| | | This is a most genuine, hearty, real, and vivid book ~~ most | striking, most glowing, and most pictorial. It gives Dr. Arnold to | the life, and portrays the man completely. We may say this | without professing to have had more than an exoteric knowledge | of Dr. Arnold's character, before we read it, to test the likeness | by. There is a kind of intuitive power, however, by which we | recognise a good portrait even when we did not know the | original. Truth and nature tell their own tale: we see when the | features are harmonious, when the face is a characteristic one, | when the composition is a whole. This book is a clear, full, and | rich representation of a particular species of religious mind; ~~ | what species we mean, we shall have occasion to explain farther | on. We will take Dr. Arnold, for the present, simply as Mr. | Stanley lays him before us, without any comments of our own. | And we cannot forbear thus early thanking Mr. Stanley most | sincerely for the taste and feeling with which he has managed his | own editorial part of the business, and for the tact which has | enabled him to carry out the representation of Dr. Arnold's | character, opinions, and system, in their very strongest light and | most ticklish collision with existing parties, and yet to | distinguish throughout between loving the warrior and | identifying himself with the combat: which has made him | combine the most intense feeling for Arnold | in the conflict, and as portrayed and developed by it, with a | real, though unobtrusive equilibrium as to the sides of the | conflict themselves. , he thinks most justly not to be | necessary to show the deference of a disciple, and the affection | of a son. His neutrality has not thrown the least shade of | coldness or insipidity on his portrait, while it has done much to | engage the interest of opposite minds in it. | | There is a congeniality often between a man's birth-place and his | future tastes. The port of West Cowes in the Isle of Wight, then | proud and flourishing in all the naval and military stir of the | French war, was the birth-place and nurse of the earlier years of | Dr. Arnold; and the noise and sight of equipments naval and | military, fresh arrivals and departures, weather-beaten visages, | wide-spread sails and cocked-hats, gave early a strong | geographical and historical turn to his imagination, mixed with a | considerable amount of pugnacity; which vented itself in the | battles of paper fleets, and the combats of Homeric heroes | dramatized from Pope's translation. A genuine love of the sea | through life, | | and an amusing philosophical form of the true sailor contempt | for "landlubbers," was a result of these scenes. The scenery, if | scenery it was to be called, of the midland counties, affected him | with sensations little short of disgust. , he says, thirty | years after, . ~~ The age of the Pisistratidæ would | certainly have found Arnold one of the "Paralii," or coast party. | For a considerable quantity of stupidity which came before him | as schoolmaster of Rugby, he would very charitably account for | from the circumstance, that the poor boys had been pent up in | those plebeian farm-yards of nature, the midland counties, and | had never seen the sea. It was a consolatory reflection to him, | however, that perhaps they were not quite so mischievous as they | would have been with a wilder origin and more spirited natures. | The reflection is a true one, and is capable of a large application. | | , says his biographer, . ~~ | | | | At Winchester, Russell's Modern Europe, Gibbon, and Mitford, | succeeded to the task of feeding his historical cravings. It is | remarkable, that when, in his professorial chair, he quoted Dr. | Priestley's Lectures on History, it was from his recollection of | the book, when he read it at eight years old. The child is father | of the man. When we afterwards read of ; and the | geographical zeal with which the editor of Thucydides | announces the intelligence of his , we know where to go | back to for his enthusiasm. The native, genuine, and almost | poetical ground which the sciences of history and geography | occupied in Dr. Arnold's mind, is indeed remarkable. The maps | for Thucydides were "Aunt Delafield's cards" over again. There | is something very characteristic in the toys and minutiæ | , the , to use the Aristotelian word, the hobbies of | science. Maps were great favourites with Arnold. Maps, with | their lines of latitude and longitude, their ridges of mountains, | and ruggednesses of coast, are absolute pictures to some minds. | They represent the terraqueous globe, and put before us, in one | striking and definite shape, the great fact of the human race, and | the whole idea of this earthly state. A map is the modern | unclassical representative of the goddess Terra, and makes us | realize, in the Lucretian sense, the ground on which we stand, the | greatness of space, and the solidity of matter. | | Arnold came up to Oxford just in time to be one of a clever and | high-principled, High-church and Tory set, which was then | predominant among the under-graduates of Corpus Christi | College. Judge Coleridge gives us his affectionate recollections | of it: ~~ | | | | | | His Oxford character is summed up in the same graphic way: ~~ | | | | | The warm-hearted, tender, affectionate, lively, sincere character, | soon comes before us in another connexion. Arnold was born to | be a pater-familias , as well in | the mere literal as in the larger sense of the word. He was made | for the parental and didactic relationship of others. There is a | great difference between first-rate minds on this point. Some | have no natural taste or liking for the particular office of | influencing minds; their hearts and intellects expand within | themselves, spread over the earth air and sea of speculation, and | pervade all metaphysical nature, before they definitely take up | the notion of impressing their views upon | anyone being but | themselves. The pleasure of getting their views received, seeing | them take, and watching their entrance into other minds, is one | which they do not feel or appreciate. It is just the reverse with | another class: with them the very process of expansion in their | own minds takes the form of communication with other minds; | and they have no sooner a view at all, than they want to see it out | abroad, and doing its work. The very life of an opinion, even as | an inward one, is connected in their idea with its external power; | and the internal and external go on together. This constitutes | perhaps the very soul of the genuine | magister . The teaching instinct carries a man | naturally into what Archbishop Whately has called the heresy of | the ~~ into instituting the society and forming the | school, or whatever other shape there maybe of the active | centrality of one mind amongst others. | | Arnold became a married man and a tutor as soon as he could | well be either, i. e. after a very short | residence upon his college fellowship. College society, bright | and captivating as it was ~~ even Oriel, full of original thinkers | as it was ~~ was not the sphere for him: his instinct | marked out a more insulated and independent line. He had soon | his nucleus about him. He was of the latter class of | minds that we have mentioned; and, as he used to say of himself, | . His boyish vigour and spirits, his intuitive love of | communicating and teaching, and the particular class of | affectionate feelings which were so strong in him, all fitted him | to deal with the young rather than the old, and carried him into | the society of his inferiors rather than of his equals. The scene at | Laleham soon rose up, under his care, into a perfect little garden | and paradise of tutorial and domestic felicity. Children and | pupils grew up under his eye; and his own stock of knowledge | was rapidly growing too. He had time for his favourite pursuits; | he had the full enjoyment of literary activity and literary leisure; | and he had a beautiful river and luxuriant scenery to feed his | eyes. Many a tutor has had exactly the same scene around him, | but very few have been able to enjoy | | and appreciate it as Arnold did. And, in the mean time, he was | insensible observing phenomena, and collecting rules relating to | his peculiar department. And the growth of a thorough tutorial | experience was preparing him for a larger, more systematic, and | more conspicuous field for its employment. | | The state of Pubic Schools at this time is pretty well known. We | need not say much about them. Any public school man of some | fifteen years ago will remember the routine which he went | through, what he was taught, and what he was not taught. Good | elegant and accurate scholarship was certainly encouraged; and | grammar was well hammered into boys' heads. A still larger | class of boys caught an air and style from the atmosphere of the | place, and learnt gentlemanly manners; and, perhaps, in these | traits we have the principal results which the pubic-school | system, as such, aimed at. Many moral and religious boys, | doubtless, came every year out of them; but morality and religion | were hardly the aims of the system; and the notions of the | latitudinarian and political economist respecting the relation of | Church and State, had almost found a counterpart in the relation | of the master to the boys in our public schools. The instinctive | feeling, though it would not have been formally confessed, was, | that good scholarship, and not good morals, was the legitimate | aim of the schoolmaster, as such: that much as the latter might | have rejoiced, as a man, in seeing a good moral and religious | tone grow up in his boys, still he had little to do, as a master, | with the boys' consciences; that the particular uses of a school | was to teach him Greek and Latin, and not religion; and that if | the former only was learnt, that was the boy's, and not the | schoolmaster's look out. What has the State to do with teaching | religion? the political economist triumphantly asks. And what | has scholarship to do with religion? was a question which many a | good kind of man asked, who had the sincerest respect separately | for both. Feeling had certainly changed since the time that the | pious Dr. Busby listened with warm and affectionate ears to the | prayers of anxious mothers, as they gave up their innocent | children into his magisterial, but truly priestly hands. We do not | want to institute invidious comparisons; the faults of our | public-school teachers have been the faults of the age, and not of | the men: and the apparent quixotic position which always | attaches to any advance upon an established order of things, is | one which literally cannot be carried off by common minds; and | which may, therefore, be excusably not attempted by them. The | old-fashioned schoolmaster of the 18th century was a useful state | instrument for keeping up a gentlemanly and aristocratical | standard of education. Methodical, strict, and upon a theory as | much as his own inclination pompous, he regarded his office and | dignity rather in its official light, as the headship of a | department, | | than as involving a living contact with heads and hearts. A | stiff barrier of form kept him at a distance from the real minds he | had under him, and the abstract school intervened between | himself and his scholars. He was a respectable functionary in the | service of education, but was rather her bedel, than her | champion; and the dignity of the mace quelled the row, and | silenced the murmurer, without much aid of the deeper and more | refined reverential feelings. | | Dr. Arnold was just the man for making an advance upon this | old-school system, and an opportunity was given him of doing | so. After a nine years' residence at Laleham, in 1828 the head | mastership of Rugby became vacant; he stood for it, and was | elected. The genuine strong confidence with which he had | inspired his Oxford friends in his talents for such a post, showed | itself in their testimonials, and carried all before it. A wave of | applause and bright predictions lifted Arnold into his new | position; it was generally felt that something would come of it, | and that a beginning was made of a great change in our school | system, in the mere fact that he was made a head master. He | entered upon the work with spirit, zeal, and joyousness, which | betokened an efficient future. A few regrets at leaving the quiet | scene of Laleham, a little musing over reminiscences of nine | pleasant domestic years over; and he was ready for his large task, | and longing for it, like a horse for its gallop. ~~ . | | In the same tone he writes to Mr. Cornish, while the election was | still pending: ~~ | | | | | | A public school was, in fact, just that mixture of the secular and | religious which suited his character, and fell in with his theories. | The act of bringing religion into common life, and allying, | according to his own sense of the word, Church and State, was | his beau ideal of Christian efficiency. Church and State, and | religion and the world, come over again and again in his letters, | as if his mind was never without the image of this coalition; and | a school was just such a union in miniature ~~ a little religious | polity, or small Church and State; and the schoolmaster a form of | the . Arnold went to Rugby with the determination of | making the school religious. In opposition to any separation of | scholarship from religion, the aim of the school from that of the | boy; he had conceived a levelling of demarcations, a | concentration of energies, a union and solution, which fused the | whole purposes of a school in one rich mellow religious | intellectual glow. | | One very remarkable idea especially penetrated his whole mind | with respect to the scene he was entering on; and it continued | with him throughout, we mean the strong idea of an actual | encounter, a fight with evil. The image of a great conflict with | evil comes out repeatedly in his thoughts upon school, the state | of parties, and the world in general. This is a rare quality of | mind. Everybody has, of course, a distinction between right and | wrong: but a particular class of warm characters are positively | haunted by an image of evil, as a definite bad thing and an | enemy; it is ever catching their eye, and is a perpetual mark and | butt to let fly their bolts at. The feeling is not necessarily | connected with the highest perceptions of truth, or the highest | form of character; statesmen and warriors, and many heroes of | the world, have had it in their way. It is in its lowest shape, | however, a divine impulse. It is the instinct of man, not in his | animal, or in his depraved aspect, but simply as man, and as he | came from the creating hand. Other animals have their instincts | of hatred and enmity; and the human creature has the highest, the | hatred of evil. | | Arnold had a notion of evil, in a school, as a sort of spreading | blot and mercurial poisonous fluid running about everywhere, | and infecting, with awful quickness, in so thick a hive of minds. | The power that company and crowds give to the bad, in | consequence of the cowardice of the good, and the shame which | prevents resistance; the tyranny of a bad public opinion, of | swagger and fashion, were positive eye-sores to him: ~~ | | | , we find him writing to a friend, . | | , he would say ~~ , he says again, | . | | A rule which he very soon laid down for himself after his | entrance on the office, is a significant one on this subject. He | found a general feeling existing abroad, that . One of | Arnold's first announcements was a set down to this notion ~~ | . He made up his opinion on this point very early in his | tutorial career, and he adhered rigidly to it: ~~ . ~~ An | educational war with evil was in short pictured upon Arnold's | mind, as he entered upon Rugby: his scope was a free, | indefinite, and uncircumscribed one; his energies were tasked to | the full; and he had to do everything because he had to do good. | | | There is a method of going to work which shows a man at home | with his department. Arnold's plan and scheme for the | management of his school was a clear and straightforward one; | he selected for his lever and instrument the Sixth Form. The | Sixth Form was his prætorian band, and surrounded the | head master like the club bearers of the Greek chieftains, and like | the bodyguard which attends the queen-bee. They were admitted | into his confidence, to his most esoteric thoughts; to his favourite | and finest theories. The head master saw comparatively little of | the rest of the school. Twice a week a lesson was heard, and the | forms of the lower boys passed in review at considerable | intervals before his eye, to give him the opportunity of seeing | that the routine went on properly, and of exercising a | superintendence over the labours of the other masters. But he | was visible to the mass principally through the veil of the Sixth | Form. And, though as open as day, as far as his personal | presence went, and constantly seen about in the play-ground; | with respect to the school, as such, he leaned considerably to the | Persian policy of shutting himself up in his palace: and the | Tower Library, where he heard the Sixth Form, apart from the | noise of school and the popular eye, was the Ecbatana of Rugby. | The political and theoretic liberal was anything but a practical | one in his own sphere: and the extent to which he made himself | scarce was sometimes remembered with even bitter feeling by | boys, who left before they arrived at the stage of intimacy. Still | the relations of distance he maintained ~~ his occasional | sternness and anger ~~ his "ashy paleness and awful frown," | when anything very bad happened, did not on the whole impede, | but aid his popularity. He seems to have had the art ~~ a great | one with boys, and men too ~~ to show that you don't care for | them: that you care about them indeed | a great deal, but do not care for them the | least. Arnold had this happy mixture. He did not injure his | school-popularity by wishing and aiming for it; the most certain | way generally of not getting it. We see both men and boys | detecting selfishness even on the tender point of gaining their | own affections, and liking a superior the better for not showing | it: ~~ , says Mr. Stanley, . ~~ , | writes a pupil, who had no personal communications with him | whilst at school, and but little afterwards, and who never was in | the Sixth Form, . | | The Sixth Form, then, were Arnold's representatives and | delegates in the school, the channel through which his influence | was felt, and his wishes known. He concentrated his personal | | interest, and all the peculiar feelings of master to disciple, upon | them; he upheld their authority in the school with rigour, and he | rebuked them the most deeply and indignantly, when they | behaved ill. They had the principle honour of his affection and | his wrath: ~~ | | , he says, on one occasion, when some vigorous | measures in members of the Sixth Form towards the populace of | the school had been called in question, ~~ . | | The fact that the Sixth Form was an instrument ready made for | him ~~ their prepositorial authority, as well as the fagging | system, having been part of the old school plan, which he found | going on when he came to Rugby ~~ does not at all interfere | with the credit due to him for converting it into such an | instrument of government as he did. He showed the capacity of | an able mind in appreciating the materials which his department | offered him, and making them serve his turn instead of | discovering others. The old-seasoned timber is likely to be | stronger, and more serviceable too, than the green planks just cut | from the wood. Arnold kept up the old system of the school to | an extent extraordinary for a person of his very anti-Tory | sentiments. The keen practical insight which his tutorial genius | and experience gave him in his own particular department, ~~ | the acuteness and solidity of the new schoolmaster, came round | to the same point with the prejudices of the old one. Arnold gave | life and strength to the machinery already existing, pointed and | edged the tool, and turned it into the hole it was meant to cut. | The Sixth Form was a definite instrument of his, and was made | to act upon the school and reflect himself. | | With the same practical view he kept up fagging, and he | | kept up flogging. On the latter he was very clear and | decided, though making a distinction between big boys and little | ones. , is his criticism on the liberal dislike of that | punishment, ? | | And he liked old school associations as well the old school | system. Winchester and Oxford were historical places; he | desiderated some associations of the ancient sort for Rugby, and | felt painfully the contrast between it and Winchester in that | respect. In their place, he had a scheme for getting a crown | medal for Rugby, to give the school more of an old established | aristocratical air. However, he dwelt upon its antiquity, even in | spite of these defects: ~~ , he tells his boys, . | | A good, bold, systematic character thus stamped Arnold's whole | school-scheme and basis. But his great fort, and secret of | influence, after all, was himself . The | system was nothing without the man: the man was at the bottom | of the whole work; and , the school, was the portrait | and impersonation of the master. ~~ . | | To take a look into the Library Tower, and see him at the head of | the table, with his class before him. Mr. Stanley gives us the | scene from his own vivid recollection, and calls upon his | fellow-scholars to ~~ | | | | | The solicitude that boys should apprehend his meaning for | themselves, and take it in with their own minds, and not with the | master's ~~ a common mistake, by the way, in teaching ~~ this | genuine tutorial sympathy established a kind of equality and | reciprocity between the master and boys. He never concealed | difficulties; was never afraid of confessing ignorance; and would | appeal for help to the French scholars and Latin verse-writers | among the boys. His own books even did not escape; and, | touchy article as a printed book is in the eye of the author, the | mistakes in his own Thucydides were acknowledged to his class | with most creditable candour. | | Arnold's warmth of heart was, in short, part, and the most | effective part, of his talent. A stream of exuberant feeling carried | him along, and carried the school along with him: they were | taken off their legs, and found themselves floating and | swimming, and enjoying their delicious bathe in the blue | sunshiny lake. Arnold's school was his family: he had an | overflowing fund of feeling for pupils, friends, family, and all; | not one set of feelings for one class, and another for another, so | much as a fund of large warm and luxuriant affectionateness for | all. And this, though entirely sincere, was just of that | | easily excitable kind which most tells upon persons, and | impresses most vividly. Always ready to bubble up, and find a | vent in tone, look, the tremor of the voice, the tear in the eye; it | was constantly giving life, warmth, and animation to what he | said. Its very uncontrollableness, in the kindly and tender shape | which it took, was a pleasing feature about it: persons were quite | won over by the liveliness of his emotions, and carried away the | little scene which it created, as a tender picture in their minds. | He burst into tears on somebody in his own family circle making | a comparison, which seemed to place St. Paul above St. John, | and begged that the comparison might never again be made. | Such a lively unaccountable sally of emotion breading in upon a | religious argument is very characteristic. . ~~ | . ~~ In administering the Communion he bent himself down | to the little boys with looks of fatherly tenderness, and glistening | eyes, and trembling voice. | | Even every day-school routine and repetition was not dry too | him. He was asked whether he did not tire of hearing the same | lessons constantly. , was his answer: . His | , and of , Homer, quite overpowered him. At | the hundredth time of hammering it into a class, the story of | Cleobis and Bito brought tears to his eyes. | | We follow him into his house, and we see his children playing | upon his keens, while he writes or reads rapidly in spite of that | interruption, and that of constant visitors going in and out. | . He goes into the play-ground, salutes the little boys | cheerfully en passant , and | watches the cricket. He is as fond of | | play as any one of them, and only does not climb his gallows in | public at Rugby ~~ a treat which he thought he could not as | headmaster well indulge in. But he looks forward to the | deprivation with some degree of gloom from Laleham: ~~ | . He was quite the "elder brother and playfellow" of his | sons and pupils, but with the superior relation close at hand to | fallback on when he thought fit. His pupils at Laleham are his | walking, bathing, and jumping companions; and ! is the | first exclamation of surprise from the little boys that come to | Rugby. Moreover, he actually trusted their word; and, , | was the current remark. | | Next to children and pupils, his delight is scenery. . | The delight of living in mountains, , takes him to | Westmoreland; and nothing satisfies him but he must actually | build a house at Foxhow, some three hundred miles from Rugby, | where he retires for the holidays, out of pure love of fine scenery. | Warwickshire, , is only pleasant for the intellectual and | moral enjoyments it supplies in the shape of pupils, which it | gives in plenty. But at Foxhow the enjoyment is completed, and | comes to a climax. There he has scenery, children, pupils, | friends. His favourite boys often accompany him there for the | holidays. He is full of invitations to persons to come and see | him; and the society of Wordsworth is in keeping with lofty | mountains, cataracts, and summer skies. Very fine weather | could make even Rugby smile. , made him stop and | admire; and the sight of elicited his philosophical | preference of the modern idea of the to the of | the ancients. And there were , and all the fun and | cheerfulness of the party. | | The peculiarly domestic standard about which all these pleasures | and excitements, moral and physical, gathered ~~ the type of the | pater familias which ran | through them, was a thing to be observed. All persons have their | whole and centre, to which their tastes and feelings attach. | Arnold's whole was the house, the , the family. He was | domestic from top to toe; his | | school a family ~~ his family a school: the family type | surmounted and headed the whole scene of his employment and | his pleasure. A family was a temple and church with Arnold, ~~ | a living sanctuary and focus of religious joy, ~~ a paradise, a | heaven upon earth. It was the horn of plenty, the sparkling cup, | the grape and the pomegranate, the very cream of human feeling | and sentiment, and the very well-spring of spiritual hopes and | aspirations. He thought and he taught, and he worked and he | played, and he looked at sun, and earth, and sky, with a domestic | heart. The horizon of family life mixed with the skyey life | above, and the earthly landscape melted, by a quiet process of | nature, into the heavenly one. ~~ . ~~ . | | The feeling extended itself into the past in his mind, and became | a genuine patriarchal ancestorial taste. . ~~ And the | vivid affection he entertains for all the scenes of his youth, | comes over and over again in his strong Wykemist | reminiscences, and in the . | | We have seen Arnold at work, and Arnold at play; but the fact is, | play and work were the same thing to him, with respect | | to telling upon his happiness. They were the Castor and Pollux, | the delightful and happy variation of his existence. It was one | down, another up; either he was at work and happy, or he was at | play and happy. But work was his chief play, his charming, and | most absorbing and satiating excitement: his meat and drink. He | hungered for it; he looked forward to it with all the eagerness and | sharpness of genuine appetite. Recreation was more pleasant, | from the delightful termination it had in prospect, even than on | its own account; and he seems to have had the power of taking | long camel's draughts of it, which set him going for months, and | upon a basis of strength which made no continuity of work a | fatigue to him. . ~~ His spirit carried him through his | long half-years with a swing; and after a long mornings work in | school, like the hunter that positively put his master into a rage | because he could not be tired, and would come home fresh after | the hottest run, he was as vigorous as ever, and ready to set to at | his