Ideas and Men: The Story of Western Thought

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3deas and Men

PRENTICE-HALL HISTORY SERIES Donald

C.

McKay, Editor

Harvard University

I

D E A

S

(i^

M

E N

•

The Story of

WESTERN THOUGHT

Crane Brinton MCLEAN PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT & MODERN HISTORY HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Prentice-Hall. Inc.

englewood

cliffs, n.

j.

Copyright, 1950, by

PRENTICE-HALL, INC. Englewood

Cliffs,

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

MAY

BOOK

BE

N.

J.

NO PART OF

REPRODUCED

IN

THIS

ANY

FORM, BY MIMEOGRAPH OR ANY OTHER

MEANS, WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING

FROM THE PUBLISHERS.

First printing

/""f, 1950

Second printing

September, 1950

Third printing

February, 795/

Fourth printing

hdy, 1951

Fifth

printing

October, 1952

Sixth

printing

September, 195J

Seventh

printing

Eighth printing

Ninth

May, 1954 November, 7955

printing

Tenth printing

June, 1957

November, ig^g

Eleventh printing

March, i960

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

44923-C

To

My

Wife

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I

wish

thank the following publishers for permission to quote

to

from copyright works: Appleton-Century-Crofts, avelli,

The

Prince, translated

Inc., for permission to

quote from Machi-

and edited by Thomas G. Bergin, copyright

1947.

Benziger Brothers,

Inc.,

New

York, N. Y., for permission

to

quote

for permission to quote

from

from the Complete American Edition of the

George Routledge & Sons, London, F. A. Wright,

A

Summa

Theologica.

History of Later Greef( Literature page 169. ,

Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., for permission to quote from the Loeb Classical Library edition of Diogenes Laertius, translated by R. D. Hicks.

Longmans, Green & Company,

New

York, for permission

to quote

from The Bacchae of Euripides translated by Gilbert Murray.

The Macmillan Company,

for permission to quote

from Oscar Levy,

Cotnplele Worlds of Frederic Nietzsche.

Oxford University

Press, for permission to quote from the Social

Contract (Galaxy Edition of the World's Classics), and from Thucydides,

Peloponnesian War, edited by Sir R.

W.

Livingston (World's Classics).

Crane Brinton

Contents

1.

INTRODUCTION The Limits The Role of

2.

3.

of Intellectual History

....

17

22

THE HELLENIC FOUNTAINHEAD

29

Greek Formal Thought

36

The

55

Classical

Culture

THE CRISIS OF GREEK CULTURE Deep Did

Greek Religion

The

the Classical Culture as a

Crisis of the

66

Go?

69

Measure of Culture

Fourth Century

73 87

,

ONE world: the LATER CLASSICAL CULTURE

95

The Jewish Element The Hellenistic Element The Roman Element 5.

11

Patterns of Intellectual History

How

4.

7

Ideas

Contemporary Importance

Some

3

of Intellectual History

97 108

122

THE DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIANITY The Growth

•

•

•

•

of Early Christianity

135

Christian Belief

The Reasons for the Triumph The Christian Way of Life

134

154 of Christianity

157

162 vii

CONTENTS 6.

THE MIDDLE AGES~ The

Institutions of

175

I

Medieval Culture

177

Medieval Theology and Philosophy Medieval Theories of 7.

8.

Human

THE MIDDLE AGES ~

183

200

Relations

II

.

220

An

241

Evaluation of Medieval Culture

MAKING THE MODERN WORLD:

HUMANISM

256

The Terms The Range of Humanism The Nature of Humanism The Political Attitudes of Humanism

"Renaissance" and "Reformation"

9.

10.

259 261

268

285

MAKING THE MODERN WORLD: PROTESTANTISM

298

The Nature of Protestantism The Protestant Spectrum

316

MAKING THE MODERN WORLD: RATIONALISM

334

Natural Science

336

309

Philosophy Political

Making 11.

348

Ideas

the

Modern World

354

—A Summary

362

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: A NEW

COSMOLOGY

36^

The Agents of Enlightenment The Faith of the Enlightened The Program of the Enlightenment The Enlightenment and the Christian 12.

214

Medieval Culture

369 376

Tradition

....

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: THE DEVELOPED COSMOLOGY Adjustments and Amendments in the

The viii

Victorian

Compromise

New

Cosmology

388

399

409 .

.

410 426

CONTENTS 13.

14.

is:.

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: ATTACKS FROM LEFT AND RIGHT

447

Attacks from the Right

453

Attacks from the Left

474

Summary

489

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: THE ANTIINTELLECTUAL ATTACK Anti-Intellectualism: A Definition

491

Contemporary Anti-IntellectuaHsm

507

503

MID-TWENTIETH CENTURY: SOME UNFINISHED BUSINESS

A

Brief

Our

5^7

Summary

Present

530

Discontents

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY

536 •

»

.

•

^

IX

55I

3deas and

Mm

Introduction

Ihis

is

book about the

a

held and

still

men

ideas

Western

in our

hold on the Big Questions

—cosmological

which ask whether the universe makes sense capacity to

sense, ask

and ugly. The

—that

is,

what we

total of

what kind

really

must omit

—

human

and

ethical

and

vastly

The

art, literature,

Any

millions of volumes.

fills

more than

it

do

figure

is

and

in

some

account of them,

can possibly include.

for guiding the historian of

what we may

attitudes, for

tography of ideas.

to

bad, by beautiful

recorded answers to these and similar questions

There are many possible schemes these ideas

have

questions,

terms of

of sense;

mean by good and

most of our Western philosophy,

senses, natural science

therefore,

so,

if

in

which ask whether what we do and what we want

questions,

make

comprehend, and

tradition

call figuratively

the car-

more apt than such analogies often

nor the cartographer can ever reproduce

are, for neither the historian

the reality they are trying to

communicate

to the reader of

books or

of maps; they can but give a plan, a series of indications, of this reality.

There are contrasting schemes of details.

You may have

named, every a

map

in

hill,

a

for choosing

map

in

brook, crossroads,

which many

details are

from enormous numbers

which every feature that can be is

crowded

in; or

you may have

omitted in the effort to show the

reader the lay of the land, the shape of the

mountain systems, the

— INTRODUCTION relations of drainage, relief,

communications, and so on.

are useful, depending on the needs of the user.

book

history of ideas, this

scheme. land;

it

It

will try to

Both kinds

mapping the

In

will definitely attempt to follow the second

show the

and

lay of the cultural

intellectual

omit many famous names, and perhaps even a few land-

will

marks, in an

make

effort to

women in the West human destiny.

have

felt

clear

what

large groups of

men and

about the answers to the great questions

of

There

is,

however, another important, contrasting

for guiding the intellectual historian.

This

may

set of

schemes

be put as the contrast

between picking out the ideas and attitudes the historian thinks are right, or true,

and

setting forth a fair selection of ideas

and

attitudes for

own judgment upon.

The first, translated into educational terms, is based on the principle "To teach is to affirm"; the second is based on the principle "To teach is to put the reader to exercise his

In the real world, these two are by no means mutually

problems."

The most dogmatic approach

exclusive.

means

—at

least in the

that the learner repeats by rote exactly

and the most

tentative

own

—hardly reads;

and open-minded approach hardly means that

no one takes anything on ideas in his

West

what he hears or

authority, that everybody

works out

private world. Both poles are as bleak

inhabited as the poles of this earth.

his

and

own

as un-

Nevertheless, this book will try

to keep to the hemisphere of the second pole, to the principle that the

individual should do a great deal of his that, to

history it.

But

own

thinking and choosing

use Alfred North Whitehead's expressive phrase, intellectual

an "adventure of ideas" for anyone

is

all

who

will

embark on

adventure implies uncertainty.

These two choices

—for the broad lines instead of the

details,

and

for independent thinking instead of absorbing "correct" information

and

interpretation

States that

—are in accord with a growing feeling in the United

we have

about them too

This feeling whatever name

in the past absorbed too

many

facts

and thought

little.

it

general education

movement

for general education,

by

may be called. Like most such movements, that may well go too far. Folk wisdom recognizes

the

is

clear in the

for

SCOPE AND PURPOSE The "baby"

danger of throwing the baby out with the bath.

sound

command

wants

to

throw

of the necessary facts

On

out.

is

good

of

one that no sensible person

the whole, however, our culture

admirably

is

organized to permit the rapid and accurate accumulation of and ready access to the facts necessary to useful thinking about a given problem. Libraries, encyclopedias, textbooks that are really reference books, all

abound.

The "baby" no

of sound generalizations, or theories,

sensible person

wants

But there

out.

is

is

one that

also

a difficulty here,

which generalizations are sound and which are

that of determining not. In fields

throw

to

such as natural science, there exists a core of theories

that are known by all competent persons and must be accepted by all who work in the field. This, as we shall shortly see, is simply not so in the fields of theology, philosophy, literature,

plain that fields

we

more or

men

of education

and

taste

are not just asking ourselves

less strongly, that

Now

something

in a democratic society

and

is,

ought

where

art,

differ widely.

what

else

it is

the society has a part to play in the

do

but rather

is

minism or freedom

an

this process, indeed, the

all feel,

member

of

give those

is,

(The

is.

problem of whether

—that the old question will— are good examples of the

illusion

of the

we

complex process by which ought

is,

or not the process

is

to be.

believed that each

—that men's want', and the communicable forms they wants— slowly, imperfectly, unpredictably perhaps, alters problems encountered in

it

For in these

of deterinsoluble

but persistent and by no means unimportant problems that have vexed the

Western mind

vidual

must

exercise his

does not, they in a

way he

ately;

it

for millennia.)

may

judgment on questions

means mental

The word

"exercise"

as well as physical effort.

decisions, trying to

was chosen

he

deliber-

But mental

effort

solve problems not decided

advance, trying to balance and choose tions.

like this, for if

be answered by authoritarian enemies of democracy

will not like.

means making

In a democratic society, the indi-

among

in

conflicting generaliza-

This book should give the serious reader ample opportunity

for such exercise. It is

not a book designed primarily to impart information, not a

— INTRODUCTION book

that will help the reader to shine in quiz programs.

one of the great

a history of any

scholarship,

literature,

science,

not

It is

disciplines, theology, philosophy,

A

art.

these fields would be no more than a

book that covered

brief

names and

of

list

all

few more

a

or less appropriate labels, like the "ethereal Shelley" and the "sweet-

More

%'oiced Keats."

phy;

it

is

especially, this

book

philosopher fully and in the round. that part of

a

philosopher's

opinion of the intellectual

no

not a history of philoso-

classes.

substitute, for those

makes

It

work

It is,

who wish

it

treats

no

an effort to deal with

went

that

to use

into

the cUmate of

Mr. D. C. Somervell's

than a history of thought.

distinction, rather a history of opinion is

is

not written by a professional philosopher and

undergo such

to

It

discipline, for a

thorough study of the history of formal philosophy.

One

final

approach to it

word

many

The

of explanation.

serious reader

may

of these problems the reverse of serious,

light, undignified.

This

is

a genuine difficulty.

It

find our

may

seems

find

to the

many of the grand questions about the beautiful and the good have commonly been approached, especially among Englishspeaking peoples, with so much reverence that ought has been diswriter that

astrously confused with

and many of them ideals

are.

and our actions

is.

Americans

like to think they are idealists,

But foreigners often accuse us of keeping our in separate

but their position has a base in

compartments.

fact.

We

They

are unfair,

tend as a people to revere

much that we are likely to fall into the error of thinking that once we have got the ideas on paper, once we have verbal acceptance of a goal as virtuous, then we have attained the certain abstract ideas so

goal.

Witness

Woodrow

Wilson's career from the announcement

of the Fourteen Points to the completion of the Treaty of Versailles.

Witness the Eighteenth Amendment. at

In this book an attempt

a clinician's attitude toward these matters, an attitude that

working over

a

to understand

what we

good deal of the

work among

real

petty

and the undignified

are really dealing with

living

human

beings.

It

when we

In no sense does

it

made

in order

study ideas at

an attitude not of

is

irreverence, but of nonreverence while the clinical

is

demands

work

involve a denial of the existence

is

being done.

—and desirability

LIMITS OF INTELLECTUAL HISTORY and the good, any more than the

of the beautiful

attitude of the

medical clinician involves a denial of the existence and the desirability of the healthy

and the

sane.

The Limits The is

study

field of

of Intellectual History

known

as intellectual history or history of ideas

not a clear-cut and simple one.

Under some such

labels there

can

be found a wide range of actual subject matter, from the writings of very abstract philosophers to expressions of popular superstition like

triskaidekaphobia,

which

number

Intellectual historians

thirteen.

the philosopher job,

however,

in simpler language

philosophers, the intellectuals, the thinners,

It

from such history

between the ideas of the

and the

actual

of liv-

carry the tasf{s of civilization.

old, established disciplines as the history of philosophy, the

of science, is

and the

history

of

interested in ideas wherever

The

literature.

he finds them,

prejudices; but

he

is

intellectual

wild ideas

in

and in

as well as in sensible ideas, in refined speculation

common

interested in these products of men's

activity as they influence,

He

way

a job that should chiefly differentiate intellectual history

is

historian

who

Their main

in the street.

to try to find the relations

ing of the millions

excessive fear of the

have dealt with the ideas of

and with those of the man

is

is

and

are influenced by, men's

whole

mental

existence.

will not, then, deal solely with abstract ideas that breed

abstract ideas; political theory

known

as the social contract as

a bit of legal reasoning.

But he

as these ideas filter into the

work out

is

write or say

who

complex

it

social

contract

were

The

meant

intellectual historian

set of relations

men and to

is

hundred years

He

finds

of our

it

it.

men

very easy,

Western

and analyze what the few have written and

those

trying to

between what a few

actually do.

just

abstract ideas

held that their rulers had violated

and what many men

at least for the last twenty-five

to discover

most

heads and hearts of ordinary

a difficult task.

a very

though

will treat even the

w^omen; he will explain what the eighteenth-century rebels

This

more

he will not deal, for instance, with that very abstract

said.

society,

That

INTRODUCTION record

is

not perfect, but

until the printing press

is

it

Greece and Rome, thanks

extraordinarily good, even for ancient

to the labors of generations of scholars.

But,

and popular education gave the historian in

newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets, and the like a record of what ordinary

men

thought and

felt,

the rest of the intellectual historian's

The historian can describe pretty clearly how and outside Germany regarded Adolf Germany all sorts of people in Hitler; he can never know just how the common, unheard millions of was very

task

difficult.

There

people in the Graeco-Roman world regarded Julius Caesar.

were no Gallup magazines.

polls in those days,

Nevertheless,

ideas in terms of

an

still

more

effort to piece together

he

if

is

no

letters to the editor,

not to limit himself to analyzing

ideas, the intellectual historian

from

no popular

must make

some notion

scattered sources

of

how

work among the crowd. There is, indeed, some justification for limiting intellectual history to what the late J. H. Robinson called the "intellectual classes." Professor Baumer of Yale has defined the intellectual class as "not only

ideas got to

and original thinkers,

the comparatively small group of really profound

only

not

the

philosophers,

professional

scientists,

scholars in general, but also creative literary

and the

popularizers,

seem

theologians

men and

intelligent reading public."

In a way,

and writings of

was there anything

and

intellectuals;

definition seems a bit too narrow.

Not

the

would

reading public.

like a

yet

Professor

human

Baumer 's

until the eighteenth century

Moreover, quite unintellec-

tual, even, in a scholarly, bookish, verbal sense, quite

uninteUigent,

beings do entertain ideas about right and wrong, have purposes

and

that can be,

are, stated

in

of the intellectual classes of intellectual history; or

what

this

book

is

is if

worth writing, but it

is,

is

not the whole

concerned with.

men and women

purely

it

some other name must be found

Sources for the study of the ideas ordinary

moved by all sorts and sentiments. The history

words, and are

of beliefs, creeds, superstitions, traditions,

less

it

sensible that intellectual history should be confined to the doings,

sayings,

for

and

artists,

intellectual,

are, in fact,

less

(in

many.

the broadest sense)

Literature

is

of

obviously

highbrow, than formal philosophy or

LIMITS OF INTELLECTUAL HISTORY What

science.

has survived from the days before printing

From Greek, Roman,

highbrow.

relatively

sance times

we have more

and

the equivalent of the tabloids,

less of

Bernard Shaw and Still,

we have

philosophy.

less

We

medieval, and even Renais-

of the equivalent of

The

more

New

Yor\^

Orphan Annie.

obviously nearer to earth than

is

can check on the philosopher Socrates as he appeared

to his disciple Plato

by reading Aristophanes' Clouds, in which a

We

popular and successful playwright makes fun of Socrates.

men and women,

medieval

see

not only as the theologians

men

philosophers described them, but as

them

described

The left in

what we

— that

sponding

to

man call

is,

what

has, indeed, left

Of

literature.

the

what the

we have

if

we

intellectual historian

how men and women

social historians

women

ate,

^but also

the

feel patronizing,

we

historians, focusing

man

A

great deal

must draw on has been amassed by

who have of

set

classes

all

themselves the task of actually lived.

to earn a living, but also in

and wrong,

Many

next.

—

have often been interested, not only in what

and wore, and did

believed to be right

and the

not only the

elements corre-

intellectual

called philosophy

is

and even what,

specialists called social historians,

finding

Chaucer

than those

traces other

the superstitions of ancient and medieval men.

call

in

what they hoped

social historians

These

men and

what they

for in this

world

became, in a sense, intellectual

on what went on in the heart and head of the

in the street.

The an

many

religions

more obviously

in secular matters

rituals, the daily practices,

of

of the world like

can

and

in his Canterbury Tales.

ordinary

theologies

Times

of the equivalent of

of the equivalent of Little

a great deal that

of course,

is,

full task of the intellectual historian, then, is to

intelligible

whole materials ranging from

cepts to concrete acts of close to

men.

At one end

being a philosopher, or at

at the other

end he comes

least

of his spectrum, he

is

close to being a social historian, or just a

to bring the

their often tortuous

comes

a historian of philosophy, and

plain historian, concerned with the daily lives of his special task

gather into

abstract philosophic con-

two ends

human

beings.

But

together, to follow ideas in

path from study or laboratory to the market, the

INTRODUCTION club, the table,

home, the

and the

legislative

chamber, the law court, the conference

battlefield.

may

In carrying out this ambitious task, the intellectual historian find himself invading

This

scholars.

is

another

still

field of

the vague, all-embracing field traditionally

The

as the philosophy of history.

philosopher of history

knowledge of what has happened

his

A

mysteries of man*s fate.

and

all

tions: life?

study long cultivated by

in the past to unlock

is

all

use the

complete philosophy of history (like any

philosophies) seeks to give final answers to

What What

known

tries to

all

the Big Ques-

How

can human beings lead the good human beings will be able to lead In short, where are we, and where are we going? chapter, we shall try to see how it comes about that in the

good

life?

are the prospects that

the good life?

In a later

mid-twentieth century some of the most popular philosophical

this

systems are in fact philosophies of history, and that names like

Toynbee are known wherever high

Spengler, Sorokin, and

For the present we need only note that the

matters are discussed. intellectual historian,

intellectual

though he may well be tempted

temptation to do himself to the in

He

so.

will

more modest but

work more still

profitably

on the

to put

mantle of the prophet and philosopher of history, ought to

resist the

he confines

if

arduous task of tracing the ways

which the answers men have given

to the

Big Questions

—Life,

God—^have apparendy aflected their conduct. if he is a normal human being he will —have

Destiny,; Right, Truth,

He may— and his

own

indeed

answers to some, at

least,

true to the traditions of science for the historian of today,

from

as they

he will do his best to keep

affecting his report of other men's answers.

later chapters

method and havior.

have more to say about

objectivity

Here

it

and

should be

interpreted in this

book

is

But

of the Big Questions.

and scholarship

this

his

own we

Again,

whole matter of

their relation to the study of

sufficient to

if

he

is

have matured answers shall in scientific

human

be-

note that intellectual history as

not offered as an answer to

all

the problems

modern men, but rather as a help toward putting some of problems more clearly, and, perhaps, toward indicating what

that beset

those

consequences are likely to follow upon various attempts to solve them.

lO

THE ROLE OF IDEAS Indeed, the reader should be warned that the task of tracing the

work

ideas have

done and

still

do among the great masses of human

beings in Western society can be but imperfectly done.

It

not

is

merely that the historical sources before modern times are lacking or turned

competent

assemble;

to

difficult

to this

do not yet understand gists, sociologists,

all,

There

hearts, just

and philosophers,

how

men who have

in contrast

among

men

human

working

human

Above

There

that there

is

to

is

no universally accepted

set of

definitions of these terms.

There remain,

of Ideas

few bothersome questions of methods,

therefore, a

we can

intellectual heritage at

begin the study of our

major Greek and Hebraic sources

its

how ideas work in this world, men say and what men actually

intellectual historian will try to see

will study the relation

do:

men's minds

behavior some such components as the

perhaps even of philosophy, before

Western

in

to inaction.

no means complete agreement

The Role

The

—or

behavior by reason, logic, ideas,

and the nonrational, but there

effective

what goes on

to action

of psycholo-

with emotion, sentiment, drives, urges.

a by

be found in concrete rational

work

long studied these problems are by no means agreed

knowledge,

such

just

moved

they are

We

a graver difficulty.

is

sufficiently well, despite the

concerning the part played in

is

is

problem, can over the next few generations do something

to supplement our lack of materials.

and

once their attention

specialists,

What

chat ideas

between what

does he

mean by

do work

in this

sophical questions, about fact alone

should

make

it

ideas

and what does he mean by saying

Now

world?

these are themselves philo-

which men debate without agreeing.

This

clear that these are not questions that can

be answered as any American boy could answer such questions

What

does the automotive engineer

does he

mean when he

mean by

carburetor

as:

and what

.f*

says a carburetor does work-f*

Ideas are clearly different

mistake of thinking they are in our lives, or that they are

from

carburetors, but

less real

do not make the

than carburetors,

less

mere words and not important

important

at all.

11

We

INTRODUCTION broad sense indeed as almost any

shall here take "ideas" in a very

human mind expressed in by a man who hits his finger

coherent example of the workings of the

Thus, the word "ouch'' uttered

words.

hammer

with a

my an

is

finger with a

A further

idea.

hammer," begins as

"My

probably not an idea

hammer"

is

statement,

"My

ciated with

punishing

my

to

what we

me

for

my

"I hit

I

hit

with a

it

Statements such

ideas.

hammer blow

finger hurts because the

which carried

finger hurts because

more complicated

to involve

His statement

at all.

a very simple proposition, and therefore

affected certain nerves

central nervous system a kind of stimulus assocall

pain" and

"My

sins" are both very

us into two important realms of

human

finger hurts because

God

is

complex propositions, taking

thought, the scientific and the

theological.

Now

the classification of

what we commonly several disciplines,

call

all

the kinds of ideas that go to

knowledge

among them

is

make up

in itself the major task of

logic, epistemology,

and semantics.

And then there follows the task of deciding what knowledge is true, or how far given knowledge is true, and many other tasks that we cannot here undertake. In our own day, the study of semantics, the ways in which words get interpreted

analysis of the complicated

among human

they are used in communication

widespread

make

interest.

For our present purposes,

a basic distinction between

tive

and noncumulative.

call

commonly

Cumulatit/e knowledge

and physics

Mediterranean, our

will be sufficient to

of knowledge, cumula-

best exemplified

is

natural science, or just science.

the study of astronomy eastern

two kinds

it

as

beings, has aroused

by the knowledge we

From

the beginnings of

several thousand years ago in the

astronomical

and physical

have

ideas

accumulated, have gradually built up into the astronomy and physics

we

The

study in school and college.

been regular, but on the whole

it

or theories of the very beginning are of the ancient Greek Archimedes

process of building

has been steady.

on

still

12

false.

The

result

is

up has not of the ideas

held true, such as the ideas

specific gravity,

others have been added to the original stock.

carded as

Some

but many,

Many have

many

been

dis-

a discipline, a science, with a solid

and

THE ROLE OF IDEAS knowledge and a growing

universally accepted core of accumulated

new knowledge. Dispute— and

outer edge of as

much

This core

ing outer edge, not in the core.

New whole

scientists dispute quite

do philosophers and private persons

as

knowledge can, of

core,

—centers on this grow-

all scientists

course, be reflected back

and cause what may not unfairly be

Thus quantum mechanics and

in the science.

accept as true.

through the

called a "revolution"

relativity theories

have

been reflected back into the core of Newtonian physics. Nonctimulative knowledge can here be illustrated best from the

Men

field of literature.

certain ideas, about ful

and ugly

were writing

things. in

of letters

men, about

make

right

certain propositions, entertain

and wrong

action,

about beauti-

Over two thousand years ago, men of

Greek on these matters;

at the

letters

same time others were

writing in Greek about the movements of the stars or about the

But our contemporary men of

displacement of solids in water.

are today writing about the very letters

wrote about, in

much

certain increase in knowledge.

the

same things

the

same way and with no

Our men

of science,

letters

Greek men of clear

and

on the other hand,

have about astronomy and physics far more knowledge, far more ideas

and

propositions, than the Greeks had.

To

put the matter most simply:

A

Greek

Aristophanes, a Greek philosopher like Plato, to earth in the mid-twentieth century

no knowledge a

of letters like

miraculously brought

and given speech with us (but

since his death) could quite soon talk about literature or

philosophy with a G. B.

home;

if

man

Greek

Shaw

scientist like

or a John Etewey,

Archimedes

in the

and

feel quite at

same position would,

even though he were a genius, need to spend a good

many

days grind-

ing over elementary and advanced textbooks of physics and acquiring

enough mathematics before he could begin physicist like

American

Bohr or

college

Einstein.

student

is

To

put

to talk shop with a it

another way:

A

modern modern

not wiser than one of the sages of

no better taste than an artist of antiquity, but he knows more physics than the greatest Greek scientist ever knew. He knows more facts about literature and philosophy than the wisest antiquity, has

a lot

Greek of 400

b.c.

could know; but in physics he not only

knows more 13

INTRODUCTION

—he understands the relations between

facts

and the

facts, that is,

the theories

laws.

This distinction between cumulative and noncumulative knowl-

edge

useful

is

Such a

distinction.

useful,

and

and obvious, which

is

about

distinction does not

that art, literature,

one need expect from a

all

mean

that science

is

and philosophy are bad and

good and but

useless,

merely that in respect to the attribute of cumulativeness they are

Many people do take this distinction as a statement that art is somehow inferior to science, and are offended by it to the point of rejecting any truth or usefulness the distinction may have. This is a common habit of men, and one the intellectual historian must reckon different.

with.

Perhaps

it is

merely that in the

last three

has accumulated very rapidly, while

have accumulated slowly for several thousand

may

in

some

hundred years science and philosophy

literature,

art,

senses be wiser than the great

years.

Our

men

of old;

great

and the

may be

average wisdom, or good sense, of American citizens

men

greater

But these matters are very hard

than that of Athenian citizens.

to

measure, very hard to get agreement on; and the cumulative character of scientific

knowledge

well-nigh indisputable.

is

The most

hopeful defender of progress in art and philosophy would hardly

maintain as a formula: Shakespeare

is

Newton

to Sophocles as

is

to

Archimedes.

The

foregoing necessarily oversimplifies the distinction between

cumulative and noncumulative knowledge. of

Western thinkers,

as for

many

thinkers today, that part of

knowledge not subsumed under "science" the tag "noncumulative." called the social sciences

feeble

given

of the facts. to

activity.

14

Thus

have in their

interrelations of

own

human

facts,

than

human

justice

by

right, not just as rather

accumulated body of

beings.

