Vol. I. No. r.

<ron tents. Fot>ewopd A Visionapy in Business The Fot>ce o f Habit Two Bt>owning Poems Thoughts fpom Living Wt>itePs -An Open Le tteP Music and the Religious Instinct Wit>eless Telegpaphy The Renais sance

OSlA

t~ealtst. PERTH , W.A. Jun e r, 1914.

1 2 3 3 5 5 6 8 9

JENtoriai. CowrmBUTIONS, in the nature of Essays, Poetry, Criti­

ci sms, e tc ., are cordially invited , and will appear a t the

discretion of the Ed itor .

Address : 40 I<ichardson Stree t, Perth 'IN.

All business communicati ons should be addr-essed to thd Ma11agt r , 6--J. O r·cl Street, Pe rth W . '

Su r~ scrH PTION, 3s. per· year, post fr ee.

FOREWORD.

The Press of Western Australia recognises in its columns the

claims of commerce, amusement, and sport, but there is another side o f the State 's activities which receives but scanty a ttention. This it

will be the a im of" THE I DEALIST" to foster. The policy of the paper

will be broad. Social Econom:' will rub shoulders with Sc i en~e and History, Moral Philosoph y with the Fine Arts ; the speculative witb

th e praclical. One of the greatest of idealists has said : '' 'Tis not what m an does tlnt exalts him, but what man would do," and it is in thi s spirit

that ''THE IDEALIST" is published. It aims at exp ressing the thought of

the city on vital problems, and cultivating a taste for clean and instructive

literature. Party politics and sectarian polemics will be c.- chewed , truth

will be championed and every cause that makes for social uplift heartily

espoused . The dictum that if a man cann ot reali se the id al, he can at

least ideal ise the real, will be emphasised, and the quest of all that is

elevat ing and en n obl ing encoLlraged. In s hor t, it is to the man of ideals

th at th is paper is dedicated.

2 The Idealist June, rgq

A Visionary In Business By A. T. Wreford

Twenty years ago a business man came to Perth and bought a block of land in a "mean street; the land was fiat, low-lying and surrounded by third-rate buildings ; there was nothing beautiful or impressive in the evironment, but he saw before him a "Palace Emporium" and himself an An­thony Horden, a commercial magnate in a great city. Only a "castle in the air" you will say. It was no doubt a dream-plan, but there was definite shape in it, and from that plan he workec1 to con­strust the actuality. As the artist's eye catches the tints of the sunset sky and carries them in his brain until he can transmit them to canvas, so th e mitn who saw "the giant structure growing out of air," noted the outline , and he began to lay the foundations on which the eventual superstructure might be built . Thus the vision resolved itself into r eality, and the multitude can now see what was hidden from them .

The prospector going far into the solitude of the interior saw shining metal piled up b ehind masses of rock and under heaps of dirt, when( the interpid. explorer of former year s saw only trackless wastes, and country too inhospitable for either man or beast. The golden dreams enlarged nntil they included great industrial activit ies and teeming population. These may materialise and disappear as quickly as a summer shower, but if, whUe digging in the earth, men dig also in the laboratories of science, the palaces of wealth seen in the beginning may last for an age.

The settler selecting an area in the wilderness does not content himself with a view of mighty forest trees towering above his head, nor the beautiful flora at his feet, he looks out on fi elds of ripening corn, he hears the lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep, the hum of hai·vesting ma­chinery, and the rattle of railroad traffic, taking his products to the markets of the world . He sees beauty not in what natur e is but in what nature can be made to do.

·what wonders are seen by those who looked be­yond the immediate present ! What distant voices are heard by those who listen! Jules Verne saw the subm arine thirty years before engineering skill mac1e it an accomplished fact. Dick Whit­tington heard the bells announce him ''Thrice Lord Mayor of London" when he was yet a way­farer seeking a means of livlihood. The seer of strange things believes in what he sees, and thinks it strange that others cannot see as he see . Th ey call him "visionary" or "mad," but he perseveres, for throughout. the whole world of enterprise and business there is the view of the unreal that b·ecomes the real', the evolution of somethip.g· from the intangible haze in which ideas have their birth.

There is neither poetry nor sentiment in busi­ness, we are told. If this were t rue our "nation of shopkeeper s" would be a veritable " house of Gradgind," and commercial life nothing but a "trivial round and common task." But business is not merely cold arithmetic, it is geography, history, prophecy, art, science, mechanics. and more! The Bombay coolie handling bales of cali­co in a store sees only so many loincloths for his fellows ; he knows nothing of the cotton fields of South Carolina, the handling of the r aw pro­ducts on land and sea,_ the huge mills, the com­plicated machinery, the armies of operators em­ployed to produce that commonest of all fabrics. The intelligent handler of cotton goods pictures the negro cotton pickers in the. Southern States, envies them their simplicity of life, ponders over the racial problem, and makes a "colour" policy for his own country. He watches Wall-street op­erators gambling in 'cotton futures," hears the babel of voices at the Manchester Cotton Exchange -all this whirl of excitement caused by t he cotton pickers, or started., say, when Columbus di scoY­er ed America. How long shall Manchester be the "Cottonopolis" of the world ~ How soon will it have a rival in Madras, or Kobe, or Canton~

·what names ar e written on the scroll of fame for achievements in the spinning of cotton! How has " the King delighted to honour" men who have invented machinery or controlled great enter­prises; what problems are presented by the huge army of operatives, young, but prematur ely old, and aged but half developed, who toil for a scanty sustenance in this great industry~

