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Garden Corner, West Road, Cambridge. - Thanks Bob for the references; has altered the sentence [in his "English Revolution"?]. Sure he will 'run down the A.S. [Algernon Swinburne?] poem'. Glad that C.A [Clifford Allen] hopes to leave [for Switzerland?] on 1 Dec. Thanks Bob for Allen's letter: agrees with it all, but 'alas we are further off than ever from the prospect of a colonial settlement with Germany'.

36 Wilton Crescent, S.W. (on Wallington headed paper). - Is pleased that Lady Trevelyan likes his book ["Atalanta in Calydon"]; it was finished just after Landor's death which he much regrets. Much enjoyed the composition of the poem, which 'was very rapid and pleasant'; thinks it is 'pure Greek, and the first poem of the sort in modern times': feels that Shelley's "Prometheus [Unbound]", though 'magnificent', is 'un-Hellenic', and gathers from Lewes's life of Goethe that his "Iphigenia in Tauris" is also 'impregnated with modern morals and feeling"; also dismisses [Matthew] Arnold's "Merope". Is 'raging in silence' about the delayed publication of [Thomas] Carlyle's volumes: the subject [Frederick the Great] 'was always a hero' of Swinburne's who is impressed by his 'clear cold purity of pluck', which is not inspired by faith. Frederick seems free of 'perverse Puritan Christianity' on the one hand, and 'the knaveries and cutpurse rascalities' of the Buonapartes on the other; Swinburne can almost forgive him his bad poetry. Is very glad to hear good news of Sir Walter and the building projects; wishes she were in London for [Ford] Madox Brown's exhibition, which is 'superb'. Is currently staying at the house his father has taken in London for the winter, and is looking for rooms for himself; his father has completed the purchase of Holm Wood [Holmwood] in Oxfordshire. Feels that Tennyson should have made a better choice of his "Selections": feels that "Boadicea" should have 'served as prelude to the book'; thought Tennyson's 'volume of last summer' ["Enoch Arden"] a 'new triumph'.

22a Dorset (corrected from Dover and 'Dovet?') Street, W. (on Wallington headed paper). - Thanks Lady and Sir Walter Trevelyan for their great kindness and defence of him against the 'villainy of fools and knaves'; this falls upon others as undeserving as himself, and he recently defended a mutual friend against the charge of having 'boasted aloud of murdering his own illegitimate children' - who did not exist.

Reproduces two letters from Swinburne to Edmund Clarence Stedman, now in the possession of Stedman's granddaughter Laura, dated 20-21 Feb 1875 and 8 Sept 1875; these appear under the heading of 'American Poets: Parentage: Autobiography' and '"American Poets: Greek and Hebrew' respectively. Permission of Theodore Watts-Dunton, Swinburne's literary executor, required for the publication of any of Swinburne's letters.

(The second and third of Laurence Housman’s articles are numbered ‘II’ and ‘III’ and headed respectively ‘The Caustic Critic. Swinburne and his “Fellow Rhinoceros” Macaulay: Delight in Provocation: Dream-Poetry’ and ‘The Last Years. Why A. E. H. Declined the Order of Merit’. Shanks’s article appeared in the 9 October issue.)

Undertakes to mention Myers' wishes in relation to the Moral Sciences Examination. Does not know 'who the other two [examiners] will be.' States that Mayor has been applied to. Is torn between 'a desire to get a good man and to do honour to the Tripos by getting a M. Sc. firstclass-man.' Says he 'quite accept[s Myer's] epithets for [D. G.] Rossetti's sonnets' which pleased him 'critically and classificatorily' since he discovered in Rossetti 'the "missing link" between Swinburne and Christina Rossetti'. Wishes Rossetti would write more.

Discusses Mozley's article on Modern poets in the Quarterly [Review], and claims that he is the first man 'who has spoken adequately of Clough.' Reports that there is a new edition of Clough in the press. States that he has not seen [Roden] Noel since he reviewed him. Remarks that 'that review has turned out unfortunate', and that '[R. H.?] Hutton likes the poems and therefore would have reviewed them...with his goldest pen.' Claims that he could not have said anything stronger in [Noel's] favour, and does not agree with Myers about the book. Declares that Markby 'is a little over enthusiastic about female prospects' and believes himself that 'the question is in a hopeful state.' Claims that 'there is no real conservatism anywhere among educated men.' Adds his opinion in relation to the use of 'esquire'.

Asks for information concerning Myers' coming to Cambridge, 'The Prospects of Poetry' and 'The Probabilities of Medicine etc etc'. Declares that they have much to discuss, Sidgwick having failed to write due to the unrealised expectation of seeing Myers at Rugby. Reports that he has to teach history that term, 'no successor having turned up to Pearson: and Cambridge breeding no historian'; they are 'thinking of taking some healthy young resident and locking him up with a Hume'; it is 'rather a disgrace to us that we all take so small an interest in the human race'.