This knowledge

but also of valid interpretations

economists, in the century and a half from

Lord Keynes, have come It

less

can be argued that what are commonly

an accumulation not merely of

Smith

is

imitations of the natural sciences, an

knowledge '^bout the is

It

Notably, for generations

to

Adam

understand more about economic

can be argued that philosophers, though they

still

face

some

THE ROLE OF IDEAS of the questions that faced Plato

improved

their

and

Aristotle,

cision the questions they ask themselves.

may

have over the centuries

-methods of analysis, and have refined into greater pre-

say that all

we

learn

from

history

Finally,

though the cynic

we

never learn from

that

is

most of us would hold that over the centuries Western

history,

men

wisdom and good taste that was not available widely such wisdom and taste are spread in our

have, built up a body of

How

to the Greeks.

society is another question.

Indeed, for both cumulative and noncumulative knowledge the

problem of dissemination, the problem of correcting public thinking,

is

at least as

important

as,

common

errors in

and in a democratic society

perhaps more important than, the problem of getting the experts to agree.

This should be evident, save

most determined scorners

to the

Of

of economic thought, in a field like economics.

Even

So do the doctors.

mists disagree.

medicine has a very high prestige

among

easy to educate the public to the point

in

course the econo-

modern America, where by no means

all classes, it is

where

it

will act intelligently in

In economic matters, the public remains even in mid-

medical matters.

twentieth century largely

make

unable to

use

the

of

amount

of

accumulated knowledge the experts possess, or we should not be attempting

to restore

something

balanced international world

like a

trade while retaining a high general level,

and often very high par-

ticular levels, of protective tariffs.

The

intellectual historian clearly

must concern himself with both

cumulative and noncumulative knowledge, and must do his best to distinguish one kind of relations,

and

knowledge from another,

to study their effect

knowledge are important, and each does

We thus come in this

world ?

to the

of

human

desire

and

its

We

this earth.

do ideas work

take into account the fact that often

—expressions

effort.

How

mutual

Both kinds of

own work on

second of our questions:

Any answer must

ideas are really ideals

to trace their

on human behavior.

of hopes

and

aspirations,

say, for instance, that "all

men

created equal," or, with the poet Keats,

"Beauty

is

truth, truth beauty,"

Yc know on

earth,

and

all

—that

ye need to

is

goals

all

know. 15

are

INTRODUCTION What

mean?

can statements like these

you

If

weight and a lighter weight will drop through the

you can drop them from

rates,

though

not,

we now know, from

But you cannot possibly

and

the Leaning

and should agree

nesses can also see,

saw.

a height

Tower

have checked what they

after they

human

very sure that after argument on such propositions, a

human

makes

is,

knowledge,

scientific

random sample

we

truth or falsehood;

cumulative

is

Hence,

meaning, and, above

test,

as stated earlier,

cumulative knowledge

is

all,

of

no

its

called non-

some have concluded

use, is not really

has no real effect on

the world really

upon

to agree

nor capable of producing such

people often fancy themselves as hard-boiled

who know what

men

and the kind of knowledge we have

not subject to such a

an agreement.

have called cumula-

subject to the kind of test that

is

possible for all sane, properly trained

it

equality or

beings will not in fact agree about them.

In a general way, the kind of knowledge tive, that

this,

Wit-

of Pisa.

and beauty in any such fashion, and you can be

the identity of truth

of

air at different

Galileo did

see.

the assertion of

test

heavy

assert that a

is like.

that non-

knowledge, has no

human

These

behavior.

realists, as sensible

They

people

are actually very mis-

taken people, as narrow-minded as the most innocent of the

idealists

they condemn.

For, at the very

least,

a proposition like "all

equal" means that somebody wants spects.

In the form

"all

men ought

we

call

an

be frankly what

ideal.

all

to

men

men

are created

to be equal in

some

re-

be equal" the proposition would

This confusion of "ought" and

"is"

turns out for the intellectual historian to be another of the abiding habits of

men

thinking.

Moreover, he will realize that "ought" and

"is" influence

one another mutually, are parts of a whole process, not

independent,

and not

Indeed, he will real,

—at

know

not often

"is," supplies

The gap

idealists

who deny

consistently act in logical

"is,"

nor by

realists

gap between ideal and

one of the main

who deny

(rational)

professed ideals; here the realist scores.

i6

contradictory.

interests of

has never been closed, certainly not by

do not

the

—mutually

that the effort to close the

between "ought" and

intellectual history.

least

But

the "ought."

Men

accordance with then their professed ideals

IMPORTANCE OF INTELLECTUAL HISTORY are not meaningless,

and thinking about

no

ineffective activity that has

push

appetites,

Today

men

effect

we have

we

are perhaps

more

moment we

though throughout

no important

history there are

their opponents,

other changes,

dream

The

live,

No

let

No

alone which

came

first,

makes an

spark,

which comes

and no human

society,

of Intellectual History

study of intellectual history

issues of

many forms

our day.

of education

is

important in our

especially

it

something

weapons

and propaganda.

like this: Science

that can destroy the

It

The

human

of preventing the next war.

is

by

sometimes put

race in the next war.

We

all

columnists like to

and technology have made

and moral wisdom, on the other hand, seem not

way

on one of

This issue has been put before us

temperately, sometimes quite hysterically.

put

no

history.

time, for such study should contribute to clearer thinking

main

in-

first.

no working motor; without both

Contemporary Importance

the

internal-

the gasoline or the

(or appetites, or drives, or material factors)

working human

The

no important

automotive engineer would

in their relations in society, nor

interests

human

need debate whether ideas or

intellectual historian

move men and

I

facts unrelated to ideas,

logically pointless.

is

Without BOTH gasoline and ideas

for the

debate, a favorite one between Marxists

of debating whether the gasoline or the spark

spark.

But

whether economic changes are more basic than

combustion engine run, terests

Again, the study o£

ideals.

can content ourselves with the observation that in

ideas unrelated to facts.

and

many

been lured by

be led

liable to

ought to help us understand why.

intellectual history

and

silly

Ideals, as well as

their lives.

astray by the realist's than by the idealist's error,

our history

not a

is

into action; here the idealist scores.

United States

in the

on

ideals

to

possible Political

have devised any

must, they say, find a

way

to

bring our political and moral wisdom (hitherto noncumulative, or at best very slowly cumulative) scientific

and

its

application

knowledge (rapidly cumulative) and

nology, and

we must

find

it

up its

to a level

with our

application in tech-

quickly, so that there will be no next war.

17

INTRODUCTION The matter can be What we have

put in the

within the

terms

less excited

called cumulative

used.

we have

knowledge

already

has, especially

human beings to attain an nonhuman environment. Not only

three centuries, enabled

last

extraordinary mastery over their

do men manipulate inorganic matter, but they can do a great deal to

They can breed animals for maximum use many microorganisms, and have proadvanced countries far beyond what seemed

shape living organisms.

They can

of mankind.

longed

human

possible only a

life

in

control

few generations ago.

But men have not

yet

won comparable triumphs

in the control

human environment at the highest levels of conscious human Knowledge of why men want certain things, of why they will kill other men to get those things, of how their desires can be changed or satisfied, of much of the whole range of human behavior, of the

behavior.

seems to belong rather to noncumulative than

Now

edge.

this

to

knowledge,

noncumulative

cumulative knowl-

whether

philosophy,

theology, practical wisdom, or plain horse sense, has never yet been sufficient to preserve

peace on earth,

human relations. human behavior, say

we

Unless

evil in

of

alone to banish

all

kinds of

get another kind of knowledge

the alarmists, cumulative

sort the physicist or biologist has,

that our civilization,

let

we

knowledge

shall get affairs in

and possibly even the human

of the

such a mess

race, will

be de-

Can

the so-

stroyed.

In short, one of the great problems of our day called social sciences enable

man

to control his

is this:

human environment

to

anything like the extent the natural sciences have enabled him to control his is

An

nonhuman environment?

intellectual historian today

almost bound to focus his work on this problem, and to concentrate

way men

primarily on the

lems of

human

relations.

in the past

He

have dealt with the basic prob-

will write, in a sense, a history of tho

social sciences.

Intellectual history will not, itself

Those problems all,

it

should be noted very

clearly, in

give the answers to the problems that are worrying us

and

in

will be

ways

answered only by the

all

today.

collective effort of us

that the wisest philosopher or scientist

—even

the

IMPORTANCE OF INTELLECTUAL HISTORY wisest columnist

—cannot

predict.

If

the social sciences follow the

course the natural sciences have taken, the qnswers to the great prob-

lems will be given by the kind of people

we

geniuses; but the

call

geniuses will be able to get their answers only because of the

work of thousands of workers in research and in more important, the answers can be translated into

patient

Still

life.

full,

practical effective

democratic society only

if

the citizens of that society

have some basic understanding of what

is

going on.

social action in a

engaged

work on problems

in active

whose main work

lies

of

human

Both for those

relations

and

for those

in other fields, the study of intellectual history

can be useful.

For those engaged

directly in the field of

have behaved in the past later chapter that the

is

human

relations, either

knowledge of how men

as social scientists or as practical workers, a

We

of major importance.

shall see in

problem of the uses and limitations of

a

historical

study has been a much-debated topic at certain stages of our Western civilization.

There have always been individuals

to

whom

ot history seems unprofitable, even vicious, a limitation bilities

of soaring that the

might have.

human

spirit

not dragged

is

at the very least a

we have

edge

called cumulative

And

certainly the

—natural science—

is

possi-

history

civilization has

kind of extension

of individual experience, and therefore of value to the

gence that makes use of experience.

on the

down by

But the general verdict of our Western

been that a knowledge of history

the study

human

intelli-

kind of knowl-

committed to the

view that valid generalizations must depend on wide experience, cluding what

is

commonly

called

Thus, the

history.

historical

in-

or

genetic sciences, such as historical geology or paleontology, are as essential as analytical sciences like chemistry in the

natural sciences.

History

History should, in tion

if

quite as essential in the social sciences.

supplement

the social sciences are to advance.

done in the past blind

is

fact,

alleys.

is

field

The

essential to save us today

UNESCO,

achievement of the

work and experimentarecord of what

men have

from wasting our time

in

the United Nations Educational, Scientific,

and Cultural Organization,

is

engaged on a vast co-operative study of

the tensions that threaten to break out into violent conflict.

None 19

of

INTRODUCTION these tensions can be understood without tories

—their case

raw material

data, the to

an understanding of

some

attention to their his-

History thus provides some of the essential

histories.

and

of facts, the record of trial

human

But more important

behavior today.

knowledge of

history,

and espe-

can have for those of us

who do

the

the use a

is

cially of intellectual history,

important tasks of our civilization that do not

knowledge of the

error, necessary

social sciences, or for creative

call

work

many

for specialized

them.

in

One

can imagine a society in which a few experts manage the masses of

men

skillfully

New

and

efficiently;

World has imagined

indeed, Mr. Aldous

just

Huxley

in his Brat/e

such a society, and Mr. B. F. Skinner

has devised a most ingenious one in his Walden Two.

It is

an ideal

this

product

that often tempts the engineering temperament.

But

of "cultural engineering" would not be a democratic

society,

were

it

attainable,

which

is

our national traditions could not possibly bring themselves for

it.

We

committed

are

and

decisions.

The

decisions

to

work

to the democratic, widespread, voluntary

solutions of our problems, to solutions arrived at by free

discussion

and, even

most doubtful, Americans brought up in

made by some form

scientists, the creative

and extensive

of counting individual

minority, will of course initiate

solutions; but solutions will not be attained until

we

all

understand

them and put them into practice because we understand, approve, and want them ourselves. Here again we can get light from what has happened in the natural

sciences.

Pathologists,

immunologists, practicing physicians

have done the creative work that has diseases,

but stamped out certain

all

typhoid and diphtheria for instance.

But

in our society this

great progress in public health has been possible only because the great

majority of the people have in the

last

standing, however imperfect, of the

wished to eradicate gently, for the

Some

most

disease,

few decades had some under-

germ

theory of disease, have

and have collaborated

part, in the

work

freely

and

intelli-

of the experts.

progress in the eradication of such diseases as typhoid and

diphtheria has indeed been

made by

experts

working with an ignorant

population, a population holding ideas about disease quite different

20

— IMPORTANCE OF INTELLECTUAL HISTORY from those we hold. But

improved.

because the experts could not really share their knowl-

less secure, just

edge with

and

its

few paragraphs

and

a problem,

man make at the

know

still

in the mind among human beings one of the many important

from the idea

widespread working out

the subject of the last

problems we

is

put their prescriptions across-

tricks to

process of successful innovation,

of the genius to

is

bur had to use authority, prestige,

the rest of the populations,

persuasion,

The

Even in India and Africa public health has been improvement has been slower than with us, and

this

—

is

We

relatively little about.

Emerson,

"if

a

a better mouse-trap, the world will beat a path to his door,"

very least misleading.

paths, or perhaps

no

patn.

and then the

profession,

relatively simple.

public,

how

But

There

will be a confusing criss-cross of

Vaccination had

first to

Note

that here, even

the general agreement

win the medical

though on the whole

about the ideas

among

its

Museum

the experts, there

to the

is

the

Krem-

nowhere near

is

on the truth and value of Marx's

was

course

What

Marx had?

tortuous set of paths that led from the British lin?

can be sure there

that the catchy phrase attributed to

ideas that holds

for vaccination. If

social

our experts do find ways of curing, or at as war, depressions,

ills

and

crime,

ways

those

all

the long tale of

is

And

if

not very great,

the kind of ideas about rely

on

evil,

—why

then,

it

is

in our

least palliating,

inflation,

own

such

delinquency,

they will not succeed in

effective unless the rest of us

they are about. sciences

unemployment,

making

have some knowledge of what

time the progress of the social

if we have to rely on the kind of leaders and human beings that our predecessors had to still

more important

that

all

citizens of a

democratic society should have some knowledge of intellectual history. If

the experts

sense,

it

is

History, like

formation of a

fail

all

forms of experience,

common

worker of miracles.

want

—

we have to fall back on common common sense be really common.

us in our time and

important that that sense. It If

is

is

a

most useful guide in the

a guide, not an infallible Leader, not

you want miracles

you must look elsewhere than

—certainly

a very

human

to history. Clio is a very limited

goddess.

21

INTRODUCTION Some

Patterns of Intellectual History

we

In this mid-twentieth century plete a record of

possess in printed

what human beings have

form

and done

said

so

com-

in the past,

both original records and the comments of successive generations of

and

historians

no one person could ever read everything

critics, that

One

pertaining to any considerable part of the '•ecord.

we

be sufficient to read every word

This

ings.

The

is

must pick and choose from

Writers and readers of

problem we must

the important

sort out

all

immense body

this

commonplace, but none the

critical

would not

possess written by the ancient

Greeks and every word written about them. history alike

life

less

face

how we

is

of writ-

important. choose,

how we

from the unimportant, how we know the

when we run up against it. A full answer to such questions would demand a whole book on the methodology of the historian; here we can only attempt to justify in broad lines the choices exercised in this book. But first we may examine some other possible important

choices that have been rejected.

A

plausible principle of choice,

nowadays,

is

what

reject

is

to

choose what

and one very popular

in

The former

said to be "dead."

is

and

held to be important,

the latter of no interest save to the pedant and the speciaUst.

we

America

said to be "living" for us today

is

Hence,

are told, let us by all odds have the "living thought" of Plato, but

not the part of his thought that was applicable only to the Greeks of his

own The

day. difficulty lies in

a context.

men." to

Now

know

in this sense

it

scientist

how

field like his,

may be argued is

is clearly

And human

is.

a part of full

is

all

the physicist needs

still

accepted as true.

the history of science; he

can be made,

sound innovation

Physics, however,

that

the part that

much from

can learn

easily mistakes

no ivory tower, but

living in such

"accepted as true by the great majority of

about Greek physics

Yet even the can learn

knowing what you mean by

You may mean

how

difficult,

even in a

he can learn that science

is

life.

an example of cumulative knowledge.

22

^

SOME PATTERNS OF INTELLECTUAL HISTORY Plato was not a physicist, but a philosopher, whose

problems of right living and wrong

main concern was

living, the existence of

God, the

immortality of the soul, the relations between permanence and change,

and many more of the knowledge, about which

and

alive today,

sort. it is

and what

by no means easy

who

think

nonsense, with

all

it

many

alive today

what

is

seem

is

true

a fact of experience

what Plato himself wrote range from

who

think

it

all

variants Jaetween these extremes.

what

talk about choosing only

mean by

to

alive

what

Take, for instance, a

strange.

what

to decide

It is

sublime wisdom to those

Sometimes those who is

and dead.

is false

that twentieth-century readers of

those

These are matters of noncumulative

is

familiar,

classic

Antigone of Sophocles. The play deals with the

of the past

and by dead

Greek tragedy, the Antigone

efforts of

to

secure the proper funeral rites for the corpse of her brother Polyneices,

who

has been slain in rebellion against Creon, lawful ruler of Thebes.

Creon, holding that the fate of Polyneices must be held up as an

example of what happens burial,

burial for her brother,

Now

and lawbreakers, refuses proper

to rebels

and when Antigone makes

a pathetic attempt to

condemns her

own

ritual

to death.

human

the universality, the applicability to

selves, of the struggle

perform

between Antigone and Creon

beings like ouris

clear

enough.

sense of right

and wrong against the commands

of the legal system she lives under.

There are those who maintain,

Antigone

sets

her

however, that what

stirs

her sense of right and

—

of her brother's corpse

is

wrong

—the treatment

so strange, almost so trivial, to

modern

Americans that they miss the whole point of the drama unless they are carefully told

what

According

it is.

masterpiece of Sophocles can only be clear that

ing in

Antigone was

really a

to these critics

made

and

teachers, the

alive for us if

made

it is

kind of Thoreau or Gandhi, indulg-

"civil disobedience."

Of

course she was not these, but a Greek maiden of the great age

of Greece, alien to us.

History

moved profoundly by

Now

what

is

alien in

human

notions of

—even intellectual history—

Antigone is

above

is

all

us out of the narrow and limited range of our

dignity in part

most important useful because

own

lives,

to us.

it

takes

and makes 23

INTRODUCTION experience has been, how complicated "human nature" is, how much men are alike and predictable, how much unlike and unpredictable. If we take the familiar, the things we find least difficult to accept

how wide human

US aware of

what we

as

carelessly label

human,

we

our principle of choice in the welter of historical

as

any study of the

shall vastly lessen the value of

knowledge of men and

knowledge of

physics,

women truly and simply we could keep the living

dead parts of the record of the

past.

women

we

is

not cumulative, and

tant

Some

and unimportant.

good a sampling

choice, as

any closed system of

reject the

men and

cannot exercise sensibly any simple

A

But

choice.

impor-

invalid,

it

who

should be a wide

and not a choice determined by

as possible,

ideas.

and

parts

But our knowledge of

choice there must be, and everyone

makes a

writes or reads history

cumulative, like our

and dead, valid and

principle of choice between alive

facts,

Were our

past.

history of democratic thought should

not pass over antidemocratic thought. another principle of choice, in Intellectual history at

Still

might be

to take the figures the general

today has marked out as

and

opinion of cultivated people

and outline

as clearly

Now

worth doing, and has been well done.

this

is

what we mean

in this

writers,

what they wrote.

as succinctly as possible

book by

and

the great thinkers

classics, as

least,

It is not,

intellectual history.

however,

rather the

It is

history of philosophy, or the history of literature, or the history of

What we mean by

political theory.

more and

intellectual history

in the fields of noncumulative knowledge. to find

how

the great,

felt

something

is

than a record of the achievements of the great minds

less

quite ordinary

It is

men and women,

and thought and

acted;

it is

more

in that

it

seeks

not the geniuses, not

less in that it

cannot, with-

out reaching interminable lengths, analyze thoroughly the formal

thought of the great and near-great thinkers as analyzed

professionally,

philosophy, in Plato's

the

art,

and

technically,

thought in and of

Greek way

of

life,

how

in

far

it

the

how

rejects that

men

standard

thought

manuals

far that

way

of

thought

life,

how

is

of

part of

far

in later societies; in short,

is

much

are not here interested so

itself as in

accepted by ordinary educated

24

We

literature.

this

it

we

was are

SOME PATTERNS OF INTELLECTUAL HISTORY what men have made of

interested less in Plato-in-himself than in Plato, or Kant, or Nietzsche,

Finally

— and this among

of choosing

them with

arranges

the thorniest problem of

is

some propositions

propositions his City of

—about men

God

fell

is

the kind

and

way

—often very

All historians do,

as to lead the reader to

big and very philosophical

their destiny are true.

St.

Augustine in

used the facts of history as he collected them to prove

God

because

his history of the

Roman

had not weakened the

that Christianity

Empire

—there

a view to proving something.

in fact, arrange their materials in such a

believe that

all

almost infinite details of the past which

the

United States used his selected

Americans are the

real

our Manifest Destiny

Empire, that the

George Bancroft

punishes the wicked.

facts to

show

that

in

we

chosen people of a truly democratic God, that

is

to lead the

world

The

to better living.

nine-

teenth-century English philosopher Herbert Spencer found that history clearly

showed men progressing from warlike competitive

societies to

peaceful, collaborating, industrial societies.

History

still,

is

and may always remain, a part of noncumulative

Some

rather than of cumulative knowledge. its

ways of deciding

reliability of evidence,

But sooner or

cumulative.

of

its

are indeed scientific or

later the historian

comes up against the

problem of what his evidence means in terms of hates,

hopes and fears; sooner or

decides about itself

later

good and bad, brings

research methods,

human

loves

and

he makes judgments of value,

in purpose.

does none of these things, but confines

Science as science

itself to

estaWishing uni-

formities or laws at bottom descriptive, not normative.

This book has a pattern of values, a

thesis,

an explanation of the

human events, which should come out definitely enough for those who pursue it to the end. Here, briefly, too briefly for clarity, we may anticipate and say that this book will try to show that in the

course of

course of the build

last

two thousand years Western

up very high standards of the good

that in the last three

hundred

intellectuals

life

years, especially

and

have helped

rational conduct;

through the doctrines of

progress and democracy, the notion has been widespread that every-

body here and

now on

this earth can, or

ought

to,

live

up

to these

25

INTRODUCTION Standards and be "happy"; that the two world wars of our day and their attendant evils, the

ment, seem

good democratic

many

likely to

much

Great Depression, and

the postponement of this

life,

else

not

if

have made

its

abandon-

thoughtful people; that the most plausible

explanation of the comparative failure of the ideals of democracy and progress

the overestimation their holders

lies in

made

of the reason-

powers of analytical thought, of the average

ableness, the

man

today;

that therefore all interested in man's fate should study with great care

the

way men

actually behave, the relation

their acts, their

words and

between

and

their ideals

their deeds; finally, that this relation

not

is

the simple, direct, causal relation most of us were brought up to believe

it is.

Throughout one that

is

this

today It is a

relations.

book, there runs a very great problem indeed,

much

in the

minds

problem that you

intellectual history,

among

concerned with

.of all

will find very early in

the Greeks of the fifth century

human

Western b.c.

It is

a problem implicit in our distinction between cumulative and non-

cumulative knowledge.

knowledge, can false,

tell

Let

us in

it

many

be granted that science, cumulative concrete cases

what

even what will "work" and what will not.

knowledge

that will

tell

us what

good and what

is

Or

a science, a knowledge, of norms?

are

value-judgments (we cannot here go into

what

all

true

is

and what

there any reliable

Is

is bad.''

Is there

are usually called

the depths a rigorous

treatment of these terms would demand) incapable, at bottom, of being rated by the instrument of thought

Now

.f*

clearly in matters of right

Western men have not

and wrong, beautiful and

in fact attained the

have attained in matters of natural science.

ugly.

kind of agreement they

But there

is

a very strong

current indeed in the Western tradition that refuses to accept the thesis,

which has cropped up every now and then in Western history

from the

sophists to the logical positivists, that there

ing about men's morals and

tastes,

is

no use reason-

about their wants.

In spite of

popular sayings like "there's no use disputing about tastes" and sertions like

26

"might makes

right,"

Western men

as-

reject the belief that

SOME PATTERNS OF INTELLECTUAL HISTORY values are the

This rejection

mere random outcome is

In this book

in itself a

we

major

human

of conflicting

desires.

fact.

shall attempt, not to

dodge

this great

the existence of a normative knowledge of values, but

question of

to stimulate the

own thinking on this question. The writer must own thinking he has gone rather far toward the value-judgments cannot for Western men be given a order save by the intervention of a human activity comMen can and do believe that Bach is a better faith.

reader to do his

confess that in his position that solid

ranking

monly

called

composer than Offenbach

as firmly as they believe that

They can think about

higher than Mt. Washington.

Mt. Everest

is

the Bach-Offen-

bach relationship and their judgment on that relationship; they can

communicate much of what they think {and

feel)

about that relation-

ship to their fellows; they can even persuade their fellows to accept their

own

views of that relationship.

We cannot here

do more than touch the surface of the question of

normative judgments. in judging the relation

same

Clearly one does not use the

criteria

between the music of Bach and the music of

Offenbach that one uses in judging the relation between the height of

Mt. Everest and the height of Mt. Washington. problem, most of us would go authority, rather than try to

to a

To

decide the latter

good reference book and accept

measure the mountains ourselves.

its

Such

use of an appeal to authority in a question of fact (in a sense, of "sci-

ence")

is

often pounced

judgments in

upon by defenders

ethics, aesthetics,

accept the authority of, say, the

God. There ity in

the

really

two

is,

and other

instances.

Any

they will find

up by proving

who

then urge

we

the existence of

properly trained person can go through all

measurement of the two mountains. the reasoning by

fields,

Church concerning

however, a difference between the use of author-

the steps, accepted as valid by

for the existence of

of the validity of normative

God.

geographers, that ended in the

Such an operation

is

impossible

Properly trained persons can indeed follow

which theologians prove the existence of God; but

many conflicting reasonings, God does not exist.

including some that end

that

Properly trained persons can also follow the reasoning by which

27

INTRODUCTION a musical

shows that the music of Bach

critic

Offenbach.

Here he

from authority music

is

—that

He

much more

will find the

argument

the most competent judges agree that Bach's

better than Offenbach's.

edging into the

enough, but

will find differences

agreement than on the existence of God.

better than that of

is

field of ethics, to

He

show

will find

complex arguments,

Bach was

that

a

more

elevated

musician than Offenbach, that he wrote music more exacting and

more

He

satisfying by aesthetic standards.

explanations based

and happily, he

on the mathematics and physics of music. Bach writes

man may

Reason

is

light

serious

music very well, and

well enjoy both in their proper places.

means

thus by no

do much; above

Finally,

will find the explanation that

music very well, and that Offenbach writes that a

will find very technical

all it

helpless in

can persuade

problems of value.

men and

teach

men.

But

It it

can can-

not achieve the impossible task of eliminating what to the pure rationalist is the perverseness of

some

irreducible point

personahty of his own.

with

he

is

men—each

man's conviction that beyond

not like other men, that he has a will, a

That

will, at

some

point,

faith, "the evidence of things not seen."

28

must

bolster itself

—

The Hellenic Fountainhead

/here have survived writings very roughly

from 750

range of thinking

in classic, or ancient, Greek, dating

1000

a.d.,

men have done

in

which cover almost the whole the fields of noncumulative

Greek philosophers, Greek observers of human nature,

knowledge.

Greek

b.c. to

Greek men of

historians,

or other almost

all

letters

have expressed in some form

the kinds of intellectual

and emotional experience

Western men have recognized and named. treme statement, and

is

beauty, wisdom, and in

achievement in these

You Greeks

can

many

senses, originality of

what we

something very close

call

all

say,

Among

the

almost any

to the novel.

medieval or modern

—being

spirit

field.

In Uterature, the

Especially in epic, lyric,

and dra-

standards never yet surpassed

set

In philosophy, their schools put

never yet equaled.

the Big Questions

mind and body,

ex-

the genres, including, toward the end,

matic poetry and in history they

some would

may seem an

fields.

test this assertion in

tried all of

This

not of course a denial of the force, weight,

and becoming, the one and the many, and gave all the big answers.

