The Philosophy of Sterne

OF all the classic English writers, there is no other, perhaps, who fares so hardly in the present age as Sterne. It would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that his faults, both as man and author, are the very faults for which this age has the least charity, and that his virtues, both as man and author, are those which at present are least esteemed. Sterne is undeniably loose, sometimes even indecent, in his writings, and, viewed in the light of a parish priest, he falls infinitely below what is now required of a person in that position. The Rev. Laurence Sterne probably never in his life presided at a mothers’ meeting, or held a week-day service, or fasted for the sake of religion. Moreover, Sterne’s reputation has received some savage thrusts from writers who were competent to do it great injury. Byron’s epigrammatic sentence (paraphrased from Horace Walpole), that Sterne preferred “ whining over a dead donkey to relieving the necessities of a living mother,” was as cruel as it was unjust. Its injustice is shown in Fitzgerald’s life of Sterne, and is particularly established by some recently discovered evidence,¹ Thackeray’s estimate of Sterne in his English Humourists is not so flagrantly unfair as his estimate of Dean Swift, but still it is very misleading, and doubtless it has misled many people who naturally but erroneously thought that Thackeray would treat real men as justly and discriminatingly as lie treats the unique creations of his own mind.

Above all, Sterne failed to take either himself or the world seriously ; and that, from our present point of view, is almost an unpardonable fault. If Sterne had formulated his paganism in a system, writing two or three dull, serious volumes about it; if, instead of flirting with every pretty woman who came in his way, he had simply broken two or three hearts for his own edification, after the manner of Goethe, — if such had been his course, we should find it easier to appreciate him.

For the same reason, — that is, the seriousness of the age, — even Sterne’s style, beautiful as it is, hardly suffices to redeem him. We have had, to be sure, within the past fifty years, some great examples of style in literature, such as Cardinal Newman in England, and Hawthorne in this country ; but, on the whole, style is a thing which writers have almost ceased to cultivate, and which readers do not much enjoy. If one considers the magazine and review literature of the present time, one is struck by the correctness and lucidity of the language employed, even by its conciseness, which is one element of a good style, but its dullness and uniformity are also striking. All the essays — with a few exceptions — might have been written by one man ; the personal element is entirely left out of them ; they have no spontaneity, and evince none of the joy of creation. I have a particular feeling for Sterne’s writings, because it was from him that I first obtained the notion of style as a source of pleasure in reading. I can recall the very moment when, as I began to read Tristram Shandy, it flashed across me that a written sentence might be a thing of beauty just as much as a painting, or a piece of sculpture, or a scene in nature. But in our day, neither Sterne’s style, nor his humor, nor his pathos, nor his candor outweighs bis faults. Thackeray called him “ an old scamp.” Carlyle, however, has these words about Sterne, and they fall like balm upon the wounded ears of his lovers,

Carlyle, after speaking of Swift, goes on : “ Another man of much the same way of thinking, and very well deserving notice, was Laurence Sterne. In him also there was a great quantity of good struggling through the superficial evil. He terribly failed in the discharge of his duties ; still, we must admire in him that sportive kind of geniality and affection, still a son of our common mother, not cased up in buckram formulas, as the other writers were, clinging to forms and not touching realities. And, much as has been said against him, we cannot help feeling his immense love for things around him ; so that we may say of him as of Magdalen, ‘ much is forgiven him, because he loved much.’ A good simple being after all.” ²

Was this “ good, simple being ” possessed of a philosophy ? “ It is one of the common mistakes to suppose that only learned people have a philosophy. If by philosophy we mean a theory of life, some sort of principle on which facts are arranged, then there is no one possessed of reason who has not a philosophy, no matter how unconscious of it he may be.” ³ In this sense Sterne had a philosophy, and a very real and consistent one. No man of genius, it must he admitted, was ever less given to abstract thinking than he; but in all that he did and in all that he wrote he was actuated by an underlying philosophic principle: this, namely, that the instincts of the human heart are good, and should he deferred to and cultivated. Every novelist, in especial, has a philosophy. His theme is the conduct of human life and the relations of human beings one to another; and if he treats this theme with any kind of seriousness, some philosophic principle must emerge from his works, some consistent view of human nature or some fundamental rule of conduct. It would be an interesting study to trace such rules and principles in the writings of our great novelists. Sir Henry Sumner Maine once dropped some very suggestive remarks on this score. He said : —

