We are told at the 
 outset that these tragedies appeal to a "moral judgment', 
 in us." Why is the ground so suddenly shifted to some- 
 thing "without and beyond us ? " By what looseness of 
 rhetoric can the Pauline metaphor of being " bought with 
 
A REPLY. 167 
 
 a price " be made to apply here ? Who \s bought? and 
 why ? and for what price ? 
 
 Considering the theological beliefs which prevailed at 
 the time that each of the five selected dramas were writ- 
 ten, it is remarkable how little religion in any other sense 
 than that of imperative and binding* duty, intervenes in 
 them. Antigone, indeed, has no language in which to 
 express a sense of duty, except as obedience to a direct 
 fiat of the gods. The importance attached to the rite of 
 sepulchre was not however a moral but a religious im- 
 portance, and, as appertaining to a now decayed religion, 
 we presume that even Mr. Mallock would be more in- 
 clined to call it superstitious than supernatural. But it 
 is not this superstition, but the fraternal loyalty and the 
 heroism that responded to its mandates, which have im- 
 mortalised Antigone for us. It is not the so-called divine 
 element which has made the human element interesting: 
 it is the human element, the human emotion and courage 
 which have preserved from oblivion the ordinance once 
 celebrated as divine. 
 
 In the Shakespearean plays, the pure humanity of the 
 interest is still more obvious. Macbeth is absorbed by 
 his crime, and no foreboding of hell is added to the 
 weight of his conscious guilt. Hamlet reasons about a 
 future life with all the skepticism, if not with all the calm 
 
 * Well known to be the original meaning of ihe term " religion." 
 
1 68 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 of the author of Ecclesiastes, and neither in his condem- 
 nation of the criminals, nor in his own self-upbraidings, 
 does he require to pass beyond contemplation of the 
 deed itself to feel to the core its awful significance. 
 The only " supernatural " circumstance in the play is the 
 t;host ; and the greatness and truth of Shakespeare's art 
 is shown not least in this, that the ghost is allowed to 
 make so little impression upon us, and so little real differ- 
 ence to Hamlet. He had known its message in advance, 
 and the spectral vision was but the outward projection of 
 his own inmost conviction. He who could not listen to 
 this, would not be, and was not spurred to action, though 
 one rose from the dead. 
 
 The same perversity which makes Mr. Mallock to mis- 
 interpret these great dramas, leads him to identify the mo- 
 tive of " Measure for Measure " with that of " Faust." We 
 are thus told that the seduction of Margaret by her real 
 love, was identical with the proposed sale of Isabella to 
 a brutal ravisher : that the crime in the one case did not 
 lie in the desertion by Faust, nor in the other in the be- 
 trayal by a brother, but in both consisted entirely in the 
 fact that the heroines were unmarried women. We should 
 infer that, in Mr. Mallock's view, if Faust had married 
 Margaret before running away, or if Isabella had been 
 persuaded into marriage with the Duke in order to save 
 her cowardly brother, that the " supernatural " and artistic 
 interest of both stories would be destroyed. 
 
 It is of course a well known Catholic idea that " a su- 
 
A REPLY. 169 
 
 pernatural value attaches to female chastity," but what 
 sense Mr. Mallock attaches to this phrase we own we fail 
 to discover. It can scarcely mean a value derived from 
 another world, for if ever virtue were inseparably associ- 
 ated with the earthly and fleshly conditions of this life, it 
 is evidently the virtue of chastity. If used in the sphere 
 of being a virtue maintained in spite of " natural " in- 
 stincts, and in obedience to a new classification of values 
 whereby " many things naturally repellant have received 
 a supernatural blessing, and many things naturally pleas- 
 ant have received a supernatural curse," (p. 133) we might 
 understand how Margaret should be accused of violating 
 it ; but the virtue of Isabella remains still unexplained. 
 In no supposition could we imagine that slw was tempted 
 to anything " naturally pleasant ; " she was, on the con- 
 trary, threatened with something horribly repellent. 
 
 We suppose that Mr. Mallock really means that if our 
 moral judgment had not been trained to attach an in- 
 calculable value to the absolute innocence of girls, that 
 there would have been no social infamy to ruin Margaret 
 and madden her to infanticide ; hence the conduct of 
 Faust himself would have been blameless, or at least as 
 indifferent as that of one who picks a flower in his path, 
 and, having inhaled its perfume, throws it aside. And 
 that, with a similar state of public opinion, the proposi- 
 tion made by Isabella's brother would have been a mere 
 appeal to her ordinary good nature, which all affectionate 
 sisters might justly condemn her for refusing. 
 
170 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 It is perfectly true that in the absence of a profound 
 social ideal in regard to this central relation of human be- 
 ings with each other, art could imagine no tragedies de- 
 pendent upon it. Conceivable also that powerful and 
 strenuous interests would disappear from our complex 
 life by the levelling of certain difificulties exclusively cre- 
 ated by the " faculty of moral judgment." But it is 
 equally true, as Mr. Mallock himself has said, that this 
 moral judgment is in us, and not the echo of a voice from 
 heaven or the vision of the descent of any Holy Ghost 
 upon earth. It is a most complex moral judgment, whose 
 constitution can be analzed to many elements, and whose 
 history can be traced to many origins. It is a fact as per- 
 fectly well known as is the evolution of mind from the 
 body of every human babe, that the social judgment upon 
 the relations of the sexes varies with every radical variation 
 in the general status of society. Ideals on this subject 
 are among the most elaborate and refined products of 
 social consciousness. Even more than others are they 
 necessarily correlated to the essential conditions of social 
 existence at any given time, for the simple reason that 
 they determine the extent and nature of the family, the 
 unit of the social organism. 
 
 The ideal is evidently different in the tribes who cap- 
 tured their wives from without, and thought it dfsgrace- 
 ful to marry their tribal kin ; in those who reverse the 
 disgrace, and invoke it upon foreign marriages ; in poly- 
 gamic civilizations ; among peoples governed by Athenian 
 
A REPLY. 171 
 
 horror of barbarians, or by Roman law ; among those in 
 whom a logical asceticism creates an ideal of absolute 
 celibacy, from which marriage is a degradation only palli- 
 ated as a matter of necessary compromise by the sacra- 
 ments of the Church ; or, finally,* among those who, 
 seeing in love, and in the fact of the origin of life in 
 love, the central fact of life, study love and marriage and 
 parentage in their real relations with the facts of life, 
 and associate with ideas of chastity, and purity, and honor 
 in, love reverence so much the more profound, as these 
 are seen to have been evolved in the course of a social 
 development perfectly natural. From this point of view 
 indeed, it would be difficult to enforce virtue by the savage 
 reflection, 
 
 '* She died, she went to burning flame." \ 
 
 But as this reflection has proved tolerably inoperative, 
 even when its justice was undisputed, it is little likely 
 that much coercive force can be obtained from its revival. 
 Unless indeed we believe, as Mr. Mallock may, that the 
 ghost of a belief, as of a person, exercises a more powerful 
 
 * We say finally as a matter of expediency, not to extend too far allusions 
 to the innumerable variations in the laws of marriage, and consequently in 
 the "hard and fixed judgment " to which Mr. Mallock attributes a " super- 
 natural sameness." 
 
 \ " She died, she went to burning flame, 
 She mixed her ancient blood in shame. 
 
 The wind is howling in turret and tree. 
 So, morn and evening at his gate 
 To win his love I lay in wait, 
 Oh, the Earl was fair to see ! " 
 
 Tennyson* s , Sistejs. 
 
172 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 influence on the imagination than the same in full vigor 
 of life. 
 
 How now shall there remain any plausibility in the 
 assertion that the Positivist conception of morality is not 
 moral at all, but in flagrant contradiction with the funda- 
 mental conception of these great works of art? 
 
 The plausibility depends on the previous assertion, 
 that, to the Positivist, happiness is the only test of right, 
 because that is the natural test of right ; whereas in the 
 dramas, and in the high plane of life corresponding to 
 them, right is the test of happiness. So soon, says Mr. 
 Mallock, as you deny the possibility of a " supernatural 
 blessing and curse," you are compelled to accept as your 
 highest good, whatever may be desired by the promptings 
 of natural instinct. 
 
 Here again we meet with decisive proof of the impos- 
 sibility of conceiving of the Positive doctrine of morals 
 without thorough acquaintance with the biological doc- 
 trine of evolution ; proof again of the correctness of 
 Comte's law, exacting study of biology as an indispens- 
 able preparation to the study of moral as of any other 
 social relations. 
 
 The biological fact which is of importance in this place 
 is common to all organized beings, and completely ex- 
 plains Mr. Mallock's imposing paradox of the " superna- 
 tural classification " " traversing " the natural one. The 
 fact is, that in the course of development of an organism 
 a set of conditions is often reached, not merely different 
 
A REPLY. 171 
 
 from those of our earlier stage, but exactly the reverse of 
 them. Thus, to select only the most common examples, 
 the tail of the tadpole becomes replaced by the legs of 
 the frog ; the immobility of the chrysalis for the airy 
 fluttering of the butterfly ; the placental respiration of 
 the foetus for the pulmonary respiration of the new born. 
 Thus the same creature is compelled to change its classi- 
 fication of pleasantnesses, and even of necessities, merely 
 because in the course of its natural evolution the condi- 
 tions of its existence have changed. Quite similarly, Jn 
 the course of the evolution of society, the moral law and 
 moral taste have changed, not according to the " caprice 
 of any one man," but according to the changed life of 
 all. The " supernatural " value of the Sabbath day has 
 declined. The " natural " value of honor and loyalty 
 has increased. So much as to entirely preponderate over 
 the " supernatural " impulse to offer by force or treach- 
 ery one's fellow creatures as a sacrifice to one's own 
 Deity, whether the massacre be commanded at Canaan 
 or on St. Bartholomew's day. While, perhaps, the most 
 remarkable change ever wrought during the evolution 
 of the moral sense, is that by which an ideal of re- 
 served spiritual love has been developed out of the 
 primitive nucleus of promiscuous physical passion.* 
 
 * As the question in the text relates especially to the manner in which 
 later conditions may reverse earlier ones, without for that reason becoming 
 in the least supernatural, we insert in a note merely the following passage 
 from Comte, which bears too much on the general subject to be entirely 
 omitted : " In its most profound appreciation, Positivism represents human 
 progress as always consisting in a simple development of the fundamental 
 
174 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 To return to the original statement. The Positivists, 
 says Mr. Mallock, talk indeed about morality, and make a 
 great fuss over it, but when we come to sift their asser- 
 tions we find that we do not know what they are talking 
 about. It is true, he continues " the Positivist con- 
 ceives of the moral end in the same way, and sets 
 upon it the same value " [as the Theist] (p. 95). But 
 while the premises of the Theist enable him to give a 
 perfectly " logical and full account of the nature of the. 
 moral end and of its supposed importance," the premises 
 of the Positivist must leave its disciples to break down 
 altogether. 
 
 According to Mr. Mallock, Theism and Positivism agree 
 in ascribing three primary characteristics to the moral 
 end. It is " inward and inalienable ; " it is " of an impor- 
 tance great out of all proportion to our own conscious- 
 ness of the results of it ; " and " its standard is absolute, 
 beyond and above the taste of any single man or of any 
 body of men." * 
 
 The way that Theism " logically " demonstrates the 
 reality of these characteristics is as follows : It shows the 
 importance of the moral end in the first place by " con- 
 order, which necessarily contains the germs of all the progress possible. 
 The true theory of our nature, individual or collective, demonstrates that 
 the cause of our transformations can never depend on a creation, and only 
 on an evolution. This general principle is fully confirmed by an apprecia- 
 tion of history, which, for each mutation accomplished, always succeeds in 
 discovering the roots in some anterior epoch ; finding even in the grossest 
 primitive conditions the rudimentary sketch of all ulterior perfections." — 
 Loc. cit., p. 106. 
 
 *See p. 21. 
 
A REPLY. 17s 
 
 fessing fully" that it cannot be shown at all " from the 
 facts in life." Now, inasmuch as every moral law we can 
 think of relates to these facts of life, one might suppose 
 that this was a rather serious confession of impotence. 
 But not at all, for here as elsewhere, Mr. Mallock's con- 
 fessed inability to walk on plain ground, only serves to 
 exhibit more clearly his agility in floating above it in the 
 upper air. Thus, the Theist having confessed himself to 
 be so much less able than the Positivist claims to be, 
 goes on to say that this importance of the moral end 
 " can at present be divined and augured only ; its value 
 is one of promise rather than of performance ; and the 
 possession itself is a thing that passes understanding. It 
 belongs to a region of mystery into which neither logic 
 nor experiment will ever sufifice to carry us ; and whose 
 secrets are beyond the reach of any intellectual aeronaut." 
 
 (P- 93-) 
 
 Upon reading the above sentence, a remark rose to our 
 lips, which however we found, on turning the page, that 
 Mr. Mallock had literally taken out of our mouth. " Noth- 
 ing would be gained, however, by postulating merely a 
 mystery — an unknowable." We seem, therefore, to be 
 no better off than we were before. But Theism, having 
 " postulated " in the freest manner possible, the first mys- 
 tery, naturally experienced no difficulty in going further, 
 and postulating anything which may be necessary to make 
 this available. A connection is established between man 
 and the mystery by means of the " two distinctive doc- 
 
'I'jQ IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 trines, the existence of a personal God, and his own per- 
 sonal immortality." The effect of the first doctrine or 
 " theory " as Mr. Mallock calls it, is that the Theist 
 " feels an eye ever upon him," and reading his inward 
 thoughts, which therefore must be conformed to the 
 moral law as well as the outward actions. " The standard 
 of morality is God's will and not man's immediate happi- 
 ness." " Man's primary duty is toward God, his second- 
 ary duty is towards his brother man ; and it is only from 
 the filial relation that the fraternal springs." The Theist 
 does not profess to know the real reasons for " his high- 
 est moral actions," but nevertheless he enjoys great 
 " peace and gladness in them," because they " reach far 
 away beyond the earth and its destinies, and connect him 
 with some timeless and holy mystery." (pp. 94-95.). 
 
 It is very true that the Positivist can do none of these 
 fine things, for he can see no reason for doing so. He can- 
 not even understand what is meant by a " timeless mys- 
 tery," nor why something outside of the earth is necessa- 
 rily more holy than something on its surface. Were it so, 
 the tail of a comet should excite more moral and religious 
 enthusiasm than the heroism of a man or woman risking 
 their lives on this planet for the sake of strangers in a 
 pestilence. The Positivist, remembering that the admit- 
 ted uselessness of the first mystery is only said to have 
 been dissipated by the introduction of new doctrines, feels 
 that still more are required to explain the mysteries which 
 are left. " Nothing is gained " by asserting that the stand- 
 
A REPLY. 177 
 
 ard of morals is God's will, until we are supplied with 
 some means of knowing what that will is. 
 
 A superficial glance at history shows that the ten com- 
 mandments are by no means the only summary of morals 
 which has been offered to mankind with the stamp of 
 divine sanction. Not the least ingenious systems are 
 those which have claimed to find in every impulse of na- 
 ture, a revelation of the will of the creator of nature; 
 systems which, whether practically realized among Gnos- 
 tics or Anabaptists, or theoretically conceived by 
 Fourier, have lead to conclusions the reverse of con- 
 venient. 
 
