Chapter 1Book One - The Harmony of Virtue

Book One Keshav Ganesh — Broome Wilson Keshav — My dear Broome, how opportune is your arrival! You will save me from the malady of work, it may be, from the dangerous opium of solitude. How is it I have not seen you for the last fortnight? Wilson — Surely, Keshav, you can understand the exigencies of the Tripos? Keshav — Ah, you are a happy man. You can do what you are told. But put off your academical aspirations until tomorrow and we will talk. The cigarettes are on the mantelpiece — pardon my indolence! — and the lucifers are probably stowed on the fruit-shelf. And here is coffee and a choice between cake and biscuits. Are you perfectly happy? Wilson — In Elysium. But do not let the cigarettes run dry; the alliance of a warm fire and luxurious cushions will be too strong for my vigilance. Do you mean to tell me you can work here? Keshav — Life is too precious to be wasted in labour, & above all this especial moment of life, the hour after dinner, when we have only just enough energy to be idle. Why, it is only for this I tolerate the wearisome activity of the previous twelve hours. Wilson — You are a living paradox. Is it not just like you to pervert indolence into the aim of life? Keshav — Why, what other aim can there be? Wilson — Duty, I presume. Keshav — I cannot consent to cherish an opinion until I realise the meaning of duty. Wilson — I suppose I have pledged myself to an evening of metaphysics. We do our duty when we do what we ought to do. Keshav — A very lucid explanation; but how do we know

The Harmony of Virtue that we are doing what we ought to do? Wilson — Why, we must do what society requires of us. Keshav — And must we do that, even when society requires something dissonant with our nature or repugnant to our con- victions? Wilson — I conceive so. Keshav — And if society requires us to sacrifice our children or to compel a widow to burn herself we are bound to comply? Wilson — No; we should only do what is just and good. Keshav — Then the fiat of society is not valid; duty really depends on something quite different. Wilson — It appears so. Keshav — Then what is your idea of that something quite different on which duty depends? Wilson — Would it be wrong to select morality? Keshav — Let us inquire. But before that is possible, let me know what morality is or I shall not know my own meaning. Wilson — Morality is the conduct our ethical principles require of us. Keshav — Take me with you. This ethical principle is then personal, not universal? Wilson — I think so. For different localities different ethics. I am not a bigot to claim infallibility for my own country. Keshav — So we must act in harmony with the code of ethics received as ideal by the society we move in? Wilson — I suppose it comes to that. Keshav — But, my dear Broome, does not that bring us back to your previous theory that we should do what society requires of us? Wilson — I am painfully afraid it does. Keshav — And we are agreed that this is not an accurate plumbline? Wilson — Yes. Keshav — You see the consequence? Wilson — I see I must change my ground and say that we must do what our personal sense of the right and just requires of us.

The Harmony of Virtue Keshav — For example if my personal sense of the right and just, tells me that to lie is meritorious, it is my duty to lie to the best of my ability. Wilson — But no one could possibly think that. Keshav — I think that the soul of Ithacan Ulysses has not yet completed the cycle of his transmigrations, nor would I wrong the author of the Hippias by ignoring his conclusions. Or why go to dead men for an example? The mould has not fallen on the musical lips of the Irish Plato nor is Dorian Gray forgotten on the hundred tongues of Rumour. Wilson — If our sense of right is really so prone to error, we should not rely upon it. Keshav — Then, to quote Mr.s. Mountstuart, you have just succeeded in telling me nothing. Duty is not based on our personal sense of the right and just. Wilson — I allow it is not. Keshav — But surely there is some species of touchstone by which we can discern between the false and the true? Wilson — If there is I cannot discover it. Keshav — Ah, but do try again. There is luck in odd num- bers. Wilson — The only other touchstone I can imagine is re- ligion; and now I come to think of it, religion is an infallible touchstone. Keshav — I am glad you think so; for all I know at present you are very probably right. But have you any reason for your conviction? Wilson — A code of morality built upon religion has no commerce with the demands of society or our personal sense of the right and just, but is the very law of God. Keshav — I will not at present deny the reality of a personal God endowed with passions & prejudices; that is not indispens- able to our argument. But are there not many religions and have they not all their peculiar schemes of morality? Wilson — No doubt, but some are more excellent than others. Keshav — And do you cherish the opinion that your own

