Selected Prose of T. S. Eliot

by Frank Kermode

  with rapid wing a goddess Primitive Credulity. Breathing in the ear of

  the bewildered infant she whispers, The thing which has happened

  once will happen once more. Sugar was sweet, and sugar will be sweet.

  And Primitive Credulity is accepted forthwith as the mistress of our

  life. She leads our steps on the path of experience, until her fallacies,

  which cannot always be pleasant, at length become suspect. We wake

  up indignant at the kindly fraud by which the goddess so long has

  deceived us. So she shakes her wings, and flying to the stars, where

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  there are no philosophers, leave; us here to the guidance of - I cannot

  think what.

  This sort of solemn banter is exactly what an admirer of Arnold

  is ready to enjoy. But it is not only in his fun, or in his middle

  style, that Bradley is like Arnold ; they are alike in their purple

  passages. The two following may be compared. By Arnold :

  And yet, steeped in sentiment as she lies, spreading her gardens to the

  moonlight, and whispering from her towers the last enchantments of

  the Middle Age, who will deny that Oxford, by her ineffable charm,

  keeps ever calling us nearer to the true goal of all of us, to the ideal, to

  perfection - to beauty, in a word, which is only truth seen from another

  side - nearer, perhaps, than all the science of Tiibingen. Adorable

  dreamer, whose heart has been so romantic ! who hast given thyself so

  prodigally, given thyself to sides and to heroes not mine, only never to

  the Philistines ! home oflost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular

  names, and impossible loyalties ! what example could ever so inspire us

  to keep down the Philistine in ourselves, what teacher could ever so

  save us from that bondage to which we are all prone, that bondage

  which Goethe, in his incomparable lines on the death of Schiller, makes

  it his friend's highest praise (and nobly did Schiller deserve the praise)

  to have left miles out of sight behind him - the bondage of 'was uns

  aile bandigt, das Gemeine !'.

  The passage from The Principles of Logic is not so well known :

  It may come from a failure in my metaphysics, or from a weakness of

  the flesh which continues to blind me, but the notion that existence

  could be the same as understanding strikes as cold and ghost-like as the

  dreariest materialism. That the glory of this world in the end is appearance leaves the world more glorious, if we feel i"t is a show of some fuller splendour ; but the sensuous curtain is a deception and a cheat,

  if it hides some colourless movement of atoms, some spectral woof of

  impalpable abstractions, or unearthly ballet of bloodless categories.

  Though dragged to such conclusions, we cannot embrace them. Our

  principles may be true, but they are not reality. They no more make

  that Whole which commands our devotion than some shredded dissection of human tatters is that warm and breathing beauty of flesh which our hearts found delightful.

  Any one who is at all sensitive to style will recognize the similarity

  of tone and tension and beat. It is not altogether certain that the

  passage from Bradley is not the better ; at any rate such a phrase

  as Arnold's 'ineffable charm' has not worn at all well.

  But if the two men fought with the same weapons - and fundamentally, in spite of Bradley's assualt upon Arnold, for the same 198

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  causes - the weapons of Bradley had behind them a heavier force

  and a closer precision. Exactly what Bradley fought for and

  exactly what he fought against have not been quite understood ;

  understanding has been obscured by the dust of Bradley's logical

  battles. People are inclined to believe that what Bradley did was

  to demolish the logic of Mill and the psychology of Bain. If he

  had done that, it would have been a lesser service than what he

  has done; and if he had done that it would have been less of a

  service than people think, for there is much that is good in the

  logic of Mill and the psychology of Bain. But Bradley did not

  attempt to destroy Mill's logic. Anyone who reads his own

  Principles will see that his force is directed not against Mill's logic

  as a whole but only against certain limitations, imperfections and

  abuses. He left the structure of Mill's logic standing, and never

  meant to do anything else. On the other hand, the Ethical Studies

  are not merely a demolition of the Utilitarian theory of conduct

  but an attack upon the whole Utilitarian mind. For Utilitarianism

  was, as every reader of Arnold kno"ws, a great temple in Philistia.

  And of this temple Arnold hacked at the ornaments and cast down

  the images, and his best phrases remain for ever gibing and scolding in our memory. But Bradley, in his philosophical critique of Utilitarianism, undermined the foundations. The spiritual

  descendants of Bentham have built anew, as they always will ;

  but at least, in building another temple for the same worship,

  they have had to apply a different style of architecture. And this

  is the social basis of Bradley's distinction, and the social basis is

  even more his claim to our gratitude than the logical basis : he

  replaced a philosophy which was crude and raw and provincial by

  one which was, in comparison, catholic, civilized, and universal.

