05 - Chapter 3 Part 1: Barbarians, Philistines, Populace

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter three, Part one of Culture and Anarchy. This is
the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
Recording by nicol Ley. Culture and Anarchy by Matthew Arnold,
Chapter three, Part one. From a man without a philosophy,

(00:22):
no one can expect philosophical completeness. Therefore, I may observe
without shame that, in trying to get a distinct notion
of our aristocratic, our middle and our working class, with
a view of testing the claims of each of these
classes to become a center of authority, I have omitted,
I find to complete the old fashioned analysis which I

(00:43):
had the fancy of applying, and have not shown in
these classes, as well as the virtuous mean and the
excess the defect. Also, I do not know that the
omission very much matters still, as clearness is the one
merit which a plain, unsystematic writer without a philosophy can
hope to have, and as our notion of the three

(01:03):
great English classes may perhaps be made clearer if we
see their distinctive qualities in the defect as well as
in the excess and in the mean, let us try,
before proceeding further, to remedy this omission. It is manifest,
if the perfect and virtuous mean of that fine spirit,
which is the distinctive quality of aristocracies is to be

(01:24):
found in Lord Elco's chivalrous style, and its excess in
Sir Thomas Bateson's Turn for Resistance, that its defect must
lie in a spirit not bold and high enough, and
in an excessive and pucillanimous unaptness for resistance. If again,
the perfect and virtuous mean of that force by which
our middle class has done its great works, and of

(01:46):
that self reliance with which it contemplates itself and them
is to be seen in the performances and speeches of
mister Basley, and the excess of that force and that
self reliance in the performances and speeches of the re
w cattle, then it is manifest that their defect must
lie in a helpless inaptitude for the great works of

(02:07):
the middle class, and in a poor and despicable lack
of its self satisfaction. To be chosen to exemplify the
happy mean of a good quality or set of good
qualities is evidently a praise to a man, nay, to
be chosen to exemplify even their excess, is a kind
of praise. Therefore, I could have no hesitation in taking

(02:27):
Lord Elcoe and mister Basley, the Reverend W. Cattle, and
Sir Thomas Bateson to exemplify, respectively, the mean and the
excess of aristocratic and middle class qualities. But perhaps there
might be a want of urbanity in singling out this
or that personage as the representative of defect. Therefore I
shall leave the defect of aristocracy unillustrated by any representative man.

(02:51):
But with oneself one may, always, without impropriety, deal quite freely.
And indeed this sort of plain dealing with oneself has
in it, as all the moralists, tell us, something very wholesome.
So I will venture to humbly offer myself as an
illustration of defect in those forces and qualities which make
our middle class what it is. The two well founded

(03:13):
reproaches of my opponents declare, how little I have lent
a hand to the great works of the middle class.
For it is evidently these works, and my slackness at them,
which are meant when I am said to refuse to
lend a hand to the humble operation of uprooting certain
definite evils, such as church rates and others, and that
therefore the believers in action grow impatient with me. The

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line again of a still unsatisfied seeker which I have followed,
the idea of self transformation, of growing towards some measure
of sweetness and light not yet reached, is evidently at
clean variance with the perfect self satisfaction current in my class,
the middle class, and may serve to indicate in me
therefore the extreme defect of this feeling. But these confessions,

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though salut are bitter and unpleasant to pass then to
the working class. The defect of this class would be
the falling short in what mister Frederick Harrison calls those
bright powers of sympathy and ready powers of action, of
which we saw in mister Odger the virtuous mien, and
in mister Bradlaw the excess. The working class is so

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fast growing and rising at the present time that instances
of this defect cannot well be now very common. Perhaps
Canning's needy knife grinder, who is dead and therefore cannot
be pained at my taking him for an illustration, may
serve to give us the notion of defect in the
essential quality of a working class, or I might even
cite since though he is alive in the flesh, he

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is dead to all heed of criticism. My poor old
poaching friend, Zephyoniah Diggs, who, between his hair snaring and
his gin drinking, has got his powers of sympathy quite dulled,
and his powers of action in any great movement of
his class hopelessly impaired. But examples of this defect long
as I have said, to a bygone age rather than

