But these unintelligent propositions were offered; and the
ultimate result was this rather important one: that the harshness of
Utilitarianism began to turn into downright tyranny. That beautiful
faith in human nature and in freedom which had made delicate the dry air
of John Stuart Mill; that robust, romantic sense of justice which had
redeemed even the injustices of Macaulay--all that seemed slowly and
sadly to be drying up. Under the shock of Darwinism all that was good in
the Victorian rationalism shook and dissolved like dust. All that was
bad in it abode and clung like clay. The magnificent emancipation
evaporated; the mean calculation remained. One could still calculate in
clear statistical tables, how many men lived, how many men died. One
must not ask how they lived; for that is politics. One must not ask how
they died; for that is religion. And religion and politics were ruled
out of all the Later Victorian debating clubs; even including the
debating club at Westminster. What third thing they were discussing,
which was neither religion nor politics, I do not know. I have tried the
experiment of reading solidly through a vast number of their records and
reviews and discussions; and still I do not know.
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