Complete. “The Influence of Literature upon Society,” Chap. ix.
IT may be to thought, and not to imagination, that we are indebted for the new acquisitions made to literature in the Middle Ages. Imitation, the principle of the fine arts, as I have before remarked, does not admit of unlimited perfection; the Moderns, in this respect, can never proceed further than by following the path traced out by the Ancients. But if the images of poetry and description always remain nearly the same, more eloquence is added to the passions by a new development of sensibility and a profound knowledge of character, which gives a charm to our superior specimens of literature, which cannot be attributed solely to poetical imagination.
The Ancients esteemed men as their friends, while they considered women in no other light than as slaves designed by nature for that unhappy state; and, indeed, the greater part of them were deserving of that appellation,—their minds were not furnished with a single idea that could distinguish them from the brute creation, nor were they enlightened by one generous sentiment. This circumstance, without doubt, was the cause why the Ancients represented in their tender scenes merely sensations.
The preference of the Ancients towards the softer sex was solely influenced by their beauty; but the Moderns acknowledge that superior talents and ties can alone insure their happiness or misery, in that predilection to which they owe the destiny of their lives.
Novels, those varied productions of modern genius, were almost entirely unknown to the Ancients; it is true, they composed a few pastorals in that style, at a period when the Greeks endeavored to discover some employment as a relaxation during servitude. But before women had created an interest in domestic life, there was nothing sufficiently desirable to excite the curiosity of men, whose time was almost entirely occupied by political pursuits.
A greater number of shades were perceptible in the characters of women, which their wish to obtain power, and their fear of subjection, presented to general view; but they were singularly useful in furnishing new secrets of emotion for the exercise of dramatic talents; their fear of death, their desire of life, the devotion of themselves, their resentments, and, in short, every sentiment which they were suffered to deliver, embellished literature with new expressions. The women, it may be said, not being strictly answerable for their conduct, did not scruple to relate what their different sentiments naturally suggested. A solid understanding, with a scrutinizing discernment, may clearly perceive these developments of the human heart when it appears in a state of nature; it is for this reason that the modern moralists have, in general, so much the advantage over the Ancients in regard to their subtlety in the knowledge of mankind.
With the Ancients, those who could not acquire fame had no motive for development: but after the period when connections were formed in domestic life, the communications of the mind and the exercise of morals always existed, at least in a limited circle; the children became dearer to the parents from reciprocal tenderness, which more closely united the conjugal tie; and the different affections assumed the appearance of that divine alliance of friendship in love, of attraction and esteem, of a merited confidence and an involuntary seduction.
Advanced age that was crowned with glory and virtue, although it ceased to hope, might continue to be animated by the emotions of the heart, and was consoled with a pensive melancholy which allowed individuals to remember, to regret, and still to regard what had formerly claimed their affection. When moral reflections have been united to the violent passions of youth, they may be extended by an exalted remembrance to the termination of existence, and present the same pleasing picture through the awful variations of time.
A profound and melancholy sensibility is one of the greatest beauties perceptible in some of our modern writings; this, without doubt, is owing to the fair sex, who, being ignorant of most other things in life, except the art of pleasing, transmitted the softness of their impressions to the style of certain authors. In perusing those works which were composed since the renewal of letters, we may in every separate page remark those ideas which were wanting before they accorded to women a kind of civil equality.
Generosity, courage, and humanity have in some respects a different meaning. The Ancients founded the chief of their virtues on the love of their country; the qualities of women were exercised in a different and an independent manner:—a sympathy for misfortune, a pity for weakness, an elevation of soul, without any other aim than the enjoyment of that elevation, is much more in their nature than political virtues. The Moderns, influenced by women, easily gave way to philanthropy, and the mind acquired a more philosophical liberty when they were less under the empire of exclusive associations.
The only advantage which the writers of the last centuries have over the Ancients in their works of imagination is the talent of expressing a more delicate sensibility; and that of giving greater variety to situations and characters, from a more intimate knowledge of the human heart. But how much superior are the philosophers of the present era in the sciences, in method, in analysis, in the arrangement of ideas, and the chain of events.
Mathematical arguments resemble the two great ideas of metaphysics, space and eternity; millions of leagues may be added and centuries multiplied; each calculation is true, yet the term remains indefinite. The wisest step ever taken by the human understanding was, to renounce all doubtful systems and adopt methods capable of demonstration.
Although modern eloquence may be deficient in the emulation of a free people, nevertheless it acquires from philosophy and a melancholy imagination a new character, which has a very powerful effect I do not think that among the Ancients there was one composition, or a single orator, that could equal Bossuet, Rousseau, or the English, in some of their poetry, or the German in some of their phrases, in the sublime art of affecting the heart. It is to the spirituality of the Christian ideas, and to the sombre truths of philosophy, that we must attribute the art of introducing, even into private discussions, general and affecting reflections which touched the heart, awakened recollection, and induced man to consider the interest of his fellow-creatures.
The Ancients knew how to add vigor to the arguments necessary to be used on every occasion; but, at the present period, the mind, through a succession of ages, has become so indifferent to the interest of individuals and also to that of nations, that the eloquent writer finds it necessary to adopt a more pathetic style, in order to awaken the feelings which are common to all men. Without doubt, it is requisite to strike the imagination with a lively and forcible impression of the object intended to create an interest; but the appeal to pity is never irresistible, except when melancholy represents what the imagination has portrayed.
