destiny appeared to be involved was, as we have already said, one chief cause of the opposition to the new theory. If we could not affirm the immortality of brutes, the abandonment of the theory of special creation would, it was supposed, take away all ground for affirming the immortality of man. This argument appears to have had considerable weight for the minds of some whose appreciation of scientific reasonings disposed them to accept the doctrine of development while clinging to the belief in immortality. They have not shrunk from taking the only course that was open to them. They have boldly affirmed the immortality of brutes. We cannot but think that the effect of such a course must be to weaken the case which they desire to support. Without venturing to dogmatize as to the Divine purposes in regard to the animal creation at large, we feel strongly that the argument for the immortality of man rests upon a totally distinct footing from any that may be urged in behalf of the animals below him. Instead of being based upon that which man shares in common with the rest of the animal world, its strength is derived from the great endowments which distinguish him from it. The difficulties in the way of believing in a future life for the subject creation are enormous. At first sight, if we only think of the intelligent and affectionate companions of man, the difficulties do not appear so startling. But where is the line to be drawn? The principle must embrace all animal life; 'life apparent in the merest midge that floats;' life in the border-land that is hardly distinguishable from the vegetable kingdom (and why not the vegetable kingdom also?); life in the cruel and untamed species; and in this case either these must cease to be what they are, or the weaker will only live again to become the prey of the stronger. We may well hesitate before accepting this solution of the problem. But let us turn to the alternative view. Apart from the belief in revelation, which itself partly rests on similar foundations, the grounds for believing in our own future existence remain, it seems to us, precisely as they were, even if they do not derive additional strength from our increased perception of the laws of animal life. We seem to have learnt more clearly than before that no species has been endowed with, or been permitted to acquire, instincts or faculties which are useless, or, à fortiori, which are prejudicial to the species. Even of structures which seem to admit of some exceptions, owing to the inheritance of parts which may have been useful to some progenitor, but which under altered circumstances the descendant no longer needs, Mr. Darwin asserts as follows: 'Natural selection will never produce in a being any structure more injurious than beneficial to that being; for natural selection acts solely by and for the good of each. No organ will be formed, as Paley has remarked, for the purpose of causing pain, or for doing an injury to its possessor. . . . After the lapse of time, if any part comes to be injurious, it will be modified; or if it be not so, the being will become extinct, as myriads have become extinct.'' Let us also bear in mind that if the struggle for existence and the consequent war between various species awaken in us distressing thoughts, Mr. Darwin bids us console ourselves with the full belief that no fear is felt by the victims of slaughter. Are we to believe that man is the single exception to these beneficent laws? Is it for no useful purpose, is it in order that he alone may experience fruitless desire and hopeless fear, that he has been permitted to acquire the knowledge that he lives, and that he will one day die, that he has learnt to shrink from annihilation, and to formulate to himself the desire of future existence? It seems to us that if there is truth in such considerations as those previously urged in support of the belief that a Supreme Will has determined the course of nature, and after whatever method created man, there can be but one answer to these questions. The dread of annihilation and the longing for a future existence have their roots deep in the noblest elements of human nature. Howsoever some scientists may turn their thoughts away from that dark shadow which for them no ray of faith illumines, the scientific passion itself for truth and knowledge cannot but shrink from hopeless extinction. Mutual affection, the knitting together and intertwining of human hearts, must be only productive of a prolonged and unalleviated pang in the event of bereavement, if death be regarded as the end of all. Why, too, if man shall have no future opportunity of going on still towards perfection, is he capable of the lifelong pursuit of an ideal that, seen ever more and more clearly, still lures him on, though he never attains it? These thoughts appeal with varying force to different classes of minds; but every one must confess—and the attempt to shut out thoughts of death implies the confession-that human life as distinguished from brute life has a character of incompleteness which proclaims it to be only a beginning and not the whole. 1 See The Origin of Species, pp. 162, 163. 2 Ibid. p. 61. To conclude. Whatever of truth there may be in the doctrines so ably advocated by the great scientist whom we have lately lost, amounts, from the religious point of view, to no more than an extension of our knowledge of the sphere of secondary laws. The fundamental doctrine of the theist is left precisely as it was. The belief in the great Creator and Ruler of the universe is, as we have seen, confessed by the author of these doctrines. The grounds remain untouched of faith in the Personal Deity Who is in intimate relation with individual souls, Who is their guide and helper in life, and Who can be trusted in regard to the great hereafter. ART. VII.-MODERN PAGAN POETRY. 1. Poems and Ballads. By ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. (London, 1878.) 2. Songs before Sunrise. By ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. (London, 1875.) 3. Songs of Two Nations. By ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. (London, 1875.) 4. Poems and Ballads. Second Series. By ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. (London, 1878.) 