Now it is plain that this alleged music is not everywhere.  Where, then, is it?  And will it, when we have found it, be found to merit all the praise that is bestowed upon it?  Sociology, as we have seen, may show us how to secure to each performer his voice or his instrument; but it will not show us how to make either the voice or the instrument a good one; nor will it decide whether the orchestra shall perform Beethoven or Offenbach, or whether the chorus shall sing a penitential psalm or a drinking song.  When we have discovered what the world’s highest gladness can consist of, we will again come to the question of how far such gladness can be a general end of action.

FOOTNOTES: 

[9] Vide Nineteenth Century, October, 1877.

[10] ’As Mr. Spencer points out, society does not resemble those organisms which are so highly centralised that the unity of the whole is the important thing, and every part must die if separated from the rest; but rather those that will bear separation and reunion; because, although there is a certain union and organisation of the parts in regard to one another, yet the far more important fact is the life of the parts separately.  The true health of society depends upon the communes, the villages and townships, infinitely more than on the form and pageantry of an imperial government.  If in them there is band-work, union for a common effort, converse in the working out of a common thought, there the Republic is.’—­Professor Clifford, Nineteenth Century, October, 1877.

CHAPTER IV.

GOODNESS AS ITS OWN REWARD.

    ‘Who chooses me must give, and hazard all he hath.’ Inscription on
    the Leaden Casket. Merchant of Venice.

What I have been urging in the last chapter is really nothing more than the positivists admit themselves.  It will be found, if we study their utterances as a whole, that they by no means believe practically in their own professions, or consider that the end of action can be either defined and verified by sociology, or made attractive by sympathy.  On the contrary, they confess plainly how inadequate these are by themselves, by continually supplementing them with additions from quite another quarter.  But their fault is that this confession is, apparently, only half conscious with them; and they are for ever reproducing arguments as sufficient which they have already in other moments implicitly condemned as meaningless.  My aim has been, therefore, to put these arguments out of court altogether, and safely shut the doors on them.  Hitherto they have played just the part of an idle populace, often turned out of doors, but as often breaking in again, and confusing with their noisy cheers a judgment that has not yet been given.  Let us have done, then, with the conditions of happiness till we know what happiness is.  Let us have done with enthusiasm till we know if there is anything to be enthusiastic about.