The Harmony of Virtue peculiar creed — I believe it to be Christianity without Christ — is indubitably the most excellent of all religions? Wilson — By far the most excellent. Keshav — And your own ethical scheme, again the Chris- tian without the emotional element, the best of all ethical schemes? Wilson — I have no doubt of it. Keshav — And they are many who dissent from you, are there not? Wilson — Oh without doubt. Keshav — And you would impose your ethical scheme on them? Wilson — No; but I imagine it to be the goal whither all humanity is tending. Keshav — That is a very different question. Do you think that when a man’s life is in harmony with his own creed, but not with yours, he is therefore not virtuous, or in your own phrase, deviates from his duty? Wilson — God forbid! Keshav — Then you really do believe that a man does his duty when he lives in harmony with the ethical scheme pa- tronised by his own religion, as a Mohammadan if he follows the injunctions of the Prophet, a Hindu if he obeys the Vedic Scriptures, a Christian, if his life is a long self-denial. Wilson — That I admit. Keshav — Then the ethical scheme of Islam is as much the very law of God, as the ethical scheme of Christianity, and the morals of Hinduism are not less divine than the morals of Islam. Wilson — I hardly understand how you arrive at that con- clusion. Keshav — Did you not say, Broome, that religion is an infallible test of duty, because it is the very law of God? Wilson — I still say so. Keshav — And that everyone must adopt his own religion as the test of what he should do or not do? Wilson — I cannot deny it. Keshav — Then must you not either admit the reason to be

The Harmony of Virtue invalid or that anyone’s peculiar religion, to whatever species it may belong, is the very law of God? Wilson — I prefer the second branch of the dilemma. Keshav — But tho’ every religion is the very law of God, nevertheless you will often find one enjoining a practice which to another is an abomination. And can God contradict him- self? Wilson — You mistake the point. Islam, Hinduism, indeed all Scriptural religions were given, because the peoples professing them were not capable of receiving a higher light. Keshav — Is not God omnipotent? Wilson — A limited God is not God at all. Keshav — Then was it not within his omnipotent power to so guide the world, that there would be no necessity for different dealings with different peoples? Wilson — It was within his power, but he did not choose. Keshav — Exactly: he did not choose. He of set purpose preferred a method which he knew would bring him to falsehood and injustice. Wilson — What words you use! The truth is merely that God set man to develop under certain conditions and suited his methods to those conditions. Keshav — Oh, then God is practically a scientist making an experiment; and you demand for him reverence and obedience from the creature vivisected. Then I can only see one other explanation. Having created certain conditions he could not receive the homage of mankind without various and mutually dissentient revelations of his will. Now imagine a physician with theosophical power who for purposes of gain so modified the climatic features of Judaea & Arabia that the same disease required two distinct methods of treatment in the one & the other. This he does wilfully and deliberately and with foreknowledge of the result. As soon as his end is assured, our physician goes to Judaea and gives the people a drug which, he tells them, is the sole remedy for their disease, but all others are the property of quacks and will eventually induce an increase of the malady. Five years later the same

The Harmony of Virtue physician goes off to Arabia and here he gives them another drug of an accurately opposite nature about which he imparts the same instructions. Now if we remember that the climatic conditions which necessitated the deception, were the deliberate work of the deceiver, shall we not call that physician a liar and an impostor? Is God a liar? or an impostor? Wilson — We must not measure the Almighty by our poor mortal standards. Keshav — Pshaw, Broome, if the legislator overrides his own laws, how can you hope that others will observe them? Wilson — But if God in his incomprehensible wisdom and goodness — Keshav — Incomprehensible indeed! If there is any meaning in words, the God you have described, can neither be wise nor good. Will you show me the flaw in my position? Wilson — I cannot discover it. Keshav — Then your suspicion is born of your disgust at the conclusion to which I have forced you. Wilson — I am afraid it is. Keshav — Well, shall we go on with the discussion or should I stop here? Wilson — Certainly let us go on. I need not shy at a truth however disagreeable. Keshav — First let me give you a glass of this champagne. I do not keep any of those infernal concoctions of alcohol and perdition of which you in Europe are so enamoured. Now here is the conclusion I draw from all that we have been saying: There are two positions open to you. One is that of the fanatic. You may say that you and those who believe with you are the specially chosen of God to be the receptacles of his grace and that all who have heard and rejected his gospel together with those who have not so much as imagined its possibility must share a similar fate and go into the outer darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. If that is the line you take up, my answer is that God is an unjust God and the wise will prefer the torments of the damned to any communion with him. The fanatic of course would be ready with his retort that the potter

