BOOKS.
PROFESSOR SHAIRP ON CULTURE AND RELIGION.* 'Tins is a wise book, and, unlike a great many other wise books, 'has that carefully shaded thought and expression which fits Professor Shairp to speak for Culture no less than for Religion. The various lectures give us an admirable picture of some of the different forms in which the idea of Culture has fascinated the world,—the Greek form in which it represented, above all things, distinct conceptions of man and his powers, a rich poetry, a great oratory, a true his- torical wisdom, a deep philosophy, a wonderful self-knowledge ;— the scientific modern form, in which it demands a patient study -of the laws of external Nature and a mind so deeply trained and versed in the inductive processes to which they introduce us, as to suggest, as the ideal man, a strategist pitting himself against the undiscovered secrets of the universe, and wresting a bless- ing from them by his pertinacity and skill ;—lastly, the literary modern form, Mr. Arnold's form, of Culture, in which it re- produces the Greek view in a somewhat higher phase, with
at least some of the tincture of a religious phraseology, and Ides to show us what the harmonious development of human -nature really means, and to give us a standard of perfection -obtained from a complete view of man's powers and aims. Of all these views of Culture, Professor Shairp gives us a clear and grace- 1 ul picture, and shows how impossible it is for them,—even the 'beat,—to include true religion, even though the universal com- prehensiveness of their language may seem to imply that they
keep room for the development of man's religious nature. We shall limit our notice of these admirable lectures to Professor Shairp's mode of answering Mr. Arnold on this latter point, which -our author deals with with as much force as thoughtfulness.
Mr. Arnold holds that what he sometimes calls Hebraism, and .sometimes Puritanism, has narrowed and impoverished human nature, and he seeks for its supplement in Hellenism—that harmony in the development of other than moral aims which alone can prevent the pursuit of moral aims from landing us in a feverish and consumptive earnestness, fatal both to sweetness and light. Mr. Shairp does not attempt to deny the real mutilation of human nature to which the narrowness of religious minds has led. But he traverses the assumption that we can limit Religion to a -corner of our nature and yet really recognize it as Religion still. It is impossible, he says, to give Religion a secondary place in the -aims of our life, without entirely undermining its authority :—
" There are things which are either ends in themselves or they are nothing; and such I conceive religion is. It either is supreme, a good in itself and for its own sake, or it is not at all. The first and great
• Commandment must either be so set before us as to be obeyed, entered into, in and for itself, without any ulterior view, or it cannot be obeyed at all. It cannot be made subservient to any ulterior purpose. And herein is instanced 'a remarkable law of ethics which is well known to all who have given their minds to the subject.' I shall give it in the words of one who has expressed it so well in his own unequalled language that it has been proposed to name it Dr. Newman's law,—' All virtue and goodness tend to make men powerful in this world; but they who aim at the power have not the virtue. Again : virtue is its own reward, and brings with it the truest and highest pleasures ; but they who culti- vate it for the pleasure-sake are selfish, not religious, and will never gain the pleasure, because they never can have the virtue.' Apply this to the present subject. They who seek religion for culture-sake are atsthetic, not religions, and will never gain that grace which religion adds to culture, because they never can have the religion. To seek religion for the present elevation or even the social improvement it brings, is .really to fall from faith which rests in God and the knowledge of Him as the ultimate good, and has no bye-ends to serve."
And Mr. Shairp adds very justly and powerfully that in a world such as ours, culture such as Mr. Arnold describes, instead of supply- ing " an all-embracing bond of brotherhood, is likely to be rather a
principle of exclusion and isolation," because it must be confined to a very narrow circle, and must breed disgust towards those whose condition is vulgar and wretched. The love of such Culture is"after all, a dainty and divisive quality, and cannot reach to
the depths of humanity."