 The three " characteristics " of the moral law described 
 by Mr. Mallock are not its only attributes, nor, perhaps, 
 the most important, and from among them Positivism de- 
 cidedly rejects one, i. c, absoluteness. This character in- 
 deed cannot be deduced from even the Theistic postulate, 
 that the standard is God's will. For unless society always 
 staid the same, the supposed means of obeying this 
 will must be different at different times. They differ 
 when (according to Mr. Mallock) Antigone tried to 
 obey it by performing a rite of sepulchre, which, in obe- 
 dience to another very plausible opinion about God's will, 
 had been forbidden. Or when a pious Jew, endeavoring 
 to please God by reminding him of his success in the 
 creation, laid down to sleep in sacred idleness throughout 
 the Sabbath Day. Or when Cotton Mather, wishing to 
 glorify God by defying the works of the devil, burned 
 
1/8 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 at the stake the old witch-women who were the most 
 ■palpable incarnation of the same. But why multiply 
 . illustrations? Have we not already learned from Mr. 
 Mallock himself, that Theism without a Catholic Revela- 
 tion to interpret it, is "a religion of little help ; that it 
 never puts out a hand to lift or lead them ; [that] it is an 
 alluring voice heard far off through a fog, and calling to 
 them, ' Follow me ! ' but it leaves them in the fog to pick 
 their own way out towards it, over rocks and streams and 
 pitfalls, which they can but half distinguish, and amongst 
 which they may be either killed or crippled, and are 
 almost certain to grow bewildered." (p. 266.) 
 
 When we have once learned that this severe estimate 
 of Theism is awaiting us at one end of Mr. Mallock's 
 essay, we cannot but doubt whether such vague comfort 
 be really capable of offering as " strictly logical a basis " 
 for mortals as is asserted at the beginning. 
 
 To assert that the moral law is absolute in a philosoph- 
 ical sense, 1. e., as having no relations with anything, 
 would be manifestly absurd, because even on Mr. Mal- 
 lock's hypothesis that it consists of a fiat of Deity, it 
 embraces relations between the man commanded and the 
 act he is to perform, and that act involves other persons 
 or things in mutual relations. 
 
 We suppose, however, that Mr. Mallock means merely 
 that, when a commandment has been given, as " Thou 
 shalt not kill," it holds good in all times, for all places, 
 and for all people. Indeed, the antithesis to absolute 
 
A REPLY. 179 
 
 established by our author, is precisely, variation according 
 to individual taste. Yet this definition will not hold, 
 even of such a command as that forbidding murder, for 
 it is lawfully evaded whenever the killing is to be effected 
 on a large scale in war ; or when the sacrifice of life, 
 though less direct, is scarcely less certain, as when a rail- 
 road is to be built through a pestilential country. How- 
 ever, although " absoluteness " cannot be predicated by 
 the moral law, the independence of individual caprice, 
 which Mr. Mallock so oddly imagines to be an equivalent 
 to it, certainly can be. It can be in the same manner, 
 and for the same reason, as the independence of any law 
 must be similarly asserted. It must not be forgotten 
 that there are two entirely distinct meanings to the term 
 " law." The first is indeed a " code of restraining orders," 
 promulgated by some legislative authority, and accom- 
 panied by a train of arbitrary penalties, whose infliction 
 is intrusted to a powerful executive. It is well known 
 that the original idea of moral law was exactly that of 
 such a code, whose promulgation and enforcement were 
 modelled upon the examples of human states, but whose 
 originator and avenger were supposed to be divine. Well 
 known also that the moral laws announced as emanating 
 from divine sources were of the most heterogeneous de- 
 scription, involving quite as many precepts of pure ritual 
 that have since become obsolete, as of commands of such 
 permanent utility that they may still be retained. This 
 is true even of the Ten Commandments, which we sup- 
 
l80 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 pose Mr. Mallock would consider a perfect type of an 
 " absolute " moral law. The law for the observance of 
 the Sabbath day is placed on precisely the same plane as 
 the laws against murder, theft and adultery. It is almost 
 superfluous to notice further that in other Theisms than 
 the Jewish, obedience to the declared will of one God was 
 often sufficient to draw down upon the pious the wrath 
 of another. Mr. Mallock himself points out to us that 
 the Christian Deity, from an external point of view, may 
 be said to have acquired his sovereignty as did the Roman 
 Caesar. He absorbed into his own person the offices of 
 all the gods that were before him, as the Roman Caesar 
 absorbed all the offices of the state (p. 20), and thus the 
 executive authority which punished became identified 
 with the legislature which announced its " absolute" de- 
 crees. 
 
 The second and modern conception of the moral law is 
 based on the type, not of criminal jurisprudence, but of 
 the natural laws of physical phenomena. It is only " ab- 
 solute " therefore in the same sense in which they are ; 
 that is, it is the true expression of the real relations of 
 certain things, and cannot therefore be changed by any 
 individual estimate of these relations, based, not on ob- 
 servation, but on caprice and interested motive. 
 
 But what are the relations expressed by the moral law ? 
 What things are involved in these relations? No things 
 are involved except actions. With this assertion the Pos- 
 itivism of modern thought at once sweeps away an im- 
 
A REPLY. l8l 
 
 mense mass of material formerly subjected to moral law 
 and religious emotion ; sweeps away the sanctities and 
 accursedness, the purity and uncleanness, which formerly 
 attached to innumerable things, and must still attach in 
 the opinion of any one who believes in the power of holy 
 water, of sacred inunctions, of blessed formulae obtaining 
 " grace and mercy through set channels." Only persons 
 can be involved in the moral laws, and the Positivist con- 
 ception differs from the theological in this : that while for 
 the latter the persons are the [divine] lawgiver and the 
 mortal who is to obey him ; for the former, the persons 
 are both human beings, who have learned by experience 
 that they must act in a certain way, under penalty of being 
 unable to act together at all. The moral law therefore, is 
 the law of the most fundamental conditions of tJie concerted 
 actions of two or more human beings. It is not the only 
 law, but it is the most fundamental, since its violation 
 tends more than any other to annihilate the possibility of 
 some class of actions. Thus, all social relations imply 
 mutual confidence in the truth, honesty and friendliness 
 of the persons engaging in them ; confidence which varies 
 in depth and extent according to the importance of the in 
 terests at stake. Were universal falsehood and treachery 
 substituted, every man would avoid his fellows like wild 
 beasts ; as indeed he often has done for this reason. On 
 the other hand, in proportion as honesty refines into 
 honor, and justice into sympathy, the bands of association 
 are drawn closer, social relations become not only possi- 
 
1 82 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 ble, but delightful ; social existence is not only created, 
 but embellished, and enters upon a development whose 
 expansion scarcely knows a limit. The importance, there- 
 fore, which the Positivist, no less than Mr. Mallock, attri- 
 butes to the moral law, is derived from its inseparable 
 connection with the conditions of existence of the actions 
 to which it refers. It is of primary importance in com- 
 parison with all other laws, because referring to primary 
 conditions, while those only relate to secondarj'- ones. 
 Thus the economic laws governing commercial relations, 
 important though they be, can never take the place of 
 the primary law necessitating a general average of fair 
 dealing. A preponderance of fraudulent transactions must 
 sooner or later bring the business to a stand-still. The 
 importance of moral laws is not equal, but according to 
 the degree to which the conditions it imposes are funda- 
 mental. Thus, however important sympathy, justice is 
 even more important ; and no benevolence nor tenderness 
 of feeling can make up for the absence of truth. This 
 natural gradation in the value of moral laws, is the first 
 reason for denying to them the attribute of absoluteness. 
 Their importance is relative to the importance of the re- 
 spective actions in maintaining or in developing social 
 relations. 
 
 This is the first relativity ; but there is a second. The 
 moral life of human beings is partly a spontaneous exist- 
 ence and partly a self-creation. The capacity for creating 
 ideals, upon which we have already insisted, involves a 
 
A REPLY. 183 
 
 constant liability to change in the definition of the same 
 relations. What is just, at a time that different classes of 
 people have become habituated to radically different 
 kinds of treatment, may be horribly unjust when equality 
 of rights and consequently of expectations has been es- 
 tablished. Entire equality of rights implies entire 
 equality of natures; and as the latter equality does not 
 really exist, the former will never exist in the moral law ; 
 the equality in civil law representing only a gross approxi- 
 mation to it. We have already dwelt upon the curious 
 manoeuvre by which the Catholic church created an arti- 
 ficial and absolute equality in salvation, by means of a 
 universal system, half dogma, half ritual, which being ex- 
 ternal to the varying nature, of human capacities, could 
 be applied indiscriminately to all.* Such an equality is 
 certainly rejected by Positivism. 
 
 The influence of created ideals is felt perhaps especi- 
 ally in regard to a class of actions and of moralities, where 
 it is most difificult to apply a test of apparent utility and 
 of immediate happiness for the persons directly involved. 
 This is the class whose morality is love, and whose im- 
 morality is vice. It is constantly asserted by Mr. Mallock, 
 with an air of great triumph, that, in the absence of a 
 positive, precise and absolute mandate from heaven, the 
 .sentiments and actions belonging to this class, at least, 
 can have no other rule for guidance than personal taste 
 and caprice, and these from the nature of things and from 
 
 * See p. 116. 
 
1 84 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 the vicious inclinations of man, are quite as likely to in- 
 cline to vice as to virtue, to build up a city of " Sodom as 
 the tents of Abraham." 
 
 We have already seen, however, that it is especially in 
 regard to this class of actions that society establishes its 
 most strenuously defended ideals ; ideals whose precise 
 character varies somewhat at different stages of its evolu- 
 tion, but which always have this in common, that they are 
 the product of the collective social consciousness, are felt 
 to be correlated to the most profound conditions of ex- 
 istence, and cannot be violated without risk of social ob- 
 loquy. The maintenance of such ideals is secured not only 
 by means of direct appreciation of their value, but by 
 means of the struggle to defend certain rights which they 
 may have conferred, and which could only be abandoned 
 after a universal abandonment of the ideal. Thus, it is con- 
 ceivable that such a state of public opinion might prevail, 
 that husbands and wives would cease to be shocked at 
 each others' infidelities, would become so entirely indif- 
 ferent to them that neither would dream of protesting 
 against a violation of rights on the part of the other. 
 Adultery then, which to-day is condemned on somewhat 
 the same basis as theft and murder,* would soon cease 
 to be condemned at all ; and history shows us many 
 epochs at which this state of things has tended more or 
 less completely to prevail. Until it does, however, adul- 
 
 * Mr. Mallock asserts the contrary, and thinks Mr. Huxley a fool for say- 
 ing so. 
 
A REPLY. 185 
 
 tery tends to be repressed by all the force which the pas- 
 sion of jealousy and the association of honor can lend to 
 love, whose very existence is .menaced by the tolerated 
 crime. Neither civil tribunal nor church anathema can 
 enforce the law ; the battle is to be fought, and always 
 has been fought, ever since an ideal of pure and constant 
 love has existed, between those who cleave to it on the 
 one hand, and those who degrade it on the other. 
 
 Whenever it occurs that the universal change in a so- 
 cial ideal of any morality, is proved by experience to be 
 attended by good consequences instead of bad ; i.e. when 
 other moralities are intensified instead of weakened, other 
 energies rendered more powerful, and the bands of society 
 drawn closer instead of relaxing, then such a change es- 
 tablishes its own legitimacy. 
 
 How does Mr. Mallock expect this moral law to be en- 
 forced otherwise than as we have described ? He tells us 
 that when the Positivists have made of the moral law 
 " nothing absolute " they have left it " incapable of be- 
 ing enforced." But how does this absoluteness help the 
 enforcement? and how will Mr. Mallock distinguish what 
 is absolute ? Even the church, he tell us, has tolerated 
 and even adopted many "pious opinions; " among others 
 that of the celibacy of the clergy. Does Mr. Mallock 
 hold that Luther was therefore guilty when he married 
 his Catharine ? or does he think that the right of a father 
 to dispose of his daughter in marriage is as absolute as 
 that of a husband to refuse to dispose of his wife at all? 
 
1 86 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 Mr. Mallock cannot be unaware that, not so long ago, 
 the first right was generally acknowledged, and the last 
 right — at least among the peasants of some countries, 
 generally disputed. Has the church pronounced on these 
 matters ? 
 
 Has Bellarmine, whose opinion on the situation of pur- 
 gatory seems to have been so grossly misunderstood by 
 Sir James Stephen (p. 292), left us any authentic testi- 
 mony on right and wrong, on purity and impurity of 
 love ? 
 
 Positivism of course can dispense easily with such tes- 
 timony. It studies love in itself, examines what makes it 
 strong and mighty, what saps its strength, fritters its re- 
 sources, and reduces it to a frivolous fancy — a dissolute 
 caprice. It searches into the effects upon society of the 
 strong love and the weak one ; it sees that the dissolu- 
 tion of love leads ultimately to the dissolution of so- 
 ciety — that the strong passion leads to the great life ; and 
 it condemns or approves with an energy into which is 
 poured the unconscious forces of existence. 
 
 On the other hand, having no artificial end in view, but 
 only the real interests of what it conceives of as real and 
 legitimate, Positivism does not hesitate to sweep away 
 laws which may be shown to conflict with those interests. 
 Thus it has already condemned the absoluteness of pa- 
 rental authority over marriage ; thus, perhaps, it may 
 condemn some other customs still maintained. But both 
 in the construction of ideals and in the criticism of ideals, 
 
A REPLY. 187 
 
 Positivism judges a sentiment or an action according to 
 the laws of tiieir own nature, and relatively to their 
 origin, their effects, and their relations with other things 
 recognized as also of real importance. 
 
 Nothing can be more untrue, therefore, than Mr. Mal- 
 lock's assertion that the Positivists " isolate the moral 
 law from any law or force in the universe that may be 
 wider and more permanent." (p. 96.) On the contrary, 
 the law of moral things is shown to be linked in innumer- 
 able ways to the law of physical things which has pre- 
 ceded it in development. It is, indeed, "no longer a 
 thing we can talk vaguely about, or to which any sound- 
 ings but indefinite phrases will be applicable." (p. 97.) 
 But it is only a person of Mr. Mallock's peculiar perver- 
 sity of mind who could record this as a reproach. 
 
 So much for the Positivist view of the importance and 
 absoluteness of the moral law. In regard to the " in- 
 wardness " alleged also to be an essential charac- 
 teristic, we encounter a singular assertion from our au- 
 thor. " The moral end is an inward state of the heart ; 
 and the heart, on the showing of the Positivists, is for 
 each man an absolute solitude." (p. 98.) In proof of this 
 Mr. Mallock quotes several stanzas of poetry from Mat- 
 thew Arnold and George Eliot, and even from Bishop 
 Keble, who could hardly be accused of having been a 
 Positivist. This association of names itself shows the ab- 
 surdity of the statement that " the solitude of each man's 
 heart " is a pecuharly Positivist doctrine. It is impos- 
 
l88 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 sible, moreover, to see in what way this statement can 
 serve as a basis for that which is made to follow it as a 
 deduction. " Such is the condition of the individual ac- 
 cording to the Positivist theory. It is evident, therefore, 
 that one of the first results of Positivism is to destroy 
 even the rudiments of every machinery by which one man 
 could govern with authority the inward kingdom of an- 
 other, and the moral imperative is reduced to an empty 
 vaunt." (p. 99.) But where did such machinery ever ex- 
 ist ? Where was one man, even though he were Pope of 
 Rome, ever able to exercise more than a semblance of 
 government over the "inward kingdom" of another? 
 The " moral imperative " has always been an " empty 
 vaunt " so far as it professed to judge of a man's thoughts, 
 beliefs or desires by anything else than by his words and 
 actions. 
 
