The contradictory human nature

My aim in this essay is to follow how is reflected the human nature in The Latest
Decalogue by Arthur Hugh Clough and in In Harmony With Nature by Matthew Arnold.
These two poets belong to Victorian age and as I will show further the poems mirror the
onthological problematic regarding the place which human being occupies in the
universe. The scientific progress makes the man to be more aware of his rationality. The
accent upon self-conscience and self-knowledge estranges man from the divine autority
and all these spawn to a major conflict between religion and science. My instruments of
research are the two ways of thinking, Hebraism and Hellenism and also the importance
of contradiction.
In Arthur Hugh Clough’s poem The Latest Decalogue, we notice an whole course of
contradictions. We may say two distinct voices, each other representing a definitive force
tethered in human nature. Here we have an obvious resemblance with Matthew Arnold
In Harmony with Nature. Both poems use the implication of contradiction but in different
manners. Clough contradiction makes use of annihilating force of irony, while Arnold
contradiction shows properly the value of the opposant. But Clough’s irony emphasizes a
pessimistic destiny for human being, while Arnold through antithesis rises up the human
condition, man being seen superior to nature.
In Arthur Clough’s poem two levels are brought in discussion, the divine and the
moral, so as their value of good to be annulated by the instinctual dimension , in contrast
with Arnold’s poem where the instinctual dimension belongs exclusevly to nature.
Analyzing The Latest Decalogue we remark that the human being is put on an inferior
scale in the Creation because of his paradoxal behaviour. There is a constant battle
between the animalic forces of the instinctual part of the soul and the aspirations of the
pure spirit. Into a jovial manner the poet contours a pessimistic view about the real nature
of man, a state in which the priority is gained by the forces that rattle louder than the
other ones. Through irony is marked the antinomy which indirectly suggests to the reader

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that man is damned to face the impossibility to achieve the salvation, a concept stated by
the current of Hebraism. Man is always stunted in his Knowledge and evolution by an
imperfection, more exactly, the falling through the sin as Arnold says in his Culture and
Anarchy :,,Under the name of sin, the difficulties of knowing oneself and conquering
oneself which impede man’s passage to perfection, become, for Hebraism, a positive,
active entity hostile to man, a mysterious power (…) . ’’ ( Arnold, 135 ).
The title and the first lines of the poem express the man’s ardor to reconstruct the
mentality above his nature. The new perception supposes the removing of God’s
existence and man becomes his own autority who is fighting now with the telluric
instincts to recreate, maybe a new law of existence. A question may appear in this
situation : Is man capable to touch the pure state of salvation if he does not have anymore
a Christian model ? The contradiction between the divine nature and the instinctual one is
descomposed in real facts that imply oppositions between virtues or aspirations and
weaknesses. The faith in God is replaced with the power of money ,, Thou shalt have one
God only ; who/ Would tax himself to worship two ? / God’s image nowhere shalt thou
see. / Save haply in the currency : ’’ ( Stoiculescu, 276 ). The power given by money
corresponds to the instinct of domination. In the following lines the moral and spiritual
virtues are not available anymore when the instinct of self-conservation is manifested.
The poet urges the man to consider himself a centre and for that the self image counts, so
the vanity becomes a new principle ,, At church on Sunday to attend / Will serve to keep
the world thy friend : ’’ ( 276 ) . The same approach has the implication of lust. It helps to
grow through accumulation the centrality of being ,, Honour thy parents; that is all /
From whom advancement may befall.’’ ( 276 ) .
In Clough’s perspective all these antinomies demonstrate that man is dominated by
the laws of the instinct, a state which is in contrast with his noble capacities inscribed in
his nature. Here we meet a trait of the gothic filosophy taken over from Greek thinking.
The human being loses the contact with his autentic nature and decays because he starts
to deny the natural differences which ennoble his condition ,, This is a noble character in
the abstract, but becomes ignoble when it causes us to forget the relative dignities of that
nature itself, and to prefer the perfectness of the lower nature to the imperfection of the
higher ; ’’( 65 ). In the last two lines of the first part, the source of action for man, the

