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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9f57f44 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,13 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text +*.htm text +*.html text +*.png binary +*.jpg binary +*.svg text +*.pdf binary +*.bmp binary +*.zip binary +*.midi binary +*.mp3 binary diff --git a/79374-0.txt b/79374-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..14a5fad --- /dev/null +++ b/79374-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8104 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79374 *** + + + + + THE DILEMMA OF THE + LIBERATED + + _An Interpretation of Twentieth Century Humanism_ + + By GORHAM MUNSON + + + _“It is a commonplace of the schools + that man is a little world, in which + we may discern a body mingled + of earthly elements, and ethereal + breath, and the vegetable life of + plants, and the senses of lower animals, + and reason, and the intelligence + of angels, and a likeness to God.”_ + + PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA. + + + PUBLISHED IN NEW YORK BY + _Coward-McCann, Inc._ + IN THE YEAR 1930 + + + + + Copyright, 1930, by + Coward-McCann, Inc. + All Rights Reserved + + Printed in the U. S. A. + + + + + TABLE OF CONTENTS + + + BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION vii + + I. THE BIRTH OF HUMANISM 3 + + II. A PORTRAIT OF OUR AGE 19 + + III. THE MAN OF POISE 39 + + IV. THE NEW BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 53 + + V. THE CLASSICAL REVIVAL ABROAD 79 + + VI. A CREATIVE CONCEPTION OF MAN 107 + + VII. THE DISCIPLINE OF HUMANISM 130 + + VIII. SCIENCE AND THE MODERN MAN 167 + + IX. EDUCATION AND LEADERSHIP 190 + + X. HUMANISM, ECONOMICS, POLITICS 208 + + XI. THE DILEMMA OF THE LIBERATED 252 + + XII. THE END OF THE TETHER 284 + + ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 302 + + + + + BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION + + A LETTER OF DEDICATION TO SEWARD B. COLLINS, ESQ’RE. + + +My dear Seward: + +For two years I have cherished the wish to offer you, out of gratitude +and friendship, some product of my pen. But I did not dream two years +ago, or even one year ago, that I should write a book on a subject +so near your heart as American Humanism. Lately, however, there has +been a great acceleration of events in our country’s intellectual +life; unexpectedly soon the moment has ripened for a full-length study +of the creative possibilities of the New Humanism. Now it is doubly +appropriate to dedicate this study to you: I gratify a private desire, +and I give a public recognition of the large part you yourself, as +editor of the _Bookman_, have performed in bringing the ideas of P. E. +More and Irving Babbitt and their colleagues before the eyes of the +general reading public. + +This work of yours I say is a very important service to American +literature in its present condition. At no time myself an orthodox +Humanist, I nonetheless felt six or seven years ago, when I first read +the _Shelburne Essays_ and Professor Babbitt’s massive works, that here +was criticism our literary world could not ignore without grave loss, +and I set myself to do what I could to bring this criticism out of the +academic shadows to which it had been consigned by the main romantic +movement of post-war America and to advance it to the very center of +our literary stage. In this effort I was of course merely a symptom +of a change in temper and direction and ideals that was gradually +taking place in many young Americans who came to feel that there was +something disastrously ill-informed and disappointingly shallow in the +revolt-literature of the ’Twenties. At any rate, there has finally +occurred in literary criticism a reaction toward “style and order,” +not alone in letters but in life, and we can now say that the doctrine +of the New Humanists is decidedly under scrutiny by every one who +professes to be seriously interested in the welfare of our literature. + +Let the literary battles over Humanism go on and may they wax +hotter! Strength of opposition is good for all parties concerned, +and the development in our literary world of a strong orthodox +classical party like the New Humanists is sure to call forth from our +naturalistic thinkers and artists greater efforts, and efforts on a +more difficult level of thought, than those they have felt inclined to +make in the last fifteen years. But--as you tell your readers in the +_Bookman_--American Humanism is not essentially or solely a literary +school. It offers a comprehensive critique of modern civilization: it +has studied our problems of education, politics, manners, morals, and +science, as well as literary tendencies: it is preëminently concerned +with the question, _how to live_, and it believes that it has the +commencement of a sound program for the intelligent conduct of life. + +How to live? That undying question has always given rise to hornèd +problems. Walter Lippmann, not long ago, showed ably how the +traditional controls of our lives have been abolished or appear to +have been abolished; with the same ability he outlined the quandaries +of the modern man who has been born into the Kingdom of Whirl after +the joy of breaking images has gone out of the land and no new goal +for existence has shiningly presented itself. “What is there in the +back of our heads,” Lippmann asked, “which keeps telling us that +life as we find it is not what it ought to be?” This is his reply: +“It is a deep conviction that happiness is possible, and all inquiry +into the foundations of morals turns ultimately upon whether man can +achieve this happiness by pursuing his desires, or whether he must +first learn to desire the kind of happiness which is possible.” There +you have what may be termed the dilemma of the emancipated man. The +intelligent modern man feels liberated from petty social conventions, +narrow theological views, discredited authorities, the grosser popular +superstitions, but liberated for what? Only, it seems, to face a +darkened problem of choices, with many strong reasons for distrusting +every alternative offered. Shall he follow some most recent form of +naturalism such as D. H. Lawrence preached? He is impressed by its +passionateness, but it also has a fanatic sound to him; it appears +to delimit man, to deny too much in man’s constitution that seems +to promise more abundant life to him who develops it. Shall he, on +the other hand, seek out some surviving moral discipline or some +new asceticism? But which one and how well founded on science and +commonsense are these preserved or refurbished disciplines? + +Well, the New Humanism has much to say on such a dilemma as this, much +to say on the great central moral question, how to live as a being +bearing the proud-sounding name of Man ought to live; and for this +reason it is proper to call contemporary Humanism a modern morality +and to say that it commends itself to persons who, besides reading for +pleasure or information, read to live. + +It is such persons, men and women of the world who resort to books +with the real intention of clarifying their lives by reading, that I +wish to address. They are free from that malady to which the “literary +person” so frequently succumbs, namely, living for reading and writing. +This person’s mind then becomes merely a great heap of literary +associations, all very useful, if only he had obtained a few central +ideas, if only he had kept a grip on life as the foremost thing and +resolutely kept his reading in its proper place as “the great stimulus +to life.” The man of the world, on the other hand, has other faults, +but he is sensible in what he demands of books. He wants the essentials +of a doctrine and he wants them purged of special terminology: he wants +to see the doctrine’s practical implications lighted up: he wants to +see the cardinal teachings properly groomed to appear before the bar of +commonsense. That is why in the following pages I have avoided as much +as possible the debates and wrangles of scholarship and have tried for +compactness, clearness, simplicity, and practicality in the exposition +of the master-ideas of Babbitt and More. + +Truly, they are pregnant ideas. My first aim in this book has been to +show their remarkable specific gravity and how they sink to the bottom +of one’s mind. There, it seems to me, they give birth to questions +of the utmost importance to the individual. They raise questions +relating to his world-view, to his psychology, and to his aspirations +in character. The mind is agitated in a new way and so led to take new +approaches to old problems: the experience of past mankind and our +contemporary experience operate on each other with profit in the way +of self-understanding and the understanding of modern society. Many of +the questions thus aroused are of a religious character, and my second +object has been to discuss them and in so doing naturally to pass from +the field of morals to the field of religion. Religion, “that deepest +voice of human experience,” according to Matthew Arnold--what has it to +say of the ideals of the New Humanism and the humanistic way of life? +What has religion even now to say to the skeptical modern man disposed +to give ear to new moral doctrines? + +In what we would reply here, my respected dedicatee, I foresee a wide +divergence in our future paths. Possibly not however. But on that part +of the journey which we have traveled together I wish to say I have +known no other companion so gay in mind, so unswerving and unafraid in +practice, so ardent in understanding of the tenets of American Humanism +as you to whom this book is tendered. + +In the language beloved by the Humanists of the Renascence, + + _Sum ut semper, tui studiossimus_, + + Gorham Munson. + + _March 17, 1930, + New York, N.Y._ + + + + + I + + THE BIRTH OF HUMANISM + + _“As is well known, the word humanist was applied, first in the + Italy of the fifteenth century, and later in other European + countries, to the type of scholar who was not only proficient in + Greek and Latin, but who at the same time inclined to prefer the + humanity of the great classical writers to what seemed to him the + excess of divinity in the mediævals. This contrast between humanity + and divinity was often conceived very superficially. However, the + best of the humanists were not content with opposing a somewhat + external imitation of the Ciceronian or Virgilian elegance to the + scholastic carelessness of form. They actually caught a glimpse + of the fine proportionateness of the ancients at their best. They + were thus encouraged to aim at a harmonious development of their + faculties in this world rather than at an otherworldly felicity. + Each faculty, they held, should be cultivated in due measure + without one-sidedness or over-emphasis, whether that of the ascetic + or that of the specialist.”_--Irving Babbitt in _Humanism and + America_. + + +It requires an unusual effort for us to admit that there was something +mysterious operating in the deeps of the Middle Ages, and again that +well below the surface of the Renascence there seem to have been +strange forces. We look with wonderment at the twelfth and thirteenth +centuries in Europe--at that uncompleted Cathedral of the Intellect +designed by St. Thomas Aquinas, at the ordering and altitude of emotion +in Dante, at that philosophy of action called Chivalry; but few of +us can refrain from ready interpretations. Very few can sit in the +Cathedral of Chartres and sincerely arrive at the conclusion which +Henry Adams reached after long saturation beneath its influences. +That conclusion, highly remarkable as coming from a modern man +and therefore worthy of italic print, was given by Adams all the +advantages of emphatic position. It was couched in the surprising final +clause of a lengthy sentence at the end of one of his chapters in +_Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres_, his elaborate homage to the splendor +of mediæval times. I shall let Adams lead up to it. + +“Sitting here any Sunday afternoon, while the voices of the children of +the maîtrise are chanting in the choir,--your mind held in the grasp +of the strong lines and shadows of the architecture; your eyes flooded +with the autumn tones of the glass; your ears drowned with the purity +of the voices; one sense reacting upon another until sensation reaches +the limit of its range,--you, or any other lost soul, could, if you +cared to look and listen, feel a sense beyond the human ready to reveal +a sense divine that would make that world once more intelligible, and +would bring the Virgin to life again, in all the depths of feeling +which she shows here,--in lines, vaults, chapels, colours, legends, +chants,--more eloquent than the prayer-book, and more beautiful than +the autumn sunlight; and any one willing to try could feel it like the +child, reading new thought without end into the art he has studied a +hundred times; _but what is still more convincing, he could, at will, +in an instant, shatter the whole art by calling into it a single motive +of his own_.” + +But, as though in obedience to some undivined law, the marvellous +unity of the Middle Ages, sustained in Adams’s judgment by motives so +foreign and incomprehensible to us, began to crumble. The spirit began +to withdraw and the forms to change into formalism. There was less +inwardness. Corruption and decline set in, and then fairly suddenly the +disintegration of culture was arrested and a new growth took place to +make resplendent the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Renascence +was in part a great revolt against _decayed_ scholasticism and the +views of man and the world it upheld, and in part the fulfilment of +fresh impulses generated by the apostles of the New Learning, the study +of classical literature. This period too baffles us: we meet with so +many enigmatic figures! To take a famous instance, who has ever made a +plausible business of explaining the character of Francis Bacon? Enigma +he was and enigma he remains, a man whose range of motivation outspans +our most inspired conjectures. + +But this strangeness is not all that defies our efforts at +understanding. We need to suspend judgment, but the difficulties of +remaining in suspended judgment are magnified in a way that has been +set forth by an English amateur of philosophy, the late T. E. Hulme, +whose reputation in America incidentally has never matched his deserts. +Authentically, Hulme was a young intellectual giant, and his death in +the Great War was a grievous casualty for contemporary philosophy. But +fragmentary as his writings are, one essay in his posthumous book, +_Speculations_, is said to have done more to clarify the mind of +his generation in England than any other essay in recent years. This +influential paper is called _Humanism and the Religious Attitude_, and +some of its striking ideas are very much to our present purpose. Hulme +opened by boldly declaring that the modern emancipated and instructed +man shrinks from the idea of discontinuities. Such a man, he said, is +wedded to the theory of evolution and the doctrine of progress, two +sisters, and so he abhors the notion of a gap, a real chasm, existing +in the scheme of life. In fine, the modern man takes a principle +of continuity to be, not just a convenience in certain fields of +thought, but an absolute fact. He therefore very frequently denies a +discontinuity between Nature and Man and invariably between Man and the +Absolute. + +But the Middle Ages believed in a discontinuity between Man and +absolute values in religion and ethics. They believed, that is to say, +in Original Sin and in placing perfection far above the human plane. +That is what makes those ages so hard for us to comprehend. But in the +Renascence, according to Hulme, this discontinuity was denied: man was +declared not radically bad, but worthy, and things perfect were brought +down and mingled with things on the human plane. Where there had been +the mediæval religious spirit, now appeared the modern humanistic +temper--and the two were utterly different! In its later manifestations +we can understand the latter, but in the Renascence, in men like Manuel +Chrysoloras, Pico della Mirandola, and Leonardo da Vinci, we are +haunted by the enigmatic. + +What secrets they had, we cannot probe after now, even if we had +fresh clues. What is incontrovertible is that we inherit that part of +the Renascence which was a revolt against mediævalism. The fifteenth +century founders of Humanism gave the Western World nothing less than +a new _weltanschauung_. What that world-view is and what the Romantic +world-conception is which has sprung up in the last one hundred and +fifty years to challenge it, I shall try to expose in the following +pages. Then in the concluding chapters, after discussing Romanticism +and Humanism, I wish to return to Religion and to consider the radical +difference Hulme alleged to exist between the humanistic temper and the +religious spirit. + + * * * * * + +When we have a single name to cover related but highly variegated +phenomena, we tend after a time to think of the phenomena as being +uniform because the one name covers them all. So today when an +editorial writer mentions the Humanists of the Renascence, he often +sounds as if he considered all of them to have been turned out on +very much the same pattern. There is some excuse then for a brief +collection of data showing that such was not the case any more than a +rigid uniformity characterizes the Humanists of the twentieth century. +Humanism now and formerly is essentially broad and flexible, and the +reader must divest himself of narrow preconceptions if he hopes to +encompass the subject. For dispelling a contemporary prejudice in favor +of uniformity, a mere glance at the variety of fifteenth and sixteenth +century Humanism will be enough, even though we take in only the best +known facts. + +The earliest Humanists appeared in Italy, and principally in Florence +under the patronage of Cosimo de’ Medici. Scholars like Manuel +Chrysoloras and Poggio Bracciolini had delved into the treasures of +ancient Greece and Rome and had risen ecstatically. In 1453 the fall +of Constantinople released the old manuscripts in greater profusion: +the new springs of life welled up gloriously. Men in the most powerful +places like Pope Nicholas V became supporters of the new cult of +_literae humaniores_. But as the New Learning spread, its secular +spirit became more evident, and the Church found itself assaulted +by some Humanists, Lorenzo Valla, for example, who stood boldly for +paganism and asserted the chief good to be pleasure. Others--the +most celebrated is Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494)--sought to blend +Christianity with Platonism. Generally speaking, Italian Humanism +had a pronounced æsthetic character, but we must not therefore think +of these seminal figures in the dreamy fashion of Walter Pater. His +languid essay on Pico is the least fitted thing to do justice to this +man’s power of inspiring others to love the New Learning. You would +never guess from Pater that Pico della Mirandola was reputed to have +had such a powerful mind and memory that he retained perfectly on a +single reading the entire language and meaning of any text he read. +Pico was only thirty-one when he died on the day the French king, +Charles the Eighth, entered Florence, but he had done the work of a +giant. Enthusiasts had carried his influence throughout Europe: he had +fertilized an age. + +In every country where it took root, Humanism assumed national +characteristics and applied itself to differing tasks. In Spain, in +France, in England and in Germany each movement was _sui generis_--a +point to remember today when we observe the classical revivals going +on in France, England and the United States. The Action Française, +the work of Belloc and Chesterton, American Humanism have all, in +spite of many important differences, a family resemblance which will +concern us later. But now glancing back at Spain in the Renascence, +it is Cardinal Ximenes (1436?-1517) whom most readers will recall and +his establishment of the University of Alcalá, that university from +which in 1514 was to come the first Greek text of the New Testament +ever printed. A little afterwards came the renowned Polyglot Bible, +made under the direction of the Cardinal and published at his personal +expense. + +In France from the beginning Humanism was tinged with Catholic heresy. +There was Jacques Lefevre of Etaples (1455-1537), whose _Commentary on +the Epistles of St. Paul_ in 1512 is regarded as a distinct enunciation +of the doctrine of justification by faith alone. There was Guillaume +Budé (1467-1540), whose studies were almost entirely secular; he was +excelled by no one in his time for scholarship in Greek and Latin. +There was finally François Rabelais (1495?-1555?), the colossal +laughing incarnation of the French humanistic spirit. + +In Germany and England the Humanists appear to have struck graver +notes and to have been more concerned with social reform. American +Humanism today bears at least this external resemblance to the +Humanism of William Grocyn, Thomas Linacre and Sir Thomas More: +namely, it is greatly concerned with public education. Perhaps +the most typical English Humanist was John Colet (1467?-1519) who +founded St. Paul’s School in London. And American Humanism has an +external resemblance to the Renascence form of Humanism in Germany in +that the contemporary form is likewise primarily a movement inside +the universities. The famous names in Germany are Johann Reuchlin +(1455-1522), Ulrich Von Hutten (1488-1523), and the artist Albrecht +Dürer (1471-1528). Reuchlin, around whom, provoked by his defence of +the Jews, a storm broke that swept him for trial to Rome itself, is +especially noteworthy, for he indicates by his study of Hebrew and +the _Kabbalah_ (a wonderful text to Pico, too) the variety of the +sources of inspiration the Humanists discovered. Ulrich Von Hutten, +militant pamphleteer, sided with the Protestant Reformation, whereas +as is well known many Humanists liked Calvin no better than they liked +obscurantist monks. + +With that fact let us close what is clearly not intended to be a +comprehensive survey of Renascence Humanism or an evaluation of it, +but only the presentment of enough data to recall the great complexity +of the early Humanists. All that is designed is to direct attention to +their heterogeneity, to remember that some were against Aristotle and +others favored him, some were for paganism, others for Catholicism, and +others for the Reformation, some were of singular purity, others were +gay worldlings in personal morals. National traits altered the colors +of Humanism, and the places of emphasis, as we have seen, shifted +from country to country, here being found in the arts, there in +education, and there in religious reform. It is a warning to us--this +complexity in historical Humanism--not to expect a sameness, or an +exceedingly close approximation to each other, in the manifestations of +contemporary Humanists. Historically, the humanistic temper was broad: +we shall come to see the wide latitude of a similar temper today. + +And yet historians are right in applying one name to all these diverse +men from Petrarch in Italy to Luis Vives in Spain, for all felt +powerfully the attraction of one leading idea. That idea the modern +world has agreed to call “the dignity of man,” and it is customary +to go to the _Oration on the Dignity of Man_ composed by Pico della +Mirandola for the most eloquent phrasing of it. “Then the Supreme Being +decreed that unto Man, on whom He could bestow nought singular, should +belong in common whatsoever had been given to His other creatures. +Therefore He took man, made in His own individual image, and having +placed him in the center of the world, spake to him thus: ‘Neither a +fixed abode, nor a form in thine own likeness, nor any gift peculiar to +thyself alone, have we given thee, O Adam, in order that what abode, +what likeness, what gifts thou shalt choose, may be thine to have and +to possess. The nature allotted to all other creatures, within laws +appointed by ourselves, restrains them. Thou, restrained by no narrow +bonds, according to thy own free will, in whose power I have placed +thee, shalt define thy nature for thyself. I have set thee midmost the +world, that thence thou mightest the more conveniently survey whatever +is in the world. Nor have we made thee, either heavenly or earthly, +mortal or immortal, to the end that thou, being, as it were, thy own +free maker and moulder, shouldst fashion thyself in what form may like +thee best. Thou shalt have power to decline unto the lower or brute +creatures. Thou shalt have power to be reborn unto the higher, or +divine, according to the sentence of thy intellect.’ Thus to Man, at +his birth, the Father gave seeds of all variety and germs of every form +of life.” + +Closely observed, this passage yields the following statements. Man +is a being of extraordinary elasticity, for he subsumes the various +kingdoms of nature, animal, vegetable and inorganic. Man is not _given_ +stability or a center within himself, but he may acquire them. He can +do so because he has will and potentialities to develop. His dignity +consists in the fact that whereas other creatures must obey their +destiny, he can have an active part in forming his. His way lies +between the brute and the divine: he can sink into the former or he can +be reborn into the latter. To be human is to be midmost. Pico has thus +written--it may be noted here--an epigraph for the New Humanism. + +In passing, however, some questions should be raised. Do the New +Humanists, who proclaim afresh the dignity of man, distribute the +weight of their thought and emotion quite as evenly as did Pico? On the +idea of rebirth, for instance, and all that it implies of revolution +in personal psychology, do they not walk lightly or step carefully +away from it? “The higher, or divine”--did it not tend to drop out of +Renascence Humanism in its later stages, and today does it not fail +to attract the best thought or the most passionate endeavors of our +Humanists? Yet all, new and old, stand for man’s dignity and would +agree that Pico della Mirandola has given the _poetic_ formulation of +their faith. + +How would their faith be phrased intellectually? Happily, we may +resort to T. E. Hulme for that. “It seems as if,” he says, “no sooner +had Copernicus shown that man was not the center of the universe, +than the philosophers commenced for the first time to prove that he +was. You get expressed explicitly, for the first time (in Pico della +Mirandola for example), this idea of the sufficiency of natural man, +and it has generally been assumed by all philosophers since. It may be +expressed in very different languages and with very different degrees +of profundity, but even Hegel and Condorcet are one from this point of +view.” The self-sufficiency of the natural man--there is a key idea +we must grasp. I object to a precise equating of Hulme’s phrase with +Pico’s eloquence on the dignity of man, but, leaving out the references +to divine order and rebirth, the phrase is fairly close to an +intellectual equivalent. Self-sufficiency is the central idea _we_ have +inherited from the Renascence, and for millions of men it has effaced +the mediæval idea of the insufficiency of the natural man and the need +for Grace to visit him as a basically bad creature. The dignity of man +understood as the self-sufficiency of the natural man, _and by natural +man is meant one not reborn_, is the foundation idea for all modern +Humanism. + +In the foregoing sketch I did not mention the man who is inevitably +associated by every one with Renascence Humanism--Desiderius Erasmus. +That was because I wish the reader to observe him now in a particular +connection. Let us look briefly at the crisis in Christendom produced +by the emotional revolt of Martin Luther. Up to 1521 when Luther +shouted, “I should go to Worms were there as many devils there as tiles +upon the roofs,” Erasmus had held a commanding position in Europe. +Europe was then, intellectually and morally, a single community. Latin +was the common language binding together all intellectual contributions +and there was one Church for all the peoples. Erasmus had risen from +his illegitimate birth in Rotterdam, his convent education, and his +straitness of means, to be a friendly counsellor of King and Pope, a +master of Latin style, an illuminated traveler throughout Europe to +exchange light with its best minds. As every one knows, he addressed +himself to the emancipation of the individual, expecting that from the +increase of enlightened individuals would eventually issue religious as +well as social reform. The evil of the time he ascribed to ignorance: +he combated it with genial raillery and suave satire, making always an +appeal for truth, temperate procedure, and tolerance. + +Now think of the man who was described by Erasmus in a letter “as a +necessary evil in the corruption of the Church; a medicine, bitter +and drastic, from which sounder health would follow.” Martin Luther’s +career is familiar to every one; how he was severely beaten at +home and at school during his childhood, how he sang for alms at +the University of Erfurt, how his friend was slain at his side by +lightning and the young student’s subsequent terrified flight into an +Augustine monastery, how there he was distinguished by zeal, how he was +disenchanted in his pilgrimage to Rome, how afterwards he was made a +professor of philosophy at the University of Wittenberg, how finally +he opposed Tetzel on the latter’s mission of selling indulgences +and dispensations and wrote out against such practices the famous +ninety-five propositions which led eventually to excommunication; all +these circumstances have been rehearsed hundreds of times in tones of +admiration or detestation for the man who experienced them. Certainly +in contrast to Erasmus’s, Luther’s life seems lurid. And undoubtedly +the conventional Protestant account of the Reformer can stand much +correction, but we need only note what unmistakably stands out in the +characters of the Reformer and the great Humanist. + +Carlyle had excellent reason to call Luther the Christian Odin, the +right Thor: the man is impressive by his power in action, by his +great and often harsh energy, by the force and sometimes violence +of his feelings. He is _not_ impressive because of his mind. Let us +hear Luther himself denounce the reason which he grants is indeed of +utility in practical affairs but refuses to call good beyond that +realm. “Reason,” he thundered in his last sermon at Wittenberg near +the close of his life, “is the devil’s greatest whore; by nature and +manner of being she is a noxious whore; she is a prostitute, the +devil’s appointed whore; a whore eaten by scab and leprosy who ought +to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom.” And on +another occasion he said: “Reason is directly opposed to faith, and +one ought to let it be; in believers it should be killed and buried.” +This clearly is not the accent of the Renascence Humanist who objected +to pseudo-intellectualism but never to the idea that there is a right +employment of reason in the highest matters. Nor did the Humanist throw +his weight so vehemently upon the emotions and in particular upon +faith as did Luther. “We can say,” remarks Jacques Maritain, one of +the best Catholic philosophers today, “that Luther is the first great +Romantic”--and despite Luther’s strong religious disposition, Maritain +makes this remark seem plausible. + +Erasmus is the antithesis to Luther. He was an active practical man, +but we never think of him as an exponent of energetics; he was mature +and full in his feelings, but not violent or overflowing in turbulence; +he was an able reasoner but not gone mad on metaphysical refinements. +What strikes us about Erasmus is not the greatness or intensity of any +one of his faculties, but the fair degree of harmony in the development +and operations of all of them. He is the typical Humanist because of +his proportionateness. He had the supreme humanist virtue, and that is +mellow commonsense. + +The crisis came, and a large part of Europe followed the impassioned +Luther into the Reformation. Erasmus, observing the defects of Luther, +his lack of balance, his lack of reason in the best sense, could not +join his forces, nor could he fight blindly and hotly on the Catholic +side. Neither was the way of mellow commonsense, and he who had been +the prince of the European mind retired helplessly to Basle while the +struggle worked up its violence. He had his major defect too. Not a +weakling in feeling, he yet had not the tremendous force of emotion +required to play an effective part in the great proceedings of history. +He was even able to say in a letter to Archbishop Warham: “As for me, I +have no inclination to risk my life for truth. We have not all strength +for martyrdom; and if trouble come, I shall imitate St. Peter. Popes +and emperors must settle the creeds. If they settle them well, so much +the better; if ill, I shall keep on the safe side.” But no place was +safe for a champion of moderation. “Every goose,” he wrote from Basle, +“now hisses at Erasmus; and it is worse than being stoned, once for +all, like Stephen, or shot with arrows like Sebastian.” + +Did Europe take the wrong turning when it ignored the pleas of +Erasmus,--then past sixty, suffering with the stone, grieving over the +execution of his friends, More and Fisher, a beclouded luminary,--and +plunged recklessly into the work of breaking up its moral and +intellectual unity? In retrospective wisdom Goethe thought so. Goethe +regretted that Erasmus and men like him could not have retained the +direction of the mind of Europe: he thought that Luther had thrown back +the intellectual progress of mankind for centuries by appealing to the +passions of the multitude to decide on subjects which ought to have +been left to the learned. That question we do not have to debate here. +Luther for worse or better is one of the makers of our modern world, +and our pressing question is, what is the rôle of mellow commonsense, +the great humanistic virtue, amid the confusions of our age? Should we, +the heirs of those who went with Luther, now turn for light and example +to Erasmus? + +Fixing in our minds the several considerations dwelt on in this opening +up of our subject--the absolute distinction between Religion and +Humanism, the intricacy of historical Humanism, the conception of man +as self-sufficient for the unifying of himself, and ripened commonsense +as the prime virtue of Humanism--let us now leap to the present and +examine what sort of society we belong to and how we conceive of the +world and of ourselves. + + + + + II + + A PORTRAIT OF OUR AGE + + _“A highly unified age may offer examples of highly unified + personalities; but there is likely to exist in the individual of + today the same confused conflict of tendencies that we see in the + larger world.”_--Irving Babbitt in _Literature and the American + College_. + + +Some Humanist yet to be, inspired by the model of Erasmus’s _In Praise +of Folly_, will write successfully a rival piece on our follies for +the delectation of later ages. The future Erasmus will likely call his +genial dissolvent _In Praise of Modernity_: in it he will conjure up +the Spirit of Progress and constrain her to deliver a panegyric of all +our modern excesses. But the loquacious Spirit of Progress could never +accomplish that task in less space than a book, and a single chapter +is our limit for a broad sketch of our age. It is not for us then to +be indirect and ironical, but to find without loss of time some simple +clear mirror for the reflection of the plain facts of our period. Where +shall such a mirror be found? Nowhere better, it seems to me, than in +the outlook on life of the typical general reader, in the outlook of +such a person as G. R., whom I shall briefly describe. + +G. R. in his forties is a respected and successful lawyer. In +his college days he wrote verse: in fact, he was Class Poet at +Commencement, but soon afterwards he lost interest in his courtship of +the Muse. He continued, however, to read rather widely and with the +object of keeping abreast of new developments in thought and art. You +will find his name among the subscribers to the Theatre Guild and on +the mailing lists of our best liberal weeklies. + +As I have indicated, G. R. is successful. His comfortable duplex +apartment in the east Seventies of New York city bears witness to his +rise in the world, and out on Long Island he has acquired a remodelled +farmhouse for weekends and summertime. His three sons attend a private +school inspired by the educational ideas of John Dewey. Their father to +a casual acquaintance is not very different from some tens of thousands +of other substantial well-educated American men. Like them he gets a +little bored by the baiting tactics of H. L. Mencken: like them he +enjoys driving a car and playing golf regularly. He still awaits being +put into American fiction with the same distinctness that certain types +he despises, such as the George F. Babbitts, have been limned. + +G. R., now that much of his youthful idealism has been found +inappropriate to the facts of his existence, has the strong impression +that we are all floundering about in the present era. And this +impression of his is certainly a generally diffused opinion. In a time +of floundering our first consideration must be to get at the plain +realities of our condition, and that is why I have recourse to G. R., +on whose mind and feelings they seem most clearly imprinted. He is +susceptible to the main currents of modern life, but not being unduly +specialized, he does not show traces of these currents that are highly +peculiar to himself. + +Singularity is the fault of many explanations that are being offered +of why we are floundering and how we may take arms against our sea +of troubles. These explanations come from economists, sociologists, +psychiatrists, political students and other specialists. They often +apply correctly to aspects of our confusion, but, coming from +specialists, they necessarily tend to be recondite. And what they seek +to explain and remedy, namely the easily recognized and very widespread +state of mind and feeling which G. R. epitomizes, is not recondite at +all. Why not then, as I have suggested, make a direct report, involving +no detailed knowledge of economics or social theory, of what G. R. +and the rest of us can all be aware of in terms of daily personal +experience? Surely it seems best when we are floundering to imitate the +Socratic example, to turn to the common mind, to trust in sound sense, +before we repeat as our own the views of some specialized pleader. + +What gives us all, G. R. has often inquired, this persistent feeling +of blindly living along without a compass? The first part of the reply +is easy. Involuntarily, we have looked to Society for a compass and +it is patent that Society offers none. It has moulded us, directed +us, tossed us about in its channels: that we know, and we continue to +feel its multitudinous pressures every day. But Society does not show +us, nor has it shown us, any central ideal for its collective self and +for its individual members. Ideals there are in abundance, the ideals +of professions and institutions, but a master ideal ruling over them +there is not. There is competition of ideals, but no sovereign aim +subordinating all other aims in life to itself. “Whirl is king, having +driven out Zeus”--we need not wonder that this has become for us a +meaningful quotation. + +If you are a lawyer like G. R., you live up to a code of legal ethics; +if you are a physician, you encounter a standard of good medical +practice; if you are a scientist, you know what the scientific ideal +is: yet you do not in those professions or in other occupations or in +the churches find an intelligent standard of living for all men to +which common assent is given. That implies a great deal more than most +people realize. It is saying that there is no central significance in +the lives we are living. Society tells us of none, and there is only +conflict and confusion on our most important concerns as human beings. +Let G. R. ask of Society: what is the meaning of my existence? what +is the true aim of my existence? Society can only reply: I am not +at present organized about any answers to these questions. You must +fulfil obligations to me, but I acknowledge no obligation to you as an +individual in the matter of spiritual guidance. That, my dear sir, is +your personal outlook. Take your choice, if you like, among a variety +of conflicting opinions, but none of them have my ultimate sanction. + +Of course, as G. R. often fails to remember, such a state of affairs +has not always been. It was not so in ancient Palestine, not so in +ancient Egypt, not so in the Middle Ages in Europe. Many times in +history has Society returned to its members a full coherent reply, +right or wrong, to the prime question of the individual, what is the +significance and aim of my existence? It has, first of all, defined the +social duties of the individual, but afterwards it has admitted that +it in turn existed to further the primary aim of the individual. Not +today. + +This, the complete failure of contemporary Society to declare Truth +and found itself on it, is clearly the first cause of our sense +of confusion. It is not that we are out of harmony with Society’s +declaration of Truth: it is that we know that Society is rather +helplessly established on Pilate’s question and certainly it washes its +hands of the business. Whether it is possible or desirable for Society +now to give a single answer to the question, why are we alive, is an +entirely different consideration. In bringing out the fact that our +Society does not hold up a standard of Truth, I would not wish to be +understood as meaning that Tibet is superior to America because it is +unified in a religious way we are not. Far from that! What is being +driven at now is simply the ineluctable fact that American Society +does not promote an authoritative conception of spiritual life, and +the result of this, be it good or bad, is competition and confusion of +ideals. + +Bad it may be, for if man cannot have the real thing, it is notorious +he will take substitutes. We are held together not by a grand +ideal which is both social and individualistic, but by a number of +pseudo-ideals winning mass-acceptance. What are they? Study our +national behavior, and because it is obviously standardized you will +have no trouble discerning what our brazen images are. + +G. R.’s mind, for example, is typical of most of us in that it is +soaked in the dogma of social progress. A very compact statement of +this dogma was once given in the process of criticizing it by Robert +Shafer, one of the New Humanists. “Social progress has become,” he +said, “a species of popular religion of which the chief articles of +belief are: that earthly life is in and for itself a good thing, that +terrestrial happiness is possible for all men, that applied science and +industry have given us the means for abundant enjoyment, and that it is +now the task of social science and government so to order our common +life that toil shall not rest heavily upon any of us and that the means +of enjoyment shall be equally open to all. It is, moreover, generally +believed not only that terrestrial happiness is possible for all men, +but that it is infallibly coming to pass--that is, that social science +and government are bound to succeed in their task.” + +That this is really our credo, our actions as well as our words +testify. We say nowadays that we “accept life.” Why we accepted it and +for what we accept it, we do not clearly know; so we say that life in +itself is good. Our actions furthermore make us all out to be believers +in the attainment of widespread terrestrial happiness. Our forefathers +may have dreamed about laying up treasure in heaven, but not we. For we +can point with great faith to a means for abundant enjoyment here and +now: we point to applied science and industry. They are to reduce toil +for us, toil, we are quite sure, being a main cause of unhappiness. +With more leisure we shall be happier, for then we shall be able to +amuse ourselves, as we say, and to enjoy comfort. + +But how external all this is! Precisely. For some reason we feel that +the way to improve man is to improve the environment by means of +applied science and the better organization of industry. This, we +think, will increase the sum of happiness. It does not matter whether +we are captains of industry or social rebels: we are both thinking in +terms of changing the environment, and neither of us has even a faint +perception of a simultaneous need to improve man directly by an inward +transformation. That is why I call the doctrine of social progress, +whether it is framed by a member of the Republican party or of the +Socialist, a pseudo-ideal, for it promises only more leisure, not a +use of leisure conducive to human happiness. It does not implant a new +motive in us but inspires the belief that our old motives will receive +fuller scope for action, and by so receiving this larger scope, we +shall be made happy. + +So the environment is the focus of our energies. We aim to complete +our conquest of Nature, as we say. But in the process of subduing the +natural world, we have, many people believe, got ourselves organized +into an intolerable plutocracy. This scheme of social organization must +be revised or transformed to give better opportunities for material +enjoyment to all members of society. Then, and only then, so the +meliorists of environment and society assure us, will it be possible +for the individual to work directly at self-improvement. + +It is worth repeating the question of the individual under any and +all conditions of human existence. I will do so in the words of +the late Stuart P. Sherman, who as a thoughtful young man went to +Society and books with the question that comes to all thoughtful +young men, “Is life worth living, and for what purpose?” He found, +as we all have found, no grandly framed answer by Society to this +question, no consensus of all intelligent men today, no reply that +appealed at the same time powerfully to the mind and the heart and +was furthermore associated with a practical way of life. Sherman then +gave up the question and, as if under hypnotic suggestion, put forth +another, “Assuming that life is worth living, what are its durable +satisfactions?” Under hypnotic suggestion, I said, for in truth our +relation as individuals to Society should not be described as a +reasonable one but as that of subject to hypnotist. An answer to the +first question, is life worth living, and for what purpose, is not to +be plucked down from our social atmosphere, but our air swarms with the +assumptions that life _is_ worth living, that it is good in and for +itself, that terrestrial happiness is possible. We have not to question +the basis of life but only to discover durable satisfactions. + +But Society as hypnotist rules us in this search too. We all become +members, it appears, of the cult of distractions and comfort. No? Look +again at what we actually do, observe our national behavior. Sherman +did just this: he said, in pursuit of his second question, let us +see what Americans spend their money for, since we spend for what we +believe in, since our expenditure is an act of faith. Well, he found +that we as a nation spend heavily for plumbing, for bodily health, for +university education, for automobiles, for organized athletics, and for +advertising and publicity purposes. He put, it is true, an optimistic +and sentimental interpretation on these facts. What his list shows, +however, is that our center of gravity is in the practical life, and +that we are addicts to the pursuit of comfort and pastimes. “I can’t +think,” said Sherman, referring to college sports stadia-building, +“of any more significant architectural phenomenon since the cathedral +building of the Middle Ages”--nor can I, but I am thinking of the +differences in purpose, worship and appeal. We idolize baseball players +and boxers, not saints and artists and sages. + +Are not these pithy words of Frank Jewett Mather true? “What is in +America our accepted vision of the good life? For upon it must rest our +art. What do we all agree to (saving always negligible minorities of +‘knockers’)? I fear it would come to these few articles of faith:--to +make a lot of money by fair means; to spend it generously; to be +friendly; to move fast; to die with one’s boots on. This is a credo +which has within its limitations positive merits, and it is by no +means lightly to be decried, but it palpably offers little spiritual +nourishment to the ‘art-artist,’ to quote a recent mayor of New York. A +certain kind of art it feeds admirably. And it naturally gets the art +it feeds--the immaculate bank clerk in campus clothes, the sylph-like +apparition in the porcelain tub, the beach party in the classy car--the +art of the advertisement generally. And this ideal also finds its +authentic expression in the cheap heroics and shallow idealisms of the +moving picture, and the potpourri of dubious music and eloquence over +the radio. These are our representative arts, as sculpture was the +representative art of Greece, or painting of Florence.” + +Thus far our search for the plain facts of our present floundering +condition has led us to a paradox: we lack any standard of a good, a +noble life, yet we are amazingly standardized in our lives. Finding +no common vision of what life ought to be conducted for, we fall prey +to exceedingly powerful social suggestions. We behave, first of all, +as if the machinery of existence, the getting of a living, were an +all-important end in itself. And on the margin left free by practical +affairs we look for a good time, we try to be neighborly, we increase +our comfort. + +G. R. is entangled in this paradox: at the same time he falls into the +conventional modes of American behavior, he protests against them: he +decries the lack of a common luminous standard for life and yet does +not set himself to search for one. He continues to flounder unhappily. + + * * * * * + +Some of G. R.’s psychological biography is now relevant. At one time +a large part of his mind was under the control of a certain view of +the world which I shall personify as “the Sunday School boy.” Later +“the Sunday School pupil” at the back of his brain was supplanted by +“the village atheist,” the personification of the world-view G. R. now +holds. Both these characters in his brain are elusive, capable of many +disguises, and below the surface. One must go stealthily to capture +them. + +Every human being, even the least philosophic man, is compounded of two +attitudes, an attitude toward the world and an attitude toward himself. +The latter seems more native, less educable, than the former. Of our +picture of ourselves we are almost never aware, and even when in rare +instances we come to realize what the picture is, it seems impossible +to change it. We can only sometimes correct its influence on our +actions and feelings, but we go on habitually conceiving of ourselves +as before. Our attitude toward the world, on the other hand, seems to +derive from education and to be susceptible of change. A world-view +of some sort we must have, but the particular one we receive, often +unconsciously, is, as people say, “wished on us,” usually when we were +children. G. R. illustrates a change in world-conceptions, passing as +he did from the dominance of “the Sunday School pupil” planted early +in his mind to the later dominance of “the village atheist,” installed +there in his twenties. But let us ask some general questions first. + +What attitudes toward the world are characteristic of ourselves and our +contemporaries? That is, what are our chief emotional states in regard +to that immense given object, the world? What are our imaginations of +life? An interesting enumeration of some of them was given a few years +ago by a practical psychologist. “There is,” he said, “the ‘Puritan’ +picture which represents life as a hard and narrow school. This evokes +the attitude of the nervous schoolboy in the constant presence of the +stern dominie. There is the ‘Pagan’ picture of life as an orgy of Greek +gods inviting men to drink and feast with them. There is the ‘Serious’ +view of life which imagines ‘God’ to be struggling against almost +hopeless odds for the redemption of matter. The emotion or attitude +evoked is one of ‘helping poor father.’ There is the ‘Scientific’ +view that sees life as an orderly insignificance, all dressed up but +with nowhere to go. There is the ‘Æsthetic’ view in which life is an +artist making and exhibiting works of art, with man as the appreciative +witness. And so on.” + +But which of these and other unlisted world-conceptions are most +conspicuous in intelligent American society today? I think they are +the two that G. R. has been victimized by; one asserts the universe to +be purposive and meaningful to man, the other declares the contrary. +The first for convenience we can call the Victorian world-view, and +the second the “Scientific” view. Both when stripped bare seem pretty +absurd, yet who will say that we, even when we recognize the puerile +character of our governing conceptions, do not go on being dominated +by or at least being considerably influenced by absurdities? It is +not easy, any one who has tried will testify, to overcome our early +education. + +Consider the Victorian world-view which is implanted in most people +brought up like G. R. in one of the Protestant churches. H. G. Wells +has sought for thirty-five years to shatter it. His procedure has been +to delineate its formation time and again in his novels and then show +how impotent it is to face a really hard blow from circumstance. From +_Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island_, for instance, I can quote a very +neat description of the present-day Protestant _Weltanschauung_ as it +is popularly held, but in this form who but a very honest man will see +that something very like it underlies much of his opinions about life? + +“God began afresh with me in England,” says Mr. Blettsworthy in +reference to his boyhood, “as the confederated shadow of my uncle, a +dear English gentleman of a God, a super-Blettsworthy in control, +a God of dew and bright frosty mornings, hopeful and unresentful, +whose peculiar festivals were Easter and Christmas and the Harvest +Thanksgiving. He was the God of a world that was right way up, stern +only to smile again, and even through the solemnity and restraint of +Good Friday peeped out my uncle’s assurance that the young gentleman +would come back safe and sound on Sunday. A serious time, of course, +occasion for grave reflections, but meanwhile we had our hot cross +buns.... + +“He was awfully decent, was God, as his uncle displayed him, and he and +my uncle made me want to be decent too. In a world of ‘All right’ and +‘Right O’ and ‘Right you are, Sir.’... + +“My uncle shook back the sleeves of his surplice and leant smiling +and persuasive over the pulpit, making everything clear and mild like +English air, and I felt that if I were given a vision sufficiently +penetrating I should see high above the blue ether another such kindly +Father, instructing his fortunate world.” + +Considering the results of the recent research by Dr. Angus Hector +MacLean of Columbia University into the ideas about God of Protestant +children, Mr. Blettsworthy’s account is more than fair toward what +we learn in Sunday School. Furthermore, since most of us never give +any serious thought in later years to Religion, we never learn very +thoroughly what a travesty of the religion of Christ our instruction +has been. We take it naïvely for something like the genuine thing. We +may vary or subtilize the picture, trying to make its anthropomorphism +less crude, but in essentials it remains the same. A fatherly +personage rules the universe and we are his darling concern. At the +back of our minds there is still a “little Sunday School pupil” piping +up in adult’s language that the world runs on a benevolent principle +and that we should therefore be altruistic toward our neighbors in +imitation of the divine principle. + +But it is possible for many people by an extension of their reading to +exorcise this “little Sunday School pupil” and to install in his place +what I can only designate as “the village atheist.” Once this oddity +is established there, we react to life according to the dictates of +the “Scientific” imagination of it. In this view there is only one +kind of real knowledge, and that is modern science: there is only one +sanction for knowledge and that is bestowed by the scientist. All +art, all religion, all morals, all philosophy must bow before the +final authority of science. They do not yield us other and different +knowledge of the world, valid in its own way, but they are purely +fictive unless backed up by the arch-critic of all contemporary +culture, the scientist. “This is a scientific age,” says G. R. to his +friends who still continue to speculate about religious matters. + +This point, our exclusive reliance on scientific investigation and +thought for the truth about things, needs no stressing. It is one of +the preëminent signs of the modern mind. We do not take seriously the +kind of knowledge offered by art, for instance, and in fact we do not +call it knowledge at all. But it needs to be repeated again, for we +continually forget it, that modern science is carried on by intensely +specialized men whose activities are understandable to only a few +hundreds and who do not popularize their doctrines. In many cases +indeed, the various theories of quantum for one, these activities are +extraordinarily hard to render into the idiom of the world. So it comes +about that the many intelligent men who have adopted the “Scientific” +view are actually just as Victorian as those who retain a sentimental +“religious” life-picture. For their “Scientific” view is forty or +fifty years old, going back to such famous and gifted popularizers +as Huxley and Tyndall. By it they believe that the world is a vast +mechanical concern, thoroughly materialistic, orderly and eventually +knowable, but without purpose, and in this world man is an accidental +form of life. He is alien to the world, and it is indifferent to him. +How old-fashioned this is! Does it not bring to mind the discussions +of some provincial group of tight-minded atheists set on combating +the conventional propaganda of latter-day Christians? Yet, though the +advanced physicist has forsaken this world-conception, it persists in +many persons today who fancy themselves as intellectually “free.” + +G. R., for instance, picks up the latest _Nation_ the postman has +brought to his door and there in a feature article of one of our most +intelligent weeklies, he reads: “It (the natural world) is a system if +not with any purpose at least with an order.... Man is a half happy +but, historically considered, quite explicable accident.” Now what is +that but saying over again to G. R. what the Victorian scientist said +in effect to G. R.’s father--the universe is all dressed up but has +no place to go? Yet these sentences are by a professor of philosophy +in a large university who is regarded as _au courant_ with the latest +developments in thought. By this you may see how beneath a considerable +surface complexity in the modern mind there may lie major assumptions +of an astonishing naïveté. There is indeed a “village atheist” in many +of us who controls our emotional state toward the world, and we shall +have a great deal of trouble to dislodge him. + +The truth is that neither the Victorian world-outlook, nor the +“Scientific,” nor the “Pagan,” nor the “Æsthetic,” nor any other of +the world-outlooks subscribed to in the present time by minorities +inspires a creative emotion toward life. But of that, a creative +world-conception and its corresponding attitude, more is to be said in +a later chapter. + + * * * * * + +Perhaps we shall make a better case for ourselves if we examine our +chief current conceptions of man. After all, nothing obviously is +closer to us than our organisms: we may find that the world at large +is a receding object for speculation, but who can be oblivious of +the intimate bonds existing between what we call our “ego” and the +manifestations of our personality? It is a truism (which we are always +trying to forget) that we are attached by self-love to the strange +being that bears our name, and it is furthermore known that self-love +falls into a certain number of stock forms or attitudes toward oneself. +Into these we need not go now: they fall more logically into the +psychologist’s province. But it is pertinent for us to take up certain +large conceptions of man which have a great hold on us, and deeply +color our self-attitudes. + +To begin with, a very large party, probably the most numerous in fact, +thinks of man as existing wholly within Nature. By this its members +mean that man contains naught of the supernatural: on the contrary, his +psychology belongs as much to Nature as does his physiology. He rises +out of Nature, but does not transcend it. There is no special law for +man as distinct from law for thing: man is utterly material: the old +doctrine of the soul’s immortality is a delusion. Browning has sung for +them: + + Let us not always say, + “Spite of this flesh today + I strove, made head, gained ground, upon the whole!” + As the bird wings and sings, + Let us cry, “All good things + Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!” + +But this party which as a whole denies the existence of any radical +discontinuity between Nature and Man is itself divided into a +sentimental and a scientific faction, and both have representatives +in the schools of psychology. The Freudian psycho-analyst will do +very well as a spokesman for the sentimental naturalists, and for the +scientific naturalists the Behaviorist is perfectly ready to offer his +conclusions. + +It happens that G. R. belongs to the former persuasion: he has been +twice psycho-analysed and the stock he takes in the process can be +gauged by the considerable expense he has put himself to. He is +convinced that we have a kind of bastard soul, the “unconscious” or +as most people prefer to call it, the subconscious, which is a basic +conception in the teachings of the Freudians. This bastard soul is +dynamic, not merely the residue of the impressions which we have +either forgotten or received unawares, and it works its will deviously +upon us. The important thing is to become aware of its modes of +operating and to keep them from being perverted by false education +and false social notions. Repressions and suppressions are, on the +whole, mischievous, though sometimes necessary. The mind furthermore +is suspect. It fools us by rationalizations: it oftentimes aids in +unhealthy sublimations. + +G. R. therefore seeks to free his impulses and to follow them +spontaneously. He has turned anti-intellectual and tries to establish +himself upon his instincts and his feelings without interference from +his mind. He trusts in his “unconscious” which he believes to be +innocent and naturally good in the old sense of Rousseau. That is why +we may term G. R. a sentimental naturalist, for the mark of the breed +is its faith in the essential goodness of man and its contention that +the environment alone is to blame for the spoiling of man. + +At the present time, G. R. is hostile to the scientific naturalist, +not on the fundamental ground that man is entirely within Nature, +but because the Behaviorist drives out sentiment about the inherent +goodness of man. To the Behaviorist man is a doomed creature. He is +the product solely of biology and sociology, will-less, an automaton, +purely a response-mechanism. His consciousness is doubted, though his +complexity is granted. But it is the complexity of a machine. G. R. +finds it difficult to refute the Behaviorist’s laboratory experiments, +but his “mystic” faith in the “unconscious” insulates him against the +terrible conclusions of Dr. Watson and his co-workers. + +Nor does he like the phrase, “the indignity of man,” which the New +Humanists use for the conceptions of psycho-analyst and Behaviorist +alike. + + * * * * * + +It may seem to some readers that I have overdrawn this portrait of +a typical child of our age. But we must not mistake complexity of +thinking for thought itself. An elaborate superstructure may rest upon +a few naïve assumptions. I have tried to get below the superstructure +and there I find a man who leads a standardized life due to the +manipulations of Society, who either returns to his mother’s knee when +he looks at the world or else regurgitates the stale conclusions of +Victorian materialism, who conceives of himself as being naturally good +if only he can return to the state of Nature or else he conceives of +himself as purely mechanical--and it is impossible to exaggerate either +this man’s ignorance of what life may mean or his lack of creative +emotion toward the world and himself. His leaders, for all I can see, +only subtilize his blindness, but they are stricken in the same way. +It is true, one can confidently affirm of our epoch at least, that as +A. N. Whitehead observes, “The mentality of an epoch springs from the +view of the world which is, in fact, dominant in the educated sections +of the communities in question.” Our leaders and this poor stock figure +G. R. live in the same climate of opinion: they have shaped him, it is +obvious, but what is not so immediately clear is that they have also +sprung from him. + +This at any rate is incontestable. Our age is not rich in individuality +as the Renascence was. The Renascence type--the master of many arts, +the all-round or universal man--does not flourish with us. And the +reason? Once we peer well inside our psychology, it is apparent that +we are aimless and uncreative, and that, I think, is sufficient +explanation. + +The New Humanist is against the psychology of modernity. He stands for +another kind of man which I shall try to portray in the next chapter. + + + + + III + + THE MAN OF POISE + + _“The virtue that results from a right cultivation of one’s + humanity, in other words from moderate and decorous living, is + poise. Perfect poise is no doubt impossible: not even Sophocles + succeeded in seeing life steadily and seeing it whole. The + difference is none the less marked between the man who is moving + toward poise and the man who is moving away from it.”_--Irving + Babbitt in _Humanism and America_. + + +One turns to dictionaries sometimes to find out what sense certain +terms have had for large bodies of men. There are always several +definitions of Humanism that have been widely accepted, including one +that covers the meaning of the word as used by American Humanists. +No follower of Irving Babbitt could take exception, for example, to +the definition in _Webster’s New International Dictionary_, where it +is stated that Humanism is “a system, mode, or attitude of thought +or action centering upon distinctively human interests or ideals, +especially as contrasted with naturalistic or religious interests.” +A more interesting definition occurs in the _Century Dictionary_: “A +system of thinking in which man, his interests and development, are +made central and dominant. Its tendency is to exalt the cultural and +practical rather than the scientific and speculative, and to encourage +a spirit of revolt against existing opinions.” In the preceding +chapter we glanced at some of the nowadays deeply entrenched opinions +supporting the “indignity of man” conception which American Humanism +seeks to oust, and we may add here that the New Humanist is fighting +against the raising of the scientific discipline above the literary +discipline. All of us for many years have read such sentences as these: +“The field of literature is notoriously the home of lost causes. +Almost any antique idea, no matter how rusty and fly-blown, can pass +as legitimate currency in literary circles.... Literary men, as a +class, are surprisingly ill-informed about anything but literature.... +The exclusively literary discipline is one of the most narrowing +and least productive of all intellectual disciplines”: and we have +wondered under the spell of their confidence if we too should not be a +little contemptuous of the offerings of literature to the modern man, +rejoicing in them perhaps with a kind of secret shame, while we reserve +our serious attention for the latest researches in anthropology and +Gestalt psychology. Only, sotto voce, have we observed this alleged +reluctance on the part of literary men today to embrace new scientific +speculations? On the contrary, they seem, most of them, to be much +more prone than genuine scientists to accept the latest guesses as +“discoveries.” The New Humanist like the genuine scientist has not much +applauded the “guess-sciences,” such as psycho-analysis, for from his +training he has formed the stubborn conviction that the great literary +masters were _not_ naïve men but quite the opposite, and divined more +about the essential constitution of human nature than modern science +has yet been able to disentangle. The New Humanist is even prepared +to maintain in the teeth of the multitude shouting of “progress” that +perhaps modern culture is a retrogression, and we need not think that +the growth of a scientific mentality is a compensation for the decline +of commonsense, the weakening of feeling, the decay of action as an +art. In fact, the contention of numerous scientific apologists for the +inferiority of the literary discipline to the discipline of science +is a comparatively old story to the New Humanist, reminding him of +Arnold’s reply to Huxley. I have it in mind soon to introduce Arnold +as a model Humanist, one whose life and works may show us better than +any abstract discourse what contemporary Humanism aspires to be, but +it will be interesting first to look at his address on _Literature and +Science_. + +In that discourse Arnold marked his agreement with Huxley up to a +certain point. “There is, therefore, really no question,” he said, +“between Professor Huxley and me as to whether knowing the great +results of the modern scientific study of nature is not required as +a part of our culture, as well as knowing the products of literature +and art.” But it is such a statement which the rabid scientific +propagandist ignores when he informs his audience that Humanism is +anti-science in its tendency. It is not so. The New Humanist objects +not to science, but to the exaggerated prestige science has acquired +in modern civilization. “Interesting, indeed, these results of science +are,” he will say with Arnold, “important they are, and we should all +be acquainted with them. But what I now wish you to mark is, that we +are still, when they are propounded to us and we receive them, we +are still in the sphere of intellect and knowledge.” Science is taken +by the New Humanist as a great arm of the human spirit, a magnificent +intellectual weapon forged for ascertaining the _what-ness_ of things, +but still only as one of the great arms of the spirit along with +philosophy and art and religion; and now we can bring forward Arnold’s +justification for the literary discipline, the reason for his claim +that “letters will call out their (mankind’s) being at more points, +will make them live more” than an education carried on mainly in the +natural sciences. + +It is because literature is not confined to the sphere of intellect +and knowledge, but is concerned with the relationship between that +sphere and the other spheres of a man’s life, the sphere of beauty, +the sphere of conduct. It is like dancing which has a regard to the +total harmonious action of the body as contrasted with exercises like +weight-lifting designed solely to increase strength. The scientific +discipline is concerned with knowing, the literary with connecting +knowing with feeling and doing. Truth is the prize of the scientist; +truth, beauty and goodness the prizes of the man of letters. Thus, it +may be said that the function of the literary culture is to sum up all +other existent cultures, to gather them in and sweeten their language, +and finally to relate their findings to the total being of man. + +Arnold beautifully exemplified this relating power gained from the +study of letters when he declared that “we shall find, as a matter of +experience, if we know the best that has been thought and uttered in +the world, we shall find that the art and poetry and eloquence of +men who lived, perhaps, long ago, who had the most limited natural +knowledge, who had the most erroneous conceptions about many important +matters, we shall find that this art, and poetry, and eloquence, have +in fact not only the power of refreshing and delighting us, they +have also the power,--such is the strength and worth, in essentials, +of their author’s criticism of life,--they have a fortifying, and +elevating, and quickening, and suggestive power, capable of wonderfully +helping us to relate the results of modern science to our need for +conduct, our need for beauty. Homer’s conceptions of the physical +universe were, I imagine, grotesque; but really, under the shock of +hearing from modern science that ‘the world is not subordinated to +man’s use, and that man is not the cynosure of things terrestrial,’ +I could, for my own part, desire no better comfort than Homer’s line +which I quoted just now, ‘for an enduring heart have the destinies +appointed to the children of men.’” + +Let that stand as all the defence required for the _utility_ of the +literary classics in a scientific age. But it is a temptation to add +further words of explanation, especially when one has at one’s elbow +persuasive quotations from Arnold on other aspects of the discussion. +Who has ever better stated the social office of literature than Arnold +in _Culture and Anarchy_ when he says: “The great men of culture are +those who have had a passion for diffusing, for making prevail, for +carrying from one end of society to the other, the best knowledge, +the best ideas of their time; who have labored to divest knowledge +of all that was harsh, uncouth, difficult, abstract, professional, +exclusive; to humanize it, to make it efficient outside the clique of +the cultivated and learned, yet still remaining the _best_ knowledge +and thought of the time, and a true source, therefore, of sweetness and +light.” + +Literary culture then relates one power of our being to another, and it +humanizes knowledge by putting it into the clear, supple and beautiful +idiom of the world. By doing the second, it makes our knowledge ready +for a third operation: it makes it ready for trial by the commonsense +of mankind. What errors are revealed when an imposing jargon is at +last made over into transparent writing, and what truths recommend +themselves with overwhelming authority when at last they are spoken in +the world’s tongue! To be passed by the commonsense of mankind is the +highest seal of truth we can know. The friends of literary culture are +right in their main contentions for literature’s great value. But let +me here repeat there is naught in American Humanism _as a doctrine and +an attitude_ that denies the restricted utility of modern science to +the modern man in his struggle for firm ground on which to plant his +feet in this rocking age. At another place we shall have to examine +the conclusions of individual American Humanists concerning scientific +doctrines. But now, in the endeavor to visualize Humanism in practice, +let us look more closely at the figure of Matthew Arnold, who was so +eminent an exponent of the literary life. + +The first point I wish to make about Arnold is an unfashionable one +just now, and therefore not easy for many people to appreciate. +Arnold’s life, externally considered, was typically middle-class +and ordinary. The son of the famous Dr. Thomas Arnold of Rugby, he +went up to Oxford, where he distinguished himself by his verse, and +afterwards faced the common problem of making a living. This problem +was complicated, as is the common case, by his desire to marry, and +he solved it in the ordinary way by taking a position that was not +altogether congenial, was in fact irksome, but did enable him to wed +Miss Lucy Wightman. Thereafter, he raised a family, and became a +member, though a critical one, of the great political and religious +institutions of his country. He traveled, he lectured, and he meditated +and wrote on matters of wide public interest. There were no exciting +physical adventures in his life, no grand crimes of passion, no +flaunting colors, no great upheavals of circumstance: in short, his was +a representative life and, to an unsympathetic eye, a commonplace one. +It was at the other pole from _la vie bohême_. + +There are certain advantages not often reckoned in leading a life of +conformity, such as Arnold’s outwardly appears to be. But to forestall +misunderstanding of my point, I must say that I personally see no +virtue in conformity itself, nor in non-conformity by itself. The +first is worthless when set up as an ideal, and since the second is +only a turning inside out of something worthless (the old illustration +of the resemblance between the hollow and the bump comes to mind), it +too is of no value: non-conformity for the sake of non-conformity is +stupid. No; virtue resides all in the aim and spirit with which one +conforms or rebels: the important question is _how_ one lives within +the conventions or outside the pale. It is purpose, not pattern, that +is radical. + +But it so happens--and this is among the certain advantages referred +to--that a man who leads a life typical of the millions of middle +class mankind is automatically insured of a greater breadth of normal +experience than is the bohemian flouter of institutions. The former +experiences the common lot of man: a sense of family responsibility, +touch with the main life of his community, actions within institutions +greater than himself, and so on. The latter often becomes a kind +of specialist in eccentric experience. He may be, and often is, of +extraordinary gifts, but subtraction must be made for limitation of his +experience, for specialization in certain directions, for eccentric +psychology. Dazzled by what is unique in him, we often fail to count +the price he has paid, his missing the broadening and steadying effects +of ordinary experience. + +Breadth and steadiness--these are essential for the attainment of +poise, and these requisites to a certain extent are mechanically +conferred on one who lives in accord with the large customs of his +society. In looking at Arnold then, let us forget that he was a +Victorian, since that label is a flag to arouse our prejudices and stop +our thinking, but let us concentrate on these qualities of breadth and +steadiness and see how his life in its very regularity and typicality +fed his purpose and attitude, for in them we shall find his genius. It +is not conventionality or unconventionality, I repeat, that is worth +a tuppence, but that counts which one can extract from living. Arnold +wished for proportionateness in character and in following the middle +class pattern of life, he was intelligently using it for his purpose. I +do not advance this as a general proposition but in his case it was so. + +_How_ did Arnold conduct his life? We may view him successively as a +thinker, a man of sentiment, and a man of practice, and in each aspect +we shall see him hold himself with an admirable poise. First, his +mind. Every one grants that it was an exceptionally balanced mind, and +the reasons for its fine state of balance are chiefly two: the scope +of Arnold’s reading and the purposiveness of his studies. For what +makes for an unsteady mind? Insufficient knowledge which permits one +to go off half-cocked, as people say; insufficient knowledge, or as +Arnold liked to put it, provincialism. Arnold was constantly on guard +against provincialism both of time and place. In a famous passage he +opposed them both: “Let us conceive of the whole group of civilized +nations as being, for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great +confederation, bound to a joint action and working towards a common +result; a confederation whose members have a due knowledge both of +the past, out of which they all proceed, and of one another.” But he +not only immersed himself in the Occidental mind: he also, as is not +common with Western thinkers, absorbed a great deal of the learning of +the Orient. In other words, by a diligence that is extraordinary when +it is remembered that Arnold by occupation was not a man of letters +but an inspector of schools, he carried in his head a knowledge +of world literature written over a period of twenty-five hundred +years that served him as a marvellous balancing pole in dealing with +the transitional problems of his day as they presented themselves +in politics, religion, education, social morphology and the art of +literature. Breadth of reading was the first aid for him in winning +intellectual balance: the second was purposiveness. For there have +been many omnivorous readers who have merely, after all, passed the +time because of their aimlessness. James Russell Lowell is a pathetic +instance. But Arnold’s duties shortened his hours for reading, and he +felt he had to read, when he was free to do so, to some purpose. There +is a Latin maxim--“_Semper aliquid certi proponendum est_” (always some +certain end must be kept in view)--which we know he impressed upon +himself. His essays are evidence that he was successful in working the +maxim into his blood. + +Still the mind is only the third part of a man, and mental poise +can exist alongside of emotional debility and incompetence in daily +affairs. Not so with Arnold, however, who impresses one almost as +much by his emotional poise and his practical level-headedness as by +the stability of his mind. He was a poet and is secure of a place +in the history of English poetry, and this is proof positive of his +strength of feeling, for time permits no man weak in feeling to stay +long in the halls of Poesy. More than that, his sentiments, beginning +with the personal and lyric, tended to pass into reflective emotion: +that is, they broadened, became generalized, impersonal, universal, +linked with reflections on the common destiny of mankind. This +represents a maturing of his emotional life. Now just as provincialism +and aimlessness destroy one’s mental balance, so immaturity and the +inability to feel beyond one’s intimate concerns upset one’s emotional +balance. But Arnold ripened, leaving the petty and childish behind +him. He learned emotionally to stand on his own, to practice a sturdy +independence. His sentiments were adult. Mark too his efforts to +round out his emotional life. By disposition addicted to melancholy +meditativeness, he sought--many times with success--to cultivate +gaiety, to support a deeply serious view with as much charm and +lightness as were fitting. + +Now regard him in his practical aspect. We have seen that Arnold +did not evade what the middle class man regards as his duties and +responsibilities. He was a man among men, asking for no petting from +society, meeting honestly by his own efforts the obligations of his +lot. He never underestimated as do many modern artists the importance +of conduct. Conduct, he said, was three-quarters of life, and as such +man’s most serious concern. “As for living, our servants can do that +for us,” said Villiers de l’Isle Adam, but Arnold never echoed such +a sentiment. On the contrary, he not only faced daily affairs with +dignity and courage, observing all varieties of men, bearing his own +part, but he stressed the practical side of his writing. He wished +for the best ideas to _prevail_ and he took infinite pains to make +them persuasive and lucid and graceful so that they would irresistibly +invade men’s minds and prevail. In this he is in extreme contrast with +the “ivory tower” attitude which isolates art and thought from events. +The practical man wishes to make a mark in the world’s business, and +this decidedly Arnold aimed to do. The aim saved him from æsthetic +trifling and metaphysical toying. It filled out the third side of his +being. + +Now perhaps we may see what is involved in the ideal of +proportionateness: a threefold activity to clear the mind, to ripen and +extend the feelings, to develop a practical attitude. The man of poise +cannot neglect any one of these on peril of remaining lop-sided. Bias +is his enemy, and against it he needs the full operation of a strong +centralizing spirit in himself. Such a spirit, pervading his conduct, +pervading his poetry, pervading his mind, Arnold possessed, and it is +conveyed in his remark that “we are not here to have facilities found +us for doing the work we like, but to make them.” It is the spirit of +a man who faces the natural difficulties of life with a strong will to +overcome them. + + * * * * * + +We are trying to arrive at a life-like picture of the man of poise as +American Humanism conceives him. I have chosen Arnold as a working +model of the quality, and an imitable one as well. Naturally American +Humanists vary in their estimates of Arnold, and one or two--notably +G. R. Elliott--are rather harsh in their strictures, but the majority +appear to find in him the prime humanistic virtues, and so it seems +fair to make the use I have of his example. It is obvious, I hope, that +I do not imagine I am passing all of Arnold in review, and furthermore +I confess that were I not looking for a man of poise in the recent +Humanist tradition, I should never have summed Arnold up under that +phrase. Poise to my mind is not the capital thing about him. Beyond +the degree of most men, Arnold was a truth-seeker; and poise was to +him auxiliary to the pursuit of truth. Auxiliary but necessary. For +without moderating one’s powerful prejudices, without attaining a fine +balance and tact, without tempering one virtue by its opposite virtue, +Arnold was positive that one could not see things as they are. Things, +reality, are many-sided, and without the cultivation of many-sidedness +in ourselves, how can we hope to approach them fairly? These words +from the preface to _Essays in Criticism: First Series_ set forth the +right employment of poise in the great endeavor to see life steadily +and whole. “To try and approach truth on one side after another, not +to strive or cry, nor to persist in pressing forward, on any one side, +with violence and self-will,--it is only thus, it seems to me, that +mortals may hope to gain any vision of the mysterious Goddess, whom we +shall never see except in outline, but only thus even in outline. He +who will do nothing but fight impetuously towards her on his own, one, +favorite, particular line, is inevitably destined to run his head into +the folds of the black robe in which she is wrapped.” + +A singular fact ought to be patent from all that has been said: the +man of poise is not a type, but an ideal toward which all types of men +may strive. Nature makes types, but she does not make human beings of +poise. She makes will-less Hamlets who, faced by a necessity to act, +simply speculate and speculate, until events force them at last to +act; she makes Byrons who, on the other hand, try to force events: +they act impetuously, but they reflect like children, as Goethe said +of Byron. But Nature does not make the balanced, well-proportioned +individual. Arnold worked on himself: he worked to perfect himself +beyond the maternal care of Nature. + +Thus we see that the man of poise, the Humanist ideal, is in reality +a spiritual athlete. His balance and proportionateness are not gifts, +such as a vein of poetic emotion or a capacity for intellectual +analysis may be, but they are deliberately sought and maintained. It +requires constant effort, constant activity, for him to be what he +is. Modernity accepts no such ideal as the New Humanist upholds. It +wants greater Hamlets, greater Byrons, greater Calibans: it wants the +accentuation of types and the growth of specialism: in short, it wishes +to go with the grain of Nature. But the New Humanist proclaims that +the truly man-like part is to work against the grain of Nature. “It is +this backward motion toward the source,” says Robert Frost, the poet, +“against the stream, that most we see ourselves in.” + + + + + IV + + THE NEW BATTLE OF THE BOOKS + + _“Our ‘intellectual atmosphere,’ however, is now rapidly changing, + is becoming charged with new interests. More and more persons, + oppressed with the stale skepticism of the post-war period, are + beginning to grow skeptical of that skepticism, and are looking + for a new set of controlling ideas capable of restoring value to + human existence. Certain forces are making for order and for new + objectives.... One of these forces is known as ‘humanism,’ which + is rapidly becoming a word to conjure with.”_--Norman Foerster in + _Humanism and America_. + + +Before I can treat the grounds of the New Humanist doctrine, I must +turn historian and present, briefly at least, correct information about +the origin and course of the movement which acknowledges Irving Babbitt +and Paul Elmer More as masters. I am forced to this by the amount of +misinformation and crude misrepresentation already widely disseminated +concerning More and Babbitt and their colleagues. How this spreading +of erroneous information, which now stands in our view, has come about +is easily explained. American Humanism has had a quiet development for +thirty-five years, making its way chiefly in academic channels and in +scholarly books. Not until very recently, and then principally because +of the spirited campaign waged in behalf of Babbitt and More by the +_Bookman_, has this body of thought made any strong infiltration into +popular literary journalism. + +Now the roving eye of the literary journalist-at-large seldom glances +at anything growing up in the universities, and it missed altogether +the New Humanist movement until it emerged in force in the winter +of 1929-1930. Then, to his surprise, the literary journalist found +himself expected by his public to say something about Humanism. He was +totally unprepared to do so, but experience has given him a cynical +attitude toward his public. He is the lazy tutor who does not study +one lesson in advance of his pupil, but he has learned how to divert +the mind of his charge, should he be asked an inconvenient question. +He then makes a great play on non-essentials, he bluffs it out until +the hour is over, knowing well that his pupil will soon forget both the +question and the mystifying answer. To send the public off on false +scents was the shift, not always adopted dishonestly, of the unprepared +literary journalist when Humanism became no longer an avoidable +topic. For literary journalists, it seems, are never pen-tied because +of ignorance: no difficulty was experienced in promptly delivering +opinions having no bearing on the facts, lacking logic, missing the +real issues,--wrong opinions, in short. Myths about the New Humanism +were quickly generated, giving delight to connoisseurs in the absurd, +but decidedly misleading to gentleman-readers wishing simply for plain +light on the new trend. However, to dispel these myths, which obstruct +thought, nothing more is needed than some bald information. + +It is dramatic contrast, in view of the international attention his +teachings have won, to begin with a picture of Irving Babbitt[1] in his +classroom, working obscurely, as befits an underminer of an age’s basic +assumptions, at his task of moulding the mind of a generation. Among +the many professional writers and brilliant teachers who have come out +from his courses--one may mention as a catholic selection T. S. Eliot, +Van Wyck Brooks, Walter Lippmann, Norman Foerster, Gilbert Seldes, +Newton Arvin--was the late Stuart P. Sherman, who has left us a roughly +drawn description of his early master’s wealth of mind and strength for +destruction and construction. + +“I knew Professor Babbitt as a graduate teacher in the History of +Literary Criticism and in his Rousseau and His Influence. At that time +he had very small classes--meeting around a table. He came in with a +bag bursting full of books, and took out a handful of notes which he +arranged around him. Began to sway in his chair, then leaped out upon +one of them, and poured a barrage of criticism upon some doctrine or +some line of poetry,--‘to cast o’er erring words and deeds a heavenly +show’--Buddha, Aristotle, Plato, Horace, Dante, Montaigne, Pascal, +Milton, etc.--etc. + +“He deluged you with wisdom of the world; his thoughts were unpacked +and poured out so fast you couldn’t keep up with them. You didn’t +know what he was talking about, but you felt that he was extremely in +earnest, that it was tremendously important, that some time it would +count; that he was uttering dogmatically things that cut into your +beliefs, disposed derisively of what you adored, driving you into a +reconstruction of your entire intellectual system. He was at you day +after day like a battering ram, knocking down your illusions. He was +building up a system of ideas. + +“You never felt for a moment that he was a pedagogue, teaching pupils. +You felt that he was a Coleridge, a Carlyle, a Buddha, pouring out the +full-stuffed cornucopia of the world upon your head. You were no longer +in the elementary class. You were with a man who was seeking through +literature for illustrations of his philosophy of life. You were +dealing with questions on the answer to which the welfare of nations +and civilization depended. He himself seemed to know the right answer +and was building a thoroughfare of ideas from the Greeks to our own day. + +“You went out of the room laden down with general ideas that he had +made seem tremendously important.... He related for you a multitude of +separate and apparently disconnected tendencies to the great central +currents of thought. You carried away also a sense of the need for +immense reading. He had given you theses about literature, about life, +which you would spend a lifetime in verifying.” + +A battering ram knocking down illusions ... myself, I like to think +of Irving Babbitt as a dogmatist of the Dr. Johnson type, burly in +his judgments, masculine in his sentiments, downright in manner, an +unyielding hater of sophistry, a stalwart upholder of commonsense. +What is remarkable, in view of the extent of his system, is that he +should have laid out at the age of thirty the ground-plan for his whole +impressive structure of ideas. “The characteristic thought of Irving +Babbitt,” as Norman Foerster observes, “was already adumbrated in 1895 +in an address at the University of Wisconsin on ‘The Rational Study of +the Classics,’ published two years later in the _Atlantic Monthly_ and +in 1908 included in his book on _Literature and the American College_.” +Since then he has steadily developed his original thesis: confident +of his foundations, he has put up a heavy, many-fronted, turreted +fortress for the modern mind to retire into and survey across a moat of +commonsense the giddy wheelings of the “modernists,” those, that is, +who make a cult of change and take change to be “progress.” + +But what were Babbitt’s sources? His mind is powerfully assimilative +and very muscular in its operations. He has applied it to world +literature, east and west, ancient and modern, and naturally therefore +his sources are varied. He is more Aristotelian than Platonic, however, +and he takes more from Confucius than from Buddha. He feels himself +at home with the rugged conservatism of Dr. Johnson and Edmund Burke, +and he stands with Matthew Arnold as an urger of more Hellenism in +Anglo-Saxon culture. + +His more immediate stimulators in American literature seem to be +Emerson and Charles Eliot Norton. Emerson as a volatile literary force +arose from many elements, one of them assuredly humanistic, and from +this fortifying element in Emerson Babbitt has drawn much aid to his +own spirit. It was the element which Emerson expressed in the didactic +poem quoted on the flyleaf of Babbitt’s first book, _Literature and the +American College_, and which no American Humanist since has apparently +been able to refrain from quoting some place or other in his writings. +I also succumb to the poem’s epigrammatic appeal and concision. + + There are two laws discrete + Not reconciled,-- + Law for man, and law for thing; + The last builds town and fleet, + But it runs wild, + And doth the man unking. + +In respect to that man of truly mellow culture, Charles Eliot Norton, +friend of Carlyle, co-editor with Lowell of the _North American +Review_, professor of fine arts at Harvard, and celebrated Dantean +scholar and translator, to him Babbitt acknowledged his indebtedness in +the preface to _Literature and the American College_, written in 1907 +shortly before Norton’s death.[2] “Those who,” Babbitt wrote, “during +the past generation have felt the need of a more humane scholarship are +indebted to him, many for direct aid and encouragement, and all for an +example.” + +By 1910 Babbitt had found strong fellowship in the direction his mind +was working, notably the fellowship of Paul Elmer More. More had +been born in St. Louis, Missouri, a year earlier than Babbitt: he +graduated from Washington University in 1887 and took his master’s +degree from Harvard in 1893, the same date as Babbitt. In the college +year of 1894-1895 the two men were thrown together again, More as an +instructor in Sanskrit at Harvard and Babbitt as an instructor in the +French department. In the intervening year Babbitt had taught in the +Romance Languages department of Williams College and there he had met +a young instructor, Frank Jewett Mather, Jr., who was destined to +figure importantly in the growth of American Humanism. But not for +long were Babbitt and More to work together as university colleagues, +for from Harvard More went to Bryn Mawr College, where he stayed two +years teaching Sanskrit and classical literature. Then in 1901, after +his retreat to Shelburne, New Hampshire, for meditation, he joined +the staff of the _Independent_ as literary editor. Mather too gave +up academic work at this time and entered journalism as an editorial +writer for the New York _Evening Post_: he was for various terms in +the future to be its art critic as well as assistant editor of the +_Nation_ and American editor for the _Burlington Magazine_. More’s +future included the literary editorship of the New York _Evening Post_ +from 1903 to 1909, and the editorship of the _Nation_, then the supreme +organ of American scholarship, from 1909 to 1914. In the meantime he +had begun to write his well known series of literary studies, the +_Shelburne Essays_. + +More and Babbitt complement each other extraordinarily. If Babbitt +inclines to Aristotle, More inclines to Plato. If Babbitt writes on +literary trends, using particular authors only in so far as they +illustrate trends, More studies the individual genius, somewhat in +the sinuous fashion of Sainte-Beuve, and then points out the trend. +Babbitt, speaking roughly, is a critic of culture, More a critic of +authors. Their area of agreement is very wide: they unite against +Romanticism, agree substantially on Humanism, and diverge only when it +comes to the kind of interest and the warmth of interest they feel in +Religion. In short, More is more religious by temperament than Babbitt. + + * * * * * + +After his retirement from the _Nation_ in 1914, More devoted himself +to an enterprise of scholarship and criticism which well deserves +an adjective to be used with care, an adjective which has several +times been applied to it by men who do not write lightly, I mean +the adjective, monumental; and for the wonderful completion of this +enterprise he has occasionally been mentioned as a candidate for the +Nobel Prize in literature. The undertaking was _The Greek Tradition_ +in five volumes, an impressive and inspiring account of the relation +of Platonic and Hellenistic thought to early Christian thought; it is +a work, incidentally, that has not yet even begun to be digested by +American criticism. + +There are those who believe More to be the best literary critic in +the history of American literature. I think that is so: he appears to +me an American counterpart to Cardinal Newman in his grasp at once of +the ways of men, the subtle arguments of materialism, and reasoned +belief in the spiritual life. But be that as it may, he is today the +_doyen_ of American critics, and as such a cause for national pride. +Agree or not with their teachings, we must all feel pride that America +presents to Europe as, respectively, her _doyen_ of critics and as +her master-spokesman for classical literary ideas two men of the +resolution, deep scholarship, elevated thought, ripeness of judgment +and wide sweep of purpose which characterize Paul Elmer More and Irving +Babbitt. + + * * * * * + +Possibly the future of American Humanism will be dramatic. Already +it has enough adherents of a polemical turn of mind, sharp +controversialists like Robert Shafer and Seward Collins, to make things +hot for their natural opponents, the Liberals, and the Liberals are +certainly not going to relinquish their leadership of present-day +American literature and thought before resorting to every device of +literary dispute. Perhaps in the next decade Humanist and Liberal will +pamphleteer against each other with all the zest and pungency and +fierceness of the verbal warfare waged between Tories and Whigs in +eighteenth century England. But up till now the New Humanists have been +mainly perfecting their viewpoint, gathering strength, and preparing +for action. + +I distinguish three generations of New Humanists and divide, very +arbitrarily, the rise of American Humanism thus far into three brief +periods, the first from 1900 to 1917, when Stuart P. Sherman’s _On +Contemporary Literature_ appeared, the second from 1917 to the +publication of Babbitt’s _Democracy and Leadership_ in 1924, and the +third from 1924 to the present. + +From 1900 to 1917 the first generation of New Humanists was teaching +and writing out of its maturity. Babbitt was publishing his views on +educational reform, on modern confusion in the arts, and on literary +criticism. More was brilliantly editing the _Nation_ and composing +volume after volume of carefully thought out and gracefully written +studies of literature. Frank Jewett Mather, Jr., was making a name as +an exacting but sympathetic critic of the fine arts, a calling of which +in America he is now the dean. In passing, it may be noted that Mather +was a pioneer in the work of advancing the books of Herman Melville +to a front place in our literature. At the University of Nebraska, +Prosser Hall Frye and Sherlock Bronson Gass were teaching, thinking and +writing. Perhaps most prominent of all was the late W. C. Brownell, of +whom more than mere mention is required. + +Brownell, More and Babbitt--the names often formed a triad, and yet +Brownell never held explicitly the general ideas worked out by More +and Babbitt. The bond was sympathetic, but intellectually not clearly +established. I once ventured to call Brownell a Victorian standpatter. +Perhaps this was too harsh. Objection was taken by a critic who +nevertheless declared that Brownell’s “senses never felt a concrete +situation freshly, unmediated by the anticipation of habit. His mind, +acute in distinguishing things, rarely attained any ideas and never +a general philosophy. And his feeling for life seldom drove him to +remove the blinkers of convention.” It will be seen that these defects +lead to standpattism, however, and Brownell resisted change and stood +in general for the Mid-Victorian temper and standards. His mind and +tastes were typically nineteenth century: he did not have the freedom +of the centuries so arduously won by Babbitt and More. But he was +loosely united to them in the low opinion he entertained of many forms +of modernism and in his insistence on critical standards. + +Knowledge of the work these men--Brownell, Gass, Frye, Mather, More and +Babbitt--were performing in the early years of this century relieves +a little the oppressive feeling of dearth we have in regarding that +time in America. In _Their Day in Court_, an out-of-print book by a +forgotten impressionistic critic, Percival Pollard, we may get an +excellent picture of this brief period of literary dearth. Pollard +fought against the dry rot of the professors, the genteelness of +editors like Hamilton Wright Mabie, the commercialism of most that +passed for criticism, and the overwhelming mediocrity of the period’s +books. Rather sadly he said in 1908: “It does not seem to me as if +there were, on our side of the Atlantic, any longer such a thing as the +art of letters; it is merely a trade.” In that same year a gifted young +poet, Ezra Pound, fled our country, and later in his poem, _L’Homme +Moyen Sensuel_, expressed his disgust for the quietism of the times +more violently than even Pollard did. + + Still I’d respect you if you could bury + Mabie, and Lyman Abbott and George Woodberry, + For minds so wholly founded upon quotations + Are not the best of pulse for infant nations. + +So it was up to about 1912. There were certain giants looming over +the scene--Howells and Henry James and Mark Twain--but they had no +great animating effect upon it. James seemed too remote, Howells too +selective and genteel in his realism, and Mark Twain too given to +compromises. According to Pollard, the one American of literary genius +then alive was almost completely neglected. He meant Ambrose Bierce. + +Pollard and Pound were right. The period in spite of James, Howells +and Mark Twain and, if you will, Bierce, was low in creative vitality, +and the bulk of its criticism was feeble,--Huneker flashing the cheap +jewelry of his style, Mabie composing his “White Lists” of books: +both extremists can without a second’s reluctance be dispensed with. +But looking back, now that the transient criticism of 1900-1912 has +been swept away, we see that there were more independent critics +at work than Pollard recognized and that they were doing extremely +hard thinking amidst the plague of mediocre books. They continued to +elaborate their thought as American literature entered upon a new and +more fertile phase between 1912 and 1915. + +Some of the multiplying signs of the coming of a new order were the +founding of _Poetry_ magazine in Chicago, the establishment of the _New +Republic_, the beginnings of the _Little Review_ and _Others_, the +blooming of Greenwich Village, and the generative center for fresh art +impulses set up at “291,” the art gallery of Alfred Stieglitz. Soon a +new group of authors began winning laurels: Masters, Dreiser, Mencken, +Brooks, Bourne, were on the rise. The ferment worked faster ... little +theatres ... the _Masses_ and the _Liberator_ ... Coady’s _Soil_ +magazine ... the _Seven Arts_ ... the _Nation_ under Villard ... the +_Dial_ as a libertarian fortnightly. American participation in the war +only made the new ventures bubble more furiously: they flourished, when +not strangled by official censorship, on dissent. Finally, in 1919 came +Waldo Frank’s _Our America_, the distillation of this time of ferment +from 1912. + +Frank in this book took no cognisance, as his confrère Van Wyck Brooks +did, of the critical activities of the first generation of the New +Humanists. Nor did he pause to examine the work of Stuart P. Sherman, +the forerunner of the second generation of American Humanists. But +Sherman in 1917 had brought about the first spectacular duel between +the New Humanists and the naturalists represented by H. L. Mencken. +Sherman had been trained at Harvard under Babbitt: as a contributor +to the _Nation_, he had been groomed by Paul Elmer More. In 1917 he +published a book, _On Contemporary Literature_, in which he played the +part of the younger spokesman for classicism. + +It is the best of Sherman’s books. Nine-tenths of his work is mediocre, +but in _On Contemporary Literature_ he surpassed himself. His insights +into such authors as Synge, George Moore, Anatole France, H. G. Wells, +Theodore Dreiser were sharp, deep and excruciating to those who admired +them. Of George Moore, he wrote: “Purely intellectual initiative he +had none: but he has been swiftly responsive to every new influence +in art and literature. All his life he has lurked in the purlieus of +schools and insinuated himself into movements, solicitating, like +the barren Calpurnia, the fructifying touch of some fleet clear eyed +runner ... Mr. Moore does not think: he muses.” Of Anatole France, he +observed: “He loves above all else the luxury of philosophic despair +... The skepticism of M. France is largely a literary pose. It is his +justification for unlimited intellectual self-indulgence.” And here +is an excellent working distinction between realism and naturalism in +fiction: “Both are representations of the life of man in contemporary +or nearly contemporary society, and both are presumably composed of +materials within the experience and observation of the author. But +the realistic novel is a representation based upon a theory of human +conduct. If the theory of human conduct is adequate, the representation +constitutes an addition to literature and to social history. A +naturalistic novel is a representation based upon a theory of animal +behavior. Since a theory of animal behavior can never be an adequate +basis for a representation of the life of man in contemporary society, +such a representation is an artistic blunder.” + +Little wonder such thrusts as these produced an outcry, and there is +now no doubt that Sherman was vilified on the strength of this acute +book. We may look forward to the sober correction of the partisan +denunciations he called forth. In the meantime let us hear a Humanist +version of Sherman’s duel with Mencken, as an offset to the much better +known story given out by the sympathizers with Mencken. I quote from +Seward Collins writing in the _Bookman_: + +“Until after the war the main force of his (Sherman’s) work lay in +the brilliant application of the point of view he had learned from +Irving Babbitt and Paul E. More, carrying into the enemy’s camp +their warfare against naturalism and deliquescent romanticism. With +the publication of _On Contemporary Literature_ at the end of 1917 he +became the recognized spokesman for tradition and authority against the +‘liberating’ and ‘innovating’ efforts of the latest generation. The +effectiveness of his campaign may be judged from the shrieks, hoots and +curses which greeted his book in the radical magazines and in some of +the newspapers, notably in Chicago, where the new men occupied most of +the reviewing media. The Chicago outburst, characterized by unanimous, +simultaneous and extreme virulence, makes very amusing reading in +retrospect. Several records in this kind of criticism must have been +hung up during the onslaught, which went on for weeks. + +“Participants in the Chicago attack have explained that factors aside +from the book itself entered into the reception of _On Contemporary +Literature_. The cause most frequently given is the review of Mencken’s +_A Book of Prejudices_ which Sherman published in the _Nation_ of +November 29, 1917--just a month before his own book appeared--under the +title _Beautifying American Literature_. The review might well explain +any amount of rage among Mencken’s friends and disciples: it was one of +the most completely devastating slatings of a book and of a man ever +penned.... + +“This encounter was really an historic occasion in American letters +and thought. On the one side, for a number of years Irving Babbitt and +Paul E. More had brought supreme qualities of intellect, scholarship, +and literary skill to the perennial task of restating the case for +tradition in literature, morals, politics and philosophy. The result +was a series of powerful books providing almost a new basis for the +traditionalist cause, but one related at every point to the earlier +American traditionalists, to the main stream of European culture, and +to the great classical traditions of both the West and the East. In +Stuart Sherman these men had found a young disciple and champion whose +gifts, while not qualifying him to advance their work along all of the +extremely broad front on which they were engaged, yet enabled him to +make immediate and effective application of their views in their own +country and among the writers of the day. + +“On the other side, the disruptive, anti-authoritarian, +anti-traditional tendencies, which America had for the most part +resisted even when in the ’nineties they took England by storm, after +their successful tour of the continent, had from the beginning of the +century been gathering strength. As the century got into its teens, the +new forces found a vigorous, infectious spokesman in H. L. Mencken, +who had spent his youth soaking up all the prevalent forms of the +heretical doctrines--Huxleyan agnosticism and science-worship, Pater’s +æstheticism with trimmings by Wilde, the hedonism and routine mockery +of Anatole France, the inverted sentimentality of Nietzsche, Ibsen, and +the other shrunken giants of fifty years ago, and so on. To all this +Mencken had added a Bohemian individualism from various sources (given +aristocratic airs by talk of Federalism, the civilized minorities, +etc.), a smart up-to-dateness, and a talent for the violent buffoonery +of American provincial journalism. To many this rich mixture proved +irresistible. + +“These two antagonistic tendencies developed side by side for years +without clashing: the new men were restricted to shady magazines, +fleeting-tendency journals, and infrequent books which remained outside +channels of discussion. But in Mencken had arrived a personality +who could not be overlooked. And in Sherman the traditionalists had +a representative so sensitive to the forceful figures of his day +that he must have his say on them. The two men, who had been born a +few months apart, had entered upon literary criticism within a few +weeks of each other in 1908, and now at the end of 1917 published +almost simultaneously their first significant books. The result was +the episode which we have recounted. The old had met the new in open +conflict, and the fight was on.” + +I take this episode which Collins has described so vividly to mark the +end of the first period of American Humanism. This, as stated before, +is quite arbitrary, but it is a temporary convenience. For in this +first brush Sherman and his friends suffered defeat. Not defeat on +intellectual grounds, but defeat when it came to making their ideas +and standards prevail. _On Contemporary Literature_ was given a black +name as a puritan castigation of modern writers which even today +keeps it out of the hands of young people. Sherman himself underwent +a metamorphosis. He coarsened his style and vulgarized his thought +and within a few years was on the side of the very Liberals he had +once scorned. From the Liberal point of view, Sherman had advanced, +escaping from a rigid system of ideas, to a more genial play of his +sympathies and a greater openness of mind. From the Humanist viewpoint, +he disintegrated. Losing him, the New Humanists lost their one champion +who at this time was willing to employ his energies cutting off the +latest heads sprouted by the hydra of naturalism. The Naturalists, the +Liberals, the Romanticists, were to have things their own way for the +next few years. + +1920 was their year of jubilation, for in this year their spirit of +revolt, hitherto nourished in the intelligentsia and among the artists, +suddenly became popular. It was spread abroad by the success of such +realistic novels as Sinclair Lewis’s _Main Street_, Floyd Dell’s _Moon +Calf_, and Zona Gale’s _Miss Lulu Bett_. Eugene O’Neill conquered +Broadway at last with _Beyond the Horizon_, and in the same season +_Emperor Jones_ was produced in Greenwich Village. The _Dial_ became +an advanced monthly of the arts, the _Freeman_ launched itself on a +four years’ voyage of philosophic anarchism, Art Young conducted his +short-lived _Good Morning_, contributing his laughter to dissolve the +capitalist régime. Such books as _The American Credo_ by Mencken and +Nathan, _Poor White_ by Sherwood Anderson, _The Brass Check_ by Upton +Sinclair, _The Ordeal of Mark Twain_ by Van Wyck Brooks, and _The Dark +Mother_ by Waldo Frank made the year seem splendid with revolt, with +energy, with novelty. The Red ’Twenties had dawned. In this tumult the +New Humanists were lost from sight, and mouse-valiant book reviewers in +droves echoed the words of J. E. Spingarn without bothering to read +the men they were condemning. “These men,” said Spingarn of Babbitt +and More in the Freeman Pamphlet entitled _On American Books_, “have +the learning and culture of the best academic critics of France; but +what avails their petulant erudition if it serves no other purpose than +to whine over the irrevocable past and to sneer at the aspirations of +modern men?” Spingarn was floating with the new current and it seemed +to carry all the old barriers before it. + +Practically every one in the new movement agreed that the objects +of attack were Puritanism and industrialism. In fiction, realism +and naturalism came in as the fashion. Psycho-analysis attained its +greatest vogue. Lyricism, emotionalism, were valued chiefly, and +intellectualism suffered a decline in esteem. The star of the new +America was heralded rising out of the Middle West. An American +renascence has begun, the prophets declared, and now we shall create +an indigenous culture. Expansion was in the air. Who would pay heed in +all this excitement to Babbitt and More who stressed the opposite mood, +concentration? + +They, however, continued to swim against the swirling current +of Romanticism. More was at work on his magnum opus, _The Greek +Tradition_, and in 1918, the year after Sherman’s _On Contemporary +Literature_ had been blackened, Babbitt published his remarkable study +of the use and misuse of the imagination, _Rousseau and Romanticism_. +They were putting the last touches on their system of ideas, and +had the satisfaction while so engaged of beholding a small second +generation of New Humanists begin to come forward: Stanley P. Chase +at Bowdoin College, G. R. Elliott at Amherst, Robert Shafer at the +University of Cincinnati, and Norman Foerster at the University of +North Carolina. In 1924 appeared Babbitt’s _Democracy and Leadership_, +a study of modern political thought which conducted the author at its +conclusion back in a great circle to his starting point in his first +book, the need for collegiate reform in our study of the humanities. We +may say, for convenience’ sake, that _Democracy and Leadership_ closed +the second period of American Humanism. The New Humanism’s edifice of +ideas was now virtually complete. + +In the next period, from 1924 to the present, the humanistic party +gathered adherents and momentum as a distinct counter-movement to the +still triumphant naturalistic movement. T. S. Eliot, who has made no +secret of his partial indebtedness to Babbitt, was instrumental in +interesting various young critics in the ideas of More and Babbitt. +Two brief notes in _The Sacred Wood_ had the effect, even early in +the Red ’Twenties, of raising a doubt about the correctness of the +current adverse judgments on Babbitt and More delivered by men like +Spingarn, Mencken and Brooks. Later articles by Eliot and the opening +of the pages of his review, _The Criterion_, to discussions of the +New Humanism did much to make Humanism a chief topic of distinguished +conversation. The _Forum_ also undertook in a series of articles pro +and con to advance Humanism to the forefront of the intellectual world. +A third generation of New Humanists--prominent among them being Alan +Reynolds Thompson and Harry Hayden Clark--was formed: the _Hound and +Horn_, an organ of _les jeunes_ edited by a former student of Babbitt, +for a time flirted with the ideas of the counter-movement. Finally, in +1929 under the slashing leadership of Seward Collins the _Bookman_ took +up arms for the cause of More and Babbitt. + +Meantime, the main naturalistic movement in American letters was +slackening. In increasing numbers people were growing weary of +Menckenism. Two popular books in 1929 showed the hour was striking +for fresh ideas: one, Krutch’s _The Modern Temper_, was a confession +of impotence and gloom over the loss of the romantic hopes that had +been so dazzling in 1920, the other, Lippmann’s _A Preface to Morals_, +recognized the need for a new discipline in living and made effort +towards a formulation of one. Two prominent magazines of artistic +revolt suspended and each gave a curiously significant reason. The +_Dial_ said that “although a magazine can get along somehow without +readers it cannot exist without contributors.” And Margaret Anderson +said in the farewell number of the _Little Review_: “As this number +will show, even the artist doesn’t know what he is talking about. And I +can no longer go on publishing a magazine in which no one really knows +what he is talking about.” Verily, times were changing! We come to +1930, and hand-to-hand fighting at last between the New Humanists and +the Liberals or Naturalists or Romantics, as you choose to call them. + +The occasion was the publication of the symposium, _Humanism and +America_, edited by Norman Foerster with the assistance of P. +H. Houston, G. R. Elliott and Robert Shafer. It provoked a new +“battle of the books” but thus far no Swift has arisen to lash the +gross stupidities committed by the majority of the modernists. The +controversy in general was a repetition on a much wider scale of the +unscrupulous Chicago onslaught on Sherman’s book in 1917. Issues +were obscured, prejudice appealed to, meanings distorted: literary +careerists rushed in, trying to outshout each other, and the low +estate of criticism in America became painfully clear. I need only +cite the testimony of an observer not on the Humanist side who was +finally driven to write: “I confess to impatience with the row about +Humanism, because in the course of it, in the past half year or so, I +have seen the powerful principles laid down by Irving Babbitt, being +confused and cheapened.” The words are by Gilbert Seldes. Finally, an +opposition symposium, _The Critique of Humanism_, was hastily organized +and hurriedly despatched to the book shops three months after _Humanism +and America_ saw the light on the counters. With what seem to me the +cogent objections to the standpoint of Babbitt and More advanced in +_The Critique of Humanism_, I shall deal by and by. + +But shall we let the unsavoury episode just narrated pass without +recording the full harshness of judgment it deserves? I conceive it +the strict duty of a historian and lover of letters to say that the +cause of Romanticism is not so poor that it needs to be defended by +poor reasons and mob-appeals and that there is in fact a high standard +of argument already set in this controversy by the writings of the +English critics, Hugh l’Anson Fausset and J. Middleton Murry, _against_ +the classicists’ position. One’s first desire is to see, regardless +of one’s party sympathies, the steady advancement, the heightening of +literary excellence, of all schools--let us have everything at its +highest point--and it is just this desire for _quality_ of controversy +that was ungratified by the outpourings of the American modernists. +Really, they should have done better! I can only say that if we imagine +that criticism has a deity, as love was once fabled to have, then we +shall have to invent two forms of it, even as the Greeks conceived of +Aphrodite Uranus and Aphrodite Pandemos. We shall have to say that +there is presiding over the labors of critics Polite Criticism and +Vulgar Criticism, and that it was Vulgar Criticism which ruled most of +the pens attempting to deface the New Humanism in the spring of 1930. +No fierce Tory with the genius of Swift arose, it is true, to wither +the present-day worshippers of Vulgar Criticism, but we can turn back +to Swift himself for the necessary scathing words. + +“Meanwhile, Momus, fearing the worst, and calling to mind an ancient +prophecy, which bore no very good face to his children the Moderns +bent his flight to the region of a malignant deity, called criticism. +She dwelt on the top of a snowy mountain in Nova Zembla; there Momus +found her extended in her den, upon the spoils of numberless volumes, +half devoured. At her right hand sat Ignorance, her father and husband, +blind with age; at her left, Pride, her mother, dressing her up in +the scraps of paper herself had torn. There was Opinion, her sister, +light of foot, hoodwinked, and headstrong, yet giddy, and perpetually +turning. About her played her children, Noise and Impudence, Dulness +and Vanity, Positiveness, Pedantry, and Ill-manners. The goddess +herself had claws like a cat; her head, and ears, and voice, resembled +those of an ass; her teeth fallen out before, her eyes turned inward, +as if she looked only upon herself; her diet was the overflowing of her +own gall; her spleen was so large, as to stand prominent, like a dug +of the first rate; nor wanted excrescencies in form of teats, at which +a crew of ugly monsters were greedily sucking; and, what is wonderful +to conceive, the bulk of spleen increased faster than the sucking +could diminish it. ‘Goddess,’ said Momus, ‘can you sit idly here while +our devout worshippers, the Moderns, are this minute entering into a +cruel battle, and perhaps now lying under the swords of their enemies? +Who, then, hereafter will ever sacrifice, or build altars, to our +divinities?’” + + * * * * * + +Unlike the quarrels that were the occasion for Swift’s writing _The +Battle of the Books_, the new “battle of the books” caused by the +advent of American Humanism involves issues that far transcend the +ordinary interests of scholars and professional literary men. So far as +the present controversy is literary, it is pretty much the case of the +warm dispute in Æsop’s Fable between the Bee and the Spider as to which +was the better artist. This fable Swift rewrote in _The Battle of the +Books_ and then made Æsop draw out its application in words that cover +almost equally well the respective arguments of the Modernists and the +New Humanist today, for it will be seen that the modernistic spider +makes a cult of originality and tends toward science-worship while the +humanistic bee objects to the kind and impermanency of the modernist’s +materials and extols wide ranging and “sweetness and light.” + +“The disputants,” Swift has Æsop say, “have admirably managed the +dispute between them, have taken in the full strength of all that is to +be said on both sides, and exhausted the substance of every argument +_pro_ and _con_. It is but to adjust the reasonings of both to the +present quarrel, then to compare and apply the labors and fruits of +each, as the bee has learnedly deduced them, and we shall find the +conclusion fall plain and close upon the Moderns and us. For, pray, +gentlemen, was ever anything so modern as the spider in his air, his +turns, and his paradoxes? He argues in behalf of you his brethren and +himself, with many boastings of his native stock and great genius; +that he spins and spits wholly from himself, and scorns to own any +obligation or assistance from without. Then he displays to you his +great skill in architecture, and improvement in the mathematics. To all +this the bee, as an advocate, retained by us the Ancients, thinks fit +to answer--that, if one may judge of the great genius or inventions +of the Moderns by what they have produced, you will hardly have +countenance to bear you out, in boasting of either. Erect your schemes +with as much method and skill as you please; yet if the materials be +nothing but dirt, spun out of your own entrails (the guts of modern +brains) the edifice will conclude at last in a cobweb, the duration +of which, like that of other spiders’ webs, may be imputed to their +being forgotten, or neglected, or hid in a corner. For anything else of +genuine that the Moderns may pretend to, I cannot recollect; unless it +be a large vein of wrangling and satire, much of a nature and substance +with the spider’s poison; which, however they pretend to spit wholly +out of themselves, is improved by the same arts, by feeding upon the +insects and vermin of the age. As for us the Ancients, we are content, +with the bee, to pretend to nothing of our own beyond our wings and +our voice, that is to say, our flights and our language. For the +rest, whatever we have got, has been by infinite labor and search, +and ranging through every corner of nature; the difference is, that, +instead of dirt and poison, we have rather chosen to fill our hives +with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of +things, which are sweetness and light.” + +More quickly than anything else, and that is why I have invoked it, the +potent breath of Swift ought to lift the battle-smoke that now obscures +the literary quarrel between the New Humanist and the ultra-modernist +and permit us to see the essentials of the doctrine of More and +Babbitt. What are they? What importance and meaning and utility have +they for the lay reader not afraid to look _everywhere_ for guidance in +facing the alternatives that life is so ingenious in forcing constantly +upon man? I propose now to consider the very center of humanist +teaching, the duality of human consciousness so uncompromisingly +affirmed by the two leaders. + + + + + V + + THE CLASSICAL REVIVAL ABROAD + + _“People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy + as something heavy, humdrum, and safe. There never was anything so + perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy. It was sanity: and to be sane + is more dramatic than to be mad. It was the equilibrium of a man + behind madly rushing horses, seeming to stoop this way and to sway + that, yet in every attitude having the grace of statuary and the + accuracy of arithmetic.... It is easy to be a madman: it is easy + to be a heretic. It is always easy to let the age have its head; + the difficult thing is to keep one’s own. It is always easy to be + a modernist; as it is easy to be a snob.”