"The New Humility"

THE NEW HUMILITY

The Independent Review, volume IX, April-June 1906



An element of confusion is introduced into many modern arguments, notably into the argument touching the present Education Bill, by a refusal to recognise the real scope and significance of the word "dogma." People constantly put the argument in the form of saying: "Shall we teach the child dogma?" Of course we shall. A teacher who is not dogmatic is simply a teacher who is not teaching. This leaves quite untouched, of course, the question of what dogmas he shall teach, large or small, universal or sectional. And it also leaves on one side another important question. Those who say that we should not teach dogma to children really have an intelligent meaning, though they do not know what it is. What they really mean is this, that one does not commonly, in dealing with children, state the dogma in its elaborate metaphysical form. We do not, perhaps, even define the dogma. But, if we do not define the dogma, it it is only because we do assume the dogma. Take, for instance, the case of ethics. It is true that we do not say to a child: "All men are morally equal and have reciprocal obligations." We do say to a child: "Why shouldn't Tommy have a piece of cake too?" In short, one does not recite the dogma of equality; we assume the dogma of equality. We do not say to a child: "There is a human sentiment of property, which is the impress of personality upon matter." We do say to a child: "You have taken Eliza's doll." That is, we do not recite the dogma of property; we assume the dogma of property. We do not say to a child: "Man has a will and is therefore responsible." We do say to a child: "Why did you do this?" We do not recite the dogma of Free Will; we assume the dogma of Free Will. This is the real meaning, an intelligent and respectable meaning, which exists in the mind of those who call themselves undenominationalists in education. The denominationalists say in effect: "What dogmas can we teach?" The undenominationalists say in effect: "What dogmas can we take for granted?"

Now there is something that is really wholesome and attractive in this latter point of view. There is something pleasing about the man who has certain verities sunk so deep into his mind that he hardly even knows that they are there. There is something charming about this man who is so dogmatic that he can do without dogma. This man, the sub-conscious dogmatist, is sometimes a positive pillar of sanity; and it is just in so far as non-dogmatism and undenominationalism, and modern rationalism generally, do represent this type of man, that they really have the power to make men do the two things most worth doing: to live good lives and fight. The French Revolution, for instance, was made of these men. They believed that their service to mankind lay in the things that they questioned. We look back at them now, and see that their service to mankind really lay in the things they did not question: the equality of men, for instance. They praised themselves for doubting the authority of the King. We praise them for not doubting the authority of the State. Exactly that equality of man which they regarded as a truism, they have bequeathed as an eternal challenge. In the noonday of their intellectual summer, they regarded themselves as merely expressing common sense. But, against their sunset, they appear dark and mystical, and take on all the colours of a cloud of martyrs.

It may be said, then, that there are two types of dogma in practice in the modern world. First, there is the dogma which we ignore because we do not believe it— like the Communion of Saints. Second, there is the dogma which we ignore because we do believe it— like the Brotherhood of Man. And it is perfectly true that, if a man could be sincerely convinced that the modern dislike of dogma was chiefly of the latter kind, he might be fascinated by the idea of it. He might be pleased, in some degree at least, with the notion that some of the fundamental actualities had positively become automatic. He might almost reconcile himself to the fact that a man denied divinity, in the light of the astonishing fact that he did not think it worth while even to affirm humanity. Unfortunately, however, there is another and more sinister process at the back of the modern development in connection with dogma. It is no longer altogether true, as it was in the French Revolution, that men think dogmas so obvious that they need not even define them. The class of those who object to dogmas does not entirely consist of those who want their own dogmas left alone. There has arisen, in some degree of power at least, another class who are the menace of modern civilisation. They are the people who really cannot believe, either consciously or sub-consciously, in any dogmas at all. Unless we take very great care, they may become an influential minority, and even a majority, in England. It is of them that I wish to speak here.

