,,walter ,,lippmann ,a ,,preface ,,to ,,morals ,,the ,,macmillan ,,company ,,new ,,york ,,mcmxxix ,copyright1 #aibi4 ,by ,,the ,,macmillan ,,company4 ,set up and electrotyped4 ,published ,may1 #aibi4 ,first printing ,all rights reserved1 including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form4 ,printed in the ,united ,states of ,america by ,j4 ,j4 ,,little ,,and ,,ives ,,company1 ,,new ,,york ,,contents ,,part ,i ,,the ,,dissolution ,,of ,,the ,,ancestral ,,order ,,chapter ,,page ,i4 ,the ,problem of ,unbelief #c #a4 ,whirl is ,king #c #b4 ,false ,prophecies #e #c4 ,sorties and ,retreats #aj #d4 ,deep ,dissolution #ad ,,ii4 ,god in the ,modern ,world #ba #a4 ,imago ,dei #ba #b4 ,an ,indefinite ,god #bc #c4 ,god in ,more ,senses ,than ,one #be #d4 ,the ,protest of the ,fundamentalists #cj #e4 ,in ,man's ,image #ce ,,iii4 ,the ,loss of ,certainty #cg #a4 ,ways of ,reading the ,bible #cg #b4 ,modernism3 ,immortality as an ,example #dj #c4 ,what ,modernism ,leaves ,out #dh ,,iv4 ,the ,acids of ,modernity #ea #a4 ,the ,kingly ,pattern #ea #b4 ,landmarks #ef #c4 ,barren ,ground #fa #d4 ,sophisticated ,violence #fc #e4 ,rulers #fe ,v4 ,the ,breakdown of ,authority #fh #a4 ,god's ,government #fh #b4 ,the ,doctrine of the ,keys #ga #c4 ,the ,logic of ,toleration #gd #d4 ,a ,working ,compromise #gf #e4 ,the ,effect of ,patriotism #gh #f4 ,the ,dissolution of a ,sovereignty #hb ,,vi4 ,lost ,provinces #hd #a4 ,business #hd #b4 ,the ,family #hh #c4 ,art #id a4 ,the ,disappearance of ,religious ,painting #id b4 ,the ,loss of a ,heritage #if c4 ,the ,artist ,formerly #ih d4 ,the ,artist as a ,prophet #aja e4 ,art for ,art's ,sake #ajd f4 ,the ,burden of ,originality #ajf ,,vii4 ,the ,drama of ,destiny #aab #a4 ,the ,soul in the ,modern ,world #aab #b4 ,the ,great ,scenario #aae #c4 ,earmarks of ,truth #aah #d4 ,on ,reconciling ,religion and ,science #aba #e4 ,gospels of ,science #abe #f4 ,the ,deeper ,conflict #aca #g4 ,theocracy and ,humanism #acc ,,part ,,ii ,,the ,,foundations ,,of ,,humanism ,introduction #adc ,,viii4 ,golden ,memories #ade ,,ix4 ,the ,insight of ,humanism #aeb #a4 ,the ,two ,approaches to ,life #aeb #b4 ,freedom and ,restraint #aec #c4 ,the ,ascetic ,principle #aeh #d4 ,oscillation between ,two ,principles #afd #e4 ,the ,golden ,mean and ,its ,difficulties #aff #f4 ,the ,matrix of ,humanism #aga #g4 ,the ,career of the ,soul #age #h4 ,the ,passage into ,maturity #ahc #i4 ,the ,function of ,high ,religion #aia ,x4 ,high ,religion and the ,modern ,world #aid #a4 ,popular ,religion and the ,great ,teachers #aid #b4 ,the ,aristocratic ,principle #aig #c4 ,the ,peculiarity of the ,modern ,situation #bjj #d4 ,the ,stone ,which the ,builders ,rejected #bjc ,,part ,,iii ,,the ,,genius ,,of ,,modernity ,,xi4 ,the ,cure of ,souls #bac #a4 ,the ,problem of ,evil #bac #b4 ,superstition and ,self-,consciousness #bag #c4 ,virtue #bba #d4 ,from ,clue to ,practice #bbf ,,xii4 ,the ,business of the ,great ,society #bcb #a4 ,the ,invention of ,invention #bcb #b4 ,the ,creative ,principle in ,modernity #bce #c4 ,naive ,capitalism #bda #d4 ,the ,credo of ,old-,style ,business #bdd #e4 ,old-,style ,reform and ,revolution #bdg #f4 ,the ,diffusion of the ,acquisitive ,instinct #beb #g4 ,ideals #beg ,,xiii4 ,government in the ,great ,society #bfj #a4 ,loyalty #bfj #b4 ,the ,evolution of ,loyalty #bfc #c4 ,pluralism #bfg #d4 ,live and ,let ,live #bfi #e4 ,government in the ,people #bgb #f4 ,politicians and ,statesmen #bgi ,,xiv4 ,love in the ,great ,society #bhd #a4 ,the ,external ,control of ,sexual ,conduct #bhd #b4 ,birth ,control #bhh #c4 ,the ,logic of ,birth ,control #bic #d4 ,the ,use of ,convention #bii #e4 ,the ,new ,hedonism #cja #f4 ,marriage and ,affinity #cjg #g4 ,the ,schooling of ,desire #caa ,,xv4 ,the ,moralist in an ,unbelieving ,world #cad #a4 ,the ,declaration of ,ideals #cad #b4 ,the ,choice of a ,way #cbj #c4 ,the ,religion of the ,spirit #cbf ,appendix3 ,acknowledgments and ,notes #cca ,index #cci ,,part ,i p#jja ,,the ,,dissolution ,,of ,,the ,,ancestral ,,order 8,whirl is ,king1 having driven out ,zeus40 ,aristophanes4 ,a ,,preface ,,to ,,morals p#jjc ,,chapter ,i ,,the ,,problem ,,of ,,unbelief #a4 ,whirl is ,king ,among those who no longer believe in the religion of their fathers1 some are proudly defiant1 and many are indifferent4 ,but there are also a few1 perhaps an increasing number1 who feel that there is a vacancy in their lives4 ,this inquiry deals with their problem4 ,it is not intended to disturb the serenity of those who are unshaken in the faith they hold1 and it is not concerned with those who are still exhilarated by their escape from some stale orthodoxy4 ,it is concerned with those who are perplexed by the consequences of their own irreligion4 ,it deals with the problem of unbelief1 not as believers are accustomed to deal with it1 in the spirit of men confidently calling the lost sheep back into the fold1 but as unbelievers themselves must1 ,i think1 face the problem if they face it candidly and without presumption4 ,when such men put their feelings into words they are likely to say that1 having lost their faith1 they have lost the certainty that their lives are significant1 and that it matters what they do with their lives4 ,if they deal with young people they are likely to say that they know of no compelling reason which certifies the moral code they adhere to1 and that1 therefore1 their own preferences1 when tested by the ruthless curiosity of their children1 seem to have no p#jjd sure foundation of any kind4 ,they are likely to point to the world about them1 and to ask whether the modern man possesses any criterion by which he can measure the value of his own desires1 whether there is any standard he really believes in which permits him to put a term upon that pursuit of money1 of power1 and of excitement which has created so much of the turmoil and the squalor and the explosiveness of modern civilization4 ,these are1 perhaps1 merely the rationalizations of the modern man's discontent4 ,at the heart of it there are likely to be moments of blank misgiving in which he finds that the civilization of which he is a part leaves a dusty taste in his mouth4 ,he may be very busy with many things1 but he discovers one day that he is no longer sure they are worth doing4 ,he has been much preoccupied2 but he is no longer sure he knows why4 ,he has become involved in an elaborate routine of pleasures2 and they do not seem to amuse him very much4 ,he finds it hard to believe that doing any one thing is better than doing any other thing1 or1 in fact1 that it is better than doing nothing at all4 ,it occurs to him that it is a great deal of trouble to live1 and that even in the best of lives the thrills are few and far between4 ,he begins more or less consciously to seek satisfactions1 because he is no longer satisfied1 and all the while he realizes that the pursuit of happiness was always a most unhappy quest4 ,in the later stages of his woe he not only loses his appetite1 but becomes excessively miserable trying to recover it4 ,and then1 surveying the flux of events and the giddiness of his own soul1 he comes to feel that ,aristophanes must have been thinking of him when he declared that 8,whirl is ,king1 having driven out ,zeus40 p#jje #b4 ,false ,prophecies ,the modern age has been rich both in prophecies that men would at last inherit the kingdoms of this world1 and in complaints at the kind of world they inherited4 ,thus ,petrarch1 who was an early victim of modernity1 came to feel that he would 8have preferred to be born in any other period0 than his own2 he tells us that he sought an escape by imagining that he lived in some other age4 ,the ,nineteenth ,century1 which begat us1 was forever blowing the trumpets of freedom and providing asylums in which its most sensitive children could take refuge4 ,wordsworth fled from mankind to rejoice in nature4 ,chateaubriand fled from man to rejoice in savages4 ,byron fled to an imaginary ,greece1 and ,william ,morris to the ,middle ,ages4 ,a few tried an imaginary ,india4 ,a few an equally imaginary ,china4 ,many fled to ,bohemia1 to ,utopia1 to the ,golden ,west1 and to the ,latin ,quarter1 and some1 like ,james ,thomson1 to hell where they were gratified to gain ,that positive eternity of pain ,instead of this insufferable inane4 ,they had all been disappointed by the failure of a great prophecy4 ,the theme of this prophecy had been that man is a beautiful soul who in the course of history had somehow become enslaved by ,scepters1 tiaras1 swords1 and chains1 and tomes ,of reasoned wrong1 glozed on by ignorance1 and they believed with ,shelley that when 8the loathsome mask has fallen10 man1 exempt from awe1 worship1 degree1 the king over himself1 would then be 8free from guilt or p#jjf pain40 ,this was the orthodox liberalism to which men turned when they had lost the religion of their fathers4 ,but the promises of liberalism have not been fulfilled4 ,we are living in the midst of that vast dissolution of ancient habits which the emancipators believed would restore our birthright of happiness4 ,we know now that they did not see very clearly beyond the evils against which they were rebelling4 ,it is evident to us that their prophecies were pleasant fantasies which concealed the greater difficulties that confront men1 when having won the freedom to do what they wish--that wish1 as ,byron said3 which ages have not yet subdued ,in man--to have no master save his mood1 they are full of contrary moods and do not know what they wish to do4 ,we have come to see that ,huxley was right when he said that 8a man's worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes40 ,the evidences of these greater difficulties lie all about us3 in the brave and brilliant atheists who have defied the ,methodist ,god1 and have become very nervous2 in the women who have emancipated themselves from the tyranny of fathers1 husbands1 and homes1 and with the intermittent but expensive help of a psychoanalyst1 are now enduring liberty as interior decorators2 in the young men and women who are world-weary at twenty-two2 in the multitudes who drug themselves with pleasure2 in the crowds enfranchised by the blood of heroes who cannot be persuaded to take an interest in their destiny2 in the millions1 at last free to think without fear of priest or policeman1 who have made the moving pictures and the popular newspapers what they are4 p#jjg ,these are the prisoners who have been released4 ,they ought to be very happy4 ,they ought to be serene and composed4 ,they are free to make their own lives4 ,there are no conventions1 no tabus1 no gods1 priests1 princes1 fathers1 or revelations which they must accept4 ,yet the result is not so good as they thought it would be4 ,the prison door is wide open4 ,they stagger out into trackless space under a blinding sun4 ,they find it nerve-wracking4 8,my sensibility10 said ,flaubert1 8is sharper than a razor's edge2 the creaking of a door1 the face of a bourgeois1 an absurd statement set my heart to throbbing and completely upset me40 ,they must find their own courage for battle and their own consolation in defeat4 ,they complain1 like ,renan after he had broken with the ,church1 that the enchanted circle which embraced the whole of life is broken1 and that they are left with a feeling of emptiness 8like that which follows an attack of fever or an unhappy love affair40 ,where is my home8 cried ,nietzsche3 8,for it do ,i ask and seek1 and have sought1 but have not found it4 ,o eternal everywhere1 ,o eternal nowhere1 ,o eternal in vain40 ,to more placid temperaments the pangs of freedom are no doubt less acute4 ,it is possible for multitudes in time of peace and security to exist agreeably--somewhat incoherently1 perhaps1 but without convulsions--to dream a little and not unpleasantly1 to have only now and then a nightmare1 and only occasionally a rude awakening4 ,it is possible to drift along not too discontentedly1 somewhat nervously1 somewhat anxiously1 somewhat confusedly1 hoping for the best1 and believing in nothing very much4 ,it is possible to be a passable citizen4 ,but it is not possible to be wholly at peace4 ,for serenity of soul requires p#jjh some better organization of life than a man can attain by pursuing his casual ambitions1 satisfying his hungers1 and for the rest accepting destiny as an idiot's tale in which one dumb sensation succeeds another to no known end4 ,and it is not possible for him to be wholly alive4 ,for that depends upon his sense of being completely engaged with the world1 with all his passions and all the faculties in rich harmonies with one other1 and in deep rhythm with the nature of things4 ,these are the gifts of a vital religion which can bring the whole of a man into adjustment with the whole of his relevant experience4 ,our forefathers had such a religion4 ,they quarrelled a good deal about the details1 but they had no doubt that there was an order in the universe which justified their lives because they were a part of it4 ,the acids of modernity have dissolved that order for many of us1 and there are some in consequence who think that the needs which religion fulfilled have also been dissolved4 ,but however self-sufficient the eugenic and perfectly educated man of the distant future may be1 our present experience is that the needs remain4 ,in failing to meet them1 it is plain that we have succeeded only in substituting trivial illusions for majestic faiths4 ,for while the modern emancipated man may wonder how anyone ever believed that in this universe of stars and atoms and multitudinous life1 there is a drama in progress of which the principal event was enacted in ,palestine nineteen hundred years ago1 it is not really a stranger fable than many which he so readily accepts4 ,he does not believe the words of the ,gospel but he believes the best advertised notion4 ,the older fable may be incredible to-day1 but when it p#jji was credible it bound together the whole of experience upon a stately and dignified theme4 ,the modern man has ceased to believe in it but he has not ceased to be credulous1 and the need to believe haunts him4 ,it is no wonder that his impulse is to turn back from his freedom1 and to find someone who says he knows the truth and can tell him what to do1 to find the shrine of some new god1 of any cult however newfangled1 where he can kneel and be comforted1 put on manacles to keep his hands from trembling1 ensconce himself in some citadel where it is safe and warm4 ,for the modern man who has ceased to believe1 without ceasing to be credulous1 hangs1 as it were1 between heaven and earth1 and is at rest nowhere4 ,there is no theory of the meaning and value of events which he is compelled to accept1 but he is none the less compelled to accept the events4 ,there is no moral authority to which he must turn now1 but there is coercion in opinions1 fashions and fads4 ,there is for him no inevitable purpose in the universe1 but there are elaborate necessities1 physical1 political1 economic4 ,he does not feel himself to be an actor in a great and dramatic destiny1 but he is subject to the massive powers of our civilization1 forced to adopt their pace1 bound to their routine1 entangled in their conflicts4 ,he can believe what he chooses about this civilization4 ,he cannot1 however1 escape the compulsion of modern events4 ,they compel his body and his senses as ruthlessly as ever did king or priest4 ,they do not compel his mind4 ,they have all the force of natural events1 but not their majesty1 all the tyrannical power of ancient institutions1 but none of their moral certainty4 ,events are there1 and they overpower p#jaj him4 ,but they do not convince him that they have that dignity which inheres in that which is necessary and in the nature of things4 ,in the old order the compulsions were often painful1 but there was sense in the pain that was inflicted by the will of an all-knowing ,god4 ,in the new order the compulsions are painful and1 as it were1 accidental1 unnecessary1 wanton1 and full of mockery4 ,the modern man does not make his peace with them4 ,for in effect he has replaced natural piety with a grudging endurance of a series of unsanctified compulsions4 ,when he believed that the unfolding of events was a manifestation of the will of ,god1 he could say3 ,thy will be done4444 ,in ,his will is our peace4 ,but when he believes that events are determined by the votes of a majority1 the orders of his bosses1 the opinions of his neighbors1 the laws of supply and demand1 and the decisions of quite selfish men1 he yields because he has to yield4 ,he is conquered but unconvinced4 #c4 ,sorties and ,retreats ,it might seem as if1 in all this1 men were merely going through once again what they have often gone through before4 ,this is not the first age in which the orthodox religion has been in conflict with the science of the day4 ,plato was born into such an age4 ,for two centuries the philosophers of ,greece had been critical of ,homer and of the popular gods1 and when ,socrates faced his accusers1 his answer to the accusation of heresy must certainly have sounded unresponsive4 8,i do believe10 he said1 8that there are gods1 and in a higher sense than that in which p#jaa my accusers believe in them40 ,that is all very well4 ,but to believe in a 8higher sense0 is also to believe in a different sense4 ,there is nothing new in the fact that men have ceased to believe in the religion of their fathers4 ,in the history of ,catholic ,christianity1 there has always existed a tradition1 extending from the authors of the ,fourth ,gospel through ,origen to the neo-,platonists of modern times1 which rejects the popular idea of ,god as a power acting upon events1 and of immortality as everlasting life1 and translates the popular theology into a symbolic statement of a purely spiritual experience4 ,in every civilized age there have been educated and discerning men who could not accept literally and simply the traditions of the ancient faith4 ,we are told that during the ,periclean ,age 8among educated men everything was in dispute3 political sanctions1 literary values1 moral standards1 religious convictions1 even the possibility of reaching any truth about anything40 ,when the educated classes of the ,roman world accepted ,christianity they had ceased to believe in the pagan gods1 and were much too critical to accept the primitive ,hebraic theories of the creation1 the redemption1 and the ,messianic ,kingdom which were so central in the popular religion4 ,they had to do what ,socrates had done2 they had to take the popular theology in a 8higher0 and therefore in a different sense before they could use it4 ,indeed1 it is so unusual to find an age of active-minded men in which the most highly educated are genuinely orthodox in the popular sense1 that the ,thirteenth ,century1 the age of ,dante and ,st4 ,thomas ,aquinas1 when this phenomenon is reputed to have occurred1 is regarded p#jab as a unique and wonderful period in the history of the world4 ,it is not at all unlikely that there never was such an age in the history of civilized men4 ,and yet1 the position of modern men who have broken with the religion of their fathers is in certain profound ways different from that of other men in other ages4 ,this is the first age1 ,i think1 in the history of mankind when the circumstances of life have conspired with the intellectual habits of the time to render any fixed and authoritative belief incredible to large masses of men4 ,the dissolution of the old modes of thought has gone so far1 and is so cumulative in its effect1 that the modern man is not able to sink back after a period of prophesying into a new but stable orthodoxy4 ,the irreligion of the modern world is radical to a degree for which there is1 ,i think1 no counterpart4 ,for always in the past it has been possible for new conventions to crystallize1 and for men to find rest and surcease of effort in accepting them4 ,we often assume1 therefore1 that a period of dissolution will necessarily be followed by one of conformity1 that the heterodoxy of one age will become the orthodoxy of the next1 and that when this orthodoxy decays a new period of prophesying will begin4 ,thus we say that by the time of ,hosea and ,isaiah the religion of the ,jews had become a system of rules for transacting business with ,jehovah4 ,the ,prophets then revivified it by thundering against the conventional belief that religion was mere burnt offering and sacrifice4 ,a few centuries passed and the religion based on the ,law and the ,prophets had in its turn become a set of mechanical rites manipulated by the ,scribes and the ,pharisees4 ,as against this system ,jesus and ,paul p#jac preached a religion of grace1 and against the 8letter0 of the synagogues the 8spirit0 of ,christ4 ,but the inner light which can perceive the spirit is rare1 and so shortly after the death of ,paul1 the teaching gradually ceased to appeal to direct inspiration in the minds of the believers and became a body of dogma1 a 8sacred deposit0 of the faith 8once for all delivered to the saints40 ,in the succeeding ages there appeared again many prophets who thought they had within them the revealing spirit4 ,though some of the prophets were burnt1 much of the prophesying was absorbed into the canon4 ,in ,luther this sense of revelation appeared once more in a most confident form4 ,he rejected the authority not only of the ,pope and the clergy1 but even of the ,bible itself1 except where in his opinion the ,bible confirmed his faith4 ,but in the establishment of a ,lutheran ,church the old difficulty reappeared3 the inner light which had burned so fiercely in ,luther did not burn brightly or steadily in all ,lutherans1 and so the right of private judgment1 even in ,luther's restricted use of the term1 led to all kinds of heresies and abominations4 ,very soon there came to be an authoritative teaching backed by the power of the police4 ,and in ,calvinism the revolt of the ,reformation became stabilized to the last degree4 8,everything10 said ,calvin1 8pertaining to the perfect rule of a good life the ,lord has so comprehended in ,his law that there remains nothing for man to add to that summary40 ,men fully as intelligent as the most emancipated among us once believed that1 and ,i have no doubt that the successors of ,mr4 ,darrow and ,mr4 ,mencken would come to believe something very much like it if conditions permitted them to obey the instinct to retreat from the chaos p#jad of modernity into order and certainty4 ,it is all very well to talk about being the captain of your soul4 ,it is hard1 and only a few heroes1 saints1 and geniuses have been the captains of their souls for any extended period of their lives4 ,most men1 after a little freedom1 have preferred authority with the consoling assurances and the economy of effort which it brings4 8,if1 outside of ,christ1 you wish by your own thoughts to know your relation to ,god1 you will break your neck4 ,thunder strikes him who examines40 ,thus spoke ,martin ,luther1 and there is every reason to suppose that the ,german people thought he was talking the plainest commonsense4 8,he who is gifted with the heavenly knowledge of faith10 said the ,council of ,trent1 8is free from an inquisitive curiosity40 ,these words are rasping to our modern ears1 but there is no occasion to doubt that the men who uttered them had made a shrewd appraisal of average human nature4 ,the record of experience is one of sorties and retreats4 ,the search for moral guidance which shall not depend upon external authority has invariably ended in the acknowledgment of some new authority4 #d4 ,deep ,dissolution ,this same tendency manifests itself in the midst of our modern uneasiness4 ,we have had a profusion of new cults1 of revivals1 and of essays in reconstruction4 ,but there is reason for thinking that a new crystallization of an enduring and popular religion is unlikely in the modern world4 ,for analogy drawn from the experience of the past is misleading4 ,when ,luther1 for example1 rebelled against the authority p#jae of the ,church1 he did not suppose the way of life for the ordinary man would be radically altered4 ,luther supposed that men would continue to behave much as they had learned to behave under the ,catholic discipline4 ,the individual for whom he claimed the right of private judgment was one whose prejudgments had been well fixed in a ,catholic society4 ,the authority of the ,pope was to be destroyed and certain evils abolished1 but there was to remain that feeling for objective moral certainties which ,catholicism had nurtured4 ,when the ,anabaptists carried the practice of his theory beyond this point1 ,luther denounced them violently4 ,for what he believed in was ,protestantism for good ,catholics4 ,the reformers of the ,eighteenth ,century made a similar assumption4 ,they really believed in democracy for men who had an aristocratic training4 ,jefferson1 for example1 had an instinctive fear of the urban rabble1 that most democratic part of the population4 ,the society of free men which he dreamed about was composed of those who had the discipline1 the standards of honor and the taste1 without the privileges or the corruptions1 that are to be found in a society of well-bred country gentlemen4 ,the more recent rebels frequently betray a somewhat similar inability to imagine the consequences of their own victories4 ,for the smashing of idols is in itself such a preoccupation that it is almost impossible for the iconoclast to look clearly into a future when there will not be many idols left to smash4 ,yet that future is beginning to be our present1 and it might be said that men are conscious of what modernity means insofar as they realize that they are confronted not so much with the p#jaf necessity of promoting rebellion as of dealing with the consequences of it4 ,the ,nineteenth ,century1 roughly speaking the time between ,voltaire and ,mencken1 was an age of terrific indictments and of feeble solutions4 ,the ,marxian indictment of capitalism is a case in point4 ,the ,nietzschean transvaluation of values is another2 it is magnificent1 but who can say1 after he has shot his arrow of longing to the other shore1 whether he will find ,caesar ,borgia1 ,henry ,ford1 or ,isadora ,duncan8 ,who knows1 having read ,mr4 ,mencken and ,mr4 ,sinclair ,lewis1 what kind of world will be left when all the boobs and yokels have crawled back in their holes and have died of shame8 ,the rebel1 while he is making his attack1 is not likely to feel the need to answer such questions4 ,for he moves in an unreal environment1 one might almost say a parasitic environment4 ,he goes forth to destroy ,caesar1 ,mammon1 ,george ,f4 ,babbitt1 and ,mrs4 ,grundy4 ,as he wrestles with these demons1 he leans upon them4 ,by inversion they offer him much the same kind of support which the conformer enjoys4 ,they provide him with an objective which enables him to know exactly what he thinks he wants to do4 ,his energies are focussed by his indignation4 ,he does not suffer from emptiness1 doubt1 and division of soul4 ,these are the maladies which come later when the struggle is over4 ,while the rebel is in conflict with the established nuisances he has an aim in life which absorbs all his passions4 ,he has his own sense of righteousness and his own feeling of communion with a grand purpose4 ,for in attacking idols there is a kind of piety1 in overthrowing tyrants a kind of loyalty1 in ridiculing stupidities p#jag an imitation of wisdom4 ,in the heat of battle the rebel is exalted by a whole-hearted tension which is easily mistaken for a taste of the freedom that is to come4 ,he is under the spell of an illusion4 ,for what comes after the struggle is not the exaltation of freedom but a letting down of the tension that belongs solely to the struggle itself4 ,the happiness of the rebel is as transient as the iconoclasm which produced it4 ,when he has slain the dragon and rescued the beautiful maiden1 there is usually nothing left for him to do but write his memoirs and dream of a time when the world was young4 ,what most distinguishes the generation who have approached maturity since the debacle of idealism at the end of the ,war is not their rebellion against the religion and the moral code of their parents1 but their disillusionment with their own rebellion4 ,it is common for young men and women to rebel1 but that they should rebel sadly and without faith in their own rebellion1 that they should distrust the new freedom no less than the old certainties--that is something of a novelty4 ,as ,mr4 ,canby once said1 at the age of seven they saw through their parents and characterized them in a phrase4 ,at fourteen they saw through education and dodged it4 ,at eighteen they saw through morality and stepped over it4 ,at twenty they lost respect for their home towns1 and at twenty-one they discovered that our social system is ridiculous4 ,at twenty-three the autobiography ends because the author has run through society to date and does not know what to do next4 ,for1 as ,mr4 ,canby might have added1 the idea of reforming that society makes no appeal to them4 ,they have seen through all that4 ,they cannot adopt any of p#jah the synthetic religions of the ,nineteenth ,century4 ,they have seen through all of them4 ,they have seen through the religion of nature to which the early romantics turned for consolation4 ,they have heard too much about the brutality of natural selection to feel1 as ,wordsworth did1 that pleasant landscapes are divine4 ,they have seen through the religion of beauty because1 for one thing1 they are too much oppressed by the ugliness of ,main ,street4 ,they cannot take refuge in an ivory tower because the modern apartment house1 with a radio loudspeaker on the floor above and on the floor below and just across the courtyard1 will not permit it4 ,they cannot1 like ,mazzini1 make a religion of patriotism1 because they have just been demobilized4 ,they cannot make a religion of science like the post-,darwinians because they do not understand modern science4 ,they never learned enough mathematics and physics4 ,they do not like ,bernard ,shaw's religion of creative evolution because they have read enough to know that ,mr4 ,shaw's biology is literary and evangelical4 ,as for the religion of progress1 that is pre-empted by ,george ,f4 ,babbitt and the ,rotary ,club1 and the religion of humanity is utterly unacceptable to those who have to ride in the subways during the rush hour4 ,yet the current attempts to modernize religious creeds are inspired by the hope that somehow it will be possible to construct a form of belief which will fit into this vacuum4 ,it is evident that life soon becomes distracted and tiresome if it is not illuminated by communion with what ,william ,james called 8a wider self through which saving experiences come40 ,the eager search for new religions1 p#jai the hasty adherence to cults1 and the urgent appeals for a reconciliation between religion and science are confessions that to the modern man his activity seems to have no place in any rational order4 ,his life seems mere restlessness and compulsion1 rather than conduct lighted by luminous beliefs4 ,he is possessed by a great deal of excitement amidst which1 as ,mr4 ,santayana once remarked1 he redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim4 ,for in the modern age1 at first imperceptibly with the rise of the towns1 and then catastrophically since the mechanical revolution1 there have gone into dissolution not only the current orthodoxy1 but the social order and the ways of living which supported it4 ,thus rebellion and emancipation have come to mean something far more drastic than they have ever meant before4 ,the earlier rebels summoned men from one allegiance to another1 but the feeling for certainty in religion and for decorum in society persisted4 ,in the modern world it is this very feeling of certainty itself which is dissolving4 ,it is dissolving not merely for an educated minority but for everyone who comes within the orbit of modernity4 ,yet there remain the wants which orthodoxy of some sort satisfies4 ,the natural man1 when he is released from restraints1 and has no substitute for them1 is at sixes and sevens with himself and the world4 ,for in the free play of his uninhibited instincts he does not find any natural substitute for those accumulated convictions which1 however badly they did it1 nevertheless organized his soul1 economized his effort1 consoled him1 and gave him dignity in his own eyes because he was part of some greater whole4 ,the acids of modernity are so powerful that they do not p#jbj tolerate a crystallization of ideas which will serve as a new orthodoxy into which men can retreat4 ,and so the modern world is haunted by a realization1 which it becomes constantly less easy to ignore1 that it is impossible to reconstruct an enduring orthodoxy1 and impossible to live well without the satisfactions which an orthodoxy would provide4 ,,chapter ,,ii p#jba ,,god ,,in ,,the ,,modern ,,world #a4 ,imago ,dei ,by the dissolution of their ancestral ways men have been deprived of their sense of certainty as to why they were born1 why they must work1 whom they must love1 what they must honor1 where they may turn in sorrow and defeat4 ,they have left to them the ancient codes and the modern criticism of these codes1 guesses1 intuitions1 inconclusive experiments1 possibilities1 probabilities1 hypotheses4 ,below the level of reason1 they may have unconscious prejudice1 they may speak with a loud cocksureness1 they may act with fanaticism4 ,but there is gone that ineffable certainty which once made ,god and ,his ,plan seem as real as the lamppost4 ,i do not mean that modern men have ceased to believe in ,god4 ,i do mean that they no longer believe in him simply and literally4 ,i mean that they have defined and refined their ideas of him until they can no longer honestly say that he exists1 as they would say that their neighbor exists4 ,search the writings of liberal churchmen1 and when you come to the crucial passages which are intended to express their belief in ,god1 you will find1 ,i think1 that at just this point their uncertainty is most evident4 ,the ,reverend ,harry ,emerson ,fosdick has written an essay1 called 8,how ,shall ,we ,think of ,god801 which illustrates p#jbb the difficulty4 ,he begins by saying that 8believing in ,god without considering how one shall picture him is deplorably unsatisfactory40 ,yet the old ways of picturing him are no longer credible4 ,we cannot think of him as seated upon a throne1 while around him are angels playing on harps and singing hymns4 8,god as a king on high--our fathers1 living under monarchy1 rejoiced in that image and found it meaningful4 ,his throne1 his crown1 his scepter1 his seraphic retinue1 his laws1 rewards1 and punishments--how dominant that picture was and how persistent is the continuance of it in our hymns and prayers6 ,it was always partly poetry1 but it had a prose background3 there really had been at first a celestial land above the clouds where ,god reigned and where his throne was in the heavens40 ,having said that this picture is antiquated1 ,dr4 ,fosdick goes on to state that 8the religious man must have imaginations of ,god1 if ,god is to be real to him40 ,he must 8picture his dealing with the ,divine in terms of personal relationship40 ,but how8 8,the place where man vitally finds ,god 444 is within his own experience of goodness1 truth1 and beauty1 and the truest images of ,god are therefore to be found in man's spiritual life40 ,i should be the last to deny that a man may1 if he chooses1 think of ,god as the source of all that seems to him worthy in human experience4 ,but certainly this is not the ,god of the ancient faith4 ,this is not ,god the ,father1 the ,lawgiver1 the ,judge4 ,this is a highly sophisticated idea of ,god1 employed by a modern man who would like to say1 but cannot say with certainty1 that there exists a personal ,god to whom men must accommodate themselves4 p#jbc #b4 ,an ,indefinite ,god ,it may be that clear and unambiguous statements are not now possible in our intellectual climate4 ,but at least we should not forget that the religions which have dominated human history have been founded on what the faithful felt were undeniable facts4 ,these facts were mysterious only in the sense that they were uncommon1 like an eclipse of the sun1 but not in the sense that they were beyond human experience4 ,no doubt there are passages in the ,scriptures written by highly cultivated men in which the ,divine nature is called mysterious and unknowable4 ,but these passages are not the rock upon which the popular churches are founded4 ,no one1 ,i think1 has truly observed the religious life of simple people without understanding how plain1 how literal1 how natural they take their supernatural personages to be4 ,the popular gods are not indefinite and unknowable4 ,they have a definite history and their favorite haunts1 and they have often been seen4 ,they walk on earth1 they might appear to anyone1 they are angered1 they are pleased1 they weep and they rejoice1 they eat and they may fall in love4 ,the modern man uses the word #8supernatural' to describe something that seems to him not quite so credible as the things he calls natural4 ,this is not the supernaturalism of the devout4 ,they do not distinguish two planes of reality and two orders of certainty4 ,for them ,jesus ,christ was born of a ,virgin and was raised from the dead as literally as ,napoleon was ,emperor of the ,french and returned from ,elba4 ,this is the kind of certainty one no longer finds in the p#jbd utterances of modern men4 ,i might cite1 for example1 a typically modern assertion about the existence of ,god1 made by ,mr4 ,w4 ,c4 ,brownell1 a critic who could not be reproached with insensitiveness to the value of traditional beliefs4 ,he wrote that 8the influence of the ,holy ,spirit1 exquisitely called the ,comforter1 is a matter of actual experience1 as solid a reality as that of electro-magnetism40 ,i do not suppose that ,mr4 ,brownell meant to admit the least possible doubt4 ,but he was a modern man1 and surreptitiously doubt invaded his certainty4 ,for electro-magnetism is not an absolutely solid reality to a layman's mind4 ,it has a questionable reality4 ,i suspect that is why ,mr4 ,brownell chose this metaphor2 it would have seemed a little too blunt to his modern intelligence to say that his faith was founded not on electro-magnetism1 but as men once believed1 on a rock4 ,the attempts to reconstruct religious creeds are beset by the modern man's inability to convince himself that the constitution of the universe includes facts which in our skeptical jargon we call supernatural4 ,yet as ,william ,james once said1 8religion1 in her fullest exercise of function1 is not a mere illumination of facts already elsewhere given1 not a mere passion1 like love1 which views things in a rosier light4444 ,it is something more1 namely1 a postulator of new facts as well40 ,james himself was strongly disposed toward what he so candidly described as 8overbeliefs02 he had sympathy with the beliefs of others which was as large and charitable as any man's can be4 ,there was no trace of the intellectual snob in ,william ,james2 he was in the other camp from those thin argumentative rationalists who find so much satisfaction p#jbe in disproving what other men hold sacred4 ,james loved cranks and naifs and sought them out for the wisdom they might have4 ,but withal he was a modern man who lived toward the climax of the revolutionary period4 ,he had the ,will to ,believe1 he argued eloquently for the ,right to ,believe4 ,but he did not wholly believe4 ,the utmost that he could honestly believe was something which he confessed would 8appear a sorry underbelief0 to some of his readers4 8,who knows10 he said1 8whether the faithfulness of individuals here below to their own poor overbeliefs may not actually help ,god in turn to be more effectively faithful to his own greater tasks80 ,who knows8 ,and on that question mark he paused and could say no more4 #c4 ,god in ,more ,senses ,than ,one ,but even if there was some uncertainty as to the existence of the ,god whom ,william ,james described1 he was at least the kind of ,god with whom human beings could commune4 ,if they could jump the initial doubt they found themselves in an exciting world where they might live for a ,god who1 like themselves1 had work to do4 ,james wrote the passage ,i have quoted in #aijb4 ,a quarter of a century later ,alfred ,north ,whitehead came to ,harvard to deliver the ,lowell ,lectures4 ,he undertook to define ,god for modern men4 ,mr4 ,whitehead1 like ,william ,james1 is a compassionate man and on the side of the angels4 ,but his is a wholly modernized mind in full command of all the conceptual instruments of scientific logic4 ,by contrast with the austerity of ,mr4 ,whitehead's thinking1 ,james1 with his p#jbf chivalrous offer of fealty to ,god1 seems like one of the last of the great romantics4 ,there is a ,god in ,mr4 ,whitehead's philosophy1 and a very necessary ,god at that4 ,unhappily1 ,i am not enough of a logician to say that ,i am quite sure ,i understand what it means to say that 8,god is not concrete1 but ,he is the ground for concrete actuality40 ,there have been moments when ,i imagined ,i had caught the meaning of this1 but there have been more moments when ,i knew that ,i had not4 ,i have never doubted1 however1 that the concept had meaning1 and that ,i missed it because it was too deep for me4 ,why then1 it may be asked1 do ,i presume to discuss it8 ,my answer is that a conception of ,god1 which is incomprehensible to all who are not highly trained logicians1 is a possible ,god for logicians alone4 ,it is not presumptuous to say of ,mr4 ,whitehead's ,god what he himself says of ,aristotle's ,god3 that it does 8not lead him very far toward the production of a ,god available for religious purposes40 ,for while this ,god may satisfy a metaphysical need in the thinker1 he does not satisfy the passions of the believer4 ,this ,god does not govern the world like a king nor watch over his children like a father4 ,he offers them no purposes to which they can consecrate themselves2 he exhibits no image of holiness they can imitate4 ,he does not chastise them in sin nor console them in sorrow4 ,he is a principle with which to explain the facts1 if you can understand the explanation4 ,he is not himself a personality who deals with the facts4 ,for the purposes of religion he is no ,god at all2 his universe remains stonily unaware of man4 ,nothing has happened by accepting p#jbg ,mr4 ,whitehead's definition which changes the inexorable character of that destiny which ,bertrand ,russell depicted when he wrote that we see1 surrounding the narrow raft illumined by the flickering light of human comradeship1 the dark ocean on whose rolling waves we toss for a brief hour2 from the great night without1 a chill blast breaks in upon our refuge2 all the loneliness of humanity amid hostile forces is concentrated upon the individual soul1 which must struggle alone1 with what of courage it can command1 against the whole weight of a universe that cares nothing for its hopes and fears4 ,it is a nice question whether the use of ,god's name is not misleading when it is applied by modernists to ideas so remote from the ,god men have worshiped4 ,plainly the modernist churchman does not believe in the ,god of ,genesis who walked in the garden in the cool of the evening and called to ,adam and his wife who had hidden themselves behind a tree2 nor in the ,god of ,exodus who appeared to ,moses and ,aaron and seventy of the ,elders of ,israel1 standing with his feet upon a paved walk as if it were a sapphire stone2 nor even in the ,god of the fifty-third chapter of ,isaiah who in his compassion for the sheep who have gone astray1 having turned everyone to his own way1 laid on the ,man of ,sorrows the iniquity of us all4 ,this1 as ,kirsopp ,lake says1 is the ,god of most1 if not all1 the writings in the ,bible4 ,yet 8however much our inherited sentiments may shrink from the admission1 the scientists are to-day almost unanimous in saying that the universe as they see it contains no evidence of the existence p#jbh of any anthropomorphic ,god whatever4 ,the experimentalist 7i4e41 modernist7 wholly agrees that this is so4 ,nevertheless he refuses as a rule1 and ,i think rightly--to abandon the use of the word #8,god4'0 ,in justification of this refusal to abandon the word #8,god1' although he has abandoned the accepted meaning of the word1 ,dr4 ,lake appeals to a tradition which reaches back at least to ,origen who1 as a ,christian neo-platonist1 used the word #8,god' to mean1 not the ,king and ,father of creation1 but the sum of all ideal values4 ,it was this redefinition of the word #8,god1' he says1 which 8made ,christianity possible for the educated man of the third century40 ,it is this same redefinition which still makes ,christianity possible for educated churchmen like ,dr4 ,lake and ,dean ,inge4 ,dr4 ,lake admits that although this attractive bypath of tradition 8is intellectually adorned by many princes of thought and lords of language0 it is 8ecclesiastically not free from reproach40 ,he avows another reason for his use of the word #8,god' which1 if not more compelling1 is certainly more worldly4 8,atheist0 has meant since ,roman times an enemy of society2 it gives a wholly false impression of the real state of mind of those who adhere to the platonic tradition4 ,they have been wholly without the defiance which 8atheism0 connotes2 on the contrary they have been a few individuals in each age who lived peaceably within the shelter of the church1 worshiping a somewhat different ,god inwardly and in their own way1 and often helping to refresh the more mundane spirit of the popular church4 ,the term 8agnostic0 is almost as unavailable4 ,it was invented to describe a tolerant unbelief in the anthropomorphic ,god4 ,in popular usage it has come p#jbi to mean about the same thing as atheist1 for the instinct of the common man is sound in these matters4 ,he feels that those who claim to be open-minded about ,god have for all practical purposes ceased to believe in him4 ,the agnostic's reply that he would gladly believe if the evidence would confirm it1 does not alter the fact that he does not now believe4 ,and so ,dr4 ,lake concludes that the modernist must use the word #8,god' in his own sense1 8endeavoring partly to preserve ,origen's meaning of the word1 and partly shrinking from any other policy as open to misconstruction40 ,i confess that the notion of adopting a policy about ,god somehow shocks me as intruding a rather worldly consideration which would seem to be wholly out of place4 ,but this feeling is1 ,i am sure1 an injustice to ,dr4 ,lake who is plainly and certainly not a worldling4 ,he is moved1 no doubt1 by the conviction that in letting #8,god' mean one thing to the mass of the devout and another to the educated minority1 the loss of intellectual precision is more than compensated by the preservation of a community of feeling4 ,this is not mere expediency4 ,it may be the part of wisdom1 which is profounder than mere reasoning1 to wish that intellectual distinctions shall not divide men too sharply4 ,but if it is wisdom1 it is an aristocratic wisdom4 ,and in ,dean ,inge's writings this is frankly avowed4 8,the strength of ,christianity10 he says1 8is in transforming the lives of individuals--of a small minority1 certainly1 as ,christ clearly predicted1 but a large number in the aggregate4 ,to rescue a little flock1 here and there1 from materialism1 selfishness1 and hatred1 is the task of the p#jcj ,church of ,christ in all ages alike1 and there is no likelihood that it will ever be otherwise40 ,but in other ages1 one thing was otherwise4 ,and in this one thing lies the radical peculiarity of the modern difficulty4 ,in other ages there was no acknowledged distinction between the ultimate beliefs of the educated and the uneducated4 ,there were differences in learning1 in religious genius1 in the closeness of a chosen few to ,god and his angels4 ,inwardly there were even radical differences of meaning4 ,but critical analysis had not made them overt and evident1 and the common assumption was that there was one ,god for all1 for the peasant who saw him dimly and could approach him only through his patron saint1 and for the holy man who had seen ,god and talked with him face to face4 ,it has remained for churchmen of our era to distinguish two or more different ,gods1 and openly to say that they are different4 ,this may be a triumph of candor and of intelligence4 ,but this very consciousness of what they are doing1 these very honest admissions that the ,god of ,dean ,inge1 for example1 is only in name the ,god of millions of other protestants--that is an admission1 when they understand it1 which makes faith difficult for modern men4 #d4 ,the ,protest of the ,fundamentalists ,fundamentalism is a protest against all these definitions and attenuations which the modern man finds it necessary to make4 ,it is avowedly a reaction within the ,protestant communions against what the ,president of the ,world's ,christian ,fundamentalist ,association rather accurately described as 8that weasel method of sucking the meaning p#jca out of words1 and then presenting the empty shells in an attempt to palm them off as giving the ,christian faith a new and another interpretation40 ,in actual practice this movement has become entangled with all sorts of bizarre and barbarous agitations1 with the ,ku ,klux ,klan1 with fanatical prohibition1 with the 8anti-evolution laws10 and with much persecution and intolerance4 ,this in itself is significant4 ,for it shows that the central truth1 which the fundamentalists have grasped1 no longer appeals to the best brains and the good sense of a modern community1 and that the movement is recruited largely from the isolated1 the inexperienced1 and the uneducated4 ,into the politics of the heated controversy between modernists and fundamentalists ,i do not propose here to enter4 ,that it is not merely a dispute in the realm of the spirit is made evident by the ,president of the ,fundamentalist ,association when he avers that 8nothing0 holds modernists and fundamentalists together except 8the billions of dollars invested4 ,nine out of ten of these dollars1 if not ninety-nine out of every hundred of them1 spent to construct the great denominational universities1 colleges1 schools of second grade1 theological seminaries1 great denominational mission stations1 the multiplied hospitals that bear denominational names1 the immense publication societies and the expensive societies were given by fundamentalists and filched by modernists4 ,it took hundreds of years to collect this money and construct these institutions4 ,it has taken only a quarter of a century for the liberal bandits to capture them44440 ,not all the fundamentalist argument1 however1 is pitched at this level4 ,there is also a reasoned case against p#jcb the modernists4 ,fortunately this case has been stated in a little book called ,christianity and ,liberalism by a man who is both a scholar and a gentleman4 ,the author is ,professor ,j4 ,gresham ,machen of the ,princeton ,theological ,seminary4 ,it is an admirable book4 ,for its acumen1 for its saliency1 and for its wit this cool and stringent defense of orthodox ,protestantism is1 ,i think1 the best popular argument produced by either side in the current controversy4 ,we shall do well to listen to ,dr4 ,machen4 ,modernism1 he says1 8is altogether in the imperative mood10 while the traditional religion 8begins with a triumphant indicative40 ,i do not see how one can deny the force of this generalization4 8,from the beginning ,christianity was certainly a way of life4 ,but how was the life to be produced8 ,not by appealing to the human will1 but by telling a story2 not by exhortation1 but by the narration of an event40 ,dr4 ,machen insists1 rightly ,i think1 that the historic influence of ,christianity on the mass of men has depended upon their belief that an historic drama was enacted in ,palestine nineteen hundred years ago during the reign of the ,emperor ,tiberius4 ,the veracity of that story was fundamental to the ,christian ,church4 ,for while all the ideal values may remain if you impugn the historic record set forth in the ,gospels1 these ideal values are not certified to the common man as inherent in the very nature of things4 ,once they are deprived of their root in historic fact1 their poetry1 their symbolism1 their ethical significance depend for their sanction upon the temperament and experience of the individual believer4 ,there is gone that deep1 compulsive1 organic faith in an external fact which is the essence of religion for all but p#jcc that very small minority who can live within themselves in mystical communion or by the power of their understanding4 ,for the great mass of men1 if the history of religions is to be trusted1 religious experience depends upon a complete belief in the concrete existence1 one might almost say the materialization1 of their ,god4 ,the fundamentalist goes to the very heart of the matter1 therefore1 when he insists that you have destroyed the popular foundations of religion if you make your gospel a symbolic record of experience1 and reject it as an actual record of events4 ,the liberals have yet to answer ,dr4 ,machen when he says that 8the ,christian movement at its inception was not just a way of life in the modern sense1 but a way of life founded upon a message4 ,it was based1 not upon mere feeling1 not upon a mere program of work1 but on an account of facts40 ,it was based on the story of the birth1 the life1 the ministry1 the death1 and the resurrection of ,jesus ,christ4 ,that story set forth the facts which certify the ,christian experience4 ,modernism1 which in varying degree casts doubt upon the truth of that story1 may therefore be defined as an attempt to preserve selected parts of the experience after the facts which inspired it have been rejected4 ,the orthodox believer may be mistaken as to the facts in which he believes4 ,but he is not mistaken in thinking that you cannot1 for the mass of men1 have a faith of which the only foundation is their need and desire to believe4 ,the historic churches1 without any important exceptions1 ,i think1 have founded faith on clear statements about matters of fact1 historic events1 or physical manifestations4 ,they have never been content p#jcd with a symbolism which the believer knew was merely symbolic4 ,only the sophisticated in their private meditations and in esoteric writing have found satisfaction in symbolism as such4 ,complete as was ,dr4 ,machen's victory over the ,protestant liberals1 he did not long remain in possession of the field4 ,there is a deeper fundamentalism than his1 and it is based on a longer continuous experience4 ,this is the teaching of the ,roman ,catholic ,church4 ,from a priest of that church1 ,father ,riggs1 has come the most searching criticism of ,dr4 ,machen's case4 ,writing in the ,commonweal ,father ,riggs points out that 8the fundamentalists are well-nigh powerless4 ,they are estopped1 so to speak1 from stemming the ravaging waters of agnosticism because they cannot1 while remaining loyal to the 7,protestant7 reformers 444 set limits to destructive criticism of the ,bible without making an un-,protestant appeal to tradition40 ,father ,riggs1 in other words1 is asking the ,protestant fundamentalists1 like ,dr4 ,machen1 how they can be certain that they know these facts upon which they assert that the ,christian religion is founded4 ,they must reply that they know them from reading the ,bible4 ,the reply is1 however1 unsatisfying4 ,for obviously there are many ways of reading the ,bible1 and therefore the ,protestant who demands the right of private judgment can never know with absolute certainty that his reading is the correct one4 ,his position in a skeptical age is1 therefore1 as ,father ,riggs points out1 a weak one1 because a private judgment is1 after all1 only a private judgment4 ,the history of ,protestantism shows that the exercise of private judgment as to the meaning of ,scripture p#jce leads not to universal and undeniable dogma1 but to schism within schism and heresy within heresy4 ,from the point of view1 then1 of the oldest fundamentalism of the western world the error of the modernists is that they deny the facts on which religious faith reposes2 the error of the orthodox ,protestants is that although they affirm the facts1 they reject all authority which can verify them2 the virtue of the ,catholic system is that along with a dogmatic affirmation of the central facts1 it provides a living authority in the ,church which can ascertain and demonstrate and verify these facts4 #e4 ,in ,man's ,image ,the long record of clerical opposition to certain kinds of scientific inquiry has a touch of dignity when it is realized that at the core of that opposition there is a very profound understanding of the religious needs of ordinary men4 ,for once you weaken the belief that the central facts taught by the churches are facts in the most literal and absolute sense1 the disintegration of the popular religion begins4 ,we may confidently declare that ,mr4 ,santayana is speaking not as a student of human nature1 but as a cultivated unbeliever1 when he writes that 8the idea that religion contains a literal1 not a symbolic1 representation of truth and life is simply an impossible idea40 ,the idea is impossible1 no doubt1 for the children of the great emancipation4 ,but because it is impossible1 religion itself1 in the traditional popular meaning of the term1 has become impossible for them4 ,if it is true that man creates ,god in his own image1 it is no less true that for religious devotion he must remain p#jcf unconscious of that fact4 ,once he knows that he has created the image of ,god1 the reality of it vanishes like last night's dream4 ,it may be that to anyone who is impregnated with the modern spirit it is almost self-evident that the truths of religion are truths of human experience4 ,but this knowledge does not tolerate an abiding and absorbing faith4 ,for when the truths of religion have lost their connection with a superhuman order1 the cord of their life is cut4 ,what remains is a somewhat archaic1 a somewhat questionable1 although a very touching1 quaint medley of poetry1 rhetoric1 fable1 exhortation1 and insight into human travail4 ,when ,mr4 ,santayana says that 8matters of religion should never be matters of controversy0 because 8we never argue with a lover about his taste1 nor condemn him1 if we are just1 for knowing so human a passion10 he expresses an ultimate unbelief4 ,for what would be the plight of a lover1 if we told him that his passion was charming8--though1 of course1 there might be no such lady as the one he loved4 ,,chapter ,,iii p#jcg ,,the ,,loss ,,of ,,certainty #a4 ,ways of ,reading the ,bible ,it is important to an understanding of this matter that we should not confuse the modern practice of redefining ,god with the ancient use of allegory4 ,from the earliest days the words of the ,bible have been embroidered with luxuriant and often fantastic meanings4 ,in ,leviticus it says1 for example1 that the meal offering may be baked in an oven1 fried in a pan1 or toasted on a plate4 ,this passage1 says ,origen1 proves that ,scripture must have three meanings4 ,it came to have any number of meanings4 ,thus ,st4 ,augustine explained that ,eden meant the life of the blessed1 and its four rivers the four virtues2 farther on in the same chapter he declares that ,eden is the ,church1 and that its four rivers are the four ,gospels4 ,in the same manner ,wyclif in a later age preached a sermon explaining the parable of the ,good ,samaritan4 ,the man who went down from ,jerusalem to ,jericho represents ,adam and ,eve2 the robbers are the fiends of hell2 the priest and ,levite who went by on the other side are the patriarchs1 saints1 and prophets who failed to bring salvation2 the ,good ,samaritan is ,jesus2 the wine which he pours into his wounds is sharp words to prick men from sin1 and the oil is hope4444 ,savonarola1 we are p#jch told1 preached during the whole of ,lent1 #adib1 taking as his text ,noah's ,ark and 8giving each day a different interpretation of the ten planks of which the ,ark was composed40 ,by this method of interpretation the devout adapted the ,bible to their own uses1 smoothing away its contradictions and explaining away passages1 like the command in ,genesis to kill uncircumcised children1 which1 read literally1 would have seemed to them barbarous and immoral4 ,we must be careful1 however1 not to misunderstand this method of thought4 ,when they said that the beautiful woman in the ,song of ,solomon was the ,church1 they were not conscious1 as we are1 that this is a figure of speech4 ,there had not entered into their habits of thought the kind of analytical precision in which one thing can mean only one thing4 ,it is no contradiction to say that the allegory was taken literally2 certainly there was no sense of unreality about it1 as there is for us4 8,these and similar allegorical interpretations may be suitably put 4440 says ,st4 ,augustine1 speaking here to the educated minority1 8without giving offense to anyone1 while yet we believe the strict truth of the history confirmed by its circumstantial narrative of facts40 ,but at last men became too analytical and too self-conscious to accept the naive use of allegory4 ,they realized that allegory was a loose method of interpretation which lent itself easily to the citing of scripture in order to justify heresy4 ,if the ten planks in ,noah's ,ark could mean a different set of truths on each day in ,lent1 there was no telling what they might come to mean in the end4 ,it was clear1 therefore1 that allegory was dangerous p#jci and might1 as ,luther said1 8degenerate into a mere monkey game02 it was wanton1 like 8a sort of beautiful harlot who proves herself spiritually seductive to idle men40 ,this danger was a result of the general loosening of organic faith which was already evident in ,luther's day4 ,to men who had the unconscious certainties about ,god and his universe1 allegory was a perfectly safe method of interpreting the ,bible because all the interpretations1 however fantastic1 were inspired by the same pre-judgments and tended therefore to confirm the same convictions4 ,the allegories of simple men are like many-colored flowers in one garden1 growing from the same soil1 watered by the same rains1 turning their faces toward the same sun4 ,but as men became emancipated from their ancestral way of life1 their convictions about ,god and destiny and human morality changed4 ,then the method of allegory ceased to be the merely exuberant expression of the same ancient truths1 and became a confusing method of rationalizing all kinds of new experiments4 ,it promoted heresy because men had become heretical1 where once1 while men were devout1 it had only embroidered their devotions4 8,to allegorize is to juggle with ,scripture10 said ,luther4 ,the ,protestant ,reformers could not tolerate that4 ,for they lived in an age when faith was already disintegrating1 and they had themselves destroyed the authority of an infallible source of religion4 8,we must10 wrote ,calvin1 8entirely reject the allegories of ,origen1 and of others like him1 which ,satan1 with the deepest subtlety1 has endeavored to introduce into the ,church1 for the p#jdj purpose of rendering the doctrine of ,scripture ambiguous and destitute of all certainty and firmness40 ,the insistence of the ,reformers on a literal interpretation of the ,bible had1 as ,dr4 ,fosdick points out1 two unforeseen results4 ,it led to the so-called ,higher ,criticism which in substance is nothing but a scientific attempt to find out what the ,bible did mean literally to those who wrote it4 ,and this in turn made it practically impossible for modern men to believe all that the ,bible literally says4 ,when they read the ,bible as allegory they found in it unending confirmation of what they already believed4 ,but when they read it literally1 as history1 as astronomy1 and biology1 and as a code of laws1 it contradicted at many crucial points the practical working convictions of their daily lives4 8,the consequence is10 says ,dr4 ,fosdick1 8that we face the ,biblical world made historically vivid over against the modern world presently experienced1 and we cannot use the old method 7i4e4 allegory7 of accommodating one to the other40 #b4 ,modernism3 ,immortality as an ,example ,this predicament forced modern churchmen to seek what ,dr4 ,fosdick calls 8a new solution40 ,they could not believe that the ,bible was taken down1 as ,john ,donne put it1 by 8the ,secretaries of the ,holy ,ghost40 ,yet they believed1 as every sane man does1 that the ,bible contains wisdom which bears deeply upon the conduct of human life4 ,their problem was to find a way of picking and choosing passages in the ,scriptures1 and then of interpreting those which were chosen in such a way as to make them credible to modern men4 ,they had to find some p#jda way of setting aside the story that ,god made ,eve out of ,adam's rib1 that ,god commanded the massacre of whole populations1 and that he enjoyed the slaughter of animals at the sacrifice2 but they had at the same time to find a way of preserving for the use of modern men the lessons of the ministry of ,jesus and the promise of life everlasting4 ,the method they employ is based on a theory4 ,it is a theory that the ,bible contains 8abiding messages0 placed in a 8transient setting40 ,the ,bible1 for example1 is full of stories about devils and angels4 ,now1 modern men do not believe in devils and angels4 ,these are 8categories0 which they have outgrown4 ,but what the devils and angels stood for are evils and blessings which modern men still encounter4 ,we have1 therefore1 only to 8decode0 the ,bible1 and where it speaks of devils to see temptations1 sin1 disease1 pain1 and suffering1 which have a psychic origin2 where it speaks of angels to remember that sense of unseen friendliness which may help us at a crisis in our lives4 ,the old wine is still good1 but it needs to be put in new bottles4 8,the modern preacher's responsibility is thus to decode the abiding meanings of ,scripture from outgrown phraseology40 ,this is not so difficult a thing to do for the devils and the angels4 ,but a little reflection will show1 ,i think1 that in dealing with the major themes of religion1 the solution is not so easy4 ,the real difficulty appears when ,dr4 ,fosdick attempts to decode the biblical promise of immortal life4 ,he begins by rejecting completely the resurrection of the flesh and any kind of immortality which is imagined as the survival of the physical person4 ,yet he believes p#jdb in 8the persistence of personality through death40 ,for he maintains that without this belief the final victory of death would signify 8the triumphant irrationality of existence02 not to believe in immortality is to submit to 8mental confusion40 ,speaking quite frankly1 however1 he cannot easily imagine 8a completely disembodied existence40 ,yet it is obviously not easy to imagine the persistence of personality through death once you have made up your mind not to imagine a concrete heaven inhabited by well-defined persons4 ,modern churchmen1 like ,dean ,inge for example1 who have faced the difficulty more boldly than ,dr4 ,fosdick does1 arrive at an intelligible explanation of what they mean by immortality4 ,but they mean something which is not only very difficult to understand1 but extremely difficult for most men to enjoy when they have understood it4 ,they inject intelligible meaning into the word 8eternal0 by employing it in a sense which is wholly different from that which the common man employs4 ,by immortality he means life that goes on age after age without stopping4 ,but the modern churchmen who have really clarified their minds are platonists4 ,they apply the word 8eternal0 to that which is independent of time and existence4 ,between the two conceptions there is the profoundest difference1 for in the commonsense of the worldling existence is so precious that he wishes it to continue for ever and ever4 ,but to the platonist existence1 or embodiment1 is transient1 accidental1 irrational2 only that is permanent which is timeless4 ,commonsense demands that if we are immortal we should meet our friend again later and continue our friendship2 the platonist p#jdc loves the memory of his friend after death as he loved an ideal image of him during his life4 ,in communing with his memories and his ideals he knows himself to be in touch with eternal things4 ,for not even the gods1 says ,homer1 can undo the past2 no accident of mortality can destroy anything which can be represented in the mind4 ,heroes die1 but that such heroic deeds were done is a chapter forever1 as ,mr4 ,santayana says1 in any complete history of the universe4 ,the thinker dies1 but his thoughts are beyond the reach of destruction4 ,men are mortal2 but ideas are immortal4 ,i do not know whether ,i have known how to state clearly what is meant by this platonic view to which1 in varying degrees of clarity1 all emancipated minds turn when they talk of immortality4 ,but1 at least1 it is clear that it is a conception which calls for a radically different adjustment to life than that to which the worldling is accustomed4 ,he desires objects to love1 goods and successes that are perishable1 and he wishes them not to perish4 ,before he can enter the platonic world1 before he can even attain to a hint of its meaning1 he must abandon the very desires of which his hope of immortality is the expression4 ,he must detach himself from his wish to acquire and possess objects that die2 he must learn what it means to possess things not by holding them1 but by understanding them1 and to enjoy them as objects of reflection4 ,he must not only cease to desire immortality as he conceives it1 but the