Read Ebook: Mr. Belloc still objects to Mr. Wells's Outline of history by Belloc Hilaire

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 241 lines and 18546 words, and 5 pages

PAGE INTRODUCTION vii

INTRODUCTION

I examined this production for the benefit of my co-religionists in the columns of certain Catholic papers. I did full justice to Mr. Wells's talents as a writer, but I exposed his ill acquaintance with modern work on Biology, with early Christian writing and tradition, with Christian doctrine itself: and, in general, his incompetence.

That book denies a creative God. There is no God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth. The Incarnation is a myth; the Resurrection a falsehood; the Eucharist a mummery.

Probably Mr. Wells is thus infuriated, not only at being exposed, but also because he cannot understand how such an assault upon religious truth should possibly provoke resentment; yet I think I can explain the thing to him by a parable.

Supposing that a man were to attack the Royal Family, and His Majesty in particular, jeering at the functions which monarchy performs for the State and holding up the King of England to contempt.

Mr. Wells would be the first to admit that a man so misbehaving himself would receive very hard knocks indeed. He would be called severely to account on all sides. It would be said that his spite arose from some personal grievance against the Great; that he thus relieved his soreness at feeling himself socially neglected, and so on. He might justify himself as a martyr in the cause of political duty, but he would be a fool if he did not look out for squalls.

I should, no doubt, greatly increase the circulation of this little pamphlet of mine were I to season it with those offensive references to personal habits and appearance which are now fashionable between contemporaries. But I do not aim at any large circulation, beyond that reasonable amount which will secure my being heard by the people whose attention is worth having.

Invective such as Mr. Wells substitutes for argument is wholly irrelevant. When you are discussing the competence of a man to write history, it is utterly meaningless to throw about the jeers of the gutter on his dress, accent or any other private detail concerning him. If you discover a man pretending to write about Roman antiquity and yet wholly blind to the effect of Latin literature, you rightly point out his ignorance. But it is not to the purpose to accuse him of having a round face or a thin voice. Indeed, were invective my object , I should rather have answered in verse as being the more incisive and enduring form.

If it be a test of literary victory over an opponent to make him foam at the mouth, then I have won hands down; but I do not regard Mr. Wells as my opponent, nor am I seeking any victory. I am simply taking a book which proposes to destroy the Faith of Christian men by the recital of pretended history, and showing that the history is bad. While praising many qualities in the book, I point out with chapter and verse that the history is uninformed. That is my point and my only point.

Now that I have made it, I hope, quite clear that I am neither interested in Mr. Wells's personalities nor intend to go one better upon them, but to deal strictly with things capable of argument and intelligent examination, let us cut the cackle and come to the horses.

Mr. Wells's pamphlet against me, to which I am here replying, is a web of six elements. These are not put in any regular order, and the author himself would probably not be capable of analysing them; but a competent critic has no difficulty in separating them one from the other.

They are:--

I will deal with these six matters which build up Mr. Wells's pamphlet, taking them in the order I have given.

MR. WELLS'S GENERAL GRIEVANCES

I cannot pretend in so short a pamphlet as this to deal with all the separate lamentations with which Mr. Wells has filled the air. But I can state the principal of them, and try to make him understand how wrong-headed he is in his objections.

Of these general points, the first and, perhaps, most important is that he was refused a right of reply. On page v of his pamphlet he distinctly insinuates that I was afraid of hearing his reply, and had it suppressed. For he says that the Editor of the paper in which my articles appeared would not give him his opportunity, and that he so refused "after various consultations with Mr. Belloc."

As to the space which was offered, and the exceptional facilities which, I understand, were granted to this angry man, the Editor must, of course, speak for himself, and has, I believe, done so. But as to the part which I took, it can be stated very simply. I was told by the Editor that Mr. Wells desired to reply in the same columns in which he had been criticised. I was asked what my attitude was in the matter, and I affirmed in the strongest fashion my belief that the fullest right of reply should always be given to anyone criticised on matters of fact or judgment. The interview did not last ten minutes, but, to give a record of my attitude, I wrote a strong and clear letter to the same effect. So far as I am concerned I asked for nothing better than a reply, and I believe the Editor offered it.