_--G. K. Chesterton in + _Orthodoxy_. + + +However, before fulfilling the promise made at the close of the +preceding chapter, it seems well to take a cursory view of the +classical revival in England and France. Recent experience has shown +that American critics with only two or three exceptions cannot be +trusted to situate a comprehensive movement like the New Humanism in +its proper climate of sentiment, opinion and idea. On the contrary, +many of them regarded or affected to regard the New Humanist group as +a quaint local phenomenon sprung up miraculously without atmosphere +and totally unrelated to similar groups anywhere else. This delusion +embraced by the majority of the opponents of American Humanism +badly distorted their sense of perspective: to the broad challenge +of the followers of More and Babbitt they replied with singularly +inappropriate defiances. The plain truth is that a stiff parochial +frame of mind simply cannot make much sense of the application of +Babbitt’s criticism to current American literature and life. The +obvious remedy is wider travel in the countries of the mind. + +More and Babbitt are spokesmen for classicism on the ground that +it contains a wisdom superior to modernism. They uphold the longer +traditions of the human race against the newly formed traditions of +the last fifty, seventy-five or one hundred years. They believe in a +profound vital conservatism, not in the contemporaneous versions of +radicalism. They are, when one reviews European history in a large +way, orthodox, not heterodox. In England and France we shall find +distinguished writers who like Babbitt and More are classicists, +traditionalists, conservative, orthodox, men who oppose with all +their might and intellect the drift of modern civilization and seek +to renew our sense of time-tested standards. In this chapter I intend +merely to point out some of these men, to quote from each of those +designated only a few characteristic words on the modern crisis: that +will be enough to show on the one hand the many sides and the diversity +that living classicists everywhere manifest, and on the other hand +their unanimity on the errors of modernity and the need for standards +and discipline will be enough to destroy the silly notion that the +classical party in America is engaged in a unique reaction. I cannot +here attempt rounded estimates, however brief, of the individuals +mentioned, but I shall try to transfer to the intellectual situation +in America, which is our center of interest, several useful hints they +offer. We must expect to find conservative force in England to be _sui +generis_, and likewise in France, but for that and many other reasons +an acquaintance with them, even though but a bowing one, makes for +that suppleness of mind necessary to comprehend the home movement. We +may even rid ourselves of senseless fears of certain words: the reader +whose object is the freeing of his mind must soon overcome any horror +he feels for the word, “revolutionary,” or for the word, “reactionary.” +The free mind goes everywhere and tries to judge without prejudice the +thing itself and not the name. + +One thing we shall be immediately struck by is that it is purely an +accident that in America the conservative attitude should temporarily +be expressing itself almost entirely in the form of ideas and +criticism, for this is, of course, by no means an inevitable outlet +for the conservative temper. Tories, as witness Swift, can be great +artists: art was never the monopoly of the Whigs, but has always been +common to men of all hues of conviction. American Humanism therefore +does not inculcate an uncreative attitude. It cannot, it is true, +make creative ability in the arts where such ability does not exist, +but neither, for that matter, can such a theory as self-expression +produce creative ability. The Humanist attitude is a check on bad +art: self-expression, unfortunately, is a release of bad art. On this +score, which is to be preferred? No; it is a mere happenstance that +at present Humanism’s representatives are of a critical turn, men of +ideas rather than men of pronounced sensibility. Hence, their relative +unpopularity. They advocate ideas, and ideas--it is a truism--always +must fight against more inertia than emotions. An initial prejudice +exists against ideas as such, whereas some one’s strong feelings +directly affect us either to sympathy or to resistance: emotions convey +themselves almost as swiftly as actions do, but ideas, being quite +the weakest element in psychology, have a much harder time travelling +from person to person. Nor does one need to enlarge on the enmity felt +toward criticism itself, the disparagement constantly cast on this +necessary function of literary life, a habit of dispraise which, it +should be noted, grew up in the romantic period. The New Humanists are +mostly critics, and because of that many people conclude that their +doctrine, their conservatism, is sterile in the practice of the arts. +It does not follow, for it is the person who is or is not an artist, +not the doctrine which is responsible. Look abroad and you will see how +fertile in the arts of fiction and verse a classical reaction may be, +and no doubt yet will be in our own country. + +Here is a gallery of brief portraits of anti-romantic writers in +England. + +Philip S. Richards:-- + +One of the youngest English critics and probably the closest in spirit +and theory to American Humanism. In the pages of the famous review, +_The Nineteenth Century and After_, he has expounded very faithfully +to the English reader the ideas of Babbitt and More. No one has better +described the precise effect of Babbitt’s main principle on those who +come to accept it. “Only by following it up in all its ramifications, +as Babbitt works it out in his books with a wealth of illustrative +evidence, is it possible to realize its amazing fruitfulness, and its +universal applicability to the intellectual and moral problems which +we have inherited from the nineteenth century. _When once its import +is fairly grasped, its influence is like that of a new principle of +classification in one of the descriptive sciences. New and natural +lines of cleavage or affiliation at once appear, introducing order +and interdependence into a mass of chaotic or misrelated facts._ A +simple criterion is put into the reader’s hands, which he cannot help +using, even though it mean the abandonment of secret loyalties and the +dethronement of long-cherished ideals.... We may regard him (Babbitt) +as a pathologist who traces the romantic malady from its origin in +Rousseau, through its mild and chronic stage in Wordsworth, to its +acute and delirious phases in Tolstoy or the expressionist drama.” (The +italics are mine.) + +T. S. Eliot:-- + +The prestige of this erstwhile American citizen among the younger +generation has caused the same generation to be particularly attentive +to his views on American Humanism. Eliot’s poems, so exquisite in +workmanship, subtle in perception, almost Dantean in the clarity and +power of the individual image, contain the poignant suffering of a +sensibility tortured by the ugliness, crassness and lowness of modern +civilization. His earlier criticism dealt accurately with the effects +of literary masterpieces upon his sensibility. In recent years he has +broadened his basis as a critic and introduced a religious note into +his poetry. His general point of view he now describes “as classicist +in literature, royalist in politics, and anglo-catholic in religion,” +and wisely adds, “I am quite aware that the first term is completely +vague, and easily lends itself to clap-trap; I am aware that the second +term is at present without definition, and easily lends itself to what +is almost worse than clap-trap, I mean temperate conservatism; the +third term does not rest with me to define.” + +Eliot holds that we should come “to the conclusion that the humanistic +point of view is auxiliary to and dependent upon the religious point +of view. For us, religion is of course Christianity; and Christianity +implies, I think, the conception of the Church. It would be not only +interesting but invaluable if Professor Babbitt, with his learning, his +great ability, his influence, and his interest in the most important +questions of the time, could reach this point.” But on the other +hand Eliot has written an essay “to call attention to the danger of +the other extreme: the danger, a very real one, of _religion without +humanism_.” + +Herbert Read:-- + +A close co-worker with T. S. Eliot in the field of literary criticism, +this author is severe in his condemnation of the flatness of modern +life. “For Froissart,” Read declares, “glory was the measure of all +things, the crown of all virtues. For us it has become something remote +and elusive; even something romantic and literary. We have lost the +sense of glory because we have lost the habit of faith. We neither +love deeply enough, nor feel deeply enough, nor think deeply enough, +to enjoy life’s most impressive sanction.” Read follows the path of +T. E. Hulme, whose _Speculations_ he edited, back to pre-Renascence +philosophy: he has disciplined himself on the pages of the _Summa +Theologica_ and has caught fire from the complex splendor of the Middle +Ages. + +A champion of orthodoxy, he is critical of any particular form of +orthodoxy, such as American Humanism, as his essay in the _Criterion_ +on _Humanism and the Absolute_ reveals. This paper discussing the +views of Norman Foerster and Julien Benda was sub-titled _The Texts +of a Debate_, and I hope it is not lost ink to refer again to the +higher standard of controversy observed in England by writers who deal +with the New Humanists and to regret that our critics of Foerster’s +_American Criticism_ were, as a rule, unable to reach up to the mark +set by Read. In the essay mentioned, Read maintains that unlike Julien +Benda, “Mr. Foerster, on behalf of the New Humanists, nowhere makes +it clear that he accepts this absolute severance of things divine and +things human. He admits that ‘the ethical will’ is ‘a power above +the ordinary self, an impersonal reality in which all men may share +despite the diversity of personal temperament, and toward which their +attitude must be one of subjection.’ But he also says that ‘the value +of supernatural intuition must be tested by the intellect,’ and +rejects any formal theology on these grounds. But the greatest of all +formal theologies, that of St. Thomas Aquinas, was precisely such a +‘testing’ of supernatural intuition by the intellect or reason. If +religious intuitions must be submitted to rational inspection, then +surely the result is a theology. Mr. Foerster cannot have it both ways: +to _hesitate_ ‘to pass beyond’ experimental knowledge to dogmatic +affirmation is merely to sit on the fence: once admit the mediation of +reason and you are involved in the necessity of dogma.” + +This point, the reader will recognize, is connected with Hulme’s +argument for radical discontinuities in the universe, which was +injected into our first chapter and to which I pledged myself to return. + +Wyndham Lewis:-- + +He has dramatized himself as an Ishmaelite in Occidental culture, the +sworn and ferocious enemy of “Time-cults” and “Time-philosophies,” +of which Bergsonism is a typical specimen. Before the Great War, he +was a radical painter and associated with Ezra Pound to propagate an +artistic cult baptized Vorticism. Since the War he has turned social +philosopher, and possibly may be a first rate Tory mind in the making. +I say in the making, for up to the present Lewis is still a chaotic +personality, given to extravagances, and not yet sufficiently trained +in metaphysics to cope with A. N. Whitehead, S. Alexander, and some +of his other _bêtes noires_. But the New Humanist can second him in +many of his theses. He and Lewis are at one in their scorn for the +contemporary cult of the child and the primitive and in their hostility +to the modern feminization of man. + +In his book, _The Art of Being Ruled_, Lewis maintains--I cannot better +Montgomery Belgion’s succinct restatement in the _Bookman_--that +“what happens in a ‘liberal democracy’ is that rule by the few is not +banished, but concealed. And it is this concealment which is, Mr. +Lewis holds, responsible for so many of our contemporary ills, the +greatest of these being, perhaps, mass suggestion. In a democracy the +actual rulers are not the best rulers, but those who are most cunning +in obtaining power, and, furthermore, since their rule has to be +secret, it becomes necessary for these rulers to hypnotize the ruled +into acquiescence, to discredit the old standards of existence through +the agency of Science, and to organize the populace, to mechanize it, +to pump it full of a destructive fatalism while it is kept imagining +itself its own master.” Therefore let us have again an authority that +is an open authority. On Lewis’s analysis of pseudo-liberty the New +Humanist will agree even more heartily. “The present decay of Europe,” +I quote from Belgion again, “Mr. Lewis ascribes directly to the notion +of freedom. Since people cannot be free and in any case do not want to +be free, but only to be irresponsible, the notion of freedom has been +thought to be the notion of irresponsibility, and, thus misunderstood, +has been steadily weakening Europe. To this wasteful and disorganizing +notion of irresponsibility he opposes the notion of ‘working together’ +under a central control, which, he points out, gives the comfort and +strength of solidarity.” + +Hilaire Belloc:-- + +As a Catholic, this versatile man--politician, poet, storyteller, +essayist, historian, biographer--can naturally not regard American +Humanism as more than a half-way house. This would be in general the +Catholic position: however, both the New Humanist and the Catholic +intellectual are anti-naturalistic and pro-classical and this sets +vibrating a certain bond of sympathy for each other’s efforts to infuse +into modern literature something of what Belloc calls “the poise, the +fulness, the solemnity, the disdain of sharp effect, the glory in +control, the magic of proportion” which marked the productions of the +great classical periods. + +“The classical spirit,” observes Belloc, “has not fallen into disrepute +among us: it has been forgotten. It has become alien and strange, so +that men coming across it today, in our society, are like rustics +coming across some marble of the ancients. It does not repel them, but +it hardly attracts them at all--they can make nothing of it.... It is +said that men who drink spirits lose their taste for wine and certainly +men who use violent sauces lose their taste in cooking. Under the +effect of the romantic extravagance, the general sense of the classic +died. But the last extravagances of that extravagance were left for our +time to suffer.” + +I pass now from Belloc, anti-communist, anti-capitalist, and +anti-puritan, to the brilliant debater he has so greatly influenced +and to whom I shall give more space than has been devoted to the other +members of this little gallery of English champions of high tradition. + +Gilbert K. Chesterton:-- + +First, I will show at once his views on the New Humanism because +they pour light on the subject matter of this book, the dilemmas of +liberated people today. Granted, says Chesterton: “we need a rally +of the really _human_ things; will which is morals, memory which is +tradition, culture which is the mental thrift of our fathers.” But for +him “the question really is whether Humanism can perform the functions +of religion.” His reply is unequivocal. “I do not believe that Humanism +can be a complete substitute for Superhumanism.” Why? Well, “the fact +is this: that the modern world, with its modern movements, is living on +its Catholic capital. It is using, and using up, the truths that remain +to it out of the old treasury of Christendom.” The New Humanism in +Chesterton’s judgment draws on Catholic capital, but it “has one very +wise and worthy character. It is trying to pick up the pieces; that is, +to pick up all the pieces.” Only “can it stick them together? Where +is the _cement_ which made religion corporate and popular, which can +prevent it falling to pieces in a débris of individualistic tastes and +degrees?” Chesterton makes clear his doubt that the New Humanists “have +the secret of continuity; certainly not of corporate continuity.” + +Next, I should like the reader to join me in regretting that we in +America have had no G. K. Chesterton to work as an antidote to such +a popular “philosopher” as H. L. Mencken. Admit all the faults of +Chesterton, the occasional specious arguments, now and then the +patch of tawdry rhetoric, the lapses in taste and the falls into +mechanicality of style: call him, if you desire, no more than a +super-journalist. These flaws, however, are no great handicap in coping +with a popular propounder of belated nineteenth century rationalism +of the type of Mencken, when one is as playful, as pyrotechnical, as +hearty as Chesterton. By his buffooning Mencken hopes to attract the +populace to the banners of heresy: by his humor and the dazzlement +of paradoxes Chesterton aims to draw the public to orthodoxy. Thus, +the two men by their methods neutralize each other and leave the +reader free to examine coolly what it is that in all seriousness they +maintain. And in that respect Chesterton is immeasurably the larger man. + +Thirdly, the history of Chesterton presents a couple of features +of special interest for the person who is reacting against the +contemporary welter of half-truths. How came Chesterton to his present +strength of conviction on so many topics toward which his foes preserve +an attitude of squeamish indecision? The startling answer is, because +his early education, like that of Cardinal Newman and of Coleridge, +consisted of fairy tales. Startling to us, that is, for many of us have +been led to conclude that there should be no place for fairy tales in +the training of the young, that the less of “fantasy” and the more of +“fact” we incorporate into education, the better developed will be the +sense of reality of our children. But this is one of the crimes against +children, the most abominable class of crimes. No one has more forcibly +stated the case for fairy tales than Coleridge. “Should children be +permitted to read romances and relations of giants and magicians and +genii? I know all that has been said against it; but I have formed my +faith in the affirmative. I know no other way of giving the mind a +love of the Great and the Whole. Those who have been led to the same +truths step by step, through the constant testimony of their senses, +seem to me to want a sense which I possess. They contemplate nothing +but _parts_, and all _parts_ are necessarily little. And the universe +to them is but a mass of _little things_.” Chesterton argues somewhat +differently, but it is apparent that he was stimulated by fairy tales +to love the inclusive, to desire to reach the center, to devote himself +to the transcendent conception. It is in the centrality and breadth of +his mind that he exceeds Mencken and the smaller fry of rationalists. + +Another thing to take into account is Chesterton’s reaction to the +Yellow Nineties in England. In his youth he was immersed in Huxleyan +agnosticism and Wildean æstheticism, and he revolted vigorously from +these excesses. He found young men proud of their boredom; ennui was +taken to be a symptom of personal distinction. And he was informed +that art was divorced from morals. He replied curtly that “there is no +such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that +can exist is an uninterested person.... The bored has certainly proved +himself prosaic”--which places the blame where it should go. And to the +_l’art pour l’art_ people, he said: “A small artist is content with +art; a great artist with nothing except everything.” + +Fourthly, Chesterton delighted himself as every one knows with the +pleasures of a modern heresy-hunt. The hunting ground was certainly +happy, for, as he pointed out, we are living in the decadence of the +great revolutionary period, and nowadays “we are more and more to +discuss details in art, politics, literature,” but “general theories +are everywhere contemned ... we will have no generalizations.” “When +the old Liberals removed the gags from all the heresies,” Chesterton +goes on to say, “their idea was that religious and philosophical +discoveries might thus be made. Their view was that cosmic truth was +so important that every one ought to bear independent testimony. The +modern idea is that cosmic truth is so unimportant that it cannot +matter what any one says.” + +Vague relativism was the enemy and Chesterton went slashing after it +in the essays on Shaw, George Moore, Wells, G. Lowes Dickinson, Joseph +McCabe, Whistler and other moderns included in _Heretics_. Of them +all it seems to me that Wells best typifies what Chesterton stands +against, Wells in whom is fused sentimental naturalism and scientific +naturalism, Wells the prophet of humanitarianism. Chesterton put his +finger unhesitatingly on the soft spot in Wells’s whole program when +he noticed that “in his new Utopia he says, for instance, that a chief +point of the Utopia will be a disbelief in original sin. If he had +begun with the human soul--that is, if he had begun on himself--he +would have found original sin almost the first thing to be believed +in. He would have found, to put the matter shortly, that a permanent +possibility of selfishness arises from the mere fact of having a self, +and not from any accidents of education or ill-treatment. And the +weakness of all Utopias is this, that they take the greatest difficulty +of man and assume it to be overcome, and then give an elaborate account +of the overcoming of the smaller ones.” + +Finally, I wish the reader to note that the “paradoxes of Christianity” +which Chesterton defends with so much gusto in _Orthodoxy_ were not +imposed on him, were not slavishly accepted by him because of their +attributed authority, but were personally rediscovered. It is often +thought, sometimes with cause, many times unjustifiably, that the +exponent of tradition is simply a timid and unoriginal man: he flees, +so it is said, to tradition for safety; he does not return to it +because his experience has taught him that a given tradition is right. +But do all men adopt traditional teachings out of fear? Chesterton sets +us right. Classicism is properly a life, and not a mere subscribing to +inherited doctrines, and Chesterton has described the spirit and result +of that life when he said: “I am the man who with the utmost daring +discovered what had been discovered before.... When I fancied that I +stood alone I was really in the ridiculous position of being backed up +by all Christendom. It may be, Heaven forgive me, that I did try to be +original, but I only succeeded in inventing all by myself an inferior +copy of the existing traditions of civilized religion.... I did try to +found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I +discovered that it was orthodoxy.” + +The vivacity of commonsense! That, in a phrase, describes the appeal +of Chesterton, and nothing, it seems to me, is more often lacking from +American literary journalism than commonsense in the first place and in +the second place commonsense sparkling at its vivacious best. + + * * * * * + +To many American critics any stick is good enough to beat Humanism +with. But it has happened several times in our literary history that +the French have been more quickly appreciative than we of a genuine +new power appearing amongst our writers: it seems almost to be a law +that an unpopular spiritual force in America should first receive its +full due in France. It is a Frenchman, Louis J. A. Mercier, who has +written the first book treating the New Humanism as a movement. _Le +Mouvement humaniste aux Etats-Unis_, which makes a study of Babbitt, +More and the late W. C. Brownell, was crowned when it appeared in 1928 +by the French Academy, and it drew forth sympathetic comment from the +spokesmen for a variety of groups, from the Catholic papers to the +Action Française, from the Abbé Bremond to Baron Seillière. We can +easily understand the warmth of this reception by French critics. “Here +were American authors,” says Mercier, “who spoke their own language, +who were fully alive to all the traditions, who faced squarely the +problem of man, in the light of all these traditions, and who brought a +formula for a twentieth-century approach to a common reëxamination of +all the data involved.” + +Why have we not more examples in translation of the work of the +French classical reactionaries? We have a few--Benda’s _Belphégor_ +and _The Treason of the Intellectuals_, Maritain’s _Three Reformers_ +and _Art and Scholasticism_, Leon Daudet’s _The Stupid Nineteenth +Century_, Henri Massis’s _The Defence of the West_--but these are +barely suggestive of the resources remaining to be exploited by our +publishers. We have--to name names--no translations of such important +works as Pierre Lasserre’s _Le Romantisme français_ and _Cinquante +Ans de Pensée française_ by which we may trace the evolution of this +former pupil of Charles Maurras, nor have we a translation of Ernest +Seillière’s _Le Mal romantique_ or of his studies of Rousseau or of his +_Philosophie de l’Impérialisme_, all efforts to “de-Rousseauize” France +by large European perspectives. Above all, we have no books in English +from the energetic pen of Charles Maurras. This is odd, since no less +discerning a critic than T. S. Eliot classes Maurras as a philosopher +of rank equal to Irving Babbitt and declares that he “has written as +fine prose as any French author living.” Moreover, he says, referring +to England, “if anything, in another generation or so, is to preserve +us from a sentimental Anglo-Fascism, it will be some system of ideas +which will have gained much from the study of Maurras.” + +But perhaps before speaking of Maurras further I should give a very +general classification of the French affirmers of the classic order in +life and literature. We can divide them into three groupings: (1) those +associated with the Action Française and committed to its program of +“integral nationalism” which involves a return to royalism; (2) the +Neo-Thomists, such as Henri Massis with his bogey of Orientalism and +Jacques Maritain, “the most conspicuous figure and probably the most +powerful force in contemporary French philosophy,” according to T. S. +Eliot; (3) certain critics independent of organized groups like Julien +Benda whose recent book, _The Treason of the Intellectuals_, attacks +with great force the fomenting of political passions indulged in by +some of the French classicists, notably those of the Action Française. + +Charles Maurras is the outstanding man in the Action Française. He +began as an enthusiast for Auguste Comte and Positivism. In 1890 he +joined Jean Moreas in the founding of the Ecole Romane, a literary +return from Symbolism to antiquity. He wrote fiction and verse +expressive of his admiration for Hellenism. But his life’s work has +been in political and social thought and in literary criticism. For +years “Politics first” has been his cry: he establishes his teaching +on the doctrine of Joseph de Maistre who preached a turning back to +monarchism after the French Revolution. The sifting of Maurras’s +career, however, is a rather complicated business. To many he is +an atheist, certainly an agnostic; yet for some years he and his +organization, the Action Française, were Catholic, only to be condemned +in the end by the Pope. T. S. Eliot’s explanation is that Maurras is +“an unbeliever who cannot believe, and who is too honest to pretend +to himself or to others that he does believe; if others can believe, +so much the better not only for them but for the world at large. The +peculiarity of Maurras’s agnosticism (or atheism if you like) is that +he recognizes that he has much more in common, in the temporal sphere, +with Catholics than with Protestants or atheists.” + +Today Maurras directs--with the partnership of the truculent Leon +Daudet--the newspaper, _Action Française_, which flies on its mast the +following inscription: “_Chef de la Maison de France, j’en revendique +tous les droits, j’en assume toutes les responsabilités, j’en accepte +tous les devoirs_” over the name of “_Le duc de Guise, héritier des +quarante Rois qui en mille ans firent la France_.” With Maurras’s +bellicosities, his fanning of national and racial hatreds, I am not +now concerned, nor should I like in any case to defend them. It is +more germane to this book to quote from him on tradition. “Not all +traditions,” he says, “are equal.... Amongst all others one tradition +offers itself, of which the conspicuous character is its almost +complete conformity with those principles of taste which express +humanity raised to its highest point. We see it come to birth in Ionia +as from the ashes of Homer; it continues under the olive trees of +Cephisus. Roman sages who adopt it make a new home for it. The middle +ages do not banish it completely either from France or from the towns +of Italy. It reforms itself and occupies the whole of Europe; but it +is Paris now, as Athens once, that preserves it. From the middle of +the sixteenth century to the end of the seventeenth, humanism and the +classical spirit, refined to an Attic point of taste, never lacked +representatives among us, or an élite worthy of understanding and +loving it.” This Græco-Latin classical tradition, which belongs to +France, Maurras goes on to say, “surpasses all others. It reveals, in +fact, a force of life equal in flame, in coloring, in simple brutality +or refined delicacy to whatever the rest of the world can show, from +the steppes of Russia to the shores of Guinea; and as no other popular +tradition can vie with it in sensibility, it defies forever all its +rivals, in the order and luminosity of its writings, in the great +generality of their style. The works of this tradition are rightly +called Humane Letters, in that they interest the whole world.” Finally, +he exclaims: “But the pursuit of the classical tradition includes +other things than gods and goddesses. It authorizes a scrupulous and +passionate criticism. Far from freezing the senses, it excites, begets +creation. Even among ourselves, above all among ourselves, there is +much to be done. We can dream of tragedies nearer to nature, more +direct and simple than those of Racine. The heroic vein of Corneille +leaves room for a poet who should be wiser than he. The reader will +be surprised if I add that what we lack especially is lyric poetry! +Consider how little can be preserved from the romantic lumber-room. +We must bring things back to Malherbe. There was once a literary +criticism, there can be again, yet finer, and lead our literature to +its renascence.” + +Turning to the Neo-Thomists, it seems to me that Jacques Maritain is +the dominant figure. He began as a student of Bergson but shortly +afterwards joined the Catholic Church and today holds the position of +professor of modern history and philosophy at the Institut Catholique +of Paris. He grounds himself entirely on the doctrine of St. Thomas +Aquinas and his whole effort is to translate it into terms of modern +life, to make it serviceable and illuminating to the man of the +twentieth century. For a few years Maritain associated himself with +the Action Française but withdrew when in 1927 the Pope proscribed the +journal of Maurras, Daudet and Pujo. + +Maritain writes with an austere clarity. A fiery faith burns in the +depths of his thought and makes his most abstract pages strangely +intense. He is an utterly ruthless opponent of what he conceives to +be modern errors, and, like the American Humanists, he considers +Romanticism as the source of many of these illusions. “The word +romanticism,” he notes and I recommend his definition to the reader, +“may give rise to many confusions. I am aware that there have been +all kinds of things, even very good things, in the complex movement +classed under this name. But nothing is so idle as to argue about +words and recast their definition to suit your subject; and in spite +of everything usage has adequately settled the meaning of this one. In +so far as it signifies a religious eviction of reason and its works, +the sacred unbridling of sensation, the holy parade of self and the +adoration of primitive natural instinct, pantheism as theology, and +emotional stimulus as the rule of life, it must be confessed that +Rousseau, by his mystical naturalism, is at the direct source of such a +spiritual evil.” + +Again, like the New Humanists, Maritain attacks the ubiquitous sway of +modern science on the ground that science, unconfined to its proper +rôle, dehumanizes man. In his essay on Descartes, who to Maritain +founded the principle of the deep inhumanity of modern science, we may +read: “In the higher order of Cognition the Cartesian reformation gave +the irretrievable stability of the things of the spirit to the moral +attitude of turning towards perishable goods. See what the great name +of Science has become. It is today hardly applied to anything but the +knowledge of matter, and science, _par excellence_, is regarded by +most modern thinkers as belonging to a museum. In the modern world, +reason turns its back on eternal things and is ordered to the creature. +It rates the mathematics of phenomena above wisdom. From the mountain +of its excellence it has descried all the kingdoms of the material +universe and the glory of them, and it goes down to possess them.” + +And now we come to the freelances of the classical revival, to proud +polemicists like Julien Benda who never tire in the exposure of +romantic follies. Benda, novelist and essayist, tenacious opponent of +Bergson, has invented a name for the disease of pan-lyricism which +rages in America as well as in France. He calls it “belphégorism,” +for it is in his argument the worship of a false god, Belphégor or +Baal-Peor as it is written in the Bible. Belphégorism briefly is the +requirement of modern society that works of art should be _exclusively_ +productive of emotions and sensations, that history should be written +as a series of heart-throbs, that philosophy and science should give +thrills. Belphégorism is the love of the indistinct, of the novelty +purely for its own sake, of subjectivity carried as far as possible. +Conversely, belphégorism hates the mind, hates discipline, hates +form. Benda makes it clear that he is no objector to the lyrical in +itself, but rather to the invasion by lyricism of all provinces of the +intellectual life. To the softness in taste of modern French society he +opposes the plastic sensibility of the great seventeenth century, the +period of Descartes and Pascal, of Corneille, Molière and Racine, of +Bossuet, of La Fontaine, of Madame de La Fayette. + +By a plastic sensibility Benda means a sensibility, whose principal +modes are sight and touch, which organizes itself about the idea +of form. It loves precision and firmness. This sensibility is +localized, perhaps because it involves the more highly specialized and +developed nerves. It is, Benda declares, a centralized and correlated +sensibility, the source of poise. In contrast he places the musical +sensibility whose principal modes are hearing, taste and smell. This +is a disquieting sensibility, for it consists in sensation without +contour, it overflows the whole being with scattered and diffused +sensation. The consciousness is decentralized. The result is the +opposite of poise, being intoxication and vertigo. Modern society tends +toward a musical sensibility, a tendency Benda has become seasoned in +combating. + +This distinction between two types of sensibility is very usable, and I +shall come back to it when we take up Nietzsche’s great interpretation +of the Apollo-Dionysus conflict in the final chapter. But now this +exhibit of the friends of order abroad must be closed by a longish +quotation from Benda’s _The Treason of the Intellectuals_ illustrating +the difference between two types of humanitarianism (or more properly +between Humanism and humanitarianism), a difference our New Humanists +constantly insist upon. In addition Benda brings out very well a point +usually overlooked by people who, perceiving the aristocratic leanings +of the New Humanists, accuse them of being too disdainful of their +fellow men. + +“In our age the descendants of Erasmus, Montaigne, Voltaire, have +denounced humanitarianism[3] as a moral degeneration, nay, as an +intellectual degeneration, in that it implies ‘a total absence of +practical common sense’; for practical common sense has become the +measure of intellectual values with these strange ‘clerks.’ + +“I should like to draw a distinction between humanitarianism as I mean +it here--a sensitiveness to the abstract quality of what is human, to +Montaigne’s ‘whole form of human condition’--and the feeling which is +usually called humanitarianism, by which is meant the love for human +beings existing in the concrete. The former impulse (which would more +accurately be called humanism) is the attachment to a concept. It is a +pure passion of the intelligence, implying no terrestrial love. It is +quite easy to conceive of a person plunging into the concept of what +is human without having the least desire even to see a man. This is +the form assumed by love of humanity in the great patricians of the +mind like Erasmus, Malebranche, Spinoza, Goethe, who all were men, it +appears, not very anxious to throw themselves into the arms of their +neighbors. The second humanitarianism is a state of the heart and +therefore the portion of plebeian souls. It occurs among moralists +when lofty intellectual discipline disappears among them and gives way +to sentimental exaltation, I mean in the eighteenth century (chiefly +with Diderot) and above all in the nineteenth century, with Michelet, +Quinet, Proudhon, Romain Rolland, Georges Duhamel. This sentimental +form of humanitarianism and forgetfulness of its conceptual form +explain the unpopularity of this doctrine with so many distinguished +minds, who disavow two equally repulsive commonplaces in the arsenal of +political ideology. One of them is the ‘patriotic bore’ and the other +‘the universal embrace.’ + +“The humanitarianism[4] which holds in honor the abstract quality of +what is human, is the only one which allows us to love _all_ men. +Obviously, as soon as we look at men in the concrete, we inevitably +find that this quality is distributed in different quantities, and +we have to say with Renan: ‘In reality one is _more or less_ a man, +_more or less_ the son of God ... I see no reason why a Papuan should +be immortal.’ Modern equalitarians, by failing to understand that +there can be no equality except in the abstract and that inequality is +the essence of the concrete, have merely displayed the extraordinary +vulgarity of their minds as well as their amazing political clumsiness. + +“Humanism, as I have defined it, has nothing to do with +internationalism. Internationalism is a protest against national +egotism, not on behalf of a spiritual passion, but on behalf of another +egotism, another earthly passion. It is the impulse of a certain +category of men--laborers, bankers, industrialists--who unite across +frontiers in the name of private and practical interests, and who only +oppose the national spirit because it thwarts them in satisfying those +interests. + +“In comparison with such impulses, national passion appears an +idealistic and disinterested impulse. In short, humanism is also +something entirely different from cosmopolitanism, which is the simple +desire to enjoy the advantages of all nations and all their cultures, +and is generally exempt from moral dogmatism.” + + * * * * * + +Such, briefly indicated, is the general field of contemporary thought +in which American Humanism fits. I deem it, however, premature and +over-enthusiastic to perceive in this field the beginnings of a new +renascence, and likewise I do not think the parallel between the living +asserters of classical ideals and the Humanists of the Renascence +should be stressed. True enough, the modern revivalists have entered +into a gigantic battle to overthrow the preëminence of the dogma of +Naturalism, just as the Renascence men assaulted the preëminence of +petrified theological dogma, and true enough the moderns catch their +vision, as did their brothers in the fifteenth century, from the +ancient literatures. But it is yet to be seen whether they can do more +than _defend_ the ancestral treasures, whether they can be more than a +corrective force to the excesses and barbarisms of our era. Have they +the potency to initiate a real transformation of modern society? Can +they even arrest its downward plunge, let alone reverse its direction? +Have they the hidden strength to work a miracle? The questions +discourage all desires to prophesy. The only thing that can be said +is that the traditionalist thinkers are making a supremely important +contribution to the thought of today, that by their contribution they +tend to improve the general intellectual situation, and the first step +is the production of a more favorable situation, in itself a huge task, +for diamond ideas about the “good life.” Meanwhile, the most that can +be said about any notion of a coming renascence is that it may have the +energizing value of a myth: it is perhaps akin in its tonic effect on +the spirit to the conception of the general strike which Georges Sorel +proclaimed should be the heroic myth of the proletariat in its long +struggle. + +Now if we compare the theory of American Humanists with the theories +or partly worked out theories of their allies in Europe, we shall see +that we have at home not the least developed and least positive form +of conservatism. The Europeans either come to rest on Catholicism +(Chesterton, Belloc, Massis, Maritain), which for many Americans +seems impossible, involving an act of too much faith, and furthermore +they feel too _psychologically_ distant from Rome; or the Europeans +dedicate themselves to some political movement such as French +royalism (Maurras and his disciples) which to some extent perverts +their classical attitude; or finally they fall back on some personal +philosophy, scarcely more than a strong predisposition in favor of +the disinterested activity of the mind (Benda) or else very much in +the forming and full of idiosyncrasies (Wyndham Lewis). American +Humanism has not complicated itself by theological alliances, nor +subordinated itself to the pursuit of definite political aims. What +is striking is the extent to which it has freed itself from the +personal and idiosyncratic. It exists apart from the personalities +of More and Babbitt. Here is a body of general ideas, substantial +yet pliable, to which all who seize the few underlying principles may +resort and from which all may take a working experimental outlook on +the problems of their own lives. Here is a system for the guidance +of one’s thought, not for its repression and confinement. Here is an +ideology too definite to be treated whimsically, but not so rigid as to +be unadaptable to the taste of the individual. It has a completeness +wanting in the personal philosophies of Lewis and Benda, and it does +not appear to many so arbitrary as the doctrines of the Church. _Its +great recommendation is that it is founded on the positive critical +experimental spirit of modern times._ This in the remainder of the book +I shall try to demonstrate. + + + + + VI + + A CREATIVE CONCEPTION OF MAN + + _“Humanism is the study and practice of the principles of human + happiness_ uncomplicated _by naturistic dogmas on the one side and + religious dogmas on the other.”_--G. R. Elliott in _Humanism and + America_. + + +Humanism is a term that has been defined, and well defined, many times. +Yet there persists in the public mind the feeling that Humanism is a +portmanteau word and the New Humanists have failed to make it denote +anything precise. The public is not to blame for this feeling, nor +are the New Humanists responsible. Several causes may be alleged, +the first being the romanticizing of the word by writers like Walter +Pater. “For the essence of humanism,” Pater once wrote, “is that belief +of which he (Pico della Mirandola) seems never to have doubted, that +nothing which has ever interested living men and women can wholly +lose its vitality--no language they have spoken, nor oracle beside +which they have hushed their voices, no dream which has once been +entertained by actual human minds, nothing about which they have ever +been passionate, or expended time and zeal.” This is to make Humanism +denote simply an all-embracing curiosity, an insatiable appetite for +everything, no matter how trivial. _Humani nihil a me alienum puto_ +(I consider nothing human alien to me)--this widely quoted line is +the motto of those who take Pater’s definition too seriously. But the +line is spoken in Terence’s play as an excuse for meddling, and Babbitt +comments drily that it “might serve appropriately enough as a motto for +the humanitarian busybody with whom we are all so familiar nowadays, +who goes around with schemes for reforming almost everything--except +himself.” No, Humanism means more than a universal curiosity about +one’s fellow creatures, and it does not mean humanitarianism. The +humanitarians, however, have claimed the gracious word, and this is the +second cause of confusion as to definition. + +It is essential to see that Humanism and humanitarianism are quite +distinct. “A person who has sympathy for mankind in the lump,” to quote +from Babbitt, “faith in its future progress, and desire to serve the +great cause of this progress, should be called not a humanist, but +a humanitarian.” Such a person--he is legion!--exalts sympathy, and +expects that somehow in the coming years man’s altruistic impulses will +triumph over his egoism. He is an optimist, an ardent believer in the +dogma of progress, and usually a superstitious worshipper of modern +science. _Exempli gratia_: Auguste Comte, Rousseau and Herder have +at one time or another been hailed as “humanists,” whereas, Babbitt +asserted in his first book, they are properly called humanitarian +enthusiasts. So today we sometimes read in our newspapers that certain +former Unitarian preachers are Humanists, despite the fact that their +sermons upon examination prove to be almost pure humanitarianism, +or we hear writers like the American historian, Harry Elmer Barnes, +referred to as a Humanist. But Barnes, we may say in passing, would +have seemed to Matthew Arnold the propagandist for a “spurious and +degenerated sub-form” of Hellenism. Arnold would doubtless have dubbed +this very vocal rationalist simply a Millite, a word he coined from the +name of England’s famous utilitarian philosopher. Humanism, properly +understood, is in fact the stern critic of philanthropic rationalists +like Barnes or sentimental enthusiasts like the Reverend John Haynes +Holmes. _For Humanism is a doctrine and a discipline, aristocratic +in temper, selective in practice, which makes its first concern, the +self-perfecting of the individual._ + +There is still a third cause which must be touched on to explain +the confusion that blankets the public mind. In the literary +campaign staged against the New Humanists in the spring of 1930, the +naturalistic writers employed an old debating trick:--to pretend +bewilderment at the definitions offered and to press for closer and +closer definitions. The aim apparently was to force the New Humanists +at last into some utterly rigid statement of their creed, if not into +some ultimate banality; therefore anything short of a completely rigid +definition was called an inadequate one. But the New Humanist is +too awake to the dangers of Neo-Classicism to yield to this type of +pressure. Humanism lays the stress on the inner life, Neo-Classicism +on the external conventions. The New Humanist maintains the seat +of authority in himself: he studies with zeal the wisdom stored in +tradition, but he insists on his internal corroboration of that +wisdom as the all-important thing. He does not, that is, set up an +authority, as the Neo-Classicist does, which is completely exterior to +himself. Above all, he perceives the folly of an Age of Rules, which +happens whenever Neo-Classicism gains ascendency. In short, if the New +Humanism could be set forth in a perfectly dry detailed code, you may +be certain that it would not be Humanism, but only another recurrence +of Neo-Classicism. A true definition of Humanism must breathe with the +vitality inherent in its subject. + +The New Humanist, then, disassociates himself from the impoverishment +of Neo-Classicism, from excessive purism, as consciously as he +separates himself from indiscriminate humanitarianism and the mere +inquisitiveness of the æsthetic type. As was said above, Humanism is +a doctrine and a discipline, aristocratic in temper, selective in +practice, which makes its first concern, the self-perfecting of the +individual. This sense for the term is not new or perverse; it has, in +fact, long been emphasized as the following passage from a late Latin +writer, Aulus Gellius, will show. Gellius was of a somewhat crabbed +and pedantic temper: Babbitt admits this and adds that he was too much +inclined to leave sympathy out altogether; but what is interesting +is that in the decadence of Rome Gellius made complaint about the +corruption of the term _humanitas_ to give it a humanitarian flavor. +Here is his protest--it might have been written yesterday--against the +confusion of humanism with humanitarianism. + +“Those who created the Latin language,” the passage occurs in the +_Noctes Atticae_, “and those who spoke it well do not give the word +_humanitas_ the vulgar meaning which is synonymous with the Greek word +_philanthropia_, which means an active kindness, a tender benevolence +for all men. But they give the word the meaning which the Greeks attach +to _paideia_, which we call education, knowledge of the fine arts. +Those who show the most taste and disposition for these studies are +the most worthy to be called _humanissimi_. For man alone among all +living beings is able to devote himself to cultivating a study which +for that reason has been called _humanitas_. Such is the meaning given +to this by the ancients, particularly by Varro and Cicero. Almost all +their works show examples, so I shall content myself with quoting one +only. I have chosen the opening of the first book of Varro ‘Concerning +Human Things’: _Praxiteles, qui propter artificium egregium nemini est +paulum modo humaniori ignotus_ (Praxiteles, whose excellent talent as +an artist has made him known to every man at all skilled in the arts). +Here _humanior_ does not bear the vulgar meaning of easy, tractable, +benevolent, even though lacking in knowledge of letters. That meaning +would not express the author’s thought. It means an educated, a learned +man, one who is acquainted with Praxiteles through books and history.” + + * * * * * + +What is the doctrine of the New Humanism? The most compact statement +I have found was written by Robert Shafer in the course of a powerful +polemical article in the _Bookman_. It deserves the most careful study +by the reader, for from it can be extracted almost the whole of +Humanism. It is a remarkably comprehensive formulation: despite its +brevity it manages to imply all that a New Humanist has to say about +his conception of man. + +“Against romanticism, humanitarian sympathy, mechanistic or vitalistic +determinism, the doctrine of progress and the like, has been opposed a +skeptical criticism of life and letters which rests ultimately on the +proposition that man differs not alone in complexity of organization, +but in kind, from the animal, and that his happiness depends upon his +recognition and cultivation of that element in his being which is +distinctive of him. This is held to be possible; man is held to be, +within limits, capable of responsible choice. This capacity is regarded +as the core of the distinctively human element in man’s constitution, +which is thus dual--‘animal,’ one may roughly say, united inexplicably +with ‘something more,’ or the unlimited chaos of impressions and +spontaneous desires united with the potential capacity of control and +reduction to ordered activity. No conclusion is necessarily implied for +or against the doctrine of grace, but insistence is steady that without +a wisely directed educational discipline and a strict inner discipline +man’s fulfilment of his proper end is certainly impossible. To choose +is to discriminate, and, for this, habituation to self-restraint is +essential; it is, indeed, the foundation on which the whole structure +of distinctively human life rests. + +“It is recognized that this general position is not susceptible of +rational proof--reason itself being the organ of discrimination, and +acting, when it acts legitimately, in a purely instrumental capacity. +But none the less his position is, the humanist adds, irrefutable and +soundly based. It concerns a realm of being into which ‘modern science’ +simply does not enter. Exact science, so-called, is concerned with +quantity--how much?--but about quality--how good?--it has nothing to +say. The humanist is concerned, not with physical existence taken by +itself, but with distinctively human excellence, or self-fulfilment, +or, in a word, happiness. Here the one possible appeal is to actual +human experience--the recorded experience of past generations and +the inner experience of the individual disciplined and formed in the +light of selective tradition. The strength of humanism lies in its +positive experiential basis, which affords it, not an absolute, but a +sufficient, authority.” + +Could the sum and substance of Humanism be put more plainly than the +above? The topic can be expanded, explained, illustrated, but in the +end when it is boiled down again, we shall find that Robert Shafer has +given the candid and accurate summary of its meaning. Greater rigidity +would be inexact--remember that words like “idealism,” “skepticism,” +“deism,” even “pragmatism” offer a similar necessary fluidity to the +definer--for the thing defined has flowing contours and is alive with +movement. What then is the difficulty many inquirers about Humanism +confess to experiencing when it comes to seizing its import? Well, +our difficulties with understanding definitions are not entirely with +words; they are of two kinds: verbal and psychological. The first +is more easily overcome: it requires simply a clear statement and +attentive reading. In view of the fulness with which More and Babbitt, +Foerster and Shafer and many others have written about the meaning of +Humanism, there is no excuse whatever for any failure to grasp verbally +what they are driving at. A college student could write it out on an +examination paper. But the other kind of difficulty, the psychological +obstacle to understanding, is the one that takes real effort to remove. +By understanding a definition psychologically, I mean experiencing +the definition. I mean relating it to one’s own experience or lack +of experience. I mean filling the verbal signs with living personal +content. + +I will give one simple illustration of the gap between verbal +understanding and psychological comprehension. A good deal of the +vocabulary of warfare is used by both soldiers and civilians. The +counters are the same, but what the soldier has experienced as the +meaning of these words--“No-man’s Land,” “trenches,” “battle,” etc.--is +radically different from the mere verbal associations the civilian +makes with them. The soldier and the civilian try to converse: it is +well known that the returned soldier quickly gives up and refuses +to talk about his war experiences except to those who have had an +actual taste of battle. The civilian wonders why the soldier is +uncommunicative about the war and never guesses that it is partly +because the soldier has become aware that what to him are signs of +experience are to the civilian simply words, as we say. + +Now in the case of Humanism this disparity in experience between +the expounder and the listener does not exist. There is a ground of +human experience common to all that can be appealed to. But how to +reach it? Here the reader must exercise his good will, must be honest +with himself, must make an effort to carry the interpretation over +from words to experience, to take it out of the verbal forest of the +mind and apply it to all his psychology. This means in many cases an +effort against the habits of education we have received, for the latest +reformers in education are correct in telling us that our civilization +is too exclusively verbal, that we trust too much in words cut off +from things. Such a psychological translation of the perfectly clear +verbal answers already given to the question, what is twentieth century +Humanism, I now propose to attempt. + + * * * * * + +_The final object of the New Humanist is happiness._ If he is asked, +why discipline oneself, why try to live in a certain way, his candid +reply is, to attain happiness. All his system-making is directed toward +that end, and that end, happiness, happens to be one of the very few +values unquestioned by human beings, for who in a state of happiness +could conceivably question his own happiness? + +Here there is practically no barrier to what I have called the +psychological understanding or, perhaps better, realization of +humanistic doctrine. For every one knows at first hand the state of +happiness: it has come to him accidentally, it has been fleeting, but +brief and chance as its visitations have been, the impression of them +is indelible. We long all our lives to re-experience happiness, and +we are incredibly ingenious in trying to find it. The cynical are no +exception: their cynicism about happiness arises from repeated failures +to rediscover it, and their real wish is still for that on which they +pour (why so bitter?) ridicule. + +Mankind universally hopes for happiness. It flees from the unhappy +state and looks everywhere for the acknowledged good thing, the state +of being happy. The sad platitude is that mankind fails first to find +as much happiness as it wants, second, to maintain the state when it +is experienced, and third, to gain an insight into the secrets of +producing happiness. Not on happiness as the ultimate human value, +but on the way to happiness, the means of procuring it, is there +disagreement. + +The majority--a fact that has always struck wise men with +astonishment--have always depended on distractions and pleasures. They +have situated the source of happiness in the world around them. They +have felt that a change in the environment was what was needed. Make +the world an Eden, say the reformers, and man will be happy. But the +Garden of Eden, like the Kingdom of Heaven, is within, has been the +retort of the sage. + +The New Humanism commits itself first of all to a serious study of the +principles of happiness. It does not dream of a geographical Paradise, +but says, look to human nature! What is the constitution of human +nature? How ought man to live according to this constitution? For in no +other way but by obeying the laws of his being can he win an enduring +happiness. + +But here is where an apparent paradox deludes so many. Man is not +born free, as Rousseau claimed, but born slave to things. Things are +in the saddle and ride mankind, and mankind expects to be happy under +those conditions. To change the conditions, to come out from servitude +to things to a command over them--the aim of the religious and the +humanistic alike--is so arduous and perilous a revolt that it looks +like anything but the way to happiness. Man’s _inclination_ is to +remain enslaved to things the while he hopes they will not ride him +harshly. His _wish_ is to oppose his inclination to servitude, and +to fight his way to psychological freedom. He cannot however imagine +that he can be happy warring against his attachment to things. And yet +Thoreau speaks for all the sagacious reflecters on life when he says: +“But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon +ploughed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called +necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up +treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through +and steal. It is a fool’s life, as they will find when they get to the +end of it, if not before.” + + * * * * * + +_The New Humanist maintains that human consciousness is dual._ This is +the primary fact to be recognized, he says, in any quest of happiness. +He expresses this fact by speaking of our two selves, which he calls +the natural self and the human self, or the animal and human selves or +the lower and higher self. In respect to this terminology, admittedly +crude, it must be kept in mind that the New Humanist writes as a +practical psychologist, not as a theoretical one who also has to drop +technical language and speak in the world’s tongue when it comes to +practical psychology, and it must be still more kept in mind that no +moral connotations are meant by the terms. If I say that plants are +a lower form of life than animals, I do not imply that plants are +reprehensible for their lesser development--nor does the New Humanist +regard the life of the body as morally inferior to, let us say, the +life of the mind. The grading is made in the scientific spirit: it +is based on measurement of life, not on moral requirements. The +discrimination between lower and higher is psychological, and nothing +else. + +Surely, no elaborate documentation is needed to establish the fact that +there is an overwhelming crowd of witnesses from antiquity onwards to +the existence of a practical dualism in human psychology. Two eloquent +writers will stand for the multitude: Cicero in antiquity and Matthew +Arnold in the nineteenth century. They can be combined in a single +quotation from the latter’s _Literature and Dogma_. “Man alone of +living creatures, Cicero says, goes feeling after ‘the discovery of an +_order_, a law of _good taste_, a _measure_ for his words and actions.’ +Other creatures submissively follow the law of their nature; man alone +has an impulse leading him to set up some other law to control the bent +of his nature.” That is, a goldfish or a wren or a crocodile or a cat +is always true to its species. Nature looks to it that they obey, as +it were, the conscience of their species. They behave strictly as they +should, being what they are. They are loyal to themselves. But man is +not so completely cared for. He belongs to a very elastic species: his +behavior can vary enormously and fall far away from the norm of the +race. We have words to indicate this drop from what we instinctively +feel man should be, such words as “bestial,” “sub-human,” “inhuman,” +“unmanly,” and the like. Nature apparently is interested in man only +up to a certain point, giving him a human form, the capacity to feel, +the ability to think, but for all Nature cares, he may be as disordered +as he pleases in his emotional and mental life. An idiot, from the +standpoint of Nature, is as good as a genius. From this arises man’s +sense of division in himself. He is a natural creature; true; but add +that in comparison with the beasts and their constant observance of +their laws he appears a crazed natural creature. But, a strange thing, +he has the intuition that he also has the possibility of becoming a +sane creature. Only--he himself must learn what sanity is, what its +laws are and how to follow them. + +He has, in Arnold’s words, “the notion of a whole self as opposed +to a partial self, a best self to an inferior, to a momentary self +a permanent self requiring the restraint of impulses a man would +naturally have indulged;--because by _attending_ to his life, man found +it had a scope beyond the wants of the present moment.” I wish to +bring home, if I can, the nature of what is here called our partial, +inferior, momentary self, and to do so I shall call upon the studies of +the Behavioristic psychologists. What the New Humanist terms our lower +natural self is in my opinion best named our mechanical self. + +The Behaviorists consider man to be a behaving mechanism. Man has +nothing to say about his heredity, his birth, his early environment, +the language and customs he is taught, and so forth. He comes into the +world with the native disposition to make certain responses (unlearned +responses) and he soon is trained on the basis of these to make +thousands of others (conditioned responses), often of a very arbitrary +character. A response-mechanism set ticking and continued in motion by +the ceaseless impact of stimuli from the environment. + +Physiologically, we are, every one admits, best viewed as machines. +Our tissues repair themselves, our blood flows through an elaborate +system whose tracings we know only by hearsay (i.e., by diagram), +our nails and hair grow without our supervision, we are unaware of +the functioning of organs like the liver, unless they get out of +order,--but it is unnecessary to specify details of what every one +grants: namely, that the ceaseless movements of our bodies do not +depend very much on our accurate and intimate knowledge of them, nor +upon our directive powers. We stand toward them in the relation of +mechanician to machine, only we are rather poor mechanicians and in our +ignorance frequently harm what we are supposed merely to tend. + +But the Behaviorist enormously extends the reign of mechanics: he +puts our psychology--or what we call our psychology--under mechanical +rule, going so far as to reduce our emotions to visceral tensions and +our thoughts to sub-vocal movements in the larynx. In this he is far +more right than most people think. But we do not need to argue that +out now. I refer to very obvious matters, such as the occurrence of +emotions to us. _They occur to us_: we do not as a rule induce them. +“A peculiar feeling came over me,” we say. It did! “I was seized by +anger.” I was! “I was taken by surprise.” Right! Every day long we are +swept by a succession of emotions, the majority of which clearly we had +nothing to do with. We did not choose to experience them. They came to +us. + +Again there is a constant procession--better say jumble--of images, +ideas, associations, words and nonsense in our minds. Our brains +wander most of the time: they are as Arnold Bennett calls them +“gentlemen-at-large” and deucedly unreliable. They go on operating +after a fashion whether we will or not. And what is this but sheer +mechanicality? + +But this is our natural self, this is as biology and sociology +have made us. We take stock of ourselves in adulthood and we find +probably that we are a pronounced type--an intellectual, a highly +emotional artist, a sportsman. Did we create our type, our particular +psychological build, any more than we colored our eyes or invented the +shoes we Westerners wear? Our temperament--did we make it or do we find +ourselves with one? + +A very great deal of what we call ourselves we have to consign to the +Behaviorist and agree with him that it is determined. But the New +Humanist will not yield all to Dr. John B. Watson and his relentless +observers in the laboratory. He will not deny consciousness, nor the +will, nor higher potentialities than are manifest in the animal self. +He balances against the mechanical the human self which, he maintains, +man can develop. What, more precisely than thus far stated, is meant +by the human self? We can get at the conception if we think of our +potentialities. + +Actually, we are turned out by Nature and Society as uneven-sided +human beings, not well-rounded ones. Actually, we are prejudiced and +partial, not unprejudiced and impartial. Actually, our minds are +enslaved, not free. Actually, we are nonsensical, not commonsensible. +But we have the potentiality for all these things we have not,--for +harmonious development of ourselves, for disinterestedness and +impartiality, for the free intelligence and the most esoteric of all +virtues, commonsense. Only none of these things ever comes to man as a +gift. Each must be deliberately and laboriously acquired. Man, then, +humanistically viewed, is born with a lower self but has a margin of +potentiality which he, and only he, can cultivate, and by so doing he +creates a higher self to which it is proper to give the name human. +Acquirements, not gifts--that is the sure mark of the truly human. +(Incidentally, the greatest of these acquirements is will, but of that +later.) + +At the risk of seeming unable to let go of the idea of a cleft between +the natural man and self-perfected man, I will cite one illustration +of the difference between our actual psychology and our potential +psychology. Man has the possibility of simultaneous thought on +several different subjects, but this possibility is never actualized +by accident in the ordinary course of events. Ordinarily we think +in succession, following a train of thought, as we say. But we +can, by special training, learn to follow several lines of thought +at once. One begins with very simple exercises (immensely difficult +to the beginner, however), such as focussing on the movement of the +second-hand of a watch, reciting a stanza of poetry, and running +through a multiplication table at the same time, and then works up to +what appear staggering exercises in mental gymnastics. For this sort of +work, at which geniuses fail the first time as completely as the most +ungifted, the natural self is of no avail. Simultaneous thought becomes +an actuality only to those who themselves bring it to birth. + +It seems strange that any one should deny on any practical basis the +selves of the New Humanist’s conception: one, largely or altogether +automatic, actual, natural, subject to the “law for thing,” the other +acquired, born out of potentiality by one’s own effort, not natural but +human, subject to the “law for man.” Yet this dualism has been fought +throughout recorded history. Many gifted men have made frenzied efforts +to deny the gap, to coalesce the two selves, to prove that man not +only theoretically but practically must be monistic. One of the latest +epical mass-movements to deny psychological dualism was Romanticism. + + * * * * * + +_Submission to the natural self is the Romantic attitude._ Here, I +believe, we can strike rock bottom. As sketched above, a human being +consists of three related modes of experience (sensations, emotions, +and ideas) and in these three modes everything, according to the +Behaviorist, a very great deal according to everybody, is done not by +our consent and knowledge, but, as it were, by itself. But toward such +a threefold apparatus for experiencing, an attitude may be assumed, +and this attitude is fundamental in our psychology. Given one kind of +attitude, and you get the foundation of Romanticism. Another attitude +toward the selfsame creature, and you have laid the cornerstone of +the humanistic life. Who or what takes the attitude? Whatever we mean +by the word “I.” The Romanticist glories in identifying as closely +as possible whatever the word “I” means with his mechanical self. He +resigns his Ego to his organism. He submits to the riot of his senses, +feelings and thoughts and calls the submission good. + +It might be said, I suppose, that earlier in this book I scored an easy +victory by putting in contrast a composite figure, quite lacking in +“personality,” with Matthew Arnold. Of course, it might be retorted to +me, Arnold is superior to any constructed representative of modern men. +Arnold should rather be compared with some great Romantic, not with an +instructive psychological chart. Very well: in the place of that poor +G. R. we unfeelingly exposed, let us put Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the +man of genius who preached so eloquently the surrender to our natural +selves. + +Irving Babbitt has often been accused of “Rousseauphobia.” I cannot +find the justice in the accusation, which ignores Babbitt’s reasons +for emphasizing Rousseau’s influence. Babbitt cannot be said to have +slighted the precursors of Rousseau, such as Hutcheson and the Earl of +Shaftesbury, or not to have put a great deal of weight on Francis Bacon +as a founder of the modern world. And it is true, as Babbitt claims, +that though Rousseauistic ideas were in the world long before Rousseau, +it was the Genevan who gave them their great driving power in our era: +it was Rousseau who cast the wonderful glamor over them that made them +irresistible to modern man. Rousseau is the representative Romantic. He +is the symbolic figure, and hence he is bound to appear very large in +any treatment of Romanticism. Furthermore, the extent and depth of his +influence can hardly be minimized, as the enormous literature written +about him shows. Let it be Rousseau then to serve here, as in so many +previous expositions, as the arch-exponent of the Romantic attitude. + +He accepted the contradictions in himself, saying that his heart +and his mind did not seem to belong to the same person. He scorned +the intellect, the weakest and least developed of our three modes +of experience, saying that the man who thinks is a depraved animal. +He gave the primacy to feeling, and exalted sensation. He declared +that man was corrupted by Society and that man was naturally good. He +developed on his own account, as Maritain says, “a singular doctrine +of absolute non-resistance to the impulses of sensation, a doctrine of +complete passivity as the condition of full expansion of the primitive +goodness, which is simply a natural quietism.” Yes; the “Father of the +modern world” was an irresponsible. For he loved, nay he worshipped, +that irresponsible creature, the natural self. + +The natural self is innocent: that is, it is neither good nor bad. +Good or bad can only appear in the attitude taken toward the natural +self. The Romantic with all his enthusiasm follows the inclinations of +the natural self. He shirks the disciplining of it. He wants unity but +he thinks he can find unity by subsiding into the life of feeling and +sensation, stilling the mind. He goes with Nature, like a child led by +its nurse, and he calls it liberty. + +At the end of Romanticism there is the pseudo-necromancer of Vienna +with his complicated method for teaching the proud spirit of Man to +stoop, to chain itself to the blind forces of his temperament, to +forget in slavery to the senses and feelings that man is in essence a +passion for perfection. + + * * * * * + +_Responsibility for the natural self is the Humanist attitude._ Like +the Romanticist, the Humanist discovers that whatever is signified by +the word “I”--and the determination of the signification of the word +“I” is a poser for the infant science of psychology[5]--is attached +to a surprising creature, unreasonable, expansive, changeable, an +absorbing mystery to study. He finds furthermore that the creature has +the complete upper hand so far as the “I” in it is concerned. But the +Humanist cannot acquiesce in this arrangement. It seems to him that the +creature is not wicked but certainly a fool. There is nothing wrong +with its appetites, only the organism is singularly unintelligent in +gratifying them. It is full of whims, some of them dangerous to the +organism’s life. It loves to waste time in day-dreaming, to waste +emotion in foolish anxieties, to waste energy in muscular fidgets. +Clearly, the creature itself would be happier if it were under +intelligent guidance, if it were taught to obey instead of always being +given the reins and dashing away at random. Thus, the New Humanist +feels that his real, deepest self is somewhat apart from his natural +mechanical self. He wants to be the driver of his machine, not a mere +intoxicated passenger in a runaway vehicle. He wants to be responsible +for the manifestations of his personality. In responsibility for his +natural self lies for him the dignity of man. This for him is the true +liberty. + +But how to attain and exercise this liberty? For, to begin with, +the workings of the natural self are not known to the one who +wishes to master it. Hence, the humanistic stress on self-study and +self-knowledge. But further, even granting a fairly complete working +knowledge of oneself, of what one’s biases and characteristic reactions +are, what one’s defects and points of strength are, one may still +be at a total loss, powerless to alter or control the spontaneous +phenomena of the organism. Hence, the humanistic stress on the need for +developing the will. + + * * * * * + +_The New Humanist upholds a creative conception of man._ The word +“creative” has been so cheapened by Romantic usage in which it is +made synonymous with mere temperamental overflow that one is almost +inclined to drop the word until it loses its present indiscriminate +associations. However, no other word will do to describe the humanistic +conception of man, for in the Humanist’s view man literally creates +his manliness. Man has to find his own center, develop his own +potentialities, create his own order in his psychology. + +We can put the matter thus. Every one without exception has felt that +his psychology was organized about a principle of dispersion. His +inclinations have pointed outwards; he wants to let himself go, he +yearns to express himself. “You must be yourself,” said Jean-Jacques +Rousseau over and over, and in his mouth it meant what Maritain says +it did. “You must _be_ your feeling, as God _is_ His being. Does God, +Who is all act, need forming? You must regard as a sin every attempt +to form yourself, or allow yourself to be formed, to right yourself, +to bring your discords to unity again. Every form imposed on the inner +world of the human soul, whether it come from nature or grace, is a +sacrilegious wrong to nature.” This is psychology based on the Many. + +But just as there is a metaphysic of the One as well as the Many, +so there is a psychology of the One. Every one without exception, +I daresay, has felt in his psychology a principle of unity. He has +experienced, that is, at various moments a strong wish to integrate +himself, to pull himself together, to become a concentrated unified +individual. It is with this wish the New Humanist identifies the human, +and he pits it against the inclination to accept the discords. The +wish for unity is the creative wish. + +What could be more uncreative than the despising of the mind by Luther, +Rousseau and scores of lesser Romantics? The mind, a part of our +resources to be exploited along with the other parts--why should it +be treated puritanically any more than the body should be despised? +Again what can be more uncreative than to transfer the blame for one’s +faults to Society, or to make a cult of inaction as Rousseau did? The +New Humanist replies that the fault after all is not in our stars or +in Society but in ourselves and that we must work upon ourselves--a +genuinely creative attitude. + +I direct attention again to human potentialities. Proportionateness--it +must be created. The free intelligence--it must be struggled for. +Disinterestedness--an ideal toward which no step is ever taken without +effort. Commonsense, the fusion of mental, emotional and practical +judgments--it must be striven for. Self-control--impossible without the +use of will. The will--dormant, it must be awaked. Unity--it must be +achieved. + +These, according to the New Humanist, are some of our higher +possibilities. He takes the attitude that a man’s work is to bring them +towards fruition, that in so doing lies happiness, that by so doing one +is truly creative, making and strengthening a human self to oppose and +dominate the vagaries and weaknesses of the natural self. + + + + + VII + + THE DISCIPLINE OF HUMANISM + + _“My whole method is experimental, or it might be less ambiguous + to say if the word were a fortunate one, experiential.”_--Irving + Babbitt in _Rousseau and Romanticism_. + + +It is obvious that the New Humanist does not think there is much +insight in Walt Whitman’s line, “And if the body were not the soul, +what is the soul?” We can epitomize the preceding chapter and at the +same time add a new element by extracting two sentences from Babbitt’s +_Rousseau and Romanticism_. “Like all the great Greeks Aristotle +recognizes that man is the creature of two laws: he has an ordinary +or natural self of impulse and desire and a human self that is known +practically as a power of control over impulse and desire. If man +is to become human he must not let impulse and desire run wild, but +must oppose to everything excessive in his ordinary self, whether in +thought or deed or emotion, the law of measure.” The new element, the +law of measure, relates to discipline. I have dealt with the major +conception in the Humanist doctrine: I have shown that the New Humanism +is primarily individualistic and for the sake of individual growth: +I described it as aristocratic in temper. The last is surely evident +from the humanistic stress on the rule of our momentary ordinary selves +by our best selves, and from the Humanist’s search in the inherited +literatures for “the best that has been thought and uttered,” and +finally from his making the question of leadership the paramount +problem for democratic nations to solve. But in the general description +of the New Humanism I noted in addition that it was a discipline and +selective in practise, and these are the matters of this chapter. + +Here again we have to combat psychological obtuseness. To repeat: a +logical understanding of a text is one thing, and quite another is a +living warm apprehension, a psychological understanding, of the same +text. The first is an affair of words: the second is more real, related +to feelings and conduct as well as to the formulating intellect. Now +it so happens that it is a peculiarity of our age to be blank-minded +whenever there is question of a psychological method to realize +in practice the ideas and ideals we adopt. We think that the mere +entertaining of the ideas and ideals we are attracted by is sufficient, +we think that we shall naturally grow to embody them completely without +the need of any special discipline or “way of life.” In short, never do +we inquire into “ways of life” at all, never do we exercise the kind of +thought Arnold employed when he sought in the Biblical texts for the +_method_ and _secret_ of Jesus. In dealing with the New Humanism in +its aspect of a technique for living intelligently, we must therefore +make a special and unusual effort to see the theory in terms of actual +practice. + +There is no initial difficulty in feeling the spirit of the New +Humanist discipline, for though it derives from Aristotle, it is as +thoroughly modern as the laboratory spirit. No one could in fact be +a stauncher supporter of the modern spirit defined by Irving Babbitt +as “the positive and critical spirit, the spirit that refuses to take +things on authority” than Babbitt himself. Only, he adds, you must be +a complete positivist. He then goes on to exhort his readers to be +individualists: “the man who plants himself, not on outer authority but +on experience, is an individualist.” Aristotle, Babbitt takes to be the +arch-type of the positive and critical Humanist, for Aristotle teaches +us “how to have standards and at the same time not to be immured in +dogma.” All this, as I say, is quite in the modern spirit and goes to +explain the appeal Babbitt exercises on many young Americans who cannot +be accused of yearning for some long-gone age and whose defection from +the banners of Menckenism has puzzled some people. + +At this point should be brought up the Babbittean distinguishing +of three levels on which life may be experienced: the religious, +the humanistic, and the naturalistic. The naturalistic we have seen +exemplified by a host of Rousseauists and Baconians, of sentimentalists +and utilitarians, of all those who in one way or another submerge Man +into Nature. The religious level is occupied by the great systems of +Buddhism and Christianity. Here the supernatural enters, here the +consuming search is for the Absolute, here there is dying to this world +and here there is the life more abundant that comes through rebirth +into a world of greater consciousness. The _via media_ is alleged to +be the humanistic life, represented in the past by Confucianism in +the Orient and by Aristotelianism in the Occident. The middle way has, +as outlined by Babbitt, its special methodology, its special virtues, +and its special attitudes. For example, we have already noticed its +hostile attitude toward Naturalism, its clash with Naturalism on first +principles. On the other hand, its attitude toward those who work on +the religious plane is sympathetic. Quotations bearing on this could be +accumulated but a recent utterance by Irving Babbitt will do for all. +“For my own part,” he said in _Humanism and America_, “I range myself +unhesitatingly on the side of the supernaturalists. Though I see no +evidence that humanism is necessarily ineffective apart from dogmatic +and revealed religion, there is, it seems to me, evidence that it +gains immensely in effectiveness when it has a background of religious +insight.” + +But to the New Humanist the reasons for risking one’s life on the +religious level do not, one judges, seem overwhelming. Here is one of +Babbitt’s statements on that point, a statement on which I reserve +comment for the present. “I have been struck,” he says cannily, “in +my study of the past by the endless self-deception to which man is +subject when he tries to pass too abruptly from the naturalistic to +the religious level. The world, it is hard to avoid concluding, would +have been a better place if more persons had made sure they were human +before setting out to be superhuman; and this consideration would seem +to apply with special force to a generation like the present that is +wallowing in the trough of naturalism. After all to be a good humanist +is merely to be moderate and sensible and decent. It is much easier +for a man to deceive himself and others regarding his supernatural +lights than it is regarding the degree to which he is moderate and +sensible and decent.” + +Though Babbitt seems to emphasize here the fear of self-deception as +the main ground for preferring the humanistic plane to the religious, +the New Humanist can actually make out a very strong case based on hard +commonsense. A. R. Orage, the finest living English literary critic, +has suggested what the sensible attitude, in the present state of our +knowledge, should be toward religion. So interesting a point of view +justifies a rather lengthy quotation. + +“Suppose that a remote posterity, unversed in mathematics and the +scientific research equipment of our age, should inherit one of our +current science manuals. There they would read or, rather decipher, +such statements as that light travels at the rate of 186,000 miles a +second; that the sun is 92 million miles distant from the earth, and +that the light of the nearest star takes four and a half light years to +reach us. What would they make of it all? Some of them, it is probable, +would hold that their forerunners must have possessed a faculty lost +to themselves and in consequence would attach a mystical significance +to the unverifiable dogmas; they might even repeat these dogmas as +possibly magical formulas. But undoubtedly the best common sense of +the day, in the absence of the means of verification, would dismiss +the statements as being childish guesses or, at best, as barbarous +abracadabra. Only a very few would suspect that perhaps we were not +such fools as we appeared, and give us suspended credit for a method +behind our madness. But our method itself and the instruments we employ +would be still to seek. + +“The foregoing picture may serve to illustrate what may possibly--let +us say no more than possibly--be our own situation in regard to +the ancient ‘science’ of religion. We have inherited a few of the +textbooks once circulated among the illuminati of more or less +extinct civilizations, and we find them to contain statements of +equal exactitude and incredibility concerning things of which we have +no verifiable knowledge, as that there is a God Who is a trinity of +Persons, Who created the Universe according to Reason, and Man in +his own image, and Who placed us in the world with potentialities of +consciously becoming like unto Himself. Some of us today are disposed, +like our imagined descendants, to take these traditional statements +mystically; to repeat them as magical formulas; and to assume that +a lost faculty, the so-called religious sense, was possessed by our +ancestors of ancient Egypt, India, Persia and Syria. So relatively +powerful, in fact, are these that their attitude towards the inherited +dogmas of ancient religion is still the standard of respectability. +The weight of common sense, however, is slowly but surely making +itself felt; and the day is not far off when the intelligence of our +civilization will explicitly decline even to be interested in grandiose +statements apparently insusceptible of proof. Only a few, a very few, +will continue to suspect that perhaps the Egyptians, the Buddhists, +the Pythagoreans and the Gnostics were people very like ourselves in +respect of faculty and unlike us only in the same respect in which +we shall differ from a remote posterity without our science, namely, +in the possession, not of a lost faculty, but of a lost method or +technique. And for these few, too, the method or technique is still to +seek--or perhaps only to recognize.” + +The foregoing is more than a caution against the easy specification +of what religious experience is; it also reinforces the attitude--a +strictly modern one which most of the New Humanists adopt--of wariness +toward the religious life. But can we find in our ordinary diurnal +living anything that corresponds to the humanistic way and to the +naturalistic way? Nothing is simpler than to exemplify the latter, +for we all live naturalistically most of the time. Most men, Thoreau +observed, lead lives of quiet desperation. Most men must work for +their livelihood, and the work they are driven to do holds little or +no attraction for them. (I do not speak of the increasing number of +intolerable jobs an industrial society creates, but rather of the +monotonous occupations of many members of the middle class.) The +time spent in offices each day is for many men so much time spent in +bondage, cut off from their vivid interests: they repine, but succumb +to a dull routine. Their permanent mood is one of passive endurance. +Like horses they uncomplainingly draw their loads and rejoice when at +five o’clock they are let out to pasture. This is a usual and mild +instance of merely naturalistic living. The humanistic attitude, on +the other hand, is, toward the identical necessity and circumstances, +an active one. A curb is put on futile repining: vain longings +are disciplined: the situation is faced with the minimum useless +feeling. The question for the Humanist is, granting the inescapable +circumstances, how can I make the best use of them to my advantage as +a human being? How may I bend them to suit my design in life, how may +I gather them into focus? How may I extract from my burdens values +that are not accessible to the mere beast of burden? At this point +Arnold’s triumphant converting of his drab job of school inspecting +to the main interests of his life springs to mind as an instance +of working on the humanistic level. In other words, where it is a +case of the disagreeable inevitability, the Naturalist remains under +compulsion from the outside: the Humanist, in contrast, makes an effort +to alter his attitude from mere negative endurance to a search for +positive results in the way of personal discipline and the discovery +of unsuspected values inherent in the day’s work. Is his real business +in life not the cultivation of the distinctively human, and is not +everything grist to that magical mill if one only tries to keep the +mill in operation; that is, if one maintains an active attitude toward +experience? + +But, perhaps some readers are saying, you are merely balancing an +act of good sense against the case of unintelligent adjustment: +by what right do you label the former humanistic when many avowed +Naturalists--Charles Darwin in his years of invalidism, for +instance--perform feats of intelligent and heroic overcoming of +difficulties? The answer is that the Naturalist often rises above his +doctrine just as the Humanist often fails in his discipline, but it +still remains true that it is the Humanist who assigns himself the +task of organizing a life based on good sense, while the Naturalist +puts his confidence in following, so far as he is permitted by +events, the grain of his mechanical self. Have we not inherited the +nineteenth century Romantic disparagement of good sense in favor of the +imagination? + + * * * * * + +The central maxim for practising the humanistic life is a +crystallization in three words of a large part of Greek +wisdom--“Nothing too much.” The New Humanists plan to do not less than +to restore to its pristine attractiveness the law of measure extolled +by Aristotle and called by Horace--so worthy of praise did it seem to +that exquisite poet and epicurean--the Golden Mean. + +About this I think there is no difficulty in understanding what the New +Humanist leaders are driving at. The law of measure is not legalistic; +it cannot be codified. Negatively put, it means, avoid excesses. +Positively, it means the rule of temperance, but temperance manifested +in the mental and emotional realms as well as in the physical. The +real difficulty lies in applying measure to our deeds, our thoughts, +our feelings, and it is an immense difficulty, demanding what tact and +delicacy, what perceptiveness and reflection, what resolution and zeal. +In essays by American Humanists we often run upon certain sayings of +Pascal which not only illuminate the import of the law of measure but +should serve here to enhance the reader’s sense of what I have just +said about its difficulty in operation. + +“Grandeur is not shown by being at one extremity, but in touching both +at once, and filling the whole space between,” wrote Pascal, and there +could not possibly be a better recognition of the _great scope_ for +the play of human psychology allowed for by the law of measure. “When +we would pursue the virtues to their extremes on either side, vices +present themselves, which insinuate themselves imperceptibly there, +in their insensible course towards the infinitely great, so that we +lose ourselves in vices, and no longer see virtues.” The history of +Romanticism (how often!) testifies to the weight of truth in this +saying. The following _pensée_ might well be called the essence of the +New Humanism. “Excessive or deficient mental powers are alike accused +of madness. Nothing is good save mediocrity. To leave the mean is to +leave humanity. The greatness of the human soul consists in knowing how +to keep the mean. So little is it the case that greatness consists in +leaving it, that it lies in not leaving it.” That is the reply the New +Humanist can make when it is objected that his strictures on eccentric +genius are too harsh. “The greatness of the human soul consists in +knowing how to keep the mean.” + +For a genius is often simply an exaggeration of one, and but one, of +the three major aspects of a man. For we may say that man is a compound +of Knowing, Being and Doing. Exaggerate his wish to know into a lust +for knowledge (_libido sciendi_), depress at the same time his wish for +Being and Doing, and you get the Gargantuan hungerer for knowledge, the +monstrous head and the starved heart and impotent faculty for doing, +you get an encyclopædist, a Diderot (whose heart was active, however) +or a Herbert Spencer. Again exaggerate a man’s wish for Being, let him +despise the acquisition of knowledge and the doing of deeds, and you +have the lust for feeling (_libido sentiendi_): you have a genius like +Rousseau or Schiller. There is also an inordinate lust for power, for +doing (_libido dominandi_), which like the lusts for knowledge and +for feeling is all-consuming and warps the development of character, +and this time you get a monstrous man of action like Napoleon or like +some great industrialists of the present era that any one can name. +These incarnations of the three great lusts of human nature excite our +wonder and admiration: they fascinate us by their “divine madness.” +But we remind ourselves that there is also a “divine sanity,” and it +seems in the character of Plato or Buddha a finer touch of divinity. +Babbitt transcribes for us in his argument directed against the _libido +sciendi_, the _libido sentiendi_, and the _libido dominandi_ the +Buddhist proverb: “If one man conquer in battle ten thousand men and +another man conquer his own self, he is the greatest of conquerors,” +and to this he subjoins his own belief that “that man is most human +who can check his faculty, even if it be his master-faculty, and his +passion, even his ruling passion, in its mid-career, and temper it by +its opposite.” + +In one phrase, then, the Humanist method is mediation between extremes. +It is the finding of the middle way, and I hasten to add that the +middle way is never found mechanically, never by merely striking an +average between two extremes. It is a strait and narrow way, obvious +when it is recognized, but hard to recognize. Finding it is a call +upon all of one’s experience: effort, thought, observation, a scale of +values, spiritual agility, all are needed to make the discovery of the +Golden Path. + + * * * * * + +But useless is all writing about the Golden Mean if man has no power +of choice, or potentiality of acquiring a power of choice. As well +exhort a beggar to buy a palace! Nothing could be vainer than the +formulation of a discipline based on selection, selection and again +selection, if there is in man no capability for selecting. According +to the Mechanists there is not. They have much truth on their side. +In the sense that man is self-ignorant and therefore uncontrolled +(for who can control what he does not know?), man _is_ a machine. But +here is something to ponder on: there is a wide uninvestigated region +of man which we may term his potential psychology. Psychology as a +science--described truly by its leaders as an infant science--has not +yet given us a norm for human psychology, which includes both our +actualities and our latencies. An honest worker like Dr. J. B. Watson +speaks frankly for all his profession when he says that we have seen +no norm, and adds that in his opinion it would be infinitely desirable +to find one. The New Humanist, weighing the evidence and testimony of +the past, concludes that man has at least the potentialities of gaining +self-knowledge and self-control. He therefore seeks to actualize +them. He challenges the Mechanists and appeals to our sense of latent +psychology. In his effort to build up a working system of psychology +based upon potentialities (our human self) as well as upon actualities +(our mechanical self), the New Humanist has been more grotesquely +misunderstood than at any other point. + +We approach now the meaning of the phrases he uses so often,--“a +principle of restraint,” “a power of vital control,” “_frein vital_” +as against “_élan vital_,” “the inner check.” I have been through the +mass of writings directed against Babbitt’s theory, and these terms +are harped on with so much irritation that I can only conclude the +vocabulary of Babbitt is highly offensive to our age. “Now why the +deuce,” peevishly writes one of the younger critics, speaking for +all of them, “is virtue, with the Humanists, always made to reside +exclusively in what Babbitt calls the ‘will to refrain’?” In the +petulance of that question there is perhaps a clue to the psychology +of our age, a psychology so extraordinarily blind that it fails to see +that a principle of restraint is only another way of saying a principle +of selection, as indeed in Babbitt’s writings the two expressions are +interchangeable from his first book wherein he spoke of “a humane +principle of selection, or what amounts to the same thing, a true +principle of restraint.” But a very vocal part of our age is infuriated +by the very notion of restraint, and we have to interpret this strange +fact. Can it be that, as is sometimes charged, this is really an age +of weaklings in the arts and philosophies? It is noticeable that men +of strength are usually the very men who most feel the need of curbing +themselves, that men of rich and powerful personalities are the ones +who try hardest to purge themselves of the merely gratuitous and +“temperamental,” that men of real passion are the first to acknowledge +need of canalizing it. These men are not afraid that a little +discipline will take away their precious personalities: they have so +much personality that it is precisely discipline they look for. But +what is this outcry on the part of so many of our formative writers +against the negative admonition? What feebleness of energy and passion +is it that is afraid of being strangled by a “power of vital control”? +I am driven to think of the reports of sexologists who say that it is +the poorly sexed man whose erotic life is one of excessive indulgence, +whereas the powerfully sexed are sensible of the need for some +moderation of their desires, and I wonder if many a writer in our day, +determined to let nothing stop the expression of his soul (the size of +an emmet, alas, in so many cases) is not comparable to the unrestrained +man of poor sexual powers. + +However that may be, the American intellectuals and artists as a body +have totally failed to perceive what may be fairly termed the gallantry +of the Humanist conception of “a will to refrain.” For if we could, as +it were, put our ordinary selves under a glass and gaze coolly at them, +we should see very numerous and complicated phenomena, a flux subject +to endless change and relativity, which except for an infinitesimal +fraction we are not aware of at all. This world of impressions, and +bodily changes, and variations in feeling goes its own way, and we +are, it seems, at its mercy. Have most of us any more control of our +mental processes than we have of our glandular secretions? But against +this imperious self the Humanist dares to assert his very deepest +self. He dares to say no to its impulsions. He dares to say, though +these phenomena _arise_ in me, I yet shall deal with these arisings, +denying some and permitting others to run their natural course. And +it is this assertion that I call gallant. The odds are all against +the assertion being made good: the attraction of the ordinary self is +almost irresistible; and yet man will struggle to assert his freedom of +the ebb and flow of his ordinary life. In positive language, the “will +to refrain” is an attempt to strike a blow for freedom. + +The principle of restraint is dramatized by Babbitt when he calls it +the inner check. It is less metaphorical than many terms appropriated +by, let us say, psycho-analysts who speak of a “censor,” for example, +but still it is only a metaphor. What does it stand for? I find it very +difficult to say, for it seems to be on the outskirts of a tremendous +conception, a conception that is excessively hard to put into words. +Many opponents of American Humanism have thought the inner check to +be merely an inhibition, or some streak of puritanism, or in one case +an equivalent to what the psycho-analyst means by the censor. As if +More and Babbitt were naïve men of limited experience! As if, though +trained in skepticism for a lifetime, they would make an error that any +fledgeling reviewer could see! No; the meaning of the inner check must +be sought in a deeper way if it is to be elicited, and in plumbing for +it we must first of all divest ourselves of our usual notions about +inhibitions. + +Both Babbitt and More have, as a matter of fact, clearly indicated +that they held no ordinary conception when they spoke of the inner +check.[6] The phrase is probably Babbitt’s, who derived it from Emerson +in whose writings it appeared as the inward check; the inward check was +referred by Emerson to Hindu scriptures where the meaning was an inward +guide or control. This in itself is sufficient to put us on guard +against a quick assumption that we understand what it is all about. +But there is another reason, equally strong: Babbitt has several times +linked up his sense of an inner check with the dæmon of Socrates, who +is made to say in the _Phædrus_: “My divine monitor’s wonted sign--now +it never occurs save to deter me from something or other I am intending +to do.” This is why I said above that the More-Babbitt conception of +the inner check appears to me to be on the fringe of a tremendous +conception, for I have not the effrontery to regard Socrates as naïve +in matters of his own psychology. At the same time, what was meant by +the ancient idea of a deterring monitor in one’s breast and what is now +meant by the Babbitt-More derivation? The difficulties of an answer are +at once visible. + +Something like this may be modestly ventured, however. Neither +ancient nor modern had or has in mind, when speaking of a dæmon or an +inner check, what we may call a sociologically formed conscience. By +education we have all had instilled in us a kind of pseudo-conscience: +in our childhood and youth older people told us definitely what was +right and wrong, they traded on our susceptibility, and now that we +have grown critical, we learn that these deeply stamped notions of +wrong and right are purely relative, often silly, and in some instances +downright harmful. Take anything you please--our sense of sexual +shame, for one--and any intelligent person today can riddle much of it +by simply showing how arbitrarily we have been conditioned. So much +depends on social custom! But the inner check and the Socratic dæmon +are not, I feel confident, the products of respectable training. + +For, to continue with the case of sexual shame, is there not a true +shame as well as a pseudo-shame? Is there not a shame so deep, so +primitive, that it seems biological, owing nothing to sociology, a +shame that when it is violated seems to overthrow the whole being? +Pseudo-shame can be almost painlessly removed, but this organic +shame, if corrupted, is corrupted only by a violent wrench to one’s +whole character. It is as though something died in one, whereas when +sociological shame is taken away, one feels liberated and even gay. + +By my line of reasoning, the inner check conception is to be taken as +the faint shadow cast down the ages by the Socratic dæmon, and this +dæmon in turn I am half-guessing to be a figure of Conscience. But not +conscience in our sense, the pseudo-function that Society sets going +in us, but--how shall I put it?--some abiding developed sense of how it +is fitting that the being Man should conduct himself in a life that may +be a school of experience, but certainly reveals no easily accessible +master of the school. + +For fluid as is the nature of man--and few recent writers have better +displayed man’s fluidity than Joseph Wood Krutch in an essay entitled +_The Paradox of Humanism_--there does yet seem to be buried in the +creature something, almost non-functioning, which we may agree to call +a conscience, since it is independent of social conditioning, and this +something, this conscience, sometimes says no in emphatic command. Who +is there who, on sincere self-examination, does not find there are +a few things he knows with absolute certitude he could never do? No +power on earth, no conceivable circumstances, he declares to himself, +would make me do thus-and-so. And yet why not do them? There may be no +consequences that inspire fear, there may even be strong incentives to +take the detested course of action. But something internal says Veto so +powerfully that there is no possibility of committing the action. _The +action would seem like a betrayal of the species one belongs to!_ + +The interpretation is here offered then that the inner check works in +the interests of some essential humanity in us. It seeks to counteract +that fluidity of our nature whereby men become beasts or go mad. It +warns us when we are about to desert our adult human standards and +retrogress to the puerile or infantile or sub-human. + +And now I think of the life of Socrates as we have it: the simple +dignity, the steadiness of his passion for self-perfection, the +courage of his behavior, and all the multitude of other points of +homage the world has paid him. And I see his life as a drama of the +true conscience: in his illustrious example, a conscience developed, +sensitized, responsive, a marvellous monitor surely directing him as to +how it was fit that a member of the human species should live. + + * * * * * + +The technique of the New Humanism, to sum it up, is mediation under the +guidance of the vestiges of true conscience still in our psychology. +It is as simple as that, and, I am tempted to add, as tremendous as +that. To repeat Pascal’s profound words: “To leave the mean is to leave +humanity.” The inner check or as I take it the vestige of conscience +in modern man warns us when we veer toward barbarous extremes. The +activity of the inner check is the very heart of the method, but +dependent from the principal technique are several lesser techniques +which may now be taken up rapidly and schematically. The New Humanist +calls them (a) the right use of illusion, (b) the imitation of nature, +and (c) decorum. + +(a). The Right Use of Illusion. The quotations are from Babbitt’s +_Rousseau and Romanticism_. “Life does not here give an element of +oneness and there an element of change. It gives a _oneness that is +always changing_. The oneness and the change are inseparable. Now if +what is stable and permanent is felt as real, the side of life that +is always slipping over into something else or vanishing away entirely +is, as every student of psychology knows, associated rather with the +feeling of illusion ... The problem of the One and the Many, the +ultimate problem of thought, can therefore be solved only by a right +use of illusion ... failure (with the problem of the One and the Many) +can be retrieved only by a deeper insight into the imagination and its +all-important rôle in both literature and life.” + +In the above I think we may detect the hand of Joubert who reflected +deeply on _illusion et sagesse_. “Joubert,” Paul Elmer More says, +“conceives it to be the rôle of the imagination, mediating as it does +between sense and reason, to lend its magic and glamour to the latter, +to throw as it were a veil of divine illusion over some essential +truth.... The imagination must be really free and spontaneous, and the +truth itself must not be too precisely formulated, if we are to arrive +at that vital fusing of illusion and insight with the accompanying +sense of infinitude that is found in the true symbol.” + +In the ideal Humanist then the Imagination coöperates with Reason. Its +rôle is not debased in order to exalt good sense as happened in the +Neo-Classicism of the eighteenth century, nor is it made antagonistic +to good sense as was done in the romantic recoil from Pope and other +eighteenth century men. Something like the play of Imagination in +behalf of Reason as we behold it in Plato is what Babbitt and More +contend is the Imagination’s highest function. + +(b). The Imitation of Nature. “The first point to observe,” notes +Babbitt, “is that according to Aristotle one is to get his general +nature not on authority or second hand, but is to disengage it directly +for himself from the jungle of particulars that he has before his eyes. +He is not, says Aristotle, to imitate things as they are, but as they +ought to be. Thus conceived, imitation is a creative act. Through all +the welter of the actual one penetrates to the real and so succeeds +without ceasing to be individual in suggesting the universal.” The +consideration above is not purely literary. The Humanist with his +practical attitude toward the leading of “the good life” tries to form +a model before his eyes of what normal representative human nature is +and to imitate that. Out of human nature as it actually is he tries +to make a general picture of what it ought to be, and to hold that +up as a guide for his efforts to become more representative in his +own person. Since many people apparently find it hard to receive much +meaning from such abstract statements as the preceding, since they +are not at once and vividly conscious of the vast difference between +a standard of human nature and the average of human nature, I may be +pardoned for urgently recommending a close study of Charles Maurras’s +explicit account of how the normal (or perfect) man appears to his mind +and imagination. It is hard to over-estimate the importance of such an +attempt as Maurras’s. Classicism, if it is to be a life, must be more +than a set of ideas and a discipline for actions: it must rally the +emotions and make use of their great driving force. It happens that +our emotions can be appealed to by images, and hence the desirability +of forming as concrete an image as possible of what the classical +man, man _par excellence_, is like. In his _Prologue to an Essay on +Criticism_, Maurras has said: “Good taste is the taste of the perfect +man.” He then goes on: + +“There is such a thing as a perfect man. I mean that it is not +difficult to conceive a man who should fulfil exactly the idea of our +common condition and who could serve as a model for all of us. I hope +I shall be excused for not bestowing upon this fictitious creature +(fictitious but true) the nickname of _Beau Idéal_: that name crops up +whenever people want to talk German or abandon a subject in favor of a +vague terminology. People who argue about the ideal do not mean by that +the total of the characteristics that build up and complete a being, +but, as they say in their jargon, something over and above. The perfect +man fulfils the definition of man, the ideal man deforms it here and +there; I hasten to add that in the ideal man excesses are balanced by +defects, and extravagances by omissions. + +“By the perfect man I do not mean a mediocre figure in which virtues +and faults are balanced. I am thinking of the limit of human power. +Monsters and prodigies do not exceed that limit, as is commonly said. +They are very well within it, like the mediocrities. Man conceives +nothing beyond that limit, beyond which live the gods. + +“In a few words, man is a reasoning animal. This old definition seems +to me the only satisfactory one. Neither morality, nor sociability, +nor, to be sure, feeling is peculiar to man. He is distinguished only +by reason; that is what distinguishes him, without separating him, +from the rest of creation. Created nature is completely represented +in him. In his body which has weight, number and measure as have the +metals, organization like the plants, sensibility and movement like +the animals, and which thus appears as the achievement of our earth. +His reason is incessantly nourished, sharpened, enlivened, illuminated +by the tribute which the world pays him through these three channels. +Reason, thus conditioned by the whole of nature, must develop the +fulness of its energies in the exact measure in which that can work +no ill to the perfect expansion of a flourishing body; reason pushed +to the point of parching the animal would exhaust its own sources of +being; as for the exclusive culture of the body, that would coarsen the +soul and deprive it of reason. So the most subtle of the Athenians used +to drain bowl after bowl of wine without confusing his brain, and would +then reason like a god. His companions admired him all the more. + +“To express the natural harmony of these two powers, we commonly use +a very vicious figure of speech: we speak of ‘equilibrium’ as if the +objects on the scale were equivalent! _Order_ is what we should call +this conformity of a being to all the elements of its fate. + +“What should be the critical sense of a human being composed in +such a way that his instincts, his impressions, his feelings, his +passions, when brought to the highest point, are guided and ruled by +an intellect more powerful, itself fortified, sustained and nourished +by the abundance of nature? His animal ardors will never usurp the +seat of control which belongs exclusively to judgment and reason; but +will reason abandon a nature which is too robust, in order to follow +vain imaginations? No dessication, no flaccidity either; forms full +and well-nerved; philosopher and on occasion even metaphysician, but +rigorously; a sense of real and true poetry; infused with all human +warmth, but firm and secure against it if need be: such is the general +idea that is possible of the good taste of an accomplished man.” + +I do not say I regard the above as the best depiction of the perfect +man to be encountered, but Maurras indubitably proceeds along the +right lines, using his imagination to catch a glimpse of the universal +and at the same time not sacrificing his own individuality. He has +succeeded in visualizing a model with fair claims to normality, +representativeness, soundness, for his own personal imitation or +emulation. Note that the logic by which Maurras has made his conception +is the logic of probability, commended so often in the New Humanist +books, and not simply a flight into the improbable. + +(c). Decorum. What a fate has befallen this noble word! It is, in my +opinion, impossible for the New Humanist to raise it from its low +estate. Babbitt has exposed the way in which in the eighteenth century +it came to mean etiquette: as he well says, the Neo-Classical writers +made the bad mistake of confusing the language of the nobility with +the nobility of language. This blunder Wordsworth recoiled from in +his advocacy and use of plain diction: the Romantics hated decorum +because it had become a stiff and formal and external affair. But worse +degradation awaited the word, and at the present time in America it +seems to mean, so far as I can judge from the writers who object to it, +the “genteel” manners, the prudish code of behavior which it is the +fashion to attribute to the past generation. As I think, the word is +beyond rescue: it is drowned in its present debased associations. But +is that an excuse for those whose profession it is to read critically +to charge classical scholars like More and Babbitt with attaching +merely a “genteel” significance to the term? + +How could Babbitt, for instance, have made it plainer than he did in +the next passage I shall quote that decorum for him does not mean +empty formalism, or a mere veneer of manners, but is inward and to be +understood in a large way? I resort to italics, for truly they seem +necessary to combat our habitual associations with the word. “Whoever +has succeeded in bridging the gap between the general percept and some +particular emergency has to that extent achieved the fitting and the +decorous. _Decorum is simply the law of measure in its more concrete +aspects._ For every type of humanist decorum is, in Milton’s phrase, +the ‘grand masterpiece to observe.’ _Actually this observation may rest +on deep insight_, as it did in the case of Milton himself, or it may +degenerate into empty formalism. The adjustment of which I have spoken +between the variable and the permanent elements in human experience +requires _spiritual_ effort and most men are spiritually indolent. For +genuine adjustment they tend to substitute outer conformity so that +decorum itself finally comes to seem a mere veneer, something that has +no deep root in things. Moreover the notions of decent behavior to +which men have conformed at any particular period have always been +more or less local and relative. It is easy to take the next step and +assume that they have been _only_ local and relative, an assumption +subversive not merely of decorum but of humanism itself.” + +But in spite of Babbitt’s care in expressing his meaning, he has been +constantly defeated by his readers’ different sense of the term, and +not even his using the phrase “a sense of proportion” as equivalent to +decorum has enlightened most of them. Yet all that decorum means is the +activity of our sense of proportion: it means the carrying out of what +it is seemly for a man to do. It is not seemly for a man to whine, we +say: not seemly for him to shirk the offices of the mind: not seemly +to be an utter fool in practical affairs. Notions of fitting behavior +vary from place to place and time to time, as Babbitt observes, but +above all the varying notions there remains a permanent sense of how it +is appropriate for a man to live. He should face the facts: he should +put away childish things: he should deal with the difficulties of +existence intelligently, courageously, forcefully: he should realize +his innermost being. The indecorous is simply the inappropriate, the +disproportioned, whether it occurs in art or in conduct. Bathos is +indecorous: sentimentality, the gush of emotion far in excess of the +fact, is indecorous: the intrusion of the purely private into public +discussion is indecorous. The things named are either inappropriate or +unmeasured. + +To close the subject: Decorum, or a sense of proportion, is simply the +law of measure in its more concrete aspects, it is the law of measure +in actual operation in the shifting tangle of daily existence. + + * * * * * + +In describing the discipline worked out by the New Humanists I have +striven for extreme simplicity of statement. My aim has been to +concretize as much as possible the technical formulations in Humanist +literature. I was moved to do this, because I have sometimes read +that the More-Babbitt doctrine and discipline are academic in the bad +sense of the word. Babbitt and More advocate, it is said, notions that +are narrow and have a freezing effect on the “spirit.” They are, most +damning accusation, puritanical. But what, when correctly understood, +is evilly academic about their conception of man and the means they +advocate for true self-fulfilment? What is narrow about their ideas +when they are distinguished at the source and not “interpreted” by some +overworked journalist? How can the law of measure possibly freeze up +the springs of personality, if one has any personality to begin with? +And are they puritanical? I cite Babbitt’s critical position toward +Puritanism for a sufficient reply. + +“The crucial point in any case is one’s attitude toward the principle +of control. Those who stand for this principle in any form or degree +are dismissed by the emancipated as reactionaries or, still graver +reproach, as Puritans. Mr. Mencken would have us believe that the +historical Puritan was not even sincere in his moral rigorism, but +was given to ‘lamentable transactions with loose women and fiery +jugs.’ This may serve as a sample of the assertions, picturesquely +indiscriminate, by which a writer wins immediate notoriety at the +expense of his permanent reputation. The facts about the Puritan happen +to be complex and need to be dealt with very Socratically. It has been +affirmed that the point of view of the Puritan was Stoical rather than +truly Christian, and the affirmation is not wholly false. The present +discussion of the relationship between Puritanism and the rise of +capitalism with its glorification of the acquisitive life also has its +justification. It is likewise a fact that the Puritan was from the +outset unduly concerned with reforming others as well as himself, and +this trait relates him to the humanitarian meddler or ‘wowser’ of the +present day, who is Mr. Mencken’s pet aversion. + +“Yet it remains true that awe and reverence and humility are Christian +virtues and that there was some survival of these virtues in the +Puritan. For a representative Puritan like Jonathan Edwards they were +inseparable from the illumination of grace, from what he terms ‘a +divine and supernatural light.’ In the passage from the love and fear +of God of an Edwards to the love and service of man professed by the +humanitarian, something has plainly dropped out, something that is very +near the center. What has tended to disappear is the inner life with +the special type of control it imposes. With the decline of this inner +control there has been an increasing resort to outer control. Instead +of the genuine Puritan we then have the humanitarian legalist who +passes innumerable laws for the control of people who refuse to control +themselves. The activity of our uplifters is scarcely suggestive of +any ‘divine and supernatural light.’ Here is a discrimination of the +first importance that has been obscured by the muddy thinking of our +half-baked intelligentsia. One is thus kept from perceiving the real +problem, which is to retain the inner life, even though one refuse to +accept the theological nightmare with which the Puritan associated it. +More is involved in the failure to solve this problem than the Puritan +tradition. It is the failure of our contemporary life in general. Yet, +unless some solution is reached by a full and free exercise of the +critical spirit, one remains a mere modernist and not a thoroughgoing +and complete modern; for the modern spirit and the critical spirit are +in their essence one.” + +To me it is a jest at the expense of the last decade that while so +many of us have been marching behind the drums of Menckenism, round +and round the same old circle of naturalistic ideas, there has issued +forth from the despised quarter of university thought the most truly +modern system of all, a system far more in accord with the spirit of +Goethe, who spoke, says Babbitt, not as a Puritan but as a clear-eyed +man of the world, than all the humanitarian and romantic panaceas that +are so solemnly discussed in our liberal weeklies. Goethe said that +everything that liberates the spirit without a corresponding growth in +self-mastery is pernicious. + + * * * * * + +As a matter of fact, the New Humanist like the historical Humanist +revolts against Calvinism. But he has hit upon an interesting +substitution for the Christian dogma of Original Sin or Depravity. +Most attempts men have made at an objective critique of the human race +have wound up in the conclusion that there is something radically wrong +with it, that there is a Moby Dick loose in the ocean of humanity which +must be hunted down and captured before the race can achieve peace. It +is as though we all existed under some curse, as though we had been +cheated of some birthright. Take the opening pages of _Walden_. Thoreau +is trying for an objective view of mankind. He finds fault after fault +sweeping through the race. He finds it indeed a very odd race, doing +penance in a thousand singular ways for existence. Why is it thus? He +is led to make one master indictment of human beings:--they are torpid! +The humanistic view almost coincides, it amounts to saying the main +trouble with mankind is torpor. Original Indolence in place of Original +Sin! The criticism is reinforced by Buddhistic teachings. For the +doctrine of original depravity to Babbitt is not thoroughly acceptable: +it rests on rather metaphysical grounds and seems hard to verify +practically. The Buddhist doctrine of the original laziness of human +nature, however, appears to come closer to the ascertainable facts. +“The greatest of vices according to Buddha is the lazy yielding to the +impulses of temperament (_pamāda_); the greatest virtue (_appamāda_) +is the opposite of this, the awakening from the sloth and lethargy of +the senses, the constant exercise of the active will.” By this stroke +Babbitt once again frees his doctrine of theology, and as always makes +his appeal to verifiable experience. The New Humanism, to offer still +another definition, is a warfare on man’s original indolence. We may +be said to be born with a “won’t”: the Humanist tries to oppose a +“will” to this “won’t.” + +What the New Humanism has to say about the Will is another borrowing +from Eastern philosophy. The Will is regarded as anterior and superior +to the Intellect: to it and not to the Intellect as in St. Thomas +Aquinas is given the primacy. But you will find all this treated +exhaustively in the works of Babbitt, More and their followers. + +What I wish to say is that the problem of the Will is the very +crux-problem of all our civilization. I am convinced that Babbitt +has put the supreme question to our times, and that all debate over +American Humanism is beside the main point until that question is +fully faced. “Here at all events is the issue on which all other +issues finally hinge; for until the question of moral freedom--the +question whether man is a responsible agent or only the plaything of +his impulses and impressions--is decided, nothing is decided; and to +decide the question under existing circumstances calls for the keenest +critical discrimination.” + +But how uncritical and impractical we are about this problem! Vague +and futile! If anything is plain, it is that the Will presents first +a psychological problem and only after that a metaphysical question. +But we argue and theorize endlessly about the Will. Hardly ever do +we think of a practical self-demonstration, and if we do it is some +such ineffably silly demonstration as saying, “I _will_ to open this +window.” But did you will to move all the muscles that shifted when you +did so, including the numerous unnecessary movements that accompanied +the action? The truth is that Will can only begin where Behaviorism +leaves off, but very few have digested Behaviorism. Why do we not howl +with laughter when we read in William James: “My first act of free will +shall be to believe in free will”? Or take this piece of naïveté upon +which my eye has fallen while writing this chapter. A young critic +is telling his audience that “the philosophic implications of the +quantum theory, the writings of Whitehead, Eddington, C. J. Herrick +and Millikan, and the spectacle of American artists recovering from +paralysis of the will, had all combined to revive a sense of free will +in certain Americans.” It may be a sense of free will, but if it was +arrived at by these means, by reading, we may be positive that it is an +illusory sense. As if the same critic had listed a number of authors +who had proved to him that he had what he was not previously sure of, +a mind. We say we have minds because they demonstrate themselves to +us beyond any possible doubt. If we indeed have Wills, they also will +be self-demonstrating: no one need prove to us we have what we cannot +doubt we possess. Where there is doubt, there is no Will. Where there +is no doubt, let it be added at once there still may be no Will. + +One thing we know: Will is not to be associated, as is often done, with +desire. Our desires come and go and fight among themselves: we commonly +act, not on _a_ desire, but on the resultant of our various contending +desires. But Will, in the very nature of the case, is distinct from and +independent of desire. Not in the region of desires but of efforts +should we look for the roots of Will. On this the New Humanist is +absolutely clear-headed. + +And perhaps there we had better leave the discussion for the present. +Making effort is always unmistakable to us. It has a psychological +taste, if I may say so, so strong that we cannot delude ourselves +into thinking we are not engaged in effort. Our desires on the other +hand have quite another taste, and many times as is well known we are +only dimly conscious of them. The use of Will then could never be +unconscious, could never be a mere matter of believing theories. Will +would make itself felt in the psychological realm as indubitably as our +bodies feel kinæsthetic strain in hauling a heavy boat up on shore. + +Everything in American Humanism depends ultimately upon the Will as an +undeniable fact, not as an assumption. We may start with the assumption +but unless we can convert it into a fact for ourselves as patent as the +fingers on our hands we are playing with an illusion. + +There is a practical problem of the Will: a practical approach to +it: and perhaps a practical solution. The New Humanists project this +key problem to the place where it belongs: in the front of all our +dilemmas and puzzles as to how to lead “the good life.” Should we all +try seriously to work at the key problem, there would occur in American +life a revolution that would be unimaginable. + + * * * * * + +The New Humanist not only associates Will with effort, but--what is a +great advance over his opponents’ muddled notions about Will--with +a particular type of effort: work on oneself, a work that takes the +form of knowing oneself, harmonizing oneself, disciplining oneself. +And in this lies the secret of the devotees of Humanism. It is, +however, an open secret, older than Aristotle and still advertised +today. It is that happiness comes not from psychological inertia but +from psychological work. Once again I shall quote from Babbitt: “this +sluggishness and slackness of spirit, this mere drifting and abdication +of will, may, as Chaucer’s parson suggests, be the crime against the +Holy Ghost itself.” The agreement is with Aristotle who conceived “of +happiness in terms of work. All types of temperamentalists are from +the human point of view passive. The happiness that they crave is a +passive happiness. A man may pursue power with the energy of a Napoleon +and yet remain ethically passive. He may expand his sympathies until, +like Schiller, he is ready to ‘bestow a kiss upon the whole world,’ +and yet remain ethically passive. A man ceases to be ethically passive +only when he begins to work in the Aristotelian sense, that is when he +begins to put the brake on temperament and impulse, and in the same +degree he tends to become ethically efficient.” + +And now let one of the ancients, “the subtlest of the Athenians,” the +hero of the Platonic Dialogues, have the final word. “The best man is +he who most tries to perfect himself, and the happiest man is he who +most feels that he _is_ perfecting himself.” + +The reader may think it strange that such a doctrine and discipline as +we have been sketching should arouse the violent and oftentimes abusive +antagonism that flared up in the winter and spring of 1930. Whatever +its ultimate deficiencies may be, the New Humanism wears commonsense on +its face, and its thought is both broad and elevated. Nevertheless it +provoked a storm. + +It is explicable. In the first place, much random opposition to +American Humanism springs up because of the specific attitudes +Humanists take in respect to art, literature, science, education, +politics, and so forth. Stemming from the parent attitude of +responsibility toward the natural self are a variety of consequential +attitudes when the Humanist looks out upon the world around him. And it +is these consequential (or possibly only contingent) attitudes which +have caused some individuals to hurl their thunderbolts. An admirer +of the cumbersome novels of Theodore Dreiser, let us say, reads some +detached article by a New Humanist in which his hero is held up as an +exemplar of “romanticism going on all fours”: he inquires no further +into the basis of American Humanism but immediately rushes to the +defence of Dreiser and current American literature. And so with the +advocate of Professor John Dewey’s educational ideas. A criticism by +a Humanist of these ideas is sufficient to incur the hostility of the +disciple of Dewey: the system of the attacker on Dewey is of no moment, +for his ideas on education are objectionable and so must be his whole +outlook. There have been many such quarrels over specific opinions, +which have naturally led to a condemnation without examination of +Humanism itself. The New Humanists work out their critique of modern +life on many fronts. They advance a new-old program on the same number +of fronts. It is easy to see then how, being comprehensive, they manage +to stir up so many enemies. In the next three chapters I shall examine +the Humanist attitude toward modern science, educational impressionism, +and politics, and no doubt the reader will then easily comprehend why +the New Humanism has provoked so much heated debate. + +But in the second place there is a far more important reason why the +reception of Humanism has been acrimonious beyond any precedent in +American literary history. _It is because American Humanism dares to +question the unconscious assumptions of our age._ It is well known +that if you touch a man in his pocketbook, you frequently get a sudden +dramatic agitated revelation of his psychology. Or touch a person in +his sex life, and again there is the parting of the customary veils +over his behavior: you see vividly the flashing of the person’s +psychological forces. There is a third way: instead of asking for a +loan of money, or tossing a rabelaisian joke at an acquaintance, toss +an idea at him that goes beneath his customary thoughts to strike at +his latent assumptions, the thoughts he was unaware of, upon which, +nevertheless, all his opinions come to rest. _Then_ he will become +active: he jumps as if a hypodermic needle had been applied to his +mind: he bristles with defences against this idea that has irritated +his mind at its very base. + +You are attacking the context of things he did not know he believed, +but instinctively he knows now that if they are threatened, all +his opinions are threatened. For it is _through_ these unconscious +assumptions that he has seen everything else. No wonder he rallies to +their defence! No wonder he strikes back! It is the very quick of his +mind you have touched. + +American Humanism is a concerted assault not so much on what our age +has assumed knowingly but on what it has unconsciously assumed. That +is why it has been and will be violently opposed, fought with every +weapon, shouted at and shouted down, if possible. The outcome may be +within a decade the complete submergence of the Humanist movement. +In that event so much the worse for an age that cannot be brought to +criticize its unknown postulates once the light has been let in on them. + + + + + VIII + + SCIENCE AND THE MODERN MAN + + _“Science has its legitimate pretensions to power; but false claims + are now being advanced on all sides under the shelter of its name, + and it is these false claims which the humanist is concerned to + expose.”_--Louis Trenchard More in _Humanism and America_. + + +Do you wish a vivid proof that American Humanism probes through the +crystallized portions of the modern mentality and wounds its quick +nervous base? Then consider the intense annoyance created among so many +modernists by the temperate criticism the classical party makes of the +current prestige of science. The New Humanist attempts only to moderate +the very great esteem of our time for science. Yet pained outcries +on every hand greet this effort at moderation, and this extreme +sensitivity of many holding no stake in the matter to a criticism of +the large claims made in the name of modern science surely calls for +investigation. This conclusion cannot be escaped:--the men of our age +are nowhere near so emancipated from Authority as they like to fancy. + +It is true we no longer acknowledge Authority in the theological +quarter. To accept on faith the cosmology of the Bible is to be +mediæval. But are we the self-conscious rebels we picture ourselves? +In revolting from the theological fold, have we not rebelled on +command of another Authority? However we came to revolt, now the +situation is plain. We have merely transferred the seat of Authority, +planting it today in the scientific quarter. Ye have conquered, O +Galileans! To be modernistic is to be as subservient to the oracular +opinions of scientific savants as the ordinary mediæval man was to the +interpretations of his theologians. The boastful modernists are, in +fact, still looking up to something far above: they are still on their +knees before Authority as the bulk of mankind has always knelt. + +What we take on authority is by definition what we cannot scrutinize or +have not troubled to scrutinize, and of course we must be uncritical +about the uninspected. Here, in the region of the authoritative, is +where _aberglaube_, extra-belief, has a chance to enter; here is +where we become superstitious. The New Humanist has never attacked +exact science in itself, and in some respects his critique of what +seem to him the mistaken pretensions of science is very mild. But he +does pierce the _aberglaube_ that in the nineteenth century attached +itself to modern science. He is the foe of those who are gullible +about science, who take it altogether on faith, who are, in short, +superstitious. The language is not too strong. + +There is a very quick way to test the tenacious hold that scientific +authority exerts on us. (To repeat myself, I mean to test the existence +of what to us are pure assumptions which have been implanted in us +almost without our knowledge by contemporary science.) The quick way +is to read two extraordinary and weird books of recent years, _The +Book of the Damned_ and _New Lands_, both by an investigator of +phenomena which have been excluded by orthodox science, Charles Fort. +The author of these strange documents is acutely aware of the very +human tendency of scientific system-makers to achieve a harmony of +knowledge by excluding the inharmonious data. He has therefore turned +his attention to the “disregards” of the scientists (geographers, +geologists, astronomers, physicists, etc.), and comes forward as the +champion of the damned data--and some of the data is horrendous. A +daring writer, for he is obliged to challenge the correctness of many +elementary things we learned in grammar and secondary schools. He +adduces evidence, that is to say, totally at variance with what we +were taught in school, when we were most submissive, and which we have +_never_ questioned. The result is that in reading Fort we experience +a most peculiar sense of strain. We find that we _hate_ to have any +one argue with a show of good reasons that interstellar distances are +rather small when we have always been told and believed, most of us +without any detailed proof, that they were inconceivably immense. There +are certain things--many items in fact--about the world which we want +to regard as having been settled and learned once for all. The idea of +new learning is attractive, but the idea of re-learning in fields where +we have assumed certain things to have been thoroughly proven is most +repugnant. + +Among his provisional theories or “acceptances” as he calls them, +Fort holds “that we do not really think at all; that we correlate +around super-magnets that I call Dominants--a Spiritual Dominant in +one age, and responsively to it up spring monasteries, and the stake +and the cross are its symbols: a Materialist Dominant, and up spring +laboratories, and microscopes and telescopes and crucibles are its +ikons--that we’re nothing but iron filings relatively to a succession +of magnets that displace preceding magnets.” + +To use Fort’s terminology, the New Humanist recognizes that science is +the Dominant of our civilization, and that most people, impressed by +its marvels in the field of mechanical inventions, simply correlate +around it. He invites us therefore to _think_ about this super-magnet, +to mark out its true sphere of influence, and to be conscious of +our relation to it. He urges us, in brief, to be as critical of its +magnetism as we are now able to be of the theological Dominant of +former ages. + +The first step is to discriminate between real science and what the +French call _petite science_ and we call popular science. The latter is +often out-of-date, frequently over-simplified, and usually boastful. +Yet it is what the average man, and many literary men with him, browses +upon. In contrast, the scientific leaders are as a rule models of +caution and modesty. The next step is to perceive that there is a +hierarchy of sciences. It is to see with A. S. Eddington “that physical +science comes nearest to that complete system of exact knowledge which +all sciences have before them as an ideal. Some fall far short of +it. The physicist who inveighs against the lack of coherence and the +indefiniteness of theological theories, will probably speak not much +less harshly of the theories of biology and psychology. They also +fail to come up to his standard of methodology.” But it is notorious +that the prestige rightly won by the most perfected sciences diffuses +itself, in the eyes of the layman, over the newer and half-baked +sciences, such as sociology, anthropology, and various schools of +psychology, precisely those branches of science or pseudo-science +which the literary are most attracted by the while they shirk the hard +labor involved in getting a real acquaintance with physics. Thus the +New Humanist turns out to be actually in accord with the strictest +scientific attitude in his refusal to attend with the same degree of +seriousness to, let us say, a “science of history” as that with which +he attends to the science of chemistry. + +There is a third step, and once it is really accomplished, one +is released from either sentimentality or superstition about the +scientist. Ridiculously simple, yet it is hard to make. It consists in +realizing the subjectivity of men of science. Just as in a complex way, +the style is the man, so in a complicated way science is also the man. +The scientist has elaborated a method and perfected his instruments +to eliminate the “personal equation,” but it is nevertheless still +present to haunt everything he does, to color his interpretations, to +set the patterns for his theories. Science is not the voice of God but +a distinctly human product with human limitations. Science may today be +on a higher imaginative level, as A. N. Whitehead believes, but mark +that Whitehead says this is “not because we have finer imagination, but +because we have better instruments.” + +After a sincere effort to understand sympathetically the anti-Humanist +viewpoint, it is still hard to see why such violent objection by +intelligent liberals should be taken to the general position adopted +by Humanism toward modern science. To sum up that position:--the New +Humanists differentiate between true science and _petite science_, they +draw attention to the differing degrees of development and stability in +the various sciences, they dwell on the imperfection of the man who is +using perfect instruments and a perfect method. It can only be that the +modernists are in no mood whatever for skepticism when it is exercised +toward their Authority. + + * * * * * + +We would expect, however, American Humanists to touch modern science +far more closely than the foregoing sketch of a general attitude +necessitates, and in fact they do. They take up particular attitudes: +they debate details of the scientific dogmas: they subscribe or +tend to subscribe to a given theory of the world. In their detailed +criticism of science, they suggest a number of questions that so far +as I know have not heretofore been raised about the New Humanism. +The New Humanism, we have seen, is a philosophy of conduct. The New +Humanists--note that I am discriminating between the philosophy of +conduct and the persons who enunciate it--adopt a theory of the world. +In the first place, is the theory of the world usually held by the +New Humanist the direct and necessary outcome of his philosophy of +conduct? Granting the truth of his theory of psychology, does that +theory require a cosmology to go with it, and is the cosmology of +the majority of the New Humanists in strict correspondence? We have +examined the picture of himself which the New Humanist declares is +fundamental to the “good life.” But is the picture of the world he +holds before him also fundamental? What I wish to determine is whether +the series of attitudes toward himself, the world, and the affairs of +the world which we attribute to the New Humanist is seamless or whether +we can with a sharp critical knife shear the attitudes apart where they +join each other and say of any one of the specific attitudes, this is +not essential or an alternative attitude would be just as logical in +place of this one. Can we have Newtonian Humanists and Einsteinian +Humanists? + +Basically, the New Humanist endeavors to be an artist of life. He +strives to become acquainted with his medium, the shifting texture +and stuffs of daily experience. He wishes like every other artist to +dominate his material, which means, in the chaotic field he has had +the noble audacity to choose, self-conquest. It is necessary for him +to dramatize his work as the struggle of two selves, the ordinary self +being the recalcitrant material and the human self being the artist. +Finally, like other artists he requires a technique for moulding his +subject matter, and he advocates as the technique the employment +of mediation. All this is practical psychology, and stands secure +against any theoretical psychology now before the general public. For +the New Humanist can say that whatever the ultimate mystery of human +nature is, however the two selves may be attached to each other and +reconciled, whatever the secret unification of man may be, you cannot +get around the fact that he is dualistic in practice. He can develop +himself on one assumption, and one only, and that is the assumption of +dualism. This is a hard stubborn fact of experience against which the +Humanist makes his mind collide, just as Dr. Johnson kicked another +hard stubborn fact of experience, a stone, to terminate a discussion +of Berkeley’s idealism. _Why_ this should be so, _why_ man should +indubitably be in essence a struggle, the Humanist cannot say, but no +more can he doubt that it is so whenever he makes the attempt to win +moral freedom. There it is, in the path of his wish for freedom, and he +must accept it as being _practically_ true. + +Undeniably--though it is seldom commented upon--the dualistic picture +of man has great emotive power. Our emotions are swayed by images, a +truism as old as ancient India, as new as Christian Science and Coué. +It is not the whole story, but in a large measure emotions do respond +to pictures. The time-worn illustration is the coil of rope in the +road which one takes to be a snake. One’s emotions form themselves +accordingly, but on discovery that the supposed snake is only a coiled +rope they change at once. So a person with a Rousseauistic image of man +feels according to that image: his emotions drag against any effort to +rouse himself from Arcadian dreams. The Humanist with his picture of a +best self conferring style and order on an impressionistic protean self +rallies his emotions to give their impulsion and sanction to the end in +view: the achievement of normality. A creative conception of man calls +forth creative emotions. + +Now is there incorporated in American Humanism a clear-cut creative +conception of the world? Is the world condensed into an image that +is as powerful in its effects as the image of the two selves, as +irrefutable on the practical plane, as inspiring to human effort? I do +not find one, and this I take to be a serious shortcoming in American +Humanism as a philosophy of conduct. But in my judgment the defect +can with relative ease be remedied, and remedied in a manner most +congenial to a philosopher of conduct so Greek as the American Humanist +in his self-attitude. The reader ought to remember what was said in +the chapter, _A Portrait of Our Age_, about the various life-pictures, +the “æsthetic,” the “puritan,” the “serious,” et cetera, current among +us, and to recall the unlucky G. R. who had his imagination of life +altered from the “Victorian” to the “scientific” imagination. None of +those attitudes mentioned will do for the American Humanist, but why +should he not find, being gymnastic in his relations with his ordinary +self, aiming as he does to develop strength of character by exercises +in mediation and selection, that the external world is best figured as +a gymnasium? A vast enlargement of the ancient Lyceum which existed +for the exercise of the mind as well as the body? Why should not the +present-day Humanist revive this Greek symbol as he revives the Greek +law of measure? Let us utilize again the practical psychologist whom we +quoted in the earlier discussion of world-attitudes. + +“There can be little doubt that for most of us, in the present epoch, +the image of life as a gymnasium is a greatly needed tonic. Compare +the difference in your attitude (emotional response) on entering +a gymnasium and on entering, let us say, a cabaret or a Y.M.C.A. +lecture-hall or a house of mourning. Try to realize what and how +you actually feel. You are braced up, you have the intention of +strengthening yourself, you delight in the difficulties,--provided you +choose them yourself. In short, you feel at your strongest and getting +stronger. + +“The classic Greek conception of life was just that; and everybody +knows that the gymnasium was the most popular institution of +Pythagorean Greece. What is not so well known is that the gymnasium was +for the Greeks a symbol or image of life itself. Their God ran this +planet as a gymnasium for the exercise of men, and all experiences were +to be taken as movements, turns, stretches, exercises, in wrestling, +running, lifting, and so on. Moderns will find what the ancient Greeks +found in the image of life,--the evocation of a creative emotion. + +“It is difficult to see in what other direction we moderns can look for +a new image and therefore attitude towards life. We have no longer the +possibility of religion in the traditional sense. Ordinary goodness--in +the sense of doing what others call good--has no intelligent appeal. +And, after the still recent Great War, the belief in world progress +is superstition. But the clean, strong idea of life as a field of +exercise for the development of all our muscles--physical, emotional +and intellectual--has still the unspoiled beauty of manly and +womanly idealism. And life lived in that attitude would certainly be +interesting as well as profitable.” + +The above seems eminently fitted to be the humanistic attitude toward +the world. It involves no theology, no metaphysics, no science, being +a matter of personal psychology alone. It presupposes, of course, that +man can act as well as be acted upon, the first contention of the +Humanist, and it reinforces his wish to act. It definitely humanizes +the external world, making it a field for human beings to follow their +end of self-perfecting, but it does not sentimentalize or minimize the +world. It is, in fine, a tenable world-picture coöperating with the +main aim of Humanism. But it is not a theory of the world. That is +still to seek. + +It is not far off. The theory of the world that has been joined on +to the humanistic theory of the self is Cartesian: at least so far +as one can determine from the commitments of the majority of the +New Humanists, it is Cartesian. They are not, as a rule, any more +precise than other literary men in what they say about their beliefs +concerning the nature of the physical world, but any one can hear that +they sing in chorus against the “New Physics.” They resist the thought +of A. N. Whitehead, A. S. Eddington, Albert Einstein, and re-affirm +their confidence in something like the following:--“Unless it can be +indisputably proved that man, with his infinite variety of thoughts +and emotions, is but an aggregation of mechanical atoms held together +and moved by physical forces--an hypothesis for which there is not the +slightest proof--there seems to be no necessity to deny the existence +of a spiritual world not subject to the laws of mechanical energy +or circumscribed by the space limitations of material or electrical +substances.” This means that on the one side they as a practically +united body reject deterministic psychology (Behaviorism, for example) +and on the other side they hand over the inorganic world to science, +concentrating on the faith that there are in the living organism +elements not analyzable or accountable by science. The quotation was +from _The Dogma of Evolution_ by Louis Trenchard More, the brother of +Paul Elmer More, and Dean of the Graduate School at the University +of Cincinnati. Here is another from the same source to which the New +Humanists would subscribe. + +“It is no casual separation of our ideas into the physical, biological, +and psychological realms. The physical world is a combination of +substances acting according to a certain set of laws of force and +energy, the biological world is composed of the same substances, but +the laws of action are not the same. They have, however, this great +principle in common; they, both, are limited by time and space. Then, +somehow to the biological world an added principle is given that we can +call consciousness which is not material but is associated with matter +and which is not limited by time and space. To the present time, at +least, these three realms are to us incommensurable and we have made no +progress in measuring or explaining one by the other.” + +Louis T. More is the scientist among the New Humanists, a thorny fact +to those who are trying to create the legend that the New Humanists +are anti-scientific. The legend is punctured by this physicist, who +has read and thought widely outside his subject; especially he has +browsed in the subject of philosophy, which is generally eschewed by +the rank-and-file scientists. The result of this wandering is that L. +T. More has equipped himself to disassociate scientific evidence from +the faith that twines so tightly around it: he is an able, diligent +critic, for example, of evolution as science and as faith. Considering +him therefore as the most conscious author among the New Humanists +when it comes to formulating a world-theory, let us look at his +essay, _The Pretensions of Science_ in the symposium, _Humanism and +America_. You will find him very restrictive. To begin with, “science +has a legitimate field of its own when investigating the phenomena +of the objective world and attempting to find law and order in the +flux of events.” But there are two classes of false claims made for +science, one by “those men of science who are not content to work in +their limited field, but are really metaphysicians who have created a +fictitious world of the imagination made out of ethers, electrons, and +mathematical symbols, and have confused it in their own and others’ +minds with the sensible world of brute fact,” and the other by “those +who are claiming that the phenomena of the subjective world also lie in +the field of science and have imposed on the age the pseudosciences of +psychology and sociology.” This is nakedly Cartesian, for as Whitehead +shows so clearly, the principles of Descartes “lead straight to the +materialistic, mechanistic nature surveyed by cogitating minds. After +the close of the seventeenth century, science took charge of the +materialistic nature, and philosophy took charge of the cogitating +minds.” + +Let us pursue along these two lines and learn what further L. T. More +has to say of the objective world and the “cogitating mind.” On the +first track, we read that “the cosmogony of Descartes has long since +crumbled to dust, but the gap he made between the subjective and +objective worlds has never been closed in spite of incessant later +attempts ... we have more and more regarded the universe as a machine, +a combination of inert matter and moving forces, acting not as we may +desire, but according to invariable laws which we have personified as +Nature. Man was left, by the physicists, as a unique outsider who could +interpret this machine in terms of his sensations and mind, but could +neither alter nor avoid its fateful operation ... the scientific method +is limited to experimental observation and the formulation of laws ... +the inevitable tendency of science is to investigate all phenomena +quantitatively, and to view the whole universe as a vast and measurable +machine ... exact science is first of all based on the naïve belief in +an objective and real world whose events are connected in an orderly +and prescribed manner, and occur independently of our thought or will +... the mechanistic world can, at best, only picture an objective world +as it seems to us, and not as it is.” + +Now following the second track, we read of “the two equally valid +methods of learning by objective experimentation and by personal +experience.... In a general way, we may say that the scientist should +follow in his investigations the phenomena of the objective world +only until their special forms of energy are absorbed by our nervous +system. It is the province of the humanist to study the phenomena of +the subjective world after these stimuli have been translated into +emotion and thought ... the false pretensions of science must be wholly +abandoned, and the problems of our destiny be examined by a wise +judgment drawn from human experience, before we can hope for a sane and +humanistic philosophy.” + +Here we can stop with some assurance that the main position toward +which the New Humanists gravitate has been disclosed. Generally +speaking, it is unfair to set forward any Humanist as an “official +spokesman” and perhaps I should not have assigned L. T. More to that +rôle. But his brother, P. E. More, and Robert Shafer have, I believe, +been fertilized by his reflections on science, and I cannot detect in +the writings of the other New Humanists any radical divergence from +the Cartesian scheme. The question is, is the Cartesian world-picture +integral to American Humanism or is it simply one of the possible views +that might be adopted by American Humanists and held by them in common +with members of various other schools of thought? Also, it is evident +there are a number of difficulties which L. T. More’s statements +immediately raise, and which no doubt the reader feels should be dealt +with. In the next section I shall put forward these difficulties myself +and at the same time try to formulate what I think the modern man’s +attitude should be toward scientific world-building. + + * * * * * + +It seems to me that the truly modern man will first of all strive to +free himself from the great spell cast by science in our epoch. He +will try to overcome his own suggestibility upon which propagandists +for science from Huxley and Spencer to the present have played, so +that he may answer himself frankly when he wonders if our hopes in +science have not deceived us. Furthermore, as was earlier suggested, +he will try to arrive at some conception of the external world which +is not irrational, not violable by the teachings of science, and is +at the same time dynamic and humanizing in its influence. This demand +the world symbolized as a gymnasium, an immense Academy or Lyceum or +Institute of Crotona, appears to meet perfectly. It makes no difference +whether one adheres to a materialist or an organic or an idealistic +philosophy: the world as a gymnasium for the strengthening of human +fiber is a valid imagination under any of the three types of philosophy +named. The question then becomes: picturing life as a gymnasium for +the development of men, what values can be extracted from science by +the man who does not propose to train himself to be a professional +scientist? + +Such a man, aiming at a general coördinated culture, must come to +regard science in the same way he regards art and philosophy--with +respect, but not sentimentally or superstitiously. No divinity +surrounds any of the three: each subject is man-made and therefore +fallible. But each is primarily to be enjoyed for its own sake. We +accept this principle in art, not so fully in philosophy, and still +less in science. Yet science provides a manipulation and stretching of +mental muscles that is highly enjoyable for the sake of exercise alone. +It provides adventures and perils of thought of a kind differing from +philosophy and art. A case should in fact be made out for science as a +humane discipline, though I think of no one in America who is a shining +example of such a discipline. I mean that we do not seem to produce +men of the type of J. W. N. Sullivan in England, who are exquisitely +cultivated both in the arts and sciences, who are supple-minded, +adventurous in thought, thoroughly skeptical, at home with Einstein as +with Beethoven or Dostoyevsky or Plato. We need cryingly more gifted +amateurs among our laymen who study science and fewer intolerant +“gospellers” of the type of Harry Elmer Barnes. I am reminded of some +sagacious things about the _use_ of philosophy for human beings which +T. S. Eliot has recently written, because they apply equally well to +the _use_ of science. + +“When we study philosophy as a humane discipline we do not do so merely +in order to pick out one which we shall adopt as ‘true,’ or either +to confect a philosophy of our own out of all philosophies. We do so +largely for the exercise in assumption or entertaining ideas; for the +enlargement and exercise of mind we get by trying to penetrate a man’s +thought and think it after him, and then passing out of that experience +to another. Only by the exercise of understanding without believing, +so far as that is possible, can we come in full consciousness to some +point where we believe _and_ understand.” Eliot adds, “Similarly +with the experience of poetry,” and I would add, similarly with the +experience of science. + +The blunt truth is that the grounds of the attack on the New Humanists’ +statements about science have been mistaken. They were accused of +hostility to the workings of science. But they should have been +accused of lukewarmness toward science as a humane discipline. +Excepting L. T. More, P. E. More and Robert Shafer, the New Humanists +may be said to lack zeal for that kind of development of their minds +which science is most able to confer. Mildness of interest in a subject +and active hostility to it are so different that not even blind +partizanship would seem to be a sufficient excuse for identifying them. + +But let not this argument for science as a humane discipline by +which one flexes and enlarges the mind be construed as advocacy of +dilettantism in the current debased sense of that word. The end in view +is to become an alert critic of world-theories. And here I will say +that I believe there is no essential connection between Humanism as a +philosophy of conduct and the Cartesian materialistic theory of the +universe. They are joined in the minds of the New Humanists, but that +I think is a fortuitous juncture. Nor can I see that Humanism depends +in any way soever upon a defence of Newtonian physics against later +modifications and developments. The Christian cosmogony and cosmology +constitute to most of us a mythology. The mythology may be profoundly +true, more true than modern science, but we are in the position of not +being able to verify its statements by an exact procedure. The means +of individual verification may once have existed, but where are they +now? We may assent to the Christian mythology, but it is assent based +on faith, a very different thing from the _faith based on reason_ +of the great doctors of the Middle Ages. Add to this the fact that +the materialistic, mechanistic world-view has been shaken by the +tremendous blows of mathematical physicists like A. N. Whitehead. +It has got into the epicyclic state which presages a breakdown. +Alternative world-schemes, imposing, daring, almost sublimely +intuitive, are now being put forward. In other words, the problem of a +world-theory has been reopened on a scale not dreamed of for centuries. + +“The eighteenth century,” observes Whitehead, “opened with the quiet +confidence that at last nonsense had been got rid of. Today we are at +the opposite pole of thought. Heaven knows what seeming nonsense may +not tomorrow be demonstrated truth.” + +Now it appears to me that the New Humanists, by and large, retain +something of the eighteenth century attitude in the face of the new +physical problem. But a problem of this kind calls for the suspension +of belief, for all the skepticism one can summon, for the complete +willingness to run down any turning of thought, for the surprise +attack, for an attitude best described as adventurous. The law for +thing and the law for man, as they work out in human experience, do +not depend on Cartesianism. At the present time, in fact, the law for +man may be said to dictate the extrication of one’s self from grooves +of thought about the world: it lays an obligation upon one to be +provisional in one’s acceptances of world-theories: it requires that +the problem be recognized and faced in the spirit appropriate to a +mystery. Not to be a farranging agile critic of theories of the world +is, in the twentieth century, not to be in key with one of its major +trends in thought. + +To illustrate the point, compare your feelings while traversing the +familiar way home and while threading your route out of a labyrinth. +The difference is like the difference between our take-it-for-granted +psychology in handling a solved problem and our active searching +psychology in moving about in a new problem. We are the same person +but the intellectual environment has altered. It seems to me that +most of the New Humanists have yet to adapt their psychology to the +labyrinth of modern physics. Note, however, that I do not urge upon +them any recommended way out: I do not ask them to adopt Eddington’s +world-theory but to tackle it in a different spirit. + +For it may well be that this intense critical search for a tenable +conscious world-view will not meet with complete success in our +century. But not to make the search is not, in my judgment, to be +humanistic, since the problem is the problem of any one who aspires +toward completeness. The final personal reward of a maximum use of +our critical powers on classical physics and the new physics is that +we at least shall know with the utmost clarity what we believe and +understand, and what we do not believe and find insoluble. That is, +we shall be as conscious as we can possibly be of the nature of the +external world, even if that consciousness consists but of alternative +possibilities, doubts, queries and speculations, and perhaps a few +certitudes. + +There is another large fact to be grasped, toward which our psychology +must make adjustment. It is that modern science is stranded on a +“plateau” and its giants are making their greatest efforts to raise +it, to initiate a new curve of development. The analogy is with those +curious graphs of learning processes, which show that one learns +rapidly at first, then comes to a period of little or no progress (“a +plateau”), then mounts again, arriving later at another “plateau,” and +so on. To get off a “plateau” a special effort, produced either by +some external incentive such as the offer of a reward or by a renewed +determination, is required. Now it has for some time been recognized +by advanced minds that modern science was in just such a condition +of arrest. It was able to refine upon what it had already done, but +not able to initiate any great rising movement. There is material for +novel reflections in the description Whitehead gives of the state of +science at the end of the nineteenth century. “Almost suddenly, a pause +occurred; and in its last twenty years the century closed with one of +the dullest stages of thought since the time of the First Crusade. +It was an echo of the eighteenth century, lacking Voltaire and the +reckless grace of the French aristocrats. The period was efficient, +dull and half-hearted.” The cause? We may venture to say that it was +because, as Whitehead elsewhere notes, science for two centuries had +been running on the accumulated capital of ideas of the seventeenth +century, “the century of genius.” A pause, a blocking, was bound to +come. And today science, as Whitehead and Eddington recognize, is at +a crucial turning point. It seeks to discover the elements that will +make for another period of development, and discovery of the necessary +elements Whitehead tells us requires more genius than to exploit them +when found. + +Who can fail to be stirred by this tremendous drama of the human mind? +And yet it appears that many are unmoved, anti-Humanists as well as +Humanists. The scientist, going about his business, discovers that his +personal limitations, the usual habits of scientists, are retarding +the progress of science itself. Science properly is concerned with +the what-ness of things. From the why-ness of things (philosophy) +and the æsthetic and other emotional imports of things (values) it +has resolutely cut itself off. It has, every one knows, discounted +the intuitive, discounted other forms of knowledge. But now see: the +scientist is discovering that his exclusive interest in _what_ and his +impatience with _why_ and with value is ultimately stultifying. He +feels the basic need to fertilize himself by considering other reports +on reality than his own, he struggles to escape the bondage of his +traditional habits. It is a situation that should call forth the full +interest and sympathy of the humanistically inclined. + +For what it emphasizes is the desperate need for a coördination of all +our knowledges. A knowledge of “porous atoms” does not destroy our +practical knowledge of a table, nor take away the table’s æsthetic +properties. The world exists as a source of ideas, of emotions, of +actions; it is simultaneously a field of practical affairs, an object +of feeling, an intellectual feast. Reality is threefold, but our +reports upon reality seldom harmonize. The rationalist underrated two +of these reports and trusted fully to one only. The scientist now shows +a disposition to admit the validity of all three and to bring about +a _rapprochement_ of the practical, emotional and mental worlds. A +very faint glimmer still comes across the centuries, elusive witness +to the grandeur of the Pythagorean synthesis. Who knows but what the +twentieth century, treasuring the glimmer, may not succeed eventually +in reflecting it back with an unexpected glory? + +“Know thyself,” said Pythagoras, and the recollection of that +injunction points to our greatest stumbling-block. To me it is a little +Canute-like of L. T. More to forbid to science the subjective world. +And I say this with full awareness of the inadequacy and faultiness +of introspection as a method. But if introspection is of little use +to psychology as a science, it is equally of little use to Humanism. +Is it impossible, however, that a better method cannot be devised, is +it impossible to put self-study on a scientific basis? The rise of +Behaviorism is too impressive for any fiats to be delivered now against +the further endeavors to found psychology on a really substantial +basis. The Behaviorist has cleared the ground, he has come to the +threshold, but it is a question of the key to the subjective world. I +do not think the New Humanist need dread the search for the key. + + + + + IX + + EDUCATION AND LEADERSHIP + + _“Tradition is the experience of society. It is stored up for use + by what may be called the objective memory. The chief function of + education is to transfer the wealth of a selective tradition from + society to the individual.”_--Paul Elmer More in _The Drift of + Romanticism: Shelburne Essays, Eighth Series_. + + +Insufficient attention has been paid by intelligent unacademic people +to the educational ideas and constructive suggestions for academic +reform offered by the New Humanists. Only one commentator in the +flurry of debate that ensued on the issuance of _Humanism and America_ +wrote with gratitude of the salutary effect on literary scholarship +produced by the unremitting efforts of American Humanists, and he +was Henry Seidel Canby, who has known at first hand the _literae +inhumaniores_ that flourish rankly in our universities. Nowhere better, +it seems to me, than in their dissertations on the teaching of the +humanities--nowhere better than in such books as Babbitt’s _Literature +and the American College_ and Foerster’s _The American Scholar_--can we +witness the law of measure being applied to current problems. Moreover, +if anything calls for the most tactful mediatory treatment, it is the +tendencies and objectives of our colleges and universities. + +It is right, I think, to regard American Humanism, when one refers +to the _movement_ rather than the doctrine and discipline, as being +primarily an educational force. Many of its adherents are actively +engaged in teaching and therefore the problems of education possess a +personal urgency for them. They do not dream at present of marching on +the literary citadels of the country and subduing their garrisons to +standards they have foresworn, but the teacher-classicists definitely +do propose to wrest education from the control of humanitarians. There, +in the field of education, the New Humanist affirms “the battle that +is to determine the fate of American civilization will be fought out +first of all.” For this reason I am giving a chapter to the members of +the movement as educators rather than as literary critics. As literary +critics, they consider the prevalent impressionism to be a low form +of criticism and seek to restore criticism to its former acknowledged +business, judgment by humane standards. But I feel no regret in +neglecting in this book the numerous important ideas for contemporary +literary critics which stud the works of Babbitt and More. With such +writers as T. S. Eliot and F. McEachran in England, Robert Shafer and +Seward Collins in America lifting them up and weighing them, they +are certain of a distinguished attention. So my conscience does not +trouble me because in the present interpretation only incidentally do +I visit the purely literary front of the New Humanist campaign. The +most serious fighting is on the educational front, and the enemy is +educational impressionism. + +We can divide the educational front into three sectors,--the lower +schools, the college, and the university with its graduate schools. On +the first the New Humanists are not very active, on the second they +take a very determined stand. If they can hold the college to its +function, as they conceive it, they are willing to make concessions +in the graduate schools. The leading ideas they put at stake in each +sector are very easy to state. In the lower schools, where it is +granted that the humanitarian tinge is not undesirable, the pupil +should be acquisitive and receptive. In college the student should +be assimilative and reflective. In the university the scholar may +be productive, investigatory, original on the basis of his humane +discipline in the college. Reception when young, assimilation in +college years, productive research in graduate school--these are the +functions that should underlie our educational system. But the college +is being ground out between the encroachments of preparatory schools +and the invasion of university ideals of research. And there is where +the situation is most tense and critical. We shall begin, however, with +the lower schools and the theory of John Dewey, arch-foe of American +Humanism in education as well as in philosophy. + + * * * * * + +No one can be insensible to the value of Dewey’s correction of certain +evils in our public school system. He has perceived the dangers of too +much abstractness in its curriculum, and the need for more education by +doing. It is largely through his influence that the Project Method, as +it is now called, the method of teaching by correlating school subjects +around some social activity of the children, around weaving, for +example, has been given its present vogue. But it is the leading ideas +of Dewey that are at issue, and not any desirable modification of the +elementary school curriculum. + +We live in a democratic society: therefore, say the disciples of +Dewey, education should adapt itself to the needs and the condition +of the many children, not of the few exceptional ones. We live in an +industrial society: therefore education should be closely connected +with the major actualities of an industrial society. Going to school +is not “a preparation for life.” It is experience as much as any other +phase of life. The gap between life in school and life in the family +and on the playground should be decreased as much as possible. In a +sentence, education should be socialized. It should be thoroughly +democratic. It should develop the virtue of coöperation to the highest +degree. + +To these guiding ideas every one must in some measure give assent, +but many people feel that their limited assent must be combined with +a great deal of criticism. Robert Shafer, for one, looking over the +records of educational experiments along the lines mapped out by Dewey, +has repeated the old proverb: one swallow does not make a summer. The +experiments have been made with picked children and picked teachers. +But, Shafer asks, can conclusions be drawn that will be valid for the +educational system as a whole, since in the whole system the children +are unpicked, the coöperation of the majority of parents cannot be +secured, and the quality of the teachers must inevitably sink far below +the standard of the experimental school enthusiasts. Waiving every +other consideration, are the new lower-school ideas feasible for a +wide application? But presupposing practicality, those other waived +considerations become the very important ones, and the New Humanist +cannot satisfy his strong doubts of the ideals of the Dewey reform. +Others, besides New Humanists, have come to experience like doubts, +and some of these are persons who at one time were wholly convinced +or almost convinced of the soundness of Dewey’s proposals. One of +them is a woman who, to my belief, is the most brilliant of all the +contemporary pioneering spirits in the “new education.” I mean Margaret +Naumburg, the founder and for eight years (1914-1922) the director +of the Walden School in New York city. In 1928 a book from her pen +appeared, _The Child and the World_, a series of dialogues on modern +education, in which she summed up the results of her thinking and +experience in her special field. In spite of the author’s reputation, +the book was not, as a rule, thoroughly reviewed. One surmises that +this was in part due to Miss Naumburg’s having abandoned and criticized +the positions so many other new educators were still clinging to. +However it happened, the central point of the book was overlooked: +very little attention was paid to the clash she staged between Dewey’s +program for socialized education and Whitehead’s views on education +which stress the encouragement of individual development. + +Our immediate interest lies, of course, not in Miss Naumburg’s partial +advocacy of Whitehead, but in her critique of Dewey. Naturally, as +who would not, she speaks of Rousseau as the common ancestor of the +new school movement in America, approving of his praise of learning +by doing; to Rousseau she links Dewey as the immediate parent of +present-day experiments. But Rousseau’s general influence on the new +school movement, she emphasizes, has had very unfortunate consequences. +This is due to establishing so many experiments on “Rousseau’s +romantic hope that maladjusted human functions could right themselves +by a return to the simple life of nature ... the belief that we can +right ourselves by simply removing certain limiting trammels of +civilization.” Miss Naumburg, her book makes clear, has shed all her +illusions about so naïve a belief. Her counts against Dewey are four: +(1) he underestimates emotional culture in his educational plans, (2) +he has framed these plans too closely in accord with his own bias as +a psychological type, being particularly unfair to the possibilities +of the training of intuition, (3) he is too chary of the inner, the +subjective life, and (4) his socialized education completely neglects +individual psychology. + +She holds up for close scrutiny a quotation from Dewey’s _Democracy and +Education_ which the New Humanist would certainly agree is an amazing +piece of sophistry. It is the concentration of all the arguments for +socialized education. “From a social standpoint, dependence denotes a +power rather than a weakness; it involves interdependence. There is +always a danger that increased personal independence will decrease +the social capacity of an individual. In making him more self-reliant +it may make him more self-sufficient; it may lead to aloofness and +indifference. It often makes an individual so insensitive in his +relations to others as to develop an illusion of being really able to +stand and act alone--an unnamed form of insanity which is responsible +for a large part of the remediable suffering of the world.” + +On this strange argument Miss Naumburg’s comment is: “Much of the +present social philosophy that wishes to sacrifice the individual to +the good of the group is nothing but instinctive herd psychology, +translated into modern terms.... I’m sure the world now needs more +complete individuals so that group life can become integrated on a +higher plane. Dewey places emphasis on the individual’s living for the +group rather than for himself and suggests that his failure to do so +is the cause of much of the world’s suffering. But to me it seems that +the failure of the individual to know himself remains the cause of his +ineffectual adaptation to a positive and adequate social existence.” + +This is pointed criticism from the inside of a movement whose advanced +minds are now beginning to realize that they have envisaged their +problems far too simply,--that self-expression is not the magic +formula, that psycho-analysis produces as much trouble as it dissolves, +that socialized education too much disregards the individual gifted +pupil, that liberty is a hard concept to understand aright. The New +Humanist on the outside phrases his criticism differently. It is that +Dewey offers no contribution to the urgent problem of producing leaders +of quality in a democratic society. For the New Humanist makes no +fetich of democracy, as does Dewey, nor does he stand for an unmixed +aristocracy either. To him the social problem is the blending of the +two, the securing of an aristocratic and selective democracy, and he +would like to see education from the kindergarten upwards organized for +the furtherance of that aim. + + * * * * * + +Dewey is a Baconian philosopher with an admixture of Rousseauism. I am +here making use of the Babbittean classification of modern naturalists +into two types, those prefigured by Francis Bacon who are known as +scientific naturalists, and those prefigured by Rousseau and known as +sentimental naturalists. The classification causes so much resentment +among present-day intellectuals, it is so hotly repudiated, that I +am led to wonder if Babbitt has not again probed to the bottom of +our era’s mind and located basic trends we have not known we were +exemplifying. Certainly, his two types, however petty many of the +exemplars today may be, are of epical stature. The drama of the last +three centuries is no mean one, and requires as its leading characters +personages to fit the scale of the action. + +Of course, we must discriminate between Babbitt’s estimates of Bacon +and Rousseau as personages and his description of the types of men he +names after them. In the character of Bacon, for instance, he notes +the presence of traditional Christianity and Renascence humanistic +elements. Babbitt does not, to my mind, allow sufficiently for the +enigmatic in Bacon--hardly any one today is cautious enough for +that--and he accounts for the Lord Chancellor’s fall, which is still +inexplicable when all is said, on too general grounds. But, to get his +types, Babbitt does not simplify either Bacon or Rousseau: he merely +extracts from them the large formative elements which released into the +world have created the Baconian and the Rousseauist. It is undeniable +that Bacon was, in Whitehead’s words, “one of the great builders who +constructed the mind of the modern world.” He was the prophet of the +Kingdom of Man, Babbitt declares. He foresaw man’s dominion over the +earth, he made efficient the impulse to unlock Nature with the keys of +Science, he stimulated men to the astounding utilitarian triumphs which +the centuries since Bacon have achieved. It was his genius that made +the idea of progress so potent. + +The Baconians have gone forth and conquered the earth. If most of them +lack the slightest touch of Bacon’s dignity as a human being, they +nevertheless partake of the majesty of numbers and are not unworthy of +a mass-part in a planetary drama. But it has been a mass with notable +leaders down to John Dewey in our day. The mass firmly believes in +technological advance, material progress, the pragmatic life. For it +the “law for thing” is supreme. The leaders subtilize and rationalize +these beliefs. + +The Baconians and Rousseauists are often superficially hostile to each +other. We all know the contempt the scientific analyst frequently +expresses for the dreamer, and in turn the dreamer’s horror of the +analyst. But Babbitt demonstrates that the two types are in close +accord underneath. Both deny the “law for man.” Both subscribe +fervently to the doctrine of progress. And oftentimes in the same +person you will find prominent strains of both types, happy in each +other’s company. + +It scarcely needs saying that the Rousseauist is in a much greater +emotional ferment. The Baconian exalts practical intelligence, +strenuous deeds accompanied by acute if narrow thought: the Rousseauist +exalts sympathy, revery, spontaneity and liberty. His idea of liberty +is summed up in the popular expression, “doing as one likes,” which +means, Matthew Arnold labored to show, doing as one’s ordinary self +likes. “Do what thou wilt,” the injunction over the Abbey of Theleme, +is a far sterner permission and closer to the true idea of liberty. + +It is, I think it necessary to repeat, not claimed by the New Humanist +that contemporary Baconians and Rousseauists have been directly +influenced by the remarkable men they are named after. The actual +matter is very complex, as you will see by recourse to Babbitt’s +books, but what is maintained is that unconsciously we breathe in the +widespread gaseous elements of the teachings of Rousseau and Bacon and +are profoundly modified in our entire outlook on civilization by the +fact that they once lived. + +In recent years the American college has been overrun by the Baconian +scientific hustlers and by the Rousseauistic relaxed dilettantes--both +menaces to humanistic education. + + * * * * * + +In college circles the Baconian is usually a specialist eager to +advance learning in his branch of research but applying quantitative +tests to his department and to the college in general. He is strenuous +and imbued with the spirit of change. When he invades the arts, +he is scientific rather than artistic. To give a concrete example, +in the literature department the Baconian is the philologist, +engaged in original and minute research, but usually lacking in +æsthetic appreciation or in general ideas. He is supposed to teach +the humanities: he has prepared for his vocation by composing a +dissertation on the use of the present participle in some minor +Elizabethan. + +His colleague in the literature department is often a Rousseauist, +a gelatinous æsthete, incapable of hard mental labor, who utilizes +literature only as an agreeable source of sensations and impressions. +The philologist, taking his cue from Herbert Spencer, is inclined to +think of purely literary studies as a form of play, a relaxation, +after the exacting labors of scientific analysis: the æsthete-teacher +confirms him in the notion. + +Against these men in the colleges the New Humanist fights. He opposes +the quantitative and dynamic standards the Baconian would introduce, +and he scorns the shallow impressionism of the dilettante teacher. +His program calls for the continued teaching of the classics and the +intimate relating of the classics to modern life. He insists that +literature in the colleges should be taught as a vital subject bearing +in countless important ways on the formation of character. + +Instances abound of the contrary feeling that the classics cannot +hold much import for the forming of modern character, and as one +instance is as good as another, I will take the most recent to come to +my notice. “Shakespeare No Benefit to This Age” is the heading of a +newspaper column written by a former college professor, Harry Elmer +Barnes, in which he declares that much might be said in support of the +argument that “the beauty of Shakespeare’s diction and the shrewdness +of his analysis are more than offset by the influence he exerts in +keeping alive ancient superstitions like witchcraft, ghost-walking, +devil-lore and the like. In short, Shakespeare does more harm than good +to the twentieth century intellect.” It is grotesque narrow views of +literature like this that the contemporary Humanist deplores in the +ranks of teachers. + +A succinct way of summing up the American Humanist’s educational +program is to say that he favors the imitation of French scholarship +rather than German. The latter of course reigns in our universities, +and in these octopus-institutions, but not in the colleges, the +Humanist grants it plenty of room, for the university may well exist +for the advancement of learning, even if it is only the digging up +of a trivial fact concerning some Alexandrian grammarian. But on the +whole, “might we not advisedly turn now to France, where, to be sure, +the scientific study of literature has also had a marked influence, +but where other traditions of scholarship have offered a resistance +wholly wanting with us? French reflection, French lucidity, French +finesse, French moderation, the French concern for humane assimilation, +the French devotion to general ideas, the French insistence upon taste +and style, the French interest in criticism--these qualities, all but +absent from our own work, I take to be worthy of emulation.” The words +are from Norman Foerster’s _The American Scholar_, a lucid diagnosis +of the ills of our literary scholarship:--its tendencies to be absorbed +into linguistics, into history, into psychology, to become one of the +lesser and dismal sciences. + +By the way, the conditions analyzed by Foerster and the practical +remedies he proposes at the end of his monograph ought to receive +very thoughtful attention from the professional men of letters. The +sufficient reason is contained in the following quotation: “Modern +American scholarship is in a way to becoming a veritable Polyphemus, +choicely nourished on human food yet endowed with one eye only. We +must set about restoring the traditional alliance of scholarship +and criticism, the divorce of which has worked injury to both and +played havoc with education. It has made American scholarship +narrowly mechanical and progressively tangential. It has encouraged +an American criticism that can only be characterized as ignorant and +aimlessly impressionistic, for the lamentable state of our critical +journals is largely the consequence of academic failure to uphold the +past as a school of judgment. And it has played a major rôle in the +disintegration of American education, for it has made the study of +the humanities scientific in an age already blinded with excess of +scientific light, an age that is groping in vain for such other light +as literature could shed if it were rightly studied.” + +But my purpose precludes entering upon the details of the New +Humanist’s criticism of college instruction or upon the concrete plans +he presents for honors degrees and doctorate reforms. The broad idea +is that the university may exist for the advancement of learning, +but the college should stand for the assimilation of learning and the +perpetuation of culture. It should train for wisdom and character by +the processes of assimilation and reflection. It needs teachers of +quality--not linguistic Dryas-dusts or quivering dilettanti. What +is wanted, says the Humanist, is the teacher who has expended his +originality (in our age it _is_ originality) in grasping the “constant +mind of man,” who has disciplined himself on the best models of +literature and formed from them a wise appreciation of the normal and +representative, who has approximated to that type almost extinct in a +civilization dominated by the Baconian specialist and the Rousseauistic +thrill-monger, the _honnête homme qui ne se pique de rien_. + + * * * * * + +The full significance of the educational program of the American +Humanists comes out best in a comparison of the policies advocated by +Charles W. Eliot and Irving Babbitt. Eliot was President of Harvard +University from 1869 to 1909. In that position he became famous as the +father of the free-elective system, and until his death in 1926 ranked +as America’s most ardent crusader for educational reform. He was highly +esteemed for his character, a late flowering of the Puritan tradition, +and he was immensely influential through his theories which were not +Puritan: the theories were derived from Rousseau and therefore at +variance with the Puritan tradition in its most vigorous state. + +It is ironical that teaching under President Eliot for fourteen or +fifteen years was his best weaponed and fearless critic, and that today +this critic who condemned Eliot’s theories and influence should be +acknowledged as the greatest mind at Harvard. Yet it is the case that +Babbitt with his great strength for rending fallacies apart matured to +power within the very baliwick of President Eliot. + +The first clash was over the free-elective system. Eliot with his trust +in human nature had reasoned that each student had a pronounced bent, +some special aptitude, some absorbing interest which he was eager to +follow, and that this interest or bent or aptitude was thwarted by +a fixed curriculum. He was also impressed by the half-truth which +he took to be a whole truth, namely, every person is unique and the +college should therefore give full play to his uniqueness. To this +Babbitt replied in substance that there is quality in subjects as +well as quality in teaching. The free-elective system tends to deny +quality in subjects and makes higher education miscellaneous. And he +replied further that men have constant elements coexisting with their +variability, and that it was the constant in man, not the diverse and +fluctuating, which education should reckon with. + +Facts have refuted President Eliot’s optimism about the free-elective +system. It was found that students followed in choosing their courses +not the line of their aptitudes, of which often they were unaware, but +the line of least resistance. It was found that their uniquenesses +were not so precious after all. The result was a partial retreat from +the free-elective stand in favor of a compromise between the old +restricted curriculum and the new unlimited one. + +But the issue comes to a clearer head when the formulæ of the champions +of utilitarian-humanitarian education and of humanistic-religious +education are put side by side. “Training for power and service,” +said President Eliot. Babbitt answered in words I have already used: +“Training for wisdom and character.” Obviously President Eliot’s is a +Bacon-Rousseau formula. How does it work? Power in our society means +material efficiency, and service means, not the traditional service +of God, but the service of man. The assumption is that “the material +efficiency promoted by utilitarian effort will be used altruistically.” +But after the Great War this assumption looks tragically ludicrous. + +These are the conventions established by the age President Eliot +represented so faithfully: self-expression as a value (or falling +in the direction one’s character leans, an unfriendly critic +might mutter), strenuousness (the pursuit of happiness by intense +outer activity), the “religion of service” (nowadays satirized by +the _American Mercury_ and Sinclair Lewis as only a veneer for +commercialism), and complete faith in the natural man (in religious +language, the hope of salvation without conversion). These conventions +Babbitt has wrenched to pieces in his analysis and now proposes a +return to the old humanistic-religious conventions. + +In so far as the movement called American Humanism has a definite +program of action, this is it. First, that “a considerable number of +persons get at least within hailing distance of one another as to +the definition of the word humanism itself and the nature of the +discipline that this definition entails.” Next, that they then proceed +“in the literal sense of that unjustly discredited term, to work out +a convention.” And next, that they concern themselves with education. +By setting up a convention is meant the thorough agreement among the +members of a considerable group on certain fundamentals, the complete +conviction of truth concerning certain underlying statements about +life. The conventions that the New Humanists wish to reëstablish are: +(1) that “happiness is a kind of working” (inner, not outer, working, +according to Aristotle, who is here quoted), (2) that man needs to be +disciplined in his natural self to some standard (that is, to undergo +conversion or turning away from the natural self, such conversion to +be accomplished in the Aristotelian way by the gradual formation from +childhood of right habits), and (3) that education should culminate +in the idea of leisure (also Aristotelian, since according to the New +Humanist leisure is valuable for supplying a background of meditation +to life). + +Now I imagine that when the policy is thus reduced to essentials, many +people will wonder why there is any opposition to American Humanism +in the field of education. Yet the fact is that the principal forces +in education move, blindly most of them, directly counter to the +fundamental views of Humanism. It is an against-the-current struggle +that the New Humanists undertake. They are fighting for quality of +teaching in the humanities, and the current sweeps down upon them a +horde of linguistic specialists. They are fighting for quality of +subjects, and the classical subjects are steadily being submerged. +Finally, they are fighting for quality of students, and the colleges +and universities in their competition for big enrollments flood them +with quantities of the less fit for the intellectual life. For the +New Humanist declares flatly that the college should exist for the +intellectually best of each generation. Humanitarian coddling in the +colleges he denounces as a danger to democracy, pointing out that in +a quantitative age the college must make its great purpose to be the +production of men of quality. In fine, the educational problem is +closely associated with the problem of leadership, and the problem of +leadership leads us straight into the subject of the next chapter--the +political problems of a democracy. + + + + + X + + HUMANISM, ECONOMICS, POLITICS + + _“We have the naked question to answer: How shall a society, newly + shaking itself free from a disguised plutocratic régime, be guided + to suffer the persuasion of a natural aristocracy which has none of + the insignia of an old prescription to impose its authority? Shall + the true justice prevail, which by a right discrimination would + confer power and influence in accordance with inner distinction; + or shall that so-called justice prevail--for no man acknowledges + open injustice--which recommends itself as equality of opportunity, + but in practice, by confusing the distinctions of age, sex, and + character, comes at last to the brutal doctrine that might makes + right, whether that might be the material strength of money or the + jealous tyranny of numbers?”_--Paul Elmer More in _Aristocracy and + Justice: Shelburne Essays, Ninth Series_. + + +The educational theories of the New Humanists, I think it must be +granted, are thoroughly consonant with the premises of the New +Humanism. Education, at least through the college, ought to be +dominated by the spirit of conservation. In the university and +afterwards, the spirit of change ought to have full opportunity, for +by that time presumably the student is safeguarded against that mere +“passage from nothing to nothing” which Whitehead tells us happens +when there is “change without conservation.” The college is the place +for the assimilation of the traditional wisdom, which acts as a check +on the wisdom of any particular age. It is the place where today it +is most disastrous not to temper liberty with restraint, and it seems +to me that the New Humanist has most admirably mediated between pure +restraint and pure liberty in his educational program. A contempt for +antiquity, Tocqueville sagely remarked, is a chief danger of democracy, +and for that reason the study of the classics has a special value in a +democratic community--the New Humanist goes with Tocqueville and not +with the contemporary poet who has shouted, “The past is a bucket of +ashes.” + +But how is it with the excursions of the New Humanists into the +disputed territory of economics and politics? Are their known views on +these subjects the views that must inevitably be adopted if one accepts +their primary teaching of a psychological dualism and a discipline +based on the law of measure? Or are there several views which might +with equal consistency be taken up? Or can we say that they are good +Humanists but bad economists? The question has come up at least once +before. Referring to historical Humanism, Frank Jewett Mather, Jr., +has written, “We might say that the humanistic attitude was to seek a +fine worldly wisdom through direct study of man in thought and action, +such study being powerfully reënforced from those precedents of great +living contained in the literature of Greece and Rome--a fresh research +balanced and somewhat directed and measured by a great tradition. I +can find no stricter formula that seems to fit the case. The attitude +adumbrated above seems compatible with many other attitudes, indeed +with almost any attitude that is not dogmatic or fanatical, or +life-denying. For example, today one might be an agnostic humanist, +a Catholic humanist; a royalist humanist, a socialist humanist; a +utilitarian humanist, an idealist humanist; conceivably a Mormon +humanist or a liberal hard-shell Baptist humanist. That is, a quest +of a fine worldly wisdom nurtured by tradition might in theory be +compatible with any of these policies, philosophies or faiths. Nor does +this divest the notion of humanism of any real meaning if the main +thing be the attitude, for the humanistic attitude may be after all +simply a leaven which is potent in the most various materials.” In this +statement the attitude of Humanism is pretty dilute for our exposition, +but in any case the question of strictly relating attitude to views is +effectively opened up for discussion. Perhaps Humanism as a creative +conception of man does not dictate any one economic or political theory +as its logical choice? Perhaps it is the _spirit_ with which More and +Babbitt have studied the problems of economics that is criticizable? + +The obvious danger of the New Humanist when doubtful matters are +debated is to drop into an acceptance of the status quo just because it +is the status quo. He is proof against the temptation of the “radical” +which is novelty for the sake of novelty, but it is easily possible +that where an obdurate social problem exists, he may justify the status +quo instead of wholeheartedly throwing himself _into_ the problem. +This in effect is what in the chapter on _Science and the Modern Man_ +I accused him of doing: it seems to me he adheres to the outmoded +Cartesian world-view when he should instead plunge into the problem +of reconstructing a world-view. And I am inclined to think that Paul +Elmer More, whose views on property and law, aristocracy and justice I +shall glance at before taking up Babbitt’s political theory, has fallen +into this error of identifying the status quo or commonly accepted +position with a truly conservative solution. It is conceivable, I +mean, that both the status quo of social organization and the current +schemes for reforming it might be equally objectionable to a profoundly +conservative mind. + + * * * * * + +More has not the type of mind that functions happily in economics and +politics. His absorbing interest has been in Man Psychologic and he +has had little traffic with Man Economic or Man Political. But the +rise of Socialism in the United States and the Bull Moose Progressive +movement challenged his mind around 1912, and in _Aristocracy and +Justice_, the ninth volume of the _Shelburne Essays_, he answered, or +rather defied, the new tendencies. By his conclusions in this volume +on man as an economic and political animal, he probably incurred more +hostility than any of his other books has provoked. For _Aristocracy +and Justice_ came out in 1915, the very time that the social revolt +movement in the United States was fairly getting off the ground for +a dizzy if brief flight: the dominant concerns of the generation of +thinkers younger than More were precisely his subordinate concerns, +economics and politics. Naturally, the new generation dropped bombs on +_Aristocracy and Justice_, and with a ferocity partly accounted for by +More’s sharp tone in writing it. The result was that the strongest side +of More, his continuous reflection on Man Psychologic, was avoided or +made light of, and his weakest side, his thought about Man Economic and +Man Political, was bombarded to fragments. + +To begin with, More made the mistake of not arguing out economic +questions on the basis of economics, but instead made a direct appeal +to intelligent members of the propertied class to stiffen their morale. +“I am not here concerned,” he declared, “with Utopian visions, nor, +as I have said, am I arguing with those who are honestly persuaded +that a socialistic régime is, in our day, or any day, economically +or psychologically feasible. My desire is rather to confirm in the +dictates of their own reason those who believe that the private +ownership of property, including its production and distribution, is, +with very limited reservation, essential to the material stability and +progress of society. We who have this conviction need very much today +to strengthen ourselves against the insidious charms of a misapplied +idealism; we need to remind ourselves that laws which would render +capital insecure and, by a heavy income tax or other discrimination +in favor of labor, would deprive property of its power of easy +self-perpetuation, though they speak loudly in the name of humanity, +will in the end be subversive of those conditions under which alone +any true value of human life can be realized.” Do you wonder at the +vehement accusations that More was simply rationalizing class prejudice? + +We need one more statement to catch the drift of More’s views: it is +likewise an uncompromising one. “In simple truth, property may rightly +be called the cause of civilization, but, strictly speaking, it is only +the occasion of injustice: injustice is inherent in the imperfection +of man, and the development of the means of living merely brings into +greater prominence what is an unavoidable feature of existence, not for +man only but for the whole range of creation, in this puzzling world of +ours.” + +What More did then was to commit himself in advance to capitalist +economics, a system which may most briefly be defined as production for +the sake of profits or in one word profiteering. Can it be denied that +the main motive on which it relies is the desire for gain? And this +motivation, as economists admit, introduces an ethical contradiction +into the practices of the State. Nevertheless, many people claim that +there is nothing wrong with the theory of capitalism, and towards the +ethical defect it introduces they adopt two views: one, that the defect +may be remedied by education, the other, that it is inherent in human +nature. More adopts the latter view. + +Now if capitalism is supported by a perfect theory, then from the +standpoint of economics there is nothing more to say, no matter how +horribly the thing might work in practice. For economics as the science +of production abstracts from the human as much as possible and regards +our feelings as irrelevant. But _does_ capitalism operate on a sound +theory? This, in a thinker of Paul Elmer More’s eminence, is the first +question we should expect him to answer, the more so as it is often +charged that the theory of capitalism is only improvised. But as we +have seen, he does not. He proceeds almost at once to declare that +“the security of property is the first and all-essential duty of a +civilized community”; shortly afterwards he says, “To the civilized man +_the rights of property are more important than the right to life_.”[7] + +These statements pass if capitalism is correct in theory. But, once +again, is it? In the briefest possible space, I shall give the +theoretical objections. It is well understood, of course, that by +capitalist economics there are said to be three factors of production, +Land, Capital and Labor. Land and Capital, however, have become +practically indistinguishable: they are alike tools of production. But +is Labor also a tool of production? It is, according to capitalist +economics; Land, Capital and Labor exhaust the tools of production, and +the user of them is the Capitalist, that is, the owner of the tools of +Land and Capital. + +But this theory, as every one knows, has been long and brilliantly +criticized in the realm of pure thought, precisely the realm in +which More should have debated the moot point. For there is a moot +point: is Labor a factor of production? No, say the critics, Labor +is not congruous with the factors of Land and Capital. Labor is a +mere abstraction that hides Laborers. Laborers (i.e., Labor) are the +tool-users, the producers themselves, and at bottom economics reduces +not to three terms but to just two, Laborers and Tools or Workmen and +Stuff. Hence the new industrial synthesis, it is said, must substitute +the Laborer for the Capitalist, the real user of the real tools of +production for the mere owner of them. Therefore, when More speaks of +the rights of property, we need to concretize the word property: what +he speaks of is the rights of property- or tool-owners or capitalists, +and it is precisely those “rights” that now require defence in the +region of pure theory. + +Proceed one step further, and we shall run up against More’s argument +for the rights of property-owners as the basis of civilization. +Economics, we must remember, is separated from its soul: what is +more, it legitimately cuts itself off. Where is its soul? “The soul +of economics,” writes A. R. Orage in _An Alphabet of Economics_, “is +politics, and it is to politics that economics delegates the control +of questions such as what shall be produced, by whom, and how the +results shall be distributed.... To satisfy all our needs and desires +without work is really the aim of economic man. It is his object, in +fact, to reverse the curse upon Adam.... Instead of requiring the +improvements in economics to be shared equitably, politics insists +upon dividing them inequitably, so that one small class is enabled +practically to lift from itself the curse of Adam (that is, it can live +without working), while the large class of laborers are permitted to +incur a double curse--they work, that is, without living. Economists +of the baser sort or who have no political sense pretend that this +distribution of the product is itself economic in that it enables the +few to secrete Capital (that is to save) and to foster arts and science +requiring a long, leisured, and assumed future. Better knowledge, +however, convinces us that it is not safe to depend upon a social +class for an economic function.” How the author of _Aristocracy and +Justice_ would answer this, I cannot conceive, for no inkling is given. + +We have crossed from economics to politics, and in the latter one of +the greatest themes is justice. Naturally, More as a Platonist does not +minimize this theme. Justice “is the act of right distribution,” he +begins by way of definition, “the giving to each man his due.” This, +please note, is a capitalist-political definition, and we may place +beside it for comparison the well-known formula: from each according +to his _means_, to each according to his _needs_. Social justice, +More continues, “is such a distribution of power and privilege, and +of property as the symbol and instrument of these, as at once will +satisfy the distinctions of reason among the superior, and will not +outrage the feelings of the inferior.” But how, one may well ask, can +social justice ever be expected to take place when the principle of +distribution is the principle of--the pig trough? For economic power in +our society precedes and determines the distribution of commodities; +the man with the dollars feeds and sometimes gorges and the man +without dollars does not; and this does not satisfy the reason and it +does outrage the feelings. More himself says we must steel ourselves +to a certain extent when viewing this method of distribution. “The +first and hardest lesson for each right-minded man in these days is +to discipline the heart to accept with equanimity the fatal fact that +social justice must include a considerable amount of that disposition +of Nature in dealing with her own which we, judging by the standard of +the individual soul, are so ready to call injustice. The first step +towards the equipoise of a soul just within itself is to recognize the +necessity of a measure of injustice in the relation of man with man and +with the world.” + +I postpone comment on that in order to complete in this place the +outline of More’s political thought. Guided by the reflections of +Edmund Burke, the key idea for him is the formation of “a natural +aristocracy without which there is no nation,” according to Burke. “The +cure of democracy,” says More, “is not _more_ democracy, but _better_ +democracy.” And better democracy will come when we develop more men +who might fit into Burke’s celebrated portrait of the men of light and +leading: “Men who are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion +to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites; +in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity; in +proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above +their vanity and presumption; in proportion as they are more disposed +to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the +flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power +upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is +within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal +constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. +Their passions forge their fetters.” + +This is assuredly a humanistic ideal of a natural aristocracy, but +under present economic-political conditions have we any chance of +reaching it? We may get the natural aristocrats, but will they be +anywhere near the centers of political power? When we get to the +bottom, we are all likely to accept the definition of the political +power of the individual as being his power of self-direction; but +obviously the individual’s power of self-direction presupposes the +power of keeping himself alive. That is, the condition of political +power is economic power. To continue: voting is a process whereby +individuals empower an executive. They increase their powers of +self-direction by concentrating them upon the executive who acts in +their behalf. But when the voters are of unequal economic power, their +votes are necessarily unequal. In fact, the votes of many of them, who +have no power of keeping themselves alive but are correctly termed +wage-slaves, have no meaning at all: they can guarantee nothing. The +executive therefore quite naturally listens only to those whose votes +do mean economic power, because these are the only votes coming from +individuals who have power of self-direction. It seems to me that this +consideration has a very corrosive effect on any dream of a natural +aristocracy arising in our plutocratic community. + +Because the discussion of More’s economics and politics has been +rather compact up to this point, a restatement is offered. More, as +one of the leaders of the New Humanists, has not dealt with the purely +theoretical analyses of capitalism. I do not say he is unable to, +or unfamiliar with the arguments: the fact is that he has omitted a +theoretical justification. To those who believe that the critique of +capitalism has been a devastating one, this is an inexcusable omission. +Secondly, to many people, including a considerable number who are not +humanitarians, capitalism is an inhumane system. They would criticize +More’s sentiment of justice, which seems to me in this particular to +be weak, though it is possible he represses his feelings from dislike +of the humanitarian gushing on the topic of social justice. There is, +all the same, a love of all men which can, which must, in fact, enter +into our sentiment of justice to temper the rigor of it, and this love +of all men to which I refer has nothing of the humanitarian “universal +embrace” about it. Without love there is in truth no justice. But the +difference between humanistic love and humanitarian love I should +define as a difference in what in man is loved. Humanism, I quoted +Julien Benda as saying in an earlier chapter, holds in honor the +abstract quality of what is human, and this permits us to love _all_ +men, for there is equality in the abstract. Joseph Proudhon (to whom +Benda objected) does, I think, express the humane sentiment of justice +perfectly without spilling over into humanitarian sentimentality. I +mean he singles out that in all men which is worthy of love and toward +which one is irresistibly drawn to be just if one loves it. “There is +a tendency in every man to develop and force the acceptance of that +which is essentially himself--which is, in fact, his own dignity. It +results from this that the essential in man being identical and one +for all humanity, each of us is aware of himself at the same time as +individual and as species; and that an insult is felt by a third party +and by the offender himself as well as by the injured person, that in +consequence the protest is common. This precisely is what is meant by +Justice.” It is evident that Proudhon has an idea of Justice, which is +crystal-clear and crystal-hard, and that he feels this idea intensely. +The presence of a burning emotion for the idea of Justice I cannot +detect in More as a social thinker: his idea seems a mental skeleton +wired and strung up by class feelings. + +In the third place, I tried to point out that a Burkean aristocracy +will have a most difficult time coming into being in a democracy which +Georges Sorel defined as the paradise unscrupulous financiers dream +of. In short, present-day economics in its effect on politics is all +against it. + +But if the system of production for profit is untenable intellectually +and is inhumane and therefore untenable emotionally, it may still be +the best that can be put in practice, granting that human nature is +radically imperfect. It may be good enough for man because man is +not good enough for a more perfect system. The one fatal objection +to certain revolutionary schemes in the end may be that they are too +perfect for man as he is, that they will not work in practice as they +work on paper, unless man himself is first transformed. More made that +objection, and it is possibly his soundest argument. But it will be +interesting now to speculate on the possibility that a radical program +of economic reform might conceivably fit in with the basic ideas and +sentiments of the New Humanists. The Soviet Union I shall leave pretty +much out of account, for there you have a _fact_ to study and make +up your mind about. And possibly that fact in its present degree of +unfoldment demands not so much an intellectual and moral decision +as suspended judgment from the individual American. Furthermore, I +agree with T. S. Eliot that Russian communism like Italian fascism +seems to have died as a political theory in becoming a political fact. +Our present purpose which is to determine how flexible the Humanist +attitude may be in economics and politics is better served by reference +to a single extraordinary revolutionary (our example will be Sorel) +than it would be by an attempt in too short a space to analyze a +complicated fact that contains so many peculiarly Russian ingredients +to be subtracted before it is really instructive to us. + + * * * * * + +Perhaps the most fascinating of all the theorists of the social +revolution (but who reads him in America?) is Georges Sorel +(1847-1922), whose _Reflections on Violence_ was translated into +English by T. E. Hulme. Karl Marx had plotted out the acts of the +Capitalist tragedy, but by planting the idea of a class struggle so +prominently into the minds of men, by making men more conscious of +the opposition of capitalist and proletarian, Marx also introduced +an unforeseen factor working not for class war but for social peace. +Clearly understanding by the aid of Marx that society was in a state +of internal war, the peacemakers arose in mass. There was a general +amelioration of working conditions, there were concessions from the +capitalists, there grew up a pronounced tendency to blur and soften the +issues, to make everything a parliamentarian question. Sorel determined +to combat this movement toward pacifying the proletariat, and the +means he chose to throw into relief again the essential struggle of +the classes was to concentrate on the depiction of the last act of a +tragedy that might conceivably play on for centuries. He concentrated +on the vision of the general strike, the vast social cataclysm that was +to overthrow the capitalist régime. By means of this vision he hoped +to counteract the parliamentarian socialists and the philanthropic +capitalists, and thus preserve the purity of the class struggle. + +The results were curious. Mussolini has told of his youthful fervor for +Sorel’s doctrine, and Sorel wrote an apology for Bolshevism. The best +thinker that French syndicalism has had, Sorel was nevertheless saluted +with enthusiasm by Frenchmen of the extreme right: he was hailed by the +Action Française! Pierre Lasserre, the anti-Rousseauist, has written +a book about him, _Georges Sorel: Théoricien de l’Impérialisme_, and +many Marxists have been indignant because Sorel considered himself a +true follower of Marx. Evidently a paradoxical thinker. But he was +not. He was miscomprehended by many for the sole reason that he was a +revolutionary classicist, which is not a paradoxical combination. + +What Sorel did was to separate the working class movement from the +democratic or liberal-romantic or humanitarian ideology with which it +is habitually associated. He demonstrated forcefully that there was +no inevitable connection between them. They were not Siamese twins, +not even twins, but strangers who by an accident of history had been +chained together for three score years. Sorel’s intellect filed through +the chains and showed that one could be revolutionary in economics and +classical in ethics--to the astonishment of everybody. + +As he has had practically no vogue in American revolutionary circles, +it is excusable to say a few words about his personal development +before singling out some aspects of his classical ethics. Proudhon +had tried to combine the classical ideal with socialism, and Sorel +seems to have taken his first direction from Proudhon. Marx blinded +him with light for a time, but it was characteristic of Sorel that +he always recovered his sight and eventually saw things with his own +eyes. Nietzsche was another master whose teachings he divided into the +valuable ideas and the rubbish. Proudhon, Marx, Nietzsche--there were +lesser masters he carefully sifted: Bergson, Vico. He read widely, +profoundly. In his first book he maintained--a Nietzschean idea--that +Socrates represented the decadence of Athenian life, the charge being +that Socrates introduced expediency and calculation into ethics. He +wrote a study of Renan and a study entitled _Illusions du Progrès_ +which the anti-revolutionary Maritain has commended for its thorough +destruction of the middle-class notion of progress. The Dreyfus case +completely disillusioned Sorel with democracy and he plunged into the +anti-patriotic extreme revolutionary movement on whose behalf he fought +Jaurès and the other parliamentarian socialists with all the withering +scorn of a bold thinker and a bold man. + +I have said that he severed the ties between the revolutionary workers’ +movement and the romantic-humanitarian ideology. He did this by +scathing criticism of the sham religiosity of the romantic movement, +by excoriating the doctrine of progress, by exposing the middle class +conception of science. The last is worth quoting for the benefit of the +numerous Baconians to be found in our own liberal and revolutionary +groups. “The history of scientific superstitions,” Sorel asserts, +“is of the deepest interest to philosophers who wish to understand +Socialism. During the nineteenth century there existed an incredible +scientific ingenuousness which was the direct outcome of the illusions +that had aroused so much excitement towards the end of the eighteenth +century. Because astronomers had managed to calculate the tables of the +moon, it was believed that the aim of all science was to forecast the +future with accuracy; because Le Verrier had been able to indicate the +probable position of the planet Neptune--which had never been seen, +and which accounted for the disturbances of observable planets--it was +believed that science could remedy the defects of society, and indicate +what measures should be taken to bring about the disappearance of +the unpleasant things in the world. It may be said that this was the +_middle-class conception of science_: it certainly corresponds very +closely to the mental attitude of those capitalists, who, ignorant +of the perfected appliances of their workshops, yet direct industry, +and always find ingenious inventors to get them out of difficulties. +For the middle-class science is a mill which produces solutions to +all the problems we are faced with: science is no longer considered +as a perfected means to knowledge, but only as a recipe for procuring +certain advantages.” + +There is a great deal, too, in Sorel that might be advantageously +perused by our social reformers. For the benefit of humanitarians, I +shall transcribe Sorel’s deep objection to optimists in the ranks of +reform. “The optimist in politics is an inconstant and even dangerous +man, because he takes no account of the great difficulties presented +by his projects; these projects seem to him to possess a force of +their own, which tends to bring about their realization all the more +easily as they are, in his opinion, destined to produce the happiest +results. He frequently thinks that small reforms in the political +constitution, and, above all, in the personnel of government, will be +sufficient to direct social development in such a way as to mitigate +those evils of the contemporary world which seem so harsh to the +sensitive mind. As soon as his friends come into power, he declares +that it is necessary to let things alone for a little, not to hurry +too much, and to learn how to be content with whatever their own +benevolent intentions prompt them to do. It is not always self-interest +that suggests these expressions of satisfaction, as people have +often believed; self-interest is strongly aided by vanity and by the +illusions of philosophy. The optimist passes with remarkable facility +from revolutionary anger to the most ridiculous social pacificism. + +“If he possesses an exalted temperament, and if unhappily he finds +himself armed with a great power, permitting him to realize the ideal +he has fashioned, the optimist may lead his country into the worst +disasters. He is not long in finding out that social transformations +are not brought about with the ease that he had counted on; he then +supposes that this is the fault of his contemporaries, instead of +explaining what actually happens by historical necessities; he is +tempted to get rid of people whose obstinacy seems to him to be so +dangerous to the happiness of all. During the Terror, the men who +spilt most blood were precisely those who had the greatest desire to +let their equals enjoy the golden age they had dreamt of, and who had +the most sympathy with human wretchedness: optimists, idealists, and +sensitive men, the greater desire they had for universal happiness the +more inexorable they showed themselves.” + +Obviously this side of Sorel is quite in accord with the reiterations +of More and Babbitt. Humanitarianism, they repeat, is a menace because +in its fatuous hope of a brotherhood of man without a prior discipline +of man’s egoistic impulses, it leads directly to the shambles and the +rise of a bloodstained dictator. Making light of the obstacles in +its path, humanitarianism, when the obstacles will not vanish at the +outflowing of sympathy, loses its head and massacres. But it is not +in the least implied that Sorel, the enemy of Rousseauism, was on his +positive side humanistic. Quite the reverse: he rejected the method of +the golden mean, and for reasons that have some weight. The following +paragraph will serve as his criticism of American Humanism, prepared +years in advance of its full emergence. + +“The ideas held by modern ethical writers are drawn mainly from those +of Greece in its time of decadence; Aristotle, living in a period of +transition, combined ancient values with values that, as time went +on, were to prevail; war and production had ceased to occupy the +attention of the most distinguished men of the towns, who sought, on +the contrary, to secure an easy existence for themselves; the most +important thing was the establishment of friendly relations between +the better educated men of the community, and the fundamental maxim +was that of the golden mean. The new morality was to be acquired +principally by means of the habits which the young Greek would pick up +in mixing with cultivated people. It may be said here we are on the +level of an ethic adapted to consumers; it is not astonishing then that +Catholic theologians still find Aristotle’s ethics an excellent one, +for they themselves take the consumer’s point of view.” + +Sorel, as a matter of fact, had a vestige of the classical religious +spirit and not the humanistic temper at all. He was an absolutist in +ethics. He was a pessimist, convinced of social determinism, which he +compared to the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, and convinced of +the wretchedness of man, or one might say, original sin. The march to +deliverance he said was narrowly conditioned by these two: the iron +laws of social determinism and the weakness of man. Yet he believed in +“a _secret virtue_ which assures the continued progress of the world” +and defined it as “this striving towards perfection which manifests +itself, in spite of the absence of any personal, immediate, and +proportional reward.” + +Thus, he tried to root the syndicalist movement in a classical +pessimistic conception of man and to identify the growth of the +movement with the regeneration of the world. His finest stroke was +his method for rousing the group of sentiments necessary for the +regeneration: the sentiments of disinterestedness, heroism, glory, and +even sublimity. It was the method of the myth, from which incidentally +the New Humanists might learn something, it seems to me, which +would give a real driving emotional power to their campaign. What +that something is has already been suggested in the chapter on _The +Classical Revival Abroad_. + +Sorel advocated the myth of the general strike. Just as the early +Christians had looked forward to an Apocalypse, had prepared themselves +rigorously for it, had shown the most heroic qualities in enduring +persecution, so, Sorel argued, the proletariat should look forward +always to a decisive Napoleonic battle, a social catastrophe for which +every least action was a preparation, and they should understand what +the function of violence is, namely, to keep perfectly clear the +grandiose outline of the class struggle. Into the criticism of this we +need not venture. It should be noted, however, that Sorel explained +carefully that “myths are not descriptions of things, but expressions +of determinations to act.” And finally, mention should be made of his +view that the bourgeoisie must keep up its warlike morale. He felt it +essential for the future success of civilization that the proletariat +should take over a vigorous, and not a decadent, system of capitalist +production. No doubt this idea was one of the factors of his popularity +with the group around Charles Maurras. + +My treatment of Sorel, I am aware, is too scanty to serve as an +introduction to his ideas, and at the same time perhaps too long for +the purpose now, which is simply to suggest by referring to Sorel +that the good man of Rousseau and the Marxian revolutionist are not +inseparable companions. Sorel made a new coupling, the Homeric hero and +the social revolutionist, a combination that I happen to think would +bode better for the future. + +Reverting to our proper topic, the question is: can Humanism and the +revolutionary movement join hands? Extremely unlikely, of course, +and yet I can conceive of a Humanist revolutionary. He would have +convinced himself that in the clash on first principles of political +economy (between first principles there can be no mediation) the +revolutionaries were right, and he would therefore oppose the forces +of capitalism as strongly as More opposes socialism. But in any +revolutionary party he joined, he would have an Augean stable of +illusions to clear out before he could satisfy himself that the +revolutionists could really fulfil their pledges of a better society. +He would have to persuade his comrades to throw out the accumulated +rubbish of humanitarianism, the naïve notions of the goodness at heart +of the proletarian, the intellectual fallacies, the spilth of feeling +that you will find rampant in a writer like Upton Sinclair. This +clearing away of sloppy sentiment and fuzzy ideas would be of enormous +advantage to the revolutionary movement, but, as I say, it is extremely +unlikely that a Humanist Hercules will rise to perform it. Sooner or +later the technique of mediation would, in all probability, be put to +such a strain that it would be relegated to a secondary place, and our +hypothetical humanistic revolutionist would make foremost the method of +the myth or some other disciplinary conception. When that happened, he +might retain humanistic elements in his life, but he would cease to be +a Humanist in the Babbittean sense. + +There is, however, much of a medicinal nature that the best minds among +our social revolutionaries can absorb from their opponents, More and +Babbitt, without undergoing conversion to conservatism. Let us hope +that the bitter taste will not deter them. For they will be better off +in respect to background, values and psychological interpretation of +man than before. + + * * * * * + +After all, Sorelism in the United States is a matter of academic +interest. Extremists of the left constitute a negligible and senseless +group, and the moderate socialists are pitifully weak. The liberals? +Bankrupt in ideas; seemingly ineffective in political action; decadent +in morale if one may judge by the slackness of the men being groomed to +follow the generation of Croly, Lovett, Villard and Alvin Johnson. As +for the labor movement in general, is it not the despair of Communist, +Socialist and Liberal alike? Inaccessible to ideas, unrebellious, +shortsighted, what can be hoped from the American Federation of Labor +other than a perpetual seesaw battle for higher wages and shorter +hours? The Wandering Jew, Daniel Halévy told Sorel, may be taken as +a symbol of the highest aspirations of mankind, condemned as he is +to march for ever without knowing rest. But there is naught of the +Wandering Jew about the groups just mentioned, and a Sorelist among +them would wear his heart out in the attempt to convey a sublime +vision of future ethics. + +For contrast, we may turn to Babbitt’s political theorizing in +_Democracy and Leadership_, which has been called without exaggeration +perhaps the weightiest book in its field written by an American. +“When studied with any degree of thoroughness,” writes Babbitt in his +introduction, “the economic problem will be found to run into the +political problem, the political problem in turn into the philosophical +problem, and the philosophical problem itself to be almost indissolubly +bound up at last with the religious problem.” The order is correct. +But although Babbitt thinks more coolly and, I suspect, with greater +ease on politics and economics than More, he too is least satisfactory +in economics: his treatment of that science is almost incidental and +certainly slighting. In the opinion of many, this will not do. + +Let us unearth what there is of Babbitt’s thought on the economic +problem. He rightly criticizes unorthodox political economy for its +purely quantitative view of work. True enough, as he notes, orthodox +political economy prepared the way for this view: Locke practically +identified work with physical effort and made it the sole legitimate +source of property, and Adam Smith tended to a similar conception of +work in relation to property. But the Marxist, according to Babbitt, +fell into the deeper fallacy of identifying work with value. Babbitt +then proceeds to discriminate among physical work, mental working on +the material order, and ethical work on oneself. + +The discrimination is valid, but in making it Babbitt seems to accept +the interpretations of orthodox political economy. Value, he appears +to hold, is largely determined by the law of supply and demand and by +competition. He notes that “as a result of the concentrated mental +effort of the gifted few, an effort displayed either in invention or +else in organization and management, the common laborer may today enjoy +comforts that were out of the reach even of the opulent only two or +three generations ago,” and he adds the laborer “should be the first +to recognize that exceptional capacity should receive exceptional +rewards.” Quite a point is made of competition. “Above all, social +justice is likely to be unsound in its partial or total suppression +of competition. Without competition it is impossible that the ends of +true justice should be fulfilled, namely, that every man should receive +according to his works.... The remedy for the evils of competition is +found in the moderation and magnanimity of the strong and successful, +and not in any sickly sentimentalizing over the lot of the under dog.” + +But surely Babbitt knows the arguments against each of these points, +and my regret is that he did not, while making his defence of the +established economic order, deal closely with the specific arguments +against it. Let me cite some of these which seem to necessitate +refutation if one is to defend with a good intellectual conscience the +existing system. The Law of Supply and Demand (or L. S. D. for short) +has absolutely no weight outside the market: it is concerned only with +the relations of Sellers and Buyers, Supply being the abstraction of +all the Sellers and Demand the abstraction of all the Buyers. _Outside +the market_ what happens? “In all transactions between friends, between +members of the same family, between Governments and their servants, in +public services, and in all institutions run socially or by gentlemen, +L. S. D. is kicked out of doors and the Rule of Supply and Need takes +its place,” says Orage in _An Alphabet of Economics_. Again, I should +say Babbitt does not separate Capitalists and Management as he ought +to, when he speaks of the gifted minority to whom the workman owes +his increase in comfort (by the way, is increased comfort a relevant +argument?). Laborers are responsible to Management and must always be. +Management today is responsible to the Capitalist, but must it always +be? That is the question of moment to those who speculate about a new +industrial synthesis. As for the competition extolled by Babbitt, +that has to do with the price system which, it is a commonplace, is +superimposed on the productive system. We may profitably hear from +Orage again. “Production concerns values; competition concerns prices. +From production to competition is a transition from value-creating +to price-fixing; and the competitive system is one in which prices +are left to be decided by the play of the market.... Essentially +Competition is sale by auction, and usually without reserve.” A reserve +price being impossible for perishable commodities, “Competition is thus +all in favor of nonperishable commodities (Capital in particular); but +it is all against perishable commodities, and Labor in particular.” +Under those conditions one may have a feeling for the under dog whose +energy and skill are perishable that cannot fairly be described as +sickly sentimentality. That in his plight the under dog should have to +hear so much about the bracing effects of keen competition for him in +industrial society--this is adding mockery to injury. + +My own view is that capitalism cannot be whitewashed, and for the +reason that it is founded on only a comparatively narrow portion of +human psychology. It is a function of Practical Man or Instinctive +Man: it enormously stimulates greed and virtually debars the entrance +of any generous motive. It is guaranteed to make men acquisitive but +not magnanimous. For my life, I cannot see how it can admit within +itself any forces of regeneration. Unsound in theory, tending always +to be swindling and ruthless, it manages to work, but only after a +fashion that can satisfy no one but a very small class of profiteers. +There are plenty to make emotional protests against this state of +economic affairs but we ought to supplement them with hard practical +criticism. For that let us go to a quarter not tinged with Bolshevik +or anti-capitalist sentiment: let us resort to the advocates of the +highly interesting Douglas Social Credit Plan in England. They point +out that the purpose of an economic system is to produce as much as +possible and to get the things produced into the hands of consumers. +If we are producing at our maximum, and there is not enough to go +around, that is, if only a proportion of the potential consumers can +be satisfied, then there is nothing more to say from the economic +viewpoint. Suffering from unsatisfied need is irrelevant to the +economist if maximum production can provide for only fifty per +cent, let us say, of our population. But the fact is that we produce +nowhere near our maximum, not even in wartime when production speeds +up enormously. Limited or falling production, say the Douglas people, +is only a specter: nothing more. Hence, it follows that the present +system is criticized in the most damaging way by two undoubted facts: +(1) the presence of poverty on a large scale, that is the presence +of hordes of potential consumers who cannot acquire commodities, and +(2) by unemployment, which as I write is estimated at from three +millions to eight millions in our country, unemployment meaning unused +producing ability. We can produce more, immensely more than we do: +witness the fact of unemployment. We can consume far more: witness the +fact of poverty. Understand this, and you have some idea of the sheer +inefficiency of the established system. One important qualification +must be added: the Social Credit people find the source of the trouble +not in private ownership of the tools of production or in unequal +distribution but in the money industry, in the financial system, which +is what they propose to reform. + +I have gone into details of criticism in order to show that the New +Humanists are fairly caught on the capital charge of _failing to +recognize the economic problem_. However sensitive they may be to the +“excesses” of capitalism, they accept it and the financial system +with it as the defensible status quo, and with no great marshalling +of reasons either. I would urge on them, not any one of the proposed +solutions current, but the adoption of the mood and temper appropriate +to a baffling problem whose dimensions cannot be ignored. The case as +I diagnose it is similar to that in which the modern man finds himself +put in respect to science. The case calls for an awakened curiosity, +earnest search for solutions, the keenest criticism of both the status +quo and new theories, the cultivation of impartiality. I should like to +see the New Humanists with their background of ideas, their equipment +for criticism, their breadth of vision, convert themselves into eager, +impartial students of our common economic problems. I find them to +be not free-ranging students in this field, but tied uncritically +to the existing industrial order, an order furthermore that has had +a comparatively brief historical existence. But why should they not +become our best critics of economic questions, uniting general culture +to familiarity with the special science of production? + +What we need stands out with absolute clarity: a livelier research into +the alternatives to or revisions of capitalism and a livelier criticism +of these alternatives or revisions. Many American intellectuals at +the present moment, discouraged with democracy, think of only two +alternative possibilities, Bolshevism and Fascism, each, I may say, +being abhorrent to the New Humanist. For the American Humanist appears +to commit himself completely to the democratic experiment, and to have +more respect for the old ideas of democracy than you usually