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desire, when is not controlled by the will anymore, is transformed into envy. The desire
which is pulled out from the moral constraints and thrown away in the instinctual field,
determines the human being to behave monstrously relating with his high level of
conscience. The end of the poem proclaims an absolute selfishness ,, At any rate shall
never labour / More than thyself to love thy neighbour. ’’ ( 277 ). The desire and
selfishness just as natural instincts in human nature lead to a total separation between the
identity and alterity. For the new man, the other becomes an enemy as nature becomes in
Arnold’s poem.
The law of competition is specific to nature and points the battle of life with the
external stimuli. This battle is the creator of the entire world in all the structures of life.
Here is delineated the Darwinian view which is also remarked in Matthew Arnold’s
poem. If in Clough’s vision man has a tragic destiny to be ruined by the instincts of
nature, in Arnold’s vision man can have the pretention to communicate with nature from
the same level, and more than that, he can be superior to her.
In the first line the title is retaken ironically into an interrogative tone. The
appelative for man ’’Restless fool ’’ underlines in the context of the first stanza, an
ambiguous place for human being in the ierarchy of creation. But if the first line of the
poem is put in relation with the second stanza, the signifience of the first stanza is
revealed ,, In harmony with Nature ? Restless fool, / (…) Know, man hath all which
Nature hath, but more, / And in that more lie all his hopes of good. / Nature is cruel, man
is sick of blood : / Nature is stubborn, man would fain adore : ’’ ( 240 ) . The poet attacks
the romantic attitude towards nature, where it is believed that man can be reconnected
with the divine source if he harmonizes his inner and external senses with the soul of
nature. The poet animated by the Darwinian concepts encourages the man to consider
himself superior to nature. In opposition with the idea of imperfection found in Clough’s
poem, which retains constantly the man from his salvation, is the optimistic view of
Hellenism resulted in Arnold’s poem. In the series of contradictions the man rises in the
splendour of his truly condition. The poet urges man to be aware of his beauty, of his
chance to achieve the salvation through self-knowledge. Matthew Arnold introduced
among his lines his preference for an affirmation from Socrates which represents a goal
attributed indirectly to man: ,, The best man is he who most tries to perfect himself and

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the happiest man is he who most feels that he is perfecting himself.’’ ( Arnold, 134 ) . In
the line ,, Nature is fickle, man has need of rest’’ ( Stoiculescu, 240 ) is the opposition
between impermanence of life and the human aspiration for eternal peace. Then, is shown
the inferiority of nature which can not function outside his laws of structure, in contrast
with the capacity of adaptation and the light of conscience which give freedom to man in
his knowledge and evolution ,, Nature forgives no dept, and fears no grave: / Man would
be mild, and with safe conscience blest. ’’ ( 240 ) . Man is above nature through his
consciousness which brings to him the light of knowledge, the one that gives the power
of control. In the last strophe appears again the main idea of the poem suggested in the
first stanza. Man for fear to become ruined by the inferior state of instinctual laws of
nature, do not have to harmonize with her, as romantics are dreaming of ,, Nature and
man can never be fast friends. / Fool, if thou canst not pass her, rest her slave ! ’’ ( 240 ) .
The supremacy of man consists in his ability to control the abyssal forces which are
moaning in his instinctual nature, a fact that in Clough’s perspective can not be achieved.
I have demonstrated until now that the human being has a paradoxal behaviour when
he realizes the strength brought by self-knowledge. If we take in consideration the idea
resulted from Clough’s poem, man is blocked in his way of salvation because he can not
surpass the obstacle of sin. In front of this imperfection man strips off the spiritual and
moral values as a sign of revolt against the divine authority. If in The Latest Decalogue
the supremacy of man is suggested through an extreme individuality, in In Harmony With
Nature, the instinctual affliction of the selfishness is failed by the coldness of rationality.

Bibliography
1. Clough, Arthur Hugh. ’’ The Latest Decalogue’’ in An Anthology of English
Literature. By Mira Stoiculescu, Monica Botez, Aurelia Constantinescu.
București: Universitatea din București, 1985. Pp. 276-277 .
2. Arnold, Matthew. ’’ In Harmony with Nature ’’ in An Anthology of English
Literature. By Mira Stoiculescu, Monica Botez, Aurelia Constantinescu.
București: Universitatea din București, 1985 . Pp. 240

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3. Stoiculescu, Mira, Botez, Monica, Constantinescu, Aurelia. An Anthology of
English Literature. București: Universitatea din București, 1985.
4. Arnold, Matthew. Culture and Anarchy. London: Cambridge University Press,
1935.

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