The Harmony of Virtue has a right to do what he will with his vessels. At that point I usually abandon the conversation; to tell him that a metaphor is no argument would be futile. Even if he saw it, he would reply that God’s ways are incomprehensible and therefore we should accept them without a murmur. That is a position which I have not the patience to undermine, nor if I had it, have I sufficient self-control to preserve my gravity under the ordeal. Wilson — I at least, Keshav, am not in danger of burdening your patience. I have no wish to evade you by such a back-door as that. Keshav — Then is it not plain to you, that you must aban- don the religious basis as unsound? Wilson — Yes, for you have convinced me that I have been talking nonsense the whole evening. Keshav — Not at all, Broome: only you like most men have not accustomed yourself to clear and rigorous thought. Wilson — I am afraid, logic is not sufficiently studied. Keshav — Is it not studied too much? Logic dwindles the river of thought into a mere canal. The logician thinks so accu- rately that he is seldom right. No, what we want is some more of that sense which it is a mockery to call common. Wilson — But if we were to eliminate the divine element from the balance, would not religion be a possible basis? Keshav — No, for religious ethics would then be a mere expression of will on the part of Society. And that is open to the criticism that the commands of Society may be revolting to the right and just or inconsistent with the harmony of life. Wilson — But supposing everyone to interpret for himself the ethics approved by his own creed? Keshav — The Inquisitors did that. Do you consider the result justified the method? Wilson — The Inquisitors? Keshav — They were a class of men than whom you will find none more scrupulous or in their private lives more gentle, chivalrous & honourable, or in their public conduct more obe- dient to their sense of duty. They tortured the bodies of a few, that the souls of thousands might live. They did murder in the

The Harmony of Virtue sight of the Lord and looked upon their handiwork and saw that it was good. Wilson — My dear Keshav, surely that is extravagant. Keshav — Why, do you imagine that they were actuated by any other motive? Wilson — Yes, by the desire to preserve the integrity of the Church. Keshav — And is not that the first duty of every Christian? Wilson — Only by the permissible method of persuasion. Keshav — That is your opinion but was it theirs? Duty is a phantasm spawned in the green morass of human weakness & ignorance, but perpetuated by vague thought and vaguer senti- ment. And so long as we are imperatively told to do our duty, without knowing why we should do it, the vagueness of private judgment, the cruelty of social coercion will be the sole arbiters and the saint will be a worse enemy of virtue than the sinner. Will you have another cigarette? Wilson — Thanks, I will. But, Keshav, I am not disposed to leave the discussion with this purely negative result. Surely there is some guiding principle which should modify and harmonize our actions. Or are you favourable to an anarchy in morals? Keshav — No, Broome. If culture and taste were universal, principle would then be a superfluous note in the world’s compo- sition. But so long as men are crude, without tact, formless, in- capable of a balanced personality, so long the banner of the ideal must be waved obtrusively before the eyes of men, and education remain a necessity, so long must the hateful phrase, a higher morality, mean something more than empty jargon of sciolists. Yes, I think there is that guiding principle you speak of, or at least we may arrive at something like it, if we look long enough. Wilson — Then do look for it, Keshav. I am sure you will find something original and beautiful. Come, I will be idle tonight and abandon the pursuit of knowledge to waste time in the pursuit of thought. Begin and I will follow my leader. Keshav — Before I begin, let me remove one or two of those popular fallacies born of indolence which encumber the wings

The Harmony of Virtue of the speculator. And first let me say, I will not talk of duty: it is a word I do not like, for it is always used in antagonism to pleasure, and brings back the noisome savour of the days when to do what I was told, was held out as my highest legitimate aspiration. I will use instead the word virtue, whose inherent meaning is manliness, in other words, the perfect evolution by the human being of the inborn qualities and powers native to his humanity. Another thing I would like to avoid is the assumption that there is somewhere and somehow an ideal morality, which draws an absolute and a sharp distinction between good and evil. Thus it is easy to say that chastity is good, licence is evil. But what if someone were to protest that this is a mistake, that chastity is bad, licence is good. How are you going to refute him? If you appeal to authority, he will deny that your authority is valid; if you quote religion, he will remind you that your religion is one of a multitude; if you talk of natural perception, he will retort that natural perception cancels itself by arriving at opposite results. How will you unseat him from his position? Wilson — Yes, you can show that good is profitable, while evil is hurtful. Keshav — You mean the appeal to utility? Wilson — Yes. Keshav — That is without doubt an advance. Now can you show that good is profitable, that is to say, has good effects, while evil is hurtful, that is to say, has bad effects? Wilson — Easily. Take your instance of chastity and licence. One is the ground-work of that confidence which is the basis of marriage and therefore the keystone of society; the other kills confidence and infects the community with a bad example. Keshav — You fly too fast for me, Broome. You say chastity is the basis of marriage? Wilson — Surely you will not deny it? Keshav — And licence in one leads to prevalent unchastity? Wilson — It has that tendency. Keshav — And you think you have proved chastity to be profitable and licence hurtful?