Thucydides, pamphlets, correspondence, or anything else on | hand. . ~~ , he writes , is his | remark, when a candidate for Rugby, on the immense career of | work that he was bringing down upon himself. The retrospect of | it was to Arnold. , he ways; and he adds, . | | What with work and what with play, in short, what with pupils | and children, and scenery and nature; with Thucydides, | Herodotus, Livy; Foxhow and the lakes; leaping-pole, gallows, | and bathing; above all himself, his activities, feelings, emotions; | his inexhaustibleness, perpetual motion, the intense and | indomitable principle of life there was in him; ~~ what with his | happiness and what with himself, who so thoroughly | apprehended and imbibed it ~~ Arnold's happiness made up as | overpowering a whole as is often presented in the lot of man. | . He dwells upon . The | | . He . The ~~ represents a particular | department of the enjoyment which he imbibed from inanimate | nature, and is quite a picture. | | Upon the character, of which we have just given a sketch, ~~ and | a vigorous, youthful, eager, intense, lively, affectionate, hearty, | and powerful character it is, ~~ we have now a remark to make. | We find a deficiency ~~ we want a something here. Energetic | characters, of all others, need, and should have, the depressing | balance in some shape or other; and an indefinite sensation to | this effect rises like a vapour out of the rich glow and warmth of | such a life as Arnold's. | | Is there a Christian form of the dark rough-hewn idea of the old | world expressed in the , the awful "Divine Envy," the | disturbing Genius of this earthly life? A natural instinct, or a | remnant of superstition, or something better, puts us on the watch | for pain to counterbalance power, and sadness to relieve success; | predicts all not right where things are too flowing, misfortune | latent where it is not seen; makes fear the test of solidity, and | melancholy an element of greatness? The touch which turns to | gold, the eye that brightens earth and sky, the life which feeds | and satisfies all sweet affections and intellectual activities, | encounters this sad comment. Has not the success of the really | great been paid for generally, as if by a law of nature, by the | sting which has extracted the inward satisfaction of it; by the | pressure, burden, cloud, within; the grievance and the sore; the | wound deep-seated at the heart, which knew no flattery, and | defied the ointment? He who braved it out of doors wept at | home, and felt in secret all the languor and depression of feeble | nature, while a gallant show of strength and boldness rode over | the outside world. This, indeed, is the popular theory of the | interesting in epic, drama, and novel; to which even the child's | story-book and strolling rustic barn-floor play appeals. It lies at | the bottom, if we may say so, of the science | of romance; and is applied and developed, rudely or with | polish, simply or subtly, awkwardly or dexterously, as we may | fancy a principle in mechanics, according to the hand it falls into. | A hero is one who suffers; man, woman, and child expect it: | they think themselves defrauded of their right if he does not: the | luxury of pity was the temptation and the attraction. They did | not want him to enjoy himself: that perfect harmony of life, and | full reception, into the inner man and very heart, of outward | nature's | | light and glow, makes a brilliant rainbow, but an uninteresting | soul. There is one view of character, of course, which does not | make this necessary ~~ in which characters interest us as | agreeable phenomena, and pleasant combinations, in the way that | rich mixtures of colours please the eye. We may see this in | many of the delightful characters in works of fiction. With all | that is amiable and genuine in them, and which has doubtless a | real claim to the interest due to goodness; the charm these | characters possess, does seem to approach more or less to the | physical ; and so far as it does, it differs in | kind from the one we mean. Moral interest, pure and intrinsical, | requires the other, the severer and sadder basis; it does not attach | itself to the harmonious image of life: and the pleasurable state, | whether sluggish and heavy, or sparkling and vivacious, is | exactly not its object. We are speaking of the natural, rough, | popular view, which the human mind takes. Pity is akin to love. | We are very sorry when our friends are unhappy, but we do not | like them less, but more ~~ yes, more ~~ for being so. And large | mixture as these popular facts doubtless contain, in the concrete, | of caprice, morbid sentiment and nonsense; they betray a | principle underneath. | | Arnold's character is too luscious, too joyous, too luxuriant, too | brimful. The colour is good, but the composition is too rich. | Head full, heart full, eyes beaming, affections met, sunshine in | the breast, all nature embracing him ~~ here is too much glow of | earthly mellowness; too much actual liquid in the light. We do | not discern the finest element of interest in Arnold's character; he | is too full to want our sympathy, too happy to be interesting. The | happy instinct is despotic in him; he cannot help it, but he is | always happy, likes everything that he is doing so prodigiously: | the tail is wagging: the bird whistles: the cricket chirps. This is | not at all necessary in an energetic practical character: it is | notorious, that the very foremost of history's heroes have had a | great deal of the sombre element in their constitution; and we all | like it. In short, a great character of this class must have it, or he | loses cast. Arnold is without it: he is amiable and philanthropic, | and his philanthropy is hurt and is distressed at times. That is not | what we mean. Philanthropy does not touch the centre; does not | wound where wounding tells; leaves a man heart-whole, | unhumbled. | Arnold's happiness is made almost part of his religion, from its | intensity. "Awful," ~~ "startling," ~~ "the very act of existence," | ~~ a sort of deep mysterious language with respect to it, seems to | convert the sensation of pleasure into a positive religion, (on the | principle that religion is the deepest part of us,) and give the | intensity of eternal essence to present life. The light, superficial, | transient, interrupted sensation of pleasure only play upon the | skin, and does not appropriate | | the man; but the deep, solid, glowing, and constant pleasure of | life, cannot be felt without an act of incorporation passing, and | pleasure being converted into a spiritual substance, and | becoming a man's religion. A religious theory, in short, seems to | lurk beneath these outward symptoms; and without grudging | Arnold the Elysium of his generous, amiable heart, we will call | the theory by its right name. Arnold was a German: his | was the genuine religious Germanism, and his life a most | favourable, but still a real specimen and legitimate development | of the Lutheran theory ~~ not the Lutheran | theory in him, perhaps, so much as the genuine Lutheran | instinct, which came round to the same point. Let our readers go | to Miss Bremer's novels. They will see a number of characters, | drawn in glowing colours, with feeling, sentiment, generosity, | simplicity, disinterestedness, the poetical love of nature and of | art, and manly power and talent attaching to them. They have all | the richness and juiciness of the human heart and intellect about | them. But there is an hiatus | somewhere: they please our mental palate rather than our soul; | and a deep sympathy and amoral yearning at the bottom of our | nature is left untouched by them. They are the offspring of a | religion that naturalizes itself here; garden plants, fairy forms of | the Lutheran ether. Lutheranism has its fine as well as its coarse | side. It materializes a higher world, and so succeeds in | anticipating it: and it is most successful in doing so when it | exhibits most of the spirituel . Arnold, | we say, belongs to this world of character; he is a | religious specimen of it, but still he belongs | to it. The Lutheran and the Catholic systems have been ever, | under one form or other, fighting for the possession of man's | goodness. His goodness is recipient of either form, and may be | refracted into either atmosphere. Arnold's was German and | Lutheran. | | But we must pursue our history, and take him upon a wider field | than we have yet seen him upon. We are afraid the show will not | be quite so smiling a one, and we must prepare for the rough side | of his character and his pen. | | The year 1830 ushered in what was perhaps the most memorable | and alarming struggle between the Church and her political and | dissenting opponents in this country that had been seen for a | century. The repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, and the | Emancipation Bill, carried in the animus in which it | was, had so strengthened the hands of the liberal party, that they | seemed to have the world before them, and only to have to strike | in order to destroy. The Church was naturally the object to | which their aim was directed, and all eyes were instantly turned | in that direction. A climax seemed to be at hand; the cry was | raised; pamphlet and newspaper were loud about her enormous | revenues, her antiquated forms, and her state monopolies; the | tithes of her rectors, and the baronies of her bishops, | church-rates, | | and every part of the establishment. Her wealth was | exaggerated tenfold, by ten thousand mouths day after day, till | people had a kind of magical Oriental notion of it; and the | alliance of cupidity with revolutionary zeal threatened to be too | strong for any opposition. | | A party existed at the same time in the | Church, who were quite ready to make use of such a hostile | outward demonstration, for the purpose of recasting her upon | their own mode. Their language to the Church was that of | favourable and friendly revolutionism. You cannot go on any | longer as you are, they said; if you resist, you are sure to be | overwhelmed. You must give way, and you had as well do so | voluntarily and with a good grace. Take a more liberal and more | comprehensive basis, a freer shape and dress. Suit yourself to | the age, and keep pace with the progress of opinion. Only put | yourself into our hands, and we will refit you in unobjectionable | style, as a solid and congenial institution of the age. In other | words, they took advantage of the present opportunity to | promulgate and commend their own particular theories to the | Church; and a Church-reforming party from within began very | soon to excite more attention and alarm than the one without. | | Arnold had been ripe a long time for such a movement as this, | and he naturally took his place in it. He had reached an age | when men have generally formed and matured their opinions, if | they ever mean to have any; he had withstood the | genius loci of Oxford, the | endearments of High Church and Tory friendships, and the | intimacy of one especially, whom to know and to be a liberal was | indeed the height of liberalism. He was the fellow-schemer and | theorist of the Archbishop of Dublin, the Chevalier Bunsen, and | others: ~~ an acute philosophical circle, to whom, however, his | peculiar life and brilliancy was a great gain and addition, as a | practical stimulus . Here was a great nucleus | of power formed. A speculative liberalism had been the growing | element for some time, even in Oxford and in Oriel, under the | fostering patronage of Dr. Copleston and Dr. Whately's vigorous | and argumentative training. There was every look of a rising | school, that had its career to come, and a whole chain of youthful | anticipations to run through. The formidable test of fashion had | shown itself: it was beginning to be fashionable to be a liberal; | and the intellectual tide was leaving the Church basis. That | Arnold and Dr. Whately had great ideas of their strength, these | volumes, we think, show. The old High Church school were | partly gone, and partly asleep: the Evangelicals had no ground | of their own, from which they might resist liberalism with any | effect. There seemed to be an open field to the new reformers, | every prospect of the Church falling into their hands in the | natural progress of things: and they appear to have looked | confidently to this result themselves. The feeling | | was much aided b their great opinion of each other; their great | expectation of what must be the effects each other's talents would | produce. Of the Archbishop of Dublin, Arnold writes | . , etcetera . | Of the Chevalier Bunsen the same: | ! , he says in the last year of his life, . | | A series of small restless moves at first showed Arnold's zeal and | fertility in the cause, more than anything else. The attempts | themselves all died in the birth; but his solicitude about the state | of things and the crisis that seemed at hand, actually kept him at | Rugby for the holidays ~~ a strong evidence of anxiety and | excitement for him . , he says, | . The first scheme was that of . These tracts, | or the "Poor Man's Magazine," or "Register," by which names | the papers seem to have come out at last, met with a | disheartening fate very soon. An article on the Tory party, in the | third or fourth number, was thought too sweeping by some, too | milk-and-water by others; and Arnold thought it no use going on. | , he writes to Dr. Whately; ? He changed his | tack, and took to writing in the Sheffield papers; and thought | . A "Comprehensive Christian Commentary" was the call | next. . These moves and feelers but just tickled his | energies however, and did not satisfy them. | | ~~ i.e. by Arnold himself and his | friends. His letters are a string of spirited hortatives to his | friends on this subject; and nobody is quick and brisk enough to | please him. . , he tells Mr. Tucker, on his | farewell for India, . | | This subterranean noise and rumbling did not go on without an | explosion; and before long Arnold went off and up into the air, | like a rocket, in the shape of a pamphlet, which astonished and | astounded his friends, all the world, and lastly himself: we | allude to the memorable pamphlet on Church Reform. This was | a premature burst for the movement. It scattered, in one fell | discharge, the gathered advance and development of a century; | and the consequence was, that the explosion ended with itself, | and