5. Studies in Song. By ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. (London, 1880.) 6. Songs of the Springtides. By ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. (London, 1880.) 7. The City of Dreadful Night, and other Poems. By JAMES THOMSON. (London, 1880.) 8. Vane's Story, and other Poems. By JAMES THOMSON. (London, 1881.) By paganism in poetry, as in other things, we wish to express that mode of thought which is too positive to be called merely infidel or agnostic or atheist, too negative to be called pantheist or positivist. Its relation to religion is something like that of a bull to a red rag: in general it is unconscious of it and independent; its life is not ordinarily affected by it; but when something calls its attention to it, it becomes furiously hostile, almost insane. The pagans of modern times try with some measure of success to return to the old pre-Christian life and way of thinking; they endeavour to live in the present, not, as the agnostic or the secularist would say, because we can know nothing of God or of the other world, but simply because the present is, or seems to be, good and enjoyable, and they wish to enjoy what is good. But the dark shadow of eighteen centuries of religion is upon them, and whenever they see it they betray by their unhappiness or their rage that, after all, they can only share the pagan denial of Heaven, not the pagan satisfaction with this world. We wish to discuss the writings of the poet who seems to be the chief representative of this pagan element of thought or emotion in our day, and also, by way of contrast, to notice a remarkable writer who lived to a great extent unknown, and has died just as he seemed about to become famous. There are two clearly distinguished schools of modern paganism, the hopeful and the despairing; and, as representatives of these, though there can be no question as to poetical superiority, we will take Mr. Swinburne and Mr. James Thomson. Mr. Swinburne is at the head of that class of English poets who seem to have taken for their motto, Ars est ostentare artem. Widely as they differ in every other respect, they have the common quality of giving prominence to the form and manner of poetry, rather than to the matter and meaning of it. Now, there are several difficulties which impede us in judging such poetry. In the first place we must beware of mistaking one kind of pleasure for another. Because we get from Mr. Swinburne or Mr. Rossetti the undoubted pleasure of melodious rhythm and ingenious arrangements of sounds, we must not forget that this is not the only pleasure that poetry has to afford. To give delight by a sudden revelation of unsuspected beauty is the higher function of poetry, though this must be conveyed in the long-consecrated forms of rhythmical verse. In the second place we must beware of accepting without reserve the judgment of critics who are themselves poets. They are apt, and naturally so, to dwell on the mechanism of verse, on its mere form, and to study with interest and favour any poet who displays great mastery over form, regardless of the subject-matter of which he writes. In these technical points they recognize their own special difficulties, and they have undergone for these a special training. The matter of their works is personal and singular to themselves, the form and manner and technical rules are common to all artists, and can be criticized by appeal to common laws. And such criticism is most useful, and worthy of study by all. But it does not exhaust the facts, and it often tends to elevate un duly the artistic' writers. It does not follow that a poet who is greatly praised by poets will be liked by the mass of readers; nor does it follow that the mass of readers is wrong. Posterity is the sole judge of right and wrong in art, and 'posterity' will consist, not of poets, but of readers of poetry. To anticipate, therefore, the final verdict upon any poems, we must look beyond the favourable opinion of poets, who in judging other men's writings are chiefly interested in the technical mechanism of verse, and consider what the poems are to those who look in poetry for a worthy combination of sound and sense, for deep and beautiful thoughts embodied, not merely clothed, in lovely and harmonious forms. We do not wish to raise again the weary dispute as to form and matter in art, for we will concede that form is indispensable. We will go further, and for the sake of argument concede that any matter will serve for poetry, and that it is the form alone which constitutes a poem ; but then, what is form? Surely it is the adaptation of expression to that which is expressed, so that a thought, a purely intellectual thing, becomes an image, and gains access to the mind by the various channels of sense and emotion and imagination. Verse and painting and sculpture make thought sensuous; but sensuousness alone will not serve for art, without the thought. Now it is this absence of thought, of matter, that turns much of our modern art into artificiality; the poet's mind, having no object before it, works upon the form alone, and is conscious only of that. The result is that we have lost even the emotional power which perfect form produces, and much of the verse that is now written leaves us as cold and unmoved as if we were reading the 'metaphysical' poets of the seventeenth century, or the complicated ingenuities of mediæval monks. Mr. Swinburne, more than most contemporary poets, shows this defect of artificiality, of self-conscious form; though, at the same time, more than others he redeems his verse by genuine fire and vigour. He seems to have mistaken the means that should be unconsciously chosen for the end that a poet should consciously set before him. He has made too much of the mere tricks of the craft, those secrets of alliteration and accent which Mr. Myers has so well described in his monograph on Wordsworth; but in so doing he has forgotten what Mr. Myers says in conclusion: 'What the poet's brain does not do consciously it does unconsciously; a selective action is going on in its recesses simultaneously with the overt train of thought, and on the degree of this unconscious |