STRICTURES ON THE OPTIMISM OF GEORGE MEREDITH.

Evening Star, Issue 14185, 9 October 1909, Page 2

STRICTURES ON THE OPTIMISM OF GEORGE MEREDITH.

Np one can read George Meredith’s works without feeling that be is an out-and-out optimist. And he is not writing fiction when he preaches this cheerful doctrine. Jt was one of his deeplyrooted convictions. Those who have looked into Mr Hanunerton’s book on Meredith in Anecdote and Criticism ’ will understand this. For instance, here is one of Meredith’s obiter dicta quoted by Hammerton:— . Nature goes on her way unfolding, always pushing us higher. And I do not believe that this great process continues without some spiritual force that drives it on. Change is full of hope, A frjend of mine was lamenting over the sadness of autumn. “Are you sad when yqu change your coat?” J asked him. That is pleasantly put, and most people will agree. Bpt then it is to be re-membered-that Meredith had cut himself adrift from the Christian faith. In the ‘ Contemporary Review ’ Mr Chesterton, discussing the moral philosophy of Meredith, says:— Since Christianity broke the heart of the world and mended it one cannot really be a pagan: one can only be an anti-Christian• But subject to this deeper difficulty Meredith came ranch nearer being a real pagan than any other of the modems for whom the term has been claimed. Elsewhere Mr Edward Clodd records a saying of Meredith’s that would confirm this. He says that Meredith told him that when he (Meredith) was quite a boy he had a spasm of religion which lasted about six weeks, when ho made himself a nuisance by asking everybody bo met if they were saved. “But never since have I swallowed the ‘‘Christian fable. . . . was there “ever a more clumsy set of thouniaturgic fables made into funda- “ mentals of a revealed religion.” Meredith’s position is that of a very large number of literary and cultured people. They write glowingly of progress. They throw overboard cheerfully all faith in a revealed religion. They are out-and-out optimists. They lean their optimism on Science—on the great revolutionising law of Evolution. We agree with them in their optimistic outlook, but we do not think it can bo maintained on the grounds which they assert. ******* We may x-emind ourselves at the beginning that wo are indebted to the religion which Mr Meredith calls fable ” for the very idea of progress. We look for it in vain among the ancients. Greece and Rome cherished no such hope for humanity. Nor is it found to-day anywhere among nonChristian religions. It may bo answered: No matter where it came from, it is here now, and it rests now —this idea of the progress and perfection of humanity— on the stable basis of Science. Evolution shows us a gradual upward progress. As Meredith puts it: “Nature goes on her way “unfolding, improving, always push“ing ns higher.”. Is this so? We do not believe it. There is no such thing as a natural law of progress. “Progress in Nature,” says one of onr ablest writers, “is a' rare exception‘‘and when it is found, after a time “ it ceases and passes into a condition ‘ of stable equilibrium or decay.” The bee and the ant have reached such a condition. Organisation is perfect, but their annals henceforth are a blank. On the other hand, look at the great .army of retrogression furnished by this same Nature in her multitudes of parasites. In the human sphere Evolution is downward as well as upward. The Australian blackfellow is the degenerate descendant of a higher type. There are races living in Africa who arc the remnants of a civilisation from which they have sunk' away. Says a competent authority: “All growth that we “can watch from start to finish has childhood, maturity, decay, and “ death.” What ground is there for believing that humanity itself will over bo an exception to this law? * * * * * * * It is said by amateur Darwinitcs that as Man has been evolved from the slime and the serpent upward to his present condition, the process will continue. But they forget that Man himself has broken the spring of such progress by introducing a condition of things that seriously interferes with the struggle for existence. Outside the social area that struggle eliminated the weaker and preserved the stronger type. But Man is busy reversing this law. , He has brought himself under another law—the law of love—and this dictates to him the duty not of eliminating, but of preserving the weak, the helpless, the scientifically unfit. As he comes more and more under its sway the tendency will bo to increase the chances of the unfit, and by intermarriage to vitiate the breed and bring all down to a common mediocrity. The only escape from this is that which the now science of Eugenics contemplates. The idea is, negatively, to weed out the unfit, either by a process of euthanasia or prohibition of marriage; and, positively, to select good stock, and breed men and x\ omen as wo do prize doge and hogs. But this is open to the obvious objection that thel-e might be some difficulty in determining the qualities that constitute fitfless. The history of the race shows that it is often from the ranks of what might bo called the unfit that the leaders and saviours of the wor’d have come. And Huxley doubted if he himself might not at times come under the ban of condemnation. Moreover, this optimistic breeding notion is rather knocked on the head by tho fact that the qualities which we so laboriously acquire are not transmitted to our offspring. Once it was thought they were, but it is now the growing belief of the best philosophy that it is not so. The evidence of our own senses might tell us much. Tim child of the scholar must begin with his A, B, C, and the offspring Of the genius, literary or religious, as often as not turn out to be stupid or feckless. Still further, the survival of tho fittest docs not by any means imply the survival of the highest. As a recent writer has been telling us, the organism most fitted to survive majf be a great deal lower in the Scale than that which preceded it. The recent Polar discoveries have brought to light tropical growths in tho frozen regions. What if a climatic change were to introduce different conditions of temperature in the zones now inhabited by the best and most cultivated races? It is quite conceivable that if the sun’s heat gives out (and that is a prediction of Science), then tho fittest to survive would not be the sensitive and cultivated, but the* blubber-eating Eskimos or the Russian Moudjikj of whose low and repul-