material embodiment of things as well4 ,then only1 when he has renounced his love of existence1 can he begin to love the forms of existence1 and to live among imperishable ideas4 p#jdd ,then1 and in this sense only1 does he enter into eternal life4 ,the ordinary man1 when he hears this doctrine expounded1 is almost certain to say with the ,indian sage3 8the worship of the ,impersonal laid no hold upon my heart40 ,his heart is set on the enjoyment of worldly goods1 and the doctrine1 for all but a few exceptional spirits1 requires a radical change of heart4 ,it is forbidding except to the few in whom 8the intellect 7is7 passionate and the passions cold40 ,for it demands a conversion of their natural desire to possess tangible things into a passion to understand intangible and abstract things4 ,this philosophy is ascetic1 unworldly1 and profoundly disinterested4 ,now it can be argued that this is precisely what the ,gospels teach as to the meaning of salvation4 ,excellent authority can be cited from the ,gospel of ,john and the ,epistles of ,st4 ,paul to justify this form of the ,christian tradition3 8,flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of ,god0 444 8the things that are seen are temporal1 but the things that are not seen are eternal0 444 8,i see another law in my members1 warring against the law of my mind40 ,it can hardly be denied1 as ,dean ,inge says1 that 8we are able to carry back to the fountain-head that ,christian tradition0 which may quite accurately be described as the religion of the spirit4 ,but mixed with it in the ,scripture1 there is the other tradition1 the popular tradition which may be called the religion of commonsense4 ,out of this latter have grown the institutions of the church and the faith of the mass of men4 ,the religion of the spirit has been reserved for a few1 8a succession p#jde of lives which have been sheltered rather than inspired by the machinery and statecraft of a mighty institution10 and while the few who lived the life of the spirit have undoubtedly done much to inspire the popular religion with new insight1 they have been1 on the whole1 a group apart4 ,yet those who belonged to these two distinct traditions did use the same churches and the same symbolism4 ,there was an even deeper bond of unity between them4 ,both believed that renunciation and self-discipline are the way of salvation--in the religion of the spirit as the way to enter now into love of eternal things2 in the religion of commonsense as a rather heavy price paid to ,god in return for everlasting happiness after death4 ,it may be argued1 therefore1 by churchmen like ,dr4 ,fosdick1 that the 8abiding message0 of the ,bible about immortality is that men must renounce the world in order to win eternity4 ,that some men mean by eternity a kind of perpetual motion and others a kind of abstraction is merely a difference in their habits of thought1 and does not impair the validity or the importance of the central experience4 ,if they will renounce their worldly passions1 they will find what the idea of eternity has to give1 no matter what they imagine it to mean4 ,but although ,dr4 ,fosdick implies that this solves the difficulty1 it can be shown1 ,i believe1 that it does not4 ,what he has succeeded in doing is to disentangle from the ,bible a meaning for immortality which has a noble tradition behind it and is at the same time intellectually possible for a modern man4 ,but the history of religion ought to put us on guard against assuming too easily p#jdf that a statement of the purest truth is in itself capable of affecting the lives of any considerable number of people4 ,dean ,inge1 who is a very much more clear-headed churchman1 says quite frankly that 8a religion succeeds1 not because it is true1 but because it suits the worshippers40 ,merely to tell men1 however fervently1 that they may conquer mortality by renouncing the flesh1 will not go far toward persuading many of them to renounce the flesh4 ,there must be1 as there has been in all the historic religions1 something more than a statement of the moral law4 ,there must be a psychological machinery for enforcing the moral law4 ,for those who are suited to the religion of the spirit no machinery is needed4 ,but for the mass of men who are not naturally suited to it1 a machinery which compels this conversion is indispensable4 ,jesus in his time1 and ,gautama ,buddha before him1 taught a moral law which was addressed to those who could receive it4 ,they were not many4 ,buddhism and ,christianity became world religions centuries after the death of their founders1 and only when there had been added to the central message a great organized method of teaching it4 ,the essence of such an organization is the title to say with apostolic certainty that the message is true4 ,churchmen1 like ,dr4 ,fosdick1 can make no such claim about their message4 ,they reject revelation4 ,they reject the authority of any church to speak directly for ,god4 ,they reject the literal inspiration of the ,bible4 ,they reject altogether many parts of the ,bible as not only uninspired1 but false and misleading4 ,they do not believe in ,god as a lawgiver1 judge1 father1 and spectator of human life4 p#jdg ,when they say that this or that message in the ,bible is 8permanently valid10 they mean only that in their judgment1 according to their reading of human experience1 it is a well-tested truth4 ,to say this is not merely to deny that the ,bible is authoritative in astronomy and biology2 it is to deny equally that it is authoritative as to what is good and bad for men4 ,the ,bible thus becomes no more than a revered collection of hypotheses which each man may reject or accept in the light of his own knowledge4 ,the lessons may still be true4 ,but they are robbed of their certainty4 ,each man is thrown back upon his own resources2 he is denied the support which all popular religion offers him1 the conviction that outside himself there is a power on which he can and must lean for guidance4 ,in the ancient faith a man said3 8,i believe this on the authority of an all-wise ,god40 ,in the new faith he is in effect compelled to say3 8,i have examined the alleged pronouncements of an all-knowing ,god2 some of them are obviously untrue1 some are rather repulsive1 others1 however1 if they are properly restated1 ,i find to be exceedingly good40 ,something quite fundamental is left out of the modernist creeds4 ,at least something which has hitherto been quite fundamental is left out4 ,that something is the most abiding of all the experiences of religion1 namely1 the conviction that the religion comes from ,god4 ,suppose it were true1 which it plainly is not1 that ,dr4 ,fosdick by his process of selection and decoding has retained 8precisely the thing at which the ,bible was driving40 ,still he would be without the thing on which popular religion p#jdh has been founded4 ,for the ,bible to our ancestors was not simply1 as he implies1 a book of wisdom4 ,it was a book of wisdom backed by the power of ,god himself4 ,that is not an inconsiderable difference4 ,it is all the difference there is between a pious resolution and a moral law4 ,the ,bible1 as men formerly accepted it1 contained wisdom certified by the powers that govern the universe4 ,it did not merely contain many well-tested truths1 similar in kind to those which are to be found in ,plato1 ,aristotle1 ,montaigne1 and ,bernard ,shaw4 ,it contained truths which could not be doubted because they had been spoken by ,god through his prophets and his ,son4 ,they could not be wrong4 ,but once it is allowed that each man may select from the ,bible as he sees fit1 judging each passage by his own notions of what is 8abiding10 you have stripped the ,scriptures of their authority to command men's confidence and to compel their obedience4 ,the ,scriptures may still inspire respect4 ,but they are disarmed4 #c4 ,what ,modernism ,leaves ,out ,many reasons have been adduced to explain why people do not go to church as much as they once did4 ,surely the most important reason is that they are not so certain that they are going to meet ,god when they go to church4 ,if they had that certainty they would go4 ,if they really believed that they were being watched by a ,supreme ,being who is more powerful than all the kings of earth put together1 if they really believed that not only their actions but their secret thoughts were known and would be remembered by the creator and ultimate judge of the p#jdi universe1 there would be no complaint whatever about church attendance4 ,the most worldly would be in the front pews1 and preachers would not have to resort so often to their rather desperate expedients to attract an audience4 ,if the conviction were there that the creed professed was invincibly true1 the modern congregation would not come to church1 as they usually do to-day1 to hear the preacher and to listen to the music4 ,they would come to worship ,god4 ,religious professions will not work when they rest merely on a kind of passive assent2 or on intricate reasoning1 or on fierce exhortation1 or on a good-natured conspiracy to be vague and highflown4 ,a man cannot cheat about faith4 ,either he has it in the marrow of his bones1 or in a crisis1 when he is distracted and in sorrow1 there is no conviction there to support him4 ,without complete certainty religion does not offer genuine consolation4 ,it is without the strength to compensate our weakness4 ,nor can it sanction the rules of morality4 ,ethical codes cannot lay claim to unhesitating obedience when they are based upon the opinions of a majority1 or on the notions of wise men1 or on estimates of what is socially useful1 or on an appeal to patriotism4 ,for they depend then on the force which happens to range itself behind them at a particular time2 or on their convenience for a moment4 ,they are felt to be the outcome of human1 and therefore quite fallible1 decisions4 ,they are no necessary part of the government of the universe4 ,they were not given by ,god to ,moses on ,sinai4 ,they are not the commandments of ,god speaking through his ,infallible ,church4 ,a human morality has no such sanction as a divine4 p#jej ,the sanction of a divine morality is the certainty of the believer that it originated with ,god4 ,but if he has once come to think that the rule of conduct has a purely human1 local1 and temporal origin1 its sanction is gone4 ,his obedience is transformed1 as ours has been by knowledge of that sort1 from conviction to conformity or calculated expediency4 ,without certainty there can be no profound sense that a man's own purpose has become part of the purpose of the whole creation4 ,it is necessary to believe in a ,god who is active in the world before a man can feel himself to be1 as ,st4 ,paul said1 8a fellow laborer0 with ,god4 ,yet this sense of partnership with a ,person who transcends the individual's own life1 his own ego1 and his own capacities1 is fundamental in all popular religion4 ,it underlies all the other elements of religion4 ,for in the certainty that he is enlisted with ,god1 man finds not only comfort in defeat1 not only an ideal of holiness which persuades him to renounce his immediate desires1 but an ecstatic mobilizing of all his scattered energies in one triumphant sense of his own infinite importance4 ,,chapter ,,iv p#jea ,,the ,,acids ,,of ,,modernity #a4 ,the ,kingly ,pattern ,what ,i have said thus far can be reduced to the statement that it is difficult for modern men to conceive a ,god whom they can worship4 ,yet it would be a crude misunderstanding of religious experience to assume that it depends upon a clear conception of ,god4 ,in truly religious men the experience of ,god is much more intensely convincing than any definition of his nature which they can put into words4 ,they do not insist on understanding that which they believe1 for their belief gives them a consciousness of divinity which transcends any conviction they could reach by the understanding4 ,they are not oppressed by the conflict between reason and faith because the testimony of faith is irresistible4 ,it may become so irresistible that any attempt to understand is finally held1 as it was by ,john ,chrysostom1 to be an impertinence4 ,st4 ,chrysostom1 who is described by the ,catholic ,encyclopedia as the most prominent doctor of the ,greek ,church and the greatest preacher ever heard in a ,christian pulpit1 is a striking example of how in other ages a man who was both learned and devout was able to surmount the intellectual difficulties which to-day cause so much trouble for modernists and fundamentalists alike4 ,chrysostom was born at ,antioch in the middle of the ,fourth ,century and grew up in a time when the intellectual p#jeb foundations of ,christianity were intensely disputed4 ,the ,catholic theology had not yet emerged victoriously1 and ,antioch was the theatre of fierce struggles between ,pagans1 ,manichans1 ,gnostics1 ,arians1 ,jews1 and others4 ,these struggles turned in considerable measure upon just such attempts to define and comprehend ,god as now confuse the teaching of the ,protestant ,church4 ,among the sectarians there were some who claimed that it was possible 8to know ,god exactly0 and it was against them that ,chrysostom preached that 8he insults ,god who seeks to apprehend ,his essential being40 ,for 8the difference between the being of ,god and the being of man is of such a kind that no word can express it and no thought can appraise it4444 ,he dwells1 says ,st4 ,paul1 in an unapproachable light40 ,even the angels in heaven are stupefied by the glory and majesty of ,god3 8,tell me10 he says1 8wherefore do they cover their faces and hide them with their wings8 ,why but that they cannot endure the dazzling radiance and its rays that pour from the ,throne80 ,here in language so eloquent that the author became known as ,chrysostom1 8the golden-mouthed10 we have the doctrine that 8a comprehended ,god is no ,god10 that 8,god is incomprehensible because ,he is blessed and blessed because ,he is incomprehensible40 ,but if we look more closely at what ,chrysostom actually says1 it is apparent that he has a much clearer idea of ,god than he knows4 ,he conceives of ,god as the creator1 the ruler1 and the judge of the universe4 ,when he says that ,god is incomprehensible he means that it is impossible for a human being to imagine what it would be like to be ,god4 ,but p#jec that does not prevent ,chrysostom from knowing what it is like to be the creature of the incomprehensible ,god4 ,he is very definitely on his knees before the throne of a divine king whose radiance is so dazzling that he cannot look his ,lord in the face4 ,there is thus a very solid intellectual conception embedded in the faith of this great teacher who staked everything on the assertion that it is impossible to conceive ,god4 ,the conception is there but it has not been isolated and realized4 ,it is unconsciously assumed4 ,we find the same thing in ,luther when he said3 8,i venture to put my trust in the one ,god alone1 the invisible and incomprehensible1 who hath created ,heaven and ,earth and is alone above all creatures40 ,for in spite of the fact that ,luther calls ,god incomprehensible1 he is able to make a number of extremely important statements about him4 ,he is able to say that ,god is the only ,god1 that he created the earth1 that there is a heaven1 that ,god created heaven1 and that ,god alone is above all his creatures4 ,to know that much about ,god is to comprehend the function of ,god if not his nature4 ,now if we examine the religious difficulty of modern men1 we find1 ,i think1 that they do not lack the sense of mystery1 of majesty1 of terror1 and of wonder which overwhelm ,chrysostom and ,luther4 ,the emotional disposition is there4 ,but it is somehow inhibited from possessing them utterly4 ,the will to believe is checked by something in their experience which ,chrysostom did not have4 ,that something is the sense that the testimony of faith is not wholly credible1 that the feeling of sanctity is no assurance of the existence of sacred powers1 that awe and p#jed wonder and terror in the breast of the believer are not guarantees that there exist real objects that are awful and wonderful4 ,the modern man is not incapable of faith1 but he has within him a contrary passion1 as instinctive and often as intense as faith1 which makes incredible the testimony of his faith4 ,it is that contrary passion1 and not the thin argumentation of atheists and agnostics1 which lies1 ,i think1 at the root of what churchmen call modern irreligion4 ,it is that passion which they must understand if they are ever to understand the modern religious difficulty4 ,for just as men could surmount any intellectual difficulty when their passion to believe was whole-hearted1 so to-day1 when the passion to disbelieve is so strong1 they are unable to believe no matter how perfectly their theological dilemmas are resolved4 ,we must ask ourselves1 then1 what there is in modern men which makes the testimony of faith seem more or less incredible to them4 ,we have seen in the citations from ,chrysostom and ,luther that the testimony of faith really contains a large number of unconscious statements of fact about the universe and how it is governed4 ,it is these statements of fact which we are no longer able to assume unconsciously1 and having become conscious of them they are rather incredible4 ,but why are they no longer unconsciously assumed and why are they incredible8 ,the answer is1 ,i think1 that they have ceased to be consistent with our normal experience in ordinary affairs4 ,the faith of ,chrysostom and ,luther is entangled with1 and supported upon1 the assumption that the universe p#jee was created and is governed by a father and king4 ,they had projected upon the universe an imaginary picture which reflected their own daily experience of government among men4 ,these pictures of how the universe is governed change with men's political experience4 ,thus it would not have been easy for an ,asiatic people to imagine the divine government in any other way but as a despotism1 and ,yahveh1 as he appears in many famous portraits in the ,old ,testament1 is very evidently an ,oriental monarch inclined to be somewhat moody and very vain4 ,he governs as he chooses1 constrained by no law1 and often without mercy1 justice1 or righteousness4 ,the ,god of medival ,christianity1 on the other hand1 is more like a great feudal lord1 supreme and yet bound by covenants to treat his vassals on earth according to a well-established system of reciprocal rights and duties4 ,the ,god of the ,enlightenment in the ,eighteenth ,century is a constitutional monarch who reigns but does not govern4 ,and the ,god of ,modernism1 who is variously pictured as the lan vital within the evolutionary process1 or as the sum total of the laws of nature1 is really a kind of constitutionalism deified4 ,provided that the picture is so consistent with experience that it is taken utterly for granted1 it will serve as a background for the religious experience4 ,but when daily experience for one reason or another provides no credible analogy by which men can imagine that the universe is governed by a supernatural king and father1 then the disposition to believe1 however strong it may be at the roots1 is like a vine that reaches out and can find nothing solid upon which to grow4 ,it cannot support p#jef itself4 ,if faith is to flourish1 there must be a conception of how the universe is governed to support it4 ,it is these supporting conceptions--the unconscious assumption that we are related to ,god as creatures to creator1 as vassals to a king1 as children to a father--that the acids of modernity have eaten away4 ,the modern man's daily experience of modernity makes instinctively incredible to him these unconscious ideas which are at the core of the great traditional and popular religions4 ,he does not wantonly reject belief1 as so many churchmen assert4 ,his predicament is much more serious4 ,with the best will in the world1 he finds himself not quite believing4 ,in the last four hundred years many influences have conspired to make incredible the idea that the universe is governed by a kingly person4 ,an account of all of these influences would be a history of the growth of modern civilization4 ,i am attempting nothing so comprehensive or so ambitious4 ,i should like merely to note certain aspects of that revolutionary change which1 as ,lord ,acton says1 came 8unheralded0 and 8founded a new order of things 444 sapping the ancient reign of continuity40 ,for that new order of things has made it impossible for us to believe1 as plainly and literally as our forefathers did1 that the universe is a monarchy administered on this planet through divinely commissioned1 and1 therefore1 unimpeachably authoritative ministers4 #b4 ,landmarks ,in a famous passage at the beginning of ,heretics1 ,mr4 ,chesterton says that 8nothing more strangely indicates the enormous and silent evil of modern society than p#jeg the extraordinary use which is made nowadays of the word #8orthodox4' ,in former days the heretic was proud of not being a heretic4 ,it was the kingdom of the world and the police and the judges who were heretics4 ,he was orthodox4 ,all the tortures born out of forgotten hells could not make him admit that he was heretical4 ,but a few modern phrases have made him boast of it4 ,he says with a conscious laugh1 #8,i suppose ,i am very heretical1' and looks around for applause4 ,the word #8heresy' not only means no longer being wrong2 it practically means being clear-headed and courageous40 ,mr4 ,chesterton goes on to explain that this change of attitude has come about because 8people care less for whether they are philosophically right than they used to care40 ,it may be so4 ,but if they cared as much or more1 it would not help them4 ,to be orthodox is to believe in the right doctrines and to follow the ancient rules of living deduced from a divine revelation4 ,the modern man finds that the doctrines do not fit what he believes to be true1 and that the rules do not show him how to conduct his life4 ,for he is confronted at every turn with radical novelties about which his inherited dogma teaches him something which is plainly unworkable1 or1 as is even more often the case1 teaches him nothing at all4 ,in the old world there were1 of course1 novelties1 too4 ,but the pace of change was so slow that it did not seem to cause radical change4 ,there was ample time to make subtle and necessary revisions of the fundamental assumptions of right and wrong without seeming to challenge the distinction between right and wrong4 ,looking back at it in long perspective we can see now that there was p#jeh a constant evolution of the ,christian faith from the ,apostles to the later councils of the ,church4 ,but in relation to the life of any individual the change was so slow that men could honestly believe that the ,catholicism of ,hildebrand was identical with the ,christianity of ,paul4 ,men had few means of reconstructing the past1 and few ways of knowing how great was the variety of belief at any one time within the frontiers of ,christendom4 ,within their horizon1 change came too slowly to seem like change1 because only that seems to move which moves rather fast4 ,for that reason the large changes which took place were not vividly realized4 ,the small1 quick changes1 of which men were conscious1 could therefore easily be made to seem1 especially since men were not too exact and observant1 as inevitable deductions from unchanging premises4 ,even in the great arguments over the nature of ,christ1 the rights of ,church and ,empire1 the meaning of grace and transubstantiation1 both sides appealed in theory to the same premises4 ,each side asserted that it was following the true revelation4 ,and since ordinary men for the most part never heard the other side1 except from their own priests and doctors1 they had no reason for doubting that the side on which they happened to find themselves was absolutely right4 ,they did not have to choose between competing creeds2 they had merely to defend their creed1 which was the true one1 against the enemies of ,god4 ,and so if they were disturbed by the quarrel1 they were not disturbed much by doubt4 ,the grand adjustments were taken for granted1 and within that framework men could make the minor adjustments patiently and elaborately1 letting them become p#jei habitual and well-worn4 ,this1 perhaps1 is the secret of the charm that an old civilization has for us to-day4 ,we feel that here is a way of life which men have had time to refine and to embellish4 ,the modern man in a progressive community has neither the time nor the energy for this delightful superficiality4 ,he is too busy solving fundamental problems4 ,he is so free to question his premises that he is no longer free to work out his conclusions4 ,his philosophy of life is like the skyscraper2 it is nine-tenths structure4 ,so much effort has gone into constructing it1 and making it fit to bear the strains1 it is so new and yet it will so soon be out of date1 that nobody is much interested in the character of it4 ,but a medival cathedral1 like the medival philosophy1 was built slowly over generations and was to last forever2 it is decorated inside and out1 where it can be seen and where it cannot be seen1 from the crypt to the roof4 ,the modern man is an emigrant who lives in a revolutionary society and inherits a protestant tradition4 ,he must be guided by his conscience4 ,but when he searches his conscience1 he finds no fixed point outside of it by which he can take his bearings4 ,he does not really believe that there is such a point1 because he himself has moved about too fast to fix any point long enough in his mind4 ,for the sense of authority is not established by argument4 ,it is acquired by deep familiarity and indurated association4 ,the ancient authorities were blended with the ancient landmarks1 with fields and vineyards and patriarchal trees1 with ancient houses and chests full of heirlooms1 with churchyards near at hand and their ancestral graves1 with old men who remembered wise sayings they p#jfj had heard from wise old men4 ,in that kind of setting it is natural to believe that the great truths are known and the big questions settled1 and to feel that the dead themselves are still alive and are watching over the ancient faith4 ,but when creeds have to be proved to the doubting they are already blighted2 arguments are for the unbelievers and the wavering1 for those who have never had1 and for those who have lost these primordial attachments4 ,faith is not a formula which is agreed to if the weight of evidence favors it4 ,it is a posture of man's whole being which predisposes him to assimilate1 not merely to believe1 his creed4 ,when the posture is native to him1 in tune with the rhythm of his surroundings1 his faith is not dependent upon intellectual assent4 ,it is a serene and whole-hearted absorption1 like that of the infant to its mother1 in the great powers outside which govern his world4 ,when that union of feeling is no longer there1 as it is not there for a large part of our talkative fundamentalist sects1 we may be sure that corrosive doubting has begun4 ,the unlovely quality of much modern religiosity is due to these doubts4 ,so much of its belief is synthetic4 ,it is forced1 made1 insisted upon1 because it is no longer simple and inevitable4 ,the angry absurdities which the fundamentalists propound against 8evolution0 are not often due to their confidence in the inspiration of the ,bible4 ,they are due to lack of confidence1 to doubt resisted like an annoying tune which a man cannot shake out of his head4 ,for if the militant fundamentalists were utterly sure they are right1 they would exhibit some of that composure which the truly devout display4 ,did they p#jfa really trust their ,god1 they would trust laws1 politicians1 and policemen less4 ,but because their whole field of consciousness is trembling with uncertainties they are in a state of fret and fuss2 and their preaching is frousy1 like the seductions of an old coquette4 #c4 ,barren ,ground ,the ,american people1 more than any other people1 is composed of individuals who have lost association with their old landmarks4 ,they have crossed an ocean1 they have spread themselves across a new continent4 ,the ,american who still lives in his grandfather's house feels almost as if he were living in a museum4 ,there are few ,americans who have not moved at least once since their childhood1 and even if they have staid where they were born1 the old landmarks themselves have been carted away to make room for progress4 ,that1 perhaps1 is one reason why we have so much more ,americanism than love of ,america4 ,it takes time to learn to love the new gas station which stands where the wild honeysuckle grew4 ,moreover1 the great majority of ,americans have risen in the world4 ,they have moved out of their class1 lifting the old folks along with them perhaps1 so that together they may sit by the steam pipes1 and listen to the crooning of the radio4 ,but more and more of them have moved not only out of their class1 but out of their culture2 and then they leave the old folks behind1 and the continuity of life is broken4 ,for faith grows well only as it is passed on from parents to their children amidst surroundings that bear witness1 because nothing changes radically1 to a deep permanence in the order of the world4 ,it is true1 p#jfb no doubt1 that in this great physical and psychic migration some of the old household gods are carefully packed up and put with the rest of the luggage1 and then unpacked and set up on new altars in new places4 ,but what can be taken along is at best no more than the tree which is above the ground4 ,the roots remain in the soil where first they grew4 ,the sidewalks of a city would in any case be a stony soil in which to transplant religion4 ,throughout history1 as ,spengler points out1 the large city has bred heresies1 new cults1 and irreligion4 ,now when we speak of modern civilization we mean a civilization dominated by the culture of the great metropolitan centers4 ,our own civilization in ,america is perhaps the most completely urbanized of all4 ,for even the ,american farmers1 though they live in the country1 tend to be suburban rather than rural4 ,i am aware of how dominating a role the population outside the great cities plays in ,american life4 ,yet it is in the large cities that the tempo of our civilization is determined1 and the tendency of mechanical inventions as well as economic policy is to create an irresistible suction of the country towards the city4 ,the deep and abiding traditions of religion belong to the countryside4 ,for it is there that man earns his daily bread by submitting to superhuman forces whose behavior he can only partially control4 ,there is not much he can do when he has ploughed the ground and planted his seed except to wait hopefully for sun and rain from the sky4 ,he is obviously part of a scheme that is greater than himself1 subject to elements that transcend his powers and surpass his understanding4 ,the city is an acid that dissolves p#jfc this piety4 ,how different it is from an ancient vineyard where men cultivate what their fathers have planted4 ,in a modern city it is not easy to maintain that 8reverent attachment to the sources of his being and the steadying of his life by that attachment40 ,it is not natural to form reverent attachments to an apartment on a two-year lease1 and an imitation mahogany desk on the thirty-second floor of an office building4 ,in such an environment piety becomes absurd1 a butt for the facetious1 and the pious man looks like a picturesque yokel or a stuffy fool4 ,yet without piety1 without a patriotism of family and place1 without an almost plant-like implication in unchangeable surroundings1 there can be no disposition to believe in an external order of things4 ,the omnipotence of ,god means something to men who submit daily to the cycles of the weather and the mysterious power of nature4 ,but the city man puts his faith in furnaces to keep out the cold1 is proudly aware of what bad sewage his ancestors endured1 and of how ignorantly they believed that ,god1 who made ,adam at #i ,a4,m4 on ,october #bc in the year #djjd ,b4,c41 was concerned with the behavior of ,adam's children4 #d4 ,sophisticated ,violence ,much effort goes into finding substitutes for this radical loss of association4 ,there is the ,americanization movement1 for example1 which in some of its public manifestations has as much resemblance to patriotism as the rape of the ,sabine women had to the love of ,dante for ,beatrice4 ,there is the vociferous nationalism of the p#jfd hundred percenters which is always most eloquent when it is about to be most rowdy4 ,there are the anxious outcries of the sectarians who in their efforts to revive the religion of their fathers show the utmost contempt for the aspirations of their sons4 ,there is ,mr4 ,henry ,ford hastily collecting ,american antiques before his cars destroy the whole culture which produced them4 ,there is ,mr4 ,lothrop ,stoddard looking every man in the eye to see whether it is ,nordic blue4 ,there are a thousand and one patently artificial1 sometimes earnest1 often fantastic fundamentalist agitations4 ,they are all attempts to impose quickly by one kind of sophisticated violence or another a posture of faith which can be genuine only when it belongs to the unquestioned memories of the soul4 ,they are a shrill insistence that men ought to feel that which no man can feel who does not already feel it in the marrow of his bones4 ,novelties crowd the consciousness of modern men4 ,the machinery of intelligence1 the press1 the radio1 the moving picture1 have enormously multiplied the number of unseen events and strange people and queer doings with which he has to be concerned4 ,they compel him to pay attention to facts that are detached from their backgrounds1 their causes and their consequences1 and are only half known because they are not seen or touched or actually heard4 ,these experiences come to him having no beginning1 no middle1 and no end1 mere flashes of publicity playing fitfully upon a dark tangle of circumstances4 ,i pick up a newspaper at the start of the day and ,i am depressed and rejoiced to learn that3 anthracite miners have struck in ,pennsylvania2 that a price boost p#jfe plot is charged2 that ,mr4 ,ziegfeld has imported a blonde from ,england who weighs #aab pounds and has pretty legs2 that the ,pope1 on the other hand1 has refused to receive women in low-necked dress and with their arms bare2 that airplanes are flying to ,hawaii2 and that the ,mayor says that the would-be ,mayor is a liar4444 ,now in an ordered universe there ought to be place for all human experiences4 ,but it is not strange that the modern newspaper reader finds it increasingly difficult to believe that through it all there is order1 permanence1 and connecting principle4 ,such experience as comes to him from the outside is a dissonance composed of a thousand noises4 ,and amidst these noises he has for inner guidance only a conscience which consists1 as he half suspects1 of the confused echoes of earlier tunes4 #e4 ,rulers ,he cannot look to his betters for guidance4 ,the ,american social system is migratory1 revolutionary1 and protestant4 ,it provides no recognized leaders and no clear standards of conduct4 ,no one is recognized as the interpreter of morals and the arbiter of taste4 ,there is no social hierarchy1 there is no acknowledged ruling class1 no well-known system of rights and duties1 no code of manners4 ,there are smart sets1 first families1 and successful people1 to whom a good deal of deference is paid and a certain tribute of imitation4 ,but these leaders have no real authority in morals or in matters of taste because they themselves have few standards that are not the fashions of a season4 ,they exercise1 therefore1 an almost autocratic power over deportment at the country club4 p#jff ,but what they believe about ,god1 salvation1 or the destiny of ,america nobody knows1 not even they themselves4 ,there have been perhaps three ruling classes in ,america1 the ,puritan merchants1 the ,knickerbocker gentry1 and the ,cavalier planters of the ,south4 ,each presided for a few generations over an ordered civilization4 ,but the ,new ,englanders uprooted themselves and went west1 and those who have been left behind are marooned in a flood of aliens4 ,the ,knickerbocker squirearchy dissolved in the commercial greatness of ,new ,york1 and the southern aristocracy was overthrown and ruined by a social revolution which culminated in the ,civil ,war4 ,they have left no successors1 and unless and until ,american society becomes stabilized once more somewhere for a few generations1 they are not likely to have any successors4 ,our rulers to-day consist of random collections of successful men and their wives4 ,they are to be found in the inner circles of banks and corporations1 in the best clubs1 in the dominant cliques of trade unions1 among the political churchmen1 the higher manipulating bosses1 the leading professional ,catholics1 ,baptists1 ,methodists1 ,irish1 ,germans1 ,jews1 and the grand panjandrums of the secret societies4 ,they give orders4 ,they have to be consulted4 ,they can more or less effectively speak for1 and lead some part of1 the population4 ,but none of them is seated on a certain throne1 and all of them are forever concerned as to how they may keep from being toppled off4 ,they do not know how they happen to be where they are1 although they often explain what are the secrets of success4 ,they have been educated to achieve success2 few of them have been educated to exercise power4 ,nor p#jfg do they count with any confidence upon retaining their power1 nor of handing it on to their sons4 ,they live1 therefore1 from day to day1 and they govern by ear4 ,their impromptu statements of policy may be obeyed1 but nobody seriously regards them as having authority4 ,,chapter ,v p#jfh ,,the ,,breakdown ,,of ,,authority #a4 ,god's ,government ,the dissolution of the ancestral order is still under way1 and much of our current controversy is between those who hope to stay the dissolution and those who would like to hasten it4 ,the prime fact about modernity1 as it presents itself to us1 is that it not merely denies the central ideas of our forefathers but dissolves the disposition to believe in them4 ,the ancestral tradition still lives in many corners of the world4 ,but it no longer represents for us1 as it did for ,dante and for ,st4 ,thomas ,aquinas seven hundred years ago1 the triumphant wisdom of the age4 ,a child born in a modern city may still learn to use the images of the theological drama1 but more or less consciously he is made to feel that in using them he is not speaking of things that are literally and exactly true4 ,its dogma1 as ,mr4 ,santayana once said1 is insensibly understood to be nothing but myth1 its miracles nothing but legend1 its sacraments mere symbols1 its bible pure literature1 its liturgy just poetry1 its hierarchy an administrative convenience1 its ethics an historical accident1 and its whole function simply to lend a warm mystical aureole to human culture and ignorance4 ,the modern man does not take his religion as a real account of the constitution1 the government1 the history1 and the actual destiny of the p#jfi universe4 ,with rare exceptions his ancestors did4 ,they believed that all their activities on this earth had a sequel in other activities hereafter1 and that they themselves in their own persons would be alive through all the stretches of infinite time to experience this fulfilment4 ,the sense of actuality has gone out of this tremendous conception of life2 only the echoes of it persist1 and in our memories they create a world apart from the world in which we do our work1 a noble world perhaps in which it is refreshing to dwell now and then1 and in anxiety to take refuge4 ,but the spaces between the stars are so great2 the earth is now so small a planet in the skies2 man is so close1 as ,st4 ,francis said1 to his brother the ass1 that in the daylight he does not believe that a great cosmic story is being unfolded of which his every thought and act is a significant part4 ,the universe may have a conscious purpose1 but he does not believe he knows just what it is2 humanity may be acting out a divine drama1 but he is not certain that he knows the plot4 ,there has gone out of modern life a working conviction that we are living under the dominion of one supreme ideal1 the attainment of eternal happiness by obedience to ,god's will on earth4 ,this conviction found its most perfect expression in the period which begins with ,st4 ,augustine's ,city of ,god and culminates in the ,divine ,comedy of ,dante4 ,but the underlying intuitions are to be found in nearly all popular religion2 they are the creature's feeling of dependence upon his creator1 a sense that his destiny is fixed by a being greater than himself4 ,at the bottom of it there is a conviction that the universe is governed by superhuman persons1 that the daily visible p#jgj life of the world is constitutionally subject to the laws and the will of an invisible government4 ,what the thinkers of the ,middle ,ages did was to work out in elaborate detail and in grandiose style the constitutional system under which supernatural government operates4 ,it is not fanciful1 and ,i hope not irreverent1 to suggest that the great debates about the nature of the ,trinity and the ,godhead were attempts to work out a theory of divine sovereignty2 that the debates about election and predestination and grace are attempts to work out a theory of citizenship in a divine society4 ,the essential idea which dominates the whole speculation is man's relation to a heavenly king4 ,as this idea was finally worked out by the legists and canonists and scholastics every ordering of a human community must appear as a component part of that ordering of the world which exists because ,god exists1 and every earthly group must appear as an organic member of that ,civitas ,dei1 that ,god-,state1 which comprehends the heavens and the earth4 ,then1 on the other hand1 the eternal and other-worldly aim and object of every individual man must1 in a directer or an indirecter fashion1 determine the aim and object of every group into which he enters4 ,but as there must1 of necessity1 be connection between the various groups1 and as all of them must be connected with the divinely ordered ,universe1 we come by the further notion of a divinely instituted ,harmony which pervades the ,universal ,whole and every part thereof4 ,to every ,being is assigned its place in that whole1 and to every link between ,beings corresponds a divine decree4444 ,there is no need to suppose that everyone in the ,middle ,ages understood the theory1 as ,gierke describes it here1 p#jga in all its architectural grandeur4 ,nevertheless1 the theory is implicit in the feeling of simple men4 ,it is the logical elaboration of the fundamental belief that the ,god who governs the world is no mere abstraction made up of hazy nouns and a vague adoration1 but that1 as ,henry ,adams says1 he is the feudal seigneur to whom ,roland1 when he was dying1 could proffer 8his right-hand glove0 as a last act of homage1 such as he might have made to ,charlemagne1 and could pray3 ,o ,god the ,father who has never lied1 ,who raised up ,saint ,lazarus from death1 ,and ,daniel from the lions saved1 ,save my soul from all the perils ,for the sins that in my life ,i did6 #b4 ,the ,doctrine of the ,keys ,the theory of divine government has always presented some difficulties to human reason1 as we can see even in ,st4 ,augustine1 who never clearly made up his mind whether the ,city of ,god was the actual church presided over by the ,bishop of ,rome or whether it was an ideal and invisible congregation of the saved4 ,but we may be sure that to plainer minds it was necessary to believe that ,god governs mankind through the agency of the visible church4 ,the unsophisticated man may not be realistic1 but he is literal2 he would be quite incapable1 we may be sure1 of understanding what ,st4 ,thomas meant when he asked 8why should not the same sacred letter 444 contain several senses founded on the literal80 ,he would accept all the senses but he would accept them all literally4 ,and taking them literally he would have to believe that p#jgb if ,god governs the world1 he governs it1 not in some obscure meaning of the term1 but that he actually governs it1 as a king who is mightier than ,charlemagne1 but not essentially unlike ,charlemagne4 ,the disposition to believe in the rule of ,god depended1 therefore1 upon the capacity to believe in a visible church upon earth which holds its commission from ,god4 ,in some form or another all simple people look to a priestly caste who make visible the divine power4 ,without some such actualization the human imagination falters and becomes vagrant4 ,the ,catholic ,church by its splendor and its power and its universality during the ,middle ,ages must have made easily credible the conception of ,god the ,ruler4 ,it was a government exercising jurisdiction over the known world1 powerful enough to depose princes1 and at its head was the ,pope who could prove by the evidence of scripture that he was the successor to ,peter and was the ,vice-gerent of ,god4 ,to ask whether this grandiose claim was in fact true is1 from the point of view of this argument1 to miss the point4 ,it was believed to be true in the ,middle ,ages4 ,because it was believed1 the ,church flourished4 ,because the ,church flourished1 it was ever so much easier to be certain that the claim was true4 ,when men said that ,god ruled the world1 they had evidence as convincing as we have when we say that the ,president is head of the ,united ,states ,government2 they were convinced because they came into daily contact with ,god's appointees administering ,god's laws4 ,it is this concrete sense of divine government which modern men have lost1 and it may well be that this is where the ,reformation has exercised its most revolutionary p#jgc effect4 ,what ,luther did was to destroy the pretensions not only of the ,roman ,catholic ,church1 but of any church and of any priestly class to administer ,god's government on earth4 ,the ,protestant reformers may not have intended to destroy as deeply as they did2 the theocracies established by ,calvin and ,knox imply as much4 ,but1 nevertheless1 when ,luther succeeded in defying the ,holy ,see by rejecting its claim that it was the exclusive agent of ,god1 he made it impossible for any other church to set up the same claim and sustain it for any length of time4 ,now ,christ says that not alone in the ,church is there forgiveness of sins1 but that where two or three are gathered together in ,his name1 they shall have the right and the liberty to proclaim and promise to each other comfort and the forgiveness of sins4444 ,we are not only kings and the freest of all men1 but also priests forever1 a dignity far higher than kingship1 because by that priesthood we are worthy to appear before ,god1 to pray for others1 and to teach one another mutually the things which are of ,god4 ,this denial of the special function of the priesthood did not1 of course1 originate with ,luther4 ,its historical antecedents go back to the primitive ,christians2 there is quotable authority for it in ,st4 ,augustine4 ,it was anticipated by ,wyclif and ,huss and by many of the mystics of the ,middle ,ages4 ,but ,luther1 possibly because the times were ripe for it1 translated the denial of the authority of the priesthood into a political revolution which divided ,christendom4 ,when the ,reformation was an accomplished fact1 men looked out upon the world and no longer saw a single ,catholic ,apostolic ,church as the visible embodiment of ,god's government4 ,a large part of p#jgd mankind1 and that an economically and politically powerful part1 no longer believed that ,christ gave to ,simon ,peter and his successors at the ,roman ,see the ,keys of the ,kingdom of ,heaven with the promise that 8whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven3 and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven40 #c4 ,the ,logic of ,toleration ,as a result of the great religious wars the governing classes were forced to realize that unless they consented to the policy of toleration they would be ruined4 ,there is no reason to suppose that except among a few idealists toleration has ever been much admired as a principle4 ,it was originally1 and in large measure it still is1 nothing but a practical necessity4 ,for in its interior life no church can wholly admit that its rivals may provide an equally good vehicle of salvation4 ,martin ,luther certainly had none of the modern notion that one church is about as good as the next4 ,to be sure he appealed to the right of private judgment1 but he made it plain nevertheless that in his opinion 8pagans or ,turks or ,jews or fake ,christians0 would 8remain under eternal wrath and an everlasting damnation40 ,john ,calvin let it be known in no uncertain tone that he did not wish any new sects in ,geneva4 ,milton1 writing his beautiful essay on liberty1 drew the line at ,papists4 ,and in our own day the ,catholic ,encyclopedia says in the course of an eloquent argument for practical civic toleration that 8as the true ,god can tolerate no strange gods1 the true ,church of ,christ can tolerate no strange churches beside herself1 p#jge or1 what amounts to the same1 she can recognize none as theoretically justified40 ,this is the ancient dogma that outside the church there is no salvation--extra ecclesiam nulla salus4 ,like many another dogma of the ,roman church1 it is not even in theory absolutely unbending4 ,thus it appears from the allocution of ,pope ,pius ,,ix1 ,singulari quadam 7#ahed71 that 8those who are ignorant of the true religion1 if their ignorance is invincible 7which means1 if they have never had a chance to know the true religion7 are not1 in this matter1 guilty of any fault in the sight of ,god40 ,as a consequence of the modern theory of religious freedom the churches find themselves in an anomalous position4 ,inwardly1 to their communicants1 they continue to assert that they possess the only complete version of the truth4 ,but outwardly1 in their civic relations with other churches and with the civil power1 they preach and practice toleration4 ,the separation of church and state involves more than a mere logical difficulty for the churchman4 ,it involves a deep psychological difficulty for the members of the congregation4 ,as communicants they are expected to believe without reservation that their church is the only true means of salvation2 otherwise the multitude of separate sects would be meaningless4 ,but as citizens they are expected to maintain a neutral indifference to the claims of all the sects1 and to resist encroachments by any one sect upon the religious practices of the others4 ,this is the best compromise which human wisdom has as yet devised1 but it has one inevitable consequence which the superficial advocates of toleration often overlook4 ,it is difficult to remain warmly convinced that the authority p#jgf of any one sect is divine1 when as a matter of daily experience all sects have to be treated alike4 ,the human soul is not so divided in compartments that a man can be indifferent in one part of his soul and firmly believing in another4 ,the existence of rival sects1 the visible demonstration that none has a monopoly1 the habit of neutrality1 cannot but dispose men against an unquestioning acceptance of the authority of one sect4 ,so many faiths1 so many loyalties1 are offered to the modern man that at last none seems to him wholly inevitable and fixed in the order of the universe4 ,the existence of many churches in one community weakens the foundation of all of them4 ,and that is why every church in the heyday of its power proclaims itself to be catholic and intolerant4 ,but when there are many churches in the same community1 none can make wholly good the claim that it is catholic4 ,none has that power to discipline the individual which a universal church exercises4 ,for1 as ,dr4 ,figgis puts it1 when many churches are tolerated1 8excommunication has ceased to be tyrannical by becoming futile40 #d4 ,a ,working ,compromise ,if the rival churches were not compelled to tolerate each other1 they could not1 consistently with their own teaching1 accept the prevailing theory of the public school4 ,under that theory the schools are silent about matters of faith1 and teachers are supposed to be neutral on the issues of history and science which bear upon religion4 ,the churches permit this because they cannot agree on the dogma they would wish to have taught4 ,the ,catholics would rather have no dogma in the schools than p#jgg ,protestant dogma2 the fundamentalists would rather have none than have modernist4 ,this situation is held to be a good one4 ,but that is only because all the alternatives are so much worse4 ,no church can sincerely subscribe to the theory that questions of faith do not enter into the education of children4 ,wherever churches are rich enough to establish their own schools1 or powerful enough to control the public school1 they make short work of the 8godless0 school4 ,either they establish religious schools of their own1 as the ,catholics and ,lutherans have done1 or they impose their views on the public schools as the fundamentalists have done wherever they have the necessary voting strength4 ,the last fight of ,mr4 ,bryan's life was made on behalf of the theory that if a majority of voters in ,tennessee were fundamentalists then they had the right to make public education in ,tennessee fundamentalist too4 ,one of the standing grievances of the ,catholic ,church in ,america is that ,catholics are taxed to support schools to which they cannot conscientiously send their children4 ,as a matter of fact non-sectarianism is a useful political phrase rather than an accurate description of what goes on in the schools4 ,if there is teaching of science1 that teaching is by implication almost always agnostic4 ,the fundamentalists point this out1 and they are quite right4 ,the teaching of history1 under a so-called non-sectarian policy1 is usually1 in this country1 a rather diluted ,protestant version of history4 ,the ,catholics are quite right when they point this out4 ,occasionally1 it may be1 a teacher of science appears who has managed to assimilate his science to his theology2 now and then a ,catholic history teacher p#jgh will depart from the standard textbooks to give the ,catholic version of disputed events during the last few hundred years4 ,but the chief effect of the non-sectarian policy is to weaken sectarian attachment1 to wean the child from the faith of his fathers by making him feel that patriotism somehow demands that he shall not press his convictions too far1 that commonsense and good fellowship mean that he must not be too absolute4 ,the leaders of the churches are aware of this peril4 ,every once in a while they make an effort to combat it4 ,committees composed of parsons1 priests1 and rabbis appear before the school boards and petition that a non-sectarian ,god be worshipped and the non-controversial passages of the ,bible be read4 ,they always agree that the present godless system of education diminishes the sanctions of morality and the attendance at their respective churches4 ,but they disagree when they try to agree on the nature of a neutral ,god1 and they have been known to dispute fiercely about a non-controversial text of the ,ten ,commandments4 ,so1 if the sects are evenly balanced1 the practical sense of the community turns in the end against the reform4 #e4 ,the ,effect of ,patriotism ,modern governments are not merely neutral as between rival churches4 ,they draw to themselves much of the loyalty which once was given to the churches4 ,in fact it has been said with some truth that patriotism has many of the characteristics of an authoritative religion4 ,certainly it is true that during the last few hundred years there has been transferred to government a considerable p#jgi part of the devotion which once sustained the churches4 ,in the older world the priest was a divinely commissioned agent and the prince a divinely tolerated power4 ,but by the ,sixteenth ,century ,melanchthon1 a friend of ,luther's1 had denied that the church could make laws binding the conscience4 ,only the prince1 he said1 could do that4 ,out of this view developed the much misunderstood but essentially modern doctrine of the divine right of kings4 ,in its original historic setting this doctrine was a way of asserting that the civil authority1 embodied in the king1 derived its power not from the ,pope1 as ,god's viceroy on earth1 but by direct appointment from ,god himself4 ,the divine right of kings was a declaration of independence as against the authority of the church4 ,this heresy was challenged not only by the ,pope1 but by the ,presbyterians as well4 ,and it was to combat the ,presbyterian preachers who insisted on trying to dictate to the government that ,king ,james ,i wrote his ,true ,law of ,free ,monarchy1 asserting the whole doctrine of the ,divine ,right of ,kings4 ,in the ,religious ,peace of ,augsburg an even more destructive blow was struck at the ancient claim of the church that it is a universal power4 ,it was agreed that the citizen of a state must adopt the religion of his king4 ,cuius regio ejus religio4 ,this was not religious liberty as we understand it1 but it was a supreme assertion of the civil power4 ,where once the church had administered religion for the multitude1 and had exercised the right to depose an heretical king1 it now became the prerogative p#jhj of the king to determine the religious duties of his subjects4 ,the way was open for the modern absolute state1 a conception which would have been entirely incomprehensible to men who lived in the ages of faith4 ,we must here avoid using words ambiguously4 ,when ,i speak of the absolute state1 ,i do not refer to the constitutional arrangement of powers within the state4 ,it is of no importance in this connection whether the absolute power of the state is exercised by a king1 a landed aristocracy1 bankers and manufacturers1 professional politicians1 soldiers1 or a random majority of voters4 ,it does not matter whether the right to govern is hereditary or obtained with the consent of the governed4 ,a state is absolute in the sense which ,i have in mind when it claims the right to a monopoly of all the force within the community1 to make war1 to make peace1 to conscript life1 to tax1 to establish and disestablish property1 to define crime1 to punish disobedience1 to control education1 to supervise the family1 to regulate personal habits1 and to censor opinions4 ,the modern state claims all these powers1 and in the matter of theory there is no real difference in the size of the claim between communists1 fascists1 and democrats4 ,there are lingering traces in the ,american constitutional system of the older theory that there are inalienable rights which government may not absorb4 ,but these rights are really not inalienable because they can be taken away by constitutional amendment4 ,there is no theoretical limit upon the power of the ultimate majorities which create civil government4 ,there are only practical limits4 ,they are restrained by inertia1 and by prudence1 even by good will4 ,but ultimately p#jha and theoretically they claim absolute authority as against all foreign states1 as against all churches1 associations1 and persons within their jurisdiction4 ,the victory of the civil power was not achieved everywhere at the same time4 ,spasmodically1 with occasional setbacks1 but in the long run irresistibly1 the state has attained supremacy4 ,in the feudal age the monarch was at no time sovereign4 ,the ,pope was the universal lawgiver1 not only in what we should call matters of faith1 but in matters of business and politics as well4 ,as late as the beginning of the ,seventeenth ,century1 ,pope ,paul ,v insisted that the ,doge of the ,venetian ,republic had no right to arrest a canon of the church on the charge of flagrant immorality4 ,when1 nevertheless1 the canon was arrested1 the ,pope laid ,venice under an interdict and excommunicated the ,doge and the ,senate4 ,but the ,venetian ,government answered that it was founded on ,divine ,right2 its title to govern did not come from the church4 ,in the end the ,pope gave way1 and 8the reign of the ,pope10 says ,dr4 ,figgis1 8as ,king of ,kings was over40 ,it was as a result of the loss of its civil power that the ,roman ,church evolved the modern doctrine of infallibility4 ,this claim1 as ,dr4 ,figgis points out1 is not the culmination but the 7implicit7 surrender of the notions embodied in the famous papal bull1 ,unam ,sanctam4 ,the ,pope could no longer claim the political sovereignty of the world2 he then asserted supreme rights as the religious teacher of the ,catholic communion4 8,the ,pope1 from being the ,lord of ,lords1 has become the ,doctor of ,doctors4 ,from being the mother of states1 the ,curia p#jhb has become the authoritative organ of a teaching society40 #f4 ,the ,dissolution of a ,sovereignty ,thus there has gradually been dissolving the conception that the government of human affairs is a subordinate part of a divine government presided over by ,god the ,king4 ,in place of one church which is sovereign over all men1 there are now many rival churches1 rival states1 voluntary associations1 and detached individuals4 ,god is no longer believed to be a universal king in the full meaning of the word king1 and religious obedience is no longer the central loyalty from which all other obligations are derived4 ,religion has become for most modern men one phase in a varied experience2 it no longer regulates their civic duties1 their economic activities1 their family life1 and their opinions4 ,it has ceased to have universal dominion1 and is now held to be supreme only within its own domain4 ,but there is much uncertainty as to what that domain is4 ,in actual affairs1 the religious obligations of modern men are often weaker than their social interests and generally weaker than the fiercer claims of patriotism4 ,the conduct of the churches and of churchmen during the ,war demonstrated that fact overwhelmingly4 ,they submitted willingly or unwillingly to the overwhelming force of the civil power4 ,against this force many men claim the right of revolution1 or at least the right of passive resistance and conscientious objection4 ,sometimes they base their claims upon a religious precept which they hold sacred4 ,but even in their disobedience to ,caesar they are forced to acknowledge that loyalty in the modern world is complex1 that it has become p#jhc divided and uncertain1 and that the age of faith which was absolute is gone for them4 ,however reverent they may be when they are in their churches1 they no longer feel wholly assured when they listen to the teaching that these are the words of the ministers of a heavenly king4 ,,chapter ,,vi p#jhd ,,lost ,,provinces #a4 ,business ,in any scheme of things where the churches1 as agents of ,god1 assert the right to speak with authority about the conduct of life they should be able to lay down rules about the way business shall be carried on4 ,the churches once did just that4 ,in some degree they still attempt to do it4 ,but the attempts have grown feebler and feebler4 ,in the last six hundred years the churches have fought a losing battle against the emancipation of business from religious control4 ,the early ,christian writers looked upon business as a peril to the soul4 ,although the church was in itself1 among other things1 a large business corporation1 they did not countenance business enterprise4 ,money-making they called avarice and money-lending usury1 just as they spoke of lust when they meant sexual desire4 ,they had sound reasons of their own for this attitude4 ,they knew from observation1 perhaps even from introspection1 that the desire for riches is so strong a passion that men possessed by it will devote only their odd moments to ,god4 ,the objection to a business career was like the objection to fornication2 it diverted the energies of the soul4 ,there were1 no doubt1 worldly reasons as well which account for the long resistance of the medival ,church p#jhe to what we now regard as the highest form of capitalistic endeavor4 ,the ,church belonged to the feudal system4 ,the ,pope and his bishops were in fact great feudal lords4 ,they thrived best in a social order where men lived upon the land4 ,they had a premonition that the rise of capitalism1 with its large cities1 its financiers1 merchants1 and proletarian workers1 was bound to weaken the secular authority of the church and to dissolve the influence of religion in men's lives4 ,they failed in their resistance1 but surely one can hardly say that their vision was not prophetic4 ,the drastic legislation of the church against business was enacted in the early days of capitalism2 it was inspired1 like the ,english corn laws and many another agrarian measure1 by a determination to preserve a landed order of society4 ,thus in discussing whether money might properly be loaned out at interest ,pope ,innocent ,,iv argued that if this were permitted 8men would not give thought to the cultivation of their land1 except when they could do naught else 444 even if they could get land to cultivate1 they would not be able to get the beasts and implements for cultivating it1 since the poor themselves would not have them1 and the rich1 both for the sake of profit and security1 would put their money into usury rather than into smaller and more risky investments40 ,the argument is the same as that which the ,american farmer makes when he complains that the bankers in ,wall ,street prefer to lend money to business men and to speculators rather than to farmers4 ,but the solid reasons which once inspired the church's opposition to business do not concern us here4 ,the opposition was unsuccessful1 the reasons were forgotten1 and p#jhf the old pronouncements against usury were looked upon as quaint and unworldly4 ,for the new economic order which displaced feudalism1 the ,catholic ,church1 at least1 had no program4 ,it did not adapt itself readily to the spirit of commercial enterprise which captured the active minds of ,northern ,europe4 ,the ,protestant churches did adapt themselves and contrived to preach a gospel which encouraged1 where ,roman ,catholicism had discouraged1 the enterprising business man4 ,they preached the divine duty of labor4 8,at the day of doom10 said ,john ,bunyan1 8men shall be judged according to their fruits4 ,it will not be said then1 ,did you ,believe8 ,but1 were you ,doers1 or ,talkers only80 ,as this preaching became more concrete1 to be a doer meant to do work and make money4 ,baxter in his ,christian ,directory wrote that 8if ,god show you a way in which you may lawfully get more than in another way 7without wrong to your soul or to any other71 if you refuse this1 and choose the less gainful way1 you cross one of the ends of your calling1 and you refuse to be ,god's steward40 ,richard ,steele in ,the ,tradesman's ,calling pointed out that the virtues enjoined on ,christians--diligence1 moderation1 sobriety1 and thrift--are the very qualities which are most needed for commercial success4 ,for 8godly wisdom 444 comes in and puts due bounds0 to his expenses1 8and teaches the tradesman to live rather somewhat below than at all above his income40 ,however edifying such doctrine may have been1 it was clearly an abandonment of the right1 once so eloquently asserted by the church1 that it had the authority to regulate business in the interest of man's spiritual welfare4 ,that right is still sometimes asserted4 ,sermons are still p#jhg preached about business ethics2 there are programs of ,christian socialism and ,christian capitalism4 ,churchmen still interest themselves1 often very effectively1 to reform some flagrant industrial abuse like the sweating of women and children4 ,but the modern efforts to moralize business and to subordinate profit-seeking to humane ends are radically different from those of the medival church4 ,they are admittedly experimental--that is to say1 debatable--since they do not derive their authority from revelation4 ,and they are presented as an appeal to reason1 to conscience1 to generosity1 not as the commandments of ,god4 ,the ,council of ,vienna in #acab declared that any ruler or magistrate who sanctioned usury and compelled debtors to observe usurious contracts would be excommunicated2 all laws which sanctioned money-lending at interest were to be repealed within three months4 ,the churches do not speak in that tone of voice to-day4 ,thus if an organization like the ,federal ,council of ,churches of ,christ is distressed by1 let us say1 the labor policy of a great corporation1 it inquires courteously of the president's secretary whether it would not be possible for him to confer with a delegation about the matter4 ,if the churchmen are granted an interview1 which is never altogether certain1 they have to argue with the business man on secular grounds4 ,were they to say that the eight-hour day was the will of ,god1 he would conclude they were cranks1 he would surreptitiously press the buzzer under his desk1 and in a few moments his secretary would appear summoning him to an important board meeting4 ,they have to argue with him1 if they are to obtain a hearing1 about the effect on health1 efficiency1 turnover1 p#jhh and other such matters which are worked up for them by economists4 ,as churchmen they have kindly impulses1 but there is no longer a body of doctrine in the churches which enables them to speak with authority4 ,the emancipation of business from religious control is perhaps even more threatening to the authority of the churches than the rivalry of sects or the rise of the