PORTRAITS
BY FREDERIC MANNING
AUTHOR OF "THE VIGIL OF BRUNHILD"
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1909
PREFACE
It is a necessity of the human mind to give everything a name, thus recognising a difference between one thing and another, and recording it. Science, which is the highest development of this necessity, recognises, and records systematically, all the facts of experience, distinguishing one from another, by the most minute analysis. The Maoris even go so far as bestow on their greenstone clubs, on their tikis, and on almost every separate article, a distinct name, as if recognising an individuality, much as the old myth-makers spoke of the sword Excalibur; but the average man is usually very loose in his application of terms. Renan in his preface to "Dialogues Philosophiques" writes: "La grande majorité des hommes ... se divise en deux catégories, à égale distance desquelles il nous semble qu' est la vérité. 'Ce que vous cherchez est trouvé depuis longtemps,' disent les orthodoxes de toutes les nuances. 'Ce que vous cherchez n'est pas trouvable,' disent les positivistes pratiques (les seuls dangereux), les politiques railleurs, les athées." Having thus differentiated his own position, from that of either school, one is a little surprised to find Matthew Arnold saying of him, that "the greatest intellect in France has declared for materialism." One recognises how pernicious the loose application of terms may be, and is a little irritated to discover a fine English critic lapsing into the vice, even in an unguarded moment. Really, thought, or at least any thought that justifies its existence, is too subtile and fluid a thing to be settled in this off-hand way; and the apparently childish custom of the Maoris is more scientific, since, at least, it recognises individuality.
Turn away from Renan to Euripides, and consider for a moment the present conflict as to whether "The Bacchae" is a recantation by Euripides of his supposed rationalistic opinions, or a more aggravated expression of them. It seems impossible that there should be two suppositions, so far removed from each other, about an existing book, in a known language, by an author whose style is singularly lucid. "La chicane s'allonge," as Montaigne said. We must seek for the truth at an equal distance from both parties. Those who sustain either of the extreme theories are equally clear and convincing in their arguments. As each party seems to have a personal interest in the matter, we may be certain that it will find what it is looking for, without much trouble; but they both seem to be striving more often after a reputation for themselves than after the real thought of their author. One ingenious critic even goes so far as to assert that Dionysos does not work miracles, but merely hypnotises the chorus into a belief that he has done so, to the great amusement of the audience. Perhaps it is some mental disability which prevents me from enjoying "The Bacchae" as a comedy, but I own I cannot. To Renan and to Euripides one might apply the term ἀνὴρ δίψυχος. They were both equally saturated with the scientific spirit of their age, though inclining to the mystic temperament. They were both quickened by a deep love and pity for humanity in all its moods and aspirations. They both delighted keenly in popular legends and the mythology of the country-side. Both were strongly individual minds, sensitive, reacting to every contemporary influence, and yet preserving their peculiar distinction in thought and style. Unbound by any system, moving easily in all, they sought by the free exercise of reason and a profound irony to cleanse their ages of much perilous stuff; and though Renan was not a Christian in the common sense of the word, and though Euripides turned away from the gods of his own day, yet each tried to save out of the ruins of their faiths the subtile and elusive spirit which had informed them; that divine light and inspiration, which is continually expressing itself in new figures, and cannot be imprisoned in any vessel of human fashioning. "Anima naturaliter Christiana," we can say of each. There are in reality only two religions on this little planet, and they perhaps begin and end with man. They are: the religion of the humble folk, whose life is a daily communion with natural forces, and a bending to them; and the religion of men like Protagoras, Lucretius, and Montaigne, a religion of doubt, of tolerance, of agnosticism. Between these two poles is nothing but a dreary waste of formalism, Pharisaism, "perplexed subtleties about Instants, Formalities, Quiddities, and Relations," all that bewildering of brains which comes from being shut up in a narrow system, like an invalid in a poisoned and stifling room.