“ It does not seem to me a fantastic assertion that the ideas of one of the great novelists of the last generation may be traced to Bentham, and those of another to Rousseau. Dickens, who spent his early manhood among the politicians of 1832, trained in Bentham’s school, hardly ever wrote a novel without attacking an abuse. The procedure of the Court of Chancery and of the Ecclesiastical Courts, the delays of the Public Officer, the costliness of divorce, the state of the dwellings of the poor, and the condition of the cheap schools in the North of England furnished him with what he seemed to consider, in all sincerity, the true moral of a series of fictions. The opinions of Thackeray have a strong resemblance to those to which Rousseau gave popularity. It is a very just remark of Mill that the attractions which Nature and the State of Nature had for Rousseau may be partly accounted for as a reaction against the excessive admiration of civilization and progress which took possession of educated men in the earlier part of the eighteenth century. Theoretically, at any rate, Thackeray hated the artificialities of civilization, and it must be owned that some of his favorite personages have about them something of Rousseau’s natural man as he would have shown himself in real life, — something, that is, of the violent blackguard.’’

Sterne, far more than Thackeray, hated “ the artificialities of civilization,” and although his characters have nothing of “the violent blackguard ” about them, his philosophy of human conduct is substantially the philosophy of Rousseau. The two writers were contemporary, Rousseau having been born in 1712, Sterne in 1713. There is no reason to believe that Sterne ever read a line of Rousseau, but it may be that the same reactionary feeling, spoken of by Maine, affected the English novelist as well as the French philosopher. At all events, we find in Sterne’s fiction the very embodiment and concrete working out of Rousseau’s theory of human conduct. Rousseau, as the reader will not need to be reminded, declared that in the “ natural man ” there is a true instinct of pity or benevolence which guides him aright; whereas in the civilized man this instinct tends to become overlaid and stifled. “ Man has by nature.” he declares, “ one virtue only, but that one is so obvious that the greatest traducer of the human race was unable to deny its existence. I speak of pity, a quality which must needs be found in a creature who is weak and subject to a thousand ills. Pity is universal and invaluable because it is independent of reason.”

Now, let it be observed how accurately this theory is carried out in the following passage from The Sentimental Journey, which is only one of fifty passages that I might cite to the same point: —

“ Now where would be the harm, said I to myself, if I was to beg of this distressed lady to accept of half of my chaise, and what mighty mischief could ensue ? Every dirty passion and bad propensity in my nature took the alarm, as I stated the proposition. It will oblige you to have a third horse, said Avarice, which will put twenty Iivres out of your pocket. You know not what she is, said Caution, or what scrapes the affair may draw you into, whispered Cowardice. Depend upon it, Yorick, said Discretion, ‘twill be said you went off with a mistress, and came by assignation to Calais for that purpose. You can never after, cried Hypocrisy aloud, show your face in the world — or rise, quoth Meanness, in the church, or be anything in it, said Pride, but a lousy prebendary. But ’t is a civil thing, said I — and as I generally act from the first impulse, and therefore seldom listen to these cabals, which serve no purpose that I know of but to encompass the heart with adamant, I turned instantly about to the lady.”

Here we have the whole sum and substance of Rousseau’s doctrine of the natural impulses ; and there is a great deal to be said for it. In fact, a great deal lias been said for it. Darwin found in the instinct of pity the source of all morality ; and thus was speculation justified by science.

“ Mandeville,” wrote Rousseau, “ clearly saw that, with all their morality, men would never have been anything better than monsters, if nature had not given them pity in support of reason ; but he did not perceive that from this quality alone spring all those social virtues which, he contends, are unnatural to man. What are generosity, mercy, and philanthropy, but pity in its practical application to the weak, to the culpable, to humanity in general! ”

Thus Rousseau in 1760 ; and Darwin, a hundred years later, declared that “ the moral sense is fundamentally identical with the social instincts, and that the social instincts are substantially the same in all animals.”

It is true, of course, that, this doctrine of pity, of intuitive sympathy, does not furnish a perfectly satisfactory guide to conduct. Sterne’s own life is a sufficient proof of that. No man ever followed out his impulses with more fidelity, and those impulses were not always good. Pity will not keep a man out of mischief. Moreover, it is possible to disregard the voice of pity; and that, according to Rousseau, as we shall presently see, is just what the civilized man does.

Pity needs to be fortified by principle; and a character in which the instinct of pity is strong, and principle is weak, will he just such a character as Carlyle ascribed to Sterne. “ The difficulty of this sort of character,” wrote Mr. Bagehot, in his essay upon Sterne and Thackeray, “ is the difficulty of keeping it ; it does not last. There is a certain bloom of sensibility and feeling about it which in the course of nature is apt to fade soon, and which, when it has faded, there is nothing to replace. A character with the binding elements, with a firm will, a masculine understanding, and a persistent conscience, may retain and perhaps improve the early and original freshness; but a loose-set though pure character, the moment it is thrown into temptation, sacrifices its purity, loses its gloss, and gets (so to speak) out of form entirely.”