The Harmony of Virtue Wilson — Why, yes. Do not you? Keshav — No, my friend; for I have not convinced myself that marriage is a good effect and prevalent unchastity a bad effect. Wilson — Only paradox can throw any doubt on that. As- suredly you will not deny that without marriage and public decency, society is unimaginable? Keshav — I suppose you will allow that in Roman society under the Emperors marriage was extant? And yet will you tell me that in those ages chastity was the basis of marriage? Wilson — I should say that marriage in the real sense of the word was not extant. Keshav — Then what becomes of your postulate that with- out marriage and public decency society is unimaginable? Wilson — Can you bestow the name on the world of Nero & Caracalla? Keshav — Certainly, if I understand the significance of the word. Wherever the mutual dependence of men builds up a community cemented by a chain of rights and liabilities, that, I imagine, is a society. Wilson — Certainly, that is a society. Keshav — And will you then hesitate to concede the name to imperial Italy? Wilson — Yes, but you will not deny that from the unreality of marriage and the impudent disregard of common decency, — at once its cause and effect — there grew up a prevalence of moral corruption, but for which the Roman world would not have succumbed with such nerveless ease to Scythia and its populous multitude. Keshav — What then? I do not deny it. Wilson — Was not that a bad effect? Keshav — By bad, I presume you mean undesirable? Wilson — That of course. Keshav — Perhaps it was, but should we not say that Rome fell because barbarism was strong not because she was feeble? Wilson — Rome uncorrupted was able to laugh at similar perils.

The Harmony of Virtue Keshav — Then to have Rome safe, you would have had her remain barbarous? Wilson — Did I say so? Keshav — You implied it. In Rome the triumphal chariot of Corruption was drawn by the winged horses, Culture and Art. And it is always so. From the evergreen foliage of the Periclean era there bloomed that gorgeous and overblown flower, Athens of the philosophers, a corrupt luxurious city, the easy vassal of Macedon, the easier slave of Rome. From the blending of Hellenic with Persian culture was derived that Oriental pomp and lavish magnificence which ruined the kingdoms of the East. And Rome, their conqueror, she too when the Roman in her died and the Italian lived, when the city of wolves became the abode of men, bartered her savage prosperity for a splendid decline. Yes, the fulness of the flower is the sure prelude of decay. Look at the India of Vikramaditya. How gorgeous was her beauty! how Olympian the voices of her poets! how sensuous the pencil of her painters! how languidly voluptuous the out- lines of her sculpture! In those days every man was marvellous to himself and many were marvellous to their fellows; but the mightiest marvel of all were the philosophers. What a Philos- ophy was that! For she scaled the empyrean on the wing`ed sandals of meditation, soared above the wide fires of the sun and above the whirling stars, up where the flaming walls of the universe are guiltless of wind or cloud, and there in the burning core of existence saw the face of the most high God. She saw God and did not perish; rather fell back to earth, not blasted with excess of light, but with a mystic burden on her murmuring lips too large for human speech to utter or for the human brain to understand. Such was she then. Yet five rolling centuries had not passed when sleepless, all-beholding Surya saw the sons of Mahomet pour like locusts over the green fields of her glory and the wrecks of that mighty fabric whirling down the rapids of barbarism into the shores of night. They were barbarous, therefore mighty: we were civilized, therefore feeble. Wilson — But was not your civilization premature? The

The Harmony of Virtue building too hastily raised disintegrates and collapses, for it has the seeds of death in its origin. May not the utilitarian justly condemn it as evil? Keshav — What the utilitarian may not justly do, it is be- yond the limits of my intellect to discover. Had it not been for these premature civilizations, had it not been for the Athens of Plato, the Rome of the Caesars, the India of Vikramaditya, what would the world be now? It was premature, because barbarism was yet predominant in the world; and it is wholly due to our premature efflorescence that your utilitarians can mount the high stool of folly and defile the memory of the great. When I remember that, I do not think I can deny that we were premature. I trust and believe that the civilization of the future will not come too late rather than too early. No, the utilitarian with his sordid creed may exalt the barbarian and spit his livid contempt upon culture, but the great heart of the world will ever beat more responsive to the flame-wing`ed words of the genius than to the musty musings of the moralists. It is better to be great and perish, than to be little and live. But where was I when the wind of tirade carried me out of my course? Wilson — You were breaching the defences of utilitarian morality. Keshav — Ah, I remember. What I mean is this; the utili- tarian arrives at his results by an arbitrary application of the epithets “good” and “bad”.1 This mistake is of perpetual occur- rence in Bentham and gives the basis for the most monstrous and shocking of his theories. For example the servitude of women is justified by the impossibility of marriage without it. Again he condemns theft by a starving man as a heinous offence because it is likely to disturb security. He quite forgets to convince us, as the author of a system professedly grounded on logic should 1 The following passage was written at the top of the manuscript page. Its place of insertion was not marked: When we say a fruit is wholesome or unwholesome, we mean that it is harmless & nutritious food or that it tends to dysentery & colic, but when we say that anything is good or bad, we apply the epithets like tickets without inquiring what we mean by them; we have no moral touchstone that tells gold from spurious metal.