  True, he was influenced by Kant and Hegel and Lotze. But Kant

  and Hegel and Lotze are not so despicable as some enthusiastic

  mediaevalists would have us believe, and they are, in comparison

  with the school of Bentham, catholic and civilized and universal.

  In fighting the battles that he fought in the 'seventies and 'eighties

  Bradley was fighting for a European and ripened and wise

  philosophy, against an insular and immature and cranky one ; the

  same battle that Arnold was fighting against the British Batmer,

  Judge Edmonds, Newman Weeks, Deborah Butler, Elderess

  Polly, Brother Noyes, Mr. Murphy, the Licensed Victuallers and

  the Commercial Travellers.

  It is not to say that Arnold's work was vain if we say that it is

  to be done again ; for we must know in advance, if we are prepared

  for that conflict, that the combat may have truces but never a

  peace. If we take the widest and wisest view of a Cause, there is

  no such thing as a Lost Cause because there is no such thing as a

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  Gained Cause. We fight for l;st causes because we know that our

  defeat and dismay may be the preface to our successors' victory,

  though that victory itself will· be temporary ; we fight rather to

  keep something alive than in the expectation that anything will

  triumph. If Bradley's philosophy is today a little out of fashion,

  we must remark . that what has superseded it, what is now in

  favour, is, for the most part, crude and raw and provincial

  (though infinitely more technical and scientific) and must perish

  in its turn. Arnold turned from mid-century Radicalism with the

  reflection 'A new power has suddenly appeared'. Th
ere is always

  a new power ; but the new power destined to supersede the

  philosophy which has superseded Bradley will probably be

  something at the same time older, more patient, more supple and

  more wise. The chief characteristics of much contemporary

  philosophy are newness and crudeness, impatience, inflexibility

  in one respect and fluidity in another, and irresponsibility and

  lack of wisdom. Of wisdom Bradley had a large share ; wisdom

  consists largely of scepticism and uncynical disillusion ; and of

  these Bradley had a large share. And scepticism and disillusion

  are a useful equipment for religious understanding; and of that

  Bradley had a share too.

  Those who have read the Ethical Studies will be ready with the

  remark that it was Bradley, in this book and in the year 1876, who

  knocked the bottom out of Literature and Dogma. But that does

  not mean that the two men were not on the same side ; it means

  only that Literature and Dogma is irrelevant to Arnold's main

  position as given in the Essays and in Culture and Anarchy, that

  the greatest weakness of Arnold's culture was his weakness in

  philosophical training, and that in philosophical criticism Bradley

  exhibits the same type of culture that Arnold exhibited in political

  and social criticism. Arnold had made an excursion into a field for

  which he was not armed. Bradley's attack upon Arnold does not

  take up much space, but Bradley was economical of words ; it is

  all in a few paragraphs and a few footnotes to the 'Concluding

  Remarks' :

  But here once more 'culture' has come to our aid, and has shown us

  how here, as everywhere, the study of polite literature, which makes for

  meekness, makes needless also all further education ; and we felt

  already as if the clouds that metaphysic had wrapped about the matter

  were dissolving in the light of a fresh and sweet intelligence. And, as

  we turned towards the dawn, we sighed over poor Hegel, who had read

  neither Goethe nor Homer, nor the Old and New Testaments, nor any

  of the literature which has gone to form 'culture', but, knowing no

  facts, and reading no books, nor ever asking himself 'such a tyro's

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  question as what being really was', sat spinning out of his head those

  foolish logomachies which impose on no person of refinement.

  Here is the identical weapon of Arnold, sharpened to a razor edge

  and turned against Arnold.

  But the 'stream' and the 'tendency' having served their turn, like last

  week's placards, now fall into the background, and we learn at last

  that 'the Eternal' is not eternal at all, unless we give that name to

  whatever a generation sees happen, and believes both has happened

  and will happen - just as the habit of washing ourselves might be

  termed 'the Eternal not ourselves that makes for cleanliness', or 'Early

  to bed and early to rise' the 'Eternal not ourselves that makes for

  longevity', and so on - that 'the Eternal', in short, is nothing in the

  world but a piece of literary clap-trap. The consequence is that all we

  are left with is the assertion that 'righteousness' is 'salvation' or welfare,

  and that there is a 'law' and a 'Power' which has something to do with

  this fact ; and here again we must not be ashamed to say that we fail to

  understand what any one of these phrases means, and suspect ourselves

  once more to be on the scent of clap-trap.

  A footnote continues the Arnold-baiting in a livelier style :

  'Is there a God ?' asks the reader. 'Oh yes,' replies Mr. Arnold, 'and

  I can verify him in experience.' 'And what is he then ?' cries the

  reader. 'Be virtuous, and as a rule you will be happy,' is the answer.