civil power4 ,business is a daily occupation2 government meets the eye of the ordinary men only now and then4 ,that the main interest in the waking life of most people should be carried on wholly separated from the faith they profess means that the churches have lost one of the great provinces of the human soul4 ,the sponsors of the ,broadway ,temple in ,new ,york ,city put the matter in a thoroughly modern1 even if it was a rather coarse1 way when they proclaimed a campaign to sell bonds as 8a five percent investment in your ,fellow ,man's ,salvation--,broadway ,temple is to be a combination of ,church and ,skyscraper1 ,religion and ,revenue1 ,salvation and #e ,percent--and the #e percent is based on ethical ,christian grounds40 ,the five percent1 they hastened to add1 was also based on a gilt-edged real-estate mortgage2 the salvation1 however1 was1 we may suppose1 a speculative profit4 #b4 ,the ,family ,the family is the inner citadel of religious authority and there the churches have taken their most determined stand4 ,long after they had abandoned politics to ,caesar and business to ,mammon1 they continued to insist upon their authority to fix the ideal of sexual relations4 ,but here1 too1 the dissolution of their authority has proceeded p#jhi inexorably4 ,they have lost their exclusive right to preside over marriages4 ,they have not been able to maintain the dogma that marriage is indissoluble4 ,they are not able to prevent the remarriage of divorced persons4 ,although in many jurisdictions fornication and adultery are still crimes1 there is no longer any serious attempt to enforce the statutes4 ,the churches have failed in their insistence that sexual intercourse by married persons is a sin unless it is validated by the willingness to beget a child4 ,except to the poorest and most ignorant the means of preventing conception are available to all4 ,there is no longer any compulsion to regard the sexual life as within the jurisdiction of the commissioners of the ,lord4 ,religious teachers knew long ago what modern psychologists have somewhat excitedly rediscovered3 that there is a very intimate connection between the sexual life and the religious life4 ,only men living in a time when religion has lost so much of its inward vitality could be shocked at this simple truth1 for the churches1 when their inspiration was fresh1 have always known it4 ,that is why they have laid such tremendous emphasis upon the religious control of sexual experience1 have extolled chastity1 have preached continence after marriage except where parenthood was in view1 have inveighed against fornication1 adultery1 divorce1 and all unprocreative indulgence1 have insisted that marriages be celebrated within the communion1 have upheld the parental authority over children4 ,they were not prudish4 ,that is a state of mind which marks the decay of vigorous determination to control the sexual life4 ,the early teachers did not avert their eyes4 ,they did not mince their words4 ,for they knew what they were doing4 p#jij ,men like ,st4 ,paul and ,st4 ,augustine knew in the most direct way what sexual desire can do to distract the religious life2 how if it is not sternly regulated1 and if it is allowed to run wild1 it intoxicates the whole personality to the exclusion of spiritual interests4 ,they knew1 too1 although perhaps not quite so explicitly1 that these same passions1 if they are repressed and redirected1 may come forth as an ecstasy of religious devotion4 ,they were not reformers4 ,they did not think of progress4 ,they did not suppose that the animal in man could somehow be refined until it was no longer animal4 ,when ,paul spoke of the law of his members warring against the law of his mind1 and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin1 he had made a realistic observation which any candid person can verify out of his own experience4 ,there was no vague finical nonsense about this war of the members against the inward man seeking delight in the law of ,god4 ,if the sexual impulse were not deeply related to the religious life1 the preoccupation of churchmen with it throughout the ages would be absurd4 ,they have not been preoccupied in any comparable degree with the other physiological functions of the body4 ,they have concerned themselves somewhat with eating and drinking1 for gluttony and drunkenness can also distract men from religion4 ,but hunger and thirst are minor passions1 far more easily satisfied than lust1 and in no way so pervasive and imperious4 ,the world1 the flesh1 and the devil may usually be taken to mean sexual desire4 ,around it1 then1 the churches have built up a ritual1 to dominate it lest they be dominated by it4 ,tenaciously and with good reason they have fought against surrendering their authority4 p#jia ,with equally great insight they have kept the closest possible association with family life especially during the childhood of the offspring4 ,here again they anticipated by many long ages the discoveries of modern psychologists4 ,they have always known that it is in the earliest years1 before puberty1 that tradition is transmitted4 ,much is learned after puberty1 but in childhood education is more than mere learning4 ,there education is the growth of the disposition1 the fixing of the prejudices to which all later experience is cumulative4 ,in childhood men acquire the forms of their seeing1 the prototypes of their feeling1 the style of their character4 ,there presumably the very pattern of authority itself is implanted by habit1 fitted to the model presented by the child's parents4 ,there the assumption is fixed that there are wiser and stronger beings whom1 in the nature of things1 one must obey4 ,there the need to obey is fixed4 ,there the whole drift of experience is such as to make credible the idea that above the child there is the father1 above the father a king and the wise men1 above them all a heavenly ,father and ,king4 ,it is plain that any change which disturbs the constitution of the home will tend profoundly to alter the child's sense of what he may expect the constitution of the universe to be4 ,there are many disturbing changes of which none is more important surely than the emancipation of women4 ,the ,god of popular religion has usually been an elderly male4 ,there have been some female divinities worshipped in different parts of the world as there have been matriarchal societies4 ,but by and large the imagination of men has conceived ,god as a father4 ,they have magnified to a cosmic scale what they p#jib had seen at home4 ,it was the male who created the child4 ,it was his seed that the mother cherished in her womb4 ,it was the male who provided for the needs of the family1 even if the woman did the hard work4 ,it was the male who fended off enemies4 ,it was the male who laid down the law4 ,it was the name of the male parent which was preserved and passed on from generation to generation4 ,everything conspired to fix the belief that the true order of life was a hierarchy with a man at the apex4 ,this general notion becomes less and less credible as women assert themselves4 ,the child of the modern household is soon made to see that there are at least two persons who can give him orders1 and that they do not always give him the same ones4 ,this does not educate him to believe that there is one certain guide to conduct in the universe4 ,there are likely to be two guides to conduct in his universe1 as women insist that they are independent personalities with minds of their own4 ,this insistence1 moreover1 tends rather to disarrange the notion that the father is the creator of the child4 ,an observant youngster1 especially in these days of frank talk about sex1 soon becomes aware of the fact that the role of the male in procreation is a relatively minor one4 ,but most disturbing of all is the very modern household in which the woman earns her own living4 ,for here the child is deprived of the opportunity1 which is so conducive to belief in authority1 of seeing daily that even his mother is dependent upon a greater person for the good things in life4 ,although women1 by and large1 are by no means able to earn as much money as men1 the fact which counts is that they can earn enough to support themselves4 ,they p#jic may not actually support themselves4 ,but the knowledge that they could1 as it becomes an accepted idea in society1 has revolutionary consequences4 ,in former times the woman was dependent upon her husband for bed1 board1 shelter1 and clothing4 ,her whole existence was determined by her mating2 her sexual experience was an integral part of her livelihood and her social position4 ,but once it had become established that a woman could live without a husband1 the intimate connection between her sex and her career began to dissolve4 ,the invention of dependable methods of preventing conception has carried this dissolution much further4 ,birth control has separated the sexual act from the whole series of social consequences which were once probable if not inevitable4 ,for with the discovery that children need be born only when they are wanted1 the sexual experience has become increasingly a personal and private affair4 ,it was once an institutional affair--for the woman4 ,for the man1 from time immemorial1 there have been two sorts of sexual experience--one which had no public consequences1 and one which entailed the responsibilities of a family4 ,the effect of the modern changes1 particularly of woman's economic independence and of birth control1 is to equalize the freedom and the obligations of men and women4 ,that the sexual life has become separated from parenthood and that therefore it is no longer subject to external regulation1 is evident4 ,while the desires of men and women for each other were links in a chain which included the family and the household and children1 authority1 and by that token religious authority1 could hope to fix the sexual p#jid ideal4 ,when the chain broke1 and love had no consequences which were not too subtle for the outsider to measure1 the ideal of love was fixed not by the church in the name of ,god1 but by prudence1 convention1 the prevailing rules of hygiene1 by taste1 circumstances1 and personal sensibility4 #c4 ,art 7a7 ,the ,disappearance of ,religious ,painting ,to walk through a museum of ,western ,european art is to behold a peculiarly vivid record of how the great themes of popular religion have ceased to inspire the imagination of modern men4 ,one can visualize there the whole story of the dissolution of the ancestral order and of our present bewilderment4 ,one can see how toward the close of the ,fifteenth ,century the great themes illustrating the reign of a heavenly king and of the drama of man's salvation had ceased to be naively believed2 how at the close of the next century which witnessed the ,reformation and the ,counter-,reformation1 the beginnings of modern science1 the growth of cities1 and the rise of capitalism1 religious painting ceased to be the concern of the best painters2 and finally how in the last hundred years painters have illustrated by feverish experimentation the modern man's effort to find an adequate substitute for the organizing principle of the religion which he has lost4 ,it has been said by way of explanation that painters must sell their work1 and they must1 therefore1 paint what the rich and powerful will buy4 ,thus it is pointed out that in the ,middle ,ages they worked under the patronage of the ,church2 in the ,renaissance their patrons were paganized p#jie princes and popes1 and artists made pictures which1 even when the theme was religious1 were no longer ,christian in spirit4 ,later in the north of ,europe the bourgeoisie acquired money and station1 and the ,dutch painters did their portraits1 and made faithful representations of their kitchens and their parlors4 ,a little later ,french painters at the ,court of ,versailles made pictures for courtiers1 and in our time ,john ,sargent painted the wives of millionaires4 ,to say all this is to say that the ruling classes in the modern world are no longer interested in pictures which illustrate or are inspired by the religion they profess4 ,this attempt at an explanation in terms of supply and demand may or may not be sound for the ordinary run of painters4 ,it leaves out of account1 however1 those very painters who are the most significant and interesting4 ,it leaves out of account the painters who1 by heroic refusal to supply the existing market1 deserve universal respect1 and in many cases have won an ultimate public vindication4 ,these men do not fit into the theory of supply and demand1 for they endured poverty and derision in order to paint what they most wanted to paint4 ,they are not of the tribe1 which ,mr4 ,walter ,pach calls ,ananias1 who betray the truth that is in them4 ,but for that truth they did not draw upon the themes nor the sense of life which almost all of them must have been taught when they were children4 ,they did not paint religious pictures4 ,they painted landscapes1 streets1 interiors1 still life1 heads1 persons1 nudes4 ,whatever else they perceived and tried to express1 they did not see their objects in the perspective of human destiny and divine government4 ,there is no reason1 then1 to say that religious painting1 even in the p#jif broadest sense of the term1 has disappeared because there is no effective demand for it4 ,obviously it has disappeared because the will to produce it has disappeared4 7b7 ,the ,loss of a ,heritage ,in setting the religious tradition aside as something with which they are not concerned when they are at work1 artists are merely behaving like modern men4 ,it is plain that the religious tradition has become progressively less relevant to anyone who as painter or sculptor is engaged in making images4 ,this is a direct result of that increasing sophistication of religious thought which was signalized in ,europe by the iconoclasm of the ,protestant reformers and the puritanism of the ,catholic ,counter-,reformation4 ,before the acids of modernity had begun to dissolve the organic reality of the ancient faith1 there was no difficulty about picturing ,god the ,father as a patriarch and the ,virgin ,mary as a young blonde ,tuscan mother4 ,there was no disposition to disbelieve1 and so the imagination was at once nourished by a great heritage of ideas and yet free to elaborate it4 ,but when the authority of the old beliefs was challenged1 a great literature of controversy and definition was let loose upon the world4 ,and from the point of view of the artist the chief effect of this effort to argue and to state exactly1 to defend and to rebut1 was to substitute concepts for pictorial ideas4 ,when the nature of ,god became a matter of definition1 it was obviously crude and illiterate to represent him as a benign old man4 ,thus the more the theologians refined the dogmas of their religion the more impossible they made it for painters to express its significance4 ,no painter who ever lived could p#jig make a picture which expressed the religion of the ,rev4 ,harry ,emerson ,fosdick4 ,there is nothing there which the visual imagination can use4 ,painters have1 therefore1 a rather better reason than most men for having turned their backs upon the religious tradition4 ,they can say with a clear conscience that the contemporary churches have removed from that tradition those very qualities which once made it an inexhaustible source of artistic inspiration4 ,they need only point to modern religious writing in their own support3 at its best it has the qualities of an impassioned argument and more often it is intolerably flat and vague because in our intellectual climate skepticism dissolves the concreteness of the imagery and leaves behind sonorous adjectives and opaque nouns4 ,the full effects of this separation of the artist from the ancient traditions of ,christendom have been felt only in the last two or three generations4 ,it is no doubt true that the modern disbelief had its beginnings many generations ago1 perhaps in the ,fifteenth ,century1 but the momentum of the ancient faith was so great that it took a long time1 even after corrosive doubt had started1 before its influence came to an end4 ,the artists of the ,seventeenth and ,eighteenth ,centuries may not have been devout1 but they lived in a society in which the forms of the old order1 the hierarchy of classes1 the sense of authority1 and the general fund of ideas about human destiny1 still had vast prestige4 ,but in the ,nineteenth ,century that old order was almost completely dissolved and the prestige of its ideas destroyed4 ,the artist of the last two or three generations has confronted the world without any accepted understanding p#jih of human life4 ,he has had to improvise his own understanding of life4 ,that is a new thing in the experience of artists4 7c7 ,the ,artist ,formerly ,in #ghg the ,second ,council of ,nica laid down the rule which for nearly five hundred years was binding upon the artists of ,christendom3 ,the substance of religious scenes is not left to the initiative of the artists3 it derives from the principles laid down by the ,catholic ,church and religious tradition4444 ,his art alone belongs to the painter1 its organization and arrangement belong to the clergy4 ,this was a reasonable rule1 since the ,church and not the individual was held to be the guardian of those sacred truths upon which depended the salvation of souls and the safety of society4 ,the notion had occurred to nobody that the artist was divinely inspired and knew more than the doctors of the church4 ,therefore1 the artist was given careful specifications as to what he was to represent4 ,thus when the ,church of ,st4 ,urban of ,troyes decided to order a set of tapestries illustrating the story of ,st4 ,valerian and of his wife1 ,st4 ,cecilia1 a learned priest was deputed to draw up the contract for the artist4 ,in it he wrote among other specifications that3 8there shall be portrayed a place and a tabernacle in the manner of a beautiful room1 in which there shall be ,st4 ,cecilia1 humbly on her knees with her hands joined1 praying to ,god4 ,and beside her shall be ,valerian expressing great admiration and watching an angel which1 being above their heads1 should be holding two crowns made of lilies and of roses1 p#jii which he will be placing the one on the head of ,st4 ,cecilia and the other on the head of ,valerian1 her husband44440 ,the rest1 one might suppose1 was left to the artist's imagination4 ,but it was not4 ,having been given his subject matter and his theme1 he was bound further by strict conventions as to how sacred subjects were to be depicted4 ,jesus on the ,cross had to be shown with his mother on the right and ,st4 ,john on the left4 ,the centurion pierced his left side4 ,his nimbus contained a cross1 as the mark of divinity1 whereas the saints had the nimbus without a cross4 ,only ,god1 the angels1 ,jesus ,christ1 and the ,apostles could be represented with bare feet2 it was heretical to depict the ,virgin or the ,saints with bare feet4 ,the purpose of these conventions was to help the spectator identify the figures in the picture4 ,thus ,st4 ,peter was given a short beard and a tonsure2 ,st4 ,paul was bald and had a long beard4 ,it is possible that these conventions1 which were immensely intricate1 were actually codified in manuals which were passed on from master to apprentice in the workshops4 ,as a general rule the ecclesiastics who drew up specifications did not invent the themes4 ,thus the learned priest who drafted the contract for the tapestry of ,st4 ,cecilia drew his material from the encyclopedia of ,vincent de ,beauvais4 ,this was a compendium of universal knowledge covering the whole of history from ,creation to the ,last ,judgment4 ,it was a source book to which any man could turn in order to find the truth he happened to need4 ,it contained all of human knowledge and the answer to all human problems4 ,by the ,thirteenth ,century there were a number of these encyclopedias1 of which the greatest was p#ajj the ,summa of ,st4 ,thomas ,aquinas4 ,from these books churchmen took the themes which they employed their artists to embellish4 ,the artist himself had no concern as to what he would paint1 nor even as to how he would paint it4 ,that was given1 and his energies could be employed without the travail of intellectual invention1 upon the task of expressing a clear conception in well-established forms4 ,it must not be supposed1 of course1 that either doctrines1 lore1 or symbolism were uniformly standardized and exactly enforced4 ,in an age of faith1 contradictions and discrepancies are not evident2 they are merely variations on the same theme4 ,thus1 while it may be true that enthusiastic medivalists like ,m4 ,mle have exaggerated the order and symmetry of the medival tradition1 they are right1 surely1 on the main point1 which is that the organic character of the popular religion provided a consensus of feeling about human destiny which1 in conjunction with the resources of the popular lore1 sustained and organized the imagination of medival artists4 ,because religious faith was simple and genuine1 it could absorb and master almost anything4 ,thus the clergy ruled the artists with a relatively light hand1 and they were not disturbed if1 in illuminating the pages of a ,book of ,hours1 the artist adorned the margins with a picture of ,bacchus or the love of ,pyramus and ,thisbe4 ,it was only when the clergy had been made self-conscious by the controversies which raged around the ,reformation that they began in any strict and literally-minded modern sense to enforce the rule laid down at ,nica in #ghg4 ,at the ,council of ,trent in #aefc the great liberty of the artist within the ,christian tradition came to an end3 p#aja ,the ,holy ,council forbids the placing in a church of any image which calls to mind an erroneous dogma which might mislead the simple-minded4 ,it desires that all impurity be avoided1 that provocative qualities be not given to images4 ,in order to insure respect for its decisions1 the ,holy ,council forbids anyone to place or to have placed anywhere1 and even in churches which are not open to the public1 any unusual image unless the bishop has approved it4 ,in theory this decree at ,trent is not far removed from the decree at ,nica nearly one thousand years earlier4 ,but in fact it is a whole world removed from it4 ,for the dogmas at ,nica rested upon naive faith and the dogmas at ,trent rested upon definition4 ,the outcome showed the difference1 for within a generation ,catholic scholars made a critical survey of the lore which medival art had employed1 and on grounds of taste1 doctrine1 and the like1 condemned the greater part of it4 ,after that1 as ,m4 ,mle says1 there might still be artists who were ,christians but there was no longer a ,christian art4 7d7 ,the ,artist as ,prophet ,whether the necessity of creating his own tradition is a good or a bad thing for the artist1 there can be no doubt that it is a novel thing and a burdensome one4 ,artists have responded to it by proclaiming one of two theories3 they have said that the artist1 being a genius1 was a prophet2 when they did not say that1 they said that religion1 morality1 and philosophy were irrelevant1 and that art should be practiced for art's sake4 ,both theories are obviously attempts to find some personal substitute for those traditions upon which artists in all other ages have been dependent4 p#ajb ,the theory of the artist as prophet has this serious defect3 there is practically no evidence to support it4 ,why should there be8 ,what connection is there between the capacity to make beautiful objects and the capacity to discover truth8 ,surely experience shows that it is something of a marvel when a great artist appears who1 like ,leonardo or ,goethe1 is also an original and important thinker4 ,indeed1 it is reasonable to ask whether the analysis and abstraction which thinking involves are not radically different psychological processes from the painter's passionate appreciation of the appearance of things4 ,certainly to think as physicists think is to strip objects of all their secondary characters1 not alone of their emotional significance1 but of their color1 their texture1 their fragrance1 and even of their superficial forms4 ,the world as we know it through our senses has completely disappeared before the physicist begins to think about it4 ,and in its place there is a collection of concepts which have no pictorial value whatsoever4 ,these concepts are by definition incapable of being visualized1 and when as a concession to human weakness1 his own or his pupil's1 the scientist constructs a mechanical model to illustrate an idea1 this model is at best a crude analogy1 and in no real sense the portrait of that idea4 ,thus when ,shelley made ,earth say3 ,i spin beneath my pyramid of night1 ,which points into the heavens 444 he borrowed an image from astronomy4 ,but this image1 which is1 ,i think1 superb poetry1 radically alters the original scientific idea1 for it introduces into a realm of purely p#ajc physical relations the notion of a gigantic spectator with a vastly magnified human eye4 ,there are1 no doubt1 many other concepts in science which1 if poets knew more science1 would lend themselves to translation into equally noble images4 ,but these images would not state the scientific truth4 ,the current belief that artists are prophets is an inheritance from the time when science had no critical method of its own1 and poets1 being reflective persons1 had at least as good a chance as anyone else of stumbling upon truths which were subsequently verified4 ,it is due in some measure also to the human tendency to remember the happy guesses of poets and to forget their unhappy ones1 a tendency which has gone far to sustain the reputations of fortune-tellers1 oracles1 and stockbrokers4 ,but above all1 the reputation of the artist as one who must have wisdom is sustained by a rather genial fallacy3 he finds expression for the feelings of the spectator1 and the spectator rather quickly assumes that the artist has found an explanation for the world4 ,yet unless ,i am greatly mistaken the modern painter has ceased not only to depict any theory of destiny but has ceased to express any important human mood in the presence of destiny4 ,one goes to a museum and comes out feeling that one has beheld an odd assortment of nude bodies1 copper kettles1 oranges1 tomatoes1 and zinnias1 babies1 street corners1 apple trees1 bathing beaches1 bankers1 and fashionable ladies4 ,i do not say that this person or that may not find a picture immensely significant to him4 ,but the general impression for anyone1 ,i think1 is of a chaos of anecdotes1 perceptions1 fantasies1 and little p#ajd commentaries1 which may be all very well in their way1 but are not sustaining and could readily be dispensed with4 ,the conclusive answer to the romantic theory of the artist as prophet is a visit to a collection of modern paintings4 7e7 ,art for ,art's ,sake ,this brings us to the other theory1 which is that art has nothing to do with prophecy1 wisdom1 and the meaning of life1 but has to do only with art4 ,this theory must command an altogether different kind of respect than the sentimental theory of the artist as prophet4 ,this indeed is the theory which most artists now hold4 8,i am convinced10 says ,mr4 ,r4 ,h4 ,wilenski in his book ,the ,modern ,movement in ,art1 8that all the most intelligent artists of ,western ,europe in recent centuries have been tormented by this search for a justification of their work and a criterion of its value2 and that almost all such artists have attempted to solve the problem by some consciously-held idea of art2 or in other words that in place of art justified by service to a religion they have sought to evolve an art justified by service to an idea of art itself40 ,the instinct of artists in this matter is1 ,i think1 much sounder than the rationalizations which they have constructed4 ,as working artists they do not think of themselves as seers1 philosophers1 or moralists4 ,they do not wish to be judged as thinkers1 but as painters1 and they are justifiably impatient with the ,philistines who are interested primarily in the subject matter and its human significance4 ,the painter knows quite well that in the p#aje broadly human sense he has no special qualifications as story-teller or wise man4 ,what he is driving at1 therefore1 in his expression of contempt for the subject matter of art is the wish that he might again be in the position of the medival artist who did not have to concern himself as artist with the significance of his themes4 ,the intuition behind the theory of art for art's sake is the artist's wish to be free of a responsibility which he has never before had put upon him4 ,the peculiar circumstances of modernity have thrust upon him1 much against his will and regardless of his aptitudes1 the intolerably heavy burden of doing for himself what in other ages was done for him by tradition and authority4 ,the philosophy which he has invented is an attempt to prove that no philosophy is necessary4 ,carried to its conclusion1 this theory eventuates in the belief that painting must become an arrangement of forms and colors which have no human connotation whatsoever for the artist or the spectator4 ,these arrangements represent nothing in the real world4 ,they signify nothing4 ,they are an esthetic artifice in the same sense that the more esoteric geometries are logical artifices4 ,this much can at least be said of them3 they are a consistent effort to practice the arts in a world where there is no human tradition upon which the representative arts can draw4 ,this absolute estheticism is not1 however1 art without philosophy4 ,some sort of philosophy is implied in all human activity4 ,the artist who says that it is delightful above all other things to realize the pure form of objects1 regardless of whether this object is a saint1 a lovely woman1 or a dish of fruit1 has made a very important p#ajf statement about life4 ,he has said that the ordinary meanings which men attach to objects are of no consequence1 that their order of moral values is ultimately a delusion1 that all facts are equally good and equally bad1 and that to contemplate anything1 it does not matter what1 under the aspect of its esthetic form1 is to realize all that the artist can give4 ,this1 too1 is a philosophy and a very radical philosophy at that4 ,it is in fact just the philosophy which men were bound to construct for themselves in an age when the traditional theory of the purpose of life had lost its meaning for them4 ,for they are saying that experience has no meaning beyond that which each man can find in the intense realization of each passing moment4 ,he must fail1 they would feel1 if he attempts to connect these passing moments into a coherent story of his whole experience1 let alone the whole experience of the human race4 ,for experience has no underlying significance1 man himself has no station in the universe1 and the universe has no plan which is more than a drift of circumstances1 illuminated here and there by flashes of self-consciousness4 7f7 ,the ,burden of ,originality ,as a matter of fact this doctrine is merely the esthetic version of the rather crude mechanistic materialism which our grandfathers thought was the final conclusion of science4 ,the connection is made evident in the famous 8,conclusions0 to 8,the ,renaissance0 which ,walter ,pater wrote in #ahfh1 and then omitted from the second edition because 8it might possibly mislead some of those young men into whose hands it might fall40 ,in this p#ajg essay there was the startling1 though it is now hackneyed1 assertion that 8to burn always with this hard1 gem-like flame1 to maintain this ecstasy1 is success in life10 and that 8of this wisdom1 the poetic passion1 the desire of beauty1 the love of art for art's sake1 has most2 for art comes to you professing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass1 and simply for those moments' sake40 ,what is never quoted1 and is apparently forgotten1 is the reasoning by which ,pater arrived at the conclusion that momentary ecstasy is the end and aim of life4 ,it is1 if we turn back a few pages1 that scientific analysis has reduced everything to a mere swarm of whirling atoms1 upon which consciousness discerns impressions that are 8unstable1 flickering1 inconsistent40 ,it was out of this misunderstanding of the nature of scientific concepts that ,pater developed his theory of art for the moment's sake4 ,i dwell upon this only in order to show that what appeared to be an estheticism divorced from all human concern was really a somewhat casual by-product of a fashionable misunderstanding at the time ,pater was writing4 ,we should find that to-day equally far-reaching conclusions are arrived at by half-understood popularizations of ,bergson or ,freud4 ,i venture to believe that any theory of art is inevitably implicated in some philosophy of life1 and that the only question is whether the artist is conscious or unconscious of the theory he is acting upon4 ,for unless the artist deals with purely logical essences1 provided he observes and perceives anything in the outer world1 no matter how he represents it or symbolizes it or comments upon it1 there must be implicit in it some attitude p#ajh toward the meaning of existence4 ,if his conclusion is that human existence has no meaning1 that1 too1 is an attitude toward the meaning of existence4 ,the medival artist worked on much less tangled premises4 ,he painted pictures which illustrated the great hopes and fears of ,christendom4 ,but he did not himself attempt to formulate those hopes and fears4 ,he accepted them more or less ready made1 understanding them and believing in them because1 as a child of his age1 they were his hopes and fears4 ,but because they existed and were there for him to work upon1 he could put his whole energy into realizing them passionately4 ,the modern artist would like to have the same freedom from preoccupation1 but he cannot have it4 ,he has first to decide what it is that he shall passionately realize4 ,in effect the medival artist was reproducing a story that had often been told before4 ,but the modern artist has to undergo a whole preliminary labor of inventing1 creating1 formulating1 for which there was almost no counterpart in the life of a medival artist4 ,the modern artist has to be original4 ,that is to say1 he has to seize experience1 pick it over1 and drag from it his theme4 ,it is a very exhausting task1 as anyone can testify who has tried it4 ,that surely is why we hear so much of the storm and stress in the soul of a modern artist4 ,the craftsman does not go through agonies over the choice of words1 images1 and rhythms4 ,the agony of the modern artist lies in the effort to give birth to the idea1 to bring some intuition of order out of the chaos of experience1 to create the idea with which his art can deal4 ,we assume1 p#aji quite falsely ,i think1 that this act of #8creation' is an inherent part of the artist's task4 ,but if we refrain from using words loosely1 and reserve the word creation to mean the finding of the original intuition and idea1 then creation is plainly not a necessary part of the artist's equipment4 ,creation is an obligation which the artist has had thrust upon him as a result of the dissolution of the great accepted themes4 ,he is compelled to be creative because his world is chaotic4 ,this labor of creation has no connection with his gifts as a painter4 ,there is no more reason why a painter should be able to extemporize a satisfactory interpretation of life than that he should be able to govern a city or write a treatise on chemistry4 ,giotto surely was as profoundly original a painter as the world is likely to see2 it has been said of him by ,mr4 ,berenson1 who has full title to speak1 that he had 8a thoroughgoing sense for the significant in the visible world40 ,but with all his genius1 what would have been ,giotto's plight if1 in addition to exercising his sense of the significant1 he had had to create for himself all his standards of significance8 ,for ,giotto those standards existed in the ,catholic ,christianity of the ,thirteenth ,century1 and it was by the measure of these standards1 within the framework of a great accepted tradition1 that he followed his own personal sense of the significant4 ,but the modern artist1 though he had ,giotto's gifts1 would not have ,giotto's freedom to use them4 ,a very large part of his energies1 consciously or unconsciously1 would have to be spent in devising some sort of substitute for the traditional view of life which ,giotto took for granted4 ,for there is no longer an accepted view of p#aaj life organized in stories which all men know and understand4 ,there is instead a profusion of creeds and philosophies1 fads and intellectual experiments among which the modern painter1 like every other modern man1 finds himself trying to choose a philosophy of life4 ,everybody is somewhat dithered by these choices3 the business of being a ,shavian one year1 a ,nietzschean the next1 a ,bergsonian the third1 then of being a patriot for the duration of the war1 and after that a ,freudian1 is not conducive to the serene exercise of a painter's talents4 ,for these various philosophies which the artist picks up here and there1 or by which he is oftener than not picked up and carried along1 are immensely in dispute4 ,they are not clear4 ,they are rather personal and somewhat accidental visions of the world4 ,they are essentially unpictorial because they originate in science and are incompleted1 abstracted teachings for the meaning of things4 ,as a result the art in which they are implicit is often uninteresting1 and usually unintelligible1 to those who do not happen to belong to the same cult4 ,the painter can hardly expect to invent for himself a view of life which will bring order out of the chaos of modernity4 ,yet he is compelled to try1 for he is engaged in setting down a vision of the world1 and every vision of the world implies some sort of philosophy4 ,the effects of the modern emancipation are more clearly evident in the history of painting during the last hundred years than in almost any other activity1 because in the galleries hang in frames the successive attempts of men1 who are deeply immersed in the modern scene1 to set down their p#aaa statements about life4 ,mr4 ,wilenski1 who is an astute and well-informed critic1 has estimated that during the last hundred years in ,paris a new movement in painting has been inaugurated every ten years4 ,that would correspond fairly accurately to the birth and death of new philosophies in the advanced and most emancipated circles4 ,what was happening to painting is precisely what has happened to all the other separated activities of men4 ,each activity has its own ideal1 indeed a succession of ideals1 for with the dissolution of the supreme ideal of service to ,god1 there is no ideal which unites them all1 and sets them in order4 ,each ideal is supreme within a sphere of its own4 ,there is no point of reference outside which can determine the relative value of competing ideals4 ,the modern man desires health1 he desires money1 he desires power1 beauty1 love1 truth1 but which he shall desire the most since he cannot pursue them all to their logical conclusions1 he no longer has any means of deciding4 ,his impulses are no longer parts of one attitude toward life2 his ideals are no longer in a hierarchy under one lordly ideal4 ,they have become differentiated4 ,they are free and they are incommensurable4 ,the religious synthesis has dissolved4 ,the modern man no longer holds a belief about the universe which sustains a pervasive emotion about his destiny2 he no longer believes genuinely in any idea which organizes his interests within the framework of a cosmic order4 ,,chapter ,,vii p#aab ,,the ,,drama ,,of ,,destiny #a4 ,the ,soul in the ,modern ,world ,the effect of modernity1 then1 is to specialize and thus to intensify our separated activities4 ,once all things were phases of a single destiny3 the church1 the state1 the family1 the school were means to the same end2 the rights and duties of the individual in society1 the rules of morality1 the themes of art1 and the teachings of science were all of them ways of revealing1 of celebrating1 of applying the laws laid down in the divine constitution of the universe4 ,in the modern world institutions are more or less independent1 each serving its own proximate purpose1 and our culture is really a collection of separate interests each sovereign within its own realm4 ,we do not put shrines in our workshops1 and we think it unseemly to talk business in the vestibule of a church4 ,we dislike politics in the pulpit and preaching from politicians4 ,we do not look upon our scholars as priests or upon our priests as learned men4 ,we do not expect science to sustain theology1 nor religion to dominate art4 ,on the contrary we insist with much fervor on the separation of church and state1 of religion and science1 of politics and historical research1 of morality and art1 of business and love4 ,this separation of activities has its counterpart in a separation of selves2 the life of a modern man is not so much the p#aac history of a single soul2 it is rather a play of many characters within a single body4 ,that may be why the modern autobiographical novel usually runs to two volumes2 the author requires more space to explain how his various personalities came to be what they were at each little crisis of adolescence and of middle age than ,st4 ,augustine1 ,st4 ,thomas ,kempis1 and ,st4 ,francis put together needed in order to describe their whole destiny in this world and the next4 ,no doubt we are rather long-winded and tiresome about the complexities of our souls4 ,but from the knowledge that we are complex there is no escape4 ,the modern man is unable any longer to think of himself as a single personality approaching an everlasting judgment4 ,he is one man to-day and another to-morrow1 one person here and another there4 ,he does not feel he knows himself4 ,he is sure that no one else knows him at all4 ,his motives are intricate1 and not wholly what they seem4 ,he is moved by impulses which he feels but cannot describe4 ,there are dark depths in his nature which no one has ever explored4 ,there are splendors which are unreleased4 ,he has become greatly interested in his moods4 ,the precise nuances of his likes and dislikes have become very important4 ,there is no telling just what he is or what he may become1 but there is a certain breathless interest in having one of his selves watch and comment upon the mischief and the frustrations of his other selves4 ,the problems of his character have become dissociated from any feeling that they involve his immortal destiny4 ,they have become dissociated from the feeling that they deeply matter4 ,from the feeling that p#aad they are deeply his own4 ,from the feeling that there is any personality to own them4 ,there they are3 his inferiority complex and mine1 your sadistic impulse and ,tom ,jones's1 ,anna's father fixation1 and little ,willie's pyromania4 ,the thoroughly modern man has really ceased to believe that there is an immortal essence presiding like a king over his appetites4 ,the word #8soul' has become a figure of speech1 which he uses loosely1 sometimes to mean his tenderer aspirations1 sometimes to mean the whole collection of his impulses1 sometimes1 when he is in a hurry1 to mean nothing at all4 ,it is certainly not the fashion any longer to think of the soul as a little lord ruling the turbulent rabble of his carnal passions2 the constitutional form in popular psychology to-day is republican4 ,each impulse may invoke the ,bill of ,rights1 and have its way if the others will let it4 ,as ,bertrand ,russell has put it3 8,a single desire is no better and no worse1 considered in isolation1 than any other2 but a group of desires is better than another group if all of the first group can be satisfied1 while in the second group some are inconsistent with others10 but since1 unhappily as is usually the case1 desires are extremely inconsistent1 the uttermost that the modern man can say is that the victory must go to the strongest desires4 ,morality thus becomes a traffic code designed to keep as many desires as possible moving together without too many violent collisions4 ,when men insist that morality is more than that1 they are quickly denounced1 in general correctly1 as ,meddlesome ,matties1 as enemies of human liberty1 or as schemers trying to get the better of their fellow men4 ,morality1 conceived as a discipline p#aae to fit men for heaven1 is resented2 morality1 conceived as a discipline for happiness1 is understood by very few4 ,the objective moral certitudes have dissolved1 and in the liberal philosophy there is nothing to take their place4 #b4 ,the ,great ,scenario ,the modern world is like a stage on which a stupendous play has just been presented4 ,many who were in the audience are still spellbound1 and as they pass out into the street1 the scenario of the drama still seems to them the very clue and plan of life4 ,in the prologue the earth was without form and void1 and darkness was upon the face of the deep4 ,then at the command of ,god the sun1 the moon1 the stars1 the earth1 its plants and its animals1 then man1 and after him woman1 were created4 ,and in the epilogue the blessed were living in the ,new ,jerusalem1 a city of pure gold like clear glass1 with walls laid on foundations of precious stones4 ,between the darkness that preceded creation and the glory of this heavenly city which had no need of the sun1 a plot was unfolded which constitutes the history of mankind4 ,in the beginning man was perfect4 ,but the devil tempted him to eat the forbidden fruit1 and as a punishment ,god banished him from paradise1 and laid upon him and his descendants the curse of labor and of death4 ,but in meting out this punishment1 ,god in his mercy promised ultimately to redeem the children of ,adam4 ,from among them he chose one tribe who were to be the custodians of this promise4 ,and then in due time he sent his ,son1 born of a ,virgin1 to teach the gospel of salvation1 and to expiate the sin of ,adam upon a cross4 p#aaf ,those who believed in this gospel and followed its commandments1 would at the final day of reckoning enter into the heavenly ,jerusalem2 the rest would be consigned to the devil and his everlasting torments4 ,into this marvelous story the whole of human history and of human knowledge could be fitted1 and only in accordance with it could they be understood4 ,this was the key to existence1 the answer to doubt1 the solace for pain1 and the guarantee of happiness4 ,but to many who were in the audience it is now evident that they have seen a play1 a magnificent play1 one of the most sublime ever created by the human imagination1 but nevertheless a play1 and not a literal account of human destiny4 ,they know it was a play4 ,they have lingered long enough to see the scene shifters at work4 ,the painted drop is half rolled up2 some of the turrets of the celestial city can still be seen1 and part of the choir of angels4 ,but behind them1 plainly visible1 are the struts and gears which held in place what under a gentler light looked like the boundaries of the universe4 ,they are only human fears and human hopes1 and bits of antique science and half-forgotten history1 and symbols here and there of experiences through which some in each generation pass4 ,conceivably men might once again imagine another drama which was as great as the epic of the ,christian ,bible4 ,but like ,paradise ,lost or ,faust1 it would remain a work of the imagination4 ,while the intellectual climate in which we live is what it is1 while we continue to be as conscious as we are of how our own minds work1 we could not again accept naively such a gorgeous fable of our destiny4 ,yet only five hundred years ago the whole p#aag of ,christendom believed that this story was literally and objectively true4 ,god was not another name for the evolutionary process1 or for the sum total of the laws of nature1 or for a compendium of all noble things1 as he is in modernist accounts of him2 he was the ruler of the universe1 an omnipotent1 magical ,king1 who felt1 who thought1 who remembered and issued his commands4 ,and because there was such a ,god1 whose plan was clearly revealed in all its essentials1 human life had a definite meaning1 morality had a certain foundation1 men felt themselves to be living within the framework of a universe which they called divine because it corresponded with their deepest desires4 ,if we ask ourselves why it is impossible for us to sum up the meaning of existence in a great personal drama1 we have to begin by remembering that every great story of this kind must assume that the universe is governed by forces which are essentially of the same order as the promptings of the human heart4 ,otherwise it would not greatly interest us4 ,a story1 however plausible1 about beings who had no human qualities1 a plot which unfolded itself as utterly indifferent to our own personal fate1 would not serve as a substitute for the ,christian epic4 ,this is the trouble with the so-called religion of creative evolution3 even if it is true1 which is far from certain1 it is so profoundly indifferent to our individual fate1 that it leaves most men cold4 ,for there are very few who are so mystical as to be able to sink themselves wholly in the hidden purposes of an unconscious natural force4 ,this1 too1 as the ,catholic ,church has always insisted1 is the trouble with pantheistic religion1 for if everything is p#aah divine1 then nothing is peculiarly divine1 and all the distinctions of good and evil are meaningless4 ,the story must not only assume that human ideals inspire the whole creation1 but it must contain guarantees that this is so4 ,there must be no doubt about it4 ,science must confirm the moral assumptions2 the highest and most certain available knowledge must clinch the conviction that the story unfolded is the secret of life4 #c4 ,earmarks of ,truth ,religious teachers who were close to the people have always understood that they must perform wonders if they were to make their ,god convincing and their own title to speak for him valid4 ,the writer of ,exodus1 for example1 was quite clear in his mind about this3 ,and ,moses answered and said1 ,but1 behold1 they will not believe me1 nor hearken unto my voice3 for they will say1 ,the ,lord hath not appeared unto thee4 ,and the ,lord said unto him1 ,what is that in thine hand8 ,and he said1 ,a rod4 ,and he said1 ,cast it on the ground4 ,and he cast it on the ground1 and it became a serpent2 and ,moses fled from before it4 ,and the ,lord said unto ,moses1 ,put forth thine hand1 and take it by the tail4 ,and he put forth his hand1 and caught it1 and it became a rod in his hand3 ,that they may believe that the ,lord ,god of their fathers1 the ,god of ,abraham1 the ,god of ,isaac1 and the ,god of ,jacob1 hath appeared unto thee4 ,even in the wildest flights of his fancy the common man is almost always primarily interested in the prosaic consequences4 ,if he believes in fairies he is not likely p#aai to imagine them as spirits inhabiting a world apart1 but as little people who do things which affect his own affairs4 ,the common man is an unconscious pragmatist3 he believes because he is satisfied that his beliefs change the course of events4 ,he would not be inspired to worship a god who merely contemplates the universe1 or a god who created it once1 and then rested1 while its destiny unfolds itself inexorably4 ,to the plain people religion is not disinterested speculation but a very practical matter4 ,it is concerned with their well-being in this world and in an equally concrete world hereafter4 ,they have wanted to know the will of ,god because they had to know it if they were to put themselves right with the king of creation4 ,those who professed to know ,god's will had to demonstrate that they knew it4 ,this was the function of miracles4 ,they were tangible evidence that the religious teacher had a true commission4 8,then those men1 when they had seen the miracle 7of the loaves and the fishes7 that ,jesus did1 said1 ,this is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world40 ,when ,jesus raised the dead man at the gate of the city of ,nain1 8there came a fear on all3 and they glorified ,god1 saying1 ,that a great prophet is risen up among us2 and1 ,that ,god hath visited his people40 ,the most authoritative ,catholic theologians teach that miracles 8are not wrought to show the internal truth of the doctrines1 but only to give manifest reasons why we should accept the doctrines40 ,they are 8essentially an appeal to knowledge10 demonstrations1 one might almost say divine experiments1 by which men are enabled to know the glory and the providence of ,god4 p#abj ,the ,catholic apologists maintain that ,god can be known by the exercise of reason1 but the miracle helps1 as it were1 to clinch the conviction4 ,the persistent attachment of the ,catholic ,church to miracles is significant4 ,it has a longer unbroken experience with human nature than any other institution in the western world4 ,it has adapted itself to many circumstances1 and under the profession of an unalterable creed it has abandoned and then added much4 ,but it has never ceased to insist upon the need of a physical manifestation of the divine power4 ,for with an unerring instinct for realities1 ,catholic churchmen have understood that there is a residuum of prosaic1 matter-of-factness1 of a need to touch and to see1 which verbal proofs can never quite satisfy4 ,they have resolutely responded to that need4 ,they have not preached ,god merely by praising him2 they have brought ,god near to men by revealing him to the senses1 as one who is great enough and good enough and sufficiently interested in them to heal the sick and to make the floods recede4 ,but to-day scientists are ever so much superior to churchmen at this kind of demonstration4 ,the miracles which are recounted from the pulpit were1 after all1 few and far between4 ,there are even theologians who teach that miracles ceased with the death of the ,apostles4 ,but the miracles of science seem to be inexhaustible4 ,it is not surprising1 then1 that men of science should have acquired much of the intellectual authority which churchmen once exercised4 ,scientists do not1 of course1 speak of their discoveries as miracles4 ,but to the common man they have much the same character as miracles4 ,they are p#aba wonderful1 they are inexplicable1 they are manifestations of a great power over the forces of nature4 ,it cannot be said1 ,i think1 that the people at large1 even the moderately educated minority1 understand the difference between scientific method and revelation1 or that they have decided upon reflection to trust science4 ,there is at least as much mystery in science for the common man as there ever was in religion2 in a sense there is more mystery1 for the logic of science is still altogether beyond his understanding1 whereas the logic of revelation is the logic of his own feelings4 ,but if men at large do not understand the method of science1 they can appreciate some of its more tangible results4 ,and these results are so impressive that scientific men are often embarrassed by the unbounded popular expectations which they have so unintentionally aroused4 ,their authority in the realm of knowledge has become virtually irresistible4 ,and so when scientists teach one theory and the ,bible another1 the scientists invariably carry the greater conviction4 #d4 ,on ,reconciling ,religion and ,science ,the conflicts between scientists and churchmen are sometimes ascribed to a misunderstanding on both sides4 ,but when we examine the proposals for peace1 it is plain1 ,i think1 that they are in effect proposals for a truce4 ,there is1 for example1 the suggestion first put out1 ,i believe1 in the ,seventeenth ,century that ,god made the universe like a clock1 and that having started it running he will let it alone till it runs down4 ,by this ingenious metaphor1 which can neither be proved nor disproved1 p#abb it was possible to reconcile for a time the scientific notion of natural law with the older notion of ,god as creator and as judge4 ,the religious conception was held to be true for the beginning of the world and for the end1 the scientific conception was true in between4 ,later1 when the theatre of the difficulty was transferred from physics and astronomy to biology and history1 a variation was propounded4 ,god1 it was said1 created the world and governs it2 the way he creates and governs is the way described by scientists as #8evolution4' ,attempts at reconciliations like these are based on a theory that it is feasible somewhere in the field of knowledge to draw a line and say that on one side the methods of science shall prevail1 on the other the methods of traditional religion4 ,it is acknowledged that where experiment and observation are possible1 the field belongs to the scientists2 but it is argued that there is a vast field of great interest to mankind which is beyond the reach of practical scientific inquiry1 and that here1 touching questions like the ultimate destiny of man1 the purpose of life1 and immortality1 the older method of revelation1 inspired and verified by intuition1 is still reliable4 ,in any truce of this sort there is bound to be aggression from both sides4 ,for it is a working policy rather than an inwardly accepted conviction4 ,scientists cannot really believe that there are fields of possible knowledge which they can never enter4 ,they are bound to enter all fields and to explore everything4 ,and even if they fail1 they cannot believe that other scientists must always fail4 ,their essays1 moreover1 create disturbance and doubt which orthodox churchmen are forced to resent4 ,for in p#abc any division of authority1 there must be some ultimate authority to settle questions of jurisdiction4 ,shall scientists determine what belongs to science1 or shall churchmen8 ,the question is insoluble as long as both claim that they have the right to expound the nature of existence4 ,and so while the policy of toleration may be temporarily workable1 it is inherently unstable4 ,therefore1 among men who are at once devoted to the method of science and sensitive to the human need of religion1 the hope has arisen that something better can be worked out than a purely diplomatic division of the mind into spheres of influence4 ,mr4 ,whitehead1 for example1 in his book called ,science and the ,modern ,world1 argues 8there are wider truths and finer perspectives within which a reconciliation of a deeper religion and a more subtle science will be found40 ,he illustrates what he means in this fashion4 ,galileo said the earth moves and the sun is fixed2 the ,inquisition said the earth is fixed and the sun moves2 the ,newtonian astronomers said that both the sun and the earth move4 8,but now we say that any one of these three statements is equally true1 provided you have fixed your sense of #8rest' and #8motion' in the way required by the statement adopted4 ,at the date of ,galileo's controversy with the ,inquisition1 ,galileo's way of stating the facts was beyond question the fruitful procedure for the sake of scientific research4 ,but at that time the concepts of relative motion were in nobody's mind2 so that the statements were made in ignorance of the qualifications required for the more perfect truth4444 ,all sides had got hold of important truths4444 p#abd ,but with the knowledge of those times1 the truths appeared to be inconsistent40 ,this is reconciliation through a higher synthesis4 ,but ,i cannot help feeling that the scientist has here produced the synthesis1 and that the churchmen have merely provided one of the ideas which are to be synthesized4 ,mr4 ,whitehead argues in effect that a subtler science would confirm many ideas that were once taken on faith4 ,but he holds unswervingly to the belief of the scientist that his method contains the criterion of truth4 ,in his illustration the reconciliation between ,galileo1 the ,inquisition1 and the ,newtonian physicists is reached if all three parties accept 8the modern concept of relative motion40 ,but the modern concept of relative motion was reached by scientific thought1 and not by apostolic revelation4 ,to ,mr4 ,whitehead1 therefore1 the ultimate arbiter is science1 and what he means by reconciliation is a scientific view of the universe sufficiently wide and sufficiently subtle to justify many of the important1 but hitherto unverified1 claims of traditional religion4 ,mr4 ,whitehead1 it happens1 is an ,englishman as well as a great logician1 and it is difficult to resist the suspicion that he conceives the church of the future as enjoying the dignities of an ,indian ,maharajah1 with a resident scientist behind the altar4 ,a reconciliation of this kind may soften the conflict for a while4 ,but it cannot for long disguise the fact that it is based on a denial of the premises of faith4 ,if the method of science has the last word1 then revelation is reduced from a means of arriving at absolute certainty to a flash of insight which can be trusted if and when it is verified by science4 ,under such terms of peace1 the religious p#abe experiences of mankind become merely one of the instruments of knowledge1 like the microscope and the binomial theorem1 usable now and then1 but subject to correction1 and provisional4 ,they no longer yield complete1 ultimate1 invincible truths4 ,they yield an hypothesis4 ,but the religious life of most men has not1 until this day at least1 been founded upon hypotheses which1 when accurately stated1 included a coefficient of probable error4 #e4 ,gospels of ,science ,because its prestige is so great1 science has been acclaimed as a new revelation4 ,cults have attached themselves to scientific hypotheses as fortune-tellers to a circus4 ,a whole series of pseudo-religions have been hastily constructed upon such dogmas as the laws of nature1 mechanism1 ,darwinian evolution1 ,lamarckian evolution1 and psychoanalysis4 ,each of these cults has had its own ,decalogue of ,science founded at last1 it was said1 upon certain knowledge4 ,these cults are an attempt to fit the working theories of science to the ordinary man's desire for personal salvation4 ,they do violence to the integrity of scientific thought and they cannot satisfy the layman's need to believe4 ,for the essence of the scientific method is a determination to investigate phenomena without conceding anything to naive human prejudices4 ,therefore1 genuine men of science shrink from the attempts of poets1 prophets1 and popular lecturers to translate the current scientific theory into the broad and passionate dogmas of popular faith4 ,as a matter of common honesty they know that no theory has the kind of absolute verity which p#abf popular faith would attribute to it4 ,as a matter of prudence they fear these popular cults1 knowing quite well that freedom of inquiry is endangered when men become passionately loyal to an idea1 and stake their personal pride and hope of happiness upon its vindication4 ,in the light of human experience1 men of science have learned what happens when investigators are not free to discard any theory without breaking some dear old lady's heart4 ,their theories are not the kind of revelation which the old lady is seeking1 and their beliefs are relative and provisional to a degree which must seem utterly alien and bewildering to her4 ,here1 for example1 is the conclusion of some lectures by one of the greatest living astronomers4 ,i have italicized the words which the dear old lady would not be likely to hear in a sermon3 ,i have dealt mainly with two salient points--the problem of the source of a star's energy1 and the change of mass which must occur if there is any evolution of faint stars from bright stars4 ,i have shown how these appear to meet in the hypothesis of the annihilation of matter4 ,i do not hold this as a secure conclusion4 ,i hesitate even to advocate it as probable1 because there are many details which seem to me to throw considerable doubt on it1 and ,i have formed a strong impression that there must be some essential point which has not yet been grasped4 ,i simply tell it you as the clue which at the moment we are trying to follow up--not knowing whether it is false scent or true4 ,i should have liked to have closed these lectures by leading up to some great climax4 ,but perhaps it is more in accordance with the true conditions of scientific progress that they should fizzle out with a glimpse of the obscurity which marks the frontiers of present knowledge4 ,i do not apologize for the p#abg lameness of the conclusion1 for it is not a conclusion4 ,i wish ,i could feel confident that it is even a beginning4 ,this great climax1 to which ,dr4 ,eddington was unable to lead up1 is what the layman is looking for4 ,we know quite well what the nature of that great climax would be3 it would be a statement of fact which related the destiny of each individual to the destiny of the universe4 ,that is the kind of truth which is found in revelation4 ,it is the kind of truth which men would like to find in science4 ,but it is the kind of truth which science does not afford4 ,the difficulty is deeper than the provisional character of scientific hypothesis2 it is not due merely to the inability of the scientist to say that his conclusion is absolutely secure4 ,the layman in search of a dogma upon which to organize his destiny might be willing to grant that the conclusions of science to-day are as yet provisional4 ,what he tends to misunderstand is that even if the conclusions were guaranteed by all investigators now and for all time to come1 those conclusions would still fail to provide him with a conception of the world of which the great climax was a prophecy of the fate of creation in terms of his hopes and fears4 ,the radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief1 which is at the heart of all popular religion1 that the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the preferences of the human heart4 ,the science of ,aristotle and of the ,schoolmen1 on the other hand1 was a truly popular science4 ,it was in its inspiration the instinctive science of the unscientific man4 8,they read into the cause and goal of the universe10 as ,dr4 ,randall has said1 8that which alone p#abh justifies it for man1 its service of the good40 ,they provided a conception of the universe which was available for the religious needs of ordinary men1 and in the ,divine ,comedy we can see the supreme example of what science must be like if it is to satisfy the human need to believe4 ,the purpose of the whole poem1 said ,dante himself1 8is to remove those who are living in this life from the state of wretchedness1 and to lead them to the state of blessedness40 ,medival science1 which follows the logic of human desire1 was such that ,dante could without violence either to its substance or its spirit say at the summit of ,paradise3 ,to the high fantasy here power failed2 but already my desire and will were rolled--even as a wheel that moveth equally--by the ,love that moves the sun and the other stars4 ,this is the great climax which men instinctively expect3 the ability to say with perfect assurance that when the truth is fully evident it will be seen that their desire and will are rolled by the love that moves the sun and the other stars4 ,they hope not only to find the will of ,god in the universe but to know that his will is fundamentally like their own4 ,only if they could believe that on the basis of scientific investigation would they really feel that science had #8explained' the world4 ,explanation1 in this sense1 cannot come from modern science because it is not in this sense that modern science attempts to explain the universe4 ,it is wholly misleading to say1 for example1 that the scientific picture of the world is mechanical4 ,all that can properly be said is that many scientists have found it satisfying to think about the universe as if it were built on a mechanical model4 8,if ,i p#abi can make a mechanical model10 said ,lord ,kelvin1 8,i can understand it4 ,as long as ,i cannot make a mechanical model all the way through1 ,i cannot understand it40 ,but what does the scientist mean by 8understanding it08 ,he means1 says ,professor ,bridgman1 that he has 8reduced a situation to elements with which we are so familiar that we accept them as a matter of course1 so that our curiosity rests40 ,modern men are familiar with machines4 ,they can take them apart and put them together1 so that even though we should all be a little flustered if we had to tell just what we mean by a machine1 our curiosity tends to be satisfied if we hear that the phenomenon1 say1 of electricity or of human behavior1 is like a machine4 ,the place at which curiosity rests is not a fixed point called #8the truth4' ,the unscientific man1 like the ,schoolmen of the ,middle ,ages1 really means by the truth an explanation of the universe in terms of human desire4 ,what modern science means by the truth has been stated most clearly perhaps by the late ,charles ,s4 ,peirce when he said that 8the opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all those who investigate1 is what we mean by the truth1 and the object represented in this opinion is the real40 ,when we say that something has been #8explained' by science1 we really mean only that our own curiosity is satisfied4 ,another man1 whose mind was more critical1 who commanded a greater field of experience1 might not be satisfied at all4 ,thus 8the savage is satisfied by explaining the thunderstorm as the capricious act of an angry ,god4444 7,but7 even if the physicist believed in the existence of the angry god1 he would not be satisfied with this explanation of the thunderstorm p#acj because he is not so well acquainted with angry gods as to be able