From the days when the "ship of the d-esert" carried t he merchandise of the civilised nations, and Britain was a "~na incognita," commerce has so developed that the mighty fleets of the world can now scarcely keep pace with the de­mands of the world 's mer chandise. In the great industries of production, manufacture and distri­bution, science, art, and mechanical skill of the highest ord-er are pressed into service. Who call s it "common trade"~ In every article we handle there sparkles a romance, and in many there lurks a tragedy! From all this we argue that busin&,,. or commerce is not a mere machine for supplying t he material r eqmrements of mankind, nor yet a soul-less monster tha.t devours human beings. If beyond the " buying and selling and getting gain" there be not some beneficient intent; if we see not in our ventures some service to mankind ; if we enter into business merely to get a living or to make rnone'y, and have no vision of the great cycl<~ of contributors, each dependent on his fellows if we have no thought of gathering a band of wil: ling helpers and enabling them to establish them­selve~ in happy homes; if we have no idea of mak­ing conditions of life easier, then we are condemn­ing ourselves to a bondage worse than slavery and a life that is b ut death. '

Jun e r , I 9 I4 The Idealist 3

The Force of Habit. By E.

Few o£ us quit e realise how mu ch uur lives are controlled by the !or ce of habit . But for this , life would be hopelessly chaotic. Habit. is a conservative for ce. No matter how genuine a young man's radicalism may be, be cann ot. avoid getting used to living in a, regular way, and t hi s very regulari ty carries him inevitably in to ::t

?enuine conservatism long before he realises what IS t aking place. His first awakening will occur when he finds himself in hostility to ' some new school or par ty which has arisen , and which has the effrontery to dub him a r eact ionary. Names may vary ; but the !acts rema in much the sam e from age to age. It is astonishing how litt le th e fixed ha.bits o£ liie embodied in cus tom, dogma, and proper ty, are modified by successive genera­tJ~n s. Youth presses vainly again st th e inert ia uf ~tddle age, whose ranks it must i tself augment , m the co urse of nature, before many years have passed. iVIoreover, the r egular routine and fixed order already esta.blished alone save the vital forces of you th from hopeless di ssipat ion. Radi­calism can only pr osper in an order ed environment alt·cac.ly cont roll ed by the conservative fo rce of habit.

Societies of men established on an artificial basis exh ibit th e opera tion of this force in many surprising ways . For example, a society of free-thinkers is form ed to burst. up an effete ortho­doxy and liberate th e human mind. But, in a ".ery shor t h me, you notice that i ts membe~·s are ?Ircling r ound a very l imited compass o£ fixed Ideas, and be!ore long the movement has degene­~·ated into a stagnant backwash. A trades union IS establish ed to battle for progressive industrial reform, an d, !or a time, serves i ts end ; but , be­f?re long, i t may become a conservative institu· hon, hidebound in i ts own m les and principles, a menace to liberty. All organisations which, not co~ tent with enshr in ing principles , look to legis­la Lton as ti1e be all and end all, and worship rules and regulations, ar e really, though th ey kn ow it not, essentially conservative, and the blind slaves of custom.

Spirit alone is fr ee. Ethical principles and religious faiths will always appear t o the practical man vague and illusive, just because they deal with the vital phenomena of life. An ethic which d~~?end s to prescribe rules !or conduct, a religion "· n ~c'R. . dictat es fo rm s of belief and worship, stulti­fi es i tself.

Of all human in stitutions, the family is the best ex:l,Jon ent of t he id eal of fr eedom, becau se it s on ly l.aw an d rule is the parenta.l and fil ial love, which Is its !oundation. It follows that th e state m Which the fa mily fl ourishes best approximates

most closely to t he liberty which we all seek after. Such a line of thought provides a eri te1ion for es tima ting the control which in st i tutions shou!d be allowed t o exercise over life. The lover of liber ty mus t always be prepared to struggle a '5ainst t he encroachment of mech an ical systems dominated by the law of habi t. Wherever t heir ru les hamper him in doing what he is convinced is tru <> , and in giving expression to t he love whic;1 is the foundation of his home life, it is time to be on hi s guaJ.·d. In such a. case alone is be justified in resor ting to extreme measures, for life itseH is at stake and a ll that makes l ife worth living.

Two Browning Poems. By J. Livingston.

Browning is th e most original of modern Eng­lish poets. There is a sense in which all great pcets are original, but Browning is not only original, he is uniqu e. Shakespeare may be com­par ed with Ben Jonson, Mil ton with Wor ds­worth, and Burns with Shelly, but wi th whom can we compare Browning? If he were not so super­lat ively great he would be odd, t o such an extent does his uniqueness go, and in spite. of his mag­nificen t genius there can be no doub t that hi s peculiarities repel man y readers. Hi s poetry is deficient in those ou tward ornaments of style and structure which a re so attractive to th e majority. It is also full of abstrac t thought and metaphysi­cal subtleties obscurely expressed, and conse ­quently ma,ny who have begun hopefully in the study of his works, grow weary and ult imately give up in despair.

In spi te of it s faults, Brownin g's poetry will probably yield a ri cher reward to the perseverin g student than that of any other modern ba.rd. Two of his most attractive poems are "An E pistle Containing the Strange iVIedical Experi ence of Karshish, the Arab Physician" and "Pippa. P asses ." Kan,hish was travelling in Palest ine hortly a.fter the Crucifixi on, and in the course of his wander­ings he met Lazarus. His meeting with such an in teresting per sonality so much impressed him that he felt bound to communicate hi s experi ence to his fri end and master , Abib. H e describes Lazarus thus : " 'Tis but a case of mania ; and , first, t he man's own firm conviction r ests t hat he was dead (in fact, t hey buried. him), that he was dead and then r estored t o life by a Nazaren ~) physician o£ his tribe."

