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From the winter
of 1821 I had what might truly be called an object in life:
to be a Reformer.
My conception of my own happiness was
entirely identified with this object.
The personal sympathies I
wished for were those of fellows in this enterprise.
I endeavored to pick as
many flowers as I could but as a serious
permanent personal satisfaction
to rest upon, my whole reliance was placed on this.
I was accustomed to the certainty of a
happy life which I enjoyed, by placing my happiness in
something durable and distant, in which
progress might be always making, while it could never be exhausted by complete
attainment.
The general improvement and the idea of myself engaged with
others in struggling to promote it, seemed enough to fill up an animated
existence.
The time came when I awakened from
this as from a dream.
It was in
the autumn of 1826.
(1826: First railways begin construction.
Internal Combustion engine patented in US.
Janissary on the rampage,
Auspicious
Incident.)
I was in a dull state of nerves, such as everybody
is occasionally liable to.
Unsusceptible
to enjoyment or pleasurable excitement.
One of those moods when what is
pleasure at other times, becomes insipid.
The mood of
converts to Methodism
smitten by 'conviction of
sin.'
In this frame of
mind it occurred to me to put the question directly to
myself:
"Suppose your objects in life were realized;
all the changes in institutions and
opinions which you are looking
forward to, could be
completely effected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and
happiness to you?"
And an irrepressible self-consciousness
distinctly answered, "No!"
At this my heart sank:
the foundation on which my life was built
fell down.
All my
happiness was to have been found in the continual pursuit of this end.
Once the end ceased to charm, how could
there be any interest in the means?
I seemed to have nothing left
to live for.
For I now saw, the habit of
analysis has a tendency
to wear away feelings.
When
no other mental habit is
cultivated analysis remains
without natural complements and
correctives.
The
very excellence of analysis is that it tends to weaken and undermine whatever
is the result of false understanding or
prejudice.
It enables us mentally to
separate ideas which have only casually clung together and
no associations could
ultimately resist this dissolving force.
We owe to analysis our clearest
knowledge of the permanent
sequences in nature; the
real connections between things, not dependent on imaginings.
Natural law finds
one thing is inseparable from
another; our ideas of things joined together in
Nature,
cohere more and more closely in our
thoughts.
Analytic habits
strengthen the associations
between causes and effects.
But analytic habits tend to weaken
associations which are a
matter of feeling.
Analytic habits are therefore favorable to
prudence and
clear sightedness.
But
analytic habits are a
perpetual worm at the root
both of the passions and
of the virtues; and
fearfully undermine all desires,
and all pleasures.
These, the
laws of human nature,
had been brought to my present state.
Those whom I admired were of
opinion that companionship
and feelings of
compassion, especially toward
mankind on a large scale as the object of existence, were
the greatest and surest sources of
happiness.
Of the truth of this I was convinced, but
to know that a feeling would make me
happy if I had it, did not give
me the feeling.
My education, I thought, had failed to create these
feelings in sufficient strength to resist
the dissolving
influence of analysis.
The whole course of my intellectual
cultivation had made
precocious and
pre-mature analysis the inveterate habit of
my mind.
The fountains
of vanity and motivation seemed to have
dried up within me, as completely as the
river of benevolence, I
once had.
Thus neither selfish nor
unselfish pleasures were
pleasures to me.
There seemed no
power in nature sufficient
to reform my character anew.
My mind, now irretrievably
analytic, needed fresh associations of
pleasure combined with objects of
human desire to relish living again.
I asked myself if I was bound
to life must be passed in this manner?
I did not think I could possibly
bear it beyond a year.
In all
probability my case was by
no means so peculiar as I fancied.
A vivid conception of the scene came over
me, and I was moved to tears.
From this moment my burden grew
lighter.
The oppression of the
thought that all feeling was dead within me, was gone.
I was no longer hopeless.
Relieved from my present sense
of irremediable wretchedness, I gradually found that the
ordinary incidents of life
could again give me some pleasure.
I found enjoyment in
sunshine and
sky; books; conversation; public
affairs.
There was excitement in
exerting my opinions for the
public good.
Thus the cloud gradually drew
off.
I never again was as miserable as I had been.
The
experiences of this period led me to adopt a theory of life, unlike that on
which I had before acted having much in common with what at that time I
certainly had never heard of, the automaton theory of Thomas
Carlyle.
I now
understood happiness was attained by not making it the direct
end.
Only those with minds
fixed on some object other than their own happiness;
on the happiness of
others, on the
improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not
as a means, but as itself an ideal end, are happy.
Aiming thus at something else, they find
happiness by the Way.
Ask yourself whether you are
happy, and you cease to be so.
The only chance for happiness is
finding it within the purpose of
living.
In fortunate circumstances you will
inhale happiness with the air you
breathe never putting
it to flight with fatal questioning.
