He conceived of
the English people as being under a general delusion which led them to
mistake means for ends. He spoke of them as "Barbarians, Philistines,
and Populace," according to the rank in life they held; and accused them
of living for such ends as field sports, the disestablishment of the
Church of England, and the drinking of beer. He pointed out that, so far
as real culture is concerned, these can at best be but means towards
other ends, and can never be in themselves sufficient to satisfy the
human soul. He protested against Carlyle, although in the main thesis
the two are entirely at one. "I never liked Carlyle," he said; "he
always seemed to me to be carrying coals to Newcastle." He took Carlyle
for the representative of what he called "Hebraism," and he desired to
balance the undue preponderance of that by insisting upon the necessity
of the Hellenistic element in culture. Both of these are methods of
idealism, but Arnold protested that the human spirit is greater than any
of the forces that bear it onwards; and that after you have said all
that Carlyle has to say, there still remains on the other side the
intellect, with rights of its own.
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