Asks if he has seen Noel 'in the Dark Blue [a literary journal]'. Suggests that he may have been ashamed to send it to Myers, as 'some of the polemic is almost personal'. Declares that it is very well written, 'except the polemical part', and states that he writes better prose than verse. Reports that Noel nearly quarrelled with him 'for reluctantly avowing that [he] did not consider him an equal of Swinburne.' States that Noel 'thinks that the Verbal School (S[winburne?] Rossetti, etc - non sine te) have been found out'. Refers to the Edinburgh of July, and the Contemporary [Review] of October as having evidence to support this theory. States that Noel also thinks that 'Buchanan and R.N are going to be chaired instead by a mutable but at length appreciative public.' Refers to 'a certain Mutual Admiration league' between Noel and Symonds. Believes that Symonds's poetry could be successful, 'if he could only impassion himself about a good subject.'

Asks Myers to send his last epic. Tells him to read Noel's article. Sends his regards to Myers' mother. Announces that his second correspondence circular is soon to appear. Reports that Miss Clough is in Cambridge, that the house is 'getting on', and that there will be five [women] there that term.

Announces that Stirling is not to stand [for the post of Knightsbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy], and that therefore he shall; predicts that if either Venn or Pearson are elected, his days in Cambridge 'will be brief', if he can believe 'sufficiently' in himself or his work - 'Otherwise Cambridge is a comfortable hospital for maimed intellects and carrières manquées'.

Tells Myers to write and give him 'the next chapter of the romance.' [Note in Myers' hand suggests that this could be a reference to The Fair Tasmanian ]. Reports that '[p]oor Jebb is in influenza in Ireland.' Reports that Miss Thackeray was very hospitable to them at Freshwater, and describes how she acted in her role as hostess. Adds that 'as the immortal Swinburne said to [him], a man's Best is his real Self and it is only a Philistine who judges him by anything else'.

c/o Mrs Hall, Veronica, Silverdale, near Carnforth. - By now his mother will have heard from Bessie about her 'change of plans'. Knows Bessie was 'very sorry indeed' to disappoint her, and it was 'a real disappointment to herself', but Robert thinks she is 'really rather run down, and in need of a week or two's bracing sea air'. Only heard this morning about her seeing the doctor, though knew when he left on Thursday that she intended to. Her tooth seems better, but is not yet right.

Expects Bessie will also have told her about their 'plans for the autumn'. The school [at Arnside?] 'seems a very good one in its modest way'; went to view it yesterday and liked all he saw. Miss Barthorpe [Julian's governess] seems to have insisted to her mother that she should stay until the end of July, which will make finding a substitute much easier. Does not think 'there is anything serious the matter with Bessie'; fortunately Julian is quite well. Robert will be 'within 3 miles of them, so can see them every day'; there is no room in their lodgings for him. The weather here is bad, but 'not so cold now the rain has come'.

Bottomley has lent Robert his copy of Gosse's [Life of] Swinburne, which is 'very amusing'. Hopes his father is well, and that she has a 'good journey to the Park'. Aunt Annie 'seemed well, though very busy'. Must catch the post, but will write how Bessie is when she comes next week.

c/o Mrs Hall, Veronica, Silverdale, near Carnforth. - Bessie and Julian arrived yesterday; went with them from Silverdale to Arnside, though returned here later. She seems 'rather stronger than last week', and the 'tonic' appears to do her good; also, her tooth is no longer troubling her. A couple of weeks here may 'make a great difference'. Julian seems very well, and 'very pleased to be at the sea-side, and to be able to watch the trains on the Arnside viaduct'. Will see Bessie again today, when she comes to see the Bottomleys.

Miss Barthorp, despite her mother, 'has determined to stay [as Julian's governess] into July if necessary', to give them time to find someone else. However, Bessie seems to have found a 'temporary governess at Manchester, and engaged her to come in early July'; she will not do as a permanent governess, 'only until J[ulian] goes to the Arnside school. But she seems to be a quite a nice sort of person'. They are sorry for Miss Barthorp, who is 'really very unhappy at having to go'. They will have to find someone else for next year; fortunately, there will be plenty of time.

Has just finished the Swinburne Life [by Gosse]; thinks it 'very well done', but wishes there were 'more details and more letters'; thinks a 'longer book would have been quite legitimate'. Swinburne is 'not... exactly a favourite' of his, but he is interesting. Gosse 'published a fascinating account of him years ago, with [a] delightful story of his drowning adventure in Normandy', which he could well have included. Understands a book of Swinburne's letters will be published separately. Robert's father's 'Appendix is very jolly'.