 It is a perfect truism to say that external conformity 
 to a belief can be commanded ; but that personal belief 
 only exists, when the innermost judgment of a man is 
 convinced by reasons ; and that belief is only vigorous 
 and effective when the desires and the will have set them- 
 selves in the same direction as the judgment. When 
 Mr. Mallock says "that the moral end is inward, because 
 it resides primarily not in action, but in motives to ac- 
 tion, etc.," he says what every Positivist will agree to, 
 in the same way as he would agree that the life of a plant 
 was primarily in the seed and in the roots it sends into 
 the ground. But Mr. Mallock has no such meaning as 
 
A REPLY. 189 
 
 this for " inwardness." He seems to mean that it is bet- 
 ter to think right than to do right, because God reads the 
 thoughts and man can only see the actions.* So far this 
 would seem to exonerate the Positivists from the terrible 
 accusation of having been the first to assert that men 
 could not see into each other's souls. But Mr. Mallock 
 goes on to speak as if his real difficulty was to find a 
 common ground of argument between the saint and the 
 sinner. " Suppose that on positive grounds I find pleas- 
 ure in humility, and my friend finds pleasure in pride, 
 and so far as we can form a judgment the happiness of 
 us both is equal, what possible grounds can I have for 
 calling my state better than his? " (p. 99.) 
 
 None of course, if happiness be the only test of worth ; 
 any more than saying that a cane chair is preferable to a 
 stuffed one, when two persons find themselves equally 
 comfortable on either. Mr. Mallock gives us a very curi- 
 ous reason for making a choice. " Were I a Theist," he 
 says, " I should have the best of grounds, for I should 
 believe that hereafter my friend's present contentment 
 would be dissipated, and would give place to despair." 
 But how is the Theist able to demonstrate that pride be- 
 longs to the category of things which are destined to be 
 followed in another world by despair? That would be 
 the interesting and practical thing to know, and that is 
 precisely what Mr. Mallock does not tells us. The Positivist 
 
 * " The moral end, then, is so precious in the mind of the Theist, because 
 tlie inward .state it consists of is agreeable to what God wills — a God who 
 reads the heart and cannot be deceived." (p. 95.) 
 
19° IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 remark on this subject would be entirely unlike that which 
 our author supposes. He would not be satisfied with 
 knowing that a man might nourish pride, arrogance, and 
 vanity all his life, whether that were mortal or immortal, 
 and never, as the saying is, get out of conceit with them. 
 But he would study this inward state of the heart in its 
 origin; and finding this to consist of an estimate of per- 
 sonal self importance in obvious contradiction with real 
 facts, Positivism would condemn these sentiments as ab- 
 surd. Studying them further in their external conse- 
 quences, in the habitual attitude of the man towards his 
 fellows which they determine. Positivism finds these 
 consequences to be in so many ways evil and anti- 
 social, that it does not hesitate to condemn this state 
 of heart, as not only absurd, but wicked, wicked in 
 proportion to the intensity and development of the 
 sentiments. 
 
 The final charge against the Positivists for this treatment 
 of the moral law is, that according to them, " its value, 
 such as it is, is measured only by the conscious happiness 
 that its possession gives us, or the conscious pains that 
 its loss gives us." (p. loo) Whereas to the Theist, whose 
 " standard is God's will, not man's immediate happiness," 
 " the issue [of the struggle between good and evil] is of 
 an importance great out of all proportion to our own 
 consciousness of the results of it." (p. 89) That is, of the 
 present consciousness ; but Mr. Mallock shows plainly 
 enough that he believes the consequences of good or bad 
 
J REPLY. 191 
 
 actions are to be considered exclusively from their effects 
 upon the destiny of the person who performs them ; not 
 indeed in this world, but in some other. Unconsciousness 
 of evil is only a temporary matter; it is certain that the 
 veil will one day be torn away and the revelation made 
 of the true state of things when the sinner is punished 
 for them. Positivism on the contrary does not feel war- 
 ranted in asserting that every man will always realize the 
 consequence of his own actions, or even will always be 
 punished for them in his own person. But it asserts that 
 the good and evil of actions are so independent of " con- 
 scious happiness and conscious pains," that the frequently 
 witnessed impunity of the wicked makes no difference in 
 the enormity of the guilt, nor indeed of the moral suffer- 
 ing which he must experience if ever his eyes are opened. 
 The Positivist indeed is deprived of the resource of the 
 Catholic, whose blackest crimes may be washed away,' 
 redeemed, absolved, merely by the device of getting into 
 a certain inward frame of mind which may leave unmodi-, 
 fied all the consequences of those crimes, and all the' 
 misery they have inflicted upon other people. The Posi- 
 tivist cannot believe that sins which are scarlet shall ever 
 be white as wool ; and its powerful deterrent agency 
 against wrong-doing, is the terrible conviction that it 
 hardly ever can be undone ; that the repentance, though 
 sought bitterly and with tears, has rarely the opportunity 
 to lift up the lives which may have been crushed, the 
 hearts which may have been broken, or to restore the 
 
192 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 golden hours, days, or years which may have been dark- 
 ened by injury. 
 
 Supposing that the man who has committed the in- 
 jury does not repent, and supposing that, by exception, 
 he happens to escape personal experience of the conse- 
 quences of his evil doing, the Positivist doctrine will cer- 
 tainly have no influence over him. But, in this state of 
 mind, neither will the Catholic. A man who will not 
 learn to be sorry for having injured a fellow creature is 
 certainly not likely to believe that he is to be sent to hell 
 on account of this injury. Every one knows, moreover, 
 that the Catholic sacraments of confession, and absolu- 
 tion, and extreme unction are arranged so conveniently 
 to cover all sins with the least possible amount of specifi- 
 cation or trouble of repentance, that a man would be a 
 mere fool who should refuse to take such trouble, and 
 yet fail to gratify himself with everything he wanted and 
 was able to procure. The logic of the doctrine is such 
 that it may be safely asserted that the moralities which 
 have developed and even flourished in the Catholic 
 church, have done so not because, but in spite of doc- 
 trines, so clearly, often so odiously immoral. 
 
 What now becomes of the grand indictment against 
 Positivism on the score of morality ? This, it will be re- 
 membered, was under three heads. In the first place the 
 Positivists are said to destroy the morality of the moral 
 law, by denying as characteristic its essential attributes. 
 In the second place it is alleged that they make of man 
 
A REPLY. 193 
 
 an automatic part of nature, in whom actions result from 
 physical or natural impulses, as involuntarily, as mechan- 
 ically, and as irresistibly as a weather vane is blown to- 
 wards the east by a wind coming from the west. To such 
 a being it is absurd to attribute moral responsibility for 
 actions which he cannot choose but commit. And 
 finally, assuming that nothing exists but what science can 
 demonstrate to the senses, " in other words, that the im- 
 material is the non-existent," Positivism claims to have 
 destroyed the supernatural, and " by a mere dogmatic 
 statement which can give no logical account of itself, but 
 by which the modern world has been cowed," (p. 244), 
 it has landed us in a " fatalism that will allow to us no- 
 moral being at all." (p. 255.) 
 
 We have seen, in opposition to this rhetorical accusa- 
 tion, that Positivism was no such impossible " material- 
 ism " as Mr. Mallock crudely supposes, or perhaps as he 
 pretends to suppose it to be. That, as it accepts the tes- 
 timony of consciousness as equally valid with the testi- 
 mony of the senses, it has not the least idea of denying 
 an " immaterial will," all the more as the conception of a 
 " material will " is so nonsensical that it cannot for a 
 moment be entertained. That physical science does not 
 pretend to discuss the facts of consciousness or the laws 
 of the operation of the will ; but that psychical science 
 does so, partly by methods borrowed from the physical sci- 
 ences, partly by methods peculiar to itself. That the 
 notions of a " supernatural agency arranging the mole- 
 
194 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 cules of the brain," — of a self determining free will estab- 
 lished like an innermost entity in the secret recesses of 
 a supernatural entity, the soul, — are rejected, not because 
 they are immaterial, but because neither the testimony 
 of consciousness nor the testimony of the senses contain 
 the slightest datum whence they may be inferred. That 
 on the contrary it is believed that spontaneous activity, 
 originating in the forces of an individual organism, is 
 shown by observation to be the essential characteristic of 
 a conscious individual, by which he is to be distinguished 
 from an automaton. That in any individual sufificiently 
 developed to possess a moral sense, this was found to con- 
 stitute one of the permanent forces of the organism ; that 
 the power of foreseeing the consequences of our own ac- 
 tions, is invariably accompanied by the power of modify- 
 ing actions in accordance with such foresight ; therefore to 
 any one endowed with a moral sense, actions invested with 
 a moral character * and performed according to individual 
 choice, are actions for which the individual is morally re- 
 sponsible, just as he is neutrally responsible for walking 
 without a stumble when he has the normal power over 
 his limbs, and the normal power of seeing an obstruction 
 in the road. That the Positivist or natural sense of re- 
 sponsibility differs from the Mallockian or supernatural 
 (?) in that it is not supposed to serve as an excuse either 
 for some higher power to inflict a punishment, or for the 
 
 * Which, as seen, is not attributable to all actions, many of which are in- 
 ' different. 
 
A REPLY. 195 
 
 acting individual to find grounds for evading punishment ; 
 for such evasion was showJi to be impossible, as all ac- 
 tions are followed by appropriate consequences, many of 
 which are necessarily felt by the agent. In any case the 
 consequences are felt in the Social Organism : and Posi- 
 tivist moral education constantly tends towards develop- 
 ing a state of mind and feeling, which should regard this 
 social consequence as even more important than a personal 
 one. Finally, to Positivism, the moral law is a complete 
 elaboration of the social consciousness, studying human re- 
 lations in their effects, immediate and remote, on social re- 
 lations. Its judgments may in any given case be most pre- 
 cise and positive, and are always independent of individual 
 designs ; but they cannot be called absolute in any sense, 
 since they are always relative to the nature and extent of 
 the social relation involved.* Positivism lays stress on the 
 necessity of the inward obedience of the heart to the 
 moral law, since without this, external obedience is either 
 false or uncertain ; it demonstrates the importance of 
 moral laws by tracing their connections with the funda- 
 mental conditions of social existence ; it steadily endeav- 
 ors to increase the influence of the social rewards and 
 penalties which naturally attach to moral or immoral con- 
 duct, by intensifying the sense of community of interest 
 with the social organism ; and in so doing subordinates 
 the conscious happiness or unhappiness which may result 
 
 * Catholicism offers an example of similar relativity, by its division into 
 mortal sin and venial sin. 
 
196 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 to each from his own conduct, to the wider question of 
 the effects of this upon all. 
 
 From which it should appear, we think, that Positivism 
 is very far from " destroying or paralyzing the faculty of 
 moral judgment in us," although it refuses to call this 
 judgment supernatural. And it certainly tends to elimi- 
 nate nothing from that complex constitution of life, upon 
 which is based such art as created Macbeth or the An- 
 tigone. 
 
 In stating that a certain development of social con- 
 sciousness was required in order to make effective the 
 most characteristic rewards and penalties which Positiv- 
 ism attributes to the moral law, we find ourselves again 
 formally at issue with Mr. Mallock. He believes himself 
 to have make the same statement in saying that the 
 Positivists make sociology the foundation of morality ; 
 and believes also, that he has so effectually shown the 
 absurdity of this foundation, that no one will be inclined 
 to build on it any more. We have several times glanced 
 at Mr. Mallock's conception of sociology ; let us now ex- 
 amine it a little more in detail. 
 
 "The province of the sociologist," says our author, 
 "within certain limits, is clear enough. His study is to 
 the social body what the study of the physician is to the 
 individual body. It is the study of human action as pro- 
 ductive or non-productive of some certain general good." 
 (p. 50.) 
 
 In this last sentence we find definitely stated the entire 
 
A REPLY. 197 
 
 misconception, equally unnecessary and profound, which 
 vitiates all that Mr. Mallock has to say on the subject of 
 sociology. A better understanding of his own simile 
 might have saved him from error. For the study of the 
 physician is directed towards seeing, not how any " gen- 
 eral good " is to be evolved from the functions of the 
 different organs of the body, but how these maintain its 
 life and provide for its development. Sirnilarly, sociology 
 is the science of the social body or organism. It searches 
 out its parts, ascertains their mutual relations or successive 
 subordinations to one another, discovers their functions, 
 demonstrates what conduces to the fulfilment of these 
 functions, what, on the contrary, hinders and thwarts 
 them ; traces the line of progressive growth along which 
 is arranged the series of its events, and by observation of 
 that line, penetrates backwards towards its origin and 
 forwards towards its probable future destinies. Sociology 
 may be said to include the history, the anatomy, physi- 
 ology, pathology and therapeutics of the social organism. 
 It does not include its morals, because morality, derived 
 from the mutual relations of elements in the organism, is 
 an attribute of them and not of it.* In its definitions of 
 the relations of these elements, it furnishes the funda- 
 mental data for the philosophy of the moral law ; but 
 this moral law is subsidiary to social science, and is en- 
 forced by public sentiment and public opinion. Similar- 
 
 * As osmosis is a phenomenon associated with the Ufe of all the elements 
 of our animal body,, but evidently has nothing to do with that body as a 
 whole. 
 
198 IS LIFE won TH LIVING? 
 
 \y sociology is not concerned with " general happiness," 
 further than that this term is an expression for such 
 nutritive well-being of the elements of society as may 
 secure the proper performance of the functions of its 
 organs. Mr. Mallock is right in considering this to be 
 the " negative condition of happiness," not happiness 
 itself. Happiness is a spontaneous result of the free 
 play of the forces of life, or else is the creation of art, 
 which, though deriving its data from the science of 
 sociology, is necessarily independent of it, as art is 
 always independent of science. 
 
 When, therefore, Mr. Mallock asserts, " The Positive 
 school contend that it [the general good] is general hap- 
 piness ; and that there is the answer to the great question. 
 What is the test of conduct and the true end of life ? " 
 he misrepresents the subject. If happiness be considered 
 a test, it is as an ultimate and not as an immediate test 
 of conduct. It is Catholicism, with its one promise of 
 eternal felicity, — and not Positivism, which comes the 
 nearest to proposing personal happiness as the aim of 
 effort. 
 
 We have said already, " existence being the highest 
 conceivable necessity, every thing which conduces to the 
 extension of the largest existence involved, is good ; 
 every thing which tends to its diminution is an evil." 
 Therefore Positivism applauds as leading to the " highest 
 good" possible under the circumstances, many events 
 which were productive of much individual misery. It 
 applauds the heroic resistance of the Netherlands to Spain, 
 
A REPLY. 199 
 
 notwithstanding sieges, and floods, and starvation of 
 women and children. It applauds the emigration of the 
 Puritans, though it led them into a wilderness of savage 
 enemies, into hardships and pestilence and famine. It 
 applauds the American civil war, though it strewed the 
 land from the bayous of Louisiana, to the swamps of 
 Chickahominy, with the flower of- a nation's youth. To 
 call such great social events productive of social happiness 
 would indeed be absurd. But they all tended to a larger 
 life ; to the expansion of interests and energies that had 
 been threatened with fatal repression ; and, for reasons 
 already stated, this expansion of social existence consti- 
 tuted a general good, to which individual happiness was 
 justly subordinated. 
 