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to the present. The same desire for clearness which has
led me thus to extend a little my first analysis
of the three great classes of English society, prompts me
also to make my nomenclature for them a little fuller,
with a view to making it thereby more clear and manageable.
It is awkward and tiresome to be always saying the
aristocratic class, the middle class, the working class, for the

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middle class, for that great body, which, as we know,
has done all the great things that have been done
in all departments, and which is to be conceived as
chiefly moving between its two cardinal points. Of mister Basley
and the Reverend W. Cattle but inclining in the mass
rather towards the latter than the former. For this class
we have a designation which now has become pretty well known,

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and which we may as well still keep for them,
the designation of Philistines. What this term means, I have
so often explained that I need not repeat it here.
For the aristocratic class, conceived mainly as a body moving
between the two cardinal points of Lord Elkow and Sir
Thomas Bateson, but as a whole nearer to the latter
than the former, we have as yet got no special designation.

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Almost all my attention has naturally been concentrated on my
own class, the middle class, with which I am in
closest sympathy, and which has been besides the great power
of our day, and has had its praises sung by
all speakers and newspapers. Still, the aristocratic class is so
important in itself, and the weighty functions which mister Carlyle
proposes at the present critical time to commit to it

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must add so much to its importance that it seems neglectful,
and a strong instance of that want of coherent philosophic
method for which mister Frederick Harrison blames me to leave
the aristocratic class so much without notice and denomination. It
may be thought that the characteristic which I have occasionally
mentioned as proper to aristocracies, they are natural inaccessibility as

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children of the established fact two ideas points to our
extending to this class also the designation of philistine's, the
philistine being, as is well known, the enemy of the
children of light or servants of the idea. Nevertheless, there
seems to be an inconvenience in thus giving one and
the same designation to two very different classes. And besides,

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if we look into the thing closely, we shall find
that the term philistine conveys a sense which makes it
more peculiarly appropriate to our middle class than to our
aristocratic For philistine gives the notion of something particularly stiff
necked and perverse in the resistance to light and its children,
and therein it specially suits our middle class, who not

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only do not pursue sweetness and light, but who prefer
to them that sort of machinery of business chapels, tea
meetings and addresses from mister Murphy and the Reverend W. Cattle,
which makes up the dismal and illiberal life on which
I have so often touched. But the aristocratic class has actually,
as we have seen in its well known politeness, a
kind of image or shadow of sweetness. And as for light,

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if it does not pursue light, it is not that
it perversely cherishes some dismal and illiberal existence in preference
to light. But it is seduced from following light by
those mighty and eternal seduces of our race, which we
for this class their most irresistible charms, by worldly splendor, security, power,
and pleasure. These seducers are exterior goods, but they are goods.

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And he who is hindered by them from caring for
light and ideas is not so much doing what is
perverse as what is natural. Keeping this in view, I
have in my own mind often indulged myself with the
fancy of putting side by side with the idea of
our aristocratic class, the idea of the barbarians. The barbarians
to whom we all owe so much, and who reinvigorated

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and renewed our worn out Europe, had, as is well known,
eminent merits. And in this country, where we are for
the most part sprung from the barbarians, we have never
had the prejudice against them which prevails among the race
of Latin origin. The Barbarians brought with them that staunch individualism,
as the modern phrases, and that passion for doing as

(09:07):
one likes, for the assertion of personal liberty, which appears
to mister Bright the central idea of English life, and
of which we have, at any rate a very rich supply.
The stronghold and natural seat of this passion was in
the nobles of whom our aristocratic class are the inheritors,
and this class accordingly have signally manifested it, and have
done much by their example to recommend it to the

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body of the nation, who already indeed had it in
their blood. The Barbarians again had the passion for field sports,
and they have handed it on to our aristocratic class,
who of this passion too, as of the passion for
asserting one's personal liberty, are the great natural stronghold the
care of the barbarians for the body and for all
manly exercises, the vigor, good looks and fine complexion which