encounter +nowadays in our disillusioned intelligentsia. But what vitiates +democracy so terribly that it becomes a pretended thing? Profiteer +economics. On the other hand, in the case of Bolshevism as in the case +of Fascism, democracy disappears; individualism goes down to defeat +before the dictatorship. If we would retain democracy then, the fact +not the pretence, we must revise the economics associated with it, +and that perhaps is possible. At any rate, we have not exhausted all +the alternatives even in speculating about revision. We have not even +assembled all of them before us for study and discussion. + +The proof of this is our ignorance of the dazzling Social Credit +Plan of Major C. H. Douglas, which I mentioned above. Agitated for +in England ever since the Great War, it has yet failed to cross the +Atlantic, or rather one has to use a high-powered microscope to see the +few American students of it. This is easily explainable, however, since +with justice Major Douglas has been called the Einstein of economics, +and a considerable amount of free brain, of unmortgaged intellectual +energy, must be expended to grasp his novel and yet non-revolutionary, +non-confiscatory scheme of reform. Although I know it is impossible +to understand his proposal from the germ, I yet will give the +germ-proposition on the chance that it will pique the curiosity of +those rare readers who can detect even in the germ the presence of a +new principle that promises to be worth study. The gist of his proposal +is simply to regulate prices by productivity, by relation, that is, +to supply. I will add that the Douglas criticism of Marxian economics +is that it confuses ownership with control. We must look, not to +ownership, but to the financial system for the real control that is +exercised today over industry. Has Major Douglas, as it is claimed, +reached the bottom of economics? + +I think the New Humanists should be interested in the question, and +if they should, they would certainly steal a march on that portion +of intellectual America which prides itself on its vigilance for new +ideas, but which to some of us often appears a little sluggish in +living up to its boast. Perhaps in the Social Credit Plan the Humanists +would discover not only the key economic theory, but a theory which +when applied would make their politics entirely feasible. For the Plan +alters nothing but the financial system. + +We have all seen what one writer calls the degeneration of government +from a plane of democratic idealism and tolerable administration to a +plane of control by political machines, ward-bosses and racketeers, and +seeing it a great many intellectuals have given up hope of democracy, +have ceased to be even interested in it. But this writer, Jean Toomer, +goes on to speak for a larger mass of our citizens when he notes that +“there is still enough idealism left in us, there is still active in us +a sense of decency sufficiently strong to make us feel unhappy about +this trend. We cannot laugh at it or shrug our shoulders and play the +game ... there still exists in most of us a fairly strong wish to see +the American political experiment turn out well; and for this reason +we ask of a political writer that he show a degree of resistance to +political rottenness, a degree of insistence on decency, ability, +and intelligence in politics.” Babbitt’s _Democracy and Leadership_, +the supreme Humanist treatise on American political thought, was +written not for futilitarians or cynics but precisely for the mass of +intelligent citizens described by Toomer who wish to see democracy +turn out well. The baldest of summaries must here suffice for a work +that should have given rise to a whole literature of commentary. + +_Democracy and Leadership_ studies types of political thinking from +Aristotle to Woodrow Wilson, with special attention given to the +naturalistic imperialism of Machiavelli, the idyllic imagination of +Rousseau when it dreams on politics, and the moral imagination of +Edmund Burke. Like More, Babbitt leans heavily upon Burke’s ideas +of a natural aristocracy, the power of example, and the imaginative +justification of privileges. + +One of the strongest features of the book is its study of the humility +of Asia expressed in Buddhism and Confucianism. The West learned +sufficiently the lesson of self-reliance in the Renascence, but it has +not learned the lesson of humility, and from the Babbittean standpoint +this is essential. + +A very brief description of Babbitt as a political thinker would note +first that he is an anti-imperialist as well as an anti-Bolshevist. +He is in fact an old-fashioned democrat who thinks that whatever the +quantitative achievements of the United States have been, qualitatively +we have thus far failed. He opposes the Jeffersonian tradition and +regrets the victory of Andrew Jackson. His tradition is strongly +unionist. Washington, John Marshall, Lincoln, the last viewed as a +unionist rather than an emancipator--these are the principal figures +in his democratic tradition. It is perhaps not too much to say that +Babbitt considers the Declaration of Independence a Rousseauistic +document and the Constitution a humanistic document. At any rate, he +makes much of the Supreme Court as a check on the spontaneous popular +will and stands firmly for constitutional democracy as against direct +democracy. + +His program? The formation of a Socratic remnant. We need a movement, +he says, in our political life which will be Socratic, Aristotelian and +Christian, a movement, that is, that will stress definition, habit and +humility. The beginning is to subject our catchwords--the political +terms that sway our imaginations and actions--to a Socratic dichotomy, +and in this book Babbitt himself performs some masterly dichotomizing +of such infectious words as “service,” “liberty” and “imagination.” +The Aristotelian phase of the program is education along the lines we +observed in our last chapter. The Christian phase has to do with the +recovery of humility. + +It is evident, I think, even from the bare outline how Babbitt runs +the political problem into the philosophical and religious problems. +Where one boggles is at the very beginning, the economic problem as it +merges into the political. That is, Babbitt’s politics has to compete +with his economics, and at the present time economics in practice is +the determinant. As in the case of More, Babbitt is most convincing +in dealing with Man Psychologic, least convincing in handling Man +Economic. His enemies, I may add, are most persuasive about Man +Economic and least equipped to study Man Psychologic. + +The economics of commercial men (the science, that is, of production +for profit, not the science of production for use) puts the whole +question of right relations between man and man far up in the air. +We can theorize about these relations as much as we like but when we +drop to earth again, present economic habits spoil the theories. There +is, for instance, nothing in the least degree Utopian about Babbitt’s +politics. He is thoroughly realistic in his political vein, but all +the time he is working in that vein he presupposes not a reform of the +economics of commercial men but an amenability on the part of this +black economics to his theory of democracy. + +In this chapter I have deliberately tried to keep the problem of +relations between men (politics and government) in the air, as in +an earlier chapter I deliberately endeavored to raise man’s concern +with the physical universe up into the air. That is where I think +such topics should be now: they should be open questions toward which +the best attitude is an open attitude. Therefore I used a writer +like Georges Sorel as a wedge to break apart our fixed ideas about +classicism, romanticism and revolution. + +To conclude the chapter, I shall now give several social attitudes +which I think are, in our time of dissolving answers and new-formed +questions, compatible with American Humanism as a basis. They are a +policy of detachment, the religious view of Cæsar and his things, +liberalism (yes, liberalism, but a special kind!) and anarchism (also +a special kind). And although in discussing these attitudes, I shall +refer them to the American Humanist, please understand that in this +connection I am identifying the intelligent skeptical modern man with +the Humanist. What, in short, should be the rôle of the civilized man +toward practical affairs? He should adopt a policy of detachment, urges +Julien Benda in his recent widely debated book, _The Treason of the +Intellectuals_. + +In this work Benda deplores the entrance into practical life of +European intellectuals. For, he says, there are two moralities, a +worldly practical morality and a disinterested “clerical” morality, +and the two should not mingle to their confusion. They have existed +parallel throughout civilization, the “clerk” or intellectual guiding +himself by one set of values, the layman by a totally different set. +But today, charges Benda, the “clerk” forsakes his disinterestedness, +enters the practical world and promotes the growth of national, +class, race and party passions and hatreds. This is the treason to +the intellectual order committed by such diverse men as Kipling, +D’Annunzio, Sorel, Péguy and Maurras. Fidelity to the intellectual +order is detachment from political and class activities: it is setting +the example of pure devotion to the values of culture and to those +alone. Thus the intellectuals affect life, not by throwing themselves +into its partizanships and justifying them, but by removing from them +and setting up an example whereby men may know their own lay morality +for what it is. + +This clearly is not the view of More and Babbitt. Their natural +aristocracy is not conceived as aloof but as exerting pressure directly +on lay affairs, as seeking to control them by its superior wisdom and +morality. But should the New Humanists gain in numbers, I would expect +to see among them before long adherents of Benda’s thesis, for personal +predilections will always lead some men toward such a standpoint. + +Benda, it should be observed, does not quite take the religious view +of market and state affairs. “Render unto Cæsar the things that are +Cæsar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” specifies the clear +vision of two orders of things, but is actually the code of a very +paradoxical and rare type of person, the unworldly man of the world. +The things of Cæsar are to be known for what they are and conformed to +for what they are: they are not, however, to be justified. In this way +the religious person is in the world, but it is not his home, he is +not of it because his estimate of it differs from the estimates of the +men around him. Consider Socrates’ outward conformity to the customs +of Athenian life and his inward non-conformity. Why this paradox in +the religious person? Is it that he sees simultaneously the world’s +need for reform and the impossibility of reform? Does he see that +things in the main must be as they are, and only individual salvation +is possible? What makes him render unto Cæsar, but with such perfect +lucidity and no laudation, the things that belong to him? + +The nut in these days of remoteness from religious inspiration is too +hard for us to crack. We can only wonder at the early Christian secret +of accommodating oneself to the world and yet placing oneself above +its customs and grandeurs. So though Benda approaches the religious +conception of two moralities to be adjusted to, he actually counsels +withdrawal from the first, the practical world, and a resolute turning +to the world of ideals. More and Babbitt, on the other hand, as I have +tried to show, actually do a little justifying of the economics of +Cæsar. They would have the civilized man do more than put up with a +necessary evil: they would have him defend it. All in all, we are not +likely to see much evidence in our era of a genuinely early Christian +view toward the market place and the legislative hall. + +But can we imagine the undogmatic liberal lamb and the dogmatic +humanistic lion lying down together in the breast of one individual? +Not long ago I dismissed the liberals, perhaps too airily, for their +bankruptcy in ideas and their impotence in action. Not to speak of +the betrayal of liberal hopes by the Treaty of Versailles, impotent +the liberals had to confess themselves to be after the failure of +their concerted effort to secure a new trial for Sacco and Vanzetti. +Do their best, they could not avert that tragic stain of suspicion +on Massachusetts justice that will never wear off. Again in the +Smith-Hoover presidential election, they were as ineffective as their +enemies could wish. But one does not mock the defeated, one only asks +that such bitter lessons as defeat gives should be patiently conned. +Has American liberalism shown in the last two years any disposition +to revise itself, or to seize on a new idea, or to adopt a new set of +tactics, or to overcome its defects? Apparently only two liberals have +really tried to overhaul their policies and they are Walter Lippmann +and the late Herbert Croly. Of the two, Croly in my estimation went +deeper in his fragmentary writings in the _New Republic_ than did +Lippmann in _A Preface to Morals_. From 1924 until his illness in +1928 Croly appeared to be, in Arnold’s language, “turning a stream of +fresh and free thought” upon his previous stock notions and habits, +and in 1927 and 1928 the results began to be excitingly visible in +his editorials and occasional articles. In particular, the defeat of +the agitation for Sacco and Vanzetti seems to have deepened his sense +that some all-important element was missing from American Liberalism. +Liberalism must transform itself into a discipline of self-liberation +was his conclusion, and he hit on the term, Socratic Liberalism, to +distinguish the new conception from the old faith in legislative +action and environmental improvements. “What liberals need is not a +new concrete political or social program,” he concluded. “They need a +new evaluation of all programs, a new attitude towards them and a new +method of giving reality to them.” + +Liberals have always been short on two things: skepticism and a full +realization of the inner life. They have been long on curiosity, on +tolerance, on human kindness, on a sense of the plasticity of man, on +optimism. They have put their faith in what Arnold called _machinery_, +that is, in programs of social and economic engineering, many of which +have turned out to be both available and realistic plans of action. +Generally speaking, the American liberal believes or hopes that the +ethical defect which capitalist economy introduces into the practices +of the State can be overcome by education, a belief that contrasts +with the pessimistic view of More, which we noted, namely, that the +defect is inherent in human nature. Croly’s radical proposal was simply +to marry liberal curiosity and sentiment to skepticism. “Although,” he +wrote in an important editorial entitled _Realistic Liberalism_ (_New +Republic_, November 23, 1927), “liberalism was fundamentally an attempt +to give increasing dignity, enlightenment and fulfilment to human life, +it has moved towards its goal almost entirely by trying to improve +the political and economic environment of modern men and women. Its +program called for the services of expert political or social engineers +and invoked the legislative power of the State to put the program, +which might be either negative or positive, into effect. But in all +its efforts, it assumed that an improvement of the conditions in which +people lived would liberate a corresponding moral and intellectual +energy in the people themselves. From this point of view, liberalism +was a well intentioned but inconsiderate attempt to redeem human nature +without asking human beings to participate in their own redemption, +except by devising social programs, winning elections, passing laws, +inventing more machines and increasing individual and social capital. +They were never asked to revolutionize and reform the inside of their +own minds or to ponder what, if any, the relation might be between +political self-government and individual self-government. They have +rarely asked the question whether a liberated society, in which there +was little or no oppression, no privation and no monopoly of power, +wealth and comfort, might, nevertheless, be composed of extremely +cheap individuals.” + +It is commonly thought that skepticism of the machinery of social +reform puts a blight on one’s desires for material improvements. But it +does not necessarily do that, certainly not in Croly’s case. Skepticism +does blight opportunism and the exaggerated faith attached to projects +of external betterment, but the desire to experiment remains: only +the experimenter realizes he must not be cocksure of himself, he +must be humble and admit the need of a rigorous self-culture prior +to social experiment. Skepticism is in fact a great reviver of the +inner life, and Croly became in his last articles a preacher on the +neglected text, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within.” Like Arnold, he +declared in substance that culture is a condition of internal working. +“Liberals are invited, consequently, to repent of their dependence on +mechanism and to practice on themselves the faith in enlightenment +which has always been their stock-in-trade.... The only realistic +policy for liberals is to start methodically to stretch and intensify +their consciousness in the hope that it will become eventually a more +adequate instrument for the watching, the understanding, the unfolding, +the harmonizing and the deliverance of their personal lives.” + +To Croly, then, the important thing was that liberalism should be +more than a doctrine or a program: it should be a discipline of +self-liberation, for only the self-liberated are qualified to become +liberators of others. Anybody, of course, can mouth generalities +about self-emancipation, internal development, and so on, and anybody +does. The rare person--the person who really means to do what he +says--goes a step further and inquires and speculates about a method +of self-liberation, about some definite means of converting rhetoric +into facts. This, in such editorials as _Socratic Liberalism_ (_New +Republic_, December 28, 1927) and in such articles as _The Human +Potential in the Pacific_, _Christians, Beware_, and _Consciousness +and the Religious Life_ Croly proceeded to do. He wanted a scientific +method for self-study and self-development, and he actually proposed +one summed up in this sentence: “So the hypothetical separation by +the individual of himself as an observer from the accidents and the +compulsions of his actualized personality, and his systematic effort +to be aware of how this personality behaves, may prove to be the +indispensable route to liberated and reunited consciousness of self.” + +This, as you see, sets up a working dualism in human psychology. But +the interesting thing is that Croly’s effort to introduce at the +back of liberal sentiments and liberal intellectual interests the +two elements of skepticism and a practical concern with one’s own +psychology was completely abortive. Not even the editors of Croly’s +own paper have picked up his revolutionary proposals and carried them +forward in the slightest way.[8] The most profound liberal in America +thoroughly failed when it came to lifting liberalism out of its groove. +But unless I am very wrong, some kind of _entente_ could be worked out +between a Socratic Liberal and a Socratic Conservative or Humanist. +They would at least find a ground for basic agreement and differ, when +they differed, on opinions as to the passing trends of the time. + +Finally, we come to that special brand of anarchism which I anticipate +will be acceptable to some Humanists in the future. The New Humanists +have been freely upbraided by many people anxious as they say “to +do good to others.” What! these well intentioned persons have said, +bother with self-reform when there are so many ills of the world to +be alleviated! Play with definitions, heed the Inner Check, talk +about discipline when social abuses abound! “And what,” says one of +the epigoni of the _New Republic_, “has Humanism to do with the scene +outside my window: with the jobless men who saunter in the dusk, or the +dying village, or the paper mill abandoned across the river--this mill +whose owners have gone South where labor is cheap?” + +A lengthy reply to that has been in print for seventy-six years in the +whole final section of Thoreau’s first chapter in _Walden_. “As for +Doing-Good, that is one of the professions which are full ... Men say, +practically, Begin where you are and such as you are, without aiming +to become of more worth and with kindness aforethought go about doing +good. If I were to preach at all in this strain, I should say rather, +Set about being good. As if the sun should stop when he had kindled his +fires up to the splendor of a moon or a star, of the sixth magnitude, +and go about like a Robin Goodfellow, peeping in at every cottage +window, inspiring lunatics, and tainting meats, and making darkness +visible, instead of steadily increasing his genial heat and beneficence +till he is of such brightness that no mortal can look him in the face, +and then, and in the meanwhile too, going about the world in his own +orbit, doing it good, or rather, as a truer philosophy has discovered, +the world going about him getting good.... There are a thousand hacking +at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root and it may +be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the +needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery +which he strives in vain to relieve.... Do not stay to be an overseer +of the poor, but endeavor to become one of the worthies of the world.” + +This is the twofold defence of the individualist: he confesses his +doubt that men’s knowledge and powers _as they are_ can do more than +merely meddle and muddle in social relations and he insists upon the +regeneration of oneself as being in the long run beneficial to those +around one. It is the very essence of the social criticism of the +American Humanists and conceivably to some temperaments among them it +might lead, as it did in Thoreau’s case, to personal secession from +the United States! The social anarchist like Thoreau is not heartless: +he is convinced of being helpless--like the man who has not learned to +swim and sees some one offshore drowning. The humanitarian plunges to +the rescue, but as he cannot swim, the only result is he drowns too. +The Humanist suffers from the spectacle of drowning souls, but he may +sensibly conclude with Thoreau that nothing can be effected toward +saving them until one has oneself learned to swim. + +If American Humanism spreads, my prediction is that we shall eventually +see its adherents manifest as rich a variety stemming from certain +conventions of thought, feeling and discipline as we perceive in +Renascence Humanism. We shall see humanistic disciples of Thoreau +doggedly resisting the pleas of the Doing-Good professors, liberal +Humanists annoying by their socratic tendencies the orthodox liberals, +detached Humanists accused of defeatism and retreating to ivory towers +of thought, Socratic Conservatives like More and Babbitt, and perhaps +even a few Humanists tinged with the religious view of politics and +government. But we shall hardly see any measure of popularity attach +itself to any of the positions I have adumbrated. + + + + + XI + + THE DILEMMA OF THE LIBERATED + + _“Intellectual freedom is earlier and easier than complete + spiritual freedom.”_--T. S. Eliot in the _Hound and Horn_ magazine. + + +In the last sixty years isolated individuals of distinction have +told the Western world that it was living in a state of decline. +Nietzsche was probably the most tormented of these prophets and used +the strongest language. Modern man to him was an instrument out +of tune: mankind itself was degenerating. We in America had Henry +Adams charting the change from mediæval unity to twentieth century +multiplicity and theorizing about the degradation of the democratic +dogma. Today Bertrand Russell is quoted as saying that the clock of +Europe has been running down since the Renascence, Chesterton advises +us that we are simply existing on our Catholic capital and using it +up, Whitehead notes that science has lived on the accumulated capital +of the ideas of the seventeenth century and that religion has been +weakening for several centuries. But all these contemporaries manage +nevertheless to keep a cheerful outlook, Whitehead elaborating thoughts +for a new scientific and philosophic synthesis, Chesterton rejoicing +in his personal rediscovery of Catholic truths, and Russell being, as +a wit has expressed it, terribly at ease in hell. The man with the +most complete brief is Oswald Spengler, who studies the morphology +of history. In his philosophy of history synthesized from a survey of +eight cultures (Indian, Mayan, Greek, Egyptian, etc.), it is held that +we in the West have our spring and summer, are now in the autumn and +inevitably must pass to the winter stage of our cultural cycle. Gone is +any possibility of a Renascence: we have had ours, and are now in the +megalopolitan “civilization” phase, committed to technology, destined +for more huge wars, the uprising of untutored hordes, and the coming of +dictators. The arts will perish as important influences. + +Spengler has popularized the notion of the decline of the western +world, but after all it remains just a notion to most people. Very +few are really convinced to the marrow that European and American +civilization is on a downward slope. Some say it is, but they merely +say it: some think so, but merely think it. To find a man who is +saturated with pessimism about our present and future state is almost +as rare as to find a Rosicrucian in contemporary intellectual society. +Our general tone is optimistic and conceited with only an occasional +breakdown when we focus on some particular spot and admit that it is +unhealthy now and likely to get worse. But we cannot grant that certain +epochs in the past were greater than our own: we cannot get it out of +our heads that we are an improvement on all previous generations: we +cannot shed our faith in progress and see our whole civilization as a +retrogression. + +The chief exceptions are Paul E. More and Irving Babbitt. They differ +from Spengler in being much more cautious generalizers: they talk about +one culture only, and chiefly the last four hundred years of that. +They do not think metaphorically about history or try to construct a +science or philosophy of history. A chief point of difference is that +they repudiate fatalism, admitting that we are biassed to roll down one +groove of the future but not denying that other possibilities still +remain open and asserting that by a great effort we may select one +of these as our future. The nearest they come to writing history by +analogy is to point out the similarity between Alexandrian culture and +many of the phenomena of contemporary learning and to make a tentative +comparison between the decadent imperialism of Rome under Tiberius or +Nero and the present tendencies in the United States toward discarding +standards, increasing luxury, and fomenting factional strife just as +we approach the acme of power. But, generally speaking, Babbitt and +More confine themselves strictly to the portrayal of psychological +decay in one locality, Europe and America taken together as Western +culture, during one definite span of time, the last four centuries +and particularly the last two. I have remarked that they do not think +metaphorically about history, yet their teaching can be concentrated +in a metaphor, and perhaps without loss of subtlety gain in power of +appeal. + +We can go about picturing the Fall of Western Man if we adopt the +Platonic truism that society is simply a man writ large, for we are +then free to figure Western society as an Atlas the Endurer who rebels +against being otherworldly, ceases to uphold the heavens, and turns +this-worldly. At first his old habits of thinking and feeling persist: +he has merely ceased to make effort to miraculously sustain his center +of gravity outside himself in the “other world.” But now his center +of gravity shifts to within: he no longer stands perfectly upright, +strained toward the Absolute, but leans a little toward this earth. As +he now thinks, the heavens did not all these centuries really need his +support; he was deceived by a myth, he thinks, and it does not occur +to him that he was the one who benefited by his posture and effort. As +he leans toward the earth, he rejoices in his freedom to lean. This is +the end of the Renascence. Well in the past now is the era of Gothic +cathedral building which showed what incomparable architecture Atlas +was capable of when he held up the heavens. Well past, too, are many +other strangely beautiful things, among them “La Gaya Scienza” of the +Provençal culture. From now on a new order of behavior, and it is at +this turning-point that More and Babbitt begin closely to observe +Atlas. What they see is a gradually shifting and settling of the center +of gravity of his psychology. + +For a time he holds himself almost upright. He cultivates +_sprezzatura_. He is the seventeenth century gentleman and scholar +who does not pride himself on anything. He _fears_ specialization and +believes that “perfected good-breeding consists in having no particular +mark of any profession, but a general elegance of manners.” But he +sways a little: a slight turn and he is neo-classical and becomes +stiff, conventional, puristic, the center of his gravity in his mind. +He has begun to totter in the direction he leans--toward the earth. + +Then More and Babbitt observe how the giant makes a violent effort +to right himself. It is the romantic recoil from the neo-classical +aridity. It is Rousseau and his followers raving against trying to +put one’s gravity-center outside oneself, or against trying to keep +it established inside oneself in the mind. Slowly the center changes, +then drops suddenly into the emotions. Atlas becomes fiery. He is a +Jacobin. He sets up democracies wherein popular feeling may sweep more +freely. He colors philosophy with subjectivism: henceforward it is not +the drama of the universe but the inward drama of the psyche that he +ruminates upon. He institutes rebellion in the arts, confusing them, +and he chases like a madman after sensation. The phenomena of his new +state--his predilection for idyllic dreams, his praise of spontaneity +and idiosyncrasy, his love of delicious revery, his dislike of +discipline, etc.--grow countless. Atlas is ruled by his feelings, and +they are not counterweighted by his mind. Whole parts and functions of +his psychology are going to rust, most disastrously of all his will. No +wonder he sprawls forward on all fours. With his center of gravity in +his unbridled feelings, he must fall. + +But now is his center sinking again? Will Atlas, no longer the Endurer, +be changed into a cunning savage? Will he become simply a creature who +exploits the earth’s resources and alternates his labors in production +with a complete spineless subsidence into physical comforts? Is the +day of Apeneck Sweeney and Molly Bloom dawning on a culture that has +known the sardonic Swift and the charm of Madame de Sévigné? Atlas who +used magnificently to bear up the sky--is he to be stretched prone in +comfort in the twenty-first century, no vulture tearing at his flesh as +at his brother Prometheus, but a radio to lull his mind? + +The signs are plentiful of another transition: we have gone from +the dominance of religious values to the dominance of intellectual +ones and then to the primacy of emotional values. The last +stage--barbarism--will occur with the complete triumph of practical and +instinctive values. Then Atlas will indeed be but an economic creature, +cleverly producing what he needs by the least effort, and spending his +increased leisure in the pursuit of cheap distractions from thought and +serious emotion. He will truly have diminished to the ninth part of a +human being. + +Such, in a picture, is my reading of the critique of Western +civilization so elaborately and weightily presented by Babbitt and +More. They have traced the movements of our psychological center of +gravity and view with foreboding the future of a society whose members +will not make the almost impossible struggle to elevate its center, to +resume the former standing posture of Atlas. But this simplification +should be followed at once by a warning to the reader who has not +consulted the whole body of works by Babbitt and More. Do not surmise +they have trimmed to a thesis. They have been the patient collectors +of historical evidence, and the thesis emerges from a study of all +the gatherable evidence. “By their fruits ye shall know them,” is +Babbitt’s working rule. Secondly, do not think that the evidence, while +susceptible of simplification in the mass, is in detail simple. Man is +as prolific in ideas as Nature is prolific in insects (unfortunately, +most ideas are of the insect order): he is a being as full of desires +as an egg is full of meat (and his shell has been broken): he is +as active and restless as a monkey (and about as purposeless). +Consequently, his mental, emotional and instinctive manifestations are +variegated in the extreme. Variegated, but not pure chaos, not without +a pattern. Babbitt and More are pattern-perceivers, not imposers of +arbitrary patterns. In the third place, do not think that all value +is denied to romanticism and naturalism. They have in fact many good +elements, which More and Babbitt fully recognize. What is bad about +these schools is their rejection of the more human elements in our +psychology, what is bad is their glorification of a lowered center of +gravity. + +The New Humanist, as any one knows who is acquainted with his mind, +does not wish to turn the clock back but to incorporate the gains of +romanticism and naturalism into a broader synthesis with a more stable +center. + + * * * * * + +A few people can take seriously the question of the degeneration of our +civilization. If you are one of these, prepared to admit seriously the +possibility that the species of mankind may over long periods fall and +rise in quality, then you are likely to reflect seriously on all the +questions that American Humanists find of the first rank and interest. +If you approach these questions with the same intent sobriety with +which they are propounded, then you will find a dilemma confronting +you. At one horn there is Naturalism: at the other--Humanism. The +statement signalizes a change in this book: up to now it has been +an interpretation of American Humanism, from now on it will be a +criticism. It is plain that I find the naturalistic horn no horn to +grasp. Its disadvantages have been too forcibly presented by the +writers grouped around Babbitt and More. On the other hand, we would +have to thank their opponents had they revealed with equal skill and +force the drawbacks and dangers attached to the alternative horn, +but I cannot feel that the anti-Humanists have done their business +satisfactorily to date. They have been rather living examples of the +fallacies and partialities exposed by the New Humanists than the +exposers of the latter’s weaknesses. The reason is that almost to a +man the anti-Humanists were not seriously and fundamentally interested +in the questions put in the foreground by the Humanists. They saw no +dilemma, because in the absence of serious and passionate concern over +the main issues, there is no dilemma. + +What is there new that the young chips from the old block of +rationalism can tell us? The limitations of nineteenth century +rationalism have been established for some time: years ago we cashed +all its cheques and its account has not been replenished. Likewise +the humanitarian’s credit since the Great War has been low. He may +tell us now that the problem of the will is unreal and the business +of improving the environment of man will gradually solve the problem +of human happiness, but we are not living in the hopeful spring of +1914. We do not see man any longer in a rosy light. It is the same +with the æsthete: he too is a pre-war creature. Representatives of +all these types were huddled together in the symposium, _The Critique +of Humanism_, and there carried on the old warfare of the allied +Romanticists and Naturalists against the Humanists. But that war has +been fought to a finish, and it is tiresome not to have some new +developments. Also it appears we have come down a long way from the +days of Shelley and Coleridge, of Darwin and Spencer, of Flaubert +and Zola who did indeed make Naturalism and Romanticism _something_ +to argue about. We are down now to the intellectual nursery--to the +childish quarrelsomeness of a Burton Rascoe and the peevish complaints +of an Edmund Wilson (whose excursion, by the way, into the criticism of +Sophocles deserves a mirthful place in the memory of the _cognoscenti_). + +We wish however to take the anti-Humanist attack at its high point, +not at its feeblest, and the acclamation of reviewers nominates the +piece by Lewis Mumford, _Toward an Organic Humanism_, as the best to be +had. The essay produces a glow in the reader, as Mumford almost always +succeeds in doing, but when the glow fades and the substance is coolly +inspected, the keen reader is bound to feel that he has been cheated +by the author’s cheerfulness. There is no originality of thought. The +usual contention that the American Humanists cut themselves off from +contemporary life. The usual contention that they are too negative. +The usual misinterpretation of “the inner check.” The air of an +enthusiastic master unveiling the secrets of “organic humanism.” And +the secrets? They appear rather banal, vague, inconclusive. Life is a +“multitude of functions”: we must live in a state of tension and grow +and renew ourselves: we must reconcile almost everything in sight. +“The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be +as happy as kings.” At the end the essayist generously offers a big +bed wherein he assures us romanticist and classicist, Humanist and +mechanist, naturalist and idealist, divested of their philosophical +clothes, can lie down happily together. I am not convinced that we +can progress very far by the method of obliterating intellectual +distinctions which discriminating men have labored to erect. If this +piece by Mumford is the best anti-Humanist criticism, it looks as +though there was nothing to do but to set out from here to plough a +fresh furrow. Let me hope it will not be a lonely furrow as well. + +It is, from my viewpoint, necessary to make an almost clean discard +of all the current adverse criticism of the New Humanists recently +committed by American writers. I would myself give away all of it to +the needy poor in intellectual circles for the few lines written years +ago by A. R. Orage on Paul Elmer More’s _The Drift of Romanticism_. +“Mr. More,” he said, “has also, it appears to me, the defect of +orthodoxy--he fails to realize the inevitability of heterodoxy and the +consequent necessity of paradoxy. The classic is for him, as it is for +me, the perfect literary form: all form, in fact, is classic. But the +romantic should be recognized, when it arises, as a challenge to form, +as an impulse demanding severer forms to contain it.” This, praise be +given, does take a step towards a new criticism of orthodox classicism. +It does not rest on mere dissatisfaction with the emotional side of +American Humanism, a dissatisfaction that is so widespread there must +be something to it, but it actually points out the defect. What is +more, it suggests a way to overcome the defect, and that not by denying +the distinctions involved but by incorporating them into a paradoxy. +It challenges the student to make an entirely new approach to an old +controversy. + +Orage, it should be noted, has always been profoundly interested in +such questions as the American Humanists now raise anew: the quality +of modern society and the quality of the modern individual, the art +of life and a technique for practicing it, the nature of man and his +need for regeneration, moral responsibility and how to attain it, the +contraction of men into specialists and the way unto Renascence fulness +of experience. Without profound interest in questions of this nature, +there is no dilemma to be produced, and no need for a paradoxical +attitude to face it. + +With that recognized, let us now press forward to grips with the New +Humanism. + + * * * * * + +Twentieth century Humanism undeniably has an appeal for the liberated +man or woman. Of course, I do not mean liberated in any absolute +sense, but use the word in its present conversational meaning to +signify those who have freed themselves of popular delusions. I mean +just that civilized minority that do not need the offices of H. L. +Mencken to open their eyes to current cant. They are, to be brief, +total disbelievers in the so-called “American Credo.” It is not easy +to shock them about sex. They have learned to view many of the facts +of life realistically. They are of a questioning turn of mind. They +prefer sophistication to godliness. Generalizing, we can say they have +shed two classes of superstitions, the superstitions that have usurped +the place of ancient religion and the superstitions that flourish in +the neighborhood of modern science. They do not believe, that is, +that either the churches or the scientists “can fix everything up.” +Emancipated from the official Christianity of our day, disillusioned +about the day’s science, they experiment and drift in a middle region, +an amorphous group, curious about the possibilities of life but +skeptical of finding a pansophy. + +In the last decade and a half in America they veered toward +naturalism and now know what awaits them in that quarter. Romantic +disillusionment--disheartened optimism--the modern distemper so +eloquently confessed for our generation by Joseph Wood Krutch. Now +apparently a vanguard is veering toward Humanism. And so far one can +distinguish two main types among this advance guard--those who have the +humanistic temper by nature and those who are naturally of a religious +inclination. + +What the humanistic temper is this book has sought to make clear. +I will add now one further example and one more description of the +temper. The example is the poet Robert Frost who in all probability +holds no formal views on American Humanism, and perhaps is largely +unacquainted with the ideas of Babbitt and More, but who nevertheless +writes verse highly satisfactory by humanistic criteria. An intimate +understanding of this poet’s psychology _through_ his works will +give you better than reams of exposition what the actual flavor and +humor and clear-cut quality of humanistic experience is like. The +description of the humanistic temper is by Robert Shafer. Writing +in the _Hound and Horn_, Summer Issue, 1930, Shafer said: “The true +humanist has ever been a practical man of the world; avoiding those +tempting chimeras metaphysical speculation and pseudo-science; +suspicious of rigid abstract formulations; preferring to define his +position tentatively, by the methods of critical scrutiny, in close and +fruitful relation to actual but ever-changing circumstances; avoiding +the self-defeating violence of revolution; preferring to work with and +through existing institutions; sacrificing sudden impressiveness to +steady, quiet persistence; not expectant of victory; and content even +with apparent defeat in untoward times if apparent defeat is the reward +of moderation, sane judgment, disciplined taste, and a comely serenity.” + +As for the liberated who are religiously inclined, who have, that is, +the religious temperament, they are quite easy to describe. I refer +simply to intelligent civilized men and women who are accessible to +ideas of a religious order, who are prepared to entertain but only +to entertain religious assumptions, who experience a little thrill +from the (to us) occult language of the Sacred Books. I mean no more +than that: it amounts to a kind of sympathetic curiosity in religious +matters. + +Now, forsaking the liberated for a while, I have to consider something +very unusual in contemporary experience--_the religious spirit_. + +The difficulties in the way of conveying a fresh sense of this spirit +are almost insuperable. I cannot begin as Norman Foerster and other +Humanists do by professing respect and admiration for the great +organized religious bodies in their present condition, for the thing I +attach value to is the religious spirit and that has departed. I agree +with Hulme and other scattered observers that the present age totally +misunderstands religion. Warm ashes of the Christian Faith remain, most +notably in Catholicism, but we moderns are almost hopelessly clogged +with false associations, sentimentalities, stock responses to religion, +and nothing very potent in us can be lit up by the feeble glow cast by +the best surviving elements in the Churches. So thick is the forest +of our associations about religion, so lost and wandering are we in +it, that I shall scrupulously avoid citing any historic examples of +the religious spirit: that would in all likelihood lead simply to +tangential arguments, to treading in the mazes of our associations +about figures. Whereas it is the essence itself, this spirit so +foreign to our ways, that I would suggest. Without a prior common +understanding, examples may in fact be pernicious. + +Try then, my reader, as I have tried, to throw out of the mind all +our stale notions about the spirit of the religious man. Realize as +strongly as possible the nonreligious motives that have entered into +modern Christian thought, making the “religious life” what Whitehead +protests it should not be, a research after comfort. Put to a violent +death the democratic feelings that have been allowed to corrupt the +uncompromising character of religions at their source. To go on in the +hortatory way,--shock your preconceptions one by one. Be prepared to +admit that a genuinely religious man would seem monstrous to you. + +As I conceive of the religious spirit, neither the religious +inclination nor the humanistic temper approximate to it in the least +degree. There is an absolute difference. They do not grow into the +religious spirit, but must suffer a transformation. My emphatic +judgment is that Humanism can never merge into religion by a mere +extension of itself, but that there exists a chasm between the two +which the New Humanist _qua_ Humanist can never leap. Religious and +humanistic inclinations can make terms with each other, but between the +religious spirit and the humanistic temper there is opposition forever. +I point to the _early_ Christians who insisted, as Babbitt notes, that +there is only a stark supernaturalism and a stark naturalism with no +intermediate territory for the Humanist. + +Briefly now I will essay a probably futile task, the adumbration of the +man of religious spirit. Probably futile, because he is incredible to +us. We cannot credit such a passion for perfection as he incarnates. +To us religion is anthropomorphic: to him religion is theomorphic. +In that you have the astounding reversal of our suppositions which +he makes. Consequently when we read, “So God created man in his own +image, in the image of God created he him,” we at once think of God +as being like man: the religious spirit, however, thinks of man as +being like God, an utterly revolutionary difference, for, since man +in his ordinary condition is obviously anything but Godlike, this +theomorphism stimulates in the religious spirit the tremendous ambition +to become like God, a perfect being. Could there be anything more +rash and sublime and impossible? Provided one has shed sentimental +conceptions of deity. “Be ye perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is +perfect.” Every resource must be used, every power must be strained, +every second of life must be taken for the impossible task. The mind +is an instrument of perfection: it must accordingly be developed +to the utmost. The body must be strong to undertake the enormous +labors imposed on it. The emotions must be unbelievably enriched. +Consciousness itself must expand! Religion is indefeasibly the study +and pursuit of perfection: it requires not only that no stone but no +grain and no mountain be left unturned which might furnish a clue or +a stimulus to its quest. This, in its desperateness, its consuming +thirst, its impossibilism, is almost as remote, I need not say, from +Humanism as it is from Naturalism. To the religious spirit it is the +absolute or nothing. + +Absolute Truth, absolute Beauty, absolute Goodness--these are what he +yearns for, and he is impatient of moderation, decency, good sense _as +ends_. He cannot, as the Humanist can, seek primarily for stability of +character: he seeks for perfection of character with stability coming +as a by-product. Nor is there any known limit to his skepticism: the +very nature of his pursuit of the unattainable enforces skepticism on +him to the last degree. The religious life is a continual destruction +of those elements of imperfection, illusions. “Prove all things; hold +fast that which is good.” + +Obviously, such men as I speak of are extremely uncommon. Their +mark, I have tried to suggest, is that they make their life-task the +wholehearted, single-minded pursuit of a perfection whose fulness we +cannot even dream of, and to which we are quite indifferent as an idea. +They have in our era another mark that differentiates them from us as +completely as if they belonged to another race: an agony of bafflement. +In Biblical language, they have “a zeal of God, but not according to +knowledge.” Their zeal leads them everywhere, they stop at nothing, but +the form of their life in modern times is a searching, not a finding. +Zealous searchers, they are blocked by that “middle wall of partition” +spoken of in the Bible which they know not how to break down. They see +in their quest the need for an enlargement of their powers, but how to +increase them, that they do not know. Theirs is the agony of baffled +search for the means to the perfection they crave with all their being. +They would seem to know in terms of the most exasperating personal +experience that there does exist a radical discontinuity, as Hulme +thought, between man and God or the Absolute. The Humanist we have seen +dwelling on the discontinuity between man and nature. The religious +spirit discovers in his efforts toward self-perfecting, toward +expansion and intensification of consciousness, the discontinuity at +the other border, and it is this frontier between man and the absolute +that he emphasizes. Here, he says, is the all-important barrier, and we +cannot rest until we have leaped it. + +Thirst for divinizing oneself, agony of frustration before the “middle +partition”--these are at all times the stigmata of a few men on our +planet. We can _recognize_ these stigmata even though what they signify +lies outside our experience, but because we have not experienced, we +cannot _comprehend_. Yet if one is interested in human limits, one has +to make a rude stab at description of this race of men. Have you never +heard that in the original doctrine of no single great religion is it +stated that man by nature has a soul? Then blame religious democracy. +Man in the great religions at their source is exhorted to labor for a +soul, is urged to acquire one, but religion says he begins without one. +Religion begins with stark naturalism, but ends with constructing a +bridge to a new life. Many are called to the work of creating the new +life--in that respect religion is democratic; but few are chosen, few +succeed in “crossing the stream”--an unpalatable saying to religious +democrats. This brings forward an idea that pales the humanistic +notion of a turning away from the natural self, just as the idea of +the divinization of man pales the idea of the humanization of man. The +religious spirit darkens naturalism far beyond the Humanist portrayal, +and at the same time it gives the possibilities of man an effulgence +that drowns with glory the modest conceptions of the Humanists. The +connecting idea brought forward is rebirth by a process as definite but +far more terrific than physical birth. This is an idea still present, +as we noted, in Pico della Mirandola’s _Oration_, but since vanished +from humanistic teaching. + +The suffering of the religious spirit today, however, comes not, I +venture to say, from the pangs of rebirth but from non-satisfaction. +He cannot conceive a soul and therefore cannot gestate one. No wonder +a modern religious spirit occasionally shatters itself in madness! +The zeal of God, but not according to knowledge, is fraught with the +utmost danger, for the truth of our human situation we are told is +terror-inspiring, and a sudden glimpse-- + +We have done with the armchair mysticism prevalent in the West today. +It is devoid of the desperation, the readiness to leave the library +and the round of civilized comforts and take all the risks, the sheer +heroism that mark the genuine religious man. It clearly has naught of +the spirit of these Buddhistic verses. + + Scorched, frozen, and alone, + In fearsome forest dwelling, + Naked, no fire to warm, + Bent on the quest is the Sage. + +The distinction is not, please mark however, between comfortable +literary mysticism and self-torturing asceticism. Great religious +teachers have pointed out the fallacy of the latter as the Way. Our +distinction is between the unwillingness to experiment dangerously with +life and the resolute disposition of the genuinely religious to go to +any lengths, if necessary. + +And now we may come back to ourselves, the liberated, who have been +illuminated by the steady light thrown on Naturalism by the New +Humanists and have afterwards turned to examine critically Humanism +itself. By the blazing light shafted on it from the religious spirit, +what do we now see there? Holding Humanism up against this searching +sun-like radiance, shall we find ourselves in an unexpected dilemma? + + * * * * * + +It is patent that a man aflame with the religious spirit would, +when striking on the New Humanism in his investigations, formulate +his requirements of it and the aims he wished it to satisfy in a +language the contemporary Humanist does not speak. But we who call +ourselves the liberated employ, so it happens, a vocabulary keyed a +note above characteristic Humanist speech. The New Humanist’s favorite +words are: decency, moderation, measure, commonsense, the normal and +representative, the centralized, discipline, standards, humility, +self-control, vital restraint, proportionateness, decorum, stability. +His thoughts circulate around these words: they constitute the magnetic +portion of his vocabulary. The magnetic portion of the liberated +man’s vocabulary runs somewhat as follows, and you will note the +higher keying at once: honesty, daring, curiosity, experiment, zeal +for truth, self-knowledge, disinterestedness, harmony, the free mind, +spiritual freedom, integration of experience, art of life, increased +life, greater consciousness. The respective vocabularies are not +mutually exclusive; there is much overlapping in actual usage. But the +point is sound that the New Humanist is apt to employ the second set +of terms in the second place, whereas the liberated man approaching +the study of Humanism uses the Humanist’s favorite words as secondary +to the magnetic words of freedom, increased consciousness, etc. This +difference in emphasis gives us a clue that may conduct to an important +criticism of the New Humanist’s supreme method, the rule of mediation. + +In approaching any subject, it is well to formulate in advance where +one stands at present, what motives impel one toward the new subject, +what one expects to find, and what one wants to discover. The liberated +man (common gender) has, in theory at least, been freed from dogma, +either naturalistic or theological. Dogma to him is any statement +offered which may be true but which is unaccompanied by a means of +verifying it. He has grown clever in distinguishing between what is +verifiable by himself and what is not: the latter he calls “dogma.” In +theory also he is freed from hypocrisy: he strives to be completely +honest with himself. His objection to most conventional modes of +thought is that they have hampered him in getting at the truth about +himself. Today he is discovering that truth, and it is, that he is +completely self-ignorant. Hear him confess his ignorance, as he is +doing in increasing numbers. + +“I perceive my own ignorance on all essential matters. Why I exist I +do not know. What I am I do not know. I am ignorant of any purpose +in life. My friends and especially my enemies are more aware of my +weaknesses than I am. My economy of life is bad--I do not make the most +of it, or know how to do so. I am subject to unknown laws. Blind to +the future, forgetful of my past, in the present I exist, because of my +ignorance, as the plaything of chance.” + +The discovery of the liberated man is that he is not a fallen Angel but +a feeble son of Man. On the basis of his ignorance, however, he can and +does formulate what he wishes to know and what abilities he wishes to +acquire. One word sums up the first:--Self-Knowledge. “I would like to +know what sort of creature I really am. What are my real wishes? Why do +I live and for what end? What are the conditions of happiness? How may +I live with real advantage to myself? What is the true nature of the +world that impinges on me? In short, I would like to know everything +about myself from my puzzling trivial habits to my relation with the +universe.” + +As for Ability, he would, in my view, like to be a Reynard the Fox, +the “animal capable.” He wishes to be active, to become valuable and +therefore valued by men, to be devoid of humbug in the use of his skill +and single-minded in what he undertakes, above all to succeed wherever +he is. The power to do what he wishes to do! + +But not one word about character. We have a confession of ignorance +followed by the recognition of a need for self-knowledge and the need +for general ability. Perhaps the intuition of the liberated person +tells him that character is a resultant, the product of his knowledge +and his ability interacting. With his needs uppermost in his mind, he +encounters the New Humanism and this system, as we have learned, puts +character foremost. The juxtaposition gives us another critical clue. +For the Humanist replies first to the very last questions--_the still +unformulated questions_--of the liberated, and the first questions of +the liberated are relegated in humanistic thought to a lesser position. +Which order is correct? + +Are we close to the nub at last? Several years ago in an essay on +Irving Babbitt I closed by saying that the crux of the whole matter of +Humanism was in the questions: “To what ends in human character does +the technique of Humanism surely lead? Can it by its route attain to +the victory over circumstance announced by religion or can it only +ameliorate a determined scheme of things by the production of such +relatively minor virtues as moderation, decency and good sense?” These +questions seem to me now as then to touch the central issue. The +technique of Humanism is mediation: the law of measure, Nothing Too +Much, is supreme. The validity of this law I do not question. Whether +it is always and everywhere to be observed, that I question. What I +specifically challenge is the supremacy of the technique based on the +law of measure. Is mediation the prime law of life? + +My answer must be, No.[9] I cannot set aside the fact that mediation +presupposes two things, the acquisition of self-knowledge and the +acquisition of will. _It is a technique of control._ By trying to +practice it some self-knowledge is picked up incidentally, and a call +is made upon the will to awake. But mediation is primarily concerned +with character, not with knowledge, not with development of will. A +prior method is absolutely required if mediation is to yield any great +results and that prior method is necessarily supreme. To be blunt and +homely, the New Humanist has overlooked the horse which is to pull his +cart: he has overlooked the working out of a trustworthy technique for +learning the exact truth about the individual creature who is to be +disciplined by mediation to a norm of humanity. For me then, and very +possibly for many other liberated men and women, the New Humanism is +too “advanced.” We stand at the beginning: we are pupils who have first +to learn how to attain a better working knowledge of what some day +we may hope to control. We are willing to admit the mediatory method +as one of a group of allied methods, but we cannot isolate it as the +leading and one essential means to self-development. + +I have some hopes of making this point clear. It is not a destructive +criticism. I would not myself take the trouble to write a whole +book simply to overthrow something. It is, however, a criticism +of incompleteness and misplaced emphasis, and by no means implies +the discarding of the law of measure. The aim is to advance the +contribution of American Humanism nearer to a _total_ solution of the +modern problem. And I consider that an advance is made by pointing +out the absence in Humanism of a technique for self-knowledge and +will-development that at all compares in precision and plausibility +with its technique for control. + +Suppose a man is today converted to the philosophy of Rousseau. He +finds his conversion need not be simply a literary one, so to speak, +for associated with the philosophy there is now a psychological +technique alleged to corroborate the rightness of Rousseauistic +ideas. The new convert can study psycho-analysis, undergo treatment +in an analyst’s office, emerge with a rather elaborate method for +interpreting his own psychology. He has, along with his philosophy, an +apparent means for verifying it, for living up to it. He is possessed +of a technique based on Rousseauistic principles which, it is claimed, +provides a continuous key to self-knowledge. It is hardly necessary for +me to add, however, that psycho-analysis is a discredited technique +for self-knowledge, and that there exists today no advertised, easily +accessible, tested, thoroughly accredited way to carry out the +Pythagorean command, Know Thyself. The illustration serves all the +same to point the fact that the New Humanism is unequipped with a +psychological technique for taking the first step. It has to rely on +introspection which notoriously is unreliable. But it relies too on +traditional knowledge, and this is to a certain degree a corrective +of introspective vagaries. For ancient wisdom--in India, in Egypt, in +Pythagorean Greece, in Palestine--may have been founded on realities +and methods to which we have lost the clue. There are good grounds for +surmising that Pythagoras, for example, was not a fanciful guesser at +all. The New Humanists being in contact with the best knowledge of +the past may therefore be right in their ideas, but we and they need +to remember that the complete technique for validating these ideas in +terms of concrete individual experience is still to find or perhaps +rediscover. + +Another difficulty I have always had with the New Humanism arises over +the Will. In theory I concede the Humanists are right, but it is a +question whether in their practice the Will becomes an accomplished +fact. What is the sure test? We make effort--that we know; and +furthermore effort occurs in the prescribed field of working on +oneself. Will is psychological effort distinguished from physical +effort. But is all psychological effort to be called Willing? Remember +that psychological effort appears always to be powerfully motived: by +self-interest, fear, rivalry, desire for fame, intellectual curiosity, +a hundred varying motives. When the motive dies, the effort invariably +dies with it. Now just as I cannot grant that a man with an empty belly +who labors like a Trojan for his next meal is an example of Will, so +I cannot accept the man laboring great hours to satisfy intellectual +hunger as an instance of Willing. Will must occur in the absence of +incentive. Will would persist in working in a given direction _after_ +the motive had ceased. Will is that which overcomes indifference. + +I hold that we cannot be too skeptical on this topic. Nowhere else does +illusion insinuate itself so much as in regard to responsible choice +and Will. How can we make sure that we are not subtly deluded? + +“Freedom is the will to be responsible for oneself”--this is one of +Nietzsche’s profoundest sayings. Certainly we all have a desire to +be responsible for ourselves. But it is equally certain that the +desire is comparatively weak, buried most of the time, intermittent +in appearance, quickly exhausted when it does appear. Clearly, we do +not get very far on our occasional desires for self-responsibility. +Our tendencies flow the other way: we delight in irresponsibility. All +the odds experience demonstrates are against any continuous effort at +being responsible for oneself. My conclusion is that Will is just that +continuous effort carried on against the whole weight of the organism, +an effort that is finally unaided by wishes and unprovoked by external +inducements--nothing less than an _independent_ activity of the psyche. + +The practical conclusion I must draw from this is that men are +Will-less. The conclusion that I am not warranted in drawing in the +face of extraordinary past testimony is that men are devoid of the +potentiality of Will. “Thou art not free yet, thou seekest freedom +still”--this is Nietzsche again, and freedom must be sought in human +potentialities and won by the actualization of potentials, since as +we actually are, we are not free. The New Humanist has confused a +potentiality, the Will, with an actuality that can be described as +_conditioned_ psychological effort directed toward self-control. I +attach much weight to that criticism. + +It seems to me of great consequence to realize this:--it is “failure +of will” we know, not acts of Will. The testimony of a therapeutist +strikingly confirms what I have just said. Therapeutists often find +that their patients want to get well, know what the trouble is and +what they must do, and yet fail to exert the required will. In an +unusually candid paper read some years ago before the Medical Section +of the British Psychological Society Dr. James Carruthers Young, +formerly a surgeon, now a practitioner of the Jung school of analytic +psychology, made the following remarks which succeed in putting the +problem of the Will on a practical basis. “Every form of occultism +aims at self-development through deepening, or expanding the limits +of, self-consciousness, or however you like to express it. Now it +is obvious that this laudable object cannot be attained merely by +embracing the ideas of a system, however rapturously. The all-important +factor of the exercise and proper application of will must enter, if +anything is to be achieved. If it does not, then the ideas, however +beautiful and intriguing, in the end become merely ‘dope’ ... it seemed +to me that ‘failure of will’ was _the bête noire_ in neuroses. Roughly, +the neurotic symptom from the Freudian standpoint is the disguised +expression of an affect which is too painful to be _faced_. From the +Adlerian standpoint, it is an ‘incomparable arrangement,’ by which +the patient avoids _facing_ a certain aspect of what we call reality. +In the broadest sense in both systems, it is a question of failure to +_face up_ to reality. Now it by no means follows that, when it is made +clear to the patient by analysis what aspects of reality he has been +unconsciously avoiding, that he will at once be able to cope with it. +This is particularly evident in the case of obsessionists, as I have +proved to my own satisfaction again and again. A washing obsessionist, +for example, cheerfully subscribes to the theory of origin of her +washing, but when called upon to make the slightest new adaptation, +always falls back on her washing. In effect she says: ‘I cannot marry, +or do this, that or the other, because, you see, I wash.’ To put +the matter in a nutshell, analytical knowledge is not necessarily +effective knowledge. + +“Now I think it will be generally agreed that what I have called +‘failure of will’ is often bound up with an endocrine deficiency or +dyscrasia, sometimes acquired and sometimes apparently so fundamental +as to justify the term ‘primary plasmic insufficiency,’ which +corresponds to Adler’s organic inferiority. Unfortunately, the science +of endocrinology was not, and is not yet, so far advanced as to enable +us to remedy such dyscrasias with anything approaching to certainty +or precision, even granted that our powers of diagnosis may be able +to divine the true nature of such complicated conditions. My problem, +then, was how to overcome the difficulty of ‘failure of will’ by means +of a definite psychological method.” + +It seems to me no less important for the Humanists to realize that +_there_ is the problem for the ordinary person as well as for the +pathological, namely, how to reinforce a sound theory of the Will +with a sound method for overcoming ‘failure of will.’ To vanquish the +obstinate difficulties, the theory must become practical. + + * * * * * + +The dilemma turns out to be like this:--pursue your natural desires +and you find they do not lead to that signal of well-being we call +happiness but reveal instead the need for a re-education of desire, +so that you may train yourself to desire the kind of happiness that +is possible for men; choose Humanism as a system of re-education of +desire and you must wonder if it has the strength to perform the task. +One alternative deceives you by its bright appeal, the other seems +inferior in its call to the imagination, to the hidden latent powers of +psychology. But inferior to what? Inferior to religion at its purest. +Religion says it is a superhuman task to overcome one’s naturalism. +If it is a superhuman undertaking, then one may ask, what chance is +there of effecting a real mastery by anything less than a science for +divinizing man? + +For here is man, the prey of innumerable illusions, stunted in +psychological growth, spiritually inert, bewildered by himself, +discordant in behavior, perhaps incurably paralyzed in will--will +anything but the most tremendous means metamorphose him into a falconer +of reality, an experiencer of bliss and ecstasy, a doer of deeds on +the fighting edge of the cosmos? The New Humanism is a morality not +untouched by dignified emotion. But I say that on the whole it is +morals not sufficiently touched with poetry, not endowed with the +tremendous shaking appeal to our whole being that religion has been +known to exercise. Religion is more than Arnold defined it, it includes +morality touched by emotion, but it includes art, science, philosophy +as well. It is insatiable for perfection and so must quicken and +recharge every side of our consciousness. It is, I think, properly +impatient of all half-measures everywhere, impatient of such a reason +as Babbitt gives, the fear of self-delusion, for choosing a more +moderate attack on life’s riddles, impatient of short aims--_because +it realizes the almost hopeless condition of man_. For psychological +freedom everything must be risked. That is what we learn when we study +the religious spirit. By its fiery light, we liberated ones perceive +that we are in truth only pseudo-liberated. We have put the weight +on being free from something, but the real question is, free for +what? I have been writing, quite knowingly, about the dilemma of the +_pseudo-liberated_. If we realize our pseudo-state, then as we approach +the New Humanism, our question becomes a searching one, will it truly +liberate? My suggestion has been to hold this system up against the +blazing background of the religious spirit, and against that background +it seems certain to me two major defects appear in Humanism: the lack +of a science of self-study and a not sufficiently stringent conception +of the Will. + +Might we not say that twentieth century Humanism is a system of right +conjectures? “Do you not perceive,” the prophetess Diotima says to +Socrates in _The Banquet_, “that there is something between ignorance +and wisdom?” “What is that?” asked Socrates. “To have a right opinion +or conjecture. Observe, that this kind of opinion, for which no reason +can be rendered, cannot be called knowledge; for how can that be called +knowledge, which is without evidence or reason? Nor ignorance, on the +other hand; for how can that be called ignorance which arrives at the +persuasion of that which it really is? A right opinion is something +between understanding and ignorance.” Humanism to me has the value, and +it is a high value, of wise conjecture about the way to lead a human +life. For undoubtedly it is better, in default of wisdom, to be guided +by true opinions than by demonstrably false ones. But we must not lose +sight of the conjectural basis of Humanism. We must throw ourselves +into the task of validating to the point of indisputability the right +opinions involved. The New Humanist draws upon the Sages: his business +is to become a Sage, to achieve in his own person the sensation of +absolute knowledge, to go beyond the intermediate stage to wisdom. + +Can he do so without hitching his wagon to a more remote star? I think +not. There is the effort to be superman, not to be solely identified of +course with the peculiar effort of one man, Nietzsche, and this effort +while failing to reach its end does leave as a by-product a growth in +human-ness. But the less ambitious effort to be human--does it hit the +mark? Superhumanism gives birth to the human, or humanism with the +small h. It is claimed that Humanism gives birth to the human, too, but +must we not qualify that somewhat in our final chapter? + + + + + XII + + THE END OF THE TETHER + + _“It is time for man to mark out his goal, to plant the germ + of his highest hopes. His soil is still rich enough for that + purpose.”_--Friedrich Nietzsche. + + +It is not only in politics that the advice to use large scale maps is +excellent. If one refers daily “crises” to a big map, one is far less +likely to fly into political hysteria over trifling remote events: one +thinks politically in terms commensurate with the planet, not of one +corner of it distant only a few inches on the small map from the other +side of the world. But one requires also, and even more, a large scale +map of life as a preventive of petty thoughts. We need to refer such +questions as closed the preceding chapter to a map of life that will +enlarge our mental activities in trying to reply to them. The main +trouble with the cult of contemporaneity is that it has lost the sense +of greatness and spaciousness. Its map is a crude child’s drawing--a +large out-of-proportion area across which is scrawled, “Here Be the +Moderns,” and outlying this are indeterminate shadowy regions peopled +by lesser beings, dwarfs, and cavemen--our forerunners. History to the +one-sided enthusiasts for the contemporaneous is really Aunt Polly’s +Story of Mankind which I sometimes think Donald Ogden Stewart has +immortalized: it is a series of steps forward from ancient Egypt to the +great and glorious present, a progress culminating in Darwin, Freud, +Joyce and Proust, Ford and Lenin, Stravinsky and Bertrand Russell, and +a host of other recently elected candidates for the New Olympus. It +will not do to use so disproportioned and confined a map in measuring +the work of Babbitt and More who have plotted out their intellectual +campaign on a larger scale than we are accustomed to. We must relate +their work to very extensive perspectives: we must find some scale for +the greatness of the ages. How else can we measure the truly human +and the superhuman? For the superhuman covers all that man may be the +bridge to: the truly human covers the bridge, the whole transition +itself. The American Humanist makes the bridge the end. But can he +build it unless the struggle is to reach the other shore, to cross the +discontinuity, the gulf between Man and the Absolute? The superhumanist +treats the bridge as means for prospective travel. An unsuccessful +traveller, he yet may go further in completing the bridge than the +Humanist who thinks only of bridge-building. + +The map of life I shall avail myself of was drawn by a genius at the +age of twenty-eight, a genius of whom the leading New Humanists do not +share my high opinion. But that discrepancy I choose to think arises +from the defect of orthodoxy. To Paul Elmer More, for example, _The +Birth of Tragedy_ by Friedrich Nietzsche merely makes a distinction in +the classical world that “takes the form of a harsh and unreal contrast +between the Dionysian principle of unrest and growth and creation for +which he expresses the highest regard and the Apollonian principle of +rest and renunciation and contraction for which, as Platonism, he has +the deepest aversion.” But for me _The Birth of Tragedy_ is a profound +and terrific document by which we may get the most vivid impression +of the deterioration of modern life, classify the New Humanists as +socratic or theoretical men, and learn what we must try to do with the +new situation in American culture created by the advent of Humanism. +The book had extravagances of judgment and a fatuous hopefulness +for German music which Nietzsche corrected in _Ecce Homo_ but the +central thesis he left unimpaired--and the modern world has left it +uncomprehended. + +The interpretation of Greek tragedy has been a field of bitter +contention between romanticists and classicists. The romanticists +see chiefly in Greek tragedy the violence, the melodrama, great +horrors, headlong actions, titanic personages. The classicists see +ethical imports, a background of order, superb control, religious +values. From the standpoint of a student of Nietzsche both parties +are right--and wrong; for Nietzsche divined a third interpretation, +a paradox of understanding, whereby the romantic and the classicist +views are held in solution, but the solution itself is a new conception +of tragedy. Nietzsche saw in Greek tragedy the ever-renewed conflict +and reconciliation of two principles, the Dionysian to which alone +the romanticist is susceptible and the Apollonian which alone wins +the classicist. The tragic view perceives the necessity for the +mutual agonistic struggle: it is based on the realization that Apollo +and Dionysus must war with each other, must continue forever in +that strange paradox, a synthesis founded on struggle. There must +ever exist, if life is to ascend, a turbulent frenzied uprush of +Formability, and there must coexist a constant reduction to Form. + +On the one side of the world-stage you have Dionysus with his wildest +music, his ecstasy and poetry, his drunkenness, his sheer states of +Being. On the other side there is Apollo, the soothsayer, the god of +plastic energies, the cool and comely, olympian in his dream-states. +The Formable and the Formed! + +There is a suffering attached to actualization, because to actualize a +potentiality is to exclude other potentialities. It is to concentrate +and limit. Dionysus suffers because he must pass into limitations: +his great surges of impulse must eventuate in the actual phenomenal +world. He is the foe of limitation, and his enemy, Apollo, must impose +limits on him. As the Dionysian spirit is strong, it breaks limits and +requires new and wider ones; as the Apollonian spirit is strong, it +accepts the challenge and seeks ever better forms and containers. + +The tragic view of Nietzsche and according to him of the Greeks too is +that this struggle must be consciously intensified. The will to surpass +must grapple with the will to maintenance. Liberty battles law; love, +duty; change, custom; intuition, science; and inspiration battles +art. But the antithesis goes deeper than these human aspects reveal, +ultimately reaching energy and matter, Dionysian pure energy and +Apollonian pure form. In the æsthetics of Attic tragedy Nietzsche held +that the chorus was Dionysian and the play an Apollonian projection of +the dithyrambic being-states of the chorus. + +But an observer of contemporary civilization in America and Europe who +has had awaked in him a glimmering sense of the ancient Apollonians +and Dionysians would be forced to think that the two types of men are +almost extinct. How many _Moby Dicks_ have there been in the last fifty +years of American literature? Where are the post-Nietzscheans? On +account of the pseudo-Nietzscheans whose grossness and insincerity were +so glaring, no one now dares to call himself a Nietzschean, for we have +learned from the pseudo-Nietzscheans how transparent the pose is, how +fraudulent one is to play Nietzsche without the Dionysian flame in very +truth burning within. So there are no successors to Nietzsche, no line +of initiates of Dionysus. We can appreciate Nietzsche, but we cannot be +Nietzscheans. Our heritage comes from Greece, but not from the Greece +of the Mysteries: we are the heirs of Greek rationalism, of Greek +decadence. Euripides and Socrates have turned out to be the fathers of +the future. + +For speaking by and large, our art is devoid of the Æschylean mystical +conception and models itself on Euripides who reasoned with the Gods, +not for them. His principle, says Nietzsche, was this: “To be beautiful +everything must be intelligible.” Accordingly he used the familiar for +his substance, he brought the spectator on the stage, he introduced +realism. “The mirror in which formerly only grand and bold traits +were represented now showed the painful fidelity that conscientiously +reproduces even the abortive outlines of nature.... The spectator +now actually saw and heard his double on the Euripidean stage, and +rejoiced that he could talk so well.” The Euripidean drama, like our +plays and novels today, concerned common matters of which every one +feels he is a competent judge. The audience therefore never comes to +be initiated but to apply without the slightest scruples its criteria +of ordinary experience. This was the betrayal of the Dionysian cause +which Euripides recanted at the end of his life, but the European world +has not recanted, today less than ever when a minuscule Euripides like +Bernard Shaw is loaded with the highest honors. + +As for Socrates, although I am utterly unable to decide on the justice +of Nietzsche’s portrait of the historical figure--it is the most +devastating drawing of Socrates ever penned, but is it true?--that +makes no matter here. Nietzsche knew to the core the long line of men +descending from Socrates, and if he imagined a mythical father to fit +the men he knew, we can accept the myth for its truth of portraiture +of a type, if not of the individual it is named after. The Nietzschean +contention is that to Socrates was denied the pleasure of gazing into +the Dionysian abysses. He was therefore no more than Euripides _en +rapport_ with the Apollonian dream-world projected from Dionysian +ecstasy. He was a disintegrating force, withdrawing the Apollonian +tendency into the hard shell of logical schematism as Euripides shrunk +the Dionysian state into naturalistic emotion. He liked art to cling to +the trunk of dialectics, to be overgrown with philosophic thought. He +had the optimism of the dialectician which Nietzsche felt is fatal to +the tragic spirit. And he was most of the time anti-musical. From him +stream the theoretical men, the men of science in the broad sense, the +men who get their enjoyment and satisfaction out of the cast-off veil +rather than out of gazing with rapture at whatever still remains veiled +after the unveiling. They care more for the search after truth than +for truth itself. This Lessing, called by Nietzsche the most honest +of theoretical men, boldly admitted. Finally, they are insensitive +to mystery and attribute to knowledge and perception the power of a +universal panacea, seeing evil itself in error. + +_The Birth of Tragedy_ gives us a sense of grand scale by which to +try contemporary literature and culture. It makes it ridiculous to +advance claims for Eugene O’Neill as a Dionysian--to mention an +example of the sort of correction that can immediately be made. It +gives us in Euripides the norm of our literary art, the decadent Greek +justification of the ways of man to God. It replaces Benda’s modest +analysis of the plastic and musical sensibilities, remarked upon in +an earlier chapter, with a majestic view of the highest contrasted +principles in man. Among other things, it throws a piercing light on +the twentieth century Humanists, revealing them to be theoretical or +socratic men as remote from the inspired by Apollo as their romantic +enemies are remote from the inspiration of Dionysus. We modern men do +but whisper inaudibly of the old gods. + +In support of my classifying the New Humanists as socratic men, I +will bring forward two or three points. In the Dionysian-Apollonian +opposition, things were reconciled, brought to a dynamic equilibrium, +through struggle. The principle of individuation was in strife with +primordial unity. The most fertile sense of possibilities clashed with +the strictest sense of limitations. But the Humanist does not speak of +struggle as the means of achieving stability: he endorses mediation, +the tempering of liberty by law, the selection of a middle course. +This I hold is the procedure of the logical man with an undeveloped +sense of tragedy. Again, the New Humanist tries to rest on what may +be essentially a transitional phase of man. He concedes that the +highest level of life is religious, but he does not aim to reach it. +The humanistic level attracts him most, but may this attraction not +be translated into a love of the search for truth rather than for +truth itself--the mark of the socratic type? In the last place, it is +significant that several American Humanists confess to a distrust of +the art of music, _the_ Dionysian art. And unlike Socrates no inner +voice reminds them to their consternation, “Humanist, practice music!” +There does not even linger in them as in their monumental predecessor +an uneasy sense that in their philosophizing on the literary tradition +they may through lack of understanding the Dionysian be sinning against +a deity. + + * * * * * + +But we have to work with the elements of the contemporary situation. +Just as it is idle to sit dreaming of great wealth when one has to work +for bread and butter, so it is idle to sit thinking about becoming +Dionysian or Apollonian when the immediate situation requires buckling +down to the production of humble intellectual and æsthetic fare. I +have totally failed if by shrinking our valuations against a grand +scale of values, I seemed to suggest taking the road to despair of the +modern situation. On the contrary, we want to know where we are at and +how best we may spend our energies on the sound assumption that there +is a zest and a satisfaction in making the most of what we have. Since +I have used Nietzsche to expand our ideas about the state of modern +culture, I shall also give his word of encouragement to us: “A constant +struggle against uniformly unfavorable conditions is what makes a type +stable and hard.” The joy of overcoming is ours to be had for work in +present-day terms on the present-day condition of things: it will be +our rustic fare which notoriously tastes better to those who sweat for +it than to those who live in cushioned ease. + +We may use conceptions of Dionysians and Apollonians for measurement, +but the current actualities thus measured are socratic men (Humanists) +and rebellious men (Baconians, Rousseauists--of many sub-varieties, the +Baconians having a touch of socratism, the Rousseauists in their art +converging toward the Euripidean standard). The demigods and satyrs do +not frequent the modern stage, but there is still played across it a +pseudo-Apollonian--pseudo-Dionysian warfare. _Our disaster is that the +participants have lost the sense of being necessary to each other_; +this vitiates all our spiritual economy. + +The New Humanists are seeking to vitalize in American life the +principle of concentration and stability: the New Rebels have as their +task the vitalizing of the principle of expansion and flux. The +changed situation brought about by the advent of American Humanism is +that we now have a strong well armed party of conservation to balance +and offset the reigning party of change. A true spiritual economy would +require that each party should intensify its efforts, should surpass +its previous productions, should grow toward greater goals by vigorous +contention with the other. The rôle of the Humanist is to _contain_ +the age: the rôle of the rebel is to break out of the containing forms +and to demand new forms for the new enlarged more powerful spirit. But +actually what do we find? The total absence of spiritual economists of +the sort just mentioned. No unconscious sense of a need for passing +from inchoate restlessness into major forms and no need for breaking +out from these forms in turn. Or perhaps I should say scarcely any, for +on a few occasions in the last decade there have been laments that in +American life there was no _resistance_ offered to a school of ideas, +nothing on which a new school could sharpen its mind. Criticism with us +is mostly an affair of acclamation and denunciation, a false state of +excitement in which ideas stagnate. + +In the light of the economy sketched above, our recent literary history +reads somewhat as follows. The revolt of the generation now in power, +successfully carried out between 1915 and 1920, was against a _decadent +conservatism_ well named “genteelness.” It savagely broke the forms +of genteel prudish culture, but the forms were weak: it may be said +that genteelness was no enemy at all for strong writers. Well, the now +ruling Middle Generation rested on its easy laurels: there followed +ten years of waxing fat and flabby for the insurgents, to be ended by +the surprising challenge of a virile conservatism that had quietly +grown up in the meantime. _How_ they met the challenge is a matter +of recent history--the jejune thought and rhinestone wit of Carl Van +Doren in the debate with Irving Babbitt at Carnegie Hall, the ignorant +identification of Humanism with the decadent stupid conservatism of +fifteen years ago by Theodore Dreiser, the putting to work again by H. +L. Mencken of his overworked phrases like “vague and witless blather” +left no doubt whatever of the middle-aged rebels’ lack of stuff to meet +the new issues. Most assuredly the containing forms of the New Humanism +can cope with this decadent revolt movement, and have plenty of vacant +space too. It is to the younger generation of literary thinkers that +one must turn in hope of a real resistance, and its performance +likewise was keenly disappointing--the repetition of stale attitudes +for the most part. There was a lack of curiosity, _a pronounced +desire to reject and not the hunger of youth to assimilate and pass +beyond if possible_, that was distinctly discouraging to observe. The +New Humanists may well call out for good enemies: if I judge them +correctly, they have no taste for hollow victories. + +To illustrate in the particular field of literature what I have been +contending: the younger generation thought that one of the important +issues involved a defence of contemporary American writing. But the +real issue is how may things work together for the greater glory of +American literature. On that all should unite, and toward it each +should make contribution. The rest is a question of judgment of +contemporary production. There is a Hollywood anecdote that seems to +make clear the differences in judgment involved on this point. A new +motion picture had been given its first showing, and the magnate had +asked his three advisers for opinions. “Stupendous,” said the first. +“Colossal! Unexcelled! Unsurpassable!” the second replied. The third +said in a low tone: “Excuse me, sir, but to me that picture was merely +great.” The New Humanist appears to be that third man judging current +American letters: to him our writing is “merely great.” + +The signs of the day should tell the younger literary generation to +beware of forming a new league of mediocrity to succeed the old. + +The better path now for the spirit of revolt would seem to be _through_ +Humanism. Revolt to be effective must be more than a mere spilling over +weak barriers. You must have worthy forms and trammels to give force to +your new endeavor. You must be contained before you can overflow with +any meaning of importance to the future. To state it another way, the +thorough assimilation of Humanism is the next step. + +That there are gaps in Humanism I have pointed out. They are ways of +egress to those who cannot be content within the Humanist doctrine and +discipline. But as they imply in turn the assuming of a more severe +discipline and form, I do not fancy an enthusiastic greeting for them +from an opposition with the naïve faith in man of the present rejecters +of the New Humanism. There is no way out for the addicts of milk +for babes. “The feeble ask for liberty; the strong ask for rule.” +Nietzsche, thou shouldst be living at this hour, when “independence, +free development, and _laisser-aller_ are claimed the most vehemently +precisely by those for whom no restraint _would be too severe_.” + + * * * * * + +In somewhat mythological language I have been saying that there are +certain possibilities of great development not inherent in the present +state of American culture. To come within reach of other possibilities +we must change to a state that holds them. Matthew Arnold noted that +“in the Greece of Pindar and Sophocles, in the England of Shakespeare, +the poet lived in a current of ideas in the highest degree animating +and nourishing to the creative power; society was, in the fullest +measure, permeated by fresh thought, intelligent and alive. And this +state of things,” he added, “is the true basis for the creative power’s +exercise, in this it finds its data, its materials, truly ready for +its hand; all the books and reading in the world are only valuable as +they are helps to this.” This happy state Arnold had to judge was among +the possibilities excluded by the condition of English culture in the +nineteenth century, and there seems no ground, alas, to believe that it +exists among the possibilities now open to American culture. But Arnold +did consider it possible to initiate an intermediate phase in English +life. + +“Even,” he said, “when this (state of things described above) does +not actually exist, books and reading may enable a man to construct +a kind of semblance of it in his own mind, a world of knowledge and +intelligence in which he may live and work. This is by no means an +equivalent to the artist for the nationally diffused life and thought +of the epochs of Sophocles or Shakespeare, but besides that it may be +a means of preparation for such epochs, it does really constitute, +if many share in it, a quickening and sustaining atmosphere of great +value.” Arnold proceeded then to cite an example of this second and +possible state. “Such an atmosphere the many-sided learning and the +long and widely-combined critical effort of Germany formed for Goethe, +when he lived and worked. There was no national glow of life and +thought there as in the Athens of Pericles or the England of Elizabeth. +That was the poet’s weakness. But there was a sort of equivalent for +it in the complete culture and unfettered thinking of a large body of +Germans. That was his strength.” + +It is plain that America has yet to reach that state, and that +furthermore a great deal of work by all minds will be necessary to +bring her there. No one would argue otherwise. But the sense of urgency +one would expect is not noticeably present. We do not seem to realize +that we must accelerate our pace of work. There is, so to speak, +plenty of slack on the tether of our culture, and we are not running +it out with any admirable rapidity. Else, so I think, we would be +welcoming the contribution of the Humanists with eagerness and not with +resentment. + +As it is, we lag and flounder. We are, to take a common instance from +literature, prone to make late importations of European tendencies +which have already been fully worked out abroad. Consider the vogue +of the Dreiserian novel: it is written in America several decades +after the Zolaesque novel has been thoroughly studied in France. We +import the method of naturalistic fiction--late; we do not import +simultaneously the criticism of the method, but go blundering on as +if nothing had been previously learned from the experiment. The New +Humanists ask us not to be so tardy in a detail like this but to learn +more quickly of the past, that is, to _consciously_ create the field +of our present out of the best available past. In my opinion, the +Humanists can more quickly release us from a multitude of opinions now +holding us back than any other American school of thought current. They +should enable us to get to the end of our tether that much sooner. + +It was clear some time before this point that I do not regard American +Humanism as a final resting place. So far as I champion the New +Humanists, it is because they can enormously further reaching the end +of our present phase. Let us put that end very high. Let us say it is a +state of culture as high as that ascribed by Arnold to the Germany of +Goethe, or perhaps better, say it is the equal of eighteenth century +culture in England, the century Arnold underestimated. Observe I do not +say identical with, but equal to, in quality. This achievement for me +represents the end of the rope. Because then we shall have thoroughly +digested all the ideas of the Western mind from the Greeks to Bertrand +Russell: we will be familiar with them all, be able brilliantly to +reshuffle them and deal out clever new hands for ourselves. But the +game will be always the same--always a preliminary game. For the +reason that there is not now current in the Western world _a single new +seminiferous principle for human culture_. There may be one accessible, +but if so, it is certainly not current. We know or shall know all the +existing ideas and there is not a comprehensive regenerating idea in +the ensemble. In our present phase we are limited to old ideas and +our understanding or misunderstanding of old ideas. We cannot expect +a revolutionary change--how can we?--when we have nothing to change +ourselves with. + +Furthermore, we are not at all ripe for that inward transformation, +the only right way to an outward social transformation, the business +for us and for our age--according to Arnold. The sense of need for it +has not even been born. We have to reach by intense activity the end +of the situation in which we are cast before a new situation can begin +with its fresh group of possibilities. We have to need something before +we can acquire it. The birth of a new need--that alone will profoundly +alter the present drift and provide an unexpected future tense for +things. + +I return to the metaphor of the end of the tether. Most people know +now and then the state that it expresses--a compound of well-being, +distress and the greatest alertness. Well-being, because one has +utilized every resource, put forth every ounce of effort, thought of +every possible scheme, done the very best one could to cope with the +circumstances. Distress, because the best one has is insufficient for +the emergency, because one is at one’s wits’ end, because one needs +more power within or help from without to forestall disaster. The +greatest alertness, because in one’s desperation one overlooks nothing, +one is willing to try anything, one racks oneself for a new plan. In +that state one is most realistic, most clear about means and ends, +most determined, most dissatisfied, straining at the leash of one’s +limitations. + +The condition of being at the end of the tether, torn between despair +and the highest hopes, preternaturally awake to any means promising +deliverance, marks for me the highest point a Western culture can +now attain. It is both the one truly fertile state and a pure cry +for deliverance from iron restrictions. It goes without saying that +American culture is distant from it. Who will say we experience now +the need born of such a state for whole orders of ideas that appear +in a time of Renascence, when we have not exhausted our present +orders of thought? We are from all appearances so comfortable and +optimistic--shall I add slothful?--that even American Humanism is too +strong a potion at the present time. We have the illusion of being +free while we are in fact tethered at a comparatively short range. Our +progress must consist in finding out the length of our tether, and for +that Humanism is one of the most available means. The Great Revolt will +be the revolt against the limits of Humanism as new vistas of action, +thought and being become discernible beyond the end of the tether. But +just now our energies appear to be all engaged in the lesser warfare +between Naturalism and Humanism. + +It is nevertheless certain that what has here been named the dilemma of +the liberated will emerge more and more strikingly as time goes on, +for the pressures of the situation itself will steadily extrude it. +Their own experience and reflection will compel a larger and larger +vanguard of Americans to see at the one extremity the pitfalls of +romantic heterodoxy and at the other the major defects of classical +orthodoxy. Painting psychological serfdom in alluring colors will +not seduce their judgment, nor will they be convinced that the full +secret for making freemen has been entrusted to the New Humanists. +Of the organized religions they will ask, not solace which might be +given, but a hammer to smite man’s shackles, and the hammer will not be +forthcoming. + +But disagreeable as such a dilemma is, it is a great awakener. It is a +challenge to find a means of circumvention. To circumvent it, however, +we shall assuredly have to reach the end of our present resources. It +can not be resolved on any terms less exacting. + + + + + ACKNOWLEDGMENTS + + +I had thought to append a selected bibliography of books bearing +on American Humanism, but there seems little point in duplicating +here--with certain subtractions and a few additions--the bibliography +at the back of _Humanism and America_. That now historic symposium--and +I am greatly indebted to the publishers, Farrar and Rinehart, Inc., +for their permission to make excerpts from it--will probably aid the +reader hitherto unread in the New Humanism to become acquainted in the +quickest fashion with the leading personalities among the New Humanists +and the extensive ramification of their views. Such a reader should, +however, if he is the man to hoe a long row, press on to the complete +works of Irving Babbitt and Paul Elmer More. Houghton Mifflin and Co. +have kindly allowed me to quote from several of Babbitt’s books and +from the later volumes of More’s _Shelburne Essays_, as well as from +_Mont-St.-Michel and Chartres_ by Henry Adams. I wish to acknowledge +with thanks other favors of the like kind received from the following: + +For permission to quote extracts from _The Thing_, _Orthodoxy_, +and _Heretics_ by G. K. Chesterton--Dodd, Mead and Co.; for +permission to use a passage from Julien Benda’s _The Treason of the +Intellectuals_--William Morrow and Co.; for permission to make brief +quotations from A. N. Whitehead’s _Science and the Modern World_, A. +S. Eddington’s _Science and the Unseen World_, Walter Lippmann’s _A +Preface to Morals_, John Dewey’s _Democracy and Education_, and from +the works of Matthew Arnold and Walter Pater--the Macmillan Co.; for +permission to use passages from Stuart P. Sherman’s _On Contemporary +Literature_--Henry Holt and Co.; for permission to extract matter +from Stuart P. Sherman’s _Shaping Men and Women_, T. S. Eliot’s _For +Lancelot Andrews_, H. G. Wells’s _Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island_, +and Hilaire Belloc’s preface to Ruth Pitter’s _First and Second +Poems_--Doubleday, Doran and Co.; for permission to quote relevant +passages from Margaret Naumburg’s _The Child and the World_ and +Herbert Read’s _The Sense of Glory_--Harcourt, Brace and Co. Similar +courtesies were extended to me by Charles Scribner and Sons in the +case of excerpts from Jacques Maritain’s _Three Reformers_, the Yale +University Press in the case of Robert Shafer’s _Progress and Science_, +the Princeton University Press in the case of L. T. More’s _The Dogma +of Evolution_, the University of North Carolina Press in the case of +Norman Foerster’s _The American Scholar_, Horace Liveright, Inc., in +the case of Charles Fort’s _The Book of the Damned_, and, lastly, the +Viking Press in the case of Sorel’s _Reflections on Violence_. To all I +am grateful. + +I may add that the American reader who enjoys following the progress of +a literary controversy as the French appear to enjoy their polemical +outbreaks will find the pages of the _Bookman_ from month to month +alive with the debating points of the New Humanists. For further +information on the Douglas Proposals spoken of rather hopefully in the +chapter on Humanism and economics, see _Unemployment or War_ by Maurice +Colbourne, published by Coward-McCann, Inc. + +Finally, I will name a very few books that have been of great service +to me in forming my own point of view as distinct from the humanistic +viewpoint. They are, in metaphysics, _The Three Conventions_ by +Denis Saurat, published by the Dial Press; in psychology, _Beyond +Behaviorism_ by Robert Courtney, brought out by Grant Publications, +Inc.; in literature, _Readers and Writers_ and _The Art of Reading_, +both by A. R. Orage, the former published by Knopf, and the latter by +Farrar and Rinehart, Inc. + + G. M. + + + + + FOOTNOTES + + +[1] Born in 1865 at Dayton, Ohio, graduated from Harvard in 1889, +member of the Harvard faculty since 1894. + +[2] For a full appreciation of Norton, the reader should see the essay +on Norton in the eleventh series of the _Shelburne Essays_ by P. E. +More. + +[3] In view of what Benda goes on to say, read Humanism here for +humanitarianism. + +[4] That is, Humanism. + +[5] In a very interesting paper written shortly before his death +G. Stanley Hall recounted his experiences among phrenologists, +anthropologists, “character analysts,” psycho-analysts and intelligence +testers for real light on the nature of “I.” The results were so meagre +that at the end of his life he could still say: “I want to strip before +analyzers who can diagnose not only my abilities, but my character, +disposition, merits, and defects, and tell me, even at the eleventh +hour, _who and what I really am_.” (My italics.) + +[6] More, I believe, has more intellectualized his conception of the +inner check than has Babbitt. I myself prefer the hints of Babbitt on +this topic to the explanations of More which seem to me to harden the +conception too much. The two men appear also to differ on the will, +Babbitt regarding it in the Oriental way as anterior and superior to +the reason and the flux of personality, whereas More seems to follow +Christian tradition which usually makes the will a mode of activity +belonging to the flux. I follow Babbitt in the discussion of will +later in my chapter. The reader, however, is advised to consult the +_Definitions of Dualism_ which More appended to the Eighth Series +of the _Shelburne Essays_ for full light on these differences and +especially for the most ambitious attempt to put the doctrine and +discipline of Humanism into a precise philosophic-psychological +framework. + +[7] It is fair to say that removed from its context this statement +sounds harsher than it really is. + +[8] In the special supplement of the _New Republic_ for July 16, +1930, which was devoted to homage to Herbert Croly, the psychological +conclusions Croly reached were touched obliquely, lightly or haltingly +by some of the contributors, totally ignored by the rest. + +[9] It may interest some readers to know that this is why consistently +throughout my writing career I have refused to classify myself as a New +Humanist despite my manifestly strong sympathy for the school. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79374 *** diff --git a/79374-h/79374-h.htm b/79374-h/79374-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2e925f0 --- /dev/null +++ b/79374-h/79374-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,10066 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <meta name="format-detection" content="telephone=no,date=no,address=no,email=no,url=no"> + <title> + The Dilemma of the Liberated | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 7%; + margin-right: 7%; +} + +h1, h2 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +p { + text-indent: 1.3em; + margin-top: .5em; + margin-bottom: .5em; + text-align: justify; +} + +p.noindent, .footnote p { + text-indent: 0; +} + +hr.chap { + border: none; + position: relative; + text-align: center; + margin: 3em 0; + page-break-after: avoid + } +hr.chap::before { + content: "ꕥ"; + position: relative; + padding: 0 1em; + background: white; + color: #777; + z-index: 1 + } +hr.chap::after { + content: ""; + position: absolute; + top: 50%; + left: 0; + width: 100%; + border-top: 2px solid #ddd; + z-index: 0 + } +hr.front { + width: 10%; + margin: 2.5em 45%; + border: 0; + border-top: 1px solid #777; + page-break-after: avoid + } + +hr.tb { + border: none; + text-align: center; + margin: 2em 0; + page-break-after: avoid +} + +hr.tb::before { + content: "❧"; + color: #777; + font-size: 1.2em; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +table td { padding: 0.25em; } + +.tdr {text-align: right;} + +.pagenum { + right: 1%; + font-size: x-small; + color: #333; + text-indent: 0; + text-align: right; + position: absolute; +} + +blockquote { + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +blockquote p { + text-indent: 0; +} + +blockquote.constrain { + margin: 2em auto; + max-width: 23em; + } + +.center {text-align: center; text-indent: 0;} + +.right {text-align: right;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +/* Footnotes */ + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 85.5%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: 0.7em; +} + +.footnote a, a.fnanchor { text-decoration: none; } + +/* Poetry */ + +/* uncomment the next line for centered poetry */ +/* .poetry-container {display: flex; justify-content: center;} */ +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} +.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} + +.smaller {font-size:smaller;} +.larger {font-size:larger;} + +/* Poetry indents */ +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3.0em;} + + </style> +</head> + +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79374 ***</div> + +<main> + +<h1> +THE DILEMMA OF THE<br> +<span style="font-size:140%; letter-spacing:0.25em;">LIBERATED</span> +</h1> + +<p class="center larger"> + <i>An Interpretation of Twentieth Century Humanism</i><br> + <br> + By GORHAM MUNSON +</p> + +<blockquote class="constrain"> +<p><i>“It is a commonplace of the schools +that man is a little world, in which +we may discern a body mingled +of earthly elements, and ethereal +breath, and the vegetable life of +plants, and the senses of lower animals, +and reason, and the intelligence +of angels, and a likeness to +God.”</i></p> + +<p class="right"> + PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA. +</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="center"> + PUBLISHED IN NEW YORK BY<br> + <i>Coward-McCann, Inc.</i><br> + IN THE YEAR 1930 +</p> + +<hr class="front"> + +<p class="center smaller"> + Copyright, 1930, by<br> + Coward-McCann, Inc.<br> + All Rights Reserved<br> + <br> + Printed in the U. S. A. +</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> +<nav> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="TABLE_OF_CONTENTS"> + TABLE OF CONTENTS + </h2> +</div> + +<table> + <tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="x-ebookmaker-important">BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_vii">vii</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">I.</td><td>THE BIRTH OF HUMANISM</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">II.</td><td>A PORTRAIT OF OUR AGE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">III.</td><td>THE MAN OF POISE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">IV.</td><td>THE NEW BATTLE OF THE BOOKS</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_53">53</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">V.</td><td>THE CLASSICAL REVIVAL ABROAD</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">VI.</td><td>A CREATIVE CONCEPTION OF MAN</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">VII.</td><td>THE DISCIPLINE OF HUMANISM</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_130">130</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">VIII.</td><td>SCIENCE AND THE MODERN MAN</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_167">167</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">IX.</td><td>EDUCATION AND LEADERSHIP</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_190">190</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">X.</td><td>HUMANISM, ECONOMICS, POLITICS</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_208">208</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">XI.</td><td>THE DILEMMA OF THE LIBERATED</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_252">252</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">XII.</td><td>THE END OF THE TETHER</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_284">284</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr"></td><td>ACKNOWLEDGMENTS</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_302">302</a></td></tr> +</table> +</nav> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">[vii]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak x-ebookmaker-important" id="BY_WAY_OF_INTRODUCTION"> + BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION + </h2> +</div> +<p class="center larger">A LETTER OF DEDICATION TO SEWARD B. COLLINS, ESQ’RE.</p> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Seward</span>:</p> + +<p>For two years I have cherished the wish to offer you, +out of gratitude and friendship, some product of my pen. +But I did not dream two years ago, or even one year ago, +that I should write a book on a subject so near your heart +as American Humanism. Lately, however, there has been +a great acceleration of events in our country’s intellectual +life; unexpectedly soon the moment has ripened for a +full-length study of the creative possibilities of the New +Humanism. Now it is doubly appropriate to dedicate +this study to you: I gratify a private desire, and I give +a public recognition of the large part you yourself, as +editor of the <cite>Bookman</cite>, have performed in bringing the +ideas of P. E. More and Irving Babbitt and their colleagues +before the eyes of the general reading public.</p> + +<p>This work of yours I say is a very important service to +American literature in its present condition. At no time +myself an orthodox Humanist, I nonetheless felt six or +seven years ago, when I first read the <cite>Shelburne Essays</cite> +and Professor Babbitt’s massive works, that here was +criticism our literary world could not ignore without +grave loss, and I set myself to do what I could to bring +this criticism out of the academic shadows to which it +had been consigned by the main romantic movement of +post-war America and to advance it to the very center of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">[viii]</span>our literary stage. In this effort I was of course merely a +symptom of a change in temper and direction and ideals +that was gradually taking place in many young Americans +who came to feel that there was something disastrously +ill-informed and disappointingly shallow in the +revolt-literature of the ’Twenties. At any rate, there has +finally occurred in literary criticism a reaction toward +“style and order,” not alone in letters but in life, and we +can now say that the doctrine of the New Humanists is +decidedly under scrutiny by every one who professes to +be seriously interested in the welfare of our literature.</p> + +<p>Let the literary battles over Humanism go on and +may they wax hotter! Strength of opposition is good for +all parties concerned, and the development in our literary +world of a strong orthodox classical party like the +New Humanists is sure to call forth from our naturalistic +thinkers and artists greater efforts, and efforts on a more +difficult level of thought, than those they have felt inclined +to make in the last fifteen years. But—as you tell +your readers in the <cite>Bookman</cite>—American Humanism is +not essentially or solely a literary school. It offers a comprehensive +critique of modern civilization: it has studied +our problems of education, politics, manners, morals, and +science, as well as literary tendencies: it is preëminently +concerned with the question, <em>how to live</em>, and it believes +that it has the commencement of a sound program for the +intelligent conduct of life.</p> + +<p>How to live? That undying question has always given +rise to hornèd problems. Walter Lippmann, not long +ago, showed ably how the traditional controls of our lives +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">[ix]</span>have been abolished or appear to have been abolished; +with the same ability he outlined the quandaries of the +modern man who has been born into the Kingdom of +Whirl after the joy of breaking images has gone out of +the land and no new goal for existence has shiningly +presented itself. “What is there in the back of our heads,” +Lippmann asked, “which keeps telling us that life as we +find it is not what it ought to be?” This is his reply: +“It is a deep conviction that happiness is possible, and all +inquiry into the foundations of morals turns ultimately +upon whether man can achieve this happiness by pursuing +his desires, or whether he must first learn to desire the +kind of happiness which is possible.” There you have +what may be termed the dilemma of the emancipated +man. The intelligent modern man feels liberated from +petty social conventions, narrow theological views, discredited +authorities, the grosser popular superstitions, but +liberated for what? Only, it seems, to face a darkened +problem of choices, with many strong reasons for distrusting +every alternative offered. Shall he follow some most +recent form of naturalism such as D. H. Lawrence +preached? He is impressed by its passionateness, but it +also has a fanatic sound to him; it appears to delimit man, +to deny too much in man’s constitution that seems to +promise more abundant life to him who develops it. +Shall he, on the other hand, seek out some surviving +moral discipline or some new asceticism? But which +one and how well founded on science and commonsense +are these preserved or refurbished disciplines?</p> + +<p>Well, the New Humanism has much to say on such +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_x">[x]</span>a dilemma as this, much to say on the great central +moral question, how to live as a being bearing the proud-sounding +name of Man ought to live; and for this reason +it is proper to call contemporary Humanism a modern +morality and to say that it commends itself to persons who, +besides reading for pleasure or information, read to live.</p> + +<p>It is such persons, men and women of the world who +resort to books with the real intention of clarifying their +lives by reading, that I wish to address. They are free +from that malady to which the “literary person” so frequently +succumbs, namely, living for reading and writing. +This person’s mind then becomes merely a great heap of +literary associations, all very useful, if only he had obtained +a few central ideas, if only he had kept a grip on +life as the foremost thing and resolutely kept his reading +in its proper place as “the great stimulus to life.” The +man of the world, on the other hand, has other faults, but +he is sensible in what he demands of books. He wants the +essentials of a doctrine and he wants them purged of special +terminology: he wants to see the doctrine’s practical +implications lighted up: he wants to see the cardinal teachings +properly groomed to appear before the bar of commonsense. +That is why in the following pages I have +avoided as much as possible the debates and wrangles of +scholarship and have tried for compactness, clearness, +simplicity, and practicality in the exposition of the master-ideas +of Babbitt and More.</p> + +<p>Truly, they are pregnant ideas. My first aim in this +book has been to show their remarkable specific gravity +and how they sink to the bottom of one’s mind. There, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xi">[xi]</span>it seems to me, they give birth to questions of the utmost +importance to the individual. They raise questions relating +to his world-view, to his psychology, and to his aspirations +in character. The mind is agitated in a new way +and so led to take new approaches to old problems: the +experience of past mankind and our contemporary experience +operate on each other with profit in the way of +self-understanding and the understanding of modern society. +Many of the questions thus aroused are of a religious +character, and my second object has been to discuss +them and in so doing naturally to pass from the field of +morals to the field of religion. Religion, “that deepest +voice of human experience,” according to Matthew Arnold—what +has it to say of the ideals of the New Humanism +and the humanistic way of life? What has religion +even now to say to the skeptical modern man disposed to +give ear to new moral doctrines?</p> + +<p>In what we would reply here, my respected dedicatee, I +foresee a wide divergence in our future paths. Possibly +not however. But on that part of the journey which we +have traveled together I wish to say I have known no +other companion so gay in mind, so unswerving and unafraid +in practice, so ardent in understanding of the tenets +of American Humanism as you to whom this book is +tendered.</p> + +<p>In the language beloved by the Humanists of the Renascence,</p> + +<p class="center"> + <i lang="la">Sum ut semper, tui studiossimus</i>, +</p> + +<p class="right"> + <span class="smcap">Gorham Munson.</span> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> + <i>March 17, 1930,<br> + New York, N.Y.</i> +</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_BIRTH_OF_HUMANISM"> + I<br> + THE BIRTH OF HUMANISM + </h2> +</div> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>“As is well known, the word humanist was applied, +first in the Italy of the fifteenth century, and later in +other European countries, to the type of scholar who +was not only proficient in Greek and Latin, but who +at the same time inclined to prefer the humanity of +the great classical writers to what seemed to him the +excess of divinity in the mediævals. This contrast +between humanity and divinity was often conceived +very superficially. However, the best of the humanists +were not content with opposing a somewhat +external imitation of the Ciceronian or Virgilian elegance +to the scholastic carelessness of form. They +actually caught a glimpse of the fine proportionateness +of the ancients at their best. They were thus +encouraged to aim at a harmonious development of +their faculties in this world rather than at an otherworldly +felicity. Each faculty, they held, should be +cultivated in due measure without one-sidedness or +over-emphasis, whether that of the ascetic or that of +the specialist.”</i>—<span class="smcap">Irving Babbitt</span> in <cite>Humanism and +America</cite>.</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p>It requires an unusual effort for us to admit that there +was something mysterious operating in the deeps of the +Middle Ages, and again that well below the surface of +the Renascence there seem to have been strange forces. +We look with wonderment at the twelfth and thirteenth +centuries in Europe—at that uncompleted Cathedral of +the Intellect designed by St. Thomas Aquinas, at the ordering +and altitude of emotion in Dante, at that philosophy +of action called Chivalry; but few of us can refrain +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span>from ready interpretations. Very few can sit in the Cathedral +of Chartres and sincerely arrive at the conclusion +which Henry Adams reached after long saturation beneath +its influences. That conclusion, highly remarkable +as coming from a modern man and therefore worthy of +italic print, was given by Adams all the advantages of +emphatic position. It was couched in the surprising final +clause of a lengthy sentence at the end of one of his chapters +in <cite lang="fr">Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres</cite>, his elaborate +homage to the splendor of mediæval times. I shall let +Adams lead up to it.</p> + +<p>“Sitting here any Sunday afternoon, while the voices +of the children of the maîtrise are chanting in the choir,—your +mind held in the grasp of the strong lines and shadows +of the architecture; your eyes flooded with the autumn +tones of the glass; your ears drowned with the +purity of the voices; one sense reacting upon another until +sensation reaches the limit of its range,—you, or any +other lost soul, could, if you cared to look and listen, feel +a sense beyond the human ready to reveal a sense divine +that would make that world once more intelligible, and +would bring the Virgin to life again, in all the depths of +feeling which she shows here,—in lines, vaults, chapels, +colours, legends, chants,—more eloquent than the prayer-book, +and more beautiful than the autumn sunlight; and +any one willing to try could feel it like the child, reading +new thought without end into the art he has studied a +hundred times; <em>but what is still more convincing, he +could, at will, in an instant, shatter the whole art by calling +into it a single motive of his own</em>.