The decay in modern England of the power of intellectual certainty is the more difficult to discuss, because the power is entirely primary and previous to definition. We look at a certain thing and say that it is blue. We look at a certain thing and say that it is certain. Indeed, we say that it is certain even in calling it a certain thing. The chief danger of the modern world is not a religious danger, or a political danger, or even a philosophical danger. It is strictly a psychological danger; it is the danger that we may lose a certain primitive power of the mind. If the mind began to lose the power of hearing, you could not argue it into regaining it; you could only assert, with passion, that this power of hearing was the foundation of a certain splendid thing called Music. If the mind begins to lose the power of certainty, you cannot argue against the doctrine that everything is uncertain; you can only say that this sense of certainty is the only foundation of a certain splendid thing called Morals, nay, of the whole of human civilisation. For the primary dogmas cannot possibly be mere hypotheses; for the simple reason that men have to suffer for them. Either there is patriotism or there is not patriotism; for a man is shot if there is, and not shot if there isn't. Either there is property or there is not; for a man starves to respect it. The whole strain of life is upon its abstractions. It is exactly for the arbitrary lines (for instance for national frontiers) that a man is called upon to be killed. It would be very easy to represent this growth of really doubtful and unconvinced people as a despicable corruption. Every day one meets a man who will utter the frantic and blasphemous assertion that he may be wrong. Every day one comes across somebody who says that of course his view may not be the right one; whereas, of course, his view must be the right one, or it would not be his view. Every day one may meet a charming modern who says that he does not think one opinion any better than another. It would be easy, I repeat, to let loose against this kind of thing the mere hearty loathing of a healthy man, and describe it as a corpse crawling with worms. But this would not altogether be just. Among the singular elements in the affair this must be noted: that some of those who are in this blank and homeless incertitude are among the simplest and kindest of men. I think the real explanation is different and decidedly curious. When chaos overcomes any moral or religious scheme, it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are let loose and wander and do terrible damage. But the virtues are let loose even more; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. Every part of the modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad; or, for the matter of that, of the old pagan virtues gone mad. The instances are innumerable. Mr. Blatchford, to take a passing example, is simply a Christian who has become too exclusively enthusiastic for the sentimental part of Christianity. He takes the virtue of charity and allows it to eat up everything else— will, judgment, responsibility, citizenship, justice, and human dignity. Really the modern world is far too good; it is full of wild and wasted and anarchic virtues. Thus, for instance, Tolstoy probably employs, in retaining himself from fighting, sufficient energy to upset the Tsar. And, of all these mis-directed moral qualities, none, I think, is so striking as the case of the modern mis-direction of humility.

Humility was originally meant as a restraint upon the arrogance and infinity of the appetite of man. The tendency of man was to ask for so much, that he could hardly enjoy even what he got; he was always outstripping his mercies with his own newly-invented needs. His very power of enjoyment destroyed half his joys. By asking for pleasure, he lost the chief pleasure; for the chief pleasure is surprise. Hence it became evident, that if a man would make his world large, he must be always making himself small. Even the haughty visions, the tall cities, and the toppling pinnacles, are the creations of humility. Giants that tread down forests like grass, are the creations of humility. Towers that vanish upwards above the loneliest star, are the creations of humility. For towers are not tall unless we look up to them; and giants are not giants unless they are larger than we. All this gigantesque imagination, which is perhaps the mightiest of the pleasures of man, is at bottom entirely humble. It is impossible without humiliation to enjoy anything—even pride.

But all this humility, which originally rested upon our appetites and our individual desires, has changed its position. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction. By the old rule, a man was meant to be doubtful about himself but undoubting about his doctrine. This has been entirely reversed. The part of a man that he does assert now-a-days, is exactly the part that he ought not to assert: himself. The part he doubts, is exactly the part he ought not to doubt: the divine Reason. Huxley preached a humility that is content to learn from Nature. But the new scepticism preaches a humility which is so humble, that it doubts whether it can even learn. And the practical difference between the two doctrines is vast and terrible. For the old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts; which might make him work harder. The new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims; which may make him stop working altogether.

I can simply illustrate my meaning from the history of modern politics. The whole success of the French Revolution, and of the European Liberal movement that flowed
out of it, arose from the fact that it preached certain dogmatic certainties: certainties for which a man could be called upon to be tortured, to be destroyed. The chief of these was the doctrine of the Rights of Man, the doctrine that there were certain eternal indispensable elements in the human lot, which men could demand from their rulers or their civilisation. And this demand is exactly the demand that has been disputed and denied in our time. Matthew Arnold, a typical leader in many ways of the reaction against Liberalism, said, in one of his books: "Which of us, on looking into his own consciousness, feels he has any rights at all?" No one perhaps; for looking into one's own consciousness is a disgusting Eastern habit. And if you look into your own consciousness, you will find exactly what the Buddhists find and worship there— Nothing. You will find you have no rights, and no duties, and, incidentally, no self. But it is the essence of our Western religion to believe that the problem of life is solved in living it. Live outwards, live in the living universe, and you will soon find that you have duties. You will also find that you have rights; unless indeed you are in the singular position in which the typical English moderns find themselves. For, as I have said, the Nemesis of our present English position is this: that the one claim which we doubt is this universal claim, the claim that is compatible with personal disinterestedness and personal self-effacement. We dispute the Rights of Man. We do not dispute the rights of judges, or the rights of policemen, or the rights of landlords, or the rights of legislators. We do not dispute any of the rights that might and do make individuals proud. We only dispute the right that is so huge that it makes even the claimant of it humble. And there is no class in which doubt is more deep than in the rich class; there is no class in which doubt is more fixed, I might almost say in which doubt is more undoubting. No class has so much of the new modesty as the class that has most of the old pride. And if a man says to you: "I have no rights," you will commonly be safe in answering "No: you have privileges."

G. K. Chesterton