CYXICISM OPPOSED TO PROGRESS. 79 



ideas of the cynic are like blasts of cold air, out of which people are 

 glad to escape with the utmost promptness. Cynicism does not repre- 

 sent as much intelligence as the constructive tendency, because cyni- 

 cal ideas are allied to feeling and held without reference to any 

 wide generalization of facts. Events take place or combine in a 

 purely intellectual way, or in accordance with laws of necessity and 

 causation. But in opposition to this principle we often find the vague 

 expectation that events can be modified by emotional action, or feel- 

 ing, or by theories not adapted to experience. The seeming obduracy 

 of inanimate objects, when we try to disentangle their complications 

 by means of anger, shows that emotional action mqy be quite absurd 

 when applied to affairs of the intellect. A like suggestion of mania 

 is observable in the cynicism which sees in human nature only differ- 

 ent grades of rascality. It is a subjective conclusion deduced from 

 exceptional instances. 



In addition to the want of effect due to emotional conclusions 

 reached regardless of objective causes, we find further source of error 

 in the very common cynical belief that there is ultimate strength in 

 deception. Bonaparte claimed that much of his success resulted from 

 his ingenious lying, but his power really lay in his reasoning, his 

 knowledge of human nature, his wonderful constructive force, and his 

 grasp of details. These qualities are intellectual, powerful, positive. 

 The success of his lying depended upon intellectual weakness or de- 

 ficient knowledge in others, and not upon superior power exerted in 

 spite of their relative intelligence. Strategy, like stimulants in sick- 

 ness, may bridge over a chasm, but, when subjected to the test of time 

 or innumerable repetitions, it is inevitably exposed by unexpected and 

 incalculable events. In fact, dece^Dtive action often has an air of ab- 

 surdity, humorous as well as geometrical, as seen in Dickens's judge, 

 who, at the Bard ell trial, tried to conceal the fact that he had been 

 aroused from sleep when Buzfuz ceased speaking for a moment 

 by apparently writing with a dry pen, and then looking as if he 

 thought most profoundly with his eyes shut. 



Spinoza was right in his conclusion that destruction and violence 

 are negative. The highest form of conceivable existence, the most 

 real, must be in accordance with principles of reason and harmony. 

 This implies the elimination of discord or destruction, which in its 

 effects upon our consciousness is always negative that is, tends 

 toward indefiniteness and a vanishing-point. Consciousness is re- 

 duced almost to zero during intense pain, because there is simply one 

 sensation, and no sustained or connected line of thought including: 

 many ideas. 



Reasonable mental actions are usually present, but if we select 

 negative mental actions hate, fear, envy, anger we are at once con- 

 scious of their exceptional nature as compared with the total amount 

 of time consumed by more rational forms of thought. It is observ- 