 The theory of Utilitarianism would indeed be as self- 
 contradictory as Mr. Mallock tries to make it out, were it 
 not for this conception of the needs of the social organ- 
 ism, with which individual needs must incessantly be 
 compared. And it is impossible, as we have several times 
 found occasion to insist, for anyone to have an adequate 
 conception of the social organism, who does not under- 
 stand the organic nature of individuals. In the physical 
 part of these we find a constant subordination of individ- 
 ual cells to tissues, of tissues to organs; a constant inter- 
 dependence of the functions of these upon one another. 
 It is true that no healthy physical organism offers exam- 
 ples of the sacrifice of one part to another, or to the 
 welfare of the whole, which is most complete when that 
 
200 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 of all the parts is perfect. Throughout the organic world 
 however, we find such sacrifice entailed by the necessities 
 of reproduction, which always involve greater or less dis- 
 integration of the individual, thus compelled to personal 
 sacrifice for the sake of the race.* Other partial and 
 temporary sacrifices of the body as a whole, become nec- 
 essary, in order to secure larger advantages for that body, 
 in proportion as the individual rises higher in the or- 
 ganic scale, and especially as he becomes endowed with 
 the distinctively animal capacity of locomotion. Then, 
 to secure food, or better and more abundant food, he is 
 often compelled to submit to considerable fatigue and 
 hardship, thus making his body suffer for the sake of 
 his body. When in man, a deliberately conscious soul is 
 added, still more imperious needs are awakened, to which 
 the ease and even the needs of the body are often 
 willingly sacrificed. Finally, these mental needs become 
 subordinated to one another, not in any fixed order, but 
 in varying ways according to the varying character of 
 the individual. At the present stage of human develop- 
 ment, few persons are equally conscious of all the needs 
 of their moral nature ; they sacrifice some to others un- 
 knowingly, and often unaware that they have made a 
 sacrifice. The indolent man sacrifices his reputation 
 to his sloth ; the selfish sacrifices sympathy to greed ; the 
 violent defeats his own purposes for the gratification of 
 
 * It is well known that Mr. Spencer has insisted at length on the fact that 
 reproduction always involves disintegration of parents. 
 
A REPLY. 201 
 
 avoiding restraint. Similarly the scholar and poet are 
 ready to sacrifice health to their dreams, the statesman 
 friendship to his ambition, and so on. The normal con- 
 dition, if we may judge from the example of lower types, 
 is the maintenance of such an equilibrium that no sacri- 
 fice should be required ; but that all desires should be 
 satisfied in due proportion, without excess and without 
 privation. 
 
 But it seems probable that the close dependence of hu- 
 man satisfaction upon the social organism, and the ex- 
 treme complexity of this makes the attainment of such 
 equilibrium, or at least its maintenance for a long time, 
 impossible. Hence the rise and development of the dis- 
 tinctively human capacity for voluntary sacrifice, known 
 to be in a normal direction whenever the less is sacrificed 
 to the greater, and not the reverse. Hence the honor 
 which has gradually accrued to the spirit of self-sacrifice, 
 as social honor inevitably tends to accrue to those known 
 efforts which are at once difficult and necessary, which 
 contradict primitive types, and thus the lowest instincts 
 of human nature, but are needed for the completeness of 
 the higher types, and thus for the complete development 
 of the highest human nature. In this sense Mr. Mallock, 
 echoing Dr. Bushnell, may say, " Gratification is natural ; 
 self-sacrifice is supernatural." The Positivist says : " The 
 fulfilment of needs is according to nature ; the sacrifice 
 of needs for a higher purpose is according to human na- 
 ture." 
 
202 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 These are the considerations which show the irrele- 
 vance of Mr. Maliock's objections to the science of so- 
 ciology, for the purposes for which he applies to it. " Its 
 aim," he says, " is to produce health. Health is an im- 
 portant condition to the full enjoyment of anything, but 
 it will by no means of itself give or guide us to the best 
 thing. A man may be in excellent health, and yet, if he 
 be prudent, be leading a- degrading life. So too may a 
 society. The cities of the Plain may, for all we know to 
 the contrary, have been in excellent social health ; in- 
 deed there is every reason to believe they were." * 
 
 * Mr. Mallock constantly betrays the feebleness of his own moral convic- 
 tions by intimating that without morality, the world, though of course a very 
 wicked place, might continue to be a very agreeable one. A well-known 
 realistic writer, whom we should be far from willing to quote as an artist, 
 but whose frequently disgusting pages, like Hogarth's horrible cartoons, may 
 often render indirect service to morals, has given many powerful illustra- 
 tions of the Positivist doctrine, that the reason for the importance of moral 
 laws is the tendency to social dissojution consequent on their violation. As 
 an offset to some of the luscious pictures quoted, not uncomplacently, by 
 our author from Theophile Gautier. we would cite the foil owing passage from 
 V Assommoh . It is the first occasion on which Coupeau comes home in- 
 toxicated, and reels into the laundry where his wife is at work ; 
 
 " ' Kiss me,' he said. ' You are a good woman.' 
 
 *' As he spoke, he gave a sudden lurch, and fell among the skirts. 
 
 " ' Do take care,' said Gervaise, impatiently, ' you will get them all mixed 
 again.' And she gave him a little push with her foot, whereat all the other 
 women cried out ; 
 
 " ' He is not like most men,' said Madame Putois. ' They generally wish 
 to beat you when they come in like this.' 
 
 " Gervaise already regretted her momentary vexation, and assisted her hus- 
 band to his feet, then turned her cheek to him with a smile, but he put his 
 arm around her and kissed her neck. She pushed him aside with a 
 laugh. 
 
 " ' You ought to be ashamed,' she said, then yielded to his embrace. And 
 the long kiss they exchanged before these people, amid the sickening odor of 
 the soiled linen and the alcoholic fumes of his breath, was the first down- 
 ward step in the slow descent of their degradation." (Italics ours.) 
 
 Would not the " absolute rule " of Catholicism have rather justified this 
 wifely submission ? 
 
A REPLY. 203 
 
 We think examples less far-fetched, more to the pur- 
 pose and more amenable to practical discussion, might 
 have been selected than the semi-mythical cities of the 
 Plain. However, the example is of minor importance. 
 What is of importance is that the difificulty here, unlike 
 that about hell, etc., is entirely of voluntary creation. 
 Health, " including in the social organism sufficient wealth 
 and freedom,"- may be enough to secure happiness or 
 pleasure for a certain time, but no Positivist supposes 
 that it necessarily secures either dignity or morals. The 
 possibility of obtaining temporary happiness independent 
 of these, results from the human range of choice within 
 the sphere of its own activities, whereby these may be 
 temporarily restrained much within the limits of their nat- 
 ural expansion. There is, however, a constant tendency 
 to expansion ; or, in other words, every human being has 
 an iaherent tendency to live his full life, and when a per- 
 sistent voluntary limitation to certain parts of it, as, for 
 instance, to sensual enjoyments, has destroyed the ca- 
 pacity for realizing this tendency, a profound misery is, 
 sooner or later, the inevitable consequence. The blun- 
 der of the sensualist is that he seeks the infinity in the 
 finite. 
 
 Nature has set a double bounds to his attempt : satiety, 
 and the degradation and ruin of faculties, whose exercise 
 is incompatible with his vices. It is on this account that 
 they arc vices, and it is contemplation of the results 
 towards which they tend, that gradually generates moral 
 
204 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 repugnance for them, even when, by extreme prudence, 
 these results will, in individual cases, be avoided. The 
 moral taste is developed at least as slowly as any other, 
 and all experience shows that until it is developed, the 
 moral law, though preached with all the fervor of an 
 apostle, is incapable of being practised with the inward- 
 ness and sense of supreme importance that Mr. Mallock 
 justly claims for it. 
 
 It is, however, precisely such " impassioned and unsel- 
 fish cooperation with the social law," which Mr. Mallock 
 asserts to be impossible, " in the absence of any farther 
 end to which the social law is to be subordinate." (p. 60.) 
 The " farther end " which Mr. Mallock contemplates, is 
 submission to the will of God. But as we have already 
 seen, there is no way of ascertaining the will of God, 
 supposing it to exist, except by study of its expression 
 in the facts of the social organism, which are interpreted 
 by the social law. Therefore if this " impassioned co- 
 operation " be impossible under Positivism, it must be 
 equally so under Theism. 
 
 Mr. Mallock thinks that " the fact in human nature on 
 which the Positive school rely for their practical motive 
 power," is the possession of sympathy and benevolence. 
 " It is by these that the rules of social morality are to be 
 absorbed, and attracted into ourselves, and made the 
 directors of all our other impulses. The feelings, how- 
 ever, that are thus relied on * * * are unequal in 
 their distribution, partial and capricious in their action, 
 
A REPL V. 205 
 
 and disturbed and counterbalanced by the opposite im- 
 pulse of selfishness, which is just as much a part of our 
 nature and just as generally distributed." (pp. 61 and 62.) 
 
 Mr. Mallock therefore returns to his original proposition 
 that it is impossible to bring any motive to bear to in- 
 fluence the conduct of man in any particular direction, 
 other than the threat that if they do not go in that direc- 
 tion they will infallibly go to hell. 
 
 It is evident from these remarks that Mr. Mallock sup- 
 poses Positivism to expect that every human being sub- 
 mitted to the moral law, is to be capable of analyzing it 
 to its elements, and of tracing its origin in such social 
 necessities as we have exposed. But since all Catholics 
 are not expected to understand the " recondite doctrines " 
 which have been elaborated for their faith, all Positivists 
 are not expected to philosophically analyse the doctrines 
 which, if examined, would have been thus analysed for 
 their understanding. Can no one obey the laws of health 
 but physicians ? Are we obliged to reflect on the pro- 
 cesses of digestion every time we eat our dinner? 
 
 The art of living is necessarily based on the science of 
 life. It is especially when failures in the art are threat- 
 ened, that it is necessary to have recourse to the science, 
 in order to explain the causes of such failures, and to find 
 out if possible the means of averting them. Otherwise 
 inquiry into the science, though of the highest specula- 
 tive interest, and always to be made by all persons of 
 calibre adequate to the task, is not practically essential. 
 
2o6 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 The " motive force " of life is n(?t reason, which, as Comte 
 remarks, can only give light, but not force. The motive' 
 force is always a passion, active or latent ; a passion ap- 
 propriate to some special line of action, and, as we have 
 seen, inevitably generated during the repetition of such 
 actions. It sometimes is a sympathetic passion for the 
 welfare of humanity ; but quite as often it is something 
 entirely distinct from this, even when the line of action 
 it enforces has come to be considered right, because found 
 to ultimately conduce to human welfare. Thus the 
 sense of personal honor, susceptible of becoming a pas- 
 sion of the utmost intensity, and also of operating in- 
 juriously upon a certain segment of society, is, neverthe- 
 less, justly regarded as a moral sentiment, because on the 
 whole, it is essential to every high character and to every 
 high society. The man absorbed in it, may nevertheless, 
 at any given moment, be the farthest in the world from 
 thinking of sympathy or of benevolence. 
 
 It is the aim of Positivism, and of the moral education 
 it designs, to bring the doctrine of the social organism, 
 and of the organic relations of human beings, more and 
 more vividly into the consciousness of mankind. Well 
 aware of the feebleness of the sympathetic instincts, it at- 
 tributes to their lack of development, or to their system- 
 atic perversion, a large part of the miseries and inade- 
 quacies, and disappointments which at present darken 
 human life. It proposes therefore to develop such sen- 
 timents by every practicable means. It addresses those 
 
A REPLY. 207 
 
 who are capable of speculation with the true philosophy 
 of the doctrine, and confides to them the task of continu- 
 ally expounding and explaining it ; of enforcing it by 
 exhortation and illustration, by principle and by pre- 
 cept. Thus to the priests of Catholicism, Positivism 
 opposes the philosophers. Over those unable to really 
 understand ideas, it extends the influence of feelings, 
 emotions, sentiments generated by ideas. It commands 
 the ignorant, compels the vicious, trains the young 
 and the weak. Positivism, in a word, proposes to 
 do with its doctrine exactly what Catholicism has 
 done with hers, — to extend it gradually but surely, 
 over every department of human life ; not as an ar- 
 bitary unity, but as an organic power centralized in 
 vitality, manifold in effects and application. Were 
 the general appreciation of social relations to-day in- 
 definitely further removed frc5m the true standard than 
 it is ; were it as feeble and insignificant as Mr. Mal- 
 lock asserts it to be ; Positivism would be at least as 
 much justified in preaching this central social doctrine 
 now, as was Catholicism justified in preaching an as- 
 cetic purity, to a world that seemed absolutely in- 
 capable of understanding it. 
 
 From all this may be seen how completely errone- 
 ous is the supposition that "positive morality presup- 
 poses some one kind of happiness, which is open to 
 all men, and which is better than all others ; " (p. 44), 
 some unique Prize of Life. This is exactly what Cath- 
 
208 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 olicism presupposes, and calls the prize eternal salva- 
 tion. This salvation is so important that it not only 
 surpasses all earthly interests, but theoretically and 
 practically annihilates the majority of these altogether. 
 Love, knowledge, sympathy, action, the delight of the 
 eyes, the pride of life, these must be and have been 
 effaced in the precise ratio of nearness of the porten- 
 tous, unknown, unimaginable Prize, which loomed over 
 earth from the heavens. 
 
 For this prize Positivism pretends to offer no equiva- 
 lent. Nor does it, as Mr. Mallock supposes, identify 
 the highest happiness with morality. Observance of 
 moral laws is essential to the highest happiness, because 
 essential to the largest development of life. But such 
 observance is the means, not the end. A merchant 
 does not go to sea in order to observe maritime law ; 
 but he observes the law in order to be able, with least 
 let or hindrance, to go to sea. So a virtuous man does 
 not live in order to practice virtue, but he practices 
 virtue in order to be able to live, in the way which has 
 come to be alone tolerable to him. 
 
 Happiness is the state of individual consciousness that, 
 as a rule, occurs spontaneously, when all the powers of 
 the individual are in equilibrium ; when he is sufficiently 
 occupied to keep his energies in tension without strain ; 
 when his thoughts and his sympathies have each an ade- 
 quate object ; when his imagination is supplied with an 
 horizon, and his self-esteem with the possession of a so- 
 
A REPLY. 209 
 
 cial function. Happiness may occur or be created in the 
 most various ways, like flowers, like poems like music. 
 These spring from the inexhaustible richness of the 
 universe of ideas and things, in which man finds him- 
 self immersed. As already hinted, the creations of art, 
 even in its present more limited sense, of art of the 
 beautiful, ofTer us the type of the freely created situa- 
 tions of delight, which it is the legitimate province of 
 the human intellect to frame for the human soul. But 
 these situations are as varying in number and character 
 as are the souls that are to enjoy them. Mr. Mallock 
 asks Prof. Huxley whether he "has ever enjoyed it [the 
 highest happiness] himself, or whether he hopes to do 
 so. If so, when and where and how? What must be 
 done to get it, and what must be left undone ; and when 
 it is got, what will it be like ? " (p. 40.) We have not the 
 slightest doubt that Prof. Huxley could, if he chose, an- 
 swer these questions very satisfactorily ; but even his 
 answer would not be unique, and when given would very 
 likely prove unintelligible to Mr. Mallock. 
 
 The nearest "common happiness " in which we may all 
 " become partakers," is a delight in life — in life for its 
 own sake, hence a delight in everything that ministers to 
 it, or develops it, or explains it. This delight has always 
 existed, but it is unequally divided, and it is capable, in 
 many places at least, of immensely greater development. 
 