This theory now became the
basis of my philosophy of life.
I still hold it as the best theory for
those who have but a moderate degree of sensibility and of capacity for
enjoyment - the great majority of mankind.
I ceased to attach
exclusive importance on ordering
outward circumstances.
I saw passive susceptibilities needed to be
cultivated as well as the active capacities and both required to be nourished
and enriched as well as guided.
Maintenance of balance among the
faculties, seemed of primary importance.
1829 Edinburgh Review published Thomas Carlyle's "Signs of
the Times".
In "Signs of the Times", Carlyle warns the
Industrial Revolution is turning people into mechanical automatons devoid of
individuality and spirituality.
The division of society and the poverty
of the majority began to dominate the minds of the most intelligent and
imaginative people outside politics following the 1832 Reform Act.
The
"Condition of England Question" was a phrase coined by Thomas Carlyle in 1839
to chronicle the conditions
of the English working-class during the Industrial Revolution.
There
was a growing sense of anger at the culture of amateurism in official
government circles which produced this misery.
Structural changes in
the economy led many to question whether the country had taken a wrong turning.
Would manufacturing towns ever be loyal?
Was poverty eating up
capital?
Was it safe to depend upon imports for food and raw materials?
Could the fleet keep the seas open?
Should government encourage
emigration and require those who remained behind to support themselves by spade
husbandry?
These were the 'Condition of England' questions".
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I now began to find
meaning in the importance of
poetry and
art.
The only
imaginative arts I had taken
pleasure in was music.
The best effect consists in winding up to a high
pitch feelings of an elevated category to which this excitement gives a glow
and a fervor, which, though transitory at its utmost height, is precious for
sustaining them at other times.
This effect of music I had often
experienced; but like all my pleasurable susceptibilities it was suspended
during the gloomy period.
I had sought relief again and again from this quarter, but found none.
After the tide had turned, and I was in process of recovery, I had been
helped forward by music, but in a much less elevated manner.
I became
acquainted with Weber's Oberon, and the
extreme pleasure showed me
a source of pleasure to which I
was as susceptible as ever.
Happiness was impaired by the thought
the pleasure of music fades with
familiarity requiring revival through intermittence
or continual novelty.
I
was seriously tormented by the exhaustibility of
musical combinations.
This
source of anxiety may,
perhaps, be thought to resemble that of the
philosophers of
Laputa, who feared lest the sun
should be burnt out.
In the power of rural beauty, there was a
foundation laid for pleasure in
Wordsworth's poetry as his scenery lies mostly mountains,
which, owing to my early Pyrenean excursion, were my
ideal of natural beauty.
What made
Wordsworth's poems a medicine
for my state of mind, was that
they expressed,
not mere outward beauty, but
states of feeling,
of thought colored by feeling; the
excitement of the rememberance of natural beauty.
They seemed to be the
very culture of the feelings, which I
was in quest of.
In them I seemed to draw from a source of inward
joy, of sympathetic
and imaginative pleasure, which could be
shared in by all human beings; which
had no connection with struggle or
imperfection, but would be made richer by every improvement in the physical
or social condition of mankind.
From them I seemed to learn what would be
the perennial sources of
happiness, when all the greater evils of life shall have been
removed.
And I felt myself
at once better and happier as I came under their influence.
There
have certainly been greater poets than Wordsworth; poetry of deeper and loftier
feeling could not have done for me at that time what his did.
I needed to feel there was
permanent happiness in tranquil contemplation.
Wordsworth taught me
this, not only without turning away from, but with a greatly increased interest
in the common feelings and destiny
of people.
The delight which these poems gave me,
proved that with culture of this sort, there was nothing to dread from the most
confirmed habit of analysis.
The aim, therefore, of
patriots, was to set limits to the power which the ruler should exercise over
the community; and this limitation was what they meant by liberty;
protection from the tyranny of political
rulers.
It was attempted in two ways.
First, by obtaining a
recognition political liberties or
rights, which it was to be regarded as
a breach of duty in the ruler
to infringe, and which, if he did infringe, specific résistance, or
general rebellion, was held to be justifiable.
A second, and generally
a later expedient, was
the establishment of constitutional
checks; by which the consent of the community, or of
a body of some sort supposed to
represent community interests, was made a necessary condition to some
important acts of the governing power.
A time, however, came in the
progress of human affairs, when men ceased to think it
a necessity of nature
that their governors should be an independent
power, opposed in interest to
themselves.
It appeared to them much better that the various
magistrates of the State should be their tenants or
delegates, revocable at their
pleasure.
In that way alone, it seemed, could they have complete
security that the powers of government
would never be abused to their disadvantage.
The clearer perception
and livelier impression of truth produced by its
collision with error.
If any
opinion be compelled to
silence that opinion must be true.
To deny this is to
assume our own
infallibility. |
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