when the sound climbs near his seat,
the encircled library sees;
as he lets his lax right hand
which the lightnings doth embrace
sink upon his mighty knees.”
This, then, it seems, is Culture—knowing the best that has been thought and known in the world—not only knowledge, but right tact and justness of judgment, forming themselves by and with judgment—reading, but reading with a purpose to guide it, and with system. And is not this something like what Goethe meant in that enigmatic sentence of his, which we have heard so often quoted by people who understood it as much as we did: “Vom Halben zu entwöhnen; Im Ganzen, Guten, Schönen resolut zu leben.” “I resolved to wean myself from halves, and to live for the Whole, the Good, the Beautiful.” But even now, even now that we know what it is (And after all, we say, what much more is it than saying that we ought to try for the best article, and not rest content with anything but the best article?), wherein are we, we plain practical people with our attachment to black and white, helped to the attainment of it? Culture, we are told, is reading, but reading with a purpose to guide it and with system. The purpose, it is presumed, is attainment, but what is the system? We are to have knowledge, and not only knowledge but right tact and justness of judgment, forming themselves by and with judgment. All very nice, we say, but how are we to get them? You say to a man who hobbles, “Run:” he is quite as capable of saying it as you are. Either show him how to run, or hold your tongue!—unless it be that he thinks he is running, and even then it seems useless enough to undeceive him without you can teach him how to do what he now thinks he is. What, then, is this system of which you speak? what is the receipt for it? is it a system possible to us?
Well, I really have not the courage to go and face Mr. Arnold again. Handlers of the lightnings like he is can be so disagreeable when they please. Where is the joy of figuring in some ludicrous or contemptible attitude in their writings for the next few hundred years or so? It is all very well to say that we shall all of us be in our graves presently, and all equally ignorant of what our descendants may think of us, but the truth is no one likes to be held up to the nations as a fool or a knave, and especially if he be both. I see nothing for it but to let the oracle alone. I for one will have nothing to do with stirring up Phoibos again. I have done so more than once already, and am too grateful for a whole hide to tempt the arrows further. We must be our own Oidipous. At most we can reverently finger the Sibylline leaves, and see if anything of “pleasant to the eye and good for food” can be extracted therefrom.
To begin with, however, does it not seem best to say at once that, after all, there is no receipt for not saying and doing foolish things except not to be foolish? No system in the world will give wings to a worm. On the other hand, there is really no reason why the descendants of that worm should not one day navigate the sky; and, as a matter of fact, they do. Similarly with the stupidest and the most degraded of us, I cannot see why a single moment should be lost in attempting to better them. The earth is likely to be inhabitable for the next eight millions of years or so, it seems, and I am sure that is long enough for us. We need not be in such a hurry as the Socialists would have us, nor yet creep along on all fours in the Conservative manner; but we must not, of course, undervalue either fashion or progress, since both wheels and a drag are important parts of a carriage in uneven country. But here again, as is always the case, we are brought face to face with the question, not only of the wheels and the drag, not only of the carriage itself, and not only of even the driver of it, but of the end of the journey. “The purpose,” we said a moment ago in our ready way, “is, it is presumed, attainment, but what is the system?—Never mind,” we say, “about where we are going to: let us hear about the carriage we are going in! Let us have Etons and Harrows and Melbourne and Geelong Grammar Schools everywhere, and then we shall be alright. Let us resolve to have the best article, and not rest content with anything but the best article, and that’s all!”
Alas, for the impatience of mankind! In order to try for the best article, not to say to have it, must we not first know what the best article is? should we not know where we are going to, before we construct our carriage and purchase our horses? And yet, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, are we not content to go, and leave more or less to chance where we are going to? do we not waste half our lives in overcoming difficulties with which we ought to have had nothing to do? It is so easy to talk and to act: it is so difficult to think, and mould your words and actions to your thoughts rather than your thoughts to your words and actions. It is the weary old tale of the more haste and the less speed, the weary old tale that is for ever new. And yet we will not listen to it. Sooner than trouble ourselves with the whys of things, we will throw ourselves with energy into the first hows that present themselves, and leave the rest to chance, or, as Dr. Moorhouse’s good “unintelligent orthodox” people say, to God. But nothing real, nothing lasting, is achieved in this way. Nature does not work in this way: God does not work in this way. The beasts do and the vast majority of men do, and that is why, in Hamlet’s words, life is such “an unweeded garden that grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature possess it merely.” No, if we are to understand, not only Culture but anything at all, we must begin at the very beginning: we must learn the whys. Take care of the whys, we might say, and the hows will take care of themselves. And let us not for a moment be deceived by those who tell us that our fathers got along very well without inquiring into the whys, into the causes of things, and so can we. This is not so. Whatever success has been achieved has been achieved by a recognition, conscious or unconscious it may be, of the causes of the thing worked upon. Instead of our fathers having had any success from their ignorance of causes, or their reliance on good fortune, they have had success in despite in these, and only so far as they banished the one and knew how to turn to account the other.
And Culture? what has this to do with Culture? Everything!—In this, as in so many other cases, we concentrate all our attention on the how and leave the why to take care of itself. “More breadth of Culture, more breadth of Culture,” cry the Princes and the Priests, and everyone else, in emulous chorus. But when they are asked what they mean by Culture—what Culture is, then they have no answer ready save one (as Shelley says),