Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew ArnoldArnold, Matthew
General
Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold
Arnold, Matthew
English essays -- 19th century
as his new casting so fails more fully to commend itself, more fully (to
use Coleridge's happy phrase[58] about the Bible) to _find_ us. Still M.
Renan's attempt is, for criticism, of the most real interest and
importance, since, with all its difficulty, a fresh synthesis of the New
Testament _data_--not a making war on them, in Voltaire's fashion, not a
leaving them out of mind, in the world's fashion, but the putting a new
construction upon them, the taking them from under the old, traditional,
conventional point of view and placing them under a new one--is the very
essence of the religious problem, as now presented; and only by efforts
in this direction can it receive a solution.
Again, in the same spirit in which she judges Bishop Colenso, Miss
Cobbe, like so many earnest liberals of our practical race, both here
and in America, herself sets vigorously about a positive reconstruction
of religion, about making a religion of the future out of hand, or at
least setting about making it. We must not rest, she and they are always
thinking and saying, in negative criticism, we must be creative and
constructive; hence we have such works as her recent _Religious Duty_,
and works still more considerable, perhaps, by others, which will be in
every one's mind. These works often have much ability; they often spring
out of sincere convictions, and a sincere wish to do good; and they
sometimes, perhaps, do good. Their fault is (if I may be permitted to
say so) one which they have in common with the British College of
Health, in the New Road. Every one knows the British College of Health;
it is that building with the lion and the statue of the Goddess Hygeia
before it; at least I am sure about the lion, though I am not absolutely
certain about the Goddess Hygeia. This building does credit, perhaps, to
the resources of Dr. Morrison and his disciples; but it falls a good
deal short of one's idea of what a British College of Health ought to
be. In England, where we hate public interference and love individual
enterprise, we have a whole crop of places like the British College of
Health; the grand name without the grand thing. Unluckily, creditable to
individual enterprise as they are, they tend to impair our taste by
making us forget what more grandiose, noble, or beautiful character
properly belongs to a public institution. The same may be said of the
religions of the future of Miss Cobbe and others. Creditable, like the
British College of Health, to the resources of their authors, they yet
tend to make us forget what more grandiose, noble, or beautiful
character properly belongs to religious constructions. The historic
religions, with all their faults, have had this; it certainly belongs to
the religious sentiment, when it truly flowers, to have this; and we
impoverish our spirit if we allow a religion of the future without it.
What then is the duty of criticism here? To take the practical point of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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