Nevertheless, the most hardened among us can discover and obey, if be will, the instinct of pity, for there is no heart without it; and in an age like the present, from which the element of spontaneity has very nearly been eliminated, it is well to remind ourselves of this primeval impulse. Nor need we be ashamed because we share it with the dumb and, as we say, soulless animals. I have seen — and I trust that the reader will not despise the humbleness of my illustration — I have seen a tiny bullterrier pup, barely old enough to toddle, run to comfort a fellow pup who cried out in distress from cold and loneliness. The instinct of pity moved this pup, and it was the same instinct that arrested the good Samaritan in his journey, and caused him to bind up the wounds of him who had fallen among thieves. Sterne’s philosophy is the glorification of this instinct. It was no sense of duty that sent Uncle Toby in haste to the bedside of the dying Le Fevre. The impulse was as natural in him as ever were hunger and thirst, and even more irresistible. Nor was it without reason that Sterne represented this spontaneous benevolence as existing in the breast of the simpleminded captain, and not in that of his clever and intellectual though somewhat fantastic brother. Here again Sterne was unconsciously illustrating the philosophy of Rousseau.

“It is only suffering in the abstract which disturbs the tranquil repose of the philosopher, or drags him at an untimely hour from his bed. You are perfectly safe in murdering your fellow-creature beneath his academic window, for he has bi;t to reason a little, covering his ears with his hands, and behold he lias stifled the natural impulse to identify himself with your victim. The savage lacks this admirable talent; being deficient in reason and sagacity, he stupidly gives himself over to sentiments of humanity. If a riot be impending in the streets, the populace assemble, but the prudent citizen takes himself off ; it is the canaille, the fisliwomen, who interfere, separate the combatants, and prevent the rogues from cutting each other’s throats.”

But this, of course, is only half true. It does not, as Rousseau implies, quite follow that the more ignorant a man is, the more he will he full of pity, the kinder and the more merciful. Nor do learning and refinement always make people selfish and cruel. However, the contradiction is only in appearance. Undoubtedly the animal instinct of pity is strongest among people who are close to nature ; that is, generally speaking, among those who are least educated or civilized. It is proverbial that such people give of their poverty more freely than the rich give of their abundance. Undoubtedly, also, learning and refinement and civilization tend to paralyze the animal instinct of pity. But in the truly civilized man the instinct of pity will be fortified by principle. Thus extremes in human nature tend to meet. Between the highest and the lowest class in any community there are many and substantial points of resemblance; whereas both these classes have much less in common with what we call the middling sort of people. It is among such people that the instinct of pity will be the weakest; it has lost its primeval strength, and it has not yet gained the strength of principle. A few years ago, a crowd of London shopkeepers, gathered in a London park, allowed a little child to drown before their eyes in the shallow waters of the Serpentine, rather than wade out to rescue it. It is safe to say that neither a patrician nor a peasant mob would have been so cold.⁴

At all events, whatever the effect of civilization upon the animal instinct of pity, this instinct is the source and basis of all benevolence; and it behooves us not to lose sight of it, nor ignorantly to substitute for it some cold and impersonal theory of almsgiving. It is the existence of this instinct which explains the charm of certain natures, the attraction—to a stranger almost unaccountable — which they have for all persons who come in contact with them. Prosper Mérimée, for example, represented the very quintessence of civilization, and of what we call, in this country, “ effete civilization.” He had probed the world, and found it hollow. He was a cynic and a pessimist. Nevertheless, those who knew him loved him, and it was because, notwithstanding his sophistications, he stood close to nature. He had the primeval instinct of pity. “ I do not like to do anything selfish or mean,” he wrote in a private letter, “ because I am bound to suffer a severe attack of remorse for it afterward.” That paints a character in which principle has been transformed into a taste, an instinct, but an instinct fortified by principle and reason.

