Such   an   attitude   explains   the   sternness   with   which   Meredith


320  GEORGE    MEREDITH

speaks  of  '  the  questions.'  If  they  could  all  be  answered,  which  they
cannot  be,  what  ultimate  good  should  we  gain?  Scientific  proof,  if
it  was  to  be  had,  of  life  after  death  could  not  give  us  the  inner
significance  of  life  itself.
'  Strike  camp  and  onward  '  is  really  the  last  word,  and  sums  up
Meredith's  whole  doctrine  of  purifying  toil,  while  for  earnest  of
immortality  he  declares —

That  from  flesh  unto  spirit  man  grows
Even  here  on  the  sod  under  sun.
Where  Meredith's  teaching  fails  to  satisfy  the  more  orthodox
among  the  thinkers  of  our  time  is  in  its  avoidance  of  personal  immor-
tality. No  craven  avoidance  truly ;  but  a  cold  ignoring  of  the
question  as  though  it  did  not  matter,  and  indeed,  in  face  of  the
grander  issues  of  his  life's  philosophy,  it  does  not  matter.  The
Positivist  position  might  perhaps  be  likened  to  Meredith's,  were  it
not  that  he  can  glow  with  a  spiritual  passion  we  do  not  discover  in
Comte  or  his  followers.  Concerning  man's  aspiration  after  God  he
is  clear  and  unequivocal,  as  in  this,  an  example  of  many  ringing
evidences  of  his  faith  :

The  Great  Unseen,   nowise  the  Dark  Unknown,

To  whom  unwittingly  did  he  aspire

In  wilderness,  where  bitter  was  his  need :

To  whom  in  bhndness,  as  an  earthly  seed

For  light  and  air,  he  struck  through  crimson  mire.