—

and matter

Greek philosophers were

idealists, materialists, rationalists,

monists, pluralists, skeptics, cynics, relativists, absolutists.

Their paint-

ing has not survived physically; the decHne in most phases of civilization that followed the

great that

men

breakup of the Graeco-Roman world was so

could not, at any rate did not, take care of these paint-

«9

THE HELLENIC FOUNTAINHEAD some doubt whether Greek painting was

ings.

There

art as

Greek sculpture and Greek

is

the greatness of these latter,

often in imperfect condition,

architecture; there

is

as great

an

no doubt

of

which have managed to survive, though from the very solidity of their materials.

Finally, in science or cumulative

knowledge the Greeks, building

in

and Mesopotamia, carried

to

part on earlier achievements in Egypt

high development the theoretical side of mathematics and astronomy

and did

creditably in physics

and

In political and economic

ing.

in medicine; the

Romans, building

on Greek achievements, attained high standards

in part

These people, in

plexity.

short,

life,

in engineer-

this culture attained great

were

Indeed, so great was the prestige acquired by this classical zation that

was not

it

until nearly 1700 a.d., in

and thinkers came come somewhere near

to

the old Greeks

—in

short, as civilized

civili-

France and in England,

wonder whether

that writers

couldn't

artists, scientists

com-

fully "civilized."

they, the

and Romans

human

moderns,

as writers,

The

beings.

prestige

of the "classical" in this sense has now, however, almost disappeared in mid-twentieth-century America.

have

lost

In formal education, the

even the rear-guard actions.

Greek

is

classicists

no longer taught

secondary schools, and Latin survives as hardly more

in

than a genteel

formality.

Although many educated Americans are wholly ignorant of an achievement that once meant so much to all educated men, the Greek achievement remains an ture.

It

is

essential part of the capital stock of

by no means mere pedantry, nor even mere

custom, that has sent our psychologists, after so

men

of letters, back to Greece.

have named

their

their manias,

in fact

it

If

our culscientific

many humanists and

from Greek sources the psychologists their narcissism, their phobias and

Oedipus complex,

is

because the so-called mythology of the Greeks

an amazingly rich treasury of

realistic,

and

sense of the word, imaginative, observations on

in the

human

is

unromantic

behavior, on

human aspirations, on that never-to-be-exhausted commonplace, human nature. Compared with Greek mythology, Norse or Celtic mythology is simply thin, poverty-stricken, naive about human nature. We cannot know ourselves well if we know the Greeks not at all. 30

— RANGE OF GREEK THOUGHT Moreover, the Graeco-Roman experiment in civilization was in some senses completed;

it

like a full cycle,

to winter;

it

from youth

to

has a beginning and an ending.

Finally, in this civilization

But

in

its

was matured the Christian

growth and organization

Graeco-Roman world

the

active

We cannot

life.

us,

age and death, from spring

in the last

was an

it

few centuries of

religion.

Greek

Christianity clearly has Jewish origins largely outside ences.

remind

exhibits, as philosophers of history all

something

influ-

integral part of

that civilization's

understand Christianity today unless

we

under-

stand Christianity then.

The

origins of the Greeks are unrecorded in history, but are

clearly reflected in

remains.

Greek legend and mythology and

It is clear that

in archaeological

the Greek-speaking peoples were outsiders,

Northerners from the Danube basin or even further north, and lated

by language

at least to the

In various waves, of which the

Germans, the

ings almost in historic time, at the beginning of the before Christ, these Greeks

—or

and the

Celts,

the Doric, finished

latest,

first

its

Slavs.

wander-

millennium

Hellenes, as they called themselves

came down on an

earlier native culture

we now

certainly Hellenes

and Minoans mixed

their

call

Minoan.

Almost

genes and their cultures,

with the Hellenes the dominant group, and with the usual falling of cultural standards that accompanies the conquest of

by

less civilized peoples.

we this

can

tell

from

For the Minoans had a high

their architectural

more

civilized

From

dark age the Greeks emerged clearly by the eighth century artists,

Athens and

the classical culture of Greece. Attica,

had

its

—the

size of a

institutions,

In the polls

was bred

surrounding

territory,

in the fifth century b.c, the century of

population of at most 200,000

b.c,

perhaps even think'

and already organized in the most famous of Greek

the polls, or self-governing, sovereign city-state.

ofl

civilization, as

and sculptural remains.

already traders as well as fighters, already ers,

re-

its

greatness, a

modest American

city

today.

The thousand

years of the classical civilization of the Mediter-

ranean offer something see a

kind of

trial

we cannot

afford to turn

run of ideas that are

still

down—a

chance to

part of our daily living.

31

— THE HELLENIC FOUNTAINHEAD we

perhaps

we do more

behave as

because of what a great

erations of our ancestors did as prehistoric

Mediterranean culture;

human

many

gen-

than because of what

few generations of our ancestors did

the relatively classical

men

bodies,

members

as

from

liver

of this

to brain,

were twenty-five hundred years ago substantially what they are

Many

day. needs, of,

to-

of our habits of mind, our sentiments, our psychological

were no doubt formed long before the Greeks were ever heard

but history can

tell

us

little

of these, intellectual history least of

all.

Indeed, Western intellectual history in a great measure begins with the Greeks, for they

were the

The Greeks have

novel way.

first

left

to use the

the

first

mind

in a striking

record in our Western society of the kind of thinking

we

no good, unambiguous word

call it objective

Now even the

for this

let

There

us simply

reasoning.

the Greeks were by no first

kind of thinking;

do a

all

great deal of (sometimes rather against the grain) in our lives. is

and

permanent and extensive

means the

first

people to think, nor

to think scientifically: Egyptian surveyors

stargazers used mathematics,

and therefore thought

and Chaldean

scientifically.

But

the Greeks first reasoned about the whole range of human experience. The Greeks even reasoned about how they should behave. Perhaps every human being tries to do what the Greeks did by reasoning that

is,

adjust himself to the strange, bewildering, sometimes hostile

universe that

is

clearly not himself, that

seems to run on most of the

time with no regard for him, that seems to have pose often at odds with

Kalmucks, and

we

really

Their

is,

his.

pur-

Probably Australian Bushmen, Iroquois,

other peoples reason about these matters, and

knew how

But the point our way.

all

will, strength,

their

some

if

minds worked we could understand them.

of the Greeks, as early as the great age, did

it

Their minds worked the way ours work.

own

primitive ancestors had not done

it

quite our way.

They had heard thunder, and seen lightning, and been frightened.

The thunder and

lightning were clearly not

they must be alive

—everything, for

they ultimately came

human, they

some primitive men,

to believe that a very

realized, but is

alive.

powerful being,

So

whom

they called the god Zeus, was hurling his monster bolts through the

3«

RANGE OF GREEK THOUGHT sky and causing

them

all

at other gods,

of course, hurling

A

Sometimes, they thought, he was hurling

the row.

sometimes

them

at

just displaying his anger, sometimes,

good Greek believed, or hoped, that

Zeus, the

whom

mortal men, if

god would not throw thunderbolts

the great days of

Athenian culture, the

he thus struck dead.

he showed proper respect for

man

at

For right into

him.

in the street believed in

Zeus and his thunderbolts.

Note

explained almost everything by the actions of gods, or

nymphs, or

giants, or the

some Greeks

—we

conclusion that the weather

itself.

But they did

believe, as

phenomenon,

natural

without any god's

to connect the simple instances of

had observed with anything

they

the

They became convinced, for instance, that They did not know much about electricity,

it.

enough

—came to

in the universe

or

But

where and when

just

a good deal went on

made

certainly not

spirits,

kind of supermen he called heroes.

do not know

doing anything about

He

Greek "explained" the thunderstorm.

that the early

as potent as

we might put

it,

magnetism

thunder and lightning.

that a thunderstorm

subject to a reasonable

and

scientific

was a

explana-

tion.

The

conflict

between the

newer, natural explanation Clouds, liberate

is

older, supernatural explanation

and the

recorded in a play of Aristophanes,

The

performed in 423 b.c. In spite of the burlesque and denonsense in which the playwright puts the scientific case, you first

can gather that some Athenians held the respectable meteorological theory that winds go

from high-pressure areas

—or to —shocked

Aristophanes was

tended to be

cater to the popular audience perhaps pre-

newfangled

at these

pression that the old Zeus theory absurdities he puts in the

the type of the

new

to low-pressure areas.

mouth

thinker,

and

ideas,

was sounder.

But

leaves the imin spite of the

of the philosopher Socrates, for

you can

see the

Greek mind

at

him

work,

trying to understand the weather.

This does not mean that the they were materialists.

and

Roman

alists.

Some

of

thinkers were to be

new

thinkers were antireligious, that

them were, and what we now

later

call

many Greek

complete ration-

But for the Greeks of the great era reasoning was a

tool,

33

an

THE HELLENIC FOUNTAINHEAD new

exciting

one, to be used on

experience of the divine.

human

all

experience, including

At most, one can

say that the early

human Greeks

used reason rather confidently and broadly, that they liked to spin out theories, that they were not very good at the kind of slow amass-

and

ing, observing,

testing of

Later Greeks amassed

men

It is

way

worth our while

problems confront us

problem of

we have

First,

to

bit further into this

At

at this stage

like

problem of the

two very old philosophical

least

—the problem of universals way

the

Greek mind worked."

Weren't there

just the millions

and millions of individual Greeks, each with a mind of

We

actual brain-case

have

shall

we come

to

for a while

was

this mysterious

to turn seriously to this

medieval Europe, where

among

and the

and unlike.

just written "the

But was there ever a Greek mind?

what

few

science;

than Aristotle.

facts

go a

science employs.

and

scholarship

in

facts

mind worked.

the Greek

related

many

amassed more

since have

modern

that

facts

intellectuals.

it

his

own?

In

"Greek mind" ever lodged?

problem of universals when held the center of the stage

Here we may note

that there are at

ways around the problem, ways of avoiding the conclusion that

least

there were as

many Greek minds

as there

were Greeks, and ways of

avoiding the conclusion (even more absurd to ordinary Americans)

was only one Greek mind, the

that there

essence, the pattern, of all

Greek thinking.

A

clue

lies

in that

worn phrase "with

of us, of course, likes to think

really think there are 100,000,000 adult

own?

mind

Each

own."

of his

we

But do

Americans with minds of

their

many millions of these minds filled most of the time much the same thoughts, thoughts made uniform by radio,

Aren't

with pretty press,

a

he has a mind of his own.

Hollywood, school, church,

minds?

There

—though

ately "different"

which share many

mind" or

the

ideas.

the agencies that

even these come together in

The

work on our

fact

is

little

groups

that phrases like the

"Greek

"American mind" are useful because they correspond

facts of ordinary experience.

34

all

are of course the rebels, the unorthodox, the deliber-

They can be abused by being made

to

too

RANGE OF GREEK THOUGHT simple, too unchanging, too

little

related to facts, but they are indis-

we moderns have

pensable at the stage of mental growth

Let us then grant that there

much

often very

way

the

minds

—the

more

alike than unlike?

solution

homo task

a

Greek mind, and

Egyptian mind, the Chinese mind, the

problem we have

logical

is

American mind works.

the

we may

We

among homo and

sapiens, there are both identities to try to describe both.

is

that the digestive system in that variations in

its

that

it

works

But are not

all

Bushman mind^

have here a special phase of the basic Again, as a working

just hastily considered.

suggest that

attained.

For

human

and groups

differences,

instance,

beings

sapiens,

it is is

and

of

that our

probably safe to say

much

pretty

the same,

functioning, though great and due to complex

causes, are rather individual than

group

Or, to put

differences.

other way, though you might sort humanity into

it

an-

two groups, those

with good digestions and those with bad digestions, individuals in each

two groups would hardly have anything

of the

These would therefore hardly be

and

torians

On

in

common.

groups of the kind

his-

sociologists study.

the other hand,

All

tion.

real groups,

else

human

human

beings vary greatly in skin pigmenta-

beings might, though the experimental data

would

be hard to obtain, be arranged in a kind of spectrum of color, each shading into the other, from very black to albino. tion

And yet the men —are of even

of great importance.

is

yellow men, the black

groups

Individual varia-

—the

white men, the

greater importance.

These

groups, or races, are not what the ignorant or prejudiced think they are,

but they are undeniably facts of

Perhaps an average Chinese,

life.

an average American, and an average African Negro

up

all

possible attributes

unlike.

But

likeness a

and

homo

activities of

in color of skin they are clearly unlike,

good deal of great importance

in

are, if

you add

more like than and on that un-

sapiens,

human

relations has been

based.

When we come is

to differences

certainly at least as

color.

group

complex a

and

likenesses in men's minds, there

set of

problems

as for differences of

Individual differences here are very great, and clearly cut across lines of nationality, class, color,

and the

like.

If

by "mind"

35

we

THE HELLENIC FOUNTAINHEAD mean what obvious.

means by

the physiologist

If

we mean

"brain," individual variation

is

the "group mind," there are real groups that

share ideas, sentiments, and mental habits different from the ideas, sentiments, and mental habits of other groups. if

one judges the products of mental

English, a passage

the

from Homer sounds

Hebrew Old Testament

Greek

different

true

is

in translation into

from a passage from

Boo\

or the Egyptian

statue does not look like

Certainly this

Even

activity.

an ancient Hindu

of the Dead. statue.

A

A

Greek

temple does not look like an American skyscraper.

Now when we

say that the Greeks

first

used objective reason in

a certain way, that the Greeks lived in an intellectual climate in

ways

and quite

like ours

from

different

Egypt, in Palestine, and in Mesopotamia, eralization of the kind that

possesses analytical

than

alike.

Of shall

like another, in

is

men

student of

can

Men

tell

USA.

activity

a

rough gen-

A

chemist

to define, weigh,

in

respects the

what two

All

and

respects a given

are unlike.

in general are

No

more unlike

compounds.

were ancient Greeks who did not reason

—we

There were ancient Greeks who by tem-

might have been

at least

Greek mental

you

you whether men

meet some of them.

in the present

what

tell

making

in such matters.

are just too complicated

course, there

perament

are

methods that enable him

measure with great exactness; he can

compound

we

must be made

many

that of their neighbors in

we can

was very

at

home

in Palestine or India, or

safely assert

great;

and

is

that the range of

that within that range there

seems to be a norm, a pattern, a most characteristic way of thinking,

which we have

called objective reasoning,

and which marks both

Greek formal thought (philosophy) and the wider general culture

we

think of as peculiarly Greek.

Greek Formal Thought

The Greeks were

too impatient, too ambitious, perhaps merely

too early in the history of Western thought, to content themselves with the slow, limited, science.

36

and always

They wanted answers

tentative use of reason to the

we

call

Big Questions that the

natural scientist

GREEK FORMAL THOUGHT How

has not yet answered, and probably never will answer:

What

universe begin? afterlife?

the

Is

more

We

may

Yet even in

real?

as rigorously

human

is

on

destiny

sense evidence an illusion?

and observed

this earth?

did the

Is there

an

change or permanence

Is

science, there are

Greeks

who

reasoned

modern scientists. Greek reasoning

as carefully as the best

well -begin a brief survey of the range of

two examples

in the great age with

of this sort of scientific think-

ing. First, there are writings attributed to

Hippocrates, a fifth-century

Hippocrates or his pupils have

left clinical

descriptions of

concrete individual illnesses which could stand today.

Not only has

physician.

he gone beyond the devil or medicine-man stage of thinking about disease, but

he has

gone beyond the next

also

and ambitious general

theories about disease

example, always

bleed a patient to relieve a fever, always give a physic. gets his facts straight, so that

and not confuse

crude

stage, that of

—for

He

simply

he can identify the disease next time

with diseases that show similar but not identical

it

symptoms. This

is

no simple

about disease, but that

He

ically.

equilibrium

task. little

knew he knew very little know carefully and systemat-

Hippocrates

he wished to

held that nature tends to re-establish in the patient the

we

call

health.

pecially medicines tied

He was

up with big

skeptical about medicines, es-

and disease. was "do no harm"; make

theories about health

Therefore, as a physician, his great axiom

the patient comfortable, and let nature get in of his contemporaries thought he

was rather

with the study of disease than with to be

admired

as the real

its

its

Some

healing work.

heartless,

more concerned

come

cure, but Hippocrates has

founder of medical science.

Even

today,

our physicians repeat the celebrated summary of the ethics of the profession, the

from a

"Hippocratic oath," though that oath

is

almost certainly

later period.

Second, there

ing history

Hippocrates, from cal report.

is

the historian Thucydides,

scientifically as

He

whom

tries to

he

who came

anyone has ever done.

may have

show what

as near writ-

Thucydides, like

learned, writes a kind of clini-

actually

went on during the great 37

THE HELLENIC FOUNTAINHEAD War

Peloponncsian

were roused

between Athens and Sparta, when men's passions

He

an almost pathological fury.

to

has no great theories

of

human

is

neither pro-Athenian nor pro-Spartan, though he

command

history,

and he does not hope

He

Athenian army.

in the

—

and wrong

order, quiet,

prejudices,

and the decencies of

He He

is

human

The

human

is

no

among

so that those

who

follow him.

ways.

was

But even for one

close to the

Questions

we have

it

literally,

Greeks,

later

love of

came

it

wisdom or to

love of

have a technical

has for us: the attempt to answer the Big

The Greeks asked all the Big Queshave made subtle variants on both

just noted.

and answered them

The

not, however, science, but philosophy.

Greek and means,

itself is

knowledge.

meaning

it

com-

preacher.

great field of learning the Greeks cleared for themselves in

these early centuries

tions,

But he

violence.

beings, and preserving

be wdser in

word

does have notions of pretty clearly prefers

observing and checking the records of a dramatic struggle

certain

may

like.

social life to rebellion, intense

and

petition, uncertainties, cruelties,

He

you

if

had earHer held

not interested in anecdotes,

is

scandal, or the romantic events of history.

right

He

to cure the evil of war.

all.

Men

questions and answers since the Greeks, but our contemporary philos-

ophers are

still

phy,

if it is

way

physics

some of

going over the ground the Greeks disputed.

at all a is;

their

cumulative knowledge,

philosophers are

own

positivists of

our

cipline lacks

ways of

on

—save perhaps for the logical

Philosophers

—do

physicists are agreed

not, of course,

testing the validity of

admit that their

its

conclusions.

dis-

Their

determining truth, they maintain, are simply different from

those of the scientist. just as logic

400

day

not cumulative in the

is

disputing over everything save

methods of thinking, whereas

the core of their discipline.

criteria of

still

Philoso-

Their discipline has improved, they maintain,

and mathematics have improved.

Though

the writings of most Greek philosophers

B.C. exist

only in fragments, odds and ends of quotations, and ac-

counts in surviving textbooks,

we know

widely by the time of Aristotle .and Plato.

that the

up

to

about

Greeks had ranged

Here we need only sample

from the range.

I

GREEK FORMAL THOUGHT An water or

human

had developed

early school, the lonians, thought everything

from some simpler matter, the original

One

air.

world, such as

stuff of the

of them, Anaximander, seems to have held that

This, of course, was a mere guess;

beings evolved from fishes.

the Ionian philosopher

had not anticipated Darwin by long and

ful biological studies.

Indeed, those hostile to the Greek philosophic

temperament would say he was a ideas but with

no way of

—a

is

single

to, is

all

This river you look

the only reality.

name

with

testing their validity.

Another Greek, Heraclitus, held that ing

man

typical philosopher

care-

things flow, that becomat,

he

said,

never for an instant the same river.

and give a Parmenides

held almost the polar opposite of this Heraclitan doctrine of flux; for

Parmenides, change

is

an

one great whole, perfect and

illusion, reality

indivisible.

Democritus, a pretty extreme materialist, believed that every-

man and man's mind

thing, including invisible,

and

indivisible particles

this is a philosophical theory,

Pythagoras, to the

who was

made up

he called atoms.

of tiny,

Again, note that

not an anticipation of modern physics.

mathematician, his

also a

is

name

forever attached

theorem that the square on the hypotenuse of a right-angled

triangle

is

sum

equal to the

a philosopher

He

or soul,

was

of the squares

definitely

on the other two

on the nonmaterialist, or

believed in immaterial souls

sides, as

spiritual, side.

and in some form of metempsychosis,

the transmigration of souls.

So fascinated were the Greeks with of reason that they pursued

purely logical puzzle. as the

mere brain

it is

hare, originally stated by

Why.?

newly exercised faculty

Zeno of the

Eleatic school.

start,

Because while Achilles

is

—and so

on

forever.

Agreed

as fast as the tortoise.

and Achilles

will never catch

going ten

have gone one foot; while Achilles goes the next a tenth of a foot

and crannies of the

—and of course readily shown up —was the problem of the tortoise and the

men, runs ten times

give the tortoise a ten-foot it.

this

into the nooks

Most famous

teaser

Achilles, swiftest of

it

They

that

But

up with

feet, the tortoise will

foot,

it

will

have gone

will always be separated

by a fraction of an inch.

39

THE HELLENIC FOUNTAINHEAD Or

there

is

the puzzle of the Liar, attributed to a certain Eubulides

Epimenides of Crete

of Megara.

Epimenides himself who says so therefore fore

.

.

what he

says

says "All Cretans are liars"; but

is

a Cretan, therefore he

not so; therefore Cretans are not

is

a liar;

is

liars; there-

and so on.

.

Even the puzzle makers, however, were doing something more than playing with a new tool. They had discovered that custom and

common

sense are sometimes misleading, that things are not always

what they seem,

that a reasonable or scientific explanation of phe-

nomena sometimes contradicts sense impressions. Zeno (one hopes) knew that in this real world Achilles would be past the tortoise in a flash. But he also knew that common-sense notions of space, time, and motion were clearly not the last word in these matters. A modern physicist

would

say that Zeno's researches into the relations of time

and space led up a blind

Nevertheless, they were explorations

alley.

unknown country, evidence of the restless, inquiring Greek mind. Nor was this intellectual activity pursued in cloistered detachment. The Greek philosophers of these early centuries were certainly what we now call intellectuals, but they appear to have mixed more

into

readily with their fellow citizens in the intellectuals of the

They by no means converted

modern world.

their fellow citizens into philosophers. ter that

many

of their religious

street far behind.

The

out clearly in the Socrates, a

as a

conflict

first

market place than have the

and

We

in the

we know much

about,

has stood for over two thousand years

symbol of philosophic inquiry.

was an Athenian

Socrates

citizen, a stonecutter

We

curable teacher and preacher by calling.

own

man

ethical ideas left the

between new ideas and old ways comes

of the philosophers

man whose name

all

shall see in the next chap-

—he was a talker, not a

writings

ings of

two

Xenophon.

had mixed citizens

writer

feelings

toward him.

The

He

trade,

—but chiefly

of his pupils, the philosopher Plato

His pupils loved him.

by

know him

rest of

an

in*

not by his

by the writ-

and the historian

Athens seems

to

have

used to buttonhole his fellow

and draw them into philosophical

discussion.

He

compared

himself to a gadfly, whose purpose was to sting his fellows out of

40

GREEK FORMAL THOUGHT their self-satisfied acceptance of conventional ways, their lazy indif-

For Socrates was a

ference to the evil in this world.

movement

intellectual

new

child of the

questioned convention, appearance, the

that

He was

accepted things, and sought for something better. moralist than a metaphysician, however,

and he put

his

rather a

main

chal-

lenge to the Babbitts of Athens on a moral basis.

The

had

basic notions Socrates

of right

those of most of the great moral codes,

He

and the Beatitudes.

The gods he and (the gods of stole,

what we today

call

him by

He

he had learned in his youth.

know

would follow

fall

is

The

evil.

good

was brought up on

Europa and many, many

"Do you

progeny.

citizen in the

life?"

market place

"Do you

"Certainly," he replies.

tales of Zeus's love for

others,

and he knows

believe then that Zeus

can readily badger him into a "yes," for

"Do you

has the poor man.

There

is

If

Zeus commits adultery he

if

Zeus

is

The Socratic

a god, he

He

it

it

this

after all

is

"Do does

Leda, Danae,

about their heroic

The

way, but Socrates

Zeus

is

believe that adultery

no way out of the

not

is

duly married

good?"

He

Socratic conclusion:

not good, and therefore not a god; or

good, and therefore does not commit adultery.

foregoing account

method, but

in Socrates.

seemed

is

all

He

committed adultery?"

harassed citizen does not quite like to put to the goddess Hera.

you

if

old traditions, the old

you believe that Zeus has had children by mortal women?"

—he

could

his conscience, not virtue," that

into conversation, asking innocently,

believe that Zeus leads the

indeed

cheated,

How

knowledge but ignorance.

might buttonhole an Athenian

and

in Athens,

lied,

his conscience, than these stories

you cannot do

lazy ways, he maintained, were not

Socrates

to believe in

man.

in a

maintained that "knowledge

the good,

Golden Rule

Socrates thought there were better things

inside himself, things told

really

the

"Greek mythology")

These actions were bad

they be good in a god?

He

among them

bottom

at

did not like lying, cheating, thieving, cruelty.

countrymen had been brought up

his

and did worse.

convention.

and wrong were

is,

no doubt, a simplification of the famous

does show what the Athenians were up against

disturbed them.

to conventional

He

doubted the old gods, and

Athenians to have invented

new

ones of his

41

THE HELLENIC FOUNTAINHEAD But they put up with him

own.

When

for a long time.

he was an

old man, Athens was in the midst of the letdown that followed her defeat by Sparta.

know really

Through some political intrigues that we do not was made a scapegoat and tried for what

in detail, Socrates

seemed

to his

opponents atheism, treasonous freedom of speech,

He was

corrupting the youth.

convicted, though by a close vote of

the jury, and, refusing to compromise by accepting

He

exile,

chose to

die.

was, of course, a martyr to the cause of freedom of speech, and

But before you condemn too

democracy and progress.

therefore of

wholeheartedly those

who condemned him,

ask yourself whether you

like gadflies.

Later Greek philosophers developed ones, refined them,

first

all

the implications of the

formed "schools" that pretty well cover But the broad

detail the philosophical spectrum.

in these early days of the fifth

lines are clear

and fourth centuries

in

even

b.c.

The American philosopher William James once made a famous rough-and-ready separation of philosophers into the "tender-minded"

and the "tough-minded."

may

divide

them

Or,

you find the distinction

if

and

into other-worldly

clearer,

understanding by "this world" the world of the senses and sense (perhaps also science),

common

and by "other world" everything not

evident to the unaided senses and

common

Like most such simple, two-parted

sense.

divisions, these divisions of the

sheep and the goats are not really satisfactory for close work. they provide a handy

duced in Plato as

you will

as

find.

first

you

this-worldly philosophers,

approximation.

The

early

But

Greeks pro-

good a specimen of the tender-minded philosopher

They produced

a

number

of less distinguished but

quite adequate specimens of the tough-minded philosopher.

And in man

perhaps their most famous philosopher, Aristotle, they produced a

who

We of

tried very shall

all

hard

to straddle, to be

have to analyze

briefly

both tough- and tender-minded.

and untechnically the

central position

three of these philosophic types.

Once more

the reader should be

warned

that

many, perhaps most,

professional philosophers question the validity of James's distinction

between the tough- and the tender-minded.

42

And

indeed the changing

— GREEK FORMAL THOUGHT terms in which some such polarity has been put alist, realist vs. idealist

—nominaUst

and the nineteenth centuries), empiricist

thirteenth

vs. re-

(the term "realist" changed sides between the rationalist

vs.

have by their very alterations in time

shown how philosophers have

sought to transcend or get around the

difficulty.

the difficulty of

making a

distinction remained.

ments on professional philosophers made

in this

But

to the outsider

Many

of the judg-

book are from the

point of view of the professional philosopher hopelessly wrong-headed,

judgments

for example, the

as,

Aristotle.