H e then proceeds t o describe the peculiar char­acter of Lazarus, referring inciden tally to t he str a.nge belie£ th at he had been dead, and reveal­ing with marvellous imaginat ion t he view of life taken by a man wil o had r isen from the dead. jn the eyes of this Lazarus, who knows God 's secret ,

4 The Idealist

th e [act that Rome is on the march lo stRmp out like a svark b.is town, hi s tribe, and his ctazy tale . is oE small account. ·wherea.s the sigh t of ;tts

ch ild do ing something wrong starl'les him t0 an agony of fear, and this makes Karsh ish remark : -

"The m an is wit le• of th e Rize, t he surn, 'J'h e valne in proport ion of al l t11 ino-s Or whether it be little or be much.

0

'

Onl,y impatient, .l et him do hi s best, At tgno rance a.nd carelessness and sin. "

The concluding lines of the noem are extremerv fine, and suggest to us the fRc't that Ka.rsh isb ba-, been more deeply influenced by Laza.ru s than b e' cares to admit, for, aEter apologising for dwe!Lng unduly long on the maniac's case, be returns ~ o i t a.gain and finishe s with this splendid outburst : --

"The very God 1 think, Abib; do t thou think? So, the all-great, were t he all--lov ing too-So, through the thunder comes a human voice Saying, 'O h hear t I made, a heart beats here. lr'ace, my hand s fashioned, see 1t in myself, Thou hast no power nor may'st conceive of mine, l3ut love 1 gave t hee, wit,h illyself to love, And thou must love me who have di ed for thee !' T he madman saitl: He sa id f.O : it is strange."

To imagine so skilfully, and r.arrate so beaut.­fully how a man would be likely to feel and act after rising from the dead is a vreat ~ 1 rok ~ of genius, and to put all th is in the form oi a letter wri tten by au Amb physic ia-n, in the most nacura l manner possible, is so thorough ly cri~ · q~ J that. only Br owning could have done it.

This poem illustiates Browning's gre~:: {lower of t·akiJ>g any given period in history and crea-ii1rg characters who Ji ve, and move, and ha.ve their being in the time in which he has placed them . Karshish writes his letter just. a::; we might sup pose an Arab phys ician of his clay would , and this rare faculty of portraying to t he life all classes of nren and women belon ging to sundry periods of history is possessed by Browning to a greater degree, proba.bly, than by a.ny other English poet with the single exception. of Shakespeare.

"P ippa Passes" is no t only one .;f the most de­ligh tful of Browning's poems, but. may fairly be term ed one of the most attractive in English li terature. It is 'free from most of his peculi:ll' fault s, an d r ich in passages desctiptive of rJaturc . It also throbs with a passionate in terest in hu­man i ty f1·om beginning to encl. The heroine of the roem is P ippa, a young Italian girl, who earn,; her living by \VOiking in the silk m~lls of Asolo . She Jus ooe holiday, and one on ly, in the wbolo year, aml the poem begins with a mn.gnificent description of daybreak as; it appeared to Pippa on the morning of her holiday . This li t tle silk­weaver is one of tb e most captiva ting creatioJJ · th at ever emanated from poet's brain. Full c f gi rlish life and innocence, she cannot fail to win the admiration of the most cynical reader. She is perfectly natural in all her words and actions, and her eager desire to make the most of h er

precious holiday is brought ou t by the poet with the utmost felicity and charm. Girl-like, .t>ip}li:L contrasts herself with Asolo's four happiest on,~s in the following lines :-

"To-monow I must be P ippa, who w iJl d~ silk The whole ye~cl' round , to earn just bread and miilr. l3u.t this one day I have leave to go And ph y out ·my fan cies fullest games I mtty fancy a ll d~.y-and it shall be so That I taste of the pleasu res, urn c:dled by the nan.cs Of the happiest four in Asolo."

The happi esl; four, according to Pippa, arc Ottima, wife of Luca, owner of L:1e mills, faithless to her husband, and in love wi lh Sebald ; J ule;;, t he artist, and Phene, his bride; Luigi, a young revolntionary, and his mother; and Monsignor the priest.

Browning, with superb dramatic skill shows u..: the ac LuRl condi cion of the happiest four, an d h ow utterly im aginary is P ippa's estimate concerning t hem. Indeed it becomes quite evident t hat Pippa is r eally, though quite unconsciously, t h e happiest oi t h em all. An important feature of the poem is the influence exerted unawares by Pippa on the lii·es of the happiest four through the snatches of song vhich she sings as sh e passes gleefully along the streets. The best known of these is the following gell: :-

"The yen r 's at the spring, The day's at the morn, Morning's at seven, The hillside's dew P.earled , The hrk's on the wing, The snail' s on the th01·n, God 's in His heaven , All's right with the world.

This song of childlike exultation, which could only come from the glad hear t of an innocent maiden full of the joy of life at its spring, fell on the ears of the guilty Ottima a.nd Sebald, and convinced them of the heinousness of th eir sin.

If Browning had written nothing else but " Pippa Passes," h e would by th at poem alone have won an end uri:Jg phce in the literature of our n::ttion . 'Ehe character of P ippa is one of those pl'icelcss products of genins, which manki:n rl will not soon let die.