Wallington, Cambo, Morpeth. - The notes on the enclosure he returns interest him very much; is not surprised by the feeling about Swinburne they indicate; any man, even if Swinburne is not 'his' poet, as Browning is Sir George's, or Shelley Harry Knutsford's, must acknowledge him as a 'marvellous and genuine phenomenon'. Has sent a short letter with his own recollections of Swinburne to [Edmund] Gosse, to go into the "life"; Gosse much appreciates the early letters Sir George gave him; the things Sir George did not give to Gosse, he did not show him either. Looking forward very much to Robert's visit; glad they are settled with Miss Barthorp [as governess to Julian]. Has recently read "Humphry Clinker", which he thinks [Smollett's] 'most readable, and least unpleasant, book'.

Welcombe, Stratford on Avon. - Has ordered the fifty pounds to be paid into Robert's account with Drummonds'. Started Robert's "Annual of [New] Poetry" last night, which is a 'beautiful publication'; praises him for publishing, as he has 'no patience for the fastidiousness which refuses to publish because the world has so much to occupy its attentions'; has been waiting for three years for the publication of the life of Sir Charles Dilke. Will send back the [Samuel] Butler books; was very glad to see them, though they are not as good as Butler's "Notes", "Alps and Sanctuaries, and "The Way of All Flesh". [Edmund] Gosse has sent him his life of Swinburne, which looks very good; he and Caroline will read it aloud. Very glad that his 'tribute to dear Paulina Trevelyan comes out as it does'; it is a 'work of gratitude' that has been on his mind, and is 'better than a long biography'.

Welcombe, Stratford on Avon. - Good to read about Julian's 'encounter with country things' [see 46/230]. The people around Stratford who 'profess to be weather-wise', and perhaps are so, say that after a long winter like this, Spring will come very quickly and be 'fruitful'; true that he has never admired the daffodils so much. Caroline was saying she 'always has the cadence of the Bruce-Logan cuckoo [a poem attributed to both John Logan and Michael Bruce] in her ears; [John?] Bright always recited it to them at 'his annual dinner - no other guest, and a fruit table, by special request - at 30 Ennismore Gardens'. They have finished reading "The Grasshoppers" [by Cecily Sidgwick] which is am 'admirable novel', and are about to begin Gosse's "Life" of Swinburne. Interested to hear Elizabeth's opinion of [Walter Scott's] "Guy Mannering" and 'Hatteraick's language' [in that novel]; expects it was 'good enough for Scott's readers', and it is 'as like Dutch' as the 'serious conversation in "Old Mortality"' which Sir George has been reading to Mary Caroline was to 'the language which Morton and Edith must have talked'.

Welcombe, Stratford on Avon. - No bluebells yet, but they have a 'beautiful up-spring of cuckoo-flowers' in the long grass with the last of the cowslips. There is no-one to get rid of the dandelions, and he is 'becoming reconciled to them'. Glad to hear of the success of the "Annual [of New Poetry]"; recognises that it is 'a very good show'. Robert will certainly be interested in Gosse's book [his "Life of Algernon Charles Swinburne"], which is 'put together with rare skill, and self-restraint'; a good question whether Gosse is 'explicit enough about the life which the wretched creature led' but it is possible to 'read between the lines'. Sends love to 'all at the Park, hostess [Annie Philips] and guests'.

Welcombe, Stratford on Avon. - Good to hear about Arnside [where Bessie and Julian are staying]; supposes Robert is only about a nine mile walk from them. Will be going to the Park [Annie Philips' house] soon. Agrees with Robert's analysis of what is 'hopelessly arid' in Swinburne's poetry; for Sir George, 'nothing... is more barren and devoid of real knowledge' than Swinburne's political poems, which suffer in comparison with [Browning's] "Old Pictures at Florence' or "De Gustibus", or the conversation between Luigi and his mother in "Pippa Passes". Criticises Swinburne's 'gross and violent ignorance' of the 'singular, many-sided, visionary Louis Napoleon'. Continues to criticise Swinburne on Louis Napoleon in a postscript, written on the back of an printed invitation card for a dinner of "The Club" at the Princes Hotel on 8 May 1917, which Earl Curzon will chair.

29 Beaufort St, Chelsea:- Has just returned from Harrow, where he goes to 'get a game [of football] once a week' to keep himself 'very fit in body and mind'. Bowen had got up a 'team of masters and old boys' against the boys of his house, 'which is very good this year'. Robert's team were 'Somehow' beaten 6-0, but Bowen 'covered himself with glory, playing better than he has done for years'; he also told Robert he 'played like a hero'.

Met Charlie in the morning at the B[ritish] M[useum] Library, 'getting up the question of State Railways'; he is 'much interested in a scheme for a progressive periodical [the Progressive Review] which [William] Clarke, late of the Chronicle, and a young Socialist, [Ramsay?] MacDonald, are going to start next year. It is to be to these dregs of times what the Edinburgh Review was to be to those other dark days'. It 'promises to do well', and Robert wishes it 'God-speed', though they say it 'has as yet no Brougham, much less its Sidney Smith'. Bernard Shaw, whom Robert saw recently in a restaurant, told him 'with his usual superb egotism', that if they had wanted the paper to succeed, they ought to have asked him to 'write a series of articles, as he knew the secret of making a splash and drawing the gaze of the public'. However, 'Clarke cant stand G.B.S., calling him an anarchist and a Jacobin', and Shaw is a 'little piqued at being out of it'.