The Harmony of Virtue have done, that the survival of marriage is a desirable effect or property more valuable than life. Wilson — I confess that Bentham on those two subjects is far too cavalier and offhand to please me, but the utilitarian system can stand on another basis than Bentham supplies. Keshav — Yours is a curious position, Broome. You are one of those who would expunge the part of Hamlet from the play that bears his name. Your religion is Christianity without Christ, your morality Benthamism without Bentham. Nevertheless my guns are so pointed that they will breach any wall you choose to set up. For this is common to all utilitarians that they lose sight of a paramount consideration: the epithets “good” and “bad” are purely conventional and have no absolute sense, but their meaning may be shifted at the will of the speaker. Indeed they have been the root of so many revolting ideas and of so many and such monstrous social tyrannies, that I should not be sorry to see them expelled from the language, as unfit to be in the company of decent words. Why do you smile? Wilson — The novelty of the idea amused me. Keshav — Yes, I know that “original” and “fool” are syn- onymous in the world’s vocabulary. Wilson — That was a nasty one for me. However I am afraid I shall be compelled to agree with you. Keshav — Do you admit that there is only one alterna- tive, faith without reason or the recognition of morality as a conventional term without any absolute meaning? Wilson — I should rather say that morality is the idea of what is just and right in vogue among a given number of people. Keshav — You have exactly described it. Are you content to take this as your touchstone? Wilson — Neither this, nor faith without reason. Keshav — Two positions abandoned at a blow? That is more than I had the right to expect. Now, as the time is slipping by, let us set out on the discovery of some law, or should I not rather say, some indicating tendency by which we may arrive at a principle of life? Wilson — I am anxious to hear it.

The Harmony of Virtue Keshav — Let us furnish ourselves with another glass of claret for the voyage. You will have some? Wilson — Thanks. Keshav — My first difficulty when I set out on a voyage of discovery is to select the most probable route. I look at my chart and I see one marked justice along which the trade winds blow; but whoever has weighed anchor on this path has arrived like Columbus at another than the intended destination, without making half so valuable a discovery. Another route is called “beauty” and along this no-one has yet sailed. An Irish navigator has indeed attempted it and made some remarkable discoveries, but he has clothed his account in such iridescent wit and humour, that our good serious English audience either grin foolishly at him from a vague idea that they ought to feel amused or else shake their heads and grumble that the fellow is corrupting the youth and ruining their good old Saxon gravity; why he actually makes people laugh at the beliefs they have been taught by their venerable and aged grandmothers. But as for believing his traveller’s tales — they believe them not a whit. Possibly if we who do not possess this dangerous gift of humour, were to follow the path called beauty, we might hit the target of our desires: if not we might at least discover things wonderful and new to repay us for our labour. And so on with other possible routes. Now which shall we choose? for much hangs on our selection. Shall we say justice? Wilson — Let me know first what justice is. Keshav — I do not know, but I think no-one would hesitate to describe it as forbearance from interfering with the rights of others. Wilson — That is a good description. Keshav — Possibly, but so long as we do not know what are the rights of others, the description, however good, can have no meaning. Wilson — Can we not discover, what are the rights of oth- ers? Keshav — We have been trying for the last three-thousand years; with how much or how little success, I do not like to say.

The Harmony of Virtue Wilson — Then let us try another tack. Keshav — Can you tell me which one we should choose? My own idea is that the word “beauty” is replete with hopeful possibilities. Wilson — Is not that because it is used in a hundred different senses? Keshav — I own that the word, as used today, is like so many others a relative term. But if we were to fix a permanent and absolute meaning on it, should we not say that beauty is that which fills us with a sense of satisfying pleasure and perfect fitness? Wilson — Yes, I think beauty must certainly be judged by its effects. Keshav — But are there not minds so moulded that they are dead to all beauty and find more charm in the showy and vulgar than in what is genuinely perfect and symmetrical? Wilson — There can be no doubt of that. Keshav — Then beauty still remains a relative term? Wilson — Yes. Keshav — That is unfortunate. Let us try and find some other test for it. And in order to arrive at this, should we not take something recognized by all to be beautiful and examine in what its beauty lies? Wilson — That is distinctly our best course. Let us take the commonest type of beauty, a rose. Keshav — Then in what lies the beauty of a rose if not in its symmetry? Why has the whole effect that satisfying com- pleteness which subjugates the senses, if not because Nature has blended in harmonious proportion the three elements of beauty; colour, perfume, and form? Now beauty may exist sep- arately in any two of these elements and where it does so, the accession of the third would probably mar the perfection of that species of beauty; as in sculpture where form in its separate existence finds a complete expression and is blended harmoniously with perfume — for character or emotion is the perfume of the human form; just as sound is the perfume of poetry and music — but if a sculptor tints his statue, the effect