Do not give, but lend yourself to business.­SK:s-ECA.

I occasiona·Jly meet with young men in whom I see nothing I could wish a.ltered or improved ; nevertheless, I feel anxiou s when I see them thoroughly able to swim wi.th the current of the times; and I am continually impelled to call th eir attent·i.on to the fact .that man, in his i1 ai l boat, had the rudder placed in hi s hands in order too t he mi!5ht not allow himself to be swayed by ch ance currents, but by the dictates of hi s juclgment .­Gm:Tm:.

The idealist

Thoughts from Living Writers. I . - Gilbert Keith Chesterton

No man has laughed at anything till he f1as laughed at. himself.

A revolution is a better thing than a routine.

Every man is idealistic ; only it so often happens that he has the wrong ideal.

It _is, perhaps, the st.rongest mark of th -~ dtvm1 ty of ma.n that he talks of this world as ·'a. strange world" tf10ugh he has seen no other.

~ youth of common courage does not fear any­thmg violent, but he is in mortal fear of anything correct.

. The essential of Dickens' character was the con­JUnction oi corrunon sense with uncommon sensi­bility.

Streets Rre no t life, cities and civilizations a.r ~ not life, faces even and voices are not life itseH. ~Ife is with in, and no man hath seen it at any time.

Much of our modP-'"11 difficulty, in religion an,/ other things, arise merely from this; that we con­fuse i.he word "indefinable" with the word "vague."

I'Ve have no great men chiefly because we arc: a.lways looking for them .

The vices are strangely in league, and encourage each other. A sober man may become a drunk­ard through being a coward . A bra-ve man may become a coward through being a drunkard.

The practical weakness of the vast mass of mo­d_ern pity for the poor and the oppressed is pre­Cisely that it s merely pity; the pity is pitiful but not respectful.

There is another proverb, "As you have mad0 Your bed so you must lie on it," which again is 81illp]y a lie. If I have made my bed uncom · fortable, please God I will make it again.

1'~1ere is more simplicity in the man wi10 eats cav1ar on impulse than in the man who eats grape­nuts on principle.

Thoroughly worldly people never understand even th world · they rely aito(Tether on a fe,v cynical maxims ~vhich are not ti;e.

h Man mu st have just enough faith in himself to ave adventures, and just enough doubts of him­

self to enjoy them.

History does not consist of completed and c~·umbling ruins; rather it consists of half-bi1ilt VIllas, abandoned by a bankrupt builder. This ~orld is more like an unfinjshed suburb than a

eserted cemetery.

An Open Letter to the Commissioner of Police.

Sir:

Yours is a high office ; and, like many a 1; o ther high office, it is a difficult. on e. We feat' that too often you have been mercilessly crit-icised for failing to do what was no t in yonr power to do. vVe refuse to be of that pa.rty. It is but fair lo recognise the limitations of your office, and yet, at the same time, to eneom·age you to use yol:r fullest powers. I'Ve take the view that the vety difficulty o:f your office entitles you to the loyal support of every good citizen, and every good paper, and every good organ isation in the Janel. If we may say so without being misund erstood , we as5ure you, Sir, that this paper stands for the support of every righteous law, and of every officer of the Crown as he seeks to administer . the law, believing t-hat "the powers that be ar(' ordained of God ." It is surely this that give~ digni ty to yom office-tiiat you a.re cruled to exer­cise a God-given power, the power of constituted authority; and it is just there that your respon ­sibility lies. In the bearing of that responsibilitv. if not in the exercise of that power, we claim ! o have a part, and to a.ct in concert wi th you. In brief, if it is your work to act, it is ours to see that you do not act in vain.

In t-hat brotherly spiri t-, then , will you allow w: to bring to your notice some sta-tements which appeared r ecently in the daily press. They are the remarks of Mr. A. S. Roe, P.M., in a. recent case in which he censured a Perth licensee very severely, and censured him, t oo, as one of a .. clS~- ss . We believe that Mr. Roe would be the firllt to disclaim ascetic or Puritanical prejudices, and therefore his words become an indictment worthy of attention.

One of your youn gest aJ:td most zealous con­stables, recognisinn- our con;mon re ·ponsibility, visited a c0.rta in hot-el as the Act gives him power to do, and found a befuddled man leaning l lp

against the ba.r to keep himself from fallin g. Be­fore him was a. glass hPJ£ full of beer. He was arrested, for his own safety, and the licensee was prosecuted 1\.nd fined under section 112 of the I~icensing Act, after putting up a most weak and absurd defence. Mr. Roe said thaL the evidence was abunda.ntly clear th at the man was drunk. That kind oE thino- i ~, unfortunately, very co 1J­mon, but we were ashamed to see i t said tha •;; "There is not one single liotel where you will no t see drunken men go into a bar and be served with li({uor ." Did Mr. Roe speak truth? We ba ve seen no denial of it, and that con;firms our ·, own experience that he was stat-ing facts. Now,. Sir, these th ings ought not so to be. There is a sense in whicli we cannot expect hotel-keepers and

6 The Idealist June r, 19r4

barmen to refuse drink in such cases. Their own selfish interests are all the while pulling the other way. But the question is : What can we do to preven t it- we who stand for law and orded W e canno t agree with the evil; we cannot wink 1t it; we cannot tolerate it, and at the same tim '=! satisfy our conscience.