with the flash it made. The pamphlet, however, was a | perfect harmonious and natural expression, ~~ the genuine child | of Arnold's mind. He threw his whole soul into it; and gave to | the world, in one bold leap of authorship, the darling religious | theories of a life. | | The first was the idea of the Church-State. German religionism | has taken two remarkable lines against the Church ~~ one against | her corporate character, the other against her doctrines. It has | subjected Church to State with one hand, and it has destroyed | unity of faith with the other. The German idea of the alliance of | Church and State does not make them two independent societies, | each on a distinct basis of its own, though acting in union; but | merges them both into one common element; and makes one | religious incorporation of the two. The result of this is what is | called . The State, by becoming religious, | becomes a Church. The king, as the concentration of the power | of the community, is the head of the Church-State. The material | corporeal State, the constitutional power, wherever residing, is, | in fact, made to sit upon and occupy the Church's ground; and all | that remains of the Church, after the act of absorption, is the | materialised reflection of itself in the absorber and incorporator; | the sanctity of the natural-religious sort, which accrues to the | State from its usurpation. The tide of divine economy is sucked | back again into the earthly vortex : the divine society is | humanised. The Church, which was formed out of the original | clay of our social humanity, is turned | | back into its clay again; and man, after being called by God from | the natural into the supernatural bond of union, seems to declare | that he prefers the natural, and retraces his steps. The result is, | that Christianity so far relapses into the religion of nature, and | instead of being the apex and consummation of the natural | dispensation, becomes a past and gone experiment; a visionary | recollection; a theory, which was tried and did not answer; a | cheat, which deluded the world for a time, and the discovery of | which now sends the world , made wiser and sharper by it, to rest | the more firmly upon her own basis again, and to rely, after the | failure of her high-flowing acquaintance, more than ever upon | herself. She returns to the pagan theory. Before the Christian | Church existed, the State was the | church: heathen philosophy solemnly recognised it in that | character. The Grecian polis | was a human and divine society at once ~~ its office divine ~~ its | descent human. The German system returns to the | polis again; and well would it be | for it, if it could do that simply, and did no worse. But the | Rubicon is crossed: nature cannot be what it was before, without | being worse than it was before. We cannot be either pagan, or | patriarchal, or legal again: those were anticipations, they cannot | be results: they were types, they cannot be substances. The man | cannot be the child again; the plant the seed; the sculptured | marble the native rock again. Time cannot retrograde; the dainty | mouthful cannot be retasted; the old world cannot return; nature | cannot be bare nature again: she cannot return to her old eras | without decay and dissolution in the act of retrograding. | Reaction is fatal: Lot's wife looked back, and she became a | pillar of salt. A distinct creation of a Church is undone in | returning to the era before the Church; and paganism is no longer | itself, but the unnatural fungus upon its own grave ~~ the rotten | fruit, and not the ripening seed. | | Nevertheless, the ancient theory of a Church-State | is, as a classical idea, truly captivating. And Arnold's | mind had a peculiar leaning toward the classical: he was | tenderly alive to that ideal which was the high and philosophical | aspiration of his most favourite ages of the world. Greek and | Roman history was his delight: he : with deep | veneration into the . ? he said, upon some bad | symptoms breaking out among the Rugby boys: . And | his classical taste, it is to be observed, especially selected the | purely classical or high pagan finish of the old world | as it was , for his affections to rest on, | rather than its rude and elementary yearnings after what it | | was not. He liked the historical and picturesque indeed of | Homer and Virgil: but poetry was not his point: Herodotus, | Thucydides and Livy were his authors: he was historical all | over. His whole aim on this head, his , amounted in | him to a relish for the actual politics and moral basis of the Old | State as such, to a real fancy and preference for the classical | theory, in parts where Christianity had directly superseded it. It | is remarkable that that portion of ancient literature which went | deepest in its anticipations of Christianity; which, if any such | there were in the old world, was indeed a genuine oracular | yearning from its very sanctuary, for a higher system; that | melodious heathen prelude of the Christian mystery, ~~ Greek | Tragedy ~~ was just the portion of it that he did not take to. The | life and blood of the classical age, more than its shadows and | anticipations, its present more than its future, was the fascination. | Such a favourite point as the "Greek union of gymnastics and | philosophy," showed the direction of his mind. The tendency is | one which is brought out, and developed broadly in the present | state of German literature, light and grave. Miss Bremer adopts a | pointed classical model, and is a worshipper of nature and Greek | statuary: she converts the Swedish salon into an Ionic temple, | and floods her domestic ether with all the floral fragrance and | refined sensuality of classicalism. Milton, though not a German, | adopted the mediæval antiquity of the genuine | neologian , viz. pagan mythology. Different minds touch | upon the circle at different points; and Arnold had decidedly his | point of contact. The neologian attempts of modern | times have indeed remarkably coincided with one or other sort of | classical renaissance . Arnold's | mind was fixed on one ~~ the revival of the Grecian | polis ; and the substitution, | for the Christian Church, of a Church-State. | | Thus fostered and encouraged, this classical Church ideal | became the substratum of a positive science of Christian politics | ~~ a Christian , in Arnold's mind, which gave the centre | to every thought and speculation upon religion. It was the point, | ; and the basis of all . ~~ , he | thought, . ~~ | | ~~ that great work of his matured experience and wisdom, | not Aristotle's, but Arnold's , which would base and | adjust the Christian Church-State upon a new and final footing. | | This ideal of a Church of course utterly | unpriested it: and a priest, accordingly, Arnold could not | tolerate. The idea of a priest was a real abomination to him, in | the strictest sense of the word; it was an image horrible and | unclean to his religious eye. To the abstract he had very much | the sensations felt by the genuine Brahmin towards an impure | reptile. He argues characteristically: . ~~ He felt, at | the bottom of his heart, in short, an utter distance and | incongeniality between a priestly religion and his own; and that | if his religion was Christianity, the other could not be. He was | not one to mince matters in expressing himself, and accordingly, | (indeed we do not see how he could do otherwise,) he | pronounced the idea of a priesthood to be positively ; a | real bona fide of "Antichrist." | The "priesthood, the Sacraments, the Apostolical succession," | were his "heresy," his "idolatry," his "schism and his anarchy." | He had his idea of the Christian system in his mind; and the | priestly distinction was a positive break up to it: it made two | where he made one: it undid a whole: it destroyed the visible | form of Christianity in the world, as he pictured it. The form of | the "religious State," to him, answered to the form of the | Catholic Church to others: and the departure from this form was | his schism. "Priestcraft," and "Priestcraft Antichrist," "the | essence of all that was evil in Popery," "the idolatry of the | Priesthood as bad as the idolatry of Jupiter," "the Church's worst | enemy," "the false Church:" ~~ most copiously express | | the entire contrariety he felt between his own principle of State | Christianity, and that of Church Christianity. | | It was of course strictly necessary, with such a theory as this, that | he should be prepared to unchristianize the whole framework of | the Christian society from the first; and Arnold did not shrink | from the conclusion. That he wanted , was a mild | expression of his view. It was with the fact full before him of a | priestly-governed Church of eighteen hundred years' standing, | that he pronounced to be , . | | The very first era and movement indeed in the Church, from its | commencement downwards, which he rested upon with | satisfaction as affording any home for his principles, was the | Reformation in the sixteenth century: and of the Reformation | accordingly, both English and foreign, he was a most ardent, | affectionate, loyal, devoted, enthusiastic and genuine disciple | admirer and son. He looked up to the Reformation as the first | step that was made on the great point of State supremacy. There | he saw the first dawn of a new order of things, the first blow | struck to priestcraft, the first breath in the total absorption of the | Church into the State. He disliked and condemned the individual | instruments by which it was effected, the motives on which many | acted, and the coarse and violent proceedings which | accompanied it. But the movement, as such, had his unfeigned | admiration and adhesion: the principle on which it was based, | and which it set going, appealed to his very deepest religious | sympathies and heartfelt aspirations. He saw, in the rude | usurpation of a tyrannical king, the first stone laid of his | Church-State; and the precedents of King Edward VI. were the sacred | model upon which, with jealous and loyal accuracy, he moulded | the whole relations of the Church and State in a country. They | made the king the head of the Church; and that, in principle, gave | him all that he wanted: it only remained to consolidate and fill | up the system which had been but just sketched in the outline, | and then left; and to develop a principle which an intervening | reaction in the Church had stopped and thrown back. , | he writes, . , he says emphatically, . | He lamented that | | . But . | | It is remarkable, too, that with that peculiar acumen which a man | has in detecting any attack upon a favourite theory, that critical | sensitiveness which he feels for what is part of himself, and by | which he recognises a real blow and stroke, which, under any | circuitous process, hits the mark and comes home ~~ Arnold | discerned in those times, which an ordinary mind would select as | specially exemplifying the Church and State principle, the most | positive reaction against it. He connects the Caroline era with | the revival of the principle of Church independence, and the | power of the priesthood; and he says ~~ , | etcetera etcetera , he | feels quite differently. He says the principle on which | Archbishop Laud and his followers went, was ; and that | by the Church they meant . He mistakes them indeed | here, but the mistake does not give the picture a more State | colouring, but the reverse. So, again, on the subject of Church | doctrine in general, he says: . The distinction is | repeated over and over again; and much in the same way in | which he regards the whole Catholic Church as a departure from | the first, from the Apostolical system, he also regards the career | of the English Church as a departure from the genuine principle | of the Reformation. , he says, (a pretty early reverse of | his bright side of the Church) . Even ordinary, | commonplace High Churchmanship, the lowest average Church | principle among us, he carefully parts off from any Reformation | connexion. And the two parties in our Church have their | respective shares in it thus apportioned to them: ~~ | idolize, he means, as distinct from outstripping them, as he | himself wanted to do. Arnold saw, we say, that his and the | Reformers' movement had been stopped by an intervening | school, and that the Church's actual career had been more or less | a reaction upon it. | | And this distinction gives us the clue to a good deal of Arnold's | language about the English Church, when he speaks of her as a | one, with much of good about it, and much of evil; and | reprobates an over-fondness for . The language in itself | might proceed either from a discontented Catholic, or a | discontented liberal; from one who saw too little catholicity in | the Church, or one who saw too much. It is evident that, in his | case, it is spoken in the latter character. The Church of the | Reformation, as such, he liked. That particular spot in her | history, the focus of Edward the Sixth's religionism, he | thoroughly liked; and all but that he disliked. He liked the | Church of England so far as it verged on the latitudinarian and | state principle; he disliked it so far as it retained the dogmatic | and the priestly one. He aimed at thoroughly expanding the | former, and entirely extinguishing the latter. The most | flourishing portions of her history to him, were just those which | her catholic son looks back to with the greatest sorrow. He | especially selects the Georgian period of latitudinarianism and | state servility as a to the Church's general character, | and a bright contrast to the unpleasant Laudian shades that have | too much overspread their history. He lays his sharp finger on | the shoots of the Reformation wherever they peep up to light; | and he treasures them as earnests of a gladder day, when the | Church shall be indeed thoroughly reformed on the Edward VI. | model, and the dawning brightness of the sixteenth century | become one flood of light over her. | | We turn from the ecclesiastical to the doctrinal side of Arnold's | system, and of the Church Reform pamphlet. | | Arnold's notion of belief was the completely individualist one; | there was no connexion with the social principle in it. It clung to | no church or sect, to no corporate mass or body of opinions | whatever. Most persons, whether they are Churchmen or | Dissenters, are, in some sort, social in | their belief. A man likes a chief point