heroes and hero worship-第2节
按键盘上方向键 ← 或 → 可快速上下翻页,按键盘上的 Enter 键可回到本书目录页,按键盘上方向键 ↑ 可回到本页顶部!
————未阅读完?加入书签已便下次继续阅读!
a difficult thing to find good methods for!We shall begin to have a chance of understanding Paganism; when we first admit that to its followers it was; at one time; earnestly true。 Let us consider it very certain that men did believe in Paganism; men with open eyes; sound senses; men made altogether like ourselves; that we; had we been there; should have believed in it。 Ask now; What Paganism could have been?
Another theory; somewhat more respectable; attributes such things to Allegory。 It was a play of poetic minds; say these theorists; a shadowing forth; in allegorical fable; in personification and visual form; of what such poetic minds had known and felt of this Universe。 Which agrees; add they; with a primary law of human nature; still everywhere observably at work; though in less important things; That what a man feels intensely; he struggles to speak out of him; to see represented before him in visual shape; and as if with a kind of life and historical reality in it。 Now doubtless there is such a law; and it is one of the deepest in human nature; neither need we doubt that it did operate fundamentally in this business。 The hypothesis which ascribes Paganism wholly or mostly to this agency; I call a little more respectable; but I cannot yet call it the true hypothesis。 Think; would _we_ believe; and take with us as our life…guidance; an allegory; a poetic sport? Not sport but earnest is what we should require。 It is a most earnest thing to be alive in this world; to die is not sport for a man。 Man's life never was a sport to him; it was a stern reality; altogether a serious matter to be alive!
I find; therefore; that though these Allegory theorists are on the way towards truth in this matter; they have not reached it either。 Pagan Religion is indeed an Allegory; a Symbol of what men felt and knew about the Universe; and all Religions are symbols of that; altering always as that alters: but it seems to me a radical perversion; and even inversion; of the business; to put that forward as the origin and moving cause; when it was rather the result and termination。 To get beautiful allegories; a perfect poetic symbol; was not the want of men; but to know what they were to believe about this Universe; what course they were to steer in it; what; in this mysterious Life of theirs; they had to hope and to fear; to do and to forbear doing。 The _Pilgrim's Progress_ is an Allegory; and a beautiful; just and serious one: but consider whether Bunyan's Allegory could have _preceded_ the Faith it symbolizes! The Faith had to be already there; standing believed by everybody;of which the Allegory could _then_ become a shadow; and; with all its seriousness; we may say a _sportful_ shadow; a mere play of the Fancy; in comparison with that awful Fact and scientific certainty which it poetically strives to emblem。 The Allegory is the product of the certainty; not the producer of it; not in Bunyan's nor in any other case。 For Paganism; therefore; we have still to inquire; Whence came that scientific certainty; the parent of such a bewildered heap of allegories; errors and confusions? How was it; what was it?
Surely it were a foolish attempt to pretend 〃explaining;〃 in this place; or in any place; such a phenomenon as that far…distant distracted cloudy imbroglio of Paganism;more like a cloud…field than a distant continent of firm land and facts! It is no longer a reality; yet it was one。 We ought to understand that this seeming cloud…field was once a reality; that not poetic allegory; least of all that dupery and deception was the origin of it。 Men; I say; never did believe idle songs; never risked their soul's life on allegories: men in all times; especially in early earnest times; have had an instinct for detecting quacks; for detesting quacks。 Let us try if; leaving out both the quack theory and the allegory one; and listening with affectionate attention to that far…off confused rumor of the Pagan ages; we cannot ascertain so much as this at least; That there was a kind of fact at the heart of them; that they too were not mendacious and distracted; but in their own poor way true and sane!
