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980 THE LEA DEE. [Saturday ,
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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. Letters Of A Wflcflbfflsd. ¦ Xviii. Kr...
Conway to reconcile his intellect with his position ; never so clearly understood the mastery which actual and substantial science gives to the intellect as when Edwardes explained his rule of life . If we were but reasoning creatures , and nothing more ! Gonway ' s bearing was at once admirable and painful . By common consent he appeared to be fixed upon as the next in the council , to enlighten- us on the law of life ; but he shrunk from the duty . " Put me , " he said , " in the pulpit : I cannot preach out of church . " " Poor fellow i" cried Julie ; " his intellect cannot stand out of its go-cart 1 " " We do not , " said Edwardes , " want a sermon , but a confession ; you speak not as parson , but as witness . "
Still Conway struggled : he had not , he said , come to any conclusion worth avowing . " But such as it is , man ! " cried Edwardes . " I have positively none , " replied Con way . " Well , it is something to kuow that : but why ?—why have you a negative conclusion ?" " It would take too long to tell . Only , perhaps , because no conclusion satisfies me . " " But you must have some rule , Con way . What is your own rule 1 You have your opinions , convictions , resolves : how do you act yoursell ' " Not as I would have others act . "
" Nonsense , man ; don ' t evade , like a witness suspected of horsestealing-. You are a student , a philosopher ; you have observed , reflected , concluded ; you must act , and how ? That is the whole question . " " Well , then , I act no how . " " Yes , but—Conway , my dear fellow , we are not spies . Tell us why you , of active mind , resolve upon inaction . " " 1 do not know . Say that Tarn only half wise , half penetrating . Say thai I only see defects—am only destructive , and cannot construct . Say that I can see enough to hate what is , but have not the courage to denounce it . Yes , that is the fact . " " What is ?" " I am a hypocrite . "
We were silent , until Markham called upon Edwardes to explain his rule ; but Edwardes refused to let Conway be passed ; and at last the clergyman himself ajjpeared to have-gained courage by his avowal . He told us , partly repeating what he had said before , how in early Lfe he was destined for the church ; how he had studied in a technical submission ^ receiving what he was taught on authority ; how he began ' to doubt , to enquire , to confirm his doubts ; how he had resolved to leave the church , but found that there was no retreat from the fraternity , no refuge in a change of employment , nothing in any violent escape but ruin for his sisters ; how he then generalized upon his own case , and found it not worse than that of others man being
, every placed in a position unnatural and distasteful to him—the tradesman confined to unwholesome in-door life ; the husbandman debarred from education j the soldier taught to fight , not for his country , but for " a system ; < ind how the vis inertias of that same system so far exceeded the power of any individual , that he must yield , obey his destiny , bear Jus thrall , and mitigate the pressure of his bondage by outwardly conforming and so avoiding the penalty of dissent . To struggle against a resistless power is the mistake of vulgar presumption ; iuuI the only refuge for the intellectual dissenter is quietly to aid those influences which lie believes calcuL-it / wl f ^» JV * . -. a ,.- * ,, ! - ; ,,, ! .,+ ... v .. t „ 1 . __ -e which he believes calculated to free mankind at future day—if
,,, , some over . J " I perform my functions in the church , " he continued , " as it would be performed if another di « l it . I study Comtc , and make others study him I watch the progress of free-thinking , and help it occasionally to find out the weak places in my own craft . I am working for truth m tho camp of falsehood , and console myself by thinking tha there are many liko me , both in the disgrace and in the devotion " " You are the Harvey Birch of the intellectual republic , " said Julio . 11 1 may construe my own conduct so favourably . But I am not sure . Perhaps it is only cowardico 1 If I had Juid more energy I might havei found the means of providing for Lucy and Sarah otherwise , and tlioii have won the means of speaking out ,,, y | IO j irt " " And Jiving it out , " said Margaret . ««
• ^ l ^ y stlirtGd ^ ho had been stung l > y an adder , and looked into Margaret ' s unmoved countenance like ono expecting to discover there a furthor meaning . After a pause , he said ,- ^ " Yes ; Margaret is right— I might have lived as well as woken Ah it is' " ' " You havo , " fluid Kdwardew , "liko most ofiw , been obliged to waive your own purposes—hut , if I under / stand you right , in a greater degree . And yet yon recommend that cour . se to others '" *"
" No , I do n « t recommend ; I only yiold . It ' w destiny . 1 do , not know whether my own bomlago is greater than , any man ' s , for I Jun wtill free in thought . And 1 do not hoc that others aro freer . Ignoranco , bigotry , mid hypocrisy are too strong : education will havo a long task and a . winding path . Wo mu « l ; conform or bo crushed ; and n wo yield , wo preserve liberty at least within ourselves . " "Do you moan , Con way , " « aid Stanhope , " that othors aro constrained in action as much or moro than you aro' /"
" Yes . " "But to what extent ?" " Entirely . " " What , to speak a faith they don't own , to accept a conduct thev do not wish , to own an allegiance where they have no affection ?" " Yes / ' ;¦ - ¦ ¦ ' . ¦ ' ¦ - : . - ; . ; ; ; " Then you are wrong . At least / can say for one . Not that I have succeeded in all I desired ; but I hare never been restrained in pursuing what I desired , save by that conscientious doubt which crushes desire itself . " " Do you mean , " said Conway , " that your desires and your convictions were never at war , yourself divided between the two ?" " Never . " " Happy man !"
