What is Civilization ?
• ' Civilisation. By Clive Bell. (Chatto and Windus. 7s. 6d.)
WHAT really is civilization ? It is a question that is easier to ask than to answer, as Mr. Clive Bell shows in the book in
which he has tried to state the whole of the philosophy that he has adumbrated in his earlier essays. He also shows that the answer must be an appeal to authority. Civilization is a
matter of values, not of facts. It is not measurable ; so you cannot prove it scientifically to anybody. You cannot demonstrate that the finest things of the mind are the finest in. such a way that everybody before whom the proposition is put is bound to agree. You must appeal to the consent of those who know, those whom all would recognize as possessing a right to speak. The finest people must settle the finest things, and the rest of us must be humble and at least listen. Securus judicat orb-is terrarum. This is undoubtedly true. The things that matter most are perceived by vision, not by knowledge. And vision is a gift of the Gods. But that does not mean that only a few have it, and the rest not at all. Vision is a quality latent in all men and women. But the eyes of the blind need_ to be opened, and this is where the seer comes in ; he helps other men to see. Here Mr. Mathews and Mr. Bell are at one. But the question is, who are the seers whose authority we are to acknowledge ? How shall we know that the prophet speaks true ? • Mr. Mathews and Mr. Bell are agreed on one other point, and it is fundamental. The tests of civilization are not material.; , they do not move in the region where money talks ; nor can they be reduced to terms of comfort. Knowledge is to be esteemed not primarily for its utilitarian consequences. These have their importance, but it is secondary. It is, in fact, a consequence rather than an aim. Knowledge is valuable because it feeds the imagination, because it quickens the apprehension of that which is beyond -knowledge, that with which imagination alone can deal. How is this sense of the- ultimate values to be imparted ? How is the Philistine to be got to see the importance of art and speculation and pure science ? How is he to be taught that the value of knowledge is that it is a means to exquisite spiritual states ? Mr. Bell has a passage on the point that is worth quoting. He asks, How are you to unlock the gates of Paradise ? - " Only, I sup- pose, by giving him a glimpse of Paradise." He confesses that he does not know how this is to be done. But he thinks that education ought to do it. "If teachers could somehow make ordinary boys and girls grasp the quite -simple fact that, though the world may seem to offer nothing better than a little money and a great deal of work, any one of them can, if he or she will, have a life full of downright, delectable pleasure ; if teachers could make them realize that the delight of being alone in a bed-sitting room with an alert, well-trained and well- stocked mind and a book is greater than that of owning yachts and race-horses, and that the thrill of a great picture or a quartet by Mozart is keener (and it is an honest sensualist who says it) than that of the first sip of a glass of champagne ; if the teachers could do this the teachers would have solved the problem of humanity." Would they ? They would have done something undoubtedly enormously worth doing. But would the whole problem be solved ? Mr. Mathews has set out in his fascinating book the story of how from the ends of the earth and from every kind of race men and women came together to Jerusalem this Passiontide to take counsel with one another how the false ideas of civilization could be coun- tered by the true. They all recognized that the problem is now world-wide. The same questions are .agitating Tokyo and Melbourne and Capetown and New York and Paris and London, and in the same form and with the same terminology. Thf recognized how empty is ranch of the boasted civilization that is now engirdling the earth. They did not perhaps say it so pointedly or wittily as Mr. Bell. But they were as sure as he is that money and comfort and all the ingenious devices of science that have made the world just one village are not ends in themselves, but simply means. Their size and efficiency are part of their power of deceit. They overawe the childish mind, and prevent it more than ever from being truly childlike, from seeing the vision that comes to the unspoiled mind. But these pilgrims had a truer view of the real danger that lurks in the pretended civilization. Science is not the mainspring of the evil. Science is an instrument ; it can be used for various ends. The root error is a bad philosophy ; it is the notion that life exists for pleasure. The possibilities of pleasure are extravagantly increased by the discoveries of science ; and at the same time many of the ancient inhibitions that the spirit of man had created as a warning against the pleasure delusion have been riddled by science. The old ethnic religions are dying. What is to take their, place ? It is no longer a question of Christianity versus Heathenism. It is the opposi-, tion between a view of the universe that believes that man was made by love for love and one which says that he was made to conquer and gain and trample and enjoy. How would Mr. Bell help in this Armageddon ? Not much. Because, with all his nice sense of values, all his apprehension of the things that make life valuable, he has nothing better to offer the majority of mankind than a little ease of delight in their time off. For the greater part of their lives, their work, their per-, manent relations with their fellow-creatures, he has no help to give. And this is because he is terrified of recognizing any sense of obligation and what lies behind, the affirmation that man is made for a larger world than he can ever reach here.
A belief in immortality and a personal God is the great divide. Judaism gave that to the world. In its full flowering in the Christian Church it has shown itself capable of compre- hending a large amount of the values of Ancient Greece, which is Mr. Bell's Golden Age. It has comprehended also Rome, which he despises. It has gathered in the Goths, whom he also despises. But it now has to do this work again in a new way. Has it the faith and vision to do it ? This little book of Mr. Mathews makes it plain that there are vital forces at work all over the world bringing the gifts of other civilizations into the Christian treasure house. His description of them is arresting and telling. Mr. Bell is all for the Beautiful and the True. But there is also the Good, as Plato did not forget. All the spiritual forces must work together if ever this world is to be what it is meant to be. Perhaps some of the pilgrims would strengthen their own outlook—in fact become more catholic— if they tried to read Mr. Bell with a determination to under-
Previous page