[Roger] Fry has a cold today and has taken to his bed 'as he always does at the slightest alarm'; this is sensible as 'his colds are both more sudden and more formidable than other people's'. He is doing well otherwise, and has 'just finished some theatrical scenery for a friend [a pencil note suggests this is 'Badley - [at] Bedales']' - the wood in Midsummer Night's Dream] - which is as good as anything Robert has seen by him, 'though you can't get very rich colour effects in tempera'. Their next door neighbours, Ricket[t]s and Shannon, have 'just brought out a magazine... a single Christmas number [The Pageant]' for which they have obtained contributions from 'all the great names in the literary and artistic word' such as Swinburne, Bridges, Maeterlinck, Verlaine, Burne Jones and Watts. There is 'some fine work in it, and some very queer'; Robert's friend [Thomas Sturge] Moore has two short poems included, though Robert does not think them his best. Will show his parents the magazine when they return. Shannon and Ricketts are 'taking to publishing poetry'; he believes they 'make a great success', and hopes that knowing them 'might be useful in the future'.

Is putting this letter into an envelope he finds 'on C[harles]'s table' with his parents' name on it but not yet their address. Expects they will soon be in Rome. Is going to see Aunt Annie [Philips] next week' does not plan to go abroad as he is 'very well, and do not feel the cold'. He will go to Welcombe for a few days, but otherwise stay in London unless 'the frost gives [him] colds'. Is glad their travelling is going so well, and that they like Gregorovius: it is 'always pleasant work welcoming a new historical star', though he doubts this one is 'of the first magnitude'.

1, Wellington Place, Tunbridge Wells:- Thanks his mother for her letter, which arrived yesterday. Is staying the night at Tunbridge Wells; his hosts [his aunt Anna Maria Philips and Sophie Wicksteed] are 'both in good spirits, and Sophie certainly not ill'. Is going for a few days next week to Failand near Bristol, the 'country house of Roger [Fry]'s family'. Will then go on to Welcombe, he thinks taking the places of the Webbs [Sidney and Beatrice, friends of his brother Charles?], 'for we have to wait our turn like aspirants for office'. Will be glad to get away from London, where he has been leading 'a miserable bus-riding rattle-of-bus-fretted existence since September'.

Thinks it will become a 'downright cruel winter' soon, as it is quickly getting colder 'after a long merciful delay'; if it does, London will be 'uninhabitable for a season, at least to work in', and he does not expect he will return. Will not come to his parents in Rome, as it 'would be absurd' not to see the sights which she 'describe[s] so temptingly' on his first visit, and this would 'not fall in with' his intention to work. Believes [Edward] Marsh is in Rome, or 'will be soon', since Robert 'just missed him in London'.

Will send the Pageant [magazine recently published by Ricketts and Shannon, see 46/38] if she likes, 'though there is much bad in it'. For him, its 'chief value' is that it has 'several old [D. G.] Rossettis and Mi[l]ais', as well as Rickett's Oedipus. Shannon's drawings have 'both been badly reproduced, and are by no means his best work'; in fact several contributors, such as Swinburne, Bridges, and Robert's friend [T.S.] Moore 'have not done themselves justice'. Does not know if his mother has 'ever tasted of Maeterlinck's strange vintage before'; he himself 'neither scoff[s] nor adore[s]' but the play in the Pageant is 'fairly typical' of him; thinks his poem, as well as Verlaine's, good. The Pageant should 'amuse [her] as decadent in an extreme though not particularly offensive form'.

The 'American affair is deplorable': fears it 'may lead to real trouble', though the general view in England, both among individuals and newspapers is that 'Jonathan will begin to see in a few days that he is making an exhibition of himself ['Uncle' is written before 'Jonathan' then crossed out: perhaps Robert Trevelyan confused 'Brother Jonathan', a representative figure of New England sometimes used to stand for the entire United States, with Uncle Sam - or was about to use the latter term then changed his mind]'. Glad she finds Italian politics interesting; he 'used to read the political articles in the Sera and Tribuna' to 'pick up a little of what was going on'.

Writes to express his sympathy with Nora on the death of Henry Sidgwick. Refers to the depth of their grief 'at the loss of so dear a friend and so true a leader.' Relates that he saw Henry only six weeks previously at the Athenaeum 'and rejoiced to think that he was given back to his friends for a while at least...' Remarks on the suddenness of Henry Sidgwick's demise, which, he claims, 'has brought back the first shock of the end of May.' Predicts that the time will come when they will feel that it was better that way. Explains that he has been watching for nearly two years the advance of the disease in his own mother, and can understand 'how the terrible mental suffering which goes with it outweighs the physical.' Claims that the last of many lessons he learned from Henry, 'the most beautiful and the most unforgettable, was at the lunch at Leckhampton on May 27', when he taught him 'how calmly and manfully death and suffering could be faced, as he recited without a break in his voice the lines... from [Swinburne's] Super [Flumina] Babylonis; ending "Where the light of the life of him is on all past things, Death only dies"'. Hopes that when the time comes, the sound of Henry's' voice and the light on his face will be before him.