Schopenhauer, following Rousseau, has described such a character in a passage which I cannot forbear quoting, because it puts the matter so forcibly and thoroughly : —

“ Suppose two young people, Caius and Titus, both passionately in love, and each with a different maiden. Let each one find in his way a rival, to whom external circumstances have given a very decided advantage. Both shall have made up their minds to put each his own rival out of the world, and both shall be secure against any discovery or even suspicion. But when each for himself sets about the preparations for the murder, both of them, after some inner conflict, shall give up the attempt. They shall render account to us plainly and truthfully of why they have thus decided. Now, what account Caius shall render the reader shall decide as he pleases. Let Caius ho prevented by religious scruples, by the will of God, by the future punishment, by the coming judgment, or by anything of that sort. Or let him, with Kant, say, ‘ I reflected that the maxim of my procedure, in this case, would not have been fit to serve as an universal rule for all possible rational beings, since I should have used my rival as Means, and not at the same time as End in himself.’ . . . Or let him say, after Adam Smith, ‘ I foresaw that my deed, if I did it, would arouse no sympathy with me in the spectators of the act.’ ... In short, let him say what he will. But Titus, whose account of himself I reserve for my choice, — let him say, ’When I began to prepare, and so for the moment was busy no longer with my passion, but with my rival, then it became for the first time quite clear to me what now was really to he his fate. But just here pity and compassion overcame me. I grieved for him ; my heart would not he put down ; I could not do it.’

“ I ask now every honest and unprejudiced reader, Which of the two is the better man ? To which of the two would he rather entrust his fate ? Which of them was restrained by the purer motive ? Where, therefore, lies the principle of moral action ? ” ⁵

Every one, I think, must agree with Schopenhauer that Titus is the better man, though possibly Caius may deserve the more credit. That is, the struggle was harder with Caius ; he wrestled with himself more severely before bringing himself to surrender his own impulse in deference to the moral or intellectual principle in which he believed. But at best Caius is only on the road to the goal which Titus has reached already. Caius imposes a law upon his nature; Titus follows out his own nature. Caius, I repeat, may be more deserving of reward, but Titus more nearly represents the ideal man. Titus has kept the natural instinct of pity, whereas in Caius it has perished.

In these days, Titus has almost been argued out of existence; but Caius, good, exemplary man, devotes his whole life to associated charities, coöperative societies, and schemes of moral reform. Caius, if you be hungry and your breath does not smell of liquor, will give yon a soup ticket. If you are sick and in want, he will come and investigate your “case.”If you are healthy and prosperous, he will take no interest in you. Caius neither loves much nor hates much, and therefore he excites in others neither violent love nor violent hatred. He is far from nature, and no strong impulse, good or bad, prompts him to action. He would not dash into the street to pluck you from under the wheels of a passing vehicle ; but after you had been run over, he would take measures to have you accommodated with a bed in a hospital.

Such is Caius; and here we have Titus, as Sterne depicted him : —

“ The sun looked bright the morning after to every eye in the village but Le Fevre’s and his afflicted son’s; the hand of death pressed heavy upon his eyelids, and hardly could the wheel at the cistern turn round its circle, when my Uncle Toby, who had rose up an hour before his wonted time, entered the lieutenant’s room, and, without preface or apology, sat himself down on the chair by the bedside, and, independently of all modes and customs, opened the curtain in the manner an old friend and brother officer would have done it, and asked him how he did, how he had rested in the night — what was his complaint, where was his pain, and what he could do to help him ; and without giving him time to answer any one of the inquiries, went on and told him of the little plan which he had been concerting with the corporal the night before for him. ‘ You shall go home directly, Le Fevre,’ said my Uncle Toby, ‘ to my house, and we ’ll send for a doctor to see what’s the matter, and we ’ll have an apothecary, and the corporal shall be your nurse ; and I ’ll be your servant, Le Fevre.’

“There was a frankness in my Uncle Toby — not the effect of familiarity, but the cause of it — which let you at once into his soul, and showed you the goodness of his nature. To this there was something, in his looks and voice and manner, superadded, which eternally beckoned to the unfortunate to come and take shelter under him ; so that, before my Uncle Toby had half finished the kind offers he was making to the father, the son had pressed up insensibly close to his knees, and had taken hold of the breast of his coat, and was pulling it towards him. The blood and spirits of Le Fevre, which were waxing cold and slow within him, and were retreating to their last citadel the heart, rallied back ; the film forsook his eyes for a moment; he looked up wistfully in my Uncle Toby’s face, then cast a look upon his boy, — and that ligament, fine as it was, was never broken.”

It is hard to realize that Uncle Toby never existed, — that no kind impulse ever flushed his cheek, that no tear of pity ever glistened in his eye. He lived only in the imagination of one Parson Sterne, and he illustrates the philosophy held consciously or unconsciously by that "old scamp,” as Thackeray called him.

Henry Childs Merwin.