Thus Culture is not
indolently selfish, but is forever exerting itself to 'make the best
ideas'--which Arnold also defined as 'reason and the will, of
God'--'prevail.'
Arnold felt strongly that a main obstacle to Culture was religious
narrowness. He held that the English people had been too much occupied with
the 'Hebraic' ideal of the Old Testament, the interest in morality or right
conduct, and though he agreed that this properly makes three quarters of
life, he insisted that it should be joined with the Hellenic (Greek) ideal
of a perfectly rounded nature. He found the essence of Hellenism expressed
in a phrase which he took from Swift, 'Sweetness and Light,' interpreting
Sweetness to mean the love of Beauty, material and spiritual, and Light,
unbiased intelligence; and he urged that these forces be allowed to have
the freest play. He vigorously attacked the Dissenting denominations,
because he believed them to be a conspicuous embodiment of Philistine lack
of Sweetness and Light, with an unlovely insistence on unimportant external
details and a fatal blindness to the meaning of real beauty and real
spirituality. Though he himself was without a theological creed, he was,
and held that every Englishman should be, a devoted adherent of the English
Church, as a beautiful, dignified, and national expression of essential
religion, and therefore a very important influence for Culture.
Toward democracy Arnold took, not Carlyle's attitude of definite
opposition, but one of questioning scrutiny.
Pages:
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474