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they acquired and perpetuated in their families. By these means,
All this may be observed still in our aristocratic class,
the chivalry of the barbarians, with its characteristics of high spirit,
choice manners, and distinguished bearing. What is this but the
beautiful commencement of the politeness of our aristocratic class in
some barbarian noble, No doubt one would have admired, if

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one could have been then alive to see it, the
rudiments of Lord Elko. Only all this culture, to call
it by that name of the Barbarians, was an exterior culture.
Mainly it consisted principally in outward gifts and graces, in looks, manners, accomplishments, prowess.
The chief inward gifts which had part in it were
the most exterior. So to speak of inward gifts, those

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which come nearest to outward ones. They were courage, a
high spirit, self confidence. Far within and unawakened, lay a
whole range of powers of thought and feeling, to which
these interesting productions of nature had, from the circumstances of
their life no access, making allowances for the difference of
the times. Surely we can observe precisely the same now

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in our aristocratic class, in general, its culture is exterior.
Chiefly all the exterior graces and accomplishments, and the more
external of the inward virtues seem to be principally its portion.
It now, of course, cannot but be often in contact
with those studies by which, from the world of thought
and feeling, true culture teaches us to fetch sweetness and light.

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But its hold upon these very studies appears remarkably external
and unable to exert any deep power upon its spirit. Therefore,
the one insufficiency which we noted in the perfect mean
of this class, Lord Elco, was an insufficiency of light,
And owing to the same causes, does not, as subtle criticism,
lead us to make, even on the good looks and

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politeness of our aristocratic class, the one qualifying remark that
in these charming gifts there should perhaps be for ideal
perfection a shade more soul. I often, therefore, when I
want to distinguish clearly the aristocratic class from the philistine's
proper or middle class, name the former in my own
mind the barbarians. And when I go through the country

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and see this and that beautiful and imposing seat of
theirs crowning the landscape, there, I say to myself is
a great fortified post of the barbarians. It is obvious
that that part of the working class, which working diligently
by the light of missus Goocher's golden rule, looks forward
to the happy day when it will sit on thrones
with mister Basley and other middle class potentates, to survey,

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as mister Bright beautifully says, the cities it has built,
the railroads, it has made, the manufactures it has produced,
the cargoes which freight the ships of the greatest mercantile
navy the world has ever seen. It is obvious, I say,
that this part of the working class is, or is
in a fair way to be one in spirit with
the industrial middle class. It is notorious that our middle

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class liberals have long looked forward to this consummation, when
the working class shall join forces with them, aid them
utterly to carry forward their great works, go in a
body to their tea meetings, and in short enable them
to bring about their millennium. That part of the working class, therefore,
which does really seem to lend itself to these great aims,

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may with propriety be numbered by us among the philistines.
That part of it, again, which so much occupies the
attention of philanthropists at present the part which gives all
its energies to organizing itself through trades, unions and other means,
so as to constitute first a great working class power
independent of the middle and aristocratic classes, and then, by

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dint of numbers, give the law to them, and itself
reign absolutely. This lively and interesting part must also, according
to our definition, go with the philistines, because it is
its class and its class instinct, which it seeks to
affirm its ordinary self, not its best self. And it
is a machinery, an industrial machinery, and power and pre eminence,

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and other external goods which fill its thoughts, and not
and inward perfection. It is wholly occupied, according to Plato's
subtle expression, with the things of itself, and not its
real self, with the things of the state, and not
the real state. But that vast portion, lastly of the
working class, which raw and half developed, has long lane,

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half hidden amidst its poverty and squalor, and is now
issuing from its hiding place to a certain englishman's heaven
born privilege of doing as he likes, and is beginning
to perplex us by marching where it likes, meeting where
it likes, balling, what it likes, breaking what it likes.
To this vast residuum, we may, with great propriety give

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the name of populace. Thus we have got three distinct terms, Barbarians, Philistines,
Populace to denote roughly the three great classes into which
our society is divided. And though this humble attempt at
a scientific nomenclature falls, no doubt very far short in
precision of what might be required from a writer equipped

