We have had the sophist who defends
idleness, and calls it art. It will almost certainly happen--it can
almost certainly be prophesied--that in this saturnalia of sophistry
there will at some time or other arise a sophist who desires to idealise
cowardice. And when we are once in this unhealthy world of mere wild
words, what a vast deal there would be to say for cowardice! "Is not
life a lovely thing and worth saving?" the soldier would say as he ran
away. "Should I not prolong the exquisite miracle of consciousness?" the
householder would say as he hid under the table. "As long as there are
roses and lilies on the earth shall I not remain here?" would come the
voice of the citizen from under the bed. It would be quite as easy to
defend the coward as a kind of poet and mystic as it has been, in many
recent books, to defend the emotionalist as a kind of poet and mystic,
or the tyrant as a kind of poet and mystic. When that last grand
sophistry and morbidity is preached in a book or on a platform, you may
depend upon it there will be a great stir in its favour, that is, a
great stir among the little people who live among books and platforms.
There will be a new great Religion, the Religion of Methuselahism: with
pomps and priests and altars.
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