The Moderns possess a readiness of expression, the sole aim of which is to engage the eloquence of thought; antiquity presents no model of this kind but Tacitus. Montesquieu, Pascal, and Machiavelli are eloquent by a single expression, by a striking epithet, or in a rapidity of imagery, the purpose of which is the elucidation of an idea, and the endeavor to enlarge and embellish what is intended to be explained. The impression given by this peculiar style may be compared to the effect produced by the disclosure of an important secret: it seems likewise as if a number of thoughts had preceded that which had just been expressed, and each separate idea appears connected with the most profound meditations; and that suddenly, and by a single word, we are permitted to extend our ideas to those immense regions which have been accurately traced by the efforts of genius.
The ancient philosophers exercised, so to speak, a magistracy of instruction among men; having always in view the general benefit, they enforced certain rules, and left nothing undone that was likely to enlighten mankind. The knowledge of morals must have advanced with the progress of human reason; but philosophical demonstrations are considered more applicable to that moral which is of the intellectual order. We must not compare modern virtues with those of the Ancients, as citizens; it is only in a free country where there can exist that constant duty and that generous relation between the citizens and their country. It is true that, in a despotic government, custom or prejudice may still inspire some brilliant acts of military courage; but the continued and painful attention given to civil employments and legislative virtues, added to the disinterested sacrifice of the greater part of their lives to the public, can only exist where there is a real passion for liberty: it is therefore in private qualities, sentiments of philanthropy, and in a few writings of a superior order, that we are to examine the progress of morals.
The principles of modern philosophy are much more conducive to happiness than those of the Ancients; the duties imposed by our moralists are courtesy, docility, pity, and affection. Filial reverence was holden in the highest estimation by the Ancients, and parental attachment is viewed in the same light by the Moderns; but without doubt, in the connection between father and son, it is more advantageous that the benefactor should be the individual whose tenderness is the strongest.
The Ancients could not be exceeded in their love of justice, but they did not consider benevolence as a duty; justice may be enforced by the laws, notwithstanding general opinion is the criterion of beneficence, and is sufficient to exclude from esteem the being who is insensible to the miseries of his fellow-creatures.
The Ancients only required of others to refrain from injuring them; and simply desired them not to stand in their sunshine, but that they might be left to nature and themselves. But the Moderns, endowed with softer sentiments, solicit assistance, support, and that interest which their situation inspires. They have constituted into a virtue everything that can be useful to mutual happiness; domestic ties are cemented by a rational liberty; and no one has an arbitrary power over his fellow-creature.
With the ancient people of the North, lessons of prudence, dexterity, and maxims which commanded a supernatural empire over their own afflictions, were placed among the first precepts of virtue: but the importance of duties is much better classed by the Moderns; the reciprocal obligation from man to man holds the first rank; what regards ourselves ought to be considered relatively to the influence which we may possess over the destiny of others. What each individual is to procure, to promote his own happiness, is a counsel and not an order; the strictest moral does not impute to man as a crime that grief which is natural, and which his feelings will not allow him to conceal, but that grief which he occasions to others.
In a word, that which both the Gospel and philosophy alike inculcate is the doctrine of humanity. We are taught to respect the gift of life; and the existence of man is now considered as sacred to man, and is not viewed with that political indifference which some of the Ancients believed compatible with the true principles of virtue. We now feel a sensation of horror at the sight of blood; and the warrior who is entirely indifferent to his own personal danger acquires a degree of honor when he shudders at being the necessary cause of destruction to another. If any circumstance at this period gives reason to apprehend that a condemnation has been unjust, that an innocent person has fallen a victim to a supposed justice, nations will listen with terror to the lamentations which arise from an irreparable misfortune; the sensation caused by an unmerited death is recorded from one generation to another; and even children will listen with horror to the recital of so great a grievance. When the eloquent Lally, twenty years after the death of his father, demanded in France the re-establishment of his manes, those young men who could not have seen or known the victim whom he wished to reclaim, felt themselves violently agitated, and shed tears in abundance, as if that fatal day, when innocence was sacrificed, could never be effaced from their remembrance.
Thus ages rolled on towards the conquest of liberty, for virtue is always its herald. Alas! by what means shall we banish the painful contrast which so forcibly strikes the imagination? One crime was recollected during a long succession of years; but we have since witnessed cruelties without number committed and forgotten at the same moment! And it was under the shadow of the republic, the noblest, the most glorious, and the proudest institution of the human mind, that those execrable crimes have been committed! Ah! how difficult do we find it to repel those melancholy ideas, every time we reflect upon the destiny of man: the horrid phantom of the revolution appears before us; in vain we wish to look back on times that are past; in vain we desire to recognize in late events the constant connection of abstract combinations; if in the regions of metaphysics one word awakens recollection, the emotions of the heart resume all their empire, and, no longer supported by reflection, we are suddenly plunged into the abyss of despair.
Nevertheless, let us not yield to this despondency, but return to general observations and literary ideas,—to anything and everything, in short, that can divert our attention from personal sentiments; they are of too painful a nature to be developed. Talents may be animated by a certain degree of emotion; but long and heavy affliction stifles the genius of expression; and when sorrow is become habitual to the mind, the imagination loses even the wish to express what it feels.