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span></p> + +<p>But, as though in obedience to some undivined law, the +marvellous unity of the Middle Ages, sustained in +Adams’s judgment by motives so foreign and incomprehensible +to us, began to crumble. The spirit began to +withdraw and the forms to change into formalism. +There was less inwardness. Corruption and decline set +in, and then fairly suddenly the disintegration of culture +was arrested and a new growth took place to make resplendent +the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Renascence +was in part a great revolt against <em>decayed</em> scholasticism +and the views of man and the world it upheld, and +in part the fulfilment of fresh impulses generated by the +apostles of the New Learning, the study of classical literature. +This period too baffles us: we meet with so many +enigmatic figures! To take a famous instance, who has +ever made a plausible business of explaining the character +of Francis Bacon? Enigma he was and enigma he remains, +a man whose range of motivation outspans our +most inspired conjectures.</p> + +<p>But this strangeness is not all that defies our efforts at +understanding. We need to suspend judgment, but the +difficulties of remaining in suspended judgment are magnified +in a way that has been set forth by an English amateur +of philosophy, the late T. E. Hulme, whose reputation +in America incidentally has never matched his +deserts. Authentically, Hulme was a young intellectual +giant, and his death in the Great War was a grievous +casualty for contemporary philosophy. But fragmentary +as his writings are, one essay in his posthumous book, +<cite>Speculations</cite>, is said to have done more to clarify the mind +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span>of his generation in England than any other essay in recent +years. This influential paper is called <cite>Humanism +and the Religious Attitude</cite>, and some of its striking ideas +are very much to our present purpose. Hulme opened by +boldly declaring that the modern emancipated and instructed +man shrinks from the idea of discontinuities. +Such a man, he said, is wedded to the theory of evolution +and the doctrine of progress, two sisters, and so he +abhors the notion of a gap, a real chasm, existing in the +scheme of life. In fine, the modern man takes a principle +of continuity to be, not just a convenience in certain fields +of thought, but an absolute fact. He therefore very frequently +denies a discontinuity between Nature and Man +and invariably between Man and the Absolute.</p> + +<p>But the Middle Ages believed in a discontinuity between +Man and absolute values in religion and ethics. +They believed, that is to say, in Original Sin and in +placing perfection far above the human plane. That is +what makes those ages so hard for us to comprehend. +But in the Renascence, according to Hulme, this discontinuity +was denied: man was declared not radically bad, +but worthy, and things perfect were brought down and +mingled with things on the human plane. Where there +had been the mediæval religious spirit, now appeared the +modern humanistic temper—and the two were utterly +different! In its later manifestations we can understand +the latter, but in the Renascence, in men like Manuel +Chrysoloras, Pico della Mirandola, and Leonardo da +Vinci, we are haunted by the enigmatic.</p> + +<p>What secrets they had, we cannot probe after now, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span>even if we had fresh clues. What is incontrovertible is +that we inherit that part of the Renascence which was a +revolt against mediævalism. The fifteenth century +founders of Humanism gave the Western World nothing +less than a new <i lang="de">weltanschauung</i>. What that world-view +is and what the Romantic world-conception is which has +sprung up in the last one hundred and fifty years to challenge +it, I shall try to expose in the following pages. +Then in the concluding chapters, after discussing Romanticism +and Humanism, I wish to return to Religion and +to consider the radical difference Hulme alleged to exist +between the humanistic temper and the religious spirit.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>When we have a single name to cover related but highly +variegated phenomena, we tend after a time to think of +the phenomena as being uniform because the one name +covers them all. So today when an editorial writer mentions +the Humanists of the Renascence, he often sounds +as if he considered all of them to have been turned out on +very much the same pattern. There is some excuse then +for a brief collection of data showing that such was not +the case any more than a rigid uniformity characterizes +the Humanists of the twentieth century. Humanism now +and formerly is essentially broad and flexible, and the +reader must divest himself of narrow preconceptions if +he hopes to encompass the subject. For dispelling a contemporary +prejudice in favor of uniformity, a mere glance +at the variety of fifteenth and sixteenth century Humanism +will be enough, even though we take in only the best +known facts.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span></p> + +<p>The earliest Humanists appeared in Italy, and principally +in Florence under the patronage of Cosimo de’ +Medici. Scholars like Manuel Chrysoloras and Poggio +Bracciolini had delved into the treasures of ancient Greece +and Rome and had risen ecstatically. In 1453 the fall of +Constantinople released the old manuscripts in greater +profusion: the new springs of life welled up gloriously. +Men in the most powerful places like Pope Nicholas V became +supporters of the new cult of <i lang="la">literae humaniores</i>. +But as the New Learning spread, its secular spirit became +more evident, and the Church found itself assaulted by +some Humanists, Lorenzo Valla, for example, who stood +boldly for paganism and asserted the chief good to be +pleasure. Others—the most celebrated is Pico della Mirandola +(1463–1494)—sought to blend Christianity with +Platonism. Generally speaking, Italian Humanism had +a pronounced æsthetic character, but we must not therefore +think of these seminal figures in the dreamy fashion +of Walter Pater. His languid essay on Pico is the least +fitted thing to do justice to this man’s power of inspiring +others to love the New Learning. You would never guess +from Pater that Pico della Mirandola was reputed to have +had such a powerful mind and memory that he retained +perfectly on a single reading the entire language and +meaning of any text he read. Pico was only thirty-one +when he died on the day the French king, Charles the +Eighth, entered Florence, but he had done the work of a +giant. Enthusiasts had carried his influence throughout +Europe: he had fertilized an age.</p> + +<p>In every country where it took root, Humanism assumed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span>national characteristics and applied itself to differing +tasks. In Spain, in France, in England and in Germany +each movement was <i lang="la">sui generis</i>—a point to +remember today when we observe the classical revivals +going on in France, England and the United States. The +Action Française, the work of Belloc and Chesterton, +American Humanism have all, in spite of many important +differences, a family resemblance which will concern us +later. But now glancing back at Spain in the Renascence, +it is Cardinal Ximenes (1436?-1517) whom most readers +will recall and his establishment of the University of +Alcalá, that university from which in 1514 was to come +the first Greek text of the New Testament ever printed. +A little afterwards came the renowned Polyglot Bible, +made under the direction of the Cardinal and published +at his personal expense.</p> + +<p>In France from the beginning Humanism was tinged +with Catholic heresy. There was Jacques Lefevre of +Etaples (1455–1537), whose <cite>Commentary on the Epistles +of St. Paul</cite> in 1512 is regarded as a distinct enunciation of +the doctrine of justification by faith alone. There was +Guillaume Budé (1467–1540), whose studies were almost +entirely secular; he was excelled by no one in his time +for scholarship in Greek and Latin. There was finally +François Rabelais (1495?-1555?), the colossal laughing incarnation +of the French humanistic spirit.</p> + +<p>In Germany and England the Humanists appear to +have struck graver notes and to have been more concerned +with social reform. American Humanism today +bears at least this external resemblance to the Humanism +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span>of William Grocyn, Thomas Linacre and Sir Thomas +More: namely, it is greatly concerned with public education. +Perhaps the most typical English Humanist was +John Colet (1467?-1519) who founded St. Paul’s School +in London. And American Humanism has an external +resemblance to the Renascence form of Humanism in +Germany in that the contemporary form is likewise primarily +a movement inside the universities. The famous +names in Germany are Johann Reuchlin (1455–1522), +Ulrich Von Hutten (1488–1523), and the artist Albrecht +Dürer (1471–1528). Reuchlin, around whom, provoked +by his defence of the Jews, a storm broke that swept him +for trial to Rome itself, is especially noteworthy, for he +indicates by his study of Hebrew and the <cite>Kabbalah</cite> (a +wonderful text to Pico, too) the variety of the sources of +inspiration the Humanists discovered. Ulrich Von Hutten, +militant pamphleteer, sided with the Protestant +Reformation, whereas as is well known many Humanists +liked Calvin no better than they liked obscurantist monks.</p> + +<p>With that fact let us close what is clearly not intended +to be a comprehensive survey of Renascence Humanism +or an evaluation of it, but only the presentment of enough +data to recall the great complexity of the early Humanists. +All that is designed is to direct attention to their +heterogeneity, to remember that some were against Aristotle +and others favored him, some were for paganism, +others for Catholicism, and others for the Reformation, +some were of singular purity, others were gay worldlings +in personal morals. National traits altered the colors of +Humanism, and the places of emphasis, as we have seen, +shifted from country to country, here being found in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span>arts, there in education, and there in religious reform. +It is a warning to us—this complexity in historical Humanism—not +to expect a sameness, or an exceedingly close +approximation to each other, in the manifestations of +contemporary Humanists. Historically, the humanistic +temper was broad: we shall come to see the wide latitude +of a similar temper today.</p> + +<p>And yet historians are right in applying one name to +all these diverse men from Petrarch in Italy to Luis Vives +in Spain, for all felt powerfully the attraction of one +leading idea. That idea the modern world has agreed to +call “the dignity of man,” and it is customary to go to the +<cite>Oration on the Dignity of Man</cite> composed by Pico della +Mirandola for the most eloquent phrasing of it. “Then +the Supreme Being decreed that unto Man, on whom He +could bestow nought singular, should belong in common +whatsoever had been given to His other creatures. Therefore +He took man, made in His own individual image, +and having placed him in the center of the world, spake +to him thus: ‘Neither a fixed abode, nor a form in thine +own likeness, nor any gift peculiar to thyself alone, have +we given thee, O Adam, in order that what abode, what +likeness, what gifts thou shalt choose, may be thine to +have and to possess. The nature allotted to all other creatures, +within laws appointed by ourselves, restrains them. +Thou, restrained by no narrow bonds, according to thy +own free will, in whose power I have placed thee, shalt +define thy nature for thyself. I have set thee midmost +the world, that thence thou mightest the more conveniently +survey whatever is in the world. Nor have we +made thee, either heavenly or earthly, mortal or immortal, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span>to the end that thou, being, as it were, thy own free +maker and moulder, shouldst fashion thyself in what +form may like thee best. Thou shalt have power to decline +unto the lower or brute creatures. Thou shalt have +power to be reborn unto the higher, or divine, according +to the sentence of thy intellect.’ Thus to Man, at his +birth, the Father gave seeds of all variety and germs of +every form of life.”</p> + +<p>Closely observed, this passage yields the following +statements. Man is a being of extraordinary elasticity, for +he subsumes the various kingdoms of nature, animal, vegetable +and inorganic. Man is not <em>given</em> stability or a center +within himself, but he may acquire them. He can +do so because he has will and potentialities to develop. +His dignity consists in the fact that whereas other creatures +must obey their destiny, he can have an active part +in forming his. His way lies between the brute and the +divine: he can sink into the former or he can be reborn +into the latter. To be human is to be midmost. Pico has +thus written—it may be noted here—an epigraph for the +New Humanism.</p> + +<p>In passing, however, some questions should be raised. +Do the New Humanists, who proclaim afresh the dignity +of man, distribute the weight of their thought and emotion +quite as evenly as did Pico? On the idea of rebirth, +for instance, and all that it implies of revolution in personal +psychology, do they not walk lightly or step carefully +away from it? “The higher, or divine”—did it not +tend to drop out of Renascence Humanism in its later +stages, and today does it not fail to attract the best thought +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span>or the most passionate endeavors of our Humanists? Yet +all, new and old, stand for man’s dignity and would agree +that Pico della Mirandola has given the <em>poetic</em> formulation +of their faith.</p> + +<p>How would their faith be phrased intellectually? Happily, +we may resort to T. E. Hulme for that. “It seems +as if,” he says, “no sooner had Copernicus shown that +man was not the center of the universe, than the philosophers +commenced for the first time to prove that he was. +You get expressed explicitly, for the first time (in Pico +della Mirandola for example), this idea of the sufficiency +of natural man, and it has generally been assumed by all +philosophers since. It may be expressed in very different +languages and with very different degrees of profundity, +but even Hegel and Condorcet are one from this +point of view.” The self-sufficiency of the natural man—there +is a key idea we must grasp. I object to a precise +equating of Hulme’s phrase with Pico’s eloquence on the +dignity of man, but, leaving out the references to divine +order and rebirth, the phrase is fairly close to an intellectual +equivalent. Self-sufficiency is the central idea <em>we</em> +have inherited from the Renascence, and for millions of +men it has effaced the mediæval idea of the insufficiency +of the natural man and the need for Grace to visit him +as a basically bad creature. The dignity of man understood +as the self-sufficiency of the natural man, <em>and by +natural man is meant one not reborn</em>, is the foundation +idea for all modern Humanism.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span></p> + +<p>In the foregoing sketch I did not mention the man who +is inevitably associated by every one with Renascence +Humanism—Desiderius Erasmus. That was because I +wish the reader to observe him now in a particular connection. +Let us look briefly at the crisis in Christendom +produced by the emotional revolt of Martin Luther. Up +to 1521 when Luther shouted, “I should go to Worms +were there as many devils there as tiles upon the roofs,” +Erasmus had held a commanding position in Europe. +Europe was then, intellectually and morally, a single +community. Latin was the common language binding +together all intellectual contributions and there was one +Church for all the peoples. Erasmus had risen from his +illegitimate birth in Rotterdam, his convent education, +and his straitness of means, to be a friendly counsellor +of King and Pope, a master of Latin style, an illuminated +traveler throughout Europe to exchange light with +its best minds. As every one knows, he addressed himself +to the emancipation of the individual, expecting that +from the increase of enlightened individuals would eventually +issue religious as well as social reform. The evil +of the time he ascribed to ignorance: he combated it with +genial raillery and suave satire, making always an appeal +for truth, temperate procedure, and tolerance.</p> + +<p>Now think of the man who was described by Erasmus +in a letter “as a necessary evil in the corruption of the +Church; a medicine, bitter and drastic, from which +sounder health would follow.” Martin Luther’s career is +familiar to every one; how he was severely beaten at +home and at school during his childhood, how he sang +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span>for alms at the University of Erfurt, how his friend was +slain at his side by lightning and the young student’s subsequent +terrified flight into an Augustine monastery, how +there he was distinguished by zeal, how he was disenchanted +in his pilgrimage to Rome, how afterwards he +was made a professor of philosophy at the University of +Wittenberg, how finally he opposed Tetzel on the latter’s +mission of selling indulgences and dispensations and +wrote out against such practices the famous ninety-five +propositions which led eventually to excommunication; +all these circumstances have been rehearsed hundreds of +times in tones of admiration or detestation for the man +who experienced them. Certainly in contrast to Erasmus’s, +Luther’s life seems lurid. And undoubtedly the +conventional Protestant account of the Reformer can +stand much correction, but we need only note what unmistakably +stands out in the characters of the Reformer +and the great Humanist.</p> + +<p>Carlyle had excellent reason to call Luther the Christian +Odin, the right Thor: the man is impressive by his power +in action, by his great and often harsh energy, by the force +and sometimes violence of his feelings. He is <em>not</em> impressive +because of his mind. Let us hear Luther himself +denounce the reason which he grants is indeed of utility +in practical affairs but refuses to call good beyond that +realm. “Reason,” he thundered in his last sermon at +Wittenberg near the close of his life, “is the devil’s greatest +whore; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious +whore; she is a prostitute, the devil’s appointed +whore; a whore eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span>be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom.” +And on another occasion he said: “Reason is +directly opposed to faith, and one ought to let it be; in +believers it should be killed and buried.” This clearly is +not the accent of the Renascence Humanist who objected +to pseudo-intellectualism but never to the idea that there +is a right employment of reason in the highest matters. +Nor did the Humanist throw his weight so vehemently +upon the emotions and in particular upon faith as did +Luther. “We can say,” remarks Jacques Maritain, one of +the best Catholic philosophers today, “that Luther is the +first great Romantic”—and despite Luther’s strong religious +disposition, Maritain makes this remark seem +plausible.</p> + +<p>Erasmus is the antithesis to Luther. He was an active +practical man, but we never think of him as an exponent +of energetics; he was mature and full in his feelings, but +not violent or overflowing in turbulence; he was an able +reasoner but not gone mad on metaphysical refinements. +What strikes us about Erasmus is not the greatness or intensity +of any one of his faculties, but the fair degree of +harmony in the development and operations of all of +them. He is the typical Humanist because of his proportionateness. +He had the supreme humanist virtue, and +that is mellow commonsense.</p> + +<p>The crisis came, and a large part of Europe followed +the impassioned Luther into the Reformation. Erasmus, +observing the defects of Luther, his lack of balance, his +lack of reason in the best sense, could not join his forces, +nor could he fight blindly and hotly on the Catholic side. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>Neither was the way of mellow commonsense, and he +who had been the prince of the European mind retired +helplessly to Basle while the struggle worked up its violence. +He had his major defect too. Not a weakling in +feeling, he yet had not the tremendous force of emotion +required to play an effective part in the great proceedings +of history. He was even able to say in a letter +to Archbishop Warham: “As for me, I have no inclination +to risk my life for truth. We have not all strength +for martyrdom; and if trouble come, I shall imitate St. +Peter. Popes and emperors must settle the creeds. If they +settle them well, so much the better; if ill, I shall keep on +the safe side.” But no place was safe for a champion of +moderation. “Every goose,” he wrote from Basle, “now +hisses at Erasmus; and it is worse than being stoned, once +for all, like Stephen, or shot with arrows like Sebastian.”</p> + +<p>Did Europe take the wrong turning when it ignored +the pleas of Erasmus,—then past sixty, suffering with the +stone, grieving over the execution of his friends, More and +Fisher, a beclouded luminary,—and plunged recklessly +into the work of breaking up its moral and intellectual +unity? In retrospective wisdom Goethe thought so. +Goethe regretted that Erasmus and men like him could +not have retained the direction of the mind of Europe: +he thought that Luther had thrown back the intellectual +progress of mankind for centuries by appealing to the +passions of the multitude to decide on subjects which +ought to have been left to the learned. That question +we do not have to debate here. Luther for worse or better +is one of the makers of our modern world, and our pressing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span>question is, what is the rôle of mellow commonsense, +the great humanistic virtue, amid the confusions of our +age? Should we, the heirs of those who went with +Luther, now turn for light and example to Erasmus?</p> + +<p>Fixing in our minds the several considerations dwelt on +in this opening up of our subject—the absolute distinction +between Religion and Humanism, the intricacy of +historical Humanism, the conception of man as self-sufficient +for the unifying of himself, and ripened commonsense +as the prime virtue of Humanism—let us now leap +to the present and examine what sort of society we belong +to and how we conceive of the world and of ourselves.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="II"> + II + <br> + A PORTRAIT OF OUR AGE + </h2> +</div> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>“A highly unified age may offer examples of highly +unified personalities; but there is likely to exist in the +individual of today the same confused conflict of +tendencies that we see in the larger world.”</i>—<span class="smcap">Irving +Babbitt</span> in <cite>Literature and the American College</cite>.</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p>Some Humanist yet to be, inspired by the model of Erasmus’s +<cite>In Praise of Folly</cite>, will write successfully a rival +piece on our follies for the delectation of later ages. The +future Erasmus will likely call his genial dissolvent <cite>In +Praise of Modernity</cite>: in it he will conjure up the Spirit of +Progress and constrain her to deliver a panegyric of all +our modern excesses. But the loquacious Spirit of Progress +could never accomplish that task in less space than a +book, and a single chapter is our limit for a broad sketch +of our age. It is not for us then to be indirect and ironical, +but to find without loss of time some simple clear mirror +for the reflection of the plain facts of our period. Where +shall such a mirror be found? Nowhere better, it seems +to me, than in the outlook on life of the typical general +reader, in the outlook of such a person as G. R., whom I +shall briefly describe.</p> + +<p>G. R. in his forties is a respected and successful lawyer. +In his college days he wrote verse: in fact, he was Class +Poet at Commencement, but soon afterwards he lost interest +in his courtship of the Muse. He continued, however, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span>to read rather widely and with the object of keeping +abreast of new developments in thought and art. You +will find his name among the subscribers to the Theatre +Guild and on the mailing lists of our best liberal weeklies.</p> + +<p>As I have indicated, G. R. is successful. His comfortable +duplex apartment in the east Seventies of New York city +bears witness to his rise in the world, and out on Long +Island he has acquired a remodelled farmhouse for weekends +and summertime. His three sons attend a private +school inspired by the educational ideas of John Dewey. +Their father to a casual acquaintance is not very different +from some tens of thousands of other substantial well-educated +American men. Like them he gets a little bored +by the baiting tactics of H. L. Mencken: like them he +enjoys driving a car and playing golf regularly. He still +awaits being put into American fiction with the same +distinctness that certain types he despises, such as the +George F. Babbitts, have been limned.</p> + +<p>G. R., now that much of his youthful idealism has been +found inappropriate to the facts of his existence, has the +strong impression that we are all floundering about in the +present era. And this impression of his is certainly a generally +diffused opinion. In a time of floundering our first +consideration must be to get at the plain realities of our +condition, and that is why I have recourse to G. R., on +whose mind and feelings they seem most clearly imprinted. +He is susceptible to the main currents of modern +life, but not being unduly specialized, he does not show +traces of these currents that are highly peculiar to himself.</p> + +<p>Singularity is the fault of many explanations that are +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span>being offered of why we are floundering and how we may +take arms against our sea of troubles. These explanations +come from economists, sociologists, psychiatrists, political +students and other specialists. They often apply correctly +to aspects of our confusion, but, coming from specialists, +they necessarily tend to be recondite. And what they seek +to explain and remedy, namely the easily recognized and +very widespread state of mind and feeling which G. R. +epitomizes, is not recondite at all. Why not then, as I +have suggested, make a direct report, involving no detailed +knowledge of economics or social theory, of what +G. R. and the rest of us can all be aware of in terms of +daily personal experience? Surely it seems best when we +are floundering to imitate the Socratic example, to turn +to the common mind, to trust in sound sense, before we +repeat as our own the views of some specialized pleader.</p> + +<p>What gives us all, G. R. has often inquired, this persistent +feeling of blindly living along without a compass? +The first part of the reply is easy. Involuntarily, we have +looked to Society for a compass and it is patent that Society +offers none. It has moulded us, directed us, tossed +us about in its channels: that we know, and we continue +to feel its multitudinous pressures every day. But Society +does not show us, nor has it shown us, any central ideal +for its collective self and for its individual members. +Ideals there are in abundance, the ideals of professions +and institutions, but a master ideal ruling over them +there is not. There is competition of ideals, but no sovereign +aim subordinating all other aims in life to itself. +“Whirl is king, having driven out Zeus”—we need not +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span>wonder that this has become for us a meaningful quotation.</p> + +<p>If you are a lawyer like G. R., you live up to a code of +legal ethics; if you are a physician, you encounter a standard +of good medical practice; if you are a scientist, you +know what the scientific ideal is: yet you do not in those +professions or in other occupations or in the churches +find an intelligent standard of living for all men to which +common assent is given. That implies a great deal more +than most people realize. It is saying that there is no central +significance in the lives we are living. Society tells +us of none, and there is only conflict and confusion on +our most important concerns as human beings. Let G. R. +ask of Society: what is the meaning of my existence? +what is the true aim of my existence? Society can only +reply: I am not at present organized about any answers +to these questions. You must fulfil obligations to me, but +I acknowledge no obligation to you as an individual in +the matter of spiritual guidance. That, my dear sir, is +your personal outlook. Take your choice, if you like, +among a variety of conflicting opinions, but none of them +have my ultimate sanction.</p> + +<p>Of course, as G. R. often fails to remember, such a state +of affairs has not always been. It was not so in ancient +Palestine, not so in ancient Egypt, not so in the Middle +Ages in Europe. Many times in history has Society returned +to its members a full coherent reply, right or +wrong, to the prime question of the individual, what is +the significance and aim of my existence? It has, first of +all, defined the social duties of the individual, but afterwards +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span>it has admitted that it in turn existed to further the +primary aim of the individual. Not today.</p> + +<p>This, the complete failure of contemporary Society to +declare Truth and found itself on it, is clearly the first +cause of our sense of confusion. It is not that we are out +of harmony with Society’s declaration of Truth: it is that +we know that Society is rather helplessly established on +Pilate’s question and certainly it washes its hands of the +business. Whether it is possible or desirable for Society +now to give a single answer to the question, why are we +alive, is an entirely different consideration. In bringing +out the fact that our Society does not hold up a standard +of Truth, I would not wish to be understood as meaning +that Tibet is superior to America because it is unified in a +religious way we are not. Far from that! What is being +driven at now is simply the ineluctable fact that American +Society does not promote an authoritative conception of +spiritual life, and the result of this, be it good or bad, is +competition and confusion of ideals.</p> + +<p>Bad it may be, for if man cannot have the real thing, it +is notorious he will take substitutes. We are held together +not by a grand ideal which is both social and individualistic, +but by a number of pseudo-ideals winning mass-acceptance. +What are they? Study our national behavior, +and because it is obviously standardized you will +have no trouble discerning what our brazen images are.</p> + +<p>G. R.’s mind, for example, is typical of most of us in +that it is soaked in the dogma of social progress. A very +compact statement of this dogma was once given in the +process of criticizing it by Robert Shafer, one of the New +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span>Humanists. “Social progress has become,” he said, “a +species of popular religion of which the chief articles of +belief are: that earthly life is in and for itself a good +thing, that terrestrial happiness is possible for all men, +that applied science and industry have given us the means +for abundant enjoyment, and that it is now the task of +social science and government so to order our common +life that toil shall not rest heavily upon any of us and that +the means of enjoyment shall be equally open to all. It is, +moreover, generally believed not only that terrestrial happiness +is possible for all men, but that it is infallibly coming +to pass—that is, that social science and government +are bound to succeed in their task.”</p> + +<p>That this is really our credo, our actions as well as our +words testify. We say nowadays that we “accept life.” +Why we accepted it and for what we accept it, we do not +clearly know; so we say that life in itself is good. Our +actions furthermore make us all out to be believers in the +attainment of widespread terrestrial happiness. Our forefathers +may have dreamed about laying up treasure in +heaven, but not we. For we can point with great faith to +a means for abundant enjoyment here and now: we point +to applied science and industry. They are to reduce toil +for us, toil, we are quite sure, being a main cause of +unhappiness. With more leisure we shall be happier, for +then we shall be able to amuse ourselves, as we say, and +to enjoy comfort.</p> + +<p>But how external all this is! Precisely. For some reason +we feel that the way to improve man is to improve +the environment by means of applied science and the better +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span>organization of industry. This, we think, will increase +the sum of happiness. It does not matter whether we are +captains of industry or social rebels: we are both thinking +in terms of changing the environment, and neither of us +has even a faint perception of a simultaneous need to improve +man directly by an inward transformation. That is +why I call the doctrine of social progress, whether it is +framed by a member of the Republican party or of the +Socialist, a pseudo-ideal, for it promises only more leisure, +not a use of leisure conducive to human happiness. It +does not implant a new motive in us but inspires the belief +that our old motives will receive fuller scope for action, +and by so receiving this larger scope, we shall be made +happy.</p> + +<p>So the environment is the focus of our energies. We +aim to complete our conquest of Nature, as we say. But +in the process of subduing the natural world, we have, +many people believe, got ourselves organized into an intolerable +plutocracy. This scheme of social organization +must be revised or transformed to give better opportunities +for material enjoyment to all members of society. +Then, and only then, so the meliorists of environment and +society assure us, will it be possible for the individual to +work directly at self-improvement.</p> + +<p>It is worth repeating the question of the individual +under any and all conditions of human existence. I will +do so in the words of the late Stuart P. Sherman, who as a +thoughtful young man went to Society and books with +the question that comes to all thoughtful young men, “Is +life worth living, and for what purpose?” He found, as +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span>we all have found, no grandly framed answer by Society +to this question, no consensus of all intelligent men today, +no reply that appealed at the same time powerfully to +the mind and the heart and was furthermore associated +with a practical way of life. Sherman then gave up the +question and, as if under hypnotic suggestion, put forth +another, “Assuming that life is worth living, what are its +durable satisfactions?” Under hypnotic suggestion, I +said, for in truth our relation as individuals to Society +should not be described as a reasonable one but as that of +subject to hypnotist. An answer to the first question, is +life worth living, and for what purpose, is not to be +plucked down from our social atmosphere, but our air +swarms with the assumptions that life <em>is</em> worth living, that +it is good in and for itself, that terrestrial happiness is possible. +We have not to question the basis of life but only +to discover durable satisfactions.</p> + +<p>But Society as hypnotist rules us in this search too. We +all become members, it appears, of the cult of distractions +and comfort. No? Look again at what we actually do, +observe our national behavior. Sherman did just this: he +said, in pursuit of his second question, let us see what +Americans spend their money for, since we spend for +what we believe in, since our expenditure is an act of +faith. Well, he found that we as a nation spend heavily +for plumbing, for bodily health, for university education, +for automobiles, for organized athletics, and for advertising +and publicity purposes. He put, it is true, an optimistic +and sentimental interpretation on these facts. +What his list shows, however, is that our center of gravity +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span>is in the practical life, and that we are addicts to the pursuit +of comfort and pastimes. “I can’t think,” said Sherman, +referring to college sports stadia-building, “of any +more significant architectural phenomenon since the +cathedral building of the Middle Ages”—nor can I, but +I am thinking of the differences in purpose, worship and +appeal. We idolize baseball players and boxers, not saints +and artists and sages.</p> + +<p>Are not these pithy words of Frank Jewett Mather true? +“What is in America our accepted vision of the good +life? For upon it must rest our art. What do we all agree +to (saving always negligible minorities of ‘knockers’)? I +fear it would come to these few articles of faith:—to make +a lot of money by fair means; to spend it generously; to be +friendly; to move fast; to die with one’s boots on. This is +a credo which has within its limitations positive merits, +and it is by no means lightly to be decried, but it palpably +offers little spiritual nourishment to the ‘art-artist,’ to +quote a recent mayor of New York. A certain kind of +art it feeds admirably. And it naturally gets the art it +feeds—the immaculate bank clerk in campus clothes, the +sylph-like apparition in the porcelain tub, the beach party +in the classy car—the art of the advertisement generally. +And this ideal also finds its authentic expression in the +cheap heroics and shallow idealisms of the moving picture, +and the potpourri of dubious music and eloquence +over the radio. These are our representative arts, as sculpture +was the representative art of Greece, or painting of +Florence.”</p> + +<p>Thus far our search for the plain facts of our present +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span>floundering condition has led us to a paradox: we lack +any standard of a good, a noble life, yet we are amazingly +standardized in our lives. Finding no common vision of +what life ought to be conducted for, we fall prey to exceedingly +powerful social suggestions. We behave, first +of all, as if the machinery of existence, the getting of a +living, were an all-important end in itself. And on the +margin left free by practical affairs we look for a good +time, we try to be neighborly, we increase our comfort.</p> + +<p>G. R. is entangled in this paradox: at the same time he +falls into the conventional modes of American behavior, +he protests against them: he decries the lack of a common +luminous standard for life and yet does not set himself to +search for one. He continues to flounder unhappily.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Some of G. R.’s psychological biography is now relevant. +At one time a large part of his mind was under the control +of a certain view of the world which I shall personify +as “the Sunday School boy.” Later “the Sunday School +pupil” at the back of his brain was supplanted by “the +village atheist,” the personification of the world-view G. R. +now holds. Both these characters in his brain are elusive, +capable of many disguises, and below the surface. One +must go stealthily to capture them.</p> + +<p>Every human being, even the least philosophic man, +is compounded of two attitudes, an attitude toward the +world and an attitude toward himself. The latter seems +more native, less educable, than the former. Of our picture +of ourselves we are almost never aware, and even +when in rare instances we come to realize what the picture +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span>is, it seems impossible to change it. We can only +sometimes correct its influence on our actions and feelings, +but we go on habitually conceiving of ourselves as before. +Our attitude toward the world, on the other hand, seems +to derive from education and to be susceptible of change. +A world-view of some sort we must have, but the particular +one we receive, often unconsciously, is, as people say, +“wished on us,” usually when we were children. G. R. +illustrates a change in world-conceptions, passing as he +did from the dominance of “the Sunday School pupil” +planted early in his mind to the later dominance of “the +village atheist,” installed there in his twenties. But let +us ask some general questions first.</p> + +<p>What attitudes toward the world are characteristic of +ourselves and our contemporaries? That is, what are our +chief emotional states in regard to that immense given object, +the world? What are our imaginations of life? An +interesting enumeration of some of them was given a few +years ago by a practical psychologist. “There is,” he said, +“the ‘Puritan’ picture which represents life as a hard and +narrow school. This evokes the attitude of the nervous +schoolboy in the constant presence of the stern dominie. +There is the ‘Pagan’ picture of life as an orgy of Greek +gods inviting men to drink and feast with them. There +is the ‘Serious’ view of life which imagines ‘God’ to be +struggling against almost hopeless odds for the redemption +of matter. The emotion or attitude evoked is one of +‘helping poor father.’ There is the ‘Scientific’ view that +sees life as an orderly insignificance, all dressed up but +with nowhere to go. There is the ‘Æsthetic’ view in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span>which life is an artist making and exhibiting works of art, +with man as the appreciative witness. And so on.”</p> + +<p>But which of these and other unlisted world-conceptions +are most conspicuous in intelligent American society today? +I think they are the two that G. R. has been victimized +by; one asserts the universe to be purposive and +meaningful to man, the other declares the contrary. The +first for convenience we can call the Victorian world-view, +and the second the “Scientific” view. Both when stripped +bare seem pretty absurd, yet who will say that we, even +when we recognize the puerile character of our governing +conceptions, do not go on being dominated by or at +least being considerably influenced by absurdities? It is +not easy, any one who has tried will testify, to overcome +our early education.</p> + +<p>Consider the Victorian world-view which is implanted +in most people brought up like G. R. in one of the Protestant +churches. H. G. Wells has sought for thirty-five +years to shatter it. His procedure has been to delineate +its formation time and again in his novels and then show +how impotent it is to face a really hard blow from circumstance. +From <cite>Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island</cite>, +for instance, I can quote a very neat description of the +present-day Protestant <i lang="de">Weltanschauung</i> as it is popularly +held, but in this form who but a very honest man will see +that something very like it underlies much of his opinions +about life?</p> + +<p>“God began afresh with me in England,” says Mr. +Blettsworthy in reference to his boyhood, “as the confederated +shadow of my uncle, a dear English gentleman of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span>a God, a super-Blettsworthy in control, a God of dew and +bright frosty mornings, hopeful and unresentful, whose +peculiar festivals were Easter and Christmas and the Harvest +Thanksgiving. He was the God of a world that was +right way up, stern only to smile again, and even through +the solemnity and restraint of Good Friday peeped out +my uncle’s assurance that the young gentleman would +come back safe and sound on Sunday. A serious time, of +course, occasion for grave reflections, but meanwhile we +had our hot cross buns....</p> + +<p>“He was awfully decent, was God, as his uncle displayed +him, and he and my uncle made me want to be +decent too. In a world of ‘All right’ and ‘Right O’ and +‘Right you are, Sir.’...</p> + +<p>“My uncle shook back the sleeves of his surplice and +leant smiling and persuasive over the pulpit, making +everything clear and mild like English air, and I felt that +if I were given a vision sufficiently penetrating I should +see high above the blue ether another such kindly Father, +instructing his fortunate world.”</p> + +<p>Considering the results of the recent research by Dr. +Angus Hector MacLean of Columbia University into the +ideas about God of Protestant children, Mr. Blettsworthy’s +account is more than fair toward what we learn in Sunday +School. Furthermore, since most of us never give any +serious thought in later years to Religion, we never learn +very thoroughly what a travesty of the religion of Christ +our instruction has been. We take it naïvely for something +like the genuine thing. We may vary or subtilize +the picture, trying to make its anthropomorphism less +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span>crude, but in essentials it remains the same. A fatherly +personage rules the universe and we are his darling concern. +At the back of our minds there is still a “little Sunday +School pupil” piping up in adult’s language that the +world runs on a benevolent principle and that we should +therefore be altruistic toward our neighbors in imitation +of the divine principle.</p> + +<p>But it is possible for many people by an extension of +their reading to exorcise this “little Sunday School pupil” +and to install in his place what I can only designate as +“the village atheist.” Once this oddity is established there, +we react to life according to the dictates of the “Scientific” +imagination of it. In this view there is only one kind of +real knowledge, and that is modern science: there is only +one sanction for knowledge and that is bestowed by the +scientist. All art, all religion, all morals, all philosophy +must bow before the final authority of science. They do +not yield us other and different knowledge of the world, +valid in its own way, but they are purely fictive unless +backed up by the arch-critic of all contemporary culture, +the scientist. “This is a scientific age,” says G. R. to his +friends who still continue to speculate about religious +matters.</p> + +<p>This point, our exclusive reliance on scientific investigation +and thought for the truth about things, needs no +stressing. It is one of the preëminent signs of the modern +mind. We do not take seriously the kind of knowledge +offered by art, for instance, and in fact we do not call it +knowledge at all. But it needs to be repeated again, for +we continually forget it, that modern science is carried on +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>by intensely specialized men whose activities are understandable +to only a few hundreds and who do not popularize +their doctrines. In many cases indeed, the various +theories of quantum for one, these activities are extraordinarily +hard to render into the idiom of the world. So it +comes about that the many intelligent men who have +adopted the “Scientific” view are actually just as Victorian +as those who retain a sentimental “religious” life-picture. +For their “Scientific” view is forty or fifty years old, going +back to such famous and gifted popularizers as Huxley +and Tyndall. By it they believe that the world is a vast +mechanical concern, thoroughly materialistic, orderly and +eventually knowable, but without purpose, and in this +world man is an accidental form of life. He is alien to +the world, and it is indifferent to him. How old-fashioned +this is! Does it not bring to mind the discussions of +some provincial group of tight-minded atheists set on combating +the conventional propaganda of latter-day Christians? +Yet, though the advanced physicist has forsaken +this world-conception, it persists in many persons today +who fancy themselves as intellectually “free.”</p> + +<p>G. R., for instance, picks up the latest <cite>Nation</cite> the postman +has brought to his door and there in a feature article +of one of our most intelligent weeklies, he reads: “It (the +natural world) is a system if not with any purpose at +least with an order.... Man is a half happy but, historically +considered, quite explicable accident.” Now +what is that but saying over again to G. R. what the Victorian +scientist said in effect to G. R.’s father—the universe +is all dressed up but has no place to go? Yet these sentences +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span>are by a professor of philosophy in a large university +who is regarded as <i lang="fr">au courant</i> with the latest developments +in thought. By this you may see how beneath a +considerable surface complexity in the modern mind there +may lie major assumptions of an astonishing naïveté. +There is indeed a “village atheist” in many of us who +controls our emotional state toward the world, and we +shall have a great deal of trouble to dislodge him.</p> + +<p>The truth is that neither the Victorian world-outlook, +nor the “Scientific,” nor the “Pagan,” nor the “Æsthetic,” +nor any other of the world-outlooks subscribed to in the +present time by minorities inspires a creative emotion +toward life. But of that, a creative world-conception and +its corresponding attitude, more is to be said in a later +chapter.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Perhaps we shall make a better case for ourselves if we +examine our chief current conceptions of man. After +all, nothing obviously is closer to us than our organisms: +we may find that the world at large is a receding object +for speculation, but who can be oblivious of the intimate +bonds existing between what we call our “ego” and the +manifestations of our personality? It is a truism (which +we are always trying to forget) that we are attached by +self-love to the strange being that bears our name, and it is +furthermore known that self-love falls into a certain number +of stock forms or attitudes toward oneself. Into these +we need not go now: they fall more logically into the +psychologist’s province. But it is pertinent for us to take +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>up certain large conceptions of man which have a great +hold on us, and deeply color our self-attitudes.</p> + +<p>To begin with, a very large party, probably the most +numerous in fact, thinks of man as existing wholly within +Nature. By this its members mean that man contains +naught of the supernatural: on the contrary, his psychology +belongs as much to Nature as does his physiology. +He rises out of Nature, but does not transcend it. There +is no special law for man as distinct from law for thing: +man is utterly material: the old doctrine of the soul’s +immortality is a delusion. Browning has sung for them:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Let us not always say,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">“Spite of this flesh today</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I strove, made head, gained ground, upon the whole!”</div> + <div class="verse indent0">As the bird wings and sings,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Let us cry, “All good things</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">But this party which as a whole denies the existence of +any radical discontinuity between Nature and Man is +itself divided into a sentimental and a scientific faction, +and both have representatives in the schools of psychology. +The Freudian psycho-analyst will do very well as a spokesman +for the sentimental naturalists, and for the scientific +naturalists the Behaviorist is perfectly ready to offer his +conclusions.</p> + +<p>It happens that G. R. belongs to the former persuasion: +he has been twice psycho-analysed and the stock he takes +in the process can be gauged by the considerable expense +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span>he has put himself to. He is convinced that we have a +kind of bastard soul, the “unconscious” or as most people +prefer to call it, the subconscious, which is a basic conception +in the teachings of the Freudians. This bastard soul +is dynamic, not merely the residue of the impressions +which we have either forgotten or received unawares, and +it works its will deviously upon us. The important thing +is to become aware of its modes of operating and to keep +them from being perverted by false education and false +social notions. Repressions and suppressions are, on the +whole, mischievous, though sometimes necessary. The +mind furthermore is suspect. It fools us by rationalizations: +it oftentimes aids in unhealthy sublimations.</p> + +<p>G. R. therefore seeks to free his impulses and to follow +them spontaneously. He has turned anti-intellectual and +tries to establish himself upon his instincts and his feelings +without interference from his mind. He trusts in +his “unconscious” which he believes to be innocent and +naturally good in the old sense of Rousseau. That is why +we may term G. R. a sentimental naturalist, for the mark +of the breed is its faith in the essential goodness of man +and its contention that the environment alone is to blame +for the spoiling of man.</p> + +<p>At the present time, G. R. is hostile to the scientific naturalist, +not on the fundamental ground that man is entirely +within Nature, but because the Behaviorist drives +out sentiment about the inherent goodness of man. To +the Behaviorist man is a doomed creature. He is the +product solely of biology and sociology, will-less, an automaton, +purely a response-mechanism. His consciousness +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span>is doubted, though his complexity is granted. But it +is the complexity of a machine. G. R. finds it difficult to +refute the Behaviorist’s laboratory experiments, but his +“mystic” faith in the “unconscious” insulates him against +the terrible conclusions of Dr. Watson and his co-workers.</p> + +<p>Nor does he like the phrase, “the indignity of man,” +which the New Humanists use for the conceptions of +psycho-analyst and Behaviorist alike.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>It may seem to some readers that I have overdrawn this +portrait of a typical child of our age. But we must not +mistake complexity of thinking for thought itself. An +elaborate superstructure may rest upon a few naïve assumptions. +I have tried to get below the superstructure +and there I find a man who leads a standardized life due +to the manipulations of Society, who either returns to his +mother’s knee when he looks at the world or else regurgitates +the stale conclusions of Victorian materialism, who +conceives of himself as being naturally good if only he +can return to the state of Nature or else he conceives of +himself as purely mechanical—and it is impossible to exaggerate +either this man’s ignorance of what life may +mean or his lack of creative emotion toward the world +and himself. His leaders, for all I can see, only subtilize +his blindness, but they are stricken in the same way. It is +true, one can confidently affirm of our epoch at least, that +as A. N. Whitehead observes, “The mentality of an epoch +springs from the view of the world which is, in fact, dominant +in the educated sections of the communities in question.” +Our leaders and this poor stock figure G. R. live +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span>in the same climate of opinion: they have shaped him, it is +obvious, but what is not so immediately clear is that they +have also sprung from him.</p> + +<p>This at any rate is incontestable. Our age is not rich +in individuality as the Renascence was. The Renascence +type—the master of many arts, the all-round or universal +man—does not flourish with us. And the reason? Once +we peer well inside our psychology, it is apparent that we +are aimless and uncreative, and that, I think, is sufficient +explanation.</p> + +<p>The New Humanist is against the psychology of modernity. +He stands for another kind of man which I shall +try to portray in the next chapter.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="III"> + III + <br> + THE MAN OF POISE + </h2> +</div> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>“The virtue that results from a right cultivation of +one’s humanity, in other words from moderate and +decorous living, is poise. Perfect poise is no doubt +impossible: not even Sophocles succeeded in seeing +life steadily and seeing it whole. The difference is +none the less marked between the man who is +moving toward poise and the man who is moving +away from it.”</i>—<span class="smcap">Irving Babbitt</span> in <cite>Humanism and +America</cite>.</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p>One turns to dictionaries sometimes to find out what sense +certain terms have had for large bodies of men. There +are always several definitions of Humanism that have +been widely accepted, including one that covers the meaning +of the word as used by American Humanists. No +follower of Irving Babbitt could take exception, for example, +to the definition in <cite>Webster’s New International +Dictionary</cite>, where it is stated that Humanism is “a system, +mode, or attitude of thought or action centering +upon distinctively human interests or ideals, especially as +contrasted with naturalistic or religious interests.” A +more interesting definition occurs in the <cite>Century Dictionary</cite>: +“A system of thinking in which man, his interests +and development, are made central and dominant. +Its tendency is to exalt the cultural and practical rather +than the scientific and speculative, and to encourage a +spirit of revolt against existing opinions.” In the preceding +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span>chapter we glanced at some of the nowadays deeply +entrenched opinions supporting the “indignity of man” +conception which American Humanism seeks to oust, and +we may add here that the New Humanist is fighting +against the raising of the scientific discipline above the literary +discipline. All of us for many years have read such +sentences as these: “The field of literature is notoriously +the home of lost causes. Almost any antique idea, no +matter how rusty and fly-blown, can pass as legitimate currency +in literary circles.... Literary men, as a class, are +surprisingly ill-informed about anything but literature.... +The exclusively literary discipline is one of the most +narrowing and least productive of all intellectual disciplines”: +and we have wondered under the spell of their +confidence if we too should not be a little contemptuous +of the offerings of literature to the modern man, rejoicing +in them perhaps with a kind of secret shame, while we +reserve our serious attention for the latest researches in +anthropology and Gestalt psychology. Only, sotto voce, +have we observed this alleged reluctance on the part of +literary men today to embrace new scientific speculations? +On the contrary, they seem, most of them, to be much +more prone than genuine scientists to accept the latest +guesses as “discoveries.” The New Humanist like the +genuine scientist has not much applauded the “guess-sciences,” +such as psycho-analysis, for from his training he +has formed the stubborn conviction that the great literary +masters were <em>not</em> naïve men but quite the opposite, and +divined more about the essential constitution of human +nature than modern science has yet been able to disentangle. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span>The New Humanist is even prepared to maintain +in the teeth of the multitude shouting of “progress” that +perhaps modern culture is a retrogression, and we need +not think that the growth of a scientific mentality is a +compensation for the decline of commonsense, the weakening +of feeling, the decay of action as an art. In fact, the +contention of numerous scientific apologists for the inferiority +of the literary discipline to the discipline of +science is a comparatively old story to the New Humanist, +reminding him of Arnold’s reply to Huxley. I have +it in mind soon to introduce Arnold as a model Humanist, +one whose life and works may show us better than +any abstract discourse what contemporary Humanism aspires +to be, but it will be interesting first to look at his +address on <cite>Literature and Science</cite>.</p> + +<p>In that discourse Arnold marked his agreement with +Huxley up to a certain point. “There is, therefore, really +no question,” he said, “between Professor Huxley and me +as to whether knowing the great results of the modern +scientific study of nature is not required as a part of our +culture, as well as knowing the products of literature and +art.” But it is such a statement which the rabid scientific +propagandist ignores when he informs his audience that +Humanism is anti-science in its tendency. It is not so. +The New Humanist objects not to science, but to the exaggerated +prestige science has acquired in modern civilization. +“Interesting, indeed, these results of science are,” he +will say with Arnold, “important they are, and we should +all be acquainted with them. But what I now wish you +to mark is, that we are still, when they are propounded +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span>to us and we receive them, we are still in the sphere of +intellect and knowledge.” Science is taken by the New +Humanist as a great arm of the human spirit, a magnificent +intellectual weapon forged for ascertaining the <em>what-ness</em> +of things, but still only as one of the great arms of +the spirit along with philosophy and art and religion; and +now we can bring forward Arnold’s justification for the +literary discipline, the reason for his claim that “letters +will call out their (mankind’s) being at more points, will +make them live more” than an education carried on +mainly in the natural sciences.</p> + +<p>It is because literature is not confined to the sphere of +intellect and knowledge, but is concerned with the relationship +between that sphere and the other spheres of a +man’s life, the sphere of beauty, the sphere of conduct. +It is like dancing which has a regard to the total harmonious +action of the body as contrasted with exercises like +weight-lifting designed solely to increase strength. The +scientific discipline is concerned with knowing, the literary +with connecting knowing with feeling and doing. +Truth is the prize of the scientist; truth, beauty and goodness +the prizes of the man of letters. Thus, it may be said +that the function of the literary culture is to sum up all +other existent cultures, to gather them in and sweeten +their language, and finally to relate their findings to the +total being of man.</p> + +<p>Arnold beautifully exemplified this relating power +gained from the study of letters when he declared that +“we shall find, as a matter of experience, if we know the +best that has been thought and uttered in the world, we +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span>shall find that the art and poetry and eloquence of men +who lived, perhaps, long ago, who had the most limited +natural knowledge, who had the most erroneous conceptions +about many important matters, we shall find that +this art, and poetry, and eloquence, have in fact not only +the power of refreshing and delighting us, they have also +the power,—such is the strength and worth, in essentials, +of their author’s criticism of life,—they have a fortifying, +and elevating, and quickening, and suggestive power, capable +of wonderfully helping us to relate the results of +modern science to our need for conduct, our need for +beauty. Homer’s conceptions of the physical universe +were, I imagine, grotesque; but really, under the shock of +hearing from modern science that ‘the world is not subordinated +to man’s use, and that man is not the cynosure +of things terrestrial,’ I could, for my own part, desire no +better comfort than Homer’s line which I quoted just +now, ‘for an enduring heart have the destinies appointed +to the children of men.’”</p> + +<p>Let that stand as all the defence required for the <em>utility</em> +of the literary classics in a scientific age. But it is a temptation +to add further words of explanation, especially +when one has at one’s elbow persuasive quotations from +Arnold on other aspects of the discussion. Who has ever +better stated the social office of literature than Arnold in +<cite>Culture and Anarchy</cite> when he says: “The great men of +culture are those who have had a passion for diffusing, +for making prevail, for carrying from one end of society +to the other, the best knowledge, the best ideas of their +time; who have labored to divest knowledge of all that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span>was harsh, uncouth, difficult, abstract, professional, exclusive; +to humanize it, to make it efficient outside the clique +of the cultivated and learned, yet still remaining the <em>best</em> +knowledge and thought of the time, and a true source, +therefore, of sweetness and light.”</p> + +<p>Literary culture then relates one power of our being to +another, and it humanizes knowledge by putting it into +the clear, supple and beautiful idiom of the world. By +doing the second, it makes our knowledge ready for a +third operation: it makes it ready for trial by the commonsense +of mankind. What errors are revealed when +an imposing jargon is at last made over into transparent +writing, and what truths recommend themselves with +overwhelming authority when at last they are spoken in +the world’s tongue! To be passed by the commonsense of +mankind is the highest seal of truth we can know. The +friends of literary culture are right in their main contentions +for literature’s great value. But let me here repeat +there is naught in American Humanism <em>as a doctrine and +an attitude</em> that denies the restricted utility of modern +science to the modern man in his struggle for firm ground +on which to plant his feet in this rocking age. At another +place we shall have to examine the conclusions of individual +American Humanists concerning scientific doctrines. +But now, in the endeavor to visualize Humanism +in practice, let us look more closely at the figure of Matthew +Arnold, who was so eminent an exponent of the +literary life.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span></p> + +<p>The first point I wish to make about Arnold is an unfashionable +one just now, and therefore not easy for many +people to appreciate. Arnold’s life, externally considered, +was typically middle-class and ordinary. The son of the +famous Dr. Thomas Arnold of Rugby, he went up to +Oxford, where he distinguished himself by his verse, and +afterwards faced the common problem of making a living. +This problem was complicated, as is the common +case, by his desire to marry, and he solved it in the ordinary +way by taking a position that was not altogether +congenial, was in fact irksome, but did enable him to wed +Miss Lucy Wightman. Thereafter, he raised a family, +and became a member, though a critical one, of the great +political and religious institutions of his country. He +traveled, he lectured, and he meditated and wrote on matters +of wide public interest. There were no exciting +physical adventures in his life, no grand crimes of passion, +no flaunting colors, no great upheavals of circumstance: +in short, his was a representative life and, to an unsympathetic +eye, a commonplace one. It was at the other pole +from <i lang="fr">la vie bohême</i>.</p> + +<p>There are certain advantages not often reckoned in +leading a life of conformity, such as Arnold’s outwardly +appears to be. But to forestall misunderstanding of my +point, I must say that I personally see no virtue in conformity +itself, nor in non-conformity by itself. The first +is worthless when set up as an ideal, and since the second +is only a turning inside out of something worthless (the +old illustration of the resemblance between the hollow +and the bump comes to mind), it too is of no value: non-conformity +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>for the sake of non-conformity is stupid. No; +virtue resides all in the aim and spirit with which one +conforms or rebels: the important question is <em>how</em> one +lives within the conventions or outside the pale. It is purpose, +not pattern, that is radical.</p> + +<p>But it so happens—and this is among the certain advantages +referred to—that a man who leads a life typical of +the millions of middle class mankind is automatically insured +of a greater breadth of normal experience than is +the bohemian flouter of institutions. The former experiences +the common lot of man: a sense of family responsibility, +touch with the main life of his community, actions +within institutions greater than himself, and so on. The +latter often becomes a kind of specialist in eccentric experience. +He may be, and often is, of extraordinary gifts, +but subtraction must be made for limitation of his experience, +for specialization in certain directions, for eccentric +psychology. Dazzled by what is unique in him, we +often fail to count the price he has paid, his missing the +broadening and steadying effects of ordinary experience.</p> + +<p>Breadth and steadiness—these are essential for the attainment +of poise, and these requisites to a certain extent +are mechanically conferred on one who lives in accord +with the large customs of his society. In looking at Arnold +then, let us forget that he was a Victorian, since that +label is a flag to arouse our prejudices and stop our thinking, +but let us concentrate on these qualities of breadth +and steadiness and see how his life in its very regularity +and typicality fed his purpose and attitude, for in them +we shall find his genius. It is not conventionality or unconventionality, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>I repeat, that is worth a tuppence, but +that counts which one can extract from living. Arnold +wished for proportionateness in character and in following +the middle class pattern of life, he was intelligently +using it for his purpose. I do not advance this as a general +proposition but in his case it was so.</p> + +<p><em>How</em> did Arnold conduct his life? We may view him +successively as a thinker, a man of sentiment, and a man +of practice, and in each aspect we shall see him hold himself +with an admirable poise. First, his mind. Every one +grants that it was an exceptionally balanced mind, and +the reasons for its fine state of balance are chiefly two: +the scope of Arnold’s reading and the purposiveness of his +studies. For what makes for an unsteady mind? Insufficient +knowledge which permits one to go off half-cocked, +as people say; insufficient knowledge, or as Arnold liked +to put it, provincialism. Arnold was constantly on guard +against provincialism both of time and place. In a famous +passage he opposed them both: “Let us conceive of the +whole group of civilized nations as being, for intellectual +and spiritual purposes, one great confederation, bound to a +joint action and working towards a common result; a +confederation whose members have a due knowledge both +of the past, out of which they all proceed, and of one another.” +But he not only immersed himself in the Occidental +mind: he also, as is not common with Western +thinkers, absorbed a great deal of the learning of the +Orient. In other words, by a diligence that is extraordinary +when it is remembered that Arnold by occupation +was not a man of letters but an inspector of schools, he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span>carried in his head a knowledge of world literature written +over a period of twenty-five hundred years that served +him as a marvellous balancing pole in dealing with the +transitional problems of his day as they presented themselves +in politics, religion, education, social morphology +and the art of literature. Breadth of reading was the first +aid for him in winning intellectual balance: the second +was purposiveness. For there have been many omnivorous +readers who have merely, after all, passed the time +because of their aimlessness. James Russell Lowell is a +pathetic instance. But Arnold’s duties shortened his hours +for reading, and he felt he had to read, when he was free +to do so, to some purpose. There is a Latin maxim—“<i lang="la">Semper +aliquid certi proponendum est</i>” (always some +certain end must be kept in view)—which we know he +impressed upon himself. His essays are evidence that he +was successful in working the maxim into his blood.</p> + +<p>Still the mind is only the third part of a man, and mental +poise can exist alongside of emotional debility and +incompetence in daily affairs. Not so with Arnold, +however, who impresses one almost as much by his emotional +poise and his practical level-headedness as by the +stability of his mind. He was a poet and is secure of a +place in the history of English poetry, and this is proof +positive of his strength of feeling, for time permits no +man weak in feeling to stay long in the halls of Poesy. +More than that, his sentiments, beginning with the personal +and lyric, tended to pass into reflective emotion: +that is, they broadened, became generalized, impersonal, +universal, linked with reflections on the common destiny +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span>of mankind. This represents a maturing of his emotional +life. Now just as provincialism and aimlessness destroy +one’s mental balance, so immaturity and the inability +to feel beyond one’s intimate concerns upset one’s +emotional balance. But Arnold ripened, leaving the petty +and childish behind him. He learned emotionally to +stand on his own, to practice a sturdy independence. His +sentiments were adult. Mark too his efforts to round out +his emotional life. By disposition addicted to melancholy +meditativeness, he sought—many times with success—to +cultivate gaiety, to support a deeply serious view with as +much charm and lightness as were fitting.</p> + +<p>Now regard him in his practical aspect. We have seen +that Arnold did not evade what the middle class man regards +as his duties and responsibilities. He was a man +among men, asking for no petting from society, meeting +honestly by his own efforts the obligations of his lot. He +never underestimated as do many modern artists the importance +of conduct. Conduct, he said, was three-quarters +of life, and as such man’s most serious concern. “As for +living, our servants can do that for us,” said Villiers de +l’Isle Adam, but Arnold never echoed such a sentiment. +On the contrary, he not only faced daily affairs with dignity +and courage, observing all varieties of men, bearing +his own part, but he stressed the practical side of his writing. +He wished for the best ideas to <em>prevail</em> and he took +infinite pains to make them persuasive and lucid and +graceful so that they would irresistibly invade men’s +minds and prevail. In this he is in extreme contrast with +the “ivory tower” attitude which isolates art and thought +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>from events. The practical man wishes to make a mark +in the world’s business, and this decidedly Arnold aimed +to do. The aim saved him from æsthetic trifling and +metaphysical toying. It filled out the third side of his +being.</p> + +<p>Now perhaps we may see what is involved in the ideal +of proportionateness: a threefold activity to clear the mind, +to ripen and extend the feelings, to develop a practical +attitude. The man of poise cannot neglect any one of +these on peril of remaining lop-sided. Bias is his enemy, +and against it he needs the full operation of a strong +centralizing spirit in himself. Such a spirit, pervading +his conduct, pervading his poetry, pervading his mind, +Arnold possessed, and it is conveyed in his remark that +“we are not here to have facilities found us for doing the +work we like, but to make them.” It is the spirit of a +man who faces the natural difficulties of life with a strong +will to overcome them.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>We are trying to arrive at a life-like picture of the man +of poise as American Humanism conceives him. I have +chosen Arnold as a working model of the quality, and +an imitable one as well. Naturally American Humanists +vary in their estimates of Arnold, and one or two—notably +G. R. Elliott—are rather harsh in their strictures, but the +majority appear to find in him the prime humanistic +virtues, and so it seems fair to make the use I have of his +example. It is obvious, I hope, that I do not imagine I +am passing all of Arnold in review, and furthermore I +confess that were I not looking for a man of poise in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span>recent Humanist tradition, I should never have summed +Arnold up under that phrase. Poise to my mind is not +the capital thing about him. Beyond the degree of most +men, Arnold was a truth-seeker; and poise was to him +auxiliary to the pursuit of truth. Auxiliary but necessary. +For without moderating one’s powerful prejudices, +without attaining a fine balance and tact, without tempering +one virtue by its opposite virtue, Arnold was positive +that one could not see things as they are. Things, reality, +are many-sided, and without the cultivation of many-sidedness +in ourselves, how can we hope to approach them +fairly? These words from the preface to <cite>Essays in +Criticism: First Series</cite> set forth the right employment of +poise in the great endeavor to see life steadily and whole. +“To try and approach truth on one side after another, +not to strive or cry, nor to persist in pressing forward, on +any one side, with violence and self-will,—it is only thus, +it seems to me, that mortals may hope to gain any vision +of the mysterious Goddess, whom we shall never see except +in outline, but only thus even in outline. He who +will do nothing but fight impetuously towards her on his +own, one, favorite, particular line, is inevitably destined to +run his head into the folds of the black robe in which she +is wrapped.”</p> + +<p>A singular fact ought to be patent from all that has been +said: the man of poise is not a type, but an ideal toward +which all types of men may strive. Nature makes types, +but she does not make human beings of poise. She makes +will-less Hamlets who, faced by a necessity to act, simply +speculate and speculate, until events force them at last to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span>act; she makes Byrons who, on the other hand, try to +force events: they act impetuously, but they reflect like +children, as Goethe said of Byron. But Nature does not +make the balanced, well-proportioned individual. Arnold +worked on himself: he worked to perfect himself beyond +the maternal care of Nature.</p> + +<p>Thus we see that the man of poise, the Humanist ideal, +is in reality a spiritual athlete. His balance and proportionateness +are not gifts, such as a vein of poetic emotion +or a capacity for intellectual analysis may be, but they are +deliberately sought and maintained. It requires constant +effort, constant activity, for him to be what he is. Modernity +accepts no such ideal as the New Humanist upholds. +It wants greater Hamlets, greater Byrons, greater Calibans: +it wants the accentuation of types and the growth +of specialism: in short, it wishes to go with the grain of +Nature. But the New Humanist proclaims that the truly +man-like part is to work against the grain of Nature. +“It is this backward motion toward the source,” says +Robert Frost, the poet, “against the stream, that most we +see ourselves in.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="IV"> + IV + <br> + THE NEW BATTLE OF THE BOOKS + </h2> +</div> +<blockquote> + <i>“Our ‘intellectual atmosphere,’ however, is now + rapidly changing, is becoming charged with new + interests. More and more persons, oppressed with + the stale skepticism of the post-war period, are beginning + to grow skeptical of that skepticism, and + are looking for a new set of controlling ideas capable + of restoring value to human existence. Certain + forces are making for order and for new objectives.... + One of these forces is known as ‘humanism,’ + which is rapidly becoming a word to conjure + with.”</i>—<span class="smcap">Norman Foerster</span> in <cite>Humanism and + America</cite>. +</blockquote> + + +<p>Before I can treat the grounds of the New Humanist +doctrine, I must turn historian and present, briefly at least, +correct information about the origin and course of the +movement which acknowledges Irving Babbitt and Paul +Elmer More as masters. I am forced to this by the amount +of misinformation and crude misrepresentation already +widely disseminated concerning More and Babbitt and +their colleagues. How this spreading of erroneous information, +which now stands in our view, has come about +is easily explained. American Humanism has had a +quiet development for thirty-five years, making its way +chiefly in academic channels and in scholarly books. Not +until very recently, and then principally because of the +spirited campaign waged in behalf of Babbitt and More +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span>by the <cite>Bookman</cite>, has this body of thought made any +strong infiltration into popular literary journalism.</p> + +<p>Now the roving eye of the literary journalist-at-large +seldom glances at anything growing up in the universities, +and it missed altogether the New Humanist movement +until it emerged in force in the winter of 1929–1930. Then, +to his surprise, the literary journalist found himself expected +by his public to say something about Humanism. +He was totally unprepared to do so, but experience has +given him a cynical attitude toward his public. He is the +lazy tutor who does not study one lesson in advance of his +pupil, but he has learned how to divert the mind of his +charge, should he be asked an inconvenient question. He +then makes a great play on non-essentials, he bluffs it out +until the hour is over, knowing well that his pupil will +soon forget both the question and the mystifying answer. +To send the public off on false scents was the shift, not +always adopted dishonestly, of the unprepared literary +journalist when Humanism became no longer an avoidable +topic. For literary journalists, it seems, are never +pen-tied because of ignorance: no difficulty was experienced +in promptly delivering opinions having no bearing +on the facts, lacking logic, missing the real issues,—wrong +opinions, in short. Myths about the New Humanism +were quickly generated, giving delight to connoisseurs +in the absurd, but decidedly misleading to gentleman-readers +wishing simply for plain light on the new +trend. However, to dispel these myths, which obstruct +thought, nothing more is needed than some bald information.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span></p> + +<p>It is dramatic contrast, in view of the international attention +his teachings have won, to begin with a picture +of Irving Babbitt⁠<a id="FNanchor_1_1" href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> in his classroom, working obscurely, +as befits an underminer of an age’s basic assumptions, at +his task of moulding the mind of a generation. Among +the many professional writers and brilliant teachers who +have come out from his courses—one may mention as a +catholic selection T. S. Eliot, Van Wyck Brooks, Walter +Lippmann, Norman Foerster, Gilbert Seldes, Newton +Arvin—was the late Stuart P. Sherman, who has left us +a roughly drawn description of his early master’s wealth +of mind and strength for destruction and construction.</p> + +<p>“I knew Professor Babbitt as a graduate teacher in the +History of Literary Criticism and in his Rousseau and His +Influence. At that time he had very small classes—meeting +around a table. He came in with a bag bursting full +of books, and took out a handful of notes which he arranged +around him. Began to sway in his chair, then +leaped out upon one of them, and poured a barrage of +criticism upon some doctrine or some line of poetry,—‘to +cast o’er erring words and deeds a heavenly show’—Buddha, +Aristotle, Plato, Horace, Dante, Montaigne, +Pascal, Milton, etc.—etc.</p> + +<p>“He deluged you with wisdom of the world; his +thoughts were unpacked and poured out so fast you +couldn’t keep up with them. You didn’t know what he +was talking about, but you felt that he was extremely in +earnest, that it was tremendously important, that some +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span>time it would count; that he was uttering dogmatically +things that cut into your beliefs, disposed derisively of +what you adored, driving you into a reconstruction of +your entire intellectual system. He was at you day after +day like a battering ram, knocking down your illusions. +He was building up a system of ideas.</p> + +<p>“You never felt for a moment that he was a pedagogue, +teaching pupils. You felt that he was a Coleridge, a +Carlyle, a Buddha, pouring out the full-stuffed cornucopia +of the world upon your head. You were no longer in the +elementary class. You were with a man who was seeking +through literature for illustrations of his philosophy of +life. You were dealing with questions on the answer to +which the welfare of nations and civilization depended. +He himself seemed to know the right answer and was +building a thoroughfare of ideas from the Greeks to our +own day.</p> + +<p>“You went out of the room laden down with general +ideas that he had made seem tremendously important.... +He related for you a multitude of separate and apparently +disconnected tendencies to the great central currents +of thought. You carried away also a sense of the +need for immense reading. He had given you theses +about literature, about life, which you would spend a lifetime +in verifying.”</p> + +<p>A battering ram knocking down illusions ... myself, +I like to think of Irving Babbitt as a dogmatist of the Dr. +Johnson type, burly in his judgments, masculine in his +sentiments, downright in manner, an unyielding hater of +sophistry, a stalwart upholder of commonsense. What is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span>remarkable, in view of the extent of his system, is that he +should have laid out at the age of thirty the ground-plan +for his whole impressive structure of ideas. “The characteristic +thought of Irving Babbitt,” as Norman Foerster +observes, “was already adumbrated in 1895 in an address +at the University of Wisconsin on ‘The Rational Study of +the Classics,’ published two years later in the <cite>Atlantic +Monthly</cite> and in 1908 included in his book on <cite>Literature +and the American College</cite>.” Since then he has steadily +developed his original thesis: confident of his foundations, +he has put up a heavy, many-fronted, turreted fortress for +the modern mind to retire into and survey across a moat +of commonsense the giddy wheelings of the “modernists,” +those, that is, who make a cult of change and take change +to be “progress.”</p> + +<p>But what were Babbitt’s sources? His mind is powerfully +assimilative and very muscular in its operations. +He has applied it to world literature, east and west, ancient +and modern, and naturally therefore his sources are +varied. He is more Aristotelian than Platonic, however, +and he takes more from Confucius than from Buddha. +He feels himself at home with the rugged conservatism of +Dr. Johnson and Edmund Burke, and he stands with +Matthew Arnold as an urger of more Hellenism in Anglo-Saxon +culture.</p> + +<p>His more immediate stimulators in American literature +seem to be Emerson and Charles Eliot Norton. Emerson +as a volatile literary force arose from many elements, one +of them assuredly humanistic, and from this fortifying +element in Emerson Babbitt has drawn much aid to his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span>own spirit. It was the element which Emerson expressed +in the didactic poem quoted on the flyleaf of Babbitt’s +first book, <cite>Literature and the American College</cite>, and +which no American Humanist since has apparently been +able to refrain from quoting some place or other in his +writings. I also succumb to the poem’s epigrammatic +appeal and concision.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">There are two laws discrete</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Not reconciled,—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Law for man, and law for thing;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The last builds town and fleet,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But it runs wild,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And doth the man unking.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>In respect to that man of truly mellow culture, Charles +Eliot Norton, friend of Carlyle, co-editor with Lowell of +the <cite>North American Review</cite>, professor of fine arts at +Harvard, and celebrated Dantean scholar and translator, +to him Babbitt acknowledged his indebtedness in the +preface to <cite>Literature and the American College</cite>, written +in 1907 shortly before Norton’s death.⁠<a id="FNanchor_2_2" href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> “Those who,” +Babbitt wrote, “during the past generation have felt the +need of a more humane scholarship are indebted to him, +many for direct aid and encouragement, and all for an +example.”</p> + +<p>By 1910 Babbitt had found strong fellowship in the +direction his mind was working, notably the fellowship of +Paul Elmer More. More had been born in St. Louis, Missouri, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span>a year earlier than Babbitt: he graduated from +Washington University in 1887 and took his master’s degree +from Harvard in 1893, the same date as Babbitt. In +the college year of 1894–1895 the two men were thrown +together again, More as an instructor in Sanskrit at Harvard +and Babbitt as an instructor in the French department. +In the intervening year Babbitt had taught in the +Romance Languages department of Williams College and +there he had met a young instructor, Frank Jewett +Mather, Jr., who was destined to figure importantly in +the growth of American Humanism. But not for long +were Babbitt and More to work together as university colleagues, +for from Harvard More went to Bryn Mawr +College, where he stayed two years teaching Sanskrit and +classical literature. Then in 1901, after his retreat to Shelburne, +New Hampshire, for meditation, he joined the +staff of the <cite>Independent</cite> as literary editor. Mather too +gave up academic work at this time and entered journalism +as an editorial writer for the New York <cite>Evening Post</cite>: +he was for various terms in the future to be its art critic +as well as assistant editor of the <cite>Nation</cite> and American +editor for the <cite>Burlington Magazine</cite>. More’s future included +the literary editorship of the New York <cite>Evening +Post</cite> from 1903 to 1909, and the editorship of the <cite>Nation</cite>, +then the supreme organ of American scholarship, from +1909 to 1914. In the meantime he had begun to write his +well known series of literary studies, the <cite>Shelburne Essays</cite>.</p> + +<p>More and Babbitt complement each other extraordinarily. +If Babbitt inclines to Aristotle, More inclines to +Plato. If Babbitt writes on literary trends, using particular +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span>authors only in so far as they illustrate trends, More studies +the individual genius, somewhat in the sinuous fashion +of Sainte-Beuve, and then points out the trend. Babbitt, +speaking roughly, is a critic of culture, More a critic of +authors. Their area of agreement is very wide: they unite +against Romanticism, agree substantially on Humanism, +and diverge only when it comes to the kind of interest +and the warmth of interest they feel in Religion. In +short, More is more religious by temperament than Babbitt.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>After his retirement from the <cite>Nation</cite> in 1914, More +devoted himself to an enterprise of scholarship and criticism +which well deserves an adjective to be used with +care, an adjective which has several times been applied +to it by men who do not write lightly, I mean the adjective, +monumental; and for the wonderful completion of +this enterprise he has occasionally been mentioned as a +candidate for the Nobel Prize in literature. The undertaking +was <cite>The Greek Tradition</cite> in five volumes, an impressive +and inspiring account of the relation of Platonic +and Hellenistic thought to early Christian thought; it +is a work, incidentally, that has not yet even begun to be +digested by American criticism.</p> + +<p>There are those who believe More to be the best literary +critic in the history of American literature. I think that is +so: he appears to me an American counterpart to Cardinal +Newman in his grasp at once of the ways of men, the +subtle arguments of materialism, and reasoned belief in +the spiritual life. But be that as it may, he is today the +<i lang="fr">doyen</i> of American critics, and as such a cause for national +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span>pride. Agree or not with their teachings, we must +all feel pride that America presents to Europe as, respectively, +her <i lang="fr">doyen</i> of critics and as her master-spokesman +for classical literary ideas two men of the resolution, deep +scholarship, elevated thought, ripeness of judgment and +wide sweep of purpose which characterize Paul Elmer +More and Irving Babbitt.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Possibly the future of American Humanism will be +dramatic. Already it has enough adherents of a polemical +turn of mind, sharp controversialists like Robert Shafer +and Seward Collins, to make things hot for their natural +opponents, the Liberals, and the Liberals are certainly +not going to relinquish their leadership of present-day +American literature and thought before resorting to every +device of literary dispute. Perhaps in the next decade +Humanist and Liberal will pamphleteer against each +other with all the zest and pungency and fierceness of +the verbal warfare waged between Tories and Whigs in +eighteenth century England. But up till now the New +Humanists have been mainly perfecting their viewpoint, +gathering strength, and preparing for action.</p> + +<p>I distinguish three generations of New Humanists and +divide, very arbitrarily, the rise of American Humanism +thus far into three brief periods, the first from 1900 to +1917, when Stuart P. Sherman’s <cite>On Contemporary Literature</cite> +appeared, the second from 1917 to the publication of +Babbitt’s <cite>Democracy and Leadership</cite> in 1924, and the +third from 1924 to the present.</p> + +<p>From 1900 to 1917 the first generation of New Humanists +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span>was teaching and writing out of its maturity. Babbitt +was publishing his views on educational reform, on +modern confusion in the arts, and on literary criticism. +More was brilliantly editing the <cite>Nation</cite> and composing +volume after volume of carefully thought out and gracefully +written studies of literature. Frank Jewett Mather, +Jr., was making a name as an exacting but sympathetic +critic of the fine arts, a calling of which in America he +is now the dean. In passing, it may be noted that Mather +was a pioneer in the work of advancing the books of Herman +Melville to a front place in our literature. At the +University of Nebraska, Prosser Hall Frye and Sherlock +Bronson Gass were teaching, thinking and writing. Perhaps +most prominent of all was the late W. C. Brownell, +of whom more than mere mention is required.</p> + +<p>Brownell, More and Babbitt—the names often formed +a triad, and yet Brownell never held explicitly the general +ideas worked out by More and Babbitt. The bond was +sympathetic, but intellectually not clearly established. I +once ventured to call Brownell a Victorian standpatter. +Perhaps this was too harsh. Objection was taken by a +critic who nevertheless declared that Brownell’s “senses +never felt a concrete situation freshly, unmediated by the +anticipation of habit. His mind, acute in distinguishing +things, rarely attained any ideas and never a general +philosophy. And his feeling for life seldom drove him +to remove the blinkers of convention.” It will be seen +that these defects lead to standpattism, however, and +Brownell resisted change and stood in general for the +Mid-Victorian temper and standards. His mind and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span>tastes were typically nineteenth century: he did not have +the freedom of the centuries so arduously won by Babbitt +and More. But he was loosely united to them in the low +opinion he entertained of many forms of modernism and +in his insistence on critical standards.</p> + +<p>Knowledge of the work these men—Brownell, Gass, +Frye, Mather, More and Babbitt—were performing in +the early years of this century relieves a little the oppressive +feeling of dearth we have in regarding that time in +America. In <cite>Their Day in Court</cite>, an out-of-print book +by a forgotten impressionistic critic, Percival Pollard, we +may get an excellent picture of this brief period of literary +dearth. Pollard fought against the dry rot of the professors, +the genteelness of editors like Hamilton Wright +Mabie, the commercialism of most that passed for criticism, +and the overwhelming mediocrity of the period’s +books. Rather sadly he said in 1908: “It does not seem to +me as if there were, on our side of the Atlantic, any longer +such a thing as the art of letters; it is merely a trade.” In +that same year a gifted young poet, Ezra Pound, fled our +country, and later in his poem, <cite lang="fr">L’Homme Moyen Sensuel</cite>, +expressed his disgust for the quietism of the times more +violently than even Pollard did.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Still I’d respect you if you could bury</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mabie, and Lyman Abbott and George Woodberry,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For minds so wholly founded upon quotations</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Are not the best of pulse for infant nations.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">So it was up to about 1912. There were certain giants +looming over the scene—Howells and Henry James and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span>Mark Twain—but they had no great animating effect +upon it. James seemed too remote, Howells too selective +and genteel in his realism, and Mark Twain too given to +compromises. According to Pollard, the one American +of literary genius then alive was almost completely neglected. +He meant Ambrose Bierce.</p> + +<p>Pollard and Pound were right. The period in spite of +James, Howells and Mark Twain and, if you will, Bierce, +was low in creative vitality, and the bulk of its criticism +was feeble,—Huneker flashing the cheap jewelry of his +style, Mabie composing his “White Lists” of books: both +extremists can without a second’s reluctance be dispensed +with. But looking back, now that the transient criticism +of 1900–1912 has been swept away, we see that there were +more independent critics at work than Pollard recognized +and that they were doing extremely hard thinking amidst +the plague of mediocre books. They continued to elaborate +their thought as American literature entered upon a +new and more fertile phase between 1912 and 1915.</p> + +<p>Some of the multiplying signs of the coming of a new +order were the founding of <cite>Poetry</cite> magazine in Chicago, +the establishment of the <cite>New Republic</cite>, the beginnings +of the <cite>Little Review</cite> and <cite>Others</cite>, the blooming of Greenwich +Village, and the generative center for fresh art impulses +set up at “291,” the art gallery of Alfred Stieglitz. +Soon a new group of authors began winning laurels: +Masters, Dreiser, Mencken, Brooks, Bourne, were on the +rise. The ferment worked faster ... little theatres ... +the <cite>Masses</cite> and the <cite>Liberator</cite> ... Coady’s <cite>Soil</cite> magazine +... the <cite>Seven Arts</cite> ... the <cite>Nation</cite> under Villard ... +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span>the <cite>Dial</cite> as a libertarian fortnightly. American participation +in the war only made the new ventures bubble more +furiously: they flourished, when not strangled by official +censorship, on dissent. Finally, in 1919 came Waldo +Frank’s <cite>Our America</cite>, the distillation of this time of ferment +from 1912.</p> + +<p>Frank in this book took no cognisance, as his confrère +Van Wyck Brooks did, of the critical activities of the first +generation of the New Humanists. Nor did he pause to +examine the work of Stuart P. Sherman, the forerunner of +the second generation of American Humanists. But Sherman +in 1917 had brought about the first spectacular duel +between the New Humanists and the naturalists represented +by H. L. Mencken. Sherman had been trained at +Harvard under Babbitt: as a contributor to the <cite>Nation</cite>, he +had been groomed by Paul Elmer More. In 1917 he published +a book, <cite>On Contemporary Literature</cite>, in which he +played the part of the younger spokesman for classicism.</p> + +<p>It is the best of Sherman’s books. Nine-tenths of his +work is mediocre, but in <cite>On Contemporary Literature</cite> +he surpassed himself. His insights into such authors as +Synge, George Moore, Anatole France, H. G. Wells, +Theodore Dreiser were sharp, deep and excruciating to +those who admired them. Of George Moore, he wrote: +“Purely intellectual initiative he had none: but he has +been swiftly responsive to every new influence in art and +literature. All his life he has lurked in the purlieus of +schools and insinuated himself into movements, solicitating, +like the barren Calpurnia, the fructifying touch of +some fleet clear eyed runner ... Mr. Moore does not +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span>think: he muses.” Of Anatole France, he observed: “He +loves above all else the luxury of philosophic despair ... +The skepticism of M. France is largely a literary pose. It is +his justification for unlimited intellectual self-indulgence.” +And here is an excellent working distinction between +realism and naturalism in fiction: “Both are representations +of the life of man in contemporary or nearly contemporary +society, and both are presumably composed of +materials within the experience and observation of the +author. But the realistic novel is a representation based +upon a theory of human conduct. If the theory of human +conduct is adequate, the representation constitutes an addition +to literature and to social history. A naturalistic +novel is a representation based upon a theory of animal +behavior. Since a theory of animal behavior can never +be an adequate basis for a representation of the life of +man in contemporary society, such a representation is an +artistic blunder.”</p> + +<p>Little wonder such thrusts as these produced an outcry, +and there is now no doubt that Sherman was vilified on +the strength of this acute book. We may look forward to +the sober correction of the partisan denunciations he called +forth. In the meantime let us hear a Humanist version +of Sherman’s duel with Mencken, as an offset to the much +better known story given out by the sympathizers with +Mencken. I quote from Seward Collins writing in the +<cite>Bookman</cite>:</p> + +<p>“Until after the war the main force of his (Sherman’s) +work lay in the brilliant application of the point of view +he had learned from Irving Babbitt and Paul E. More, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span>carrying into the enemy’s camp their warfare against naturalism +and deliquescent romanticism. With the publication +of <cite>On Contemporary Literature</cite> at the end of 1917 +he became the recognized spokesman for tradition and +authority against the ‘liberating’ and ‘innovating’ efforts +of the latest generation. The effectiveness of his campaign +may be judged from the shrieks, hoots and curses +which greeted his book in the radical magazines and in +some of the newspapers, notably in Chicago, where the +new men occupied most of the reviewing media. The +Chicago outburst, characterized by unanimous, simultaneous +and extreme virulence, makes very amusing reading +in retrospect. Several records in this kind of criticism +must have been hung up during the onslaught, which +went on for weeks.</p> + +<p>“Participants in the Chicago attack have explained that +factors aside from the book itself entered into the reception +of <cite>On Contemporary Literature</cite>. The cause most +frequently given is the review of Mencken’s <cite>A Book of +Prejudices</cite> which Sherman published in the <cite>Nation</cite> of +November 29, 1917—just a month before his own book +appeared—under the title <cite>Beautifying American Literature</cite>. +The review might well explain any amount of rage +among Mencken’s friends and disciples: it was one of +the most completely devastating slatings of a book and +of a man ever penned....</p> + +<p>“This encounter was really an historic occasion in +American letters and thought. On the one side, for a +number of years Irving Babbitt and Paul E. More had +brought supreme qualities of intellect, scholarship, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span>literary skill to the perennial task of restating the case for +tradition in literature, morals, politics and philosophy. +The result was a series of powerful books providing almost +a new basis for the traditionalist cause, but one related +at every point to the earlier American traditionalists, +to the main stream of European culture, and to the great +classical traditions of both the West and the East. In +Stuart Sherman these men had found a young disciple +and champion whose gifts, while not qualifying him to +advance their work along all of the extremely broad front +on which they were engaged, yet enabled him to make +immediate and effective application of their views in +their own country and among the writers of the day.</p> + +<p>“On the other side, the disruptive, anti-authoritarian, +anti-traditional tendencies, which America had for the +most part resisted even when in the ’nineties they took +England by storm, after their successful tour of the continent, +had from the beginning of the century been gathering +strength. As the century got into its teens, the new +forces found a vigorous, infectious spokesman in H. L. +Mencken, who had spent his youth soaking up all the +prevalent forms of the heretical doctrines—Huxleyan +agnosticism and science-worship, Pater’s æstheticism with +trimmings by Wilde, the hedonism and routine mockery +of Anatole France, the inverted sentimentality of Nietzsche, +Ibsen, and the other shrunken giants of fifty years +ago, and so on. To all this Mencken had added a Bohemian +individualism from various sources (given aristocratic +airs by talk of Federalism, the civilized minorities, +etc.), a smart up-to-dateness, and a talent for the violent +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span>buffoonery of American provincial journalism. To many +this rich mixture proved irresistible.</p> + +<p>“These two antagonistic tendencies developed side by +side for years without clashing: the new men were restricted +to shady magazines, fleeting-tendency journals, +and infrequent books which remained outside channels +of discussion. But in Mencken had arrived a personality +who could not be overlooked. And in Sherman the traditionalists +had a representative so sensitive to the forceful +figures of his day that he must have his say on them. +The two men, who had been born a few months apart, +had entered upon literary criticism within a few weeks +of each other in 1908, and now at the end of 1917 published +almost simultaneously their first significant books. +The result was the episode which we have recounted. +The old had met the new in open conflict, and the fight +was on.”</p> + +<p>I take this episode which Collins has described so +vividly to mark the end of the first period of American +Humanism. This, as stated before, is quite arbitrary, but +it is a temporary convenience. For in this first brush +Sherman and his friends suffered defeat. Not defeat on +intellectual grounds, but defeat when it came to making +their ideas and standards prevail. <cite>On Contemporary Literature</cite> +was given a black name as a puritan castigation +of modern writers which even today keeps it out of the +hands of young people. Sherman himself underwent a +metamorphosis. He coarsened his style and vulgarized +his thought and within a few years was on the side of +the very Liberals he had once scorned. From the Liberal +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span>point of view, Sherman had advanced, escaping from a +rigid system of ideas, to a more genial play of his sympathies +and a greater openness of mind. From the Humanist +viewpoint, he disintegrated. Losing him, the New +Humanists lost their one champion who at this time was +willing to employ his energies cutting off the latest heads +sprouted by the hydra of naturalism. The Naturalists, +the Liberals, the Romanticists, were to have things their +own way for the next few years.</p> + +<p>1920 was their year of jubilation, for in this year their +spirit of revolt, hitherto nourished in the intelligentsia +and among the artists, suddenly became popular. It was +spread abroad by the success of such realistic novels as +Sinclair Lewis’s <cite>Main Street</cite>, Floyd Dell’s <cite>Moon Calf</cite>, and +Zona Gale’s <cite>Miss Lulu Bett</cite>. Eugene O’Neill conquered +Broadway at last with <cite>Beyond the Horizon</cite>, and in the +same season <cite>Emperor Jones</cite> was produced in Greenwich +Village. The <cite>Dial</cite> became an advanced monthly of the +arts, the <cite>Freeman</cite> launched itself on a four years’ voyage +of philosophic anarchism, Art Young conducted his short-lived +<cite>Good Morning</cite>, contributing his laughter to dissolve +the capitalist régime. Such books as <cite>The American +Credo</cite> by Mencken and Nathan, <cite>Poor White</cite> by Sherwood +Anderson, <cite>The Brass Check</cite> by Upton Sinclair, +<cite>The Ordeal of Mark Twain</cite> by Van Wyck Brooks, and +<cite>The Dark Mother</cite> by Waldo Frank made the year seem +splendid with revolt, with energy, with novelty. The Red +’Twenties had dawned. In this tumult the New Humanists +were lost from sight, and mouse-valiant book reviewers +in droves echoed the words of J. E. Spingarn without +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>bothering to read the men they were condemning. +“These men,” said Spingarn of Babbitt and More in the +Freeman Pamphlet entitled <cite>On American Books</cite>, “have +the learning and culture of the best academic critics of +France; but what avails their petulant erudition if it serves +no other purpose than to whine over the irrevocable past +and to sneer at the aspirations of modern men?” Spingarn +was floating with the new current and it seemed to +carry all the old barriers before it.</p> + +<p>Practically every one in the new movement agreed that +the objects of attack were Puritanism and industrialism. +In fiction, realism and naturalism came in as the fashion. +Psycho-analysis attained its greatest vogue. Lyricism, +emotionalism, were valued chiefly, and intellectualism +suffered a decline in esteem. The star of the new America +was heralded rising out of the Middle West. An +American renascence has begun, the prophets declared, +and now we shall create an indigenous culture. Expansion +was in the air. Who would pay heed in all this excitement +to Babbitt and More who stressed the opposite +mood, concentration?</p> + +<p>They, however, continued to swim against the swirling +current of Romanticism. More was at work on his magnum +opus, <cite>The Greek Tradition</cite>, and in 1918, the year +after Sherman’s <cite>On Contemporary Literature</cite> had been +blackened, Babbitt published his remarkable study of the +use and misuse of the imagination, <cite>Rousseau and Romanticism</cite>. +They were putting the last touches on their system +of ideas, and had the satisfaction while so engaged of beholding +a small second generation of New Humanists +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span>begin to come forward: Stanley P. Chase at Bowdoin +College, G. R. Elliott at Amherst, Robert Shafer at the +University of Cincinnati, and Norman Foerster at the +University of North Carolina. In 1924 appeared Babbitt’s +<cite>Democracy and Leadership</cite>, a study of modern political +thought which conducted the author at its conclusion +back in a great circle to his starting point in his first book, +the need for collegiate reform in our study of the humanities. +We may say, for convenience’ sake, that <cite>Democracy +and Leadership</cite> closed the second period of American +Humanism. The New Humanism’s edifice of ideas was +now virtually complete.</p> + +<p>In the next period, from 1924 to the present, the humanistic +party gathered adherents and momentum as a distinct +counter-movement to the still triumphant naturalistic +movement. T. S. Eliot, who has made no secret of his +partial indebtedness to Babbitt, was instrumental in interesting +various young critics in the ideas of More and +Babbitt. Two brief notes in <cite>The Sacred Wood</cite> had the +effect, even early in the Red ’Twenties, of raising a doubt +about the correctness of the current adverse judgments on +Babbitt and More delivered by men like Spingarn, +Mencken and Brooks. Later articles by Eliot and the +opening of the pages of his review, <cite>The Criterion</cite>, to discussions +of the New Humanism did much to make Humanism +a chief topic of distinguished conversation. The +<cite>Forum</cite> also undertook in a series of articles pro and con +to advance Humanism to the forefront of the intellectual +world. A third generation of New Humanists—prominent +among them being Alan Reynolds Thompson and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span>Harry Hayden Clark—was formed: the <cite>Hound and +Horn</cite>, an organ of <i lang="fr">les jeunes</i> edited by a former student +of Babbitt, for a time flirted with the ideas of the counter-movement. +Finally, in 1929 under the slashing leadership +of Seward Collins the <cite>Bookman</cite> took up arms for the +cause of More and Babbitt.</p> + +<p>Meantime, the main naturalistic movement in American +letters was slackening. In increasing numbers people +were growing weary of Menckenism. Two popular books +in 1929 showed the hour was striking for fresh ideas: one, +Krutch’s <cite>The Modern Temper</cite>, was a confession of impotence +and gloom over the loss of the romantic hopes +that had been so dazzling in 1920, the other, Lippmann’s +<cite>A Preface to Morals</cite>, recognized the need for a new discipline +in living and made effort towards a formulation of +one. Two prominent magazines of artistic revolt suspended +and each gave a curiously significant reason. The +<cite>Dial</cite> said that “although a magazine can get along somehow +without readers it cannot exist without contributors.” +And Margaret Anderson said in the farewell number of +the <cite>Little Review</cite>: “As this number will show, even the +artist doesn’t know what he is talking about. And I can +no longer go on publishing a magazine in which no one +really knows what he is talking about.” Verily, times +were changing! We come to 1930, and hand-to-hand +fighting at last between the New Humanists and the +Liberals or Naturalists or Romantics, as you choose to +call them.</p> + +<p>The occasion was the publication of the symposium, +<cite>Humanism and America</cite>, edited by Norman Foerster +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span>with the assistance of P. H. Houston, G. R. Elliott and +Robert Shafer. It provoked a new “battle of the books” +but thus far no Swift has arisen to lash the gross stupidities +committed by the majority of the modernists. The +controversy in general was a repetition on a much wider +scale of the unscrupulous Chicago onslaught on Sherman’s +book in 1917. Issues were obscured, prejudice appealed +to, meanings distorted: literary careerists rushed +in, trying to outshout each other, and the low estate of +criticism in America became painfully clear. I need only +cite the testimony of an observer not on the Humanist +side who was finally driven to write: “I confess to impatience +with the row about Humanism, because in the +course of it, in the past half year or so, I have seen the +powerful principles laid down by Irving Babbitt, being +confused and cheapened.” The words are by Gilbert +Seldes. Finally, an opposition symposium, <cite>The Critique +of Humanism</cite>, was hastily organized and hurriedly despatched +to the book shops three months after <cite>Humanism +and America</cite> saw the light on the counters. With what +seem to me the cogent objections to the standpoint of +Babbitt and More advanced in <cite>The Critique of Humanism</cite>, +I shall deal by and by.</p> + +<p>But shall we let the unsavoury episode just narrated pass +without recording the full harshness of judgment it deserves? +I conceive it the strict duty of a historian and +lover of letters to say that the cause of Romanticism is not +so poor that it needs to be defended by poor reasons and +mob-appeals and that there is in fact a high standard of +argument already set in this controversy by the writings +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span>of the English critics, Hugh l’Anson Fausset and J. Middleton +Murry, <em>against</em> the classicists’ position. One’s first +desire is to see, regardless of one’s party sympathies, the +steady advancement, the heightening of literary excellence, +of all schools—let us have everything at its highest +point—and it is just this desire for <em>quality</em> of controversy +that was ungratified by the outpourings of the American +modernists. Really, they should have done better! I can +only say that if we imagine that criticism has a deity, as +love was once fabled to have, then we shall have to invent +two forms of it, even as the Greeks conceived of Aphrodite +Uranus and Aphrodite Pandemos. We shall have to say +that there is presiding over the labors of critics Polite +Criticism and Vulgar Criticism, and that it was Vulgar +Criticism which ruled most of the pens attempting to +deface the New Humanism in the spring of 1930. No +fierce Tory with the genius of Swift arose, it is true, to +wither the present-day worshippers of Vulgar Criticism, +but we can turn back to Swift himself for the necessary +scathing words.</p> + +<p>“Meanwhile, Momus, fearing the worst, and calling to +mind an ancient prophecy, which bore no very good face +to his children the Moderns bent his flight to the region of +a malignant deity, called criticism. She dwelt on the top +of a snowy mountain in Nova Zembla; there Momus +found her extended in her den, upon the spoils of numberless +volumes, half devoured. At her right hand sat +Ignorance, her father and husband, blind with age; at her +left, Pride, her mother, dressing her up in the scraps of +paper herself had torn. There was Opinion, her sister, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span>light of foot, hoodwinked, and headstrong, yet giddy, and +perpetually turning. About her played her children, +Noise and Impudence, Dulness and Vanity, Positiveness, +Pedantry, and Ill-manners. The goddess herself had claws +like a cat; her head, and ears, and voice, resembled those +of an ass; her teeth fallen out before, her eyes turned inward, +as if she looked only upon herself; her diet was the +overflowing of her own gall; her spleen was so large, as +to stand prominent, like a dug of the first rate; nor wanted +excrescencies in form of teats, at which a crew of ugly +monsters were greedily sucking; and, what is wonderful +to conceive, the bulk of spleen increased faster than the +sucking could diminish it. ‘Goddess,’ said Momus, ‘can +you sit idly here while our devout worshippers, the Moderns, +are this minute entering into a cruel battle, and perhaps +now lying under the swords of their enemies? Who, +then, hereafter will ever sacrifice, or build altars, to our +divinities?’”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Unlike the quarrels that were the occasion for Swift’s +writing <cite>The Battle of the Books</cite>, the new “battle of the +books” caused by the advent of American Humanism involves +issues that far transcend the ordinary interests of +scholars and professional literary men. So far as the present +controversy is literary, it is pretty much the case of the +warm dispute in Æsop’s Fable between the Bee and the +Spider as to which was the better artist. This fable Swift +rewrote in <cite>The Battle of the Books</cite> and then made Æsop +draw out its application in words that cover almost +equally well the respective arguments of the Modernists +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span>and the New Humanist today, for it will be seen that the +modernistic spider makes a cult of originality and tends +toward science-worship while the humanistic bee objects +to the kind and impermanency of the modernist’s materials +and extols wide ranging and “sweetness and light.”</p> + +<p>“The disputants,” Swift has Æsop say, “have admirably +managed the dispute between them, have taken in the full +strength of all that is to be said on both sides, and exhausted +the substance of every argument <i>pro</i> and <i>con</i>. It +is but to adjust the reasonings of both to the present quarrel, +then to compare and apply the labors and fruits of +each, as the bee has learnedly deduced them, and we shall +find the conclusion fall plain and close upon the Moderns +and us. For, pray, gentlemen, was ever anything so modern +as the spider in his air, his turns, and his paradoxes? +He argues in behalf of you his brethren and himself, with +many boastings of his native stock and great genius; that +he spins and spits wholly from himself, and scorns to +own any obligation or assistance from without. Then he +displays to you his great skill in architecture, and improvement +in the mathematics. To all this the bee, as an advocate, +retained by us the Ancients, thinks fit to answer—that, +if one may judge of the great genius or inventions +of the Moderns by what they have produced, you will +hardly have countenance to bear you out, in boasting of +either. Erect your schemes with as much method and +skill as you please; yet if the materials be nothing but +dirt, spun out of your own entrails (the guts of modern +brains) the edifice will conclude at last in a cobweb, the +duration of which, like that of other spiders’ webs, may +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span>be imputed to their being forgotten, or neglected, or hid +in a corner. For anything else of genuine that the Moderns +may pretend to, I cannot recollect; unless it be a +large vein of wrangling and satire, much of a nature and +substance with the spider’s poison; which, however they +pretend to spit wholly out of themselves, is improved by +the same arts, by feeding upon the insects and vermin of +the age. As for us the Ancients, we are content, with the +bee, to pretend to nothing of our own beyond our wings +and our voice, that is to say, our flights and our language. +For the rest, whatever we have got, has been by infinite +labor and search, and ranging through every corner of +nature; the difference is, that, instead of dirt and poison, +we have rather chosen to fill our hives with honey and +wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of +things, which are sweetness and light.”</p> + +<p>More quickly than anything else, and that is why I have +invoked it, the potent breath of Swift ought to lift the +battle-smoke that now obscures the literary quarrel between +the New Humanist and the ultra-modernist and +permit us to see the essentials of the doctrine of More and +Babbitt. What are they? What importance and meaning +and utility have they for the lay reader not afraid to look +<em>everywhere</em> for guidance in facing the alternatives that +life is so ingenious in forcing constantly upon man? I +propose now to consider the very center of humanist +teaching, the duality of human consciousness so uncompromisingly +affirmed by the two leaders.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="V"> + V + <br> + THE CLASSICAL REVIVAL ABROAD + </h2> +</div> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>“People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking +of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, and +safe. There never was anything so perilous or so +exciting as orthodoxy. It was sanity: and to be sane +is more dramatic than to be mad. It was the equilibrium +of a man behind madly rushing horses, seeming +to stoop this way and to sway that, yet in every attitude +having the grace of statuary and the accuracy +of arithmetic.... It is easy to be a madman: it is +easy to be a heretic. It is always easy to let the age +have its head; the difficult thing is to keep one’s +own. It is always easy to be a modernist; as it is +easy to be a snob.”</i>—<span class="smcap">G. K. Chesterton</span> in <cite>Orthodoxy</cite>.</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p>However, before fulfilling the promise made at the close +of the preceding chapter, it seems well to take a cursory +view of the classical revival in England and France. Recent +experience has shown that American critics with only +two or three exceptions cannot be trusted to situate a comprehensive +movement like the New Humanism in its +proper climate of sentiment, opinion and idea. On the +contrary, many of them regarded or affected to regard the +New Humanist group as a quaint local phenomenon +sprung up miraculously without atmosphere and totally +unrelated to similar groups anywhere else. This delusion +embraced by the majority of the opponents of American +Humanism badly distorted their sense of perspective: to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span>the broad challenge of the followers of More and Babbitt +they replied with singularly inappropriate defiances. The +plain truth is that a stiff parochial frame of mind simply +cannot make much sense of the application of Babbitt’s +criticism to current American literature and life. The +obvious remedy is wider travel in the countries of the +mind.