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with the complete and coherent philosophy, yet from a notoriously
unsystematic and unpretending writer, it will, I trust be accepted
as sufficient. But in using this new and I hope
convenient division of English society, two things are to be
borne in mind. The first is that since under all
our class divisions there is a common basis of human nature,

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therefore in every one of us, whether we be properly barbarians, philistines,
or populace, there exists, sometimes only in germ, and potentially
sometimes more or less developed, the same tendencies and passions
which have made our fellow citizens of other classes what
they are. This consideration is very important because it has

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great influence in begetting that spirit of indulgence, which is
a necessary part of sweetness, and which, indeed, when our
culture is complete, is as I have said, inexhaustible. Thus
an English barbarian who examines himself will in general find
himself to be not so entirely a barbarian, but that
he has in him also something of the philistine, and

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even something of the populace as well, And the same
with englishmen of the two other classes. This is an
experience which we may all verify every day. For instance,
I myself, I gain take myself as a sort of
corpus vile tis serve for illustration in a matter where
serving for illustration may not by every one be thought agreeable.

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I myself am properly a philistine. Mister Swinburne would add,
the son of a philistine. And though through circumstances which
will perhaps one day be known, if ever the affecting
history of my conversion comes to be written, I have
for the most part broken with the ideas and the
tea meetings of my own class. Yet I have not,
on that account been brought much the nearer to the
ideas and works of the barbarians or of the populace. Nevertheless,

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I never take a gun or a fishing rod in
my hands without feeling that I have in the ground
of my nature the self same seeds, which fostered by circumstances,
do so much to make the barbarian, and that with
the Barbarian's advantages, I might rivaled him place me in
one of his great fortified posts. With these seeds of
a love for field sports sown in my nature, with

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all the means of developing them, with all pleasures at
my command, with most whom I met, deferring to me,
every one I met smiling on me, and with every
appearance of permanence and security before me and behind me,
then I too might have grown. I feel into a
very possible child of the established fact of commendable spirit
and politeness, and at the same time a little inaccessible

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to ideas and light, not of course, with either the
eminent fine spirit of Lord Elco or the eminent power
of resistance of Sir Thomas Bateson, but according to the
measure of the common run of mankind, something between the two.
And as to the populace, who, whether he be barbarian
or philistine, can look at them without sympathy. When he remembers,
how often every time that we snatch up a vehement

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opinion in ignorance and passion, every time that we long
to crush an adversary by sheer violence, every time that
we are envious, every time that we are brutal, every
time that we adore mere power or success, every time
that we add our voice to swirl a blind clamor
against some unpopular personage, every time that we trample savagely

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on the fallen. He has found in his own bosom
the eternal spirit of the populace, and that there needs
only a little help from circumstances to make it triumph
in him untamably. The second thing to be borne in mind,
I have indicated several times already it is this all
of us, so far as we are barbarians, philistines, or populous,

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imagine happiness to consist in doing what one's ordinary self likes.
What one's ordinary self likes differs according to the class
to which one belongs, and has its severer and its
lighter side, always however, remaining machinery and nothing more. The
graver self of the barbarian likes honors and consideration. His
more relaxed self feel sports and pleasure. The graver self

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of one kind of philistine likes business and money making,
is more relaxed self comfort and tea meetings. Of another
kind of philistine. The grave self likes trades unions, the
relaxed self deputations or hearing mister Odger speak. The sterner
self of the populace likes bawling, hustling, and smashing, the
lighter self beer. But in each class they are borne

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a certain number of natures with a curiosity about their
best self, with a bent for seeing things as they are,
for disentangling themselves from machinery, for simply concerning themselves with
reason and the will of God, and doing their best
to make these prevail, for the pursuit in a word
of perfection. To certain manifestations of this love for perfection,

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mankind have accustomed themselves to give the name of Genius,
implying by this name something original and heaven bestowed in
the passion. But the passion is to be found far
beyond those manifestations of it to which the world usually
gives the name of genius, and in which there is,
for the most part a talent of some kind or other,
a special and striking faculty of exca secution, informed by

