12 March: Boreham on Retreat

The Glory of Retreat
Courage never shines so lustrously as when in full retreat. A dramatic and brilliant charge is a soul-stirring affair; but in the nature of things, few of us are permitted to cover ourselves with glory under such exciting circumstances. But we have our compensations. For, every day of our lives, we find ourselves under the necessity of executing a retreat. In the genial glow of fireside conversation we assume positions that, as the controversy develops, we see to be untenable; in the rush and bustle of life we say and do things that, on leisurely reflection, we sincerely regret; in waves of enthusiasm or in gusts of sudden indignation we commit ourselves to courses that, in the hush of twilight, we see to be tactless and futile; we even commit ourselves in writing to statements that we subsequently discover to be unjustifiable. These are the situations that provide most of us with the opportunity of displaying genuine gallantry. It is by the skill with which we extricate ourselves from such positions that we achieve distinction.

A coward never retreats. Having once taken up a position, he clings desperately to it, although he grimly feels that its occupation must be their ultimate undoing. "What I have written, I have written," exclaims Pilate, with an assumption of boldness, even whilst, in the profundities of his soul, a thousand voices are crying out in protest, and he secretly wishes that he had never put his hand to the fatal documents. Pilate is by no means alone. We have all heard of the politician who, finding himself in doubt as to one of the planks of his party's platform, yet dreading the displeasure of his leaders and associates, makes a bolder statement of his policy than ever and assures himself that he is once more on firm ground. He assumes a note of emphasis to cloak his torments of uncertainty. In his "Everlasting Mercy," our Poet Laureate, Mr. John Masefield betrays a flash of profound psychological and spiritual insight in making Saul Kane blaspheme more loudly, and offend more blatantly, after becoming the subject of deep religious convictions. It is the recoil of the soul from the thought of self-repudiation. It is, on the grand scale, the behaviour of the boy who whistles to keep his courage up.

The Dream Of Confessing Oneself Mistaken
In his "Water Babies," Charles Kingsley has familiarised us with the learned Professor Ptthmllnsprt. In an extraordinarily able treatise, read at the annual meetings of the British Association held in Melbourne in 1899, the brilliant professor had demonstrated, to the utmost bounds of finality, that such a thing as a waterbaby did not exist, never had existed and never could exist. Shortly afterwards, however, when he and little Ellie were paddling about at the seaside, a real live waterbaby became entangled in Ellie's handnet! The professor's first impulse was to keep it; to name it after himself; and to brag of his remarkable discovery. But what would the British Association say? He therefore released it and invented a lot of long Latin words with which to explain it. "Now," adds Kingsley, "if he had told Ellie frankly that it was a waterbaby and that its unexpected emergence showed how easily the most honest and diligent students of nature may reach a false conclusion, she would have believed him implicitly, respected him still more deeply and loved him better than she had ever done before." But the poor little professor lacked the pluck. He was too great a coward to retreat. And so he missed his one and only chance of adding a deathless lustre to his name.

The Passion Of Science For Truth
In the course of his presidential address before the British Association, Sir Michael Foster outlined the qualifications that represent the two essentials of a distinctively scientific spirit. The first is absolute truthfulness: the other is moral courage. Professor Pllhmllusprt possessed neither. A true scientist, like Darwin, possesses both. Darwin would spend years in patient investigation, gathering data for the work in which he proposed to elaborate and demonstrate his theory, and then toss the entire work into the flames on being convinced that, in spite of all the evidence that supported it, the theory was fundamentally false. His son has told us how, on retiring for the night after a pleasant evening by the fireside, he could not sleep if he remembered having made a statement, however casual or immaterial, that was not absolutely in accord with the actual facts. He would even rise, long after midnight, to confess the slip into which his tongue had innocently betrayed him.

Grant Allen bears similar testimony to Sir Charles Lyell. All through the years, he taught a certain interpretation of the universe. Then, towards the end, new light dawned upon him. He saw clearly that his lifelong view was a false one. Should he therefore repudiate all that he had taught, and condemn the books that, with such care, he had written? The temptation to silence was tremendous. But his best self conquered. "Science," says Grant Allen, "has no more pathetic figure than that of the old philosopher, in his 66th year, throwing himself with all the eagerness of youth into the task of wrecking the very foundations of his beloved creed. But he did it. Deep as was the pang that the recantation cost him, he retracted his earlier works and accepted the theory that he had always rejected." Grant Allen's phrase is reminiscent of the apostolic statement concerning one who "now preaches the faith that he once laboured to destroy." And, indeed, what is the process of conversion of which all the churches speak but a courageous turning of one's back upon the life that one deplores and a turning of one's face towards the ideal that beckons? It is a retreat, but a retreat that is invested with a glory all its own.

F W Boreham

Image: Sir Charles Lyell