or two in Methodism; and | he forthwith not only takes these, but swallows all the others for | the sake of company: he adopts, that is, not only one or two | Methodist opinions, but Methodism; he becomes a Methodist. | He feels one part, and he takes the rest on trust. A society is | faith's body; she does not feel herself alive except she is | embodied. A mass communicates its own solidity. The | Wesleyan bosom lodges the Conference. A Quaker's faith | reflects his garb in combination. Man supplies the conscious | deficiency in his own apprehension, by an appropriation of his | neighbour's; he throws the social mass, good stone or rubbish as | it may be, into the spiritual vacuum in his own mind; and then, | what with himself and what with others, he feels himself full, and | he believes. He extends over a sect, he covers so much actual | ground, and is | | satisfied. It may not be a very large one, but, as one of the | company, he is at home there, and he feels his right: his belief is | his regular property, like his farm or estate: he is content to | bargain for a little narrowness, if he can have the feeling of | solidity; to be straightlaced, and keep within the bounds of his | sect, if he can feel what there is there his own. This is the | corporate principle of belief. The ordinary | sectarian, though he is one, likes | belonging to a body. His faith is social. Individualist belief, on | the other hand, prefers space and freedom to solidity; puts its | foot everywhere , and is at home | nowhere; picks out of every | system just what it likes, and leaves just what it likes; combines | all its spoils in some kaleidoscope pattern, and makes that its | system. The slender packthread work straggles over the universe | in skeleton fashion, touching and dotting where it goes; but | including no territory, delineating no form. Sectarianism is | narrow, but eclecticism is shadowy and unreal. And to throw | oneself into some whole system, and be a Methodist, or a | Quaker, has as much largeness about it after all, as their | philosophy, who pick only what suits themselves; who only look | over the world to discover the scattered images and reflections of | the particular ideas which the chance or chaos of individual life | has thrown up within their own minds; who are satisfied with the | richness of their own internal soil, and who go on, never really | enlarging their minds, but only illustrating them. The | reason of eclecticism's choice is a narrow, | though the field of it may be a wide one. | | Arnold was a strong example of the latter class. His religious | tastes extended far and wide, and had their spot and point they | touched on in every religious body. He felt in himself a | centrality, which seemed to prove the feasibleness of | centralization for all these bodies, and he wished to bring them | all together. One large wall of circumvallation was to include | them all. His very idea of religious unity took this form, and | unity with him was not so much a corporate as a federal one, ~~ | not so much different individuals uniting in one body, as | different distinct bodies in one large alliance. Independents and | Methodists, Quakers, Baptists, Churchmen, were brought all | together upon a common basis, and included in one national | Church. He united, in short, his own favourite idea of a | State-Church, with the more ordinary latitudinarian one of a | union of creeds. | | One difficulty there was, indeed, not of theory, but of practice, | which appeared to touch him now on the subject of Church and | State. It arose out of a comparatively insignificant corner of the | national material. All the Christian denominations were | members, of course, of the Church; and as such, of the State; the | identification of Church and State fully met their case. But what | was to be done with the Jews? The broadest ecclesiastical | | basis could not include them; they were out of the Church, and | therefore out of the State too: not Christians, and therefore not | citizens. , he writes to Mr. Hare, . He was | anxious, at the same time, to make as ample amends to the | excluded race as could be made, in consistency with the State | ideal. And having secured the State's total abrogation of | Judaism, he could afford to temper justice with mercy. He | admitted the Jews to the rights of marriage, and of domestic life, | though not to the supreme order of political rights. . | The barbarous mixture, however, of the two rights, commercial | and suffragial, though feudal in origin, was not likely to be | disturbed by the predominant feeling of the present age; and | Arnold advocated some systematic encouragement of the Jews to | emigrate. | | We have come to the subject of doctrine. He had the ordinary | latitudinarian theory here. He thought that . This | rationalist, or private judgment theory of the interpretation of | Scripture, is so well known and so common now, that we need | not dwell upon it. Arnold wanted every individual and sect to | draw their own conclusions for themselves, without censuring or | separating from each other, if they come to different ones. We | are afraid we even see (and we mention it now we are on the | subject,) a tendency in him ~~ we will not call it more ~~ to a | still lower stage of rationalism. The form which the rationalistic | theory has assumed in this country has allowed any unworthy or | defective application of the Bible | language, and sanctioned every religion which profess to be | gathered from it. It has destroyed the one grand sense of | Scripture, but there it has generally stopped: it has abstained | from interference with the text itself; and the career of doubt and | inquiry has not yet thrust home to | | the historical substance and matter of the sacred volume. The | Germans have outstripped both their English and Genevan | friends, and done this. They have crossed the boundary, and | asked the awful question, What is the Bible? What does inspired | writing mean? And distinction upon distinction, as to the sense | in which, and the degree in which, the Bible, or different parts of | it, are inspired, have led to a separation of the earthly and human | from the spiritual particles, and into an analytical breaking up | and solution of the mass, of which it is impossible to tell the | consequences. The comparative escape of this country from the | analytical contagion, is a matter of daily and hourly increasing, | though thankful, surprise to us. We can hardly dare to face, or to | contemplate to its full extent, the anomaly of the unhesitating, | literal, dead assent of such an age as the present, to the | authenticity and infallibility of such a book as the Bible, ~ a book | so prima facie legendary and | mystical as the Bible must to this age's philosophy appear. One | thinks, naturally, why be at so much trouble at explaining away? | ~~ why keep what you are always running against, and endure | the perpetual difficulty of squaring to modern views the old | structure of supernaturalism? Why encounter the crooked | corners of the old mysterious labyrinth, when with one breath | you might have an open area in its place? | | We do observe tendencies , however, in | Arnold, towards undermining this entire assent we speak of, ~~ a | suspicious liking for distinctions in inspiration, as a subject of | speculation that his mind fed upon. Physical science is not | taught in Scripture; then why should history be? It is quite | possible to deny the historical inspiration, retaining the spiritual, | which is all we have to do with. , says Mr. Price, | . And this view of Scripture was in him. Having | begun with, and , his mind | developed slowly and steadily against the verbal inspiration. He | had a peculiar wish to take up this line as an author. . | ~~Is it a part of this theory, that he appears to be so ready on one | occasion to throw aside some particular chapters in the Bible | which do not happen to harmonize with a | | view of his on prophecy? . His reason his ~~ | . But we will not pursue this more esoteric line of | rationalism in him farther. | | Arnold had constructed his great national church of all | denominations ~~ including both churchmen, and all that are | called "orthodox dissenters:" but then | came the delicate question as to the admission of some to whom | the title of orthodox was not allowed. Were Unitarians to be | admitted or not? In spite of the haziness and perplexity of | Arnold's whole state of mind and point of view on the subject of | Unitarianism, so far is clear, that he had no objection to including | sincere and earnest Unitarians in his church. And he arrives at | this conclusion by the following process ~~ a most painful one | for us to follow; because, say it we must, it puts Arnold's own | individual belief on this doctrine in a most unsatisfactory light. | | We take his letter to Mr. Smith of Norwich. Mr. Smith had | written to complain of him for making the act of | essential in his scheme of comprehension. Arnold, in reply, | explains what that phrase of Christ being an object of worship | means, in his view. | | Does he say that it necessarily means addressing Christ as God? | He does not. He says that common Unitarians make Christ | virtually dead , and that they ought to | think of him as alive . That is not the | same with thinking him God. Again, he says the fault of the | Unitarians is, that they approach God ; whereas they | ought to approach him through Christ: and that, whereas a direct | communion with God is reserved for a more spiritual state of | being hereafter, they anticipate it here. Here the fault of the | Unitarians is referred to the mode of | worship only ~~ not to the object of it; | and they are blamed, not for refusing to regard Christ as God, but | for refusing to regard him as the medium through which God is | worshipped. And so far from there being an essential and eternal | difference in the two relations to Christ, ~~ which the Unitarian | and orthodox side respectively suppose, ~~ he distinctly | intimates that the very relation to him which the orthodox side | supposes, is only a function of our present earthly state of | existence, and will not continue in our future spiritual one. A | most painful expression of doctrine, by which he identifies the | incomprehensible God with God the Father, ( ) | concentrates but too clearly the | | line of idea throughout; viz. that the Unitarians and the orthodox, | having both the same Being before their minds as the object of | worship, only approach him in different ways, the mediate and | immediate; that there is, therefore, no fundamental difference in | their respective doctrines, and that such worship as we pay to | Christ, as being the medium of the worship as we pay to God, ~~ | worship in this sense to Christ, ~~ is not | inconsistent in principle with the creed of Unitarians, and need | not be objected to by them. | | The question, in short, with Arnold was one of feeling, not of | doctrine; and regarded the affection of the man to the Being, and | not the essence of Being himself. It is not easy, indeed, to see | how the two can be separated; for our feeling towards a being | must be affected by the consideration of what that being is. But | we state the view as he seems to hold it: , he says, | . And if Unitarians would think of him as | alive , and would love and fear him, whether they thought | him man or God, he regards them as true Christians. The word | "fear" comes in strangely: . Religious fear is a feeling | which applies ultimately to the Divine Being alone; and the | notion of the "fear" of Christ going along with the simply human | idea of him is a perplexing one. Indeed, in the general tone of | Arnold's mind on this subject, we see no cold Unitarianism, but | what might be taken for the vague foreshadowings of high | uninstructed nature: and it is melancholy to see what would have | delighted us so much as an aspiration toward revelation, thrown | into such a different aspect by the fact of its being a relapse from | it. What are we to think when Arnold could say what he did, and | yet absolutely imagine that he thought the "central truth of | Christianity was the doctrine of our Lord's divinity." We can | only suppose that he partly did not know what his own view was, | and partly did not know what the doctrine was. , we are | told, . , says one, . We must own | we look fearfully on the richness and warmth of that feeling | toward our Lord, which could tolerate the Unitarian view of | them. | | | A latitudinarianism, however, which embraced all sects, even the | Unitarians, could gather also from Catholicism. Arnold | ornamented and enriched his system with not a few flowers and | external beauties of Catholic worship, its striking ceremonies and | symbols, and even its institutions. With a philosophical dislike | and contempt for metaphysical "questions between Homoousians | and Homoiousians" ready to fall any moment from his pen, he | yet regarded the creeds "as triumphant hymns of thanksgiving;" | and the very Nicene creed of the Homousion was chanted, | instead of being read, in Rugby Chapel, at his own especial wish; | and had imparted to it the sacred musical pomp which | symbolized the deep dogmatic faith of the Catholic Church. He | was for crosses and way-side oratories, daily services, religious | societies of females, , and religious processions. The | former would have included "Catholics, Arians, Romanists, | Protestants, Churchmen, and Dissenters." The processions | would have consisted of all the denominations. He was for | confession, but not to a minister. Having extracted the Catholic | and sacerdotal sting out of Church forms and institutions, his | taste loved the beauty, and his common-sense the evident utility, | of the exterior. | | He carries on, we must observe, the same character into the | political and poetical department: he is for the same mixture | here. He is a vivid admirer of the picturesque, and likes the | prestige of antiquity, ~~ the churchyard at Oxford and | Winchester, and the pedigree associations of Lowestoff, ~~ but | the feudal nauseates him. It makes him ill to see an old castle. | The visible demolition of the French castles is the feast of his | eyes in his French tour. A great charm of the Westmoreland | lakes is that there are no feudal remains there to disturb him. He | thinks Chivalry an Antichrist; but then he does not like | Jacobinism: he thinks Jacobinism an Antichrist too. The three | glorious