One can imagine the Rousseauist interrupting at this point to remark
that one of his chief protests has always been against the mechanical
and utilitarian and in general the scientific attitude towards life.
This is true. Something has already been said about this protest and
it will be necessary to say more about it later. Yet Rousseauist and
Baconian agree, as I have said, in turning away from the “civil war in
the cave” to humanity in the lump. They agree in being more or less
rebellious towards the traditional forms that put prime emphasis on
the “civil war in the cave”--whether the Christian tradition with its
humility or the classical with its decorum. No wonder Prometheus was
the great romantic hero. Prometheus was at once a rebel, a lover of man
and a promoter of man’s material progress. We have been living for over
a century in what may be termed an age of Promethean individualism.
The Rousseauist especially feels an inner kinship with Prometheus and
other Titans. He is fascinated by every form of insurgency. Cain and
Satan are both romantic heroes. To meet the full romantic requirement,
however, the insurgent must also be tender-hearted. He must show an
elemental energy in his explosion against the established order and
at the same time a boundless sympathy for the victims of it. One of
Hugo’s poems tells of a Mexican volcano, that in sheer disgust at
the cruelty of the members of the Inquisition, spits lava upon them.
This compassionate volcano symbolizes in both of its main aspects
the romantic ideal. Hence the enormous international popularity
of Schiller’s “Robbers.” One may find innumerable variants of the
brigand Karl Moor who uses his plunder “to support meritorious young
men at college.” The world into which we enter from the very dawn of
romanticism is one of “glorious rascals,” and “beloved vagabonds.”
“Sublime convicts,” says M. Lasserre, “idlers of genius,
angelic female poisoners, monsters inspired by God, sincere
comedians, virtuous courtesans, metaphysical mountebanks,
faithful adulterers, form only one half--the sympathetic half
of humanity according to romanticism. The other half, the
wicked half, is manufactured by the same intellectual process
under the suggestion of the same revolutionary instinct.
It comprises all those who hold or stand for a portion of
any discipline whatsoever, political, religious, moral or
intellectual--kings, ministers, priests, judges, soldiers,
policemen, husbands and critics.”[86]