A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

creatures, love and tolerance. Similar aspect::; of Comte' s tho:)f~ht 11150
attracted her, but his proselytising and his demands for disciples and
incense place him in a different category ~_~euerbach who made no such
grandiose porsoll",l claims. It is not surprising, therefore, that George
Eliot should have said that even if Cornte VlaS a "great thinker," she
fauncl Positivism liane-sided"
11t- Ii:': ;;1
or thnt she could not "submit L!!e::.L
. mind and soul to the guid.ance of Comte." 15 While she was engaged in
the translation of the Esse~ of Christianity:, she wrote that "with
16
the ideas of Fcuerbach I everyvlhere agree. II
Sidney Hook describes the religion of love in terms which show very
clearly the attitudes and even the vocabulary George Eliot held in common
vii th Feuerbach. IItfhe re liei on of love, 11
he maintains, II strengthens the
moral relations between men, for the real sOurce of moral relation,-hips
is love •••• Only when social relationships beeome moral relationships Cf.:n
the oppositionsbet'lleen the egoism of the self and the needs of the species
be resolved. And since Feuerbach held that tall moral relationships Ilre
Eel' !!.£. religious' althou[5h not vice versa, he preached his humanistic
'7
religion of love as the most effective agency of moral improvemnt." I
The stress on relationships as opposed to identity is clear. Feuerbach
himself writes that "the species is unlimited; the individual alone
limited. II 18 The following passage provides a most important abstract of
Feuerbach's position and the nature of the relationship that he stressed
"between him and another human being. 11
thisother is the representative of the species, even thou[",h he is
only one, for he supplies to me the want of many others, has for
me a universal significance, is the deputy of mankind, in vlhose
name he speaks to me, an isolated individual, so that, when united
only vlith one, I have a participated, a human life;--betvreen me
and another human being there is an essential, qualitative distinction.
The other is my thou,--the relation being reciprocal,-­
my alter ego, man objectiv~ me, the revelation of my ovm
nature, the eye seeins itself. In another I first have the consciousness
of humanity; through him I first learn, I first feel,