The

losophers

himself.

reader

who

fair

him

a

good

that

all

in agreement, even

Plato and

Nicomachean

Aristotle's start.

late

Alfred

Western philosophy since Plato

a series of footnotes to Plato's writings.

means

make on

should sample the phi-

importance in philosophy can be judged by the

North Whitehead's remark is

are about to

Republic and

Plato's

Ethics and Politics should give Plato's

we

wishes to be

The

footnotes are by

The problem

on what Plato meant.

further confused by the fact that Plato wrote dialogues in

which

no is

vari-

ous speakers present their points of view, agree, disagree, and pursue the search for truth according to the dialectical. is

method known

since then as

Plato himself does not appear as a speaker, although

it

usual to assume that, notably in the Republic and other dialogues of

Plato's maturity,

who admit

he

talks

that Plato

is

through the mouth of Socrates.

no mere

Even those

reporter, but an original thinker,

vary greatly in their interpretations; some

make him almost tough-

minded; others make him wholly tender-minded. For our purposes

as intellectual historians,

it

will

note that Plato's works are a rich mine in which

and

a detailed outline of Plato's metaphysics

and general thought.

But he

is

We

pole.

—that

sufficient to still

on the whole

that over the ages his influence has been

Western thought toward the other-worldly

be

men

is,

quarry, to

push

cannot attempt

of his most abstract

identified in metaphysics with a

most

important doctrine, one that will serve as an admirable sample of his

thought

tempt of

— the

to get

doctrine of Ideas.

The

doctrine

is

perhaps Plato's

at-

beyond the stark contrast between Heraclitus's doctrine

Change and Parmenides's doctrine

of Permanence, an attempt by

43

THE HELLENIC FOUNTAINHEAD Plato to reconcile the

One and

a difficult doctrine to

summarize

learned something of value

phy if

(a

good many

you find

—that

value

— that you are

ideal,

There

and not

less,

horses

on

are not so

meant)

;

and

you are not tender-minded, not other-worldly.

name

all

objects

we

learn through sense experi-

are merely imperfect, this-worldly approxi-

That

other-worldly objects ("ideas," "forms").

we

the particular horses

horse.

you have

wholly repugnant, you have also learned something of

it

ence to recognize and

all

if

not meant to study philoso-

men and women

intelligent

Plato maintained that

mations of

in untechnical language; but

It is

wholly incomprehensible, you

following exposition

the

find

Many, Being and Becoming.

the

is,

see are faulty copies of the ideal, heavenly

can, of course, be but one perfect horse, timeless, change-

to be seen or otherwise experienced, as are the imperfect

earth.

actual, horses

But there

and the

actual dimly reflects, in

have anything

a

is

its

between the imperfect, or It is

only because the

effort to resemble, the ideal that

knowledge

like

re^'iation

perfect, or ideal, horse.

at

Note we say

all.

we can

"actual,"

not

"real"; for to the idealist, the ideal is the real.

To some

minds,

this idealism is a

profound insight into some-

thing more real than the easy reality of touching, seeing, and feeling,

than even the somewhat more

To

thought.

made

other minds,

a valiant effort to

intellectuals in

his

it

make

difficult reality

is

nonsense

—

of organized scientific

puzzling nonsense.

Plato

his doctrine of ideas clear to ordinary

one of the most famous passages in

metaphor of the prisoners in the cave

human

writings,

in the Republic.

Imagine, says Plato, a group of prisoners chained immovably in a cave in such a position that their backs are toward the light that

pours in through the mouth of the cave.

They cannot

of light, nor the goings on in the outside world.

on the wall

reflections

in front of them.

reflections.

fondly think love,

and

What is

Only

they really its

the real world, the world

live in, is actually

we

know

dim, imperfect

the prisoners, ordinary people like you

and me,

eat, drink, sleep, strive,

only a shadow world.

prisoners should by chance be able to escape

44

All they see are the

What do

about the sunlight and the world outside?

see the source

and

Now

if

one of the

see the true

world

— GREEK FORMAL THOUGHT come back and

of God's sunshine, and then prisoners about

(whom

prisoners

He

about.

try

to

his fellow

tell

he would have a very hard time making his fellow

it,

he

can't

unchain) understand what he was talking

fact,

be like Plato trying to explain his doctrine

would, in

of ideas to his fellow countrymen.

Now

Plato himself was fully aware of a difficulty other-worldly

philosophers have always had trouble with. together in grammatical

municate

—for

form

to his fellows this

He

had

to use

words, put

com-

as language, in order to try to

knowledge,

this description, of true re-

him this other world was the only real world. But words are noises made in human throats, grammar an arrangement made in human central nervous systems. Both words and grammar are thorality

to

oughly stained with the sounds, is

impossible to use the

sights,

and smells of

word "horse" without such a

inventor's "idea" of his contraption

is

to the

this

world.

It

stain.

Even

the

tough-minded a

cojyjbina-

tion of this-worldly, already concrete, bits of experience of given data.

Now

"God"

is

the

word

that for

most ordinary human beings can

•come nearest to escaping these stains of the senses; and yet the great

modern monotheistic

—have

ism

God

ful to imagine

word

learned

though

it

religions

—Judaism,

Christianity,

Mohammedan-

always had to struggle against the tendency of the faithfor this tendency

is

anthropomorphism.)

seems pretty clear that Plato,

(The

awful person.

as a bearded, benign, yet

at least at

Moreover,

moments, went very

far indeed toward complete denial of the reality of the sense world «or,

in positive language,

toward a complete, mystic, self-annihilation

in the contemplation of the One, the Perfect, the

whole side of

his activity,

the problems of

this

and of

his writings,

world of the

senses.

As

is

Good

—another

wholly immersed

in

a matter of fact, even

in his metaphysics, Plato does not take consistently the position

one

might think from his famous allegory of the cave he should take that

an

is,

the position that this imperfect world of the senses

is

simply

illusion, that it just doesn't exist.

We

have, in fact, arrived at one of the Big Questions that has

tortured anind.

—really

It

may

tortured, in the case of sensitive

be put summarily in this way:

We

men— the human

—some

feel

of us,

45

THE HELLENIC FOUNTAINHEAD

—

rate, \now that there is one immutable perfect being, a perGod, wholly beyond the petty and imperfect beings who live and But how and why did that perfect God permit, or even create,

any

at

fect die.

How

imperfection? the

Unchanging

God

make

the leap

from

One

the

Changing, from Good

to the

chain up those prisoners in the cave in the

first

not

This

exist.

is

Or,

place?

answer we have noted above: This imperfect world

cal

Many, from

to the

to Evil?

why did One logi-

unreal, does

is

an answer rarely given in Western

intellectual

Generally the answer in the West has been a variant of a

history.

fundamental theme that may be stated as follows: The Perfect One could not attain the fullness, the plenitude, of perfection unless, paradoxically, this perfection could also cope

One

Perfect

with imperfection;

could not really be perfect in a universe wholly

hence out of perfection came imperfection, which must ever perfection.

or, this

There are grounds

metaphysically in

static;

strive for

for holding that Plato justified himselt

some such way

—certainly Platonists have so

justified

themselves.

But

at this point

we can

turn from Plato the metaphysician to

Plato the moralist and political thinker.

However

toward com-

far

plete denial of the reality of this world the interpretation of Plato's

metaphysics can be pursued, he was certainly the kind of

wants

He

to

have

was an

human

idealist,

man who

beings in this world behave in certain ways.

not only in pure metaphysics, but in a sense more

obvious to Americans, in the reforming, practical, worldly sense. too

we

have

shall

to treat

have continued to occupy the minds of thinking

hundred

Here

summarily ideas of great complexity that

men

for twenty-five

years.

Just as

interpreters vary

in

the degree of metaphysical other-

worldliness they assign to Plato, so they vary in the degree to which they

make him

a moral and political authoritarian

too misleading contemporary word, a totalitarian.

spectrum from defense of of

maximum

on the

side

Thomas 46

maximum

JefiFerson

liberty.

or, to use a

If

you

set

not

up

a

liberty of individuals to defense

authority over individuals, you

away from

—

would have

It is significant

and H. G. Wells disUked

to

put Plato

that libertarians like

Plato's political writings

GREEK FORMAL THOUGHT extremely.

most

It is

hard to read his best-known and generally considered

work, the Republic, and not place him very far

characteristic

along the spectrum toward absolute authority.

grew up

Plato in

an Athens

and her blame

and

had

that

allies.

It

young man

defects of

well as material, as

as

intellectuals to

Athenian democratic government

Moreover, Athens was in the midst of a

society.

good family

of

been badly beaten in a war against Sparta

just

was the fashion among Athenian

on the

this defeat

spiritual

a sensitive, intelligent

we

see

shall

in

series of crises,

the next chapter.

Plato clearly revolted against his environment, which he found vulgar,

In contrast with the imperfect Athens he

harsh, insufferable.

he describes in the Republic a perfect

ment

not a democratic

A

Of

state.

masses have no voice in

its

its

running.

three classes, the great

They produce;

smaller group, that of warriors,

for Plato's

life,

the best worldly embodi-

state,

of the idea of justice.

It is

belly.

knew

Utopian world was not

to

they are the

trained to the soldier's

is

be one of international

These warriors have courage; they are the

peace.

working

Finally a

heart.

very small group of guardians, brought up from infancy for the task,

guides the destiny of the

They

they are the head.

They culminate

to rule.

fit

and fit

common

intelligence; to rule,

not

people that

in a philosopher-king, the

fittest

all.

Plato's racy. to

virtue

because they have persuaded the ignorant

just

they are of

They have

state.

rule because they really are

He

guardian

is

fully

degenerate in

be no conventional hereditary

class will

aware that such

many

visions for eugenic

aristocracies

ways, and he makes in his Utopia various pro-

improvement of the stock of

his guardians, as well

as careful provisions for their training in all the virtues

ruling class needs.

he thinks a

Plato was perhaps a democrat in the sense that

Napoleon was a democrat,

—but

aristoc-

have in the past tended

for

he believed

in the career

open

to talents

always the kind of talents he approved.

For

his

guardians he proposes a kind of austerely aristocratic

Communism, modeled held to be the

life

in part

on what some Athenian

intellectuals

of the Spartan ruling classes in their best days.

47

THE HELLENIC FOUNTAINHEAD For the guardians he would abolish die family, to

him

from

the state,

away from

and

surprisingly,

Women

virtue.

in contrast with

common Athenian

and in many ways are

equals of men.

in a sense, a feminist.

Plato

is,

the children of the

own

They would,

worldliness.

and the

lyric poets, for

notions, given a

to be regarded as the

community, brought up by

the community and trained to regard all the They would be brought up with the Spartan the intellectual discipline of Plato's

man away

in the Republic are rather

large degree of freedom,

Children would be

elders as their parents.

for instance, not be allowed to read

him

kind of

at least a

somewhere

a

turning,

pany with them. Certain kinds of music guardians

—

and he had

ideal.

But

to part

com-

young

too. were forbidden the

Austere and martial music they

languorous music.

soft,

is

world of com-

on the road toward the

wrong

Plato

Poetry and art were

effort to transcend the vulgar

sense he hated so; poets were

they had taken

Homer

such reading would soften them, give them

a bit apologetic, almost wistful, about poetry.

mon

and

physical discipline

definitely puritanical other-

misleading notions about the gods, generally corrupt them.

to

was

since the family

a nest of selfishness, a focus of loyalties that took a

might have.

The

warriors too were a chosen group.

They were taught many

of the virtues of the guardians, with the important exception of the

As

philosophic ones.

for the producers, the great majority, the belly-

They may marry and have conventional family lives; they may eat and drink, work and play, pretty much as they like, as long as they keep the state going and make no attempt to influence politics. They should in general behave themmen, Plato

selves

is

not really interested in them.

and know

Plato, then,

their place, but they

is

no democrat.

the good will of the average

a certain kind of animal freedom animal. in

But note

freedom

in the

He

man.

cannot really lead the good

trusts neither the intelligence

He

leaves

nor

rather disdainfully

— the freedom of a well-domesticated

that even for his superior people Plato has

common-sense meaning of the word;

guardians are most rigorously disciplined.

do not gain the virtues necessary

48

him

life.

no

belief

in fact, the

His warriors and guardians

to their responsibilities

by experi-

— GREEK FORMAL THOUGHT ment, by this

and

trial

They

world.

full

exposure to the amazing variety of

are carefully kept by authority of their elders

the philosopher-king Plato

They

by

error, or

—from

any exposure

—and

to alternative paths.

are strictly indoctrinated; they think only very high thoughts

which

to the

It is

tough-minded

is

hardly to think

at all.

not hard to account for the spell Plato's Utopia has always

worked on men's minds.

In the

first place,

he was a

a poet;

stylist,

even in translation his writings have a charm rarely attained by philo-

His other-worldliness

sophical works.

made an appeal much of Plato was

—his mysticism,

if

We

you prefer

how

has always

to sensitive natures.

readily

built into the intellectual scaffolding of

But Plato was- no simple refugee from the world of

later Christianity.

As

the senses.

world

a moralist, a reformer, he

along the path of the

a lot further

Western

shall see

wanted

push

to

poor

this

Very much

ideal.

in our

tradition, this seeker after perfection felt driven to lead

imperfect

life

men

teaching, urging, bullying his imperfect fellow

toward the perfection they could not reach.

an

Plato had to return to the

cave and enlighten the chained prisoners.

Perhaps, too, the cave was not without Plato, like

world

— not

its

him.

attractions for

many a Christian after him, felt the fascinations of this so much the crude satisfactions of food and drink and sex

the vulgar think are the temptations of this world, but rather the subtle satisfactions of

mind and body

that

make

the world of the artist.

Plato was too good a poet to leave this world entirely. the One, the

Good, the

Yet surely for

Perfect, even poetry can hardly be

more than

another disturbance. Plato

is

entire works.

philosophers, scholars.

the

earliest

possess

as the pre-Socratic

citations

by

later

These fragmentary materials have been lovingly worked

over by generations of scholars, and ties

whom we

Greek philosopher of

Of the earlier ones, known usually we have only fragments, mostly

we know

of philosophic thought are represented.

at least that

But

we

most

varie-

have nothing

complete on any early hard-boiled, this-worldly, tough-minded philosopher.

Democritus,

whom we

have noted already

as the "inventor" of

the atom, was probably a thoroughgoing materialist and, like most

49

THE HELLENIC FOUNTAINHEAD materialists, a denier of sistent

human

But we

free will.

really lack a con-

body of Democritus's doctrine.

Perhaps our best choice of early this-worldly philosophers would

be the Sophists, of

Greek (or

who

flourished in the fifth century b.c, at the climax

rather,

Athenian) culture.

The

Sophists were perhaps

not true philosophers but free-lance teachers and lecturers learners

taught

— for a price —how to use the new tool we have called "reason-

They took up

ing."

who

a position not

unknown

today, claiming that

ultimate metaphysical problems, the kind Plato wrestled with, are

incapable of solution and better

Sophists maintained, should concentrate

and human

relations;

"man

is

Human

alone.

left

on problems of human nature

the measure of

of the senses they accepted as perfectly real,

thought men's desires could be

Some

of

them came,

in other words, that

decision of the stronger.

man

might makes

The new

The world

things." in this

world they

guide.

according to their enemies, to the

doctrine that the measure of an individual

away with;

all

and

made an adequate

at least

intelligence, the

is

what he can get

right, that justice

is

the

thought they

tool of critical, logical

considered an admirable instrument in the hands of intelligent and

ambitious persons, and they

guiding such persons.

set

themselves up in the business of

Their pupils could argue their way to success

over the conventionally moral and therefore limited

who disliked young man how

Aristophanes,

the Sophists,

teaching a

to avoid

have probably had a bad

press.

common

shows them

in the

The

paying his debts.

They were worldly

people.

Cloudi Sophists

fellows

for

philosophers and, like most such, a bit naive in their worldliness.

They were

professors, trying

hard not to be professorial, but not

alto-

gether succeeding. Aristotle has survived in

writer; indeed

many

many

volumes.

He

scholars have maintained that

is

not a polished

we do

what he wrote, but only students' notes on his lectures. times considered a polar opposite of Plato, under

young man. from

whom

But though Aristotle noted and analyzed

He

is

some-

he studied as

?

his differences

—notably in the matter of the aristocratic Communism not really Republic, and in the matter of women — Aristotle

his master

of the

not have

is

GREEK FORMAL THOUGHT the tough-minded philosopher as opposed to the tender-minded phi-

Indeed, Aristotle

losopher Plato.

perhaps better classed as an

is

a compromiser, a mediator between the extremists of this

eclectic,

He was

world and the other world.

interested in everything, had,

when

indeed, the kind of collector's instinct which,

matters of the intellect, w-e

call scholarship.

pedically all the field of

knowledge of

through comparative

applied to

is

from metaphysics

day,

his

Yet he was

political institutions to biolog}'.

man who

the philosopher, the

it

His works cover encycloalso

bring everything into a system,

tries to

to find in the universe moral purposes that can be ranked in objective value.

The

central point of his doctrine

worldly, version

of

central metaphysical

problem

by nature not indeed

lifeless,

persistence in

this

and

is

doctrine

Plato's

of

as that of

an amended, lather more

Ideas.

puts

Aristotle

form and matter.

is

really

mind

this

Matter

but purposeless, save for a kind of

Form, which

striving.

really

dumb work

or spirit at

world, transforms matter into something that has

is

and

life

human

beings can understand, that can strive after what

Plato called the idea.

Form is creative, active, purposive; matter just One almost feels that Aristotle would like Good Thing, matter a Bad Thing. He does

purpose, that

drifts,

or just accumulates.

to say that

form

is

a

male

indeed say that the

Clearly his "form"

is

is

form, the female matter.

close to Plato's "ideas," his "matter" to that

world of sense impressions Plato so often seems

it,

is

regard as almost

He

accepts

indeed as a scientist with a fondness for classifying, quite

nated by

its

variety.

definition of the

from

to

Yet Aristotle never quite crusades against matter.

unreal.

Plato's

It is

good

life

true that as he goes to

he gradually comes

work on

to a position

—or Buddha's, or any good mystic's.

This

is

doctrine of theoria, the undisturbed meditation on God,

Unmoved Mover,

the Final Cause.

other-worldly state of

even in

this

mind

men

is

But Aristotle

not so far

the

famous

who

is

the

undoubtedly a most

—and of body, for the sage

mystic ecstasy; the textbooks

the Buddhist nirvana.

few wise

Theoria

fasci-

the clearer

still

has a body

commonly compare

it

with

clearly thinks that only a very

can approximate the stage of theoria, and the great bulk

51

THE HELLENIC FOUNTAINHEAD of his writings on

human

demands

of the

between demands of the

As we

spirit.

Greek middle way

relations urges a very

in all things, including choice

recommendations for the average upper-class Greek are

up

wisdom

in the folk

They

are

Greek

and

to

summed be pretty

and perhaps even the

much

in

best

and come

of "nothing in excess"

characteristic of the generally accepted ideas

practices of the time.

flesh

shortly see, Aristotle's ethical

shall

same way

the

that

Benjamin Franklin's moral aphorisms are American. Aristotle's notions of causation, fitting in neatly as they did v^ath

his notions about

form and matter, have had a long philosophic

for they are

alive in Catholic

still

every effect four causes: material, material cause

efficient,

the stufi, the ingredients

and seasoning

tables, water,

the "agent."

is

neo-Thomism.

The formal

The

for a stew.

cause

is

—

an ideal of

—nutritive,

stew

aesthetically

And

And

effect?

To

the cook,

is

said

the purpose of the

stimulating to the appetite.

many

they suggest

How

is

which there may be

illustrations, of

How

the cook the only "efficient" cause? raised the vegetables?

efficient cause

final cause

satisfying,

These are undignified concrete not have approved.

The

a stew.

The

final.

us say, the beef, vege-

the nature, the character, the "form"

in that typical Aristotelian-Platonic sense in to be a type,

formal, and let

life,

Aristotle finds in

which

might

Aristotle

After

difficulties:

about the gardener

all, is

who

can you ever stop a chain of cause and

so on.

these four ordinary causes, Aristotle adds

what

in a sense a

is

—God, the First Cause, himself uncaused, who started the universe

fifth

off

on

its

puzzling career.

This

is

the object contemplated in theoria.

the

As

God we have

already

met

as

the necessary beginning of a

chain of cause and effect for which otherwise no beginning can be

found, this kind of

God

has had a long

life.

But he has never been a

very warmly worshiped God.

In political thinking as in so promiser, the acteristically,

man who

much

else, Aristotle

tries to reconcile the

he wrote no Republic about an

is

extremes.

the com-

Very char-

ideal state.

He made

very careful comparative studies of the actual working of govern-

mental institutions in various Greek

52

city-states, studies of

the kind

GREEK FORMAL THOUGHT American students

familiar to

and government.

of political science

These, save for the "Constitution of Athens," have not survived, but

on them survive

generalizations based

in Aristotle's Politics,

still

a

carefully studied book.

most celebrated of phrases

Aristotle has contributed one of the to political literature, the

animal."

Much

effort

a

at

statement that

of the Politics

is

"man

is

a political (or social)

an expansion of that statement, an

one suspects again, for the conventional educated Athen-

Aristotle, as,

ian of the great tradition, such a phrase as Herbert Spencer's "the

we

separably part of the group

only within the

mere

a

is

state.

call

the state,

But Aristotle

no

is

for Aristotle,

in-

and can lead the good

life

Man

totalitarian.

In a healthy

state,

The

not a unity, but a plurality, within which the moral struggle Aristotle

some men became

is

no

he believes that slavery

He

are born to be slaves.

and

that the

is

—the notion

good

state is

that

one

the

state

—which

natural, that

anticipates, in a sense,

the organic theory of the state

to a place, to a status,

man

—goes on.

egalitarian;

not for

is

political theory traditionally calls rights.

implies individual rights

man is

subject of an all-powerful state.

what

citizen has

Man,

would have been nonsense.

vs. the state"

him

For

sociology of politics that will also be an ethics.

what

men in

later

are born

which each

has the place for which he was designed by nature.

A

good deal of the book

criticism of existing

a classification of

is

taken up with the classification and

forms of government.

Plato's

Republic contains

governments which Aristotle takes

from

as a base for his

came

own.

For us the important

much

of the vocabulary of political theory, and indeed of just plain

political discussion, still in

of

government

fact

is

that

use today.

—three desirable

types

own

of the three

good types has

suited to

be a good government.

it,

its

these classifications

Aristotle distinguishes six types

and

a perversion of each.

virtues; each can,

Each

under conditions

Each can degenerate

into a very

bad kind of government.

The

six types are:

monarchy, the rule of one superior man, and

its

perversion tyranny, in which the one ruler, though not in fact superior in virtue, rules

by reason of possessing force;

aristocracy, the rule of

53

THE HELLENIC FOUNTAINHEAD and

the few, but the wiser, better few,

perversion, oligarchy, again

its

the rule of the few, but not the wise few, merely the powerful few,

whose power may depend on wealth, on arms, or on late others; polity (or constitutional republic

lation), a state based

one

in

which the

is

no good

trans-

equality, but

and democracy, a

citizens are all pretty virtuous,

many

manipu-

ability to

on popular government and rough

perversion of poUty, in which the plined, unvirtuous

—there

rule, the ordinary, undisci-

many.

Aristotle studies the

way

which one of these forms passes over

in

In other words, he does not content himself with

into another.

static

descriptions of given forms of government, but attempts a dynamics

of government.

Moreover, as

we noted

interested in bringing out the relations ditions.

There

is

in

some degree what

interested in

he

is

lists

far

between

he admits

Aristotle

is

and actual con-

ideals

later

by conditions.

set

came

be called a

to

Aristotle

relativist.

thinking suits the tough-minded, the

knowing

Yet Aristotle

how

not one perfect form, but only forms better or

worse adapted to the limitations this side of his

in pointing out

good government,

the possibility of different forms of

is

human

the earthly limits of

by no means hard-boiled

from Machiavelli,

he

And

Much of man

effort in politics.

modern manner;

calls

democracy he

as a perversion of the quiet, law-abiding polity, in

are apparently equal, but not too equal.

thus

scientist, the

in the

What

for example.

is

which men

note that his distinctions

between the good and the bad forms of government are that the former have "virtue," "goodness," the

"numbers" and the tional

modern

like.

sense of the word.

that merely succeeding tics.

Worldly

Aristotle

on

Almost

this earth

success, unless

it

is

latter

surely

is

is

only "force," "riches,"

no

realist in

the conven-

as strongly as Plato

he

feels

not enough, not even in poli

moral success, success

with the plan, or purpose, of the universe,

is

in accordance

but the beginning of

failure.

Like Plato, Aristotle has turned away from the harsh world of conflicting city-states, of class struggle, of chaotic ups better, neater,

more

stable world.

It

is

and downs,

worldly a worl'^ as that of Plato's philosopher-king.

54

to a

not quite as rigorously un-

Indeed, Aris-

THE CLASSICAL CtiLTURE totle

was properly shocked

family and give

women

removed from our

only a

little

interval

between us and

a better

—and

is

as

form

—real

how

to

His

many

to cross

world

ideal

But that

one.

is

little

a long way, and

it.

obviously no materialist. His concept of purposiveness

{teleology), of life here striving to

of thinkers

his

world seems

Aristotle never succeeds in telling us Aristotle

proposal to do away with the

at Plato's

equal place with men.

on earth

dominate matter, has been

and was

something

as a striving after

attractive to generations

readily adapted to Christian use.

To

has never wholly fallen out of philosophy. science in the sixteenth

and seventeenth

better,

His vocabulary

modern

the founders of

centuries,

who

led a revolt

against his influence, he seemed to use a barren, deductive logic that left

no place

for fruitful experiment

lacked disciples, and

may

long

live

and induction.

But he has never

on

mediator

—or

as the great

the impatient seekers after the ideal

The One

German made by

the real.

Classical Culture

of the most difficult tasks of intellectual history

describing clearly the complex thing a given place

and time, or the

a

spirit

There

term, a Zeitgeist.

huge number of

may

we

call

that of

is

variously the culture of

of an age, or, to use a fashionable

is

details that

of simple recognition, one

such a thing, a

somehow

illustrate

this

fit

total

impression

together.

In terms

by, for instance, late

eighteenth-century culture in the Western world, what most icans

mean when

among

they speak of "colonial"

styles.

Amer-

The costumes

of

both ladies and gentlemen, the architecture, as in restored Williamsburg, the furniture, the music of Mozart and

Gainsborough and Copley, else in space-time

Now

all

this

and

a lot

Haydn,

the paintings of

more could be nothing

but eighteenth-century Western culture.

the Greeks,

and

and fourth centuries before

especially the

Christ,

Athenian Greeks of the

produced one of these

many parts, which has never men and women. We have already seen

cultures,

fifth

one

of these wholes of

ceased to fascinatf

educated

that in formal phil-

osophic thought the Greeks laid foundations Western philosophers

55

THE HELLENIC FOUNTAINHEAD have built upon, but never gone beyond.

Greeks was

much more

cultured minority, a

We

judge

all sorts.

of

minor

two thousand years of of

than formal philosophy;

way

and

arts,

by those of

monuments

its

—that have

literature

—archi-

survived over

by neglect, wars, decay, and disorder

attrition

possible that this attrition has

It is

was, at least for a

it

life.

this great culture

tecture, sculpture,

But the great culture of the

worked

to preserve

what we have of sample would be. It

the best rather than the average, and that therefore

the great culture of Greece

may

be

Perhaps

we have it is

some work no

better than a true

is

Greek

the best of

of Bach, Mozart,

trace of jazz,

no

we

At any

of Athenian

some answer

must be noted

that in our

is,

trace of lighter music,

rate,

the question

inevitably life

art.

to this question in the next chapter.

Western

society

one perfectly

philoso-

men and women

of genius

who

usually

midst of a relatively small cultured group.