</p> + +<p>More and Babbitt are spokesmen for classicism on the +ground that it contains a wisdom superior to modernism. +They uphold the longer traditions of the human race +against the newly formed traditions of the last fifty, seventy-five +or one hundred years. They believe in a profound +vital conservatism, not in the contemporaneous versions of +radicalism. They are, when one reviews European history +in a large way, orthodox, not heterodox. In England and +France we shall find distinguished writers who like Babbitt +and More are classicists, traditionalists, conservative, +orthodox, men who oppose with all their might and intellect +the drift of modern civilization and seek to renew +our sense of time-tested standards. In this chapter I intend +merely to point out some of these men, to quote +from each of those designated only a few characteristic +words on the modern crisis: that will be enough to show +on the one hand the many sides and the diversity that living +classicists everywhere manifest, and on the other hand +their unanimity on the errors of modernity and the need +for standards and discipline will be enough to destroy the +silly notion that the classical party in America is engaged +in a unique reaction. I cannot here attempt rounded estimates, +however brief, of the individuals mentioned, but +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span>I shall try to transfer to the intellectual situation in America, +which is our center of interest, several useful hints +they offer. We must expect to find conservative force in +England to be <i lang="la">sui generis</i>, and likewise in France, but +for that and many other reasons an acquaintance with +them, even though but a bowing one, makes for that +suppleness of mind necessary to comprehend the home +movement. We may even rid ourselves of senseless fears +of certain words: the reader whose object is the freeing +of his mind must soon overcome any horror he feels for +the word, “revolutionary,” or for the word, “reactionary.” +The free mind goes everywhere and tries to judge without +prejudice the thing itself and not the name.</p> + +<p>One thing we shall be immediately struck by is that +it is purely an accident that in America the conservative +attitude should temporarily be expressing itself almost +entirely in the form of ideas and criticism, for this is, of +course, by no means an inevitable outlet for the conservative +temper. Tories, as witness Swift, can be great +artists: art was never the monopoly of the Whigs, but +has always been common to men of all hues of conviction. +American Humanism therefore does not inculcate an uncreative +attitude. It cannot, it is true, make creative +ability in the arts where such ability does not exist, but +neither, for that matter, can such a theory as self-expression +produce creative ability. The Humanist attitude is a +check on bad art: self-expression, unfortunately, is a release +of bad art. On this score, which is to be preferred? +No; it is a mere happenstance that at present Humanism’s +representatives are of a critical turn, men of ideas rather +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>than men of pronounced sensibility. Hence, their relative +unpopularity. They advocate ideas, and ideas—it is a +truism—always must fight against more inertia than emotions. +An initial prejudice exists against ideas as such, +whereas some one’s strong feelings directly affect us either +to sympathy or to resistance: emotions convey themselves +almost as swiftly as actions do, but ideas, being quite the +weakest element in psychology, have a much harder time +travelling from person to person. Nor does one need to +enlarge on the enmity felt toward criticism itself, the disparagement +constantly cast on this necessary function of +literary life, a habit of dispraise which, it should be noted, +grew up in the romantic period. The New Humanists are +mostly critics, and because of that many people conclude +that their doctrine, their conservatism, is sterile in the +practice of the arts. It does not follow, for it is the person +who is or is not an artist, not the doctrine which is responsible. +Look abroad and you will see how fertile in the +arts of fiction and verse a classical reaction may be, and no +doubt yet will be in our own country.</p> + +<p>Here is a gallery of brief portraits of anti-romantic +writers in England.</p> + +<p>Philip S. Richards:—</p> + +<p>One of the youngest English critics and probably the +closest in spirit and theory to American Humanism. In +the pages of the famous review, <cite>The Nineteenth Century +and After</cite>, he has expounded very faithfully to the English +reader the ideas of Babbitt and More. No one has better +described the precise effect of Babbitt’s main principle on +those who come to accept it. “Only by following it up in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>all its ramifications, as Babbitt works it out in his books +with a wealth of illustrative evidence, is it possible to +realize its amazing fruitfulness, and its universal applicability +to the intellectual and moral problems which +we have inherited from the nineteenth century. <em>When +once its import is fairly grasped, its influence is like that +of a new principle of classification in one of the descriptive +sciences. New and natural lines of cleavage or affiliation +at once appear, introducing order and interdependence +into a mass of chaotic or misrelated facts.</em> A simple +criterion is put into the reader’s hands, which he cannot +help using, even though it mean the abandonment of +secret loyalties and the dethronement of long-cherished +ideals.... We may regard him (Babbitt) as a pathologist +who traces the romantic malady from its origin in +Rousseau, through its mild and chronic stage in Wordsworth, +to its acute and delirious phases in Tolstoy or the +expressionist drama.” (The italics are mine.)</p> + +<p>T. S. Eliot:—</p> + +<p>The prestige of this erstwhile American citizen among +the younger generation has caused the same generation +to be particularly attentive to his views on American +Humanism. Eliot’s poems, so exquisite in workmanship, +subtle in perception, almost Dantean in the clarity and +power of the individual image, contain the poignant +suffering of a sensibility tortured by the ugliness, crassness +and lowness of modern civilization. His earlier criticism +dealt accurately with the effects of literary masterpieces +upon his sensibility. In recent years he has broadened +his basis as a critic and introduced a religious note +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>into his poetry. His general point of view he now describes +“as classicist in literature, royalist in politics, and +anglo-catholic in religion,” and wisely adds, “I am quite +aware that the first term is completely vague, and easily +lends itself to clap-trap; I am aware that the second term +is at present without definition, and easily lends itself to +what is almost worse than clap-trap, I mean temperate +conservatism; the third term does not rest with me to +define.”</p> + +<p>Eliot holds that we should come “to the conclusion +that the humanistic point of view is auxiliary to and dependent +upon the religious point of view. For us, religion +is of course Christianity; and Christianity implies, +I think, the conception of the Church. It would be not +only interesting but invaluable if Professor Babbitt, with +his learning, his great ability, his influence, and his interest +in the most important questions of the time, could +reach this point.” But on the other hand Eliot has written +an essay “to call attention to the danger of the other +extreme: the danger, a very real one, of <em>religion without +humanism</em>.”</p> + +<p>Herbert Read:—</p> + +<p>A close co-worker with T. S. Eliot in the field of literary +criticism, this author is severe in his condemnation +of the flatness of modern life. “For Froissart,” Read declares, +“glory was the measure of all things, the crown +of all virtues. For us it has become something remote +and elusive; even something romantic and literary. We +have lost the sense of glory because we have lost the habit +of faith. We neither love deeply enough, nor feel deeply +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span>enough, nor think deeply enough, to enjoy life’s most impressive +sanction.” Read follows the path of T. E. Hulme, +whose <cite>Speculations</cite> he edited, back to pre-Renascence +philosophy: he has disciplined himself on the pages of +the <cite>Summa Theologica</cite> and has caught fire from the complex +splendor of the Middle Ages.</p> + +<p>A champion of orthodoxy, he is critical of any particular +form of orthodoxy, such as American Humanism, +as his essay in the <cite>Criterion</cite> on <cite>Humanism and the Absolute</cite> +reveals. This paper discussing the views of Norman +Foerster and Julien Benda was sub-titled <cite>The Texts +of a Debate</cite>, and I hope it is not lost ink to refer again +to the higher standard of controversy observed in England +by writers who deal with the New Humanists and +to regret that our critics of Foerster’s <cite>American Criticism</cite> +were, as a rule, unable to reach up to the mark set by +Read. In the essay mentioned, Read maintains that unlike +Julien Benda, “Mr. Foerster, on behalf of the New +Humanists, nowhere makes it clear that he accepts this +absolute severance of things divine and things human. +He admits that ‘the ethical will’ is ‘a power above the +ordinary self, an impersonal reality in which all men may +share despite the diversity of personal temperament, and +toward which their attitude must be one of subjection.’ +But he also says that ‘the value of supernatural intuition +must be tested by the intellect,’ and rejects any formal +theology on these grounds. But the greatest of all formal +theologies, that of St. Thomas Aquinas, was precisely such +a ‘testing’ of supernatural intuition by the intellect or +reason. If religious intuitions must be submitted to rational +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span>inspection, then surely the result is a theology. +Mr. Foerster cannot have it both ways: to <em>hesitate</em> ‘to pass +beyond’ experimental knowledge to dogmatic affirmation +is merely to sit on the fence: once admit the mediation of +reason and you are involved in the necessity of dogma.”</p> + +<p>This point, the reader will recognize, is connected with +Hulme’s argument for radical discontinuities in the universe, +which was injected into our first chapter and to +which I pledged myself to return.</p> + +<p>Wyndham Lewis:—</p> + +<p>He has dramatized himself as an Ishmaelite in Occidental +culture, the sworn and ferocious enemy of “Time-cults” +and “Time-philosophies,” of which Bergsonism is +a typical specimen. Before the Great War, he was a +radical painter and associated with Ezra Pound to propagate +an artistic cult baptized Vorticism. Since the War +he has turned social philosopher, and possibly may be a +first rate Tory mind in the making. I say in the making, +for up to the present Lewis is still a chaotic personality, +given to extravagances, and not yet sufficiently trained in +metaphysics to cope with A. N. Whitehead, S. Alexander, +and some of his other <i lang="fr">bêtes noires</i>. But the New Humanist +can second him in many of his theses. He and Lewis +are at one in their scorn for the contemporary cult of +the child and the primitive and in their hostility to the +modern feminization of man.</p> + +<p>In his book, <cite>The Art of Being Ruled</cite>, Lewis maintains—I +cannot better Montgomery Belgion’s succinct restatement +in the <cite>Bookman</cite>—that “what happens in a ‘liberal +democracy’ is that rule by the few is not banished, but +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>concealed. And it is this concealment which is, Mr. +Lewis holds, responsible for so many of our contemporary +ills, the greatest of these being, perhaps, mass suggestion. +In a democracy the actual rulers are not the best rulers, +but those who are most cunning in obtaining power, and, +furthermore, since their rule has to be secret, it becomes +necessary for these rulers to hypnotize the ruled into acquiescence, +to discredit the old standards of existence +through the agency of Science, and to organize the populace, +to mechanize it, to pump it full of a destructive +fatalism while it is kept imagining itself its own master.” +Therefore let us have again an authority that is an open +authority. On Lewis’s analysis of pseudo-liberty the New +Humanist will agree even more heartily. “The present +decay of Europe,” I quote from Belgion again, “Mr. Lewis +ascribes directly to the notion of freedom. Since people +cannot be free and in any case do not want to be free, +but only to be irresponsible, the notion of freedom has +been thought to be the notion of irresponsibility, and, thus +misunderstood, has been steadily weakening Europe. To +this wasteful and disorganizing notion of irresponsibility +he opposes the notion of ‘working together’ under a central +control, which, he points out, gives the comfort and +strength of solidarity.”</p> + +<p>Hilaire Belloc:—</p> + +<p>As a Catholic, this versatile man—politician, poet, storyteller, +essayist, historian, biographer—can naturally not +regard American Humanism as more than a half-way +house. This would be in general the Catholic position: +however, both the New Humanist and the Catholic intellectual +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span>are anti-naturalistic and pro-classical and this sets +vibrating a certain bond of sympathy for each other’s +efforts to infuse into modern literature something of what +Belloc calls “the poise, the fulness, the solemnity, the disdain +of sharp effect, the glory in control, the magic of proportion” +which marked the productions of the great +classical periods.</p> + +<p>“The classical spirit,” observes Belloc, “has not fallen +into disrepute among us: it has been forgotten. It has +become alien and strange, so that men coming across it +today, in our society, are like rustics coming across some +marble of the ancients. It does not repel them, but it +hardly attracts them at all—they can make nothing of +it.... It is said that men who drink spirits lose their +taste for wine and certainly men who use violent sauces +lose their taste in cooking. Under the effect of the +romantic extravagance, the general sense of the classic +died. But the last extravagances of that extravagance +were left for our time to suffer.”</p> + +<p>I pass now from Belloc, anti-communist, anti-capitalist, +and anti-puritan, to the brilliant debater he has so greatly +influenced and to whom I shall give more space than has +been devoted to the other members of this little gallery +of English champions of high tradition.</p> + +<p>Gilbert K. Chesterton:—</p> + +<p>First, I will show at once his views on the New Humanism +because they pour light on the subject matter of +this book, the dilemmas of liberated people today. +Granted, says Chesterton: “we need a rally of the really +<em>human</em> things; will which is morals, memory which is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span>tradition, culture which is the mental thrift of our +fathers.” But for him “the question really is whether +Humanism can perform the functions of religion.” His +reply is unequivocal. “I do not believe that Humanism +can be a complete substitute for Superhumanism.” Why? +Well, “the fact is this: that the modern world, with its +modern movements, is living on its Catholic capital. It +is using, and using up, the truths that remain to it out of +the old treasury of Christendom.” The New Humanism +in Chesterton’s judgment draws on Catholic capital, but +it “has one very wise and worthy character. It is trying +to pick up the pieces; that is, to pick up all the pieces.” +Only “can it stick them together? Where is the <em>cement</em> +which made religion corporate and popular, which can +prevent it falling to pieces in a débris of individualistic +tastes and degrees?” Chesterton makes clear his doubt +that the New Humanists “have the secret of continuity; +certainly not of corporate continuity.”</p> + +<p>Next, I should like the reader to join me in regretting +that we in America have had no G. K. Chesterton to +work as an antidote to such a popular “philosopher” as +H. L. Mencken. Admit all the faults of Chesterton, the +occasional specious arguments, now and then the patch +of tawdry rhetoric, the lapses in taste and the falls into +mechanicality of style: call him, if you desire, no more +than a super-journalist. These flaws, however, are no +great handicap in coping with a popular propounder of +belated nineteenth century rationalism of the type of +Mencken, when one is as playful, as pyrotechnical, as +hearty as Chesterton. By his buffooning Mencken hopes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span>to attract the populace to the banners of heresy: by his +humor and the dazzlement of paradoxes Chesterton aims +to draw the public to orthodoxy. Thus, the two men by +their methods neutralize each other and leave the reader +free to examine coolly what it is that in all seriousness +they maintain. And in that respect Chesterton is immeasurably +the larger man.</p> + +<p>Thirdly, the history of Chesterton presents a couple of +features of special interest for the person who is reacting +against the contemporary welter of half-truths. How +came Chesterton to his present strength of conviction on +so many topics toward which his foes preserve an attitude +of squeamish indecision? The startling answer is, because +his early education, like that of Cardinal Newman +and of Coleridge, consisted of fairy tales. Startling to +us, that is, for many of us have been led to conclude that +there should be no place for fairy tales in the training of +the young, that the less of “fantasy” and the more of +“fact” we incorporate into education, the better developed +will be the sense of reality of our children. But this is +one of the crimes against children, the most abominable +class of crimes. No one has more forcibly stated the +case for fairy tales than Coleridge. “Should children be +permitted to read romances and relations of giants and +magicians and genii? I know all that has been said +against it; but I have formed my faith in the affirmative. +I know no other way of giving the mind a love of the +Great and the Whole. Those who have been led to the +same truths step by step, through the constant testimony +of their senses, seem to me to want a sense which I possess. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span>They contemplate nothing but <em>parts</em>, and all <em>parts</em> +are necessarily little. And the universe to them is but +a mass of <em>little things</em>.” Chesterton argues somewhat +differently, but it is apparent that he was stimulated by +fairy tales to love the inclusive, to desire to reach the +center, to devote himself to the transcendent conception. +It is in the centrality and breadth of his mind that he +exceeds Mencken and the smaller fry of rationalists.</p> + +<p>Another thing to take into account is Chesterton’s reaction +to the Yellow Nineties in England. In his youth +he was immersed in Huxleyan agnosticism and Wildean +æstheticism, and he revolted vigorously from these excesses. +He found young men proud of their boredom; +ennui was taken to be a symptom of personal distinction. +And he was informed that art was divorced from morals. +He replied curtly that “there is no such thing on earth +as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist +is an uninterested person.... The bored has certainly +proved himself prosaic”—which places the blame where +it should go. And to the <i lang="fr">l’art pour l’art</i> people, he said: +“A small artist is content with art; a great artist with +nothing except everything.”</p> + +<p>Fourthly, Chesterton delighted himself as every one +knows with the pleasures of a modern heresy-hunt. The +hunting ground was certainly happy, for, as he pointed +out, we are living in the decadence of the great revolutionary +period, and nowadays “we are more and more to +discuss details in art, politics, literature,” but “general +theories are everywhere contemned ... we will have no +generalizations.” “When the old Liberals removed the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span>gags from all the heresies,” Chesterton goes on to say, +“their idea was that religious and philosophical discoveries +might thus be made. Their view was that cosmic +truth was so important that every one ought to bear independent +testimony. The modern idea is that cosmic +truth is so unimportant that it cannot matter what any +one says.”</p> + +<p>Vague relativism was the enemy and Chesterton went +slashing after it in the essays on Shaw, George Moore, +Wells, G. Lowes Dickinson, Joseph McCabe, Whistler +and other moderns included in <cite>Heretics</cite>. Of them all it +seems to me that Wells best typifies what Chesterton +stands against, Wells in whom is fused sentimental naturalism +and scientific naturalism, Wells the prophet of +humanitarianism. Chesterton put his finger unhesitatingly +on the soft spot in Wells’s whole program when +he noticed that “in his new Utopia he says, for instance, +that a chief point of the Utopia will be a disbelief in +original sin. If he had begun with the human soul—that +is, if he had begun on himself—he would have found +original sin almost the first thing to be believed in. He +would have found, to put the matter shortly, that a permanent +possibility of selfishness arises from the mere +fact of having a self, and not from any accidents of education +or ill-treatment. And the weakness of all Utopias is +this, that they take the greatest difficulty of man and +assume it to be overcome, and then give an elaborate account +of the overcoming of the smaller ones.”</p> + +<p>Finally, I wish the reader to note that the “paradoxes +of Christianity” which Chesterton defends with so much +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span>gusto in <cite>Orthodoxy</cite> were not imposed on him, were not +slavishly accepted by him because of their attributed authority, +but were personally rediscovered. It is often +thought, sometimes with cause, many times unjustifiably, +that the exponent of tradition is simply a timid and unoriginal +man: he flees, so it is said, to tradition for safety; +he does not return to it because his experience has taught +him that a given tradition is right. But do all men adopt +traditional teachings out of fear? Chesterton sets us +right. Classicism is properly a life, and not a mere subscribing +to inherited doctrines, and Chesterton has described +the spirit and result of that life when he said: +“I am the man who with the utmost daring discovered +what had been discovered before.... When I fancied +that I stood alone I was really in the ridiculous position +of being backed up by all Christendom. It may be, +Heaven forgive me, that I did try to be original, but I +only succeeded in inventing all by myself an inferior copy +of the existing traditions of civilized religion.... I did +try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the +last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy.”</p> + +<p>The vivacity of commonsense! That, in a phrase, describes +the appeal of Chesterton, and nothing, it seems to +me, is more often lacking from American literary journalism +than commonsense in the first place and in the +second place commonsense sparkling at its vivacious best.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>To many American critics any stick is good enough to +beat Humanism with. But it has happened several times +in our literary history that the French have been more +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span>quickly appreciative than we of a genuine new power +appearing amongst our writers: it seems almost to be +a law that an unpopular spiritual force in America should +first receive its full due in France. It is a Frenchman, +Louis J. A. Mercier, who has written the first book treating +the New Humanism as a movement. <cite lang="fr">Le Mouvement +humaniste aux Etats-Unis</cite>, which makes a study of Babbitt, +More and the late W. C. Brownell, was crowned +when it appeared in 1928 by the French Academy, and it +drew forth sympathetic comment from the spokesmen +for a variety of groups, from the Catholic papers to the +Action Française, from the Abbé Bremond to Baron +Seillière. We can easily understand the warmth of this +reception by French critics. “Here were American authors,” +says Mercier, “who spoke their own language, +who were fully alive to all the traditions, who faced +squarely the problem of man, in the light of all these +traditions, and who brought a formula for a twentieth-century +approach to a common reëxamination of all the +data involved.”</p> + +<p>Why have we not more examples in translation of the +work of the French classical reactionaries? We have a +few—Benda’s <cite>Belphégor</cite> and <cite>The Treason of the Intellectuals</cite>, +Maritain’s <cite>Three Reformers</cite> and <cite>Art and Scholasticism</cite>, +Leon Daudet’s <cite>The Stupid Nineteenth Century</cite>, +Henri Massis’s <cite>The Defence of the West</cite>—but these are +barely suggestive of the resources remaining to be exploited +by our publishers. We have—to name names—no +translations of such important works as Pierre Lasserre’s +<cite lang="fr">Le Romantisme français</cite> and <cite lang="fr">Cinquante Ans de +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span>Pensée française</cite> by which we may trace the evolution of +this former pupil of Charles Maurras, nor have we a +translation of Ernest Seillière’s <cite lang="fr">Le Mal romantique</cite> or of +his studies of Rousseau or of his <cite lang="fr">Philosophie de l’Impérialisme</cite>, +all efforts to “de-Rousseauize” France by large +European perspectives. Above all, we have no books in +English from the energetic pen of Charles Maurras. +This is odd, since no less discerning a critic than T. S. Eliot +classes Maurras as a philosopher of rank equal to Irving +Babbitt and declares that he “has written as fine prose +as any French author living.” Moreover, he says, referring +to England, “if anything, in another generation or +so, is to preserve us from a sentimental Anglo-Fascism, it +will be some system of ideas which will have gained +much from the study of Maurras.”</p> + +<p>But perhaps before speaking of Maurras further I +should give a very general classification of the French +affirmers of the classic order in life and literature. We +can divide them into three groupings: (1) those associated +with the Action Française and committed to its +program of “integral nationalism” which involves a return +to royalism; (2) the Neo-Thomists, such as Henri +Massis with his bogey of Orientalism and Jacques Maritain, +“the most conspicuous figure and probably the most +powerful force in contemporary French philosophy,” according +to T. S. Eliot; (3) certain critics independent of +organized groups like Julien Benda whose recent book, +<cite>The Treason of the Intellectuals</cite>, attacks with great force +the fomenting of political passions indulged in by some +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span>of the French classicists, notably those of the Action +Française.</p> + +<p>Charles Maurras is the outstanding man in the Action +Française. He began as an enthusiast for Auguste Comte +and Positivism. In 1890 he joined Jean Moreas in the +founding of the Ecole Romane, a literary return from +Symbolism to antiquity. He wrote fiction and verse expressive +of his admiration for Hellenism. But his life’s +work has been in political and social thought and in literary +criticism. For years “Politics first” has been his +cry: he establishes his teaching on the doctrine of Joseph +de Maistre who preached a turning back to monarchism +after the French Revolution. The sifting of Maurras’s +career, however, is a rather complicated business. To +many he is an atheist, certainly an agnostic; yet for some +years he and his organization, the Action Française, were +Catholic, only to be condemned in the end by the Pope. +T. S. Eliot’s explanation is that Maurras is “an unbeliever +who cannot believe, and who is too honest to +pretend to himself or to others that he does believe; if +others can believe, so much the better not only for them +but for the world at large. The peculiarity of Maurras’s +agnosticism (or atheism if you like) is that he recognizes +that he has much more in common, in the temporal +sphere, with Catholics than with Protestants or atheists.”</p> + +<p>Today Maurras directs—with the partnership of the +truculent Leon Daudet—the newspaper, <cite lang="fr">Action Française</cite>, +which flies on its mast the following inscription: “<i lang="fr">Chef +de la Maison de France, j’en revendique tous les droits, +j’en assume toutes les responsabilités, j’en accepte tous les +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span>devoirs</i>” over the name of “<i lang="fr">Le duc de Guise, héritier des +quarante Rois qui en mille ans firent la France</i>.” With +Maurras’s bellicosities, his fanning of national and racial +hatreds, I am not now concerned, nor should I like in +any case to defend them. It is more germane to this +book to quote from him on tradition. “Not all traditions,” +he says, “are equal.... Amongst all others one +tradition offers itself, of which the conspicuous character +is its almost complete conformity with those principles +of taste which express humanity raised to its highest point. +We see it come to birth in Ionia as from the ashes of +Homer; it continues under the olive trees of Cephisus. +Roman sages who adopt it make a new home for it. +The middle ages do not banish it completely either from +France or from the towns of Italy. It reforms itself +and occupies the whole of Europe; but it is Paris now, +as Athens once, that preserves it. From the middle of the +sixteenth century to the end of the seventeenth, humanism +and the classical spirit, refined to an Attic point of +taste, never lacked representatives among us, or an élite +worthy of understanding and loving it.” This Græco-Latin +classical tradition, which belongs to France, Maurras +goes on to say, “surpasses all others. It reveals, in fact, +a force of life equal in flame, in coloring, in simple +brutality or refined delicacy to whatever the rest of the +world can show, from the steppes of Russia to the shores +of Guinea; and as no other popular tradition can vie +with it in sensibility, it defies forever all its rivals, in the +order and luminosity of its writings, in the great generality +of their style. The works of this tradition are +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span>rightly called Humane Letters, in that they interest the +whole world.” Finally, he exclaims: “But the pursuit of +the classical tradition includes other things than gods and +goddesses. It authorizes a scrupulous and passionate +criticism. Far from freezing the senses, it excites, begets +creation. Even among ourselves, above all among ourselves, +there is much to be done. We can dream of tragedies +nearer to nature, more direct and simple than those +of Racine. The heroic vein of Corneille leaves room for +a poet who should be wiser than he. The reader will be +surprised if I add that what we lack especially is lyric +poetry! Consider how little can be preserved from the +romantic lumber-room. We must bring things back to +Malherbe. There was once a literary criticism, there can +be again, yet finer, and lead our literature to its +renascence.”</p> + +<p>Turning to the Neo-Thomists, it seems to me that +Jacques Maritain is the dominant figure. He began as +a student of Bergson but shortly afterwards joined the +Catholic Church and today holds the position of professor +of modern history and philosophy at the Institut Catholique +of Paris. He grounds himself entirely on the doctrine +of St. Thomas Aquinas and his whole effort is to +translate it into terms of modern life, to make it serviceable +and illuminating to the man of the twentieth century. +For a few years Maritain associated himself with the Action +Française but withdrew when in 1927 the Pope +proscribed the journal of Maurras, Daudet and Pujo.</p> + +<p>Maritain writes with an austere clarity. A fiery faith +burns in the depths of his thought and makes his most +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span>abstract pages strangely intense. He is an utterly ruthless +opponent of what he conceives to be modern errors, +and, like the American Humanists, he considers Romanticism +as the source of many of these illusions. “The +word romanticism,” he notes and I recommend his definition +to the reader, “may give rise to many confusions. I +am aware that there have been all kinds of things, even +very good things, in the complex movement classed under +this name. But nothing is so idle as to argue about words +and recast their definition to suit your subject; and in +spite of everything usage has adequately settled the meaning +of this one. In so far as it signifies a religious eviction +of reason and its works, the sacred unbridling of +sensation, the holy parade of self and the adoration of +primitive natural instinct, pantheism as theology, and +emotional stimulus as the rule of life, it must be confessed +that Rousseau, by his mystical naturalism, is at the +direct source of such a spiritual evil.”</p> + +<p>Again, like the New Humanists, Maritain attacks the +ubiquitous sway of modern science on the ground that +science, unconfined to its proper rôle, dehumanizes man. +In his essay on Descartes, who to Maritain founded the +principle of the deep inhumanity of modern science, we +may read: “In the higher order of Cognition the Cartesian +reformation gave the irretrievable stability of the things +of the spirit to the moral attitude of turning towards +perishable goods. See what the great name of Science has +become. It is today hardly applied to anything but the +knowledge of matter, and science, <i lang="fr">par excellence</i>, is regarded +by most modern thinkers as belonging to a museum. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span>In the modern world, reason turns its back on +eternal things and is ordered to the creature. It rates +the mathematics of phenomena above wisdom. From the +mountain of its excellence it has descried all the kingdoms +of the material universe and the glory of them, +and it goes down to possess them.”</p> + +<p>And now we come to the freelances of the classical +revival, to proud polemicists like Julien Benda who never +tire in the exposure of romantic follies. Benda, novelist +and essayist, tenacious opponent of Bergson, has invented a +name for the disease of pan-lyricism which rages in America +as well as in France. He calls it “belphégorism,” for it +is in his argument the worship of a false god, Belphégor or +Baal-Peor as it is written in the Bible. Belphégorism +briefly is the requirement of modern society that works +of art should be <em>exclusively</em> productive of emotions and +sensations, that history should be written as a series of +heart-throbs, that philosophy and science should give +thrills. Belphégorism is the love of the indistinct, of the +novelty purely for its own sake, of subjectivity carried as +far as possible. Conversely, belphégorism hates the mind, +hates discipline, hates form. Benda makes it clear that +he is no objector to the lyrical in itself, but rather to the +invasion by lyricism of all provinces of the intellectual +life. To the softness in taste of modern French society +he opposes the plastic sensibility of the great seventeenth +century, the period of Descartes and Pascal, of Corneille, +Molière and Racine, of Bossuet, of La Fontaine, of Madame +de La Fayette.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span></p> + +<p>By a plastic sensibility Benda means a sensibility, whose +principal modes are sight and touch, which organizes +itself about the idea of form. It loves precision and firmness. +This sensibility is localized, perhaps because it involves +the more highly specialized and developed nerves. +It is, Benda declares, a centralized and correlated sensibility, +the source of poise. In contrast he places the +musical sensibility whose principal modes are hearing, +taste and smell. This is a disquieting sensibility, for it +consists in sensation without contour, it overflows the +whole being with scattered and diffused sensation. The +consciousness is decentralized. The result is the opposite +of poise, being intoxication and vertigo. Modern society +tends toward a musical sensibility, a tendency Benda has +become seasoned in combating.</p> + +<p>This distinction between two types of sensibility is very +usable, and I shall come back to it when we take up +Nietzsche’s great interpretation of the Apollo-Dionysus +conflict in the final chapter. But now this exhibit of the +friends of order abroad must be closed by a longish quotation +from Benda’s <cite>The Treason of the Intellectuals</cite> +illustrating the difference between two types of humanitarianism +(or more properly between Humanism and +humanitarianism), a difference our New Humanists constantly +insist upon. In addition Benda brings out very +well a point usually overlooked by people who, perceiving +the aristocratic leanings of the New Humanists, accuse +them of being too disdainful of their fellow men.</p> + +<p>“In our age the descendants of Erasmus, Montaigne, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span>Voltaire, have denounced humanitarianism⁠<a id="FNanchor_3_3" href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> as a moral +degeneration, nay, as an intellectual degeneration, in that +it implies ‘a total absence of practical common sense’; +for practical common sense has become the measure of +intellectual values with these strange ‘clerks.’</p> + +<p>“I should like to draw a distinction between humanitarianism +as I mean it here—a sensitiveness to the abstract +quality of what is human, to Montaigne’s ‘whole form of +human condition’—and the feeling which is usually called +humanitarianism, by which is meant the love for human +beings existing in the concrete. The former impulse +(which would more accurately be called humanism) is the +attachment to a concept. It is a pure passion of the intelligence, +implying no terrestrial love. It is quite easy to conceive +of a person plunging into the concept of what is +human without having the least desire even to see a +man. This is the form assumed by love of humanity +in the great patricians of the mind like Erasmus, Malebranche, +Spinoza, Goethe, who all were men, it appears, +not very anxious to throw themselves into the arms of +their neighbors. The second humanitarianism is a state +of the heart and therefore the portion of plebeian souls. +It occurs among moralists when lofty intellectual discipline +disappears among them and gives way to sentimental +exaltation, I mean in the eighteenth century +(chiefly with Diderot) and above all in the nineteenth century, +with Michelet, Quinet, Proudhon, Romain Rolland, +Georges Duhamel. This sentimental form of humanitarianism +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span>and forgetfulness of its conceptual form explain +the unpopularity of this doctrine with so many distinguished +minds, who disavow two equally repulsive +commonplaces in the arsenal of political ideology. One +of them is the ‘patriotic bore’ and the other ‘the universal +embrace.’</p> + +<p>“The humanitarianism⁠<a id="FNanchor_4_4" href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> which holds in honor the abstract +quality of what is human, is the only one which +allows us to love <em>all</em> men. Obviously, as soon as we +look at men in the concrete, we inevitably find that this +quality is distributed in different quantities, and we have +to say with Renan: ‘In reality one is <em>more or less</em> a man, +<em>more or less</em> the son of God ... I see no reason why a +Papuan should be immortal.’ Modern equalitarians, by +failing to understand that there can be no equality except +in the abstract and that inequality is the essence of the +concrete, have merely displayed the extraordinary vulgarity +of their minds as well as their amazing political clumsiness.</p> + +<p>“Humanism, as I have defined it, has nothing to do +with internationalism. Internationalism is a protest +against national egotism, not on behalf of a spiritual passion, +but on behalf of another egotism, another earthly +passion. It is the impulse of a certain category of men—laborers, +bankers, industrialists—who unite across frontiers +in the name of private and practical interests, and +who only oppose the national spirit because it thwarts +them in satisfying those interests.</p> + +<p>“In comparison with such impulses, national passion +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span>appears an idealistic and disinterested impulse. In short, +humanism is also something entirely different from cosmopolitanism, +which is the simple desire to enjoy the +advantages of all nations and all their cultures, and is +generally exempt from moral dogmatism.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Such, briefly indicated, is the general field of contemporary +thought in which American Humanism fits. I +deem it, however, premature and over-enthusiastic to perceive +in this field the beginnings of a new renascence, +and likewise I do not think the parallel between the +living asserters of classical ideals and the Humanists of +the Renascence should be stressed. True enough, the +modern revivalists have entered into a gigantic battle to +overthrow the preëminence of the dogma of Naturalism, +just as the Renascence men assaulted the preëminence of +petrified theological dogma, and true enough the moderns +catch their vision, as did their brothers in the fifteenth +century, from the ancient literatures. But it is yet +to be seen whether they can do more than <em>defend</em> the ancestral +treasures, whether they can be more than a corrective +force to the excesses and barbarisms of our era. +Have they the potency to initiate a real transformation of +modern society? Can they even arrest its downward +plunge, let alone reverse its direction? Have they the +hidden strength to work a miracle? The questions discourage +all desires to prophesy. The only thing that can +be said is that the traditionalist thinkers are making a +supremely important contribution to the thought of today, +that by their contribution they tend to improve the general +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span>intellectual situation, and the first step is the production +of a more favorable situation, in itself a huge task, +for diamond ideas about the “good life.” Meanwhile, +the most that can be said about any notion of a coming +renascence is that it may have the energizing value of a +myth: it is perhaps akin in its tonic effect on the spirit to +the conception of the general strike which Georges +Sorel proclaimed should be the heroic myth of the proletariat +in its long struggle.</p> + +<p>Now if we compare the theory of American Humanists +with the theories or partly worked out theories of their +allies in Europe, we shall see that we have at home not +the least developed and least positive form of conservatism. +The Europeans either come to rest on Catholicism +(Chesterton, Belloc, Massis, Maritain), which for many +Americans seems impossible, involving an act of too +much faith, and furthermore they feel too <em>psychologically</em> +distant from Rome; or the Europeans dedicate themselves +to some political movement such as French royalism +(Maurras and his disciples) which to some extent perverts +their classical attitude; or finally they fall back on +some personal philosophy, scarcely more than a strong +predisposition in favor of the disinterested activity of the +mind (Benda) or else very much in the forming and +full of idiosyncrasies (Wyndham Lewis). American +Humanism has not complicated itself by theological alliances, +nor subordinated itself to the pursuit of definite +political aims. What is striking is the extent to which it +has freed itself from the personal and idiosyncratic. It +exists apart from the personalities of More and Babbitt. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span>Here is a body of general ideas, substantial yet pliable, +to which all who seize the few underlying principles may +resort and from which all may take a working experimental +outlook on the problems of their own lives. Here +is a system for the guidance of one’s thought, not for its +repression and confinement. Here is an ideology too +definite to be treated whimsically, but not so rigid as to be +unadaptable to the taste of the individual. It has a completeness +wanting in the personal philosophies of Lewis +and Benda, and it does not appear to many so arbitrary +as the doctrines of the Church. <em>Its great recommendation +is that it is founded on the positive critical experimental +spirit of modern times.</em> This in the remainder of the +book I shall try to demonstrate.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="VI"> + VI + <br> + A CREATIVE CONCEPTION OF MAN + </h2> +</div> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>“Humanism is the study and practice of the principles +of human happiness</i> uncomplicated <i>by naturistic +dogmas on the one side and religious dogmas +on the other.”</i>—<span class="smcap">G. R. Elliott</span> in <cite>Humanism and +America</cite>.</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p>Humanism is a term that has been defined, and well defined, +many times. Yet there persists in the public mind +the feeling that Humanism is a portmanteau word and +the New Humanists have failed to make it denote anything +precise. The public is not to blame for this feeling, +nor are the New Humanists responsible. Several +causes may be alleged, the first being the romanticizing +of the word by writers like Walter Pater. “For the +essence of humanism,” Pater once wrote, “is that belief +of which he (Pico della Mirandola) seems never to have +doubted, that nothing which has ever interested living +men and women can wholly lose its vitality—no language +they have spoken, nor oracle beside which they +have hushed their voices, no dream which has once been +entertained by actual human minds, nothing about which +they have ever been passionate, or expended time and +zeal.” This is to make Humanism denote simply an all-embracing +curiosity, an insatiable appetite for everything, +no matter how trivial. <i lang="la">Humani nihil a me alienum puto</i> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span>(I consider nothing human alien to me)—this widely +quoted line is the motto of those who take Pater’s definition +too seriously. But the line is spoken in Terence’s +play as an excuse for meddling, and Babbitt comments +drily that it “might serve appropriately enough as a motto +for the humanitarian busybody with whom we are all so +familiar nowadays, who goes around with schemes for +reforming almost everything—except himself.” No, Humanism +means more than a universal curiosity about +one’s fellow creatures, and it does not mean humanitarianism. +The humanitarians, however, have claimed the +gracious word, and this is the second cause of confusion +as to definition.</p> + +<p>It is essential to see that Humanism and humanitarianism +are quite distinct. “A person who has sympathy for +mankind in the lump,” to quote from Babbitt, “faith in +its future progress, and desire to serve the great cause +of this progress, should be called not a humanist, but +a humanitarian.” Such a person—he is legion!—exalts +sympathy, and expects that somehow in the coming +years man’s altruistic impulses will triumph over his +egoism. He is an optimist, an ardent believer in the +dogma of progress, and usually a superstitious worshipper +of modern science. <i lang="la">Exempli gratia</i>: Auguste Comte, +Rousseau and Herder have at one time or another been +hailed as “humanists,” whereas, Babbitt asserted in his +first book, they are properly called humanitarian enthusiasts. +So today we sometimes read in our newspapers +that certain former Unitarian preachers are Humanists, +despite the fact that their sermons upon examination +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span>prove to be almost pure humanitarianism, or we hear +writers like the American historian, Harry Elmer Barnes, +referred to as a Humanist. But Barnes, we may say in +passing, would have seemed to Matthew Arnold the +propagandist for a “spurious and degenerated sub-form” +of Hellenism. Arnold would doubtless have dubbed this +very vocal rationalist simply a Millite, a word he coined +from the name of England’s famous utilitarian philosopher. +Humanism, properly understood, is in fact the +stern critic of philanthropic rationalists like Barnes or +sentimental enthusiasts like the Reverend John Haynes +Holmes. <em>For Humanism is a doctrine and a discipline, +aristocratic in temper, selective in practice, which makes +its first concern, the self-perfecting of the individual.</em></p> + +<p>There is still a third cause which must be touched on +to explain the confusion that blankets the public mind. +In the literary campaign staged against the New Humanists +in the spring of 1930, the naturalistic writers employed +an old debating trick:—to pretend bewilderment +at the definitions offered and to press for closer and closer +definitions. The aim apparently was to force the New +Humanists at last into some utterly rigid statement of +their creed, if not into some ultimate banality; therefore +anything short of a completely rigid definition was called +an inadequate one. But the New Humanist is too awake +to the dangers of Neo-Classicism to yield to this type +of pressure. Humanism lays the stress on the inner life, +Neo-Classicism on the external conventions. The New +Humanist maintains the seat of authority in himself: he +studies with zeal the wisdom stored in tradition, but he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span>insists on his internal corroboration of that wisdom as +the all-important thing. He does not, that is, set up an +authority, as the Neo-Classicist does, which is completely +exterior to himself. Above all, he perceives the folly of +an Age of Rules, which happens whenever Neo-Classicism +gains ascendency. In short, if the New Humanism could +be set forth in a perfectly dry detailed code, you may be +certain that it would not be Humanism, but only another +recurrence of Neo-Classicism. A true definition of +Humanism must breathe with the vitality inherent in its +subject.</p> + +<p>The New Humanist, then, disassociates himself from +the impoverishment of Neo-Classicism, from excessive +purism, as consciously as he separates himself from indiscriminate +humanitarianism and the mere inquisitiveness +of the æsthetic type. As was said above, Humanism +is a doctrine and a discipline, aristocratic in temper, selective +in practice, which makes its first concern, the self-perfecting +of the individual. This sense for the term is +not new or perverse; it has, in fact, long been emphasized +as the following passage from a late Latin writer, +Aulus Gellius, will show. Gellius was of a somewhat +crabbed and pedantic temper: Babbitt admits this and +adds that he was too much inclined to leave sympathy +out altogether; but what is interesting is that in the decadence +of Rome Gellius made complaint about the corruption +of the term <i lang="la">humanitas</i> to give it a humanitarian +flavor. Here is his protest—it might have been written +yesterday—against the confusion of humanism with +humanitarianism.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span></p> + +<p>“Those who created the Latin language,” the passage +occurs in the <cite lang="la">Noctes Atticae</cite>, “and those who spoke it +well do not give the word <i lang="la">humanitas</i> the vulgar meaning +which is synonymous with the Greek word <i lang="la">philanthropia</i>, +which means an active kindness, a tender benevolence +for all men. But they give the word the meaning which +the Greeks attach to <i lang="la">paideia</i>, which we call education, +knowledge of the fine arts. Those who show the most +taste and disposition for these studies are the most worthy +to be called <i lang="la">humanissimi</i>. For man alone among all living +beings is able to devote himself to cultivating a study +which for that reason has been called <i lang="la">humanitas</i>. Such +is the meaning given to this by the ancients, particularly +by Varro and Cicero. Almost all their works show examples, +so I shall content myself with quoting one only. +I have chosen the opening of the first book of Varro ‘Concerning +Human Things’: <i lang="la">Praxiteles, qui propter artificium +egregium nemini est paulum modo humaniori ignotus</i> +(Praxiteles, whose excellent talent as an artist has made +him known to every man at all skilled in the arts). Here +<i lang="la">humanior</i> does not bear the vulgar meaning of easy, +tractable, benevolent, even though lacking in knowledge +of letters. That meaning would not express the author’s +thought. It means an educated, a learned man, one who +is acquainted with Praxiteles through books and history.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>What is the doctrine of the New Humanism? The +most compact statement I have found was written by +Robert Shafer in the course of a powerful polemical article +in the <cite>Bookman</cite>. It deserves the most careful study by +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span>the reader, for from it can be extracted almost the whole +of Humanism. It is a remarkably comprehensive formulation: +despite its brevity it manages to imply all that a +New Humanist has to say about his conception of man.</p> + +<p>“Against romanticism, humanitarian sympathy, mechanistic +or vitalistic determinism, the doctrine of progress +and the like, has been opposed a skeptical criticism +of life and letters which rests ultimately on the proposition +that man differs not alone in complexity of organization, +but in kind, from the animal, and that his happiness +depends upon his recognition and cultivation of +that element in his being which is distinctive of him. +This is held to be possible; man is held to be, within limits, +capable of responsible choice. This capacity is regarded +as the core of the distinctively human element in +man’s constitution, which is thus dual—‘animal,’ one may +roughly say, united inexplicably with ‘something more,’ +or the unlimited chaos of impressions and spontaneous +desires united with the potential capacity of control and +reduction to ordered activity. No conclusion is necessarily +implied for or against the doctrine of grace, but +insistence is steady that without a wisely directed educational +discipline and a strict inner discipline man’s fulfilment +of his proper end is certainly impossible. To +choose is to discriminate, and, for this, habituation to self-restraint +is essential; it is, indeed, the foundation on +which the whole structure of distinctively human life +rests.</p> + +<p>“It is recognized that this general position is not susceptible +of rational proof—reason itself being the organ +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span>of discrimination, and acting, when it acts legitimately, +in a purely instrumental capacity. But none the less his +position is, the humanist adds, irrefutable and soundly +based. It concerns a realm of being into which ‘modern +science’ simply does not enter. Exact science, so-called, +is concerned with quantity—how much?—but about +quality—how good?—it has nothing to say. The humanist +is concerned, not with physical existence taken by itself, +but with distinctively human excellence, or self-fulfilment, +or, in a word, happiness. Here the one possible +appeal is to actual human experience—the recorded experience +of past generations and the inner experience of +the individual disciplined and formed in the light of +selective tradition. The strength of humanism lies in its +positive experiential basis, which affords it, not an absolute, +but a sufficient, authority.”</p> + +<p>Could the sum and substance of Humanism be put +more plainly than the above? The topic can be expanded, +explained, illustrated, but in the end when it is boiled +down again, we shall find that Robert Shafer has given +the candid and accurate summary of its meaning. +Greater rigidity would be inexact—remember that words +like “idealism,” “skepticism,” “deism,” even “pragmatism” +offer a similar necessary fluidity to the definer—for +the thing defined has flowing contours and is alive with +movement. What then is the difficulty many inquirers +about Humanism confess to experiencing when it comes +to seizing its import? Well, our difficulties with understanding +definitions are not entirely with words; they are +of two kinds: verbal and psychological. The first is more +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span>easily overcome: it requires simply a clear statement and +attentive reading. In view of the fulness with which +More and Babbitt, Foerster and Shafer and many others +have written about the meaning of Humanism, there is +no excuse whatever for any failure to grasp verbally what +they are driving at. A college student could write it out +on an examination paper. But the other kind of difficulty, +the psychological obstacle to understanding, is the +one that takes real effort to remove. By understanding +a definition psychologically, I mean experiencing the +definition. I mean relating it to one’s own experience or +lack of experience. I mean filling the verbal signs with +living personal content.</p> + +<p>I will give one simple illustration of the gap between +verbal understanding and psychological comprehension. +A good deal of the vocabulary of warfare is used by both +soldiers and civilians. The counters are the same, but +what the soldier has experienced as the meaning of these +words—“No-man’s Land,” “trenches,” “battle,” etc.—is +radically different from the mere verbal associations the +civilian makes with them. The soldier and the civilian +try to converse: it is well known that the returned soldier +quickly gives up and refuses to talk about his war experiences +except to those who have had an actual taste +of battle. The civilian wonders why the soldier is uncommunicative +about the war and never guesses that it is +partly because the soldier has become aware that what +to him are signs of experience are to the civilian simply +words, as we say.</p> + +<p>Now in the case of Humanism this disparity in experience +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span>between the expounder and the listener does +not exist. There is a ground of human experience common +to all that can be appealed to. But how to reach it? +Here the reader must exercise his good will, must be +honest with himself, must make an effort to carry the +interpretation over from words to experience, to take it +out of the verbal forest of the mind and apply it to all his +psychology. This means in many cases an effort against +the habits of education we have received, for the latest +reformers in education are correct in telling us that our +civilization is too exclusively verbal, that we trust too +much in words cut off from things. Such a psychological +translation of the perfectly clear verbal answers already +given to the question, what is twentieth century Humanism, +I now propose to attempt.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p><em>The final object of the New Humanist is happiness.</em> +If he is asked, why discipline oneself, why try to live +in a certain way, his candid reply is, to attain happiness. +All his system-making is directed toward that end, and +that end, happiness, happens to be one of the very few +values unquestioned by human beings, for who in a state +of happiness could conceivably question his own happiness?</p> + +<p>Here there is practically no barrier to what I have called +the psychological understanding or, perhaps better, realization +of humanistic doctrine. For every one knows at +first hand the state of happiness: it has come to him accidentally, +it has been fleeting, but brief and chance as its +visitations have been, the impression of them is indelible. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span>We long all our lives to re-experience happiness, and we +are incredibly ingenious in trying to find it. The cynical +are no exception: their cynicism about happiness arises +from repeated failures to rediscover it, and their real +wish is still for that on which they pour (why so bitter?) +ridicule.</p> + +<p>Mankind universally hopes for happiness. It flees from +the unhappy state and looks everywhere for the acknowledged +good thing, the state of being happy. The sad +platitude is that mankind fails first to find as much +happiness as it wants, second, to maintain the state when +it is experienced, and third, to gain an insight into the +secrets of producing happiness. Not on happiness as the +ultimate human value, but on the way to happiness, the +means of procuring it, is there disagreement.</p> + +<p>The majority—a fact that has always struck wise men +with astonishment—have always depended on distractions +and pleasures. They have situated the source of happiness +in the world around them. They have felt that +a change in the environment was what was needed. +Make the world an Eden, say the reformers, and man will +be happy. But the Garden of Eden, like the Kingdom of +Heaven, is within, has been the retort of the sage.</p> + +<p>The New Humanism commits itself first of all to a +serious study of the principles of happiness. It does not +dream of a geographical Paradise, but says, look to human +nature! What is the constitution of human nature? +How ought man to live according to this constitution? +For in no other way but by obeying the laws of his being +can he win an enduring happiness.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span></p> + +<p>But here is where an apparent paradox deludes so +many. Man is not born free, as Rousseau claimed, but +born slave to things. Things are in the saddle and ride +mankind, and mankind expects to be happy under those +conditions. To change the conditions, to come out from +servitude to things to a command over them—the aim of +the religious and the humanistic alike—is so arduous and +perilous a revolt that it looks like anything but the way to +happiness. Man’s <em>inclination</em> is to remain enslaved to +things the while he hopes they will not ride him harshly. +His <em>wish</em> is to oppose his inclination to servitude, and to +fight his way to psychological freedom. He cannot however +imagine that he can be happy warring against his +attachment to things. And yet Thoreau speaks for all +the sagacious reflecters on life when he says: “But men +labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is +soon ploughed into the soil for compost. By a seeming +fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as +it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth +and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and +steal. It is a fool’s life, as they will find when they get +to the end of it, if not before.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p><em>The New Humanist maintains that human consciousness +is dual.</em> This is the primary fact to be recognized, he +says, in any quest of happiness. He expresses this fact by +speaking of our two selves, which he calls the natural self +and the human self, or the animal and human selves or +the lower and higher self. In respect to this terminology, +admittedly crude, it must be kept in mind that the New +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span>Humanist writes as a practical psychologist, not as a +theoretical one who also has to drop technical language +and speak in the world’s tongue when it comes to practical +psychology, and it must be still more kept in mind +that no moral connotations are meant by the terms. If +I say that plants are a lower form of life than animals, +I do not imply that plants are reprehensible for their +lesser development—nor does the New Humanist regard +the life of the body as morally inferior to, let us say, the +life of the mind. The grading is made in the scientific +spirit: it is based on measurement of life, not on moral +requirements. The discrimination between lower and +higher is psychological, and nothing else.</p> + +<p>Surely, no elaborate documentation is needed to establish +the fact that there is an overwhelming crowd of witnesses +from antiquity onwards to the existence of a practical +dualism in human psychology. Two eloquent writers +will stand for the multitude: Cicero in antiquity and +Matthew Arnold in the nineteenth century. They can +be combined in a single quotation from the latter’s <cite>Literature +and Dogma</cite>. “Man alone of living creatures, Cicero +says, goes feeling after ‘the discovery of an <em>order</em>, a law +of <em>good taste</em>, a <em>measure</em> for his words and actions.’ +Other creatures submissively follow the law of their nature; +man alone has an impulse leading him to set up +some other law to control the bent of his nature.” That +is, a goldfish or a wren or a crocodile or a cat is always +true to its species. Nature looks to it that they obey, as +it were, the conscience of their species. They behave +strictly as they should, being what they are. They are +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span>loyal to themselves. But man is not so completely cared +for. He belongs to a very elastic species: his behavior can +vary enormously and fall far away from the norm of the +race. We have words to indicate this drop from what +we instinctively feel man should be, such words as “bestial,” +“sub-human,” “inhuman,” “unmanly,” and the like. +Nature apparently is interested in man only up to a certain +point, giving him a human form, the capacity to feel, the +ability to think, but for all Nature cares, he may be as +disordered as he pleases in his emotional and mental life. +An idiot, from the standpoint of Nature, is as good as a +genius. From this arises man’s sense of division in himself. +He is a natural creature; true; but add that in comparison +with the beasts and their constant observance of +their laws he appears a crazed natural creature. But, a +strange thing, he has the intuition that he also has the +possibility of becoming a sane creature. Only—he himself +must learn what sanity is, what its laws are and how +to follow them.</p> + +<p>He has, in Arnold’s words, “the notion of a whole self +as opposed to a partial self, a best self to an inferior, to a +momentary self a permanent self requiring the restraint of +impulses a man would naturally have indulged;—because +by <em>attending</em> to his life, man found it had a scope beyond +the wants of the present moment.” I wish to bring home, +if I can, the nature of what is here called our partial, +inferior, momentary self, and to do so I shall call upon +the studies of the Behavioristic psychologists. What the +New Humanist terms our lower natural self is in my +opinion best named our mechanical self.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span></p> + +<p>The Behaviorists consider man to be a behaving mechanism. +Man has nothing to say about his heredity, his +birth, his early environment, the language and customs +he is taught, and so forth. He comes into the world with +the native disposition to make certain responses (unlearned +responses) and he soon is trained on the basis of +these to make thousands of others (conditioned responses), +often of a very arbitrary character. A response-mechanism +set ticking and continued in motion by the ceaseless +impact of stimuli from the environment.</p> + +<p>Physiologically, we are, every one admits, best viewed +as machines. Our tissues repair themselves, our blood +flows through an elaborate system whose tracings we +know only by hearsay (i.e., by diagram), our nails and +hair grow without our supervision, we are unaware of +the functioning of organs like the liver, unless they get +out of order,—but it is unnecessary to specify details of +what every one grants: namely, that the ceaseless movements +of our bodies do not depend very much on our +accurate and intimate knowledge of them, nor upon our +directive powers. We stand toward them in the relation +of mechanician to machine, only we are rather poor +mechanicians and in our ignorance frequently harm what +we are supposed merely to tend.</p> + +<p>But the Behaviorist enormously extends the reign of +mechanics: he puts our psychology—or what we call our +psychology—under mechanical rule, going so far as to +reduce our emotions to visceral tensions and our thoughts +to sub-vocal movements in the larynx. In this he is far +more right than most people think. But we do not need +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span>to argue that out now. I refer to very obvious matters, +such as the occurrence of emotions to us. <em>They occur to +us</em>: we do not as a rule induce them. “A peculiar feeling +came over me,” we say. It did! “I was seized by +anger.” I was! “I was taken by surprise.” Right! Every +day long we are swept by a succession of emotions, the +majority of which clearly we had nothing to do with. +We did not choose to experience them. They came to us.</p> + +<p>Again there is a constant procession—better say jumble—of +images, ideas, associations, words and nonsense in our +minds. Our brains wander most of the time: they are as +Arnold Bennett calls them “gentlemen-at-large” and deucedly +unreliable. They go on operating after a fashion +whether we will or not. And what is this but sheer +mechanicality?</p> + +<p>But this is our natural self, this is as biology and sociology +have made us. We take stock of ourselves in adulthood +and we find probably that we are a pronounced type—an +intellectual, a highly emotional artist, a sportsman. +Did we create our type, our particular psychological build, +any more than we colored our eyes or invented the shoes +we Westerners wear? Our temperament—did we make +it or do we find ourselves with one?</p> + +<p>A very great deal of what we call ourselves we have to +consign to the Behaviorist and agree with him that it is +determined. But the New Humanist will not yield all to +Dr. John B. Watson and his relentless observers in the +laboratory. He will not deny consciousness, nor the will, +nor higher potentialities than are manifest in the animal +self. He balances against the mechanical the human self +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span>which, he maintains, man can develop. What, more precisely +than thus far stated, is meant by the human self? +We can get at the conception if we think of our potentialities.</p> + +<p>Actually, we are turned out by Nature and Society as +uneven-sided human beings, not well-rounded ones. +Actually, we are prejudiced and partial, not unprejudiced +and impartial. Actually, our minds are enslaved, not free. +Actually, we are nonsensical, not commonsensible. But +we have the potentiality for all these things we have not,—for +harmonious development of ourselves, for disinterestedness +and impartiality, for the free intelligence and +the most esoteric of all virtues, commonsense. Only none +of these things ever comes to man as a gift. Each must be +deliberately and laboriously acquired. Man, then, humanistically +viewed, is born with a lower self but has a +margin of potentiality which he, and only he, can cultivate, +and by so doing he creates a higher self to which it +is proper to give the name human. Acquirements, not +gifts—that is the sure mark of the truly human. (Incidentally, +the greatest of these acquirements is will, but of +that later.)</p> + +<p>At the risk of seeming unable to let go of the idea of a +cleft between the natural man and self-perfected man, I +will cite one illustration of the difference between our +actual psychology and our potential psychology. Man +has the possibility of simultaneous thought on several +different subjects, but this possibility is never actualized +by accident in the ordinary course of events. Ordinarily +we think in succession, following a train of thought, as +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span>we say. But we can, by special training, learn to follow +several lines of thought at once. One begins with very +simple exercises (immensely difficult to the beginner, +however), such as focussing on the movement of the second-hand +of a watch, reciting a stanza of poetry, and running +through a multiplication table at the same time, and +then works up to what appear staggering exercises in +mental gymnastics. For this sort of work, at which +geniuses fail the first time as completely as the most ungifted, +the natural self is of no avail. Simultaneous +thought becomes an actuality only to those who themselves +bring it to birth.</p> + +<p>It seems strange that any one should deny on any practical +basis the selves of the New Humanist’s conception: +one, largely or altogether automatic, actual, natural, subject +to the “law for thing,” the other acquired, born out +of potentiality by one’s own effort, not natural but human, +subject to the “law for man.” Yet this dualism has +been fought throughout recorded history. Many gifted +men have made frenzied efforts to deny the gap, to +coalesce the two selves, to prove that man not only +theoretically but practically must be monistic. One of +the latest epical mass-movements to deny psychological +dualism was Romanticism.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p><em>Submission to the natural self is the Romantic attitude.</em> +Here, I believe, we can strike rock bottom. As sketched +above, a human being consists of three related modes of +experience (sensations, emotions, and ideas) and in these +three modes everything, according to the Behaviorist, a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span>very great deal according to everybody, is done not by +our consent and knowledge, but, as it were, by itself. +But toward such a threefold apparatus for experiencing, +an attitude may be assumed, and this attitude is fundamental +in our psychology. Given one kind of attitude, +and you get the foundation of Romanticism. Another +attitude toward the selfsame creature, and you have laid +the cornerstone of the humanistic life. Who or what +takes the attitude? Whatever we mean by the word “I.” +The Romanticist glories in identifying as closely as possible +whatever the word “I” means with his mechanical +self. He resigns his Ego to his organism. He submits +to the riot of his senses, feelings and thoughts and calls the +submission good.</p> + +<p>It might be said, I suppose, that earlier in this book I +scored an easy victory by putting in contrast a composite +figure, quite lacking in “personality,” with Matthew +Arnold. Of course, it might be retorted to me, Arnold is +superior to any constructed representative of modern men. +Arnold should rather be compared with some great +Romantic, not with an instructive psychological chart. +Very well: in the place of that poor G. R. we unfeelingly +exposed, let us put Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the man of +genius who preached so eloquently the surrender to our +natural selves.</p> + +<p>Irving Babbitt has often been accused of “Rousseauphobia.” +I cannot find the justice in the accusation, which +ignores Babbitt’s reasons for emphasizing Rousseau’s influence. +Babbitt cannot be said to have slighted the +precursors of Rousseau, such as Hutcheson and the Earl +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span>of Shaftesbury, or not to have put a great deal of weight +on Francis Bacon as a founder of the modern world. And +it is true, as Babbitt claims, that though Rousseauistic ideas +were in the world long before Rousseau, it was the Genevan +who gave them their great driving power in our +era: it was Rousseau who cast the wonderful glamor over +them that made them irresistible to modern man. Rousseau +is the representative Romantic. He is the symbolic +figure, and hence he is bound to appear very large in any +treatment of Romanticism. Furthermore, the extent and +depth of his influence can hardly be minimized, as the +enormous literature written about him shows. Let it be +Rousseau then to serve here, as in so many previous +expositions, as the arch-exponent of the Romantic attitude.</p> + +<p>He accepted the contradictions in himself, saying that +his heart and his mind did not seem to belong to the same +person. He scorned the intellect, the weakest and least +developed of our three modes of experience, saying that +the man who thinks is a depraved animal. He gave the +primacy to feeling, and exalted sensation. He declared +that man was corrupted by Society and that man was +naturally good. He developed on his own account, as +Maritain says, “a singular doctrine of absolute non-resistance +to the impulses of sensation, a doctrine of complete +passivity as the condition of full expansion of the +primitive goodness, which is simply a natural quietism.” +Yes; the “Father of the modern world” was an irresponsible. +For he loved, nay he worshipped, that irresponsible +creature, the natural self.</p> + +<p>The natural self is innocent: that is, it is neither good +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span>nor bad. Good or bad can only appear in the attitude +taken toward the natural self. The Romantic with all his +enthusiasm follows the inclinations of the natural self. +He shirks the disciplining of it. He wants unity but he +thinks he can find unity by subsiding into the life of feeling +and sensation, stilling the mind. He goes with Nature, +like a child led by its nurse, and he calls it liberty.</p> + +<p>At the end of Romanticism there is the pseudo-necromancer +of Vienna with his complicated method for teaching +the proud spirit of Man to stoop, to chain itself to the +blind forces of his temperament, to forget in slavery to +the senses and feelings that man is in essence a passion +for perfection.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p><em>Responsibility for the natural self is the Humanist attitude.</em> +Like the Romanticist, the Humanist discovers that +whatever is signified by the word “I”—and the determination +of the signification of the word “I” is a poser +for the infant science of psychology⁠<a id="FNanchor_5_5" href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a>⁠—is attached to a +surprising creature, unreasonable, expansive, changeable, +an absorbing mystery to study. He finds furthermore +that the creature has the complete upper hand so far as +the “I” in it is concerned. But the Humanist cannot +acquiesce in this arrangement. It seems to him that the +creature is not wicked but certainly a fool. There is nothing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span>wrong with its appetites, only the organism is singularly +unintelligent in gratifying them. It is full of +whims, some of them dangerous to the organism’s life. +It loves to waste time in day-dreaming, to waste emotion +in foolish anxieties, to waste energy in muscular fidgets. +Clearly, the creature itself would be happier if it were +under intelligent guidance, if it were taught to obey +instead of always being given the reins and dashing away +at random. Thus, the New Humanist feels that his real, +deepest self is somewhat apart from his natural mechanical +self. He wants to be the driver of his machine, not a +mere intoxicated passenger in a runaway vehicle. He +wants to be responsible for the manifestations of his personality. +In responsibility for his natural self lies for him +the dignity of man. This for him is the true liberty.</p> + +<p>But how to attain and exercise this liberty? For, to +begin with, the workings of the natural self are not known +to the one who wishes to master it. Hence, the humanistic +stress on self-study and self-knowledge. But +further, even granting a fairly complete working knowledge +of oneself, of what one’s biases and characteristic +reactions are, what one’s defects and points of strength +are, one may still be at a total loss, powerless to alter or +control the spontaneous phenomena of the organism. +Hence, the humanistic stress on the need for developing +the will.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p><em>The New Humanist upholds a creative conception of +man.</em> The word “creative” has been so cheapened by Romantic +usage in which it is made synonymous with mere +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span>temperamental overflow that one is almost inclined to +drop the word until it loses its present indiscriminate +associations. However, no other word will do to describe +the humanistic conception of man, for in the Humanist’s +view man literally creates his manliness. Man has to +find his own center, develop his own potentialities, create +his own order in his psychology.</p> + +<p>We can put the matter thus. Every one without exception +has felt that his psychology was organized about +a principle of dispersion. His inclinations have pointed +outwards; he wants to let himself go, he yearns to express +himself. “You must be yourself,” said Jean-Jacques Rousseau +over and over, and in his mouth it meant what +Maritain says it did. “You must <em>be</em> your feeling, as God +<em>is</em> His being. Does God, Who is all act, need forming? +You must regard as a sin every attempt to form yourself, +or allow yourself to be formed, to right yourself, to bring +your discords to unity again. Every form imposed on the +inner world of the human soul, whether it come from +nature or grace, is a sacrilegious wrong to nature.” This +is psychology based on the Many.</p> + +<p>But just as there is a metaphysic of the One as well +as the Many, so there is a psychology of the One. Every +one without exception, I daresay, has felt in his psychology +a principle of unity. He has experienced, that is, at +various moments a strong wish to integrate himself, to +pull himself together, to become a concentrated unified +individual. It is with this wish the New Humanist +identifies the human, and he pits it against the inclination +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span>to accept the discords. The wish for unity is the creative +wish.</p> + +<p>What could be more uncreative than the despising of +the mind by Luther, Rousseau and scores of lesser Romantics? +The mind, a part of our resources to be exploited +along with the other parts—why should it be +treated puritanically any more than the body should be +despised? Again what can be more uncreative than to +transfer the blame for one’s faults to Society, or to make +a cult of inaction as Rousseau did? The New Humanist +replies that the fault after all is not in our stars or in +Society but in ourselves and that we must work upon +ourselves—a genuinely creative attitude.</p> + +<p>I direct attention again to human potentialities. Proportionateness—it +must be created. The free intelligence—it +must be struggled for. Disinterestedness—an ideal +toward which no step is ever taken without effort. Commonsense, +the fusion of mental, emotional and practical +judgments—it must be striven for. Self-control—impossible +without the use of will. The will—dormant, it must +be awaked. Unity—it must be achieved.</p> + +<p>These, according to the New Humanist, are some of +our higher possibilities. He takes the attitude that a +man’s work is to bring them towards fruition, that in so +doing lies happiness, that by so doing one is truly creative, +making and strengthening a human self to oppose and +dominate the vagaries and weaknesses of the natural self.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="VII"> + VII + <br> + THE DISCIPLINE OF HUMANISM + </h2> +</div> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>“My whole method is experimental, or it might be +less ambiguous to say if the word were a fortunate +one, experiential.”</i>—<span class="smcap">Irving Babbitt</span> in <cite>Rousseau and +Romanticism</cite>.</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p>It is obvious that the New Humanist does not think +there is much insight in Walt Whitman’s line, “And if +the body were not the soul, what is the soul?” We can +epitomize the preceding chapter and at the same time +add a new element by extracting two sentences from +Babbitt’s <cite>Rousseau and Romanticism</cite>. “Like all the great +Greeks Aristotle recognizes that man is the creature of +two laws: he has an ordinary or natural self of impulse +and desire and a human self that is known practically as a +power of control over impulse and desire. If man is to +become human he must not let impulse and desire run +wild, but must oppose to everything excessive in his +ordinary self, whether in thought or deed or emotion, the +law of measure.” The new element, the law of measure, +relates to discipline. I have dealt with the major conception +in the Humanist doctrine: I have shown that the +New Humanism is primarily individualistic and for the +sake of individual growth: I described it as aristocratic +in temper. The last is surely evident from the humanistic +stress on the rule of our momentary ordinary selves by our +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span>best selves, and from the Humanist’s search in the inherited +literatures for “the best that has been thought +and uttered,” and finally from his making the question +of leadership the paramount problem for democratic +nations to solve. But in the general description of the +New Humanism I noted in addition that it was a discipline +and selective in practise, and these are the matters +of this chapter.</p> + +<p>Here again we have to combat psychological obtuseness. +To repeat: a logical understanding of a text is one +thing, and quite another is a living warm apprehension, a +psychological understanding, of the same text. The first +is an affair of words: the second is more real, related to +feelings and conduct as well as to the formulating intellect. +Now it so happens that it is a peculiarity of our +age to be blank-minded whenever there is question of a +psychological method to realize in practice the ideas and +ideals we adopt. We think that the mere entertaining of +the ideas and ideals we are attracted by is sufficient, we +think that we shall naturally grow to embody them completely +without the need of any special discipline or “way +of life.” In short, never do we inquire into “ways of +life” at all, never do we exercise the kind of thought +Arnold employed when he sought in the Biblical texts for +the <em>method</em> and <em>secret</em> of Jesus. In dealing with the New +Humanism in its aspect of a technique for living intelligently, +we must therefore make a special and unusual +effort to see the theory in terms of actual practice.</p> + +<p>There is no initial difficulty in feeling the spirit of the +New Humanist discipline, for though it derives from +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span>Aristotle, it is as thoroughly modern as the laboratory +spirit. No one could in fact be a stauncher supporter of +the modern spirit defined by Irving Babbitt as “the positive +and critical spirit, the spirit that refuses to take things +on authority” than Babbitt himself. Only, he adds, you +must be a complete positivist. He then goes on to exhort +his readers to be individualists: “the man who plants himself, +not on outer authority but on experience, is an individualist.” +Aristotle, Babbitt takes to be the arch-type +of the positive and critical Humanist, for Aristotle teaches +us “how to have standards and at the same time not to be +immured in dogma.” All this, as I say, is quite in the +modern spirit and goes to explain the appeal Babbitt exercises +on many young Americans who cannot be accused of +yearning for some long-gone age and whose defection +from the banners of Menckenism has puzzled some +people.</p> + +<p>At this point should be brought up the Babbittean distinguishing +of three levels on which life may be experienced: +the religious, the humanistic, and the naturalistic. +The naturalistic we have seen exemplified by a host of +Rousseauists and Baconians, of sentimentalists and utilitarians, +of all those who in one way or another submerge +Man into Nature. The religious level is occupied by the +great systems of Buddhism and Christianity. Here the +supernatural enters, here the consuming search is for the +Absolute, here there is dying to this world and here there +is the life more abundant that comes through rebirth +into a world of greater consciousness. The <i lang="la">via media</i> is +alleged to be the humanistic life, represented in the past +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span>by Confucianism in the Orient and by Aristotelianism in +the Occident. The middle way has, as outlined by Babbitt, +its special methodology, its special virtues, and its +special attitudes. For example, we have already noticed +its hostile attitude toward Naturalism, its clash with +Naturalism on first principles. On the other hand, its +attitude toward those who work on the religious plane is +sympathetic. Quotations bearing on this could be accumulated +but a recent utterance by Irving Babbitt will +do for all. “For my own part,” he said in <cite>Humanism and +America</cite>, “I range myself unhesitatingly on the side of +the supernaturalists. Though I see no evidence that humanism +is necessarily ineffective apart from dogmatic +and revealed religion, there is, it seems to me, evidence +that it gains immensely in effectiveness when it has a +background of religious insight.”</p> + +<p>But to the New Humanist the reasons for risking one’s +life on the religious level do not, one judges, seem overwhelming. +Here is one of Babbitt’s statements on that +point, a statement on which I reserve comment for the +present. “I have been struck,” he says cannily, “in my +study of the past by the endless self-deception to which +man is subject when he tries to pass too abruptly from the +naturalistic to the religious level. The world, it is hard +to avoid concluding, would have been a better place if +more persons had made sure they were human before +setting out to be superhuman; and this consideration +would seem to apply with special force to a generation +like the present that is wallowing in the trough of naturalism. +After all to be a good humanist is merely to be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span>moderate and sensible and decent. It is much easier for +a man to deceive himself and others regarding his supernatural +lights than it is regarding the degree to which +he is moderate and sensible and decent.”</p> + +<p>Though Babbitt seems to emphasize here the fear of +self-deception as the main ground for preferring the humanistic +plane to the religious, the New Humanist can +actually make out a very strong case based on hard commonsense. +A. R. Orage, the finest living English literary +critic, has suggested what the sensible attitude, in the +present state of our knowledge, should be toward religion. +So interesting a point of view justifies a rather lengthy +quotation.</p> + +<p>“Suppose that a remote posterity, unversed in mathematics +and the scientific research equipment of our age, +should inherit one of our current science manuals. There +they would read or, rather decipher, such statements as +that light travels at the rate of 186,000 miles a second; +that the sun is 92 million miles distant from the earth, +and that the light of the nearest star takes four and a half +light years to reach us. What would they make of it all? +Some of them, it is probable, would hold that their forerunners +must have possessed a faculty lost to themselves +and in consequence would attach a mystical significance +to the unverifiable dogmas; they might even repeat these +dogmas as possibly magical formulas. But undoubtedly +the best common sense of the day, in the absence of the +means of verification, would dismiss the statements as +being childish guesses or, at best, as barbarous abracadabra. +Only a very few would suspect that perhaps we were not +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span>such fools as we appeared, and give us suspended credit +for a method behind our madness. But our method +itself and the instruments we employ would be still to +seek.</p> + +<p>“The foregoing picture may serve to illustrate what may +possibly—let us say no more than possibly—be our own +situation in regard to the ancient ‘science’ of religion. We +have inherited a few of the textbooks once circulated +among the illuminati of more or less extinct civilizations, +and we find them to contain statements of equal exactitude +and incredibility concerning things of which we +have no verifiable knowledge, as that there is a God Who +is a trinity of Persons, Who created the Universe according +to Reason, and Man in his own image, and Who +placed us in the world with potentialities of consciously +becoming like unto Himself. Some of us today are disposed, +like our imagined descendants, to take these traditional +statements mystically; to repeat them as magical +formulas; and to assume that a lost faculty, the so-called +religious sense, was possessed by our ancestors of ancient +Egypt, India, Persia and Syria. So relatively powerful, +in fact, are these that their attitude towards the inherited +dogmas of ancient religion is still the standard of respectability. +The weight of common sense, however, is slowly +but surely making itself felt; and the day is not far off +when the intelligence of our civilization will explicitly +decline even to be interested in grandiose statements apparently +insusceptible of proof. Only a few, a very few, +will continue to suspect that perhaps the Egyptians, the +Buddhists, the Pythagoreans and the Gnostics were people +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span>very like ourselves in respect of faculty and unlike us +only in the same respect in which we shall differ from a +remote posterity without our science, namely, in the possession, +not of a lost faculty, but of a lost method or +technique. And for these few, too, the method or technique +is still to seek—or perhaps only to recognize.”</p> + +<p>The foregoing is more than a caution against the easy +specification of what religious experience is; it also reinforces +the attitude—a strictly modern one which most of +the New Humanists adopt—of wariness toward the religious +life. But can we find in our ordinary diurnal +living anything that corresponds to the humanistic way +and to the naturalistic way? Nothing is simpler than +to exemplify the latter, for we all live naturalistically most +of the time. Most men, Thoreau observed, lead lives of +quiet desperation. Most men must work for their livelihood, +and the work they are driven to do holds little or +no attraction for them. (I do not speak of the increasing +number of intolerable jobs an industrial society creates, +but rather of the monotonous occupations of many members +of the middle class.) The time spent in offices each +day is for many men so much time spent in bondage, +cut off from their vivid interests: they repine, but succumb +to a dull routine. Their permanent mood is one of passive +endurance. Like horses they uncomplainingly draw +their loads and rejoice when at five o’clock they are let +out to pasture. This is a usual and mild instance of +merely naturalistic living. The humanistic attitude, on +the other hand, is, toward the identical necessity and circumstances, +an active one. A curb is put on futile repining: +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span>vain longings are disciplined: the situation is faced +with the minimum useless feeling. The question for the +Humanist is, granting the inescapable circumstances, how +can I make the best use of them to my advantage as a +human being? How may I bend them to suit my design +in life, how may I gather them into focus? How may I +extract from my burdens values that are not accessible +to the mere beast of burden? At this point Arnold’s +triumphant converting of his drab job of school inspecting +to the main interests of his life springs to mind as an +instance of working on the humanistic level. In other +words, where it is a case of the disagreeable inevitability, +the Naturalist remains under compulsion from the outside: +the Humanist, in contrast, makes an effort to alter +his attitude from mere negative endurance to a search for +positive results in the way of personal discipline and the +discovery of unsuspected values inherent in the day’s +work. Is his real business in life not the cultivation of +the distinctively human, and is not everything grist to +that magical mill if one only tries to keep the mill in +operation; that is, if one maintains an active attitude +toward experience?</p> + +<p>But, perhaps some readers are saying, you are merely +balancing an act of good sense against the case of unintelligent +adjustment: by what right do you label the former +humanistic when many avowed Naturalists—Charles Darwin +in his years of invalidism, for instance—perform feats +of intelligent and heroic overcoming of difficulties? The +answer is that the Naturalist often rises above his doctrine +just as the Humanist often fails in his discipline, but it +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span>still remains true that it is the Humanist who assigns +himself the task of organizing a life based on good sense, +while the Naturalist puts his confidence in following, +so far as he is permitted by events, the grain of his +mechanical self. Have we not inherited the nineteenth +century Romantic disparagement of good sense in favor +of the imagination?</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The central maxim for practising the humanistic life +is a crystallization in three words of a large part of Greek +wisdom—“Nothing too much.” The New Humanists +plan to do not less than to restore to its pristine attractiveness +the law of measure extolled by Aristotle and +called by Horace—so worthy of praise did it seem to that +exquisite poet and epicurean—the Golden Mean.</p> + +<p>About this I think there is no difficulty in understanding +what the New Humanist leaders are driving at. The +law of measure is not legalistic; it cannot be codified. +Negatively put, it means, avoid excesses. Positively, it +means the rule of temperance, but temperance manifested +in the mental and emotional realms as well as in +the physical. The real difficulty lies in applying measure +to our deeds, our thoughts, our feelings, and it is an +immense difficulty, demanding what tact and delicacy, +what perceptiveness and reflection, what resolution and +zeal. In essays by American Humanists we often run +upon certain sayings of Pascal which not only illuminate +the import of the law of measure but should serve here +to enhance the reader’s sense of what I have just said +about its difficulty in operation.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span></p> + +<p>“Grandeur is not shown by being at one extremity, but +in touching both at once, and filling the whole space +between,” wrote Pascal, and there could not possibly be +a better recognition of the <em>great scope</em> for the play of +human psychology allowed for by the law of measure. +“When we would pursue the virtues to their extremes on +either side, vices present themselves, which insinuate +themselves imperceptibly there, in their insensible course +towards the infinitely great, so that we lose ourselves +in vices, and no longer see virtues.” The history of Romanticism +(how often!) testifies to the weight of truth +in this saying. The following <i lang="fr">pensée</i> might well be called +the essence of the New Humanism. “Excessive or deficient +mental powers are alike accused of madness. Nothing +is good save mediocrity. To leave the mean is to +leave humanity. The greatness of the human soul consists +in knowing how to keep the mean. So little is it the +case that greatness consists in leaving it, that it lies in not +leaving it.” That is the reply the New Humanist can +make when it is objected that his strictures on eccentric +genius are too harsh. “The greatness of the human soul +consists in knowing how to keep the mean.”</p> + +<p>For a genius is often simply an exaggeration of one, +and but one, of the three major aspects of a man. For we +may say that man is a compound of Knowing, Being +and Doing. Exaggerate his wish to know into a lust for +knowledge (<i lang="la">libido sciendi</i>), depress at the same time his +wish for Being and Doing, and you get the Gargantuan +hungerer for knowledge, the monstrous head and the +starved heart and impotent faculty for doing, you get an +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span>encyclopædist, a Diderot (whose heart was active, however) +or a Herbert Spencer. Again exaggerate a man’s +wish for Being, let him despise the acquisition of knowledge +and the doing of deeds, and you have the lust for +feeling (<i lang="la">libido sentiendi</i>): you have a genius like Rousseau +or Schiller. There is also an inordinate lust for +power, for doing (<i lang="la">libido dominandi</i>), which like the lusts +for knowledge and for feeling is all-consuming and warps +the development of character, and this time you get a +monstrous man of action like Napoleon or like some great +industrialists of the present era that any one can name. +These incarnations of the three great lusts of human +nature excite our wonder and admiration: they fascinate +us by their “divine madness.” But we remind ourselves +that there is also a “divine sanity,” and it seems in the +character of Plato or Buddha a finer touch of divinity. +Babbitt transcribes for us in his argument directed against +the <i lang="la">libido sciendi</i>, the <i lang="la">libido sentiendi</i>, and the <i lang="la">libido +dominandi</i> the Buddhist proverb: “If one man conquer +in battle ten thousand men and another man conquer +his own self, he is the greatest of conquerors,” and to this +he subjoins his own belief that “that man is most human +who can check his faculty, even if it be his master-faculty, +and his passion, even his ruling passion, in its mid-career, +and temper it by its opposite.”</p> + +<p>In one phrase, then, the Humanist method is mediation +between extremes. It is the finding of the middle way, +and I hasten to add that the middle way is never found +mechanically, never by merely striking an average between +two extremes. It is a strait and narrow way, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span>obvious when it is recognized, but hard to recognize. +Finding it is a call upon all of one’s experience: effort, +thought, observation, a scale of values, spiritual agility, all +are needed to make the discovery of the Golden Path.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>But useless is all writing about the Golden Mean if +man has no power of choice, or potentiality of acquiring +a power of choice. As well exhort a beggar to buy a +palace! Nothing could be vainer than the formulation +of a discipline based on selection, selection and again +selection, if there is in man no capability for selecting. +According to the Mechanists there is not. They have +much truth on their side. In the sense that man is self-ignorant +and therefore uncontrolled (for who can control +what he does not know?), man <em>is</em> a machine. But here +is something to ponder on: there is a wide uninvestigated +region of man which we may term his potential psychology. +Psychology as a science—described truly by its +leaders as an infant science—has not yet given us a norm +for human psychology, which includes both our actualities +and our latencies. An honest worker like Dr. J. B. +Watson speaks frankly for all his profession when he says +that we have seen no norm, and adds that in his opinion +it would be infinitely desirable to find one. The New +Humanist, weighing the evidence and testimony of the +past, concludes that man has at least the potentialities of +gaining self-knowledge and self-control. He therefore +seeks to actualize them. He challenges the Mechanists +and appeals to our sense of latent psychology. In his +effort to build up a working system of psychology based +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span>upon potentialities (our human self) as well as upon +actualities (our mechanical self), the New Humanist has +been more grotesquely misunderstood than at any other +point.</p> + +<p>We approach now the meaning of the phrases he uses so +often,—“a principle of restraint,” “a power of vital control,” +“<i lang="fr">frein vital</i>” as against “<i lang="fr">élan vital</i>,” “the inner +check.” I have been through the mass of writings directed +against Babbitt’s theory, and these terms are harped +on with so much irritation that I can only conclude +the vocabulary of Babbitt is highly offensive to our age. +“Now why the deuce,” peevishly writes one of the younger +critics, speaking for all of them, “is virtue, with the +Humanists, always made to reside exclusively in what +Babbitt calls the ‘will to refrain’?” In the petulance of +that question there is perhaps a clue to the psychology of +our age, a psychology so extraordinarily blind that it fails +to see that a principle of restraint is only another way +of saying a principle of selection, as indeed in Babbitt’s +writings the two expressions are interchangeable from his +first book wherein he spoke of “a humane principle of +selection, or what amounts to the same thing, a true +principle of restraint.” But a very vocal part of our age +is infuriated by the very notion of restraint, and we have +to interpret this strange fact. Can it be that, as is sometimes +charged, this is really an age of weaklings in the +arts and philosophies? It is noticeable that men of +strength are usually the very men who most feel the need +of curbing themselves, that men of rich and powerful personalities +are the ones who try hardest to purge themselves +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span>of the merely gratuitous and “temperamental,” that men +of real passion are the first to acknowledge need of canalizing +it. These men are not afraid that a little discipline +will take away their precious personalities: they have so +much personality that it is precisely discipline they look +for. But what is this outcry on the part of so many of +our formative writers against the negative admonition? +What feebleness of energy and passion is it that is afraid +of being strangled by a “power of vital control”? I am +driven to think of the reports of sexologists who say that +it is the poorly sexed man whose erotic life is one of +excessive indulgence, whereas the powerfully sexed are +sensible of the need for some moderation of their desires, +and I wonder if many a writer in our day, determined to +let nothing stop the expression of his soul (the size of an +emmet, alas, in so many cases) is not comparable to the +unrestrained man of poor sexual powers.</p> + +<p>However that may be, the American intellectuals and +artists as a body have totally failed to perceive what may +be fairly termed the gallantry of the Humanist conception +of “a will to refrain.” For if we could, as it were, put +our ordinary selves under a glass and gaze coolly at them, +we should see very numerous and complicated phenomena, +a flux subject to endless change and relativity, which +except for an infinitesimal fraction we are not aware of +at all. This world of impressions, and bodily changes, +and variations in feeling goes its own way, and we are, +it seems, at its mercy. Have most of us any more control +of our mental processes than we have of our glandular +secretions? But against this imperious self the Humanist +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span>dares to assert his very deepest self. He dares to say no +to its impulsions. He dares to say, though these phenomena +<em>arise</em> in me, I yet shall deal with these arisings, denying +some and permitting others to run their natural +course. And it is this assertion that I call gallant. The +odds are all against the assertion being made good: the +attraction of the ordinary self is almost irresistible; and +yet man will struggle to assert his freedom of the ebb +and flow of his ordinary life. In positive language, the +“will to refrain” is an attempt to strike a blow for freedom.</p> + +<p>The principle of restraint is dramatized by Babbitt +when he calls it the inner check. It is less metaphorical +than many terms appropriated by, let us say, psycho-analysts +who speak of a “censor,” for example, but still +it is only a metaphor. What does it stand for? I find +it very difficult to say, for it seems to be on the outskirts +of a tremendous conception, a conception that is +excessively hard to put into words. Many opponents of +American Humanism have thought the inner check to +be merely an inhibition, or some streak of puritanism, or +in one case an equivalent to what the psycho-analyst +means by the censor. As if More and Babbitt were naïve +men of limited experience! As if, though trained in +skepticism for a lifetime, they would make an error that +any fledgeling reviewer could see! No; the meaning +of the inner check must be sought in a deeper way if it is +to be elicited, and in plumbing for it we must first of all +divest ourselves of our usual notions about inhibitions.</p> + +<p>Both Babbitt and More have, as a matter of fact, clearly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span>indicated that they held no ordinary conception when +they spoke of the inner check.⁠<a id="FNanchor_6_6" href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> The phrase is probably +Babbitt’s, who derived it from Emerson in whose writings +it appeared as the inward check; the inward check was +referred by Emerson to Hindu scriptures where the meaning +was an inward guide or control. This in itself is sufficient +to put us on guard against a quick assumption that +we understand what it is all about. But there is another +reason, equally strong: Babbitt has several times linked +up his sense of an inner check with the dæmon of +Socrates, who is made to say in the <cite>Phædrus</cite>: “My divine +monitor’s wonted sign—now it never occurs save to +deter me from something or other I am intending to do.” +This is why I said above that the More-Babbitt conception +of the inner check appears to me to be on the fringe of a +tremendous conception, for I have not the effrontery to +regard Socrates as naïve in matters of his own psychology. +At the same time, what was meant by the ancient idea of +a deterring monitor in one’s breast and what is now +meant by the Babbitt-More derivation? The difficulties +of an answer are at once visible.</p> + +<p>Something like this may be modestly ventured, however. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span>Neither ancient nor modern had or has in mind, +when speaking of a dæmon or an inner check, what we +may call a sociologically formed conscience. By education +we have all had instilled in us a kind of pseudo-conscience: +in our childhood and youth older people told us +definitely what was right and wrong, they traded on our +susceptibility, and now that we have grown critical, we +learn that these deeply stamped notions of wrong and +right are purely relative, often silly, and in some instances +downright harmful. Take anything you please—our sense +of sexual shame, for one—and any intelligent person today +can riddle much of it by simply showing how arbitrarily +we have been conditioned. So much depends on +social custom! But the inner check and the Socratic +dæmon are not, I feel confident, the products of respectable +training.</p> + +<p>For, to continue with the case of sexual shame, is there +not a true shame as well as a pseudo-shame? Is there +not a shame so deep, so primitive, that it seems biological, +owing nothing to sociology, a shame that when it is violated +seems to overthrow the whole being? Pseudo-shame +can be almost painlessly removed, but this organic +shame, if corrupted, is corrupted only by a violent wrench +to one’s whole character. It is as though something died +in one, whereas when sociological shame is taken away, +one feels liberated and even gay.</p> + +<p>By my line of reasoning, the inner check conception +is to be taken as the faint shadow cast down the ages by +the Socratic dæmon, and this dæmon in turn I am half-guessing +to be a figure of Conscience. But not conscience +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span>in our sense, the pseudo-function that Society sets going in +us, but—how shall I put it?—some abiding developed +sense of how it is fitting that the being Man should conduct +himself in a life that may be a school of experience, +but certainly reveals no easily accessible master of +the school.</p> + +<p>For fluid as is the nature of man—and few recent +writers have better displayed man’s fluidity than Joseph +Wood Krutch in an essay entitled <cite>The Paradox of Humanism</cite>—there +does yet seem to be buried in the creature +something, almost non-functioning, which we may agree +to call a conscience, since it is independent of social conditioning, +and this something, this conscience, sometimes +says no in emphatic command. Who is there who, on +sincere self-examination, does not find there are a few +things he knows with absolute certitude he could never +do? No power on earth, no conceivable circumstances, +he declares to himself, would make me do thus-and-so. +And yet why not do them? There may be no consequences +that inspire fear, there may even be strong incentives +to take the detested course of action. But something +internal says Veto so powerfully that there is no +possibility of committing the action. <em>The action would +seem like a betrayal of the species one belongs to!</em></p> + +<p>The interpretation is here offered then that the inner +check works in the interests of some essential humanity +in us. It seeks to counteract that fluidity of our nature +whereby men become beasts or go mad. It warns us +when we are about to desert our adult human standards +and retrogress to the puerile or infantile or sub-human.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span></p> + +<p>And now I think of the life of Socrates as we have it: +the simple dignity, the steadiness of his passion for self-perfection, +the courage of his behavior, and all the multitude +of other points of homage the world has paid him. +And I see his life as a drama of the true conscience: in +his illustrious example, a conscience developed, sensitized, +responsive, a marvellous monitor surely directing him as +to how it was fit that a member of the human species +should live.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The technique of the New Humanism, to sum it up, +is mediation under the guidance of the vestiges of true +conscience still in our psychology. It is as simple as +that, and, I am tempted to add, as tremendous as that. +To repeat Pascal’s profound words: “To leave the mean +is to leave humanity.” The inner check or as I take it +the vestige of conscience in modern man warns us when +we veer toward barbarous extremes. The activity of the +inner check is the very heart of the method, but dependent +from the principal technique are several lesser +techniques which may now be taken up rapidly and +schematically. The New Humanist calls them (a) the +right use of illusion, (b) the imitation of nature, and (c) +decorum.</p> + +<p>(a). The Right Use of Illusion. The quotations are +from Babbitt’s <cite>Rousseau and Romanticism</cite>. “Life does +not here give an element of oneness and there an element +of change. It gives a <em>oneness that is always changing</em>. +The oneness and the change are inseparable. Now if +what is stable and permanent is felt as real, the side of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span>life that is always slipping over into something else or +vanishing away entirely is, as every student of psychology +knows, associated rather with the feeling of illusion ... +The problem of the One and the Many, the ultimate problem +of thought, can therefore be solved only by a right +use of illusion ... failure (with the problem of the One +and the Many) can be retrieved only by a deeper insight +into the imagination and its all-important rôle in both +literature and life.”</p> + +<p>In the above I think we may detect the hand of Joubert +who reflected deeply on <i lang="fr">illusion et sagesse</i>. “Joubert,” +Paul Elmer More says, “conceives it to be the rôle of the +imagination, mediating as it does between sense and reason, +to lend its magic and glamour to the latter, to throw +as it were a veil of divine illusion over some essential +truth.... The imagination must be really free and spontaneous, +and the truth itself must not be too precisely +formulated, if we are to arrive at that vital fusing of +illusion and insight with the accompanying sense of +infinitude that is found in the true symbol.”</p> + +<p>In the ideal Humanist then the Imagination coöperates +with Reason. Its rôle is not debased in order to exalt +good sense as happened in the Neo-Classicism of the eighteenth +century, nor is it made antagonistic to good sense +as was done in the romantic recoil from Pope and other +eighteenth century men. Something like the play of +Imagination in behalf of Reason as we behold it in Plato +is what Babbitt and More contend is the Imagination’s +highest function.</p> + +<p>(b). The Imitation of Nature. “The first point to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span>observe,” notes Babbitt, “is that according to Aristotle one +is to get his general nature not on authority or second +hand, but is to disengage it directly for himself from the +jungle of particulars that he has before his eyes. He is +not, says Aristotle, to imitate things as they are, but +as they ought to be. Thus conceived, imitation is a creative +act. Through all the welter of the actual one penetrates +to the real and so succeeds without ceasing to be +individual in suggesting the universal.” The consideration +above is not purely literary. The Humanist with his +practical attitude toward the leading of “the good life” +tries to form a model before his eyes of what normal +representative human nature is and to imitate that. Out +of human nature as it actually is he tries to make a general +picture of what it ought to be, and to hold that up as a +guide for his efforts to become more representative in +his own person. Since many people apparently find it +hard to receive much meaning from such abstract statements +as the preceding, since they are not at once and +vividly conscious of the vast difference between a standard +of human nature and the average of human nature, I may +be pardoned for urgently recommending a close study of +Charles Maurras’s explicit account of how the normal +(or perfect) man appears to his mind and imagination. +It is hard to over-estimate the importance of such an attempt +as Maurras’s. Classicism, if it is to be a life, must +be more than a set of ideas and a discipline for actions: it +must rally the emotions and make use of their great driving +force. It happens that our emotions can be appealed +to by images, and hence the desirability of forming as +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span>concrete an image as possible of what the classical man, +man <i lang="fr">par excellence</i>, is like. In his <cite>Prologue to an Essay +on Criticism</cite>, Maurras has said: “Good taste is the taste +of the perfect man.” He then goes on:</p> + +<p>“There is such a thing as a perfect man. I mean that +it is not difficult to conceive a man who should fulfil +exactly the idea of our common condition and who could +serve as a model for all of us. I hope I shall be excused +for not bestowing upon this fictitious creature (fictitious +but true) the nickname of <i lang="fr">Beau Idéal</i>: that name crops up +whenever people want to talk German or abandon a subject +in favor of a vague terminology. People who argue +about the ideal do not mean by that the total of the +characteristics that build up and complete a being, but, +as they say in their jargon, something over and above. +The perfect man fulfils the definition of man, the ideal +man deforms it here and there; I hasten to add that in the +ideal man excesses are balanced by defects, and extravagances +by omissions.</p> + +<p>“By the perfect man I do not mean a mediocre figure +in which virtues and faults are balanced. I am thinking +of the limit of human power. Monsters and prodigies +do not exceed that limit, as is commonly said. They are +very well within it, like the mediocrities. Man conceives +nothing beyond that limit, beyond which live the gods.</p> + +<p>“In a few words, man is a reasoning animal. This +old definition seems to me the only satisfactory one. +Neither morality, nor sociability, nor, to be sure, feeling +is peculiar to man. He is distinguished only by reason; +that is what distinguishes him, without separating him, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span>from the rest of creation. Created nature is completely +represented in him. In his body which has weight, +number and measure as have the metals, organization like +the plants, sensibility and movement like the animals, +and which thus appears as the achievement of our earth. +His reason is incessantly nourished, sharpened, enlivened, +illuminated by the tribute which the world pays him +through these three channels. Reason, thus conditioned +by the whole of nature, must develop the fulness of its +energies in the exact measure in which that can work +no ill to the perfect expansion of a flourishing body; reason +pushed to the point of parching the animal would +exhaust its own sources of being; as for the exclusive +culture of the body, that would coarsen the soul and deprive +it of reason. So the most subtle of the Athenians +used to drain bowl after bowl of wine without confusing +his brain, and would then reason like a god. His companions +admired him all the more.</p> + +<p>“To express the natural harmony of these two powers, +we commonly use a very vicious figure of speech: we +speak of ‘equilibrium’ as if the objects on the scale were +equivalent! <em>Order</em> is what we should call this conformity +of a being to all the elements of its fate.</p> + +<p>“What should be the critical sense of a human being +composed in such a way that his instincts, his impressions, +his feelings, his passions, when brought to the highest +point, are guided and ruled by an intellect more powerful, +itself fortified, sustained and nourished by the abundance +of nature? His animal ardors will never usurp the seat +of control which belongs exclusively to judgment and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span>reason; but will reason abandon a nature which is too +robust, in order to follow vain imaginations? No dessication, +no flaccidity either; forms full and well-nerved; +philosopher and on occasion even metaphysician, but +rigorously; a sense of real and true poetry; infused with +all human warmth, but firm and secure against it if need +be: such is the general idea that is possible of the good +taste of an accomplished man.”</p> + +<p>I do not say I regard the above as the best depiction +of the perfect man to be encountered, but Maurras indubitably +proceeds along the right lines, using his imagination +to catch a glimpse of the universal and at the same +time not sacrificing his own individuality. He has succeeded +in visualizing a model with fair claims to normality, +representativeness, soundness, for his own personal +imitation or emulation. Note that the logic by which +Maurras has made his conception is the logic of probability, +commended so often in the New Humanist books, +and not simply a flight into the improbable.</p> + +<p>(c). Decorum. What a fate has befallen this noble +word! It is, in my opinion, impossible for the New +Humanist to raise it from its low estate. Babbitt has exposed +the way in which in the eighteenth century it came +to mean etiquette: as he well says, the Neo-Classical +writers made the bad mistake of confusing the language +of the nobility with the nobility of language. This blunder +Wordsworth recoiled from in his advocacy and use +of plain diction: the Romantics hated decorum because +it had become a stiff and formal and external affair. But +worse degradation awaited the word, and at the present +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span>time in America it seems to mean, so far as I can judge +from the writers who object to it, the “genteel” manners, +the prudish code of behavior which it is the fashion to +attribute to the past generation. As I think, the word is +beyond rescue: it is drowned in its present debased +associations. But is that an excuse for those whose profession +it is to read critically to charge classical scholars +like More and Babbitt with attaching merely a “genteel” +significance to the term?</p> + +<p>How could Babbitt, for instance, have made it plainer +than he did in the next passage I shall quote that decorum +for him does not mean empty formalism, or a mere veneer +of manners, but is inward and to be understood in a large +way? I resort to italics, for truly they seem necessary to +combat our habitual associations with the word. “Whoever +has succeeded in bridging the gap between the general +percept and some particular emergency has to that +extent achieved the fitting and the decorous. <em>Decorum +is simply the law of measure in its more concrete aspects.</em> +For every type of humanist decorum is, in Milton’s phrase, +the ‘grand masterpiece to observe.’ <em>Actually this observation +may rest on deep insight</em>, as it did in the case of +Milton himself, or it may degenerate into empty formalism. +The adjustment of which I have spoken between +the variable and the permanent elements in human experience +requires <em>spiritual</em> effort and most men are spiritually +indolent. For genuine adjustment they tend to substitute +outer conformity so that decorum itself finally comes to +seem a mere veneer, something that has no deep root in +things. Moreover the notions of decent behavior to which +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span>men have conformed at any particular period have always +been more or less local and relative. It is easy to take +the next step and assume that they have been <em>only</em> local +and relative, an assumption subversive not merely of +decorum but of humanism itself.”</p> + +<p>But in spite of Babbitt’s care in expressing his meaning, +he has been constantly defeated by his readers’ different +sense of the term, and not even his using the phrase “a +sense of proportion” as equivalent to decorum has enlightened +most of them. Yet all that decorum means is +the activity of our sense of proportion: it means the carrying +out of what it is seemly for a man to do. It is not +seemly for a man to whine, we say: not seemly for him to +shirk the offices of the mind: not seemly to be an utter +fool in practical affairs. Notions of fitting behavior vary +from place to place and time to time, as Babbitt observes, +but above all the varying notions there remains a permanent +sense of how it is appropriate for a man to live. He +should face the facts: he should put away childish things: +he should deal with the difficulties of existence intelligently, +courageously, forcefully: he should realize his +innermost being. The indecorous is simply the inappropriate, +the disproportioned, whether it occurs in art or in +conduct. Bathos is indecorous: sentimentality, the gush +of emotion far in excess of the fact, is indecorous: the +intrusion of the purely private into public discussion is +indecorous. The things named are either inappropriate +or unmeasured.