" Nor need they be , " said Edwardes , "if we cultivate in ourselves a healthy condition . A healthy appetite has no desire for poison or excess , but is satisfied with what is before it . " " Besides , " said Markham , " Stanhope is an artist , and artists are chartered libertines—free to do what they list , without law or control . " By an unavoidable gaucherie , we most of us looked at Margaret or did not look at her ; and a deep dark blush , which made her eyes look grave and sad , evidently rebuked Markham more than the sharp pettish blow which his hand received from Julie ' s indignant fingers " Art is no libertine , " said Conway .
" No ,, that is not the point , ' cried Edwardes , with that admirable single-mindedness that nothing distracts from its purpose . " True art , of course , must be consistent with every other truth , and Raphael is as true to virtue as he is to anatomy . Conway , my dear fellow I am sure you will forgive me for saying that you embody the attempt to reconcile an obsolete dogma with the progressive knowledge of science , and you are a failure . You can ' t be candid ; you are ex officio bound , not to the Ptolemaic system , for Luther dragged us
out of that , but to a system which is obliged to interpret a ' first "day to mean ages and ages . For the Church of England sticks to its apostolic succession , and escapes only from the local , not the general superstitions of Rome . You can only be half scientific , —that is , you can only half recognise the actual laws of the universe—laws which take a hundred thousand years to construct that most modern edifice , the delta of the Mississippi , notwithstanding the Pentateuch— —" " I said I would have no Pentateuch , " cried Julie .
" But you must , lady of my adoration , " cried Edwardes , " if you live in England . The Pentateuch meets you at every turn . It is in the cottage , in the shop , in the charity-boy as much as the bishop , in Acts of Parliament and Bridgewater Treatises , in the judge ' s sentence and the lover ' s declaration . The real contest of social life in England is not with ' capital , ' or Parliament , or Christianity , but with the Pentateuch . We base our principle of life on the physiology of the Egyptian brickmakers thousands of years ago ; and no wonder we are unhappy ; for , after all , physiology is the true basis of social law . " " The shop ! " cried Julie ; " Markham would make us live by the till , and you , Mr . Edwardes , by the pharmacopeia . "
Without the pharmacopoeia . The physiologist is encroaching on the province of the ' doctor ; ' and when lie is quite superseded , Julie , man will bo happy . " And on that text Edwardes spake . His rule of life is to adapt all our actions to physiological laws . We must aleep , labour , and recreate by a rule of proportion—as he does . Wo must educate ourselves until our tastes desiderate only what is healthy ; without passions , save for rational indulgence , without impulse , save for healthy exorcise . H wo understand our own impulses , if we learn to know tho laws of necessity within limit of which wo act , our own aspirations will ho shaped in harmony with possibilities . "And in tho meanwhile ? " said Margaret .
" TOll l'f > ni"f > , c lP ! Tlf . m-ltl llilliurklf " tirii . l I \/ T .. ,. 1-1 , ~™ ( C „„ „ ~^~* * f . r !/ V »_ " You represent man himself , " mid Markham , " as a sort of vicegerent , considering , with his author ,, the objects of his own existence , and carrying out the laws by which ho is himself governed . " " And what can be more noble V " And in tho meanwhile , " insisted Margaret , " before we attain that perfect knowledge ; ? " . " In the meanwhile 1 " cried Conway ; "in tho meanwhile , wo act neither on the Pentateuch nor on positive scionco . Wo bring children into the
world by the million , and debar them from free life or civilized education ; wo pair « omo , lovers or aliens , to each other , or ' chained foes / in wedlock , and keep others apart , some in lifeless weariness , othoi-fl in fierce misrule ; - wo . leave . some untutored savages to toil in the rudoat toil , ignorant of all that makes tho world what it is , and Heiid othors into crowded cities , to know life only as wo make it , to kuow Nature not at all . We leave nations barbarous , with no rulo but tho aabro , ami teach those who havo knowlodgo in trust to forgot their / strength , to become holphvw before the barbarian , and botray tho Alexandrian library of civilization to tho invader . "
" proving , " objected tfdwardos , " that wo havo not yet advanced far enough in education . " "No , KdwardcH , all proving that human nature , with its inutinets and untold dostinioN , m too strong for a didactic treatment . You havo not yot ovon fcho pronitasoa of your law , and you rtoror will . Destiny
980 The Lea Dee. [Saturday ,
980 THE LEA DEE . [ Saturday ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 8, 1853, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_08101853/page/20/
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