(Docketed ‘Cosmic’. Ten sheets appear to be wanting. The paper was read before the Sunday Lecture Society at St George’s Hall, Langham Place, London, on 4 May 1873, and this draft was probably made not long before that date.)

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Transcript

On the relations between Science and some Modern Poetry.

A long time ago, when wandering about in a library, I chanced upon an old and very singular book. It was called the commentary of Hierocles upon the Golden Verses of the Pythagoreans. {1} I had never heard of Hierocles, nor of the Golden Verses, {2} but I was curious about the Pyth.; {3} so I made out as much of the book as I could; and I have not been able to find out much more since about Hier. & the Golden Verses. It seems that Hierocles was a Neo-Platonist, who lived in the middle of the fifth century; and that this book was meant to give a connected account, so far as was then possible, of the teaching of the Pythagoreans. It seems to me that that fifth century of our era is an exceedingly interesting and instructive period, of which we should endeavour to get pictures from as many points of view as possible. Canon Kingsley has given us one picture, in a book which I hope many of us know—Hypatia: {4} which at least gives us a tolerably clear idea of the sort of time that the philosophers had of it. And there is M. Ozanam’s very interesting book—Civilization in the fifth century {5}—which puts the matter from another point of view. Our philosopher Hierocles, like the rest of his school, had ideas which may be regarded as a modification of the old Greek beliefs in two directions. They were largely rationalized and explained away by the introduction of scientific ideas; while they were supplemented and propped up on the other side by magic and mysticism not of Greek origin. In the commentary of which I speak these two modifications have become so important that they entirely override the original basis of Greek belief; the olympian mythology receives a merely nominal homage, and has no longer any practical influence. Sometimes science is everything, and its methods all-sufficient; sometimes everything depends upon a mystical communion with spirits. On one page you think you are talking to Prof Huxley; on the next, to Mr Home. {6} The book which forms This {7} curious mixture is a commentary on what seems to have been a traditional document among the disciples of Pythagoras; of what date I know not, except that it does not pretend to be the work of the unknown sage himself. The Golden Verses are a collection of precepts for the guidance of life; they are for the most part very simple and admirable, and just such as we should write down today for a person whom we did not expect to understand anything very difficult. Some relate to the duties of a citizen as such, some to those of an individual as such; these latter being remarkable for the very great stress which they lay upon the laws of health. The only attempt to reduce them to a general principle is the maxim that the Reason is to guide all other activities. So far, then, if the Golden Verses were now published for the first time, there would be nothing very remarkable about the things they tell you to do; not only the actions advised, but the degree of importance attached to different portions of the code, are as nearly as possible what we in this hall at least should be ready at once to approve. And even when we reconsider that the document is probably two thousand years old, we have no reason to be astonished that the ideal of human action among the most cultivated Teutonic races should very nearly approximate to that of the ancient Greeks. But in this same document, mixed up with the common-place precepts, there is found a general conception of the universe, with which the precepts are in harmony. After a strong declaration of belief that by far the greater part of the evils that men suffer are preventible evils, that the people perisheth for lack of knowledge; {8} there comes this extraordinary passage:

“Know, so far as it is permitted you, that Nature is everywhere uniform; in order that you may neither hope things that ought not to be hoped for, nor be ignorant of what can be attained.”

And then further:—

“But be of good cheer; for those mortals have the blood of the gods in them (or partake of divine descent) to whom holy Nature unfolds all things as she leads them on.”

I am told that the expression here used belongs especially to the hierophant in the mysteries—the guiding priest by whom the faithful were initiated into the divine secrets one by one. Now I may be reading into these passages by an after-light something that is not there; but it does seem to me that coming as they do in justification of rules for practice, they are equivalent to the application of past experience to present circumstances, in accordance with an observed order of events, for the purpose of making progress—that is to say, they lay down as the rule of life exactly what we call science.

