t that Wordsworth is not entirely free
from the weakness which generally besets thinkers of this tendency. Like
Shaftesbury in the previous century, who speaks of the universal harmony
as emphatically though not as poetically as Wordsworth, he is tempted to
adopt a too facile optimism. He seems at times to have overlooked that
dark side of nature which is recognised in theological doctrines of
corruption, or in the scientific theories about the fierce struggle for
existence. Can we in fact say that these early instincts prove more than
the happy constitution of the individual who feels them? Is there not a
teaching of nature very apt to suggest horror and despair rather than a
complacent brooding over soothing thoughts? Do not the mountains which
Wordsworth loved so well, speak of decay and catastrophe in every line
of their slopes? Do they not suggest the helplessness and narrow
limitations of man, as forcibly as his possible exaltation? The awe
which they strike into our souls has its terrible as well as its amiable
side; and in moods of depression the darker aspect becomes more
conspicuous than the brighter. Nay, if we admit that we have instincts
which are the very substance of all that afterwards becomes ennobling,
have we not also instincts which suggest a close alliance with the
brutes? If the child amidst his newborn blisses suggests a heavenly
origin, does he not also show sensual and cruel instincts which imply at
least an admixture of baser elements? If man is responsive to all
natural influences, how is he to distinguish between the good and the
bad, and, in short, to frame a conscience out of the vague instincts
which contain the germs of all the possible developments of the future?

To say that Wordsworth has not given a complete answer to such
difficulties, is to say that he has not explained the origin of evil. It
may be admitted, however, that he does to a certain extent show a
narrowness of conception. The voice of nature, as he says, resembles an
echo; but we 'unthinking creatures' listen to 'voices of two different
natures.' We do not always distinguish between the echo of our lower
passions and the 'echoes from beyond the grave.' Wordsworth sometimes
fails to recognise the ambiguity of the oracle to which he appeals. The
'blessed mood' in which we get rid of the burden of the world, is too
easily confused with the mood in which we simply refuse to attend to it.
He finds lonely meditation so inspiring