The Harmony of Virtue displeases us, because it seems gaudy or tinsel, or in plain words disproportionate. In some cases beauty seems to have only one of these ele- ments, for example frankincense and music which seem to pos- sess perfume only, but in reality we shall find that they have each one or both of the other elements. For incense would not be half so beautiful, if we did not see the curling folds of smoke floating like loose drapery in the air, nor would music be music if not harmoniously blended with form and colour, or as we usually call them, technique and meaning. Again there are other cases in which beauty undoubtedly has one only of the three elements: and such are certain scents like myrrh, eucalyptus and others, which possess neither colour nor form, isolated hues such as the green and purple and violet painted on floor and walls by the afternoon sun and architectural designs which have no beauty but the isolated beauty of form. The criticism of ages has shown a fit appreciation of these harmonies by adjudging the highest scale of beauty to those forms which blend the three elements and the lowest to those which boast only of one. Thus sculpture is a far nobler art than architecture, for while both may compass an equal perfection of form, sculpture alone possesses the larger harmony derived by the union of form and perfume. Similarly the human form is more divine than sculpture because it has the third element, colour; and the painting of figures is more beautiful than the por- trayal of landscapes, because the latter is destitute of perfume, while figures of life have always that character or emotion which we have called the perfume of the living form. Again if we take two forms of beauty otherwise exactly on the same level, we shall find that the more beautiful in which the three elements are more harmoniously blended. As for instance a perfect human form and a perfect poem; whichever we may admire, we shall find our reason, if we probe for it, to be that the whole is more perfectly blended and the result a more satisfying completeness. If we think of all this, it will assuredly not be too rash to describe beauty by calling the general effect harmony and the

The Harmony of Virtue ulterior cause proportion. What is your opinion, Broome? Wilson — Your idea is certainly remarkable and novel, but the language you have selected is so intricate that I am in the dark as to whether it admits of invariable application. Keshav — The usual effect of endeavouring to be too ex- plicit is to mystify the hearer. I will try to dive into less abysmal depths. Can you tell me, why a curve is considered more beau- tiful than a straight line? Wilson — No, except that the effect is more pleasing. Keshav — Ah yes, but why should it be more pleasing? Wilson — I cannot tell. Keshav — I will tell you. It is because a curve possesses that variety which is the soul of proportion. It rises, swells and falls with an exact propriety — it is at once various and regular as rolling water; while the stiff monotony of a straight line disgusts the soul by its meaningless rigidity and want of proportion. On the other hand a system of similar curves, unless very delicately managed, cannot possibly suggest the idea of beauty: and that is because there is no proportion, for proportion, I would impress on you, consists in a regular variety. And thus a straight line, tho’ in itself ugly, can be very beautiful if properly combined with curves. Here again the like principle applies. Do you now understand? Wilson — Yes, I admit that your theory is wonderfully com- plete and consistent. Keshav — If you want a farther illustration, I will give you one. And just as before we selected the most commonly received type of beauty, I will now select the most perfect: and that, I think, is a perfect poem. Would you not agree with me? Wilson — No, I should give the palm to a perfectly beautiful face. Keshav — I think you are wrong. Wilson — Have you any reason for thinking so? Keshav — Yes, and to me a very satisfying reason. The three elements of beauty do not blend with absolutely perfect harmony in a human face. Have you not frequently noticed that those faces which express the most soul, the most genius, the most

The Harmony of Virtue character, are not perfectly harmonious in their form? Wilson — Yes, the exceptions are rare. Keshav — And the reason is that to emphasize the charac- ter, the divine artist has found himself compelled to emphasize certain of the features above the others, for instance, the lips, the eyes, the forehead, the chin, and to give them an undue prominence which destroys that proportion without which there can be no perfect harmony. Do you perceive my meaning? Wilson — Yes, and I do not think your conclusions can be disputed. Keshav — In a perfectly beautiful face the emotion has to be modified and discouraged, so as not to disturb the harmony of form: but in a perfectly beautiful poem the maker has indeed to blend with exquisite nicety the three elements of beauty, but though the colour may be gorgeous, the emotion piercingly vivid, the form deliriously lovely, yet each of these has so just a share of the effect, that we should find it difficult to add to or to detract from any one of them without fatally injuring the perfection of the whole. And so it is with every form of beauty that is not originally imperfect; to detract or add would be alike fatal; for alteration means abolition. Each syllable is a key-stone and being removed, the whole imposing structure crumbles in a moment to the ground. Can we better describe this perfect blending of parts than by the word proportion? or is its entire effect anything but harmony? Wilson — There are indeed no better words. Keshav — And this harmony runs through the warp and woof of Nature. Look at the stars, the brain of heaven, as Meredith calls them. How they march tossing on high their golden censers to perfume night with the frankincense of beauty! They are a host of wing`ed insects crawling on the blue papyrus of heaven, a swarm of golden gnats, a cloud of burning dust, a wonderful effect of sparkling atoms caught and perpetuated by the instantaneous pencil of Nature. And yet they are none of all these, but a vast and interdependent economy of worlds.

