Page:Scottishartrevie01unse.djvu/37

Rh sense be called an apostle. A man of fine and cul- tivated feeling he undoubtedly was, but his festhetic perceptions were not what in the strict sense of the term we may call pure. They had not the note of perfect agstheticism— they were not extra-moral, but always with a strong and importunate admixture of ethics. So far from abiding by his own articulate standard of criticism — to keep aloof from practice, and allow a free play of the mind on all subjects — there probably never was a writer who had practice more constantly in his view, and his whole work of criticism is a violation of his own set rule. As Malebranche saw all tilings in God, so Matthew Arnold saw all things in Conduct, and at times his perpetual insistence on morals grows positively irri- tating. His pulpit manner is a very peculiar one — not liarsji and imperious like Carlyle's, nor yet puerile and jsetulant like that of Ruskin — but a style bland, persuasive, and tautological — some- thing between the polished suavity of an Anglican archdeacon and the affectionate maundering of one's grandmother. The diction, too, lends itself to the deepening of this impression. It is lucid and idiomatic enough— yet somehow one cannot call it classical. Imaginative vigour may be the bane of our vernacular prose, but if the French are to be our masters, we must aim not only at their clear- ness, but at their piquancy as well. But in point of style, Arnold is a P-enchman manqtie ; his prose is above all things pointless. It is a neutral prose — as clear and wholesome as fair water, but also as colourless and as insipid. Yet to say of Matthew Arnold that he was a preacher of right conduct, is still to leave his exact position imperfectly marked off. Mr. Herbert Spencer, in his own way, is also a preacher of con- duct, and so in their ways are all the ministers of all the churches. The end in all these is very much the same, but the difference lies in the method which each employs — in the intellectual guide and stimulus to conduct which he proposes. And broadly, it may be said that the distinction between these others and Matthew Arnold is nothing else than the distinction between literature and dogma. The men of science give us their data and inductions of ethics ; the Cliurchmen offer their articles of theology — all more or less definite and exact. And what, then, is Arnold's method ? Simply this — ' to know the best that is known and tliouaht in the world, and by, in its turn, making tliis known, to create a current of true and fresh ideas.' Not, surely, a very definite or rigorous method this ; above all, not in the least a scientific one. Indeed it is essentially the very antipodes of science, for it relies mainly, if not altogether, on authority. It cares little for necessary sequences, unless these have been expressed in some beautiful saying, or incar- nated in some interesting person, or exemplified in some memorable deed. It asks not for trutli in se, but for men's ideas about truth ; it finds its mate- rials in precepts which have a literary form, and in examples which are capable of literary presentment. In short, it is out and out a literary method ; and this is why at the outset it was said that in the death of Matthew Arnold literature had suffered such a grievous loss. For the tendency of intellect now-a- days is altogether the other way. AVe are asking for exact truth, and getting impatient of the per- sonal equation. But with Arnold the colouring medium of personality is everything. Truth tinged with character is indispensable to him — truth so fii-ed with emotion that it glows and flames up into poetry is best of all. This is the true spirit of the litterae humaniores — this keen and catholic interest in all the recorded words and deeds of men. For practically it is an all-embracing interest — not alto- gether indeed, for there are often notable excep- tions — yet in contrast to the theological spirit we may fairly enough call it catholic. Theology also relies on authority — but then its canon is strictly limited. It has its sacred books and its sacred persons rigorously marked off from the multitude of the profane. But with Matthew Arnold every book is sacred — every, or nearly every, man is, potentially at least, a doctor of the Church Uni- versal. There are grades, of course, in this vast ecclesia of the race — and Israel, for very plausible reasons, sits undisturbed on the Episcopal throne ; — but not far beneath liim there is room for Hellas — there is room, too, for the great Romans, and, in short, for everything and everybody, except Mr. Spurgeon and the ' Readings from Eliza Cook.' For it is here that we touch the weak point of the literary method. It is the excellence of that method that it applies itself to conduct through the higher a?sthetic emotions — that it clothes the impalpable laws of right living with flesh and blood, and invests them with an august historic garment. On the other liand, its fault is in the incurable vagueness and irrationality of its test. ' The best that is known and thought in the world ' — this itself would need a criterion, but in the hands of Arnold it means — what it would pro- bably mean in the hands of any one — simply the most attractive from a literary point of view, the most thoi-ouglily penetrated and sublimed with emotion, the richest in all the clustei'ing associa- tions of story. Perhaps there never was a man for whom the magic Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ah ornnibus, had a more overmastering fascination than