 The classification of " goods " or happinesses as plea- 
 sures is, as Mr. Mallock has justly remarked, " traversed '" 
 
2IO IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 by another, in which the good which is a pleasure, may 
 become subordinated to a good which is a pain. We have 
 already said that this peculiar feature in human life was 
 due to its extreme complexity, which rendered the main- 
 tenance of perfect equilibrium so difficult as to be impos- 
 sible, and constantly necessitated therefore alternative 
 of sacrifices. A common measure for the " good," how- 
 ever, may still be found — found, as hitherto, in the Posi- 
 tivist doctrine — in the conditions of existence. The 
 greater effort implies the greater expenditure of vital 
 force. The effort of self-sacrifice is so great that, when 
 made for a worthy object, it ranks higher than almost 
 any other. The self-sacrifice of a peasant girl may in- 
 volve a greater relative expenditure of vital force than 
 the intellectual effort of a scholar — certainly involves far 
 more than the passive reception of pleasure, on the part 
 of a sybarite. It is in this way that the moral world is 
 brought to a level with the intellectual world, and both 
 are raised above the world of enjoyment, in itself so 
 legitimate. There is no such thing as a unique and com- 
 mon happiness ; there is only a common measure of value 
 and dignity, found in the degree of vital effort expended in 
 the attainment of each good that is recognized as a happi- 
 ness. 
 
 Having reached this point in our examination of Mr. 
 Mallock's essay, and of his accusation against Positivism 
 as something which, unchecked, is destined to plunge the 
 world into " mindless desolation," we are compelled to 
 
A RE PL Y. 211 
 
 pause and answer the question which may have been 
 latent in the minds of certain readers. 
 
 This question is, Why have we taken so much trouble 
 to controvert the positions assumed in this liveliest of 
 philosophical disquisitions? For, whatever merit or de- 
 merit the book may have, there can be no question that 
 it is extremely lively, and, under the circumstances, this 
 attribute of liveliness is liable to be a very dangerous 
 one. It is calculated to attract, and is undoubtedly in- 
 tended to attract, the very persons who are most liable 
 to be imposed upon by its show of argument ; whose 
 ignorance of Positive thought and of the method of physi- 
 cal science is even greater than Mr. Mallock's, and who, 
 therefore, are quite unable to control his innumerable 
 misstatements. Persons moreover who have lost faith in 
 theology, who are no adepts in metaphysics, who, from 
 absence of training, experience a great deal of difficulty 
 in appreciating the full significance of the Positivist doc- 
 trine, and yet who are extremely ill at ease for lack of 
 some general system of ideas which they do not know 
 where to find. These are the persons to whom Mr. Mal- 
 lock refers, in a remark of which he is evidently proud, 
 for he quotes it from one of his own essays : " People 
 cannot be always exclaiming in drawing-rooms that they 
 have lost their Lord, and the fact may be temporarily for- 
 gotten because they have lost their portmanteau. * * * 
 There are many about us, though they never confess their 
 pain, and perhaps themselves hardly like to acknowledge 
 
212 IS LIFE WOR TH LIVING ? 
 
 it, whose hearts are aching for the religion that they can 
 no longer believe in." (p. 201.) Now this class of people, 
 for we are far from denying that they exist, are liable to 
 a certain cold shiver, an inward heart-quake, when they 
 listen to Mr. Mallock's dismal and confident prophecies 
 of what will happen if Positivism is allowed to succeed. 
 When told that the moral life will probably in literal 
 truth, 
 
 " Creep on a broken wing, 
 Through cells of madness, haunts of horror and fear ; " 
 
 that " conscience will remain * * * as the menacing 
 ghost of the religion which [Positivism] has murdered ; " 
 that if the " dawning self-consciousness [of man] contains 
 that negation* of the supernatural which our positive 
 assertions are at present supposed to necessitate, that 
 then * * * this last development of humanity * * * 
 will be the sort of break which takes place when a man 
 awakes from a dream, and finds all that he most prized 
 vanished from him ; " that then " this discovery by man 
 of himself will be the beginning of his decadence : it will 
 be the discovery on his part that he is a lesser and lower 
 thing than he thought he was, and his condition will sink 
 till it tallies with his own opinion of it ; " — when, we say, 
 the readers we are thinking of are told all these things, it 
 is small wonder if they are alarmed. Far less terrible 
 threatenings would suffice to awaken that instinct of con- 
 
 * Does Mr. Mallock's self consciousness " contain a negation " of the 
 Delphic oracle, in whicli nevertheless, we presume he does not believe ? 
 
A REPLY. 213 
 
 servatism, that vague dread of the unknown, latent in the 
 majority of English bosoms, perhaps in the greater num- 
 ber of human hearts. Everyone knows the excitement, 
 half rage, half terror, which has been caused by the theory 
 of the descent of man from apes. If such a sense of 
 ignominy can be felt on account of the condition of our 
 remotest ancestors, whose limitations we unquestionably 
 have outgrown, it is not astonishing that the anticipation 
 of future degradation, much less remote, would fill the 
 souls of those entertaining it with despair. Those who 
 shiver at the thought, that, at a distance of centuries, their 
 great-grandfathers might have been gibbering monkeys, 
 can hardly fail to be still more disconcerted at the pros- 
 pect of seeing their own children converted into " wallow- 
 ing pigs." And, under the pressure of vague alarms and 
 the influence of " sounding phrases," they are not un- 
 likely to flock to Mr. Mallock or to his confessor with 
 the cry, " What shall we do to be saved?" 
 
 There are three reasons why this possibility fills us with 
 an alarm, which is very far from vague. The first is that 
 the answers given by these gentlemen are untrue. The 
 second, that they are powerless for the purpose for which 
 they are designed. The third, that they stand in the way 
 of the appreciation, both of the real difificulties of the 
 present situation and of the real remedies for them. 
 
 To show why we think the answers given by Mr. 
 Mallock are untrue would be to rewrite the foregoing 
 pages. It will be sufficient here to recall the outline of the 
 
■214 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 argument. That Mr. Mallock's accusations of the " de- 
 grading " tendencies of Positivism repose on two unten- 
 able assertions. First, that Positivism " unifies the ap- 
 parent duaHsm of things," denies immaterial feelings, 
 thoughts, ideas, principles, volitions, simply because 
 they cannot be seen or touched, and changes man from 
 a "moral being" to an automatic machine, with con- 
 scious appetites but no conscious personality. Second, 
 that even if this were not so, morality, dignity and en- 
 joyment are rendered impossible in human life so soon 
 as human beings are not supposed to live forever, and 
 so soon as they are not supposed to be gazed upon by 
 a Superhuman Being who created them. The first of 
 these assertions was shown to be in flat contradiction 
 to the Principles of Positivism, which accepts from con- 
 sciousness testimony in regard to the immaterial world, 
 in the same way as it accepts from the senses evidence 
 about the material world, and which considers the re- 
 searches of physical science into this material world, 
 chiefly as the indispensable preliminary to a philosophy 
 of morals and of social life, based, not upon tradition 
 or upon assertion, but upon real analysis of the ele- 
 ments derived from consciousness which enter into 
 them. 
 
 The second assertion, involving, not a question of 
 fact, but a matter of opinion, was contradicted by an 
 appeal to experience. This showed that the moral law, 
 however professing to depend on a divine command. 
 
A REPLY. 215 
 
 was really always evolved by experience, in the same 
 way as any other law, and derived its profoundest 
 sanctions from the accumulated knowledge of the effects 
 of actions, and intensified emotions generated during 
 the acquisition of such knowledge. That no authenti- 
 cated' means of finding out the will of God had ever 
 existed, except study of the universe, he was supposed 
 to have established. That the interests which have 
 really animated human life have always been contained 
 within itself. Even the pleasures and profits of prose- 
 lytism and conversion, though directed professedly to- 
 wards another world, have fully realized all their satis- 
 factions in this one. The fear of another world has 
 indeed often succeeded in making this life uncomfort- 
 able, miserable, wretched to the highest degree, but the 
 hope has rarely exercised much influence except in the 
 fury of battles,* or at those moments of transcendental 
 heroism which Mr. Mallock himself insists must be of 
 rare occurrence. 
 
 It is absolutely impossible that man can be made " an 
 animal of far fewer capacities," (p. i6i) merely by becom- 
 ing fully imbued with the Positive view of himself; since 
 upon any hypothesis a hope of heaven cannot create, but 
 merely direct a capacity. If this hope be taken away 
 therefore the capacity is not annihilated, but turned in 
 other directions. 
 
 * The influence of the hope of Paradise in exciting military ardor is so 
 much more conspicuous than its influence in any otlier direction, that it 
 miyht be adduced as another illustration of the close connection existing 
 between the theological and the military spirit. 
 
2l6 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 The largest existence ever really contemplated by hu- 
 man thought is humanity, and the divine attributes which 
 were supposed to constitute objects of contemplation, 
 are really all derived from this. Whatever sense of 
 dignity might be conferred by the belief that human life 
 was gazed upon and ordered by an unknown Supreme 
 Being, is fully equalled by the dignity of feeling that this 
 same human life constitutes a real part of the most Su- 
 preme Being known. 
 
 We have endeavored further to show that Mr. MaU 
 lock's argument for Theism, professes to be based upon 
 demonstration, not of its truth, but of its utility. That 
 nevertheless, at the very climax of this reasoning, he 
 turns suddenly round and announces that Theism, though 
 useful as furnishing reasons for rendering human life in- 
 teresting and momentous, is really far from giving a log- 
 ical explanation of even its most obvious facts ; that it is 
 useless as a practical guide, and theoretically, only serves 
 to suggest speculative mysteries which are eternally in- 
 soluble and unintelligible. Theism is thus worse than 
 Positivism, unless a special revelation of the, divine will 
 be added to its fundamental dogma. No attempt is made 
 by Mr. Mallock to prove either that any such supernat- 
 ural revelation has been given, or to decide between the 
 conflicting claims of rival revelations. He merely re- 
 marks that, the necessity of revelation once admitted, the 
 Christian revelation must to western minds evidently 
 bear off the palm of supremacy. This conceded, it is fur- 
 
A REPLY. 217 
 
 ther evident that Protestant Christianity must be thrown 
 aside, because destitute of the primary qualification which 
 makes any revelation desirable, namely, a claim to infal- 
 libility. That this claim as made by the Catholic church 
 is, on the contrary, so consistent with this a priori neces- 
 sity of infallibility, that it must be at once admitted as 
 just ; and with it all the dogmas of the Catholic theology ; 
 that none of these need " stagger us," because they are 
 not any more difficult to understand than other things 
 which we do not hesitate to pronounce true. " Simpli- 
 city is no test of truth." 
 
 This last dictum is perfectly true. But the important 
 circumstance in Mr. Mallock's logic is, that no test of 
 truth is considered necessary. Having vehemently de- 
 nounced certain persons who he thinks are trying to 
 make moral truth a matter of individual taste, he yet 
 does not hesitate to advocate a principle which must 
 make all truth a matter of individual convenience and 
 caprice. His doctrine is, "Whatever seems comfort- 
 able for the moment, is to be believed, for there can be 
 no other office for belief than that of making human 
 hearts comfortable." Mr. Mallock says that " Prof. Huxley 
 will only be laughed at and not listened to, if he pro- 
 claims his own taste in sweetmeats with all the thunders 
 of Mt. Sinai." (p. 122.) But he fails to tell how //w own 
 tasts for sweetmeats, — and sweetmeats of the most lus- 
 cious and least nutritive kind, is to be commended to any 
 one who has rather a robust preference for beefsteak 
 
2l8 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 We believe that Mr. Mallock flatters Positivism when 
 he attributes to it exclusively a sense of the importance 
 of truth. Every system of thought, theological, meta- 
 physical, philosophic, has always insisted on such im- 
 portance, so long as it was conscious of enough vital 
 vigor to defend its own claims to be the sole interpreter 
 of truth. No surer sign of conscious decrepitude could 
 be imagined than this device of modern religiosities, to 
 evade laborious search after truth by pretending that 
 truth is unnecessary. Mr. Mallock conceals this stigma 
 of decrepitude by an air of vivacity, which, like the 
 lively gestures of an old coquette, can only deceive at a 
 distance. He calls " devotion to truth as truth," the 
 " last resource " of the Positivists. He upbraids these for 
 wishing to hold to truth at all hazards, and in spite of its 
 consequences ; he ridicules the idea of applying " ethical 
 adjectives," as " sacred " and " lofty " to any such 
 truths as the Positivists can concern themselves with ; or 
 " heroic " to the most self-sacrificing efforts made to dis- 
 cover and establish them. He alleges various examples 
 to show that " the truths that it is sacred to find out and 
 to publish are not all truths, but truths of a certain kind 
 only," (p. 153), an exquisitely Jesuitical doctrine. "A 
 man discovers that his wife has been seduced by his best 
 friend. Is there any thing very high or very sacred in 
 that discovery? Having made it, does he feel any con- 
 solation in the knowledge that it is the entire truth? and 
 will the gladness of true heroism visit him if he proclaims, 
 
A REPLY. 219 
 
 it to everyone in his club? A chattering nurse betrays his 
 danger to a sick man. Was the discovery of the truth of 
 his danger very glorious for the patient, or was its pub- 
 lication very sacred in the nurse?" (p. 153.) Such are 
 the examples which Mr. Mallock adduces as parallel to 
 the vast questions of the significance of human life, and 
 of its relations to powers within or without it ! 
 
 " Thus," he concludes, "his [the Positivist's] devotion 
 to truth, if it mean anything, and the language he often 
 uses about it betrays this, let us know the worst, not let 
 us find out the best : a wish which is neither more nor 
 less noble than the wish to sit down at once in a slop 
 upon the floor rather than sustain oneself any longer 
 above it on a chair that is discovered to be rickety." 
 (p. 160.) 
 
 We might notice that the courage to know the worst 
 is generally accompanied by a resolution to fight for the 
 best attainable. That not Positivists alone would regard 
 as a mark of childish weakness, a deliberate choice of 
 false security in preference to real knowledge of a real 
 situation, which must, sooner or later, make itself known. 
 And that the indolent fool in Mr. Mallock's wilfully ig- 
 noble simile, who, to avoid wetting his feet, would cling 
 to a rickety chair for support, really deserves to fall to a 
 much lower depth than "a slop on the floor." 
 
 But we are not sorry Mr. Mallock has chosen this 
 simile of a rickety chair. We believe that it does indeed 
 well symbolize the kind of moral support which to-day 
 
2 20 IS LIFE WOR TH LI VING ? 
 
 may be afforded by the worn-out dogmas of Catholicism. 
 We are far from believing that the love of truth, more 
 than any other virtue, is innate in the human breast or 
 even springs eternal there. It is gradually developed 
 from three sources, each the experience of a special 
 necessity. These are, the necessity for confidence in the 
 mutual relations of human beings, which develops the 
 sense of honor towards men ; the necessity that anything 
 which is done or made should really be what it proposes 
 to be, — source of integrity in work ; finally, the necessity 
 of understanding the real relations towards ourselves of a 
 world with which we are incessantly coming into relation, 
 — source of desire for reality in knowledge. 
 
