The Ethics of George Eliots Works | Page 3

of man: and with at least some of
these happiness is simply coincident with physical well-being. Political
Economy aims as undoubtingly to act on the principle, "the greatest
possible happiness of the greatest possible number:" and perhaps, as
Political Economy claims to deal with man in his physical life only, it
were unreasonable to expect from it regard to aught above this. Our
current and popular literature--Fiction, Poetry, Essays on social
relations--is emphatically a literature of enjoyment, ministering to the
various excitements of pleasure, wonder, suspense, or pain. And last,
and in some respects most serious of all, our popular theology has
largely conformed to the spirit of the age. Representative of a debased
and emasculated Christianity, it attacks our humanity at its very core. It
rings out to us, with wearisome iteration, as our one great concern, the
saving of our own souls: degrades the religion of the Cross into a
slightly-refined and long-sighted selfishness: and makes our following
Him who "pleased not Himself" to consist in doing just enough to
escape what it calls the pains of hell--to win what it calls the joys of
heaven.
This is the dark side of the picture; but it has its bright side too. These
advances of science, these extensions of commerce, these philosophies,

even where they are falsely so called, this Political Economy, which
from its very nature must first "labour for the meat that
perisheth,"--these are all God's servants and man's ministers still--the
ministers of man's higher and nobler life. Consciously or unconsciously,
they are working to raise from myriads burdens of poverty, care,
ceaseless and fruitless toil, under the pressure of which all higher
aspiration is wellnigh impossible. Sanitary reform in itself may mean
nothing more than better drainage, fresher air, freer light, more
abundant water: to the "Governor among the nations" it means lessened
impossibility that men should live to Him.
If in few ages the great bulk and the most popular portion of literature
has more prostituted itself to purposes of sensational or at most
aesthetic enjoyment, it is at least as doubtful if in any previous age our
highest literature has more emphatically and persistently devoted itself
to proclaiming this great doctrine of the Cross. Sometimes directly and
explicitly, oftener by implication, this is the ultimate theme of those
who are most deeply influencing the spirit of the time. Our finest and
most widely recognised pulpit oratory is at home here, and only here:
Maurice and Arnold, Trench and Vaughan, Robertson and Stanley,
James Martineau and Seeley, Thirlwall and Wilberforce, Kingsley and
Brooke, Caird and Tulloch, different in form, in much antagonistic in
what is called opinion, are of one mind and heart on this. The thought
underlying all their thoughts of man is that "higher than love of
happiness" in humanity which expresses the true link between man and
God. The practical doctrine that with them underlies all others is, "Love
not pleasure--love God. Love Him not alone in the light and amid the
calm, but through the blackness and the storm. Though He hide
Himself in the thick darkness, yet" give thanks at remembrance of His
holiness. "Though He slay thee, yet trust still in Him." The hope to
which they call us is not, save secondarily and incidentally, the hope of
a great exhaustless future. It is the hope of a true life now, struggling on
and up through hardness and toil and battle, careless though its crown
be the crown of thorns.
Even evangelicism indirectly, in great degree unconsciously, bears
witness to the truth through its demand of absolute self-abnegation

before God: though the inversion of the very idea of Him
fundamentally involved in its scheme makes the self-abnegation no
longer that of the son, but of the slave; includes in it the denial of that
law which Himself has written on our hearts; and would substitute our
subjection to an arbitrary despotism for our being "made partakers of
His holiness." One of the sternest and most consistent of Calvinistic
theologians, Jonathan Edwards, in one of his works expresses his
willingness to be damned for the glory of God, and to rejoice in his
own damnation: with a strange, almost incredible, obliquity of moral
and spiritual insight failing to perceive that in thus losing himself in the
infinite of holy Love lies the very essence of human blessedness, that
this and this alone is in very truth his "eternal life."
Among what may be called Essayists, two by general consent stand out
as most deeply penetrating and informing the spirit of the age--Carlyle
and Ruskin. To the former, brief reference has already been made. In
the work then quoted from, one truth has prominence above all others:
that with the will's acceptance of happiness as the aim of life begins the
true degradation