_Victorian Age in Literature_, speaks of J. S. Mill's
"hard rationalism in religion" and "hard egoism in ethics." Like very
many other statements in that lamentable book, these are inexplicably
unjust. Mill was so far from being "hard" in religion that he ended his
days in a kind of sentimental theism; he was so far from being a "hard
egoist" in ethics that he declared that he would burn in hell for ever
rather than lie at the supposed bidding of a Deity. Robert Ingersoll,
the most popular Rationalist of that age, was--I judge from his private
letters, not his ornate speeches--a man of the most tender and fine
sentiment. It is simply ludicrous to suppose that, because we do not
admit emotion to be a test of the accuracy of statements of fact (as all
religious dogmas claim to be), we do not find any room for emotion in
life. Is the whole of man's life an affirmation about reality or
criticism of such affirmation? This supposed "hardness"--I detest these
vague phrases, but one knows what is meant--of the Rationalist temper is
one of the strangest myths the clergy have invented.

Reason not merely approves, but enjoins, the cultivation of sentiment.
When the sentiment in question is one that shows a power of transforming
life and impelling men to struggle against pain and evil, reason
applauds it as one of the most valuable forces we can cultivate. Such,
plainly, is the sentiment of sympathy. We look back to-day with horror
on the industrial and social condition of England in the earlier part of
the nineteenth century: the burdened lives and few gross pleasures of
the workers, the horrible cellar-homes of the poor, the ghastly
treatment of child-workers, the stupid and brutal herding of criminals,
the tragedies of asylums and workhouses, the fearful political
corruption and despotism, the subjection of women, the revolting
proportions of the birth-rate and death-rate. We have still much to do
to redeem our civilisation from medieval errors, but when one
contemplates the social revolution that human sympathy has brought about
in the life of England, one feels that this, and not the long-futile
teaching of Christianity, is the hope of the future. Christian preaching
of virtue has been individualistic. Even in our time the clergy hesitate
and are divided in face of social problems which plainly involve moral
principles. But the humanitarian ethic is essentially social, and this
passion of sympathy is its chief root.

We wis