There

Dark Ages,

a continuous

chain of this kind of culture from the Greeks to ourselves. frankly call the highbrow chain.

us to the past, nor

clear

art,

in spite of partial interruption during the

may

by the

works of

is

phy, and science by a very few live in the

average.

its

have recordings of

the creation of great

strain of cultural history

work and

worst or to

can judge Athenian standards of

we have

We shall attempt it

its

were

trace of a single crooner; they could hardly judge

whether or not

standards of what

Here

and not

and Brahms, but no

our modern Western music. arises

art,

as if in 4000 a.d. archaeologists

is it

It is

This we

not the sole chain linking

the only stuff of intellectual history.

But

it

remains the central core of our subject.

But doubts concerning the representative character of what we

know

of the great

Greek culture can be

better focused than in the

question of the relation between highbrow and lowbrow culture. question can be put sharply classicists

of

:

Haven't the humanists, the educators, the

Europe and America

idealized the Athens of Pericles a

few

statues, a

few poems,

genteel Shangri-la of the past?

a

?

since

the

Renaissance

actually

Haven't they taken a few buildings,

few

heroes,

and put together

a very

Perhaps our modern lovers of ancient

Greece have exaggerated the virtues of

56

The

their loved one, as lovers so

THE CLASSICAL CULTURE But you need not take

often do.

made

the printing press have

word

their

for

Photography and

it.

know some-

possible for everyone to

it

thing at almost firsthand of this Greece that has so long fascinated

The

Western men.

following generalizations are no more than a few

guideposts on your road to understanding the Greeks.

The

thing to note

first

classical tradition

very

is

tists, craftsmen, athletes, there

worrying about or hoping probably nothing at

and

For these

of this earth.

seems

at first sight

There

for.

is

good or

as

We

exciting, as this earth.

no

artists,

comes into the great proper funeral

And

rites

she does say "I

Uving: in that world of the play

But

real indeed.

is

hell,

as bad, not nearly as en-

many, many

shall see that for

life to

come

men

of these feehngs of ordinary

little

culture.

worth

no heaven and no

Greeks, even at the time of Pericles, the problems of the

were very

drama-

afterlife

most a monotonous kind of

after death, at

Hmbo, not nearly

purgatory, or joyable

all

Greek culture of our

that the great

is

much

Antigone had, indeed,

to see that the

were performed over the corpse of her brother.

owe I

a longer allegiance to the dead than to the

shall abide forever."

on Antigone's plight

Yet the whole emphasis

in this world, not

on the plight of

her brother's soul. In the great culture, then, this the satisfaction of natural

human

desires

Greek word

—

is

human

life is

needs

what we should

for nature, physis,

appropriate enough.

we

the thing.

—which

get our

word

From

to.

"physical,"

the

which

is

Physical pleasures, physical appetites, were for

and naturally

re-

making love, sleeping, playing games, music, making music, writing poetry, gossiping,

Eating, drinking,

dancing, listening to philosophizing,

all

seemed worth doing

doing well.

Worth doing recognized in better

in this life

are, of course, natural

look forward

all

the Greeks of the great culture perfectly natural, spectable.

And

all

well

—a

very important qualification.

their activities the differences

and worse. They did not assume

could be satisfied

to these Greeks,

always what came easiest to him.

They

The Greeks

between good and bad,

that these natural

easily, automatically,

and worth

human

needs

by letting each individual do did not believe in turning on

57

THE HELLENIC FOUNTAlNHEAD On

the tap and letting their desires run on in a stream.

beUeved in discipHning, in training, in Hmiting

trary, they

Their folk wisdom (always a useful source for the torian) has the phrase "nothing in excess,"

which

understanding the major Greek principle of

restraint.

statement

is

in Aristotle's writings,

and

is

the con-

their desires.

intellectual his-

a good start at

But the

classic

Nicomachean

especially in his

Ethics.

The

way to live, says Aristotle, much and too little. You

right

between too

meant you

to like

ridiculous,

you are not

much

But

it.

if

you

like

your food

much you

eat too

nature

fine,

get fat,

you look

Suppose, however, you worry so

virtuous.

you get concerned about vitamins and iron and such dietary

knew nothing about

notions (of course, the Greeks

turn vegetarian on principle.

In

would say you were starving

yourself, foolishly

good thing, getting in

—

over the danger of gaining weight that you don't enjoy your

food; or

evil of

Golden Mean

to attain the

is

vitamins), or you

these cases, the classic Greeks

all

to look indecently thin,

were

denying yourself a guilty, in fact, of the

(Note carefully that abstemiousness became,

abstemiousness.

some formal Christian

not an

ethics,

but a virtue, and that glut-

evil

tony became one of the more simple Christian

sins.)

In between

gluttony and abstemiousness for the Greeks lay the virtue of good eating.

You

can easily work out concrete examples of this Greek ethics

Thus

for yourself.

be to the

abstention

from sexual

Greeks unnatural,

excessive,

life,

sexual intercourse,

would

also be a

The Golden Mean

bad thing, and therefore

clearly a virture,

of courage

—

is

and a

most obviously a

which we commonly

Or, as a final illustration,

felt

last

vice.

man, but

example can give us

about an eternal

58

manly one.

Cowardice

But so too

is

call foolhardiness or rashness,

attribute, not of the brave

This

fine

also not

with the other appetites,

here, as

volves self-control, balance, decency. is

would

obsessive indulgence in or preoccupation with

promiscuity in sex virtuous.

intercourse, celibacy,

and therefore not virtuous;

in-

courage

—insufficiency

excess of courage,

and which

is

the

of the show-ofif.

a clue to the

—that

human problem

way

the classic Greeks

of the relation of the

THE CLASSICAL CULTURE individual to the society of which he

thinking always about himself and

is

This excessive preoccupation with one's

approved tried to

his

own way

state that their root

for private has

literally

members

of the city-

our word

to be

idiot.

On

the other hand, the great

based on competition

among

indi-

many

even their poets competed for the honor of having their

second, third.

as

come

Their athletes competed in the Olympic games, and in

tragedies officially performed,

Greek

who

of the great age

Greek culture was almost viduals.

is

the classic Greeks dis-

regardless of his fellow

word

the phrase "rugged individualism."

others;

show-ofi

would hardly have understood and would not have approved of what many Americans mean by

The Athenian certainly

self

The

can hold the limelight.

Indeed, they cast such discredit on the individual

of.

go

a part.

how he

The

and did

eyes,

an individual.

and were awarded

who

individual

—

first,

supremely well, was singled out and honored

it

And

specific prizes

did something worth doing in

it is

clear

from what we know of Athenian

in the great age that personality, character, even perhaps

of eccentricity, were appreciated

life

a mild degree

and encouraged.

So again we find the characteristic Greek attempt to attain a midway between too little and too much. They wanted neither a society of conformists nor a society of nonconformists. They did not dle

want men

in society to

behave like ants or bees, regularly, unthink-

many automata — though enemies of Sparta thought the Spartans came near so behaving. Nor did they want men in society to behave like cats, each for himself, each proudly out to have his own ingly, like so

way, each ready always to pounce on his prey

Athens thought the Athenians came near

men

to

be

at

once citizens and individuals, to conform

and common customs, players

and

— though

so behaving.

yet not to live by rote

yet to stand out as stars.

It

and

to

common

habit, to be

They

best attained

years after

them

—in

it

laws

good team

goes without saying that they

did not consistently attain in performance the ideal they selves.

enemies of

They wanted

set

them-

—or did so most obviously to us two thousand

what has survived

centuries tried to describe in

of their art.

Critics

have for

words what the Greeks achieved as

69

THE HELLENIC FOUNTAINHEAD dignity.

They talk They use

plined.

Yet most of them

artists.

unemotional

insist also that this is

not a formal,

but a profound, moving, energetic

art,

hold that

critics

of measure, balance, restraint, harmony, repose, adjectives like calm, self-contained, orderly, disci-

at least

like perfection in art

lifeless,

In short, the

art.

some few Greek geniuses achieved something

—the true Golden Mean, not a mere average, not a

mere compromise, but something

that, like life itself, transcends "too

and "too much."

little"

You

will

have

judge for yourself by looking at concrete exam-

to

ples of this art, preferably in contrast with other, non-Greek, forms

of

The Greek

art.

society has

come

has, of course, persisted ever since,

known

to be

as classical.

The

contrasted with this Greek art the art of later,

which they

call

romantic.

of classical-romantic sufficient to

make

shall

now

to come back modern times. Here

works of

stands ruined, and as

by archaeologists. one such

Then

it

it

will be

art are very different indeed.

has been restored (in models)

Amiens.

tall

American building.

just listed.

stops; the

There

is

Then

Then

New

look at Rocke-

York, or

think of the

something in them.

at

critics'

almost phrases

The Greek temple

Gothic cathedral and the American skyscraper look

they really ought to keep on going up. its

peoples,

dualism

look at a Gothic cathedral, best at a French

as that of Chartres or that of

any very

of

to this

Center or the Empire State Building in

we have

in our

look at a Greek temple, perhaps at the Parthenon at Athens,

as it

feller

more northern

have

reach

and

have commonly

note that, however abstract and unreal the schoolbooks

the contrast, the concrete

First,

both

We

when we

critics

vertical pillars,

The Greek

as if

temple, in spite

seems to emphasize the horizontal; the Gothic

and the American buildings certainly emphasize the vertical. One seems contented and earth-bound, the others aspiring and heavenbound.

One

There

is,

looks like a box, the others like a tree of course,

tions of this difference

no lack of

—that

is,

—or a

forest.

rationalistic or naturalistic explana-

explanations that try to find the cause

of the difference ultimately in something outside the will (or ideals, ideas, plans, hopes) of

of the

60

human

beings.

Some maintain

Greek temple were determined by the

clear

that the lines

Mediterranean

THE CLASSICAL CULTURE by the misty northern climate.

climate, those of the Gothic temple

There

the theory that

is

wooden

the simpler

Greek masons merely

translated the lines of

There

buildings of the early Greeks into stone.

is

the theory that the Gothic cathedral took to the air because in the closely confined walled

A variant theory

it.

medieval

space of Manhattan Island.

forms of worship

wasn't horizontal space for

city there

American skyscraper by

explains the

There

the theory that the respective

is

Olympian Greek

of

(ritual, liturgy)

the restricted

and

religion

Western Christianity determined the shapes of the buildings that

And

housed them.

Most

of

them if taken as we know. Thus

something with

sole explanations are inconsistent

the area within a walled

at least as restricted as that

temple did not

theories.

sense, contribute

our

to

Greek

the Greek

city, yet

Granted that the Greek masons and

soar.

had they wanted the

colossal

the

or

the facts

all

city (the acropolis)

within a medieval

were conventional and rather poor engineers,

it still

architects

remains true that

they had adequate

aspiring,

technical s\ills, though perhaps not economic resources, to secure a simple form. as in the

We

The Egyptians

before

them had achieved the

built just as clearly as

have built them on the

The Greeks

conclusion that the Greeks wanted

Americans want skycrapers,

limitless prairies as well as

of the great culture did not

the heaven-storming.

However

if

we

are to understand the

human

beings

come

to

and even

tight

and

is

we

Manhattan colossal or rationalistic

art,

that the

beautiful, useful,

and growing. At a

slightly

for

we must remember,

whole development of the hold about what

desirable help keep the art alive ideas perpetuate,

on

want the

useful naturalistic

theories are in explaining the beginnings of an art,

ideas

in

it

colossal,

pyramids, by the simple expedient of piling stone on stone. are, indeed, forced to the

what they Island.

final

But none of them explains everything, and some of

understanding.

was

many more

there are

them make some

and

certain stage these

modify, themselves.

The Greeks

of the age of Pericles built as they did in part because they thought

and

felt in certain

Much Look

the

at the

ways, desired certain things.

same experience can be

felt

with Greek sculpture.

gods and goddesses on the pediment of the Parthenon,

61

THE HELLENIC FOUNTAINHEAD and

on the west front

at the saints

Athenians seem

contented,

medieval Christians seem a

trifle

gaunt, aspiring, overflowing with

well

work, beyond the great culture we are

built,

Here

Greek

a later

trying to understand, often reproduced

at the

a tech-

admirable work of the century after the great culture.

There

his sons

nothing serene about

this

work, no Golden Mean.

Laocoon and

sons suffer visibly, and perhaps in Aristotle's terms, indecently.

an extreme

is

the

overwhelmed by the snakes,

statue of

is

now

Look

can give us even more perspective.

nically

un worried;

fed,

unearthly gentleness, or austerity, or saintliness.

Laocoon and

Again the

of Chartres Cathedral.

well

—perhaps

true to

life,

his

This

but not true to the ideals of the

great culture.

Or Greek

take examples from literature, always remembering that the inevitably loses something in translation.

by Simonides written

hundred Spartan (Lacedemonian)

the three

Thermopylae rather than surrender Thermopylae had ing the

for all

Alamo has

Go,

for

passer-by,

Greeks

Texans)

and

Here

are

two

lines

an inscription for the funeral monument of

as

tell

who

soldiers

died

at

to the Persians (ever afterward,

—not just Spartans—the kind of mean:

the Lacedemonians that

we

lie

here, having

obeyed their commands.

H.

L. Seaver has put this into English verse: Stranger, report in Sparta, where they gave

Command,

And now tive

turn your

mind

that to

we

obey, here in the grave.

another

battle,

and another commemora-

poem: By

the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their

flag to April's breeze unfurled.

Here once the embattled farmers stood And fired the shot heard round the world.

The

first is as classical

second

is

Make no 62

in

its

restraint, its spare

understatement, as the

romantic in the arresting overstatement of the mistake.

The Greeks were

as

final phrase.

proud of Thermopylae

as

any

THE CLASSICAL CULTURE Yankee was verse

Nor

is

of

not humihty; in

should

we

The

Concord Fight, its

way,

it

say that Simonides

special

boasts as is

a

quaUty of Simonides's

much

as does

Emerson's.

good poet and Emerson a bad

one, or the reverse, but merely that they are different poets in different cultures.

One

final illustration,

through the refraction of a

The nineteenth5«

II

GROWTH OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY Greek word

knowledge, forms a fascinating study in the chesslike

for

complexities the

human mind

The

can build in words and emotions.

Gnostics were mostly intellectuals of the

—sophisticated magic.

Graeco-Roman world

in

They knew about most of the other competing cults of the Graeco-Roman world, and about its They tended, in philosophies, especially Neoplatonic philosophy. spite of their bewildering variety, to have one thing in common, a belief that this sense world is evil, or nonexistent, or more simply, search of magic

that the everyday

world

found appealing, but

human nature, moment admit. His

We

it

is

an

was

evil illusion.

The

figure of Jesus they

God.

Jesus the miracle-worker, Jesus the

his sharing in this world, they could not for a

may, however, take the

final controversy

over the relation

One God

the Father

typical of the

between Jesus and the

whole period of the heresies. involved.

—God

—as

Here much more than Gnosticism was

Official Christianity finally accepted in 325 at the

Council of

Xicaea, near Constantinople, the trinitarian, or Athanasian, position.

According

to this the

Christ the Son,

persons of the Trinity,

and the Holy Ghost, are

and yet they are

also one.

God

the Father, Jesus

real persons, three in

number,

Christianity remained a monotheism,

its

The opposing doctrine of Arius, if not exactly Unitarianism as we know it in twentieth-century America, was at least on the Unitarian side in many ways, tending to subordinate Jesus to God, to make him later in time, an emanation of God, or— theology is a subtle thing— in some other way less than God the Father. The critical phrases of the struggle were the Athanasian Trinity well above mathematics.

homoousion (of one [same] essence with the Father) and the Arian hotnoiousion (of like [similar] essence to the Father).

always alert for this sort of thing, lighted on the iota,

by

later

Latin transliteration

made

letter

jota) as the

between these parties of dignified churchmen. inheritance, our still-used expression "not a jot"

Popular wit, (the

/

Greek

whole difference

Hence, by

fairly direct

— not a tiny

bit.

This early example of semantic skepticism need not persuade us that there

was no

real difference

between Athanasians and Arians, and

hence that the Council of Nicaea might just as well have chosen for

153

THE DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIANITY Arius as for Athanasius.

how

the Fourth Gospel

We

real,

have already noted

how

crucial for Christianity

tension between this world and the other world. afford the logic required to

incompatible

make

in connection with

a choice

is its

between these two

Gnosticism accepted would have led

beliefs.

jungle of magic, swooning, and denial of this world. cepted might have led

it

ceptance of this world.

Catholicism

mere

into a

fruitful

Christianity cannot

scientific or

logically it

into a

Arianism

ac-

common-sense

ac-

—traditional Christianity —has kept

a foot, a solidly planted foot, in each world.

The Council

of Nicaea

was

by an emperor, Constantine,

called

By 325 the once obscure Jewish Graeco-Roman world. Remnants of several more centuries, and the tri-

himself politically at least a Christian.

come

heresy had

dominate the

to

pagan groups were

to exist for

umphant Church was

many pagan

stitions,

ingly complete. religion of the

to

adopt as local

beliefs

and

saints, as local uses

and super-

the victory

was amaz-

habits.

Still,

Christianity by the fourth century

had become the

Western world. Christian Belief

At

this point,

This

we

shall

we must attempt a among common men and women.

with the Church triumphant,

schematic view of Christian belief

have to do without the

subtleties of theology, concentrat-

ing on that mythical figure, the average man.

But the reader will

understand that on nearly every point recorded in the next few pages differences of opinion,

existed

some of them on very

subtle points indeed, have

somewhere, sometime, and often most of the time, among men

calling themselves Christian.

By the fourth Christ

century, belief in the immediate second

coming

of

and the consequent end of the world had naturally enough

died down.

From

time to time Christian prophets arise to predict the

immediate second coming, and in central

New

York

to

»54

But these

little

bands of

believers.

So

state, in the enlightened nineteenth century, the

Millerites gathered in confidence

the world.

gather

and white robes

to await the

end of

chiliastic beliefs, as they are technically called,

CHRISTIAN BELIEF are crank beliefs, outside formal, accepted Christian belief. it

must be noted

from the point

that

vidual, Christianity has by

and

of

no means

view of the

lost a

Besides,

fate of the indi-

immediacy

sense of the

judgment on human beings: At death every

finality of divine

Christian expects to face such final judgment.

The

Christian believes in a single God, embodied in the Trinity,

who

a perfect being

created this world

man

and man, intending

the happy life recorded in the Garden of Eden. But Adam, man, whom God made a free agent, chose to disobey God by

to live

the

first

sinning.

mankind was driven from Eden by a just God and condemned to an imperfect life on earth. God, however, did not desert his own. As it is recorded in the Old Testament, his chosen people kept alive in this harsh world his worship, and after two thou-

As

a result of

Adam's

sin,

God

sand years of darkness, to bring to

mankind

turn, not precisely to

sent his only-begotten son, Jesus Christ,

from

the possibility of redemption

Eden, but

to

an Eden-like

state

sin, of a re-

not on this earth

but in heaven. Christ, God become man, died on the cross that all men might have the chance to avoid death. The possibility of redemption, a chance to avoid death through Christ's resurrection —this was the gift. To achieve redemption, a man had to be a true Christian. He had to have had the emotional experience of conversion, of spiritual awareness of the gift of grace Christ had brought.

conforming

He

had

to be a church

member

to certain prescribed ritual practices:

ceived into the

which he was

Church he underwent

in

good standing,

When

he was

ritually cleansed of his sins;

he shared by the sacrament

of the Eucharist in the periodic renewal of the miracle by

Christ brought redemption to

mankind; should he

Finally, as death approached,

were

at

all

possible, the

He

had

Christian, then, also

somewhat

his marriage, too,

was

priest,

a sacrament.

he would receive from a

priest, if it

sacrament of extreme unction, which pre-

pared him decently to meet his

The

which

lapse into sinning,

he was restored to spiritual wholeness again by confession to a

and by the sacrament of penance;

re-

the sacrament of baptism, by

had

his

final

own

judgment. law,

less precise ethical

which he had

to observe.

prescriptions to follow.

No

THE DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIANITY longer was Christianity in the fourth century a sect of humble or rC'

communism The Christian

bellious folk, practicing

and wealth.

of rank

what

this

moralists

world

who complained

could be rich, and he could be

Indeed, already there were Christian

powerful.

calls

of consumer's goods, disdainful

themselves salvation, though they failed to

These

practice.

religions side,

evil;

was in many

was not even

it

oriental faiths, in

any

life

insist,

most of the higher

an

life

mere

ascetic

and

ashes.

of the senses

life

was

was not wholly

illusion; it

clear sense a

on the

in sackcloth

the

buy

to

to Christian ideals in

kindness, modesty, sobriety, a

but not, for the ordinary Christian, a

it

up

live

ideals are in part the ideals of

—honesty,

For the ordinary Christian, we must not, as

were trying

that rich Christians

stage in the soul's

progress, certainly not such a stage in any elaborate oriental cult of

metempsychosis. bad, since

For the Christian,

God had made

an opportunity

to lead a

this

world could not be wholly

For the Christian,

it.

good

life

world presented

this

preparatory to the perfect

life

of

salvation.

Moreover, though Christianity as a great Church accepted

and economic

on

inequalities

ceased to affirm the equality of

earth,

this all

human

souls cannot be given an order of rank.

be numbered

among

the saved or

Christian

never

doctrine

beings before God.

social

Human

In the final event, they will

among

damned, but

the

neithei

rank nor wealth nor power will influence that dread decision.

In-

deed, to be reahstic, one must admit that Christian teaching has tended to tell the

ordinary

salvation, are at

man

any

that rank, wealth, or power,

rate handicaps.

Now

if

to certain

not barriers to

temperaments,

this steadily affirmed Christian doctrine of the equality of souls before

God

We

is

either meaningless or a

may more

kind of opiate

modestly conclude that

to

keep the poor poor.

this doctrine

has provided for

Western culture a kind of minimal estimate of the dignity of man, a sharp separation of

human

Finally, the Christian,

Christian, before the great

and

beings from other animate beings.

and

especially the early

growth of modern

his ministers (angels, saints)

went on 156

in this world.

The

and the medieval

science,

thought of

as constantly taking part in

God what

Christian did indeed distinguish between

:

WHY CHRISTIANITY TRIUMPHED which was

the natural occurrence, currence,

which was unusual.

and the supernatural

usual,

But he

have

clearly did not

oc-

scientific

or rationalist notions about the usual events in this world, did not

God

even think of the average as normal.

could and did do things

men, animals, and the elements couldn't do of themselves.

that

you wish, you may say that the Christian was lived in a

To

world of unreasonable fears and hopes.

had been the thirteenth in

Iscariot

superstitious, that

If

he

him, Judas

a supremely tragic context,

and he

did not wish to get involved in anything that might repeat in any

form that badness of

common

deed as

thirteen.

The

as the natural,

supernatural, therefore,

was

if

mind not only

in his

not in-

quite as

It

was something you could cope

with, by the old, tried religious ways.

The devil was likely to turn a way indeed by medieval

but often quite as predictable.

real,

up, of course; but the Christian

many ways

times

—of

knew

exorcising him.

—

Neither the natural nor the

supernatural aspects of the universe were to the true Christian basically

Both were part of God's plan, and the true Christian, though

hostile.

he ought never to be wholly, indecendy, priggishly sure of his salvation, at least f^new

enough

to adjust his

own

conduct in this world to

both natural and supernatural occurrences, and believed enough to feel that

he had a good chance of salvation.

The Reasons There

is

its

way among

It

is

true,

answer

a simple

the

Triumph

for the

to the question of

many competing

and truth

cults of the

prevails by God's will.

Christians, at least since the beginnings of

and give

sociological writing,

more concrete

Thus some

that Christianity stition,

world.

won

why

Christianity

won

Graeco-Roman world But even quite good

modern

have been unable to

naturalistic-historical

Answers have been many and Christianity.

of Christianity

critical historical

resist the

temptation to

reasons for that triumph.

varied, often motivated

by hatred of

anti-Christian rationalists have maintained

out because

it

and weakness of the enslaved

appealed to the ignorance, super' proletariat of the

Graeco-Roman

Others have insisted that Christianity offered something to

157

THE DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIANITY everybody, that

borrowed without compunction from

it

we

Others have emphasized what

petitors.

We must

of a sick society.

insist here, as

throughout

book, that

this

if

the triumph

of Christianity be regarded as a natural event in history, then

many

went

factors

com-

its

call the es-

and disappointed

capist side of Christianity, its appeal to the tired

men and women

all

now

should

These

into that triumph.

factors

we

many,

cannot in our

present state of knowledge weigh and measure and turn into a for-

We

mula. rise

can but

has been no explanation of the

insist that there

some element

of Christianity without

Here we can but

of truth.

go over old ground and familiar elements, and attempt a rough adjustment

among them. whole

First, there is a

series of factors centering

drawn from

the combining of elements

around the syn-

This syncretic factor (syncretism

element in Christianity.

cretic

various religions)

the simplifiers as being the whole explanation, whereas

You can

part.

Greek mystery

find in the

the cult of Mithra, in Judaism,

is

taken by is

it

god

child, a

and in other

and

the whole that

tianity

angels. is

cults of the Hellenistic

cults

It

it

may even

But

is,

Of

course

it

is

not find outside Christianity practice.

from the

To

say that Chris-

naturalistic-historical

a complete explanation of Chrisis

an explanation of

important to note that Christianity

be true that the

known few and

the nameless

beliefs in the early centuries

skill-

new

faith.

bit for the

this picture of the early Fathers deliberately

the directors of an

American firm planning

besides being vulgar

and

The Founding

offensive,

is

to

many who

were particularly

choosing here an Orphic, there a Mithraic

unsound.

festivals,

elements of belief and practice derived from various sources.

formed Christian ful in

and

than a source study of Shakespeare's works

their greatness.

has in

less

winter-solstice

festivals,

What you do

borrowed from other

—ritual

resurrected, a virgin that bears a

Christian belief

point of view, no more and no tianity

is

day of judgment, spring

devils, saints, is

and

that dies

only a

cults, in the cult of Isis, in

world samples of almost everything the Christian believed cleansing, a

is

planning a

cult,

Uke

market a new product,

historically

and psychologically

Fathers of Christianity were not such de-

158

IL

WHY CHRISTIANITY TRIUMPHED planners, above

liberate

work was thing in

common

Their syncretic

not such intellectuals.

all

Christianity has some-

an unconscious work.

in large part

with the cult of

cause Christians deliberately thought the Virgin

Mary out

and Mary helped

terms, but rather because both Isis

much

for instance, not so

Isis,

in

be-

Isiac

the need

fulfill

for a consoling mother-figure.

Second, there

with

its

is

some truth

also

in the assertion that Christianity,

promise of salvation in another world to compensate for

poverty, suffering, oppression in this world, proved a most attractive faith to the proletariat of the declining

Roman Empire;

there

is

truth

in the closely related assertion that to the tired, bored, blase, as well as to the naturally idealistic of the privileged classes, Christianity

most

either a

way

attractive

of escape

or a stimulating challenge to

much

not so

because of

its

make

that

is

true,

world

human

Many

beings.

the oppressed.

is

deed

firm re-

of those satisfactions,

it

we

is,

we have always had

The Gospels intellectuals,

are explicit

made

on

this point.

striking progress

among

both Greek and Roman.

find scattered instances of conversion of

good family

a

then, truth in the state-

a religion for the weak, for the simple, for

Third, Christianity also

and the

There

consolation.

that Christianity

classes

its

were of the kind the modern psychologist suggests by words

good common word:

ment

like

world or the next, offered a wide

compensation and escapism, and for which

like

was

Christianity,

better.

syncretic origins as because of

fusal to opt exclusively either for this

range of satisfactions to

from a world they did not

to the despised sect.

No

the upper

Very

early in-

men and women

of

doubt, from the point of view

much like a present-day conversion of a banker's son to Communism. Obviously, Christianity in Those who its first few centuries did not appeal to the satisfied. of the sociologist, such conversions are

turned to Christianity had already turned away from the ways in

which they had been brought up.