 Thus honor, integrity and science, derived from differ- 
 ent aspects of human relations, converge to a single sense 
 of truth, that tends to become the more sacred the more 
 human life is seen to depend upon it. No Pontius Pilate 
 jests at truth when it concerns the efficacy of the medi- 
 cines which are to bring his son from the brink of the 
 grave. No Sunday-school regrets the exactitude with 
 which a mineralogist may have determined the line of 
 cleavage of crystals, when upon the precision of this 
 knowledge may depend the safety of the bridge to be 
 crossed by its picnic party. The knowledge of the un- 
 foreseen effects of knowledge or of ignorance, which has 
 only been really obtained in modern times, is the reason 
 that in these times the feeling about truth has intensified 
 from a lukewarm acquiescence, to a powerful passion, 
 
yl REPLY. 221 
 
 which, in the final stage of its development, is able to 
 detach itself from the original utilities and exist for its own 
 sake ; is able to become an end, a satisfaction in itself, 
 and, as Mr. Mallock justly remarks, an immense resource 
 of modern life. Science unquestionably arose from the 
 need of inquiring into the nature of the things which 
 man wished to use. But at the present day, a true 
 scientist would hold that science was belittled if limited 
 to obvious or even to remote utilities ; that knowledge 
 is to be acquired in order to enable us to know ; that 
 "the solution of every problem suggests new questions 
 to be solved," * and that the highest and most per- 
 manent usefulness of scientific truth is in the inexhaust- 
 ible field of activity it offers to the human intellect. 
 
 But how does this differ from the old consecrated as- 
 sertion that the final occupation of the human race was 
 to be the contemplation of the divine perfection ? For 
 where are these to be found displayed except in the works 
 of the creation ? 
 
 Thus if it ever be possible for a virtue, acquired in the 
 course of social evolution, to " become primary," it cer- 
 tainly would be the virtue of truth. It is essential to ac- 
 tion, it is indispensable to thought, and for those who 
 make the development of thought the practical business 
 of their lives, the desire of truth for its own sake is rein- 
 forced by a sense of honor towards fellow creatures who 
 are to depend upon them for finding it out. They do 
 
 * Stanley Jevons, loc. cit. 
 
222 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 not dare to decide which truths are useful and important 
 and which may be neglected, for to do this would be to 
 make of their own fallible opinion the arbiter of human 
 destinies. For art, it is permitted to select, to choose ; 
 but for science, for reality, for what is to form the basis 
 of a philosophy of life, no knowledge of life may safely 
 be omitted, no laborious precision of detail be considered 
 superfluous.* 
 
 The great Positivist doctrine about truth is, that it is 
 always an expression of relations existing between the 
 human mind and the object that is contemplated by it. 
 Things are not known in themselves, but only as they 
 affect us and as we can perceive them. What is true for 
 us is what we see to be true, and any other truth is in- 
 conceivable by our minds. But as we are only concerned 
 in the relations of things to ourselves, the most perfect 
 expression of truth for us means the most comprehen- 
 sive and exact statement of these relations. Thus the 
 highest truth necessarily coincides with the widest 
 utility. 
 
 This, as we have already hinted, is the elementary phil- 
 osophy of the text-books, to-day almost everywhere ad- 
 mitted in place of the ancient ontological speculations, 
 or researches into the nature of Being. But that this 
 doctrine, or else its consequences, are not universally or 
 
 * We think there is a profound philosophical error in the claim so often 
 made at the present day, that because science must be universal, art must be 
 realistic, and may be enjoined to copy, not only the true, but the ugly and 
 the repulsive. 
 
A REPLY 223 
 
 completely understood, even by the nations whose phil- 
 osophers have been the foremost to establish it, is shown 
 by this extraordinary attempt of as popular a writer as 
 Mr. Mallock, to prove that there can be a higher utility 
 than truth, and to demonstrate that belief on the most 
 important subjects can and should repose on something 
 else than demonstration. 
 
 The plausibility of this attempt is derived from a cir- 
 cumstance which thinkers have no right to take into ac- 
 count, but for which those who desire to practically in- 
 fluence public opinion must make wide allowance. This 
 is the inability of the mass of people to think, and their 
 correlative liability to be led by emotional considerations 
 from anything which seems either tedious or alarming, 
 and towards anything which seems piquant and attrac- 
 tive. It is to these people, and not to thinkers, that Mr. 
 Mallock's essay is addressed. Any one who has once be- 
 come accustomed to ask as first question, " Is it true ? " 
 becomes immediately indifferent when told, " It is not 
 exactly true, but, etc., etc." So when Mr. Mallock slips 
 in, almost as if it were some legal technicality designed 
 to protect himself against possible injunctions, the re- 
 mark, " as to t^xz proof of all this, we may as well admit, 
 at least provisionally, that there is none," persons accus- 
 tomed to seek truth for a foundation, cannot fail to be ' 
 irretrievably repelled from further interest in the matter. 
 They feel themselves in the position of a capitalist who 
 should have been invited to invest a fortune in building 
 
224 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 a block of houses in the clouds. " Only a single jump," 
 says the subscription agent, with a persuasive wave of the 
 hand, " and you are there ; and the first stone once laid, 
 the whole structure rises almost of itself." 
 
 " Like an exhalation " adds the man of substance, and 
 declines to invest. But how shall those who are not men of 
 substance regard this beautiful structure of clouds ? How 
 shall they learn to detect the unwholesome fens, the 
 stagnant marshes, the pestilential swamps, that have bred 
 these watery vapors, which glitter for a moment so bril- 
 liantly while tinged by a roseate fancy or by the violet of 
 a languishing imagination? 
 
 Indeed we hardly know ; and it is experience of the 
 tenacity with which the forces of imagination and affec- 
 tion cling to old ideals, the reluctance with which, at the 
 bidding of reason, they attach themselves to new, that 
 convinces us that the " complete triumph of Positivism " 
 is much farther off than Mr. Mallock fears. It is useless 
 to build a house on the most solid foundations, with the 
 strongest walls, the noblest over-arching roof ; the human 
 soul stands shivering on the threshold, and will not enter 
 in to take possession until it has been completely furn- 
 ished ; until its ceilings have been dimmed by clustered 
 associations, and its hearth-stones have become browned 
 by many fires. And yet, with its old dwelling places 
 masses of crumbling ruins, not burned, but worm-eaten 
 with gradual decay, where is the poor, roofless soul to 
 find shelter? 
 
A REPLY. 225 
 
 Not, we energetically protest, within those ancient 
 sanctuaries, picturesque as I'uins, but deadly as habita- 
 tions. The remedy for languor and weakness is not the 
 transient stimulant of half sensuous excitement, which 
 quickens the pulse for a moment, only to leave the real 
 prostration more profound. The only remedy for weak- 
 ness, is the severe, strenuous, unrelenting cultivation of 
 strength. We believe indeed that the thorough and logi- 
 cal acceptance of Positivism necessitates immensely more 
 strength than belief in Catholicism : we believe that the 
 rise of the Positivist doctrine, is an important evidence 
 of that " expansion of human powers," which Mr. Mallock 
 thinks so incredible ; but we are convinced also, that it 
 works steadily for their constant expansion, while the 
 essential crime of Catholicism is in its ceaseless efforts 
 for their repression. The Positivist doctrine nourishes 
 the strength it demands ; the Catholic, perpetuates the 
 weakness it offers to sustain, and eternalizes the woes it 
 promises to comfort. 
 
 Is there no reality in these woes? Is there no prospect 
 of difficulty or of danger, peculiar to modern times which 
 may justify notes of warning? Have any such great 
 changes recently taken place in the conditions of human 
 life, as may give an entirely " new import " to the ques- 
 tion of its value and significance? What situation does 
 Mr. Mallock really have in view, when he announces a 
 " practical prospect " of listlessness, weariness, indiffer- 
 ence, ennui and desolation ; prospect of a time when 
 
226 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 prudent sensuality shall have replaced dangerous vice; 
 where the general diffusion of well-being shall have 
 removed all reason for self-cacrificing virtue ; and the 
 facile attainment of material comforts shall deprive exer- 
 tion of its ancient stimuli of want and privation? 
 
 This is no imaginary picture ; nor does it belong to a 
 near or distant future, to dawn upon us with the triumph 
 of Positivism. It is rather a photograph of a sufficiently 
 extensive portion of the " upper classes " in the modern 
 world : a tableau vivant, whose dramatis personse are 
 ornaments in many of the luxurious drawing-rooms which 
 Mr. Mallock evidently frequents, and doubtless also 
 adorns. 
 
 It is very noticeable in studying Mr. Mallock's pages, 
 and the rhetoric which borders them, — often as irrelevant 
 to the purpose as the illuminations of a missal to its text, 
 — that the great, the real, the portentous danger he appre- 
 hends, is that of ennui. We feel constantly that he has 
 been often immeasurably, horribly bored ; that he has 
 seen innumerable fellow-creatures, well dressed, well fed, 
 in good health, without a ripple of anxiety on the surface 
 of their lives, yet suffering so much from boredom that 
 their existence was a burden to them. We feel that Mr. 
 Mallock is as exclusive in his preference for good, even 
 titled company, as ever was our dear old Miss Edgeworth ; 
 that the tears he sees shed are invariably dried by the 
 finest of cambric handkerchiefs ; that the brows he knows 
 to ache are moistened with the best eau de cologne ; 
 
A REPLY. 227 
 
 that the delicate and indiscribable sufferings of which he 
 may have been the confident, have been detailed in cush- 
 ioned armchairs, wheeled near oriel windows, sunk in 
 endless depths of luxurious stillness, calm and repose. 
 We know that our author has observed with sympathy 
 the decorous dulness in which herds of well-bred women 
 pass their days ; he has seen them sigh furtively over 
 their embroidery ; he has seized the propitious moment, 
 and offered them an altar cloth instead. He has seen 
 young men, rich, well educated, emasculated for lack of 
 some worthy object of ambition, sink passively into stupid 
 dissipations. To some of these perchance, on the morn- 
 ing after a debauch, he has suggested the attractions of 
 the cross and the excitements of a new Catholic crusade. 
 He has been listened to with interest ; he has seen young 
 eyes lose their unnatural languor and sparkle with youth- 
 ful hope, fire and energy ; he has known young hearts 
 cease to sicken with a vague disease ; and the same melan- 
 choly of adolescence which he has told us that Mr. Mill 
 learned to terminate in one way, he, to the glory of the 
 church, succeeds in obliterating in another. Mr. Mallock 
 has studied the natural conditions of human life ex- 
 clusively in the examples of those who live in unnatural 
 conditions ; and then concludes that, at the very moment 
 Positivism is about to make a greater demand upon the 
 resources of the world " than ever before," the world has 
 become less able than ever to respond to it. And, as we 
 write, it occurs to us that this circumstance is another 
 
228 IS LIFE WOR Til LI VI NC ? 
 
 point of resemblance between Mr. Mallock and the Em- 
 peror Julian, witli whom we began to compare him. 
 Julian also, from the uppermost heights of Roman so- 
 ciety, was unable to appreciate the condition of the vast 
 strata of human beings lying below ; nor did he really 
 understand the nature of the forces which were upheav- 
 ing these strata into new combinations. The ancient 
 gods, the fair temples, the philosophic nobleness and calm 
 sufficed for him, and sufificed also to disgust him with the 
 unintelligible pretensions of the Nazarene and of the 
 rabble which followed him. We should be glad to be- 
 lieve that the content of Mr. Mallock, as of his leader 
 Father Newman, with their revival of antique faith, were 
 really as profound and sincere as we do not doubt that 
 of the more famous apostate to have been. 
 
 So long as social progress is supposed to consist exclu- 
 sively in the increase of material comfort, the anomaly 
 must continue to confront us, that the very people who 
 are the most comfortable, should be, habitually, the most 
 discontented. The anomaly is only to be explained when 
 the search for a prize to life is precluded by a scientific 
 inquiry into the nature of the persons competing for it. 
 " You must be able," says Mr. Mallock, " to say what / 
 shall have, and I, and I." This is, in a measure, true, or 
 will be true if our science of human nature be found, on 
 inquiry, to be sufficiently advanced to answer the prelim- 
 inary question, " What am I capable of wanting, and I, 
 and I ? " 
 
A REPLY. 229 
 
 We have said several times — since Mr. Mallock has as- 
 serted the contrary several times — that the prize of life, 
 considered as happiness, is not morality, which only fur- 
 nishes the negative conditions of happiness. Neither is it 
 religion, which, with few exceptions, has always been 
 looked upon as furnishing the police force by which these 
 negative conditions could be regulated. It is only when 
 morality and religion have become the motive powers for 
 effort, that they can be thought of as more closely asso- 
 ciated with happiness, since the expenditure of force in 
 successful effort always engenders a happy state of con- 
 sciousness in the person exerting himself. 
 
 The prize of life, or the object of living for each living 
 being, consists in the development of all faculties to their 
 greatest extent which the individual organization admits 
 of, and in the satisfaction of all desires to their utmost 
 possible capacity. The reason for failure and discontent 
 will always be found in the fact, not that a " supernatu- 
 ral " stamp has been effaced, like a spurious watermark, 
 from things which have been valued, but in the fact that 
 some of these valued things have not been obtained, or 
 that an imperfect analysis of the needs of human nature 
 has caused the necessity for certain provisions for attain- 
 ment to be overlooked. 
 
 For if, instead of relying on fantastic dogmatisms, we ap- 
 peal to observation, what do we find as causes of human dis- 
 content, listlessness and weariness ? On the one hand, mil- 
 lions ground down by unremitting toil : on the other hand, 
 
230 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 thousands piningin inactivity. Here men worn prematurely 
 gray by anxiety ; tliere others, prematurely wilted by de- 
 baucheries sought to relieve the tedium of days too free 
 from anxiety. On this side mothers to whom maternity 
 has become a burden ; on that side, virgins to whom 
 childlessness is a curse. Minds uselessly strained by re- 
 sponsibilities too many for them, and minds cruelly com- 
 pressed into duties far too narrow. Energies that can 
 find no employment, and work which remains undone in 
 dearth of adequate energies. Households desolated by 
 untimely deaths, and communities pauperized by un- 
 timely births. Sham art and shallow science justified on 
 pretext of the claims of industry, and successful indus- 
 try, unwieldy and over "fat, unable to procure enjoyment 
 through its abject ignorance of science and art. Man- 
 kind slaving like a spider, which spins eternally from its 
 own bowels, yet starving in hideous misery in the midst 
 of the riches its ceaseless labors have created. Love 
 pampered and despised, worshipped, yet turned out of 
 doors — pretext for the gilded belittlement of the half of 
 the human race it most frequently ruins; love thwarted, 
 fettered, throttled by a thousand things which are not 
 love, or else drowned in dissolute slime. Belief become 
 impossible in nerveless souls that have slipped through 
 the chains of authority, yet find themselves unable to 
 stand alone ; incapable of energetic conviction, because 
 not daring to act in accordance with their convictions; 
 incapable of rooting themselves in a purpose, and therefore 
 
A REPLY. 231 
 
 indifferent to the truth essential to the success of a pur- 
 pose. There is a sense in which it is profoundly true 
 that all personal and social ills may be summed up in 
 the lines : 
 
 But ill for him who, bettering not with time, 
 
 Corrupts the strength of heaven-descended Will, 
 
 And ever weaker grows thro' acted crime, 
 
 Or seeming-genial venial fault, 
 
 Recurring and suggesting still ! 
 
 He seems as one whose footsteps halt. 
 
 Toiling in immeasurable sand. 
 
 And o'er a weary, sultry land. 
 
 Far beneath a blazing vault, 
 
 Sown in a wrinkle of the monstrous hill. 
 
 The city sparkles like a grain of salt. 
 