to predict when anger is followed by a storm4 ,he would have to know why the god had become angry1 and why making a thunderstorm eased his ire40 ,but even carrying the explanation to this point would not be carrying it to its limit4 ,for there is no formal limit4 ,the next scientist might wish to know what a god was and what anger is4 ,and when he had been told what their elements are1 the next man might be dissatisfied until he had found the elements of these elements4 ,the man who says that the world is a machine has really advanced no further than to say that he is so well satisfied with this analogy that he is through with searching any further4 ,that is his business1 as long as he does not insist that he has reached a clear and ultimate picture of the universe4 ,for obviously he has not4 ,a machine is something in which the parts push and pull each other4 ,but why are they pushing and pulling1 and how do they work8 ,do they push and pull because of the action of the electrons in their orbits within the atoms8 ,if that is true1 then how does an electron work8 ,is it1 too1 a machine8 ,or is it something quite different from a machine8 ,shall we attempt to explain machines electrically1 or shall we attempt to explain electricity mechanically8 ,it becomes plain1 therefore1 that scientific explanation is altogether unlike the explanations to which the common man is accustomed4 ,it does not yield a certain picture of anything which can be taken naively as a representation of reality4 ,and therefore the philosophies which have grown up about science1 like mechanism or p#aca creative evolution1 are in no way guaranteed by science as the account of creation in ,genesis is guaranteed by the authority of ,scripture4 ,they are nothing but provisional dramatizations which are soon dissolved by the progress of science itself4 ,that is why nothing is so dead as the scientific religion of yesterday4 ,it is far more completely dead than any revealed religion1 because the revealed religion1 whatever may be the defects of its cosmology or its history1 has some human experience at its core which we can recognize and to which we may respond4 ,but a religion like scientific materialism has nothing in it1 except the pretension that it is a true account of the world4 ,once that pretension is exploded1 it is wholly valueless as a religion4 ,it has become a collection of discarded concepts4 #f4 ,the ,deeper ,conflict ,it follows from the very nature of scientific explanation1 then1 that it cannot give men such a clue to a plan of existence as they find in popular religion4 ,for that plan must suppose that existence is explained in terms of human destiny4 ,now conceivably existence might again be explained1 as it was in the ,middle ,ages1 as the drama of human destiny4 ,it does not seem probable to us2 yet we cannot say that it is impossible4 ,but even if science worked out such an explanation1 it would still be radically different from the explanations which popular religion employs4 ,for if it were honestly stated1 it would be necessary to say first1 that it is tentative1 and subject to disproof by further experiment2 second1 that it is relative1 in that p#acb the same facts seen from some other point and with some other purpose in mind could be explained quite differently2 third1 that it is not a picture of the world1 as ,god would see it1 and as all men must see it1 but that it is simply one among many possible creations of the mind into which most of the data of experience can be fitted4 ,when the scientist had finished setting down his qualifications1 the essence of the matter as a simple1 devout man sees it1 would have evaporated4 ,certainty1 as the devout desire it1 would be gone2 verity1 as they understand it1 would be gone2 objectivity1 as they imagine it1 would be gone4 ,what would remain would be a highly abstracted1 logical fiction1 suited to disinterested inquiry1 but utterly unsuited to be the vehicle of his salvation4 ,the difficulty of reconciling popular religion with science is far deeper than that of reconciling ,genesis with ,darwin1 or any statement of fact in the ,bible with any discovery by scientists4 ,it is the difficulty of reconciling the human desire for a certain kind of universe with a method of explaining the world which is absolutely neutral in its intention4 ,one can by twisting language sufficiently 8reconcile0 ,genesis with 8evolution40 ,but what no one can do is to guarantee that science will not destroy the doctrine of evolution the day after it has been triumphantly proved that ,genesis is compatible with the theory of evolution4 ,as a matter of fact1 just that has happened4 ,the ,darwinian theory1 which theologians are busily accepting1 is so greatly modified already by science that some of it is almost as obsolete as the ,babylonian myth in ,genesis4 ,the reconciliation which theologians are attempting is an impossible one1 because one of the p#acc factors which has to be reconciled--namely1 the scientific theory1 changes so rapidly that the layman is never sure at any one moment what the theory is which he has to reconcile with religious dogma4 ,yet the purpose of these attempts at reconciliation is evident enough4 ,it is to find a solid foundation for human ideals in the facts of existence4 ,authority based on revelation once provided that foundation4 ,it gave an account of how the world began1 of how it is governed1 and of how it will end1 which made pain and joy1 hope and fear1 desire and the denial of desire the central motives in the cosmic drama4 ,this account no longer satisfies our curiosity as to the nature of things2 the authority which certifies it no longer commands our complete allegiance4 ,the prestige1 which once adhered to those who spoke by revelation1 has passed to scientists4 ,but science1 though it is the most reliable method of knowledge we now possess1 does not provide an account of the world in which human destiny is the central theme4 ,therefore1 science1 though it has displaced revelation1 is not a substitute for it4 ,it yields a radically different kind of knowledge4 ,it explains the facts4 ,but it does not pretend to justify the ways of ,god to man4 ,it enables us to realize some of our hopes4 ,but it offers no guarantees that they can be fulfilled4 #g4 ,theocracy and ,humanism ,there is a revolution here in the realm of the spirit4 ,we may describe it briefly by saying that whereas men once felt they were living under the eye of an all-powerful spectator1 to-day they are watched only by their neighbors p#acd and their own consciences4 ,a few1 perhaps1 act as if posterity were aware of them2 the great number feel themselves accountable only to their own consciences or to the opinion of the society in which they live4 ,once men believed that they would be judged at the throne of ,god4 ,they believed that he saw not only their deeds but their motives2 there was no hole deep enough into which a man could crawl to hide himself from the sight of ,god2 there was no mood1 however fleeting1 which escaped his notice4 ,the moral problem for each man1 therefore1 was to make his will conform to the will of ,god4 ,there were differences of opinion as to how this could be done4 ,there were differing conceptions of the nature of ,god1 and of what he most desired4 ,but there was no difference of opinion on the main point that it was imperative to obey him4 ,whether they thought they could serve ,god best by burnt offerings or a contrite heart1 by slaying the infidel or by loving their neighbors1 by vows of poverty or by the magnificence of their altars1 they never doubted that the chief duty of man1 and his ultimate chance of happiness1 was to discover and then to cultivate a right relationship to a supreme being4 ,this was the major premise upon which all human choices hinged4 ,there followed from it certain necessary conclusions4 ,in determining what was a right relationship to ,god1 the test of rightness lay in a revelation of the putative experience of ,god and not in the actual experience of ,his creatures4 ,it was ,god alone1 therefore1 who really understood the reasons for righteousness and its nature4 8,the procedure of ,divine ,justice10 said p#ace ,calvin1 8is too high to be scanned by human measure or comprehended by the feebleness of human intellect40 ,that was good which man understood was good in the eyes of ,god1 regardless of how it seemed to men4 ,thus the distinction between good and evil1 including not only all rules of personal conduct but the whole arrangement of rights and duties in society1 were laws established not by the consent of the governed1 but by a king in heaven4 ,they were his commandments4 ,by obedience men could obtain happiness4 ,but they obtained it not because virtue is the cause of happiness but because ,god rewarded with happiness those who obeyed his commandments4 ,men did not really know why ,god preferred certain kinds of conduct2 they merely professed to know what kind of conduct he preferred4 ,they could not really ask themselves what the difference was between good and evil4 ,that was a secret locked in the nature of a being whose choices were ultimately inscrutable4 ,the only question was what he willed4 ,even ,job had to be content without fathoming his reasons4 ,the moral commandments based upon divine authority were1 in the nature of things1 rather broad generalizations4 ,obviously there could not be special revelation as to the unique aspects of each human difficulty4 ,the divine law1 like our ordinary human law1 was addressed to typical rather than to individual cases4 ,nevertheless1 for much the greater part of recorded history men have accepted such law without questioning its validity4 ,they could not have done so if the rules of morality had not1 at least in some rough way1 worked4 ,it is not difficult to see why they worked4 ,they were broad rules of conduct imposed p#acf upon people living close to the soil1 upon people1 therefore1 whose ways of living changed little in the course of generations4 ,the same situations were so nearly and so often repeated that a typical solution would on the whole be satisfactory4 ,these typical solutions1 such as we find in the ,mosaic law or the code of ,hammurabi1 were no doubt the deposits of custom4 ,they had1 therefore1 become perfected in practice1 and were solidly based upon human experience4 ,in the society in which they originated1 there was nothing arbitrary or alien about them4 ,when1 therefore1 the lawgiver carried these immemorial usages up with him on to ,sinai1 and brought them down again graven on tablets of stone1 the rationality of the revelation was self-evident4 ,it appeared to be arbitrary only when a radical change in the way of life dissolved the premises and the usages upon which the authoritative code was established4 ,that dissolution has proceeded to great lengths within the centuries which we call modern4 ,the crisis was reached1 it seems1 during the ,eighteenth ,century1 and in the teaching of ,immanuel ,kant it was made manifest to the educated classes of the western world4 ,kant argued in the ,critique of ,pure ,reason that the existence of ,god cannot be demonstrated4 ,he then insisted that without belief in ,god1 freedom1 and immortality1 there was no valid and true morality4 ,so he insisted that ,god must exist to justify morality4 ,this highly sophisticated doctrine marks the end of simple theism in modern thought4 ,for ,kant's proof of the existence of ,god was nothing but a plea that ,god ought to exist1 and the whole temper p#acg of the modern intellect is to deny that what ought to be true necessarily is true4 ,insofar as men have now lost their belief in a heavenly king1 they have to find some other ground for their moral choices than the revelation of his will4 ,it follows necessarily that they must find the tests of righteousness wholly within human experience4 ,the difference between good and evil must be a difference which men themselves recognize and understand4 ,happiness cannot be the reward of virtue2 it must be the intelligible consequence of it4 ,it follows1 too1 that virtue cannot be commanded2 it must be willed out of personal conviction and desire4 ,such a morality may properly be called humanism1 for it is centered not in superhuman but in human nature4 ,when men can no longer be theists1 they must1 if they are civilized1 become humanists4 ,they must live by the premise that whatever is righteous is inherently desirable because experience will demonstrate its desirability4 ,they must live1 therefore1 in the belief that the duty of man is not to make his will conform to the will of ,god but to the surest knowledge of the conditions of human happiness4 ,it is evident that a morality of humanism presents far greater difficulties than a morality premised on theism4 ,for one thing1 it is put immediately to a much severer test4 ,when ,kant1 for example1 argued that theism was necessary to morality1 his chief reason was that since the good man is often defeated on earth1 he must be permitted to believe in a superhuman power which is 8able to connect happiness and morality in exact harmony with each other40 ,humanism is not provided with such p#ach reserves of moral credit2 it cannot claim all eternity in which its promises may be fulfilled4 ,unless its wisdom in any sphere of life is demonstrated within a reasonable time in actual experience1 there is nothing to commend it4 ,a morality of humanism labors under even greater difficulties4 ,it appears in a complex and changing society2 it is an attitude toward life to which rational men necessarily turn whenever their circumstances have rendered a theistic view incredible4 ,it is just because the simpler rules no longer work that the subtler choices of humanism present themselves4 ,these choices have to be made under conditions1 like those which prevail in modern urban societies1 where the extreme complexity of rapidly changing human relations makes it very difficult to foresee all the consequences of any moral decision4 ,the men who must make their decisions are skeptical by habit and unsettled amidst the novelties of their surroundings4 ,the teachers of a theistic morality1 when the audience is devout1 have only to fortify the impression that the rules of conduct are certified by ,god the invisible ,king4 ,the ethical problem for the common man is to recognize the well-known credentials of his teachers4 ,in practice he has merely to decide whether the priest1 the prince1 and the elders1 are what they claim to be4 ,when he has done that1 there are no radical questions to be asked4 ,but the teachers of humanism have no credentials4 ,their teaching is not certified4 ,they have to prove their case by the test of mundane experience4 ,they speak with no authority1 which can be scrutinized once and for all1 and then forever accepted4 ,they can proclaim no rule of conduct with certainty1 for they have no inherent personal p#aci authority and they cannot be altogether sure they are right4 ,they cannot command4 ,they cannot truly exhort4 ,they can only inquire1 infer1 and persuade4 ,they have only human insight to guide them and those to whom they speak must in the end themselves accept the full responsibility for the consequences of any advice they choose to accept4 ,yet with all its difficulties1 it is to a morality of humanism that men must turn when the ancient order of things dissolves4 ,when they find that they no longer believe seriously and deeply that they are governed from heaven1 there is anarchy in their souls until by conscious effort they find ways of governing themselves4 ,,part ,,ii p#ada ,,the ,,foundations ,,of ,,humanism ,the stone which the builders rejected1 ,the same is become the head of the corner8 ,luke ,,xx1 #ag4 ,,introduction p#adc ,the upshot of the discussion to this point is that modernity destroys the disposition to believe that behind the visible world of physical objects and human institutions there is a supernatural kingdom from which ultimately all laws1 all judgments1 all rewards1 all punishments1 and all compensations are derived4 ,to those who believe that this kingdom exists the modern spirit is nothing less than treason to ,god4 ,the popular religion rests on the belief that the kingdom is an objective fact1 as certain1 as definite1 and as real1 in spite of its invisibility1 as the ,british ,empire2 it holds that this faith is justified by overwhelming evidence supplied by revelation1 unimpeachable testimony1 and incontrovertible signs4 ,to the modern spirit1 on the other hand1 the belief in this kingdom must necessarily seem a grandiose fiction projected by human needs and desires4 ,the humanistic view is that the popular faith does not prove the existence of its objects1 but only the presence of a desire that such objects should exist4 ,the popular religion1 in short1 rests on a theory which1 if true1 is an extension of physics and of history2 the humanistic view rests on human psychology and an interpretation of human experience4 ,it follows1 then1 that in exploring the modern problem it is necessary consciously and clearly to make a choice between these diametrically opposite points of view4 ,the p#add choice is fundamental and exclusive1 and it determines all the conclusions which follow4 ,for obviously to one who believes that the world is a theocracy1 the problem is how to bring the strayed and rebellious masses of mankind back to their obedience1 how to restore the lost provinces of ,god the invisible ,king4 ,but to one who takes the humanistic view the problem is how mankind1 deprived of the great fictions1 is to come to terms with the needs which created those fictions4 ,in this book ,i take the humanistic view because1 in the kind of world ,i happen to live in1 ,i can do no other4 ,,chapter ,,viii p#ade ,,golden ,,memories ,it will be granted1 ,i suppose1 that there would be no need for certainty about the plan and government of the universe if1 as a matter of course1 all our desires were regularly fulfilled4 ,in a world where no man desired what he could not have1 there would be no need to regulate human conduct and therefore no need for morality4 ,in a world where each man could have what he desired1 there would be no need for consolation and for reassuring guarantees that justice1 mercy1 and love will ultimately prevail4 ,in a world where there was perfect adjustment between human desires and their environment1 there would be no problem of evil3 we should not know the meaning of sin1 sorrow1 crime1 fear1 frustration1 pain1 and emptiness4 ,we do not live in such a well-ordered world4 ,but we can imagine it by making either of two assumptions3 that we have ceased to desire anything which causes evil1 or that omnipotence fulfills all our desires4 ,the first of these assumptions leads to the ,nirvana of the ,buddhists1 where all craving has ceased and there is perfect peace4 ,the second leads to the heaven of all popular religions1 to some paradise like that of ,mohammed perhaps where1 as ,mr4 ,santayana says1 men may 8sit in well-watered gardens1 clad in green silks1 drinking delicious sherbets1 and transfixed by the gazelle-like glance of some young girl1 all innocence and fire40 p#adf ,among educated men it has always been difficult to imagine a heaven of fulfilled desires4 ,for since no two persons have exactly the same desires1 one man's imagination of heaven may not suit another man's4 ,in general1 the attempts which have been made to picture the ,christian heaven reflect the temperaments of highly contemplative spirits1 and it is customary nowadays to say that this heaven would be a most uninteresting place4 ,no doubt it would be to those who are not contemplative4 ,but the objectors have missed the main point1 which is that no one is supposed to pass through the pearly gates who is not suited to dwell in ,paradise4 ,that is what ,st4 ,peter is there for1 to see that the unfit do not enter2 the other places1 ,purgatory and the ,inferno1 are available to those spirits who could not be happy in ,heaven4 ,there are1 by definition1 no uncongenial spirits in ,heaven4 ,there were once1 but ,satan and his followers were thrown out headlong1 and they now live in places which are suited to their temperaments4 ,a devout man may quite properly1 therefore1 advise those who do not think they would enjoy ,heaven to go to ,hell4 ,the attempt to imagine a heaven is an attempt to conceive a world in which the disorders of human desire no longer exist4 ,now it is in their prayers that men have sought to come to terms with their disorders1 and their prayers reveal most concretely how much the hunger for certainty and for help is a hunger for the fulfillment of desire4 ,for prayer1 says ,father ,wynne1 is 8the expression of our desires to ,god whether for ourselves or for others40 ,in the higher reaches of religion 8the expression is not intended to instruct or direct ,god what to do1 but to p#adg appeal to ,his goodness for the things we need2 and the appeal is necessary1 not because ,he is ignorant of our needs or sentiments1 but to give definite form to our desires1 to concentrate our whole attention on what we have to recommend to ,him1 to help us appreciate our close personal relation with ,him40 ,but in order to know what to pray for1 we need grace1 that is to say1 ,god ,himself must teach us what to ask ,him for4 ,we can be sure that we should pray for salvation1 but in particular we need guidance from ,god 8to know the special means that will most help us in any particular need40 ,but besides the spiritual objects of prayer 8we are to ask also for temporal things1 our daily bread and all that it implies1 health1 strength1 and other worldly or temporal goods 44402 we are to pray also for escape from evils1 8the penalty of our sins1 the dangers of temptation1 and every manner of physical or spiritual affliction40 ,there has1 however1 always been a logical difficulty about offering petitions to an all-wise and all-powerful ,providence4 ,thus in the ,dialogue of ,dives and ,pauper1 which was published in #adic1 the question is put3 8,why pray we to ,god with oure mouth sithe he knowyth alle oure thoughte1 all our desire1 al our wyl and what us nedeth80 ,to this question the only answer which was not evasive came from the mystics who led a life of contemplation4 ,prayer1 they said1 is not mere petition2 it is communion with ,god4 ,it is not because prayer gives a man what he wants1 but because it 8ones the soul to ,god10 that it is rational and necessary4 ,this1 too1 is the conception of prayer held by a liberal pastor like ,dr4 ,fosdick who looks with scorn upon 8clamorous petition to an p#adh anthropomorphic ,god0 and says that 8true prayer 444 is to assimilate 444 7the7 spirit which is ,god 7that7 444 surrounds our lives40 ,the same idea1 stated in somewhat more precise language1 is set down by ,mr4 ,santayana when he says that 8in rational prayer the soul may be said to accomplish three things important to its welfare3 it withdraws within itself and defines its good1 it accommodates itself to destiny1 and it grows like the ideal which it conceives40 ,but1 of course1 this is not the way the common man through the ages has conceived prayer4 ,in fact he must have prayed before he had any clear conception of what a prayer is or of whom it is addressed to4 ,thus we are told that in ,arcadia the girls invoked ,hera by the title of 8,hera the ,girl10 the married women prayed to 8,hera the ,married ,one10 and the widows prayed to 8,hera the ,widow40 ,sometimes the prayer is a spontaneous expression of sorrow or of delight1 a lyrical cry which has no ulterior purpose and is addressed to no one4 ,sometimes prayer is a magical formula which compels the deity to listen and to obey4 ,the subject is both complicated and obscure4 ,but this much at least is clear3 along with elements which can be described only as spontaneous and lyrical1 with traces of magic1 and at times with a purely disinterested desire to commune with ,god1 simple people have looked upon prayer as 8an instrument for applying ,god's illimitable power to daily life40 ,popular discussion of prayer has often been extremely practical3 8,how can prayer be made most efficient8 ,is it by ordinary ,masses or by other offices8 ,is it by the elaboration or the multiplication of services80 ,lady ,alice p#adi ,west who died in #acie ordered #ddjj ,masses 8in the most haste that it may be do1 withynne xiiii nyght next after my deces40 ,thomas ,walwayn who died in #adae left orders for #aj1jjj ,masses 8with oute pompe whyche may not profyt myn soule40 ,john ,plot1 however1 wished his ,masses said 8with solempne seruise that ys for to sayn wyth ,belle ,ryngyng40 ,there was debate as to whether prayers were most effective if said in ,rome or in the ,holy ,land 444 by certain priests rather than by others 444 by the friars rather than by the priests 444 whether there were more potent prayers than the ,pater 444 whether prayers should be addressed to the ,father1 the ,son1 or to ,st4 ,mary 444 whether ,st4 ,mary could be approached best through her mother1 ,st4 ,anne4444 ,it is not necessary to dogmatize by saying that prayer is magic1 or soliloquy1 or communion1 or petition for this and that1 in order to see that it is the expression of a human need4 ,the quality of the need varies4 ,it may be anything from a desire for rain to a desire for friendship with unseen spirits1 but always it illustrates the saying that 8all men stand in need of ,god40 ,if we ask ourselves what we mean by #8need1' we must answer1 ,i suppose1 that the resources of our own natures and the power we are able to exercise over events are insufficient to satisfy the cravings of our natures4 ,we must eat1 but we cannot be sure that drought will not destroy the crops4 ,we are beset by enemies1 and we are not sure we can conquer them4 ,we are threatened by earthquake1 storm1 and disease against which we cannot wholly protect ourselves4 ,we become deeply attached to other persons4 ,but they must die and we must die1 and we cannot stay p#aej the doom4 ,in brief1 we find ourselves in a world in which our hopes are defeated4 ,somehow we are so constituted that we demand the impossible4 ,there is in us somewhere an intimation that we ought not to be defeated4 ,but where did this intimation come from8 ,how is it that we are not born satisfied with our mortality1 content with our fate8 ,why is it that the normal fate of man seems to us abnormal8 ,what is there in the back of our heads which keeps telling us that life as we find it is not what it ought to be8 ,the biologist might answer1 ,i suppose1 that this craving for a different kind of world is simply our own consciousness of that blind push of natural forces which create the variations on which natural selection works to produce the survival of the fittest4 ,nature1 he might say1 is wholly indifferent to the outcries of the individual2 this vast process of which each of us is so insignificant a part1 keeps going because there is in all the parts a superabundant urging to go on4 ,there is no human economy in it and no human order4 ,man1 for example1 has far more sexual desire than is needed for the rational propagation of the species4 ,but there is no rational plan in nature4 ,it works here1 and everywhere1 on the principle that by having too much there will surely be enough2 the seeds which do not germinate1 the seedlings which perish1 the desires which are left over1 are no concern of nature's4 ,for nature has no concern4 ,there is no concern except that which we ourselves feel1 and that is a mere flicker on the stream of time1 and will soon go out4 ,while there is no way of gainsaying that this explanation is true1 it is true only if we look at life from the particular point of view which the biologist adopts4 ,if1 however1 p#aea we look inwardly upon ourselves1 instead of surveying our species from the outside1 we find1 ,i think1 that this sense that the world ought not to be what it is seems to originate in a kind of dim memory that it once was what we feel it ought to be4 ,indeed1 so vivid is this memory that for ages men took it to be an account of historical events2 in absolute good faith they constituted for themselves the picture of a ,golden ,age which existed before evil came into the world4 ,hope was1 therefore1 a kind of memory2 the ideal was to achieve something which had been lost4 ,the memory of an age of innocence has haunted the whole of mankind4 ,it has been a light behind their present experience which cast shadows upon it1 and made it seem insubstantial and not inevitable4 ,before this life1 there had been another which was happier4 ,and so they reasoned that what once was possible must somehow be possible again4 ,having once known the good1 it was unbelievable that evil should be final4 ,even after criticism has dissolved the beautiful legends in which it was embodied1 this memory of a ,golden ,age persists4 ,it persists as an intimation of our own inward experience1 and like an uneasy spirit it intrudes itself upon our most realistic efforts to accept the world as we find it4 ,for it takes many shapes1 which sometimes deceive us1 appearing then not as the memory of a happiness we have lost1 but as the anticipation of utopia to come4 ,it is an intimation that man is entitled to live in the land of heart's desire4 ,it is a deep conviction that happiness is possible1 and all inquiry into the foundations of morals turns ultimately upon whether man can achieve this happiness by pursuing his desires1 or whether he must first learn to desire the kind of happiness which is possible4 ,,chapter ,,ix p#aeb ,,the ,,insight ,,of ,,humanism #a4 ,the ,two ,approaches to ,life ,the land of heart's desire is a place in which no man desires what he cannot have and each man can have what he desires4 ,there have been great differences of opinion among men as to how they could best enter this happy land4 ,if they thought their natural impulses were by way of being lecherous1 greedy1 and cruel1 they have accepted some form of the classical and ,christian doctrine that man must subdue his naive impulses1 and by reason1 grace1 or renunciation1 transform his will4 ,if they thought that man was naturally innocent and good1 they have accepted some one of the many variants of liberalism1 and concerned themselves not with the reform of desire but with the provision of opportunities for its fulfilment4 ,there are differences of emphasis among liberals1 but they all accept the same premise1 which is that if only external circumstances are favorable the internal life of man will adjust itself successfully4 ,so completely does this theory of human nature dominate the field of contemporary thought that modern men are rarely reminded1 and then only by those whom it is the fashion to ignore1 that they are challenging the testimony not merely of their maiden aunts1 but of all the greatest teachers of wisdom4 p#aec ,yet if the modern man is an optimist on the subject of his impulses1 the reason is to be found less in his own self-confidence than in his distrust of men and in his intoxication over things4 ,owing to the dissolution of the ancestral order he has learned to distrust those who exercise authority4 ,owing to the progress of science he has acquired an unbounded confidence in his capacity to create desirable objects4 ,he is so rebellious and so constructive that he has still to ask himself whether the free and naive pursuit of desirable objects can really produce a desirable world4 ,yet in all the books of wisdom that is the question which confronts him4 ,there it is written in many languages and in the idiom of many different cultures that if man is to find happiness1 he must reconstruct not merely his world1 but1 first of all1 himself4 ,is this wisdom dead and done with1 or has it a bearing upon the deep uneasiness of the modern man8 ,the answer depends upon what we must conceive to be the nature of man4 #b4 ,freedom and ,restraint ,it is significant that fashions in human nature are continually changing4 ,there are1 as it were1 two extremes3 at the one is the belief that our naive passions are evil1 at the other that they are good1 and between these two poles1 the prevailing opinion oscillates4 ,one might suppose that somewhere1 perhaps near the center1 there would be a point which was the truth1 and that on that point men would reach an agreement4 ,but experience shows that there is no agreement1 and that there is no known point p#aed where the two views are perfectly balanced4 ,the fact is that the prevailing view is invariably a rebound from the excesses of the other1 and one can understand it only by knowing what it is a reaction from4 ,it is impossible1 for example1 to do justice to ,rousseau and the romantics without understanding the dead classicism1 the conventionalities1 and the tyrannies of the ,eighteenth ,century4 ,it is equally impossible to do justice to the ,eighteenth ,century without understanding the licentiousness of the ,high ,renaissance and the political disorders resulting from the ,reformation4 ,these in their turn become intelligible only when we have understood the later consequences of the medival view of life4 ,no particular view endures4 ,when human nature is wholly distrusted and severely repressed1 sooner or later it asserts itself and bursts its bonds2 and when it is naively trusted1 it produces so much disorder and corruption that men once again idealize order and restraint4 ,we happen to be living in an age when there is a severe reaction against the distrust and repression practiced by those whom it is customary to describe as ,puritans4 ,it is1 in fact1 a reaction against a degenerate form of ,puritanism which manifested itself as a disposition to be prim1 prudish1 and pedantic4 ,for latter-day ,puritanism had become a rather second-rate notion that less obvious things are more noble than grosser ones and that spirituality is the pursuit of rarefied sensations4 ,it had embraced the idea that a man had advanced in the realm of the spirit in proportion to his concern with abstractions1 and cults of grimly spiritual persons devoted themselves to the worship of sonorous generalities4 ,all this associated itself p#aee with a rather preposterous idealism which insisted that maidens should be wan and easily frightened1 that draperies and decorations should conceal the essential forms of objects1 and that the good life had something to do with expurgated speech1 with pale colors1 and shadows and silhouettes1 with the thin music of harps and soprano voices1 with fig leaves and a general conspiracy to tell lies to children1 with philosophies that denied the reality of evil1 and with all manner of affectation and self-deception4 ,yet in these many attempts to grow wings and take off from the things that are of the earth earthy1 it is impossible not to recognize a resemblance1 somewhat in the nature of a caricature1 to the teaching of the sages4 ,there is no doubt that in one form or another1 ,socrates and ,buddha1 ,jesus and ,st4 ,paul1 ,plotinus and ,spinoza1 taught that the good life is impossible without asceticism1 that without renunciation of many of the ordinary appetites1 no man can really live well4 ,prejudice against the human body and a tendency to be disgusted with its habits1 a contempt for the ordinary concerns of daily experience is to be found in all of them1 and it is not surprising that men1 living in an age of moral confusion like that associated with the name of the good ,queen ,victoria1 should have come to believe that if only they covered up their passions they had conquered them4 ,it was a rather ludicrous mistake as the satirists of the anti-,victorian era have so copiously pointed out4 ,but at least there was a dim recognition in this cult of the genteel that the good life does involve some kind of conquest of the carnal passions4 ,that conception of the good life has become so repulsive p#aef to the present generation that it is almost incapable of understanding and appreciating the original insight of which the works of ,dr4 ,bowdler and ,mrs4 ,grundy are a caricature4 ,yet it is a fact1 and a most arresting one1 that in all the great religions1 and in all the great moral philosophies from ,aristotle to ,bernard ,shaw1 it is taught that one of the conditions of happiness is to renounce some of the satisfactions which men normally crave4 ,this tradition as to what constitutes the wisdom of life is supported by testimony from so many independent sources that it cannot be dismissed lightly4 ,with minor variations it is a common theme in the teaching of an ,athenian aristocrat like ,plato1 an ,indian nobleman like ,buddha1 and a humble ,jew like ,spinoza2 in fact1 wherever men have thought at all carefully about the problem of evil and of what constitutes a good life1 they have concluded that an essential element in any human philosophy is renunciation4 ,they cannot all have been so foolish as ,anthony ,comstock4 ,they must have had some insight into experience which led them to that conclusion4 ,if asceticism in all its forms were as stupid and cruel as it is now the fashion to think it is1 then the traditions of saintliness and of heroism are monstrously misleading4 ,for in the legends of heroes1 of sages1 of explorers1 inventors and discoverers1 of pioneers and patriots1 there is almost invariably this same underlying theme of sacrifice and unworldliness4 ,they are poor4 ,they live dangerously4 ,by ordinary standards they are extremely uncomfortable4 ,they give up ease1 property1 pleasure1 pride1 place1 and power to attain things which are transcendent and rare4 ,they live for ends which seem to yield them p#aeg no profit1 and they are ready to die1 if need be1 for that which the dead can no longer enjoy4 ,and yet1 though there is nothing in our current morality to justify their unworldliness1 we continue to admire them greatly4 ,in saying all this ,i am not trying to clinch an argument by appealing to great names4 ,there is much in the teaching of all the spiritual leaders of the past which is wholly obsolete to-day1 and there is no compulsive authority in any part of their teaching4 ,they may have been as mistaken in their insight into the human soul as they usually were in their notions of physics and history4 ,to say1 then1 that there is an ascetic element in all the great philosophies of the past is not proof that there must be one in modern philosophy4 ,but it creates a presumption1 ,i think1 which cannot be ignored1 for we must remember that the least perishable part of the literature and thought of the past is that which deals with human nature4 ,scientific method and historical scholarship have enormously increased our competence in the whole field of physics and history4 ,but for an understanding of human nature we are still very largely dependent1 as they were1 upon introspection1 general observation1 and intuition4 ,there has been no revolutionary advance here since the hellenic philosophers4 ,that is why ,aristotle's ethics is still as fresh for anyone who accustoms himself to the idiom as ,nietzsche1 or ,freud1 or ,bertrand ,russell1 whereas ,aristotle's physics1 his biology1 or his zoology is of interest only to antiquarians4 ,it is1 then1 as an insight into human nature1 and not as a rule authoritatively imposed or highly sanctioned by the prestige of great men1 that ,i propose now to inquire what meaning there is for us in the fact that men in the p#aeh past have so persistently associated the good life with some form of ascetic discipline and renunciation4 ,the modern world1 as it has emancipated itself from its ancestral regime1 has assumed almost as a matter of course that the human passions1 if thoroughly liberated from all tyrannies and distortions1 would by their fulfilment achieve happiness4 ,all those who teach asceticism1 deny this major premise of modernity1 and the result is that the prevailing philosophy is at odds on the most fundamental of all issues with the wisdom of the past4 #c4 ,the ,ascetic ,principle ,the average man to-day1 when he hears the word asceticism1 is likely to think of ,st4 ,simeon ,stylites who sat on top of a pillar1 of hermits living in caves1 of hair-shirts1 of long fasts1 chastity1 strange vigils1 and even of tattooing1 self-mutilation1 and flagellation4 ,or if he does not think of such examples1 which the modern man regards as pathological and for the psychiatrist to explain1 the word asceticism may connote some such attitude of mind as ,herbert ,asbury has recorded in the biography of his kinsman1 ,bishop ,asbury1 the founder of ,american ,methodism1 of whom a friend1 who knew him well1 wrote3 8,i never saw him indulge in even innocent pleasantry4 ,his was the solemnity of an apostle2 it was so interwoven with his conduct that he could not put off the gravity of the bishop either in the parlour or the dining-room4 ,he was a rigid enemy to ease2 hence the pleasures of study and the charms of recreation he alike sacrificed to the more sublime work of saving souls4444 ,he knew nothing about pleasing the flesh at the expense of duty2 flesh p#aei and blood were enemies with whom he never took counsel40 ,if asceticism meant only this sort of thing1 it might be interesting only as a curiosity4 ,but apart from the asceticism of primitive peoples and of the pathological1 there is a sane and civilized asceticism which presents a quite different face4 ,there is1 for example1 the argument of ,socrates in the ,phdo that the body is a nuisance to a philosopher in search of truth4 ,it is1 he says1 8a source of endless trouble to us by reason of the mere requirement of food2 and is liable also to diseases which overtake and impede us in the search after true being3 it fills us full of loves1 and lusts1 and fears1 and fancies of all kinds1 and endless foolery1 and in fact1 as men say1 takes away from us the power of thinking at all4 ,whence come wars1 and fightings1 and factions8 ,whence but from the body and the lusts of the body8 ,wars are occasioned by the love of money1 and money has to be acquired for the sake and in the service of the body2 and by reason of all these impediments we have no time to give to philosophy2 and1 last and worst of all1 even if we are at leisure and betake ourselves to some speculation1 the body is always breaking in upon us1 causing us turmoil and confusion in our inquiries1 and so amazing us that we are prevented from seeing the truth40 ,plato1 in pursuing the argument in this particular dialogue1 concludes that because the body is such a nuisance the only pure philosopher is a dead one4 ,it is1 perhaps1 a logical conclusion4 ,but in other places1 particularly in the ,republic1 ,plato described a system of education which he thought would produce philosophers3 the neophytes p#afj were put through a stern discipline of hard living and gymnastics and learning1 were compelled to live in tents1 to own nothing which they could call their own1 and to cut themselves off from all family ties4 ,when the description of this regime provokes ,adeimantus to remark that 8you are not making the men of this class particularly happy10 ,socrates is made to reply that while it is not his object to make any class particularly happy1 yet it would not surprise him if in the given circumstances even this class were very happy4 ,when we look further for his meaning1 we find it to be that the guardians are trained by their ascetic discipline to abandon all private aims and to find their happiness in an appreciation of a perfectly ordered commonwealth4 ,if we understand this we shall1 ,i believe1 understand what civilized asceticism means4 ,we shall have come back to the original meaning of the word itself1 which is derived from the ,greek 1 8,i practice10 and 8embodies a metaphor taken from the ancient wrestling place or palstra1 where victory rewarded those who had best trained their bodies40 ,an ascetic in the original meaning of the term is an athlete2 and it was in this spirit that the early ,christians trained themselves deliberately as 8athletes of ,christ0 to bear without flinching the tortures of their martyrdom4 ,when asceticism is irrational1 it is a form of totemism or fetich worship and derives from a belief that certain things are tabu or that evil spirits can be placated by human suffering4 ,or without any coherent belief whatsoever asceticism may be merely a perversion arising out of that ambivalence of the human passions which often makes pain1 inflicted on others or self-inflicted1 an exquisite p#afa pleasure4 ,but when asceticism is rational1 it is a discipline of the mind and body to fit men for the service of an ideal4 ,its purpose is to harden and to purify1 to suppress contrary passions1 and thus to intensify the passion for the ideal4 8,i chastise my body10 said ,st4 ,paul1 8and bring it into subjection40 ,the ,church1 especially in the earlier centuries1 was compelled to fight continually against irrational asceticism1 and as late as the ,middle ,ages1 the ,inquisition pursued sects which regarded marriage as the 8greater adultery0 and practiced self-emasculation4 ,the rational view was the view of ,st4 ,jerome3 8,be on your guard when you begin to mortify your body by abstinence and fasting1 lest you imagine yourself to be perfect and a saint2 for perfection does not consist in this virtue4 ,it is only a help2 a disposition2 a means1 though a fitting one1 for the attainment of true perfection40 ,now when ,st4 ,paul said that he had to bring his body into subjection1 when ,aristotle defined the barbarians' ideal as 8the living as one likes10 when ,plato made ,socrates say that the soul is infected by the body1 when ,buddha preached the extinction of all craving1 when ,spinoza wrote that because we rejoice in virtue we are able to control our lusts1 they accepted a view of human nature which is quite diametrically opposed to one which has had wide currency in our civilization since the ,renaissance4 ,this contrary view was undoubtedly provoked by the evils which came from the attempt to put the ascetic principle extensively into practice4 ,rabelais is by all odds the most convincing of the moderns who revolted1 for p#afb ,rabelais not only talked about the natural man but actually knew him and delighted in him4 ,thus when ,villers writes to ,madame de ,stal that in her work 8primitive1 incorruptible1 naive1 passionate nature0 is 8in conflict with the barriers and shackles of conventional life10 we feel1 ,i think1 that neither ,villers nor the lady would really have cared very much for primitive nature in all its naivete4 ,the natural man that they were talking about lived in ,arcady and his passions were as violent as those of a lapdog2 throughout the romantic movement1 with rare exceptions1 the talk about passion and impulse and instinct has this air of unreality and of neurotic confusion4 ,there is not in it1 as there is in ,rabelais1 for example1 an honest gusto for the passions that are to be liberated from the restraints imposed by that 8rabble of squint-minded fellows1 dissembling and counterfeit saints1 demure lookers1 hypocrites1 pretended zealots1 tough friars1 buskin-monks1 and other such sects of men1 who disguise themselves like masquers to deceive the world40 ,rabelais advised his readers that if they desired to become good ,pantagruelists1 8that is to say1 to live in peace1 joy1 health1 making yourself always merry--never trust those men that always peep out through a little hole40 ,and in establishing the ,abbey of ,theleme1 ,gargantua furnished it magnificently and barred the gates against bigots1 hypocrites1 dissemblers1 attorneys1 barristers1 usurers1 drunkards1 and cannibals2 he invited in all noble blades and brisk and handsome people1 faithful expounders of the ,scripture1 and lovely ladies1 proper1 fair1 and mirthful4 8,their life10 he says1 8was spent not in laws1 statutes1 or rules1 but at their own free will and pleasure4 p#afc ,they rose from bed when they thought good1 drank1 ate1 worked1 slept1 when the desire came to them4 ,none did awaken them1 none constrained them either to drink or eat1 nor to do any other thing3 for so had ,gargantua established it4 ,the ,rule of their order had but one clause3 ,do ,what ,thou ,wilt40 ,but there was a catch in this rule4 ,not only had drunkards and cannibals been excluded in the first place1 but ,rabelais assures us that those who were admitted1 because they were 8free1 well born1 well educated1 and accustomed to good company1 have by nature an instinct and spur which prompts them to virtuous acts and withdraws them from vice4 ,this they call honor40 ,and in another passage ,rabelais limits the propensities of the natural man even more radically when he speaks of 8a certain gaiety of spirit cured in contempt of chance and fortune40 ,there is always a catch in any doctrine of the natural goodness of man4 ,for mere passive obedience to impulse as it comes and goes1 without effort to check it or direct it1 ends in something like ,alfred de ,musset's ,rolla1 of whom it was said3 ,it was not ,rolla who ruled his life1 ,it was his passions2 he let them go ,as a drowsy shepherd watches the water flow4 ,so even ,dora ,russell at the crisis of her assault upon the ,christian tradition advises us to 8live by instinct and intelligence10 which must mean1 if it means anything1 that intelligence is to be in some respects the master as well as the servant of instinct4 ,that this is what ,mrs4 ,russell means is abundantly plain by her fury at capitalists1 imperialists1 p#afd conservatives1 and churchmen1 whose instincts lead them to do things of which she does not approve4 ,for like her distinguished husband she trusts those impulses which are creative and beneficent1 and distrusts those which are possessive and destructive4 ,that is to say1 like every other moralist1 she trusts those parts of human nature which she trusts4 #d4 ,oscillation between ,two ,principles ,these cycles of action and reaction are disastrous to the establishment of a stable humanism4 ,a theocratic culture depends upon an assured view of the way in which ,god governs the universe1 and as long as that view suits the typical needs of a society made stable by custom1 the theocratic culture is stable4 ,but humanism arises in complex and changing societies1 and if it is to have any power to make life coherent and orderly1 it must hold an assured view of how man can govern himself4 ,if he oscillates aimlessly between the belief that he must distrust his impulses and the belief that he may naively obey them1 it is impossible for him to fix any point of reference for the development of his moral code1 his educational plans1 his human relationships1 his politics1 and his personal ideals4 ,it is not hard to see1 ,i think1 why he oscillates in this fashion between trust and distrust4 ,he cannot obey every impulse1 for he has conflicting impulses within himself4 ,there are also his neighbors with their impulses4 ,they cannot all be satisfied1 for the very simple reason that the sum of their demands far outruns the available supply of satisfactions4 ,there is not room enough1 there are not objects p#afe enough in the world to fulfill all human desires4 ,desires are1 for all practical purposes1 unlimited and insatiable1 and therefore any ethics which does not recognize the necessity of putting restraint upon naive desire is inherently absurd4 ,on the other hand1 it is impossible to distrust every impulse1 for the only conclusion then is to commit suicide4 ,buddha did1 to be sure1 teach that craving was the source of all misery1 and that it must be wholly extinguished4 ,but it is evident from an examination of what he actually advised his disciples to renounce1 that while they were to be poor1 chaste1 unworldly1 and incurious about the nature of things1 they were to be rewarded with the highest of all satisfactions1 and were to be 8like the broad earth1 unvexed2 like the pillar of the city gate1 unmoved2 like a pellucid lake1 unruffled40 ,for ,nirvana meant1 as ,rhys ,davids says1 the extinction of a sinful1 grasping condition of mind4 ,confronted by two opposed views of human nature1 neither of which can be taken unreservedly1 moralists have had to pick and choose1 deciding how much or how little they would trust the different impulses4 ,but there is no measure by which they could decide how much of an impulse is virtuous1 how much more is intemperate1 and how much more than that is utterly sinful4 ,the attempts to regulate the sexual impulse illustrate the difficulty4 ,shall the moralist call the complete absence of all conscious sexual desire virtue8 ,then he disobeys the commandment to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth4 ,shall he then limit virtuous desire to that which is felt for a lawful mate8 ,that implies that man and woman must mate with the first person for whom they feel any sexual desire4 p#aff ,but this cannot always be arranged4 ,the first person may be otherwise engaged4 ,it becomes necessary then to permit a certain amount of promiscuous1 though unfulfilled1 sexual desire in the process of sexual selection4 ,and then having somehow gotten past that difficulty1 and with two persons safely mated1 a whole new series of problems arise out of the question of how far sexual satisfaction depends for its virtue upon its being the successful means to1 or more subtly still1 the intended means to1 procreation4 ,i shall not pursue the matter further4 ,the attempt to measure the degree in which impulse is to be permitted to express itself is obviously full of difficulties4 ,the moral problem remains utterly insoluble as long as men regard it as an attempt to separate their good impulses from their bad ones1 and to decide how much their good impulses are to be encouraged4 ,morality1 if it is not fixed by custom and authority1 becomes a mere matter of taste determined by the idiosyncrasies of the moralist4 #e4 ,the ,golden ,mean and ,its ,difficulties ,aristotle faced this fundamental difficulty of humanism in the ,ethics4 ,he had expounded the theory that happiness is due to virtue1 and that virtue is a mean between two extremes4 ,there must1 he said1 be neither defect nor excess of any quality4 ,we must1 in brief1 go so far but no further in obedience to our impulses4 ,thus between rashness and cowardice the mean is courage2 between prodigality and niggardliness it is liberality2 between incontinence and total abstinence it is temperateness2 between ostentation and meanness it is magnificence2 between empty boasting and little-mindedness it is magnanimity2 between p#afg flattery and moroseness it is friendliness2 between bashfulness and impudence it is modesty2 between arrogance and false modesty1 it is truthfulness4 ,so runs the ,aristotelian catalogue1 and probably no code ever described so well the ideal of a gentleman4 ,but having laid down his general precepts1 ,aristotle1 unlike most moralists1 faced the difficulty of applying them4 ,he recognized that it is one thing to accept the theory of a golden mean1 and quite another to know where that mean lies4 8,for in each case it is difficult to find the mean 444 thus it is easy1 and in every man's power to be angry1 and to give and spend money2 but to determine the person to whom1 and the quantity1 and the time1 and the motive1 and the manner1 is no longer in every man's power1 nor is it easy2 therefore excellence is rare1 and praiseworthy and honorable40 ,for while the mean between excess and defect is excellent1 8it is easy to miss a mark1 but difficult to hit it40 ,if we look at the matter more closely in order to find out why moral codes are1 as ,aristotle says1 so hit and miss1 we must1 ,i think1 come to the conclusion that there is an undetected fallacy in most moral thinking which renders moral insight abortive4 ,it is that fallacy which ,i now propose to examine4 ,a moral code like ,aristotle's1 which we may fairly regard as the rational prototype of all humanistic codes1 consists of an inventory of good and bad appetites and of good and bad satisfactions4 ,all conventional moralizing1 which does not rest on the sheer fiat of public opinion1 custom1 or ,god1 assumes the existence of some such inventory of permissible desires and permissible fulfilments4 ,but what p#afh does the making of such inventories mean8 ,it means that good and evil are believed to be objective qualities of the natural world like weight1 dimension1 and motion1 that certain desires are inherently good1 certain others are inherently bad1 and that the same is true of the different objects of desire4 ,but this is nothing but what is known as the pathetic fallacy4 ,for surely each desire and each object as such1 taken separately without relation to anything else1 is as innocent and as neutral as the forces that move the planets4 ,the categories of good and evil would not apply if there were no sentient being to experience good and evil4 ,in such a world no object would be any better or any worse than any other object2 nobody talks about good and bad electrons4 ,all electrons are morally alike because no sentient being can tell them apart4 ,nor would the categories of good and evil apply to a world in which each impulse was in a vacuum of its own4 ,in such a world all our impulses would be like our digestive tracts on a day when we do not know we have a stomach4 ,if our impulses did not impinge upon each other and upon objects there would be no problem of good and evil4 ,therefore the quality of good and evil lies not in impulses as such1 nor in objects as such1 but in the relationship between impulses and objects4 ,therefore the making of inventories is fundamentally misleading4 ,there is another fallacy which is closely associated with this one4 ,we make lists of our impulses4 ,a standard list which is much used comprises the following3 flight1 repulsion1 curiosity1 pugnacity1 self-abasement1 self-assertion1 parental1 reproductive1 gregarious1 acquisitive1 constructive4 p#afi ,whether this is a good list or not is neither here nor there4 ,through the ages men have been making such lists in the fond belief that they were analyzing the human character4 ,no doubt these terms describe something2 we all recognize that these words are the names of impulses that move us4 ,but if we consider them further1 we must also recognize that these impulses do not move all persons the same way1 nor any one person the same way at all times in his life and under all circumstances4 ,it is hardly necessary1 ,i am sure1 to labor the point very much4 ,there is the instinct to be curious3 it disposes one man to measure the diameter of ,betelgeuse when he is forty years old2 when he was a child it disposed him to find out whether he could hang up a cat by its tail2 that curious child's companion in the experiment on the cat was disposed1 when he grew up1 to take much trouble in finding out how much income tax his neighbor paid and whether his employer was faithful to his wife4 ,the parental instinct of one man is to launch his child on the world as an independent human being2 in another man the instinct manifests itself as a determination to have children who will depend upon him and cater to him all his days long4 ,so when we make lists of our impulses we really do not know enough about them to pass judgment4 ,for desires are complex1 and their greatest complexity lies in the fact that they change4 ,the objects of desire are no less complex4 ,take1 for example1 a jade goddess4 ,to a ,chinese coolie it is an object with mysterious powers1 a part of the mechanism which governs the universe4 ,but the jade goddess is now in a ,fifth ,avenue shop window1 and a policeman on his beat p#agj sees it4 ,it is a green stone figure to him4 ,the dealer inside knows that it is rare and is worth a thousand dollars4 ,the collector could enjoy it immensely if he possessed it4 ,the connoisseur finds intricate pleasure in it as a work of art and an elaborate interest in it as a memento of a whole culture4 ,the objects of desire1 then1 are not simple things4 ,we help to create them4 ,we say that this man desires that woman4 ,but what1 in fact1 does he desire8 ,a few moments of ecstasy from her body1 something which a thousand women could give him equally well1 or an intimate union with so much of her whole being that for that very reason she is unique to him8 ,the quality of his passion and the character of his mistress will depend in a very large degree on how much of her being he takes into account4 ,it depends also1 ,i hasten to add1 on how much there is to take into account4 ,at any moment in our lives we desire only those objects which we are then capable of desiring and in the way we are then capable of desiring them4 ,but our desires do not remain fixed from the cradle to the grave4 ,they change4 ,and as they change the desirability of objects about us changes too4 ,it is impossible1 then1 to make lists of good and evil desires and of good and evil objects4 ,for good and evil are qualities in the relationship between variable desires and variable objects of desire4 ,the attempt to construct moral codes on the basis of an inventory is an attempt to understand something which is always in process of change by treating it as a still life and taking snapshots of it4 ,that is what moralists have almost always attempted to do4 ,they have tried to capture the essence of a changing thing in a collection p#aga of fixed concepts4 ,it cannot be done4 ,the reality of human nature is bound to elude us if we look only at a momentary cross-section of it4 ,to understand it1 therefore1 for the purposes of moralizing1 we have to revise our intellectual apparatus1 and learn to look upon each moment of behavior not as the manifestation of certain fixed elements in human nature1 but as a stage in the evolution of human nature4 ,we grow up1 mature1 and decline2 being endowed with memory and the capacity to form habits1 our conduct is cumulative4 ,we drag our past along with us and it pushes us on4 ,we do not make a new approach to each new experience4 ,we approach new experiences with the expectations and habits developed by previous experience1 and under the impact of novelty these expectations and habits become modified4 #f4 ,the ,matrix of ,humanism ,the conception of human nature as developing behavior is1 of course1 accepted by all modern psychologists4 ,if they study the child they are bound to consider him as potentially an adult4 ,if they study the adult they are bound to regard him as originally a child4 ,abnormal psychology makes sense only insofar as it can be understood as an abnormal development of the personality1 regardless of whether that abnormality is traceable to pre-natal variations1 to organic disease1 or to functional disturbance4 ,folk psychology1 whether or not one accepts the interesting but speculative hypothesis that there is a parallel between the development of the individual and the development of the race1 is another mode of investigating the evolution of behavior4 ,the concept of development p#agb is thoroughly established in psychology as the major clue to the understanding of human nature4 ,the moralist1 since he is concerned with human nature1 is compelled to employ this concept4 ,but he employs it somewhat differently than the scientist4 ,being a moralist1 he is interested in understanding the principles of behavior in order that he may understand the principles of right behavior4 ,the psychologist1 as such1 is interested in the development of behavior1 regardless of whether that development leads to misery or to happiness4 ,he studies the various processes no matter where they lead4 ,for in science the concept of development implies no judgment as to whether there is a good or a bad development4 ,the development of an idiot and of a genius are on the same footing1 and are theoretically of equal interest4 ,but to the moralist the study of development is focussed on the effort to discover those processes of development which can be made to produce right relationships between the individual and his environment1 and by a right relationship he is bound to mean one in which there is an harmonious adjustment between desires and the objects of desire4 ,how often1 and how nearly1 it is possible for human beings to approximate such perfection is an unanswerable question4 ,the proof of that pudding lies in the eating of it1 and it is not the function of the moralist under humanism to guarantee the outcome4 ,his function is to point out as clearly as it is possible to do so the path which presumably leads toward the good life4 ,in describing that path he is bound to depend upon the best available insight into the processes by which good and bad adjustments are made4 ,in the present state of p#agc our knowledge this means that he must rely to a very large degree upon his own intuitions1 commonsense1 and sense of life4 ,great progress has been made in scientific psychology within the last generation1 enough progress1 ,i think1 to supplement in important ways our own unanalyzed and intuitive wisdom about life4 ,but it would be idle to suppose that the science of psychology is in a stage where it can be used as a substitute for experienced and penetrating imaginative insight4 ,we can be confident that on the whole a good meteorologist can tell us more about the weather than even the most weather-wise old sea captain4 ,but we cannot have that kind of confidence in even the best of psychologists4 ,indeed1 an acquaintance with psychologists will1 ,i think1 compel anyone to admit that1 if they are good psychologists1 they are almost certain to possess a gift of insight which is unaccounted for by their technical apparatus4 ,doubtless it is true that in all the sciences the difference between a good scientist and a poor one comes down at last1 after all the technical and theoretical procedure has been learned1 to some sort of residual flair for the realities of that subject4 ,but in the study of human nature that residual flair1 which seems to be composed of intuition1 commonsense1 and unconsciously deposited experience1 plays a much greater role than it does in the more advanced sciences4 ,the uses of psychology to the moralist are1 therefore1 in confirming and correcting1 in broadening and organizing1 his insight into human nature4 ,he is confronted1 of course1 with a great deal of confusion4 ,there is1 to begin with1 no agreed terminology1 and therefore it is often almost impossible to know whether two psychologists p#agd using the same word mean the same thing4 ,anyone who has stumbled about amidst words like instinct1 impulse1 consciousness1 the unconscious1 will know how confusing it all is4 ,psychologists are still using a literary language in which the connotations of words tend to overwhelm their precise signification4 ,to make the confusion greater there is the elaborate system-making1 the headstrong generalizing1 and the fierce dogmatism which have produced the psychological sects4 ,but all of this is characteristic of a young science1 and if that is borne in mind1 there is nothing disconcerting about it4 ,the ,eighteenth ,century in dealing with the ,newtonian physics1 and the ,nineteenth in dealing with the ,darwinian biology1 went through a hullabaloo similar to that which we are now going through in connection with behaviorism1 psychoanalysis1 and the so-called gestalt-theorie4 ,our only concern here is to ask whether underneath all the controversy there is not some trustworthy common ground on which the moralist can stand4 ,i have already said that there was common ground in the concept of development4 ,we can go further than that1 however1 and say1 ,i think1 that with the help of psychology we are in position now to construct reliable and useful pictures1 which confirm and correct our own intuitive understanding1 of the infantile and of the mature approach to experience4 ,we can1 as it were1 fix these two poles and regard the history of each soul as the history of its progress from infantilism to maturity4 ,we are by no means able as yet to describe all the phases of development between these two poles2 we know that progress is often temporarily interrupted1 often completely p#age arrested1 and sometimes turned into a rout4 ,but insofar as we are able to realize clearly what a fully matured character is like1 the word progress has a meaning because we know what we mean by the goal of moral effort4 ,that goal is maturity4 ,if we knew all the stages in the development to maturity1 and how to control them1 we should have an adequate science of education1 we could deal successfully with functional disorders1 we should have a very great mastery of the art of life4 ,for the problems of education are at bottom problems in how to lead the child from one stage of development to another until at last he becomes an harmonious and autonomous personality2 the functional disorders of the character are problems in the fixations and repressions on the path to maturity2 the art of living is to pass gracefully from youth to old age1 and1 at last1 as ,montaigne said1 to learn to die4 ,it is this progress which we have to understand and imaginatively to conceive4 ,for in conceiving it we conceive the matrix of humanism4 ,in this conception is to be found1 ,i believe1 the substitute for that conception of divine government which gives shape and form to the theocratic culture4 ,to replace the conception of man as the subject of a heavenly king1 which dominates the whole ancestral order of life1 humanism takes as its dominant pattern the progress of the individual from helpless infancy to self-governing maturity4 #g4 ,the ,career of the ,soul ,if our scientific knowledge of human nature were adequate1 we could achieve in the humanistic culture that which all theologies have tried to achieve3 we could found p#agf our morality on tested truths4 ,they would be truths about the development of human nature1 and not1 as in the popular religions1 truth of physics and of history4 ,but our knowledge of human nature is inadequate1 and therefore1 like the teachers of popular religion1 we have in place of exact knowledge to invent imaginative fictions in the hope that