You remember that fancy of Plato's; of a man who had grown to maturity in some dark distance; and was brought on a sudden into the upper air to see the sun rise。 What would his wonder be; his rapt astonishment at the sight we daily witness with indifference! With the free open sense of a child; yet with the ripe faculty of a man; his whole heart would be kindled by that sight; he would discern it well to be Godlike; his soul would fall down in worship before it。 Now; just such a childlike greatness was in the primitive nations。 The first Pagan Thinker among rude men; the first man that began to think; was precisely this child…man of Plato's。 Simple; open as a child; yet with the depth and strength of a man。 Nature had as yet no name to him; he had not yet united under a name the infinite variety of sights; sounds; shapes and motions; which we now collectively name Universe; Nature; or the like;and so with a name dismiss it from us。 To the wild deep…hearted man all was yet new; not veiled under names or formulas; it stood naked; flashing in on him there; beautiful; awful; unspeakable。 Nature was to this man; what to the Thinker and Prophet it forever is; preternatural。 This green flowery rock…built earth; the trees; the mountains; rivers; many…sounding seas;that great deep sea of azure that swims overhead; the winds sweeping through it; the black cloud fashioning itself together; now pouring out fire; now hail and rain; what _is_ it? Ay; what? At bottom we do not yet know; we can never know at all。 It is not by our superior insight that we escape the difficulty; it is by our superior levity; our inattention; our _want_ of insight。 It is by _not_ thinking that we cease to wonder at it。 Hardened round us; encasing wholly every notion we form; is a wrappage of traditions; hearsays; mere _words_。 We call that fire of the black thunder…cloud 〃electricity;〃 and lecture learnedly about it; and grind the like of it out of glass and silk: but _what_ is it? What made it? Whence comes it? Whither goes it? Science has done much for us; but it is a poor science that would hide from us the great deep sacred infinitude of Nescience; whither we can never penetrate; on which all science swims as a mere superficial film。 This world; after all our science and sciences; is still a miracle; wonderful; inscrutable; _magical_ and more; to whosoever will _think_ of it。
That great mystery of TIME; were there no other; the illimitable; silent; never…resting thing called Time; rolling; rushing on; swift; silent; like an all…embracing ocean…tide; on which we and all the Universe swim like exhalations; like apparitions which are; and then are _not_: this is forever very literally a miracle; a thing to strike us dumb;for we have no word to speak about it。 This Universe; ah mewhat could the wild man know of it; what can we yet know? That it is a Force; and thousand…fold Complexity of Forces; a Force which is _not_ we。 That is all; it is not we; it is altogether different from us。 Force; Force; everywhere Force; we ourselves a mysterious Force in the centre of that。 〃There is not a leaf rotting on the highway but has Force in it; how else could it rot?〃 Nay surely; to the Atheistic Thinker; if such a one were possible; it must be a miracle too; this huge illimitable whirlwind of Force; which envelops us here; never…resting whirlwind; high as Immensity; old as Eternity。 What is it? God's Creation; the religious people answer; it is the Almighty God's! Atheistic science babbles poorly of it; with scientific nomenclatures; experiments and what not; as if it were a poor dead thing; to be bottled up in Leyden jars and sold over counters: but the natural sense of man; in all times; if he will honestly apply his sense; proclaims it to be a living thing;ah; an unspeakable; godlike thing; towards which the best attitude for us; after never so much science; is awe; devout prostration and humility of soul; worship if not in words; then in silence。
But now I remark farther: What in such a time as ours it requires a Prophet or Poet to teach us; namely; the stripping…off of those poor undevout wrappages; nomenclatures and scientific hearsays;this; the ancient earnest soul; as yet unencumbered with these things; did for itself。 The world; which is now divine only to the gifted; was then divine to whosoever would turn his eye upon it。 He stood bare before it face to face。 〃All was Godlike or God:〃Jean Paul still finds it so; the giant Jean Paul; who has power to escape out of hearsays: but there then were no hearsays。 Canopus shining down over the desert; with its blue diamond brightness (that wild blue spirit…like brightness; far brighter than we ever witness here); would pierce into the heart of the wild Ishmaelitish man; whom it was guiding through the solitary waste there。 To his wild heart; with all feelings in it; with no _speech_ for any feeling; it might seem a little eye; that Canopus; glancing out on him from the great deep Eternity; revealing the inner Splendor to him。 Cannot we understand how these men _worshipped_ Canopus; b