 Let us take a typical human life as it may be already 
 imagined — and as it already not infrequently exists. A 
 child, well born and well nurtured, with healthy powers 
 unfolding unthwarted, through the Paradise of infancy, 
 cherished in the deep nest of family affection. A youth, 
 securing the delight of vigorous training for faculties of 
 body and soul, whose possession is itself a thrill of delight, 
 led into the inexhaustible realm of knowledge of himself, 
 of his race, of the universe, from thence to select the 
 special equipment for his own career. A man or woman, 
 freely choosing such career from among the innumerable 
 possibilities of social activities, and feeling the first flush 
 of life deepen with the conscious exertion of strenuous 
 energies. A friend tasting the subtle and varied charm 
 of comradeship in action, sympathy in feeling, compan- 
 ionship in life. A lover adding to the charm of friendship. 
 
232 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 the glowing force of a mysterious passion. A parent, con- 
 verging upon a new life all the powers, the riches, the 
 memories, the hopes of his own. A citizen, mingling in 
 the tumult of social existence, sharing its responsibilities, 
 contributing to its maintenance, furthering its pro- 
 gress, ameliorating its miseries, aiding its creations. A 
 philosopher beginning to step aside from the current, 
 with vital energies stored up in riches as fossil forests in 
 coal, to be given out again in new forces, finding in the 
 contemplation of the vast movement of the world, or of 
 the smaller eddies near him, sufficient compensation for 
 the slackening in the impetus of his own life. 
 
 Upon this bare outline of destiny, the natural inheri- 
 tence of every human being, let us recall the the innu- 
 merable combinations of elements, which make up the 
 depth and body of color of the picture. Let us remem- 
 ber how sentiment enriches energy, and how ambition 
 may intensify or compensate for love. How knowledge 
 may redound to personal profit, or social sacrifice become 
 a personal career. How pleasures of the senses make 
 a setting for the delights of the soul, and how the spirit- 
 ual life may be so intense as, for a while, to efface all con- 
 sciousness of the senses. How the love of beauty may 
 become a passion, and the love of knowledge lead where 
 the hope of heaven itself has been insufficient to prevent 
 recoil. How strange and special affinities develop them- 
 selves between the tiniest parts of the universe of things, 
 and the human minds attached to them, so that they 
 
A REPLY. 27,^ 
 
 can live on them and in them as tenaciously as limpets 
 on a rock. How strange and unforseen delights spring 
 up in the midst of calamities, like flowers in the depths 
 of a. morass. How in the conflict with evil, such good is 
 experienced as if the evil itself had been transmitted into 
 good. How the personal pleasures are multiplied in 
 social intercourse, as light is refracted in a prism ; and 
 how personal happiness is intensified in the effort to pro- 
 cure it for other people, as the face of a man answers 
 himself in a mirror. How the joy of animal living is en- 
 nobled by the consciousness of the social function which 
 lifts the man so far above the animals. How the " insolu- 
 ble problem " of the coexistence of good and evil is solved, 
 by seeing that they insensibly pass into each other ; that 
 they are the relative excess or deficiency of each other, 
 and thus necessarily coeternal. That it is therefore im- 
 possible to imagine a world so good that no evil will re- 
 main to be combated, or so evil that no good can be 
 found to continue existence. Perfection is not the at- 
 tribute of a future state, be that a utopia or the millen- 
 inum ; it can only exist in moments, but in jewelled mo- 
 ments which are strewn like diamonds throughout the 
 " depths of space and time." 
 
 Upon this sketch of a human life, successful enough to 
 be generally regarded as desirable, Mr. Mallock would 
 make the criticism that, after all, it does not amount to 
 anything. Indeed he has made this criticism already ; 
 it is the point of departure of his entire essay, the express 
 
234 ^■■5' LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 reason for writing it. The criticism more often and more 
 rationally made is, that this type of living is so rarely 
 realized ; that the regular evolution of life is so often 
 thwarted : its legitimate satisfactions denied : its hopes 
 disappointed : its plans ruined : its powers weakened by 
 mental and bodily illness : its original character degraded ; 
 and above all, that all life is constantly darkened by the 
 shadow of death, by the untimely snatching away of the 
 lives with which it is so closely associated ; by its own 
 too early close at the very moment of fruition. 
 
 In regard to an immense number of the evils which 
 afflict mankind and diminish the desirableness, if not the 
 value of life, modern thought lias given an entirely " new 
 import " or significance. It has ceased to look upon 
 them as chastisements of either just or petulant gods, or 
 to assume for them a providential intention of discipline. 
 Even when profiting by the discipline which strenuous 
 struggle with difficulties affords, the Positivist deplores 
 the waste of energies, most cruel when unsuccessful, but 
 always as cruel as is the waste of life expended in gaining 
 a battle. But he never ceases to look upon the evils as 
 horrors, destined to be outgrown spontaneously, or to be 
 overcome by courageous effort guided by real knowledge. 
 Catholicism means submission to a world inherently evil, 
 and which can only be rendered tolerable by constant 
 meditation upon flight from it. Positivism means mas- 
 tery of a world, naturally imperfect, but tending towards 
 indefinite progress, and destined to submission to the in- 
 
A REPLY. 235 
 
 tellect of man, who is to dwell in it. Positivism is far 
 from fostering that passive acquiescence in spontaneous 
 improvement which Mr. Mallock assumes to be the only 
 logical result of a theory of progress. For it recognizes 
 that, beyond a certain stage of development, changes in 
 human destiny depend immediately upon the combined 
 knowledge, desire and will of human beings, • — and the 
 energies of Positive thought are directed towards modify- 
 ing these with so much the more intensity that they are 
 inspired by assured hope of success. 
 
 It is one of the many silly assumptions that abound in 
 Mr. Mallock's essay, that the efforts of Positivism, and 
 the value of physical science in the amelioration of human 
 life, are expended exclusively upon the attainment of 
 physical comforts. We have already had occasion to 
 notice several ways in which the influence of physical 
 science transcended the material objects with which it 
 might be immediately concerned. The influence upon 
 happiness is not less remarkable. To the degree to which 
 it has dissipated the mysteries enshrouding the material 
 world, physical science has dispelled fear, and the slavish 
 habits bred of fear. To the degree to which it has pro- 
 cured relief from physical pain, physical science has 
 quickened compassion and engendered sentiments of hu- 
 manity. By the same influence it has developed an in- 
 tolerance of suffering which, if sometimes leading to 
 effeminate shrinking from exposure, is as often and more 
 markedly felt in the determination aroused to remove 
 
236 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 suffering even at the expense of personal sacrifice and 
 danger, — felt also in a constantly increasing sensitiveness 
 to conditions accepted during ignorance, but becoming 
 intolerable with every advance in knowledge. The great- 
 est of evils — death — remains, and the fact that Positivism 
 neglects the doctrine of immortality, by means of which 
 the evil of death is supposed to be mitigated, suffices to 
 condemn it in the eyes of an immense number of people. 
 Positivism however questions whether, at the present day 
 at least, the doctrine of immortality does to any serious 
 extent mitigate the pain of death. At the time its influ- 
 ence is most required — by a recent grave — the doctrine 
 cnn be only a hope. But if ten or twenty years roll by, 
 and the moment draws near when the hope may be 
 realized in fact, the horrible pain it has been needed to 
 assuage, has, in the immense majority of cases, subsided. 
 In reality it is not death which is an evil, but premature 
 and useless death. Such are the deaths occurring daily 
 by the million, due to the most ignominious or trifling 
 accidents, mark of tho^ brutal triumph of blind forces as 
 yet unsubjugated by reason and knowledge. For these 
 deaths the only consolation is, that in the present imper- 
 fect condition of things death compensates as much evil 
 as it creates. It is therefore far from useless. But when 
 we remember that the natural term of human life is 
 probably from eighty to a hundred years, it is evident 
 that at present, death is nearly always premature. 
 
 Were no one born into the world, for whose main- 
 
A REPLY. 237 
 
 tenance suitable provision had not been made ; and did 
 no one die except of old age, abject poverty and the 
 terror of death, the two greatest of existing evils, would 
 be annihilated. " The last enemy to be destroyed is 
 death." But until this victory — already conceivable, 
 though so immensely remote — be achieved, we believe 
 that the hope of reunion with the beloved dead can 
 hardly fail to keep alive some form of belief in a life 
 after death. 
 
 It is therefore possible that the personal happiness an- 
 ticipated by Positivism, be only of such a kind " as has 
 been many times experienced already," and not some- 
 thing so new, and vague, as to be " sounding," but quite 
 " unthinkable." Positivism does not desire the sounding 
 brass and tinkling cymbal, to be strummed in front of a 
 curtain whose rising is always promised but constantly 
 postponed. It boldly claims the real music, which it 
 knows may be created by those who have really mastered 
 the science of harmony. When Mr. Mallock asks us 
 " what do you want from Life?" We answer, " Every- 
 thing that the experience of thousands of years shows 
 that it has in store for us," and when he further says, 
 "what does your altruistic sentiment impel you to seek 
 for your fellow-man ? " We answer, " Everything which 
 we ourselves desire, and that he is able to receive." 
 
 In the above outline of life, which we believe may at 
 least fitly parallel Mr. Mallock's culmination of existence 
 at the feet of a tinsel and plaster madonna, is implied the 
 
238 /S LIFE WOR TH LI VJA G ? 
 
 constant presence of one condition, which however is not 
 by any means always present. We mean a certain state 
 of tension ; some consciousness of imperative necessity, 
 of strenuousness in the exercise of faculties. This is 
 sufficiently provided in average lives, by the presence of 
 the difficulties, which so often threaten their ruin. These 
 difficulties are so widely distributed, that no one, ade- 
 quately conscious of social existence as a whole, can fail 
 to feel their pressure, — however smooth may be the 
 progress of his own personal career. In the absence of 
 such social consciousness, exceptionally fortunate lives 
 become abnormally free from a sense of tension, — or of 
 struggle against difficulties. This is the cause of the 
 listlessness and ennui of the so-called " upper classes " of 
 modern societies. The members of these classes who do 
 not personally submit to any external pressure of cir- 
 cumstances, and whose horizon is bounded by the out- 
 line of their own lives, are, practically, unaware of the 
 pressure weighing in excess upon other parts of the 
 social organism. They may know, as a curious or pitiful 
 fact that such pressure exists : but as it has no effect 
 upon their own actions, it can have no effect upon their 
 own feelings. They are unconscious that they are really 
 part of a living organism, which suffers: they believe 
 that they are set apart, by fortune or providence, to en- 
 joy. Whether or no enjoyment will ever be the unique 
 occupation of human beings, — it is certain that it can 
 never normally constitute the exclusive occupation of 
 
A REPLY. 239 
 
 one class until it does so of all. For as we have seen, 
 occupation is part of the nutrition of the organic elements 
 of society, — and notwithstanding all secondary differences, 
 there must be some genera! resemblance in occupation ; 
 or at least absence of such fundamental difference as 
 that between an occupation exclusively pleasurable, and 
 one exclusively painful. 
 
 Tension is as necessary to social vigor as to physical 
 health. In the largest sense it may be said to be 
 necessary to all movements, to the very movements to 
 which it indicates restraint. Without the opposition 
 offered by limits, the river will not run in its bed, 
 electric currents will not traverse the wire, the sap will 
 not mount in the tree, the blood will not circulate in 
 the artery. So the most strenuous social movements 
 have always been effected in a glow of heroic defiance 
 of obstacles, all but overwhelming. The constant effort 
 of social progress is towards the removal of obstacles, 
 and an immense number have been removed. The 
 question therefore arises ; if progress continue in the 
 same ratio, will not a// obstacles finally be removed? In 
 that case will not social effort cease, from absence of 
 stimulus to exertion? Will not heroism be impossible 
 when everything has become safe and easy ? Will there 
 remain any adequate employment for the activities of the 
 largest minds and strongest characters? The herd may 
 continue to vegetate in peace, but the heroes, the proph- 
 ets, the saviours, what is to become of them ? 
 
240 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 This sense of difficulty in finding adequate occupation 
 for the energies which crave it so imperiously, and which, 
 if unsatisfied, suffice to desolate life, is no mere abstrac- 
 tion. It is rather a generalisation from the practical diffi- 
 culties experienced in a great many concrete cases, pre- 
 cisely in the class which, as being the most distinctly 
 articulate, is the best able to make its difficulties known. 
 
 We think an answer can best be understood after try- 
 ing in imagination to project oneself for a moment to 
 some epoch in feudal Europe, when the only recognized 
 occupation was the art of war. It is well known that to 
 the mailed heroes once entrenched in the high-perched 
 castles whose ruins still dot a European landscape, the 
 suggestion of excitement or adventure, of honor or vig- 
 orous exertion in any other employment than in that of 
 killing something, would have seemed a childish absurd- 
 ity. Art, science, literature, philosophy, industry, to-day 
 so immense in their development, were then enfolded in 
 their germs ; or even when they had begun to make a 
 place for themselves in the world, they were still con- 
 temptuously ignored by those who constituted its social 
 consciousness and who make its history. 
 
 With that mediaeval world, and with at least a large 
 part of the antique world which preceded it, the modern 
 world stands contrasted as the epoch at which the art of 
 creating life has become prized above the art of destroy- 
 ing it. The opposition which quickened the pulse of the 
 former hero of society came from the antagonism of his 
 
A REPLY. 241 
 
 brother men. The opposition with which modern energy 
 is in conflict, comes in the largest sense from the inertia 
 of nature. Although extremely improbable, it is yet 
 conceivable, that self-interest should one day succeed 
 in suppressing the social manifestation of violent pas- 
 sions, at least sufficiently to render superfluous, armed re- 
 sistance to them, and the heroism attendant on such 
 resistance. But so far as heroism consists in courage for 
 physical danger and for social opprobrium, in patience, 
 perseverance and steadfast faith in the purpose con- 
 ceived or received from above, so far heroism must 
 remain a permanent element of human character, and 
 find permanent occasion for its exercise. The difficul- 
 ties of destruction are those encountered by the child ; 
 they occasion the tragedies of the nursery. The difficul- 
 ties of creation stand in the way of the man, — what do 
 we say? Are they not the eternal difficulties in the 
 way of the gods ? 
 
 In a well-known witticism, Mr. Bright is said to have 
 called the army a system of out-door relief for the aristo- 
 cracy. For centuries it has been the permanent and suf- 
 ficient remedy for the ennui which otherwise must have 
 overwhelmed the natural leaders of society, not obliged 
 to work for their living, and not seeing their way clear to 
 work for anything else. It is true indeed that 
 
 " Work without hope draws water in a sieve, 
 And life without an object cannot live." 
 
242 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 But theory, based on all historical experience, the only 
 possible basis for calculation of the future, shows that 
 human life, personal or social, can never fail, if properly 
 understood, to afford employment for human energies. 
 That at present there is a most pernicious mal-distribution 
 of energies, dependent partly on the fact that social forms 
 and institutions have in so many cases survived the ideas 
 in which they originated ; partly on the fact, that no 
 practical systematic attempt has yet been made to esti- 
 mate the real needs of the social organism, and to dis- 
 tribute its forces in accordance with them. The theoreti- 
 cal estimate has been made by one set of people, or rather 
 by many sets, and according to many principles. The 
 practical direction is continued by others, and in accord- 
 ance with custom, habit, tradition, temporary convenience, 
 sentimentalism, prejudice, fashion, with everything except 
 the principles of organic adjustment alone serviceable. 
 Even these, when most scientifically elaborated, have too 
 often erred, either by proposing to sacrifice the state to 
 individual license, or individual freedom to the state, or 
 else by adopting a systematic policy of non-intervention 
 on the ground of a natural tendency to progress. But 
 this last reason is as reasonable as would be the refusal of 
 a physician to treat the diseases of dentition or of adoles- 
 ence, because the patient was destined to survive, and 
 then could not fail to grow out of the tendency to such 
 diseases. When this individual is the social organism, its 
 periods of suffering involve the entire sacrifice of myriads 
 
A REPLY. 243 
 
 of the sentient beings, whose consciousness is the only 
 consciousness that organism possesses. 
 