the progress of science will confirm and correct1 but will not utterly contradict1 our hypotheses4 ,we can claim no more than this3 for our understanding of human nature we are compelled to use our insight and the best available psychological science of our age1 exactly as ,dante1 for his understanding of the divine constitution of the universe1 had to use the accepted astronomy of his day4 ,if our psychology turns out to be wrong1 the only difference will be that we shall have to discard an hypothesis whereas our forefathers had to discard a revealed dogma4 ,the sketch which ,i am about to make of the progress from infancy to maturity is to be taken1 then1 not as tested scientific truth1 but as an imaginative construction4 ,it will be1 if you like1 a modern fable which symbolizes rather than describes1 as the primitive legends of the sun god symbolized1 rather than described1 the observed facts4 ,because it is an imaginative construction1 the same meaning might be expressed in other ways and with many variations of detail4 ,but though the fiction itself is of no consequence1 the meaning it conveys is of the highest consequence1 and it is confirmed1 as ,i shall attempt to show1 not only by ordinary insight but by the deepest wisdom of the greatest teachers4 ,freud1 in a famous paper1 has described the passage p#agg from infancy to maturity as a transition from the dominion of momentary pleasure and pain to the dominion of reality4 ,this theory is not peculiar to psychoanalysis in any of its several schools1 and it does not depend upon the controverted points of doctrine4 ,it is1 in fact1 more or less of a commonplace in psychological thought4 ,i am employing it here because a distinguished colleague of ,freud's1 ,dr4 ,s4 ,ferenczi of ,budapest1 has made an attempt to indicate the chief stages in the development between these two poles of experience4 ,it is a most useful bit of speculation1 and while ,i believe it could be duplicated in terms either of behaviorism or of the gestalt-theorie1 ,i do not happen to have come across any portrait of the idea which is as vivid as ,dr4 ,ferenczi's4 ,the first stage of human development1 says ,ferenczi1 takes place in the womb where the embryo lives as a parasite of the mother's body4 ,an outer world exists for it only in a very restricted degree2 all it needs for protection1 warmth1 and nourishment is assured by the mother4 ,because everything is there which is necessary for the satisfaction of the instincts1 ,ferenczi calls this the ,period of ,unconditional ,omnipotence4 ,it is1 therefore1 rather disagreeable and perhaps terrifying to be born1 for with the detachment from the mother and the 8rude disturbance of the wish-less tranquillity he had enjoyed in the womb10 the trouble of living begins1 and evokes feelings which might perhaps be described as a longing to recover the perfect pre-natal adjustment4 ,nurses instinctively recognize this longing1 says ,ferenczi1 and as soon as the infant expresses his discomfort by struggling and crying1 they deliberately create a situation p#agh which resembles as closely as possible the one he has just left4 ,they lay him down by the warm body of the mother1 or wrap him up in soft1 warm coverings1 shield his eyes from the light and his ears from noise4 ,the illusion is more or less complete1 for1 of course1 the infant is unaware of the activities of the nurse4 ,for all he knows 8his wishes are realized simply by imagining the satisfaction of them40 ,ferenczi calls this the ,period of ,magical-,hallucinatory ,omnipotence4 ,but this period does not last very long1 since the nurse is unable to anticipate every desire that the growing infant feels4 8,the hallucinatory representation of the wish-fulfilment soon proves inadequate to bring about any longer a real wish-fulfilment40 ,so the infant has to give signals1 and the more complicated his wishes become the more signals he has to give4 ,he begins to use a gesture-language1 and if there is a willing nurse always at hand without too many new-fangled notions1 the child gets what he wants for the mere trouble of expressing his wants4 ,ferenczi calls this the ,period of ,omnipotence by the ,help of ,magic ,gestures4 ,but as time goes on and as the number of his wants increase these gestures lose some of their magic4 ,the number of the conditions increase to which he has to submit4 8,the outstretched hand must often be drawn back empty4444 ,indeed1 an invincible hostile power may forcibly oppose itself to this gesture and compel the hand to resume its former position40 ,at this point his sense of reality begins2 the sense1 that is to say1 of something outside himself which does not submit to his wishes4 8,till now the #8all-powerful' being has been able p#agi to feel himself one with the world that obliged him and followed his every nod1 but gradually there appears a painful discordance in his experiences40 ,because all experiences are no longer incorporated in the ego1 ,ferenczi calls this the ,projection ,phase4 ,but though the child has now begun to discern the existence of reality1 his sense of that reality is still quite imperfect4 ,at first1 perhaps1 he regards this outer world1 though it opposes his wishes1 as having qualities like his own4 ,ferenczi calls this the ,animistic ,period4 ,the child then begins to talk and to substitute for gestures actual statements of what he desires4 ,provided he lives in a household bent on fulfilling his wants as soon as possible1 he retains to a very great degree the illusion that his wishes are sovereign4 ,ferenczi calls this the ,period of ,magic ,thoughts and ,magic ,words4 ,finally1 if he matures successfully1 he passes into the last period where he is no longer under the domination of the pleasure-principle3 the feeling of omnipotence gives way to the full appreciation of the force of circumstances4 ,now unfortunately neither ,freud nor ,ferenczi1 nor1 so far as ,i know1 any other psychoanalyst1 devotes much attention to this last phase of maturity in which the sense of reality has become perfected4 ,they are preoccupied with pathology2 that is to say1 with the problems which arise out of a failure to attain this last stage in which the adult makes a complete adjustment with his world because his wishes are matured to accept the conditions which reality imposes4 ,yet it is this last stage which plainly constitutes the goal of moral effect1 for here alone the adult once again p#ahj recovers that harmony between himself and his environment which he lost in that period of infancy when he first discovered that his wishes were no longer sovereign4 ,it is the memory of that earliest harmony which he carries with him all his days4 ,this is his memory of a golden age1 his intimation1 as ,wordsworth says1 of immortality4 ,but insofar as he expects by an infantile philosophy to recover that heaven which lay about him in his infancy1 he is doomed to disappointment4 ,in the womb1 and for a few years of his childhood1 happiness was the gratification of his naive desires4 ,his family arranged the world to suit his wishes4 ,but as he grows up1 and begins to be an independent personality1 this providence ministering to his wishes disappears4 ,he can then no longer hope that the world will be adjusted to his wishes1 and he is compelled by a long and difficult process of learning and training to adjust his wishes to the world4 ,if he succeeds he is mature4 ,if he is mature1 he is once again harmonious with the nature of things4 ,he has virtue4 ,and he is happy4 ,the process of maturing consists then of a revision of his desires in the light of an understanding of reality4 ,when he is completely infantile there is nothing in the world but his wishes4 ,therefore1 he does not need and does not have an understanding of the outer world4 ,it exists for him merely as gratification or denial4 ,but as he begins to learn that the universe is not composed of his wishes1 he begins to see his wishes in a context and in perspective4 ,he begins to acquire a sense of space and to learn how much there is beyond his reach1 until at last he realizes how small a figure he is on this earth1 and how small a part of the universe is the solar system of which p#aha ours is one of the smaller planets4 ,he has learned a lot from the days when he put out his hand and reached for the moon4 ,he begins1 also1 to acquire a sense of time and to realize that the moment in which he feels the intense desire to seize something is an instant in a lifetime1 an infinitesimal point in the history of the race4 ,he acquires a sense of birth and decay and death1 a knowledge that that which he craves1 his craving itself1 and he himself who feels that craving1 did not have this craving yesterday and will no longer have it to-morrow4 ,he acquires a sense of cause and effect1 a knowledge1 that is to say1 that the sequences of events are not to be interrupted by his preferences4 ,he begins to discern the existence of other beings beside himself1 and to understand that they too have their preferences and their wishes1 that these wishes are often contrary to his own1 and that there is not room enough in the world1 nor are there things enough1 to gratify all the wishes of everybody4 ,thus to learn the lessons of experience is to undergo a transvaluation of the values we bring with us from the womb and to transmute our naive impulses4 ,the breakdown of the infantile adjustment in which providential powers ministered to every wish compels us either to flee from reality or to understand it4 ,and by understanding it we create new objects of desire4 ,for when we know a good deal about a thing1 know how it originated1 how it is likely to behave1 what it is made of1 and what is its place amidst other things1 we are dealing with something quite different from the simple object naively apprehended4 ,the understanding creates a new environment4 ,the more subtle and discriminating1 the more informed and p#ahb sympathetic the understanding is1 the more complex and yet ordered do the things about us become4 ,to most of us1 as ,mr4 ,santayana once said1 music is a pleasant noise which produces a drowsy revery relieved by nervous thrills4 ,but the trained musician hears what we do not hear at all2 he hears the form1 the structure1 the pattern1 and the significance of an ideal world4 ,a naturalist out of doors perceives a whole universe of related life which the rest of us do not even see4 ,a world which is ordinarily unseen has become visible through the understanding4 ,when the mind has fetched it out of the flux of dumb sensations1 defined it and fixed it1 this unseen world becomes more real than the dumb sensations it supplants4 ,when the understanding is at work1 it is as if circumstance had ceased to mutter strange sounds and had begun to speak our language4 ,when experience is understood1 it is no longer what it is wholly to the infant1 very largely to youth1 and in great measure to most men1 a succession of desirable objects at which they instinctively grasp1 interspersed with undesirable ones from which they instinctively shrink4 ,if objects are seen in their context1 in the light of their origin and destiny1 with sympathy for their own logic and their own purposes1 they become interesting in themselves1 and are no longer blind stimuli to pleasant and unpleasant sensations4 ,for when our desires come into contact with the world created by the understanding1 their character is altered4 ,they are confronted by a much more complex stimulus which evokes a much more complex response4 ,instead of the naive and imperious lust of our infantile natures which is to seize1 to have and to hold1 our lusts are offset p#ahc by other lusts and a balance between them is set up4 ,that is to say1 they are made rational by the ordered variety with which the understanding confronts them4 ,we learn that there are more things in heaven and earth than we dreamed of in our immature philosophy1 that there are many choices and that none is absolute1 that beyond the mountains1 as the ,chinese say1 there are people also4 ,the obviously pleasant or unpleasant thus becomes less obviously what we felt it was before our knowledge of it became complicated by anticipation and memory4 ,the immediately desirable seems not quite so desirable and the undesirable less intolerable4 ,delight is perhaps not so intense nor pain so poignant as youth and the romantics would have them4 ,they are absorbed into a larger experience in which the rewards are a sustained and more even enjoyment1 and serenity in the presence of inescapable evil4 ,in place of a world1 where like children we are ministered to by a solicitous mother1 the understanding introduces us into a world where delight is reserved for those who can appreciate the meaning and purpose of things outside ourselves1 and can make these meanings and purposes their own4 #h4 ,the ,passage into ,maturity ,the critical phase of human experience1 then1 is the passage from childhood to maturity2 the critical question is whether childish habits and expectations are to persist or to be transformed4 ,we grow older4 ,but it is by no means certain that we shall grow up4 ,the human character is a complicated thing1 and its elements do not necessarily march in step4 ,it is possible to be a sage in some p#ahd things and a child in others1 to be at once precocious and retarded1 to be shrewd and foolish1 serene and irritable4 ,for some parts of our personalities may well be more mature than others2 not infrequently we participate in the enterprises of an adult with the mood and manners of a child4 ,the successful passage into maturity depends1 therefore1 on a breaking up and reconstruction of those habits which were appropriate only to our earliest experience4 ,in a certain larger sense this is the essence of education4 ,for unless a man has acquired the character of an adult1 he is a lost soul no matter how good his technical equipment4 ,the world unhappily contains many such lost souls4 ,they are often in high places1 men trained to manipulate the machinery of civilization1 but utterly incapable of handling their own purposes in any civilized fashion4 ,for their purposes are merely the relics of an infancy when their wishes were law1 and they knew neither necessity nor change4 ,when a childish disposition is carried over into an adult environment the result is a radically false valuation of that environment4 ,the symptoms are fairly evident4 ,they may appear as a disposition to feel that everything which happens to a man has an intentional relation to himself2 life becomes a kind of conspiracy to make him happy or to make him miserable4 ,in either case it is thought to be deeply concerned with his destiny4 ,the childish pattern appears also as a deep sense that life owes him something1 that somehow it is the duty of the universe to look after him1 and to listen sharply when he speaks to it4 ,the notion that the universe is full of p#ahe purposes utterly unknown to him1 utterly indifferent to him1 is as outrageous to one who is imperfectly matured as would be the conduct of a mother who forgot to give a hungry child its lunch4 ,the childish pattern appears also as a disposition to believe that he may reach out for anything in sight and take it1 and that having gotten it nobody must ever under any circumstances take it away4 ,death and decay are1 therefore1 almost an insult1 a kind of mischief in the nature of things1 which ought not to be there1 and would not be there1 if everything only behaved as good little boys believe it should4 ,there is indeed authority for the belief that we are all being punished for the naughtiness of our first grandmother2 that work and trouble and death would not really be there to plague us but for her unhappy transgression2 that by rights we ought to live in paradise and have everything we want for ever and ever4 ,here1 too1 is the source of that common complaint of the world-weary that they are tired of their pleasures4 ,they have what they yearned for2 yet having it they are depressed at finding that they do not care4 ,their inability to enjoy what they can have is the obverse of the desire to possess the unattainable3 both are due to carrying over the expectations of youth into adult life4 ,they find themselves in a world unlike the world of their youth2 they themselves are no longer youths4 ,but they retain the criteria of youth1 and with them measure the world and their own deserts4 ,here1 too1 is the origin of the apparent paradox that as men grow older they grow wiser but sadder4 ,it is not a paradox at all if we remember that this wisdom which p#ahf makes them sadder is1 after all1 an incompleted wisdom4 ,they have grown wiser as to the character of the world1 wiser too about their own powers1 but they remain naive as to what they may expect of the world and themselves4 ,the expectations which they formed in their youth persist as deeply ingrained habits to worry them in their maturity4 ,they are only partially matured2 they have become only partially wise4 ,they have acquired skill and information1 but the parts of them which are adult are embedded in other parts of their natures which are childish4 ,for men do not necessarily mature altogether and in unison2 they learn to do this and that more easily than they learn what to like and what to reject4 ,intelligence is often more completely educated than desire2 our outward behavior has an appearance of being grown up which our inner vanities and hopes1 our dim but powerful cravings1 often belie4 ,in a word1 we learn the arts and the sciences long before we learn philosophy4 ,if we ask ourselves what is this wisdom which experience forces upon us1 the answer must be that we discover the world is differently constituted than we had supposed it to be4 ,it is not that we learn more about its physical elements1 or its geography1 or the variety of its inhabitants1 or the ways in which human society is governed4 ,knowledge of this sort can be taught to a child without in any fundamental way disturbing his childishness4 ,in fact1 all of us are aware that we once knew a great many things which we have since forgotten4 ,the essential discovery of maturity has little if anything to do with information about the names1 the locations1 and the sequences of facts2 it is the acquiring of a different sense p#ahg of life1 a different kind of intuition about the nature of things4 ,a boy can take you into the open at night and show you the stars2 he might tell you no end of things about them1 conceivably all that an astronomer could teach4 ,but until and unless he feels the vast indifference of the universe to his own fate1 and has placed himself in the perspective of cold and illimitable space1 he has not looked maturely at the heavens4 ,until he has felt this1 and unless he can endure this1 he remains a child1 and in his childishness he will resent the heavens when they are not accommodating4 ,he will demand sunshine when he wishes to play1 and rain when the ground is dry1 and he will look upon storms as anger directed at him1 and the thunder as a personal threat4 ,the discovery that our wishes have little or no authority in the world brings with it experience of the necessity that is in the nature of things4 ,the lesson of this experience is one from which we shrink and to which few ever wholly accommodate themselves4 ,the world of the child is a kind of enchanted island4 ,the labor that went into procuring his food1 his clothes1 his toys1 is wholly invisible at first4 ,his earliest expectations are1 therefore1 that somehow the ,lord will provide4 ,only gradually does the truth come home to him how much effort it costs to satisfy his wants4 ,it takes even longer for him to understand that not only does he not get what he wants by asking for it but he cannot be sure to get what he wants by working for it4 ,it is not easy to accept the knowledge that desire1 that prayer1 that effort can be and often are frustrated1 that in the nature of things p#ahh there is much fumbling1 trial and error1 deadlock and defeat4 ,the sense of evil is acquired late2 by many persons it is never acquired at all4 ,children suffer1 and childhood is by no means so unreservedly happy as some make it out to be4 ,but childish suffering is not inherently tragic4 ,it is not stamped with the irrevocability which the adult feels to be part of the essence of evil4 ,evil for the child is something which can be explained away1 made up for1 done away with4 ,pretentious philosophies have been built on this fancy purporting somehow to absorb the evil of the world in an all-embracing goodness1 as a child's tears are dried by its mother's kisses4 ,the discovery that there is evil which is as genuine as goodness1 that there is ugliness and violence which are no less real than joy and love1 is one of those discoveries that the adult is forced somehow to accept in his valuation of experience4 ,and then there is the knowledge1 which only experience can give1 that everything changes and that everything comes to an end4 ,it is possible to tell a child about mortality1 but to realize it he must live long enough to experience it4 ,this knowledge does not come from words2 it comes in feeling1 in the feeling that he himself is older1 in the death of kin and friends1 in seeing well-known objects wear out1 in discarding old things1 in awakening to the sense that there is a whole new generation in the world which looks upon him as old4 ,there is an intimation of immortality in our youth because we have not yet had experience of mortality4 ,the persons and the things which surround us seem eternal because p#ahi we have known them too briefly to realize that they change4 ,we have seen neither their beginning nor their end4 ,in the last analysis we have no right to say that the world of youth is an illusion4 ,for the child it is a true picture of the world in that it corresponds to1 and is justified in1 his experience4 ,if he did not have to grow older1 it would be quite sufficient because nothing in his experience would contradict it4 ,our sense of life as we mature is quite different1 but there is no reason to think that it has any absolute finality4 ,perhaps if we lived several hundred years we should acquire a wholly different sense of life1 compared with which all our adult philosophy would seem quite callow4 ,the child's sense of life can be called an illusion only if it is carried over into manhood1 for then it ceases to fit his experience and to be justified by events4 ,the habits formed in a childish environment become progressively unworkable and contradictory as the youth is thrust out from the protection of his family into an adult environment4 ,then the infantile conviction that his wants will somehow be met collides with the fact that he must provide for himself4 ,the world begins to seem out of joint4 ,the child's notion that things are to be had for the asking becomes a vast confusion in which words are treated as laws1 and rhetoric as action4 ,the childish belief that each of us is the center of an adoring and solicitous universe becomes the source of endless disappointments because we cannot reconcile what we feel is due us with what we must resign ourselves to4 ,the sense of the unreality of evil1 which our earliest experience seemed to justify1 p#aij becomes a deep preference for not knowing the truth1 an habitual desire to think of the world as we should prefer it to be2 out of this rebellion against truth1 out of this determination that the facts shall conform to our wishes1 are born all manner of bigotry and uncharitableness4 ,the child's sense that things do not end1 that they are there forever1 becomes1 once it is carried over into maturity1 a vain and anxious effort to possess things forever4 ,the incapacity to realize that the objects of desire will last only a little while makes us put an extravagant value upon them1 and to care for them1 not as they are and for what they can actually give us1 but for what we foolishly insist they ought to be and ought always to give us4 ,the child's philosophy rests upon the assumption that the world outside is in gear with his own appetites4 ,for this reason an adult with a childish character will ascribe an authority to his appetites which may easily land him in fanaticism or frustration1 in a crazy indulgence or a miserable starvation4 ,and to the environment he will ascribe a willingness to conform to him1 a capacity to be owned by him1 which land him in all sorts of delusions of grandeur4 ,only the extreme cases are in the asylums4 ,the world is full of semi-adult persons who secretly nurse the notion that they are1 or that by rights they ought to be1 ,don ,juan1 ,crsus1 ,napoleon1 or the ,messiah4 ,they have brought with them the notion that they are still as intimately attached to nature and to society as the child is to its household4 ,the adult has to break this attachment to persons and things4 ,his world does not permit him to remain fused with it1 but compels him to stand away from things4 ,for things no longer obey p#aia his wishes4 ,and therefore he cannot let his wishes become too deeply involved in things4 ,he can no longer count on possessing whatever he may happen to want4 ,and therefore he must learn to want what he can possess4 ,he can no longer hold forever the things at which he grasps2 for they change1 and slip away4 ,and therefore he must learn to hold on to things which do not slip away and change1 to hold on to things not by grasping them1 but by understanding them and by remembering them4 ,then he is wholly an adult4 ,then he has conquered mortality in the only way mortal men can conquer it4 ,for he has ceased to expect anything of the world which it cannot give1 and he has learned to love it under the only aspect in which it is eternal4 #i4 ,the ,function of ,high ,religion ,in the light of this conception of maturity as the ultimate phase in the development of the human personality1 we are1 ,i think1 in a position to understand the riddle which we set ourselves at the beginning of this chapter4 ,i asked what significance there was for us in the fact that men have so persistently associated the good life with some form of ascetic discipline and renunciation4 ,the answer is that asceticism is an effort to overcome immaturity4 ,when men do not outgrow their childish desires1 they seek to repress them4 ,the ascetic discipline1 if it is successful1 is a form of education2 if it is unsuccessful1 it is an agonized conflict due to an imperfect education or an incapacity to grow up4 ,by the same token1 moral regulations imposed on others1 insofar as they are at all rational1 and not methods of exploitation or expressions of jealousy1 are attempts to curb the social disorders p#aib which result from the activities of grown-up children4 ,it follows that asceticisms and moralities are at best means to an end2 they are more or less inadequate substitutes for the educational process and the natural growth of wisdom4 ,they are often confused with virtue1 but they are not virtue4 ,for virtue is the quality of mature desire1 and when desire is mature the tortures of renunciations and of prohibitions have ceased to be necessary4 8,blessedness10 says ,spinoza1 8is not the reward of virtue1 but virtue itself2 nor should we rejoice in it for that we restrain our lusts1 but1 on the contrary1 because we rejoice therein we can restrain our lusts40 ,the mature character may be attained by growth and experience and insight1 or by ascetic discipline1 or by that process of being reborn which is called conversion2 when it is attained1 the moral problem of whether to yield to impulse or to check it1 and how much to check it and how much to yield1 has disappeared4 ,a mature desire is innocent4 ,this1 ,i think1 is the final teaching of the great sages4 8,to him who has finished the ,path1 and passed beyond sorrow1 who has freed himself on all sides1 and thrown away every fetter1 there is no more fever of grief10 says a ,buddhist writer4 ,the ,master said1 8,at fifteen ,i had my mind bent on learning4 8,at thirty1 ,i stood firm4 8,at forty1 ,i had no doubts4 8,at fifty1 ,i knew the decrees of ,heaven4 8,at sixty1 my ear was an obedient organ for the reception of truth4 8,at seventy1 ,i could follow what my heart desired1 without transgressing what was right40 p#aic ,to be able1 as ,confucius indicates1 to follow what the heart desires without coming into collision with the stubborn facts of life is the privilege of the utterly innocent and of the utterly wise4 ,it is the privilege of the infant and of the sage who stand at the two poles of experience2 of the infant because the world ministers to his heart's desire and of the sage because he has learned what to desire4 ,perhaps this is what ,jesus meant when he told his followers that they must become like little children4 ,if this is what he meant1 and if this is what ,buddha1 ,confucius1 and ,spinoza meant1 then we have here the clue to the function of high religion in human affairs4 ,i venture1 at least1 to suggest that the function of high religion is to reveal to men the quality of mature experience1 that high religion is a prophecy and an anticipation of what life is like when desire is in perfect harmony with reality4 ,it announces the discovery that men can enter into the realm of the spirit when they have outgrown all childishness4 ,,chapter ,x p#aid ,,high ,,religion ,,and ,,the ,,modern ,,world #a4 ,popular ,religion and the ,great ,teachers ,in popular thought it is taken for granted that to be religious is to accept in some form or other the theocratic view that ,god governs the universe4 ,if that assumption is correct then the orthodox who inveigh against the godlessness of contemporary thought and the militant atheists who rejoice in this godlessness are both right when they insist that religion is disappearing4 ,insofar as religion is identical with a belief in theocracy1 it has indeed lost much of its reality for modern men4 ,there is little doubt1 ,i think1 that popular religion has been always and everywhere theocratic in principle4 ,if1 then1 we are to define as religion that which the overwhelming majority of mankind have cherished1 it would be necessary to concede at once that the dissolution of the belief in a supernatural government of human affairs is a dissolution of religion itself4 ,but if that is conceded1 then it is necessary to concede also that many whom the world recognizes as its greatest religious teachers were not themselves religious men4 ,for it could be demonstrated1 ,i think1 that in the central intuition of ,aristotle1 of the author of the ,fourth ,gospel1 of ,buddha1 of ,spinoza1 to name only originating minds1 the theocratic principle is irrelevant4 ,no one of these teachers held the belief1 p#aie which is at the heart of theocratic religion1 that the relationship between ,god and man is somehow analogous with that of a king to his subjects1 that the relationship is in any sense a transaction between personalities involving1 however subtly1 a quid pro quo1 that ,god's will and the human will are interacting forces4 ,in place of the popular conception of religion as a matter of commandments and obedience1 reward and punishment1 in a word1 as a form of government1 these great teachers placed their emphasis upon the conversion1 the education1 and the discipline of the human will4 ,such beliefs as they had about ,god were not in the nature of oaths of allegiance to a superior2 their concern was not to placate the will of ,god but to alter the will of man4 ,this alteration of the human will they conceived as good not because ,god commands it1 but because it is intrinsically good for man1 because by the test of experience it yields happiness1 serenity1 whole-heartedness4 ,belief is not1 as it is in popular religion1 an act which by creating a claim upon divinity insures man's salvation2 the force of belief1 as ,mr4 ,whitehead has put it1 is in 8cleansing the inward parts40 ,thus religion becomes 8the art and the theory of the internal life of man1 so far as it depends on the man himself and on what is permanent in the nature of things40 ,the difference between religion conceived as the art and theory of the internal life of man and religion conceived as cosmic government is the great difference between the religion of these great sages and the religion of the multitude4 ,though in matters of this kind the distinction is not always absolutely clear in every case1 p#aif on the whole it cannot be disputed1 ,i believe1 that the difference is real and of fundamental importance4 ,if we observe popular religions as they are administered by ecclesiastical establishments1 it is overwhelmingly plain that their main appeal rests upon the belief that through their offices the devout are able to obtain eternal salvation1 and even earthly favors1 from an invisible king4 ,but if we observe truly1 ,i think1 we shall see also that side by side with the popular religion1 sometimes in open conflict with it1 sometimes in outward conformity with it1 there is generally to be found in cultivated communities a minority to whom religion is primarily a reconditioning of their own souls4 ,they may be mystics like ,eckhart1 they may be platonists like ,origen or ,dean ,inge1 they may be protestants like ,st4 ,augustine and ,luther in certain phases of their thought1 they may be humanists like ,erasmus and ,montaigne2 as of ,confucius1 it may be said of them that 8the subjects on which the ,master did not talk were3 extraordinary things1 feats of strength1 disorder1 and spiritual beings40 ,they may be inside the churches or outside them1 but in intention1 in the inner meaning of their religion1 they are wholly at variance with the popular creeds4 ,for in one form or another they reject the idea of attaining salvation by placating ,god2 in one form or another they regard salvation as a condition of the soul which is reached only by some kind of self-discipline4 ,it must be obvious that religion1 conceived in this way1 8as the art and theory of the internal life of man10 is not dissolved by what ,i have been calling the acids of modernity4 ,it is the popular religion which is dissolved4 p#aig ,but just because this vast dissolution is destroying the disposition to believe in a theocratic government of the universe1 just because men no longer find it wholly credible that their affairs are subject to the ordinances of a heavenly king1 just because they no longer vividly believe in an invisible power which regulates their lives1 judges them1 and sustains them1 their only hope of salvation lies in a religion which provides an internal discipline4 ,the real effect of modernity upon religion1 therefore1 is to make the religion which was once the possession of an aristocracy of the spirit the only possible kind of religion for all modern men4 #b4 ,the ,aristocratic ,principle ,to those who want salvation cheap1 and most men do1 there is very little comfort to be had out of the great teachers4 ,spinoza might have been speaking for all of them when he said3 ,if the way which ,i have pointed out 444 seems exceedingly hard1 it may nevertheless be discovered4 ,needs must it be hard1 since it is so seldom found4 ,how would it be possible1 if salvation were ready to our hand1 and could without great labor be found1 that it should be by almost all men neglected8 ,but all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare4 ,but why1 we may ask1 is salvation by almost all men neglected8 ,the answer is that they do not desire that which they have never learned to desire4 8,one cannot10 as ,voltaire said1 8desire that which one does not know40 ,can a man love good wine when he has drunk nothing but ginger beer8 ,did we have naturally and instinctively p#aih a taste for that which constitutes the happiness of the saved1 we should already be saved1 and their happiness would be ours4 ,we lack the taste1 which is1 ,i suppose1 another way of saying what the theologians meant when they spoke of original sin4 ,to be saved1 in the sense which the sages had in mind1 is by conversion1 education1 and self-discipline to have achieved a certain quality and harmony of the passions4 ,then the good life is possible4 ,but although men have often heard this said1 and have read about it1 unless in some measure they already desire it1 the whole teaching remains mere words and abstractions which are high1 cold1 and remote4 ,as long as they feel that the way to happiness is through a will other than their own1 and that somehow events can in this fashion be made to yield to their unregenerate wishes1 in this world or another1 the wisdom of the sages will not touch their hearts1 and the way which is pointed out will be neglected4 ,wisdom will seem inhuman4 ,in a sense it is inhuman1 for it is so uncommon4 ,those who have it speak a strange language1 of which the words perhaps have a familiar sound1 but the meaning is too high and abstract2 their delights are strange delights1 and unfathomable1 like a passion which we have never known4 ,and if we encounter them in their lives or in their writings1 they seem to us a mixture of grandeur and queerness4 ,for they are at once more deeply at home in the world than the transients who make up most of mankind2 yet1 because of the quality of their passions1 they are not wholly of the world as the worldling understands it4 ,but unless the worldling is entirely without the capacity to transcend himself1 he is p#aii bound in such an encounter to catch a glimpse now and then of an experience where there is a serenity he himself has never known1 a peace that passes his understanding1 an ecstasy exquisite and without regret1 and happiness so clarified that it seems like brilliant and kindly light4 ,yet no teacher has ever appeared in the world who was wise enough to know how to teach his wisdom to all mankind4 ,in fact1 the great teachers have attempted nothing so utopian4 ,they were quite well aware how difficult for most men is wisdom1 and they have confessed frankly that the perfect life was for a select few4 ,it is arguable1 in fact1 that the very idea of teaching the highest wisdom to all men is the recent notion of a humanitarian and romantically democratic age1 and that it is quite foreign to the thought of the greatest teachers4 ,gautama ,buddha1 for example1 abolished caste within the religious order which he founded1 and declared that the path to ,nirvana was open to the lowest outcast as well as to the proudest ,brahman4 ,but it was necessary to enter the order and submit to its stringent discipline4 ,it is obvious that ,buddha never believed that very many could or would do that4 ,jesus1 whom we are accustomed to think of as wholly catholic in his sympathies1 spoke the bitter words3 8,give not what is holy to the dogs and cast not your pearls before swine40 ,in ,mohammedanism that which is mystical is esoteric3 8all those emotions are meant only for a small number of chosen ones 444 even some of the noblest minds in ,islam restrict true religious life to an aristocracy1 and accept the ignorance of the multitude as an irremediable evil40 ,there is an aristocratic principle in all the religions p#bjj which have attained wide acceptance4 ,it is significant that ,jesus was content to leave the governance of the mass of men to ,caesar1 and that he created no organization during his lifetime beyond the appointment of the ,apostles4 ,it is significant1 because it shows how much more he was concerned with the few who could be saved than with arranging the affairs of the mass of mankind4 ,plato1 who was a more systematic teacher than either ,jesus or ,buddha1 did work out an elaborate social order which took account not only of the philosophers1 but of all the citizens of the state4 ,but in that very attempt he rested upon the premise that most men will not attain the good life1 and that for them it is necessary to institute the laws4 8,the worthy disciples of philosophy will be but a small remnant10 he said1 8444 the guardian 444 must be required to take the longer circuit1 and toil at learning as well as at gymnastics1 or he will never reach the highest knowledge of all which is his proper calling40 ,perhaps because they looked upon the attempts as hopeless1 perhaps because they did not know how to go about it1 perhaps because they were so wise1 the greatest teachers have never offered their full wisdom to the multitude4 ,like ,mr4 ,valiant-for-truth in ,the ,pilgrim's ,progress they said3 8,my sword ,i give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage1 and my courage and skill to him that can get it40 #c4 ,the ,peculiarity of the ,modern ,situation ,but because the teaching of the sages was incomprehensible1 the multitude1 impressed but also bewildered1 ignored them as teachers and worshipped them as gods4 p#bja ,in their wisdom the people were not interested1 but in the legends of their power1 which rumor created1 there was something understandable4 ,and thus1 the religions which have been organized around the names of great spiritual teachers have been popular in proportion1 one might almost say1 to the degree in which the original insight into the necessity for conversion and self-discipline has been reduced to a system of commands and promises which the common man can understand4 ,for popular religion is suited to the capacities of the unconverted4 ,the adherents of a popular religion necessarily include an enormous number of people who are too young1 or too feeble1 too dull or too violent1 too unstable or too incurious1 to have any comprehension whatsoever of anything but the simplest scheme of rewards and punishments4 ,an organized religion cannot neglect them if it has any pretensions to being universal4 ,the great ecclesiastical establishments have often sheltered spiritual lives1 and drawn new vitality from them4 ,but fundamentally the great churches are secular institutions2 they are governments preoccupied inevitably with the regulation of the unregenerate appetites of mankind4 ,in their scriptures there is to be found the teaching that true salvation depends upon internal reform of desire4 ,but since this reform is so very difficult1 in practice the churches have devoted themselves not so much to making real conversions1 as to governing the dispositions of the unconverted multitude4 ,they are immensely engaged by the task of administering their moral codes1 persuading their congregations with promises1 and threatening them with punishments p#bjb if they do not keep their childish lusts within bounds4 ,the fact that they use rewards and punishments1 and appeal even to ,caesar1 is evidence enough that they are dealing with the unconverted4 ,the fact that they invoke authority is in itself evidence that they are speaking to the naive4 ,the fact that they pretend to have certain knowledge about the constitution of the universe is evidence that they are interested in those who are not wise enough to understand the limitations of knowledge4 ,for to the few who are converted1 goodness is pleasant1 and needs no sanctions4 ,it needs no authority1 for it has been verified by experience4 ,but when men have to be coerced into goodness1 it is plain that they do not care for it4 ,now although the great teachers saw clearly enough the difference between the popular religion and their own insight1 they were under no great compulsion to try and overcome it4 ,they accepted the fact that the true religion was esoteric and for the few4 ,they saw that it demanded the re-education of desire1 but they had no systematic and tested knowledge of how new habits can be formed4 ,invincible as was their insight into the principle of happiness1 they were compelled to depend upon introspection1 and to generalize from a limited observation4 ,they understood that the good life was in some degree an acquired disposition2 they were aware that it is not easily or naively acquired4 ,for those who somehow had the disposition1 the teachers instituted stern disciplines which were really primitive experiments in the re-education of desire4 ,but there was no very urgent practical need which impelled them to search for ways of making disciplines more p#bjc widely available4 ,those who submitted to them were in general individuals who were already out of the ordinary4 ,the mass of mankind lived solidly within the framework of custom and the psychological compulsions of theocracy4 ,there was no pressing reason1 as there is to-day1 now that this ancestral order is dissolved1 why anyone should seek to formulate a mode of life by which ordinary men1 thrown upon their own resources1 can find their way without supernatural rules1 commands1 punishments1 and compensations4 ,in the past there were a few men here and there who had somehow1 for reasons which we do not understand1 outgrown the ancestral society in which they lived4 ,but the society itself remained4 ,it sheltered them4 ,and it ruled the many4 ,the peculiarity of our modern situation is that multitudes1 instead of a few1 are compelled to make radical and original adjustments4 ,these multitudes1 though they have lost the ancient certainties1 have not outgrown the needs to which they ministered4 ,they need to believe1 but they cannot4 ,they need to be commanded1 but they cannot find a commander4 ,they need support1 and there is none4 ,their situation is adult1 but their dispositions are not4 ,the religion of the spirit would suit their needs1 but it would seem to be beyond their powers4 #d4 ,the ,stone ,which the ,builders ,rejected ,the way of life which ,i have called high religion has in all ages seemed so unapproachably high that it has been reserved for a voluntary aristocracy of the spirit4 ,it has1 in fact1 been looked upon not only as a kind of splendid idiosyncrasy of a few men here and there1 but p#bjd as incompatible1 in essence1 with the practical conditions under which life is lived4 ,it is for these reasons1 no doubt1 that the practice of high religion has almost invariably been associated either with a solitary asceticism or with a specially organized life in monastic establishments4 ,high religion has been regarded as something separate from the main concerns of mankind4 ,it is not difficult to see why this was so if we realize that the insight into the value of disinterestedness1 which is the core of high religion1 was not a sudden discovery nor a complete one1 anywhere or any time4 ,like all other things associated with evolutionary man1 this insight must have had very crude beginnings2 it would be possible to show1 ,i think1 that there have been many tentative and partial perceptions of it which1 under the clarifying power of men of genius1 have at times become coherent4 ,when we remember that we are dealing with an insight into the qualities of a matured personality1 there is no reason to suppose that the full significance of this insight has ever been completely exhausted4 ,it seems far more likely that the sages demonstrated the existence of the realm of the spirit1 but that it still remains to be thoroughly explored4 ,if that is true then the attempt to live by these partial insights must necessarily have presented inordinate practical difficulties4 ,pythagoras1 for example1 seems to have grasped the idea that the disinterested study of mathematics and music was cleansing to the passions and also that in order to be disinterested it was necessary to have purity of mind4 ,so when he established his society in ,southern ,italy he evidently attempted to combine the p#bje serious pursuit of science with an ascetic discipline4 ,but the pursuit of science was too much for the mass of the faithful who assumed that 8to follow ,pythagoras meant to go barefoot and to abstain from animal flesh and beans40 ,and this in turn was too much for the dignity of the learned who proceeded to dissociate themselves from the disciplinary aspect of the ,pythagorean teaching4 ,it is a fair conclusion1 ,i think1 that the breakdown of this early experiment must have been due fundamentally to the fact that ,pythagoras could not have known any tested method either of equipping his followers to appreciate science or anything beside a crude asceticism as a means of moral discipline4 ,if this is true1 then the reason for the failure lay in the fact that though the original insight was marvelously good1 it was not implemented with the necessary technical knowledge for applying it4 ,only a few1 we may suppose1 who were already by the accidents of nature and nurture suited to the ,pythagorean ideal1 can ever have successfully applied it4 ,in the ,christian pursuit of the higher religious life the practical difficulties presented themselves in a different way4 ,in its beginning ,christianity was a sect of obscure men and women who were out of touch with the intellectual interests of the ,roman world4 ,they were persecuted aliens both in ,palestine and elsewhere1 and they came to the conclusion that the ,roman ,empire and all its concerns was the ,kingdom of ,satan4 ,this1 together with the widespread belief in the ,second ,coming of ,christ1 dissociated the ,christian life at the outset from the life of the world4 ,later on1 when ,christianity became the official religion of the ,empire1 and the ,church a great p#bjf secular institution which concerned itself with government and property and diplomacy and war1 those who wished to live as nearly as possible according to the original meaning of the ,gospels were quite evidently compelled to withdraw and live a separated life4 8,if any man love the world1 the love of the ,father is not in him4 ,for all that is in the world1 the lust of the flesh1 and the lust of the eyes1 and the pride of life1 is not of the ,father1 but is of the world4 ,and the world passeth away1 and the lust thereof3 but he that doeth the will of ,god abideth forever40 ,although for some centuries the monasteries were the centers of what learning there was1 the impressions left by monasticism on mankind seems to have been that the highest type of religious life is not disinterested in human affairs1 but uninterested2 that it requires not merely the renunciation of worldly desires1 but of the world itself4 ,the insight was imperfect1 and therefore as an example to mankind the practice was abortive and confusing4 ,yet only an uncomprehending person can fail to see that the vows of poverty1 chastity1 and obedience proceeded from a profound1 if partial1 understanding of human nature and its most perfect harmony4 ,plainly all manner of disorder both in society and in the individual result from greed1 uncontrollable sexual desire1 arrogance1 and imperiousness4 ,that was so plain to the early ,christians1 and on the other hand it was so little plain how those powerful passions could be civilized1 that the monastics in effect gave up and attempted to excise them entirely from their natures4 ,in this they did not succeed4 ,had they known any way of curing the fever of human p#bjg passion except by attempting to excise it1 the insight of high religion would have had some practicable meaning for those who did not withdraw from the world4 ,but no way was known1 and therefore the practice of high religion had to mean separation from human society and violence to human nature4 ,but why was there no other way known of overcoming the chaos of the passions8 ,was it because there is no other way8 ,if that were so then the world is as hopeless as the early ,christians thought it was2 indeed it is more hopeless because it does not show any signs1 as they believed1 of coming to an end4 ,was it because the early ,christian ,fathers were not wise enough to discover a way8 ,it is always a good rule1 ,i think1 to discard any idea based on the premise that the best minds of another age were congenitally inferior to our own4 ,my conviction is that necessity is the mother of discovery and invention1 and that the reason why the insight of high religion and the methods of practicing it were so imperfectly developed1 is that there was no practical necessity for developing them4 ,the mass of men lived in an ancestral order which was regulated by custom and authority1 and made endurable by usage and compensatory consolations4 ,the organic quality of that society into which they fitted took care of their passions2 those who had outgrown such a society1 or were so constituted that they did not fit it1 were the exceptions4 ,from them came the insight of high religion2 for them a separated life was a possible solution of their personal problems4 ,there was nothing in the nature of things to compel men to work out a way of life1 ,i won't say for all men1 but at least for many men1 by which p#bjh they could govern their own natures4 ,behind any such effort there would almost certainly have to be an urgent need4 ,for the inertia of the human race is immense4 ,it is my thesis that because the acids of modernity have dissolved the adjustments of the ancestral order1 there exists to-day on a scale never before experienced by mankind and of an urgency without a parallel1 the need for that philosophy of life of which the insight of high religion is a prophecy4 ,for it is immature and unregenerate desire which creates the disorders and the frustrations that confound us4 ,the preoccupation of the popular religion has been to find a way of governing these disorders and of compensating for their frustrations4 ,the preoccupation of high religion is with the regeneration of the passions that create the disorders and the frustrations4 ,insofar as modernity has dissolved the power of the popular religion to govern and to compensate1 the need for a high religion which regenerates becomes imperative1 and what was once a kind of spiritual luxury of the few has1 under modern conditions1 become an urgent necessity of the many4 ,the insight of high religion which has hitherto indicated a kind of bypath into rare experiences is now a trail which the leaders of mankind are compelled to take4 ,there is implied in this a radical displacement in the field of morals4 ,the main interest of the practical moralist in the past has been to interpret1 administer1 and enforce a moral code4 ,he knew what was right4 ,the populace acknowledged that he knew what was right4 ,his task was to persuade and compel them to do what was right4 ,there was a tacit assumption1 which was p#bji quite correct1 that very often the populace and even the moralist himself would much rather have done what was wrong4 ,very often they did it4 ,then they were punished in this world or in the next4 ,but to-day the moralist finds himself in a different position4 ,he is no longer absolutely sure that he knows what is right4 ,the populace1 even if it respects him1 is disinclined to believe that a thing is right simply because he says it is4 ,the populace continues very frequently to prefer what was once regarded as wrong4 ,it no longer knows whether it is right or wrong1 and of course it gives itself the benefit of the doubt4 ,the result is that there no longer exists a moral code which the moralist can interpret1 administer1 and enforce4 ,the effect of that is moral anarchy within and without4 ,since there is no principle under modern conditions which authorizes the re-establishment of a moral code1 the moralist1 unless he revises his premises1 becomes entirely ineffectual4 ,to revise his premises can1 under the circumstances1 mean only one thing3 that he occupies himself with the problem of how to encourage that growth into maturity1 that outgrowing of naive desire1 that cultivation of disinterestedness1 which render passion innocent and an authoritative morality unnecessary4 ,the novelty of all this lies in the fact that the guardians of morality among the people are compelled at last to take seriously what the teachers of wisdom have taught4 ,the insight of high religion may be said1 then1 to be a discovery in the field of human experience comparable with those prophetic conceptions in the natural sciences which1 after being looked upon for long periods as a p#baj curiosity1 are at last1 because circumstances are ripe1 seen to be the clue to otherwise insoluble perplexities4 ,the concept of evolution was discovered by sheer insight innumerable times before the time of ,darwin4 ,not much came of it until the rapid evolution of human affairs after the industrial revolution had somehow brought this neglected insight into focus with men's interests4 ,there are many conceptions in the science of the ,greeks which are true intimations of what modern physicists have found4 ,but an insight of this sort comes into its own only when circumstances conspire to make it inevitably appropriate4 ,it is my contention that in the field of morals circumstances are producing a somewhat analogous condition3 that the insight of the sages into the value of disinterestedness has become the clue to otherwise insoluble perplexities4 ,,part ,,iii p#baa ,,the ,,genius ,,of ,,modernity ,where is the way where light dwelleth8 ,job #ch3ai4 ,,chapter ,,xi p#bac ,,the ,,cure ,,of ,,souls #a4 ,the ,problem of ,evil ,the greatest of all perplexities in theology has been to reconcile the infinite goodness of ,god with his omnipotence4 ,nothing puts a greater strain upon the faith of the common man than the existence of utterly irrational suffering in the universe1 and the problem which tormented ,job still troubles every devout and thoughtful man who beholds the monstrous injustices of nature4 ,if there were no pain in the world except that which was felt by responsible beings who had knowingly transgressed some law of conduct1 there would1 of course1 be no problem of evil4 ,pain would be nothing but a rational punishment4 ,but the pain which is suffered by those who according to all human standards are innocent1 by children and by animals1 for example1 cannot be fitted into any rational theory of reward and punishment4 ,it never has been4 ,the classic attempts to solve the problem of evil invariably falsify the premises4 ,this falsification may for a time satisfy the inquirer1 but it does not settle the problem4 ,that is why the problem is forever presenting itself again4 ,the solutions which have been proposed neglect one or the other of the attributes of ,god3 tacitly or otherwise either his infinite power or his infinite love is denied4 p#bad ,in the ,old ,testament1 at least in the older parts of it1 the power of ,god is exalted at the expense of his goodness4 ,for it is simply impossible by any human standard and within any intelligible meaning of the words to regard ,yahveh as wholly good4 ,his cruelty is notorious and his capriciousness is that of an ,oriental despot4 ,it is admitted1 ,i believe1 by all but the most literally-minded of the fundamentalists that there are innumerable incidents in the ,old ,testament which have to be expurgated if the ,bible is to be used as a source book of conduct for impressionable children4 ,now for the ancient ,hebrews who conceived ,god in their fashion1 the problem of evil did not exist because it had not occurred to them that a ruler should be just and good as well as great and powerful4 ,as men came to believe that ,god must be just1 beneficent1 and loving1 the problem soon presented itself4 ,and in the ,book of ,job1 which is supposed to date from the ,fifth or ,fourth ,century ,b4,c41 we have a poignant effort to solve it4 ,job's conclusion is that the goodness of ,jehovah is among the 8things too wonderful for me40 ,he accepts the judgments of ,god1 and acknowledges their goodness by attributing to ,god a kind of goodness which is unlike the human conception of goodness4 ,he holds fast to the premise that ,god is omnipotent--8,i know that thou canst do all things0--and the other premise that ,god is beneficent he redefines4 ,job's mind was satisfied1 and it is reported that he prospered greatly thereafter4 ,what had really happened was that ,job gave up the attempt to prove that ,god was like ,job1 that the world was as ,job wished it to be1 and so piously and with his mind at p#bae rest he made the best of things1 and went about his affairs4 ,in ,job the solution is reached by claiming that what seems evil to us would really be recognized as goodness if our minds were not so limited4 ,to the naive this is no solution at all1 for it depends upon using the word #8good' in two senses2 actually it was a perfect solution1 for ,job had resigned himself to the fact that ,god and the universe in which he was manifest are not controlled by human desires4 ,those who refused to accept this solution involved themselves in intricate theorizing4 ,some of them argued that evil is an illusion4 ,this theory has been widely held1 though it is rather difficult to see how1 if evil is an illusion1 good is not also an illusion4 ,the one seems as vividly real as the other4 ,it has also been argued by some that evil is not important4 ,this1 of course1 does not solve the theoretical problem4 ,in fact it ignores the problem and is really a piece of advice as to how men ought to conduct themselves in the presence of ,god4 ,many have argued1 also1 that evil exists in the world to test human character1 that by bearing it and conquering it men prove their worth4 ,there is a core of truth in this observation as there is in the theory that many things are not so bad as they seem4 ,but it does not explain why a good and all powerful ,deity chose to make men go through a school of suffering to achieve goodness1 when he might have created them good in the first place4 ,these theoretical difficulties have furnished the material for endless debate4 ,i shall not pursue the matter in all its intricacies1 but ,i venture to point out that what is attempted in all these solutions is ultimately to make plain p#baf why the ruler of the universe does not order things as we should order them if we had his power4 ,once we confess1 as ,job finally did1 that the plan of the universe is not what we naively wish it would be1 there is no problem of evil4 ,for the whole difficulty arises because of our desire to impute to the universe itself1 or to the god who rules it1 purposes like our own2 failing to find them1 we are disappointed1 and are plunged into elaborate and interminable debate4 ,the final insight of ,job1 though it seems to be consistent with the orthodox popular religion1 is really wholly inconsistent with the inwardness of popular religion4 ,the ,god of the ,book of ,job does not minister to human desires1 and the story of ,job is really the story of a man's renunciation of the belief in such a ,god4 ,it is the story of how a man learned to accept life maturely4 ,the ,god whose ways ,job finally acknowledges is no longer a projection of ,job's desires4 ,he is like the ,god of ,spinoza who cannot be cajoled into returning the love of his worshipper4 ,he is1 in short1 the ,god of an impersonal reality4 ,whether ,god is conceived as a creator of that reality1 who administers it inexorably1 or whether he is identified with reality and is conceived as the sum total of its laws1 or whether1 as in the language of modern science1 the name of ,god is not employed at all1 is a matter of metaphysical taste4 ,the great divide lies between those who think their wishes are of more than human significance and those who do not4 ,for these latter the problem of evil does not arise out of the difficulty of reconciling the existence of evil with their assumptions4 ,they do not assume that reality must conform to human desire4 ,the p#bag problem for them is wholly practical4 ,it is the problem of how to remove evil and of how to bear the evil which cannot be removed4 ,thus from the attempt to explain the ways of ,god in the world as it now is1 nature and human nature being what they are1 the center of interest is shifted to an attempt to discover ways of equipping man to conquer evil4 ,this displacement has in fact taken place in the modern world4 ,in their actual practice men do not try to account for evil in order that they may accept it2 they do not deny evil in order that they may not have to account for it2 they explain it in order that they may deal with it4 #b4 ,superstition and ,self-,consciousness ,this change of attitude toward evil is not1 as at first perhaps it may seem1 merely a new way of talking about the same thing4 ,it alters radically the nature of evil itself4 ,for evil is not a quality of things as such4 ,it is a quality of our relation to them4 ,a dissonance in music is unpleasant only to a musical ear4 ,pain is an evil only if someone suffers1 and there are those to whom pain is pleasure and most men's evil their good4 ,for things are neutral and evil is a certain way of experiencing them4 ,to realize this is to destroy the awfulness of evil4 ,i use the word #8awful' in its exact sense1 and ,i mean that in abandoning the notion that evil has to be reconciled with a theory of how the world is governed1 we rob it of universal significance4 ,we deflate it4 ,the psychological consequences are enormous1 for a very great part of all human suffering lies not in the pain itself1 but in the p#bah anxiety contributed by the meaning which we attach to it4 ,lucretius understood this quite well1 and in his superb argument against the fear of death he reasoned that death has no terror because nothing can be terrible to those who no longer exist4 ,before we were born1 he says1 8we felt no distress when the ,poeni from all sides came together to do battle4444 ,for he whom evil is to befall1 must in his own person exist at the very time it comes1 if the misery and suffering are haply to have any place at all40 ,st4 ,thomas defines superstition as the vice of excess in religion1 and in this sense of the word it may be said that the effect of the modern approach is to take evils out of the context of superstition4 ,they cease to be signs and portents symbolizing the whole of human destiny and become specific and distinguishable situations which have to be dealt with4 ,the effect of this is not only to limit drastically the meaning1 and therefore the dreadfulness1 of any evil1 but to substitute for a general sense of evil an analytical estimate of particular evils4 ,they are then seen to be of long duration and of short1 preventable1 curable1 or inevitable4 ,as long as all evils are believed somehow to fit into a divine1 if mysterious1 plan1 the effort to eradicate them must seem on the whole futile1 and even impious4 ,the history of medical progress offers innumerable instances of how men have resisted the introduction of sanitary measures because they dreaded to interfere with the providence of ,god4 ,it is still felt1 ,i believe1 in many quarters1 even in medical circles1 that to mitigate the labor pains in childbirth is to blaspheme against the commandment that in pain children shall be brought forth4 ,an aura of dread p#bai surrounds evil as long as evil situations remain entangled with a theory of divine government4 ,the realization that evil exists only because we feel it to be painful helps us not only to dissociate it from this aura of dread but to dissociate ourselves from our own feelings about it4 ,this is a momentous achievement in the inner life of man4 ,to be able to observe our own feelings as if they were objective facts1 to detach ourselves from our own fears1 hates1 and lusts1 to examine them1 name them1 identify them1 understand their origin1 and finally to judge them1 is somehow to rob them of their imperiousness4 ,they are no longer the same feelings4 ,they no longer dominate the whole field of consciousness4 ,they seem no longer to command the whole energy of our being4 ,by becoming conscious of them we in some fashion or other destroy their concentration and diffuse their energy into other channels4 ,we cease to be possessed by one passion2 contrary passions retain their vitality1 and an equilibrium tends to establish itself4 ,just what the psychological mechanism of all this is ,i do not pretend to say4 ,it is something to which psychologists are giving increasing attention4 ,but since ,hellenic times the phenomenon which ,i have been describing has been well known4 ,it was undoubtedly what the ,sophists meant by the injunction3 know thyself4 ,it was in large measure to achieve control through detachment that ,socrates elaborated his dialectic1 for the ,socratic dialectic is an instrument for making men self-conscious1 and therefore the masters of their motives4 ,spinoza grasped this principle with great clarity4 8,an emotion10 he says1 8which is a passion ceases to be a passion as soon as we p#bbj form a clear and distinct idea of it40 ,he goes on to say that 8insofar as the mind understands all things as necessary1 it has more power over the emotions1 or is less passive to them40 ,the more recent discoveries in the field of psychoanalysis are an elaboration of this principle4 ,they are based on the discovery of ,freud and ,breuer at the close of the last century that a catharsis of emotion is often obtained if the patient can be made to recall1 and thus to relive by describing it1 the emotional situation which troubles him4 ,the release of the psychic poison is known technically as an abreaction4 ,where the new psychology supplements the insights of the ,sophists1 of ,socrates1 and ,spinoza1 is in the demonstration that there are powerful passions affecting our lives of which it is impossible by ordinary effort of memory 8to form a clear and distinct idea40 ,they are said to be unconscious1 or more accurately1 ,i suppose1 they are out of the reach of the normal consciousness4 ,freud and his school have invented an elaborate technic by which the analyst is able frequently to help the patient thread his way back through a chain of associations to the buried passion and fetch it into consciousness4 ,the special technic of psychoanalysis can be tested only by scientific experience4 ,the therapeutic claims made by psychoanalysts1 and their theories of the functional disorders1 lie outside the realm of this discussion4 ,but the essential principle is not a technical matter4 ,anyone can confirm it out of his own experience4 ,it has been discovered and rediscovered by shrewd observers of human nature for at least two thousand years4 ,to become detached from