137

In _Hamlet_ 137

In _Antigone_ 137

In _Measure for Measure_, and in _Faust_ 138

And also in degraded art just as well as in sublime art 139

In profligate and cynical art, such as Congreve's 140

And in concupiscent art 141

Such as _Mademoiselle de Maupin_ 141

Or such works as that of Meursius, or the worst scenes in
Petronius 142

The supernatural moral judgment is the chief thing everywhere 143

Take away this judgment, and art loses all its strange interest 144

And so will it be with life 145

The moral landscape will be ruined 145

Even the mere sensuous joy of living in health will grow duller 146

Nor will culture be of the least avail without the supernatural
moral element 148

Nor will the devotion to truth for its own sake, which is the last
refuge of the positivists when in despair 149

For this last has no meaning whatever, except as a form of
concrete theism 152

The reverence for Nature is but another form of the devotion to
truth, and its only possible meaning is equally theistic 157

Thus all the higher resources of positivism fail together 161

And the highest positive value of life would be something less
than its present value 161

CHAPTER VII.

THE SUPERSTITION OF POSITIVISM.

From what we have just seen, the visionary character of the
positivist conception of progress becomes evident 163

Its object is far more plainly an illusion than the Christian
heaven 164

_All_ the objections urged against the latter apply with far more
force to the former 165

As a matter of fact, there is no possible object sufficient to
start the enthusiasm required by the positivists 167

To mak