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Updated: June 3, 2025
"Beloved brethren, that we may be spotlessly moral, before all things let us lie," is the sum total of many an exhortation addressed to the "Infidel." Now, as I have already pointed out, we cannot oblige our exhorters. We leave the practical application of the convenient doctrines of "Reserve" and "Non-natural interpretation" to those who invented them.
But a man who can characterize a vulgar pattern as immoral, plainly uses the term "morality" in some transcendental, non-natural sense, and therefore cannot be regarded as an exponent of the precise theory referred to. Still, as this larger idea of morality includes the lesser and more restricted, we may consider Mr. Ruskin and his disciples among those to whom the case of Lippo Lippi and many another presents a distinct difficulty. "Many another," for the principle ought to extend to every branch of fine art; and we should be prepared to maintain that there never has been, or could have been, a truly great musician, or sculptor, or poet, who was not also a truly good man. In a way the position is defensible enough; for one can, in every contrary instance, patch up the artist's character or else pick holes in his work. Who is to settle what is a truly great work or a truly good man. But a position may be quite defensible, yet obviously untrue. Again, if by great art we mean that which is subordinated to some great and good purpose, we are characterizing it by a goodness which is extrinsic to it, and is not the goodness of art itself, as such. If the end of fine art is to teach, then its goodness must be estimated by the matter and manner of its teaching, and a "moral pocket-handkerchief" must take precedence of many a Turner. Yet it would even then remain questionable whether a good and great moral teacher is necessarily a good man. In truth, a good man is one who obeys his conscience, and whose conscience guides him right. If, in defect of the latter condition, we allow that a man is good or well-meaning, it is because we suppose that his conscience is erroneous inculpably, and that he is faithful to right order as far as he understands it. But one who sees right and wills wrong is in no sense good, but altogether bad. Allowing that for the solution of some delicate moral problems a certain height of tone and keenness of insight inseparable from habitual conscientiousness is necessary, yet mere intellectual acumen, in the absence of any notably biassing influence, suffices to give us as great a teacher as Aristotle, who, if exonerated from graver charges, offers no example of astonishing elevation of heart at all proportioned to the profundity of his genius. We do not deny that in the case of free assent to beliefs fraught with grave practical consequences, the moral condition of the subject has much to do with the judgments of the intellect. But first principles and their logical issues belong to the domain of necessary truth; while in other matters a teacher may accept current maxims and sentiments with which he has no personal sympathy, and weave from all these a whole system of excellent and orthodox moral teaching. And if one may be a good moralist and a bad man, why
And when, Sunday after Sunday, men who profess to be our instructors in righteousness read out the statement, "In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is," in innumerable churches, they are either propagating what they may easily know, and, therefore, are bound to know, to be falsities; or, if they use the words in some non-natural sense, they fall below the moral standard of the much-abused Jesuit.
The second class consists of purely creative things: farces, romances, stories in any case with a non-natural perfection, or a poetical justice, to round them off. One class is admirably represented, for instance, by the sketch describing the Charity Dinner, the other by such a story as that of Horatio Sparkins.
To regard the Deity as 'a magnified non-natural man' is not peculiar to Fuegian theologians, and does not imply Animism, but the reverse. But the point is that this ethical judge of perhaps the lowest savages 'makes for righteousness' and searches the heart.
These bull roarers sound curiously uncanny I did not wonder the uninitiated accepted the spirit theory as to their origin. The bush of Australia is a good background for superstition; there is such a non-natural air about its Nature, as if it has been sketched in roughly by a Beardsley-like artist. The function of the Gayandi is to inspire awe, and it fulfils it. Byamee himself made the first.
He believes that the Creator is a magnified non-natural man, living in the sky. The Gippsland or Fuegian or Blackfoot Supreme Being is just a Being, anthropomorphic, not a mrart, or 'spirit. The Supreme Being is a wesen, Being, Vui; we have hardly a term for an immortal existence so undefined.
Gone was the downcast eye, the bated breath, the solemn, non-natural voice, the watchful gait, stepping as if he felt responsible for the balance of the moral universe! He walked with a stride, an uplifted open countenance, his face covered with beard, whiskers, and mustache, his voice strong and natural; and, in short, he had put off the New England deacon and become a human being.
A glorified and non-natural Sanchia pervaded the poem, which, for the form, was a barbaric, rough-hewn chant, stuffed with words and great phrases which had the effect rather of making music in the hearer than of containing it in themselves.
Indeed, too often we carry our decency so far as to make it suggestive and stimulating in a non-natural way; we invest the plain business of reproduction with a mystic religious quality far more unwholesome than a savage nakedness could possibly be. The essential aspect of all this wild and windy business of the sexual relations is, after all, births.
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