Appreciations of English Essays

1. On Being Modern-Minded

new catchwords hide from us the thoughts and feelings of our ancestors, even when they differed little from our own.

He was writing for the moment, not for all time; next year he will have adopted the new fashion in opinions, whatever it may be, and he no doubt hopes to remain up to date as long as he continues to write.

The belief that fashion alone should dominate opinion has great advantages. It makes thought unnecessary and puts the highest intelligence within the reach of everyone.

The modern-minded man, although he believes profoundly in the wisdom of his period, must be presumed to be very modest about his personal powers. His highest hope is to think first what is about to be thought, to say what is about to be said, and to feel what is about to be felt; he has no wish to think better thoughts about his neighbours, to say things showing more insight, or to have emotions which are not those of some fashionable group, but only to be slightly ahead of others in point of time. Quite deliberately he suppresses what is individual in himself for the sake of the admiration of the herd.

And in any case what is the use of an eccentric opinion, which never can hope to conquer the great agencies of publicity?                                                                                                 The money rewards and widespread though ephemeral fame which those agencies have made possible place temptations in the way of able men which are difficult to resist.

And public events impinge upon private  lives more forcibly than in former days.

For these reasons a greater energy of personal conviction is required to lead a man to stand out against the current of his time than would have been necessary in any previous period since the Renaissance.

while the individual, as a result of a crude and uncritical interpretation of sound doctrines, was left without any inner defense against social pressure.

Men lived with one kind of illusion, and when they lost it they fell into another.

A certain degree of isolation both in space and time is essential to generate the independence required for the most important work; there must be something which is felt to be of more importance than the admiration of the contemporary crowd. We are suffering not from the decay of theological beliefs but from the loss of solitude.