one's passions and to understand them consciously p#bba is to render them disinterested4 ,a disinterested mind is harmonious with itself and with reality4 ,this is the principle by which a humanistic culture becomes bearable4 ,if the principle of a theocratic culture is dependence1 obedience1 conformity in the presence of a superhuman power which administers reality1 the principle of humanism is detachment1 understanding1 and disinterestedness in the presence of reality itself4 #c4 ,virtue ,it can be shown1 ,i think1 that those qualities which civilized men1 regardless of their theologies and their allegiances1 have agreed to call virtues1 have disinterestedness as their inner principle4 ,i am not talking now about the eccentric virtues which at some time or other have been held in great esteem4 ,i am not talking about the virtue of not playing cards1 or of not drinking wine1 or of not eating beef1 or of not eating pork1 or of not admitting that women have legs4 ,these little virtues are historical accidents which may or may not once have had a rational origin4 ,i am talking about the central virtues which are esteemed by every civilized people4 ,i am talking about such virtues as courage1 honor1 faithfulness1 veracity1 justice1 temperance1 magnanimity1 and love4 ,they would not be called virtues and held in high esteem if there were no difficulty about them4 ,there are innumerable dispositions which are essential to living that no one takes the trouble to praise4 ,thus it is not accounted a virtue if a man eats when he is hungry or goes to bed when he is ill4 ,he can be depended upon to take care of his immediate wants4 ,it is only those actions which p#bbb he cannot be depended upon to do1 and yet are highly desirable1 that men call virtuous4 ,they recognize that a premium has to be put upon certain qualities if men are to make the effort which is required to transcend their ordinary impulses4 ,the premium consists in describing these desirable and rarer qualities as virtues4 ,for virtue is that kind of conduct which is esteemed by ,god1 or public opinion1 or that less immediate part of a man's personality which he calls his conscience4 ,to transcend the ordinary impulses is1 therefore1 the common element in all virtue4 ,courage1 for example1 is the willingness to face situations from which it would be more or less natural to run away4 ,no one thinks it is courageous to run risks unwittingly4 ,the drunken driver of an automobile1 the boy playing with a stick of dynamite1 the man drinking water which he does not know is polluted1 all take risks as great as those of the most renowned heroes4 ,but the fact that they do not know the risks1 and do not1 therefore1 have to conquer the fear they would feel if they did know them1 robs their conduct of all courage4 ,the test is not the uselessness or even the undesirability of their acts4 ,it is useless to go over ,niagara ,falls in a barrel4 ,but it is brave1 assuming the performer to be in his right mind4 ,it is a wicked thing to assassinate a king4 ,but if it is not done from ambush1 it is brave1 however wicked and however useless4 ,because courage consists in transcending normal fears1 the highest kind of courage is cold courage2 that is to say1 courage in which the danger has been fully realized and there is no emotional excitement to conceal the danger4 ,the world instantly recognized this in ,colonel ,lindbergh's p#bbc flight to ,paris4 ,he flew alone2 he was not an impetuous fool1 but a man of the utmost sobriety of judgment4 ,he had no companion to keep his courage screwed up2 he knew exactly what he was doing1 yet apparently he did not realize the rewards which were in store for him4 ,the world understood that here was somebody who was altogether braver than the average sensual man4 ,for ,colonel ,lindbergh did not merely conquer the ,atlantic ,ocean2 he conquered those things in himself which the rest of us would have found unconquerable4 ,the cold courage of a man like ,noguchi who1 though in failing health1 went into one of the unhealthiest parts of ,africa to study a deadly disease1 could come only from a nature which was overwhelmingly interested in objects outside itself4 ,noguchi must have known exactly how dangerous it was for him to go to ,africa1 and exactly how horrible was the disease to which he exposed himself4 ,to have gone anyway is really to have cared for science in a way which very few care for anything so remote and impersonal4 ,but even courage like ,lindbergh's and ,noguchi's is more comprehensible than the kind of courage which anonymous men have displayed4 ,i am thinking of the four soldiers at the ,walter ,reed ,hospital who let themselves be used for the study of typhoid fever4 ,they did not even have ,lindbergh's interest in performing a great feat or ,noguchi's interest in science to buoy them up and carry them past the point where they might have faltered4 ,their courage was as near to absolute courage as it is possible to imagine1 and ,i who think this cannot even recall their names4 ,to understand the inwardness of courage would be1 ,i p#bbd think1 to have understood almost all the other important virtues4 ,it is 8not only the chiefest virtue and most dignifies the haver10 but it embodies the principle of all virtue1 which is to transcend the immediacy of desire and to live for ends which are transpersonal4 ,virtuous action is conduct which responds to situations that are more extensive1 more complicated1 and take longer to reach their fulfillment1 than the situations to which we instinctively respond4 ,an infant knows neither vice nor virtue because it can respond only to what touches it immediately4 ,a man has virtue insofar as he can respond to a larger situation4 ,he has honor if he holds himself to an ideal of conduct though it is inconvenient1 unprofitable1 or dangerous to do so4 ,he has veracity if he says and believes what he thinks is true though it would be easier to deceive others or himself4 ,he is just if he acknowledges the interests of all concerned in a transaction and not merely his own apparent interest4 ,he is temperate if1 in the presence of temptation1 he can still prefer ,philip sober to ,philip drunk4 ,he is magnanimous if1 as ,aristotle says1 he cares 8more for truth than for opinion10 speaks and acts openly1 will not live at the will of another1 except it be a friend1 does not recollect injuries1 does not care that he should be praised or that others should be blamed1 does not complain or ask for help in unavoidable or trifling calamities4 ,for such a man1 as the word #8magnanimous' itself implies1 is 8conversant with great matters40 ,a man who has these virtues has somehow overcome the inertia of his impulses4 ,their disposition is to respond to the immediate situation1 and not merely to the situation p#bbe at the moment1 but to the most obvious fragment of it1 and not only to the most obvious fragment1 but to that aspect which promises instant pleasure or pain4 ,to have virtue is to respond to larger situations and to longer stretches of time and without much interest in their immediate result in convenience and pleasure4 ,it is to overcome the impulses of immaturity1 to detach one's self from the objects that preoccupy it and from one's own preoccupations4 ,there are many virtues in the catalogues of the moralists1 and they have many different names4 ,but they have a common principle1 which is detachment from that which is apparently pleasant or unpleasant1 and they have a common quality1 which is disinterestedness1 and they spring from a common source1 which is maturity of character4 ,few men1 if any1 possess virtue in all its varieties because few men are wholly matured to the core of their being4 ,we are for the most part like fruit which is partly ripened3 there is sourness and sweetness in our natures4 ,this may be due to the casualness of our upbringing2 it may be due to unknown congenital causes2 it may be due to functional and organic disease1 to partial inferiorities of mind and body4 ,but it is due also to the fact that we can give our full attention only to a few phases of our experience4 ,with the equipment at our disposal we are forced to specialize and to neglect very much4 ,hence the mature scientist with petty ambitions and ignoble timidities4 ,hence the realistic statesman who is a peevish husband4 ,hence the man who manages his affairs in masterly fashion and bungles every personal relationship when he is away from his office4 ,hence the loyal friend who is a p#bbf crooked politician1 the kind father who is a merciless employer1 the champion of mankind who is an intolerable companion4 ,if any of these could carry over into all their relationships the qualities which have made them distinguished in some1 they would be wholly adult and wholly good4 ,it would not be necessary to imagine the ideal character1 for he would already exist4 ,it is out of these practical virtues that our conception of virtue has been formed4 ,we may be sure that no quality is likely to have become esteemed as a virtue which did not somewhere and sometime produce at least the appearance of happiness4 ,the virtues are grounded in experience2 they are not idle suggestions inadvertently adopted because somebody took it into his head one fine day to proclaim a new ideal4 ,there are1 to be sure1 certain residual and obsolete virtues which no longer correspond to anything in our own experience and now seem utterly arbitrary and capricious4 ,but the cardinal virtues correspond to an experience so long and so nearly universal among men of our civilization1 that when they are understood they are seen to contain a deposited wisdom of the race4 #d4 ,from ,clue to ,practice ,the wisdom deposited in our moral ideals is heavily obscured at the present time4 ,we continue to use the language of morality1 having no other which we can use4 ,but the words are so hackneyed that their meanings are concealed1 and it is very hard1 especially for young people1 to realize that virtue is really good and really relevant4 p#bbg ,morality has become so stereotyped1 so thin and verbal1 so encrusted with pious fraud1 it has been so much monopolized by the tender-minded and the sentimental1 and made so odious by the outcries of foolish men and sour old women1 that our generation has almost forgotten that virtue was not invented in ,sunday schools but derives originally from a profound realization of the character of human life4 ,this sense of unreality is1 ,i believe1 due directly to the widespread loss of genuine belief in the premises of popular religion4 ,virtue is a product of human experience3 men acquired their knowledge of the value of courage1 honor1 temperance1 veracity1 faithfulness1 and love1 because these qualities were necessary to their survival and to the attainment of happiness4 ,but this human justification of virtue does not carry conviction to the immature1 and would not of itself break up the inertia of their naive impulses4 ,therefore1 virtue which derives from human insight has to be imposed on the immature by authority2 what was obtained on ,sinai was not the revelation of the moral law but divine authority to teach it4 ,now the very thing which made moral wisdom convincing to our ancestors makes it unconvincing to modern men4 ,we do not live in a patriarchal society4 ,we do not live in a world which disposes us to a belief in theocratic government4 ,and therefore insofar as moral wisdom is entangled with the premises of theocracy it is unreal to us4 ,the very thing which gave authority to moral insight for our forefathers obscures moral insight for us4 ,they lived in the kind of world which disposed them to practice p#bbh virtue if it came to them as a divine commandment4 ,a thoroughly modernized young man to-day distrusts moral wisdom precisely because it is commanded4 ,it is often said that this distrust is merely an aspect of the normal rebellion of youth4 ,i do not believe it4 ,this distrust is due to a much more fundamental cause4 ,it is due not to a rebellion against authority but to an unbelief in it4 ,this unbelief is the result of that dissolution of the ancient order out of which modern civilization is emerging1 and unless we understand the radical character of this unbelief we shall never understand the moral confusion of this age4 ,we shall fail to see that morals taught with authority are pervaded with a sense of unreality because the sense of authority is no longer real4 ,men will not feel that wisdom is authentic if they are asked to believe that it derives from something which does not seem authentic4 ,we may be quite certain1 therefore1 that we shall not succeed in making the traditional morality convincingly authentic to modern men4 ,the whole tendency of the age is to make it seem less and less authentic4 ,the effort to impose it1 nevertheless1 merely deepens the confusion by converting the discussion of morals from an examination of experience into a dispute over its metaphysical sanctions4 ,the consequence of this dispute is to drive men1 especially the most sensitive and courageous1 further away from insight into virtue and deeper and deeper into mere negation and rebellion4 ,what they are actually rebelling against is the theocratic system in which they do not believe4 ,but because that system appears to them to claim a vested interest in morality they empty out the baby with the p#bbi bath1 and lose all sense of the inwardness of deposited wisdom4 ,for that reason the recovery of moral insight depends upon disentangling virtue from its traditional sanctions and the metaphysical framework which has hitherto supported it4 ,it will be said1 ,i know1 that this would rob virtue of its popular prestige4 ,my answer is that in those communities which are deeply under modern influences the loss of belief in these very traditional sanctions and this very metaphysical framework has robbed virtue of its relevance4 ,i should readily grant that for communities and for individuals which are outside the orbit of modernity1 it is neither necessary nor desirable to disentangle morality from its ancient associations4 ,it is also impossible to do so1 for when the ancestral order is genuinely alive1 there is no problem of unbelief4 ,but where the problem exists1 when the ancient premises of morality have faded into mere verbal acknowledgments1 then these ancient premises obscure vision4 ,they have ceased to be the sanctions of virtue and have become obstructions to moral insight4 ,only by deliberately thinking their way past these obstructions can modern men recover that innocence of the eye1 that fresh1 authentic sense of the good in human relations on which a living morality depends4 ,i have tried in these pages to do that for myself4 ,i am under no illusion as to the present value of the conceptions arrived at4 ,i regard them simply as a probable clue to the understanding of modernity4 ,if the clue is the correct one1 the more we explore the modern world the more coherence it will give to our understanding of it4 ,a true insight is fruitful2 it multiplies insight1 until at last it not p#bcj only illuminates a situation but provides a practical guide to conduct4 ,i believe the insight of high religion into the value of disinterestedness will1 if pursued resolutely1 untangle the moral confusion of the age and make plain1 as it is not now plain1 what we are really driving at in our manifold activity1 what we are compelled to want1 what1 rather dimly now1 we do want1 and how to proceed about achieving it4 ,to say that is to say that ,i believe in the hypothesis4 ,i do believe in it4 ,i believe that this valuation of human life1 which was once the possession of an lite1 now conforms to the premises of a whole civilization4 ,the proof of that must lie in a detailed and searching examination of the facts all about us4 ,if the ideal of human character which is prophesied in high religion is really suitable and necessary in modern civilization1 then an examination ought to show that events themselves are pregnant with it4 ,if they are not1 then all this is moonshine and cobwebs and castles in the air4 ,unless circumstance and necessity are behind it1 the insight of high religion is still1 as it has always been hitherto1 a noble eccentricity of the soul4 ,for men will not take it seriously1 they will not devote themselves to the discovery and invention of ways of cultivating maturity1 detachment1 and disinterestedness unless events conspire to drive them to it4 ,the realization of this ideal is plainly a process of education in the most inclusive sense of that term4 ,but it will not do much good to tell mothers that they should lead their children away from their childishness2 an actual mother1 even if she understood so abstruse a bit of advice1 and did not reject it out of hand as a reflection upon the p#bca glory of childhood1 would insist upon being told very concretely what this good advice means and how with a bawling infant in the cradle you go about cultivating his capacity to be disinterested4 ,it is not much better to offer the advice to school teachers2 they will wish to know what they must not do that they now do1 and what they must do that they leave undone4 ,but the answers to these questions are no more to be had from the original concept than are rules for breeding fine cattle to be had from the theory of evolution and ,mendel's law4 ,by the use of the concept1 psychologists and educators may1 if the concept is correct and if they are properly encouraged1 thread their way by dialectic and by experiment to practical knowledge which is actually usable as a method of education and as a personal discipline4 ,if they are to do that they will have to see quite clearly just how and in what sense the ideal of disinterestedness is inherent and inevitable in the modern world4 ,the remaining chapters of this book are an attempt to do that by demonstrating that in three great phases of human interest1 in business1 in government1 and in sexual relations1 the ideal is now implicit and necessary4 ,,chapter ,,xii p#bcb ,,the ,,business ,,of ,,the ,,great ,,society #a4 ,the ,invention of ,invention ,one of the characteristics of the age we live in is that we are forever trying to explain it4 ,we feel that if we understood it better we should know better how to live in it1 and should cease to be aliens who do not know the landmarks of a strange country4 ,there is1 however1 a school of philosophic historians who argue that this sense of novelty in the modern world is an illusion1 and that as a matter of fact mankind has passed before through the same phase of the same inexorable cycle4 ,the boldest of them1 like ,oswald ,spengler1 cite chapter and verse to show that there have been several of these great cycles of development from incubation through maturity to decay1 and that our western civilization which began about #ijj ,a4,d4 is now in the phase which corresponds with the century after ,pericles in the classical world4 ,that the analogy is striking no reader of ,spengler will deny who can endure ,spengler's procrustean determination to make the evidence fit the theory4 ,we can see the growth of towns at the expense of the farms1 the rise of capitalism1 the growth of international trade and finance1 a development of nationalism1 of democracy1 attempts at the abolition of war through international organization1 and with it all a dissolution of the popular religion1 of p#bcc the traditional morality1 and vast and searching inquiry into the meaning of life4 ,there is little doubt that the speculation of the ,greek philosophers seems extraordinarily fresh to us1 because they were confronted with a situation in many respects remarkably like our own4 ,but however nicely such analogies are worked out they are superficial and misleading4 ,there is something radically new in the modern world1 something for which there is no parallel in any other civilization4 ,this new thing is usually described as power-driven machinery4 ,thus ,mr4 ,charles ,a4 ,beard says that 8what is called ,western or modern civilization by way of contrast with the civilization of the ,orient or ,medival times is at bottom a civilization that rests upon machinery and science as distinguished from one founded on agriculture or handicraft commerce4 ,it is in reality a technological civilization 444 and 444 it threatens to overcome and transform the whole globe40 ,by way of illustrating how deeply machinery affects human life1 ,mr4 ,beard says that because they are untouched by this machine civilization 8there are more fundamental resemblances between the culture of a peasant in a remote village in ,spain and that of a peasant in a remote village in ,japan than between the culture of a ,christian priest of the upper ,pyrenees and that of a ,baptist clergyman in a thriving manufacturing town in ,illinois40 ,mr4 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells uses much the same argument to show that in spite of the apparent similarities there is an essential difference between our civilization and the later phases of the classical4 8,the essential difference10 he says1 8between the amassing of riches1 the extinction of small farmers and small business men1 and the phase of p#bcd big finance in the latter centuries of the ,roman republic on the one hand1 and the very similar concentration of capital in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries on the other1 lies in the profound difference in the character of labor that the mechanical revolution was bringing about4 ,the power of the old world was human power2 everything depended ultimately upon the driving power of human muscle1 the muscle of ignorant and subjugated men4 ,a little animal muscle1 supplied by draft oxen1 horse traction1 and the like contributed4 ,where a weight had to be lifted1 men lifted it2 where a rock had to be quarried1 men chipped it out2 where a field had to be ploughed1 men and oxen ploughed it2 the ,roman equivalent of the steamship was the galley with its banks of sweating rowers4444 ,the ,roman civilization was built upon cheap and degraded human beings2 modern civilization is being rebuilt upon cheap mechanical power40 ,these differences are genuine enough1 and yet it is doubtful whether ,mr4 ,wells has described the really 8new thing in human experience40 ,after all a great deal of cheap man power is still used in conjunction with cheap mechanical power2 it is somewhat of an idealization to talk as if the machine had supplanted the drudge4 ,what ,mr4 ,wells has in mind1 of course1 is that in the ,roman world a vast proportion of mankind were doomed to 8purely mechanical drudgery0 whereas in the modern world there is tangible hope that they will be released from it4 ,they are not yet released from it1 however1 and their hope of release rests upon the really new element in human experience4 ,the various mechanical inventions from ,james ,watt's p#bce steam engine to the electric dishwasher and vacuum cleaner are not this new element4 ,all these inventions1 singly or collectively1 though they have revolutionized the manner of human life1 are not the ultimate reason why men put such hope in machines4 ,their hope is not based on the machines we possess4 ,they are obviously a mixed blessing4 ,their hope is based on the machines that are yet to be made1 and they have reason to hope because a really new thing has come into the world4 ,that thing is the invention of invention4 ,men have not merely invented the modern machines4 ,there have been machines invented since the earliest days1 incalculably important1 like the wheel1 like sailing ships1 like the windmill and the watermill4 ,but in modern times men have invented a method of inventing1 they have discovered a method of discovery4 ,mechanical progress has ceased to be casual and accidental and has become systematic and cumulative4 ,we know1 as no other people ever knew before1 that we shall make more and more perfect machines4 ,when ,mr4 ,beard says that 8the machine civilization differs from all others in that it is highly dynamic1 containing within itself the seeds of constant reconstruction10 he is1 ,i take it1 referring to this supreme discovery which is the art of discovery itself4 #b4 ,the ,creative ,principle in ,modernity ,although the disposition to scientific thought may be said to have originated in remote antiquity1 it was not until the ,sixteenth ,century of our era that it ceased to appear spasmodically and as if by chance4 ,the ,greeks had their schools on the shores of the gean1 in ,sicily1 p#bcf and in ,alexandria1 and in them some of the conclusions and much of the spirit of scientific inquiry was imaginatively anticipated4 ,but the conscious organized effort to relate 8general principles to irreducible and stubborn facts10 as ,mr4 ,whitehead puts it1 began about three hundred years ago4 ,the first society chiefly devoted to science seems to have been founded by della ,porta at ,naples in #aefj1 but it was closed by the ecclesiastical authorities4 ,forty years later the ,accademia dei ,lincei was founded at ,rome with ,galileo among its early members4 ,the ,royal ,society of ,london was chartered in #affb4 ,the ,french ,academy of ,sciences began its meetings in #afff1 the ,berlin ,academy in #agjj1 the ,american ,philosophical ,association was proposed by ,benjamin ,franklin in #agdc and organized in #agfi4 ,the active pursuit of science is a matter1 then1 of only a few hundred years4 ,the practical consequences in the form of useful inventions are still more recent4 ,newcomen's air-and-steam engine dates from #agje1 but it was not until #agfd that ,james ,watt produced a practicable steam engine4 ,it was not until the beginning of the ,nineteenth ,century that invention really got under way and began to transform the structure of civilization4 ,it was not until about #ahej that the importance of invention had impressed itself upon the ,english people1 yet they were the first to experience the effects of the mechanical revolution4 ,they had seen the first railway1 the first steamboat1 the illumination of towns by gas1 and the application of power-driven machinery to manufacture4 ,professor ,bury fixes the ,exhibition of ,london in #ahea as the event which marks the public recognition of the role of science p#bcg in modern civilization4 ,the ,prince ,consort who originated the ,exhibition said in his opening speech that it was designed 8to give us a true test and a living picture of the point of development at which the whole of mankind has arrived in this great task1 and a new starting-point from which the nations will be able to direct their further exertions40 ,but this public recognition was at first rather sentimental and gaping4 ,the full realization of the place of science in modern life came slowly1 and only in our generation can it be said that political rulers1 captains of industry1 and leaders of thought have actually begun to appreciate how central is science in our civilization1 and to act upon that realization4 ,in our time governments have begun to take science seriously and to promote research and invention not only in the art of war1 but in the interest of trade1 agriculture1 and public hygiene4 ,great corporations have established laboratories of their own1 not merely for the perfecting of their own processes1 but for the promotion of pure research4 ,money has become available in great quantities for scientific work in the universities1 and the educational curriculum down to the lowest grades has begun to be reorganized not only in order to train a minority of the population for research and invention1 but to train the great majority to understand and use the machines and the processes which are available4 ,the motives and the habits of mind which are thus brought into play at the very heart of modern civilization are mature and disinterested4 ,that may not be the primary intention1 but it is the inevitable result4 ,no doubt p#bch governments encourage research in order to have powerful weapons with which to overawe their neighbors2 no doubt industries encourage research because it pays2 no doubt scientists and inventors are in some measure moved by the desire for wealth and fame2 no doubt the general public approves of science because of the pleasures and conveniences it provides2 no doubt there is an intuitive sense in modern communities that the prospects of survival both for nations and for individuals are somehow related to their command of scientific knowledge4 ,but nevertheless1 whatever the motives which cause men to endow laboratories1 to work patiently in laboratories or to buy the products1 the fact remains that inside the laboratory1 at the heart of this whole business1 the habit of disinterested realism in dealing with the data is the indispensable habit of mind4 ,unless this habit of mind exists in the actual research1 all the endowments and honorary degrees and prize awards will not produce the results desired4 ,this is an original and tremendous fact in human experience3 that a whole civilization should be dependent upon technology1 that this technology should be dependent upon pure science1 and that this pure science should be dependent upon a race of men who consciously refuse1 as ,mr4 ,bertrand ,russell has said1 to regard their 8own desires1 tastes1 and interests as affording a key to the understanding of the world40 ,when ,i say that the refusal is conscious ,i do not mean merely that scientists tell themselves that they must ignore their prejudices4 ,they have developed an elaborate method for detecting and discounting their prejudices4 ,it consists of instruments of precision1 an accurate vocabulary1 p#bci controlled experiment1 and the submission not only of their results but of their processes to the judgment of their peers4 ,this method provides a body in which the spirit of disinterestedness can live1 and it might be said that modern science1 not in its crude consequences but in its inward principle1 not1 that is to say1 as manifested in automobiles1 electric refrigerators1 and rayon silk1 but in the behavior of the men who invent and perfect these things1 is the actual realization in a practicable mode of conduct which can be learned and practiced1 of the insight of high religion4 ,the scientific discipline is one way in which this insight1 hitherto lyrical and personal and apart1 is brought down to earth and into direct and decisive contact with the concerns of mankind4 ,it is no exaggeration to say that pure science is high religion incarnate4 ,no doubt the science we have is not the whole incarnation1 but as far as it goes it translates into a usable procedure what in the teaching of the sages has been an esoteric insight4 ,scientific method can be learned4 ,the learning of it matures the human character4 ,its value can be demonstrated in concrete results4 ,its importance in human life is indisputable4 ,but the insight of high religion as such could be appreciated only by those who were already mature2 it corresponded to nothing in the experience and the necessities of the ordinary man4 ,it could be talked about but not taught2 it could inspire only the few who were somehow already inspired4 ,with the discovery of scientific method the insight has ceased to be an intangible and somewhat formless idea and has become an organized effort which moves mankind more profoundly than anything else in human affairs4 ,therefore1 p#bdj what was once a personal attitude on the part of a few who were somewhat withdrawn and disregarded has become the central principle in the careers of innumerable1 immensely influential1 men4 ,because the scientific discipline is1 in fact1 the creative element in that which is distinctively modern1 circumstances conspire to enhance its prestige and to extend its acceptance4 ,it is the ultimate source of profit and of power1 and therefore it is assured of protection and encouragement by those who rule the modern state4 ,they cannot afford not to cultivate the scientific spirit3 the nation which does not cultivate it cannot hold its place among the nations1 the corporation which ignores it will be destroyed by its competitors4 ,the training of an ever increasing number of pure scientists1 of inventors1 and of men who can operate and repair machinery is1 therefore1 a sheer practical necessity4 ,the scientific discipline has become1 as ,mr4 ,graham ,wallas would say1 an essential part of our social heritage4 ,for the machine technology requires a population which in some measure partakes of the spirit which created it4 ,naturally enough1 however1 the influence of the scientific spirit becomes more and more diluted the further one goes from the work of the men who actually conceive1 discover1 invent1 and perfect the modern machines4 ,from ,faraday1 ,maxwell1 and ,hertz who did the chief work which made possible the wireless it is a long way to the broker who sells radio stock or the householder with his six-tube set4 ,i have not been supposing that these latter partake in any way of the original spirit which made the radio possible4 ,but it is a fact of enormous consequences1 p#bda cumulative in its effect upon the education of succeeding generations1 that the radio1 and all the other contrivances around which modern civilization is constructed1 should be possible only by the increasing use of a scientific discipline4 #c4 ,naive ,capitalism ,the application of science to the daily affairs of men was acclaimed at first with more enthusiasm than understanding4 8,that early people10 said ,buffon1 speaking of the ,babylonians1 8was very happy1 because it was very scientific40 ,entranced with the success of the ,newtonian physics and by the dazzling effect of inventions1 the intellectuals of the ,eighteenth ,century persuaded themselves that science was a messianic force which would liberate mankind from pain1 drudgery1 and error4 ,it was believed that science would somewhat mysteriously endow mankind with invincible power over the forces of nature1 and that men1 if they were released from the bondage of religious custom and belief1 could employ the power of science to their own consummate happiness4 ,the mechanical revolution1 in short1 was inaugurated on the theory that the natural man must be liberated from moral conventions and that nature must be subjugated by mechanical instruments4 ,there are intelligible historical reasons why our great grandfathers adopted this view4 ,they found themselves in a world regulated by the customs and beliefs of a landed society4 ,they could not operate their factories successfully in such a society1 and they rebelled fiercely against the customs which restricted them4 ,that rebellion p#bdb was rationalized in the philosophy of laissez-faire which meant in essence that machine industry must not be interfered with by landlords and peasants who had feudal rights1 nor by governments which protected those rights4 ,on the positive side this rebellion expressed itself in declarations of the rights of man4 ,these declarations were a denial of the vested rights of men under the old landed order and an assertion of the rights of men1 particularly the new middle-class men1 who proposed to make the most of the new industrial and mechanical order4 ,by the rights of men they meant primarily freedom of contract1 freedom of trade1 freedom of occupation--those freedoms1 that is to say1 which made it possible for the new employer to buy and sell1 to hire and fire without being accountable to anyone4 ,the prophet of this new dispensation was ,adam ,smith4 ,in the ,wealth of ,nations he wrote that ,all systems either of preference or of restraint 444 being thus completely taken away1 the obvious and simple system of natural liberty establishes itself of its own accord4 ,every man1 as long as he does not violate the laws of justice1 is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way1 and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man1 or order of men4 ,the employing class in the early days of capitalism honestly believed1 and indeed its less enlightened members still believe to this very day1 that somehow the general welfare will be served by trusting naively to the acquisitive instincts of the employing capitalist4 ,thus at the outset the machine technology was applied under the direction of men who scorned as sentimental1 when they p#bdc did not regard as subversive1 that disinterestedness which alone makes possible the machine technology itself4 ,they did not understand science4 ,they merely exploited certain of the inventions which scientists produced4 ,what they believed1 insofar as they had any philosophy1 was that there exists a preestablished harmony in the universe--an 8obvious and simple system of natural liberty10 in ,adam ,smith's language1 8which establishes itself of its own accord0--by which if each man naively pursued his primitive impulse to have and to hold in competition with other men1 peace1 prosperity1 and happiness would ensue4 ,they did not ensue4 ,and the social history of the last seventy-five years has in large measure been concerned with the birth pains of an industrial philosophy that will really suit the machine technology and the nature of man4 ,for the notion that an intricate and delicately poised industrial mechanism could be operated by uneducated men snatching competitively at profits was soon exposed as a simple-minded delusion4 ,it was discovered that if each banker was permitted to do what seemed to him immediately most profitable1 the result was a succession of disastrous inflations and deflations of credit2 that if natural resources in oil1 coal1 lumber1 and the like were subjected to the competitive principle1 the result was a shocking waste of irreplaceable wealth2 that if the hiring and firing of labor were carried on under absolute freedom of contract1 a whole chain of social evils in the form of child labor1 unsuitable labor for women1 sweating1 unemployment1 and the importation of cheap and unassimilable labor resulted2 that if business men were left to their own devices the consumer of necessary p#bdd goods was helpless when he was confronted with industries in which there was an element of monopoly4 ,there is no need here to recount the well-known story of how in every modern community the theory of free competition has in the course of the last generation been modified by legislation1 by organized labor1 by organized business itself4 ,so little has laissez-faire worked under actual experience that all the powers of the government have actually had to be invoked to preserve a certain amount of compulsory 8free competition40 ,for the industrial machine1 as soon as it passes out of the early phase of rough exploitation in virgin territory1 becomes unmanageable by naively competitive and acquisitive men4 #d4 ,the ,credo of ,old-,style ,business ,it was frequently pointed out by moralists like ,ruskin and ,william ,morris1 and by churchmen as well1 that this 8obvious and simple system of natural liberty0 by which 8every man was left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way10 was not only contrary to the dogmas of the popular religion but irreconcilable with moral wisdom4 ,the credo of the unregenerate business man was utterly atheistical in its premises1 for it displaced the notion that there is any higher will than his own to which the employer is accountable4 ,it was more than atheistical1 however2 it was1 in ,aristotle's sense of the word1 barbarous in that it implied 8the living as one likes0 with virtually complete acquiescence in the supremacy of the acquisitive instinct4 ,there is no reason to suppose that such theoretical comments on the credo of naive capitalism did more than p#bde rub off a little of its unction4 ,capitalism may be1 as ,mr4 ,maynard ,keynes has said1 8absolutely irreligious 444 often1 though not always1 a mere congeries of possessors and pursuers40 ,were the credo workable in practice1 some way would have been found of anointing it with attractive phrases4 ,the real reason for the gradual abandonment of the credo1 proclaimed by ,adam ,smith and repeated so steadily since his day1 is that the credo of naive capitalism is deeply at variance with the real character of modern industry4 ,it rests upon false premises1 is therefore contradicted by experience1 and has proved to be unworkable4 ,the system of natural liberty assumes that if each man pursues his own interest his own way1 each man will promote his interest4 ,there is an unanalyzed fallacy in this theory which makes it utterly meaningless4 ,it is assumed that each man knows his own interest and can therefore pursue it4 ,but that is precisely what no man is certain to know1 and what few men can possibly know if they consult only their own impulses4 ,there is nothing in the natural equipment of man which enables him to know intuitively whether it will be profitable to increase his output or reduce it1 to enter a new line of business1 to buy or to sell1 or to make any of the other thousand and one decisions on which the conduct of business depends4 ,since he is not born with this wisdom1 since he does not automatically absorb it from the air1 to pursue his own interest his own way is a fairly certain way to disaster4 ,the fallacy of the theory of natural liberty is undetected in a bonanza period of industrial development4 ,where the business man has unexhausted natural resources to p#bdf draw upon1 where there is a surplus of customers competing for his goods1 he can with naive and furious energy pursue his own interests his own way and reap enormous profits4 ,there is no real resistance from the outside2 there are no stubborn and irreducible facts to which he must adjust himself4 ,he can proceed with an infantile philosophy to achieve success4 ,but this bonanza period when the omnipotence of the capitalist is unthwarted1 and his omniscience therefore assumed1 soon comes to an end4 ,in advanced communities the mere multiplication of industries produces such a complicated environment that the business man is compelled to substitute considered policies for his intuitions1 objective surveys for his guesses1 and conferences world without end for his natural liberties4 ,what has upset the idea of the old-style business man that he knows what's what is that the relevant facts are no longer visible4 ,the owner of a primitive factory might have known all his working men and all his customers2 the keeper of a little neighborhood shop may still1 to a certain extent1 know personally his whole business4 ,but for most men to-day the facts which matter vitally to them are out of sight1 beyond their personal control1 intricate1 subject to more or less unpredictable changes1 and even with highly technical reporting and analysis almost unintelligible to the average man4 ,it is1 of course1 the machine process itself which has created these complications4 ,men are forced to buy and sell in markets that for many commodities are world-wide3 they do not buy and sell in one market but in many markets1 in markets for raw materials1 in markets for semi-finished goods1 in wholesale and retail markets1 in labor p#bdg markets1 in the money market4 ,they employ and are employed in corporate organizations which are owned here1 there1 and everywhere4 ,they compete not only with their obvious competitors in the same line of business1 but with competitors in wholly different lines of business1 automobiles with railroads1 railroads with ships1 cotton goods with silk and silk with artificial silk1 pianos with furs and cigarettes with chewing gum4 ,the modern environment is invisible1 complex1 without settled plan1 subtly and swiftly changing1 offering innumerable choices1 demanding great knowledge and imaginative effort to comprehend it4 ,it is not a social order at all as the ,greek city state or the feudal society was a social order4 ,it is rather a field for careers1 an arena of talents1 an ordeal by trial and error1 and a risky speculation4 ,no man has an established position in the modern world4 ,there is no system of rights and duties to which he is clearly subject4 ,he moves among these complexities which are shrouded in obscurity1 making the best he can out of what little it is possible for him to know4 #e4 ,old-,style ,reform and ,revolution ,naive capitalism--that is to say1 the theory of each for himself according to such light as he might happen to possess--produced such monstrous evils the world over that an anti-capitalist reaction was the inevitable result4 ,what had happened was that the most intricate and consequential technology which man has ever employed on this planet was given over to the direction of a class of enterprising1 acquisitive1 uneducated1 and undisciplined p#bdh men4 ,no doubt it could not have been otherwise4 ,the only discipline that was known was the discipline of custom in a society of farmers1 hand-workers1 and traders4 ,the only education available was one based on the premises of the past4 ,the revolution in human affairs produced by the machine began slowly1 and no one could have anticipated its course4 ,it would be absurd1 therefore1 to complain in retrospect over the fact that no one was prepared for the industrial changes which took place4 ,the only absurdity1 and it is still a prevalent one1 is to go on supposing that the political philosophy and the 8economic laws0 which were extemporized to justify the behavior of the first bewildered capitalists have any real bearing upon modern industry4 ,but it is almost equally absurd to take too seriously the 8reforms0 and 8solutions0 which were devised by kindhearted men to alleviate the pains suffered by those who were hurt by the results of this early capitalist control of the machine4 ,these proposals1 when they are examined1 turn out almost invariably to have been proposals for coercing or for abolishing the then masters of industry4 ,i do not mean to deny the utility of the long series of legislative enactments which began about the middle of the ,nineteenth ,century and are still being elaborated4 ,the factory acts1 the regulatory laws1 the measures designed to protect the consumers against fraud were1 looked at singly1 good1 bad1 or indifferent4 ,as a whole they were a necessary attempt to police those who had been left free to pursue their own interest their own way4 ,but when it has been said that they were necessary1 and that they are still necessary1 it is important to realize just what they p#bdi imply4 ,they imply that the masters of industry are unregenerate and will remain unregenerate4 ,the whole effort to police capitalism assumes that the capitalist can be civilized only by means of the police4 ,the trouble with this theory is that there is no way to make sure that the policemen will themselves be civilized4 ,it presupposes that somehow politicians and office-holders will be wise enough and disinterested enough to make business men do what they would not otherwise do4 ,the fundamental problem1 which is to find a way of directing industry wisely1 is not solved4 ,it is merely deposited on the doorsteps of the politician4 ,the revolutionary programs sponsored by the socialists in the half century before the ,great ,war were based on the notion that it is impossible to police the capitalist-employers and that1 therefore1 they should be abolished4 ,in their place functionaries were to be installed4 ,the theory was that these functionaries1 being hired by the state and being deprived of all incentive for personal profit1 would administer the industrial machine disinterestedly4 ,the trouble with this theory is in its assumption that the removal of one kind of temptation1 namely1 the possibility of direct personal pecuniary profit--will make the functionaries mature and disinterested men4 ,this is nothing but a new variant of the ascetic principle that it is possible to shut off an undesirable impulse by thwarting it4 ,human nature does not work that way4 ,the mere frustration of an impulse like acquisitiveness produces either some new expression of that impulse or disorders due to its frustration4 ,it produces1 that is to say1 either corruption or the lethargy1 the pedantry1 and the p#bej officiousness which are the diseases of bureaucracy the world over4 ,the socialists are right1 as the early ,christians were right1 in their profound distrust of the acquisitive instinct as the dominant motive in society4 ,but they are wrong in supposing that by transferring the command of industry from business men to socialist officials they can in any fundamental sense alter the acquisitive instinct4 ,that can be done only by refining the human character through a better understanding of the environment4 ,i do not mean to say that a revolution like the ,russian does not sweep away a vast amount of accumulated rubbish4 ,i am talking not about the salutary destruction which may accompany a revolution1 but of the problem which confronts the successful revolutionists when they have to carry on the necessary affairs of men4 ,when that time comes they are bound to find that the administration of industry under socialism no less than under capitalism depends upon the character of the administrators4 ,corrupt1 stupid1 grasping functionaries will make at least as big a muddle of socialism as stupid1 selfish1 and acquisitive employers can make of capitalism4 ,there is no escape from this elementary truth1 and all social policies which attempt to ignore it must come to grief4 ,they are essentially utopian4 ,the early doctrine of laissez-faire was utopian because it assumed that unregenerate men were destined somehow to muddle their way to a harmonious result4 ,the early socialism was utopian because it assumed that these same unregenerate men1 once the laws of property had been altered1 would somehow muddle their way to a harmonious result4 ,both ignored the chief lesson of human experience1 which is p#bea the insight of high religion1 that unregenerate men can only muddle into muddle4 ,a dim recognition of this truth has helped to inspire the procedure of the two most recent manifestations of the revolutionary spirit4 ,i refer to bolshevism and to fascism4 ,it is proper1 ,i believe1 to talk of them as one phenomenon for their fundamental similarities1 as most everyone but the bolshevists and the fascists themselves has noted1 are much greater than their superficial differences4 ,they were attempts to cure the evils resulting from the breakdown of a somewhat primitive form of capitalism4 ,in neither ,russia nor ,italy had modern industrialism passed beyond its adolescent phase4 ,in both countries the prevailing social order for the great mass of people was still pre-machine and pre-industrial4 ,in both countries the acids of modernity had not yet eaten deeply into the religious disposition of the people4 ,in both countries the natural pattern of all government was still the primitive pattern of the hierarchy with an absolute sovereign at the top4 ,the bolshevik dictatorship and the fascist dictatorship1 underneath all their modernist labels and theories1 are feudal military organizations attempting to subdue and administer the machine technology4 ,the theorists of the two dictatorships are1 however1 men educated under modern influences1 and the result is that their theories are an attempt to explain the primitive behavior of the two dictatorships in terms which are consistent with modern ideas4 ,the formula reached in both instances is the same one4 ,the dictatorships are said to be temporary4 ,their purpose1 we are told1 is to put the p#beb new social order into effect1 and to keep it going long enough by dictation from on top to give time for a new generation to grow up which will be purged of those vices which would make the new order unworkable4 ,the bolshevists and fascists regard themselves as ever so much more realistic than the old democratic socialists and the laissez-faire liberals whom they have executed1 exiled1 or dosed with castor oil4 ,in an important sense they are more realistic4 ,they have recognized that a substitute for primitive capitalism cannot be inaugurated or administered by a generation which has been schooled in the ways of primitive capitalism4 ,and therefore the oligarchy of dictators1 as a conscious1 enlightened1 superior1 and heavily armed minority1 propose to administer the industrial machine as trustees until there is a generation ready to accept the responsibilities4 ,it would be idle to predict that they will not succeed4 ,but it is reasonable1 ,i believe1 to predict that if they succeed it will be because they are administering relatively simple industrial arrangements4 ,it is precisely because the economic system of ,russia is still fundamentally pre-capitalist and pre-mechanical that the feudal organization of the bolshevists is most likely to survive4 ,because the economic system of ,italy is more modern than ,russia's1 the future of the fascist dictatorship is much less assured4 ,for insofar as the machine technology is advanced1 it becomes complex1 delicate1 and difficult to manage by commands from the top4 #f4 ,the ,diffusion of the ,acquisitive ,instinct ,while both the bolshevists and the fascists look upon p#bec themselves as pathfinders of progress1 it is fairly clear1 ,i think1 that they are1 in the literal meaning of the term1 reactionary4 ,they have won their victories among the people to whom modern large scale industrial organization is still an unnatural and alien thing4 ,it is no accident that fascism or bolshevism took root in ,italy and ,spain1 but not in ,germany and ,england1 in ,hungary but not in ,austria1 in ,poland but not in ,czechoslovakia1 in ,russia but not in ,scandinavia1 in ,china but not in ,japan1 in ,central ,america but not in ,canada or the ,united ,states4 ,dictatorship1 based on a military hierarchy1 administering the affairs of the community on behalf of the 8nation0 or of the 8proletariat10 is nothing but a return to the natural organization of society in the pre-machine age4 ,some countries1 like ,russia1 ,mexico1 and ,china1 for example1 are still living in the pre-machine age4 ,others1 like ,italy1 had become only partially industrialized when they were subjected to such strains by the ,war that they reverted to the feudal pattern of behavior4 ,unable to master the industrial process by methods which are appropriate to it1 the fascists and the bolshevists are attempting to master it by methods which antedate it4 ,that is why military dictatorship in a country like ,mexico may be looked upon as the normal type of social control1 whereas in ,italy it is regressive and neurotic4 ,feudal habits are appropriate to a feudal society2 in a semi-industrialized nation they are a social disease4 ,it is the disease of frightened and despairing men who1 having failed to adjust themselves to the reality of the industrial process1 try1 by main force and awkwardness1 to adjust the machine process to a pre-machine mentality4 p#bed ,the more primitive the machine process is--that is1 the more nearly it resembles the petty handicrafts of earlier days--the better are the chances for survival of a bolshevist or fascist dictatorship4 ,where the machine technology is really established and advanced it is simply unmanageable by militarized functionaries4 ,for when the process has become infinitely complicated1 the subdivision of function is carried so far1 the internal adjustments are so numerous and so varied that no collection of oligarchs in a capital city1 however much they may look like supermen1 can possibly direct the industrial system4 ,in its advanced stages1 as it now exists in ,england1 ,germany1 or the ,united ,states1 nobody comprehends the system as a whole4 ,one has only to glance over the financial pages of an ,american newspaper1 to look at the list of corporations doing business1 to try and imagine the myriad daily decisions at a thousand points which their business involves1 in order to realize the bewildering complexity of modern industrial society4 ,to suppose that all that can be administered1 or even directed1 from any central point by any human brain1 by any cabinet of officeholders or cabal of revolutionists1 is simply to have failed to take it in4 ,here is the essential reason why bolshevism and fascism are1 as we say1 un-,american4 ,they are no less un-,belgian1 un-,german1 un-,english4 ,for they are unindustrial4 ,the same reasons which make dictatorship unworkable are rapidly rendering obsolete the attempts to reform industry by policing it4 ,every year as the machine technology becomes more elaborated1 the legislative control for which the pre-war progressives fought becomes less p#bee effective4 ,it becomes more and more difficult for legislatures to make laws to protect the workers which really fit the rapidly changing conditions of work4 ,hence the tendency to put the real law-making power in the hands of administrative officials and judges who can adjust the general purpose of the law to the unclassifiable facts of industry4 ,the whole attempt to regulate public utilities in the interest of the consumer is chaotic1 for these organizations1 by their intricacies1 their scale1 and their constant revolutions in technology1 tend to escape the jurisdiction of officials exercising a local jurisdiction4 ,the current outcry against the multiplication of laws and the meddling of legislatures is in part1 but not wholly1 the outcry of old-fashioned business men demanding their old natural liberty to pursue their own interest their own way4 ,the outcry is due no less to a recognition that the industrial process is becoming too subtly organized to be policed successfully by the wholesale1 uninformed enactments of legislatures4 ,yet the very thing which makes an advanced industrial organization too complex to be directed by a dictatorship1 or to be policed by democratic politicians1 is forcing the leaders of industry to evolve forms of self-control4 ,when ,i say that they are being forced to do this ,i am not referring to those ostentatiously benevolent things which are done now and then as sops to ,cerberus4 ,there is a certain amount of reform undertaken voluntarily by men who profess to fear #8bolshevism1' and if not bolshevism1 then ,congress4 ,that is relatively unimportant4 ,so also is the discovery that it pays to cultivate the good will of the public4 ,what ,i am referring to is the fact that the p#bef sheer complexity of the industrial system would make it unmanageable to business men1 no less than to politicians or dictators1 if business men were not learning to organize its control4 ,it is the necessity of stabilizing their own business1 of directing technical processes which are beyond the understanding of stockholders1 of adjusting the supply and demand of the multitudinous elements they deal in1 which is the compelling force behind that divorce between management and ownership1 that growing use of experts and of statistical measurements1 and that development of trade associations1 of conferences1 committees1 and councils1 with which modern industry is honeycombed4 ,the captain of industry in the romantic sense tends to disappear in highly evolved industrial organizations4 ,his thundering commands are replaced by the decisions of executives who consult with representatives of the interests involved and check their opinions by the findings of experts4 ,the greater the corporation the more the shareholders and the directors lose the actual direction of the institution4 ,they cannot direct the corporation because they do not really know what it is and what it is doing4 ,that knowledge is subdivided among the executives and bureau chiefs and consultants1 all of them on salary2 each of them is so relatively small a factor in the whole that his personal success is in very large degree bound up with the success of the institution4 ,a certain amount of jealousy1 intrigue1 and destructive pushing1 of office politics1 in short1 naturally prevails1 men being what they are4 ,but as compared with the old-style business man1 the ordinary executive in a great corporation is something quite strange4 ,he is p#beg so little the monarch of all he surveys1 his experience is so continually with stubborn and irreducible facts1 he is so much compelled to adjust his own preferences to the preferences of others1 that he becomes a relatively disinterested person4 ,the more clearly he realizes the nature of his position in industry1 the more he tends to submit his desires to the discipline of objective information4 ,and the more he does this the less dominated he is by the acquisitiveness of immaturity4 ,he may on the side gamble acquisitively in the stock market or at the race track1 but in relation to his business his acquisitive instinct tends to become diffused and to be absorbed in the job itself4 #g4 ,ideals ,it is my impression that when machine industry reaches a certain scale of complexity it exerts such pressure upon the men who run it that they cannot help socializing it4 ,they are subject to a kind of economic selection under which only those men survive who are capable of taking a somewhat disinterested view of their work4 ,a mature industry1 because it is too subtly organized to be run by naively passionate men1 puts a premium upon men whose characters are sufficiently matured to make them respect reality and to discount their own prejudices4 ,when the machine technology is really advanced1 that is to say when it has drawn great masses of men within the orbit of its influence1 when a corporation has become really great1 the old distinction between public and private interest becomes very dim4 ,i think it is destined largely to disappear4 ,it is difficult even to-day to say p#beh whether the great railways1 the ,general ,electric ,company1 the ,united ,states ,steel ,corporation1 the bigger insurance companies and banks are public or private institutions4 ,when institutions reach a point where the legal owners are virtually disfranchised1 when the direction is in the hands of salaried executives1 technicians1 and experts who hold themselves more or less accountable in standards of conduct to their fellow professionals1 when the ultimate control is looked upon by the directors not as 8business0 but as a trust1 it is not fanciful to say1 as ,mr4 ,keynes has said1 that 8the battle of socialism against unlimited private profit is being won in detail hour by hour40 ,insofar as industry itself evolves its own control1 it will regain its liberty from external interference4 ,to say that is to say simply that the 8natural liberty0 of the early business man was unworkable because the early business man was unregenerate3 he was immature1 and he was therefore acquisitive4 ,the only kind of liberty which is workable in the real world is the liberty of the disinterested man1 of the man who has transformed his passions by an understanding of necessity4 ,he can1 as ,confucius said1 follow what his heart desires without transgressing what is right4 ,for he has learned to desire what is right4 ,the more perfectly we understand the implications of the machine technology upon which our civilization is based1 the easier it will be for us to live with it4 ,we shall discern the ideals of our industry in the necessities of industry itself4 ,they are the direction in which it must evolve if it is to fulfill itself4 ,that is what ideals are4 ,they are not hallucinations4 ,they are not a collection p#bei of pretty and casual preferences4 ,ideals are an imaginative understanding of that which is desirable in that which is possible4 ,as we discern the ideals of the machine technology we can consciously pursue them1 knowing that we are not vainly trying to impose our casual prejudices1 but that we are in harmony with the age we live in4 ,,chapter ,,xiii p#bfj ,,government ,,in ,,the ,,great ,,society #a4 ,loyalty ,the difficulty of discovering an industrial philosophy which fits machine industry on a large scale has proved less trying than the discovery of a political philosophy which fits the modern state4 ,i do not know why this should be so unless it be that1 as compared with politicians1 business men have had a closer opportunity to observe and more pressing reasons for trying to understand the transformation wrought by machinery and scientific invention4 ,certainly even the best political thinking is notably inferior in realism and in pertinence to the economic thinking which now plays so important a part in the direction of industry4 ,to a very considerable degree the writer on politics to-day is about where the economist was when all economic theory began and for all practical purposes seemed to end with ,robinson ,crusoe and his man ,friday4 ,nobody takes political science very seriously1 for nobody is convinced that it is a science or that it has any important bearing on politics4 ,in very considerable measure political theory in the modern world is sterilized by its own ideas4 ,there have been passed down from generation to generation a collection of concepts which are so hallowed and so dense that their only use is to excite emotions and to obscure insight4 p#bfa ,how many of us really know what we are talking about when we use words like the state1 sovereignty1 independence1 democracy1 representative government1 national honor1 liberty1 and loyalty8 ,very few of us1 ,i think1 could define any of these terms under cross-examination1 though we are prepared to shed blood1 or at least ink1 in their behalf4 ,these terms have ceased to be intellectual instruments for apprehending the facts we have to deal with and have become push buttons which touch off emotional reflexes4 ,as good a way as any to raise the temperature of political debate is to talk about loyalty4 ,everybody regards himself as loyal and resents any imputation upon his loyalty1 yet even a cursory inspection of this term will show1 ,i think1 that it may mean any number of different things4 ,it is clearest when used in a military sense4 ,a loyal soldier is one who obeys his superior officer4 ,a loyal officer is one who obeys his commander-in-chief4 ,but just exactly what is a loyal commander-in-chief cannot be told so easily4 ,he is loyal to the nation4 ,he is loyal to the best interests of the nation4 ,but what those best interests may be1 whether they mean making peace or carrying the war into the enemy's country1 is an exceedingly debatable question4 ,when the citizen's loyalty is in question the whole matter becomes immensely subtle4 ,must he be loyal to every law and every command issued by the established authorities1 kings1 legislators1 and aldermen8 ,there are many who would say that this is the definition of civic loyalty1 to obey the law without qualifications while it is a law4 ,but such definition puts the taint of disloyalty on almost all citizens p#bfb of the modern state4 ,for the fact is that all the laws on the books are not even known1 and that a considerable portion are entirely disregarded1 and many it is impossible to obey4 ,the definition1 moreover1 places outside the pale many who rank as great patriots1 men who defied the law out of loyalty to some principle which the lawmakers have rejected4 ,but what makes matters even more complicated is the fact that in modern communities the principle is accepted that the commands of the established authorities not only may be criticized but that they ought to be4 ,at this stage of political development the military element in loyalty has virtually disappeared4 ,the idea of toleration1 of freedom of speech1 and above all the idea of organized opposition1 alters radically the attributes of the sovereign4 ,for a sovereign who has to be obeyed but not believed in1 whose decisions are legitimate matters of dispute1 who may be displaced by his bitterest opponents1 has lost all semblance of omnipotence and omniscience4 8,he has sovereignty10 wrote ,jean ,bodin1 8who1 after ,god1 acknowledges no one greater than himself40 ,our governors command only for the time being--and within strict limits4 ,their authority is only such as they can win and hold4 ,political loyalty under these conditions1 whatever else it may be1 is certainly not unqualified allegiance to those who hold office1 to the policies they pursue1 or even to the laws they enact4 ,neither the government as it exists1 nor its conduct1 nor even the constitution by which it operates1 exercises any ultimate claim upon the loyalty of the citizen4 ,the most one can say1 ,i think1 is that the loyal citizen is one who loves his country and regards the status quo as an arrangement which he p#bfc is at liberty to modify only by argument1 according to well-understood rules1 without violence1 and with due regard for the interests and opinions of his fellow men4 ,if he is loyal to this ideal of political conduct he is as loyal as the modern state can force him to be1 or as it is desirable that he should be4 #b4 ,the ,evolution of ,loyalty ,broadly speaking1 the evolution of political loyalty passes through three phases4 ,in the earliest1 the most primitive1 and for almost all men the most natural1 loyalty is allegiance to a chieftain2 in the middle phase it tends to become allegiance to an institution--that is to say1 to a corporate1 rather than to a human1 personality2 and in the last phase it becomes allegiance to a pattern of conduct4 ,the kind of government which any community is capable of operating is very largely determined by the kind of loyalty of which its members are capable4 ,it is plain1 for example1 that among a people who are capable only of loyalty to another human being the political system is bound to take the shape of a hierarchy1 in which each man is loyal to his superior1 and the man at the top is loyal to ,god alone4 ,such a society will be feudal1 military1 theocratic4 ,if it is successfully organized it will be an ordered despotism1 culminating1 as the feudal system did1 in ,god's ,vice-gerent on earth4 ,if it is unsuccessfully organized1 as for example1 in the more backward countries of ,central ,america to-day1 the system of personal allegiances will produce little factions each with its chief1 all of them contending for1 without quite achieving1 absolute power4 ,this