</p> + +<p>To close the subject: Decorum, or a sense of proportion, +is simply the law of measure in its more concrete aspects, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span>it is the law of measure in actual operation in the shifting +tangle of daily existence.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>In describing the discipline worked out by the New +Humanists I have striven for extreme simplicity of statement. +My aim has been to concretize as much as possible +the technical formulations in Humanist literature. I was +moved to do this, because I have sometimes read that the +More-Babbitt doctrine and discipline are academic in the +bad sense of the word. Babbitt and More advocate, it is +said, notions that are narrow and have a freezing effect +on the “spirit.” They are, most damning accusation, +puritanical. But what, when correctly understood, is +evilly academic about their conception of man and the +means they advocate for true self-fulfilment? What is +narrow about their ideas when they are distinguished at +the source and not “interpreted” by some overworked +journalist? How can the law of measure possibly freeze +up the springs of personality, if one has any personality +to begin with? And are they puritanical? I cite Babbitt’s +critical position toward Puritanism for a sufficient +reply.</p> + +<p>“The crucial point in any case is one’s attitude toward +the principle of control. Those who stand for this principle +in any form or degree are dismissed by the emancipated +as reactionaries or, still graver reproach, as Puritans. +Mr. Mencken would have us believe that the historical +Puritan was not even sincere in his moral rigorism, but +was given to ‘lamentable transactions with loose women +and fiery jugs.’ This may serve as a sample of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span>assertions, picturesquely indiscriminate, by which a writer +wins immediate notoriety at the expense of his permanent +reputation. The facts about the Puritan happen to be +complex and need to be dealt with very Socratically. It +has been affirmed that the point of view of the Puritan +was Stoical rather than truly Christian, and the affirmation +is not wholly false. The present discussion of the relationship +between Puritanism and the rise of capitalism +with its glorification of the acquisitive life also has its +justification. It is likewise a fact that the Puritan was +from the outset unduly concerned with reforming others +as well as himself, and this trait relates him to the humanitarian +meddler or ‘wowser’ of the present day, who +is Mr. Mencken’s pet aversion.</p> + +<p>“Yet it remains true that awe and reverence and humility +are Christian virtues and that there was some survival +of these virtues in the Puritan. For a representative +Puritan like Jonathan Edwards they were inseparable +from the illumination of grace, from what he terms ‘a +divine and supernatural light.’ In the passage from the +love and fear of God of an Edwards to the love and +service of man professed by the humanitarian, something +has plainly dropped out, something that is very near the +center. What has tended to disappear is the inner life +with the special type of control it imposes. With the decline +of this inner control there has been an increasing +resort to outer control. Instead of the genuine Puritan +we then have the humanitarian legalist who passes innumerable +laws for the control of people who refuse to control +themselves. The activity of our uplifters is scarcely suggestive +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span>of any ‘divine and supernatural light.’ Here is a +discrimination of the first importance that has been obscured +by the muddy thinking of our half-baked intelligentsia. +One is thus kept from perceiving the real problem, +which is to retain the inner life, even though one +refuse to accept the theological nightmare with which +the Puritan associated it. More is involved in the failure +to solve this problem than the Puritan tradition. It is +the failure of our contemporary life in general. Yet, +unless some solution is reached by a full and free exercise +of the critical spirit, one remains a mere modernist and +not a thoroughgoing and complete modern; for the +modern spirit and the critical spirit are in their essence +one.”</p> + +<p>To me it is a jest at the expense of the last decade +that while so many of us have been marching behind the +drums of Menckenism, round and round the same old +circle of naturalistic ideas, there has issued forth from the +despised quarter of university thought the most truly +modern system of all, a system far more in accord with +the spirit of Goethe, who spoke, says Babbitt, not as a +Puritan but as a clear-eyed man of the world, than all the +humanitarian and romantic panaceas that are so solemnly +discussed in our liberal weeklies. Goethe said that everything +that liberates the spirit without a corresponding +growth in self-mastery is pernicious.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>As a matter of fact, the New Humanist like the historical +Humanist revolts against Calvinism. But he has +hit upon an interesting substitution for the Christian +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span>dogma of Original Sin or Depravity. Most attempts men +have made at an objective critique of the human race +have wound up in the conclusion that there is something +radically wrong with it, that there is a Moby Dick loose +in the ocean of humanity which must be hunted down +and captured before the race can achieve peace. It is as +though we all existed under some curse, as though we +had been cheated of some birthright. Take the opening +pages of <cite>Walden</cite>. Thoreau is trying for an objective +view of mankind. He finds fault after fault sweeping +through the race. He finds it indeed a very odd race, +doing penance in a thousand singular ways for existence. +Why is it thus? He is led to make one master indictment +of human beings:—they are torpid! The humanistic +view almost coincides, it amounts to saying the main +trouble with mankind is torpor. Original Indolence in +place of Original Sin! The criticism is reinforced by +Buddhistic teachings. For the doctrine of original depravity +to Babbitt is not thoroughly acceptable: it rests +on rather metaphysical grounds and seems hard to verify +practically. The Buddhist doctrine of the original laziness +of human nature, however, appears to come closer to the +ascertainable facts. “The greatest of vices according to +Buddha is the lazy yielding to the impulses of temperament +(<i>pamāda</i>); the greatest virtue (<i>appamāda</i>) is the +opposite of this, the awakening from the sloth and lethargy +of the senses, the constant exercise of the active will.” +By this stroke Babbitt once again frees his doctrine of +theology, and as always makes his appeal to verifiable +experience. The New Humanism, to offer still another +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span>definition, is a warfare on man’s original indolence. We +may be said to be born with a “won’t”: the Humanist +tries to oppose a “will” to this “won’t.”</p> + +<p>What the New Humanism has to say about the Will is +another borrowing from Eastern philosophy. The Will is +regarded as anterior and superior to the Intellect: to it +and not to the Intellect as in St. Thomas Aquinas is given +the primacy. But you will find all this treated exhaustively +in the works of Babbitt, More and their followers.</p> + +<p>What I wish to say is that the problem of the Will is +the very crux-problem of all our civilization. I am convinced +that Babbitt has put the supreme question to our +times, and that all debate over American Humanism is +beside the main point until that question is fully faced. +“Here at all events is the issue on which all other issues +finally hinge; for until the question of moral freedom—the +question whether man is a responsible agent or only +the plaything of his impulses and impressions—is decided, +nothing is decided; and to decide the question under existing +circumstances calls for the keenest critical discrimination.”</p> + +<p>But how uncritical and impractical we are about this +problem! Vague and futile! If anything is plain, it is +that the Will presents first a psychological problem and +only after that a metaphysical question. But we argue +and theorize endlessly about the Will. Hardly ever do +we think of a practical self-demonstration, and if we do it +is some such ineffably silly demonstration as saying, “I +<em>will</em> to open this window.” But did you will to move +all the muscles that shifted when you did so, including the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span>numerous unnecessary movements that accompanied the +action? The truth is that Will can only begin where +Behaviorism leaves off, but very few have digested Behaviorism. +Why do we not howl with laughter when +we read in William James: “My first act of free will +shall be to believe in free will”? Or take this piece of +naïveté upon which my eye has fallen while writing this +chapter. A young critic is telling his audience that “the +philosophic implications of the quantum theory, the writings +of Whitehead, Eddington, C. J. Herrick and Millikan, +and the spectacle of American artists recovering from +paralysis of the will, had all combined to revive a sense +of free will in certain Americans.” It may be a sense +of free will, but if it was arrived at by these means, by +reading, we may be positive that it is an illusory sense. +As if the same critic had listed a number of authors who +had proved to him that he had what he was not previously +sure of, a mind. We say we have minds because they +demonstrate themselves to us beyond any possible doubt. +If we indeed have Wills, they also will be self-demonstrating: +no one need prove to us we have what we cannot +doubt we possess. Where there is doubt, there is no Will. +Where there is no doubt, let it be added at once there +still may be no Will.</p> + +<p>One thing we know: Will is not to be associated, as +is often done, with desire. Our desires come and go and +fight among themselves: we commonly act, not on <em>a</em> +desire, but on the resultant of our various contending desires. +But Will, in the very nature of the case, is distinct +from and independent of desire. Not in the region of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span>desires but of efforts should we look for the roots of +Will. On this the New Humanist is absolutely clear-headed.</p> + +<p>And perhaps there we had better leave the discussion +for the present. Making effort is always unmistakable to +us. It has a psychological taste, if I may say so, so strong +that we cannot delude ourselves into thinking we are not +engaged in effort. Our desires on the other hand have +quite another taste, and many times as is well known we +are only dimly conscious of them. The use of Will then +could never be unconscious, could never be a mere matter +of believing theories. Will would make itself felt in the +psychological realm as indubitably as our bodies feel +kinæsthetic strain in hauling a heavy boat up on shore.</p> + +<p>Everything in American Humanism depends ultimately +upon the Will as an undeniable fact, not as an assumption. +We may start with the assumption but unless we can convert +it into a fact for ourselves as patent as the fingers on +our hands we are playing with an illusion.</p> + +<p>There is a practical problem of the Will: a practical +approach to it: and perhaps a practical solution. The +New Humanists project this key problem to the place +where it belongs: in the front of all our dilemmas and +puzzles as to how to lead “the good life.” Should we all +try seriously to work at the key problem, there would +occur in American life a revolution that would be unimaginable.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The New Humanist not only associates Will with effort, +but—what is a great advance over his opponents’ muddled +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span>notions about Will—with a particular type of effort: +work on oneself, a work that takes the form of knowing +oneself, harmonizing oneself, disciplining oneself. And +in this lies the secret of the devotees of Humanism. +It is, however, an open secret, older than Aristotle +and still advertised today. It is that happiness comes +not from psychological inertia but from psychological +work. Once again I shall quote from Babbitt: “this +sluggishness and slackness of spirit, this mere drifting +and abdication of will, may, as Chaucer’s parson +suggests, be the crime against the Holy Ghost itself.” +The agreement is with Aristotle who conceived “of +happiness in terms of work. All types of temperamentalists +are from the human point of view passive. The +happiness that they crave is a passive happiness. A man +may pursue power with the energy of a Napoleon and yet +remain ethically passive. He may expand his sympathies +until, like Schiller, he is ready to ‘bestow a kiss upon the +whole world,’ and yet remain ethically passive. A man +ceases to be ethically passive only when he begins to work +in the Aristotelian sense, that is when he begins to put +the brake on temperament and impulse, and in the same +degree he tends to become ethically efficient.”</p> + +<p>And now let one of the ancients, “the subtlest of the +Athenians,” the hero of the Platonic Dialogues, have the +final word. “The best man is he who most tries to perfect +himself, and the happiest man is he who most feels +that he <em>is</em> perfecting himself.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span></p> + +<p>The reader may think it strange that such a doctrine +and discipline as we have been sketching should arouse +the violent and oftentimes abusive antagonism that flared +up in the winter and spring of 1930. Whatever its +ultimate deficiencies may be, the New Humanism wears +commonsense on its face, and its thought is both broad +and elevated. Nevertheless it provoked a storm.</p> + +<p>It is explicable. In the first place, much random opposition +to American Humanism springs up because of +the specific attitudes Humanists take in respect to +art, literature, science, education, politics, and so forth. +Stemming from the parent attitude of responsibility toward +the natural self are a variety of consequential attitudes +when the Humanist looks out upon the world +around him. And it is these consequential (or possibly +only contingent) attitudes which have caused some individuals +to hurl their thunderbolts. An admirer of the +cumbersome novels of Theodore Dreiser, let us say, reads +some detached article by a New Humanist in which his +hero is held up as an exemplar of “romanticism going on +all fours”: he inquires no further into the basis of American +Humanism but immediately rushes to the defence of +Dreiser and current American literature. And so with +the advocate of Professor John Dewey’s educational ideas. +A criticism by a Humanist of these ideas is sufficient to +incur the hostility of the disciple of Dewey: the system +of the attacker on Dewey is of no moment, for his ideas +on education are objectionable and so must be his whole +outlook. There have been many such quarrels over specific +opinions, which have naturally led to a condemnation +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span>without examination of Humanism itself. The New +Humanists work out their critique of modern life on +many fronts. They advance a new-old program on the +same number of fronts. It is easy to see then how, being +comprehensive, they manage to stir up so many enemies. +In the next three chapters I shall examine the Humanist +attitude toward modern science, educational impressionism, +and politics, and no doubt the reader will then easily +comprehend why the New Humanism has provoked so +much heated debate.</p> + +<p>But in the second place there is a far more important +reason why the reception of Humanism has been acrimonious +beyond any precedent in American literary history. +<em>It is because American Humanism dares to question +the unconscious assumptions of our age.</em> It is well +known that if you touch a man in his pocketbook, you +frequently get a sudden dramatic agitated revelation of +his psychology. Or touch a person in his sex life, and +again there is the parting of the customary veils over his +behavior: you see vividly the flashing of the person’s +psychological forces. There is a third way: instead of +asking for a loan of money, or tossing a rabelaisian joke +at an acquaintance, toss an idea at him that goes beneath +his customary thoughts to strike at his latent assumptions, +the thoughts he was unaware of, upon which, +nevertheless, all his opinions come to rest. <em>Then</em> he will +become active: he jumps as if a hypodermic needle had +been applied to his mind: he bristles with defences against +this idea that has irritated his mind at its very base.</p> + +<p>You are attacking the context of things he did not know +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span>he believed, but instinctively he knows now that if they +are threatened, all his opinions are threatened. For it is +<em>through</em> these unconscious assumptions that he has seen +everything else. No wonder he rallies to their defence! +No wonder he strikes back! It is the very quick of his +mind you have touched.</p> + +<p>American Humanism is a concerted assault not so much +on what our age has assumed knowingly but on what it +has unconsciously assumed. That is why it has been and +will be violently opposed, fought with every weapon, +shouted at and shouted down, if possible. The outcome +may be within a decade the complete submergence of +the Humanist movement. In that event so much the +worse for an age that cannot be brought to criticize its +unknown postulates once the light has been let in on +them.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="VIII"> + VIII + <br> + SCIENCE AND THE MODERN MAN + </h2> +</div> + +<blockquote> + <i>“Science has its legitimate pretensions to power; + but false claims are now being advanced on all + sides under the shelter of its name, and it is these + false claims which the humanist is concerned to + expose.”</i>—<span class="smcap">Louis Trenchard More</span> in <cite>Humanism + and America</cite>. +</blockquote> + + +<p>Do you wish a vivid proof that American Humanism +probes through the crystallized portions of the modern +mentality and wounds its quick nervous base? Then +consider the intense annoyance created among so many +modernists by the temperate criticism the classical party +makes of the current prestige of science. The New Humanist +attempts only to moderate the very great esteem +of our time for science. Yet pained outcries on every +hand greet this effort at moderation, and this extreme +sensitivity of many holding no stake in the matter to a +criticism of the large claims made in the name of modern +science surely calls for investigation. This conclusion +cannot be escaped:—the men of our age are nowhere +near so emancipated from Authority as they like to +fancy.</p> + +<p>It is true we no longer acknowledge Authority in the +theological quarter. To accept on faith the cosmology +of the Bible is to be mediæval. But are we the self-conscious +rebels we picture ourselves? In revolting from the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span>theological fold, have we not rebelled on command of another +Authority? However we came to revolt, now the +situation is plain. We have merely transferred the seat of +Authority, planting it today in the scientific quarter. +Ye have conquered, O Galileans! To be modernistic +is to be as subservient to the oracular opinions of scientific +savants as the ordinary mediæval man was to the interpretations +of his theologians. The boastful modernists +are, in fact, still looking up to something far above: they +are still on their knees before Authority as the bulk of +mankind has always knelt.</p> + +<p>What we take on authority is by definition what we +cannot scrutinize or have not troubled to scrutinize, and +of course we must be uncritical about the uninspected. +Here, in the region of the authoritative, is where <i lang="de">aberglaube</i>, +extra-belief, has a chance to enter; here is where +we become superstitious. The New Humanist has never +attacked exact science in itself, and in some respects his +critique of what seem to him the mistaken pretensions of +science is very mild. But he does pierce the <i lang="de">aberglaube</i> +that in the nineteenth century attached itself to modern +science. He is the foe of those who are gullible about +science, who take it altogether on faith, who are, in short, +superstitious. The language is not too strong.</p> + +<p>There is a very quick way to test the tenacious hold that +scientific authority exerts on us. (To repeat myself, I +mean to test the existence of what to us are pure assumptions +which have been implanted in us almost without our +knowledge by contemporary science.) The quick way is +to read two extraordinary and weird books of recent years, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span><cite>The Book of the Damned</cite> and <cite>New Lands</cite>, both by an +investigator of phenomena which have been excluded by +orthodox science, Charles Fort. The author of these +strange documents is acutely aware of the very human +tendency of scientific system-makers to achieve a harmony +of knowledge by excluding the inharmonious data. +He has therefore turned his attention to the “disregards” +of the scientists (geographers, geologists, astronomers, +physicists, etc.), and comes forward as the champion of +the damned data—and some of the data is horrendous. +A daring writer, for he is obliged to challenge the correctness +of many elementary things we learned in grammar +and secondary schools. He adduces evidence, that is +to say, totally at variance with what we were taught in +school, when we were most submissive, and which we +have <em>never</em> questioned. The result is that in reading Fort +we experience a most peculiar sense of strain. We find +that we <em>hate</em> to have any one argue with a show of good +reasons that interstellar distances are rather small when +we have always been told and believed, most of us without +any detailed proof, that they were inconceivably immense. +There are certain things—many items in fact—about the +world which we want to regard as having been settled and +learned once for all. The idea of new learning is attractive, +but the idea of re-learning in fields where we have +assumed certain things to have been thoroughly proven +is most repugnant.</p> + +<p>Among his provisional theories or “acceptances” as he +calls them, Fort holds “that we do not really think at all; +that we correlate around super-magnets that I call Dominants—a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span>Spiritual Dominant in one age, and responsively +to it up spring monasteries, and the stake and the cross +are its symbols: a Materialist Dominant, and up spring +laboratories, and microscopes and telescopes and crucibles +are its ikons—that we’re nothing but iron filings relatively +to a succession of magnets that displace preceding magnets.”</p> + +<p>To use Fort’s terminology, the New Humanist recognizes +that science is the Dominant of our civilization, and +that most people, impressed by its marvels in the field of +mechanical inventions, simply correlate around it. He +invites us therefore to <em>think</em> about this super-magnet, to +mark out its true sphere of influence, and to be conscious +of our relation to it. He urges us, in brief, to be as critical +of its magnetism as we are now able to be of the theological +Dominant of former ages.</p> + +<p>The first step is to discriminate between real science +and what the French call <i lang="fr">petite science</i> and we call popular +science. The latter is often out-of-date, frequently +over-simplified, and usually boastful. Yet it is what the +average man, and many literary men with him, browses +upon. In contrast, the scientific leaders are as a rule +models of caution and modesty. The next step is to perceive +that there is a hierarchy of sciences. It is to see +with A. S. Eddington “that physical science comes nearest +to that complete system of exact knowledge which all +sciences have before them as an ideal. Some fall far short +of it. The physicist who inveighs against the lack +of coherence and the indefiniteness of theological +theories, will probably speak not much less harshly of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span>the theories of biology and psychology. They also fail to +come up to his standard of methodology.” But it is +notorious that the prestige rightly won by the most +perfected sciences diffuses itself, in the eyes of the +layman, over the newer and half-baked sciences, such as +sociology, anthropology, and various schools of psychology, +precisely those branches of science or pseudo-science +which the literary are most attracted by the while they +shirk the hard labor involved in getting a real acquaintance +with physics. Thus the New Humanist turns out to +be actually in accord with the strictest scientific attitude +in his refusal to attend with the same degree of seriousness +to, let us say, a “science of history” as that with +which he attends to the science of chemistry.</p> + +<p>There is a third step, and once it is really accomplished, +one is released from either sentimentality or superstition +about the scientist. Ridiculously simple, yet it is hard +to make. It consists in realizing the subjectivity of men +of science. Just as in a complex way, the style is the man, +so in a complicated way science is also the man. The +scientist has elaborated a method and perfected his instruments +to eliminate the “personal equation,” but it is +nevertheless still present to haunt everything he does, to +color his interpretations, to set the patterns for his theories. +Science is not the voice of God but a distinctly human +product with human limitations. Science may today be +on a higher imaginative level, as A. N. Whitehead believes, +but mark that Whitehead says this is “not because +we have finer imagination, but because we have better +instruments.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span></p> + +<p>After a sincere effort to understand sympathetically the +anti-Humanist viewpoint, it is still hard to see why such +violent objection by intelligent liberals should be taken +to the general position adopted by Humanism toward +modern science. To sum up that position:—the New Humanists +differentiate between true science and <i lang="fr">petite +science</i>, they draw attention to the differing degrees of development +and stability in the various sciences, they dwell +on the imperfection of the man who is using perfect instruments +and a perfect method. It can only be that the +modernists are in no mood whatever for skepticism when +it is exercised toward their Authority.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>We would expect, however, American Humanists to +touch modern science far more closely than the foregoing +sketch of a general attitude necessitates, and in fact they +do. They take up particular attitudes: they debate details +of the scientific dogmas: they subscribe or tend to +subscribe to a given theory of the world. In their detailed +criticism of science, they suggest a number of questions +that so far as I know have not heretofore been +raised about the New Humanism. The New Humanism, +we have seen, is a philosophy of conduct. The New Humanists—note +that I am discriminating between the philosophy +of conduct and the persons who enunciate it—adopt +a theory of the world. In the first place, is the +theory of the world usually held by the New Humanist +the direct and necessary outcome of his philosophy of +conduct? Granting the truth of his theory of psychology, +does that theory require a cosmology to go with it, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span>and is the cosmology of the majority of the New Humanists +in strict correspondence? We have examined the picture +of himself which the New Humanist declares is fundamental +to the “good life.” But is the picture of the +world he holds before him also fundamental? What I +wish to determine is whether the series of attitudes toward +himself, the world, and the affairs of the world which we +attribute to the New Humanist is seamless or whether +we can with a sharp critical knife shear the attitudes apart +where they join each other and say of any one of the +specific attitudes, this is not essential or an alternative attitude +would be just as logical in place of this one. Can +we have Newtonian Humanists and Einsteinian Humanists?</p> + +<p>Basically, the New Humanist endeavors to be an artist +of life. He strives to become acquainted with his medium, +the shifting texture and stuffs of daily experience. +He wishes like every other artist to dominate his material, +which means, in the chaotic field he has had the +noble audacity to choose, self-conquest. It is necessary for +him to dramatize his work as the struggle of two selves, +the ordinary self being the recalcitrant material and the +human self being the artist. Finally, like other artists he +requires a technique for moulding his subject matter, and +he advocates as the technique the employment of mediation. +All this is practical psychology, and stands secure +against any theoretical psychology now before the general +public. For the New Humanist can say that whatever +the ultimate mystery of human nature is, however the +two selves may be attached to each other and reconciled, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span>whatever the secret unification of man may be, you cannot +get around the fact that he is dualistic in practice. +He can develop himself on one assumption, and one only, +and that is the assumption of dualism. This is a hard +stubborn fact of experience against which the Humanist +makes his mind collide, just as Dr. Johnson kicked another +hard stubborn fact of experience, a stone, to terminate +a discussion of Berkeley’s idealism. <em>Why</em> this should +be so, <em>why</em> man should indubitably be in essence a struggle, +the Humanist cannot say, but no more can he doubt +that it is so whenever he makes the attempt to win moral +freedom. There it is, in the path of his wish for freedom, +and he must accept it as being <em>practically</em> true.</p> + +<p>Undeniably—though it is seldom commented upon—the +dualistic picture of man has great emotive power. +Our emotions are swayed by images, a truism as old as +ancient India, as new as Christian Science and Coué. It +is not the whole story, but in a large measure emotions do +respond to pictures. The time-worn illustration is the coil +of rope in the road which one takes to be a snake. One’s +emotions form themselves accordingly, but on discovery +that the supposed snake is only a coiled rope they change +at once. So a person with a Rousseauistic image of man +feels according to that image: his emotions drag against +any effort to rouse himself from Arcadian dreams. The +Humanist with his picture of a best self conferring style +and order on an impressionistic protean self rallies his +emotions to give their impulsion and sanction to the end +in view: the achievement of normality. A creative conception +of man calls forth creative emotions.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span></p> + +<p>Now is there incorporated in American Humanism a +clear-cut creative conception of the world? Is the world +condensed into an image that is as powerful in its effects +as the image of the two selves, as irrefutable on the practical +plane, as inspiring to human effort? I do not find +one, and this I take to be a serious shortcoming in American +Humanism as a philosophy of conduct. But in my +judgment the defect can with relative ease be remedied, +and remedied in a manner most congenial to a philosopher +of conduct so Greek as the American Humanist +in his self-attitude. The reader ought to remember what +was said in the chapter, <cite>A Portrait of Our Age</cite>, about the +various life-pictures, the “æsthetic,” the “puritan,” the +“serious,” et cetera, current among us, and to recall the +unlucky G. R. who had his imagination of life altered +from the “Victorian” to the “scientific” imagination. +None of those attitudes mentioned will do for the American +Humanist, but why should he not find, being gymnastic +in his relations with his ordinary self, aiming as he +does to develop strength of character by exercises in mediation +and selection, that the external world is best figured +as a gymnasium? A vast enlargement of the ancient +Lyceum which existed for the exercise of the mind as +well as the body? Why should not the present-day Humanist +revive this Greek symbol as he revives the Greek +law of measure? Let us utilize again the practical psychologist +whom we quoted in the earlier discussion of +world-attitudes.</p> + +<p>“There can be little doubt that for most of us, in the +present epoch, the image of life as a gymnasium is a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span>greatly needed tonic. Compare the difference in your +attitude (emotional response) on entering a gymnasium +and on entering, let us say, a cabaret or a Y.M.C.A. +lecture-hall or a house of mourning. Try to realize what +and how you actually feel. You are braced up, you have +the intention of strengthening yourself, you delight in the +difficulties,—provided you choose them yourself. In short, +you feel at your strongest and getting stronger.</p> + +<p>“The classic Greek conception of life was just that; and +everybody knows that the gymnasium was the most popular +institution of Pythagorean Greece. What is not +so well known is that the gymnasium was for the Greeks +a symbol or image of life itself. Their God ran this +planet as a gymnasium for the exercise of men, and all experiences +were to be taken as movements, turns, stretches, +exercises, in wrestling, running, lifting, and so on. Moderns +will find what the ancient Greeks found in the image +of life,—the evocation of a creative emotion.</p> + +<p>“It is difficult to see in what other direction we moderns +can look for a new image and therefore attitude towards +life. We have no longer the possibility of religion in the +traditional sense. Ordinary goodness—in the sense of +doing what others call good—has no intelligent appeal. +And, after the still recent Great War, the belief in world +progress is superstition. But the clean, strong idea of life +as a field of exercise for the development of all our muscles—physical, +emotional and intellectual—has still the +unspoiled beauty of manly and womanly idealism. And +life lived in that attitude would certainly be interesting as +well as profitable.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span></p> + +<p>The above seems eminently fitted to be the humanistic +attitude toward the world. It involves no theology, no +metaphysics, no science, being a matter of personal psychology +alone. It presupposes, of course, that man can +act as well as be acted upon, the first contention of the +Humanist, and it reinforces his wish to act. It definitely +humanizes the external world, making it a field for human +beings to follow their end of self-perfecting, but it +does not sentimentalize or minimize the world. It is, in +fine, a tenable world-picture coöperating with the main +aim of Humanism. But it is not a theory of the world. +That is still to seek.</p> + +<p>It is not far off. The theory of the world that has been +joined on to the humanistic theory of the self is Cartesian: +at least so far as one can determine from the commitments +of the majority of the New Humanists, it is Cartesian. +They are not, as a rule, any more precise than other literary +men in what they say about their beliefs concerning +the nature of the physical world, but any one can hear +that they sing in chorus against the “New Physics.” They +resist the thought of A. N. Whitehead, A. S. Eddington, +Albert Einstein, and re-affirm their confidence in something +like the following:—“Unless it can be indisputably +proved that man, with his infinite variety of thoughts and +emotions, is but an aggregation of mechanical atoms held +together and moved by physical forces—an hypothesis for +which there is not the slightest proof—there seems to be +no necessity to deny the existence of a spiritual world not +subject to the laws of mechanical energy or circumscribed +by the space limitations of material or electrical substances.” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span>This means that on the one side they as a practically +united body reject deterministic psychology (Behaviorism, +for example) and on the other side they hand +over the inorganic world to science, concentrating on the +faith that there are in the living organism elements not +analyzable or accountable by science. The quotation +was from <cite>The Dogma of Evolution</cite> by Louis Trenchard +More, the brother of Paul Elmer More, and Dean +of the Graduate School at the University of Cincinnati. +Here is another from the same source to which the New +Humanists would subscribe.</p> + +<p>“It is no casual separation of our ideas into the physical, +biological, and psychological realms. The physical +world is a combination of substances acting according to +a certain set of laws of force and energy, the biological +world is composed of the same substances, but the laws of +action are not the same. They have, however, this great +principle in common; they, both, are limited by time and +space. Then, somehow to the biological world an added +principle is given that we can call consciousness which +is not material but is associated with matter and which is +not limited by time and space. To the present time, at +least, these three realms are to us incommensurable and +we have made no progress in measuring or explaining one +by the other.”</p> + +<p>Louis T. More is the scientist among the New Humanists, +a thorny fact to those who are trying to create the +legend that the New Humanists are anti-scientific. The +legend is punctured by this physicist, who has read and +thought widely outside his subject; especially he has +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span>browsed in the subject of philosophy, which is generally +eschewed by the rank-and-file scientists. The result of +this wandering is that L. T. More has equipped himself +to disassociate scientific evidence from the faith that +twines so tightly around it: he is an able, diligent critic, +for example, of evolution as science and as faith. Considering +him therefore as the most conscious author among +the New Humanists when it comes to formulating a +world-theory, let us look at his essay, <cite>The Pretensions of +Science</cite> in the symposium, <cite>Humanism and America</cite>. You +will find him very restrictive. To begin with, “science +has a legitimate field of its own when investigating the +phenomena of the objective world and attempting to find +law and order in the flux of events.” But there are two +classes of false claims made for science, one by “those men +of science who are not content to work in their limited +field, but are really metaphysicians who have created a +fictitious world of the imagination made out of ethers, +electrons, and mathematical symbols, and have confused it +in their own and others’ minds with the sensible world of +brute fact,” and the other by “those who are claiming that +the phenomena of the subjective world also lie in the field +of science and have imposed on the age the pseudosciences +of psychology and sociology.” This is nakedly +Cartesian, for as Whitehead shows so clearly, the principles +of Descartes “lead straight to the materialistic, mechanistic +nature surveyed by cogitating minds. After the +close of the seventeenth century, science took charge of +the materialistic nature, and philosophy took charge of +the cogitating minds.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span></p> + +<p>Let us pursue along these two lines and learn what +further L. T. More has to say of the objective world and +the “cogitating mind.” On the first track, we read that +“the cosmogony of Descartes has long since crumbled to +dust, but the gap he made between the subjective and objective +worlds has never been closed in spite of incessant +later attempts ... we have more and more regarded the +universe as a machine, a combination of inert matter and +moving forces, acting not as we may desire, but according +to invariable laws which we have personified as Nature. +Man was left, by the physicists, as a unique outsider +who could interpret this machine in terms of his sensations +and mind, but could neither alter nor avoid its fateful +operation ... the scientific method is limited to experimental +observation and the formulation of laws ... +the inevitable tendency of science is to investigate all phenomena +quantitatively, and to view the whole universe as +a vast and measurable machine ... exact science is first +of all based on the naïve belief in an objective and real +world whose events are connected in an orderly and prescribed +manner, and occur independently of our thought +or will ... the mechanistic world can, at best, only picture +an objective world as it seems to us, and not as it is.”</p> + +<p>Now following the second track, we read of “the two +equally valid methods of learning by objective experimentation +and by personal experience.... In a general way, +we may say that the scientist should follow in his investigations +the phenomena of the objective world only until +their special forms of energy are absorbed by our nervous +system. It is the province of the humanist to study the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span>phenomena of the subjective world after these stimuli +have been translated into emotion and thought ... the +false pretensions of science must be wholly abandoned, +and the problems of our destiny be examined by a wise +judgment drawn from human experience, before we can +hope for a sane and humanistic philosophy.”</p> + +<p>Here we can stop with some assurance that the main +position toward which the New Humanists gravitate has +been disclosed. Generally speaking, it is unfair to set forward +any Humanist as an “official spokesman” and perhaps +I should not have assigned L. T. More to that rôle. +But his brother, P. E. More, and Robert Shafer have, I +believe, been fertilized by his reflections on science, and I +cannot detect in the writings of the other New Humanists +any radical divergence from the Cartesian scheme. The +question is, is the Cartesian world-picture integral to +American Humanism or is it simply one of the possible +views that might be adopted by American Humanists +and held by them in common with members of various +other schools of thought? Also, it is evident there are a +number of difficulties which L. T. More’s statements immediately +raise, and which no doubt the reader feels +should be dealt with. In the next section I shall put forward +these difficulties myself and at the same time try to +formulate what I think the modern man’s attitude should +be toward scientific world-building.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>It seems to me that the truly modern man will first of +all strive to free himself from the great spell cast by +science in our epoch. He will try to overcome his own +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span>suggestibility upon which propagandists for science from +Huxley and Spencer to the present have played, so that +he may answer himself frankly when he wonders if our +hopes in science have not deceived us. Furthermore, as +was earlier suggested, he will try to arrive at some conception +of the external world which is not irrational, not +violable by the teachings of science, and is at the same +time dynamic and humanizing in its influence. This demand +the world symbolized as a gymnasium, an immense +Academy or Lyceum or Institute of Crotona, appears to +meet perfectly. It makes no difference whether one adheres +to a materialist or an organic or an idealistic philosophy: +the world as a gymnasium for the strengthening +of human fiber is a valid imagination under any of the +three types of philosophy named. The question then becomes: +picturing life as a gymnasium for the development +of men, what values can be extracted from science +by the man who does not propose to train himself to be +a professional scientist?</p> + +<p>Such a man, aiming at a general coördinated culture, +must come to regard science in the same way he regards +art and philosophy—with respect, but not sentimentally +or superstitiously. No divinity surrounds any of the three: +each subject is man-made and therefore fallible. But each +is primarily to be enjoyed for its own sake. We accept +this principle in art, not so fully in philosophy, and still +less in science. Yet science provides a manipulation and +stretching of mental muscles that is highly enjoyable for +the sake of exercise alone. It provides adventures and +perils of thought of a kind differing from philosophy and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span>art. A case should in fact be made out for science as a +humane discipline, though I think of no one in America +who is a shining example of such a discipline. I mean that +we do not seem to produce men of the type of J. W. N. +Sullivan in England, who are exquisitely cultivated +both in the arts and sciences, who are supple-minded, adventurous +in thought, thoroughly skeptical, at home with +Einstein as with Beethoven or Dostoyevsky or Plato. We +need cryingly more gifted amateurs among our laymen +who study science and fewer intolerant “gospellers” of +the type of Harry Elmer Barnes. I am reminded of some +sagacious things about the <em>use</em> of philosophy for human +beings which T. S. Eliot has recently written, because they +apply equally well to the <em>use</em> of science.</p> + +<p>“When we study philosophy as a humane discipline we +do not do so merely in order to pick out one which we +shall adopt as ‘true,’ or either to confect a philosophy of +our own out of all philosophies. We do so largely for the +exercise in assumption or entertaining ideas; for the enlargement +and exercise of mind we get by trying to penetrate +a man’s thought and think it after him, and then +passing out of that experience to another. Only by the +exercise of understanding without believing, so far as that +is possible, can we come in full consciousness to some +point where we believe <em>and</em> understand.” Eliot adds, +“Similarly with the experience of poetry,” and I would +add, similarly with the experience of science.</p> + +<p>The blunt truth is that the grounds of the attack on the +New Humanists’ statements about science have been mistaken. +They were accused of hostility to the workings of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span>science. But they should have been accused of lukewarmness +toward science as a humane discipline. Excepting +L. T. More, P. E. More and Robert Shafer, the +New Humanists may be said to lack zeal for that kind of +development of their minds which science is most able to +confer. Mildness of interest in a subject and active hostility +to it are so different that not even blind partizanship +would seem to be a sufficient excuse for identifying them.</p> + +<p>But let not this argument for science as a humane discipline +by which one flexes and enlarges the mind be construed +as advocacy of dilettantism in the current debased +sense of that word. The end in view is to become an alert +critic of world-theories. And here I will say that I believe +there is no essential connection between Humanism as a +philosophy of conduct and the Cartesian materialistic +theory of the universe. They are joined in the minds of +the New Humanists, but that I think is a fortuitous juncture. +Nor can I see that Humanism depends in any way +soever upon a defence of Newtonian physics against later +modifications and developments. The Christian cosmogony +and cosmology constitute to most of us a mythology. +The mythology may be profoundly true, more true than +modern science, but we are in the position of not being +able to verify its statements by an exact procedure. The +means of individual verification may once have existed, +but where are they now? We may assent to the Christian +mythology, but it is assent based on faith, a very different +thing from the <em>faith based on reason</em> of the great +doctors of the Middle Ages. Add to this the fact that the +materialistic, mechanistic world-view has been shaken by +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span>the tremendous blows of mathematical physicists like A. +N. Whitehead. It has got into the epicyclic state which +presages a breakdown. Alternative world-schemes, imposing, +daring, almost sublimely intuitive, are now being +put forward. In other words, the problem of a world-theory +has been reopened on a scale not dreamed of for +centuries.</p> + +<p>“The eighteenth century,” observes Whitehead, “opened +with the quiet confidence that at last nonsense had been +got rid of. Today we are at the opposite pole of thought. +Heaven knows what seeming nonsense may not tomorrow +be demonstrated truth.”</p> + +<p>Now it appears to me that the New Humanists, by and +large, retain something of the eighteenth century attitude +in the face of the new physical problem. But a problem +of this kind calls for the suspension of belief, for all the +skepticism one can summon, for the complete willingness +to run down any turning of thought, for the surprise attack, +for an attitude best described as adventurous. The +law for thing and the law for man, as they work out in +human experience, do not depend on Cartesianism. At +the present time, in fact, the law for man may be said to +dictate the extrication of one’s self from grooves of +thought about the world: it lays an obligation upon one +to be provisional in one’s acceptances of world-theories: +it requires that the problem be recognized and faced in +the spirit appropriate to a mystery. Not to be a farranging +agile critic of theories of the world is, in the +twentieth century, not to be in key with one of its major +trends in thought.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span></p> + +<p>To illustrate the point, compare your feelings while traversing +the familiar way home and while threading your +route out of a labyrinth. The difference is like the difference +between our take-it-for-granted psychology in handling +a solved problem and our active searching psychology +in moving about in a new problem. We are the +same person but the intellectual environment has altered. +It seems to me that most of the New Humanists have yet +to adapt their psychology to the labyrinth of modern +physics. Note, however, that I do not urge upon them +any recommended way out: I do not ask them to adopt +Eddington’s world-theory but to tackle it in a different +spirit.</p> + +<p>For it may well be that this intense critical search for +a tenable conscious world-view will not meet with complete +success in our century. But not to make the search +is not, in my judgment, to be humanistic, since the problem +is the problem of any one who aspires toward completeness. +The final personal reward of a maximum use +of our critical powers on classical physics and the new +physics is that we at least shall know with the utmost +clarity what we believe and understand, and what we do +not believe and find insoluble. That is, we shall be as +conscious as we can possibly be of the nature of the external +world, even if that consciousness consists but of +alternative possibilities, doubts, queries and speculations, +and perhaps a few certitudes.</p> + +<p>There is another large fact to be grasped, toward which +our psychology must make adjustment. It is that modern +science is stranded on a “plateau” and its giants are +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span>making their greatest efforts to raise it, to initiate a new +curve of development. The analogy is with those curious +graphs of learning processes, which show that one learns +rapidly at first, then comes to a period of little or no progress +(“a plateau”), then mounts again, arriving later at +another “plateau,” and so on. To get off a “plateau” a +special effort, produced either by some external incentive +such as the offer of a reward or by a renewed determination, +is required. Now it has for some time been recognized +by advanced minds that modern science was in just +such a condition of arrest. It was able to refine upon +what it had already done, but not able to initiate any great +rising movement. There is material for novel reflections +in the description Whitehead gives of the state of science +at the end of the nineteenth century. “Almost suddenly, +a pause occurred; and in its last twenty years the century +closed with one of the dullest stages of thought since the +time of the First Crusade. It was an echo of the eighteenth +century, lacking Voltaire and the reckless grace of +the French aristocrats. The period was efficient, dull and +half-hearted.” The cause? We may venture to say that +it was because, as Whitehead elsewhere notes, science for +two centuries had been running on the accumulated capital +of ideas of the seventeenth century, “the century of +genius.” A pause, a blocking, was bound to come. And +today science, as Whitehead and Eddington recognize, is +at a crucial turning point. It seeks to discover the elements +that will make for another period of development, +and discovery of the necessary elements Whitehead tells +us requires more genius than to exploit them when found.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span></p> + +<p>Who can fail to be stirred by this tremendous drama of +the human mind? And yet it appears that many are unmoved, +anti-Humanists as well as Humanists. The scientist, +going about his business, discovers that his personal +limitations, the usual habits of scientists, are retarding the +progress of science itself. Science properly is concerned +with the what-ness of things. From the why-ness of +things (philosophy) and the æsthetic and other emotional +imports of things (values) it has resolutely cut itself off. +It has, every one knows, discounted the intuitive, discounted +other forms of knowledge. But now see: the +scientist is discovering that his exclusive interest in <em>what</em> +and his impatience with <em>why</em> and with value is ultimately +stultifying. He feels the basic need to fertilize himself by +considering other reports on reality than his own, he +struggles to escape the bondage of his traditional habits. +It is a situation that should call forth the full interest and +sympathy of the humanistically inclined.</p> + +<p>For what it emphasizes is the desperate need for a +coördination of all our knowledges. A knowledge of +“porous atoms” does not destroy our practical knowledge +of a table, nor take away the table’s æsthetic properties. +The world exists as a source of ideas, of emotions, of +actions; it is simultaneously a field of practical affairs, an +object of feeling, an intellectual feast. Reality is threefold, +but our reports upon reality seldom harmonize. The +rationalist underrated two of these reports and trusted +fully to one only. The scientist now shows a disposition +to admit the validity of all three and to bring about a +<i lang="fr">rapprochement</i> of the practical, emotional and mental +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span>worlds. A very faint glimmer still comes across the centuries, +elusive witness to the grandeur of the Pythagorean +synthesis. Who knows but what the twentieth century, +treasuring the glimmer, may not succeed eventually in +reflecting it back with an unexpected glory?</p> + +<p>“Know thyself,” said Pythagoras, and the recollection +of that injunction points to our greatest stumbling-block. +To me it is a little Canute-like of L. T. More to forbid to +science the subjective world. And I say this with full +awareness of the inadequacy and faultiness of introspection +as a method. But if introspection is of little use to +psychology as a science, it is equally of little use to Humanism. +Is it impossible, however, that a better method +cannot be devised, is it impossible to put self-study on a +scientific basis? The rise of Behaviorism is too impressive +for any fiats to be delivered now against the further +endeavors to found psychology on a really substantial +basis. The Behaviorist has cleared the ground, he has +come to the threshold, but it is a question of the key to +the subjective world. I do not think the New Humanist +need dread the search for the key.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="IX"> + IX + <br> + EDUCATION AND LEADERSHIP + </h2> +</div> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>“Tradition is the experience of society. It is stored +up for use by what may be called the objective +memory. The chief function of education is to +transfer the wealth of a selective tradition from +society to the individual.”</i>—<span class="smcap">Paul Elmer More</span> in +<cite>The Drift of Romanticism: Shelburne Essays, Eighth +Series</cite>.</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p>Insufficient attention has been paid by intelligent unacademic +people to the educational ideas and constructive +suggestions for academic reform offered by the New Humanists. +Only one commentator in the flurry of debate +that ensued on the issuance of <cite>Humanism and America</cite> +wrote with gratitude of the salutary effect on literary +scholarship produced by the unremitting efforts of American +Humanists, and he was Henry Seidel Canby, who +has known at first hand the <i lang="la">literae inhumaniores</i> that +flourish rankly in our universities. Nowhere better, it +seems to me, than in their dissertations on the teaching of +the humanities—nowhere better than in such books as +Babbitt’s <cite>Literature and the American College</cite> and Foerster’s +<cite>The American Scholar</cite>—can we witness the law of +measure being applied to current problems. Moreover, +if anything calls for the most tactful mediatory treatment, +it is the tendencies and objectives of our colleges and universities.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span></p> + +<p>It is right, I think, to regard American Humanism, +when one refers to the <em>movement</em> rather than the doctrine +and discipline, as being primarily an educational force. +Many of its adherents are actively engaged in teaching +and therefore the problems of education possess a personal +urgency for them. They do not dream at present of +marching on the literary citadels of the country and subduing +their garrisons to standards they have foresworn, +but the teacher-classicists definitely do propose to wrest education +from the control of humanitarians. There, in the +field of education, the New Humanist affirms “the battle +that is to determine the fate of American civilization will +be fought out first of all.” For this reason I am giving a +chapter to the members of the movement as educators +rather than as literary critics. As literary critics, they consider +the prevalent impressionism to be a low form of criticism +and seek to restore criticism to its former acknowledged +business, judgment by humane standards. But I +feel no regret in neglecting in this book the numerous +important ideas for contemporary literary critics which +stud the works of Babbitt and More. With such writers +as T. S. Eliot and F. McEachran in England, Robert +Shafer and Seward Collins in America lifting them up +and weighing them, they are certain of a distinguished +attention. So my conscience does not trouble me because +in the present interpretation only incidentally do I visit +the purely literary front of the New Humanist campaign. +The most serious fighting is on the educational front, and +the enemy is educational impressionism.</p> + +<p>We can divide the educational front into three sectors,—the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span>lower schools, the college, and the university with its +graduate schools. On the first the New Humanists are +not very active, on the second they take a very determined +stand. If they can hold the college to its function, +as they conceive it, they are willing to make concessions +in the graduate schools. The leading ideas they put at +stake in each sector are very easy to state. In the lower +schools, where it is granted that the humanitarian tinge is +not undesirable, the pupil should be acquisitive and receptive. +In college the student should be assimilative and reflective. +In the university the scholar may be productive, +investigatory, original on the basis of his humane discipline +in the college. Reception when young, assimilation +in college years, productive research in graduate school—these +are the functions that should underlie our educational +system. But the college is being ground out between +the encroachments of preparatory schools and the +invasion of university ideals of research. And there is +where the situation is most tense and critical. We shall +begin, however, with the lower schools and the theory of +John Dewey, arch-foe of American Humanism in education +as well as in philosophy.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>No one can be insensible to the value of Dewey’s correction +of certain evils in our public school system. He +has perceived the dangers of too much abstractness in its +curriculum, and the need for more education by doing. +It is largely through his influence that the Project Method, +as it is now called, the method of teaching by correlating +school subjects around some social activity of the children, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span>around weaving, for example, has been given its present +vogue. But it is the leading ideas of Dewey that are at +issue, and not any desirable modification of the elementary +school curriculum.</p> + +<p>We live in a democratic society: therefore, say the disciples +of Dewey, education should adapt itself to the needs +and the condition of the many children, not of the few +exceptional ones. We live in an industrial society: therefore +education should be closely connected with the major +actualities of an industrial society. Going to school is not +“a preparation for life.” It is experience as much as any +other phase of life. The gap between life in school and +life in the family and on the playground should be decreased +as much as possible. In a sentence, education +should be socialized. It should be thoroughly democratic. +It should develop the virtue of coöperation to the highest +degree.</p> + +<p>To these guiding ideas every one must in some measure +give assent, but many people feel that their limited assent +must be combined with a great deal of criticism. Robert +Shafer, for one, looking over the records of educational +experiments along the lines mapped out by Dewey, has +repeated the old proverb: one swallow does not make a +summer. The experiments have been made with picked +children and picked teachers. But, Shafer asks, can conclusions +be drawn that will be valid for the educational +system as a whole, since in the whole system the children +are unpicked, the coöperation of the majority of parents +cannot be secured, and the quality of the teachers must +inevitably sink far below the standard of the experimental +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span>school enthusiasts. Waiving every other consideration, +are the new lower-school ideas feasible for a wide application? +But presupposing practicality, those other +waived considerations become the very important ones, +and the New Humanist cannot satisfy his strong doubts +of the ideals of the Dewey reform. Others, besides New +Humanists, have come to experience like doubts, and +some of these are persons who at one time were wholly +convinced or almost convinced of the soundness of +Dewey’s proposals. One of them is a woman who, to my +belief, is the most brilliant of all the contemporary pioneering +spirits in the “new education.” I mean Margaret +Naumburg, the founder and for eight years (1914–1922) +the director of the Walden School in New York city. +In 1928 a book from her pen appeared, <cite>The Child and the +World</cite>, a series of dialogues on modern education, in +which she summed up the results of her thinking and experience +in her special field. In spite of the author’s reputation, +the book was not, as a rule, thoroughly reviewed. +One surmises that this was in part due to Miss Naumburg’s +having abandoned and criticized the positions so +many other new educators were still clinging to. However +it happened, the central point of the book was overlooked: +very little attention was paid to the clash she +staged between Dewey’s program for socialized education +and Whitehead’s views on education which stress the encouragement +of individual development.</p> + +<p>Our immediate interest lies, of course, not in Miss +Naumburg’s partial advocacy of Whitehead, but in her +critique of Dewey. Naturally, as who would not, she +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span>speaks of Rousseau as the common ancestor of the new +school movement in America, approving of his praise of +learning by doing; to Rousseau she links Dewey as the +immediate parent of present-day experiments. But Rousseau’s +general influence on the new school movement, she +emphasizes, has had very unfortunate consequences. This +is due to establishing so many experiments on “Rousseau’s +romantic hope that maladjusted human functions could +right themselves by a return to the simple life of nature +... the belief that we can right ourselves by simply removing +certain limiting trammels of civilization.” Miss +Naumburg, her book makes clear, has shed all her illusions +about so naïve a belief. Her counts against Dewey +are four: (1) he underestimates emotional culture in his +educational plans, (2) he has framed these plans too +closely in accord with his own bias as a psychological +type, being particularly unfair to the possibilities of the +training of intuition, (3) he is too chary of the inner, the +subjective life, and (4) his socialized education completely +neglects individual psychology.</p> + +<p>She holds up for close scrutiny a quotation from +Dewey’s <cite>Democracy and Education</cite> which the New Humanist +would certainly agree is an amazing piece of +sophistry. It is the concentration of all the arguments +for socialized education. “From a social standpoint, dependence +denotes a power rather than a weakness; it involves +interdependence. There is always a danger that increased +personal independence will decrease the social capacity +of an individual. In making him more self-reliant +it may make him more self-sufficient; it may lead to aloofness +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span>and indifference. It often makes an individual so +insensitive in his relations to others as to develop an illusion +of being really able to stand and act alone—an unnamed +form of insanity which is responsible for a large +part of the remediable suffering of the world.”</p> + +<p>On this strange argument Miss Naumburg’s comment +is: “Much of the present social philosophy that wishes to +sacrifice the individual to the good of the group is nothing +but instinctive herd psychology, translated into modern +terms.... I’m sure the world now needs more complete +individuals so that group life can become integrated +on a higher plane. Dewey places emphasis on the individual’s +living for the group rather than for himself and +suggests that his failure to do so is the cause of much of +the world’s suffering. But to me it seems that the failure +of the individual to know himself remains the cause of +his ineffectual adaptation to a positive and adequate social +existence.”</p> + +<p>This is pointed criticism from the inside of a movement +whose advanced minds are now beginning to realize that +they have envisaged their problems far too simply,—that +self-expression is not the magic formula, that psycho-analysis +produces as much trouble as it dissolves, that socialized +education too much disregards the individual +gifted pupil, that liberty is a hard concept to understand +aright. The New Humanist on the outside phrases his +criticism differently. It is that Dewey offers no contribution +to the urgent problem of producing leaders of +quality in a democratic society. For the New Humanist +makes no fetich of democracy, as does Dewey, nor does +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span>he stand for an unmixed aristocracy either. To him the +social problem is the blending of the two, the securing of +an aristocratic and selective democracy, and he would like +to see education from the kindergarten upwards organized +for the furtherance of that aim.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Dewey is a Baconian philosopher with an admixture of +Rousseauism. I am here making use of the Babbittean +classification of modern naturalists into two types, those +prefigured by Francis Bacon who are known as scientific +naturalists, and those prefigured by Rousseau and known +as sentimental naturalists. The classification causes so +much resentment among present-day intellectuals, it is +so hotly repudiated, that I am led to wonder if Babbitt has +not again probed to the bottom of our era’s mind and +located basic trends we have not known we were exemplifying. +Certainly, his two types, however petty many +of the exemplars today may be, are of epical stature. The +drama of the last three centuries is no mean one, and requires +as its leading characters personages to fit the scale +of the action.</p> + +<p>Of course, we must discriminate between Babbitt’s estimates +of Bacon and Rousseau as personages and his description +of the types of men he names after them. In the +character of Bacon, for instance, he notes the presence of +traditional Christianity and Renascence humanistic elements. +Babbitt does not, to my mind, allow sufficiently +for the enigmatic in Bacon—hardly any one today is cautious +enough for that—and he accounts for the Lord +Chancellor’s fall, which is still inexplicable when all is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span>said, on too general grounds. But, to get his types, Babbitt +does not simplify either Bacon or Rousseau: he merely +extracts from them the large formative elements which released +into the world have created the Baconian and the +Rousseauist. It is undeniable that Bacon was, in Whitehead’s +words, “one of the great builders who constructed +the mind of the modern world.” He was the prophet of +the Kingdom of Man, Babbitt declares. He foresaw +man’s dominion over the earth, he made efficient the impulse +to unlock Nature with the keys of Science, he stimulated +men to the astounding utilitarian triumphs which +the centuries since Bacon have achieved. It was his genius +that made the idea of progress so potent.</p> + +<p>The Baconians have gone forth and conquered the +earth. If most of them lack the slightest touch of Bacon’s +dignity as a human being, they nevertheless partake of the +majesty of numbers and are not unworthy of a mass-part +in a planetary drama. But it has been a mass with notable +leaders down to John Dewey in our day. The mass +firmly believes in technological advance, material progress, +the pragmatic life. For it the “law for thing” is +supreme. The leaders subtilize and rationalize these beliefs.</p> + +<p>The Baconians and Rousseauists are often superficially +hostile to each other. We all know the contempt the +scientific analyst frequently expresses for the dreamer, and +in turn the dreamer’s horror of the analyst. But Babbitt +demonstrates that the two types are in close accord underneath. +Both deny the “law for man.” Both subscribe +fervently to the doctrine of progress. And oftentimes in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span>the same person you will find prominent strains of both +types, happy in each other’s company.</p> + +<p>It scarcely needs saying that the Rousseauist is in a +much greater emotional ferment. The Baconian exalts +practical intelligence, strenuous deeds accompanied by +acute if narrow thought: the Rousseauist exalts sympathy, +revery, spontaneity and liberty. His idea of liberty is +summed up in the popular expression, “doing as one +likes,” which means, Matthew Arnold labored to show, +doing as one’s ordinary self likes. “Do what thou wilt,” +the injunction over the Abbey of Theleme, is a far sterner +permission and closer to the true idea of liberty.</p> + +<p>It is, I think it necessary to repeat, not claimed by the +New Humanist that contemporary Baconians and Rousseauists +have been directly influenced by the remarkable +men they are named after. The actual matter is very complex, +as you will see by recourse to Babbitt’s books, but +what is maintained is that unconsciously we breathe in +the widespread gaseous elements of the teachings of Rousseau +and Bacon and are profoundly modified in our entire +outlook on civilization by the fact that they once lived.</p> + +<p>In recent years the American college has been overrun +by the Baconian scientific hustlers and by the Rousseauistic +relaxed dilettantes—both menaces to humanistic +education.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>In college circles the Baconian is usually a specialist +eager to advance learning in his branch of research but +applying quantitative tests to his department and to the +college in general. He is strenuous and imbued with the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span>spirit of change. When he invades the arts, he is scientific +rather than artistic. To give a concrete example, in the +literature department the Baconian is the philologist, engaged +in original and minute research, but usually lacking +in æsthetic appreciation or in general ideas. He is +supposed to teach the humanities: he has prepared for his +vocation by composing a dissertation on the use of the +present participle in some minor Elizabethan.</p> + +<p>His colleague in the literature department is often a +Rousseauist, a gelatinous æsthete, incapable of hard mental +labor, who utilizes literature only as an agreeable +source of sensations and impressions. The philologist, +taking his cue from Herbert Spencer, is inclined to think +of purely literary studies as a form of play, a relaxation, +after the exacting labors of scientific analysis: the æsthete-teacher +confirms him in the notion.</p> + +<p>Against these men in the colleges the New Humanist +fights. He opposes the quantitative and dynamic standards +the Baconian would introduce, and he scorns the +shallow impressionism of the dilettante teacher. His program +calls for the continued teaching of the classics and +the intimate relating of the classics to modern life. He +insists that literature in the colleges should be taught as a +vital subject bearing in countless important ways on the +formation of character.</p> + +<p>Instances abound of the contrary feeling that the classics +cannot hold much import for the forming of modern +character, and as one instance is as good as another, I will +take the most recent to come to my notice. “Shakespeare +No Benefit to This Age” is the heading of a newspaper +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span>column written by a former college professor, Harry +Elmer Barnes, in which he declares that much might be +said in support of the argument that “the beauty of +Shakespeare’s diction and the shrewdness of his analysis +are more than offset by the influence he exerts in keeping +alive ancient superstitions like witchcraft, ghost-walking, +devil-lore and the like. In short, Shakespeare +does more harm than good to the twentieth century intellect.” +It is grotesque narrow views of literature like +this that the contemporary Humanist deplores in the +ranks of teachers.</p> + +<p>A succinct way of summing up the American Humanist’s +educational program is to say that he favors the imitation +of French scholarship rather than German. The +latter of course reigns in our universities, and in these +octopus-institutions, but not in the colleges, the Humanist +grants it plenty of room, for the university may well exist +for the advancement of learning, even if it is only the +digging up of a trivial fact concerning some Alexandrian +grammarian. But on the whole, “might we not advisedly +turn now to France, where, to be sure, the scientific study +of literature has also had a marked influence, but where +other traditions of scholarship have offered a resistance +wholly wanting with us? French reflection, French lucidity, +French finesse, French moderation, the French +concern for humane assimilation, the French devotion to +general ideas, the French insistence upon taste and style, +the French interest in criticism—these qualities, all but +absent from our own work, I take to be worthy of emulation.” +The words are from Norman Foerster’s <cite>The +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span>American Scholar</cite>, a lucid diagnosis of the ills of our literary +scholarship:—its tendencies to be absorbed into linguistics, +into history, into psychology, to become one of +the lesser and dismal sciences.</p> + +<p>By the way, the conditions analyzed by Foerster and the +practical remedies he proposes at the end of his monograph +ought to receive very thoughtful attention from the +professional men of letters. The sufficient reason is contained +in the following quotation: “Modern American +scholarship is in a way to becoming a veritable Polyphemus, +choicely nourished on human food yet endowed with +one eye only. We must set about restoring the traditional +alliance of scholarship and criticism, the divorce of which +has worked injury to both and played havoc with education. +It has made American scholarship narrowly mechanical +and progressively tangential. It has encouraged +an American criticism that can only be characterized as +ignorant and aimlessly impressionistic, for the lamentable +state of our critical journals is largely the consequence of +academic failure to uphold the past as a school of judgment. +And it has played a major rôle in the disintegration +of American education, for it has made the study of +the humanities scientific in an age already blinded with +excess of scientific light, an age that is groping in vain for +such other light as literature could shed if it were rightly +studied.”</p> + +<p>But my purpose precludes entering upon the details of +the New Humanist’s criticism of college instruction or +upon the concrete plans he presents for honors degrees +and doctorate reforms. The broad idea is that the university +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span>may exist for the advancement of learning, but the +college should stand for the assimilation of learning and +the perpetuation of culture. It should train for wisdom +and character by the processes of assimilation and reflection. +It needs teachers of quality—not linguistic Dryas-dusts +or quivering dilettanti. What is wanted, says the +Humanist, is the teacher who has expended his originality +(in our age it <em>is</em> originality) in grasping the “constant +mind of man,” who has disciplined himself on the best +models of literature and formed from them a wise appreciation +of the normal and representative, who has approximated +to that type almost extinct in a civilization dominated +by the Baconian specialist and the Rousseauistic +thrill-monger, the <i lang="fr">honnête homme qui ne se pique de +rien</i>.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The full significance of the educational program of the +American Humanists comes out best in a comparison of +the policies advocated by Charles W. Eliot and Irving +Babbitt. Eliot was President of Harvard University from +1869 to 1909. In that position he became famous as the +father of the free-elective system, and until his death in +1926 ranked as America’s most ardent crusader for educational +reform. He was highly esteemed for his character, +a late flowering of the Puritan tradition, and he was +immensely influential through his theories which were +not Puritan: the theories were derived from Rousseau and +therefore at variance with the Puritan tradition in its most +vigorous state.</p> + +<p>It is ironical that teaching under President Eliot for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span>fourteen or fifteen years was his best weaponed and fearless +critic, and that today this critic who condemned +Eliot’s theories and influence should be acknowledged as +the greatest mind at Harvard. Yet it is the case that +Babbitt with his great strength for rending fallacies apart +matured to power within the very baliwick of President +Eliot.</p> + +<p>The first clash was over the free-elective system. Eliot +with his trust in human nature had reasoned that each student +had a pronounced bent, some special aptitude, some +absorbing interest which he was eager to follow, and that +this interest or bent or aptitude was thwarted by a fixed +curriculum. He was also impressed by the half-truth +which he took to be a whole truth, namely, every person +is unique and the college should therefore give full play +to his uniqueness. To this Babbitt replied in substance +that there is quality in subjects as well as quality in teaching. +The free-elective system tends to deny quality in +subjects and makes higher education miscellaneous. And +he replied further that men have constant elements coexisting +with their variability, and that it was the constant +in man, not the diverse and fluctuating, which education +should reckon with.</p> + +<p>Facts have refuted President Eliot’s optimism about the +free-elective system. It was found that students followed +in choosing their courses not the line of their aptitudes, of +which often they were unaware, but the line of least resistance. +It was found that their uniquenesses were not +so precious after all. The result was a partial retreat from +the free-elective stand in favor of a compromise between +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span>the old restricted curriculum and the new unlimited one.</p> + +<p>But the issue comes to a clearer head when the formulæ +of the champions of utilitarian-humanitarian education +and of humanistic-religious education are put side by side. +“Training for power and service,” said President Eliot. +Babbitt answered in words I have already used: “Training +for wisdom and character.” Obviously President +Eliot’s is a Bacon-Rousseau formula. How does it work? +Power in our society means material efficiency, and service +means, not the traditional service of God, but the service +of man. The assumption is that “the material efficiency +promoted by utilitarian effort will be used altruistically.” +But after the Great War this assumption looks tragically +ludicrous.</p> + +<p>These are the conventions established by the age +President Eliot represented so faithfully: self-expression +as a value (or falling in the direction one’s character leans, +an unfriendly critic might mutter), strenuousness (the +pursuit of happiness by intense outer activity), the “religion +of service” (nowadays satirized by the <cite>American +Mercury</cite> and Sinclair Lewis as only a veneer for commercialism), +and complete faith in the natural man (in religious +language, the hope of salvation without conversion). +These conventions Babbitt has wrenched to pieces +in his analysis and now proposes a return to the old humanistic-religious +conventions.</p> + +<p>In so far as the movement called American Humanism +has a definite program of action, this is it. First, that “a +considerable number of persons get at least within hailing +distance of one another as to the definition of the word +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span>humanism itself and the nature of the discipline that this +definition entails.” Next, that they then proceed “in the +literal sense of that unjustly discredited term, to work out +a convention.” And next, that they concern themselves +with education. By setting up a convention is meant the +thorough agreement among the members of a considerable +group on certain fundamentals, the complete conviction +of truth concerning certain underlying statements +about life. The conventions that the New Humanists +wish to reëstablish are: (1) that “happiness is a kind of +working” (inner, not outer, working, according to Aristotle, +who is here quoted), (2) that man needs to be disciplined +in his natural self to some standard (that is, to +undergo conversion or turning away from the natural +self, such conversion to be accomplished in the Aristotelian +way by the gradual formation from childhood of +right habits), and (3) that education should culminate in +the idea of leisure (also Aristotelian, since according to the +New Humanist leisure is valuable for supplying a background +of meditation to life).</p> + +<p>Now I imagine that when the policy is thus reduced to +essentials, many people will wonder why there is any +opposition to American Humanism in the field of education. +Yet the fact is that the principal forces in education +move, blindly most of them, directly counter to the +fundamental views of Humanism. It is an against-the-current +struggle that the New Humanists undertake. +They are fighting for quality of teaching in the humanities, +and the current sweeps down upon them a horde of +linguistic specialists. They are fighting for quality of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span>subjects, and the classical subjects are steadily being submerged. +Finally, they are fighting for quality of students, +and the colleges and universities in their competition for +big enrollments flood them with quantities of the less fit +for the intellectual life. For the New Humanist declares +flatly that the college should exist for the intellectually +best of each generation. Humanitarian coddling in the +colleges he denounces as a danger to democracy, pointing +out that in a quantitative age the college must make its +great purpose to be the production of men of quality. In +fine, the educational problem is closely associated with +the problem of leadership, and the problem of leadership +leads us straight into the subject of the next chapter—the +political problems of a democracy.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="X"> + X + <br> + HUMANISM, ECONOMICS, POLITICS + </h2> +</div> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>“We have the naked question to answer: How shall +a society, newly shaking itself free from a disguised +plutocratic régime, be guided to suffer the persuasion +of a natural aristocracy which has none of the +insignia of an old prescription to impose its authority? +Shall the true justice prevail, which by a +right discrimination would confer power and influence +in accordance with inner distinction; or shall +that so-called justice prevail—for no man acknowledges +open injustice—which recommends itself as +equality of opportunity, but in practice, by confusing +the distinctions of age, sex, and character, comes at +last to the brutal doctrine that might makes right, +whether that might be the material strength of +money or the jealous tyranny of numbers?”</i>—<span class="smcap">Paul +Elmer More</span> in <cite>Aristocracy and Justice: Shelburne +Essays, Ninth Series</cite>.</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p>The educational theories of the New Humanists, I think +it must be granted, are thoroughly consonant with the +premises of the New Humanism. Education, at least +through the college, ought to be dominated by the spirit +of conservation. In the university and afterwards, the +spirit of change ought to have full opportunity, for by +that time presumably the student is safeguarded against +that mere “passage from nothing to nothing” which +Whitehead tells us happens when there is “change without +conservation.” The college is the place for the assimilation +of the traditional wisdom, which acts as a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span>check on the wisdom of any particular age. It is the +place where today it is most disastrous not to temper liberty +with restraint, and it seems to me that the New +Humanist has most admirably mediated between pure restraint +and pure liberty in his educational program. A +contempt for antiquity, Tocqueville sagely remarked, is a +chief danger of democracy, and for that reason the study +of the classics has a special value in a democratic community—the +New Humanist goes with Tocqueville and not +with the contemporary poet who has shouted, “The past +is a bucket of ashes.”</p> + +<p>But how is it with the excursions of the New Humanists +into the disputed territory of economics and politics? +Are their known views on these subjects the views that +must inevitably be adopted if one accepts their primary +teaching of a psychological dualism and a discipline based +on the law of measure? Or are there several views which +might with equal consistency be taken up? Or can we +say that they are good Humanists but bad economists? +The question has come up at least once before. Referring +to historical Humanism, Frank Jewett Mather, Jr., has +written, “We might say that the humanistic attitude was +to seek a fine worldly wisdom through direct study of +man in thought and action, such study being powerfully +reënforced from those precedents of great living contained +in the literature of Greece and Rome—a fresh research +balanced and somewhat directed and measured by a great +tradition. I can find no stricter formula that seems to fit +the case. The attitude adumbrated above seems compatible +with many other attitudes, indeed with almost any +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span>attitude that is not dogmatic or fanatical, or life-denying. +For example, today one might be an agnostic humanist, +a Catholic humanist; a royalist humanist, a socialist humanist; +a utilitarian humanist, an idealist humanist; conceivably +a Mormon humanist or a liberal hard-shell Baptist +humanist. That is, a quest of a fine worldly wisdom +nurtured by tradition might in theory be compatible with +any of these policies, philosophies or faiths. Nor does this +divest the notion of humanism of any real meaning if the +main thing be the attitude, for the humanistic attitude +may be after all simply a leaven which is potent in the +most various materials.” In this statement the attitude of +Humanism is pretty dilute for our exposition, but in any +case the question of strictly relating attitude to views is +effectively opened up for discussion. Perhaps Humanism +as a creative conception of man does not dictate any one +economic or political theory as its logical choice? Perhaps +it is the <em>spirit</em> with which More and Babbitt have +studied the problems of economics that is criticizable?</p> + +<p>The obvious danger of the New Humanist when doubtful +matters are debated is to drop into an acceptance of the +status quo just because it is the status quo. He is proof +against the temptation of the “radical” which is novelty +for the sake of novelty, but it is easily possible that where +an obdurate social problem exists, he may justify the +status quo instead of wholeheartedly throwing himself +<em>into</em> the problem. This in effect is what in the chapter +on <cite>Science and the Modern Man</cite> I accused him of doing: +it seems to me he adheres to the outmoded Cartesian +world-view when he should instead plunge into the problem +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span>of reconstructing a world-view. And I am inclined +to think that Paul Elmer More, whose views on property +and law, aristocracy and justice I shall glance at before +taking up Babbitt’s political theory, has fallen into this +error of identifying the status quo or commonly accepted +position with a truly conservative solution. It is conceivable, +I mean, that both the status quo of social organization +and the current schemes for reforming it might be +equally objectionable to a profoundly conservative mind.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>More has not the type of mind that functions happily in +economics and politics. His absorbing interest has been +in Man Psychologic and he has had little traffic with Man +Economic or Man Political. But the rise of Socialism in +the United States and the Bull Moose Progressive movement +challenged his mind around 1912, and in <cite>Aristocracy +and Justice</cite>, the ninth volume of the <cite>Shelburne Essays</cite>, +he answered, or rather defied, the new tendencies. +By his conclusions in this volume on man as an economic +and political animal, he probably incurred more hostility +than any of his other books has provoked. For <cite>Aristocracy +and Justice</cite> came out in 1915, the very time that the +social revolt movement in the United States was fairly +getting off the ground for a dizzy if brief flight: the dominant +concerns of the generation of thinkers younger than +More were precisely his subordinate concerns, economics +and politics. Naturally, the new generation dropped +bombs on <cite>Aristocracy and Justice</cite>, and with a ferocity +partly accounted for by More’s sharp tone in writing it. +The result was that the strongest side of More, his continuous +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span>reflection on Man Psychologic, was avoided or +made light of, and his weakest side, his thought about +Man Economic and Man Political, was bombarded to +fragments.</p> + +<p>To begin with, More made the mistake of not arguing +out economic questions on the basis of economics, but instead +made a direct appeal to intelligent members of the +propertied class to stiffen their morale. “I am not here +concerned,” he declared, “with Utopian visions, nor, as I +have said, am I arguing with those who are honestly persuaded +that a socialistic régime is, in our day, or any day, +economically or psychologically feasible. My desire is +rather to confirm in the dictates of their own reason those +who believe that the private ownership of property, including +its production and distribution, is, with very limited +reservation, essential to the material stability and +progress of society. We who have this conviction need +very much today to strengthen ourselves against the insidious +charms of a misapplied idealism; we need to remind +ourselves that laws which would render capital insecure +and, by a heavy income tax or other discrimination +in favor of labor, would deprive property of its power of +easy self-perpetuation, though they speak loudly in the +name of humanity, will in the end be subversive of those +conditions under which alone any true value of human +life can be realized.” Do you wonder at the vehement +accusations that More was simply rationalizing class prejudice?</p> + +<p>We need one more statement to catch the drift of +More’s views: it is likewise an uncompromising one. “In +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span>simple truth, property may rightly be called the cause of +civilization, but, strictly speaking, it is only the occasion +of injustice: injustice is inherent in the imperfection of +man, and the development of the means of living merely +brings into greater prominence what is an unavoidable +feature of existence, not for man only but for the whole +range of creation, in this puzzling world of ours.”</p> + +<p>What More did then was to commit himself in advance +to capitalist economics, a system which may most briefly +be defined as production for the sake of profits or in one +word profiteering. Can it be denied that the main motive +on which it relies is the desire for gain? And this motivation, +as economists admit, introduces an ethical contradiction +into the practices of the State. Nevertheless, +many people claim that there is nothing wrong with the +theory of capitalism, and towards the ethical defect it introduces +they adopt two views: one, that the defect may +be remedied by education, the other, that it is inherent +in human nature. More adopts the latter view.</p> + +<p>Now if capitalism is supported by a perfect theory, then +from the standpoint of economics there is nothing more +to say, no matter how horribly the thing might work in +practice. For economics as the science of production abstracts +from the human as much as possible and regards +our feelings as irrelevant. But <em>does</em> capitalism operate +on a sound theory? This, in a thinker of Paul Elmer +More’s eminence, is the first question we should expect +him to answer, the more so as it is often charged that +the theory of capitalism is only improvised. But as we +have seen, he does not. He proceeds almost at once to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span>declare that “the security of property is the first and all-essential +duty of a civilized community”; shortly afterwards +he says, “To the civilized man <em>the rights of property +are more important than the right to life</em>.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_7_7" href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>These statements pass if capitalism is correct in theory. +But, once again, is it? In the briefest possible space, I +shall give the theoretical objections. It is well understood, +of course, that by capitalist economics there are +said to be three factors of production, Land, Capital and +Labor. Land and Capital, however, have become practically +indistinguishable: they are alike tools of production. +But is Labor also a tool of production? It is, according +to capitalist economics; Land, Capital and Labor +exhaust the tools of production, and the user of them is the +Capitalist, that is, the owner of the tools of Land and +Capital.</p> + +<p>But this theory, as every one knows, has been long and +brilliantly criticized in the realm of pure thought, precisely +the realm in which More should have debated the +moot point. For there is a moot point: is Labor a factor +of production? No, say the critics, Labor is not congruous +with the factors of Land and Capital. Labor is a +mere abstraction that hides Laborers. Laborers (i.e., +Labor) are the tool-users, the producers themselves, and +at bottom economics reduces not to three terms but to +just two, Laborers and Tools or Workmen and Stuff. +Hence the new industrial synthesis, it is said, must substitute +the Laborer for the Capitalist, the real user of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span>real tools of production for the mere owner of them. +Therefore, when More speaks of the rights of property, +we need to concretize the word property: what he speaks +of is the rights of property- or tool-owners or capitalists, +and it is precisely those “rights” that now require defence +in the region of pure theory.</p> + +<p>Proceed one step further, and we shall run up against +More’s argument for the rights of property-owners as the +basis of civilization. Economics, we must remember, is +separated from its soul: what is more, it legitimately cuts +itself off. Where is its soul? “The soul of economics,” +writes A. R. Orage in <cite>An Alphabet of Economics</cite>, “is +politics, and it is to politics that economics delegates the +control of questions such as what shall be produced, by +whom, and how the results shall be distributed.... To +satisfy all our needs and desires without work is really +the aim of economic man. It is his object, in fact, to reverse +the curse upon Adam.... Instead of requiring the +improvements in economics to be shared equitably, politics +insists upon dividing them inequitably, so that one +small class is enabled practically to lift from itself the +curse of Adam (that is, it can live without working), +while the large class of laborers are permitted to incur a +double curse—they work, that is, without living. Economists +of the baser sort or who have no political sense pretend +that this distribution of the product is itself economic +in that it enables the few to secrete Capital (that is to +save) and to foster arts and science requiring a long, +leisured, and assumed future. Better knowledge, however, +convinces us that it is not safe to depend upon a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span>social class for an economic function.” How the author +of <cite>Aristocracy and Justice</cite> would answer this, I cannot +conceive, for no inkling is given.</p> + +<p>We have crossed from economics to politics, and in the +latter one of the greatest themes is justice. Naturally, +More as a Platonist does not minimize this theme. Justice +“is the act of right distribution,” he begins by way of +definition, “the giving to each man his due.” This, please +note, is a capitalist-political definition, and we may place +beside it for comparison the well-known formula: from +each according to his <em>means</em>, to each according to his +<em>needs</em>. Social justice, More continues, “is such a distribution +of power and privilege, and of property as the +symbol and instrument of these, as at once will satisfy +the distinctions of reason among the superior, and will not +outrage the feelings of the inferior.” But how, one may +well ask, can social justice ever be expected to take place +when the principle of distribution is the principle of—the +pig trough? For economic power in our society precedes +and determines the distribution of commodities; the man +with the dollars feeds and sometimes gorges and the +man without dollars does not; and this does not satisfy +the reason and it does outrage the feelings. More himself +says we must steel ourselves to a certain extent when viewing +this method of distribution. “The first and hardest +lesson for each right-minded man in these days is to discipline +the heart to accept with equanimity the fatal fact +that social justice must include a considerable amount +of that disposition of Nature in dealing with her own +which we, judging by the standard of the individual soul, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span>are so ready to call injustice. The first step towards the +equipoise of a soul just within itself is to recognize the +necessity of a measure of injustice in the relation of man +with man and with the world.”</p> + +<p>I postpone comment on that in order to complete in +this place the outline of More’s political thought. Guided +by the reflections of Edmund Burke, the key idea for him +is the formation of “a natural aristocracy without which +there is no nation,” according to Burke. “The cure of +democracy,” says More, “is not <em>more</em> democracy, but +<em>better</em> democracy.” And better democracy will come +when we develop more men who might fit into Burke’s +celebrated portrait of the men of light and leading: +“Men who are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion +to their disposition to put moral chains upon their +own appetites; in proportion as their love of justice is +above their rapacity; in proportion as their soundness and +sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption; +in proportion as they are more disposed to +listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference +to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist unless a +controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, +and the less of it there is within, the more there +must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution +of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be +free. Their passions forge their fetters.”</p> + +<p>This is assuredly a humanistic ideal of a natural aristocracy, +but under present economic-political conditions +have we any chance of reaching it? We may get the natural +aristocrats, but will they be anywhere near the centers +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span>of political power? When we get to the bottom, we +are all likely to accept the definition of the political power +of the individual as being his power of self-direction; but +obviously the individual’s power of self-direction presupposes +the power of keeping himself alive. That is, the +condition of political power is economic power. To continue: +voting is a process whereby individuals empower +an executive. They increase their powers of self-direction +by concentrating them upon the executive who acts in +their behalf. But when the voters are of unequal economic +power, their votes are necessarily unequal. In fact, +the votes of many of them, who have no power of keeping +themselves alive but are correctly termed wage-slaves, +have no meaning at all: they can guarantee nothing. The +executive therefore quite naturally listens only to those +whose votes do mean economic power, because these are +the only votes coming from individuals who have power +of self-direction. It seems to me that this consideration +has a very corrosive effect on any dream of a natural +aristocracy arising in our plutocratic community.</p> + +<p>Because the discussion of More’s economics and politics +has been rather compact up to this point, a restatement is +offered. More, as one of the leaders of the New Humanists, +has not dealt with the purely theoretical analyses of +capitalism. I do not say he is unable to, or unfamiliar +with the arguments: the fact is that he has omitted a +theoretical justification. To those who believe that the +critique of capitalism has been a devastating one, this is +an inexcusable omission. Secondly, to many people, including +a considerable number who are not humanitarians, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span>capitalism is an inhumane system. They would +criticize More’s sentiment of justice, which seems to me +in this particular to be weak, though it is possible he represses +his feelings from dislike of the humanitarian gushing +on the topic of social justice. There is, all the same, +a love of all men which can, which must, in fact, enter +into our sentiment of justice to temper the rigor of it, and +this love of all men to which I refer has nothing of the +humanitarian “universal embrace” about it. Without love +there is in truth no justice. But the difference between +humanistic love and humanitarian love I should define +as a difference in what in man is loved. Humanism, I +quoted Julien Benda as saying in an earlier chapter, holds +in honor the abstract quality of what is human, and this +permits us to love <em>all</em> men, for there is equality in the +abstract. Joseph Proudhon (to whom Benda objected) +does, I think, express the humane sentiment of justice perfectly +without spilling over into humanitarian sentimentality. +I mean he singles out that in all men which is +worthy of love and toward which one is irresistibly drawn +to be just if one loves it. “There is a tendency in every +man to develop and force the acceptance of that which is +essentially himself—which is, in fact, his own dignity. It +results from this that the essential in man being identical +and one for all humanity, each of us is aware of himself +at the same time as individual and as species; and that an +insult is felt by a third party and by the offender himself +as well as by the injured person, that in consequence the +protest is common. This precisely is what is meant by +Justice.” It is evident that Proudhon has an idea of Justice, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span>which is crystal-clear and crystal-hard, and that he +feels this idea intensely. The presence of a burning emotion +for the idea of Justice I cannot detect in More as a +social thinker: his idea seems a mental skeleton wired +and strung up by class feelings.</p> + +<p>In the third place, I tried to point out that a Burkean +aristocracy will have a most difficult time coming into +being in a democracy which Georges Sorel defined as the +paradise unscrupulous financiers dream of. In short, +present-day economics in its effect on politics is all against +it.</p> + +<p>But if the system of production for profit is untenable +intellectually and is inhumane and therefore untenable +emotionally, it may still be the best that can be put in +practice, granting that human nature is radically imperfect. +It may be good enough for man because man is not +good enough for a more perfect system. The one fatal objection +to certain revolutionary schemes in the end may +be that they are too perfect for man as he is, that they +will not work in practice as they work on paper, unless +man himself is first transformed. More made that objection, +and it is possibly his soundest argument. But +it will be interesting now to speculate on the possibility +that a radical program of economic reform might conceivably +fit in with the basic ideas and sentiments of the +New Humanists. The Soviet Union I shall leave pretty +much out of account, for there you have a <em>fact</em> to study +and make up your mind about. And possibly that fact +in its present degree of unfoldment demands not so much +an intellectual and moral decision as suspended judgment +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span>from the individual American. Furthermore, I agree +with T. S. Eliot that Russian communism like Italian +fascism seems to have died as a political theory in becoming +a political fact. Our present purpose which is to determine +how flexible the Humanist attitude may be in +economics and politics is better served by reference to a +single extraordinary revolutionary (our example will be +Sorel) than it would be by an attempt in too short a space +to analyze a complicated fact that contains so many peculiarly +Russian ingredients to be subtracted before it is +really instructive to us.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Perhaps the most fascinating of all the theorists of the +social revolution (but who reads him in America?) is +Georges Sorel (1847–1922), whose <cite>Reflections on Violence</cite> +was translated into English by T. E. Hulme. Karl Marx +had plotted out the acts of the Capitalist tragedy, but by +planting the idea of a class struggle so prominently into +the minds of men, by making men more conscious of the +opposition of capitalist and proletarian, Marx also introduced +an unforeseen factor working not for class war but +for social peace. Clearly understanding by the aid of +Marx that society was in a state of internal war, the peacemakers +arose in mass. There was a general amelioration +of working conditions, there were concessions from the +capitalists, there grew up a pronounced tendency to blur +and soften the issues, to make everything a parliamentarian +question. Sorel determined to combat this movement +toward pacifying the proletariat, and the means he +chose to throw into relief again the essential struggle of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span>the classes was to concentrate on the depiction of the last +act of a tragedy that might conceivably play on for centuries. +He concentrated on the vision of the general +strike, the vast social cataclysm that was to overthrow the +capitalist régime. By means of this vision he hoped to +counteract the parliamentarian socialists and the philanthropic +capitalists, and thus preserve the purity of the +class struggle.</p> + +<p>The results were curious. Mussolini has told of his +youthful fervor for Sorel’s doctrine, and Sorel wrote an +apology for Bolshevism. The best thinker that French +syndicalism has had, Sorel was nevertheless saluted with +enthusiasm by Frenchmen of the extreme right: he was +hailed by the Action Française! Pierre Lasserre, the anti-Rousseauist, +has written a book about him, <cite lang="fr">Georges Sorel: +Théoricien de l’Impérialisme</cite>, and many Marxists have +been indignant because Sorel considered himself a true +follower of Marx. Evidently a paradoxical thinker. But +he was not. He was miscomprehended by many for the +sole reason that he was a revolutionary classicist, which +is not a paradoxical combination.</p> + +<p>What Sorel did was to separate the working class movement +from the democratic or liberal-romantic or humanitarian +ideology with which it is habitually associated. He +demonstrated forcefully that there was no inevitable connection +between them. They were not Siamese twins, not +even twins, but strangers who by an accident of history +had been chained together for three score years. Sorel’s +intellect filed through the chains and showed that one +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span>could be revolutionary in economics and classical in ethics—to +the astonishment of everybody.</p> + +<p>As he has had practically no vogue in American revolutionary +circles, it is excusable to say a few words about his +personal development before singling out some aspects of +his classical ethics. Proudhon had tried to combine the +classical ideal with socialism, and Sorel seems to have +taken his first direction from Proudhon. Marx blinded +him with light for a time, but it was characteristic of +Sorel that he always recovered his sight and eventually +saw things with his own eyes. Nietzsche was another +master whose teachings he divided into the valuable +ideas and the rubbish. Proudhon, Marx, Nietzsche—there +were lesser masters he carefully sifted: Bergson, Vico. He +read widely, profoundly. In his first book he maintained—a +Nietzschean idea—that Socrates represented the +decadence of Athenian life, the charge being that Socrates +introduced expediency and calculation into ethics. He +wrote a study of Renan and a study entitled <cite lang="fr">Illusions du +Progrès</cite> which the anti-revolutionary Maritain has commended +for its thorough destruction of the middle-class +notion of progress. The Dreyfus case completely disillusioned +Sorel with democracy and he plunged into the +anti-patriotic extreme revolutionary movement on whose +behalf he fought Jaurès and the other parliamentarian +socialists with all the withering scorn of a bold thinker +and a bold man.</p> + +<p>I have said that he severed the ties between the revolutionary +workers’ movement and the romantic-humanitarian +ideology. He did this by scathing criticism of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span>sham religiosity of the romantic movement, by excoriating +the doctrine of progress, by exposing the middle class +conception of science. The last is worth quoting for +the benefit of the numerous Baconians to be found in our +own liberal and revolutionary groups. “The history of +scientific superstitions,” Sorel asserts, “is of the deepest +interest to philosophers who wish to understand Socialism. +During the nineteenth century there existed an incredible +scientific ingenuousness which was the direct outcome +of the illusions that had aroused so much excitement +towards the end of the eighteenth century. Because +astronomers had managed to calculate the tables of the +moon, it was believed that the aim of all science was to +forecast the future with accuracy; because Le Verrier had +been able to indicate the probable position of the planet +Neptune—which had never been seen, and which accounted +for the disturbances of observable planets—it was +believed that science could remedy the defects of society, +and indicate what measures should be taken to bring +about the disappearance of the unpleasant things in the +world. It may be said that this was the <em>middle-class conception +of science</em>: it certainly corresponds very closely to +the mental attitude of those capitalists, who, ignorant of +the perfected appliances of their workshops, yet direct +industry, and always find ingenious inventors to get them +out of difficulties. For the middle-class science is a mill +which produces solutions to all the problems we are faced +with: science is no longer considered as a perfected means +to knowledge, but only as a recipe for procuring certain +advantages.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span></p> + +<p>There is a great deal, too, in Sorel that might be advantageously +perused by our social reformers. For the benefit +of humanitarians, I shall transcribe Sorel’s deep objection +to optimists in the ranks of reform. “The optimist in politics +is an inconstant and even dangerous man, because he +takes no account of the great difficulties presented by his +projects; these projects seem to him to possess a force of +their own, which tends to bring about their realization all +the more easily as they are, in his opinion, destined to produce +the happiest results. He frequently thinks that small +reforms in the political constitution, and, above all, in +the personnel of government, will be sufficient to direct +social development in such a way as to mitigate those +evils of the contemporary world which seem so harsh to +the sensitive mind. As soon as his friends come into +power, he declares that it is necessary to let things alone +for a little, not to hurry too much, and to learn how to be +content with whatever their own benevolent intentions +prompt them to do. It is not always self-interest that suggests +these expressions of satisfaction, as people have often +believed; self-interest is strongly aided by vanity and by +the illusions of philosophy. The optimist passes with +remarkable facility from revolutionary anger to the most +ridiculous social pacificism.</p> + +<p>“If he possesses an exalted temperament, and if unhappily +he finds himself armed with a great power, permitting +him to realize the ideal he has fashioned, the optimist +may lead his country into the worst disasters. He is not +long in finding out that social transformations are not +brought about with the ease that he had counted on; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span>he then supposes that this is the fault of his contemporaries, +instead of explaining what actually happens by +historical necessities; he is tempted to get rid of people +whose obstinacy seems to him to be so dangerous to the +happiness of all. During the Terror, the men who spilt +most blood were precisely those who had the greatest desire +to let their equals enjoy the golden age they had +dreamt of, and who had the most sympathy with human +wretchedness: optimists, idealists, and sensitive men, the +greater desire they had for universal happiness the more +inexorable they showed themselves.”</p> + +<p>Obviously this side of Sorel is quite in accord with the +reiterations of More and Babbitt. Humanitarianism, they +repeat, is a menace because in its fatuous hope of a brotherhood +of man without a prior discipline of man’s egoistic +impulses, it leads directly to the shambles and the rise of +a bloodstained dictator. Making light of the obstacles in +its path, humanitarianism, when the obstacles will not +vanish at the outflowing of sympathy, loses its head and +massacres. But it is not in the least implied that Sorel, +the enemy of Rousseauism, was on his positive side humanistic. +Quite the reverse: he rejected the method of +the golden mean, and for reasons that have some weight. +The following paragraph will serve as his criticism of +American Humanism, prepared years in advance of its +full emergence.</p> + +<p>“The ideas held by modern ethical writers are drawn +mainly from those of Greece in its time of decadence; +Aristotle, living in a period of transition, combined ancient +values with values that, as time went on, were to prevail; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span>war and production had ceased to occupy the attention of +the most distinguished men of the towns, who sought, on +the contrary, to secure an easy existence for themselves; +the most important thing was the establishment of +friendly relations between the better educated men of the +community, and the fundamental maxim was that of +the golden mean. The new morality was to be acquired +principally by means of the habits which the young Greek +would pick up in mixing with cultivated people. It may +be said here we are on the level of an ethic adapted to +consumers; it is not astonishing then that Catholic theologians +still find Aristotle’s ethics an excellent one, for +they themselves take the consumer’s point of view.”</p> + +<p>Sorel, as a matter of fact, had a vestige of the classical +religious spirit and not the humanistic temper at all. He +was an absolutist in ethics. He was a pessimist, convinced +of social determinism, which he compared to the Calvinist +doctrine of predestination, and convinced of the wretchedness +of man, or one might say, original sin. The march +to deliverance he said was narrowly conditioned by these +two: the iron laws of social determinism and the weakness +of man. Yet he believed in “a <em>secret virtue</em> which assures +the continued progress of the world” and defined it +as “this striving towards perfection which manifests itself, +in spite of the absence of any personal, immediate, +and proportional reward.”</p> + +<p>Thus, he tried to root the syndicalist movement in a +classical pessimistic conception of man and to identify the +growth of the movement with the regeneration of the +world. His finest stroke was his method for rousing the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span>group of sentiments necessary for the regeneration: the +sentiments of disinterestedness, heroism, glory, and even +sublimity. It was the method of the myth, from which +incidentally the New Humanists might learn something, +it seems to me, which would give a real driving emotional +power to their campaign. What that something is has +already been suggested in the chapter on <cite>The Classical +Revival Abroad</cite>.</p> + +<p>Sorel advocated the myth of the general strike. Just as +the early Christians had looked forward to an Apocalypse, +had prepared themselves rigorously for it, had shown the +most heroic qualities in enduring persecution, so, Sorel +argued, the proletariat should look forward always to a +decisive Napoleonic battle, a social catastrophe for which +every least action was a preparation, and they should understand +what the function of violence is, namely, to keep +perfectly clear the grandiose outline of the class struggle. +Into the criticism of this we need not venture. It should +be noted, however, that Sorel explained carefully that +“myths are not descriptions of things, but expressions of +determinations to act.” And finally, mention should be +made of his view that the bourgeoisie must keep up its +warlike morale. He felt it essential for the future success +of civilization that the proletariat should take over a vigorous, +and not a decadent, system of capitalist production. +No doubt this idea was one of the factors of his popularity +with the group around Charles Maurras.</p> + +<p>My treatment of Sorel, I am aware, is too scanty to +serve as an introduction to his ideas, and at the same time +perhaps too long for the purpose now, which is simply to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span>suggest by referring to Sorel that the good man of Rousseau +and the Marxian revolutionist are not inseparable +companions. Sorel made a new coupling, the Homeric +hero and the social revolutionist, a combination that I +happen to think would bode better for the future.</p> + +<p>Reverting to our proper topic, the question is: can Humanism +and the revolutionary movement join hands? +Extremely unlikely, of course, and yet I can conceive of a +Humanist revolutionary. He would have convinced himself +that in the clash on first principles of political economy +(between first principles there can be no mediation) +the revolutionaries were right, and he would therefore +oppose the forces of capitalism as strongly as More opposes +socialism. But in any revolutionary party he joined, +he would have an Augean stable of illusions to clear out +before he could satisfy himself that the revolutionists +could really fulfil their pledges of a better society. He +would have to persuade his comrades to throw out the +accumulated rubbish of humanitarianism, the naïve notions +of the goodness at heart of the proletarian, the intellectual +fallacies, the spilth of feeling that you will find +rampant in a writer like Upton Sinclair. This clearing +away of sloppy sentiment and fuzzy ideas would be of +enormous advantage to the revolutionary movement, but, +as I say, it is extremely unlikely that a Humanist Hercules +will rise to perform it. Sooner or later the technique of +mediation would, in all probability, be put to such a +strain that it would be relegated to a secondary place, and +our hypothetical humanistic revolutionist would make +foremost the method of the myth or some other disciplinary +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span>conception. When that happened, he might retain +humanistic elements in his life, but he would cease +to be a Humanist in the Babbittean sense.</p> + +<p>There is, however, much of a medicinal nature that the +best minds among our social revolutionaries can absorb +from their opponents, More and Babbitt, without undergoing +conversion to conservatism. Let us hope that the +bitter taste will not deter them. For they will be better +off in respect to background, values and psychological interpretation +of man than before.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>After all, Sorelism in the United States is a matter of +academic interest. Extremists of the left constitute a +negligible and senseless group, and the moderate socialists +are pitifully weak. The liberals? Bankrupt in ideas; +seemingly ineffective in political action; decadent in +morale if one may judge by the slackness of the men +being groomed to follow the generation of Croly, Lovett, +Villard and Alvin Johnson. As for the labor movement +in general, is it not the despair of Communist, Socialist +and Liberal alike? Inaccessible to ideas, unrebellious, +shortsighted, what can be hoped from the American +Federation of Labor other than a perpetual seesaw battle +for higher wages and shorter hours? The Wandering +Jew, Daniel Halévy told Sorel, may be taken as a symbol +of the highest aspirations of mankind, condemned as he +is to march for ever without knowing rest. But there is +naught of the Wandering Jew about the groups just mentioned, +and a Sorelist among them would wear his heart +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span>out in the attempt to convey a sublime vision of future +ethics.