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the heaven bestowed ardor or genius. It is to be
found in many manifestations besides these, and may best be called,
as we have called it, the love and pursuit of perfection, culture,
being the true nurse of the pursuing love, and sweetness
and light the true character of the pursued perfection. Natures
with this bent emerge in all classes, among the barbarians,

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among the philistines, among the populace. And this bent always tends,
as I have said, to take them out of their class,
and to make their distinguishing characteristic, not their barbarianism or
their philistinism, but their humanity. They have, in general a
rough time of it in their lives, but they are
sown more abundantly than one might think. They appear where

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and when one least expects it. They set up a
fire which enfilades, so to speak, the class with which
they are ranked. And in general, by the extrication of
their best self as the self to develop, and by
the simplicity of the ends fixed by them as paramount,
they hinder the other checked predominance of that class life,
which is the affirmation of our ordinary self, and seasonably

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disconcert mankind in their worship of machinery. Therefore, when we
speak of ourselves as divided into barbarians, philistines, and populace,
we must be understood always to imply that within each
of these classes there are a certain number of aliens,
if we may so call them, persons who are mainly
led not by their class spirit, but by a general

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humane spirit, by the love of human perfection, And that
this number is capable of being diminished or augmented. I mean,
the number of those who will succeed in developing this
happy instinct will be greater or smaller in proportion both
to the force of the original instinct within them and
to the hindrance or encouragement which it meets with from without.

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In almost all who have it, it is mixed with
some infusion of the spirit of an ordinary self, some
quantity of class instinct, and even as has been shown,
of more than one class instinct at the same time,
so that in general the extrication of the best self
the predominance of the humane instinct will very much depend
upon its meeting or not with what is fitted to

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help and elicit it. At a moment. Therefore, when it
is agreed that we want a source of authority, and
when it seems probable that the right source is our
best self, it becomes of vast importance to see whether
or not the things around us are, in general such
as to help and elicit our best self, and if
they are not, to see why they are not, and

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the most promising way of mending them. Now it is
clear that the very absence of any powerful authority amongst us,
and the prevalent doctrine of the duty and happiness of
doing as one likes and asserting our personal liberty, must
tend to prevent the erection of any very strict standard
of excellence, the belief in any very paramount authority of
right reason, the recognition of our best self as anything

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very recondite and hard to come at. It may be,
as I have said, a proof of our honesty that
we do not attempt to give to our ordinary self,
as we have it in action, predominant authority, and to
impose its rule upon other people. But it is evident
also that it is not easy, with our style of proceeding,
to get beyond the notion of an ordinary self at all,

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or to get the paramount authority of a commanding best
self or right reason recognized. The learned Martinez scribleus Well says,
the taste of the Bathos is implanted by nature itself
in the soul of man, till perverted by custom or
example he is taught, or rather compelled, to relish the Sublime.
But with us everything seems directed to prevent any such

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perversion of us by custom or example, as might compel
us to relish the Sublime. By all means, we are
encouraged to keep our natural taste for the Bathos unimpaired.
I have formerly pointed out how in literature the absence
of any authoritative center like an academy, tends to do this.
Each section of the public has its own literary organ

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and the mass of the public is without any suspicion
that the value of these organs is relative to their
being nearer a certain ideal center of correct information, taste,
and intelligence, or further away from it. I have said
that within certain limits which any one who is likely
to read this will have no difficulty in drawing for
himself my old adversary, the Saturday Review may on matters

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of literature and taste be fairly enough regarded relatively to
a great number of newspapers which treat these matters as
a kind of organ of reason. But I remember one's
conversing with a company of nonconformist admirers of some lecturer
who had let off a great firework which the Saturday
Review said was all noise and false lights, and feeling

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my way as tenderly as I could about the effect
of this unfavorable judgment upon those with whom I was conversing. Oh,
said one who was the spakesman, with a most tranquil
air of conviction. It is true the Saturday Review abuses
the lecture, But the British Banner, I am not quite
sure it was the British Banner, but it was some
newspaper of that stap says that the Saturday Review is