type of organization is so fundamentally p#bfd human that it prevails even in communities which think they have outgrown it4 ,thus it appears in what ,americans call a political machine1 which is nothing but a hierarchy of professional politicians held together by profitable personal loyalties4 ,the political boss is a demilitarized chieftain in the direct line of descent from his prototypes4 ,the modern world has come to regard organization on the basis of human allegiances as alien and dangerous4 ,yet the political machine exists even in the most advanced communities4 ,the reason for that is obvious4 ,with the enfranchisement of virtually the whole adult population1 political power has passed into the hands of a great mass of people most of whom are altogether incapable of loyalty to institutions1 much less to ideas4 ,they do not understand them4 ,for these voters the only kind of political behavior is through allegiance to a human superior1 and modern democracies are considered fortunate if the political leaders and bosses on whom these human allegiances converge are relatively loyal to the institutions of the country4 ,this1 for example1 is the meaning of the dramatic speech in which ,president ,calles on ,september #a1 #aibh1 voluntarily renounced the continuation of his own dictatorship4 8,for the first time in ,mexican history10 he said1 8the ,republic faces a situation 7owing to the assassination of ,general ,obregon7 whose dominant note is the lack of a military leader1 which is going to make it finally possible for us to direct the policy of the country into truly institutional channels1 striving to pass once for all from our historical condition of one-man rule to the higher1 more dignified1 more useful1 and more civilized condition of a nation of laws and institutions40 ,it is p#bfe hardly to be supposed that ,president ,calles thought that the ,mexican people as a whole could pass once for all from their historical condition of one-man rule4 ,what he meant was that the political chieftains to whom the people were loyal ought thereafter to arrange the succession and to exercise power not as seemed desirable to them1 or as they might imagine that ,god had privately commanded them1 but in accordance with objective rules of political conduct4 ,the conceptions of sovereignty which we inherit are derived from the primitive system of personal allegiances4 ,that is why the conception of sovereignty has become increasingly confused as modern civilization has become more complex4 ,in the ,middle ,ages the theory reached its symmetrical perfection4 ,mankind was conceived as a great organism in which the spiritual and temporal hierarchies were united as the soul is united with the body in 8an inseverable connection and an unbroken interaction which must display itself in every part and also throughout the whole40 ,but of course even in the ,middle ,ages the symmetry of this conception was marred by the fierce disputes between the ,emperors and the ,popes4 ,after the ,sixteenth ,century the whole conception began to disintegrate4 ,there appeared a congeries of monarchs each claiming to rule in his territory by divine right4 ,but obviously when there are many agents of the ,lord ruling men1 and when they do not agree1 the theory of sovereignty in its moral aspects is in grave difficulties4 ,as time went on1 limitations of all kinds began to be imposed upon sovereigns4 ,the existence at the same time of many sovereigns produced the need of international law1 for obviously there could have been no international p#bff law in a world where all of mankind1 barring infidels who did not have to be considered1 were under one sovereign power4 ,the limitations imposed by international law from without were accompanied by limitations imposed from within4 ,these limitations from within were based on quite practical considerations4 ,there grew up slowly in the ,middle ,ages the idea that the ,state originated 8in a contract of ,subjection made between ,people and ,ruler40 ,the first modern writer to argue effectively that government was based not on a warrant from the ,lord1 but on a 8social compact0 is said to have been ,richard ,hooker1 a clergyman of the ,established ,church1 who held1 in #aeid1 that the royal authority was derived from a contract between the king and the people4 ,this idea soon became popular1 for it suited the needs of all those who did not participate in the privileges of the absolute monarchy4 ,it suited not only the ,church of ,england1 when as in ,hooker's time it was assailed1 but also the dissenting churches1 and then the rising middle class whose ambitions were frustrated by the landed nobles with the king at their head4 ,the doctrine of the social compact was expounded in many different forms in the ,seventeenth and ,eighteenth ,centuries by men like ,milton1 ,spinoza1 ,hobbes1 ,locke1 and ,rousseau4 ,as an historical theory to explain the origin of human society it is of course demonstrably false1 but as a weapon for breaking up the concentration of sovereign power and distributing it1 the idea has played a mighty role in history4 ,it is almost certain to appear wherever there is an absolutism which men feel the need of checking4 ,but the p#bfg theory of the social compact disappears when power has become so widely diffused that no one can any longer locate the sovereign4 ,that is what is happening in the advanced modern communities4 ,the sovereign1 whom it was once desirable to put under contract1 has become so anonymous and diffuse that his very existence to-day is a legal fiction rather than a political fact4 ,and loyalty by the same token is no longer provided with a personal superior of indubitable prestige to which it can be attached4 #c4 ,pluralism ,the relationship between lord and vassals in which each man attaches himself for better or worse to some superior person tends gradually to disappear in the modern world4 ,its passing was somewhat prematurely announced by the ,declaration of the ,rights of ,man2 it did not wholly disappear by the dissolution of the bonds which bound one man to another1 for the psychological bonds are stronger than the legal4 ,nevertheless the effect of modern civilization is to dissolve these psychological bonds1 to break up clannishness and personal dependence4 ,men and women alike tend to become more or less independent persons rather than to remain members of a social organism4 ,the reason for this lies in the diversification of their interests4 ,life in the ancestral order was not only simpler and contained within narrower limits than it is to-day1 but there was a far greater unity in the activity of each individual4 ,working the land1 fighting1 raising a family1 worshipping1 were so closely related that they could be governed by a very simple allegiance to the chief of the tribe p#bfh or the lord of the manor4 ,in the modern world this synthesis has disintegrated and the activities of a man cannot be directed by a simple allegiance4 ,each man finds himself the center of a complex of loyalties4 ,he is loyal to his government1 he is loyal to his state1 he is loyal to his village1 he is loyal to his neighborhood4 ,he has his own family4 ,he has his wife's family4 ,his wife has her family4 ,he has his church4 ,his wife may have a different church4 ,he may be an employer of thousands of men4 ,he may be an employee4 ,he must be loyal to his corporation1 to his trade union1 or his professional society4 ,he is a buyer in many different markets4 ,he is a seller in many different markets4 ,he is a creditor and a debtor4 ,he owns shares in several industries4 ,he belongs to a political party1 to clubs1 to a social set4 ,the multiplicity of his interests makes it impossible for him to give his whole allegiance to any person or to any institution4 ,it may be1 in fact for most men it must be1 that in each of these associations he follows a leader4 ,in any considerable number of people it is certain that they will group themselves in hierarchical form4 ,in every club1 in every social circle1 in every trade union1 in every stockholders' meeting there are leaders and their lieutenants and the led4 ,but these allegiances are partial4 ,because a man has so many loyalties each loyalty commands only a segment of himself4 ,they are not1 therefore1 whole-hearted loyalties like that of a good soldier to his captain4 ,they are qualified1 calculated1 debatable1 and they are sanctioned not by inherent authority but by expediency or inertia4 p#bfi ,the outward manifestation of these complex loyalties of the modern man is the multitude of institutions through which the affairs of mankind are directed4 ,now since each of these corporate entities represents only a part of any man's interest1 except perhaps in the case of the paid executive secretary1 none of these institutions can count to the bitter end upon the undivided loyalty of all its members4 ,the conflicts between institutions are in considerable measure conflicts of interest within the same individuals4 ,there is a point where the activity of a man's trade union may so seriously affect the value of the securities he owns that he does not know which way his interest lies4 ,the criss-crossing of loyalties is so great in an advanced community that no grouping is self-contained4 ,no grouping1 therefore1 can maintain a military discipline or a military character4 ,for when men strive too fiercely as members of any one group they soon find that they are at war with themselves as members of another group4 ,the statement that modern society is pluralistic cannot1 then1 be dismissed as a newfangled notion invented by theorists4 ,it is a sober description of the actual facts4 ,each man has countless interests through which he is attached to a very complex social situation4 ,the complexity of his allegiance cannot fail to be reflected in his political conduct4 #d4 ,live and ,let ,live ,one of the inevitable effects of being attached to many different1 somewhat conflicting1 interdependent groupings is to blunt the edges of partisanship4 ,it is possible to p#bgj be fiercely partisan only as against those who are wholly alien4 ,it is a fair generalization to say that the fiercest ,democrats are to be found where there are the fewest ,republicans1 the most bloodthirsty patriots in the safest swivel chairs4 ,where men are personally entangled with the groups that are in potential conflict1 where ,democrats and ,republicans belong to the same country club and where ,protestants and ,catholics marry each other1 it is psychologically impossible to be sharply intolerant4 ,that is why astute directors of corporations adopt the policy of distributing their securities as widely as they can2 they know quite well that even the most modest shareholder is in some measure insulated against anti-corporate agitation4 ,it is inherent in the complex pluralism of the modern world that men should behave moderately1 and experience amply confirms this conclusion4 ,there is little doubt that in the great metropolitan centers there exists a disposition to live and let live1 to give and take1 to agree and to agree to differ1 which is not to be found in simple homogeneous communities4 ,in complex communities life quickly becomes intolerable if men are intolerant4 ,for they are in daily contact with almost everybody and everything they could conceivably wish to persecute4 ,their victims would be their customers1 their employees1 their landlords1 their tenants and perhaps their wives' relations4 ,but in a simple community a kind of pastoral intolerance for everything alien adds a quaint flavor to living4 ,for the most part it vents itself in the open air4 ,the terrible indictments drawn up in a ,mississippi village against the ,pope in ,rome1 the ,russian nation1 the vices of ,paris1 and the p#bga enormities of ,new ,york are in the main quite lyrical4 ,the ,pope may never even know what the ,mississippi preacher thinks of him and ,new ,york continues to go to1 but never apparently to reach1 hell4 ,when an agitator wishes to start a crusade1 a religious revival1 an inquisition1 or some sort of jingo excitement1 the further he goes from the centers of modern civilization the more following he can attract4 ,it is in the backwoods and in the hill country1 in kitchens and in old men's clubs1 that fanaticism can be kindled4 ,the urban crowd1 if it has been urban for any length of time and has become used to its environment1 may be fickle1 faddish1 nervous1 unstable1 but it lacks the concentration of energy to become fiercely excited for any length of time about anything4 ,at its worst it is a raging mob1 but it is not persistently fanatical4 ,there are too many things to attract its attention for it to remain preoccupied for long with any one thing4 ,to responsible men of affairs the complexity of modern civilization is a daily lesson in the necessity of not pressing any claim too far1 of understanding opposing points of view1 of seeking to reconcile them1 of conducting matters so that there is some kind of harmony in a plural society4 ,this accounts1 ,i think1 for the increasing use of political devices which are wholly unknown in simpler societies4 ,there is1 for example1 the ideal of a civil service4 ,it is wholly modern and it is quite revolutionary4 ,for it assumes that a great deal of the business of the state can and must be carried on by a class of men who have no personal and no party allegiance1 who are in fact neutral in politics and concerned only with the execution p#bgb of a task4 ,i know how imperfectly the civil service works1 but that it should exist at all1 and that the ideal it embodies should be generally acknowledged1 is profound testimony as to how inherent in the modern situation is the concept of disinterestedness4 ,the theory of an independent judiciary arises out of the same need for disinterested judgment4 ,even more significant1 perhaps1 is the use in all political debates of the evidence of technicians1 experts1 and neutral investigators4 ,the statesman who imagined he had thought up a solution for a social problem while he was in his bath would be a good deal of a joke2 even if he had stumbled on a good idea1 he would not dare to commit himself to it without elaborate preliminary surveys1 investigations1 hearings1 conferences1 and the like4 ,men occupying responsible posts in the ,great ,society have become aware1 in short1 that their guesses and their prejudices are untrustworthy1 and that successful decisions can be made only in a neutral spirit by comparing their hypotheses with their understanding of reality4 #e4 ,government in the ,people ,it has been the cause of considerable wonder to many persons that the most complex modern communities1 where the old loyalties are most completely dissolved1 where authority has so little prestige1 where moral codes are held in such small esteem1 should nevertheless have proved to be far more impervious to the strain of war and revolution than the older and simpler types of civilization4 ,it has been ,russia1 ,china1 ,poland1 ,italy1 ,spain1 rather than ,england1 ,germany1 ,belgium1 and the ,united ,states which have been most disorderly in the post-war p#bgc period4 ,the contrary might have been expected4 ,it might well have been anticipated that the highly organized1 delicately poised social mechanisms would disintegrate the most easily4 ,yet it is now evident why modern civilization is so durable4 ,its strength lies in its sensitiveness4 ,the effect of bad decisions is so quickly felt1 the consequences are so inescapably serious1 that corrective action is almost immediately set in motion4 ,a simple society like ,russia can let its railroads go gradually to wrack and ruin1 but a complex society like ,london or ,new ,york is instantly disorganized if the railroads do not run on schedule4 ,so many persons are at once affected in so many vitally important ways that remedies have to be found immediately4 ,this does not mean that modern states are governed as wisely as they should be1 or that they do not neglect much that they cannot really afford to neglect4 ,they blunder along badly enough in all conscience4 ,there is nevertheless a minimum of order and of necessary services which they have to provide for themselves4 ,they have to keep going4 ,they cannot afford the luxury of prolonged disorder or of a general paralysis4 ,their own necessities are dependent on such fragile structures1 and everyone is so much affected1 that when a modern state is in trouble it can draw upon incomparable reserves of public spirit4 8,i made ninety-one local committees in ninety-one local communities to look after the ,mississippi flood10 ,mr4 ,hoover once explained1 8that's what ,i principally did4444 ,you say3 #8a couple of thousand refugees are coming4 ,they've got to have accommodations4 ,huts4 p#bgd ,water-mains4 ,sewers4 ,streets4 ,dining-halls4 ,meals4 ,doctors4 ,everything4'444 ,so you go away and they go ahead and just simply do it4 ,of all those ninety-one committees there was just one that fell down40 ,mr4 ,hard1 who reports these remarks1 goes on to make ,mr4 ,hoover say that3 8,no other ,main ,street in the world could have done what the ,american ,main ,street did in the ,mississippi flood2 and ,europe may jeer as it pleases at our mass production and our mass organization and our mass education4 ,the safety of the ,united ,states is its multitudinous mass leadership40 ,allowing for the fact that these remarks appeared in a campaign biography at a time when ,mr4 ,hoover's friends were rather concerned about demonstrating the intensity of his patriotism1 there is nevertheless substantial truth in them4 ,i am inclined to believe that 8multitudinous mass leadership0 will be found wherever industrial society is firmly established1 that is to say1 wherever a people has lived with the machine process long enough to acquire the aptitudes that it calls for4 ,this capacity to organize1 to administer affairs1 to deal realistically with necessity1 can hardly be due to some congenital superiority in the ,american people4 ,they are1 after all only transplanted ,europeans4 ,that their aptitudes may be somewhat more highly developed is not1 however1 inconceivable3 the new civilization may have developed more freely in a land where it did not have to contend with the institutions of a military1 feudal1 and clerical society4 ,the essential point is that as the machine technology makes social relations complex1 it dissolves the habits of obedience and dependence2 it disintegrates the centralization p#bge of power and of leadership2 it diffuses the experience of responsible decision throughout the population1 compelling each man to acquire the habit of making judgments instead of looking for orders1 of adjusting his will to the wills of others instead of trusting to custom and organic loyalties4 ,the real law under which modern society is administered is neither the accumulated precedents of tradition nor a set of commands originating on high which are imposed like orders in an army upon the rank and file below4 ,the real law in the modern state is the multitude of little decisions made daily by millions of men4 ,because this is so1 the character of government is changing radically4 ,this change is obscured for us in our theorizing by the fact that our political ideas derive from a different kind of social experience4 ,we think of governing as the act of a person2 for the actual king we have tried to substitute a corporate king1 which we call the nation1 the people1 the majority1 public opinion1 or the general will4 ,but none of these entities has the attributes of a king1 and the failure of political thinking to lay the ghosts of monarchy leads to endless misunderstanding4 ,the crucial difference between modern politics and that to which mankind has been accustomed is that the power to act and to compel obedience is almost never sufficiently centralized nowadays to be exercised by one will4 ,the power is distributed and qualified so that power is exerted not by command but by interaction4 ,the prime business of government1 therefore1 is not to direct the affairs of the community1 but to harmonize the direction which the community gives to its affairs4 p#bgf ,the ,congress of the ,united ,states1 for example1 does not consult the conscience and its ,god and then decree a tariff law4 ,it enacts the kind of tariff which at the moment represents the most stable compromise among the interests which have made themselves heard4 ,the law may be outrageously unfair4 ,but if it is1 that is because those whose interests are neglected did not at that time have the power to make themselves felt4 ,if the law favors manufacturers rather than farmers1 it is because the manufacturers at that time have greater weight in the social equilibrium than the farmers4 ,that may sound hard4 ,but it is doubtful whether a modern legislature can make laws effective if those laws are not the formal expression of what the persons actually affected can and wish to do4 ,the amount of law is relatively small which a modern legislature can successfully impose4 ,the reason for this is that unless the enforcement of the law is taken in hand by the citizenry1 the officials as such are quite helpless4 ,it is possible to enforce the law of contracts1 because the injured party will sue2 it is possible to enforce the law against burglary1 because almost everybody will report a burglary to the police4 ,but it is not possible to enforce the old-fashioned speed laws on the highways because the police are too few and far between1 the pedestrians are uninterested1 and motorists like to speed4 ,there is here a very fundamental principle of modern lawmaking3 insofar as a law depends upon the initiative of officials in detecting violations and in prosecuting1 that law will almost certainly be difficult to enforce4 ,if a considerable part of the population is hostile to the law1 and if the p#bgg majority has only a platonic belief in it1 the law will surely break down4 ,for what gives law reality is not that it is commanded by the sovereign but that it brings the organized force of the state to the aid of those citizens who believe in the law4 ,what the government really does is not to rule men1 but to add overwhelming force to men when they rule their affairs4 ,the passage of a law is in effect a promise that the police1 the courts1 and the officials will defend and enforce certain rights when citizens choose to exercise them4 ,for all practical purposes this is just as true when what was once a private wrong to be redressed by private action in law courts on proof of specific injury has been made by statute a public wrong which is preventable and punishable by administrative action4 ,when the citizens are no longer interested in preventing or punishing specific instances of what the statute declares is a public wrong1 the statute becomes a dead letter4 ,the principle is most obviously true in the case of a sumptuary law like prohibition4 ,the reason prohibition is unenforceable in the great cities is that the citizens will not report the names and addresses of their bootleggers to the prohibition officials4 ,but the principle is no less true in less obvious cases1 as1 for example1 in tariffs or laws to regulate railroads4 ,thus it is difficult to enforce the tariff law on jewels1 for they are easily smuggled4 ,insofar as the law is enforced it is because jewelers find it profitable to maintain an organization which detects smuggling4 ,because they know the ins and outs of the trade1 and have men in all the jewelry markets of the world who have an interest in catching smugglers1 it is possible for the ,united p#bgh ,states ,government to make a fair showing in administering the law4 ,the government cannot from hour to hour inspect all the transactions of its people1 and any law which rests on the premise that government can do this is a foolish law4 ,the railroad laws are enforced because shippers are vigilant4 ,the criminal laws depend upon how earnestly citizens object to certain kinds of crime4 ,in fact it may be said that laws which make certain kinds of conduct illicit are effective insofar as the breach of these laws arouses the citizenry to call in the police and to take the trouble to help the police4 ,it is not enough that the mass of the population should be law-abiding4 ,a minority can stultify the law if the population as a whole is not also law-enforcing4 ,this is the real sense in which it can be said that power in the modern state resides not in the government but in the people4 ,as that phrase is usually employed it alleges that #8the people1' as articulated by elected officials1 can govern by command as the monarch or tribal chieftain once governed4 ,in this sense government by the people is a delusion4 ,what we have among advanced communities is something that might perhaps be described as government in the people4 ,the naively democratic theory was that out of the mass of the voters there arose a cloud of wills which ascended to heaven1 condensed into a thunderbolt1 and then smote the people4 ,it was supposed that the opinion of masses of persons somehow became the opinion of a corporate person called ,the ,people1 and that this corporate person then directed human affairs like a monarch4 ,but that is not what happens4 ,government is in the people and stays there4 ,government is p#bgi their multitudinous decisions in concrete situations1 and what officials do is to assist and facilitate this process of governing4 ,effective laws may be said to register an understanding among those concerned by which the law-abiding know what to expect and what is expected of them2 they are insured with all the force that the state commands against the disruption of this understanding by the recalcitrant minority4 ,in the modern state a law which does not register the inward assent of most of those who are affected will have very little force as against the breakers of that law4 ,for it is only by that inward assent that power becomes mobilized to enforce the law4 ,the government in the person of its officials1 its paltry inspectors and policemen1 has relatively little power of its own4 ,it derives its power from the people in amounts which vary with the circumstances of each law4 ,that is why the same government may act with invincible majesty in one place and with ludicrous futility in another4 #f4 ,politicians and ,statesmen ,the role of the leader would be easier to define if it were agreed to give separate meanings to two very common words4 ,i mean the words 8politician0 and 8statesman40 ,in popular usage a vague distinction is recognized3 to call a man a statesman is eulogy1 to call him a politician is to be1 however faintly1 disparaging4 ,the dictionary1 in fact1 defines a politician as one who seeks to subserve the interests of a political party merely2 as an afterthought it defines him as one skilled in political science3 a statesman4 ,and in defining a statesman the p#bhj dictionary says that he is a political leader of distinguished ability4 ,these definitions can1 ,i think1 be improved upon by clarifying the meanings which are vaguely intended in popular usage4 ,when we think offhand of a politician we think of a man who works for a partial interest4 ,at the worst it is his own pocket4 ,at the best it may be his party1 his class1 or an institution with which he is identified4 ,we never feel that he can or will take into account all the interests concerned1 and because bias and partisanship are the qualities of his conduct1 we feel1 unless we are naively afflicted with the same bias1 that he is not to be trusted too far4 ,now the word #8statesman1' when it is not mere pomposity1 connotes a man whose mind is elevated sufficiently above the conflict of contending parties to enable him to adopt a course of action which takes into account a greater number of interests in the perspective of a longer period of time4 ,it is some such conception as this that ,edmund ,burke had in mind when he wrote that the state 8ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership in a trade of pepper and coffee1 calico or tobacco1 or some other such low concern1 to be taken up for a little temporary interest and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties4444 ,it is a partnership in a higher and more permanent sense--a partnership in all science2 a partnership in all art2 a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection4 ,as the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living1 but between those who are dead and those who are to be born40 p#bha ,the politician1 then1 is a man who seeks to attain the special objects of particular interests4 ,if he is the leader of a political party he will try either to purchase the support of particular interests by specific pledges1 or if that is impracticable1 he will employ some form of deception4 ,i include under the term #8deception' the whole art of propaganda1 whether it consists of half-truths1 lies1 ambiguities1 evasions1 calculated silence1 red herrings1 unresponsiveness1 slogans1 catchwords1 showmanship1 bathos1 hokum1 and buncombe4 ,they are1 one and all1 methods of preventing a disinterested inquiry into the situation4 ,i do not say that any one can be elected to office without employing deception1 though ,i am inclined to think that there is a new school of political reporters in the land who with a kind of beautiful cruelty are making it rather embarrassing for politicians to employ their old tricks4 ,a man may have to be a politician to be elected when there is adult suffrage1 and it may be that statesmanship1 in the sense in which ,i am using the term1 cannot occupy the whole attention of any public man4 ,it is true at least that it never does4 ,the reason for this is that in order to hold office a man must array in his support a varied assortment of persons with all sorts of confused and conflicting purposes4 ,when then1 it may be asked1 does he begin to be a statesman8 ,he begins whenever he stops trying merely to satisfy or to obfuscate the momentary wishes of his constituents1 and sets out to make them realize and assent to those hidden interests of theirs which are permanent because they fit the facts and can be harmonized with the interests of their neighbors4 ,the politician says3 8,i p#bhb will give you what you want40 ,the statesman says3 8,what you think you want is this4 ,what it is possible for you to get is that4 ,what you really want1 therefore1 is the following40 ,the politician stirs up a following2 the statesman leads it4 ,the politician1 in brief1 accepts unregenerate desire at its face value and either fulfills it or perpetrates a fraud2 the statesman re-educates desire by confronting it with the reality1 and so makes possible an enduring adjustment of interests within the community4 ,the chief element in the art of statesmanship under modern conditions is the ability to elucidate the confused and clamorous interests which converge upon the seat of government4 ,it is an ability to penetrate from the naive self-interest of each group to its permanent and real interest4 ,it is a difficult art which requires great courage1 deep sympathy1 and a vast amount of information4 ,that is why it is so rare4 ,but when a statesman is successful in converting his constituents from a childlike pursuit of what seems interesting to a realistic view of their interests1 he receives a kind of support which the ordinary glib politician can never hope for4 ,candor is a bitter pill when first it is tasted but it is full of health1 and once a man becomes established in the public mind as a person who deals habitually and successfully with real things1 he acquires an eminence of a wholly different quality from that of even the most celebrated caterer to the popular favor4 ,his hold on the people is enduring because he promises nothing which he cannot achieve2 he proposes nothing which turns out to be a fake4 ,sooner or later the politician1 because he deals in unrealities1 is found out4 ,then he either goes to jail1 or he is tolerated p#bhc cynically as a picturesque and amiable scoundrel2 or he retires and ceases to meddle with the destinies of men4 ,the words of a statesman prove to have value because they express not the desires of the moment but the conditions under which desires can actually be adjusted to reality4 ,his projects are policies which lay down an ordered plan of action in which all the elements affected will1 after they have had some experience of it1 find it profitable to co-operate4 ,his laws register what the people really desire when they have clarified their wants4 ,his laws have force because they mobilize the energies which alone can make laws effective4 ,it is not necessary1 nor is it probable1 that a statesmanlike policy will win such assent when it is first proposed4 ,nor is it necessary for the statesman to wait until he has won complete assent4 ,there are many things which people cannot understand until they have lived with them for a while4 ,often1 therefore1 the great statesman is bound to act boldly in advance of his constituents4 ,when he does this he stakes his judgment as to what the people will in the end find to be good against what the people happen ardently to desire4 ,this capacity to act upon the hidden realities of a situation in spite of appearances is the essence of statesmanship4 ,it consists in giving the people not what they want but what they will learn to want4 ,it requires the courage which is possible only in a mind that is detached from the agitations of the moment4 ,it requires the insight which comes only from an objective and discerning knowledge of the facts1 and a high and imperturbable disinterestedness4 ,,chapter ,,xiv p#bhd ,,love ,,in ,,the ,,great ,,society #a4 ,the ,external ,control of ,sexual ,conduct ,while the changes which modernity implies affect the premises of all human conduct1 the problem as a whole engages the attention of relatively few persons4 ,the larger number of men and women living within the orbit of the ,great ,society are no doubt aware that their inherited beliefs about religion1 politics1 business1 and sex do not square entirely with the actual beliefs upon which they feel compelled to act4 ,but the fundamental alterations in political and economic ideals which the machine technology is inducing come home to each man only indirectly and partially4 ,the consequences are subtle1 delayed1 and what is even more important1 they are outside the scope of the ordinary man's personal decision4 ,there is little that is urgent1 immediate1 or decisive which he can do1 even if he understands them1 about the changes in the structure and purpose of industry and the state4 ,most men can manage1 therefore1 to live without ever attempting to decide for themselves any fundamental question about business or politics4 ,but they can neither ignore changes in sexual relations nor do they wish to4 ,it is possible for a man to be a socialist or an individualist without ever having to make one responsible decision in which his theories play any part4 ,but what he thinks p#bhe about divorce and contraception1 continence and license1 monogamy1 prostitution1 and sexual experience outside of marriage1 are matters that are bound at some point in his life to affect his own happiness immediately and directly4 ,it is possible to be hypocritical about sex4 ,but it is not possible for any adult who is not ansthetic to be indifferent4 ,the affairs of state may be regulated by leaders4 ,but the affairs of a man and a woman are inescapably their own4 ,that obviously is the reason why in the popular mind it is immediately assumed that when morals are discussed it is sexual morals that are meant4 ,the morals of the politician and the voter1 of the shareholder and executive and employee1 are only moderately interesting to the general public3 thus they almost never supply the main theme of popular fiction4 ,but the relation between boy and girl1 man and woman1 husband and wife1 mistress and lover1 parents and children1 are themes which no amount of repetition makes stale4 ,the explanation is obvious4 ,the modern audience is composed of persons among whom only a comparatively negligible few are serenely happy in their personal lives4 ,popular fiction responds to their longings3 to the unappeased it offers some measure of vicarious satisfaction1 to the prurient an indulgence1 to the worried1 if not a way out1 then at least the comfort of knowing that their secret despair is a common1 and not a unique1 experience4 ,yet in spite of this immense preoccupation with sex it is extraordinarily difficult to arrive at any reliable knowledge of what actual change in human behavior it reflects4 ,this is not surprising4 ,in fact this is the very p#bhf essence of the matter4 ,the reason it is difficult to know the actual facts about sexual behavior in modern society is that sexual behavior eludes observation and control4 ,we know that the old conventions have lost most of their authority because we cannot know about1 and therefore can no longer regulate1 the sexual behavior of others4 ,it may be that there is1 as some optimists believe1 a fine but candid restraint practiced among modern men and women4 ,it may be that incredible licentiousness exists all about us1 as the gloomier prophets insist4 ,it may be that there is just about as much unconventional conduct and no more than there has always been4 ,nobody1 ,i think1 really knows4 ,nobody knows whether the conversation about sex reflects more promiscuity or less hypocrisy4 ,but what everybody must know is that sexual conduct1 whatever it may be1 is regulated personally and not publicly in modern society4 ,if there is restraint it is1 in the last analysis1 voluntary2 if there is promiscuity1 it can be quite secret4 ,the circumstances which have wrought this change are inherent in modern ways of living4 ,until quite recently the main conventions of sex were enforced first by the parents and then by the husband through their control over the life of the woman4 ,the main conventions were3 first1 that she must not encourage or display any amorous inclinations except where there was practical certainty that the young man's intentions were serious2 second1 that when she was married to the young man she submitted to his embraces only because the ,lord somehow failed to contrive a less vile method of perpetuating the species4 ,all the minor conventions were p#bhg subsidiary to these2 the whole system was organized on the premise that procreation was the woman's only sanction for sexual intercourse4 ,such control as was exercised over the conduct of men was subordinate to this control over the conduct of women4 ,the chastity of women before marriage was guarded2 that meant that seduction was a crime1 but that relations with 8lost0 or unchaste women were tolerated4 ,the virtuous man1 by popular standards1 was one who before his marriage did not have sexual relations with a virtuous woman4 ,there is ample testimony in the outcries of moralists that even in the olden days these conventions were not perfectly administered4 ,but they were sufficiently well administered to remain the accepted conventions1 honored even in the breach4 ,it was possible1 because of the way people lived1 to administer them4 ,the woman lived a sheltered life4 ,that is another way of saying that she lived under the constant inspection of her family4 ,she lived at home4 ,she worked at home4 ,she met young men under the zealous chaperonage of practically the whole community4 ,no doubt1 couples slipped away occasionally and more went on than was known or acknowledged4 ,but even then there was a very powerful deterrent against an illicit relationship4 ,this deterrent was the fear of pregnancy4 ,that in the end made it almost certain that if a secret affair were consummated it could not be kept secret and that terrible penalties would be exacted4 ,in the modern world effective chaperonage has become impracticable and the fear of pregnancy has been virtually eliminated by the very general knowledge of contraceptive methods4 p#bhh ,the whole revolution in the field of sexual morals turns upon the fact that external control of the chastity of women is becoming impossible4 #b4 ,birth ,control ,the ,biblical account of how ,jehovah slew ,onan for disobeying his father's commandment to go to his brother's widow1 ,tamar1 and 8perform the duty of an husband's brother10 shows that the deliberate prevention of conception is not a new discovery4 ,mr4 ,harold ,cox must be right when he says 8it is fairly certain that in all ages and in all countries men and women have practiced various devices to prevent conception while continuing to indulge in sexual intercourse40 ,for while ,i know of no positive evidence to support this1 it appears to be self-evident that the human race within historical times has not multiplied up to the limits of human fecundity4 ,since it is hardly probable that this has been due to the continence of husbands1 nor wholly to infanticide1 abortion1 infant mortality1 and postponement of marriage1 it is safe to conclude that birth control is an ancient practice4 ,nevertheless1 it was not until the ,nineteenth ,century that the practice of contraception began to be publicly advocated on grounds of public policy4 ,until the industrial age the weight of opinion was overwhelmingly in favor of very large families4 ,kings and nobles needed soldiers and retainers3 8,as arrows in the hand of a mighty man1 so are the children of youth4 ,happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them4 ,they shall not be ashamed1 but they shall speak with the enemies in the p#bhi gate40 ,fathers of families desired many sons4 ,the early factory owners could use abundant cheap labor4 ,there had been men from ,plato's time who had their doubts about the value of an indefinitely growing population4 ,but the substantial opinion down to the end of the ,eighteenth ,century was ,adam ,smith's that3 8the most decisive mark of the prosperity of any country is the increase of the number of its inhabitants40 ,apparently it was the sinister character of the early factory system1 and the ominous unrest which pervaded ,europe after the ,french ,revolution1 which rather suddenly changed into pessimism this bland optimism about an ever growing population4 ,malthus published the first edition of his ,essay on ,population in #agih4 ,this book is undoubtedly one of the great landmarks of human culture1 for it focussed the attention of ,europe on the necessity of regulating the growth of population4 ,malthus himself1 it seems1 hoped that this regulation could be achieved by the postponement of marriage and by continence4 ,it is not clear whether he disapproved of what is now called neo-,malthusianism1 or whether he did not regard it as practicable4 ,nevertheless1 within less than twenty-five years ,james ,mill in the ,encyclopdia ,britannica had in guarded fashion put forward the neo-,malthusian principle1 and shortly thereafter1 that is in #ahbc1 an active public propaganda was set on foot1 most probably by ,francis ,place1 by means of what were known as the 8diabolical handbills40 ,these leaflets were addressed to the working classes and contained descriptions of methods for preventing conception4 ,some of them were sent to a good lady named ,mrs4 ,fildes1 who p#bij indignantly1 but mistakenly from her point of view1 assisted the nefarious propaganda by exposing it in the public prints4 ,fifty years later ,mr4 ,bradlaugh and ,mrs4 ,besant had themselves indicted and tried for selling an illustrated edition of ,knowlton's ,fruits of ,philosophy4 ,after that advertisement1 neo-,malthusian principles and practices were known and were1 therefore1 available to all but the poorest and most illiterate4 ,no propaganda so threatening to the established moral order ever encountered such an ineffective opposition4 ,i do not know how much money has been spent on the propaganda nor how many martyrs have had to coerce reluctant judges to try them4 ,but it is evident that once it was known that fairly dependable methods of contraception exist1 the people took the matter into their own hands4 ,for the public reasons by which neo-,malthusianism was justified were also private reasons4 ,the social philosopher said that population must be adjusted to the means of subsistence4 ,man and wife said that they must have only as many children as they could afford to rear4 ,the eugenist said that certain stocks ought not to multiply4 ,individual women decided that too many children1 or even any children1 were bad for their health4 ,but these were not the only reasons which explain the demand for neo-,malthusian knowledge4 ,there was also the very plain demand due to a desire to enjoy sexual intercourse without social consequences4 ,on this aspect of birth control the liberal reformers have1 ,i think1 been until recently more than a little disingenuous4 ,they have been arguing for the removal of the prohibitory laws1 and they have built their case on two p#bia main theses4 ,they have argued1 first1 that the limitation of births was sound public policy for economic and eugenic reasons2 and second1 that it was necessary to the happiness of families1 the health of mothers1 and the welfare of children4 ,all these reasons may be unimpeachable4 ,i think they are4 ,but it was idle to pretend that the dissemination of this knowledge1 even if legally confined to the instruction of married women by licensed physicians1 could be kept from the rest of the adult population4 ,obviously that which all married couples are permitted to know every one is bound to know4 ,human curiosity will make that certain4 ,now this is what the ,christian churches1 especially the ,roman ,catholic1 which oppose contraception on principle1 instantly recognized4 ,they were quite right4 ,they were quite right1 too1 in recognizing that whether or not birth control is eugenic1 hygienic1 and economic1 it is the most revolutionary practice in the history of sexual morals4 ,for when conception could be prevented1 there was an end to the theory that woman submits to the embrace of the male only for purposes of procreation4 ,she had to be persuaded to co-operate1 and no possible reason could be advanced except that the pleasure was reciprocal4 ,she had to understand and inwardly assent to the principle that it is proper to have sexual intercourse with her husband and to prevent conception4 ,she had1 therefore1 to give up the whole traditional theory which she may have only half-believed anyway1 that sexual intercourse was an impure means to a noble end4 ,she could no longer believe that procreation alone mitigated the vileness of cohabiting with a man1 and so she had to change her valuation p#bib and accept it as inherently delightful4 ,thus by an inevitable process the practice of contraception led husbands and wives to the conviction that they need not be in the least ashamed of their desires for each other4 ,but this transvaluation of values within the sanctity of the marital chamber could hardly be kept a secret4 ,what had happened was that married couples were indulging in the pleasures of sex because they had learned how to isolate them from the responsibilities of parenthood4 ,when we talk about the unconventional theories of the younger generation we might in all honesty take this fact into account4 ,they have had it demonstrated to them by their own parents1 by those in whom the administering of the conventions is vested1 that under certain circumstances it is legitimate and proper to gratify sexual desire apart from any obligation to the family or to the race4 ,they have been taught that it is possible to do this1 and that it may be proper4 ,therefore1 the older generation could no longer argue that sexual intercourse as such was evil4 ,it could no longer argue that it was obviously dangerous4 ,it could only maintain that the psychological consequences are serious if sexual gratification is not made incidental to the enduring partnership of marriage and a home4 ,that may be1 in fact1 ,i think it can be shown to be1 the real wisdom of the matter4 ,yet if it is the wisdom of the matter1 it is a kind of wisdom which men and women can acquire by experience alone4 ,they do not have it instinctively4 ,they cannot be compelled to adopt it4 ,they can only learn to believe it4 ,that is a very different thing from submitting to a convention upheld by all human and divine authority4 p#bic #c4 ,the ,logic of ,birth ,control ,with contraception established as a more or less legitimate idea in modern society1 a vast discussion has ensued as to how the practice of it can be rationalized4 ,in this discussion the pace is set by those who accept the apparent logic of contraception and are prepared boldly to revise the sexual conventions accordingly4 ,they take as their major premise the obvious fact that by contraception it is possible to dissociate procreation from gratification1 and therefore to pursue independently what ,mr4 ,havelock ,ellis calls the primary and secondary objects of the sexual impulse4 ,they propose1 therefore1 to sanction two distinct sets of conventions3 one designed to protect the interests of the offspring by promoting intelligent1 secure1 and cheerful parenthood2 the other designed to permit the freest and fullest expression of the erotic personality4 ,they propose1 in other words1 to distinguish between parenthood as a vocation involving public responsibility1 and love as an art1 pursued privately for the sake of happiness4 ,as a preparation for the vocation of parenthood it is proposed to educate both men and women in the care1 both physical and psychological1 of children4 ,it is proposed further that mating for parenthood shall become an altogether deliberate and voluntary choice3 the argument here is that the duties of parenthood cannot be successfully fulfilled except where both parents cheerfully and knowingly assume them4 ,therefore1 it is proposed1 in order to avert the dangers of love at first sight and of mating under the blind compulsion of instinct1 that a period of free experimentation p#bid be allowed to precede the solemn engagement to produce and rear children4 ,this engagement is regarded as so much a public responsibility that it is even proposed1 and to some extent has been embodied in the law of certain jurisdictions1 that marriages for parenthood must be sanctioned by medical authority4 ,in order1 too1 that no compulsive considerations may determine what ought to be a free and intelligent choice1 it is argued that women should be economically independent before and during marriage4 ,as this may not be possible for women without property of their own during the years when they are bearing and rearing children1 it is proposed in some form or other to endow motherhood4 ,this endowment may take the form of a legal claim upon the earnings of the father1 or it may mean a subsidy from the state through mothers' pensions1 free medical attention1 day nurseries1 and kindergartens4 ,the principle that successful parenthood must be voluntary is maintained as consistently as possible4 ,therefore1 among those who follow the logic of their idea1 it is proposed that even marriages deliberately entered into for procreation shall be dissoluble at the will of either party1 the state intervening only to insure the economic security of the offspring4 ,it is proposed1 furthermore1 that where women find the vocation of motherhood impracticable for one reason or another1 they may be relieved of the duty of rearing their children4 ,not all of the advanced reformers adopt the whole of this program1 but the whole of this program is logically inherent in the conception of parenthood as a vocation deliberately undertaken1 publicly pursued1 and motivated solely by the parental instincts4 p#bie ,the separate set of conventions which it is proposed to adopt for the development of love as an art have a logic of their own4 ,their function is not to protect the welfare of the child but the happiness of lovers4 ,it is very easy to misunderstand this conception4 ,mr4 ,havelock ,ellis1 in fact1 describes it as a 8divine and elusive mystery10 a description which threatens to provide a rather elusive standard by which to fix a new set of sexual conventions4 ,but baffling as this sounds1 it is not wholly inscrutable1 and a sufficient understanding of what is meant can be attained by clearing up the dangerous ambiguity in the phrase 8love as an art40 ,there are two arts of love and it makes a considerable difference which one is meant4 ,there is the art of love as ,casanova1 for example1 practiced it4 ,it is the art of seduction1 courtship1 and sexual gratification3 it is an art which culminates in the sexual act4 ,it can be repeated with the same lover and with other lovers1 but it exhausts itself in the moment of ecstasy4 ,when that moment is reached1 the work of art is done1 and the lover as artist 8after an interval1 perhaps of stupor and vital recuperation0 must start all over again1 until at last the rhythm is so stale it is a weariness to start at all2 or the lover must find new lovers and new resistances to conquer4 ,the aftermath of romantic love--that is1 of love that is consummated in sexual ecstasy--is either tedium in middle age or the compulsive adventurousness of the libertine4 ,now this is not what ,mr4 ,ellis means when he talks about love as an art4 8,the act of intercourse10 he says1 8is only an incident1 and not an essential in love40 ,incident to what8 ,his answer is that it is an incident to an p#bif 8exquisitely and variously and harmoniously blended0 activity of 8all the finer activities of the organism1 physical and psychic40 ,i take this to mean that when a man and woman are successfully in love1 their whole activity is energized and victorious4 ,they walk better1 their digestion improves1 they think more clearly1 their secret worries drop away1 the world is fresh and interesting1 and they can do more than they dreamed that they could do4 ,in love of this kind sexual intimacy is not the dead end of desire as it is in romantic or promiscuous love1 but periodic affirmation of the inward delight of desire pervading an active life4 ,love of this sort can grow3 it is not1 like youth itself1 a moment that comes and is gone and remains only a memory of something which cannot be recovered4 ,it can grow because it has something to grow upon and to grow with2 it is not contracted and stale because it has for its object1 not the mere relief of physical tension1 but all the objects with which the two lovers are concerned4 ,they desire their worlds in each other1 and therefore their love is as interesting as their worlds and their worlds are as interesting as their love4 ,it is to promote unions of this sort that the older liberals are proposing a new set of sexual conventions4 ,there are1 however1 reformers in the field who take a much less exalted view of the sexual act1 who regard it1 indeed1 not only as without biological or social significance1 but also as without any very impressive psychological significance4 8,the practice of birth control10 says ,mr4 ,c4 ,e4 ,m4 ,joad1 for example1 8will profoundly modify our sexual habits4 ,it will enable the pleasures of sex to be tasted without its penalties1 and it will remove the most p#big formidable deterrent to irregular intercourse40 ,for birth control 8offers to the young 444 the prospect of shameless1 harmless1 and unlimited pleasure40 ,but whether the reformers agree with ,mr4 ,ellis that sexual intimacy is1 as he says1 a sacrament signifying some great spiritual reality1 or with ,mr4 ,joad that it is a harmless pleasure1 they are agreed that the sexual conventions should be revised to permit such unions without penalties and without any sense of shame4 ,they ask public opinion to sanction what contraception has made feasible4 ,they point out that 8a large number of the men and women of to-day form sexual relationships outside marriage--whether or not they ultimately lead to marriage--which they conceal or seek to conceal from the world40 ,these relationships1 says ,mr4 ,ellis1 differ from the extra-marital manifestations of the sexual life of the past in that they do not derive from prostitution or seduction4 ,both of these ancient practices1 he adds1 are diminishing1 for prostitution is becoming less attractive and1 with the education of women1 seduction is becoming less possible4 ,the novelty of these new relations1 the prevalence of which is conceded though it cannot be measured1 lies in the fact that they are entered into voluntarily1 have no obvious social consequences1 and are altogether beyond the power of law or opinion to control4 ,the argument1 therefore1 is that they should be approved1 the chief point made being that by removing all stigma from such unions1 they will become candid1 wholesome1 and delightful4 ,the objection of the reformers to the existing conventions is that the sense of sin poisons the spontaneous goodness of such relationships4 p#bih ,the actual proposals go by a great variety of fancy names such as free love1 trial marriage1 companionate marriage4 ,when these proposals are examined it is evident they all take birth control as their major premise1 and then deduce from it some part or all of the logical consequences4 ,companionate marriage1 for example1 is from the point of view of the law1 whatever it may be subjectively1 nothing but a somewhat roundabout way of saying that childless couples may be divorced by mutual consent4 ,it is a proposal1 if not to control1 then at least to register1 publicly all sexual unions1 the theory being that this public registration will abolish shame and furtiveness and give them a certain permanence4 ,companionate marriage is frankly an attempt at a compromise between marriages that are difficult to dissolve and clandestine relationships which have no sanction whatever4 ,the uncompromising logic of birth control has been stated more clearly1 ,i think1 by ,mr4 ,bertrand ,russell than by anyone else4 ,writing to ,judge ,lindsey during the uproar about companionate marriage1 ,mr4 ,russell said3 ,i go further than you do3 the things which your enemies say about you would be largely true of me4 ,my own view is that the state and the law should take no notice of sexual relations apart from children1 and that no marriage ceremony should be valid unless accompanied by a medical certificate of the woman's pregnancy4 ,but when once there are children1 ,i think that divorce should be avoided except for very grave cause4 ,i should not regard physical infidelity as a very grave cause and should teach people that it is to be expected and tolerated1 but should not involve the begetting of illegitimate children--not because illegitimacy is bad in p#bii itself1 but because a home with two parents is best for children4 ,i do not feel that the main thing in marriage is the feeling of the parents for each other2 the main thing is cooperation in bearing children4 ,in this admirably clear statement there is set forth a plan for that complete separation between the primary and secondary function of sexual intercourse which contraception makes possible4 #d4 ,the ,use of ,convention ,it is one thing1 however1 to recognize the full logic of birth control and quite another thing to say that convention ought to be determined by that logic4 ,one might as well argue that because automobiles can be driven at a hundred miles an hour the laws should sanction driving at the rate of a hundred miles an hour4 ,birth control is a device like the automobile1 and its inherent possibilities do not fix the best uses to be made of it4 ,what an understanding of the logic of birth control does is to set before us the limits of coercive control of sexual relations4 ,the law can1 for example1 make divorce very difficult where there are children4 ,it could1 as ,mr4 ,bertrand ,russell suggests1 refuse divorce on the ground of infidelity4 ,on the other hand the law cannot effectively prohibit infidelity1 and as a matter of fact does not do so to-day4 ,it cannot effectively prohibit fornication though there are statutes against it4 ,therefore1 what ,mr4 ,russell has done is to describe accurately enough the actual limits of effective legal control4 ,but sexual conventions are not statutes1 and it is important to define quite clearly just what they are4 ,in the p#cjj older world they were rules of conduct enforceable by the family and the community through habit1 coercion1 and authority4 ,in this sense of the word1 convention tends to lose force and effect in modern civilization4 ,yet a convention is essentially a theory of conduct and all human conduct implies some theory of conduct4 ,therefore1 although it may be that no convention is any longer coercive1 conventions remain1 are adopted1 revised1 and debated4 ,they embody the considered results of experience3 perhaps the experience of a lonely pioneer or perhaps the collective experience of the dominant members of a community4 ,in any event they are as necessary to a society which recognizes no authority as to one which does4 ,for the inexperienced must be offered some kind of hypothesis when they are confronted with the necessity of making choices3 they cannot be so utterly open-minded that they stand inert until something collides with them4 ,in the modern world1 therefore1 the function of conventions is to declare the meaning of experience4 ,a good convention is one which will most probably show the inexperienced the way to happy experience4 ,just because the rule of sexual conduct by authority is dissolving1 the need of conventions which will guide conduct is increasing4 ,that1 in fact1 is the reason for the immense and urgent discussion of sex throughout the modern world4 ,it is an attempt to attain an understanding of the bewilderingly new experiences to which few men or women know how to adjust themselves4 ,the true business of the moralist in the midst of all this is not to denounce this and to advocate that1 but to see as clearly as he can into the meaning of it1 so that out of the chaos of p#cja pain and happiness and worry he may help to deliver a usable insight4 ,it is1 ,i think1 to the separation of parenthood as a vocation from love as an end in itself that the moralist must address himself4 ,for this is the heart of the problem3 to determine whether this separation1 which birth control has made feasible and which law can no longer prevent1 is in harmony with the conditions of human happiness4 #e4 ,the ,new ,hedonism ,among those who hold that the separation of the primary and secondary functions of the sexual impulse is good and should constitute the major premise of modern sexual conventions1 there are1 as ,i have already pointed out1 two schools of thought4 ,there are the transcendentalists who believe with ,mr4 ,havelock ,ellis that 8sexual pleasure1 wisely used and not abused1 may prove the stimulus and liberator of our finest and most exalted activities10 and there are the unpretentious hedonists who believe that sexual pleasure is pleasure and not the stimulus or liberator of anything important4 ,both are1 as we say1 emancipated3 neither recognizes the legitimacy of objective control unless a child is born1 and both reject as an evil the traditional subjective control exercised by the sense of sin4 ,where they differ is in their valuation of love4 ,hedonism as an attitude toward life is1 of course1 not a new thing in the world1 but it has never before been tested out under such favorable conditions4 ,to be a successful hedonist a man must have the opportunity to seek his pleasures without fear of any kind4 ,theodorus of ,cyrene1 p#cjb who taught about #caj ,b4,c41 saw that clearly1 and therefore to release men from fear openly denied the ,olympian gods4 ,but the newest hedonism has had an even better prospect than the classical3 it finds men emancipated not only of all fear of divine authority and human custom but of physical and social consequences as well4 ,if the pursuit of pleasure by carefree men were the way to happiness1 hedonism ought1 then1 to be proving itself triumphantly in the modern world4 ,possibly it is too early to judge1 but the fact is nevertheless highly significant1 ,i think1 that the new hedonists should already have arrived at the same conclusion as the later hedonists in the classical world4 ,hegesias1 for example1 wrote when hedonism had already had a great vogue3 he was called1 rather significantly1 the 8persuader to die40 ,for having started from the premise that pleasure is the end of life1 he concluded that1 since life affords at least as much pain as pleasure1 the end of life cannot be realized4 ,there is now a generation in the world which is approaching middle age4 ,they have exercised the privileges which were won by the iconoclasts who attacked what was usually called the ,puritan or ,victorian tradition4 ,they have exercised the privileges without external restraint and without inhibition4 ,their conclusions are reported in the latest works of fiction4 ,do they report that they have found happiness in their freedom8 ,well1 hardly4 ,instead of the gladness which they were promised1 they seem1 like ,hegesias1 to have found the wasteland4 8,if love has come to be less often a sin10 says that very discerning critic of life and letters1 ,mr4 ,joseph ,wood ,krutch1 8it has come also to be less often a supreme privilege4 p#cjc ,if one turns to the smarter of those novelists who describe the doings of the more advanced set of those who are experimenting with life--to1 for example1 ,mr4 ,aldous ,huxley or ,mr4 ,ernest ,hemingway1--one will discover in their tragic farces the picture of a society which is at bottom in despair because1 though it is more completely absorbed in the pursuit of love than in anything else1 it has lost the sense of any ultimate importance inherent in the experience which preoccupies it2 and if one turns to the graver of the intellectual writers1--to1 for example1 ,mr4 ,d4 ,h4 ,lawrence1 ,mr4 ,t4 ,s4 ,eliot1 or ,mr4 ,james ,joyce1--one will find both explicitly and implicitly a similar sense that the transcendental value of love has become somehow attenuated1 and that1 to take a perfectly concrete example1 a conclusion which does no more than bring a man and woman into complete possession of one another is a mere bathos which does nothing except legitimately provoke the comment1 #8,well1 what of it8' ,one can hardly imagine them concerned with what used to be called1 in a phrase which they have helped to make faintly ridiculous1 #8the right to love4' ,individual freedom they have inherited and assumed as a right1 but they are concerned with something which their more restricted forefathers assumed--with1 that is to say1 the value of love itself4 ,no inhibitions either within or without restrain them1 but they are asking themselves1 #8,what is it worth8' and they are certainly no longer feeling that it is obviously and in itself something which makes life worth the living4 8,to ,huxley and ,hemingway--,i take them as the most conspicuous exemplars of a whole school--love is at times only a sort of obscene joke4 ,the former in particular has p#cjd delighted to mock sentiment with physiology1 to place the emotions of the lover in comic juxtaposition with quaint biological lore1 and to picture a romantic pair #8quietly sweating palm to palm4' ,but the joke is one which turns quickly bitter upon the tongue1 for a great and gratifying illusion has passed away1 leaving the need for it still there4 ,his characters still feel the psychological urge1 and1 since they have no sense of sin in connection with it1 they yield easily and continually to that urge2 but they have also the human need to respect their chief preoccupation1 and it is the capacity to do this that they have lost4 ,absorbed in the pursuit of sexual satisfaction1 they never find love and they are scarcely aware that they are seeking it1 but they are far from content with themselves4 ,in a generally devaluated world they are eagerly endeavoring to get what they can in the pursuit of satisfactions which are sufficiently instinctive to retain inevitably a modicum of animal pleasure1 but they cannot transmute that simple animal pleasure into anything else4 ,they themselves not infrequently share the contempt with which their creator regards them1 and nothing could be less seductive1 because nothing could be less glamorous1 than the description of the debaucheries born of nothing except a sense of the emptiness of life40 ,this 8generally devaluated world10 of which ,mr4 ,krutch speaks1 what is it after all1 but a world in which nothing connects itself very much with anything else8 ,if you start with the belief that love is the pleasure of a moment1 is it really surprising that it yields only a momentary pleasure8 ,for it is the most ironical of all illusions to suppose that one is free of illusions in contracting any p#cje human desire to its primary physiological satisfaction4 ,does a man dine well because he ingests the requisite number of calories8 ,is he freer from illusions about his appetite than the man who creates an interesting dinner party out of the underlying fact that his guests and he have the need to fill their stomachs8 ,would it really be a mark of enlightenment if each of them filled his stomach in the solitary and solemn conviction that good conversation and pleasant companionship are one thing and nutrition is another8 ,this much the transcendentalists understand well enough4 ,they do not wish to isolate the satisfaction of desire from our 8finest and most exalted activities40 ,they would make it 8the stimulus and the liberator0 of these activities4 ,they would use it to arouse to 8wholesome activity all the complex and interrelated systems of the organism40 ,but what are these finest and most exalted activities which are to be stimulated and liberated8 ,the discovery of truth1 the making of works of art1 meditation and insight8 ,mr4 ,ellis does not specify4 ,if these are the activities that are meant1 then the discussion applies to a very few of the men and women on