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in the romantic line of the nineteenth century. He continues the
tradition of Coleridge and, after Coleridge, of Newman, Carlyle,
Ruskin and Matthew Arnold-the men who, in the days of Reform,
stood out, on something better than reasons of interest, against the
philosophical assumptions of materialistic Liberalism. Their very
language, if we except Carlyle's, is commemorated in his prose and
to their thought this book is the tragic coda.
A century has not seen the establishment of this line of
thought, but then neither has that same century seen the establish·
ment, though it has surely seen the dominance, of the thought it
opposed. What we see at the moment is the philosophy of material·
ism-of the Right, the Left and the Center-at war with itself.
In
that war many of our old notions have become inadequate and
many of our old alliances inoperative. We all of us, from our own
feelings, can understand Mr. Eliot when, in giving up
The Criterion
after his long editorship, he spoke of a "depression of spirits so
different from any other experience of fifty years as to be a new
emotion." But a really new emotion implies a modification of
all
other existing emotions and it requires a whole new world of intel·
lect to accommodate it. Certainly the old world of those who read
what I am now writing cannot give it room. Indeed, can we say
that that old intellectual world of ours any longer exists? Dis·
ordered as it always was, it seems now almost to have vanished.
I am far from thinking that Mr. Eliot supplies a new world,
yet in this troubled time when we are bound to think of eventual
reconstructions, I should like to recommend to the attention of
readers probably hostile to religion Mr. Eliot's religious politics.
I say no more than
recommend to the attention:
I certainly do not
recommend Mr. Eliot's ideas to the allegiance. But here we are, a
very small group and quite obscure; our possibility of action is
suspended by events; perhaps we have never. been more than vocal
and perhaps soon we can hope to be no more than thoughtful; our
relations with the future are dark and dubious. There is, indeed,
only one connection with the future of which we can be to any
extent sure: our pledge to the critical intellect. Of the critical intel·
lect a critic has said that "it must be patient and know how to wait;
and flexible and know how to attach itself to things and how to
wiihdraw from them." Perhaps Mr. Eliot's long if recalcitrant
discipleship to Matthew Arnold gives me some justification for