 In the feudal system which succeeded at so long an 
 interval to the antique social organization of the city, 
 and to the intermediate barbarian tribe, may be found 
 the type of society upon which Comte was never weary 
 of expatiating. A society rich, varied, flexible, yet so 
 thoroughly harmonized by a logical and effective system 
 of ideas that it constituted a splendid unity, whose parts 
 were each vividly conscious of their own functions and of 
 its splendor, and were therefore organically satisfied. An 
 organism whose spiritual and temporal powers, uncon- 
 sciously modelled upon one another, continually rein- 
 forced each other by converging all efforts and all am- 
 bitions in one direction. The hierarchy of emperor and 
 king and lord and knight and squire, was repeated in the 
 hierarchy of Pope and cardinal and bishop and priest and 
 monk, and this visible spiritual hierarchy supposed to 
 reflect so faithfully that of the invisible heavens, that 
 these could be imagined as in close and tangible contact 
 with the daily life of men. Then a unique prize really 
 glittered before the eyes of all, — the hope of salvation ; 
 prize, thanks to the liberal offices of the church, attain- 
 able without much difficulty by all competitors, com- 
 pelled, whatever their difference in earthly rank, to ob- 
 tain the favor of heaven by the same formula of shrift 
 and sacrament. 
 
 Thus was perfectly realized the essential condition of 
 
244 /-y LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 an organism, namely, concurrence in a common end of 
 the function of widely differentiated parts, which had 
 moreover certain fundamental destinies in common. Each 
 individual, fulfilling the special duties of his rank and 
 station, was conscious of contributing to the maintenance 
 of a social order established upon divine sanctions. Each 
 in his due proportion therefore participated in the divine 
 blessing upon earth ; while each, without proportion, was 
 supposed to look forward to an identical glory in heaven. 
 A compact, coherent, logical society, though built for the 
 most part on fictions, though nourished so largely by de- 
 lusions, though practically ignoring the humble industrial 
 basis upon which it Avas compelled to rest, but which it 
 disdained and kept out of sight like awkward feet of 
 clay. 
 
 The enormous transformation of modern society de- 
 pends upon the prominence for the first time attained by 
 these feet of clay, and by the retreat into relative insig- 
 nificance of the head of gold, the splendid ruling classes 
 of society. The scanty list of circumstances enumerated 
 by Mr. Mallock as giving a " New Import " to the question 
 of the natural or supernatural value of life, have very 
 little to do with this question, as compared with the great 
 social changes that really do affect it profoundly. When 
 a society established on a purely military basis, nominally 
 transmits its religious ideals to a society established on 
 industrialism, and to which war has become only a dis- 
 turbing incident, the most serious incongruities become 
 
A REPLY. 245 
 
 inevitable ; and at a distance of six centuries from the 
 prime of feudalism, industrialism is still destitute of a 
 logical and coherent ideal connate to itself, and is obliged 
 to make shift with the pale recollection of that of a bye- 
 gone state. Perhaps our modern cities stand to-day in 
 the same place as formerly Rome and Byzantium and 
 Alexandria, when the spirit of antiquity had fled, and 
 mediaeval society had not yet been organized ; and it is 
 possible that much of their miseries is due to this in- 
 termediate condition. 
 
 In a theological ideal which considers the world as a 
 place unfit for anything but fighting, the aim of indus- 
 trialism, to increase riches and earthly power, is entirely 
 unprovided for, is necessarily looked upon as a " base 
 materialism." Industrialism has therefore developed 
 without the guidance or guardianship of any ideal ; it 
 has stumbled into power like a Caliban become blindly 
 possessed of the secrets of Prospero. It is, as yet, scarcely 
 conscious of itself ; and the world which is yielding to it, 
 which worships the results of its physical force, has not 
 yet fully recognized its real soul. To-day, as in the days 
 of Ulysses, those who aver that 
 
 There is not a greater glory for a man while yet 
 He lives on earth, than what he hath wrought out 
 By strenuous effort, with his feet and hands." * 
 
 are thinking more of gymnastics than of effective indus- 
 try ; more of the amateur activities becoming a gentle- 
 
 * Odyssey, Book viii, 181-185 (Bryant's translation). 
 
246 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 man than of the arduous labors necessary to a man. It 
 is not yet fully recognized that labor is a physiological 
 necessity even before it is an economic necessity. The 
 stirring ambitions of knighthood have been forgotten, 
 while the ancient stigma attached to unmilitary work has, 
 singularly enough, been remembered. When this stigma 
 has ceased to inflict political disfranchisement, it often 
 remains as a cause of social ostracism. Or when work 
 has been admitted to be honorable, if not unavoidable, it 
 has been still looked upon as a hardship to be deplored. 
 As a corollary, efforts are constantly made to secure as 
 much profit with as little work as possible — senseless dis- 
 honesty, which vitiates the entire sum of social activities. 
 When, however, work has been accepted with satisfaction 
 for men, it is still almost universally withheld from women. 
 Withheld, that is, as a normal and necessary part of a 
 perfect life ; withheld in theory, to be only more harshly 
 and clumsily inflicted in practice ; withheld from the for- 
 tunate classes in such a manner that the unfortunate 
 classes become doubly and intolerably burdened. 
 
 The natural organic connection between the head of 
 gold and the feet of clay has therefore been destroyed. 
 The head reels in dizzy and aimless vacuity : the feet 
 flounder deeper and deeper in the mire. Those who for- 
 merly led the masses to battle have ceased to do that, 
 but have not yet learned how to lead them to work. 
 Hence all community between the rank and the file has 
 disappeared. The workers look with envy and hatred at 
 
A REPLY. 247 
 
 those who enjoy the fruit of their labors without prop- 
 erly participating in them ; the rich, from this same ab- 
 sence in participation, are unable to enjoy ; the church — 
 former reconciler of rich and poor — now stands apart, 
 mumbling useless formulas, or chattering of imaginary 
 dangers, as if to conceal its impotence over those which 
 really exist. 
 
 There can be no belief without an idea and an emo- 
 tion, and no emotion without action, and no disinterested 
 emotion without action in relation to some interest tran- 
 scending that of individual concerns. Religious interest 
 has never been disinterested when limited to the care of 
 saving one's own soul. Whenever really powerful and' 
 ennobling as a social force, it has been identified with 
 some great sweep of social action, in which individual 
 lives have been caught up, as it were, to meet the ideal 
 passion in the air. The dream of heaven never has had 
 influence except when the dreamers have been actively 
 engaged in realizing it upon earth. Nothing can be more 
 absurd and in more naive contradiction of well known 
 history than the assertion made by Mr. Mallock and 
 others, that Positivism has destroyed heaven, and with it 
 all the ideal aspirations of mankind. It is well known 
 that for centuries the Christians looked forward dailj' to 
 the establishment of heaven upon earth, and that their 
 entire theology was originally constructed under the in- 
 fluence of this expectation. 
 
 As the hope receded farther and farther away, Chris- 
 
248 IS LIFE WORTH LIViNG? 
 
 tian feudalism first took the place of the heavenly society 
 of which hope had been abandoned. To-day Positivism 
 seeks to bring back the vanished dream of the early 
 Christians ; it seeks to establish heaven upon earth. This 
 is what Mr. Mallock calls wallowing in the mire of an 
 indiscriminate sensualism. 
 
 It is with Catholicism that Positivism must be con- 
 stantly compared and contrasted, and not with Protest- 
 antism, nor with the looser systems of Free Thought 
 which have never embodied themselves in definite social 
 institutions. Positivism intends step by step to replace 
 Catholicism in every detail. To substitute as far as it 
 may, knowledge for faith, effort for passivity, the social 
 organism of European civilization for the feudal organism 
 of Catholic Europe, with its imagined correlative of a 
 heavenly kingdom. Instead of a social order command- 
 ing individual effort and enthusiasm on account of ex- 
 ternal divine sanctions, Positivism declares that society 
 is intrinsically worthy of efforts and enthusiasm. It does 
 not change the fundamental direction of disinterested 
 feeling: it merely removes an artificial stamp once sup- 
 posed to be the source of value — as one who should re- 
 move an unnecessary certificate from solid gold. " Take 
 away religion from those things in life we have been ac- 
 customed to prize," says Mr. Mallock, " and nothing will 
 be left, not even pleasure in a walk on a fine day." But 
 Positivism claims to demonstrate both by historical and 
 ,by psychological evidence — that if we take away earthly 
 
A REPLY. 249 
 
 passions, interests and activities from theology, nothing 
 will remain in it but a ghostly vision, an unsubstantial 
 dream. The charm, supposed to belong to the infinite, 
 has largely belonged to the very definite limits within 
 which the infinite has been confined. Since nothing can 
 be obtained or even perceived by man except through 
 the medium of his own faculties, whatever enlarges his 
 faculties enlarges his horizon ; whatever compresbes them, 
 narrows his sphere of thought and feeling, no less than 
 of action. 
 
 Catholicism has measured the area of a cathedral, and 
 called it the Infinite. Positivism, reaching out to the im- 
 measurable sky, contemplates the unlimited. Life under 
 Catholicism resembles a Connecticut farm, covered with 
 stone walls, so much the more solidly built, as the fields 
 which they enclose are the more barren. Life, in the con- 
 ception of the Positivist thought, ma)' be likened to an Ill- 
 inois prairie, whose fertile acres do not yield stony material 
 enough for the rapid building of rigid boundaries, but must 
 await more genial decisions from the future unfettered 
 cultivators of the soil. Catholicism is the religion of 
 failure, of ignorance, of weakness, of despair ; the essence 
 of its power and of its attractiveness lies in the consola- 
 tion it professes to ofTer to those who cannot get what 
 they want. Positivism is the philosophy of strength ; it 
 undertakes to show people how to get what they want ! 
 and it is less consoling when it fails. It gives a sense of 
 religious obligations for the utilization of powers ; but 
 
250 JS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 affects no complacency at the spectacle of their mutila- 
 tion. As one of the characteristic dangers of Catholicism 
 is in the passive toleration of evils which it encourages 
 while cultivating humanity and patience ; so a char- 
 acteristic danger of Positivism is the tendency it may 
 foster to an impatient and arrogant selfishness of 
 grasp, which may be promoted by insisting on the 
 legitimacy of the satisfactions of life, and on the 
 cruelty of their privation. But the power of self-abne- 
 gation and self-sacrifice which Catholicism derives from 
 its promise of future compensation. Positivism derives 
 from the consciousness of social welfare, and from the 
 cultivated habit of subordinating immediate personal 
 impulses to higher sentiments of justice, of honor, of 
 sympathy. When however, the personal sacrifice de- 
 manded is an injustice ; when, as at present, passionate 
 feeling revolts at miseries entailed by the selfishness, or 
 ignorance, or the stupidity, or the tyranny of other persons 
 or classes ; the moderation comes, not from fictitious ac- 
 quiescence in evil as good ; nor from fictitious submission 
 to an arbitrary providence ; nor from hope of personal 
 escape ; but from a human sympathy so wide and deep, 
 that it prefers to bide its time, to share in a common suf- 
 fering, rather than to endanger a common cause by pre- 
 mature impatience and personal greed. Unless this noble 
 humanity succeed in taking the place left vacant by the 
 loss of other motives, what is to prevent the feet of clay 
 from one day trampling to pieces the head of gold 
 
A REPLY. 251 
 
 which had abdicated its lawful power and authority? 
 Thus we return to the conception of the social organ- 
 ism, as the only one capable of rescuing modern society 
 from its present state of anarchy. We are far more 
 thoroughly convinced than Mr. Mallock can be, that the 
 acceptance of this conception as a basis, not only for social 
 action but for individual life, can only be accomplished 
 by means of many transformations in existing habits of 
 thought and feeling. 
 
 It necessitates the wide distribution of a scientific un- 
 derstanding of life; of the laws of its development; of 
 the complex basis of its morality ; necessitates even more, 
 a different training of feeling, which may facilitate a dif- 
 ferent estimate of values than at present generally ob- 
 tains. But many of these transformations have been 
 avowedly accomplished. Others are really effected, though 
 the change is concealed under false names. Others 
 would be, were it not for the still existing opposition be- 
 tween the beliefs which are nominally paraded as the pro- 
 tecting asges of society, and those which really animate 
 even its priesthoods. It is the enthusiastic duty of all 
 who witness lives, distracted, or blighted, or withered 
 by the far reaching influence, either in themselves or in 
 those who control their destinies — of beliefs contrary to 
 the real nature of things, to promote the spread of the 
 true principles of living. 
 
 Will no one suffer? — Has no one suffered? 
 
 It is difficult to imagine that the destinies of the race 
 
252 IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 
 
 conceal any greater sufferings than those which it has al- 
 ready traversed. In plagues, pestilence and famine ; in 
 battle, murder and sudden death ; in envy, hatred and all 
 uncharitableness ; in all woes from which a sonorous lit- 
 any may pray ineffectively for deliverance, — may be read 
 the impotence of theology. For whatever suffering may 
 come, we cannot but be prepared, if experience is to be re- 
 lied upon to prepare us. It is our business to seek the 
 new good of which, indeed, we have had much foretaste 
 and keen realization, but which, in all soberness we may 
 now begin to anticipate in much fuller measure, when 
 each restless, passionate, eagerly active and keenly sen- 
 sitive human being shall find his place and fulfil his func- 
 tion in the vast Living Being of Humanity. Then will 
 literally be fulfilled the ancient prophecy, " Ye shall be 
 as gods, knowing good and evil." It will be found that 
 the Tree of Life grows forever by the Tree of Knowledge, 
 and that, after its long exile, the race which has once be- 
 come possessed of the fatal fruit of the one, may re-enter 
 an earthly Paradise to enjoy the other. And we may dare 
 to say, that if society to-day be really in the position of a 
 man who awakes from a dream, it is certain that any tem- 
 porary regrets he may feel, must ultimately be more than 
 compensated by the full possession of the dawning reali- 
 ties. 
 
APPENDIX. 253 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 In the social organism, Comte did not include the popu- 
 lations of Asia and Africa, but only the nations of Europe. 
 In an embryological comparison, Europe would represent the 
 germinal area of the fecundated ovum, we might even say the 
 Mediteranean basin would represent the germinal spot. The 
 course of development would be in accordance, not with the 
 type of the ova of highest or mammalian vertebrates, but with 
 that of the eggs of birds, reptiles and fishes. In the mammalia, 
 the ovum is nourished by the parent organism, and the whole 
 of its mass enters into the composition of the germ. But the 
 mass of the ova of birds is divided between the germ and the 
 yolk destined to nourish the germ. The social organism 
 corresponds to this latter type. The germ, the embryo, is con- 
 stituted by European civilization, gradually consolidated from 
 elements that have been drawn from without into the germinal 
 area ; as the blastoderm is formed from a gradual condensation 
 of granules and globules which were originally distributed 
 throughout the ovum, but are finally accumulated at a limited 
 part of it. The rest of the world is divided into the colonial 
 offshoots of this civilization, and into the subordinate civiliz- 
 ations or barbarisms which in various ways nourish the life of 
 Europe, and are probably destined to be absorbed by it. Thus 
 if Europe be the blastoderm, Asia and Africa compose the 
 yolk of the gigantic earth ovum. 
 
1/ 
 
 m