The Harmony of Virtue Those burning globes as they roll in silent orbits through the infinite inane, are separated by an eternity of space. They are individual and alone, but from each to each thrill influences unfathomed and unconscious, marvellous magnetisms, curious repulsions that check like adverse gales or propel like wind in bellying canvas, and bind these solitary splendours into one su- pernal harmony of worlds. The solar harmony we know. How gloriously perfect it is, how united in isolation, how individual in unity! How star answers to star and the seven wandering dynasts of destiny as they roll millions of leagues apart, drag with them the invisible magnetic cord which binds them for ever to the sun. We believe that those lights we call fixed are each a sun with a rhythmic harmony of planets dancing in immeasurable gyrations around one immovable, immortal star. More, is it extravagant to guess that what to us is fixed, is a planet to God? Perhaps to the inhabitants of the moon this tumbling earth of ours is a fixed and constant light, and perhaps the glorious ball of fire we worship as the Lord of Light, is the satrap of some majesty more luminous and more large. Thus we may conceive of the universe as a series of subordinate harmonies, each perfect in itself and helping to consummate the harmony which is one and universal. Well may the poet give the stars that majestic synonym The army of unalterable law. But the law that governs the perishable flower, the ephemeral moth, is not more changeful than the law that disciplines the movements of the eternal fires. The rose burns in her season; the moth lives in his hour: not even the wind bloweth where it listeth unless it preserve the boundaries prescribed by Nature. Each is a separate syllable in the grand poem of the universe: and it is all so inalterable because it is so perfect. Yes, Tennyson was right, tho’ like most poets, he knew not what he said, when he wrote those lines on the flower in the crannies: if we know what the flower is, we know also what God is and what man. Wilson — I begin to catch a glimpse of your drift. But is there no discordant element in this universal harmony?

The Harmony of Virtue Keshav — There is. As soon as we come to life, we find that God’s imagination is no longer unerring; we almost think that he has reached a conception which it is beyond his power to execute. It is true that there are grand and beautiful lines in the vast epic of life, but others there are so unmusical and discordant that we can scarcely believe but that Chance was the author of existence. The beautiful lines are no doubt wonder- ful; among the insects the peacock-winged butterfly, the light spendthrift of unclouded hours; the angry wasp, that striped and perilous tiger of the air; the slow murmuring bee, an artist in honey and with the true artist’s indolence outside his art: and then the birds — the tawny eagle shouting his clangorous aspiration against the sun; the cruel shrike, his talons painted in murder; the murmuring dove robed in the pure and delicate hue of constancy: the inspired skylark with his matin-song de- scending like a rain of fire from the blushing bosom of the dawn. Nay the beasts too are not without their fine individualities: the fire-eyed lion, the creeping panther, the shy fawn, the majes- tic elephant; each fill a line of the great poem and by contrast enhance harmony. But what shall we say of the imaginations that inspire noth- ing but disgust, the grub, the jackal, the vulture? And when we come to man, we are half inclined to throw up our theory in despair. For we only see a hideous dissonance, a creaking melody, a ghastly failure. We see the philosopher wearing a crown of thorns and the fool robed in purple and fine linen: the artist drudging at a desk and the average driving his quill thro’ reams of innocent paper: we see genius thrust aside into the hedges and stupidity driving her triumphal chariot on the beaten paths of social existence. Once we might have said that nature like a novice in art was rising through failures and imperfections into an artistic consummation and that when Evolution had ex- hausted her energies, her eyes would gaze on a perfect universe. But when we come to the human being, her most ambitious essay, the cynicism of frustrated hope steals slowly over us. I am reminded of some lines in a sonnet more remarkable for power than for felicitous expression.