But

it is

a mistake to think of the

appeal of Christianity as wholly an emotional one.

theology of the

new

sect

respectable enough, to attract factors in the ultimate

The growing

was complex enough, indeed

men

of philosophic bent.

triumph of Christianity.

sadles

"^'rlfs?

-::.

:f Tl^atpassagr

5_.:.^e,

._:

-:

::.

do me. not hone we most st31

ttsoIes, :

:

icwulmiun pnuo-

mxc ngoAy over

z:.t:t

;•_.".

^ _ r...

b-e

.: r.

.

_i.

!3ad

ihc

wriucn

prino

409

— THE DEVELOPED COSMOLOGY of a suburb of Paris, Equalityville.

A

renamed during

the Revolution Bourg-Egalite

moderate member of the Convention, he was fleeing

the wholesale proscriptions the triumphant extremists had directed against their enemies the moderates (see our quotation ides's

At

account of like events in Corcyra 2,300 years

the time, the Western world

world war of some twenty-five

had

years,

new republic of 1812. The war was

begun what was

just

war

from Thucyd-

earlier, pp. 91, 92).

into

be a

to

which even the

virtu-

ous and isolated

the United States of America was to

be drawn in

the costliest

race

had

and bloodiest the human

yet indulged in.

Into the course of the French Revolution percussions Western, not merely French its

makers, as well as to

enemies,

its

ideas of the Enlightenment.

it

—we

was

made.

Yet the

in

its

re-

To

of abolishing the

new good environment was

The experiment produced

poleon, and a bloody war.

was

a proving-ground for the

Here the experiment

old bad environment and setting up the actually

—which

cannot enter here.

Na-

the Reign of Terror,

Obviously something had gone wrong.

intellectual leaders of

mankind by no means drew

the simple

conclusion that the ideas behind the experiment were wholly wrong.

They drew indeed many

much

We

of the nineteenth

conclusions,

and from

and twentieth centuries

shall in the following chapters

make

these is

conclusions

understandable.

a very rough division into

those who, though shocked by the Revolution, continued to hold, with

the kind of modifications suited to respectable middle-class people,

the basic ideas of the Enlightenment; those as basically false;

who

and those who attacked these

attacked these ideas ideas, at least as in-

corporated in nineteenth-century society, as basically correct, but torted, or not achieved, or not carried far

in terms

borrowed from

politics,

we

enough.

dis-

Putting the matter

shall consider the points of

view

of Center, Right, and Left.

Adjustments and Amendments in the

The

firm ground of nineteenth-century

West remained

410

the doctrine of progress.

New

Cosmology

common

belief

in

the

Indeed, that doctrine in the

ADJUSTMENTS

THE NEW COSMOLOGY

IX

developed cosmology seemed even firmer than in the eighteenth cen-

The human

tury.

was no

there

was getting

race

limit to this process

and standards of

values

Here we may note

that

on

this process

growing happier, and

better,

With some

earth.

we

of the concrete

shall shortly have to deal.

the tragic events of the wars

if

and revolu-

end of the eighteenth century suggested that progress was

tions at the

not uninterrupted, not a smooth and regular curve upward, in the

comparative quiet from 1815 dence

to

and uneven, In the

was plenty of material

sort of progress,

especially in the field of morals, but

first

still

evi-

perhaps irregular clear progress.

place, science and technology continued an apparently

We

uninterrupted advance. science

to 1914 there

confirm the belief in some

have reached a stage in the history of

where we need hardly attempt any

By

sort of chronicle.

the

end of the eighteenth century Lavoisier's "new chemistry" had become simply modern chemistry, though Lavoisier himself suffered in the

French Revolution a age,

and in

fate like Condorcet's.

word biology was

the biological sciences,

had been

laid,

used.

first

is

it

especially

Though much had

true in

Geology too had come of

the French lexicographer Littre, the

1802, according to

enough

Comte made

of the sciences in the order of their

list

and

materials, in his eye

the

their "ripeness" or perfection.

more complete,

since

their

in

by 1800 the broad bases

that

taxonomic and morphological

Just before the middle of the century Auguste

known

done

yet to be

command The older

studies.

his well-

over thsir

ones were

materials were easier to

They run from mathematics and astronomy through physics to biology and psychology. The "life sciences" even to

master.

and chemistry

Comte were not which he ends in

yet quite

his

list,

what they should

be.

There

is

one with

a science not yet born, but conceived, at least

Comte's ambitious mind, and which he christened, in a mixture

of Latin

The

and Greek

science of It

is

that has always offended the classicists, sociology.

man was

to be the

more important

of the sciences

the business

crowning

for our purposes to note that this

was accompanied by

enterprise

science.

necessary

to

a

growth

of inventions

put them to use.

growth and of

Thus was

strengthened an attitude Westerners began to hold early in the eight-

411

THE DEVELOPED COSMOLOGY eenth century, a state of

improvements, varied

faster

mind

that

bigger

travel,

and more abundant

welcomed and expected material better

cities,

plumbing, more

Moreover, these were not

diet.

just

im-

provements for the privileged few; they were improvements everybody, even the humblest, could hope some day to share.

common

Western world

typical of the

There were go-getters

tion.

a city as

transatlantic

its

Whether

or not

it is

as typically

England

namesake

Western world, you could

the

American, whereas

as

well as in the Middle

intents

all

in Ohio.

and purposes

human

progress, the fact of increasing

argument

a plausible

From

progress.

1815 to 1853 there

Europe and merely routine in English colonies,

The

States.

serfs

temperance

to

were freed

chastity,

Human

it

had never been

made

life

there was

ability to

fail to see

in

the United

All sorts of good causes, from

making women would soon to

make

political

Slavery had been abolished

to be abolished

in Russia.

seemed

moral and

it.

was no important war within

colonial wars.

and was about

Spencer could hope that of cosmetics.

that

in

around you.

In the second place, one could in the mid-nineteenth century least

new

as

Almost everywhere

see "things" multiplying

produce usable goods was so obvious that no one could at

that

since the so-called Industrial Revolu-

in

Liverpool in England was to

West.

expectation

an attitude we Americans

statistically,

sometimes rather parochially think of it is

common

pride in these achievements, a

would go on, measurably,

they

There was a

be

was valued, or

Herbert

progress. rise

above the use

at least preserved, in a

way

Cruel sports, cruel punishments, no longer

before.

public appeal in the West.

The kind

of

human

behavior found

in the witchcraft scare of the seventeenth century, a scare that took

worst forms in new-world Massachusetts, seemed quite im-

some of

its

possible

anywhere

The

of progress

—and

reaps

had

in the

Western world

in 1850.

great contribution of the nineteenth century to the doctrine is

to

be found in the work of the biologists.

—most

deserves

of the fame, but a long

for several generations been building

evolution.

Geological research

made

it

line of

Darwin workers

up the notion

of organic

on

this planet

evident that

life

had been going on for a very long time, thousands, and then as the

412

ADJUSTMENTS evidence came

THE NEW COSMOLOGY

IN

seemed

Fossil remains

millions of years.

in,

to

show

that the more mobile and nervously complicated organisms like the

came comparatively

vertebrates life

and that the

late,

of the rocks as though time, with

man on

tury there

was

Thus

the top.

—the

Newton,

like

were on

in the air

of organic evolution.

Darwin,

life

forms of

earliest

It

looked from the record

a sort of

ascending scale through

were, roughly speaking, the simplest.

as early as the late eighteenth cen-

breathed

air the intellectuals

—an

idea

Progress had gone from the seashell to man.

be com-

tied together in a theory that could

man

municated to the ordinary educated

a

mass of

and

facts

theories

derived from detailed studies.

Here

by no means the place

is

theories of evolution. theories stantly

To

meant something competing with

to

attempt an analysis of Darwin's

who

the layman, like this.

their

does concern us, these

All living organisms are con-

own kind and with

ganisms for food and space to survive.

other kinds of or-

In this struggle for existence

and other

the individual organisms best adapted to get plenty of food

good living conditions

on the whole

live

and

best

most sexually attractive and capable mates, and beget themselves. This adaptation

is

at

longest, get the fit

offspring like

bottom a matter of luck

at birth, for

organisms reproduce in quantity, and in that reproduction the spring vary ever so slightly and apparently quite at bit taller, a bit

and

offis

a

stronger, has a single muscle especially well developed,

These lucky variations tend

so on.

—one

random

spring, however,

and thus

to

be continued in the

off-

a line, a species, tends to get established,

more successful and better adapted to the struggle for life than the one from which it evolved. The organism homo sapiens developed

Man

not from apes, but from earlier primates. the struggle as Evolution's major triumph. constantly,

though very slowly.

posture, his hand, tion, of this

is

has emerged from

This process

Man, with

his

is

going on

brain, his upright

at present apparently the favorite child of

Evolu-

cosmic process, but like other organisms the geological us about, he

may

record

tells

failed,

and be replaced by

well regress,

a fitter

may

organism.

popular Darwinism of the Victorians.

fail as

Such,

the dinosaurs

briefly,

was the

THE DEVELOPED COSMOLOGY Darwinian

who

those

no means necessarily

ideas are thus by

accepted them for the most part found

make

They seemed

to

just as real as

what

ral science to

moral and

is

quite clear that

it

They

called gravity.

earlier.

of hope.

full

called progress

is

is

gave the sanction of natu-

much

political ideas,

done a century and a half

what

But

optimistic.

them

as

Newton's ideas had

true that with the publication

It is

of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859 one of the great conflicts be-

tween religion and science came

when

Darwin's work, especially

to a head.

spread abroad by determined disciples, seemed to

merely to conflict with a

tians not

of Genesis but to deny that

animals

—except

man

is

many

Chris-

the

literal interpretation of

Book

any way different from other

in

development of

that the purely natural

central

his

nervous system has enabled him to indulge in symbolic thinking and

The

have moral ideas and "invent" God. In our time, and

died out.

among

not yet wholly

conflict has

intellectuals at least,

it

seems

to

be taking another form, a struggle whose catchwords are humanism or the humanities

Our

on the one hand, and science on the

chief interest here, however,

place in nature as

it

was fought out

is

not the struggle over man's

in the nineteenth century, nor

The

even in the warfare of science and theology. win's

work spread over

into philosophy, economics,

We

nascent social sciences.

shall

note that organic evolution as

encounter

Darwin and

influence of Dar-

and indeed

to

Tennyson was

his followers

few minutes

to time since the first

The

to a year.

whole armory of Darwinian ideas were of peace, co-operation,

all

and absence of

far

it

from

fossils as a

and indeed the

from suggesting

frustration

the

brought

history

Cambrian

struggle for existence

all

Here we may

again.

it

out was a very, very slow process indeed, so that

Homer

other.

a future

and

suffering.

and

politics

In

would

short, the implications of

Darwinism

seem

than for the hopeful tradition of the En-

to be rather against

for morals

lightenment, which emphasized the possibilities of rapid change for the better.

and

it is

Yet the

results of the

whole process seemed most

uplifting,

probable that Herbert Spencer was merely putting neatly the

point of view of the average European and American

when he wrote

may

be very kind."

that Nature's discipline

414

is

"a

little

cruel that

it

ADJUSTMENTS

THE NEW COSMOLOGY

IN

Evolution not only seemed to the believer to provide an explanation of

way

the

progress took place;

it

made

that progress clearly inevitable

and good. Moreover, there were ways of reconciling even the harsher aspects of the

Darwinian struggle

for life with the

The

traditions of the Enlightenment.

beings.

pacifist

among somehow sublimated among

struggle for existence

lower organisms could be considered as

human

humanitarian and

"Nature red in tooth and claw" could,

especially for

the prosperous city-bred businessman, easily seem to have become

peaceful and co-operative in the cultivated fields of Victorian England.

Men

competed

now

without

its

Still

in high conduct, not in the

another interpretation, by no means

dangers for the optimism of the Enlightenment, considered

Darwinian struggle

the

and

in productivity

crude struggle of warfare.

human

in

to be a struggle

life

among

ganized groups, more especially nation-states, and not, or not

among

marily, tion,

within

this political

organism as these thinkers liked

between Germany and England,

men.

say,

from Fichte

to Treitschke.

The

Darwinian

German

all

to call

it,

competition was

among Germans

not

Interpretations of this sort, even before

developed, were favored by almost tury,

Within the organiza-

individuals within these states.

there prevailed co-operation, not competition.

orpri-

or Englishideas

were

publicists of the cen-

Their implications, like the extreme

nationalism they are based on, are hostile to the whole eighteenthcentury outlook, and are no mere modification of

Darwinian evolution was, however,

for

it.

most educated men of the

nineteenth century a clarification and a confirmation of the doctrine of progress, a strengthening of their inheritance

ment.

But

it

from the Enlighten-

probably helped, as the century wore on, to add to the

hold over their imagination of increasingly powerful ideas of national or racial superiority.

and the

ideals of the

The

relation

EnUghtenment

The Enlightenment held

all

men

between the ideas of nationalism is

a very difficult

those of color to be merely superficial capacity for culture

cosmopolitan in

its

and the good

outlook.

The

one

to analyze.

to be equal, all differences such as

and of no

life,

effect

on human

and was therefore wholly

nineteenth century

fell

into the trap

415

THE DEVELOPED COSMOLOGY of nationalist doctrines, betrayed

its

intellectual ancestors of the

En-

lightenment, and allowed the growth of that divisive nationalism from

which we Let

still

it

suffer.

clearly be

understood that

between cosmopol-

this contrast

itanism and nationalism rests on certain general ideas of the eighteenth-century philosophers and certain other contrasting ones of nineteenth-century writers

—between

Lessing, say, writing his

Wise against race prejudice, and Gobineau, writing is

Essay on the

In actual practice

Inequality of Races in defense of race prejudice. there

his

Nathan the

very httle difference in the international relations, the inter-

national morality, of the two epochs.

final recourse

and diplomacy was hardly more virtuous

in both centuries,

than in another.

Warfare was the

It is

in

one

not even true that the professions of the nine-

teenth-century diplomatists were nobler than those of their predecessors.

Nationalism

is

at

bottom no more than the important form the

modern Western

sense of belonging to an in-group has taken in our

That culture has from

culture.

a richness of group a group as the

Church

its

beginnings in ancient Greece had

from the family up

life,

of

Rome

in the

huge and

catholic

One

of these

to so

Middle Ages.

numerous groups has been consistently based on a territorial political and administrative area, and on the kind of sentiments anchored in the word motherland or, more commonly in the West, fatherland. It would be extremely useful for a qualified student of history and the social sciences to study as

amalgamations of

ideas, sentiments,

and

interests this particular in-group feeling in a series of contrasting areas in space

and time

—fifth-century

Athens, for example, imperial Rome,

the France of Saint Joan of Arc, the France of Voltaire, the France of

The

the Third Republic.

ferences, in the intensity'

researcher

would unquestionably

the national group, in the distribution of these feelings classes, in the extent

tional

and

find dif-

and purity of the sentiments of belonging intensity of hostile feelings

among

to

social

toward other na-

groups (out-groups), and so on.

He would cally, for

416

to

be said emphati-

no sudden and new thing,

a villain or devil

also find similarities.

nationalism

is

This needs

— ADJUSTMENTS

IN

THE NEW COSMOLOGY

that sprang out of the othei^'ise progressive, democratic,

culture of the

EnUghtenment.

Nationalism

thinking and feeling focused as the tive first three centuries of the

result, in particular, of the

modern Western

These units

certain territorial units.

most of them have been

and peaceful

an age-old way of

is

era (1500-1800)

are not absolutely fixed,

relatively firm

forma-

on

though

throughout modern times

France, for instance, or to take an "oppressed" nationality, Ireland.

No

single

outward

usually an adequate

test

of nationalit)' exists.

test,

for the

nation-states has been to try to bring to the

group the obvious unity like

a single

Belgium and Canada there

is

Switzerland remains the state that

classic,

members

an evident

and almost is

of a national

In biHngual states

stress

and

strain not

Eke Holland and Australia.

states

everyone admits

is

who govern modern

language affords.

found in otherwise comparable hngual

Actually language

pohcy of those

sole,

example of a multi-

a true nation, a fatherland for

its

members.

The nation has been made by a most complex interplay of actual human relations for many years, often for many centuries. Modern liberals are

basis for

fond of insisting that there

who make up

individuals

Frenchmen

Englishmen sense,

no

physical,

no physiological

nationahsm, that no innate "national" characteristics, psychic

or somatic, exist except in

States.

is

are not

Germans

AU

normal random distribution among the

nations like France,

Germany, the United

are not born with innate skill at

born law-abiding and

making

full of poUtical

are not born blonds, nor with

love,

common

an innate feeling for

may well be true; but education and many more powerful molders of human sentiment and opinion have been at work for many years convincing people that national traits are facts of life. Nationalism may be the product of environment, not heredity, but a cultural environment established by a long historical development may authority.

this

be quite as hard to change as any physical

Nationahsm was unquestionably characteristic

ment and call

modern form,

their interaction

the French Revolution.

traits.

reinforced, in fact

was given

as a result of the ideas of the

with the complex of

human

its

Enlighten-

relations

we

In terms unduly abstract, perhaps, you

417

THE DEVELOPED COSMOLOGY can say that notions of popular sovereignty, democracy, the general will according to Rousseau, got translated into poUtical reality as a justification for the sovereign nation-state.

there

is

behind the eighteenth-century

We have

seau's Social Contract a feeling for a

group

noted already that

language of Rous-

rationalist

transcending the

will

nominalist limitations of most eighteenth-century reason, a feeling

whole

that the political

greater than the

is

sum

of

Specifically focused

not unfairly labeled mystical.

parts, a feeling

its

on

a given national

group, this mystical feeling clothes the idea of nationality in symbols, shared by

ideals,

all

members.

its

substituted for Christianity

group

life.

No

ship in his heart these faiths,

is

for

its

real zealots

forms of

for all other organized

doubt for the average

than one of the faiths that

man

nationalism

no more

is

live together in actual if illogical partner-

and mind

(illogical

and

some

in the sense that

of

say Christianity and national patriotism, may have mutu-

Yet

incompatible ethical ideals).

ally

Nationality

and often

it

is

hard

many modern Western men

extent to which for

nation-state occupies a

major part of

to

exaggerate the

the worship of the

their conscious relations

with

groups outside the family. Indeed, the religious parallel traditional Christianity

tury philosophers" can be of the fatherland.

we drew

and the "heavenly

Here

in the last chapter

between

city of the eighteenth-cen-

made even more

instead of a vague

concrete for the religion

humanity

to be bettered,

instead of fairly abstract ideas of "liberty, equality, fraternity," you

have a litical

definite territorial unit

power behind

it.

organized with the

full benefit of po-

Citizens can be indoctrinated

from the very

beginning so that they identify themselves emotionally with the fate of the national group.

The

hymns, the reverent reading of

surrounding the

ritual

flag,

patriotic

patriotic texts, the glorification of the

national heroes (saints), the insistence on the nation's mission, the nation's basic consonance with the is

so familiar to

how

we

all

this

some other proposed means for securing it. But if you want to realize

never even notice

far this nationalist religion has

418

—

most of us that unless we are internationalist crusaders

in favor of a world-state or

universal peace

scheme of the universe

gone even in the United

States,

ADJUSTMENTS where

is

it

THE NEW COSMOLOGY

IN

not stimulated by any sense of being nationally oppressed,

any sense of wanting pieces of land we haven't got, read the fascinating chapter on the cult of Lincoln in Mr. Ralph Gabriel's Course of

You

American Democratic Thought.

will find that

men have

actu-

prayed to the dead Lincoln.

ally

Nationalism, then,

is

new doctrines man took in the many of the elements

one of the workjng forms the

of popular sovereignty, progress, the perfectibility of

world of

Nationalism

reality.

is

congruous with

modern Western group life. Psychologically, the rise to power of a middle class that lacked perience and personal knowledge of other lands in

found the abstract devotion of the

that

beyond

its

range, a class for

the enduring last

whom

is

congruous with

of a nobility, a class

humanity

intellectual to all

the nation stood ready to provide

vicarious satisfactions of "pooled self-esteem"

if

(this

the harsh definition the English humanitarian Clutton-Brock

is

gave for patriotism).

Nationalism

wholly congruous with the

is

of economic organization of the early tion.

it

the cosmopolitan ex-

Indeed nationalism,

facts

and middle Industrial Revolu-

human

like all other phases of

relations,

has been explained by the fanatics of the economic interpretation of history as wholly the result of the

economic organization of the means

modern industrial capitalism. If being right from such statements as that

of production in the early stages of

you

feel the illumination of

Waterloo was a ably nothing

conflict

between British and French capitalism, prob-

you read here

away the glow. From our point

will take

of view, the profits obtainable through the nation organized as

economic unit

—profits

of the nation-state,

furthered by

all sorts

from standardization of weights and measures

protection of the flag in colonial trade tions reinforced

what we

Finally, nationalism

optimistic filtered

century.

call

to

nationalism; they do not "explain"

on the whole got adapted

ordinary educated

it.

to the generally this

cosmology

Westerners of the nineteenth

This adaptation seems most neatly done, most

the kindly hopes of the Enlightenment, in the tionahst Mazzini.

to

—such profits and their implica-

cosmology of the eighteenth century as

down

an

of acts within the frame

work

For Mazzini, the nation was an

fitly

part of

of the Italian naessential

Hnk

419

in a

:

THE DEVELOPED COSMOLOGY chain that might be described as individual-nation-humanity.

groups that

themselves nations were

feel

difficulties, certainly

no wars, among them.

of the early nineteenth century into artificial

would never make war

free Italy self

put

It is

only because the Italy

was under foreign

rule,

showed hatred

units, that Italians

little

If all

then there would be no

free,

or harbor hatreds.

was cut up

A

of foreigners.

As Mazzini him-

it

What

true for one nation

is

are the individuals of humanity.

true as between nations.

is

The

Nations

internal national organization

is

which the nation accomplishes its mission in the Nationalities are sacred, and providentially constituted to repre-

the instrument with

world. sent,

within humanity, the division or distribution of labor for the advan-

tage of the peoples, as the division and distribution of labor within the limits of the state should be organized for the greatest benefit of all the citizens.

they do not look to that end, they are useless and

If

they persist in

evil,

which

is

make atonement and

unless they

return to good.

These ideas sound somewhat unreal tury,

when men

rarely nationalist

of Mazzini's idealist

—except, But

imperialist control.

our mid-twentieth cen-

in

and crusading temperament

perhaps, in lands it

is

still

ter things.

Men

In an attenuated form,

the

are ultimately to be equals

men

and brothers, and

in the

of our nation can lead the less civilized rest to bet-

But nationalism could be readily pushed into an attack

on, rather than an

The

amendment

to,

the ideas of the Enlightenment.

various brands of nationalism that exalted one national group

into masters,

all

others into slaves, or

which aimed

at

peopling the

whole earth with one chosen group, the others having been duly ofif,

are

Western

Englishman or Frenchman probably made some such

the average

meantime

subject to

one way in which nationalism can be

reconciled with liberal cosmopolitan ideals.

adjustment:

If

fall.

egotism, they perish: nor do they rise again

killed

were not consonant with the ideals of the eighteenth century.

these anti-Enlightenment nationalisms the

minated

in the

and the most

Nazi

faith of only yesterday

German is

variety that cul-

merely the best

known

nearly successful.

Darwinism, we have noted, strengthened belief in earthly progress,

420

Of

pnd was

readily

in the popular

mind

enough accommodated

a to

ADJUSTMENTS

THE NEW COSMOLOGY

IN

the optimistic attitude of the

EnHghtenment toward human

Nationalism could also be accommodated, like those of

works

at least in theoretical

Mazzini, with the idea of a peaceful world of free

living rationally in is,

capacities.

mutual

toleration

—indeed, in

mutual

men

There

love.

however, a third great current in nineteenth-century intellectual and

emotional

life

which presents much more

to the prevailing attitudes of the ever,

even

this

current

—the

"Age

problems in relation

difficult

of Prose

great "romantic"

and Reason."

movement

against the culture of the eighteenth century

which

characteristic attitudes of the early nineteenth century

perspective of

Western history not

really a sharp

lightenment, but for the most part, and in of ordinary tivities

on

men and women toward

early iSoo's looked

no doubt about the back

at

its

of revulsion

one of the

is is

in the broad

break with the En-

on the

effect

attitudes

the Big Questions of man's ac-

earth, a continuation of the

First, there is

its

—

How--

Enlightenment. fact that the generation of the

fathers with

ern Western contempt of one generation for

more than its

the usual

mod-

immediate predecessor.

The young man wrapped up in Wordsworth shared all Wordsworth's own contempt for a writer like Pope, who seemed to him shallow, conceited, prosaic, no poet at all. The young Frenchman of 1816, perhaps born in exile, and now an ardent Catholic, felt a strong disgust for his

aged grandfather, a Voltairean unrepentant, a hater of

a lover of

good

talk,

good food, and bad women.

customary order of the generations

way

it

seems

to

is

Here indeed the

reversed, as in a less

be in the mid-twentieth century:

priests,

It

is

pronounced the younger

generation that finds the older loose and undisciplined.

Put more

abstractly

and

in the conventional terms of cultural his-

tory, to the classicism or neoclassicism of the eighteenth

century suc-

ceeded the romanticism of the early nineteenth; to the materialism, the nominalism, the

atomism of the Enlightenment succeeded the

idealism, the emphasis

on organic wholeness, of the

late

nineteenth

century; to the deism, ardent atheism, occasional skepticism,

and

fre-

quent anticlericalism of the eighteenth century succeeded the widespread revival of Christian forms in the nineteenth.

In short, the shift

421

THE DEVELOPED COSMOLOGY to romantic tastes

many

one of

is

tiie classic

examples of a rapid change in

phases of culture.

Now we

do not wish

—and

deny the

to

value of studying

it

from students of

literature.

it

has had

The

reality of this

differences

between a painting of

poem

Watteau's and a painting of Delacroix's, between a

and

a

poem

of Lamartine's, between a baroque church

Gothic church, are shift in

you do not take the toughness too to the

Neo-

a

is

have already encountered

very basic philosophical dichotomy as far back as in Greece.

most dualisms, under

down

breaks

it

close analysis, yet

it

has

this

Like

into a bewildering range of variables its

uses.

We

must pause a moment

from eighteenth-century head-philosophy

outline the steps

the

realist position or, if

from the tough-minded

seriously,

We

tender-minded.

of Boileau's

and

Even more important

and important.

real

philosophy from the nominalist to the

philosophy

change, nor the

a great deal of study, especially

to

nine-

to

teenth-century heart-philosophy.

The temper

of eighteenth-century thought in the heavy fields of

epistemology can be taken from Bentham, side,

but

is

are so real as to be not relations,

our senses

all

the level of

like are pretentious nonsense.

human beings, Each human being is an

is.

of such individuals

No

The whole

group can is

is

feel or

just

a

a fiction, a convenient fiction, but

still

think or

hardly even the

The whole (remember medieval nominalism)

parts.

human

like "general will," "soul of a nation,"

do what an individual can do. its

there

Any grouping

group of individuals; terms

and the

At

us aware of the existence of

That's

individual, a social atom.

be on the extreme

objects of sense perception

worth debating about.

make

ourselves and others.

who may

For him the

especially clear.

is

sum

of

in this case

a construct of the mind.

The movement away from this position is usually considered as having begun with the German philosopher Kant, whose productive period was the

last half of

difficult professional

person today ophers.

the most typical

For what the distinction

ment and 422

still

the eighteenth century.

Kant

is

a very

philosopher, probably for the average cultivated

is

and most representative of worth, he

is

philos-

probably in tempera-

influence an idealist, a tender-minded thinker.

But

like

ADJUSTMENTS Adam as

Smith

THE NEW COSMOLOGY

IN

in another field,

he

was the nineteenth-century

it

is

by no means an extremist.