All the criticism we offer, Sir, is directed against the law-breakers. Vve shall always speak out as opportunity offers, regardless of the position of the offenders. But we want to do more than tallc and write; if need be we want to co-operate with you for our country's good, and for our own respect and peace.

Vve a.re, Sir, Yours respectfully,

"THE IDEALIST. "

Music and the Religious Instinct. · By Albert Komweibel.

Luther exclaimed with enthusiasm: "Music is the art of the prophets, the only art which can calm the agitation oE the soul, " and he won the thanks of his nation by securing in religious music a proud place for the German chorale. The new churches that grew out of the movements of his time were at one with the shaken Holy See in acknowledging the place of music in religion. This place has been won in the rites of Pagan, J ew, and Christian. Wherein lies the appositeness of music to man's aspirations ?

The genesis of music is shrouded in theorisings. Some see in the rough shouts of prehistoric ma-n the germs from which were form ed sounds, u ~ tered to please the ear as much as to serve as signa 1s. Others contend that man's earliest essays in music were imitations of nature, or yet again, tha.t music originated in the v. leal utterances prompted by amatory feeling:. A more plausible explanation, it appears to me, is contained in Herbert Spencer's much discussed essay on "The Origin a.nd Func­tions oE Music." H e opens with a desc1iption of the movements of a dog, as his hopes of being unchained by his approaching master and taken for a. run gradually become stronger. He points in human beings, to the smile of gratified feelin; or the frown resultant, on some unpleasant thought. From these and kindred phenomena he draws th~

conclusions tha,t "all feelin12· s, .sensations or emo~ions, pleasurable or painful- have this com­mon characteristic, that they are muscular stimuli ," and that "every kind of mental excite­ment ends in excitement of the muscles, the two preserving a more or less constant ratio to each other." Spencer goes on to show that feelings demonstrate them. elves in sounds as well as in movements, and that "Variations of · voice are

the physiological result.s of variat ions of feelings. ' "What we regard as the distinc­

tive traits of song, " he says, coming to the point which I would emphasise, "are simply the trai t:; of emotional speech intensified and systematised. " Spencer's ultimate aim is to show that music grew out of speech. This theory is open to seriou:< objections, · but does not. concern us here. It does not interfere with our acceptance of the writer's point just quoted, or of the following :­"In respect of is general characteristics vocnJ music, and by consequence all music, is an ideali­sation of the natural language of passion." This last sentence lays bare one of the roots of music in religion. Religion implies worship of some kind or degree. Intimate and almost effortless aspira­tion to Divine Beauty is worship . Supreme or Divine Beauty incorporate all the good the WO ' ' ­

shipper can know. His recogni~-ion of it mnsr, evoke the highest feeliegs of which he is capabJ.~ . The right, in religion, of music, "tf1e idealisation of the natural langua.ge of passion, " IS here evident.

The na-turalness of this universal language shows itself unmistakably in the fact that when feeling within us reaches a certain degree of depth and 1<trength it naturally gives itself out in song. Elaborated art forms are but t he logical conse­quence of this phenomenon. Oratorio and operas musG be vie\cved from that standpoint. The ex­perience of a performance will usually leave on e - if the work be good- -with a sense of the con­gruousness of it s means of expression. In theorv and abstra.ct discussion, however, the question ;f

"unreality" is often raised. The m~ans of expres­sion in these forms of art a.re not those of the eve,tyday world, bu t , viewed in the light of the above-mentioned facts, the argument of "un·· reality" becomes. superficial. Music is not an offshoot of an a.rtificia.l culture, but, in the fine phrase of Balzac, "woven fr om the very bowels of nature," and thus a. fit means of expression in religion.

Wagner wrote of music that it ~ kingdom is nor of this world. Though comin g, ma.ybe, from <1 biassed source, this statement contains an import­a.nt truth. For certa-in it is that music, of all the arts, is tne most potent to express the spiritual in ma.n. The problem of its power over man's inner nature has occupied the minds of thinkera of many schools, and many centuries ; the fruits have come down to us in poets' verse and philo­sopher's b·eatise, but finality has not yet been arrived at. Certainly, if we agree with Spenc.~r that music is the " idealisation of the na.tural language of passion" we put forward a very rea­sonable solution. The thought is expressed by another writer in the question: "Does it consist in this, that music alone is capable of givin g to the simplest and most complex emotions alike, that full and satisfying expression through sound

June 1, 1914 The Idealist 7

which b · cherto it has been fo und impossible to give tr. them in ~my other way7" "Music, " says f::lper.ce r, "not only strono-ly excites our more familiar feelings, but. als~ produces feelings we never bad before, and arouses dormant sentimen ~s of which we do not know the meaning." He goes on Lo speak of "those vague feelings of unexperi.­enced felic ity- those indefinite impressions of an ·unknown ideal life which it calls up. " Ob viously, these powers of music, experienced by the layma.u a~ well as by the artist, go towards explaining its Place in religion.