Of two things, one, either Mr. Wells knew my attitude, in which case his insinuation is inexcusable, or he did not, in which case it was only rash; but at any rate he is, in this first grievance of his, quite wrong. I particularly wanted him to have every opportunity for reply. Nothing could suit me better.

Next he complains that I have not given him sufficient praise, or, at any rate, not praised him as continuously, highly and enthusiastically as I ought to have done. He complains that I only give him "slow" and "formal compliments" and "patronising praise" .

He is wounded because I accuse him of violent antagonism to the Catholic Church .

He indignantly repudiates any bias against the gentry in history--which social class I ask him to revere.

Lastly, he accuses me of using such terms about many passages in the History as "ignorant," "childish," "confused."

I am afraid it is necessary before touching on these grievances to explain to Mr. Wells what criticism is, for it is clear that he has never considered the nature of that literary function.

When you criticise the writing of a man who deals with definite facts and the conclusions to be drawn from them, it is your business to praise what is praiseworthy in his effort, and to condemn what is insufficient, false or bad.

You do not praise simply as a sort of sop or counterbalance to blame; you praise because you find things worthy of praise--and you blame where you find things worthy of blame.

There was nothing oily or patronising, nor even adventitious and artificial in the praise which I saw fit to offer. It was not vague, it was very definite, and, I think, just. Moreover, it was very strong praise, of which any writer might be proud at the hands of a colleague. I praised Mr. Wells's lucidity and economy of manner, his sense of proportion, and, above all, his most remarkable talent for presenting a vivid picture to the reader. In this my words were, "None of our contemporaries possesses it" "in anything like the same degree." In other words, I said that he possessed a talent of the most important literary kind, which any writer would envy, and that he possessed it in a degree which made him superior to any contemporary.

I also said that he was conspicuously sincere, that he wrote very clearly, with an "excellent economy in the use of words," and was unreserved in my hearty appreciation of his accuracy in details of reference, such as dates, spelling of names, etc.

I went on to say how strongly he felt the importance of history to mankind, though it is true that I qualified this by saying that by mankind he meant the only sort of mankind he knew. I said of his honesty of purpose, "that it was a quality apparent in every line of the work."

Really, if that sort of thing is "oiliness," Mr. Wells must be very difficult to please! It may be "slow"; it is not a torrent of undiscriminating adulation; it is mixed with justified blame. But it is such a catalogue of remarkable literary powers as I would not make for another writer.

I did much more than this. I specifically praised whole portions of the book as being quite excellent, notably his handling of the story of language, and the pr?cis on many sections of history. I have no space here to give a list of the passages in which I compliment him; but they are numerous, as any one of my readers will see when my book shall appear.

But he is not satisfied; and I am afraid the truth must be that these recent large, popular circulations of his have gone to his head, and now make him think himself much more talented than he is.

Next he has a grievance which I have no doubt is quite sincere in his own mind, but which any impartial observer, I think, would smile at. I have said that he acts with violent antagonism to the Catholic Church, and I have called that his motive. That it is his motive Mr. Wells "earnestly denies."

Now what Body is it which maintains in their entirety the doctrines thus attacked? Can anyone deny that it is the Catholic Church? Many of them have been held by other Bodies schismatical or heretical to it, and therefore the doctrines are often alluded to as those not of the Catholic Church, but of a vague entity, impossible to define, called "Christianity." Nevertheless, we all know that the denial to-day of those doctrines does not provoke determined resistance in any large organised Body outside the Catholic Church.

Apart from this, there are expressions of contempt which quite clearly show the rabidness of the author's reaction against the Creed. There is no doubt at all that the Church makes him "see red"--as she does so many others.

He says he is not conscious of any such motive in attacking all the prime dogmas of the Christian Faith.

Well, I will give him a parallel. Suppose a foreigner were to write an Outline of Nineteenth Century History, and to say in it that Islanders were always rascals, that the love of sport and games was degrading--and particularly vicious that of football and cricket--that the English language was an offensive vehicle of thought and had produced nothing worthy; that sea-power was a myth, and that Nelson in particular was a bungler at handling ships; that the administration of India was a failure and a crime; and that the creation of large Overseas Colonies from the Mother Country was a fatuous experiment.