Adam

disciples of

doctrines of economic individualism to an extreme, so ciples of

Kant

Kant, in spite of his

are out-and-out idealists.

and long-windedness, in the angels,

spite of

and matter

logical

human

into skepticism about the conformity of

He

out

set

he agreed with

Hume

to

rescue

many

people.

definitely

philosophical certainty and did so to the satisfaction of Briefly,

He

development of the Cartesian dualism

with an external world.

reason

being so obviously on the side of

quite as obviously a child of the Enlightenment.

is

was disturbed by Hume's of spirit

such dis-

is

it

German Hegel who German vagueness

nineteenth-century

as the early

Just

Smith who carried

that receptor experiences {Sinnlich\eit)

and understanding {Ver stand) could give us only contingent, chang-

reason,

tells

and wrong

right

how

was looking

which

or other

lating cannot

Vernunjt

But he found in reason {Vernunjt) the

judgments.

ing, uncertain

certainty he

in a given situation,

makes make.

made on

judgments

valid

in a

and accidents different

criteria

way mere ordinary dominium and

(see p. 193)

who

ways a very typical specimen. world-spirit,

Supreme Reality his

rational real,

him.

His

Leibnitz, in

is

the best

line of

countryman this

to

known

Hegel's Vernunjt

that rules the world.

was caught

Candide, that

a disuses,

certainly dif-

is

German Hegel.

philoso-

We

of them, in

may many

a communication

from the immanent, almost Spinozist God or

most quoted

had come

is,

uses.

Kant through Fichte and Scheliing

here concentrate on Hegel,

from one of

calcu-

scientist

and

sense uses,

Vernunjt had a magnificent career in a

from the

is

proprietas,

—that

from those the

common

from those the nominalist

phers from

practical

Obviously the distinction between Verstand and

probably diflerent from those ferent

two kinds,

and pure reason, which some-

of a piece with that between

is

as of

us infallibly through our moral intuition what

or that between substance tinction

Reason he saw

for.

Now

Hegel, as you can judge

principles, that the real

is

in a difficulty other idealists

of

the

end

of

the

rational

seventeenth

to the conclusion, so bitterly attacked

must be the

and the

had had before century,

by Voltaire

best of all possible worlds.

We 423

have

— THE DEVELOPED COSMOLOGY who

noted that for the theologian

posits

a

God

all-knowing,

powerful, and all-good, the problem of the origin of evil

These philosophers, however, are not

tough.

men

a spirit (nothing the senses of

the

power

moves the whole

that

they run into a diflBculty

has to do what

wouldn't be.

This

Hegel was no

on earth

things

different

men.

But

is,

is

right,

or

it

very offensive to many men, who makes it. patriotic German who wanted some is

but a

—wanted,

for

esteemed.

on a plan that was

which Hegel's called

part-disciple

the

That

liberty.

instance,

He

French ways

dis-

got out of his logical

liberty.

appetites, fight

it

perfect, but not static.

The

Karl Marx made even better

The spirit sets up a somehow rouses up its exact,

dialectic.

thesis

thetical opposite, in this

Greek

so to speak,

to

—or thought he did—by having his world-spirit go to work

known, was Greek

is,

to the thinker

fatalist,

historically, in time,

process,

from mice

like that of the theologians; the spirit

argument

sort of

nor even

posit a principle,

can get at) which

universe,

and therefore whatever

German ways

esteemed and difficulties

much

does,

it

and often even annoying

of

really theists,

however much they use the word God; they

deists,

all-

rather

is

thesis,

say

polar, anti-

example, Oriental despotism, the antithesis

Thesis and antithesis, embodied in

human

wills

and

out in a gorgeous set of struggles designed by the

World-Spirit, and out of these struggles finally comes the synthesis, in this

example,

German

disciplined liberty.

specimen of Hegel's ideas and methods concrete facts

Here

is

— unfair

most of us assume are not

a

somewhat unfair

since

it

deals with

really illuminated

by the

kind of thing Hegel does:

The

typical crystal of the earth

delights, recognizing

and gravity air

is

it

is

the diamond in which every eye

as the first-born son [synthesis] of light [thesis^

[antithesis].

Light

is

abstract, completely

free

the identity of the elementary; the subordinate identity

identity is

passivity

and this is the transparency of the crystal. Metal, on the other hand, is opaque because in it the individual itself is concentrated into an existence for itself through high specific gravity. in respect of light,

The

synthesis

is

not a compromise between thesis and antithesis, not

an averaging out of the difference between them, but a brand-new

424

ADJUSTMENTS

THE NEW COSMOLOGY

IN

thing, born of exhilarating struggle.

Hegel seemed

true that

It is

to

think that the Prussian state of his professorial maturity was the end

But for us the important point

of the process, the perfect synthesis. to note

that even formal philosophical idealism,

is

emphasize the

static

which tends

to

unchanging over the

over the dynamic, the

changing, seemed in this nineteenth century to have to accommodate itself to

strong feeling for time, process, change, progress, evolution.

What

more important

is

philosophies

is

dominant position from the academic

especially in

for us than the details of these idealistic

In

the fact of their success.

Germany

start of the century.

they gradually overcame the resistance

circles,

of the strong tradition of British empiricism,

century T.

H. Green, most

certainly the

they had the

In England, and

and by the end of the

Bradley, and Bosanquet, idealists

all,

conspicuous of professional philosophers.

were

In the

United States echoes of Josiah Royce's idealism sounded from hundreds of chairs

and

Idealism had even invaded France, that land

pulpits.

of simple, prudential logic,

where the language couldn't

tinguish between Verstand and Vernunft. so

much

school

intellectual

had things

freedom

all its

positivism, pragmatism,

phies

flourished,

own

the

as

Naturally, in a century of

nineteenth,

tough-minded philoso-

deliberately

even in Germany.

Herbert Spencer attempted a kind of evolutionary, scientific materialism,

no philosophical

Various forms of materialism,

way.

and other

English thinker

Indeed,

the

summa

of nineteenth-century

and was

for several generations

a kind of culture-hero for "advanced" people generally.

Now late

it

is

clear that the ordinary

educated person

—and

by the

nineteenth century there were millions of them in the Western

world

—had in the hundred years that followed the American and the

French revolutions changed

We

readily dis-

his

intellectual

garments considerably.

have just emphasized the change in formal academic philosophy,

from say Locke or Bentham

to

Hegel and Bosanquet.

You may

argue that formal philosophy has never had great influence on even educated laymen; and you can add to that argument the special fact that by the nineteenth century philosophy

specialized

and academic

was getting

subject, cultivated almost

to be a very

wholly by pro-

425

THE DEVELOPED COSMOLOGY fessors,

and thus even more

But there are

all sorts

these the

men and women

down on

their forefathers

never lived

from ordinary educated people

and mothers

who

of the eighteenth as shallow, felt

or thought deeply,

fact that

both centuries share

never really

Yet these differences pale before the

on

modern cosmology; both

earth, both believe that

believe in progress here

something radical can be done about

sorts of arrangements here that will increase happiness

suffering; both are at

and

idealistic

bottom optimistic and

melioristic.

The romantic

human

strict

perhaps, to have

logic,

perfectibility

impossible.

The

made

optimistic

revival of emotion,

imagination, of a feeling for organic wholes ought to have laissez-faire

much

from the

less

high expectations of radical change in

common.

Nature might

wild scenery, savage conventional

to the eighteenth.

of

Some

did

revolt against the age of prose

the-street did not.

fields,

joys, art,

human

be-

draw some such consequences and reason.

But the man-in-

for the nineteenth century stand for

unplanned exuberance, instead of the quiet

order and uniformity that seemed "natural"

But Nature was

in both centuries a comforting ally

man, just on the point of overcoming once and for

enemies.

made

individualism, simple, innocent attachment to schemes

for reform, very

havior,

ail

and diminish

elements in the nineteenth-century revulsion from the

eighteenth ought in belief in

in all

whole.

life

the essentials of the

and

of the nineteenth century tended to look

prosaic, superficial people

who

cut off

of other tests, art, literature, religion,

all

his unnatural

Lewis Morgan, the American anthropologist, sounds

in

1877 almost like Condorcet a century earlier:

Democracy in government, brotherhood in society, equality in rights and universal education, foreshadow the next higher plane society to which experience, intelligence and knowledge are steadily

and of

privileges,

tending.

The There

is,

Victorian

Compromise

of course, a grave difficulty in attempting to outline the

world-attitude of the average Westerner of the nineteenth century in the fact that averages don't

426

live.

Moreover, the multanimity

we know

THE VICTORIAN COMPROMISE in the twentieth century

nineteenth

is

Englishman

The

is

also a fact of the nineteenth.

the great century of English

power and

ordinary Englishman of the middle classes

is

The

prestige.

who

tone even for those "lesser breeds"

set the

the

Still,

hated him.

the most successful,

most hopeful, in many ways most representative of homo sapiens

He

the last century.

is

the obvious heir of the Enlightenment, but

he has experienced to the

tion.

His

various winds of doctrine hostile

on the

hoped very much

welcomed the new depths of

movement brought.

were

defi-

perfectionist side, not encouraging to those

who

for rapid,

His

planned change in

traditions

human

was the great beneficiary of the Industrial Revolution, and

greatest

nation-state of

richest

for the

The Englishman the

now

fully

of the

did to thc;

worth investigating.

took

it

Indeed,

all

for granted that enterprise

would produce ever more and more conveniences.

now came

Thus

the

over

and

Utopias

equipped with gadgets that often enough were

mately put in production.

He

complex,

inferiority

believed in material progress.

Western world men

invention

is

member

What he

Englishman was on top of the world.

heritage of the Enlightenment

a

behavior.

competing world of nation-

a

His patriotism need show no touch of the

states.

French Revolu-

led the fight against the

poets, preachers, artists, all

feeling the romantic nitely not

full the

He

Enlightenment.

to the

in

ulti-

American Edward Bellamy,

whose Loo\ing Backward (1889) is the best known of these mechanihas his Rip Van Winkle hero marvel at a device whereby

cal paradises,

a

push of a button floods the room with music.

occasionally wrong, however; in the railroads

be no

Macaulay predicted

more highways

Our Victorian took

first

The

prophets were

flush of enthusiasm over

that in the twentieth century there

or streets, for everything

would

would move on

material prosperity in his stride.

He

rails.

was not

ashamed of being comfortable, and was not greatly worried over the aesthetic inadequacies of the products of the

there

cheap,

were

artists

like

machine.

He knew

machine-made goods were deplorably ugly, but there

that this

The

that

Ruskin and Morris who thought that these

knowledge lessened

is

no sign

his buying.

Victorian was quite sure he

knew why

this material pros-

427

THE DEVELOPED COSMOLOGY had come

perity

were

and love of hard work; they had, social

But

prosper.

ties to

and

worked out by at

it

has

its

own

as large as

We

theologians.

history,

We

this.

the economic

businessmen were have here,

popular adoption of doctrines

Economics

the intellectuals.

least

all

classic instances of

the social sciences;

a volume

not, of course, that

It is

But Christians are not

one of the

quali-

things, essential to giving these gifts

We have come to the great Victorian belief in

economists.

in fact,

human

they also had, he believed, a set of institutions,

doctrines of laissez faire.

it

British people, he beHeved,

in short, the necessary

ways of doing

political

free play.

all

The

to Great Britain.

especially gifted with initiative, hard-headedness, inventiveness,

is

the most developed of

which needs for coverage have hitherto encountered

but casually; in the nineteenth century, however, notions of

how

properly to conduct the production and distribution of wealth, not

merely common-sense or traditional notions about a given way of

making cal

and

there

is

scheme with

a living, but a fully developed theoretical ethical consequences,

in the Victorian

The fundamental

come

into general circulation.

cosmology a strong economic component.

doctrine

is

simple.

Individuals, or freely asso-

ciated individuals in joint-stock

companies or the

the typically nineteenth-century

man,

make, buy, and Prices

sell

and standards

thought was

will be set

what

in trade unions) should try to

by the free play of

essentially like the

demand

(a

this

From such commaximum of goods each man getting essen-

law of gravity).

maximum

his talents

and

of social justice,

his

work had earned.

Economic

should go on almost without any participation authorities.

Businessmen do, however, need

at

usually excellent in their effects

overreach themselves.

on

society,

least

428

to

have some

selfish

acts

are

some businessmen do

Fraud must be combated, and

agents of government are needed to enforce contracts. regulation by government,

activity

by governmental

fixed contractual arrangements, and, though their

occasionally

competition in

law your Victorian

by a law of nature would come a

distributed with a tially

(but not, for

like

whatever they wish and in any way they wish.

accord with the law of supply and

petitive processes

politi-

In short,

No

positive

however, such as the establishment of

THE VICTORIAN COMPROMISE minimum

wages, for instance, should be permitted to interfere with

harmony

the

There

of nature.

indeed a corollary in

is

work

nomics, clear already in the

Adam

of

classical eco-

Smith: Monopoly, the

control of any market by any single business organization,

But many

est of evils.

of the classical

is

the great-

economists and their followers,

good children here of the EnUghtenment, believed that monopolies were the creation of governments, the

and

chartering,

so on; they believed that

would not

selves

Adam

became

it

America, that monopolies or

beyond the enforcing of least,

opposition

its

them-

own, though

state

combine, to form a nineteenth-century

in

so created,

may

enjorce competition.

the theory of classical economics as

is

form

shall study in the

hesitate to attempt to violate the

to

law of supply and demand

on

first

distrust of

self-help

seeped

down

into the

working

classes.

did not

for labor

part of the century.

and individual

government regulation of economic

and of

filtered

was met with

Workingmen

next chapter.

attitudes of reliance

tiative,

it

nineteenth-century businessmen.

by organizing in trade unions from the very

Yet some of the

laissez-

restraint of trade

of the intellectuals, at least, the doctrine

we

pure

approval of government controls

Monopolies in

contracts.

in relatively simple

Among some

were being

trusts

be forbidden by law; the Such, at

to

try

clear, especially

economics came to extend

down

left to

voluntarily create monopolies of their

When

monopoly.

may

businessmen

Smith, with his usual good sense, could not help noticing that

whenever merchants get together they

faire

actually

results of licensing,

ini-

activities,

Classical laissez faire

is

still

American business and professional community has had to adjust its behavior indeed from that of classical economic theory.

in 1950 the ideal, the credo, of the

community to a real

—though

world very

this

far

Actually the theory of the laissez-faire

state

an admirable

is

example of the complex and by no means well-understood problem of

human we have noted

the relation between theories about

relations

That

already,

on

this earth.

as the relation

neer.

Indeed,

something

relation,

and actual is

life

not the same

between the law of gravity and the work of the engi-

many modern

like that or the

students of

French

human

affairs

political theorist

take a position

Georges Sorel,

429

who

THE DEVELOPED COSMOLOGY "myths."

calls theories of this sort

heartened by their

belief,

The

myths ara

believers in such

and find the myths useful

many ways.

in

But the myths are not analytical generalizations about

reality.

We

must return

to this anti-intellectual explanation

It is difficult

to reject this explanation altogether, especially in regard

to the

grand

An

social theories.

Hartford Convention

it

a later chapter.

American can perhaps

stand the problem from' our familiar theory of at the

in

New

was the

best under-

In 1814

states' rights.

England

states that ap-

pealed to the theory and threatened secession; only a generation later these

same

good

their appeal to the

that the

fought to prevent the Southern

states

same theory; and

most varied American

appealed to the theory of

Now states'

political

from making it

can be said

groups have from time

to

time

states' rights.

the theory of laissez faire

if

states

in general

is

adaptable as that of

as

one would expect that businessmen would be against

rights,

state intervention

and for individual

found such a policy agreeable to

their

at times

initiative

own

when

interests as they

they

saw them,

but that they would be willing to accept state intervention in their

own

interest.

And

so they

have been.

Even

the British business

community, which by the mid-nineteenth century had won the country over to international free trade, accepted without too

much

ado a whole set of government regulatory acts relating to factories, child labor,

chimney sweeps, trade unions, and the

Benthamite inspiration.

from the

first

(1856).

and the United in principle strict

and

British telegraphs

In other countries, and notably in

States, the business

in general

mostly of

Germany

community was never offended in detail) by a form ot

(though sometimes

government regulation known

States the

like,

were nationalized almost

as

the

rugged individualists of the Western

In the United

tariff.

states

were the loudest

howlers for "internal improvements" paid for and put through by the federal government; and in general

it

can be said to be American

experience that though the expected attitude an American must take is

to

denounce

politics,

politicians,

and government spending,

tremely few American communities have refused to

government spend money

430

in the

community.

let

ex-

the federal

I

— THE VICTORIAN COMPROMISE Yet when

all

these qualifications

—and

made, when we recognize that the

are

they are important ones

facts of social life

never quite

fitted

the theories of classical economics, there remains a push of the

ideal

away from

Laissez faire

vidual liberty.

way

Victorian

who

could try

ment meant it

meant

the pole of authority

of

men who could take risks. Such some men tried new ways that were not

that there

ways,

were

failures as well as successes.

more human beings wanted

that

to

— than

welfare, their social standing as

we

some

shall see, that

indi-

in not as an absolute, but as part of a

that encouraged, especially in business

life

new

that

fits

and toward the pole of

force,

improve

It

their lot

life,

men

encouragesuccessful;

meant indeed

—their

could actually so do.

physical

It

meant,

some kind of compensatory

social

behef and practice was needed to compensate for the extreme individualism, of

much

what the German

idealists scornfully called the

of Western economic

Most Americans

and

"atomism,"

social activity.

are familiar with this ethical-economic core of

we have our own pat phrase for it—"rugged individualism." It takes many forms. One is the general distrust of government, of politics and politicians, we have just noted. There — are hosts of popular aphorisms "paddle your own canoe," "God helps those who help themselves," and many others — that point out this disVictorian belief; indeed

trust

of "the

Western

government"

culture,

one of the persistent ingredients of

which merely takes on and

greater emphasis

as

is

spread

among

in the nineteenth century a

all classes.

All over the Western world the nineteenth century sees

some

degree of belief in individualism, a belief that has one kind of theoretical justification

doctrine for

and backing

we have

seen

is

in the doctrine of natural rights.

instance, natural rights

were possessed by individuals, but not

equally, not even absolutely, but rather as a part of the of

whole complex

custom and tradition in which they were brought up.

reason were

wedded

in eighteenth-century thought,

of the century the "rights of

This

In the Middle Ages,

a very old one indeed.

man" had become

a

Rights and

and by the end

commonplace.

concrete contents of such rights varied with the political thinker

was claiming them, but they did get codified

in bills

The

who

and declarations

THE DEVELOPED COSMOLOGY of rights, especially in the United States

man

of Victorian days

was

and

The

in France.

English-

he had the rights with-

likely to feel that

out needing any explicit statement of them.

The and

essence of this concept of rights individuals

all

and stronger or

want

to let

him behave

that

Indeed the

the state.

One

way.

state

is

of the groups that

man

is

directed.

—any

do not

The

is

may

form

not

we

the powerful group

the organized group against

the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century rights of

that the individual

richer individuals or groups of individuals

with his behaving in certain ways

interfere call

—may

is

behave in certain ways even though other

which

of the doctrine of the

commonly included freedom

rights

of

speech, freedom of business enterprise (usually put as "property"),

often freedom of association, and, life,

at least

if

only in the form of a right to

an implied right to certain

This conception of individual rights

is

minimum

standards of living.

modern

essentially the

immortal soul

alent of the Christian concept of the sacredness of the in every it

is

man, the humanist conception

man. Again,

of the dignity of

an equivalent from which most of the richness and mystery of

Christian

feeling

common, even bly in the is

equiv-

has been

stripped

—a

bare

Western

But the

equivalent.

vulgar, concept of "rugged individualism"

is

recogniza-

tradition, as totalitarian denial of individual rights

not.

Americans need hardly be reminded that these in practice absolute

and unchanging,

—though must recompense the owner—that the

take anyone's property by eminent society the state

rights are not

that, for instance, the state

domain

in

can

our kind of

state

and

in fact

various voluntary societies for guarding our morals can curtail an individual's

freedom of speech,

that, in short, the little area the indi-

vidual can fence off for himself under the protection of this doctrine

can sometimes almost vanish.

Nor need we be reminded

last

century or so since mid-Victorian times this

cut

down

sentative

even in the United definition

States.

of the areas

You

little

cannot get a more repre-

a good Victorian

liberal

should be sacred to the individual than John Mill's essay of 1859.

432

that in the

area has been

On

thought Liberty

Parts of Mill's writings sound today like the writing of a

THE VICTORIAN COMPROMISE conservative defender of old-fashioned individualism against the

New

Deal.

But Mill

is

too

ordinary Victorian

which no one

much an

book

felt in a

reads, for

it

intellectual.

in

is

all

You

Darwin's Origin of Species and Mill's

...

it

is

every day becoming

function of government

and

active;

is

how

the

the social historians mention, but

no sense a great book.

Help, by Samuel Smiles, published (i860) as

can see better

more

at

On

This

is

Self-

almost the same time

Liberty.

clearly

understood, that the

negative and restrictive, rather than positive

being resolvable principally into protection,

—protection

of

and property. Hence the chief "reforms" of the last fifty But there years have consisted mainly in abolitions and disenactments. is no power of law that can make the idle man industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober; though every individual can be each and all of these if he will, by the exercise of his own free powers of Indeed, all experience serves to prove that the action and self-denial. worth and strength of a state depend far less upon the form of its institutions than upon the character of its men. For the nation is only the aggregate of individual conditions, and civilization itself is but a question of personal improvement. ... In the order of nature, the collective character of a nation will as surely find its befitting results in its law and The noble people will be its government, as water finds its own level. nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly. Indeed, liberty is quite as much a moral as a political growth, the result of free individual action, energy, and independence. It may be of comparatively little consequence how a man is governed from without, whilst everything depends upon how he governs himself from within. The greatest slave is not he who is ruled by a despot, great though that evil be, but he who is the thrall of his own moral ignorance, selfishness, and vice. There have been, and perhaps there still are, so-called patriots abroad, who hold life,

liberty,

—

it

to be the greatest stroke for liberty to kill a tyrant, forgetting that the

tyrant usually represents only too faithfully the millions of people over

whom

he reigns.

But nations

who

are enslaved at heart cannot be freed

by any mere changes of masters or of institutions; and so long fatal

as the

delusion prevails, that liberty solely depends upon, and consists in

government, so long will such changes, no matter at what cost they be effected, have as little practical and lasting result as the shifting figures in a

phantasmagoria.

The

individual character; which

solid foundations of liberty is

also

must

the only sure guaranty

rest

upon

for

social

433

THE DEVELOPED COSMOLOGY and national progress. In this consists the real strength of EngEnglishmen feel that they are free, not merely because they under those free institutions which they have so laboriously built

security

lish liberty. live

member

up, but because each

of society has to a greater or less extent

got the root of the matter within himself; and they continue to hold

and enjoy

fast

There

by freedom of sf>eech merely, but by and energetic action as free individual men.

their liberty, not

their steadfast life

an extraordinary amouixt of conventional Victorian belief

is

in those short passages

whole

more

is

—including the typical nominalist denial that a

anything but the

sum

of

its

parts.

But Smiles puts even

explicitly the factor that balances the apparently anarchic indi-

vidualism he preaches. .

.

we come

thus

.

foreigners, tive

—

to exhibit

what has

so long been the marvel of

a healthy activity of individual freedom,

obedience to established authority,

—the

and yet

a collec-

unfettered energetic action

of persons, together with the uniform subjection of

all

to the national

code of Duty.

This balance class

is

of course the famous "Victorian morality," the "middle-

morality" of Shavian wit, the thing the generation of the 1890's

rebelled so vigorously against.

Probably these

by Victorian

intellectuals offended

rebels,

who were

and Victorian

tastes

poor reporters of actual Victorian practices.

also

successes, are

Yet go direct

to

the

Victorian novelists, and especially to Trollope, and you will see that, at least in the

individual trained

middle and the upper

held to a very

is

from childhood on

the willing

strict

classes, the ruling classes,

code of conduct, and above

some form or another was supposed

to

be orderly.

on

authority.

We It

is

a group.

in

This conditioning

The emphasis on

is

to

is

be found in

In Victorian society, economic

Social liberty

life,

is

however, was supposed

balanced by the emphasis

this

code of behavior.

close study in the records of Victorian culture itself, so

near to us, so

434

in all societies.

to be a scramble.

need not go into great detail about

worth

is

to conformity, to accepting discipline, to

merging of himself

achieved by a subtle social training, and of course

life

the

all

much

a part of us, and yet in the mid-twentieth cen-

THE VICTORIAN COMPROMISE Perhaps the modern. American finds most remote

tury so far away. the social

and moral

structure of the family

—

its

relatively large size,

the great authority of the father, the strict discipline undergone by the children, the subordination of the females to the males, the infre-

quency

—indeed

parents

the horror

"permissiveness"

Samuel rebel

and

What

is

kindest of Victorian

treating his children with the

most

in

the

American

families.

work

of a very intellectual

may

well be false as well

But Butler's father ccvald hardly have been formed

society.

had begun was continued in the boarding

famous "public" schools

private schools, to classes

fashion

of All Flesh

the family

schools, the

the

is

The

divorce.

picture of a Victorian father

its

any other

that

Way

Butler's

as exceptional.

in

—of

would hardly have thought of

which

at least the

These schools were

went.

that correspond to the

in

boys of the upper and middle

some ways Spartan

molding him

of the individual, in their

American

member

to a

in their

Adolescents are perhaps especially likely to want to conform.

group.

The English

public

schools

who knows

his duty,

who

made

their

boys into the pattern so

and Hollywood

familiar in English novels

—the

pictures

Englishman

doesn't need a policeman because he has his

Englishman who can do what he

conscience, the

because he

likes

couldn't possibly like to do anything very dangerous to society.

were, of course, always boys the rebels,

some of a

some

whom

of

whom

conformed

who

couldn't be so molded.

the poet Shelley at one

principle,

be classed as eccentrics,

and some of whom,

whole system, root and branch.

For the average Englishman of the ruling the

beliefs invited

decorum

Darwinian struggle

him was balanced by

that his education

for

life

to

still

classes, then, the

which

his

and family background prepared

for the generation or

that

it

and

for him.

instability in this

two

wild

economic

the orderly world of decency

Although there were many, many elements of compromise,

like

end of the century and the poet Swinburne

at the other, attacked the

scramble,

There

These were

drifted off to the far parts of the worldj just sufficiently to

group the Victorians tolerated on

torian

taming

of the team, the

Vic-

lasted

it

provided one of those rare periods of balance in Western history, a

435

THE DEVELOPED COSMOLOGY period peaceful but not lethargic, a time of change and experimentation that

was

not, however, a time of troubles, not

an age of stomach

and nervous breakdowns.

ulcers

The compromise was

part a

in

compromise with

Christianity.

All over the Western world, especially in Catholic countries, the anticlericalism of the

Enlightenment lived on, taking firm roots

Western culture where outward But

be prescribed by the law.

after the severe persecutions to

a to

which

were submitted during the "de-Christianization" move-

Christians

ment

in

had ceased

religious conformity

of the French Revolution, there

back toward Christianity,

at

was

among

least

a

swing of the pendulum

the intellectual classes, a

swing well marked by the French romantic writer Chateaubriand's Genie

Christianisme

dii

(1802).

It

would be unfair

to

say

th^.t

Chateaubriand was unimpressed with the truth of Christianity, but its

truth

was

struck him, the

what he brought out

certainly not

and what he thought would impress

beauty of Christianity, the moving quality of

haunting background of It will

its

Gothic

not do to leave the impression that Chateaubriand

was markedly

hostile

Victorian compromise will

toward the

we have

Where

spirit of the age,

or from General Booth of the that,

especially

in

is

the

a

compromise.

mark

tianity,

The

that re-

toward the it

spirit of the

came from Maistre, from Newman, Salvation Army. But there can be no

it

Protestant countries

peoples do not altogether escape

much

typical

student of the nineteenth century will

fair

neglect that protest, whether

is

Christian protest against the

compromises Christian churches were making with the age was firm and loud; no

the

here been attempting to define,

be considered in the next chapter.

doubt

liturgy,

its

was

past.

of the Christian revival of the nineteenth century. vival

book; what

in his

his generation,

basic

it

—

—though

this revival

is

the

Catholic

in fact itself very

optimism toward human nature that

of the Enlightenment penetrates nineteenth-century Chris-

along with a willingness to compromise with rationalism as

well as with the comforts of the

flesh.