We now arrive at the verge of another import­ant qLlestion, which has a very great bearing on o_u~· subject. The larger aspect of emotion in re­hgJOn cannot detain us, but the question of emo­twn bulks so largely in music and its relationship to the mind, is so much a bone of contention that we cannot pass it by in th is discussion. 'l'o many people the fact of music appealing so strongly to the emotions stigmatises its influence as that of 11

drug whose fumes temporarily becloud the intel­~ect. It is indeed easy to argue that under the Influence of music the brain becomes unduly heated, a.nd that the judgment is not normaL ~Iusic has come to be called-sometimes dispa:rag­lngly- the la.nguage of the emotions, and we can­not, therefore, ignore the latter phenomena, for , 1f it could be p roved that music acts but as 11

brain-deadening in toxicant its position in tlw t hinking man's religion would be untenable . Emotion does not necessarily impl y; a temporary renunciation of the intellect and a swaying with every wind of feeling that blows. "Few people realise," the Rev. R. H . Haweis, M.A., a noted writer on music, reminds us, "that emotion is actually co-extensive with consciousness. . . . . . Every thought that flits through the mind has its own accompanying emotion, or train of emotiom, and the whole of human life forms one va;;t emotiona.l fabric. " He fur ther points out that "emotion is often weakened by association with thought, whereas thoughts are always strengthen­ed by emotion. Indeed emotion is the very life-

blood of thought, without which it would remain bub a pale and pOI\e rless shadow, incapable of as­ser ting i tself. .... Thoughts are but wandering spirits that depend for their vitality upon the magnetic currents of feeling ."

It is a popular fallacy to suppose that men of thought have crushed emotion. Who would dare to say that Shakespeare, Goethe, Tolstoy, Paul­Christ, were unemotional 1 The action of mus1~ is not so much to cloud the ego or personality,· '!!>

to revivify it. Wih regard to this question 0f music, emotion and intellect, it is a fact full of significance that the German nation, in the fore­front of commerce, science and philosophy, sbtnds, also, in advance of the rest of the world !n the production and cultivation of the highest form~ of music.

To r eturn to our survey of the spirituali ty ol music: Carlyle has admirably ·ummed up its influ ence in this connection. "The meaning of music," he says, "goes deep. A kind of inarticH­late, unfathomable speech which leads us to the edge of the infinite and lets us for moments gaz(~ into that." Various phenomena in man's earthlv life hint to him of the unknown- make him awar~ of i t, but baffle the investigating intellect; none do so more strongly than music. Heine well call s it " a dim mediator between spirit and matter'' and. Swinburne hails it as " sister of sunrise, and herald of life to be." These are poets, you say ? The pessimist Schopenhauer puts it thus : " lVIusic stands alone, quite cut off from all the other arts. In it we do not recognise the copy or r epl'>tition of any Idea of existence in the world. .... It is not the copy of the Ideas but the copy of the Will it~elf, whose objectivity the Ideas are. . . . . Other arts speak only of shadows, but music speaks of the thing itself ... I t is the quintessence of life and events without likeness to any of them." Carlyle, Heine, Swinbourne, Schopenhauer - -are they not all agreed that music is a potent herald of- call it the Infinite, the Spiritual, the Will , or God, as :you prefer it? In religion such a force is invaluable.

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8 The Idealist J une I, I9i4

Wireless Telegraphy. R. G. Cox, Perth School of Wireless Telegraphy

So much has a lready been said and written about the fascinating subject of " Wireless," t hat, instead of being lookec1 upon as something mysti­fying and unreal, it has b ecom e an important fea­t ure in the comm ercial world; one might a lmost say a necessity of eYeryday life.

The discovery of the principle of wir eless tele­graphy dates back about 27 years, when P r ofessor Her tz fir st experim ented with electro-magnet ic waves. The st udy has been t aken up by many scientists, inclu ding Sir Oliver Lodge and P ro­fessor Branly, and it ha s a dvanced by rapid strides d,uring tb e last decad e. But it was left t o G ugielmo Marconi to apply t hese discover ies com­mer cially. H e it wa s who fi r st caused a message to be sent from one point to a nother witho u ... wires. He founded th e well-known Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, and fr om that time onward new di.scoYeries have b een mad e, and im­p rovements added, nntil, at t he present day, one might almost say it has r each ed perfection.

It seems in creel ihle that signals can be trans­mitted hund.reds, and even tho usands of miles witho ut an y visib le connecting medium. But the explanation is simple. Although invisible, ther e is a connecting medium. It is a well­known fact that the eart h i s surr ound.ed by n.nd enveloped in an invisible some­thing called . "ether." Ether pervades all space. lt is everywher e, a lthough we do not see it. This is t he means bv which wireless waves a r e con-ducted. ·

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If we thro '~ a pebble into a pond, we will ob­sen -e small npples or waves spreadinO' from the centre of disturbance, in all directions. The he a vier t he pebble, or the gr eater t he force im­parted. t o it, the furt her will these waves extend. Similarly, if by some mean s we cause the ether to be di stmbed, waves will emanate from t he cen­tre of Jisr.urbance in the same manner; and the gr eater the power used , or the p r e sure p ut upon the et her , the f urther will these waves exert an mflu ence.

In wir eless t elegraphy, osci ilations or vibrations are produced in an elect ri cal circuit, and forced on t o t he eLher from an aerial wire. These vibra­tions cause a disturbance in t he ether which exerts an infl uence t o a distance proportional to t he po,~er used. They may be det ected by a.nother aenal t uned t o receive t hem . A r eceiving aerial w1ll r espon d only to oscillations which are in r e­sonance or tt <J1e with it, in the sam e manner as a tuning fork will r espond. only to a )Ote of the sam e pitch a s its own. It will the refore be seen that if w.e emit a certain ·wave-length from a wireles~ statwn, t~ e signals can only be r eceived by an­o L~ler statwn tuned to the sa me wa vc-length. I n this mann er , several stations, by using differ ent wave-lengths, can be operated at the sam e t im e wi thout interfe ri ng wi th one another . Th ~ commercial wave-leng th, which is univer sal­ly employed by mercantile ships and shor e st a­tions, is six hunclt·ecl metres.

