A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

107.
feeling. Comte, for example, claims that "to leave the decision of such
Gora~J questions to the judgement of the individual, is to give a
:f'orrnal sanction to all the natural difference in men I s inclinations." 36
How, then, did George Eliot cope with this "bogeyof': relativism II 37
which first appeared with Locke's refutation of the theory of innate
ideas? We have seen that George Eliot's thought strongly endorsed that
of her contemporaries in the emphasis that she placed on feeling in
matters of morality. Her position is made clear in an authorial statement
in Romola, where she writes that lIafter all has been said that can
be said about the widening influence of ideas, it remains true that they
would hardly be such strong agents unless they were taken in a solvent
of feeling. 38
II
A "solvent of feeling" is necessary for the precipitatio:g. of ideas.
Two statements in Middlemarch concerning the banker, Bulstrode, make it
quite clear what sort of feeling normally provides the solvent. The first
describes him as "simply a man whose desires had been stronger than his
theoretic beliefs" so that he had Ilgradually explained the gratification
of his desires into satisfactory agreement with these beliefs." 39 The
second makes a more general comment from Bulstrode's situation and identifies
"the common trick of desire,'" which "avails itself of any irrelevant
scepticism, finding larger room for itself in all uncertainty
about effects, in the very obscurity that looks like the absence of
law." 40 The ironic tone does not disguise the fact that George Eliot
is fully aware of the moral anarchy that could result if everyone accepted
a brief to follow his ovm feelings. It is no coincidence that I have
drai~ my examples from Middlemarch, for this novel, above all others, is
concerned with the nature of evidence, 'l'ti th IIright seeing, II
and with
the problems of ethical individualism. The strong emphasis it gives to
the damaging effect of gossip is a feature of George Eliotts concern that