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quite wrong. The speaker had evidently no notion that there
was a scale of value for judgments on these topics,
and that the judgments of the Saturday Review ranked high
on this scale and those of the British Banner low.
The taste of the bathos implanted by nature in the
literary judgments of man, had never, in my friend's case,
encountered any let or hindrance. Just the same in religion

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as in literature, we have most of us little idea
of a high standard to choose our guides by, of
a great and profound spirit, which is an authority, while
inferiors spirits are none. It is enough to give importance
to things that this or that person says them decisively
and has a large following of some strong kind when
he says them. This habit of ours is very well

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shown in that able and interesting work of mister Hepworth
Dixon's which we were all reading lately, The Mormons by
one of themselves. Here again, I am not quite sure
that my memory serves me as to the exact title,
but I mean the well known book in which mister
Hepworth Dixon describe the Mormons and other similar religious bodies
in America with so much detail, in such warm sympathy.

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In this work, it seems enough for mister Dixon that
this or that doctrine has its rabbi who talks speak
to him, has a staunch body of disciples, and above
all has plenty of rifles. That there are any further
stricter tests to be applied to a doctrine before it
is pronounced important never seems to occur to him. It
is easy to say, he writes of the Mormons, that
these saints are dupes and fanatics. To laugh at Joe

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Smith and his church. But what then, the great facts
remain young and his people are at Utah, a church
of two hundred thousand souls an army of twenty thousand rifles.
But if the followers of a doctrine are really dupes
or worse, and its promulgators are really fanatics or worse,
it gives the doctrine no seriousness or authority. The more
that there should be found two hundred thousand souls, two

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hundred thousand of the innumerable multitude, with a natural taste
for the Bathos to hold it, and twenty thousand rifles
to it, and again of another religious organization in America.
A fair and open field is not to be refused.
When hosts so mighty throw down wager of battle on
behalf of what they hold to be true, half a
strange their faith may seem. A fair and open field

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is not to be refused to any speaker. But this
solemn way of heralding him is quite out of place,
unless he has for the best reason and spirit of
man some significance well, But says mister Hepworth Dixon, a
theory which has been accepted by men like Judge Edmunds,
Doctor Here, Elder Frederick Can, Professor Bush, and again, such are,

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in brief the basis of what Newman Weeks, Sarah Horton,
Deborah Butler, and the Associated Brethren proclaimed in Rault's Hall
as the New Covenant. If he was summing up an
account of the teaching of Plato or Saint Paul, mister
Hepworth Dixon could not be more earnestly reverential. But the
question is, have personages like Judge Edmunds and Newman Weeks,
and Elderess Polly and Elderess Antoinette, and the rest of

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mister Hepworth Dixon's hearers and her terrans anything of the
weight and significance for the best reason and spirit of
man that Plato and Saint Paul have. Evidently they are
present have not, and a very small taste of them
and their doctrines ought to have convinced mister Herpeth Dixon
that they never could have. But says he, the magnetic
power which Shakerism is exercising on American thought, would of

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itself compel us. And so on. Now, as far as
real thought is concerned, thought which affects the best reason
and spirit of man, the scientific thought of the world,
the only thought which deserves speaking of in this solemn way.
America has up to the present time been hardly more
than a province of England, and even now would not
her self claim to be more than a breast of England.

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And of this only real human thought. English thought itself
is not just now, as we must all admit one
of the most significant factors. Neither then can American thought be.
And the magnetic power which Shakerism exercises on American thought
is about as important for the best and spirit of
man as the magnetic power which mister Murphy exercises on

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Birmingham Protestantism. And as we shall never get rid of
our natural taste for the Bathos and religion, never get
access to a best self and right reason which may
stand as a serious authority. By treating mister Murphy as
his own disciples treat him seriously, and as if he
was as much an authority as any one else, so

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we shall never get rid of it. While our able
and popular writers treat their Joe Smiths and Deborah Butlers
with their so many thousand souls and so many thousand rifles,
in the like exaggerated and misleading manner, and so do
their best to confirm us in a bad mental habit
to which we are already too prone. End of Chapter three,

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Part one,