W·irelcss t~l egraphy is almost instantaneous. lt t r avels w1tli t he sam e speed a s light, viz ., 186,000 miles p er second.

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June r, I91-J. The Idealist 9

from accumulators or storage batteries. This set i<; used ,,:hen the ship's c1ynamo is incapacitat­ed, as in the case of a shipwn:ck. Messages may now be sent from any post-office to ships at sea an•l passenger s on o:::ean lmers are no longer isolated as in former tim es. Most of t he large A tluntic liners print a daily newspaper, containing the latest news by wireless. ln Lhe l\11 arconi Com­pany alone, there are now almost 2,000 operators. Each operat or is bound to secrecy. The larger boats carry t wo operators, th e sm aller boats one.

Som e yenrs ago the Marconi cabin on board ship was a (; entr e of admirat ion for mystified pas­sengers, and the operator was considered a sort of magician . 11 ow, however, wireless telegraphy is looked iJI oa as an a ~compli shed fact , and a necessary fea ture in commercial and private life.

The Renaissance. By H. D. Williams.

The Renaissn,nce was tha.t indefinite period of European history which form ed the transition fro,n mecl.' eval to modern. The period cannot be con­fined within chronological limits. It formed a 'llarked change in the intellectual and moral atti­t.Jlcle d western nations, and was literally a re­birth Joseph McCabe (The Chmch and the P_eople) says :- "The phrase 'Renaissance or Re­bll'th of Cultu re' is a scathing indictment of the intervening period of Christian domi11n.tion. The Pagan had to r estol'e what the Chri stiai1s had de troyecl. The spirit of the dead. Greeks breathed again through Euro!Je and what is known historical­;y as the ·period of Humanis::1' set in. " The move-

ment was in no sense a revolution- rathel' was it a blending of latter day medievalism into modern­ism- an emergence from ecclesiastical and feudal despotism- developing what was original in medi eval ideas by the light of classical literature and art, and holding in itseH ihe promise of a mod ern world.

To understand that it was a gradual metamor­phosis of the intellectual and moral spiri t of .Gt:rope, \\'6 have only to note how the several mtLions ' ere successively influenced by t h e move­ment. For example, England was feudal and mecJ: uyn,] ween lt<Ll y socially and mentally had entered t he modern era. Europe had entered on a final stage of vita.l energy to a fu ller consc :ousncs£ and a freer exercise of the faculties than wac known in medieval times . Among the men of this period. there was a spirit of restless­nef;s, of dissatisfaction with their position . 'rlte co ~u·age born of knowledge, the calm strength, in itself the outcome of a positive attitud.e of mind- these were lacking. H edged in by super­Btitions dread and t enor , combined with stupidity, the men of the ao·e were rendered impoten t fol' salutary action. The fearful vengeance of the church, and the doom pronounced on heretics hung over them like the legendary sword of Damocles. Sorcery and magic were the only means of win­ning power over nature. The path from darkness to light was lost, and truth was involved in al­legory. The~ r conception of the infinite, with its imagined heaven and hell , haunted t he conscience lik a nightmare. Th e pursuit of Truth became a gam e of wordy dialectics. However beautiful the world was- however fair the flesh- both world n,nd fle sh were given over to the devi l. In these circumstances, therefore, it was not thought worth while to master the earth 's resources- to amelior-

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The Idealist II

ate the evils of life. It was agreed., in theory ~t any rate, that life was a bad prelude to an Infinitely worse or better future state. To escape from these prejudices except by the path of con­scious and deliberate sin, was impossible for all, but minds of the very highest qualty, and these oft-times were ind-uced to recant, if not by the iron hand of Mother Church, then by a clinging sense of gmlt. Medieval students possessed considerable quantities of t he Latin classics; but what they retained of t he ancient literature, they could not com prehend. n t he right spirit. Between them and the text hung a veil of scepticism and vague doubt. It was at this period that the revival of learning intervened to guide the course of the l'enaissance.

A short resu me of t he chief events constituting the renai ssance might well be made her e. Po· h tiCally the land was diYided up into kingdoms, Principalities and dukedoms in loosely connected and changing groups. The consolidation of States was at this period effected in France and Spain. The governing idea of international politics became the preservation of the balance of power among th~ States, that had grown up. The second and thn·d important changes wer e t he Revival of Lea1·ning and the altered state of the Papacy. A fourth event, uo less remarkable, was the dis­covery of a hitherto unknown world. across the Atlantic. One more change it I S necessary to note. The middle ages were the days o f steel-clad waniors, of walled castles. Very gradually the whole face of war was being altered by the · discovery of gunpowder. The mail-clad knight disappeared., t he donjon-keep gave place to fortifications constructed to r esist, not the battering-ram or t he a.rbalest, bu t the hammering of great guns. These ar e t he out-

standing features of the renaissance. Chief arnong t.hem, however, are the Revival of Learning and the Reformation, which demand fuller treatment.

We can mark definitely the period which saw the bir th of the "new learning"-1453, the date on which Constantinople fell into the hands of the Turks. Greek refugees were dispersed over Europe. Many took up their abode in Florence, which became the seat of learning, and here they began to teach their own language. Soon there came a demand for Greek writings. Again, the invention of printing, at this date, multiplied books and brought the pos-sibility of a wider education within the reach of whole· classes which had hitherto been cut off hom it.