earth4 ,for the activities of most of them are necessarily concerned with earning a living and managing a household and rearing children and finding recreation4 ,if the art of love is to stimulate and liberate activities1 it is these prosaic activities which it must stimulate and liberate4 ,but if you idealize the logic of birth control1 make parenthood a separate vocation1 isolate love from work and the hard realities of living1 and say that it must be spontaneous and carefree1 what have you done8 ,you have separated p#cjf it from all the important activities which it might stimulate and liberate4 ,you have made love spontaneous but empty1 and you have made home-building and parenthood efficient1 responsible1 and dull4 ,what has happened1 ,i believe1 is what so often happens in the first enthusiasm for a revolutionary invention4 ,its possibilities are so dazzling that men forget that inventions belong to man and not man to his inventions4 ,in the discussion which has ensued since birth control became generally feasible1 the central confusion has been that the reformers have tried to fix their sexual ideals in accordance with the logic of birth control instead of the logic of human nature4 ,birth control does make feasible this dissociation of interests which were once organically united4 ,there are undoubtedly the best of reasons for dissociating them up to a point4 ,but how completely it is wise to dissociate them is a matter to be determined not by saying how completely it is possible to dissociate them1 but how much it is desirable to dissociate them4 ,all the varieties of the modern doctrine that man is a collection of separate impulses1 each of which can attain its private satisfaction1 are in fundamental contradiction not only with the traditional body of human wisdom but with the modern conception of the human character4 ,thus in one breath it is said in advanced circles that love is a series of casual episodes1 and in the next it transpires that the speaker is in process of having himself elaborately psychoanalyzed in order to disengage his soul from the effects of apparently trivial episodes in his childhood4 ,on the one hand it is asserted that sex pervades everything and on the other that sexual behavior is inconsequential4 p#cjg ,it is taught that experience is cumulative1 that we are what our past has made us and shall be what we are making of ourselves now1 and then with bland indifference to the significance of this we are told that all experiences are free1 equal1 and independent4 #f4 ,marriage and ,affinity ,it is not hard to see why those who are concerned in revising sexual conventions should have taken the logic of birth control rather than knowledge of human nature as their major premise4 ,birth control is an immensely beneficent invention which can and does relieve men and women of some of the most tragic sorrows which afflict them3 the tragedies of the unwanted child1 the tragedies of insupportable economic burdens1 the tragedies of excessive child bearing and the destruction of youth and the necessity of living in an unrelenting series of pregnancies4 ,it offers them freedom from intolerable mismating1 from sterile virtue1 from withering denials of happiness4 ,these are the facts which the reformers saw1 and in birth control they saw the instrument by which such freedom could be obtained4 ,the sexual conventions which they have proposed are really designed to cure notorious evils4 ,they do not define the good life in sex2 they point out ways of escape from the bad life4 ,thus companionate marriage is proposed by ,judge ,lindsey not as a type of union which is inherently desirable1 but as an avenue of escape from corrupt marriages on the one hand and furtive promiscuity on the other4 ,the movement for free divorce comes down to this3 it is necessary because so many marriages p#cjh are a failure4 ,the whole theory that love is separate from parenthood and home-building is supported by the evidence in those cases where married couples are not lovers4 ,it is the pathology of sexual relations which inspires the reformers of sexual conventions4 ,there is no need to quarrel with them because they insist upon remedies for manifest evils4 ,deep confusion results when they forget that these remedies are only remedies1 and go on to institute them as ideals4 ,it is better1 without any doubt1 that incompatible couples should be divorced and that each should then be free to find a mate who is compatible4 ,but the frequency with which men and women have to resort to divorce because they are incompatible will be greatly influenced by the notions they have before and during marriage of what compatibility is1 and what it involves4 ,the remedies for failure are important4 ,but what is central is the conception of sexual relations by which they expect to live successfully4 ,they cannot--,i am1 of course1 speaking broadly--expect to live successfully by the conception that the primary and secondary functions of sex are in separate compartments of the soul4 ,i have indicated why this conception is self-defeating and why1 since human nature is organic and experience cumulative1 our activities must1 so to speak1 engage and imply each other4 ,mates who are not lovers will not really cooperate1 as ,mr4 ,bertrand ,russell thinks they should1 in bearing children2 they will be distracted1 insufficient1 and worst of all they will be merely dutiful4 ,lovers who have nothing to do but love each other are not really to be envied2 love and nothing else very soon is nothing else4 ,the emotion of love1 in spite p#cji of the romantics1 is not self-sustaining2 it endures only when the lovers love many things together1 and not merely each other4 ,it is this understanding that love cannot successfully be isolated from the business of living which is the enduring wisdom of the institution of marriage4 ,let the law be what it may be as to what constitutes a marriage contract and how and when it may be dissolved4 ,let public opinion be as tolerant as it can be toward any and every kind of irregular and experimental relationship4 ,when all the criticisms have been made1 when all supernatural sanctions have been discarded1 all subjective inhibitions erased1 all compulsions abolished1 the convention of marriage still remains to be considered as an interpretation of human experience4 ,it is by the test of how genuinely it interprets human experience that the convention of marriage will ultimately be judged4 ,the wisdom of marriage rests upon an extremely unsentimental view of lovers and their passions4 ,its assumptions1 when they are frankly exposed1 are horrifying to those who have been brought up in the popular romantic tradition of the ,nineteenth ,century4 ,these assumptions are that1 given an initial attraction1 a common social background1 common responsibilities1 and the conviction that the relationship is permanent1 compatibility in marriage can normally be achieved4 ,it is precisely this that the prevailing sentimentality about love denies4 ,it assumes that marriages are made in heaven1 that compatibility is instinctive1 a mere coincidence1 that happy unions are1 in the last analysis1 lucky accidents in which two people who happen to suit each other happen to have met4 ,the convention of marriage rests on an interpretation of p#caj human nature which does not confuse the subjective feeling of the lovers that their passion is unique1 with the brutal but objective fact that1 had they never met1 each of them would in all probability have found a lover who was just as unique4 8,love10 says ,mr4 ,santayana1 8is indeed much less exacting than it thinks itself4 ,nine-tenths of its cause are in the lover1 for one-tenth that may be in the object4 ,were the latter not accidentally at hand1 an almost identical passion would probably have been felt for some one else2 for1 although with acquaintance the quality of an attachment naturally adapts itself to the person loved1 and makes that person its standard and ideal1 the first assault and mysterious glow of the passion is much the same for every object40 ,this is the reason why the popular conception of romantic love as the meeting of two affinities produces so much unhappiness4 ,the mysterious glow of passion is accepted as a sign that the great coincidence has occurred2 there is a wedding and soon1 as the glow of passion cools1 it is discovered that no instinctive and preordained affinity is present4 ,at this point the wisdom of popular romantic marriage is exhausted4 ,for it proceeds on the assumption that love is a mysterious visitation4 ,there is nothing left1 then1 but to grin and bear a miserably dull and nagging fate1 or to break off and try again4 ,the deep fallacy of the conception is in the failure to realize that compatibility is a process and not an accident1 that it depends upon the maturing of instinctive desire by adaptation to the whole nature of the other person and to the common concerns of the pair of lovers4 ,the romantic theory of affinities rests upon an immature p#caa theory of desire4 ,it springs from an infantile belief that the success of love is in the satisfactions which the other person provides4 ,what this really means is that in childlike fashion the lover expects his mistress to supply him with happiness4 ,but in the adult world that expectation is false4 ,because nine-tenths of the cause1 as ,mr4 ,santayana says1 are in the lover for one-tenth that may be in the object1 it is what the lover does about that nine-tenths which is decisive for his happiness4 ,it is the claim1 therefore1 of those who uphold the ideal of marriage as a full partnership1 and reject the ideal which would separate love as an art from parenthood as a vocation1 that in the home made by a couple who propose to see it through1 there are provided the essential conditions under which the passions of men and women are most likely to become mature1 and therefore harmonious and disinterested4 #g4 ,the ,schooling of ,desire ,they need not deny1 indeed it would be foolish as well as cruel for them to underestimate1 the enormous difficulty of achieving successful marriages under modern conditions4 ,for with the dissolution of authority and compulsion1 a successful marriage depends wholly upon the capacity of the man and the woman to make it successful4 ,they have to accomplish wholly by understanding and sympathy and disinterestedness of purpose what was once in a very large measure achieved by habit1 necessity1 and the absence of any practicable alternative4 ,it takes two persons to make a successful marriage in the modern world1 and that fact more than doubles its difficulty4 ,for these reasons alone the modern state ought to do what it p#cab would none the less be compelled to do3 it ought to provide decent ways of retreat in case of failure4 ,but if it is the truth that the convention of marriage correctly interprets human experience1 whereas the separatist conventions are self-defeating1 then the convention of marriage will prove to be the conclusion which emerges out of all this immense experimenting4 ,it will survive not as a rule of law imposed by force1 for that is now1 ,i think1 become impossible4 ,it will not survive as a moral commandment with which the elderly can threaten the young4 ,they will not listen4 ,it will survive as the dominant insight into the reality of love and happiness1 or it will not survive at all4 ,that does not mean that all persons will live under the convention of marriage4 ,as a matter of fact in civilized ages all persons never have4 ,it means that the convention of marriage1 when it is clarified by insight into reality1 is likely to be the hypothesis upon which men and women will ordinarily proceed4 ,there will be no compulsion behind it except the compulsion in each man and woman to reach a true adjustment of his life4 ,it is in this necessity of clarifying their love for those who are closest to them that the moral problems of the new age come to a personal issue4 ,it is in the realm of sexual relations that mankind is being schooled amidst pain and worry for the novel conditions which modernity imposes4 ,it is there1 rather than in politics1 business1 or even in religion1 that the issues are urgent1 vivid1 and inescapable4 ,it is there that they touch most poignantly and most radically the organic roots of human personality4 ,and it is there1 in the ordering of their personal attachments1 p#cac that for most men the process of salvation must necessarily begin4 ,for disinterestedness in all things1 as ,dean ,inge says1 is a mountain track which the many are likely in the future as in the past to find cold1 bleak1 and bare3 that is why 8the road of ascent is by personal affection for man40 ,by the happy ordering of their personal affections they may establish the type and the quality and the direction of their desires for all things4 ,it is in the hidden issues between lovers1 more than anywhere else1 that modern men and women are compelled1 by personal anguish rather than by laws and preachments or even by the persuasions of abstract philosophy1 to transcend naive desire and to reach out towards a mature and disinterested partnership with their world4 ,,chapter ,,xv p#cad ,,the ,,moralist ,,in ,,an ,,unbelieving ,,world #a4 ,the ,declaration of ,ideals ,of all the bewilderments of the present age none is greater than that of the conscientious and candid moralist himself4 ,the very name of moralist seems to have become a term of disparagement and to suggest a somewhat pretentious and a somewhat stupid1 perhaps even a somewhat hypocritical1 meddler in other men's lives4 ,in the minds of very many in the modern generation moralists are set down as persons who1 in the words of ,dean ,inge1 fancy themselves attracted by ,god when they are really only repelled by man4 ,the disesteem into which moralists have fallen is an historical accident4 ,it so happens that those who administered the affairs of the established churches have1 by and large1 failed utterly to comprehend how deep and how inexorable was the dissolution of the ancestral order4 ,they imagined either that this change in human affairs was a kind of temporary corruption1 or that1 like the eighty propositions listed in the ,syllabus of ,pope ,pius ,,ix1 it could be regarded as due to 8errors0 of the human mind4 ,there were1 of course1 churchmen who knew better1 but on the whole those who prevailed in the great ecclesiastical p#cae establishments could not believe that the skepticism of mind and the freedom of action which modern men exercise were due to inexorable historic causes4 ,they declined to acknowledge that modern freedom was not merely a wilful iconoclasm1 but the liquidation of an older order of human life4 ,because they could not comprehend the magnitude of the revolution in which they were involved1 they set themselves the task of impeding its progress by chastising the rebels and refuting their rationalizations4 ,this was described as a vindication of morals4 ,the effect was to associate morality with the vindication of the habits and dispositions of those who were most thoroughly out of sympathy with the genuine needs of modern men4 ,the difficulties of the new age were much more urgent than those which the orthodox moralists were concerned with4 ,the moralists insisted that conduct must conform to the established code2 what really worried men was how to adjust their conduct to the novel circumstances which confronted them4 ,when they discovered that those who professed to be moralists were continuing to deny that the novelty of modern things had any bearing upon human conduct1 and that morality was a word signifying a return to usages which it was impossible to follow1 even if it were desirable1 there was a kind of tacit agreement to let the moralists be moral and to find other language in which to describe the difference between good and bad1 right and wrong4 ,mr4 ,joad is not unrepresentative of this reaction into contempt when he speaks of 8the dowagers1 the aunts1 the old maids1 the parsons1 the town councillors1 the clerks1 the members of vigilance committees and purity p#caf leagues1 all those who are themselves too old to enjoy sex1 too unattractive to obtain what they would wish to enjoy1 or too respectable to prefer enjoyment to respectability40 ,thus for many the name of moralist came to be very nearly synonymous with antipathy to the genius and the vitality of the modern age4 ,but it is idle for moralists to ascribe the decline of their influence to the perversity of their fellow creatures4 ,the phenomenon is world-wide4 ,moreover1 it is most intensely present at precisely those points where the effect of science and the machine technology have been most thoroughly manifested4 ,the moralists are not confronted with a scandal but with history4 ,they have to come to terms with a process in the life of mankind which is working upon the inner springs of being and altering inevitably the premises of conduct4 ,they need not suppose that their pews are empty and that their exhortations are ignored because modern men are really as wilful as the manners of the younger generation lead them to conclude4 ,much of what appears to be a tough self-sufficiency is protective3 it is a brittle crust covering depths of uncertainty4 ,if the advice of moralists is ignored1 it is not because this generation is too proud to listen1 or unaware that it has anything to learn4 ,on the contrary there is such curiosity and questioning as never before engaged so large a number of men4 ,the audience to which a genuine moralist might speak is there4 ,if it is inattentive when the orthodox moralist speaks1 it is because he seems to speak irrelevantly4 ,the trouble with the moralists is in the moralists themselves3 they have failed to understand their times4 ,they p#cag think they are dealing with a generation that refuses to believe in ancient authority4 ,they are1 in fact1 dealing with a generation that cannot believe in it4 ,they think they are confronted with men who have an irrational preference for immorality1 whereas the men and women about them are ridden by doubts because they do not know what they prefer1 nor why4 ,the moralists fancy that they are standing upon the rock of eternal truth1 surveying the chaos about them4 ,they are greatly mistaken4 ,nothing in the modern world is more chaotic--not its politics1 its business1 or its sexual relations--than the minds of orthodox moralists who suppose that the problem of morals is somehow to find a way of reinforcing the sanctions which are dissolving4 ,how can we1 they say in effect1 find formulas and rhetoric potent enough to make men behave8 ,how can we revive in them that love and fear of ,god1 that sense of the creature's dependence upon his creator1 that obedience to the commands of a heavenly king1 which once gave force and effect to the moral code8 ,they have misconceived the moral problem1 and therefore they misconceive the function of the moralist4 ,an authoritative code of morals has force and effect when it expresses the settled customs of a stable society3 the pharisee can impose upon the minority only such conventions as the majority find appropriate and necessary4 ,but when customs are unsettled1 as they are in the modern world1 by continual change in the circumstances of life1 the pharisee is helpless4 ,he cannot command with authority because his commands no longer imply the usages of the community3 they express the prejudices of the moralist rather than the practices of men4 ,when that p#cah happens1 it is presumptuous to issue moral commandments1 for in fact nobody has authority to command4 ,it is useless to command when nobody has the disposition to obey4 ,it is futile when nobody really knows exactly what to command4 ,in such societies1 wherever they have appeared among civilized men1 the moralist has ceased to be an administrator of usages and has had to become an interpreter of human needs4 ,for ages when custom is unsettled are necessarily ages of prophecy4 ,the moralist cannot teach what is revealed2 he must reveal what can be taught4 ,he has to seek insight rather than to preach4 ,the disesteem into which moralists have fallen is due at bottom to their failure to see that in an age like this one the function of the moralist is not to exhort men to be good but to elucidate what the good is4 ,the problem of sanctions is secondary4 ,for sanctions cannot be artificially constructed3 they are a product of agreement and usage4 ,where no agreement exists1 where no usages are established1 where ideals are not clarified and where conventions are not followed comfortably by the mass of men1 there are not1 and cannot be1 sanctions4 ,it is possible to command where most men are already obedient4 ,but even the greatest general cannot discipline a whole army at once4 ,it is only when the greater part of his army is with him that he can quell the mutiny of a faction4 ,the acids of modernity are dissolving the usages and the sanctions to which men once habitually conformed4 ,it is therefore impossible for the moralist to command4 ,he can only persuade4 ,to persuade he must show that the course of conduct he advocates is not an arbitrary pattern p#cai to which vitality must submit1 but that which vitality itself would choose if it were clearly understood4 ,he must be able to show that goodness is victorious vitality and badness defeated vitality2 that sin is the denial and virtue the fulfilment of the promise inherent in the purposes of men4 ,the good1 said the ,greek moralist1 is 8that which all things aim at02 we may perhaps take this to mean that the good is that which men would wish to do if they knew what they were doing4 ,if the morality of the naive hedonist who blindly seeks the gratification of his instincts is irrational in that he trusts immature desire1 disregards intelligence and damns the consequences1 the morality of the pharisee is no less irrational4 ,it reduces itself to the wholly arbitrary proposition that the best life for man would be some other kind of life than that which satisfies his nature4 ,the true function of the moralist in an age when usage is unsettled is what ,aristotle who lived in such an age described it to be3 to promote good conduct by discovering and explaining the mark at which things aim4 ,the moralist is irrelevant1 if not meddlesome and dangerous1 unless in his teaching he strives to give a true account1 imaginatively conceived1 of that which experience would show is desirable among the choices that are possible and necessary4 ,if he is to be listened to1 and if he is to deserve a hearing among his fellows1 he must set himself this task which is so much humbler than to command and so much more difficult than to exhort3 he must seek to anticipate and to supplement the insight of his fellow men into the problems of their adjustment to reality4 ,he must find ways to make clear and ordered and expressive those concerns p#cbj which are latent but overlaid and confused by their preoccupations and misunderstandings4 ,could he do that with perfect lucidity he would not need to summon the police nor evoke the fear of hell3 hell would be what it really is1 and what in all inspired moralities it has always been understood to be1 the very quality of evil itself4 ,nor would he find himself in the absurd predicament of seeming to argue that virtue is highly desirable but intensely unpleasant4 ,it would not be necessary to praise goodness1 for it would be that which men most ardently desired4 ,were the nature of good and evil really made plain by moralists1 their teachings would appear to the modern listener not like exhortations from without1 but as ,keats said of poetry3 8a wording of his own highest thoughts and 444 almost a remembrance40 #b4 ,the ,choice of a ,way ,what modernity requires of the moralist is that he should see with an innocent eye how men must reform their wants in a world which is not concerned to make them happy4 ,the problem1 as ,i have tried to show1 is not a new one4 ,it has been faced and solved by the masters of wisdom4 ,what is new is the scale on which the problem is presented--in that so many must face it now--and its radical character in that the organic bonds of custom and belief are dissolving4 ,there ensues a continual necessity of adjusting their lives to complex novelty4 ,in such a world simple customs are unsuitable and authoritative commandments incredible4 ,no prescription can now be written which men can naively and obediently follow4 ,they have1 therefore1 to reeducate their p#cba wants by an understanding of their own relation to a world which is unconcerned with their hopes and fears4 ,from the moralists they can get only hypotheses--distillations of experience carefully examined--probabilities1 that is to say1 upon which they may begin to act1 but which they themselves must constantly correct by their own insight4 ,it is difficult for the orthodox moralists to believe that amidst the ruins of authority men will ever learn to do this4 ,they can point to the urban crowds and ask whether anyone supposes that such persons are capable of ordering their lives by so subtle an instrument as the human understanding4 ,they can insist with unanswerable force that this is absurd3 that the great mass of men must be guided by rules and moved by the symbols of hope and fear4 ,and they can ask what there is in the conception of the moralist as ,i have outlined it which takes the character of the populace into account4 ,what ,i take into account first of all is the fact1 which it seems to me is indisputable1 that for the modern populace the old rules are becoming progressively unsuitable and the old symbols of hope and fear progressively unreal4 ,i ascribe that to the inherent character of the modern ways of living4 ,i conclude from this that if the populace must be led1 if it must have easily comprehended rules1 if it must have common symbols of hope and fear1 the question is how are its leaders to be developed1 rules to be worked out1 symbols created4 ,the ultimate question is not how the populace is to be ruled1 but what the teachers are to think4 ,that is the question that has to be settled first3 it is the preface to everything else4 ,for while moralists are at sixes and sevens in their own p#cbb souls1 not much can be done about morality1 however high or low may be our estimates of the popular intelligence and character4 ,if it were necessary to assume that ideals are relevant only if they are universally attainable1 it would be a waste of time to discuss them4 ,for it is evident enough that many1 if not most men1 must fail to comprehend what modern morality implies4 ,but to recognize this is not to prophesy that the world is doomed unless men perform the miracle of reverting to their ancestral tradition4 ,this is not the first time in the history of mankind when a revolution in the affairs of men has produced chaos in the human spirit4 ,the world can endure a good deal of chaos4 ,it always has4 ,the ideal inherent in any age is never realized completely3 ,greece1 which we like to idealize as an oasis of rationality1 was only in some respects ,hellenic2 the ,ages of ,faith were only somewhat ,christian4 ,the processes of nature and of society go on somehow none the less4 ,men are born and they live and die with some happiness and some sorrow though they neither envisage wholly nor nearly approximate the ideals they pursue4 ,but if civilization is to be coherent and confident it must be known in that civilization what its ideals are4 ,there must exist in the form of clearly available ideas an understanding of what the fulfilment of the promise of that civilization might mean1 an imaginative conception of the good at which it might1 and1 if it is to flourish1 at which it must aim4 ,that knowledge1 though no one has it perfectly1 and though relatively few have it at all1 is the principle of all order and certainty in the life of that people4 ,by it they can clarify the practical conduct p#cbc of life in some measure1 and add immeasurably to its dignity4 ,to elucidate the ideals with which the modern world is pregnant is the original business of the moralist4 ,insofar as he succeeds in disentangling that which men think they believe from that which it is appropriate for them to believe1 he is opening his mind to a true vision of the good life4 ,the vision itself we can discern1 only faintly1 for we have as yet only the occasional and fragmentary testimony of sages and saints and heroes1 dim anticipations here and there1 a most imperfect science of human behavior1 and our own obscure endeavor to make explicit and rational the stresses of the modern world within our own souls4 ,but we can begin to see1 ,i think1 that the evidence converges upon the theory that what the sages have prophesied as high religion1 what psychologists delineate as matured personality1 and the disinterestedness which the ,great ,society requires for its practical fulfilment1 are all of a piece1 and are the basic elements of a modern morality4 ,i think the truth lies in this theory4 ,if it does1 experience will enrich and refine it1 and what is now an abstract principle arrived at by intuition and dialectic will engender ideas that marshal1 illuminate1 and anticipate the subtle and intricate detail of our actual experience4 ,that at least can be our belief4 ,in the meantime1 the modern moralist cannot expect soon to construct a systematic and harmonious moral edifice like that which ,st4 ,thomas ,aquinas and ,dante constructed to house the aspirations of the medival world4 ,he is in a much earlier phase in the evolution of his world1 in the phase of inquiry and prophecy rather than of ordering and harmonizing1 p#cbd and he is under the necessity of remaining close to the elements of experience in order to apprehend them freshly4 ,he cannot1 therefore1 permit the old symbols of faith and the old formulations of right and wrong to prejudice his insight4 ,insofar as they contain wisdom for him or can become its vehicles1 he will return to them4 ,but he cannot return to them with honor or with sincerity until he has himself gone and drunk deeply at the sources of experience from which they originated4 ,only when he has done that can he again in any honest sense take possession of the wisdom which he inherits4 ,it requires wisdom to understand wisdom2 the music is nothing if the audience is deaf4 ,in the great moral systems and the great religions of mankind are embedded the record of how men have dealt with destiny1 and only the thoughtless will argue that that record is obsolete and insignificant4 ,but it is overlaid with much that is obsolete and for that reason it is undeciphered and inexpressive4 ,the wisdom it contains has to be discovered anew before the old symbols will yield up their meaning4 ,that is the only way in which ,bacon's aphorism can be fulfilled1 that 8a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism1 but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion40 ,the depth in philosophy which can bring them about is a much deeper and more poignant experience than complacent churchmen suppose4 ,it can be no mere settling back into that from which men in the ardor of their youth escaped4 ,this man and that may settle back1 to be sure2 he may cease to inquire though his questions are unanswered4 ,but such conformity is sterile1 and due to mere weariness of mind and p#cbe body4 ,the inquiry goes on because it has to go on1 and while the vitality of our race is unimpaired1 there will be men who feel with ,mr4 ,whitehead that 8to acquiesce in discrepancy is destructive of candor and of moral cleanliness10 and that 8it belongs to the self-respect of intellect to pursue every tangle of thought to its final unravelment40 ,the crisis in the religious loyalties of mankind cannot be resolved by weariness and good nature1 or by the invention of little intellectual devices for straightening out the dilemmas of biology and ,genesis1 history and the ,gospels with which so many churchmen busy themselves4 ,beneath these little conflicts there is a real dilemma which modern men cannot successfully evade4 8,where is the way where light dwelleth80 ,they are compelled to choose consciously1 clearly1 and with full realization of what the choice implies1 between religion as a system of cosmic government and religion as insight into a cleansed and matured personality3 between ,god conceived as the master of that fate1 creator1 providence1 and king1 and ,god conceived as the highest good at which they might aim4 ,for ,god is the supreme symbol in which man expresses his destiny1 and if that symbol is confused1 his life is confused4 ,men have not1 hitherto1 had to make that choice1 for the historic churches have sheltered both kinds of religious experience1 and the same mysteries have been the symbols of both4 ,that confusion is no longer benign because men are no longer unconscious of it4 ,they are aware that it is a confusion1 and they are stultified by it4 ,because the popular religion of supernatural governments is undermined1 the symbols of religion do not provide clear channels p#cbf for religious experience4 ,they are choked with the debris of dead notions in which men are unable to believe and unwilling to disbelieve4 ,the result is a frustration in the inner life which will persist as long as the leaders of thought speak of ,god in more senses than one1 and thus render all faith invalid1 insincere1 and faltering4 #c4 ,the ,religion of the ,spirit ,the choice is at last a personal one4 ,the decision is rendered not by argument but by feeling4 ,those who believe that their salvation lies in obedience to1 and communion with1 the ,king of ,creation can know how whole-hearted their faith is by the confidence of their own hearts4 ,if they are at peace1 they need inquire no further4 ,there are1 however1 those who do not find a principle of order in the belief that they are related to a supernatural power4 ,they cannot be argued into the ancient belief1 for it has been dissolved by the circumstances of their lives4 ,they are deeply perplexed4 ,they have learned that the absence of belief is vacancy2 they know1 from disillusionment and anxiety1 that there is no freedom in mere freedom4 ,they must find1 then1 some other principle which will give coherence and direction to their lives4 ,if the argument in these pages is sound1 they need not look for and1 in fact1 cannot hope for1 some new and unexpected revelation4 ,since they are unable to find a principle of order in the authority of a will outside themselves1 there is no place they can find it except in an ideal of the human personality4 ,but they do not have to invent such an ideal out of hand4 ,the ideal way of life for men who must make their own terms with experience and find p#cbg their own happiness has been stated again and again4 ,it is that only the regenerate1 the disinterested1 the mature1 can make use of freedom4 ,this is the central insight of the teachers of wisdom4 ,we can see now1 ,i think1 that it is also the mark at which the modern study of human nature points4 ,we can see1 too1 that it is the pattern of successful conduct in the most advanced phases of the development of modern civilization4 ,the ideal1 then1 is an old one1 but its confirmation and its practical pertinence are new4 ,the world is able at last to take seriously what its greatest teachers have said4 ,and since all things need a name1 if they are to be talked about1 devotion to this ideal may properly be called by the name which these greatest teachers gave it2 it may be called the religion of the spirit4 ,at the heart of it is the knowledge that the goal of human effort is to be able1 in the words ,i have so often quoted from ,confucius1 to follow what the heart desires without transgressing what is right4 ,in an age when custom is dissolved and authority is broken1 the religion of the spirit is not merely a possible way of life4 ,in principle it is the only way which transcends the difficulties4 ,it alone is perfectly neutral about the constitution of the universe1 in that it has no expectation that the universe will justify naive desire4 ,therefore1 the progress of science cannot upset it4 ,its indifference to what the facts may be is indeed the very spirit of scientific inquiry4 ,a religion which rests upon particular conclusions in astronomy1 biology1 and history may be fatally injured by the discovery of new truths4 ,but the religion of the spirit does not depend upon creeds and cosmologies2 it has no vested interest in any particular truth4 ,it is p#cbh concerned not with the organization of matter1 but with the quality of human desire4 ,it alone can endure the variety and complexity of things1 for the religion of the spirit has no thesis to defend4 ,it seeks excellence wherever it may appear1 and finds it in anything which is inwardly understood2 its motive is not acquisition but sympathy4 ,whatever is completely understood with sympathy for its own logic and purposes ceases to be external and stubborn and is wholly tamed4 ,to understand is not only to pardon1 but in the end to love4 ,there is no itch in the religion of the spirit to make men good by bearing down upon them with righteousness and making them conform to a pattern4 ,its social principle is to live and let live4 ,it has the only tolerable code of manners for a society in which men and women have become freely-moving individuals1 no longer held in the grooves of custom by their ancestral ways4 ,it is the only disposition of the soul which meets the moral difficulties of an anarchical age1 for its principle is to civilize the passions1 not by regulating them imperiously1 but by transforming them with a mature understanding of their place in an adult environment4 ,it is the only possible hygiene of the soul for men whose selves have become disjointed by the loss of their central certainties1 because it counsels them to draw the sting of possessiveness out of their passions1 and thus by removing anxiety to render them harmonious and serene4 ,the philosophy of the spirit is an almost exact reversal of the worldling's philosophy4 ,the ordinary man believes that he will be blessed if he is virtuous1 and therefore virtue seems to him a price he pays now for a blessedness he p#cbi will some day enjoy4 ,while he is waiting for his reward1 therefore1 virtue seems to him drab1 arbitrary1 and meaningless4 ,for the reward is deferred1 and there is really no instant proof that virtue really leads to the happiness he has been promised4 ,because the reward is deferred1 it too becomes vague and dubious1 for that which we never experience1 we cannot truly understand4 ,in the realm of the spirit1 blessedness is not deferred3 there is no future which is more auspicious than the present2 there are no compensations later for evils now4 ,evil is to be overcome now and happiness is to be achieved now1 for the kingdom of ,god is within you4 ,the life of the spirit is not a commercial transaction in which the profit has to be anticipated2 it is a kind of experience which is inherently profitable4 ,and so the mature man would take the world as it comes1 and within himself remain quite unperturbed4 ,when he acted1 he would know that he was only testing an hypothesis1 and if he failed1 he would know that he had made a mistake4 ,he would be quite prepared for the discovery that he might make mistakes1 for his intelligence would be disentangled from his hopes4 ,the failure of his experiment could not1 therefore1 involve the failure of his life4 ,for the aspect of life which implicated his soul would be his understanding of life1 and1 to the understanding1 defeat is no less interesting than victory4 ,it would be no effort1 therefore1 for him to be tolerant1 and no annoyance to be skeptical4 ,he would face pain with fortitude1 for he would have put it away from the inner chambers of his soul4 ,fear would not haunt him1 for he would be without compulsion to seize anything and without anxiety p#ccj as to its fate4 ,he would be strong1 not with the strength of hard resolves1 but because he was free of that tension which vain expectations beget4 ,would his life be uninteresting because he was disinterested8 ,he would have the whole universe1 rather than the prison of his own hopes and fears1 for his habitation1 and in imagination all possible forms of being4 ,how could that be dull unless he brought the dullness with him8 ,he might dwell with all beauty and all knowledge1 and they are inexhaustible4 ,would he1 then1 dream idle dreams8 ,only if he chose to4 ,for he might go quite simply about the business of the world1 a good deal more effectively perhaps than the worldling1 in that he did not place an absolute value upon it1 and deceive himself4 ,would he be hopeful8 ,not if to be hopeful was to expect the world to submit rather soon to his vanity4 ,would he be hopeless8 ,hope is an expectation of favors to come1 and he would take his delights here and now4 ,since nothing gnawed at his vitals1 neither doubt nor ambition1 nor frustration1 nor fear1 he would move easily through life4 ,and so whether he saw the thing as comedy1 or high tragedy1 or plain farce1 he would affirm that it is what it is1 and that the wise man can enjoy it4 ,,appendix p#cca ,,acknowledgments ,at the suggestion of the publishers1 the references which follow have been segregated in an appendix instead of being scattered as footnotes through the text4 ,they felt1 rightly enough1 ,i think1 that in a book of this character the purpose of the notes was to acknowledge indebtedness for the material cited rather than to support the argument1 and that the reader would prefer not to have the text encumbered by the apparatus of a kind of scholarship to which the author makes no pretensions4 ,while these notes1 except in a few instances1 refer only to matter actually used in the text1 they are also an approximate bibliography of the works which ,i have consulted4 ,i wish ,i could adequately acknowledge the obligation ,i owe to my teachers1 ,william ,james1 ,george ,santayana1 and ,graham ,wallas1 though that perhaps is self-evident4 ,i should like to thank ,miss ,jane ,mather and ,miss ,orrie ,lashin for help in the preparation of the manuscript4 ,i am under special obligation to my wife1 ,faye ,lippmann1 without whose assistance ,i could not have completed the book4 ,w4 ,l4 ,new ,york ,city1 ,january1 #aibi4 ,,notes p#ccb ,transcriber's note3 a standard page of this book had #ca or #cb lines4 ,,page ,,line #d #cb ,quoted in ,irving ,babbitt1 ,rousseau and ,romanticism1 p4 #aha4 #e #d ,john ,herman ,randall ,jr41 ,the ,making of the ,modern ,mind1 p4 #aah4 #e #ba ,from ,the ,city of ,dreadful ,night1 cited1 ,babbitt1 op4 cit41 p4 #ccb4 #e #bd ,for discussion of this theme1 cf4 ,babbitt1 op4 cit4 passim4 #e #bi ,shelley1 ,prometheus ,unbound1 ,act ,,iii1 ,scene ,,iv4 #f #ab ,from ,byron1 ,the ,island1 cited1 ,babbitt1 op4 cit41 p4 #ahf4 #f #af ,from ,t4 ,h4 ,huxley1 ,address on ,university ,education1 delivered1 #ahgf1 at the formal opening of ,johns ,hopkins ,university4 ,i am indebted to ,mr4 ,henry ,hazlitt for the quotation4 #g #aa ,cited1 ,babbitt1 op4 cit41 p4 #cda4 #g #bj ,nietzsche1 ,thus ,spake ,zarathustra1 ,,lxix1 cited1 ,babbitt1 op4 cit41 p4 #bfa4 #aa #ab ,cf4 ,w4 ,r4 ,inge1 ,the ,platonic ,tradition in ,english ,religious ,thought4 #aa #ai ,w4 ,c4 ,greene1 ,introduction to ,selection from the ,dialogues of ,plato1 p4 xxiv4 #ac #bg ,calvin1 ,institutes1 ,book ,,iv1 ,chapter ,x1 ,paragraph #g1 cited ,a4 ,c4 ,m',giffert1 ,protestant ,thought ,before ,kant1 p4 #ij4 #ba #cb ,harry ,emerson ,fosdick1 ,adventurous ,religion1 p4 #ei4 #bd #h ,w4 ,c4 ,brownell1 ,scribner's ,magazine1 ,vol4 ,,xxx1 p4 #aab1 cited in footnote1 ,william ,james1 ,the ,varieties of ,religious ,experience1 p4 #aae4 #bd #be ,william ,james1 ,the ,varieties of ,religious ,experience1 p4 #eah4 #be #ab ,james1 op4 cit41 p4 #eai4 #bf #g ,alfred ,north ,whitehead1 ,science and the ,modern ,world1 pp4 #bdi-bej4 #bg #ab ,bertrand ,russell1 ,a ,free ,man's ,worship1 in ,mysticism and ,logic1 p4 #ed4 #bg #bg ,kirsopp ,lake1 ,the ,religion of ,yesterday and ,tomorrow4 #cj #b ,w4 ,r4 ,inge1 ,science1 ,religion and ,reality1 p4 #chh4 p#ccc #ca #c ,cf4 ,w4 ,b4 ,riley1 ,the ,faith of the ,fundamentalists1 ,times ,current ,history1 ,june1 #aibg4 #cd #ah ,fundamentalism and the ,faith1 ,commonweal1 ,aug4 #ai1 #aibe4 #ce #be ,george ,santayana1 ,reason in ,religion1 p4 #ig4 #cg #bb ,the material in this section is taken from ,harry ,emerson ,fosdick1 ,the ,modern ,use of the ,bible4 #dj #b ,fosdick1 op4 cit41 p4 #hc4 #db #e ,fosdick1 ,the ,desire for ,immortality1 in ,adventurous ,religion4 #dd #aj ,w4 ,r4 ,inge1 ,the ,philosophy of ,plotinus1 ,vol4 ,,ii1 p4 #aff4 #dd #bc ,w4 ,r4 ,inge1 ,the ,platonic ,tradition in ,english ,religious ,thought4 #dg #cj ,fosdick1 ,the ,modern ,use of the ,bible4 #ea #bb ,cf4 ,rudolf ,otto1 ,chrysostom on the ,inconceivable in ,god1 in ,the ,idea of the ,holy4 ,appendix ,i2 cf4 also the ,catholic ,encyclopedia1 ,vol4 ,,viii1 p4 #deb2 cf4 also ,william ,james1 ,the ,varieties of ,religious ,experience1 ,lecture ,,iii4 #ef #ba ,lord ,acton1 inaugural ,lecture on the ,study of ,history1 in ,lectures on ,modern ,history4 #gj #bi ,otto ,gierke1 ,political ,theories of the ,middle ,ages-- ,translated by ,f4 ,w4 ,maitland1 p4 #g4 #ga #ad ,from the ,song of ,roland1 cited1 ,henry ,adams1 ,mont-,saint-,michel and ,chartres1 p4 #bi4 #gb #ah ,for an analysis of the texts on which this claim was based1 cf4 ,james ,t4 ,shotwell and ,louise ,ropes ,loomis1 ,the ,see of ,peter4 #gc #ah ,cited in ,a4 ,c4 ,m',giffert1 ,protestant ,thought ,before ,kant1 p4 #dd4 #gd #g ,for a comprehensive condemnation by the ,holy ,see of modern opinions which undermine the authority of the ,roman ,catholic ,church1 see the ,syllabus of ,pius ,,ix 7#ahfd7 and the ,syllabus of ,pius ,x 7#aijg74 ,the ,syllabus of #ahfd lists and condemns eighty principal errors of our time1 and is described by the ,catholic ,encyclopedia 7,vol4 ,,xiv1 p4 #cfi7 as opposition 8to the high tide of that intellectual movement of the ,nineteenth ,century which strove to sweep away the foundations of all human and ,divine order40 ,the ,syllabus of #aijg condemns sixty-five propositions of the ,modernists which would 8destroy the foundations of all natural and supernatural knowledge40 7,catholic ,encyclopedia1 ,vol4 ,,xiv1 p#ccd p4 #cgj47 ,it should be noted that there is difference of opinion among ,catholic scholars as to the binding power of these two pronouncements1 and also that their meaning is open to elaborate interpretation4 #ge #b ,catholic ,encyclopedia1 ,vol4 ,,xiv1 p4 #gff4 #gf #bj ,j4 ,n4 ,figgis1 ,political ,thought in the ,sixteenth ,century1 ,cambridge ,modern ,history1 ,vol4 ,,iii1 p4 #gdc4 #gi #d ,cf4 ,j4 ,n4 ,figgis1 op4 cit41 p4 #gdb4 #hj #bj ,for an able recent exposition by an ,american of this theory of absolutism1 cf4 ,charles ,c4 ,marshall1 ,the ,roman ,catholic ,church in the ,modern ,state4 #he #bd ,cited ,r4 ,h4 ,tawney1 ,religion and the ,rise of ,capitalism1 p4 #dd4 #hf #ac ,cited ,tawney1 op4 cit41 p4 #bdc4 #ih #f ,the facts cited in this section are from3 ,e4 ,mle1 ,l',art ,religieux du ,x,i,i,ieme ,sicle en ,france1 and ,l',art ,religieux de la ,fin du ,moyen-,age en ,france4 ,but cf4 ,g4 ,g4 ,coulton1 ,art and the ,reformation4 #ajb #bh ,prometheus ,unbound1 cited ,a4 ,n4 ,whitehead1 ,science and the ,modern ,world1 p4 #aai4 #ajd #bc ,r4 ,h4 ,wilenski1 ,the ,modern ,movement in ,art1 p4 #e4 #aji #aj ,cf4 ,diego ,rivera1 ,the ,revolution in ,painting1 in ,creative ,art1 ,vol4 ,,iv1 ,no4 #a4 8,and there is absolutely no reason to be frightened because the subject is so essential4 ,on the contrary1 precisely because the subject is admitted as a prime necessity1 the artist is absolutely free to create a thoroughly plastic form of art4 ,the subject is to the painter what the rails are to a locomotive4 ,he cannot do without it4 ,in fact1 when he refuses to seek or accept a subject1 his own plastic methods and his own esthetic theories become his subject instead4 ,and even if he escapes them1 he himself becomes the subject of his work4 ,he becomes nothing but an illustrator of his own state of mind1 and in trying to liberate himself he falls into the worst form of slavery4 ,that is the cause of all the boredom which emanates from so many of the large expositions of modern art1 a fact testified to again and again by the most different temperaments40 #aji #ah ,bernard ,berenson1 ,the ,florentine ,painters of the ,renaissance1 p4 #ai4 #aaa #d ,cf4 ,r4 ,h4 ,wilenski1 ,the ,modern ,movement in ,art1 p4 #aai4 #aaf #d ,cf4 ,george ,santayana1 ,reason in ,religion1 pp4 #ib et seq4 p#cce #aai #bh ,cf4 ,catholic ,encyclopedia1 ,vol4 ,x1 p4 #cdb4 #abc #ag ,whitehead1 ,science and the ,modern ,world1 p4 #beg4 #abg #b ,a4 ,s4 ,eddington1 ,stars and ,atoms1 p4 #aba4 #abh #a ,john ,herman ,randall ,jr41 ,the ,making of the ,modern ,mind1 p4 #ajj4 #abh #i ,epist4 ad ,can ,grand1 cited in footnote to ,paradiso in the ,temple ,classics4 #abi #c ,cf4 ,p4 ,w4 ,bridgman1 ,the ,logic of ,modern ,physics1 p4 #de4 #abi #bc ,c4 ,s4 ,peirce1 ,how to ,make ,our ,ideas ,clear in ,chance1 ,love and ,logic1 edited by ,morris ,r4 ,cohen4 #acj #d ,bridgman1 op4 cit41 p4 #ch4 #ace #b ,cited ,l4 ,r4 ,farnell1 ,the ,attributes of ,god1 p4 #bge4 #acg #ca ,cf4 ,m4 ,c4 ,otto1 ,natural ,laws and ,human ,hopes1 pp4 #cb et seq4 #adf #bi ,the ,catholic ,encyclopedia1 ,vol4 ,,xii1 p4 #cde4 #adg #bi ,cf4 ,b4 ,l4 ,manning1 ,the ,people's ,faith in the ,time of ,wyclif4 #adh #c ,fosdick1 ,adventurous ,religion1 p4 #he et seq4 #adh #i ,santayana1 ,reason in ,religion1 p4 #dc4 #adh #ag ,l4 ,r4 ,farnell1 ,the ,attributes of ,god1 p4 #ae4 #adi #ad ,manning1 op4 cit4 #aei #b ,herbert ,asbury1 ,a ,methodist ,saint1 ,the ,life of ,bishop ,asbury1 p4 #bfe4 #afj #bj ,cf4 ,encyclopedia ,britannica1 8,asceticism40 #afa #ag ,cf4 ,catholic ,encyclopedia1 ,vol4 ,i1 p4 #gfh4 #afb #e ,quoted in ,irving ,babbitt1 ,rousseau and ,romanticism1 p4 #de4 #afb #ai ,rabelais1 ,book ,,ii1 ,chapter #cd4 #afc #f ,cited ,henry ,osborn ,taylor1 ,thought and ,expression in the ,sixteenth ,century1 ,vol4 ,i1 p4 #ccj4 #afc #be ,babbitt1 op4 cit41 p4 #afa4 #afc #bh ,cf4 ,dora ,russell1 ,the ,right to be ,happy4 #afd #e ,cf4 ,bertrand ,russell1 ,political ,ideals4 #afe #ag ,t4 ,w4 ,rhys ,davids1 ,buddhism1 p4 #aaa4 #aff #bb ,ethics1 ,book ,,ii1 ,chapter #i4 #agg #c ,s4 ,freud1 ,formulierung ber die zwei ,prinzipien des psychischen ,geschehens1 #aiaa1 ,jahrb1 ,bd41 ,i1 s4 #daa4 #agg #aj ,s4 ,ferenczi1 ,stages in the ,development of the ,sense of ,reality1 #aiac4 ,in ,contributions to ,psychoanalysis1 translated by ,dr4 ,ernest ,jones4 #aib #ac ,spinoza1 ,ethics1 ,part ,v1 ,prop4 ,,xlii4 #aib #bc ,cf4 ,t4 ,w4 ,rhys ,davids1 ,buddhism1 p4 #aaj4 #aib #ca ,confucian ,analects1 ,book ,,ii1 ,chapter #d4 #aie #be ,a4 ,n4 ,whitehead1 ,religion in the ,making1 pp4 #ae-af4 p#ccf #aif #bj ,analects ,,vii1 ,,xx4 #aig #bd ,ethics1 ,part ,v1 ,prop4 ,,xlii4 #aii #ai ,cf4 ,t4 ,w4 ,rhys ,davids1 ,buddhism1 p4 #hd4 #aii #cj ,c4 ,snouck ,hurgronje1 ,mohammedanism1 p4 #hb4 #bjj #ah ,republic1 ,,vi1 #die1 #ejd4 #bje #e ,cf4 ,j4 ,burnet1 ,philosophy in ,the ,legacy of ,greece1 edited by ,r4 ,w4 ,livingstone1 p4 #fg4 #bah #i ,lucretius1 ,on the ,nature of ,things1 ,book ,third1 ,translation by ,h4 ,a4 ,j4 ,munro4 #bbj #a ,spinoza1 ,ethics1 ,part ,v1 ,prop4 ,,iii4 #bbj #d ,id41 ,part ,v1 ,prop4 ,,vi4 #bbd #bh ,aristotle1 ,ethics1 ,book ,,iv1 ,chapter ,,iii4 #bcb #ah ,oswald ,spengler1 ,the ,decline of the ,west4 #bcc #be ,c4 ,a4 ,beard1 ,is ,western ,civilization in ,peril8 ,harper's ,magazine1 ,august1 #aibh4 #bcd #ag ,h4 ,g4 ,wells1 ,the ,outline of ,history1 ,vol4 ,,ii1 pp4 #cid-e4 #bce #cj ,a4 ,n4 ,whitehead1 ,science and the ,modern ,world1 p4 #d4 #bcf #aj ,w4 ,t4 ,sedgwick and ,h4 ,w4 ,tyler1 ,a ,short ,history of ,science1 p4 #bfi4 ,cf4 ,martha ,ornstein1 ,the ,role of ,scientific ,societies in the ,seventeenth ,century4 #bcg #g ,j4 ,b4 ,bury1 ,the ,idea of ,progress1 p4 #ccj4 #bch #af ,for a most illuminating description of the behavior of a great scientific investigator1 cf4 ,claude ,bernard1 ,an ,introduction to the ,study of ,experimental ,medicine4 #bch #bf ,bertrand ,russell1 ,mysticism and ,logic1 p4 #db4 #bdj #ai ,cf4 ,graham ,wallas1 ,our ,social ,heritage1 ,chapter ,i4 #bda #ab ,john ,herman ,randall ,jr41 ,the ,making of the ,modern ,mind1 p4 #bgi4 #bdb #bd ,adam ,smith1 ,the ,wealth of ,nations1 ,book ,,iv1 ,chapter #i4 #bde #d ,cited in ,r4 ,h4 ,tawney1 ,religion and the ,rise of ,capitalism1 p4 #bhf4 #bfe #ai ,otto ,gierke1 ,political ,theories of the ,middle ,age1 ,translated by ,f4 ,w4 ,maitland1 p4 #bc4 #bff #i ,id41 p4 #hh4 #bff #ab ,cf4 ,j4 ,w4 ,garner1 ,introduction to ,political ,science1 p4 #ib4 #bfg #g ,for a discussion of the concept of sovereignty in the modern world1 cf4 ,otto ,gierke1 ,political ,theories of the ,middle ,ages2 ,j4 ,n4 ,figgis1 ,churches in the ,modern ,state2 ,lord ,acton1 ,history of ,freedom and ,other ,essays2 ,h4 ,j4 ,laski1 ,a ,grammar of ,politics2 ,kung ,chuan ,hsiao1 ,political ,pluralism4 #bgd #aa ,william ,hard1 ,who's ,hoover8 p4 #aic4 #bhj #ca ,reflections on the ,french ,revolution1 cf4 ,garner1 op4 cit41 p4 #aab4 p#ccg #bhh #f ,genesis ,,xxxviii2 cf4 ,harold ,cox1 ,the ,problem of ,population1 pp4 #bjh-baa1 for an interpretation of the story of ,onan in the light of ,deut4 ,,xxv1 which shows that the crime of ,onan was not the spilling of his seed1 but a breach of ,jewish tribal law in refusing 8to perform the duty of a husband's brother0 with his brother's widow4 #bhi #a ,psalm #abg1 cf4 ,cox1 op4 cit4 #bhi #i ,the historical data are from ,a4 ,m4 ,carr-,saunders1 ,the ,population ,problem1 ,chapter ,i4 #bie #f ,havelock ,ellis1 ,love as an ,art1 in ,count ,hermann ,keyserling's ,the ,book of ,marriage1 p4 #chh4 #bie #ba ,santayana1 ,the ,life of ,reason1 ,vol4 ,,ii1 p4 #aj4 #big #c ,c4 ,e4 ,m4 ,joad1 ,thrasymachus1 or ,the ,future of ,morals1 pp4 #ed-ee4 #big #ae ,havelock ,ellis1 ,the ,family1 in ,whither ,mankind1 p4 #baf4 #bii #d ,quoted in ,judge ,ben ,b4 ,lindsey and ,wainwright ,evans1 ,the ,companionate ,marriage1 p4 #baj4 #cjb #ah ,cf4 ,alfred ,weber1 ,history of ,philosophy1 p4 #gb4 #cjd #bd ,love--,or the ,life and ,death of a ,value1 ,atlantic ,monthly1 ,august1 #aibh4 #caj #ad ,reason in ,society1 p4 #bb4 #cac #f ,w4 ,r4 ,inge1 ,the ,philosophy of ,plotinus1 ,vol4 ,,ii1 p4 #afa4 #cbj #ae ,john ,keats1 ,letters to ,john ,taylor1 ,feb4 #bg1 #ahah--;in ,oxford ,book of ,english ,prose1 ,no4 #cgi4 ,,index p#cci ,absolute state1 #hj ,absolutism1 #bff ,accademia dei ,lincei1 #bcf 8,acids of modernity40 ,see ,modernity4 ,acquisitive instinct1 #bej ,acton1 ,lord1 #ef ,adams1 ,henry1 #ga ,adeimantus1 #afj ,adultery1 #hi 8,agnostic10 #bh1 #gg ,agnostics1 #bi1 #ed ,agnosticism1 #cd ,allegiance1 #bfc1 #bfe1 #bfg1 #bfh-bfi ,allegory1 #cg1 #ch-dj ,american farmer1 #he1 #bgf ,americanism1 #fa1 #fc1 #bgd ,american ,philosophical ,association1 #bcf ,anabaptists1 #ae ,analysis1 scientific1 #ajg ,ananias1 #ie ,anarchy1 moral1 #bji ,anne1 ,st41 #adi ,anthropomorphism1 #bh1 #adh ,anti-evolution laws1 #ca ,antioch1 #ea1 #eb ,apostles1 #eh1 #ii1 #abj1 #bjj ,aquinas1 ,st4 ,thomas1 #aa1 #fh1 #ga1 #ajj1 #bah1 #cbc ,arcadia1 #adh1 #afb ,arians1 #eb ,aristocracy1 #ae ,aristophanes1 #d ,aristotle1 #bf1 #dh1 #abg1 #aef1 #aeg1 #afa1 #aff-afg1 #aid1 #bbd1 #bdd1 #cai ,art1 #aab2 ,christian1 #aja2 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,huxley1 ,thomas ,henry1 #f ,iconoclasm1 #ag1 #if1 #cae ,iconoclasts1 #ae1 #cjb ,idealism1 debacle of1 #ag ,ideals1 foundation of1 #acc1 #bbd1 #cbc2 succession of1 #aaa ,ideas1 crystallization of1 #bj ,idols1 smashing of1 #ae1 #af ,illusions1 #h1 #ahi1 #bcb ,immortality1 #aa1 #da-dc1 #de1 #abb1 #ahj1 #ahh ,impersonal1 worship of the1 #dd ,impulses1 #afe-aff1 #afh1 #afi1 #aib1 #bbb1 #bbd1 #bbg1 #cjf ,industry1 ideals of1 #beh-bei2 modern1 #bdh1 #bea1 #bee-bef1 #bfj1 #bgc-bgd1 #bhh ,inertia1 human1 #bjh1 #bbg ,infallibility1 #ha ,infantilism1 #agd1 #age1 #agf1 #agg1 #agh1 #aha1 #ahb1 #ahd1 #ahe1 #ahi-aij1 #aia ,inferno1 #adf ,inge1 ,dean1 #bh1 #bi-cj1 #db1 #dd1 #df1 #aif1 #cac1 #cad ,inquiry1 disinterested1 #acb2 freedom of1 #abf ,inquisition1 #abc-abd1 #afa ,inspiration1 #ac1 #df ,intelligence1 #ahf2 machinery of1 #fd ,interests1 diversification of1 #bfg-bfh1 #bfi-bgj1 #bgd1 #cbh ,internal life1 #aeb1 #aie1 #aif ,invention of invention1 #bce ,inventions1 mechanical1 #bcd-bce ,irreligion1 modern1 #ab1 #ec-ed ,isaiah1 #ab ,italy1 #bea-bec1 #bgb ,james ,i1 #gi ,james1 ,william1 #ah1 #bd-bf ,jefferson1 #ae ,jehovah1 #ab1 #bad1 #bhh2 ,see also ,yahveh4 ,jerome1 ,st41 #afa ,jesus1 #ab1 #df1 #ii1 #aai1 #aee1 #aic1 #aii1 #bjj2 ,see also ,christ4 ,jews1 #eb ,joad1 ,c4 ,e4 ,m41 #bif1 #big1 #cae-caf ,job1 #bac-baf ,job1 ,book of1 #bad1 #baf ,john1 ,gospel of4 ,see ,fourth ,gospel4 ,john1 ,st41 #ii ,joyce1 ,james1 #cjc ,judaism1 #ab ,judgment1 private1 #ae1 #cd ,kant1 ,immanuel1 #acf-acg ,keats1 #cbj ,kelvin1 ,lord1 #abi ,keynes1 ,maynard1 #bde1 #beh ,knowledge1 limitations of1 #bjb ,knowlton1 #bij ,knox1 #gc ,krutch1 ,joseph ,wood1 #cjb-cjc1 #cjd ,ku ,klux ,klan1 #ca ,labor1 organized1 #bdd ,laissez-faire1 #bdb1 #bdd1 #bej1 #beb ,lake1 ,kirsopp1 #bg-bi ,lamarckism1 #abe 8,land of heart's desire10 #aea-aeb ,last ,judgment1 #ii ,law enforcement1 #bgg-bgh ,law1 international1 #bfe-bff ,lawrence1 ,d4 ,h41 #cjc ,leadership1 mass1 #bgd-bge ,legislation1 modern1 #bge-bgf1 #bgi ,lent1 #adib1 #ch ,leviticus1 #cg ,lewis1 ,sinclair1 #af ,liberalism1 #f1 #aeb ,liberals1 ,protestant1 #cd2 religious1 #ba1 #cc ,liberty1 natural1 #bdc1 #bdd-bdf1 #beh ,life1 art of1 #age1 #cbf-cbg2 medival view of1 #aed1 #cbc2 wisdom of1 #aef1 #ccj ,lindbergh1 ,col4 ,charles ,a41 #bbb-bbc p#cdd ,lindsey1 ,judge1 #bih1 #cjg ,locke1 #bff ,love1 art of1 #bic1 #bie1 #cja1 #cjc1 #cje1 #cjh-cji2 value of1 #cjb-cjd1 #cjf1 #caj ,lowell ,lectures1 #be ,loyalty1 #bfa-bfc1 #bfh-bfi1 #bgb1 #cbe ,lucretius1 #bah ,luther1 #ac1 #ad-ae1 #ci1 #ec-ed1 #gc-gd1 #gi1 #aif ,lutheran ,church1 #ac ,lutherans1 #gg ,machen1 ,prof4 ,j4 ,gresham1 #cb1 #cc-cd ,machine process1 #bdf1 #bec-bed1 #bgd ,machine technology1 #bdb-bdc1 #bdg1 #bea1 #beb1 #bed1 #beg1 #beh-bei1 #bgd1 #bhd1 #caf ,mle1 #ajj1 #aja ,malthus1 #bhi ,manichans1 #eb ,man1 nature of1 #aeb1 #bdc ,manner of life1 #bce ,markets1 #bdf-bdg ,marriage1 #hi1 #bhf1 #bhh1 #bhi1 #bia1 #cji1 #caj-caa1 #cab2 companionate1 #bih1 #cjg ,marxianism1 #af ,mary1 ,st4 ,see ,virgin ,mary4 ,masses1 #adh-adi1 #bgh ,matriarchal societies1 #ia ,maturity1 #agd-age1 #agf-agg1 #agi-ahj1 #ahc-ahd1 #ahe1 #ahf1 #ahi1 #aij1 #aia-aib1 #bjd1 #bji1 #bbe1 #bcj1 #bcg1 #bci1 #cac1 #cbc1 #cbe1 #cbg1 #cbh-cbi ,maxwell1 #bdj ,mazzini1 #ah ,meaning of things1 #ahc ,mechanism1 #abe1 #abh1 #acj-aca ,medical progress1 #bah ,melanchthon1 #gi ,mencken1 ,h4 ,l41 #ac1 #af ,mendel's law1 #bca ,messianic ,kingdom1 #aa ,methodism1 #f2 ,american1 #aeh ,mexico1 #bec1 #bfe ,middle ,ages1 #gj-gb1 #gc1 #id1 #abi1 #aca1 #afa1 #bfe1 #bff ,mill1 ,james1 #bhi ,milton1 #gd1 #bff ,minority1 recalcitrant1 #bgi ,miracles1 #aah1 #aai-abj ,mississippi flood1 #bgc-bgd ,modernism1 #ah1 #cb1 #cc1 #ei1 #gg1 #aag1 #bag ,modernists1 #bg1 #bh1 #bi1 #ca1 #cb1 #ce1 #db1 #ea ,modernity1 #e1 #h1 #ad1 #ae1 #ai1 #ef1 #fh1 #if1 #aje1 #aaj1 #aab1 #adc1 #aeh1 #aif-aig1 #bjh1 #bbi1 #bea1 #bhd1 #caf1 #cah1 #cbj1 #cba ,modern man1 #d1 #h-aj1 #ab1 #ai1 #ba1 #bd1 #dj1 #da1 #ea1 #ed1 #eg1 #ei1 #id1 #aaa1 #aab1 #aac1 #aad1 #aeb1 #aec1 #aeh1 #afa1 #aid1 #bjc1 #bbg-bbh1 #cae1 #caf ,modern men4 ,see ,modern man4 ,modern ,movement in ,art1 ,the1 #ajd ,modern spirit1 #cf1 #aaj1 #adc ,modern state1 #bfj1 #bfb-bfc1 #bfg1 #bgb-bgc1 #bge1 #bgi1 #caa ,modern world1 #ad1 #ai1 #bj1 #bfh-bfi1 #bgj1 #cjj1 #caa1 #cbb-cbd ,mohammed1 #ade ,mohammedanism1 #aii ,monasticism1 #bjd-bjf ,montaigne1 #dh1 #age1 #aif ,moral certainty1 #i-aj1 #ae1 #aae ,moral codes1 #c1 #di1 #ace1 #afg1 #agj1 #aga1 #bja1 #bjh-bji1 #bbf1 #bbh1 #bgb1 #cag1 #cai ,moral confusion1 #aee1 #bbh1 #bcj ,moral effect1 #agi-ahj ,moral effort1 #age ,moral guidance1 #ad1 #bje ,moral insight1 #bbg-bbh1 #bbi ,moralists1 #afd1 #afe1 #aff1 #afg1 #agj1 #agb1 #agc1 #bjh-bji1 #bbe1 #bdd1 #cjj1 #cad-cae1 #caf-cai1 #cbj-cba1 #cbc ,morality1 #aad-aae1 #aag1 #acf1 #acg-aci1 #ade2 divine1 #di-ej2 sanctions of1 #gh1 #aff1 #agf1 #bbh2 theistic1 #ach2 ,see also ,morals4 ,moral law1 #df1 #dh1 #aia1 #bcc p#cde ,moral philosophies1 #aef ,moral problem1 #acd1 #aff1 #afh1 #aib1 #bbi1 #cab1 #cag ,morals1 #ag1 #aab1 #aea1 #aeg1 #aib1 #bjh1 #baj1 #bbg-bbh1 #bbi1 #bda1 #cbb2 ,see also ,morality4 ,moral values1 #ajf ,morris1 ,william1 #e1 #bdd ,mortality1 #ahh1 #aia ,mosaic law1 #acf ,moses1 #di ,moving pictures1 #f ,music1 #ahb ,musset1 ,alfred de1 #afc ,mystics1 #adg1 #aif ,nain1 #aai ,naples1 #bcf ,nationalism1 #fc-fd1 #bcb ,natural goodness1 #afc ,natural man1 #ai1 #afb1 #afc1 #bda ,natural selection1 #ah1 #aej ,nature and science1 #bda ,nature1 laws of1 #aag1 #abb1 #abe1 #aej1 #afe1 #aie2 religion of1 #ah ,necessity1 experience of1 #ahg ,need to believe1 #abe1 #bjc ,neo-,malthusianism1 #bhi-bij ,neo-,platonism1 ,christian1 #bh ,neo-,platonists1 modern1 #aa ,new ,jerusalem1 #aae1 #aaf ,newspapers1 popular1 #f1 #fd-fe ,new ,york1 #ff1 #bga1 #bgc ,nica1 ,second ,council of1 #ih1 #ajj1 #aja ,nietzsche1 #g1 #aeg ,nietzscheanism1 #af ,nineteenth ,century1 #e1 #af1 #ah1 #agd1 #bhh1 #cji ,nirvana1 #ade1 #afe1 #aii ,noah's ,ark1 #ch ,noguchi1 #bbc ,non-sectarianism1 #gg-gh ,novels1 autobiographical1 #aac ,objectivity1 #acb ,obregon1 ,gen41 #bfd ,old ,testament1 #ee1 #bad ,onan1 #bhh ,order1 ancestral1 #fh1 #aec1 #bjg1 #bjh1 #bbh1 #bfg1 #cad1 #cbb2 cosmic1 #h1 #aie1 #bjb1 #baf2 industrial1 #bdb ,origen1 #aa1 #bh1 #bi1 #cg1 #ci1 #aif ,original sin1 #aih 8,orthodox10 #eg1 #abb ,orthodoxy1 #aj1 #aa1 #ab1 #ai-bj1 #cb1 #ce1 #aid1 #baf 8,overbeliefs10 #bd ,pach1 ,walter1 #ie ,pagans1 #eb ,painting1 religious1 #id-if1 #ig-ih ,pantagruelists1 #afb ,pantheism1 #aag-aah ,paradise1 #abh1 #ade1 #adf ,paradise ,lost1 #aaf ,parenthood1 #bib-bid1 #cja1 #cje ,paris1 #aaa1 #bbc ,passions1 harmony of1 #aih1 #bjf1 #bjh ,pater1 #adi ,pater1 ,walter1 #ajf-ajg ,patriotism1 #ah1 #gh1 #hb ,paul1 ,st41 #ab-ac1 #ej1 #eb1 #eh1 #ij1 #ii1 #aee1 #afa ,peace of mind1 #g-h ,peirce1 ,charles ,s41 #abi ,periclean ,age1 #aa1 #bcb ,personality1 persistence of1 #db ,peter1 ,st41 #gb1 #gd1 #ii1 #adf ,petrarch1 #e ,phdo1 #aei ,pharisees1 #ab1 #cag1 #cai ,philistines1 #ajd ,philosophers1 ,greek1 #aj1 #aei1 #bcc1 #bce-bcf ,philosophy1 #cbd2 industrial1 #bdc1 #bfj2 modern1 #aeg1 #aeh2 political1 #bfj ,physicists1 #ajb1 #abd1 #abi ,physics1 #adc1 #aeg1 #agd1 #bda ,pilgrim's ,progress1 ,the1 #bjj ,place1 ,francis1 #bhi ,plato1 #aj1 #dh1 #aef1 #aei1 #afa1 #bjj1 #bhi ,platonic tradition1 #bh ,platonism1 #dc ,platonists1 #db-dc1 #aif ,pleasure and pain1 #agg1 #agi1 #cjb p#cdf ,plot1 ,john1 #adi ,plotinus1 #aee ,political conduct1 #bfd-bfe1 #bhd ,political machine1 #bfd ,politician1 the1 #bgi-bhb ,pope1 the1 #ac1 #ae1 #gb1 #gi1 #ha1 #he1 #bfe1 #bgj-bga ,pope ,innocent ,,iv1 #he ,pope ,paul ,v1 #ha ,pope ,pius ,,ix1 #ge ,population1 growth of1 #bhi-bia ,post-,darwinians1 #ah ,pragmatism1 #aai ,prayer1 #adf-adi ,pre-machine age1 #bec ,presbyterians1 #gi ,priesthood1 #gc ,primitive peoples1 #aei ,procreation1 #aff ,progress1 religion of1 #ah ,prohibition1 #ca1 #bgg ,propaganda1 #bha ,prophet1 artist as1 #aja-ajb1 #ajc1 #ajd ,prophets1 #ab ,protestantism1 #ae1 #cj1 #cb1 #cd1 #eb1 #gg1 #hf ,protestants1 #cd-ce ,pseudo-religions1 #abe ,psychiatry1 #aeh1 #aei ,psychoanalysis1 #f1 #abe1 #agd1 #agg1 #agi1 #bbj ,psychology1 #adc1 #aga1 #agb1 #agc1 #agd1 #bbj2 abnormal1 #aga2 folk1 #aga2 popular1 #aad2 scientific1 #agc1 #agf ,public interest1 #beg-beh ,public opinion1 #afg ,public schools1 #gf-gg ,public utilities1 regulation of1 #bed-bee ,purgatory1 #adf ,puritanism1 #aed1 #cjb ,purpose1 cosmic1 #i ,pythagoras1 #bjd-bje ,rabelais1 #afa1 #afb-afc ,randall1 ,dr41 #abg-abh ,rationalists1 #bd-be ,rationalization1 #ci ,reality1 #agg1 #agi1 #ahj1 #aic1 #baf1 #bgb1 #cab1 #cai ,reason and faith1 #ea1 #aba ,rebellion1 #af-ag1 #ai1 #aij ,rebels1 #ae-ah1 #ai ,reconstruction1 essays in1 #ad ,redemption1 #aa1 #aae ,reformation1 #ac1 #gb-gc1 #id1 #aed ,reformers1 ,eighteenth-,century1 #ae2 ,protestant1 #cd1 #ci1 #dj1 #gc1 #if ,relative motion1 #abd ,religion1 #h1 #aj1 #ag1 #ah-ai1 #bc1 #aab1 #abc1 #aca1 #bhd1 #cbd2 aristocracy in1 #aig1 #bjj1 #bjb1 #bjc2 need of1 #abc2 of the spirit1 #dd1 #df1 #aif-aig1 #bjc1 #bje-bjf1 #cbg-cbh2 popular1 #ad1 #cb-cc1 #dg1 #ej1 #fi1 #ia1 #id1 #abg1 #aca-acb1 #adc1 #ade1 #agf1 #aid1 #aie-aif1 #bja1 #bjb1 #bjh1 #baf1 #bbg1 #bcb1 #bdd1 #cbe 7,see also ,theology1 popular72 traditional1 #abb1 #abd1 #bjc ,religious experience1 #cc1 #ij-ia1 #abe1 #cbe-cbf ,religious synthesis1 #aaa1 #abd ,religious thought1 #if ,religious wars1 #gd ,religious writing1 #ig ,renaissance1 #id-ie1 #afa2 ,high1 #aed ,renan1 #g ,renunciation1 #de1 #aef1 #aeg1 #aia1 #aib1 #bjf ,republic1 #aei-afj ,revelation1 #abd1 #abf1 #abg1 #acc1 #acd1 #ace1 #acf1 #acg1 #adc1 #cah1 #cbf2 logic of1 #aba2 sense of1 #ac ,revivals1 #ad ,revolution1 ,french1 #bhi2 industrial1 #baj1 #bdh2 mechanical1 #ai1 #bcd1 #bcf1 #bda1 #bdh1 #bhi2 ,russian1 #bej-bea2 spiritual1 #acc-acd ,rewards and punishments1 #bja1 #bjb1 #bac ,riggs1 ,father1 #cd ,righteousness1 sense of1 #af ,right of revolution1 #hb ,right to believe1 #be ,rights of men1 #bdb1 #bfg ,roland1 #ga p#cdg ,roman ,catholic ,church4 ,see ,catholic ,church4 ,roman ,empire1 #eh1 #bje ,romantics1 #ah1 #bf1 #aed ,rome1 #adi1 #bcf ,rousseau1 #aed1 #bff ,royal ,society of ,london1 #bcf ,ruskin1 #bdd ,russell1 ,bertrand1 #bg1 #aad1 #aeg1 #bch1 #bih-bii1 #cjh ,russell1 ,dora1 #afc ,russia1 #bej-bec1 #bgb1 #bgc ,sages1 teaching of1 #aih1 #bjj1 #baj1 #bci ,saintliness1 #aef ,salvation1 #ge1 #hh1 #adg1 #aie-aig1 #aih1 #bja1 #cac ,santayana1 ,george1 #ai1 #ce1 #cf1 #dc1 #fh1 #ade1 #adh1 #ahb1 #caj1 #caa ,sargent1 ,john1 #ie ,savonarola1 #cg ,schoolmen1 #abg1 #abi ,science1 #aj1 #ah1 #ai1 #aab1 #abj1 #abc1 #aec1 #agf1 #bje2 and religion1 #abc-abd1 #acb-acc2 concepts in1 #ajb-ajc1 #ajg1 #abb2 ,greek1 #baj2 logic of1 #aba2 medival1 #abh2 method of1 #aba1 #abb1 #abc1 #abd1 #abe1 #aeg1 #bci2 modern1 #abg1 #abh1 #bcf-bcg1 #bci1 #caf2 popular1 #abg2 pure1 #bcg-bch1 #bci ,science and the ,modern ,world1 #abc ,scientific discipline1 #bci-bdj1 #bda ,scientific explanation1 #acj1 #aca ,scientific hypotheses1 #abe1 #abf-abg ,scientific inquiry1 #ce1 #abc1 #bcf ,scientific materialism1 #aca ,scientific method4 ,see ,science1 method of4 ,scientific research1 #bcf-bcg1 #bch ,scientific spirit1 #bdj1 #cbg ,scientific theory1 #acc1 #bji ,scribes1 #ab ,scriptures4 ,see ,bible4 ,self-discipline1 #de1 #aif-aig1 #aih ,serenity1 #g-h ,sex1 #bhd-bhe1 #bhh1 #bii-cjj1 #cjf1 #cjh2 and religion1 #hi-ij ,sexual conventions1 #bii-cjj1 #cja1 #cjg-cjh ,sexual ideal1 #ic-id1 #bic1 #cja1 #cje-cjf1 #cjg ,sexuality1 #aej1 #afe-aff1 #cjc-cjd ,sexual relations1 #bca1 #bhd-bhg1 #bhh-bhi1 #bia-bib1 #bie-bif1 #big1 #bii1 #cjh1 #cab ,shaw1 ,george ,bernard1 #ah1 #dh1 #aef ,shelley1 #e-f1 #ajb ,simeon ,stylites1 ,st41 #aeh ,sinai1 #acf1 #bbg ,smith1 ,adam1 #bdb1 #bdc1 #bde 8,social compact10 #bff-bfg ,socialism1 #bdi-bej1 #beh ,socialists1 #bdi1 #bej1 #beb ,social system1 ,american1 #fe-fg1 #bgc-bgd ,society1 #ai1 #aij1 #bjf1 #bjg1 #bda1 #bej1 #bff1 #bgf1 #bhd1 #cbb2 opinion of1 #acd ,socrates1 #aj1 #aa1 #aee1 #aei1 #afj1 #afa1 #bai1 #bbj ,song of ,solomon1 #ch ,sophists1 #bai1 #bbj ,sophisticated violence1 #fd ,soul1 #aad1 #aif ,sovereignty1 conception of1 #bfe1 #bfg ,space1 sense of1 #ahj ,species1 propagation of1 #aej ,speculation1 philosophic1 #bcc ,spengler1 #fb1 #bcb ,spinoza1 #aee1 #aef1 #afa1 #aib1 #aic1 #aid1 #aig1 #baf1 #bai1 #bbj1 #bff ,spirituality1 #aed1 #aig1 #bjd1 #cbi-ccj ,stal1 ,madame de1 #afb ,statesman1 the1 #bgi-bhc ,steele1 ,richard1 #hf ,stimuli1 #ahb ,stoddard1 ,lothrop1 #fd ,suffering1 irrational1 #bac ,summa1 #ajj ,supernatural kingdom1 #adc1 #cbe-cbf ,superstition1 #bah ,survival of the fittest1 #aej ,syllabus of ,pope ,pius ,,ix1 #cad ,symbolism1 #cd1 #de1 #fh1 #ajj1 #cbe p#cdh ,tabu1 #afj ,tamar1 #bhh ,tariff1 #bgf-bgg ,ten ,commandments1 #gh ,tennessee1 #gg ,theism1 #acf1 #acg ,theocracy1 #aid1 #aie1 #aig1 #bjc1 #bbg1 #bbh ,theodorus of ,cyrene1 #cja-cjb ,theology1 ,catholic1 #ea1 #aai2 popular1 #aj-aa1 #bc 7see also ,religion1 popular7 ,thirteenth ,century1 #aa ,thomas ,kempis1 #aac ,thomson1 ,james1 #e ,thought1 contemporary1 #aid2 scientific1 #abe1 #bce ,time1 sense of1 #aha ,toleration1 #gd-gg1 #abc ,totemism1 #afj ,towns1 rise of1 #ai1 #bcb ,tradesman's ,calling1 ,the1 #hf ,traditions1 religious1 #fa-fb1 #if1 #ig ,transubstantiation1 #eh ,trent1 ,council of1 #ad1 #ajj-aja ,trinity1 #gj ,true ,law of ,free ,monarchy1 #gi 8,truth1 the10 #abi ,unam sanctam1 #ha ,unbelief1 #c-bj1 #bh1 #bbh1 #bbi1 #cbf ,understanding1 #aha-ahc1 #aia1 #bjf1 #cba1 #cbi ,uneasiness1 modern1 #ad ,united ,states1 #bec-bed1 #bgb1 #bgd1 #bgf1 #bgg-bgh ,universe1 #h1 #abh1 #abi1 #ade ,usury1 #hd1 #he1 #hf1 #hg ,utopia1 #aea ,valerian1 #ih-ii ,values1 transvaluation of1 #af1 #aha ,versailles1 ,court of1 #ie ,vicegerent of ,god1 #gb ,victoria1 ,queen1 #aee1 #cjb ,view of life1 traditional1 #aji ,villers1 #afb ,virgin ,mary1 #if1 #ii1 #aae1 #adi ,virtue1 #aff1 #aib1 #bba-bbe1 #bbf-bbg1 #bbh-bbi1 #cbj1 #cbi2 conception of1 #bbf1 #cah1 #cai1 #cbd ,voltaire1 #af1 #aig ,wallas1 ,graham1 #bdj ,walter ,reed ,hospital1 #bbc ,walwayn1 ,thomas1 #adi ,war1 abolition of1 #bcb ,watt1 ,james1 #bcd1 #bcf ,wealth of ,nations1 #bdb ,wells1 ,h4 ,g41 #bcc-bcd ,west1 ,lady ,alice1 #adh-adi ,whitehead1 ,alfred ,north1 #be-bg1 #abc-abd1 #aie1 #bcf1 #cbe ,wilenski1 ,r4 ,h41 #ajd1 #aaa ,will1 human1 #aie ,will of ,god1 #aj1 #aie ,will to believe1 #be1 #ec ,wisdom1 #ahe-ahf1 #aih-aii1 #bja1 #bbf-bbh1 #bbi1 #bdd1 #cbj1 #cbd ,woman1 economic independence of1 #ic ,women1 chastity of1 #bhf-bhh1 #bia ,wordsworth1 #e1 #ah1 #ahj ,world1 character of1 #ahf ,world's ,christian ,fundamentalist ,association1 #cj1 #ca ,world ,war1 #ag1 #bec1 #bgb-bgc ,wyclif1 #cg1 #gc ,wynne1 ,father1 #adf ,yahveh1 #ee1 #bad4 ,see also ,jehovah4