  'Well, and God ?' 'That is God', says Mr. Arnold ; 'there is no deception, and what more do you want ?' I suppose we do want a good deal more. Most of us, certainly the public which Mr. Arnold addresses,

  want something they can worship ; and they will not find that in an

  hypostasized copy-book heading, which is not much more adorable

  than 'Honesty is the best policy', or 'Handsome is that handsome does',

  or various other edifying maxims, which have not yet come to an

  apotheosis.

  Such criticism is final. It is patently a great triumph of wit and a

  great delight to watch when a man's methods, almost his tricks of

  speech, are thus turned against himself. But if we look more

  closely into these words and into the whole chapter from which

  they are taken, we find Bradley to have been not only triumphant

  in polemic but right in reason. Arnold, with all his great virtues,

  was not always patient enough, or solicitious enough of any but

  immediate effect, to avoid inconsistency - as has been painstakingly shown by Mr. J. M. Robertson. In Culture and A11arcl�)', which is probably his greatest book, we hear something said

  about 'the will of God' ; but the 'will of God' seems to become

  superseded in importance by 'our best self, or right reason, to

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  which we want to give authority' ; and this best self looks very

  much like Matthew Arnold slightly disguised. In our own time

  one of the most remarkable · of our critics, one who is fundamentally on most questions in the right, and very often right quite alone, Professor Irving Babbitt, has said again and again

  that the old curbs of class, of authoritative government, and of

  religion must be supplied in our time by something he calls the

  'inner check'. The inner check looks very much like the 'best self'

  of Matthew Arnold ; and though supported by wider erudition

  and closer reasoning, is perhaps open to the same objections.

  There are words of Bradley's, and in the chapter from which we

  have already quoted, that might seem at first sight to support

  these two eminent doctrines :

  How can the human-divine ideal ever be my will ? The answer is, Your

  will it never can be as the will of your private self, so that your private

  self should become wholly good. To that self you must die, and by faith

  be made one with that ideal. You must resolve to give up your will, as

  the mere will of this or that man, and you must put your whole self,

  your entire will, into the will of the divine. That must be your one self,

  as it is your true self; that you must hold to both with thought and will,

  and all other you must renounce.

  There is one direction in which these words - and, indeed,

  Bradley's philosophy as a whole - might be pushed, which would

  be dangerous ; the direction of diminishing the value and dignity

  of the individual, of sacrificing him to a Church or a State. But,

  in any event, the words cannot be interpreted in the sense of

  Arnold. The distinction is not between a 'private self' and a

  'public self' or a 'higher self', it is between the individual as himself and no more, a mere numbered atom, and the individual in communion with God. The distinction is clearly drawn between

  man's 'mere will' and 'the will of the Divine'. It may be noted

  also that Bradley is careful, in indicating the process, not to exaggerate eit
her will or intellect at the expense of the other. And in all events it is a process which neither Arnold nor Professor Babbitt

  could accept. But ffthere is a 'will of God', as Arnold, in a hasty

  moment, admits, then some doctrine of Grace must be admitted

  too ; or else the 'will of God' is just the same inoperative benevolence which we have all now and then received - and resented -

  from our fellow human beings. In the end it is a disappointment

  and a cheat.

  Those who return to the reading of Ethical Studies, and those

  who now, after reading the other works of Bradley, read it for the

  first time, will be struck by the unity of Bradley's thought in the

  three books and in the collected Essays. But this unity is not the

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  unity of mere fixity. In the Ethical Studies, for instance, he speaks

  of the awareness of the self, the knowledge of one's own existence

  as indubitable and identical. In Appearance and Reality, seventeen

  years later, he had seen much deeper into the matter ; and had seen

  that no one 'fact' of experience in isolation is real or is evidence of

  anything. The unity of Bradley's thought is not the unity attained

  by a man who never changes his mind. If he had so little occasion

  to change it, that is because he usually saw his problems from the

  beginning in all their complexity and connections - saw them, in

  other words, with wisdom - and because he could never be

  deceived by his own metaphors - which, indeed, he used most

  sparingly - and was never tempted to make use of current

  nostrums.

  If all of Bradley's writings are in some sense merely 'essays',

  that is not solely a matter of modesty, or caution, and certainly

  not of indifference, or even of ill health. It is that he perceived the

  contiguity and continuity of the various provinces of thought.

  'Reflection on morality', he says, 'leads us beyond it. It leads us,

  in short, to see the necessity of a religious point of view.' Morality

  and religion are not the same thing, "but they cannot beyond a

  certain point be treated separately. A system of ethics, if thorough,

  is explicitly or implicitly a system of theology ; and to attempt to

  erect a complete theory of ethics without a religion is none the less

  to adopt some particular attitude towards religion. In this book,