Summary of and Thoughts on

“Havelock Ellis “The Dance of Life”

Chapter VI: The Art of Morals

The Greeks regarded morality as not a conflict of light and darkness, of good and evil, or the clear choice between a broad road that leads to destruction and the narrow path of salvation”;  they regarded it as an artistic balance of light and shade.  The key lay not only in the head, but in the heart, for “like can only be recognized by like”.

Morality is the taste of beauty and the relish of what is decent.  The first endeavor is to “distinguish the true taste of fruits, refine the palate, and establish a just relish in the kind”. This translates to morality being a combination of knowing what is right and good and having a taste and pleasure for living in that world.  Human actions should have a beauty of symmetry and proportion and harmony, which appeal to us because they satisfy our instinctive feelings which evoke approval from others (which is strictly an aesthetic judgment of moral action).  The imagination is formative of character in that moral approval is part of the aesthetic - an imaginative act which framed the ideal of a beautiful personality, externalizing itself into action. The impulse to action is fundamental and primary; fine action is the outcome of finely tempered natures.  In learning how to act we are learning to become artists.

Desires can only be countered by desires; reason cannot affect appetite. Nothing besides contrary habit and custom can replace desire and its outcome - the impulse to action. There is no speculative opinion, persuasion, or belief which is capable immediately or directly to exclude or destroy the impulse to action.

Now think that Man is, ethically, an artist whose work is his own life. Now think that his artwork is to be judged by its aesthetic. The primary value of the art is that which is being lived - not that of contemplation (that which precedes), not that of ultimate outcome (that which proceeds), but that of action (that which is being lived in this moment). Man’s capacity for contemplation is a value that is not realized without subsequent action. And action without contemplation is not aesthetically valued. And the value of contemplation at all and the value of action are both dependent on ultimate outcome. Therefore all pieces are necessary for the art to have aesthetic value.

The concept of aesthetic beauty is linked to our moral and emotional responses to it. Beauty is not just a matter of sensory pleasure but also involves a sense of harmony and order that resonates with our moral, intellectual, and emotional faculties.

So if morality is “the taste of beauty and the relish of what is decent, and moral action is beauty of symmetry and proportion and harmony, and I am the artist of that beauty, I must appeal to each of symmetry (a correspondence between parts), proportion (how those parts relate to one another and itself), and harmony (coherent parts unifying into an aesthetically pleasing whole). The key here is morality does indeed involve the aesthetic value which comes from the outside, is manifested on the inside, and is yet regurgitated back to the outside as the art of action and being, a reflection of one’s contemplation, influenced by others. Morality is comprised of external cue, internal thought, and impulse to action which effects the symbiosis between the internal and the external. So where does a moral procession begin? Does it begin as an internal thought about how any particular action may effect the external? If so, then that thought was influenced by the thought of a external cue (the potential outcome of an impulse to action), which is still a thought, and that thought of a thought has no value until it is expressed by action. And one would have no concept of the external value of an impulse to action without having been exposed at some time to the external consequence of such an action. Thus, morality has always been with us; it is our environment, shaped by our behaviors, which are orchestrated by our thoughts. MORALITY IS HUMANITY.

So let’s look at the moral sense, and harmony with the external. Morality is a conative state (an attitude toward an action). If we are compelled by the internal conative state which morality imposes upon us, we are driven to behave in ways that encourage progressively symbiotic states with those around us. So in essence, selfishness is contrary to morality.

For the artist, life is always a discipline, and no discipline can be without pain. There is no separating pleasure and pain, for one defined is the absence of the other. The are both essential ingredients in aesthetic morality. It is no doubt important to resist pain, but it is also important that pain should be there to resist.

“The only golden rule in life is the great and golden rule of art” - William Blake

“It is golden not to have any rule at all” - James Thoreau

Thoreau meant that rules are “silver” in that they are subjugated to the golden rule of art. If one leads a life of aesthetic morality, there are no rules to follow.

But ordinary man requires rules, guardrails, legislation and the like for he is not a man of morality; he is a man of obedience. A great artist follows rigid formula; his art is unique, his aesthetic is appealing.

If the moral world is to be so governed by rigid laws, better to populate it with machines than with living people.

Our collective morality includes not only the highest practitioner of the art, it includes the lesser good (our own or that of others) which is merged in a larger good, and that cannot be without some rendering of emotion. The poorer displays of art render the greater art masterful. Morality is the Dance of Life.