The Harmony of Virtue She crowned her wild work with one foulest wrong When first she lighted on a seeming goal And darkly blundered on man’s suffering soul. It is as if nature in admitting action into her universe were in the position of a poet who trusted blindly to inspiration without subjecting his work to the instincts of art or the admonitions of the critical faculty; but once dissatisfied with his work begins to pass his pen repeatedly thro’ his after performances, until he seems at last to have lighted on a perfect inspiration. His greatest essay completed he suddenly discovers that one touch of realism running thro’ the whole work has fatally injured its beauty. Similarly Nature in moulding man, made a mistake of the first importance. She gave him the faculty of reason and by the use of her gift he has stultified the beauty of her splendid imaginations. Tennyson, by one of his felicitous blunders, has again hit upon the truth when he conceives the solemn wail of a heaven- born spirit in the agony of his disillusioning. I saw him in the shining of his stars, I marked him in the flowering of his fields, But in his ways with men I found him not. How true is every syllable! God burns in the star, God blossoms in the rose: the cloud is the rushing dust of his chariot, the sea is the spuming mirror of his moods. His breath whistles in the wind, his passion reddens in the sunset, his anguish drops in the rain. The darkness is the soft fall of his eyelashes over the purple magnificence of his eyes: the sanguine dawn is his flushed and happy face as he leaves the flowery pillow of sleep; the moonlight is nothing but the slumberous glint of his burning tresses when thro’ them glimmer the heaving breasts of Eternity. What to him are the petty imaginings of human aspiration; our puny frets, our pitiable furies, our melodramatic passions? If he deigns to think of us, it is as incompetent actors who have wholly misun- derstood the bent of our powers. The comedian rants in the vein of Bombastes; the tragic artist plays the buffoon in the pauses of

The Harmony of Virtue a pantomime, and the genius that might have limned the passion of a Romeo, moulds the lumpish ineptitude of a Cloten. God lifting his happy curls from the white bosom of Beauty, shoots the lightning of his glance upon our antics and we hear his mockery hooting at us in the thunder. Why should he squander a serious thought on a farce so absurd and extravagant? Wilson — And are these the ultimate syllables of Philoso- phy? Keshav — You are impatient, Broome. What I have arrived at is the discovery that human life is, if not the only, at any rate the principal note in Nature that jars with the grand idea underlying her harmony. Do you agree with me? Wilson — He would be a hopeless optimist who did not. Keshav — And are you of the opinion that it is the exercise by man of his will-power to which we owe the discord? Wilson — No, I would throw the blame on Nature. Keshav — After the example of Adam? “The woman tempted me and I did eat.” I too am a son of Adam and would throw the blame on Nature. But once her fault is admitted, has not the human will been manifestly her accomplice? Wilson — Her instrument rather. Keshav — Very well, her instrument. You admit that? Wilson — Yes. Keshav — Then if the human will, prompted by Nature or her servant, False Reason, has marred the universal harmony, may not the human will, prompted by Right Reason who is also the servant of Nature, mend the harmony he has marred? Or if that puzzles you, let me put the question in another form. Does not a wilful choice of sensuality imply an alternative of purity? Wilson — It does. Keshav — And a wilful choice of unbelief an alternative of belief? Wilson — Yes. Keshav — Then on the same principle, if the human will chose to mar the harmony of nature, was it not within its power to choose the opposite course and fulfil the harmony? Wilson — Certainly that follows.

The Harmony of Virtue Keshav — And through ignorance and the promptings of False Reason we preferred to spoil rather than to fulfil? Wilson — Yes. Keshav — And we can mend what we mar? Wilson — Sometimes. Keshav — Well then, can we not choose to mend the har- mony we originally chose to mar? Wilson — I do not think it probable. Keshav — An admission that it is possible, is all I want to elicit from you. Wilson — I do not know that. Keshav — Have not some episodes of the great epic rung more in unison with the grand harmony than others? Wilson — Yes; the old-world Greeks were more in tune with the Universe than we. Keshav — The name of the episode does not signify. You admit a race or an epoch which has fallen into the harmony more than others? Wilson — Freely. Keshav — Then as you admit the more and the less, will you not admit that the more may become in its turn the less — that there may be the yet more? May we not attain to a more perfect harmony with the universe than those who have been most in harmony with it? Wilson — It is possible. Keshav — If it is possible, should we not go on and inquire how it is possible? Wilson — That is the next step. Keshav — And when we have found an answer to our in- quiries, shall we not have solved this difficult question of a new basis for morality? Wilson — Yes, we shall: for I see now that to be in harmony with beauty, or, in other words, to take the guiding principle of the universe as the guiding principle of human life, is the final and perfect aim of the human species. Keshav — Broome, you have the scent of a sleuth-hound. Wilson — I am afraid that is ironical. You must remember

The Harmony of Virtue that we are not all philosophers yet. Still I should have liked to see how the idea came out in practice. Keshav — If you can spare me another night or it may be two, we will pursue the idea through its evolutions. I am deeply interested, for to me as to you it is perfectly novel. Wilson — Shall you be free on Thursday night? Keshav — As free as the wind. Wilson — Then I will come. Goodnight. Keshav — Goodnight, and God reward you for giving me your company. End of Book the First