“Know, so far …

Observe especially the limitation here, ᾗ θεμις εστι—the uniformity of nature is not stated absolutely or universally, but only so far as fate permits—so far as human knowledge goes: that is, so far as it is applicable to human practice. Again, the image of the hierophant gradually leading forward the neophytes from one arcanum to another, used as a symbol of the education by Nature of the human race, does seem to me to shew very distinctly that the idea of progress was present to the minds at least of those who took these verses for their rule. It has been asserted that the ancient world was entirely devoid of the conception of progress. This may to a certain extent be true of political progress; but we cannot admit it of scientific progress, when we find Hipparchus[,] who had made the great step of determining the nature of the solar and lunar motions and had failed to extend the same methods to the planets, storing up observations in the sure and certain hope that a more fortunate successor would accomplish that work; which indeed was done by Ptolemy. And it is very important to notice that the exact sciences were regarded as the standard to which the others should endeavour to attain—as appears by a subsequent passage in these very verses. For the unknown author directs you to “exercise yourself in the purifications and in the upward-leading liberation of the soul”. Upon this Hierocles makes a very remarkable comment. He says “the purification of the rational soul are the mathematical sciences; and the upward-leading liberation (αναγωγος λυσις—the freedom that is progress) is the scientific view of things (διαλεκτικη των οντων εποπτεια)”. And I will go even further than this, and say that the ancients possessed not only the conception of progress but the method of it, namely experiment. Hierocles lived some three centuries after Ptolemy had experimented and made tables of refraction. In the Astronomical sciences, and in the Medical sciences, they had made real experiments; and I am not aware that in the Sociological sciences a systematic series of experiments has been made even yet. Here, as so often, the question comes up “why was this promise not fulfilled?”. And I think anybody who will read all the Golden Verses and then some of the commentary of Hierocles, will see at least what was the process of decay.

Just as the traveller who has been worn to the bone by years of weary striving among men of another skin suddenly gazes with doubting eyes upon the white face of a brother; so if we travel backwards in thought over the darker ages of the history of Europe, we at length reach back with such bounding of heart to men who had like hopes with ourselves; and shake hands across that vast with the singers of the Golden Verses, our own true spiritual ancestors.

I am she that (SS. 75)

Now I dare say you will think I have no business, after promising to talk about the relations of science with some modern poetry, to begin by speaking of this very ancient poetry that was written probably more than two thousand years ago. But in the first place I wanted very much to speak of these verses, because they produced a great impression upon me at the time when I first read them, and I have been very fond of them ever since; and one likes as you know to talk to other people about things which have given pleasure to oneself. And in the second place, they will serve to indicate very well what is the kind of poetry that we have to consider today. It is not all modern poetry, but only some modern poetry; namely that which deals with what my friend Mr Henry Sidgwick calls Cosmic emotion. When we attempt to think about the sum of things, about the Universe or Macrocosm, to put together the most general conceptions that we can form about the great aggregate of events that are always taking place, to strike a sort of balance among the feelings which these events produce in us, and to add to these the feeling of vastness associated with an attempt to represent the whole of existence; then we experience a cosmic emotion, and emotion in regard to the universe or cosmos. And it is impossible to cast a superficial glance over what we are taught about the history of mankind without perceiving how immense and powerful a part appears to have been played in that great drama by the nature of the cosmic emotions which have been felt by different races. But this is not the only kind of cosmic emotion. Instead of paying attention to the Macrocosm or universe outside of us, we may if we please pay attention to the microcosm, the universe of ourselves. We may consider the totality of our own actions and of the feelings which they produce; we may form the highest possible generalization to express the character of those which we call good, and consider that this is desirable as a guiding principle in our life. We thus obtain an exceedingly general distinction between good and evil; and when we contemplate this, we experience an emotion which is different from that which we feel in particular cases, by having added to it the element of vastness because it regards everything that we do. This also is to be called a cosmic emotion, because it is an emotion felt towards the universe of human action. Now a particular form of each of these two kinds of cosmic emotion has been expressed in a beautiful couplet by Immanuel Kant, which has been perfectly translated by Lord Houghton:

Two things there are that fill the mind with awe;
The starry heavens, and man’s sense of law.

The starry heavens on a clear night being the most direct presentation of the sum of things, and from the nature of the circumstances fitted to produce a cosmic emotion of the first kind; while the moral faculty of man was thought of by Kant as possessing universality in a peculiar sense, for the form of all maxims, according to him, is that they are fit for universal law—a mode of viewing the faculty which is specially adapted to produce cosmic emotion of the second kind.

Now you will see at once that the Golden Verses present you with a picture of Nature and of Life which is quite fitted to produce Cosmic Emotion; namely they regard the Universe as continually educating us and teaching us to act rightly; this is done by setting Reason free from the chains that bind her, and enthroning her as the guiding principle. But the important thing to notice is that here the cosmic emotion is not two but one; the universe is regarded only as related to human action, and human action only as cooperation with Nature. I shall endeavour to shew you that this unity is essential to the scientific view of things. But assuming this for the present, there are two questions that lie before us today:

First, the scientific question; have we, with our additional knowledge, any modification to propose in this view of the cosmos, any development to evolve, any clearer definition to formulate? How do we conceive the world?

I shall endeavour to shew in answer to this question that we have a more definite conception, both of the external and of the internal cosmos.

Secondly, the poetic question; does a poetical literature exist which expresses the cosmic emotion proper to this advanced conception?
I shall answer to this question in the affirmative.

