It is unnecessary to say that Henry Fielding knew that it
was an unfortunate way of going on. Even Tom Jones knew that. He said in
so many words that it was a very unfortunate way of going on; he said,
one may almost say, that it had ruined his life; the passage is there
for the benefit of any one who may take the trouble to read the book.
There is ample evidence (though even this is of a mystical and indirect
kind), there is ample evidence that Fielding probably thought that it
was better to be Tom Jones than to be an utter coward and sneak. There
is simply not one rag or thread or speck of evidence to show that
Fielding thought that it was better to be Tom Jones than to be a good
man. All that he is concerned with is the description of a definite and
very real type of young man; the young man whose passions and whose
selfish necessities sometimes seemed to be stronger than anything else
in him.
The practical morality of Tom Jones is bad, though not so bad,
_spiritually_ speaking, as the practical morality of Arthur Pendennis or
the practical morality of Pip, and certainly nothing like so bad as the
profound practical immorality of Daniel Deronda. The practical morality
of Tom Jones is bad; but I cannot see any proof that his theoretical
morality was particularly bad.
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