'l'he Revival of Leaming was a phase of that mental evolution which brought into existence the modern world, with its new conceptions of philo­sophy, religion, a rts and sciences, its firmer grip on the realities of human nature. The re-discovery of the classic past restored the self-confidence of men ~;triving after spiritual freedom . 1t held up for emulation master-works of literature, philosophy, and art; promoted and encouraged enquiry and criticism. The narrow mental barrier raised by mediaeval orthodoxy was shattered. Man, the slave of theological despotis mwas en­deavouring to make himself free. Help in this connection was given him in the study of Greek and Roman literature, this leaning rather to the side of man than of Divinity. To Petrarch we owe the new departure in tJ1ougbt-Humanism­which was essential to the revival of learning. Petra,rdh maintained that man was born

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ity and equiry. In the classics men found the food required to nourish the new spirit, a.nd they threw aside the shackles impeding the free action of mind which had hampered them as a people through so many centuries. So great w:1 the enthu siasm aroused that men forsook their pleasures, to crowd the lecr.Ul·e roorns of philosophers and rhetoricians. The Italian phase of the new learning was an artistic and scholarly one. To it the world owes an amazing debt of scholarship, sculpture, literature, and paintng.

The Florentine school loved words, not deeds. It would stud.y, comment and criticise, but 1t would do nothing in a practical way tn ;~prove its adherents morally. English scholars, on the other hand, ha.ve been a.s zealous as the Germans in seeking the new learning, and have !!Ought it in the same practical spirit. Grocyn studied at F lorence, and later lectured at Oxford. J obn Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, valu d his Greek most, because by it be could unlock the treasures of th"' Gospels. Erasm us himself taught at Cambridge and inspired Latimer and F isher. He was rivalled by his friend More, whose "Utopia, the Land of Now here" was far in advance of its time in its wide and tolerant principles. No book shows more clearly than the "Utopia" how the lnrman soul may leap forward out of the trammels of its time.

Yet , thou~h More and Colet and their follow ers at either university struggled against the oppos­ing force which still clung to the old "teaching and. the old ideas, they could not make much pro­gress in the r eal task of reform . Underlying the brilliant social cu lture, more especially in Italy, there was a darker side . "Humanism" wa pagan and irreligious in its revolt against the middle ages. In transition much good of the past was sacrificed, but much of the bad retained. Bru­talities of lust, treason, poisonings, assassination, and violence form a horrible background to the splendid culture of the Renaissance. The ablest thinkers scorned the Christian virtues. .Dean M.ilman says : "Chastity itself came to be looked. upon as an angelic virtue, nev r to be attained. The authority of the Holy See had suffered seri­ously from the long sojomn of the Popes at Avignon under the control of France in the 14th century, which culminated in the Great Schism . Again, the individual characters of the several Popes, since the schism had been brought to a close by the Council of Constance,· had not re­. tored respect. Indeed, at one time the Papal Throne was occupied by a man who indulged in e,·ery cone ivable vice and perpetrated every possible crime-Alexander VI. The immorality of t he clergy of that day is well illu strated in Cardinal Damiani's book, appropriately call ed t he "Book of Gomonah,' in which he showed that th e clergy and monks were horribly addicted to unnatural vice; and , again, in Mr. Symond's magnificent work, " Th e R enaissance in Italy,"

in which he states that the debauchery and cor· ruption of the majority of the Popes lasted still another century-lasted until the thunder of the Reformation beyond the Alps startled the Popes and Cardinals in to more sober ways.

'l'hus was the way being prepared for the Reformation, which divided Western Christen­dom under the misleading titles of Pro­testant and Catholic. Its cause was in part the old nationalist objection to the claim of any foreign potentate to exercise jurisdict ion. It was in part a moral re> olt against the particular authority of a priesthood claiming a Divine comtnission while its members followed a standard of morals no hgher than that of the laity, and it a lso took the form of a r ebellion against the inter­posing of any mediation between the individual man and his !faker. Moreover, it was a phase of the general intellectual revolt against any and e,·ery authority which sought to override with fixed and unalterable rules the fr ee exercise of human reason. The scholars de pised churchmen as being ignorant and unenlightened,but they ac­cepted the Papacy with a shrug of the shoulders. The Papacy, in its turn, despised the scholars. but with that ea y confidence with which an old e tablished instit ution regards what it imagines to be childish folly . Cnfortunately, the Papacy's inaccurate estimate of the Renaissance in Italy only caused it to misunderstand the movement in England and Germany. These two countries had got what Italy had not-a sense that wrong is not the less wrong for being long upheld , and that right, e ,ren if new, may still be right.

Hence the ~ ortherners turned to what they felt to be of real concern in life. To know better was useless if it did not lead men to live better and to do better. There are two types characteristic of the new learning in the l: r orth " ·hich stand out prominently. The theo­logian, who, while not regardless of tradition and what men had een taught in the past, yet applied his learning to it, to lind out what he believed to b the truth. There is no finer example of this ty; e- than Erasmus. Secondly, the Reformer, in which class Luther stand.s out with prominence. This man, fearless of power and digni­taries, did what he felt to be right . It is fortunate Lhat such men as these were present to guide the course of the Renais­sance in the ~ orth. and to give th:i.t practical impetus to the revival which altered the history of the world.

Not alone to know, but to act according to t hy knowledge, is t hy destinaton- ·proclams t he voice in my inmost soul. Not for indolent contemph­tion and study of thyself, nor for broodin o- over emotions of piety-no, for action was existence given thee ; thy actions and thy actions alone, determine thy worth.- FrcnTE.