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But before going on to consider these questions, it is necessary to take note of some very important limitations, in order that we may not hope things that ought not to be hoped for, nor on the other hand be ignorant of what can be attained. First of all, then, the cosmos that we have to do with is no longer a definite whole including absolutely all existence. The old cosmos had a boundary in space, a beginning and an end in time. Beyond that boundary was nothing; before the beginning and after the end, no history. But now the real universe extends at least far beyond the cosmos, the order that we actually know of. The sum total of our experience and of the inferences that can fairly

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All practical questions, therefore, are within the domain of science; and it is easy to see conversely that unpractical questions are out of it. By an unpractical question I mean one from the answer to which no inference can be drawn by which our actions would be affected. For example, it is a very practical question, where or no there is hydrogen in the Sun. For if there is not, then some other substance can give out light exactly like that given out by hydrogen; and the attempt to analyse a substance by the spectroscope is a wrong action. It is this very limitation, then, that necessitates the union of the two kinds of cosmic emotion; for the external cosmos is limited to that which we can know so as to affect the internal cosmos.

This consideration seems to me so very important that I shall put it in another way. It has been expressly denied by Kant, who with many other merits has certainly this one; that he has proposed distinctly, and given answers to, a great number of important questions; which everybody since his time has been obliged to give some answer to, whether agreeing with him or not. His doctrine in regard to this question is that the practical reason is obliged to assume certain principles which are not given by the speculative reason; that it directs us to act as if these things were true, although they are not known as true statements but only as regulative principles. Now it seems to me one of the great services rendered to this subject by Mr Bain {9} that he pointed out how every belief is in reality a regulative principle. When you believe that A is B, you mean to act as if A was B; and that is the essence of the belief. Every assertion that you make is an aggregate of resolves. We may even give a physiological explanation of this.

What then is that curious state of mind in which you believe that you believe a certain statement? This is still a resolve to act. It means not that you are going to act as if the statement were true, but that you are going to assert it and to try and make other people assert it.

Now, in regard to these two doctrines—one, that the practical reason requires principles which the speculative reason does not supply; the other, that the two are identical—it is very important to observe that the difference between them is a difference of individual choice, and that neither of them can be proved. For I can choose, if I like, to believe something that is not justified by my speculative reason; that is to say, which cannot be inferred from experience on the assumption that Nature is uniform.+ {10} If every real belief is a resolve to act, and so belongs to the practical reason, this comes to saying that my practical reason refuses to assume the uniformity of Nature and to be confined to conclusions which may be got from experience by its help. Now this is not a case for argument, for it decides what I am going to take as proof. The only thing to be said is this; that Nature being actually uniform is selecting those races and those individuals who do act upon the assumption of uniformity—that the other kind of action does not pay.

Now I make this choice; I resolve to believe those statements which can be inferred from experience on the assumption that Nature is uniform, and those statements only. My belief is then wholly determined by science. And while the cosmos presented to me by science is limited to that part of things which is of practical importance to me, so that I apparently lose by the limitation; at the same time I learn that it necessarily contains all that is of practical importance to me; which is distinctly a gain.

So if we consider the other limitation imposed by the changing character of human nature, we shall find that it is precisely this which enables us to find a general principle of action. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the flood of light which the doctrine of evolution has thrown upon this subject. Suppose the rest of the world suddenly petrified at any given instant, and that you were able to walk about and look at the people. The great majority of them would be standing on one leg, many with their mouths open, and the rest would be in still more absurd positions—I mean, of course, absurd for a continuance. Their attitudes and gestures, considered as belonging to people in repose, would be utterly inexplicable. But now remember that this world is not meant to be still, but in motion; then instantaneously every part of the scene acquires its true meaning. So if we regard organic nature as a fixed thing, not only do the likenesses and differences of animals and plants become inexplicable, but the only distinction between good acts and evil ones which can be got from experience becomes distinction founded on the pleasure and pain of the individual. You know how this is modified in the theory of Utilitarianism so as to mean the aggregate pleasure and pain of the race; but on the hypothesis that human nature is fixed, this is merely an arbitrary assumption. But from the moment that we admit the continual change of the organic world, everything is clear. We get a distinction between good and bad which is obvious on the face of it and is of universal application.

How so? If I have evolved myself out of an amphioxus it is clear that I have become better by the change; I have risen in the organic scale; I have become more organic. Of all the changes that I have undergone the greater part must have been changes in this direction; some in the opposite direction; some perhaps neutral. But if I could only find out which, I should

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the word. “Freedom is such a property of the will” says Kant “as enables living agents to originate events, independently of foreign determining causes.”

The character of an organic action, then, is Freedom. Now the highest of all organisms is the social organism. This has precisely the same property as the lowest; viz:, it is able to aggregate together motions which are relatively molecular into molar motions. the {12} individual men of a social organism are the molecules of which it is composed; and by means of it actions which, as individual, are insignificant, are massed together into the important movements of a society. Freedom, or action from within, is the necessary form of good actions in a social organism. The possibility of this is not got rid of until the society is absolutely enslaved and separated into its elements.