days, however, were a . He subscribes to the | monument of those who fell. It is difficult to analyse; but we | think it is this want of the old poetical associations of which the | order and rank are here deprived; that we do not like that | reference to the "gentlemanly" which he is rather fond of, and | which does not, somehow, come with grace from him. He | exhorts his boys to be "Christian gentlemen;" and he wants an | undermaster who must be a "Christian gentleman." We would | rather see this combination implied than expressed. Expressed in | this way, it seems to have a lowering influence on both | characters ~~ to tend to secularize the Christian, and to | puritanize the gentleman. There was a book published some | years ago called "The Portraiture of a Christian Gentleman." | Arnold was a mixture in nature as well as religion. | | | The reader has been put in possession of Arnold's system, | ecclesiastical and doctrinal, to the best of our power; and we | have only to tell him now that he has been going through, in the | last pages, what constituted the substance and matter of the | Church-reform pamphlet. That pamphlet was a clear, striking, | and utterly fearless exposition of these great theories, without | concealment or reserve. The entire fullness of the author's own | conviction, which armed them in his own idea, with the almost | transparent self-evident irresistible force of truth, made disguise | unnecessary: and the scheme of a national Church, to | comprehend all sects, and to be under the control of civil | functionaries, whether by the name of bishop, or any other, was, | with the most ardent seriousness, submitted for | bona fide acceptance to the Church | and nation. | | The effect of the burst was what might have been expected. The | whole religious feeling of the country was roused and up in arms | instantaneously against the aggression. All who had any vestige | of Church instinct, all even who had any definite creed of their | own, who thought themselves right and others wrong ~~ | Churchmen and "orthodox Dissenters" alike were astonished at | this bold leap of latitudinarianism. Different persuasions were | not prepared for the idea of finding themselves all together | within the same walls. And even moderate, lax Churchmen, | were taken aback at the prospect of officers in the army and navy | administering the sacraments ~~ for the pamphlet went the full | length of the author's own conversational illustration of his | principle. The theory had in fact come out before its time; it was | not a development, but a burst; the hypothetical work of a | century was anticipated in it. It was full-blown mature | Germanism, as a century of favourable growth would have made | it, only put to the beginning of the period instead of to the end. | The cart was put before the horse; the building was begun at the | frieze and cornice, up in the air, and the unnatural suspension | could do nothing but come down. Aladdin's palace, the | polis , the Utopia of Lutheranism, | the reign of feeling over creeds, was an airy creation of magic, | and not terra firma , so early. | Never was there such an imprudent step, to speak politically of it, | as a premature exposure, which only reflected, in the repulsive | form of their ultimate development, the tendencies which were | yet in the bud. The age started back at the exaggerated likeness | of itself, and the Church, we trust, took warning. It was an | impolitic disclosure. What Arnold should have done was to wait | ten years; and then construct, not a Reform pamphlet, but a | Jerusalem Bishopric. That would have been wise caution; that | would have been natural growth. His friend and fellow-theorist, | the Chevalier Bunsen, has shown himself a less complete thinker | perhaps, but a more practical manager. Mr. | | Stanley has alluded to the parallelism here with Arnold's view. | He had a perfect right to do so. | | His own friends remonstrated. We have a reply to a letter from | Dr. Hawkins, a theologian professedly not of the deepest Church | stamp, who, it appears, had passed sentence upon it, and passed it | in a more ex cathedra style | than the author thought quite legitimate. , says Dr. | Hawkins; . This, we must observe, is an unfortunate | line of censure to take, because it simply subjects the censurer to | immediate contradiction upon a matter of fact, without | possibility of reply; ~~ a contradiction which, accordingly, | Arnold gives flatly. . It is not, in fact, an appropriate | line of objection to urge to the fundamental, the heartfelt, the | primary idea of an enthusiastic religionist, ~~ that which has | given the colour to all his thinking and reading, ~~ to tell him to | go to his books again. He may go to his | books again; and the only result will be, that his additional | reading will be coloured by the same primary idea which | coloured his reading before. Let the idea be ever so extravagant, | this only makes the case the clearer. To have told the founder of | Mahometanism, for example, that "he had not studied the | subject," and "that he acted with haste, and without | consideration," would have been simply not to the purpose; he | would have answered, of course, that he had studied the subject, | and thought about it a great deal; and that all his speculation had | confirmed the idea with which he started. All enthusiastic | promulgators of theories and systems say this; and they say it | correctly. Arnold had thought and had read about his subject a | great deal, and these two volumes show it. To imagine that all | error springs from not "studying" the question, and that if the | question "is studied," the mind will right itself; to make the | perception of truth the mechanical result of information and | inquiry, is an assumption which in multitudes of cases, only | diverts attention from the real source of the evil. The fact, | however, of such a criticism from such a quarter, showed | strongly the unripeness of moderate contemporary | latitudinarianism for the contents of the Church-reform | pamphlet. Arnold sounded his trumpet, and then found himself | standing alone; the blast had alarmed, or had shocked, or had | fretted and annoyed respectively the whole English world. The | pamphlet was stranded, and the very clearest and most copious | evidence was given him, in the shape of criticism, public and | private, in good taste and in bad taste, that society did not go | along with him. | | Arnold now showed a deficiency, a decidedly weak point in | | his mind. He stood the shock without giving way, indeed, an | inch ~~ nobody would expect him to do that ~~ but he stood it | also without understanding or appreciating it the least. He | showed a complete want of sympathy and experience in his way | of taking these demonstrations. | | With the whole world out of breath at his proposed scheme, he | stood as innocent and unconscious of having given offence to | any one's notions as if he had proposed a new vestry act. He was | quite hurt, perplexed, surprised, that people actually thought him | a latitudinarian. He could not understand it; could not see what | people meant. Latitudinarianism was just what of all things he | disliked. He wished, indeed, Churchmen, Independents, | Baptists, Quakers, and the good sort of Socinians, to be all | comprehended in his church system; but was that | latitudinarianism? Could anyone | be so blinded by prepossession | as really to imagine that there was any latitudinarianism involved | in such an arrangement? . Even this modified | apprehension, and accompanied with the most courteous | confidence in the absence of any such | "intention" on his part, is unintelligible to him. Far from | indicating any latitudinarian intention ~~ how even any | incidental undesigned consequences of that nature could, in the | chances of things, shoot up from such a scheme, he cannot | divine. , he says, . . That is to say, | he embraces the full recognised latitudinarian idea of "practical" | union amidst "theoretical," i.e. doctrinal | differences; and this idea presents itself to him as just | the opposite of latitudinarianism. This is his | notion of latitudinarianism and its contrary, and he has no clue | for discovering by what process of mind in other people their | idea is just the reverse. He does not apprehend their view or | mode of thinking on the subject the least, and therefore not their | objections. The whole demonstration against his pamphlet is a | dead wall to him; he looks hard, and sees nothing. His own | conclusions are so absolutely transparent to himself. , | he says, . And he proceeds accordingly to account ~~ | as account, in some way or other, he must ~~ for the feeling | against his scheme, by attributing it to hostility and prejudice | toward himself. He says, | | and he talks of the which are circulated about him. | The class of martyr feelings follows. ; and . | | A more or less vague public opinion has been Arnold's | antagonist and judge hitherto; but a more formidable opponent | now comes upon the scene. A mere present state of feeling, a | present impression in society, is not an insuperable barrier to the | influence of a very active mind. Men start at opinions at first, | and afterwards take to them. The Church-reform pamphlet was | sufficiently stranded at the time; but many a rock that has been | left as much stranded as that, has waited, and gathered the tide | about it again; and the waves of an ocean have played over its | head. The opposition of conventional feeling, of the noise of | numbers, was not perhaps one in itself to have stopped and | driven back Arnold's religious theory. That Church and State are | one thing, and one thing only, is definite idea; that of the union, | cuts its way through a mass of opposition that has no definite | weapon to oppose to it. An intensely active rich mind, like | Arnold's, has an inspiriting stirring power among friends and | fellow-speculators, though he may disconcert them by a too early | demonstration; and there was a sufficiently strong nucleus of | united liberalism in the Church to gather minds around it, if no | opposite one of another sort appeared. The opposition to Arnold | wanted a principle infusing into it, and a definite ground given it | to stand on. It wanted a pledge for the future, as well as the | demonstration of the present; a pledge that it would go on, and | not allow the aggression to outlive it. | | It so happened that there was a party at hand to give this pledge. | The systematic movement on Arnold's part just happened to be | coincident with a most decided and systematic one from an | opposite quarter. The Church of England had, after a century of | growing laxity, just come to the point at which she must either | retrace her steps into a stricter state, or go forward into a formal | latitudinarianism. Arnold was for the latter course; the writers of | the "Tracts for the Times: for the former. The two schools met at | these cross roads, as it were; and a remarkable contrast indeed | they presented. The foremost characters in the Church | movement, if they will excuse us looking at them so historically, | were undoubtedly phenomena in their way, as Arnold was in his. | | Of one of these we can speak: the death, that robs us of so much, | gives at any rate this privilege. Singular it is that antagonist | systems should so suit themselves with champions: | | but if the world had been picked for the most fair, adequate, and | expressive specimens of German religionism and Catholicism, | ~~ specimens that each side would have acknowledged, ~~ it | could not well have produced better ones for the purpose than | Dr. Arnold and Mr. Froude. Arnold, gushing with the richness of | domestic life, the darling of nature, and overflowing receptacle | and enjoyer, with the strong healthy gusto, of all her endearments | and sweets; Arnold, the representative of high joyous | Lutheranism, is describable: ~~ Mr. Froude, hardly. His | intercourse with earth and nature seemed to cut through them, | like incongenial steel, rather than mix and mingle with them. | Yet the polished blade smiled as it went through. The grace and | spirit with which he adorned this outward world, and seemed, to | an undiscerning eye, to love it, were but something analogous in | him to the easy tone of men in high life, whose good-nature to | inferiors is the result either of their disinterested benevolence, or | sublime unconcern. In him the severe sweetness of the life | divine not so much rejected as disarmed those potent glows and | attractions of the life natural: a high good temper civilly evaded | and disowned them. The monk by nature, the born aristocrat of | the Christian sphere, passed them clean by with inimitable ease; | marked his line and shot clear beyond them, into the serene ether, | toward the far-off light, toward the needle's point on which ten | thousand angels and all heaven move. | | Of living persons we cannot speak, but the reader has his ideas of | them pretty well fixed by this time; they form a regular group in | our Church's history; and they brought with them a system and a | philosophy of a somewhat deep, stern, and mystical aspect to | confront to their antagonists'. The Catholic system, as it | advanced from the worlds beyond the grave, came with some of | the colour and circumstance of its origin. It contrasted strangely | with the light, hearty, and glowing form of earth, that came from | wood and mountain, sunshine and green fields, to meet them. | And the unearthly, supernatural, dogmatic Church opposed a | ghostly dignity to the Church of nature, and the religion of the | heart. | | The commotion of the Church-reform pamphlet but ushered | Arnold into a more formidable and esoteric struggle with this | new opponent ~~ a struggle which had shifted from the ground | of invasion, with him, to that of self-defence. He was not, | indeed, selected as any special object of attack by the writers of | the tracts, or any of the Oxford School; rather remarkably, the | contrary. Jacob Abbot was commented on, and he was left | untouched. But the appearance of such a system as theirs made it | not a question of waiting to be attacked. The fact itself was | enough. A system like his was bound to expel and thrust out | such an antipodist one, and, in order to have any chance of | success for itself, could not allow the ground to be pre-occupied | by an opponent. | | It is remarkable, indeed, how completely a counter-aggressive | movement to his