Should we not say that the gentleman had some bias against England?

Were he to tell us that he was not conscious of such a motive, we should answer, "Very well, then, you aren't--since you say so. But the motive is certainly there, and your case is the most extraordinary case of the subconscious ever presented to a bewildered onlooker."

Next, Mr. Wells objects most emphatically that I have done him the grievous wrong of calling him a patriot.

I am quite willing to withdraw the words, to admit my blunder, and to apologise to Mr. Wells for having made it. Every man is the judge of his own thoughts, and if he assures me that he hates his country, or is even indifferent to its fate, I will readily accept the statement. I will substitute in my book for the word "patriot" the word "national," my only point being that Mr. Wells is highly local in his outlook. I was careful to say that the patriotic motive was, in my opinion, an advantage to the historian; but that its great danger was limitation, and that in the particular case of Mr. Wells the limitation was so narrow as to be disastrous to a general view of Europe: making him unable to understand anything that was not of his own particular suburban world.

He is wounded because I pointed out his odd reaction against the idea of a gentleman, and his dislike of the gentry, and says that I bid him "revere" them. I never asked him to do anything so silly as to revere the gentry. I am sure I do not revere them myself. What I did say was that it weakened an historian and pretty well put him out of court when he wrote, not with balanced judgment, but negatively, out of hatred; and that piece of criticism I must maintain.

Now for the condemnatory words to which he objects,--presumably on account of their force--words which I have, indeed, used in connection with his work, and shall certainly use again: such words as "ignorance," "blunders," "childish," "unscientific," etc. I see I must again explain to Mr. Wells an obvious principle in criticism which he fails to grasp. A word is not out of place in criticism unless it is either irrelevant or false in statement or in degree. The mere strength of a word does not put it out of court. On the contrary, if the strength of the word is exactly consonant to the degree of error noted the criticism is more just than if a milder word had been used. To say that a man who poisons his mother in order to obtain her fortune is "reprehensible" is bad criticism. To call him an "inhuman criminal" is sound criticism.

I must not fill the whole of this little reply of mine with a mass of quotation illustrating the justice of the words I have used, but I can give a few examples which are conclusive, and which the reader has only to hear to be convinced.

There is an example of ignorance on a very wide general point. Next let me give an example of a highly particular point. It is really startling in its effect.

Mr. Wells nourishes the idea that the technical name for the Incarnation is the Immaculate Conception!

It is perfectly legitimate to say that the man of average education is not bound to be familiar with technical terms in a special department, such as that of religious terminology; but when he sets out to discuss that particular department, he must at least have the alphabet of it. Had he never mentioned the Immaculate Conception at all, the accusation would not lie: as he has foolishly blundered into mentioning it, the accusation does lie. A Frenchman who has never been to England cannot be called ignorant because he is unfamiliar with the streets of London. But what of a Frenchman who writes a guide to London and mixes up Victoria Station with Buckingham Palace?

But by far the most striking example of ignorance in his work, an example upon so astonishing a scale that one could hardly believe it even of popular "scientific" stuff, is to be found in Mr. Wells's complete ignorance of the modern destructive criticism of Darwinian Natural Selection. He not only has never heard of this European, English and American work--he actually denies its existence and imagines I have made it up!

Again, I have used the word "childish" of his attitude on more than one occasion.

Is the word "childish" too strong? I will give examples. In his fury against me he suggests that I cannot "count beyond zero," and he admits, with a sneer, that I perhaps understand the meaning of the word "strata."

He tries to make capital of my giving the name of the very eminent anthropologist, E. Boule, without putting "Monsieur" before it, and says that I "elevate Monsieur Boule to the eminence of 'Boule.'" That is childish. All the world cites eminent men by their unsupported name. It is a sign of honour. For instance, that great authority, Sir Arthur Keith , says "Boule." Didn't Mr. Wells know that?

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet