EXISTENCE IS WORTH ITS PRICE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2923, 23 March 1910, Page 79

EXISTENCE IS WORTH ITS PRICE.

SIR OLIVER LODGE SAYS IT IS WORTH WHILE. Sir Oliver Lodge writes on " The Responsibility of Authors" in the Fortnightly Review (a number of exceptional literary interest). " There are always plenty of faults to be found with any age, and it is part of the function of a prophet or a poet to rebuke it,' T he says. "It is part of the function of a novelist, on the other hand, I think, to represent it as it is, to encourage it by detecting gems of human feeling in commonplace surroundings, where else they would be lost to view—■ aye, and to warn it, not didactically, but by holding the mirror up to Nature and (displaying nascent evils from which it Jshould shrink. —Literature a Real Creation.— " A work of liter aturue is a real work of creation. Authors must often have felt that ther- characters had a will of their own, that they would not always do what was expected of them, "that they took the bit between their 1 teeth sometimes, that they were not puppets. Persons in a ■ book or drama ought not to be puppets, and should not be ' put back in the box *; >nor must they be forcibly coerced by their creator to a predestined end independent of their character and conduct. * —Why is There Pain?— " Coercion to a predestined end is bad ?:art: If that statement is true, it is important. It affects the doctrine of prerdestination. A good work of art throws, 'light on many problems- of existence. For {instance, the old and fundamental question, ' Why is there any pain and sorrow )in the world?' can be answered from this point of view. For. it is a familiar fact that pain and sorrow are not kept out of a work of art designed and created by man. Why not? Why make trouble and '-pain artificially, over and above what inevitably exists? Because they are felt to >be necessary, because they serve a useful send ; they rescue existence from insipidity, fthey furnish scope for the exercise of human functions—-their endurance is justified, and felt to be ' worth while.' —Why is There Imperfection?—■ " ' King Lear,' for instance, is a work of pain and Borrow and beauty. To I achieve the beauty, the pain was necessary, and its creator thought it worth I while. He would not have it otherwise, ;nor would we. So it is in real life. CreaI tiom is ' good,' oven ' very good,' but not I perfect. We are still living amid imper- ; fections; there is always room for imI provement. Why is there' any imperfection? Because without it evolution and progress of the high kind which we are privileged to take part in could not go I on. , ~. ,: " Creation of free and responsible I beings, who go right not by compulsion, I but because they choose, who move forward not because they must, but because they will, cannot be an easy task—--1 may we not venture io say that it mutt I be a stremious task?—even to OmnipoI tence. Every worthy achievement dzI mands certain conditions; and one of these I conditions is toil Mid effort. The effort I of Creation is .surely a real effort.. DiffiI culiv is a necessary sequel to the gift of !| Freedom.' r l'he Wonder of the Universe. — I '«' The construction of the physical uni4vers'' the interlocking of atoms and ether "that we study in the malarial sciences, is and wonderful in the extreme; -but it is all a kind of intricate and high"grade machinery—perfectly obedient, under control, never rebellious. Ifio, though vastly beyond and above £ Vehanism arranged by man, it w not

hopelessly and unthinkably of a different kind—saving always for the unthinkable problem of existence itself. —A Struggle—Joy, Too.— " But, with 'the introduction of life and mind and will, difficulties of a superlatively higher order begin. The possi •biiit-y of things going wrong, not through oversight, but through active mutiny and rebellion, the possibility of real vice, can no longer be ignored. Compulsion might j be easy, but the introduction of compulsion would be a breaking of the rules — an abandonment of the problem. The state of the world is surely, as good as it has been possible to make it—given the : conditions —and has infinitely more promise in it for the future than any mechanically perfect system could have attained; else it were blasphemy to say that there was ever imperfection, else the struggle for existence were a fiction and a sham. " There is undoubtedly a but there is also much joy—the -joy of achievement sometimes, the joy of preparation j always. The joy of achieved existence manifests itself in beauty. Life is pressing forward amid troubles and trials, pressing forward to realise itself, to blossom and bud like a briar among ruins, even amid hardship and decay—because— ~" -because existence is worth its price. " Existence, with freedom and anticipation of an infinite future, is beyond measure a boon; the joy in sheer existence is conspicuous in Nature, and literature makes this abundantly clear. Witness Browning in innumerable places—for instance, this : "I stood at first where-all aspire at last To stand: the secret of the world was x mine. I knew, I felt , , , what God is, what I we are, - x What life is—how God tastes an infinite joy In infinite ways—one everlasting bliss, From whom all being emanates, all power Proceeds; in whom is life for evermore, Yet whom existence in its lowest form li.eludes; where dwells enjoyment there is He.' ■—Price Must be Paid. " But the price must be paid; life is by no means all sunshine" and roses—discipline is essential, and errors and •cruelty are the necessary consequences of the gift of freedom. Nor is Nature her- | self always in a. benignant mood: her earthquakes and pestilences are realities, before which life has to give way. Life holds its tenure of earth precariously; and were it not certain that, in spite of apparent extermination, it really persists, in some sense, amid other surroundings, the puzzle of sentient existence would be i overwhelming. | —Art- Says It's Worth While.— " The lesson taught us by works of art is that the whole effort, the groaning and travailing of creation, is worth while. Seen in this light, the present pain and sorrow thus lend themselves to Optimism. How splendid must the.future of the race be, if all this trouble and all the millions of years of preparation that science tells us of were needed as its prelude. Each step is presumably essential,. as it is in a good work of art. Nothing is there wasted—each word, each scene, each act tells. So I assume it to be with real . existence; each step, however painful it j may be, is an essential part of the whole. J " So an extraordinary responsibility be- I longs to the artists of the pen. They j represent the truth of the present age to itself and to the futurue; and not only do they represent it, they also prepare the way and to some extent determine what , the future shall be."