Which will show us that all moral language as applied to love is either distinctly religious or else altogether ludicrous 122

For it is clearly only on moral grounds that we can give that blame to vice, which is the measure of the praise we give to virtue 123

The misery of the former depends on religious anticipations 124

And so does also the blessedness of the latter 125

As we can see in numerous literary expressions of it 126

Positivism, by destroying these anticipations, changes the whole character of the love in question 128

And prevents love from supplying us with any moral standard 131

The loss sustained by love will indicate the general loss sustained by life 131

CHAPTER VI.

Life as its own reward.

We must now examine what will be the practical result on life in general of the loss just indicated 132

To do this, we will take life as reflected in the mirror of the great dramatic art of the world 134

And this will show us how the moral judgment is the chief faculty to which all that is great or intense in this art appeals 136

We shall see this, for instance, in Macbeth 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