Courage yet, my brother or my sister (L.G. 363)

Freedom, as the ultimate principle of right action, has thus two forms, as existing in the individual and in the community. The action by which the community is free is Comradeship

“Oneself I sing, a simple, separate person (L.G. 1.)
Yet after the word Democratic, the word En-masse.

“Come, I will make the continent” {11} (L.G. 127)

For the individual we come back to the Pythagorean maxim of free choice with reason at the helm.

Then he stood up (S.S. 2.)

Hence Freedom is to be taken as identical with the soul of man, engaged in ceaseless conflict with the environment.

His eyes take part in the morning (S.S. 118)

Conflict still going on

Listen, I will be honest (L.G. 184)
Pilgrim (S.S. 125)

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Note that diacritic marks are generally wanting from the Greek quotations. The abbreviations ‘L.G.’ and ‘S.S.’ refer to Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and Swinburne’s Songs before Sunrise. The brackets round these references have been supplied.

{1} There are a number of editions of Hierocles’ commentary, in various languages. The text followed by Clifford in the published version of this essay (‘Cosmic Emotion’) was that of Mullach, in Fragmenta Philosophorum Græcorum (Paris: Ambroise Firmin Didot, 1860). See Nineteenth Century, ii. 414, note 2.

{2} Comma supplied.

{3} ‘but … Pyth.’ interlined; preceding comma supplied.

{4} Kingsley’s novel Hypatia, or New Foes with an Old Face, set in fifth-century Alexandria, was serialised in 1852 and published in two volumes the following year. The ODNB explains that the ‘new foes’ of the subtitle were 'J. H. Newman, now a Roman Catholic, and the other leaders of the Oxford Movement, such as E. B. Pusey; the old face imputed to them was that of the fanatical (and of course celibate) monks of fifth-century Alexandria who murdered the Neoplatonist philosopher Hypatia, and who Kingsley viewed as extreme and discreditable examples of the asceticism of the early church from which contemporary Catholic spirituality had drawn inspiration. By way of contrast Kingsley introduces the ostrich-hunting married bishop Synesius and, a little improbably, a crew of cheerfully brutal proto-British Goths who embody Kingsleyan virtues of rough, unconventional decency, courage, physical sturdiness, and a saving respect for women.'

{5} History of Civilization in the Fifth Century (2 vols., 1868), an English translation by Ashley C. Glyn of Antoine Frédéric Ozanam’s Études germaniques pour servir à l‘histoire des Francs (2 vols., 1847-9). Ozanam was a passionate Catholic apologist, and therefore, as Clifford indicates, his point of view naturally differed from Kingsley’s.

{6} Daniel Dunglas Home, the celebrated medium, mocked by Browning in his poem ‘Mr Sludge the Medium’.

{7} Sic. The preceding words of the sentence were interlined.

{8} This is Clifford’s version of the more usual expression, ‘The people perish for lack of knowledge’, an adaptation of part of Hosea iv. 6.

{6} Alexander Bain (1818–1903), psychologist.

{10} Footnote: '+ eg. C[…] race actually alive in bowels of earth'. The first word is instinct.

{11} Closing inverted commas supplied.

{12} Sic. A preceding word was deleted.

† Sic.

12 Pembroke Gardens, Kensington. - He and Stanley [Makower] agree that Trevelyan's 'little beast' [his poem"The Lady's Bat] should appear in their anthology ["The Bird In Song", see 6/47]; they have nothing else giving 'just that note of playfulness'. They will send him a proof to correct. Expects the book will be out before Easter. Will write to Brimley Johnson, whom he does not know personally. Thinks they have fixed on an engraving [for the frontispiece?]: "A Concert of Birds, after Mario di Fiori' which Sickert found in the Print Room [of the British Museum] and includes a bat. They hope to include Swinburne's "Itylus", but [Theodore Watts-] Dunton wants to know what else will appear, so has had to send a list. Still wondering what to call the series. Stanley has a daughter; 'girls have the best time nowadays'.

12 Pembroke Gardens, Kensington, W. - Trevelyan's corrected copy [of his poem The Lady's Bat, for Sickert's anthology The Bird In Song, see 6/47] arrived in good time, and the book is to go to the printers next Thursday. Is annoyed about the 'shabby' nature of the printing, and that they have had to include 'a wearisome effusion of Watts-Dunton's' in order to be allowed Swinburne's Itylus; would like to 'stick' it in the preface and claim there was not time to put it in properly, with the added advantage of putting people off reading the preface. Is also unhappy about the frontispiece. Thinks the book will be out about Easter, not much before due to the addition of American classics such as Whitman - 'no moderns thank goodness'. Recommends Jean Christophe by Romain Rolland, brother-in-law of [Michel] Bréal. He and his 'collaborator' [Stanley Makower] will be pleased to present Trevelyan with a copy of the anthology.