own had turned the tables in this respect; and | made the object of a negative success, a check to the rival, the | chief and great point to gain, with him; instead of the positive | spread of his own system. The stop thus given to the progress of | "Church Reform" is felt; and, ~~ , is his complaint. | | The matter, on Arnold's part, indeed, became from the first | moment very serious. His first thing is to prophesy. He | prophesies that the "Tracts," cannot take ~~ that, though they | may please a few of the clergy, the laity must scout them to a | man. We may remark that Arnold is rather fond of prophesying, | and prophesies with a kind of ocular certainty. However, the | "Tracts" do take, and Arnold's argumentative pulse quickens. | The religious naturalist saw in the new school a pernicious | destructive species of theological animals, that were simply bent | on eating into the core of liberalism: and a religious blight and | plague seemed to be the inevitable result of the swarm spreading. | The Oxford writers were "idolaters," "Judaizers," maintainers of | the "priestcraft Antichrist," schismatics to the Church, and in | principle traitors to the State. ~~ , he says. , | but in them I do: . . ~~ Their insisting on the | necessity of the Apostolical Succession is . And going | upon his old favourite idea, of there being no descent either of | blood or order in Christianity, and of this being a positive | antichristian element to introduce into the system, a really rude | violation of the Christian's holy freedom, he took "schismatic, | profane," and the like terms, clean out of the mouth of the | Apostolical Church towards the latitudinarian, and applied them, | if we may say so, with the utmost naïveté | and simplicity towards the Church herself. | | The Regale was urged heartily, and the Church movement | | attacked from the Plantagenet platform. . The notion | of the Church being an independent body, and able to keep her | own succession going on apart from the State, is ; and | he is only defending, he says, . It appears a curious | objection, at first sight, from a man like Arnold, to urge against a | particular religious claim, that it would have been considered | treasonable in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. But this, as we have | seen, is the period of English history to which he always goes for | his ecclesiastical principles. | | Another point of accusation, more of a moral one, does not come | with peculiar grace from Arnold; viz. the charge of immodesty | and impudence in persons daring to go so counter to received | opinions in their views of things and persons. . ~~ | Now, let it be ever so true that has taken one view of | Cranmer and the Reformers, whereas Mr. Froude took another, | Arnold was not precisely the person to found a charge of | impudence upon such a fact. A man who, without a vestige of | internal scruple or misgiving, unchristianized the whole | development of the Church from the days of the Apostles; who | made the very disciples friends and successors of the Apostles, | teachers of corruption; who made the priesthood an Antichrist, | and had just himself shocked the whole Church of England by | the promulgation of a religious theory repugnant to the feelings | and ideas of almost all her members, to a man; was certainly not | a person to be tender in requiring compliance with received | views from another, or quick to call in another impudence what | in himself was the necessary adjunct of philosophy. | | The condemnation of Dr. Hampden, by the Oxford Convocation, | in 1836, brought a powerful accession to these feelings. It was a | vigorous demonstration in exactly the opposite direction to his | own; and he felt it to be such. But on this subject we have a | preliminary remark to address to Mr. Stanley: there is an | assertion of his upon this subject, which we should like him to | explain. An amiable feeling, which we should be the last to | blame him for, appears to have suggested a method of softening | this somewhat rough part of Arnold's career, and he vulgarizes | the opposition of Dr. Hampden, in order to fit and | | accommodate it for Arnold's aversion. He says; ~~ . | Now all we can say is, that if "the most eminent of Dr. | Hampden's opponents" had no sympathy with the general mass | of opposition on that occasion, they were the most accomplished | and the most audacious hypocrites that ever exhibited in public | life. For they originated that opposition, they headed it | throughout; they wrote, they spoke, earnestly and heartily, in | public and in private, about it; they appeared at the very top of | the movement; they collected, strengthened, and systematized the | opposition, they sustained it, and they brought it to its | consummation. If Mr. Stanley alludes to a more esoteric | standard of sympathy than the recognised public one, we do not | profess to be able to follow him. He may be right or wrong in | asserting that the average inward religious of a body of | five hundred members of Convocation, was not one in which Mr. | Keble, Dr. Pusey, and Mr. Newman, recognised the exact | reflection of their own. But without deciding this question either | way, it is as certain as facts can make it, that the feeling against a | latitudinarian innovation on the Church-doctrines, ~~ which was | real and strong in that convocational movement against Dr. | Hampden, however political motives, in such a large, mass, | mingled with it, ~~ was feeling in which "the most eminent of | Dr. Hampden's opponents" heartily sympathized, and with which | they bona fide allied | themselves and acted. | | To proceed: ~~ Arnold's view of the question was soon settled, | and very decidedly. "Hampden's Bampton Lectures" were to | him . ~~ . He instantly identified Hampden's | system with the principle of religious march and improvement, | and made it the natural development of the creed of the | Reformation. , he says, . The opposition to | him, on the other hand, he identified with the line of Catholicism | in the English Church from the first. The Oxford Convocation of | 1836, "was a repetition of the scenes at the Reformation." The | "Oxford High-church outcry" at Dr. Hampden, as Regius | Professor, was an echo of the "Oxford Roman Catholic outcry" at | Peter Martyr, as Regius Professor, in the reign of Edward VI. | The censure of 1836, was "the condemnation of Burnet's | Exposition of the Articles by the Lower House of Convocation," | repeated a century later in another form. "The Non-jurors | reviling Burnet, the Council of Constance condemning Huss, the | Judaizers banded together | | against St. Paul." were all concentrated in the opposition of the | University of Oxford to Dr. Hampden. Arnold's feeling on the | Church movement now assumed more of a solid, practical shape, | more of a moral disgust, than it ever had. , he says, | . | | An article in the Edinburgh Review, to which the title of "the | Oxford Malignants" was attached, and which (though that was | not, it appears, of Arnold's, but the editor's putting) fully bore out | its title; at last let out the full torrent of his indignation. | , says his biographer, . ~~ A more hearty, sincere, | enthusiastic vituperation of an adversary indeed could not well | have been penned. Arnold did nothing by halves. The | opponents of Dr. Hampden were denounced, amidst a variety of | names, specially as being the modern representatives of the | "party of Hophni and Phineas." And Arnold could afterwards | defend the expression with all the gravity of a logician. | (a rather tame mode, by the way, of expressing a favourable | opinion of the persons whom these blanks appear to represent). | . | | He now sets to his task in a regular systematic way; , he | resolves . A series of Church of England tracts | suggests itself to him. ~~ | | . ~~ , was another project. | | As the antagonistic feeling however grows, the scheme of | writing at the party from Rugby | gradually gives way to the intense longing to be at head quarters | at Oxford: ~~ . We may observe, generally, that his | spheres of usefulness tend to lap over each other in his | imagination. He had had hankerings after India ~~ had once a | notion of going to Ireland to ~~ has a great fancy for | New Zealand, and for founding a colony. And so with literary | fields ~~ "a complete ecclesiastical history" ~~ a Roman history | ~~ the Scriptural interpretation line ~~ the Church and State | science ~~ captivate him one after another. A report of the | promotion of Dr. Hampden to a Bishopric, opens out a prospect | to him now. ~~ . And "his bad name" to be defended | is another object which requires the Oxford arena: he even | mentally courts a Hampden-war against himself, to bring matters | to a point about him. . If there is a similar feeling | | against him, that there is to Hampden, let it . | | Anyhow he wants to be where he can confront the actual leaders | of the party. The times are roughening. He feels an actual call to | battle, to see whether the tract-movement is or is not to be | checked. To him especially it spoke aloud, . An | intensity of conviction and his own side of the question, together | with the gallantry and frankness of his nature, made up altogether | a sort of high pugnacious enthusiasm. He wanted fairly "to be at | 'em," to use the pugilistic phraseology; to try strength, muscle, | and sinew with them; to feel himself in the encounter. His state | of mind was in itself the loudest challenge. It said to all the | world, come and be knocked down, ~~ feel the force of intrinsic | truth. . The challenge was natural in him. . | His imagination was now peopled with Judaizers. The word is | always at his tongue's end. An ignorant reader would be really | perplexed by the perpetual recurrence, and form an almost | bearded image of the school Arnold was opposing. And | , was the internal watchword; . . | | The striking feature of Arnold's mind, ~~ and we notice it as | being literally a phenomenon, a remarkable specimen of that | particular internal power, ~~ is his confidence; we mean a rare, | esoteric intensity of assurance in his own views. He is | omnia magna ; has every quality | that there is in him forcibly, and confidence among the rest. A | firm faith is one thing; what we mean is another. A brilliancy of | the whole chamber of the mind ~~ a dance of light ~~ a clearness | which made his own view of truth to him an object of the keenest | internal ocular demonstration, rather than of faith, carried him | into conflicts and controversies with a boldness that an evident | warrant from the invisible world might produce. A | phantasmagoric halo of truth accompanied him, and the | flame played upon his helmet, as it did on that of Diomede; he | was invulnerable; his armour was proof against sword-cut and | thrust; a dip in the magical pool had achieved the same security | for him that it had done for the hero of old. His courage was not | tried and deepened by fear; it saw nothing to be afraid of; it went | right forward without a misgiving too its object. The contest | with other minds, and genuine argument, where truth is at stake | and is to be lost or | | won, has something of the fearful character; it is a trial of | strength; one mind struggles with another, and the invisible push | and blow are felt within: nervousness and misgivings, mistrust | of self, and sense of weakness, are the natural sensations more or | less of him who feels the conflict and knows what he has to look | forward to. The highest human courage is compounded, in a | great measure, of fear; it attains its triumph by its sensibility, and | does not drive the instinct but decide the heart. The air that we | breathe is composed, to a large extent, of atmospheric ingredients | in themselves positively hostile to life; though, mixed with the | crowning element, they support it. Take away the latter | ingredients for the sake of an intenser support, and you have an | air that volatilises life, and makes it evaporate in laughter and | titillation. Air should not be all air: courage should not be all | courage. Arnold longed to be in the thick of the conflict at | Oxford, and imagined himself with vivid pleasure in the scene of | danger and the struggle of mind; but he did not know what that | really was which he was so ardent for; he did not appreciate the | force of the minds he wished to encounter; he did not feel the | evidences, whether they were great or small, on their side of | truth. A torrent of internal, self-fed light ~~ a dream of truth ~~ | carried him along, and displayed rather the animal courage of | argument, than the sobered mixture of human zeal and fear | becoming the process. His courage saw no difficulties, and | marshalled no nervous symptoms of mental distresses, doubts, | apprehensions, weaknesses, in the prospect; a gallop and good | hearty exercise of the intellectual muscles, a pleasant circulation | of the blood was pictured: he saw his own "gallows" and | "leaping-pole", in intellectual shape, in the scene; he saw the | field of thought and energy, and the development of the whole | man, before him. The prospect was full of delightful | anticipation; and Bagley-wood, and Shotover, and Iffley, and | Newham, mingled their scenic tents and gaieties with the | theological battle on the arena of Oxford. Fights on the | Apostolical Succession, and walks to Bullingdon, youthful | joyous associations, religious truth and the Cherwell, combined | all in one captivating image. The view before him was a mixed | and grotesque one, because every feature of it was so real; | genuine religious polemics ~~ genuine Bagley-wood. The | genuineness and heartiness bind all together, and make a | characteristic whole of it: the sombre arena, and the mortal fight, | cannot resist the powerful transforming influence of the German | mind; they go through the flowery metamorphosis, and breathe | lightness, spirit, exuberance, and security. | | The author of Undine has exquisitely symbolized, in the contrast | of grave humanity and the soul with fairy nature, two great | classes of character. He describes a light transparent world of | life to begin with: a heart all air, quick sense, and | | effervescing spirit. Brisk joyous beings sport aloft, or mingle | with the stream, or colour the bank-side; grow, swim, fly, bound; | are trees, fish, bird, or brook, or cloud, or sun-shine, or green | earth: brooks walk, men flow, all mingle in one wild luxuriance; | and earth and nature live and