sire personality Mr Foster Fraser has, been telling us. Jt is perfectly consistent with Science to believe such climatic changes are the possibilities of the future.' It is even how suggested that upon the planet Mars that degenerative evohitjofi has already taken place. * * * * * * *

And so we arrive at another difficulty besetting the buoyant optimism of the Meredithian School of Philosophy. “I think,” says our great novelist, “that “ all right use of life and the one secret “of life is to pave ways for the “ firmer footing of those who succeed “ ns.” We agree. But on Mr Meredith’s philosophy, is it really worth while? He did not believe in a personal immortality, ip a continuity of life that preserves its consciousness and memory. Mr Meredith’s optimism may be right. We believe it is, but npt because Science assures us of it. Its assurance is from quite a different quarter. There might be some reason to endure pain and sacrifice oneself for the future if we were sure that in it Sweeter shall the roses blow In those far-off years, those happier years, And children weep when we lie low Far fewer tears, far softer tears. But that is just the assurance that it fails to give us. The philosophy of history seems to show us endless and hopeless cycles of growth and decay. Mr Masterman, M.P., in Jus brilliant but sombre book, ‘ The Condition of England,’ says that the greatest “illusion “ of tho twentieth- century is that of “security.” His study of the conditions of Britain leaves him doubtful of progress. Austerities, simplicities, and a common danger breed virtues and devotions which are the parents of prosperity. Prosperity breeds arrogance, extravagance, and class hatreds. Opulence and pride in their turn breed national disasters. And these disasters engender the austerities and simplicities which start tho cycle again anew. This is a dismal outlook. It does not inspire our efforts in the interests of progress. If it is to be a dreary succession of cycles such as this, the motive for sacrifice is not strong enough to carry the strain put upon it. But even if one were sure that in the ages to come things would be easier for the toiling masses, one’s own pain and suffering ’have to be dealt with; and no future paradise for others robs us of that. It does not cure a present toothache to be told that our greatgrandchildren will probably be without teeth, and therefore freo from what Burns calls “the hell o’ a’ diseases.” It is a small consolation to the mother who lias been bereft of all her children by consumption to be assured that the day is coming when this scourge shall be swept away from tho earth. ******* But the scientific prediction regarding the future of this earth makes it impossible to keep up tho attitude of the Chceryble Brothers, and contemplate the issue with comfortable optimism. We aro bidden to be content to suffer in order that posterity may enjoy. Lot us bo satisfied with onr dulled capacity, our imperfect faculty, our pitiful hope, our puny achievements, since they who come after us shall grow like grass from our decay. Let us endure, enjoy, strive, sing, bleed, smile, and go to our graves gratefully. Over onr dumb and witless ashes a select and proud race, with the beauty of pagan gods, shall walk haughtily, and with the scorn of tho gods shall remember ns as we remember the. _ savage, whose war shouts assisted in developing tho fine human larynx to contribute to tho modulations in the voice of Malibran. Maybe. But suppose a day comes when tliis proud and haughty race itself shall bo flung into a grave over which breaks no Easter dawn for it or any other. What then? If, as Science is more than hinting, an era shall arrive when this globe of ours shall be a burnt-out cinder like the moon, when it shall roll blind and cold around the sun, and all life shall be extinct upon it, what becomes of our optimism then? Is it seriously worth while to make expensive sacrifices from our scanty store of individual happiness now' if it is only to increase at last the tragedy of the universal collapse? This grey, lampless future may well scare us from such a resolve. And once it filters down among tho masses it certainly will be found an impossible inspiration for hard duty and high nobility. Wo believe in Mr Meredith’s optimism, but not for the reason he and his friends provide. The progress of science and philosophy is making it ever more difficult to sustain it intellectually. It is slowly but surely sapping away the confident attitude of a quarter of a century ago. The promises are being rebuilt, but the business must bo carried on. The capital to do this, however, comes from quite another source than the Meredithian philosophy supplies.