We would go farther even than Mr. Shairp and say not only that Culture never can pretend to banish religion into a corner of the mind as only one among many tendencies which require cultiva- tion, till religion in our sense of the term has been explained away, but even that religion in its narrowest form,—the nar- cowest form of Hebraism and Puritanism which Mr. Arnold denounces,—contains in it a far more fruitful germ of future Culture, than the Culture which has thus got into the attitude of patronage towards religion, contains of future religion. We
• Cultureand Religias is some of their Mations. By J. 0. Shairp, Principal ei the 'United Colleges of St. Salvator tuid St. Leonard, SG Andrew's. Edinburgh : Edmonston and Douglas. must remember that Mr. Arnold himself, before he began to balance Hellenism against Hebraism, and speak of Culture as including Religion, had come to the point of resolving God into "that stream of tendency by which all things tend to fulfil the law of their being;" in other words, had confessed that God could not be found above our nature and brooding over it, but only in it. That once admitted, and of course Super- naturalism is entirely merged in Naturalism ; nor does there remain any reason why we should look for the law of our being' more in the class of actions called moral and religions, than in any other class of Actions which are strictly human and finite. Now it seems to us that one of the most fertile germs of true culture is a strict consequence of the supernatural conception of life,—we mean the humility with which a nature penetrated by the vision of God shrinks before the perfect Will. This is the sharp knife which has entered deep into the proud, and stubborn, and selfish nature of man, which has taught him to endure failure and insignificance, to accept the mysterious pangs of life, to surrender himself to the will of One mightier than himself, and, in a word, has rendered him pliant to the influence of noble and disinterested ends. Once let the naturalistic standard of 'the harmonious development of human nature' be substituted, for any length of time, for the supernatural standard of 'the righteous will of God,' as the end to set before us, and we should soon find the most fruitful of all the forces which have subdued the selfishness of man withdrawn, and a great impulse given to that worst of all sorts of anarchy, the conceit of being a law unto yourself. We could, for our own parts, heartily aceept Dr. Newman's old paradox which excited so much harsh com- ment at the time at which it was uttered, that there are many fierce, gloomy, and superstitious states of national feeling in- finitely more promising for the nation that feels them, than our modern "cold, self-sufficient, self-wise tranquillity," nay, that the nineteenth century might be conceived as in a far more hopeful condition were it more superstitious and lees self- satisfied than it is. Not, of course, as Dr. Newman explained at the time, that superstition with all its fierce vices is anything but a fearful evil ; but that if you are to choose between the evil of a state of mind full of the awe of God, but which attributes to God much that is not of God, that is of the very opposite of God, and the evil of a state of mind which has got rid of the awe of God altogether and aims at attaining the most perfect harmony of human nature without any real relation to God, the former would be far more hopeful than the latter, because it would contain more certainly than the latter the means of its own remedy. We do not say and are not disposed to think that Dr. Newman was right in supposing that this divine awe is merged in self-satisfied indiffer- ence in modern England. But in any country in which it might be so, we believe his paradox to be no paradox, but a wise, sound, and even sober moral judgment. There is no real harrow of the natural man' which so effectually prepares him for the disinterested life of a truly cultivated society, for the self-forget- fulness of all true organization, for the affections and sacrifices of domestic life, for the noble recognition of others' greatness, for the equally noble consideration for those who are despised and weak, as that humility which is not humiliation exactly because it comes of the contact with a perfectly holy and righteous Will. Substitute for God "that stream of tendency by which all things strive to fulfil the law of their being," and you substitute for spiritual humility the mere sense of personal incompleteness. In other words, you substitute for the most searching and powerful of spiritual forces —that which has been most fruitful of all great results,—the most convenient of all excuses for selfish passivity. We are profoundly convinced not only that Professor Shairp's answer to Mr. Arnold is sound, but that he might even have couched it in very much stronger terms. Culture advanced as an end wider than religion would soon dissolve in pathetic licence ; religion accepted as the supreme end of life contains a principle of humility which is the root of all true tolerance, of all genuine breadth, and of all that intellectual faith and reverence which are at the source of great discoveries and noble enthusiasms. We have touched only one point in Mr. Shairp's beautiful lectures. So much the better. Our readers will feel only the more the necessity of consulting the book for themselves.
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