Culture; Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century
And now, therefore, when we are accused of preaching up a spirit of
cultivated inaction, of provoking the earnest lovers of action, of
refusing to lend a hand at uprooting certain definite evils, of
despairing to find any lasting truth to minister to the diseased
spirit of our time, we shall not be so much confounded and
embarrassed what to answer for ourselves. We shall say boldly that
we do not at all despair of finding some lasting truth to minister to
the diseased spirit of our time; but that we have [197] discovered
the best way of finding this to be, not so much by lending a hand to
our friends and countrymen in their actual operations for the removal
of certain definite evils, but rather in getting our friends and
countrymen to seek culture, to let their consciousness play freely
round their present operations and the stock notions on which they
are founded, show what these are like, and how related to the
intelligible law of things, and auxiliary to true human perfection.
NOTES
174. +unum necessarium or one thing needful. Arnold refers here, and
in his subsequent chapter title, Porro Unum est Necessarium, to Luke
10:42. Here is the context, 10:38-42. "[Jesus] . . . entered into a
certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into
her house. / And she had a sister called Mary . . . . / But Martha
was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord,
dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid
her therefore that she help me. / And Jesus answered and said unto
her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things:
/ But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part,
which shall not be taken away from her." King James Bible.
177. +Romans 11:34. "For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who
hath been his counsellor?" King James Bible.
189-90. +Romans 2:21-22. "Thou therefore which teachest another,
teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest a man should not
steal, dost thou steal? / Thou that sayest a man should not commit
adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost
thou commit sacrilege?" King James Bible.
CHAPTER VI
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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