But in Wordsworth's case, at any rate, we
cannot do him justice until we dismiss his formal philosophy.
The _Excursion_ abounds with philosophy and therefore the _Excursion_ is
to the Wordsworthian what it never can be to the disinterested lover of
poetry,--a satisfactory work. "Duty exists," says Wordsworth, in the
_Excursion_; and then he proceeds thus--
" ... Immutably survive,
For our support, the measures and the forms,
Which an abstract Intelligence supplies,
Whose kingdom is, where time and space are not."[377]
And the Wordsworthian is delighted, and thinks that here is a sweet
union of philosophy and poetry. But the disinterested lover of poetry
will feel that the lines carry us really not a step farther than the
proposition which they would interpret; that they are a tissue of
elevated but abstract verbiage, alien to the very nature of poetry.
Or let us come direct to the centre of Wordsworth's philosophy, as "an
ethical system, as distinctive and capable of systematical exposition as
Bishop Butler's"--
".
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