move, and seep and laugh, in their | own efflorescences and emanations. Sweet tears, rough | merriments, and transient wraths ~~ all simple tendernesses and | picturesque excitements, flow, explode from nature's infancy and | boyhood. A solemn gift descends upon this airy mixture, and it | subsides; a weight is felt, and nature, she knows not how or why, | is changed from what she was. "Moonlight hath in her sober | livery all things clad," and shows an altered landscape to the | heavy, burdened eye. The royal crown of reason presses the | wearer down. The bright heart turns contemplative, and looks | within herself; mistrusts, misgives, foretells. A sobering visitant | works within, and impregnates the light exuberance with a sad | serenity. The sympathetic reader grieves at the change, and feels | inclined to reproach the soul with cruelty, and hardheartedness. | , he says, ? The change from vivid to serious | in life's stages; the accession of depth to the soul, in all its | degrees, is the source of conscious weakness, undoubtedly, as | well as dignity; and self-mistrust and apprehension marks the | grown man, as self-confidence does the boy. | | We do not see the man absolute in Arnold. Manly in his own | department, upon the broad basis and open field of life he is a | splendid boy. His ignorance of the world around him, peculiar | unreasonablenesses, surprises, complaints, indignation, the rush | into the battle with the mixture of fun and fierceness, show the | boy. Positive, eager, sanguine; his appetite of mental courage, | and joyous strength of nature, lack the subduing becalming | sovereignty of soul. | | We are approaching the end of our observations. Arnold's | sudden death, in the midst of his philosophical and religious | career, makes it unfair to draw any result as to his natural | intrinsic influence, his inherent effectiveness as a philosopher, | from the matter of fact event. One who has not had his full time | to work in, should not be judged as if he had had; or be expected | to have created his world, and established his system. At the | same time, we do not see any tendencies in Arnold's course in | this direction, or signs of an evidence and spread which only | wanted time. As a proselytizer, a spreader of certain views, we | do not see him so much advancing as receding; and his religious | career seems to grow more and more solitary. | | That this was the main effect of causes external to himself is | indeed true; and yet that he contributed himself to it, by a very | positive deficiency in his character and mind, we can hardly | | doubt. Arnold had but slightly that fundamental and all | important quality for a spreader of opinions, and a winner and | gainer of minds, that great faculty of manhood ~~ the power of | intellectual sympathy, and of entering into other people's minds. | With singular opportunities in this direction amongst the | opposite minds he was thrown with at college, and the high-church | friendships of a life; whether from natural incapacity, or | from want of taking proper pains, he never seems to have learned | this art and power. His "skirmishes" with Mr. Cornish, Tucker, | Coleridge, the Kebles at Oxford, were, as such contests naturally | are in youth, pleasant exciting feats of intellectual skill: he | delights in looking back upon them, as he would entertain any | other pleasing reminiscences. But what is to be observed is, that | neither the arguments, nor the minds themselves of his | opposite-thinking friends, ever seem to have taken hold of him, | and fairly gained an apprehension from his reason. The totally | opposite views of men loved and known, are at any rate a strong fact. | This fact does never appear to have got a really deep reception | into Arnold's mind. He does not embrace it, enter into it, try to | put himself in his opponent's point of view, and state of thought, | and feel the force of the evidence on his side, whatever it may be. | He applies his clearness and force to his own side of the question | only. Lively and paradoxical in his conversation at college, | speculative and self-confident in his letters afterwards, his | argumentativeness throughout plays and expatiates within | himself, and does not enter within the adversary's lines. His | career is one of self-development; a philosophical growth from | within entirely, and an expansion of a set of primary individual | ideas. Highly communicative of principles, he does not imbibe | them; and he impregnates inferiors without understanding equals. | | The consequence is that distinction in him that we have already | alluded to. At Rugby he is great, because at Rugby only the | power of self-expansion and self-imparting was wanted. A | school of boys is a great receptacle of ideas, and not a | counter-stream; they lean upon the master mind, treasure up the | thought, suck in the hint, but oppose no standard of their own to | exercise and try the master's apprehension, and to be penetrated | and surmounted by it. Arnold could watch with genuine tutorial | sympathy every stage of the ingress of the idea from his own | mind into the pupils; and all the issues from himself were keenly | and minutely seen. That answered perfectly for Rugby; that | showed the accomplished schoolmaster. But the schoolmaster | came out into the world, and then the scene was changed. In | order to implant his ideas in men and equals, he had first to | understand theirs; and be the learner and the listener, that he | might be the teacher: and that he could not be; or would not try | to be. He came out into the world, and immediately spoke | | ex cathedra , as if he were in | his school-seat. He pictured the world a large Rugby, a grand | receptacle of his ideas, and did not think of it in any other light. | But the world turned out to be passive receptacle; it started back | and was restive; and then Arnold could not deal with it. Then | Arnold was a child. He saw that he had disturbed people | indefinitely, but he saw no more. He could not explain, meet | objections, soften, accommodate. He could not see why people | objected; the mind without was a blank to him; and he could only | stare and complain of the unreasoning mass. He was out of his | element. Triumphant at Rugby, his exhibition in the world was a | failure. His Church-reform pamphlet was a leap into a sphere for | which he was unfit; and it let out a secret, which the world might | not have discovered else, viz. that he was not a great man. A | great man manages a department like Rugby with one hand, and | has another as good for another. A corner of his mind is in the | professional sphere, while he has the rest for the open field of | life. But Arnold did not manage Rugby with a corner of his | mind, or anything like it. He had the whole of his practical | power invested there. He had none to spare for the world at | large. And when he came into the world, therefore, he was not at | home there, and blundered. This accounts, by the way, for a few | gentle pedantries that appear in the Rugby department. Able and | successful as he is there, his ability is accompanied with rather | more of a smack of the lips than sounds quite great ~~ an | indication ordinarily that the whole man is expending himself on | his work, and is not adequate for a much larger simultaneous | charge. | | Upon the open world, accordingly, even the creations of Rugby | begin to be independent of him, and slip out of his philosophical | hands. When they cease to be passive receptacles, the main hold | over them, we perceive, is gone; the mind that impregnated their | intellectual infancy can not deal with their intellectual strength; | and as they advance to be equals, they feel thoughts arising | which quondam master does not answer or pacify, nor | indeed understand enough to cope with. The mass have | "diverged more and more widely" from him. He has formed no | school; he has produced no race of his religious opinions to | perpetuate and multiply the parent stock. He has given a cast and | a complexion, indeed, to the minds that were directly under his | care; and he had scattered about historical tastes and classical | theories; and he has left a delightful remembrance of himself in | his pupils' hearts: but he has not made them think what he did; | and the instincts which he put into them, the love of the real and | genuine, do not go in his direction for the object of it. Arnold, in | short, as his career advances, becomes more and more religiously | alone in the world, and finds himself to be either a premature or | an eccentric philosopher. | | His favourite theories are almost confined to his own | breast; his Church and State ideal lives in himself: he must send | his petition to parliament alone. ~~ . He fails in | Christianizing the Useful Knowledge Society, and withdraws. | The combination of rejecting and being rejected; of seeing faults | in all schools which prevented him joining any, and being | dissented from by all schools because his particular mixture was | not theirs, has a melancholy effect on the reader as he advances | through this book. He took, he told, he fascinated himself; but | his system fell dead. He was admired, and what he said was | admired; and the motive, and the spirit were praised; and the idea | was thought his own shape of some truth; but the idea, as he | thought it, was not taken. The highest admirer subtly evaded the | task of the disciple: and the teacher sat alone in the porch, while | the man was surrounded. | | Aristotle draws a distinction between | sophia , and phronesis | ; or, as we may translate them in one aspect, between the | speculative power, and moral tact or experience. He says young | men and young minds are capable of the one, and not of the | other. Young minds can evolve their own ideas, and be | philosophical; but they cannot have experience before they have | acquired it. Whether we have caught Aristotle's meaning or not, | some distinction, not unlike it, seems to apply to Arnold. He | evolves his own mind, but he does not enlarge it by experience, | that is to say, by contact with other minds. Speculation is | necessarily upon ideas that we already have. It is not its office to | renovate and enlarge; it does not pretend to freshen and pour new | blood into a mind. Contact with other minds does this, | i.e. when it is genuine and real; where | the man feels his way about others, catches their meaning, gathers | their point of view, exposes himself to the whole weight of | another's mind upon his own; and receives, with the full embrace | of a sensitive appreciation, arguments which he does not assent | to, and a whole basis of thought which he cannot appreciate. It | must not be a sham contact, a mock fight, a tussle for the sake of | fun, a mere source of life and spirit to the communication of his | own view, a mere stimulus to self-development. It must be the | bona fide action of mind upon | mind, where the blow is home felt, and your adversary's thrust | received into your reason's heart. You either survive the sword's | point of your antagonist, and gain a most quick, lively, subtle | experience of another man's power and form of thought; you | appropriate a new sympathy, | | and take home another mind: or you die under a nobler | antagonist, and so much the better still; for you rise to his level, | you enter upon his state of mind, and suffer a painful but glorious | metempsychosis. In either case there is enlargement, either that | of sympathy, or that of transition. And both of these are more or | less necessary to make up a real philosophical experience; such | as fits a man for the conflicts of intellectual life, and enables him | to understand and deal with other minds. It is astonishing, | indeed, what an irresistible engine this power of sympathy and | self-bending has shown itself to be in some great religious | intellects of the Church. Ever flexible, malleable, fusible at its | own will, overflowing with self-mastery; melting and | embosoming, absorbed and absorbing; the imperial element of | liquid mind has lapped round its millions like a flood. Up comes | the subtle water everywhere, and bathes a world. Invisible nets, | impalpable soothing tendrils, creep over human souls | unconscious and delighted: and they are clasped and won. High | alchymy and self-transmuting power of mind! | Effectiveness of sympathy! of a nature ever ready to be what she | is not, and throw off her own self for another. The mere faculty | inherits the earth: she gains a thousand selves by losing one. | Life becomes self-multiplying, and one mind is a million. An | individual symbol of the empire of the Church Catholic over her | children, her heavenly wiles, her awful sweetness, her iron | endearments; the sympathy which earth cannot escape from | though she would, and which makes her the confidant of all | human hearts at once. | | Arnold's career of self-development was attended by the natural | accompaniment of himself of isolation. No keen trials had won | him the field of experience and sympathy, freshness and | enlargement; and the concomitant of such a basis of mind was, | that it had no domain and empire. As a religionist, he stretched | along his own line, and covered his own ground only: and we, | on our side, are bound to think it fortunate that it was so. The | truth is, we had much rather not think of him as a religionist at | all; we had rather, much rather, think of him as the Master of | Rugby only, ~~ the reformer of education ~~ the generous | superior ~~ the communicative teacher ~~ the watchful guardian, | friend, and trainer of boyish nature; we had rather think of the | affectionate, ardent, domestic heart only. Would that Arnold had | stuck to his natural department, and not left it for the open world, | ~~ for the public arena of Theology! But he has not done so: he | has entailed a biography upon his pupil which enters into the | thick of religious controversies, and exhibits him in all the open | undisguised fullness of the latitudinarian and rationalistic | character. It has been no pleasure to us to view him in the | antagonistic aspect ~~ to touch on the tender doctrinal point ~~ | to notice how very deep Arnold's mind had imbibed the sad | theory | anyone | of a circle of whose society and high tone of feeling the writer of | these pages has long had the privilege and benefit, is equalled by | his own; but to have stated the plain truth as it appeared to him, | though a pain, will never be a regret.