“a strong sense of the irrationality of that period and of those who take it seriously, and play at restoring it” (letter to Miss Arnold, December 17, 1860); and again:  “No one has a stronger and more abiding sense than I have of the ‘daemonic’ element—­as Goethe called it—­which underlies and encompasses our life; but I think, as Goethe thought, that the right thing is while conscious of this element, and of all that there is inexplicable round one, to keep pushing on one’s posts into the darkness, and to establish no post that is not perfectly in light and firm” (letter to his mother, March 3, 1865).

VI

[Sidenote:  Criticism of Society, Politics, and Religion]

Like the work of all clear thinkers, Arnold’s writing proceeds from a few governing and controlling principles.  It is natural, therefore, that we should find in his criticism of society a repetition of the ideas already encountered in his literary criticism.  Of these, the chief is that of “culture,” the theme of his most typical book, Culture and Anarchy, published in 1869.  Indeed, it is interesting to see how closely related his doctrine of culture is to his theory of criticism, already expounded.  True criticism, we have seen, consists in an “endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world.”  The shortest definition that Arnold gives of culture is “a study of perfection.”  But how may one pursue perfection?  Evidently by putting oneself in the way of learning the best that is known and thought, and by making it a part of oneself.  The relation of the critic to culture thereupon becomes evident.  He is the appointed apostle of culture.  He undertakes as his duty in life to seek out and to minister to others the means of self-improvement, discriminating the evil and the specious from the good and the genuine, rendering the former contemptible and the latter attractive.  But in a degree all seekers after culture must be critics also.  Both pursue the same objects, the best that is thought and known.  Both, too, must propagate it; for culture consists in general expansion, and the last degree of personal perfection is attained only when shared with one’s fellows.  The critic and the true man of culture are, therefore, at bottom, the same, though Arnold does not specifically point this out.  But the two ideals united in himself direct all his endeavor.  As a man of culture he is intent chiefly upon the acquisition of the means of perfection; as a critic, upon their elucidation and propagation.

This sufficiently answers the charge of selfishness that in frequently brought against the gospel of culture.  It would never have been brought if its critics had not perversely shut their eyes to Arnold’s express statements that perfection consists in “a general expansion”; that it “is not possible while the individual remains isolated”; that one of its characteristics is “increased sympathy,”