Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Chronology
- Bibliographical note
- Note on the texts and acknowledgements
- DEMOCRACY (1861)
- THE FUNCTION OF CRITICISM AT THE PRESENT TIME (1864)
- CULTURE AND ANARCHY: AN ESSAY IN POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CRITICISM (1867–9)
- Introduction
- 1 Sweetness and Light
- 2 Doing as One Likes
- 3 Barbarians, Philistines, Populace
- 4 Hebraism and Hellenism
- 5 Porro Unum Est Necessarium
- 6 Our Liberal Practitioners
- Conclusion
- Preface to Culture and Anarchy (1869)
- EQUALITY (1878)
- Index
- Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought
4 - Hebraism and Hellenism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Chronology
- Bibliographical note
- Note on the texts and acknowledgements
- DEMOCRACY (1861)
- THE FUNCTION OF CRITICISM AT THE PRESENT TIME (1864)
- CULTURE AND ANARCHY: AN ESSAY IN POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CRITICISM (1867–9)
- Introduction
- 1 Sweetness and Light
- 2 Doing as One Likes
- 3 Barbarians, Philistines, Populace
- 4 Hebraism and Hellenism
- 5 Porro Unum Est Necessarium
- 6 Our Liberal Practitioners
- Conclusion
- Preface to Culture and Anarchy (1869)
- EQUALITY (1878)
- Index
- Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought
Summary
This fundamental ground is our preference of doing to thinking. Now this preference is a main element in our nature, and as we study it we find ourselves opening up a number of large questions on every side.
Let me go back for a moment to Bishop Wilson, who says: “First, never go against the best light you have; secondly, take care that your light be not darkness.” We show, as a nation, laudable energy and persistence in walking according to the best light we have, but are not quite careful enough, perhaps, to see that our light be not darkness. This is only another version of the old story that energy is our strong point and favourable characteristic, rather than intelligence. But we may give to this idea a more general form still, in which it will have a yet larger range of application. We may regard this energy driving at practice, this paramount sense of the obligation of duty, self-control, and work, this earnestness in going manfully with the best light we have, as one force. And we may regard the intelligence driving at those ideas which are, after all, the basis of right practice, the ardent sense for all the new and changing combinations of them which man's development brings with it, the indomitable impulse to know and adjust them perfectly, as another force.
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- Information
- Arnold: 'Culture and Anarchy' and Other Writings , pp. 126 - 137Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993