</p> + +<p>For contrast, we may turn to Babbitt’s political theorizing +in <cite>Democracy and Leadership</cite>, which has been called +without exaggeration perhaps the weightiest book in its +field written by an American. “When studied with any +degree of thoroughness,” writes Babbitt in his introduction, +“the economic problem will be found to run into the +political problem, the political problem in turn into the +philosophical problem, and the philosophical problem itself +to be almost indissolubly bound up at last with the +religious problem.” The order is correct. But although +Babbitt thinks more coolly and, I suspect, with greater +ease on politics and economics than More, he too is least +satisfactory in economics: his treatment of that science is +almost incidental and certainly slighting. In the opinion +of many, this will not do.</p> + +<p>Let us unearth what there is of Babbitt’s thought on the +economic problem. He rightly criticizes unorthodox political +economy for its purely quantitative view of work. +True enough, as he notes, orthodox political economy prepared +the way for this view: Locke practically identified +work with physical effort and made it the sole legitimate +source of property, and Adam Smith tended to a similar +conception of work in relation to property. But the Marxist, +according to Babbitt, fell into the deeper fallacy of +identifying work with value. Babbitt then proceeds to +discriminate among physical work, mental working on +the material order, and ethical work on oneself.</p> + +<p>The discrimination is valid, but in making it Babbitt +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span>seems to accept the interpretations of orthodox political +economy. Value, he appears to hold, is largely determined +by the law of supply and demand and by competition. +He notes that “as a result of the concentrated mental +effort of the gifted few, an effort displayed either in invention +or else in organization and management, the common +laborer may today enjoy comforts that were out of +the reach even of the opulent only two or three generations +ago,” and he adds the laborer “should be the first +to recognize that exceptional capacity should receive exceptional +rewards.” Quite a point is made of competition. +“Above all, social justice is likely to be unsound in +its partial or total suppression of competition. Without +competition it is impossible that the ends of true justice +should be fulfilled, namely, that every man should receive +according to his works.... The remedy for the evils +of competition is found in the moderation and magnanimity +of the strong and successful, and not in any +sickly sentimentalizing over the lot of the under dog.”</p> + +<p>But surely Babbitt knows the arguments against each of +these points, and my regret is that he did not, while +making his defence of the established economic order, +deal closely with the specific arguments against it. Let +me cite some of these which seem to necessitate refutation +if one is to defend with a good intellectual conscience the +existing system. The Law of Supply and Demand (or +L. S. D. for short) has absolutely no weight outside the +market: it is concerned only with the relations of Sellers +and Buyers, Supply being the abstraction of all the +Sellers and Demand the abstraction of all the Buyers. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span><em>Outside the market</em> what happens? “In all transactions +between friends, between members of the same family, +between Governments and their servants, in public +services, and in all institutions run socially or by gentlemen, +L. S. D. is kicked out of doors and the Rule of +Supply and Need takes its place,” says Orage in <cite>An Alphabet +of Economics</cite>. Again, I should say Babbitt does +not separate Capitalists and Management as he ought to, +when he speaks of the gifted minority to whom the workman +owes his increase in comfort (by the way, is increased +comfort a relevant argument?). Laborers are +responsible to Management and must always be. Management +today is responsible to the Capitalist, but must it +always be? That is the question of moment to those +who speculate about a new industrial synthesis. As for +the competition extolled by Babbitt, that has to do with +the price system which, it is a commonplace, is superimposed +on the productive system. We may profitably +hear from Orage again. “Production concerns values; +competition concerns prices. From production to competition +is a transition from value-creating to price-fixing; +and the competitive system is one in which prices are left +to be decided by the play of the market.... Essentially +Competition is sale by auction, and usually without reserve.” +A reserve price being impossible for perishable +commodities, “Competition is thus all in favor of nonperishable +commodities (Capital in particular); but it is +all against perishable commodities, and Labor in particular.” +Under those conditions one may have a feeling +for the under dog whose energy and skill are perishable +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span>that cannot fairly be described as sickly sentimentality. +That in his plight the under dog should have to hear +so much about the bracing effects of keen competition for +him in industrial society—this is adding mockery to injury.</p> + +<p>My own view is that capitalism cannot be whitewashed, +and for the reason that it is founded on only a comparatively +narrow portion of human psychology. It is a +function of Practical Man or Instinctive Man: it enormously +stimulates greed and virtually debars the entrance +of any generous motive. It is guaranteed to make men +acquisitive but not magnanimous. For my life, I cannot +see how it can admit within itself any forces of regeneration. +Unsound in theory, tending always to be swindling +and ruthless, it manages to work, but only after a fashion +that can satisfy no one but a very small class of profiteers. +There are plenty to make emotional protests against this +state of economic affairs but we ought to supplement +them with hard practical criticism. For that let us go +to a quarter not tinged with Bolshevik or anti-capitalist +sentiment: let us resort to the advocates of the highly +interesting Douglas Social Credit Plan in England. They +point out that the purpose of an economic system is to +produce as much as possible and to get the things produced +into the hands of consumers. If we are producing +at our maximum, and there is not enough to go around, +that is, if only a proportion of the potential consumers can +be satisfied, then there is nothing more to say from the +economic viewpoint. Suffering from unsatisfied need is +irrelevant to the economist if maximum production can +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span>provide for only fifty per cent, let us say, of our population. +But the fact is that we produce nowhere near our +maximum, not even in wartime when production speeds +up enormously. Limited or falling production, say the +Douglas people, is only a specter: nothing more. Hence, +it follows that the present system is criticized in the most +damaging way by two undoubted facts: (1) the presence +of poverty on a large scale, that is the presence of hordes +of potential consumers who cannot acquire commodities, +and (2) by unemployment, which as I write is estimated +at from three millions to eight millions in our country, +unemployment meaning unused producing ability. We +can produce more, immensely more than we do: witness +the fact of unemployment. We can consume far more: +witness the fact of poverty. Understand this, and you +have some idea of the sheer inefficiency of the established +system. One important qualification must be added: the +Social Credit people find the source of the trouble not +in private ownership of the tools of production or in +unequal distribution but in the money industry, in the +financial system, which is what they propose to reform.</p> + +<p>I have gone into details of criticism in order to show +that the New Humanists are fairly caught on the capital +charge of <em>failing to recognize the economic problem</em>. +However sensitive they may be to the “excesses” of capitalism, +they accept it and the financial system with it as +the defensible status quo, and with no great marshalling +of reasons either. I would urge on them, not any one of +the proposed solutions current, but the adoption of the +mood and temper appropriate to a baffling problem whose +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span>dimensions cannot be ignored. The case as I diagnose it +is similar to that in which the modern man finds himself +put in respect to science. The case calls for an awakened +curiosity, earnest search for solutions, the keenest criticism +of both the status quo and new theories, the cultivation +of impartiality. I should like to see the New +Humanists with their background of ideas, their equipment +for criticism, their breadth of vision, convert themselves +into eager, impartial students of our common +economic problems. I find them to be not free-ranging +students in this field, but tied uncritically to the existing +industrial order, an order furthermore that has had a comparatively +brief historical existence. But why should they +not become our best critics of economic questions, uniting +general culture to familiarity with the special science +of production?</p> + +<p>What we need stands out with absolute clarity: a livelier +research into the alternatives to or revisions of capitalism +and a livelier criticism of these alternatives or +revisions. Many American intellectuals at the present +moment, discouraged with democracy, think of only two +alternative possibilities, Bolshevism and Fascism, each, I +may say, being abhorrent to the New Humanist. For the +American Humanist appears to commit himself completely +to the democratic experiment, and to have more +respect for the old ideas of democracy than you usually +encounter nowadays in our disillusioned intelligentsia. +But what vitiates democracy so terribly that it becomes a +pretended thing? Profiteer economics. On the other +hand, in the case of Bolshevism as in the case of Fascism, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span>democracy disappears; individualism goes down to defeat +before the dictatorship. If we would retain democracy +then, the fact not the pretence, we must revise the economics +associated with it, and that perhaps is possible. +At any rate, we have not exhausted all the alternatives +even in speculating about revision. We have not even +assembled all of them before us for study and discussion.</p> + +<p>The proof of this is our ignorance of the dazzling Social +Credit Plan of Major C. H. Douglas, which I mentioned +above. Agitated for in England ever since the Great War, +it has yet failed to cross the Atlantic, or rather one has to +use a high-powered microscope to see the few American +students of it. This is easily explainable, however, since +with justice Major Douglas has been called the Einstein +of economics, and a considerable amount of free brain, +of unmortgaged intellectual energy, must be expended to +grasp his novel and yet non-revolutionary, non-confiscatory +scheme of reform. Although I know it is impossible +to understand his proposal from the germ, I yet will give +the germ-proposition on the chance that it will pique the +curiosity of those rare readers who can detect even in the +germ the presence of a new principle that promises to +be worth study. The gist of his proposal is simply to +regulate prices by productivity, by relation, that is, to +supply. I will add that the Douglas criticism of Marxian +economics is that it confuses ownership with control. We +must look, not to ownership, but to the financial system +for the real control that is exercised today over industry. +Has Major Douglas, as it is claimed, reached the bottom +of economics?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span></p> + +<p>I think the New Humanists should be interested in the +question, and if they should, they would certainly steal +a march on that portion of intellectual America which +prides itself on its vigilance for new ideas, but which to +some of us often appears a little sluggish in living up +to its boast. Perhaps in the Social Credit Plan the Humanists +would discover not only the key economic +theory, but a theory which when applied would make +their politics entirely feasible. For the Plan alters nothing +but the financial system.</p> + +<p>We have all seen what one writer calls the degeneration +of government from a plane of democratic idealism +and tolerable administration to a plane of control by political +machines, ward-bosses and racketeers, and seeing it +a great many intellectuals have given up hope of democracy, +have ceased to be even interested in it. But this +writer, Jean Toomer, goes on to speak for a larger mass +of our citizens when he notes that “there is still enough +idealism left in us, there is still active in us a sense of +decency sufficiently strong to make us feel unhappy about +this trend. We cannot laugh at it or shrug our shoulders +and play the game ... there still exists in most of us a +fairly strong wish to see the American political experiment +turn out well; and for this reason we ask of a political +writer that he show a degree of resistance to +political rottenness, a degree of insistence on decency, +ability, and intelligence in politics.” Babbitt’s <cite>Democracy +and Leadership</cite>, the supreme Humanist treatise on American +political thought, was written not for futilitarians or +cynics but precisely for the mass of intelligent citizens +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span>described by Toomer who wish to see democracy turn out +well. The baldest of summaries must here suffice for a +work that should have given rise to a whole literature of +commentary.</p> + +<p><cite>Democracy and Leadership</cite> studies types of political +thinking from Aristotle to Woodrow Wilson, with special +attention given to the naturalistic imperialism of +Machiavelli, the idyllic imagination of Rousseau when +it dreams on politics, and the moral imagination of Edmund +Burke. Like More, Babbitt leans heavily upon +Burke’s ideas of a natural aristocracy, the power of example, +and the imaginative justification of privileges.</p> + +<p>One of the strongest features of the book is its study of +the humility of Asia expressed in Buddhism and Confucianism. +The West learned sufficiently the lesson of +self-reliance in the Renascence, but it has not learned +the lesson of humility, and from the Babbittean standpoint +this is essential.</p> + +<p>A very brief description of Babbitt as a political thinker +would note first that he is an anti-imperialist as well as +an anti-Bolshevist. He is in fact an old-fashioned democrat +who thinks that whatever the quantitative achievements +of the United States have been, qualitatively we +have thus far failed. He opposes the Jeffersonian tradition +and regrets the victory of Andrew Jackson. His +tradition is strongly unionist. Washington, John Marshall, +Lincoln, the last viewed as a unionist rather than +an emancipator—these are the principal figures in his +democratic tradition. It is perhaps not too much to say +that Babbitt considers the Declaration of Independence +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span>a Rousseauistic document and the Constitution a humanistic +document. At any rate, he makes much of the +Supreme Court as a check on the spontaneous popular +will and stands firmly for constitutional democracy as +against direct democracy.</p> + +<p>His program? The formation of a Socratic remnant. +We need a movement, he says, in our political life which +will be Socratic, Aristotelian and Christian, a movement, +that is, that will stress definition, habit and humility. +The beginning is to subject our catchwords—the political +terms that sway our imaginations and actions—to a +Socratic dichotomy, and in this book Babbitt himself performs +some masterly dichotomizing of such infectious +words as “service,” “liberty” and “imagination.” The +Aristotelian phase of the program is education along the +lines we observed in our last chapter. The Christian +phase has to do with the recovery of humility.</p> + +<p>It is evident, I think, even from the bare outline how +Babbitt runs the political problem into the philosophical +and religious problems. Where one boggles is at the very +beginning, the economic problem as it merges into the +political. That is, Babbitt’s politics has to compete with +his economics, and at the present time economics in +practice is the determinant. As in the case of More, +Babbitt is most convincing in dealing with Man Psychologic, +least convincing in handling Man Economic. +His enemies, I may add, are most persuasive about Man +Economic and least equipped to study Man Psychologic.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span></p> + +<p>The economics of commercial men (the science, that is, +of production for profit, not the science of production for +use) puts the whole question of right relations between +man and man far up in the air. We can theorize about +these relations as much as we like but when we drop to +earth again, present economic habits spoil the theories. +There is, for instance, nothing in the least degree Utopian +about Babbitt’s politics. He is thoroughly realistic in his +political vein, but all the time he is working in that vein +he presupposes not a reform of the economics of commercial +men but an amenability on the part of this black +economics to his theory of democracy.</p> + +<p>In this chapter I have deliberately tried to keep the +problem of relations between men (politics and government) +in the air, as in an earlier chapter I deliberately +endeavored to raise man’s concern with the physical universe +up into the air. That is where I think such topics +should be now: they should be open questions toward +which the best attitude is an open attitude. Therefore I +used a writer like Georges Sorel as a wedge to break apart +our fixed ideas about classicism, romanticism and revolution.</p> + +<p>To conclude the chapter, I shall now give several social +attitudes which I think are, in our time of dissolving +answers and new-formed questions, compatible with +American Humanism as a basis. They are a policy of +detachment, the religious view of Cæsar and his things, +liberalism (yes, liberalism, but a special kind!) and +anarchism (also a special kind). And although in discussing +these attitudes, I shall refer them to the American +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span>Humanist, please understand that in this connection +I am identifying the intelligent skeptical modern man +with the Humanist. What, in short, should be the rôle +of the civilized man toward practical affairs? He should +adopt a policy of detachment, urges Julien Benda in his +recent widely debated book, <cite>The Treason of the Intellectuals</cite>.</p> + +<p>In this work Benda deplores the entrance into practical +life of European intellectuals. For, he says, there are +two moralities, a worldly practical morality and a disinterested +“clerical” morality, and the two should not +mingle to their confusion. They have existed parallel +throughout civilization, the “clerk” or intellectual guiding +himself by one set of values, the layman by a totally +different set. But today, charges Benda, the “clerk” forsakes +his disinterestedness, enters the practical world and +promotes the growth of national, class, race and party +passions and hatreds. This is the treason to the intellectual +order committed by such diverse men as Kipling, +D’Annunzio, Sorel, Péguy and Maurras. Fidelity to the +intellectual order is detachment from political and class +activities: it is setting the example of pure devotion to the +values of culture and to those alone. Thus the intellectuals +affect life, not by throwing themselves into its partizanships +and justifying them, but by removing from them +and setting up an example whereby men may know their +own lay morality for what it is.</p> + +<p>This clearly is not the view of More and Babbitt. Their +natural aristocracy is not conceived as aloof but as exerting +pressure directly on lay affairs, as seeking to control +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span>them by its superior wisdom and morality. But should +the New Humanists gain in numbers, I would expect to +see among them before long adherents of Benda’s thesis, +for personal predilections will always lead some men +toward such a standpoint.</p> + +<p>Benda, it should be observed, does not quite take the +religious view of market and state affairs. “Render unto +Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s, and unto God the +things that are God’s” specifies the clear vision of two +orders of things, but is actually the code of a very paradoxical +and rare type of person, the unworldly man of +the world. The things of Cæsar are to be known for what +they are and conformed to for what they are: they are +not, however, to be justified. In this way the religious +person is in the world, but it is not his home, he is not +of it because his estimate of it differs from the estimates +of the men around him. Consider Socrates’ outward conformity +to the customs of Athenian life and his inward +non-conformity. Why this paradox in the religious person? +Is it that he sees simultaneously the world’s need +for reform and the impossibility of reform? Does he see +that things in the main must be as they are, and only +individual salvation is possible? What makes him render +unto Cæsar, but with such perfect lucidity and no laudation, +the things that belong to him?</p> + +<p>The nut in these days of remoteness from religious inspiration +is too hard for us to crack. We can only wonder +at the early Christian secret of accommodating oneself +to the world and yet placing oneself above its customs +and grandeurs. So though Benda approaches the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span>religious conception of two moralities to be adjusted to, +he actually counsels withdrawal from the first, the practical +world, and a resolute turning to the world of ideals. +More and Babbitt, on the other hand, as I have tried to +show, actually do a little justifying of the economics of +Cæsar. They would have the civilized man do more +than put up with a necessary evil: they would have him +defend it. All in all, we are not likely to see much evidence +in our era of a genuinely early Christian view +toward the market place and the legislative hall.</p> + +<p>But can we imagine the undogmatic liberal lamb and +the dogmatic humanistic lion lying down together in the +breast of one individual? Not long ago I dismissed the +liberals, perhaps too airily, for their bankruptcy in ideas +and their impotence in action. Not to speak of the betrayal +of liberal hopes by the Treaty of Versailles, impotent +the liberals had to confess themselves to be after +the failure of their concerted effort to secure a new trial +for Sacco and Vanzetti. Do their best, they could not +avert that tragic stain of suspicion on Massachusetts justice +that will never wear off. Again in the Smith-Hoover +presidential election, they were as ineffective as their +enemies could wish. But one does not mock the defeated, +one only asks that such bitter lessons as defeat gives should +be patiently conned. Has American liberalism shown in +the last two years any disposition to revise itself, or to +seize on a new idea, or to adopt a new set of tactics, or to +overcome its defects? Apparently only two liberals have +really tried to overhaul their policies and they are Walter +Lippmann and the late Herbert Croly. Of the two, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span>Croly in my estimation went deeper in his fragmentary +writings in the <cite>New Republic</cite> than did Lippmann in <cite>A +Preface to Morals</cite>. From 1924 until his illness in 1928 +Croly appeared to be, in Arnold’s language, “turning a +stream of fresh and free thought” upon his previous stock +notions and habits, and in 1927 and 1928 the results began +to be excitingly visible in his editorials and occasional +articles. In particular, the defeat of the agitation for +Sacco and Vanzetti seems to have deepened his sense +that some all-important element was missing from American +Liberalism. Liberalism must transform itself into a +discipline of self-liberation was his conclusion, and he +hit on the term, Socratic Liberalism, to distinguish the +new conception from the old faith in legislative action +and environmental improvements. “What liberals need +is not a new concrete political or social program,” he concluded. +“They need a new evaluation of all programs, +a new attitude towards them and a new method of giving +reality to them.”</p> + +<p>Liberals have always been short on two things: skepticism +and a full realization of the inner life. They have +been long on curiosity, on tolerance, on human kindness, +on a sense of the plasticity of man, on optimism. They +have put their faith in what Arnold called <em>machinery</em>, +that is, in programs of social and economic engineering, +many of which have turned out to be both available and +realistic plans of action. Generally speaking, the American +liberal believes or hopes that the ethical defect which +capitalist economy introduces into the practices of the +State can be overcome by education, a belief that contrasts +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span>with the pessimistic view of More, which we noted, +namely, that the defect is inherent in human nature. +Croly’s radical proposal was simply to marry liberal +curiosity and sentiment to skepticism. “Although,” he +wrote in an important editorial entitled <cite>Realistic Liberalism</cite> +(<cite>New Republic</cite>, November 23, 1927), “liberalism +was fundamentally an attempt to give increasing dignity, +enlightenment and fulfilment to human life, it has +moved towards its goal almost entirely by trying to improve +the political and economic environment of modern +men and women. Its program called for the services of +expert political or social engineers and invoked the legislative +power of the State to put the program, which might +be either negative or positive, into effect. But in all its +efforts, it assumed that an improvement of the conditions +in which people lived would liberate a corresponding +moral and intellectual energy in the people themselves. +From this point of view, liberalism was a well intentioned +but inconsiderate attempt to redeem human nature without +asking human beings to participate in their own redemption, +except by devising social programs, winning +elections, passing laws, inventing more machines and increasing +individual and social capital. They were never +asked to revolutionize and reform the inside of their own +minds or to ponder what, if any, the relation might be +between political self-government and individual self-government. +They have rarely asked the question +whether a liberated society, in which there was little or +no oppression, no privation and no monopoly of power, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span>wealth and comfort, might, nevertheless, be composed of +extremely cheap individuals.”</p> + +<p>It is commonly thought that skepticism of the machinery +of social reform puts a blight on one’s desires for +material improvements. But it does not necessarily do +that, certainly not in Croly’s case. Skepticism does blight +opportunism and the exaggerated faith attached to projects +of external betterment, but the desire to experiment +remains: only the experimenter realizes he must not be +cocksure of himself, he must be humble and admit the +need of a rigorous self-culture prior to social experiment. +Skepticism is in fact a great reviver of the inner life, and +Croly became in his last articles a preacher on the neglected +text, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within.” Like +Arnold, he declared in substance that culture is a condition +of internal working. “Liberals are invited, consequently, +to repent of their dependence on mechanism and +to practice on themselves the faith in enlightenment +which has always been their stock-in-trade.... The only +realistic policy for liberals is to start methodically to +stretch and intensify their consciousness in the hope that +it will become eventually a more adequate instrument +for the watching, the understanding, the unfolding, the +harmonizing and the deliverance of their personal lives.”</p> + +<p>To Croly, then, the important thing was that liberalism +should be more than a doctrine or a program: it should be +a discipline of self-liberation, for only the self-liberated +are qualified to become liberators of others. Anybody, of +course, can mouth generalities about self-emancipation, +internal development, and so on, and anybody does. The +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span>rare person—the person who really means to do what +he says—goes a step further and inquires and speculates +about a method of self-liberation, about some definite +means of converting rhetoric into facts. This, in such +editorials as <cite>Socratic Liberalism</cite> (<cite>New Republic</cite>, December +28, 1927) and in such articles as <cite>The Human Potential +in the Pacific</cite>, <cite>Christians, Beware</cite>, and <cite>Consciousness +and the Religious Life</cite> Croly proceeded to do. He +wanted a scientific method for self-study and self-development, +and he actually proposed one summed up in this +sentence: “So the hypothetical separation by the individual +of himself as an observer from the accidents and +the compulsions of his actualized personality, and his systematic +effort to be aware of how this personality behaves, +may prove to be the indispensable route to liberated and +reunited consciousness of self.”</p> + +<p>This, as you see, sets up a working dualism in human +psychology. But the interesting thing is that Croly’s +effort to introduce at the back of liberal sentiments and +liberal intellectual interests the two elements of skepticism +and a practical concern with one’s own psychology was +completely abortive. Not even the editors of Croly’s own +paper have picked up his revolutionary proposals and carried +them forward in the slightest way.⁠<a id="FNanchor_8_8" href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> The most profound +liberal in America thoroughly failed when it came +to lifting liberalism out of its groove. But unless I am +very wrong, some kind of <em>entente</em> could be worked out +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span>between a Socratic Liberal and a Socratic Conservative or +Humanist. They would at least find a ground for basic +agreement and differ, when they differed, on opinions as +to the passing trends of the time.</p> + +<p>Finally, we come to that special brand of anarchism +which I anticipate will be acceptable to some Humanists +in the future. The New Humanists have been freely upbraided +by many people anxious as they say “to do good +to others.” What! these well intentioned persons have +said, bother with self-reform when there are so many +ills of the world to be alleviated! Play with definitions, +heed the Inner Check, talk about discipline when social +abuses abound! “And what,” says one of the epigoni of +the <cite>New Republic</cite>, “has Humanism to do with the scene +outside my window: with the jobless men who saunter in +the dusk, or the dying village, or the paper mill abandoned +across the river—this mill whose owners have gone +South where labor is cheap?”</p> + +<p>A lengthy reply to that has been in print for seventy-six +years in the whole final section of Thoreau’s first chapter +in <cite>Walden</cite>. “As for Doing-Good, that is one of the +professions which are full ... Men say, practically, +Begin where you are and such as you are, without aiming +to become of more worth and with kindness aforethought +go about doing good. If I were to preach at all in this +strain, I should say rather, Set about being good. As if +the sun should stop when he had kindled his fires up to +the splendor of a moon or a star, of the sixth magnitude, +and go about like a Robin Goodfellow, peeping in at +every cottage window, inspiring lunatics, and tainting +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span>meats, and making darkness visible, instead of steadily +increasing his genial heat and beneficence till he is of such +brightness that no mortal can look him in the face, and +then, and in the meanwhile too, going about the +world in his own orbit, doing it good, or rather, as a +truer philosophy has discovered, the world going about +him getting good.... There are a thousand hacking +at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root +and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of +time and money on the needy is doing the most by his +mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in +vain to relieve.... Do not stay to be an overseer of the +poor, but endeavor to become one of the worthies of the +world.”</p> + +<p>This is the twofold defence of the individualist: he +confesses his doubt that men’s knowledge and powers +<em>as they are</em> can do more than merely meddle and muddle +in social relations and he insists upon the regeneration of +oneself as being in the long run beneficial to those around +one. It is the very essence of the social criticism of the +American Humanists and conceivably to some temperaments +among them it might lead, as it did in Thoreau’s +case, to personal secession from the United States! The +social anarchist like Thoreau is not heartless: he is convinced +of being helpless—like the man who has not +learned to swim and sees some one offshore drowning. +The humanitarian plunges to the rescue, but as he cannot +swim, the only result is he drowns too. The Humanist +suffers from the spectacle of drowning souls, but he may +sensibly conclude with Thoreau that nothing can be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span>effected toward saving them until one has oneself learned +to swim.</p> + +<p>If American Humanism spreads, my prediction is that +we shall eventually see its adherents manifest as rich a +variety stemming from certain conventions of thought, +feeling and discipline as we perceive in Renascence Humanism. +We shall see humanistic disciples of Thoreau +doggedly resisting the pleas of the Doing-Good professors, +liberal Humanists annoying by their socratic tendencies +the orthodox liberals, detached Humanists accused of +defeatism and retreating to ivory towers of thought, Socratic +Conservatives like More and Babbitt, and perhaps +even a few Humanists tinged with the religious view of +politics and government. But we shall hardly see any +measure of popularity attach itself to any of the positions +I have adumbrated.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="XI"> + XI + <br> + THE DILEMMA OF THE LIBERATED + </h2> +</div> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>“Intellectual freedom is earlier and easier than complete +spiritual freedom.”</i>—<span class="smcap">T. S. Eliot</span> in the <cite>Hound +and Horn</cite> magazine.</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p>In the last sixty years isolated individuals of distinction +have told the Western world that it was living in a state +of decline. Nietzsche was probably the most tormented +of these prophets and used the strongest language. Modern +man to him was an instrument out of tune: mankind +itself was degenerating. We in America had Henry +Adams charting the change from mediæval unity to twentieth +century multiplicity and theorizing about the degradation +of the democratic dogma. Today Bertrand +Russell is quoted as saying that the clock of Europe has +been running down since the Renascence, Chesterton +advises us that we are simply existing on our Catholic +capital and using it up, Whitehead notes that science has +lived on the accumulated capital of the ideas of the seventeenth +century and that religion has been weakening +for several centuries. But all these contemporaries manage +nevertheless to keep a cheerful outlook, Whitehead elaborating +thoughts for a new scientific and philosophic +synthesis, Chesterton rejoicing in his personal rediscovery +of Catholic truths, and Russell being, as a wit has expressed +it, terribly at ease in hell. The man with the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span>most complete brief is Oswald Spengler, who studies the +morphology of history. In his philosophy of history synthesized +from a survey of eight cultures (Indian, Mayan, +Greek, Egyptian, etc.), it is held that we in the West have +our spring and summer, are now in the autumn +and inevitably must pass to the winter stage of our cultural +cycle. Gone is any possibility of a Renascence: we +have had ours, and are now in the megalopolitan “civilization” +phase, committed to technology, destined for +more huge wars, the uprising of untutored hordes, and +the coming of dictators. The arts will perish as important +influences.</p> + +<p>Spengler has popularized the notion of the decline of +the western world, but after all it remains just a notion +to most people. Very few are really convinced to the +marrow that European and American civilization is on a +downward slope. Some say it is, but they merely say it: +some think so, but merely think it. To find a man who +is saturated with pessimism about our present and future +state is almost as rare as to find a Rosicrucian in +contemporary intellectual society. Our general tone is +optimistic and conceited with only an occasional breakdown +when we focus on some particular spot and admit +that it is unhealthy now and likely to get worse. But we +cannot grant that certain epochs in the past were greater +than our own: we cannot get it out of our heads that we +are an improvement on all previous generations: we cannot +shed our faith in progress and see our whole civilization +as a retrogression.</p> + +<p>The chief exceptions are Paul E. More and Irving Babbitt. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span>They differ from Spengler in being much more cautious +generalizers: they talk about one culture only, and +chiefly the last four hundred years of that. They do not +think metaphorically about history or try to construct a +science or philosophy of history. A chief point of difference +is that they repudiate fatalism, admitting that we +are biassed to roll down one groove of the future but not +denying that other possibilities still remain open and +asserting that by a great effort we may select one of these +as our future. The nearest they come to writing history +by analogy is to point out the similarity between Alexandrian +culture and many of the phenomena of contemporary +learning and to make a tentative comparison between +the decadent imperialism of Rome under Tiberius +or Nero and the present tendencies in the United States +toward discarding standards, increasing luxury, and +fomenting factional strife just as we approach the acme +of power. But, generally speaking, Babbitt and More +confine themselves strictly to the portrayal of psychological +decay in one locality, Europe and America taken together +as Western culture, during one definite span of +time, the last four centuries and particularly the last two. +I have remarked that they do not think metaphorically +about history, yet their teaching can be concentrated in a +metaphor, and perhaps without loss of subtlety gain in +power of appeal.</p> + +<p>We can go about picturing the Fall of Western Man +if we adopt the Platonic truism that society is simply a +man writ large, for we are then free to figure Western +society as an Atlas the Endurer who rebels against being +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span>otherworldly, ceases to uphold the heavens, and turns this-worldly. +At first his old habits of thinking and feeling +persist: he has merely ceased to make effort to miraculously +sustain his center of gravity outside himself in the +“other world.” But now his center of gravity shifts to +within: he no longer stands perfectly upright, strained toward +the Absolute, but leans a little toward this earth. As +he now thinks, the heavens did not all these centuries +really need his support; he was deceived by a myth, he +thinks, and it does not occur to him that he was the one +who benefited by his posture and effort. As he leans toward +the earth, he rejoices in his freedom to lean. This is +the end of the Renascence. Well in the past now is the era +of Gothic cathedral building which showed what incomparable +architecture Atlas was capable of when he held up +the heavens. Well past, too, are many other strangely +beautiful things, among them “La Gaya Scienza” of the +Provençal culture. From now on a new order of behavior, +and it is at this turning-point that More and Babbitt +begin closely to observe Atlas. What they see is a +gradually shifting and settling of the center of gravity of +his psychology.</p> + +<p>For a time he holds himself almost upright. He cultivates +<i lang="it">sprezzatura</i>. He is the seventeenth century gentleman +and scholar who does not pride himself on anything. +He <em>fears</em> specialization and believes that “perfected good-breeding +consists in having no particular mark of any +profession, but a general elegance of manners.” But he +sways a little: a slight turn and he is neo-classical and +becomes stiff, conventional, puristic, the center of his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span>gravity in his mind. He has begun to totter in the direction +he leans—toward the earth.</p> + +<p>Then More and Babbitt observe how the giant makes +a violent effort to right himself. It is the romantic recoil +from the neo-classical aridity. It is Rousseau and his +followers raving against trying to put one’s gravity-center +outside oneself, or against trying to keep it established inside +oneself in the mind. Slowly the center changes, then +drops suddenly into the emotions. Atlas becomes fiery. +He is a Jacobin. He sets up democracies wherein popular +feeling may sweep more freely. He colors philosophy +with subjectivism: henceforward it is not the drama of +the universe but the inward drama of the psyche that +he ruminates upon. He institutes rebellion in the arts, +confusing them, and he chases like a madman after sensation. +The phenomena of his new state—his predilection +for idyllic dreams, his praise of spontaneity and +idiosyncrasy, his love of delicious revery, his dislike of +discipline, etc.—grow countless. Atlas is ruled by his +feelings, and they are not counterweighted by his mind. +Whole parts and functions of his psychology are going +to rust, most disastrously of all his will. No wonder he +sprawls forward on all fours. With his center of gravity +in his unbridled feelings, he must fall.</p> + +<p>But now is his center sinking again? Will Atlas, no +longer the Endurer, be changed into a cunning savage? +Will he become simply a creature who exploits the earth’s +resources and alternates his labors in production with a +complete spineless subsidence into physical comforts? +Is the day of Apeneck Sweeney and Molly Bloom dawning +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span>on a culture that has known the sardonic Swift and +the charm of Madame de Sévigné? Atlas who used magnificently +to bear up the sky—is he to be stretched prone +in comfort in the twenty-first century, no vulture tearing +at his flesh as at his brother Prometheus, but a radio to +lull his mind?</p> + +<p>The signs are plentiful of another transition: we have +gone from the dominance of religious values to the dominance +of intellectual ones and then to the primacy of +emotional values. The last stage—barbarism—will occur +with the complete triumph of practical and instinctive +values. Then Atlas will indeed be but an economic creature, +cleverly producing what he needs by the least effort, +and spending his increased leisure in the pursuit of cheap +distractions from thought and serious emotion. He will +truly have diminished to the ninth part of a human +being.</p> + +<p>Such, in a picture, is my reading of the critique of +Western civilization so elaborately and weightily presented +by Babbitt and More. They have traced the movements +of our psychological center of gravity and view +with foreboding the future of a society whose members +will not make the almost impossible struggle to elevate +its center, to resume the former standing posture of Atlas. +But this simplification should be followed at once by a +warning to the reader who has not consulted the whole +body of works by Babbitt and More. Do not surmise they +have trimmed to a thesis. They have been the patient +collectors of historical evidence, and the thesis emerges +from a study of all the gatherable evidence. “By their +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span>fruits ye shall know them,” is Babbitt’s working rule. +Secondly, do not think that the evidence, while susceptible +of simplification in the mass, is in detail simple. Man +is as prolific in ideas as Nature is prolific in insects (unfortunately, +most ideas are of the insect order): he is a being +as full of desires as an egg is full of meat (and his shell +has been broken): he is as active and restless as a monkey +(and about as purposeless). Consequently, his mental, +emotional and instinctive manifestations are variegated +in the extreme. Variegated, but not pure chaos, not without +a pattern. Babbitt and More are pattern-perceivers, +not imposers of arbitrary patterns. In the third place, +do not think that all value is denied to romanticism and +naturalism. They have in fact many good elements, +which More and Babbitt fully recognize. What is bad +about these schools is their rejection of the more human +elements in our psychology, what is bad is their glorification +of a lowered center of gravity.</p> + +<p>The New Humanist, as any one knows who is acquainted +with his mind, does not wish to turn the clock +back but to incorporate the gains of romanticism and +naturalism into a broader synthesis with a more stable +center.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>A few people can take seriously the question of the +degeneration of our civilization. If you are one of these, +prepared to admit seriously the possibility that the species +of mankind may over long periods fall and rise in quality, +then you are likely to reflect seriously on all the questions +that American Humanists find of the first rank and interest. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[259]</span>If you approach these questions with the same intent +sobriety with which they are propounded, then you will +find a dilemma confronting you. At one horn there is +Naturalism: at the other—Humanism. The statement +signalizes a change in this book: up to now it has been an +interpretation of American Humanism, from now on it +will be a criticism. It is plain that I find the naturalistic +horn no horn to grasp. Its disadvantages have been too +forcibly presented by the writers grouped around Babbitt +and More. On the other hand, we would have to thank +their opponents had they revealed with equal skill and +force the drawbacks and dangers attached to the alternative +horn, but I cannot feel that the anti-Humanists have +done their business satisfactorily to date. They have been +rather living examples of the fallacies and partialities exposed +by the New Humanists than the exposers of the +latter’s weaknesses. The reason is that almost to a man +the anti-Humanists were not seriously and fundamentally +interested in the questions put in the foreground by the +Humanists. They saw no dilemma, because in the absence +of serious and passionate concern over the main +issues, there is no dilemma.</p> + +<p>What is there new that the young chips from the old +block of rationalism can tell us? The limitations of nineteenth +century rationalism have been established for some +time: years ago we cashed all its cheques and its account +has not been replenished. Likewise the humanitarian’s +credit since the Great War has been low. He may tell us +now that the problem of the will is unreal and the business +of improving the environment of man will gradually +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[260]</span>solve the problem of human happiness, but we are +not living in the hopeful spring of 1914. We do not see +man any longer in a rosy light. It is the same with the +æsthete: he too is a pre-war creature. Representatives of +all these types were huddled together in the symposium, +<cite>The Critique of Humanism</cite>, and there carried on the +old warfare of the allied Romanticists and Naturalists +against the Humanists. But that war has been fought to +a finish, and it is tiresome not to have some new developments. +Also it appears we have come down a long way +from the days of Shelley and Coleridge, of Darwin and +Spencer, of Flaubert and Zola who did indeed make +Naturalism and Romanticism <em>something</em> to argue about. +We are down now to the intellectual nursery—to the +childish quarrelsomeness of a Burton Rascoe and the +peevish complaints of an Edmund Wilson (whose excursion, +by the way, into the criticism of Sophocles deserves +a mirthful place in the memory of the <i>cognoscenti</i>).</p> + +<p>We wish however to take the anti-Humanist attack at +its high point, not at its feeblest, and the acclamation of +reviewers nominates the piece by Lewis Mumford, <cite>Toward +an Organic Humanism</cite>, as the best to be had. The +essay produces a glow in the reader, as Mumford almost +always succeeds in doing, but when the glow fades and +the substance is coolly inspected, the keen reader is bound +to feel that he has been cheated by the author’s cheerfulness. +There is no originality of thought. The usual contention +that the American Humanists cut themselves off +from contemporary life. The usual contention that they +are too negative. The usual misinterpretation of “the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[261]</span>inner check.” The air of an enthusiastic master unveiling +the secrets of “organic humanism.” And the secrets? +They appear rather banal, vague, inconclusive. Life is a +“multitude of functions”: we must live in a state of tension +and grow and renew ourselves: we must reconcile +almost everything in sight. “The world is so full of a +number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as +kings.” At the end the essayist generously offers a big +bed wherein he assures us romanticist and classicist, Humanist +and mechanist, naturalist and idealist, divested of +their philosophical clothes, can lie down happily together. +I am not convinced that we can progress very far by the +method of obliterating intellectual distinctions which discriminating +men have labored to erect. If this piece by +Mumford is the best anti-Humanist criticism, it looks as +though there was nothing to do but to set out from here +to plough a fresh furrow. Let me hope it will not be a +lonely furrow as well.</p> + +<p>It is, from my viewpoint, necessary to make an almost +clean discard of all the current adverse criticism of the +New Humanists recently committed by American writers. +I would myself give away all of it to the needy poor in +intellectual circles for the few lines written years ago by +A. R. Orage on Paul Elmer More’s <cite>The Drift of Romanticism</cite>. +“Mr. More,” he said, “has also, it appears to me, the +defect of orthodoxy—he fails to realize the inevitability +of heterodoxy and the consequent necessity of paradoxy. +The classic is for him, as it is for me, the perfect literary +form: all form, in fact, is classic. But the romantic +should be recognized, when it arises, as a challenge to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[262]</span>form, as an impulse demanding severer forms to contain +it.” This, praise be given, does take a step towards a new +criticism of orthodox classicism. It does not rest on mere +dissatisfaction with the emotional side of American Humanism, +a dissatisfaction that is so widespread there must +be something to it, but it actually points out the defect. +What is more, it suggests a way to overcome the defect, +and that not by denying the distinctions involved but by +incorporating them into a paradoxy. It challenges the +student to make an entirely new approach to an old controversy.</p> + +<p>Orage, it should be noted, has always been profoundly +interested in such questions as the American Humanists +now raise anew: the quality of modern society and the +quality of the modern individual, the art of life and a +technique for practicing it, the nature of man and his +need for regeneration, moral responsibility and how to +attain it, the contraction of men into specialists and the +way unto Renascence fulness of experience. Without +profound interest in questions of this nature, there is no +dilemma to be produced, and no need for a paradoxical +attitude to face it.</p> + +<p>With that recognized, let us now press forward to grips +with the New Humanism.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Twentieth century Humanism undeniably has an appeal +for the liberated man or woman. Of course, I do not +mean liberated in any absolute sense, but use the word in +its present conversational meaning to signify those who +have freed themselves of popular delusions. I mean just +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[263]</span>that civilized minority that do not need the offices of H. L. +Mencken to open their eyes to current cant. They are, to +be brief, total disbelievers in the so-called “American +Credo.” It is not easy to shock them about sex. They +have learned to view many of the facts of life realistically. +They are of a questioning turn of mind. They prefer +sophistication to godliness. Generalizing, we can say they +have shed two classes of superstitions, the superstitions +that have usurped the place of ancient religion and the +superstitions that flourish in the neighborhood of modern +science. They do not believe, that is, that either the +churches or the scientists “can fix everything up.” Emancipated +from the official Christianity of our day, disillusioned +about the day’s science, they experiment and drift +in a middle region, an amorphous group, curious about +the possibilities of life but skeptical of finding a pansophy.</p> + +<p>In the last decade and a half in America they veered +toward naturalism and now know what awaits them in +that quarter. Romantic disillusionment—disheartened +optimism—the modern distemper so eloquently confessed +for our generation by Joseph Wood Krutch. Now apparently +a vanguard is veering toward Humanism. And so +far one can distinguish two main types among this advance +guard—those who have the humanistic temper by +nature and those who are naturally of a religious inclination.</p> + +<p>What the humanistic temper is this book has sought to +make clear. I will add now one further example and one +more description of the temper. The example is the poet +Robert Frost who in all probability holds no formal views +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[264]</span>on American Humanism, and perhaps is largely unacquainted +with the ideas of Babbitt and More, but who +nevertheless writes verse highly satisfactory by humanistic +criteria. An intimate understanding of this poet’s psychology +<em>through</em> his works will give you better than reams +of exposition what the actual flavor and humor and clear-cut +quality of humanistic experience is like. The description +of the humanistic temper is by Robert Shafer. Writing +in the <cite>Hound and Horn</cite>, Summer Issue, 1930, Shafer +said: “The true humanist has ever been a practical man of +the world; avoiding those tempting chimeras metaphysical +speculation and pseudo-science; suspicious of rigid abstract +formulations; preferring to define his position tentatively, +by the methods of critical scrutiny, in close and +fruitful relation to actual but ever-changing circumstances; +avoiding the self-defeating violence of revolution; +preferring to work with and through existing institutions; +sacrificing sudden impressiveness to steady, quiet persistence; +not expectant of victory; and content even with apparent +defeat in untoward times if apparent defeat is the +reward of moderation, sane judgment, disciplined taste, +and a comely serenity.”</p> + +<p>As for the liberated who are religiously inclined, who +have, that is, the religious temperament, they are quite +easy to describe. I refer simply to intelligent civilized +men and women who are accessible to ideas of a religious +order, who are prepared to entertain but only to entertain +religious assumptions, who experience a little thrill from +the (to us) occult language of the Sacred Books. I mean +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[265]</span>no more than that: it amounts to a kind of sympathetic +curiosity in religious matters.</p> + +<p>Now, forsaking the liberated for a while, I have to +consider something very unusual in contemporary experience—<em>the +religious spirit</em>.</p> + +<p>The difficulties in the way of conveying a fresh sense +of this spirit are almost insuperable. I cannot begin as +Norman Foerster and other Humanists do by professing +respect and admiration for the great organized religious +bodies in their present condition, for the thing I attach +value to is the religious spirit and that has departed. I +agree with Hulme and other scattered observers that the +present age totally misunderstands religion. Warm ashes +of the Christian Faith remain, most notably in Catholicism, +but we moderns are almost hopelessly clogged with +false associations, sentimentalities, stock responses to religion, +and nothing very potent in us can be lit up by the +feeble glow cast by the best surviving elements in the +Churches. So thick is the forest of our associations about +religion, so lost and wandering are we in it, that I shall +scrupulously avoid citing any historic examples of the +religious spirit: that would in all likelihood lead simply +to tangential arguments, to treading in the mazes of our +associations about figures. Whereas it is the essence +itself, this spirit so foreign to our ways, that I would suggest. +Without a prior common understanding, examples +may in fact be pernicious.</p> + +<p>Try then, my reader, as I have tried, to throw out of +the mind all our stale notions about the spirit of the religious +man. Realize as strongly as possible the nonreligious +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[266]</span>motives that have entered into modern Christian +thought, making the “religious life” what Whitehead +protests it should not be, a research after comfort. Put +to a violent death the democratic feelings that have been +allowed to corrupt the uncompromising character of religions +at their source. To go on in the hortatory way,—shock +your preconceptions one by one. Be prepared to +admit that a genuinely religious man would seem monstrous +to you.</p> + +<p>As I conceive of the religious spirit, neither the religious +inclination nor the humanistic temper approximate to it +in the least degree. There is an absolute difference. They +do not grow into the religious spirit, but must suffer a +transformation. My emphatic judgment is that Humanism +can never merge into religion by a mere extension of +itself, but that there exists a chasm between the two which +the New Humanist <i>qua</i> Humanist can never leap. Religious +and humanistic inclinations can make terms with +each other, but between the religious spirit and the humanistic +temper there is opposition forever. I point to +the <em>early</em> Christians who insisted, as Babbitt notes, that +there is only a stark supernaturalism and a stark naturalism +with no intermediate territory for the Humanist.</p> + +<p>Briefly now I will essay a probably futile task, the adumbration +of the man of religious spirit. Probably futile, +because he is incredible to us. We cannot credit such a +passion for perfection as he incarnates. To us religion +is anthropomorphic: to him religion is theomorphic. In +that you have the astounding reversal of our suppositions +which he makes. Consequently when we read, “So God +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[267]</span>created man in his own image, in the image of God +created he him,” we at once think of God as being like +man: the religious spirit, however, thinks of man as being +like God, an utterly revolutionary difference, for, since +man in his ordinary condition is obviously anything but +Godlike, this theomorphism stimulates in the religious +spirit the tremendous ambition to become like God, a perfect +being. Could there be anything more rash and sublime +and impossible? Provided one has shed sentimental +conceptions of deity. “Be ye perfect, even as your Father +in Heaven is perfect.” Every resource must be used, every +power must be strained, every second of life must be taken +for the impossible task. The mind is an instrument of +perfection: it must accordingly be developed to the utmost. +The body must be strong to undertake the enormous +labors imposed on it. The emotions must be unbelievably +enriched. Consciousness itself must expand! +Religion is indefeasibly the study and pursuit of perfection: +it requires not only that no stone but no grain and +no mountain be left unturned which might furnish a clue +or a stimulus to its quest. This, in its desperateness, its +consuming thirst, its impossibilism, is almost as remote, I +need not say, from Humanism as it is from Naturalism. +To the religious spirit it is the absolute or nothing.</p> + +<p>Absolute Truth, absolute Beauty, absolute Goodness—these +are what he yearns for, and he is impatient of moderation, +decency, good sense <em>as ends</em>. He cannot, as the +Humanist can, seek primarily for stability of character: he +seeks for perfection of character with stability coming as +a by-product. Nor is there any known limit to his skepticism: +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[268]</span>the very nature of his pursuit of the unattainable +enforces skepticism on him to the last degree. The religious +life is a continual destruction of those elements of +imperfection, illusions. “Prove all things; hold fast that +which is good.”</p> + +<p>Obviously, such men as I speak of are extremely uncommon. +Their mark, I have tried to suggest, is that they +make their life-task the wholehearted, single-minded pursuit +of a perfection whose fulness we cannot even dream +of, and to which we are quite indifferent as an idea. +They have in our era another mark that differentiates +them from us as completely as if they belonged to another +race: an agony of bafflement. In Biblical language, they +have “a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.” +Their zeal leads them everywhere, they stop at nothing, +but the form of their life in modern times is a searching, +not a finding. Zealous searchers, they are blocked by that +“middle wall of partition” spoken of in the Bible which +they know not how to break down. They see in their +quest the need for an enlargement of their powers, but +how to increase them, that they do not know. Theirs is +the agony of baffled search for the means to the perfection +they crave with all their being. They would seem to +know in terms of the most exasperating personal experience +that there does exist a radical discontinuity, as Hulme +thought, between man and God or the Absolute. The +Humanist we have seen dwelling on the discontinuity +between man and nature. The religious spirit discovers +in his efforts toward self-perfecting, toward expansion +and intensification of consciousness, the discontinuity at +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[269]</span>the other border, and it is this frontier between man and +the absolute that he emphasizes. Here, he says, is the all-important +barrier, and we cannot rest until we have leaped +it.</p> + +<p>Thirst for divinizing oneself, agony of frustration before +the “middle partition”—these are at all times the +stigmata of a few men on our planet. We can <em>recognize</em> +these stigmata even though what they signify lies outside +our experience, but because we have not experienced, we +cannot <em>comprehend</em>. Yet if one is interested in human +limits, one has to make a rude stab at description of this +race of men. Have you never heard that in the original +doctrine of no single great religion is it stated that man +by nature has a soul? Then blame religious democracy. +Man in the great religions at their source is exhorted to +labor for a soul, is urged to acquire one, but religion says +he begins without one. Religion begins with stark naturalism, +but ends with constructing a bridge to a new life. +Many are called to the work of creating the new life—in +that respect religion is democratic; but few are chosen, +few succeed in “crossing the stream”—an unpalatable saying +to religious democrats. This brings forward an idea +that pales the humanistic notion of a turning away from +the natural self, just as the idea of the divinization of man +pales the idea of the humanization of man. The religious +spirit darkens naturalism far beyond the Humanist portrayal, +and at the same time it gives the possibilities of +man an effulgence that drowns with glory the modest +conceptions of the Humanists. The connecting idea +brought forward is rebirth by a process as definite but +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[270]</span>far more terrific than physical birth. This is an idea +still present, as we noted, in Pico della Mirandola’s <cite>Oration</cite>, +but since vanished from humanistic teaching.</p> + +<p>The suffering of the religious spirit today, however, +comes not, I venture to say, from the pangs of rebirth but +from non-satisfaction. He cannot conceive a soul and +therefore cannot gestate one. No wonder a modern religious +spirit occasionally shatters itself in madness! The +zeal of God, but not according to knowledge, is fraught +with the utmost danger, for the truth of our human situation +we are told is terror-inspiring, and a sudden glimpse—</p> + +<p>We have done with the armchair mysticism prevalent +in the West today. It is devoid of the desperation, the +readiness to leave the library and the round of civilized +comforts and take all the risks, the sheer heroism that +mark the genuine religious man. It clearly has naught +of the spirit of these Buddhistic verses.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Scorched, frozen, and alone,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In fearsome forest dwelling,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Naked, no fire to warm,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Bent on the quest is the Sage.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The distinction is not, please mark however, between +comfortable literary mysticism and self-torturing asceticism. +Great religious teachers have pointed out the fallacy +of the latter as the Way. Our distinction is between the +unwillingness to experiment dangerously with life and the +resolute disposition of the genuinely religious to go to any +lengths, if necessary.</p> + +<p>And now we may come back to ourselves, the liberated, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[271]</span>who have been illuminated by the steady light thrown on +Naturalism by the New Humanists and have afterwards +turned to examine critically Humanism itself. By the +blazing light shafted on it from the religious spirit, what +do we now see there? Holding Humanism up against +this searching sun-like radiance, shall we find ourselves +in an unexpected dilemma?</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>It is patent that a man aflame with the religious spirit +would, when striking on the New Humanism in his investigations, +formulate his requirements of it and the aims +he wished it to satisfy in a language the contemporary +Humanist does not speak. But we who call ourselves +the liberated employ, so it happens, a vocabulary keyed a +note above characteristic Humanist speech. The New +Humanist’s favorite words are: decency, moderation, +measure, commonsense, the normal and representative, +the centralized, discipline, standards, humility, self-control, +vital restraint, proportionateness, decorum, stability. +His thoughts circulate around these words: they constitute +the magnetic portion of his vocabulary. The magnetic +portion of the liberated man’s vocabulary runs somewhat +as follows, and you will note the higher keying at +once: honesty, daring, curiosity, experiment, zeal for truth, +self-knowledge, disinterestedness, harmony, the free mind, +spiritual freedom, integration of experience, art of life, +increased life, greater consciousness. The respective vocabularies +are not mutually exclusive; there is much overlapping +in actual usage. But the point is sound that the +New Humanist is apt to employ the second set of terms +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[272]</span>in the second place, whereas the liberated man approaching +the study of Humanism uses the Humanist’s favorite +words as secondary to the magnetic words of freedom, increased +consciousness, etc. This difference in emphasis +gives us a clue that may conduct to an important +criticism of the New Humanist’s supreme method, the +rule of mediation.</p> + +<p>In approaching any subject, it is well to formulate in +advance where one stands at present, what motives impel +one toward the new subject, what one expects to find, +and what one wants to discover. The liberated man +(common gender) has, in theory at least, been freed from +dogma, either naturalistic or theological. Dogma to him +is any statement offered which may be true but which is +unaccompanied by a means of verifying it. He has grown +clever in distinguishing between what is verifiable by himself +and what is not: the latter he calls “dogma.” In +theory also he is freed from hypocrisy: he strives to be +completely honest with himself. His objection to most +conventional modes of thought is that they have hampered +him in getting at the truth about himself. Today he is +discovering that truth, and it is, that he is completely self-ignorant. +Hear him confess his ignorance, as he is doing +in increasing numbers.</p> + +<p>“I perceive my own ignorance on all essential matters. +Why I exist I do not know. What I am I do not know. +I am ignorant of any purpose in life. My friends and +especially my enemies are more aware of my weaknesses +than I am. My economy of life is bad—I do not make +the most of it, or know how to do so. I am subject to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[273]</span>unknown laws. Blind to the future, forgetful of my past, +in the present I exist, because of my ignorance, as the +plaything of chance.”</p> + +<p>The discovery of the liberated man is that he is not a +fallen Angel but a feeble son of Man. On the basis of his +ignorance, however, he can and does formulate what he +wishes to know and what abilities he wishes to acquire. +One word sums up the first:—Self-Knowledge. “I would +like to know what sort of creature I really am. What +are my real wishes? Why do I live and for what end? +What are the conditions of happiness? How may I live +with real advantage to myself? What is the true nature +of the world that impinges on me? In short, I would like +to know everything about myself from my puzzling trivial +habits to my relation with the universe.”</p> + +<p>As for Ability, he would, in my view, like to be a Reynard +the Fox, the “animal capable.” He wishes to be +active, to become valuable and therefore valued by men, +to be devoid of humbug in the use of his skill and single-minded +in what he undertakes, above all to succeed +wherever he is. The power to do what he wishes to do!</p> + +<p>But not one word about character. We have a confession +of ignorance followed by the recognition of a need +for self-knowledge and the need for general ability. Perhaps +the intuition of the liberated person tells him that +character is a resultant, the product of his knowledge +and his ability interacting. With his needs uppermost in +his mind, he encounters the New Humanism and this +system, as we have learned, puts character foremost. The +juxtaposition gives us another critical clue. For the Humanist +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[274]</span>replies first to the very last questions—<em>the still +unformulated questions</em>—of the liberated, and the first +questions of the liberated are relegated in humanistic +thought to a lesser position. Which order is correct?</p> + +<p>Are we close to the nub at last? Several years ago in an +essay on Irving Babbitt I closed by saying that the crux +of the whole matter of Humanism was in the questions: +“To what ends in human character does the technique of +Humanism surely lead? Can it by its route attain to the +victory over circumstance announced by religion or can it +only ameliorate a determined scheme of things by the production +of such relatively minor virtues as moderation, +decency and good sense?” These questions seem to me +now as then to touch the central issue. The technique +of Humanism is mediation: the law of measure, Nothing +Too Much, is supreme. The validity of this law I do not +question. Whether it is always and everywhere to be observed, +that I question. What I specifically challenge is +the supremacy of the technique based on the law of +measure. Is mediation the prime law of life?</p> + +<p>My answer must be, No.⁠<a id="FNanchor_9_9" href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> I cannot set aside the fact +that mediation presupposes two things, the acquisition of +self-knowledge and the acquisition of will. <em>It is a technique +of control.</em> By trying to practice it some self-knowledge +is picked up incidentally, and a call is made upon the +will to awake. But mediation is primarily concerned with +character, not with knowledge, not with development of +will. A prior method is absolutely required if mediation +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[275]</span>is to yield any great results and that prior method is necessarily +supreme. To be blunt and homely, the New Humanist +has overlooked the horse which is to pull his cart: +he has overlooked the working out of a trustworthy technique +for learning the exact truth about the individual +creature who is to be disciplined by mediation to a norm +of humanity. For me then, and very possibly for many +other liberated men and women, the New Humanism is +too “advanced.” We stand at the beginning: we are +pupils who have first to learn how to attain a better working +knowledge of what some day we may hope to control. +We are willing to admit the mediatory method as one +of a group of allied methods, but we cannot isolate it as +the leading and one essential means to self-development.</p> + +<p>I have some hopes of making this point clear. It is not +a destructive criticism. I would not myself take the +trouble to write a whole book simply to overthrow something. +It is, however, a criticism of incompleteness and +misplaced emphasis, and by no means implies the discarding +of the law of measure. The aim is to advance +the contribution of American Humanism nearer to a <em>total</em> +solution of the modern problem. And I consider that an +advance is made by pointing out the absence in Humanism +of a technique for self-knowledge and will-development +that at all compares in precision and plausibility +with its technique for control.</p> + +<p>Suppose a man is today converted to the philosophy of +Rousseau. He finds his conversion need not be simply +a literary one, so to speak, for associated with the philosophy +there is now a psychological technique alleged to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[276]</span>corroborate the rightness of Rousseauistic ideas. The +new convert can study psycho-analysis, undergo treatment +in an analyst’s office, emerge with a rather elaborate +method for interpreting his own psychology. He has, +along with his philosophy, an apparent means for verifying +it, for living up to it. He is possessed of a technique +based on Rousseauistic principles which, it is claimed, +provides a continuous key to self-knowledge. It is hardly +necessary for me to add, however, that psycho-analysis is +a discredited technique for self-knowledge, and that there +exists today no advertised, easily accessible, tested, thoroughly +accredited way to carry out the Pythagorean command, +Know Thyself. The illustration serves all the same +to point the fact that the New Humanism is unequipped +with a psychological technique for taking the first step. +It has to rely on introspection which notoriously is unreliable. +But it relies too on traditional knowledge, and +this is to a certain degree a corrective of introspective +vagaries. For ancient wisdom—in India, in Egypt, in +Pythagorean Greece, in Palestine—may have been founded +on realities and methods to which we have lost the clue. +There are good grounds for surmising that Pythagoras, +for example, was not a fanciful guesser at all. The New +Humanists being in contact with the best knowledge of +the past may therefore be right in their ideas, but we and +they need to remember that the complete technique for +validating these ideas in terms of concrete individual experience +is still to find or perhaps rediscover.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[277]</span></p> + +<p>Another difficulty I have always had with the New +Humanism arises over the Will. In theory I concede the +Humanists are right, but it is a question whether in their +practice the Will becomes an accomplished fact. What is +the sure test? We make effort—that we know; and +furthermore effort occurs in the prescribed field of working +on oneself. Will is psychological effort distinguished +from physical effort. But is all psychological effort to be +called Willing? Remember that psychological effort appears +always to be powerfully motived: by self-interest, +fear, rivalry, desire for fame, intellectual curiosity, a hundred +varying motives. When the motive dies, the effort +invariably dies with it. Now just as I cannot grant that +a man with an empty belly who labors like a Trojan for +his next meal is an example of Will, so I cannot accept the +man laboring great hours to satisfy intellectual hunger +as an instance of Willing. Will must occur in the absence +of incentive. Will would persist in working in a +given direction <em>after</em> the motive had ceased. Will is that +which overcomes indifference.</p> + +<p>I hold that we cannot be too skeptical on this topic. +Nowhere else does illusion insinuate itself so much as in +regard to responsible choice and Will. How can we +make sure that we are not subtly deluded?</p> + +<p>“Freedom is the will to be responsible for oneself”—this +is one of Nietzsche’s profoundest sayings. Certainly we +all have a desire to be responsible for ourselves. But it is +equally certain that the desire is comparatively weak, +buried most of the time, intermittent in appearance, +quickly exhausted when it does appear. Clearly, we do +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[278]</span>not get very far on our occasional desires for self-responsibility. +Our tendencies flow the other way: we delight +in irresponsibility. All the odds experience demonstrates +are against any continuous effort at being responsible for +oneself. My conclusion is that Will is just that continuous +effort carried on against the whole weight of the organism, +an effort that is finally unaided by wishes and unprovoked +by external inducements—nothing less than an +<em>independent</em> activity of the psyche.</p> + +<p>The practical conclusion I must draw from this is that +men are Will-less. The conclusion that I am not warranted +in drawing in the face of extraordinary past testimony +is that men are devoid of the potentiality of Will. +“Thou art not free yet, thou seekest freedom still”—this +is Nietzsche again, and freedom must be sought in human +potentialities and won by the actualization of potentials, +since as we actually are, we are not free. The +New Humanist has confused a potentiality, the Will, with +an actuality that can be described as <em>conditioned</em> psychological +effort directed toward self-control. I attach much +weight to that criticism.</p> + +<p>It seems to me of great consequence to realize this:—it +is “failure of will” we know, not acts of Will. The testimony +of a therapeutist strikingly confirms what I have +just said. Therapeutists often find that their patients want +to get well, know what the trouble is and what they +must do, and yet fail to exert the required will. In an +unusually candid paper read some years ago before the +Medical Section of the British Psychological Society Dr. +James Carruthers Young, formerly a surgeon, now a practitioner +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[279]</span>of the Jung school of analytic psychology, made +the following remarks which succeed in putting the problem +of the Will on a practical basis. “Every form of +occultism aims at self-development through deepening, or +expanding the limits of, self-consciousness, or however +you like to express it. Now it is obvious that this laudable +object cannot be attained merely by embracing the ideas +of a system, however rapturously. The all-important factor +of the exercise and proper application of will must +enter, if anything is to be achieved. If it does not, then +the ideas, however beautiful and intriguing, in the end +become merely ‘dope’ ... it seemed to me that ‘failure +of will’ was <em>the bête noire</em> in neuroses. Roughly, the neurotic +symptom from the Freudian standpoint is the disguised +expression of an affect which is too painful to be +<em>faced</em>. From the Adlerian standpoint, it is an ‘incomparable +arrangement,’ by which the patient avoids <em>facing</em> +a certain aspect of what we call reality. In the broadest +sense in both systems, it is a question of failure to <em>face up</em> +to reality. Now it by no means follows that, when it is +made clear to the patient by analysis what aspects of reality +he has been unconsciously avoiding, that he will at +once be able to cope with it. This is particularly evident +in the case of obsessionists, as I have proved to my own +satisfaction again and again. A washing obsessionist, for +example, cheerfully subscribes to the theory of origin of +her washing, but when called upon to make the slightest +new adaptation, always falls back on her washing. In +effect she says: ‘I cannot marry, or do this, that or the +other, because, you see, I wash.’ To put the matter in a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[280]</span>nutshell, analytical knowledge is not necessarily effective +knowledge.</p> + +<p>“Now I think it will be generally agreed that what I +have called ‘failure of will’ is often bound up with an +endocrine deficiency or dyscrasia, sometimes acquired and +sometimes apparently so fundamental as to justify the +term ‘primary plasmic insufficiency,’ which corresponds to +Adler’s organic inferiority. Unfortunately, the science of +endocrinology was not, and is not yet, so far advanced as +to enable us to remedy such dyscrasias with anything approaching +to certainty or precision, even granted that our +powers of diagnosis may be able to divine the true nature +of such complicated conditions. My problem, then, was +how to overcome the difficulty of ‘failure of will’ by means +of a definite psychological method.”</p> + +<p>It seems to me no less important for the Humanists +to realize that <em>there</em> is the problem for the ordinary person +as well as for the pathological, namely, how to reinforce +a sound theory of the Will with a sound method for +overcoming ‘failure of will.’ To vanquish the obstinate +difficulties, the theory must become practical.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The dilemma turns out to be like this:—pursue your +natural desires and you find they do not lead to that signal +of well-being we call happiness but reveal instead the need +for a re-education of desire, so that you may train yourself +to desire the kind of happiness that is possible for men; +choose Humanism as a system of re-education of desire +and you must wonder if it has the strength to perform +the task. One alternative deceives you by its bright appeal, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[281]</span>the other seems inferior in its call to the imagination, to +the hidden latent powers of psychology. But inferior to +what? Inferior to religion at its purest. Religion says +it is a superhuman task to overcome one’s naturalism. If +it is a superhuman undertaking, then one may ask, what +chance is there of effecting a real mastery by anything less +than a science for divinizing man?</p> + +<p>For here is man, the prey of innumerable illusions, +stunted in psychological growth, spiritually inert, bewildered +by himself, discordant in behavior, perhaps incurably +paralyzed in will—will anything but the most +tremendous means metamorphose him into a falconer of +reality, an experiencer of bliss and ecstasy, a doer of deeds +on the fighting edge of the cosmos? The New Humanism +is a morality not untouched by dignified emotion. +But I say that on the whole it is morals not sufficiently +touched with poetry, not endowed with the tremendous +shaking appeal to our whole being that religion has been +known to exercise. Religion is more than Arnold defined +it, it includes morality touched by emotion, but it +includes art, science, philosophy as well. It is insatiable +for perfection and so must quicken and recharge every +side of our consciousness. It is, I think, properly impatient +of all half-measures everywhere, impatient of such a +reason as Babbitt gives, the fear of self-delusion, for choosing +a more moderate attack on life’s riddles, impatient of +short aims—<em>because it realizes the almost hopeless condition +of man</em>. For psychological freedom everything must +be risked. That is what we learn when we study the +religious spirit. By its fiery light, we liberated ones perceive +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[282]</span>that we are in truth only pseudo-liberated. We have +put the weight on being free from something, but the real +question is, free for what? I have been writing, quite +knowingly, about the dilemma of the <em>pseudo-liberated</em>. +If we realize our pseudo-state, then as we approach the +New Humanism, our question becomes a searching one, +will it truly liberate? My suggestion has been to hold this +system up against the blazing background of the religious +spirit, and against that background it seems certain to me +two major defects appear in Humanism: the lack of a +science of self-study and a not sufficiently stringent conception +of the Will.</p> + +<p>Might we not say that twentieth century Humanism is +a system of right conjectures? “Do you not perceive,” +the prophetess Diotima says to Socrates in <cite>The Banquet</cite>, +“that there is something between ignorance and wisdom?” +“What is that?” asked Socrates. “To have a right opinion +or conjecture. Observe, that this kind of opinion, for +which no reason can be rendered, cannot be called +knowledge; for how can that be called knowledge, which +is without evidence or reason? Nor ignorance, on the +other hand; for how can that be called ignorance which +arrives at the persuasion of that which it really is? A +right opinion is something between understanding and +ignorance.” Humanism to me has the value, and it is a +high value, of wise conjecture about the way to lead a +human life. For undoubtedly it is better, in default of +wisdom, to be guided by true opinions than by demonstrably +false ones. But we must not lose sight of the conjectural +basis of Humanism. We must throw ourselves +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[283]</span>into the task of validating to the point of indisputability +the right opinions involved. The New Humanist draws +upon the Sages: his business is to become a Sage, to achieve +in his own person the sensation of absolute knowledge, +to go beyond the intermediate stage to wisdom.</p> + +<p>Can he do so without hitching his wagon to a more +remote star? I think not. There is the effort to be superman, +not to be solely identified of course with the peculiar +effort of one man, Nietzsche, and this effort while failing +to reach its end does leave as a by-product a growth in +human-ness. But the less ambitious effort to be human—does +it hit the mark? Superhumanism gives birth to the +human, or humanism with the small h. It is claimed +that Humanism gives birth to the human, too, but must +we not qualify that somewhat in our final chapter?</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[284]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="XII"> + XII + <br> + THE END OF THE TETHER + </h2> +</div> + +<blockquote> + <i>“It is time for man to mark out his goal, to plant + the germ of his highest hopes. His soil is still rich + enough for that purpose.”</i>—<span class="smcap">Friedrich Nietzsche.</span> +</blockquote> + + +<p>It is not only in politics that the advice to use large scale +maps is excellent. If one refers daily “crises” to a big map, +one is far less likely to fly into political hysteria over +trifling remote events: one thinks politically in terms commensurate +with the planet, not of one corner of it distant +only a few inches on the small map from the other side +of the world. But one requires also, and even more, a +large scale map of life as a preventive of petty thoughts. +We need to refer such questions as closed the preceding +chapter to a map of life that will enlarge our mental +activities in trying to reply to them. The main trouble +with the cult of contemporaneity is that it has lost the +sense of greatness and spaciousness. Its map is a crude +child’s drawing—a large out-of-proportion area across +which is scrawled, “Here Be the Moderns,” and outlying +this are indeterminate shadowy regions peopled by lesser +beings, dwarfs, and cavemen—our forerunners. History +to the one-sided enthusiasts for the contemporaneous is +really Aunt Polly’s Story of Mankind which I sometimes +think Donald Ogden Stewart has immortalized: it is a +series of steps forward from ancient Egypt to the great +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[285]</span>and glorious present, a progress culminating in Darwin, +Freud, Joyce and Proust, Ford and Lenin, Stravinsky and +Bertrand Russell, and a host of other recently elected candidates +for the New Olympus. It will not do to use so +disproportioned and confined a map in measuring the +work of Babbitt and More who have plotted out their +intellectual campaign on a larger scale than we are accustomed +to. We must relate their work to very extensive +perspectives: we must find some scale for the +greatness of the ages. How else can we measure the truly +human and the superhuman? For the superhuman covers +all that man may be the bridge to: the truly human covers +the bridge, the whole transition itself. The American +Humanist makes the bridge the end. But can he build it +unless the struggle is to reach the other shore, to cross +the discontinuity, the gulf between Man and the Absolute? +The superhumanist treats the bridge as means for prospective +travel. An unsuccessful traveller, he yet may go +further in completing the bridge than the Humanist who +thinks only of bridge-building.</p> + +<p>The map of life I shall avail myself of was drawn by a +genius at the age of twenty-eight, a genius of whom the +leading New Humanists do not share my high opinion. +But that discrepancy I choose to think arises from the +defect of orthodoxy. To Paul Elmer More, for example, +<cite>The Birth of Tragedy</cite> by Friedrich Nietzsche merely +makes a distinction in the classical world that “takes the +form of a harsh and unreal contrast between the Dionysian +principle of unrest and growth and creation for which he +expresses the highest regard and the Apollonian principle +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[286]</span>of rest and renunciation and contraction for which, as +Platonism, he has the deepest aversion.” But for me <cite>The +Birth of Tragedy</cite> is a profound and terrific document by +which we may get the most vivid impression of the deterioration +of modern life, classify the New Humanists as +socratic or theoretical men, and learn what we must try +to do with the new situation in American culture created +by the advent of Humanism. The book had extravagances +of judgment and a fatuous hopefulness for German music +which Nietzsche corrected in <cite>Ecce Homo</cite> but the central +thesis he left unimpaired—and the modern world has left +it uncomprehended.</p> + +<p>The interpretation of Greek tragedy has been a field +of bitter contention between romanticists and classicists. +The romanticists see chiefly in Greek tragedy the violence, +the melodrama, great horrors, headlong actions, titanic +personages. The classicists see ethical imports, a background +of order, superb control, religious values. From +the standpoint of a student of Nietzsche both parties are +right—and wrong; for Nietzsche divined a third interpretation, +a paradox of understanding, whereby the romantic +and the classicist views are held in solution, but +the solution itself is a new conception of tragedy. Nietzsche +saw in Greek tragedy the ever-renewed conflict and +reconciliation of two principles, the Dionysian to which +alone the romanticist is susceptible and the Apollonian +which alone wins the classicist. The tragic view perceives +the necessity for the mutual agonistic struggle: it is based +on the realization that Apollo and Dionysus must war +with each other, must continue forever in that strange +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[287]</span>paradox, a synthesis founded on struggle. There must +ever exist, if life is to ascend, a turbulent frenzied uprush +of Formability, and there must coexist a constant reduction +to Form.</p> + +<p>On the one side of the world-stage you have Dionysus +with his wildest music, his ecstasy and poetry, his drunkenness, +his sheer states of Being. On the other side there +is Apollo, the soothsayer, the god of plastic energies, the +cool and comely, olympian in his dream-states. The +Formable and the Formed!</p> + +<p>There is a suffering attached to actualization, because +to actualize a potentiality is to exclude other potentialities. +It is to concentrate and limit. Dionysus suffers because +he must pass into limitations: his great surges of impulse +must eventuate in the actual phenomenal world. He is +the foe of limitation, and his enemy, Apollo, must impose +limits on him. As the Dionysian spirit is strong, it breaks +limits and requires new and wider ones; as the Apollonian +spirit is strong, it accepts the challenge and seeks ever +better forms and containers.</p> + +<p>The tragic view of Nietzsche and according to him of +the Greeks too is that this struggle must be consciously +intensified. The will to surpass must grapple with the +will to maintenance. Liberty battles law; love, duty; +change, custom; intuition, science; and inspiration battles +art. But the antithesis goes deeper than these human +aspects reveal, ultimately reaching energy and matter, +Dionysian pure energy and Apollonian pure form. In +the æsthetics of Attic tragedy Nietzsche held that the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[288]</span>chorus was Dionysian and the play an Apollonian projection +of the dithyrambic being-states of the chorus.</p> + +<p>But an observer of contemporary civilization in America +and Europe who has had awaked in him a glimmering +sense of the ancient Apollonians and Dionysians would be +forced to think that the two types of men are almost extinct. +How many <cite>Moby Dicks</cite> have there been in the last +fifty years of American literature? Where are the post-Nietzscheans? +On account of the pseudo-Nietzscheans +whose grossness and insincerity were so glaring, no one +now dares to call himself a Nietzschean, for we have +learned from the pseudo-Nietzscheans how transparent +the pose is, how fraudulent one is to play Nietzsche without +the Dionysian flame in very truth burning within. +So there are no successors to Nietzsche, no line of initiates +of Dionysus. We can appreciate Nietzsche, but we cannot +be Nietzscheans. Our heritage comes from Greece, +but not from the Greece of the Mysteries: we are the heirs +of Greek rationalism, of Greek decadence. Euripides and +Socrates have turned out to be the fathers of the future.</p> + +<p>For speaking by and large, our art is devoid of the +Æschylean mystical conception and models itself on +Euripides who reasoned with the Gods, not for them. +His principle, says Nietzsche, was this: “To be beautiful +everything must be intelligible.” Accordingly he used the +familiar for his substance, he brought the spectator on +the stage, he introduced realism. “The mirror in which +formerly only grand and bold traits were represented now +showed the painful fidelity that conscientiously reproduces +even the abortive outlines of nature.... The spectator +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[289]</span>now actually saw and heard his double on the Euripidean +stage, and rejoiced that he could talk so well.” The +Euripidean drama, like our plays and novels today, concerned +common matters of which every one feels he is a +competent judge. The audience therefore never comes to +be initiated but to apply without the slightest scruples its +criteria of ordinary experience. This was the betrayal +of the Dionysian cause which Euripides recanted at the +end of his life, but the European world has not recanted, +today less than ever when a minuscule Euripides like +Bernard Shaw is loaded with the highest honors.</p> + +<p>As for Socrates, although I am utterly unable to decide +on the justice of Nietzsche’s portrait of the historical +figure—it is the most devastating drawing of Socrates ever +penned, but is it true?—that makes no matter here. +Nietzsche knew to the core the long line of men descending +from Socrates, and if he imagined a mythical father +to fit the men he knew, we can accept the myth for its +truth of portraiture of a type, if not of the individual +it is named after. The Nietzschean contention is that +to Socrates was denied the pleasure of gazing into the +Dionysian abysses. He was therefore no more than Euripides +<i lang="fr">en rapport</i> with the Apollonian dream-world projected +from Dionysian ecstasy. He was a disintegrating +force, withdrawing the Apollonian tendency into the hard +shell of logical schematism as Euripides shrunk the +Dionysian state into naturalistic emotion. He liked art +to cling to the trunk of dialectics, to be overgrown with +philosophic thought. He had the optimism of the dialectician +which Nietzsche felt is fatal to the tragic spirit. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[290]</span>And he was most of the time anti-musical. From him +stream the theoretical men, the men of science in the broad +sense, the men who get their enjoyment and satisfaction +out of the cast-off veil rather than out of gazing with rapture +at whatever still remains veiled after the unveiling. +They care more for the search after truth than for truth +itself. This Lessing, called by Nietzsche the most honest +of theoretical men, boldly admitted. Finally, they are +insensitive to mystery and attribute to knowledge and perception +the power of a universal panacea, seeing evil itself +in error.</p> + +<p><cite>The Birth of Tragedy</cite> gives us a sense of grand scale by +which to try contemporary literature and culture. It +makes it ridiculous to advance claims for Eugene O’Neill +as a Dionysian—to mention an example of the sort of +correction that can immediately be made. It gives us in +Euripides the norm of our literary art, the decadent Greek +justification of the ways of man to God. It replaces +Benda’s modest analysis of the plastic and musical sensibilities, +remarked upon in an earlier chapter, with a +majestic view of the highest contrasted principles in man. +Among other things, it throws a piercing light on the +twentieth century Humanists, revealing them to be theoretical +or socratic men as remote from the inspired by +Apollo as their romantic enemies are remote from the inspiration +of Dionysus. We modern men do but whisper +inaudibly of the old gods.</p> + +<p>In support of my classifying the New Humanists as +socratic men, I will bring forward two or three points. +In the Dionysian-Apollonian opposition, things were reconciled, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[291]</span>brought to a dynamic equilibrium, through +struggle. The principle of individuation was in strife +with primordial unity. The most fertile sense of possibilities +clashed with the strictest sense of limitations. But +the Humanist does not speak of struggle as the means of +achieving stability: he endorses mediation, the tempering +of liberty by law, the selection of a middle course. This +I hold is the procedure of the logical man with an undeveloped +sense of tragedy. Again, the New Humanist +tries to rest on what may be essentially a transitional +phase of man. He concedes that the highest level of +life is religious, but he does not aim to reach it. The +humanistic level attracts him most, but may this attraction +not be translated into a love of the search for truth rather +than for truth itself—the mark of the socratic type? In +the last place, it is significant that several American +Humanists confess to a distrust of the art of music, <em>the</em> +Dionysian art. And unlike Socrates no inner voice reminds +them to their consternation, “Humanist, practice +music!” There does not even linger in them as in their +monumental predecessor an uneasy sense that in their +philosophizing on the literary tradition they may through +lack of understanding the Dionysian be sinning against +a deity.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>But we have to work with the elements of the contemporary +situation. Just as it is idle to sit dreaming of +great wealth when one has to work for bread and butter, +so it is idle to sit thinking about becoming Dionysian or +Apollonian when the immediate situation requires buckling +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[292]</span>down to the production of humble intellectual and +æsthetic fare. I have totally failed if by shrinking our +valuations against a grand scale of values, I seemed to +suggest taking the road to despair of the modern situation. +On the contrary, we want to know where we are at +and how best we may spend our energies on the sound +assumption that there is a zest and a satisfaction in making +the most of what we have. Since I have used Nietzsche +to expand our ideas about the state of modern culture, I +shall also give his word of encouragement to us: “A constant +struggle against uniformly unfavorable conditions +is what makes a type stable and hard.” The joy of overcoming +is ours to be had for work in present-day terms on +the present-day condition of things: it will be our rustic +fare which notoriously tastes better to those who sweat +for it than to those who live in cushioned ease.</p> + +<p>We may use conceptions of Dionysians and Apollonians +for measurement, but the current actualities thus measured +are socratic men (Humanists) and rebellious men +(Baconians, Rousseauists—of many sub-varieties, the Baconians +having a touch of socratism, the Rousseauists in +their art converging toward the Euripidean standard). +The demigods and satyrs do not frequent the modern +stage, but there is still played across it a pseudo-Apollonian—pseudo-Dionysian +warfare. <em>Our disaster is that the participants +have lost the sense of being necessary to each +other</em>; this vitiates all our spiritual economy.</p> + +<p>The New Humanists are seeking to vitalize in American +life the principle of concentration and stability: the +New Rebels have as their task the vitalizing of the principle +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[293]</span>of expansion and flux. The changed situation brought +about by the advent of American Humanism is that we +now have a strong well armed party of conservation to +balance and offset the reigning party of change. A true +spiritual economy would require that each party should +intensify its efforts, should surpass its previous productions, +should grow toward greater goals by vigorous contention +with the other. The rôle of the Humanist is to +<em>contain</em> the age: the rôle of the rebel is to break out of the +containing forms and to demand new forms for the new +enlarged more powerful spirit. But actually what do we +find? The total absence of spiritual economists of the +sort just mentioned. No unconscious sense of a need +for passing from inchoate restlessness into major forms +and no need for breaking out from these forms in turn. +Or perhaps I should say scarcely any, for on a few occasions +in the last decade there have been laments that in +American life there was no <em>resistance</em> offered to a school +of ideas, nothing on which a new school could sharpen its +mind. Criticism with us is mostly an affair of acclamation +and denunciation, a false state of excitement in which +ideas stagnate.</p> + +<p>In the light of the economy sketched above, our recent +literary history reads somewhat as follows. The revolt +of the generation now in power, successfully carried out +between 1915 and 1920, was against a <em>decadent conservatism</em> +well named “genteelness.” It savagely broke the +forms of genteel prudish culture, but the forms were +weak: it may be said that genteelness was no enemy at all +for strong writers. Well, the now ruling Middle Generation +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[294]</span>rested on its easy laurels: there followed ten years of +waxing fat and flabby for the insurgents, to be ended by +the surprising challenge of a virile conservatism that had +quietly grown up in the meantime. <em>How</em> they met the +challenge is a matter of recent history—the jejune thought +and rhinestone wit of Carl Van Doren in the debate with +Irving Babbitt at Carnegie Hall, the ignorant identification +of Humanism with the decadent stupid conservatism +of fifteen years ago by Theodore Dreiser, the putting to +work again by H. L. Mencken of his overworked phrases +like “vague and witless blather” left no doubt whatever +of the middle-aged rebels’ lack of stuff to meet the new +issues. Most assuredly the containing forms of the New +Humanism can cope with this decadent revolt movement, +and have plenty of vacant space too. It is to the younger +generation of literary thinkers that one must turn in hope +of a real resistance, and its performance likewise was +keenly disappointing—the repetition of stale attitudes for +the most part. There was a lack of curiosity, <em>a pronounced +desire to reject and not the hunger of youth +to assimilate and pass beyond if possible</em>, that was distinctly +discouraging to observe. The New Humanists +may well call out for good enemies: if I judge them correctly, +they have no taste for hollow victories.</p> + +<p>To illustrate in the particular field of literature what I +have been contending: the younger generation thought +that one of the important issues involved a defence of contemporary +American writing. But the real issue is how +may things work together for the greater glory of +American literature. On that all should unite, and toward +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[295]</span>it each should make contribution. The rest is a +question of judgment of contemporary production. There +is a Hollywood anecdote that seems to make clear the +differences in judgment involved on this point. A new +motion picture had been given its first showing, and the +magnate had asked his three advisers for opinions. +“Stupendous,” said the first. “Colossal! Unexcelled! +Unsurpassable!” the second replied. The third said in a +low tone: “Excuse me, sir, but to me that picture was +merely great.” The New Humanist appears to be that +third man judging current American letters: to him our +writing is “merely great.”</p> + +<p>The signs of the day should tell the younger literary +generation to beware of forming a new league of mediocrity +to succeed the old.</p> + +<p>The better path now for the spirit of revolt would seem +to be <em>through</em> Humanism. Revolt to be effective must be +more than a mere spilling over weak barriers. You must +have worthy forms and trammels to give force to your +new endeavor. You must be contained before you can +overflow with any meaning of importance to the future. +To state it another way, the thorough assimilation of +Humanism is the next step.</p> + +<p>That there are gaps in Humanism I have pointed out. +They are ways of egress to those who cannot be content +within the Humanist doctrine and discipline. But as they +imply in turn the assuming of a more severe discipline +and form, I do not fancy an enthusiastic greeting for them +from an opposition with the naïve faith in man of the +present rejecters of the New Humanism. There is no way +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[296]</span>out for the addicts of milk for babes. “The feeble ask for +liberty; the strong ask for rule.” Nietzsche, thou +shouldst be living at this hour, when “independence, free +development, and <i lang="fr">laisser-aller</i> are claimed the most +vehemently precisely by those for whom no restraint +<em>would be too severe</em>.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>In somewhat mythological language I have been saying +that there are certain possibilities of great development +not inherent in the present state of American culture. To +come within reach of other possibilities we must change +to a state that holds them. Matthew Arnold noted that +“in the Greece of Pindar and Sophocles, in the England of +Shakespeare, the poet lived in a current of ideas in the +highest degree animating and nourishing to the creative +power; society was, in the fullest measure, permeated by +fresh thought, intelligent and alive. And this state of +things,” he added, “is the true basis for the creative +power’s exercise, in this it finds its data, its materials, +truly ready for its hand; all the books and reading in the +world are only valuable as they are helps to this.” This +happy state Arnold had to judge was among the possibilities +excluded by the condition of English culture in +the nineteenth century, and there seems no ground, alas, +to believe that it exists among the possibilities now open +to American culture. But Arnold did consider it possible +to initiate an intermediate phase in English life.</p> + +<p>“Even,” he said, “when this (state of things described +above) does not actually exist, books and reading may enable +a man to construct a kind of semblance of it in his own +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[297]</span>mind, a world of knowledge and intelligence in which +he may live and work. This is by no means an equivalent +to the artist for the nationally diffused life and thought +of the epochs of Sophocles or Shakespeare, but besides +that it may be a means of preparation for such epochs, it +does really constitute, if many share in it, a quickening +and sustaining atmosphere of great value.” Arnold proceeded +then to cite an example of this second and possible +state. “Such an atmosphere the many-sided learning and +the long and widely-combined critical effort of Germany +formed for Goethe, when he lived and worked. There +was no national glow of life and thought there as in the +Athens of Pericles or the England of Elizabeth. That +was the poet’s weakness. But there was a sort of equivalent +for it in the complete culture and unfettered thinking +of a large body of Germans. That was his strength.”</p> + +<p>It is plain that America has yet to reach that state, and +that furthermore a great deal of work by all minds will +be necessary to bring her there. No one would argue +otherwise. But the sense of urgency one would expect is +not noticeably present. We do not seem to realize that +we must accelerate our pace of work. There is, so to +speak, plenty of slack on the tether of our culture, and we +are not running it out with any admirable rapidity. Else, +so I think, we would be welcoming the contribution of +the Humanists with eagerness and not with resentment.</p> + +<p>As it is, we lag and flounder. We are, to take a common +instance from literature, prone to make late importations +of European tendencies which have already been +fully worked out abroad. Consider the vogue of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[298]</span>Dreiserian novel: it is written in America several decades +after the Zolaesque novel has been thoroughly studied in +France. We import the method of naturalistic fiction—late; +we do not import simultaneously the criticism of +the method, but go blundering on as if nothing had been +previously learned from the experiment. The New Humanists +ask us not to be so tardy in a detail like this +but to learn more quickly of the past, that is, to <em>consciously</em> +create the field of our present out of the best +available past. In my opinion, the Humanists can more +quickly release us from a multitude of opinions now holding +us back than any other American school of thought +current. They should enable us to get to the end of our +tether that much sooner.</p> + +<p>It was clear some time before this point that I do not +regard American Humanism as a final resting place. So +far as I champion the New Humanists, it is because they +can enormously further reaching the end of our present +phase. Let us put that end very high. Let us say it is a +state of culture as high as that ascribed by Arnold to the +Germany of Goethe, or perhaps better, say it is the equal +of eighteenth century culture in England, the century +Arnold underestimated. Observe I do not say identical +with, but equal to, in quality. This achievement for me +represents the end of the rope. Because then we shall +have thoroughly digested all the ideas of the Western +mind from the Greeks to Bertrand Russell: we will be +familiar with them all, be able brilliantly to reshuffle them +and deal out clever new hands for ourselves. But the +game will be always the same—always a preliminary +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[299]</span>game. For the reason that there is not now current in +the Western world <em>a single new seminiferous principle +for human culture</em>. There may be one accessible, but if +so, it is certainly not current. We know or shall know +all the existing ideas and there is not a comprehensive +regenerating idea in the ensemble. In our present phase +we are limited to old ideas and our understanding or misunderstanding +of old ideas. We cannot expect a revolutionary +change—how can we?—when we have nothing +to change ourselves with.</p> + +<p>Furthermore, we are not at all ripe for that inward +transformation, the only right way to an outward social +transformation, the business for us and for our age—according +to Arnold. The sense of need for it has not +even been born. We have to reach by intense activity +the end of the situation in which we are cast before a new +situation can begin with its fresh group of possibilities. +We have to need something before we can acquire it. +The birth of a new need—that alone will profoundly alter +the present drift and provide an unexpected future tense +for things.</p> + +<p>I return to the metaphor of the end of the tether. Most +people know now and then the state that it expresses—a +compound of well-being, distress and the greatest alertness. +Well-being, because one has utilized every resource, +put forth every ounce of effort, thought of every possible +scheme, done the very best one could to cope with the +circumstances. Distress, because the best one has is insufficient +for the emergency, because one is at one’s wits’ end, +because one needs more power within or help from without +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[300]</span>to forestall disaster. The greatest alertness, because +in one’s desperation one overlooks nothing, one is willing +to try anything, one racks oneself for a new plan. In +that state one is most realistic, most clear about means and +ends, most determined, most dissatisfied, straining at the +leash of one’s limitations.</p> + +<p>The condition of being at the end of the tether, torn +between despair and the highest hopes, preternaturally +awake to any means promising deliverance, marks for me +the highest point a Western culture can now attain. It +is both the one truly fertile state and a pure cry for deliverance +from iron restrictions. It goes without saying +that American culture is distant from it. Who will say +we experience now the need born of such a state for whole +orders of ideas that appear in a time of Renascence, when +we have not exhausted our present orders of thought? +We are from all appearances so comfortable and optimistic—shall +I add slothful?—that even American Humanism +is too strong a potion at the present time. We +have the illusion of being free while we are in fact +tethered at a comparatively short range. Our progress +must consist in finding out the length of our tether, and +for that Humanism is one of the most available means. +The Great Revolt will be the revolt against the limits of +Humanism as new vistas of action, thought and being become +discernible beyond the end of the tether. But just +now our energies appear to be all engaged in the lesser +warfare between Naturalism and Humanism.</p> + +<p>It is nevertheless certain that what has here been named +the dilemma of the liberated will emerge more and more +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[301]</span>strikingly as time goes on, for the pressures of the situation +itself will steadily extrude it. Their own experience +and reflection will compel a larger and larger vanguard of +Americans to see at the one extremity the pitfalls of +romantic heterodoxy and at the other the major defects +of classical orthodoxy. Painting psychological serfdom +in alluring colors will not seduce their judgment, nor +will they be convinced that the full secret for making freemen +has been entrusted to the New Humanists. Of the +organized religions they will ask, not solace which might +be given, but a hammer to smite man’s shackles, and the +hammer will not be forthcoming.</p> + +<p>But disagreeable as such a dilemma is, it is a great +awakener. It is a challenge to find a means of circumvention. +To circumvent it, however, we shall assuredly +have to reach the end of our present resources. It can not +be resolved on any terms less exacting.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[302]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="ACKNOWLEDGMENTS"> + ACKNOWLEDGMENTS + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>I had thought to append a selected bibliography of books +bearing on American Humanism, but there seems little +point in duplicating here—with certain subtractions and +a few additions—the bibliography at the back of <cite>Humanism +and America</cite>. That now historic symposium—and I +am greatly indebted to the publishers, Farrar and Rinehart, +Inc., for their permission to make excerpts from it—will +probably aid the reader hitherto unread in the +New Humanism to become acquainted in the quickest +fashion with the leading personalities among the New +Humanists and the extensive ramification of their views. +Such a reader should, however, if he is the man to hoe +a long row, press on to the complete works of Irving Babbitt +and Paul Elmer More. Houghton Mifflin and Co. +have kindly allowed me to quote from several of Babbitt’s +books and from the later volumes of More’s <cite>Shelburne +Essays</cite>, as well as from <cite>Mont-St.-Michel and Chartres</cite> +by Henry Adams. I wish to acknowledge with +thanks other favors of the like kind received from the +following:</p> + +<p>For permission to quote extracts from <cite>The Thing</cite>, <cite>Orthodoxy</cite>, +and <cite>Heretics</cite> by G. K. Chesterton—Dodd, Mead +and Co.; for permission to use a passage from Julien +Benda’s <cite>The Treason of the Intellectuals</cite>—William Morrow +and Co.; for permission to make brief quotations +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[303]</span>from A. N. Whitehead’s <cite>Science and the Modern World</cite>, +A. S. Eddington’s <cite>Science and the Unseen World</cite>, Walter +Lippmann’s <cite>A Preface to Morals</cite>, John Dewey’s <cite>Democracy +and Education</cite>, and from the works of Matthew +Arnold and Walter Pater—the Macmillan Co.; for permission +to use passages from Stuart P. Sherman’s <cite>On +Contemporary Literature</cite>—Henry Holt and Co.; for permission +to extract matter from Stuart P. Sherman’s <cite>Shaping +Men and Women</cite>, T. S. Eliot’s <cite>For Lancelot Andrews</cite>, +H. G. Wells’s <cite>Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole +Island</cite>, and Hilaire Belloc’s preface to Ruth Pitter’s <cite>First +and Second Poems</cite>—Doubleday, Doran and Co.; for permission +to quote relevant passages from Margaret Naumburg’s +<cite>The Child and the World</cite> and Herbert Read’s +<cite>The Sense of Glory</cite>—Harcourt, Brace and Co. Similar +courtesies were extended to me by Charles Scribner +and Sons in the case of excerpts from Jacques Maritain’s +<cite>Three Reformers</cite>, the Yale University Press in the case of +Robert Shafer’s <cite>Progress and Science</cite>, the Princeton University +Press in the case of L. T. More’s <cite>The Dogma of +Evolution</cite>, the University of North Carolina Press in the +case of Norman Foerster’s <cite>The American Scholar</cite>, Horace +Liveright, Inc., in the case of Charles Fort’s <cite>The Book of +the Damned</cite>, and, lastly, the Viking Press in the case of +Sorel’s <cite>Reflections on Violence</cite>. To all I am grateful.</p> + +<p>I may add that the American reader who enjoys following +the progress of a literary controversy as the +French appear to enjoy their polemical outbreaks will +find the pages of the <cite>Bookman</cite> from month to month +alive with the debating points of the New Humanists. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[304]</span>For further information on the Douglas Proposals spoken +of rather hopefully in the chapter on Humanism and +economics, see <cite>Unemployment or War</cite> by Maurice Colbourne, +published by Coward-McCann, Inc.</p> + +<p>Finally, I will name a very few books that have been +of great service to me in forming my own point of view +as distinct from the humanistic viewpoint. They are, +in metaphysics, <cite>The Three Conventions</cite> by Denis Saurat, +published by the Dial Press; in psychology, <cite>Beyond Behaviorism</cite> +by Robert Courtney, brought out by Grant +Publications, Inc.; in literature, <cite>Readers and Writers</cite> and +<cite>The Art of Reading</cite>, both by A. R. Orage, the former +published by Knopf, and the latter by Farrar and Rinehart, +Inc.</p> + +<p class="right"> + G. M. +</p> + +</main> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="FOOTNOTES"> + FOOTNOTES + </h2> +</div> + + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_1_1" href="#FNanchor_1_1" class="label">[1]</a> Born in 1865 at Dayton, Ohio, graduated from Harvard in 1889, member +of the Harvard faculty since 1894.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_2_2" href="#FNanchor_2_2" class="label">[2]</a> For a full appreciation of Norton, the reader should see the essay on +Norton in the eleventh series of the <cite>Shelburne Essays</cite> by P. E. More.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_3_3" href="#FNanchor_3_3" class="label">[3]</a> In view of what Benda goes on to say, read Humanism here for humanitarianism.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_4_4" href="#FNanchor_4_4" class="label">[4]</a> That is, Humanism.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_5_5" href="#FNanchor_5_5" class="label">[5]</a> In a very interesting paper written shortly before his death G. Stanley +Hall recounted his experiences among phrenologists, anthropologists, “character +analysts,” psycho-analysts and intelligence testers for real light on the +nature of “I.” The results were so meagre that at the end of his life he +could still say: “I want to strip before analyzers who can diagnose not only +my abilities, but my character, disposition, merits, and defects, and tell me, +even at the eleventh hour, <em>who and what I really am</em>.” (My italics.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_6_6" href="#FNanchor_6_6" class="label">[6]</a> More, I believe, has more intellectualized his conception of the inner +check than has Babbitt. I myself prefer the hints of Babbitt on this topic +to the explanations of More which seem to me to harden the conception too +much. The two men appear also to differ on the will, Babbitt regarding it +in the Oriental way as anterior and superior to the reason and the flux of +personality, whereas More seems to follow Christian tradition which usually +makes the will a mode of activity belonging to the flux. I follow Babbitt +in the discussion of will later in my chapter. The reader, however, is advised +to consult the <cite>Definitions of Dualism</cite> which More appended to the +Eighth Series of the <cite>Shelburne Essays</cite> for full light on these differences and +especially for the most ambitious attempt to put the doctrine and discipline +of Humanism into a precise philosophic-psychological framework.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_7_7" href="#FNanchor_7_7" class="label">[7]</a> It is fair to say that removed from its context this statement sounds +harsher than it really is.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_8_8" href="#FNanchor_8_8" class="label">[8]</a> In the special supplement of the <cite>New Republic</cite> for July 16, 1930, which +was devoted to homage to Herbert Croly, the psychological conclusions +Croly reached were touched obliquely, lightly or haltingly by some of the +contributors, totally ignored by the rest.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_9_9" href="#FNanchor_9_9" class="label">[9]</a> It may interest some readers to know that this is why consistently +throughout my writing career I have refused to classify myself as a New +Humanist despite my manifestly strong sympathy for the school.</p></div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79374 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/79374-h/images/cover.jpg b/79374-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2033d88 --- /dev/null +++ b/79374-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c72794 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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