Were you merely

to

count

Christian heads, were you to measure by the spread of missionary

work

in all parts of the globe, or by Bibles printed

and by Sunday-

i\

THE VICTORIAN COMPROMISE was

school attendance, you might well conclude that the nineteenth

For

the greatest of Christian centuries.

swing.

Of

these indices

all

course, the hopeful believer in

human

maintain that these indices are what count, and that thesis of Christianity

and the Enlightenment

show an upcan

perfectibility

new

this

syn-

a stage in attaining

is

this perfectibility.

From

the historian's point of view, the nineteenth century

marked by any great new Christian as

were in the

and

Pietist

sects,

age of prose and reason the Methodist

full tide of the

groups of the eighteenth century.

Numerically, two

American groups, the Mormons and the Christian most

Scientists,

But probably the multiplication of

striking.

not

is

none, indeed, as successful

new

were the

religious splinter

groups, of heresies against heresies, and in particular of cults variously

compounded from Eastern brews, was and Universalist groups that

explicitly

of the worship of Jesus, groups that ence, flourished

among

least,

England and America with

The

rationalist influ-

their appeal to ritual

nineteenth

is

At

the other

were the High-Church movements in

the Christian revival, whatever else tian unity.

showed a strong

the prosperous intellectual classes.

extreme, on the surface at

Unitarian

greater than ever.

denied the sacramental character

as

it

and

Thus

tradition.

was, was not a revival of Chris-

many-minded,

as eclectic, a century

in religion as in architecture.

But

was a necessary

meant that the leading elements

thing.

taken in the eighteenth century.

had begun

A

dent in 1800.

have had

to

community could no longer

in the

take the extreme anti-Christian position

religion

we are here concerned The Victorian compromise

for the average middle-class person

with, churchgoing

many

Jefferson's

to be inconvenient to

of the enlightened hostility

political career in

had

organized

him when he became

Jefferson in the mid-nineteenth century

deny himself a

to

Presi-

would simply

most countries had he

taken so outspoken a position against organized Christian churches.

This does not mean that the Lancashire mill owner as he attended the service of the local

Congregational chapel, the coupon-cutting

he went to his village church, were outright hypocrites.

bondholder

as

Some such

hypocrisy must have existed in a

community where

437

so

THE DEVELOPED COSMOLOGY many

social

and business pressures pushed toward formal

we have

conformity, but

were undisturbed by the contrast between

churchgoer."!

and Christian

After

ideals.

very long time

—

if

religious

every reason to believe that most of these

we have had

all,

not from the

their

lives

worldly Christians for

a

start.

What makes these worldly Victorian Christians so conspicuous to us may be no more than the brilUance with which later intellectuals like Bernard Shaw have attacked them. Still, from a mid-twentiethcentury point of view they do look too self-righteous, too unaware of the depths of too

much

human

incapacity for comfortable adjustment to routine,

Perhaps

at ease in Zion.

But

view they look too lucky.

it

their

is

just that

from our point of

merging of eighteenth-century

rationalism and nineteenth-century sentiment didn't quite

come

off.

They seem

much

less

at least as

God

convinced that

The forms

shallow as the pure rationalists, and

really

of the political

show

in the nineteenth century tional

needs help from

democracy of the United

Prussia.

it

same

is

like the

the

nation-state

much

is

the

tradi-

monarchy of smaller world

its

equivalents

on a

city-state

is

a kind of pervading set of general

never quite the same in different countries, never quite in relation with other currents in different countries, but

not by any means a myth.

There

is

hesitate to label the

understands that

whole

many

divided in

same man

its

We

is

no harm

and

if

one

in using the label. is

a nineteenth-century

have noted that the Enlightenment

political

—say

Marxist does not

were adopted by upper and

In politics as in morals and religion there

compromise.

The

set of attitudes "middle-class,"

of these attitudes

classes as well, there

still

a Western culture, a Western con-

sciousness of kind in the nineteenth century.

lower

from the

Yet in modern Europe even more than in ancient

scale.

Hellas, one feels that there

the

Western world

States to the traditional

has as national components

of Sparta, Thebes, Athens;

attitudes,

social life of the

a very great variation,

In a sense, the Western world

,of fifth-century Hellas;

grander

and

us.

itself

was.

hopes and program, that sometimes even the

—believed

Bentham

in a benevolent manipulation

of

the environment by a wise minority and also in the ability of the

438

THE VICTORIAN COMPROMISE mass of men

to pick their

own

rulers

managed without

nineteenth century

The

by universal suffrage.

much

too

conclusive views on this difficult question.

It

frustration to hold in-

believed in liberty for

The favorite way out was to believe in liberty but not in license. The distinction between Hberty and license was a moral one: One was free to do right, but to do wrong meant license, and that should be stopped. Thus the pohtics of the Victorian ties in but.

all,

.

.

.

with his moral code. Briefly, the Victorian

lowing.

First, there

is

which ultimately

according to

brothers, there will be

no

and voluntary and there

—in

short, the

and

will

the

police

will be

men

and no

will taxes,

free,

work

was

"wave of the

will be pleasant

we have

called "philosophical anaroff in time,

is

certain

for the

future."

man

of the nineteenth century definitely

The good

liberal

in the center of the Victorian

even in countries by no

compromise, in Germany, in

eastern Europe, held the view that the ultimate realization of cratic ideals lay in the course of events. fitted

For the

men

present, the best

of any class

who

whose blood has run

The

The

the professions that they can cope with practical problems.

and he believed

tunity that gives

all

naps no winners.

in equality, but the

men an

—or

would have no race

kind of equality of oppor-

no prizes

myth; and he came in general

as the

though the big race of Life was a

and

for the winners,

to be increasingly

aware that

handicapped the child of poor parents, that the equal

still

Vic-

means competi-

equal start in the race, not the kind that

at least,

He came

ever better champions,

thin, but

have shown by their success in business or

torian believed in liberty, but the kind of liberty that tion;

demo-

should rule as trustees for the slowly improving masses.

best fitted are not the old aristocracy,

the

and

equals,

no poor, and no violence in any form

though some way

society,

be

Democracy, though perhaps dangerous even in England

the i86o's,

means

political credo as the fol-

be achieved by education and the gradual extension of

democracy. in

all

kind of Utopia

This ideal

chism."

had some such

the inevitable start in the doctrine of progress,

per-

his society

was a

start

century wore on to feel that

fine thing,

though from

it

the course needed cleaning up, needed

439

came first-

THE DEVELOPED COSMOLOGY and other

aid stations, needed firm rules against tripping, crowding,

He came

dirty tricks. to

help the

little

we man

the typical

Still,

liberty

and

know

all

inequalities, to

do

work of the "welfare state." mid-century was clear that in a choice

of the

equality,

in state intervention

economic

fellow, to lessen actual

the kind of thing

between

more and more

to believe

as the

democracy

were

if it

to be healthy should

lean toward liberty.

We it is

have been considering what the Victorian thought was right;

We

a harder task to describe what he thought was beautiful.

best attempt here

Western

culture,

no more than a few generalizations on

among

ings, but that over all

is

social classes

and other

safe generalizations to be

a period of very great

You

in standards of taste.

an anarchy of

ards,

Yet there are

can put

life

there

at least one,

made.

— unusually

great

—variations

unfavorably as a lack of stand-

it

was

when

in art

and

free play of individuality

and

taste; or favorably as a

culture as in economic

cultural group-

the great difference of nationality, perhaps

plainer in matters aesthetic than elsewhere.

First, this is

phase of

this

once more with the warning that there are not

only grave differences

and perhaps two,

had

period

competition out of which came a rich variety, the best of which was very good indeed.

At any

rate,

you can note the

set

in

facts of the situation

Hitherto in the West a

clearly in a matter like architecture.

man who knew

out to build any kind of building, from the humblest up,

what

style

he was going

to build, for

around him had been building. most conspicuously that there like Paris

at

It is

in,

had been a slow variation within and London the Middle Ages had

roughly, the style Americans

teenth century wore on what

is

these styles.

left

modern

call colonial.

called

Neo-Gothic

In

and cities

survivors that stood buildings, most of

But

eclecticism

possession of the builder, public as well as private. flurry of

as people

had changed,

the time Gothic gave place to classical,

out rather strikingly in the midst of early

them

he would build

true that the style

as the nine-

took complete

There

is

a short

in the early part of the century, but not even

Neo-Gothic was a universal fashion. Ultimately there came the position

440

we Americans

still

apparently

— THE VICTORIAN COMPROMISE A man

take as natural.

wants

good house; he consults

to build a

his

family and an architect, and the consultation revolves largely about the question of

Tudor

and

sion,

what

so on.

style

— Cape Cod, bungalow, ranch house, English

French chateau. South African Dutch, adobe, mis-

half timber,

unfair to take the building on

It is

American motor

roads as typical of anything, but they do put the matter with great force: If

you want

you may build

an immense hot dog

man

Eskimo

At no

itself.

no other culture have it

he has

In

probably true that in the nineteenth century there

is

among

history has

architectural hash.

developed, along with this very great variety of feeling

human

lion,

built in since iSoo.

Hke an

his cities looked

limits left

derby hat, a large

igloo, a

other stage in

built in the bewildering variety

Second,

no

to build a hot-dog stand there are

a beaverboard

One assumes

surrounded with ugly things.

widespread

tastes, a

were increasingly being

that they

cultivated people

no Athenian found

that

the buildings on the Acropolis ugly, for these buildings have unity of style

and are

buildings of the city

more

You would hardly get anyamong Americans on the subject of the public of Washington— though Washington has much

built in a single tradition.

thing like unanimity

we do

not have a good enough record of past ages.

the intellectuals in bitterly

that Plato

many

other

found popular

we

ourselves as

an intellectual

Yet again, there probably

common denominator Hked things

solid

and

a great interest in distant his

as

he found

have added

heirs,

all

that

more

class in partial isolation. is

man

a

of

sort

cross

—and

of affairs

just a bit sho\vy;

and

taste to the

and

section

of taste in the nineteenth century,

the taste of the successful

disliked the spare, the austere.

on

its

elements that separate social groups,

especially set off

torian

intelligence of the

low

tastes as

But one has the impression that the nine-

other things popular.

teenth century, and

city.

Certainly

periods of Western history have complained

all

enough about the manners, morals, and

many; no doubt

is

American

consistency in planning than any other great

Perhaps

He

or

least

and again

his wife.

The

it

Vic-

he liked abundance, and

was a romantic, an

exotic things; but

hard-headed sense of reaUty, on his

he

escapist,

with

also prided himself

ability

to

record

441

and

THE DEVELOPED COSMOLOGY The

report.

spectrum, from the romantic writhings and ironies of

Byron and

his

European

sense of Trollope

thing

there

is

It

is,

range of the

literature of the century has almost the full

disciples to the

lost souls like

calm but very decent common

and the crusading "naturalism" of

Every-

Zola.

—again as in a hash.

however, a well-blended hash with a flavor of

Looking back on

that age

from

ours,

spite of its diversity of tastes, its

one

is

own.

its

struck by the fact that in

romantic escapism,

its

disputes over

fundamentals, the nineteenth century does attain a paradoxical kind of unity, and

is

The man

an age of balance, a "flowering."

of the

nineteenth century had a sense of belonging (deeper than mere opti-

mism)

that

we

His universe had

lack.

He

got out of hand for him. styles or simple, often

not, as ours

seems

to have,

did not need to take refuge in fantastic done.

He

symbol of nineteenth-century

cul-

inhuman, functionalism,

as

we have

did not need to try to escape from escape.

One

hesitates to try to find a

one finds the Parthenon a symbol of Periclean Athens, the

ture, as

A

railroad

view of Manhattan?

These

cathedral of Chartres a symbol for the thirteenth century.

A

station.?

are

all

A

great factory?

bird's-eye

unfair, for the nineteenth century

The

industry and material achievement.

sorts,

all,

since so

making

much

of the effort of the

the lives of individuals

more happy, more important, we can residential streets of a great city

an age of

but none of them seems a

all

Perhaps after

century was spent in

just

nineteenth century invested

heavily in public buildings of suitable symbol.

was not

take as

—London,

more

comfortable,

a symbol one of the better

Manchester, Lyons, Dres-

den, Baltimore, perhaps one of those streets dedicated to separate private houses, "villas" as they are called in Europe.

comfort, plenty of room, greenery, quiet, neatness of taste in architecture.

If

—

Here you have and an anarchy

your sympathies are with the

radicals,

will think that this street should be balanced with a street

But do not worry.

slums.

minds

That slum

of the dwellers in the villas.

street

you

from the

was very much in the that someday there

They hoped

would be no slums, though they did not think they could do much about

it

right away.

But the slums worried them, even in mid-

442 (

THE VICTORIAN COMPROMISE century.

and

As

aristocracy

brief

had once had.

The slum

We

sorts of

all

would have

street

street of villas.

are

had too

a master class, the Victorian middle class

insecure a rule to acquire the serenity of self-confidence the feudal

liked to transmute itself into the

have insisted throughout

this chapter that there

groups besides the Victorian middle

chosen as a most typical specimen.

And

we have

class

so there are: national groups,

confident almost as the British, as for instance the Prussian or the

American, or

irredentist,

complaining,

of martyrdom, like the

full

Irish or the Poles; anticlerical, positivist, ethical-culture

groups proudly

not going to Christian churches, but very insistent that their ethics

were

at least as

fanatics,

Christian as those of the orthodox;

groups of

little

mostly mild ones, devoted to one single crank device or social

gadget, but otherwise conformist enough, the single taxers, the theosvegetarians,

the

ophists,

animals, the nineteenth-

the

antialcoholics,

preventers

and

so

of

to

cruelty

children

on through the long

or

roster

of

and twentieth-century "good causes"; and, by no means

the least conspicuous, the intellectuals, trying very hard to repudiate or

remold the strange, chaotic

What we have

called

society in

which they found themselves.

the developed cosmology, then,

most Western educated men and

basic belief of

which even

teenth century, the standard by

educated masses guided their aspirations.

women

was the

of the nine-

the uneducated or less

This cosmology accepted

the belief of the Enlightenment in the progress, in the perfectibility of

man

here on earth, in the attainment of happiness here on earth.

But the nineteenth century took from these their

immediacy, in some ways

away from primitive bilities

of an

much

beliefs their sharpness

as later Christian belief

Christianity the frightening,

if

immediate second coming of Christ.

and took

hopeful, possi-

The

Victorian

compromised with the hope and the heroism of the Enlightenment.

He was

for gradual progress, for a slow, careful process of educating

the masses, for a strict of

men

what he

moral code enforced by the

in groups, for liberty to felt to

full social pressure

experiment but not

at the

expense of

be moral absolutes, for the career open to talents yet

not closed to inherited wealth

and

position, for peace

on earth but not

443

— THE DEVELOPED COSMOLOGY honor and dignity

at the cost of his national

but not for radical, not for

took

—for

democracy, even,

democracy, not for democracy that

socialist

literally "liberty, equality, fraternity."

Surely, thought the Vic-

an enlightened, modern

torian,

one can be a democrat, a

person,

and yet be prosperous, happy, comfortable even

where not

all

was a great

liberal,

Someday

salve to his conscience.

all

world

in this

The

"yet"

men would

be as

and comfortable.

are yet prosperous, happy,

was now; meanwhile, the lucky and the privileged

well off as he

—or

should not jeopardize the possible by trying

letting others try

to achieve the impossible.

In this nineteenth-century world the exist-

ence of the rich man, or

any rate of the moderately rich bourgeois,

should not inspire any

at

silly

metaphors about the

difficulty of

putting

a camel through the eye of a needle.

Yet we should not take leave of the confident Victorians, envious as indeed fact that

faith

we must be of their self-confidence, without recognizing the we are the heirs of their faith in human beings —a modified

compared with the wild optimism

of the Enlightenment, a faith

we have further vastly modified, have perhaps almost abandoned. You can see in John Stuart Mill that faith at its clearest, and in some senses at its best, as it is found among intellectuals. Most of the intellectuals parted

company with

the Victorian compromise. a

It is

true that a Longfellow, a Tennyson,

Dickens and many another imaginative

tune with the triumphant middle

and

bitterly

opposed

Of

these. Mill

He was

is

who

artist is in

classes, or at least

to all they stand for.

politique s et moralistes

some ways

But there are not many

stick to the colors of the

Enlightenment.

the son of James Mill, a self-made Scot

Bentham.

Enlightenment

in

not diametrically

an admirable specimen.

favorite disciple of

of

the Enlightenment as reflected in

Bentham.

All his

life

John Mill

is

who was

a

then a sort of grandchild

he maintained that he was true to the

—anti-Christian

sense; a firm believer in the

in a theological, but not in

power

of reason

an

ethical,

working on common-

sense and empirical grounds; a distruster of philosophical idealism, of

German

idealism especially (Mill once said that he always

nauseated after trying to read Hegel)

;

felt slightly

a reformer anxious to improve

444

I

THE VICTORIAN COMPROMISE the material condition ol the masses; a beUever in hberty for

ways even when they

toleration of other people's

own; above

all,

man who felt deeply human life expressed

perhaps, a

profoundly necessary to too often

empty term,

liberty.

Yet

this

in

grandfather.

Under

inherited

in

something

and

all

retreated from,

from

the influence of romantic poets like

and Coleridge he had come,

is

in that formal

same Mill had

many ways what he had

had modified

that there

all,

with your

conflict

his spiritual

Wordsworth

just like the ordinary folk of his genera-

tion, to qualify the stark rationalism of the

Enlightenment with a

feeling for the uncertainties, the emotional responses, the irrational, as

an enrichment of

not a delusion; he had even had, under the

life,

influence of Carlyle, a brief period to mysticism,

when he thought he was

believed in liberty, yet toward the end of his

some

only a democrat, but in believe that the

but to

tracts,

make

less

he

Deontology decided that the pleasures of

sort of

and

us

all.

perfectibility of

majority,

such poor

Spirit

The

and the

Bentham who had

God were

belief in

and had therefore decided against

toward the end of his

yet

to

of his

life

own,

John Mill

which a

in

fought out the uncertain battle and sought

successor of the school that believed in the

man had

and wrote

belief,

modern Manichaeanism

good God and a bad to enlist

had come

interfere, not only to enforce con-

utilitarian, the heir of the

than the pains of such

embraced a

called himself not

positively better the position of the poor

the utility of religion;

is

life

senses a socialist, for he

government must

handicapped; he was a in his

attracted

but he soon returned to a moderate rationalism; he

a great fear of the possible tyranny of the

this revealing aside

—"for ordinary human nature

stuff."

Yet Mill stated

as clearly as

anyone has ever stated the central

doctrine of nineteenth-century liberalism: .

.

.

the only purpose for

member of harm to others.

over any vent

sufficient

because

it

warrant.

His

He

own

rightfully exercised his will, is to pre-

good, either physical or moral,

is

not a

cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear

will be better for

pier, because, in the

which power can be community, against

a civilized

him

to

do

so,

because

it

will

make him

hap-

opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even

445

THE DEVELOPED COSMOLOGY These arc good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reason-

right.

ing with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting justify that, the

him with any

conduct from which

evil in case

it is

To

he do otherwise.

desired to deter him,

must bc

some one else. The only part of the conis amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, calculated to produce evil to

duct of any one, for which he

the individual

is

sovereign.

This will sound to many

intellectuals today remote, too simple,

perhaps wrongly focused, perhaps wrong-headed. kinds of sovereignty today, at able currents of philosophical

the absolute

lutes,

himself

is

sacredness of

the

not one of the absolutes

we

as Mill here expresses are surely very

in the mid-twentieth century.

human

We

still

individual's

is

still

security

think of

the bees short,

and the

we

are

ants,

still

but as a

Western

446

ethics

—and,

and philosophy.

member

free, roving,

living in part

capital of the last century

over

beliefs

have that sympathy with the

tired of the fine, free

sapiens, not as a

in abso-

widely held here in America

make

appreciated his

one of the traditions of the West.

and are

homo

all

fashion-

sovereignty

dislike regimentation, paternalism, deference to authority,

we want

distrust

Yet some such

hold.

individual trying to define, assert, and

uniqueness, which

We

we have been swept into relativism; or if we still trust

least if

on the

We

still

even though

Darwinian

fight.

We

of a society like those of

adventurous animal.

intellectual

In

and emotional

indeed, of the whole tradition of

13 The Nineteenth Century ^11

ATTACKS FROM RIGHT AND LEFT

Yhe nineteenth century

sees the full

development of a change in

the sources of livelihood of that very important part of the intellectual classes,

making

the writers;

and

it

Both these

must

topics

sees the final touches in the process o£

modern group we

the characteristic

receive attention in

call

any

the intellectuals.

intellectual history of

the West.

From

the days of the Greeks to early

sorts,

poets

from

their

Roman

and

own

storytellers

and

modern times

writers of

had

have income

scholars,

either to

all

property, or to be subsidized by rich patrons, like the

Maecenas; by the

state, as

with the Attic dramatists; or by an

With the invention of printing came gradually to be a large enough slowly authors and publishers were able to

institution such as a monastic order. in the fifteenth century there

market for books, so that

work out

a copyright system,

and the writer became

a licensed

mer-

who

took

chant selling his product in collaboration with a publisher

much

of the commercial risk.

There came

also to be a periodical,

and

by the eighteenth century a newspaper, press for which the writer

worked

The

for pay,

sometimes on

eighteenth century

imperfect, patrons are prizes even for Street" remains

its

a

is still

salary,

at

piecework

here a period of transition.

rates.

Copyright

is

important, and journalism hardly offers

most successful set

sometimes

practitioners.

The English "Grub

phrase for the strusgling proletariat of the

447

— ATTACKS FROM RIGHT AND LEFT written word. a group of

Yet there grew up notably in England and

men who

however badly, by

lived,

in

France

selling in a true

market

what they wrote. Sir Walter Scott is perhaps the a fortune from his pen, which like Mark Twain to lose

new

by unwise investments in the

man

first

to

make

he proceeded

later

business of big-scale pub-

lishing.

By mid-nineteenth century authors have there are great prizes for those livelihood dropping

down

a full-fledged newspaper

and

reporters

begun

to

theatrical

is

had begun

is clear.

who

those

By

manager.

There

is

by

by free-lance writers.

a

There

is

The drama had

who was apparently a

From

be large.

to

beginning

be

to

first-rate

there the road to Holly-

still

another opportunity for

But in 1850 advertising was in science, continued

But the

institutions.

institutions that

were already by the nineteenth century

state control.

subsidiary source of

its

infancy,

to

be sub-

do the sub-

secular racher than

and on the European continent were usually in the textbook trade a welcome members of the learned world. On of the more purely intellectuals, those

There developed

income

for

the whole, however, the rest

preached and taught, continued church, college, and the like

The law remained

pends.

is

a respectable profession.

ecclesiastical institutions,

state,

status;

and there

for the less successful.

Learned writing, including pure sidized, chiefly

sidizing

modern

gain a living by putting words together on paper, and that

and not altogether

who

sellers,

Victorian times the royalties from really suc-

commercial advertising.

under

their full

write best

periodical business, fed both by salaried

pay with Shakespeare,

cessful plays

wood

meager

to

and

men and

staflE

who

as

it

at

all

until

be supported by groups

fixed

had been

fession as individually competitive as

a learned profession

to

—on

and

any business.

early

relatively

low

sti-

for centuries a learned pro-

modern

Medicine, hardly

times,

had by the

mid-nineteenth century become one of the most esteemed of professions,

though

like the

law

it

was, in terms of economic livelihood,

almost entrepreneurial.

We field,

cannot here go into that relatively neglected and fascinating

the sociology of professions.

448

We

have made the obvious point

— THE ROLE OF INTELLECTUALS that by the nineteenth century professional writers were fully in the

current of economic competition as sellers of words, and that in a

very broad

way

all

those

certainly absolutely,

— now much more numerous than ever before,

and probably

whose main job was some

relatively to the

whole population

kind of deliberate thinking

and planning,

were more and more drawn into the currents of individual economic competition of the nineteenth century. Only preachers and teachers

seem an exception, and they were not altogether so. Yet the intellectuals remained intellectuals, proud of it, and even in the more ranges

competitive

journalism,

say,

of,

always conscious of some

from those who bought and

separateness of outlook

Great commercial success, especially in marginal

things.

Hollywood, advertising, and

publicity, tends in

material

sold

fields like

contemporary America

him

to give a bad conscience to the successful writer, and drive

left-

ward.

From

our point of view, the importance of this change in the eco-

nomic and

to a certain extent the social status of intellectuals in the

Western world

is

not that they get thrown into a vulgar commercial

and detachment.

whirl, that they lose serenity

West have by no means commonly Uved and heat of the world

the dust

world

is

made

the intellectuals

in

any age.

What

dependent in part for

this

new

in the

have led most successful writers relations as they

found them

written merely to

amuse or

escape, to confirm

him

compromise.

their

to

—in

all

men we now

world

The to

editorial

and the

man,

to

help

him

up the Victorian

study as part of our

number

of

incidental, attached things as they

writer, like

be against something.

of

no doubt many were

excite the ordinary

the

expected

And

conform.

short, to

heritage, almost all the great writers, as well as a great

writers of the forgotten

on a

the public, to accept

flatter

in his prejudices, to back

Yet almost

livelihood

many might be

the millions and millions of printed words,

were.

from modern

notably for writers.

This dependency upon the custom of the to

is

the process, clearly complete by the nineteenth century, that

wide public, and did

human

Intellectuals in the

in ivory towers isolated

the preacher, has in the

The

modern

great writers of the nineteenth

449

ATTACKS FROM RIGHT AND LEFT century and of the twentieth have belabored the race for

Think

of Carlyle,

course,

were politiques

its

Emerson, Thoreau, Marx, Nietzsche. et moralistes,

failures.

These, of

and could hardly be such with-

out finding their fellow creatures wrong, or wicked, or lazy, or stupid.

But even the

novelists are crusaders

when

crusaders

avow they

they

mind

Zola or Dreiser comes to

havior.

We

—some of them the more obviously human

are scientific analysts of at once.

however, edging over into a second point about the

are,

of the intellectuals in the

be-

modern Western world, a

central

role

problem

in a branch of sociology even less advanced than the sociology of the professions

—that

modern is

to

Very often the most

abuse his customers, to

on the wide popular market

profitable occupation for such a

them what

tell

fools they are, par-

America, where the boobs of Mr. Mencken's booboisie

ticularly in

used to read

him with

Mr. Lewis's Babbitt

We

need make only one additional note on the

position of the writer dependent

for his goods. writer

Wissenssoziologie, the sociology of knowledge,

is,

We

learning, ideas.

to

pleasure,

make

where thousands of Babbitts bought

a best seller.

it

by no means have for the three thousand years of Western

history an adequate supply of facts about the attitude of the intelleo tuals

tion

— that

is,

the "intellectual classes" of Professor Baumer's defini-

(see p. 8)

—toward

and we have not

yet

the accepted cosmology of their societies;

worked out any

satisfactory interpretation or

theory of the social role of the intellectuals.

We

have scraps of

in-

formation and beginnings of theories, both of which have from time to time

appeared in this book.

perhaps in the intellectuals

earliest

We

can say that as a group, except

and most consecrated days of

have been pretty well aware of

Christianity, the

their separateness

At

the bulk of their fellow men, pretty "class-conscious."

even in the Dark Ages when the

new

ruling class was

all

from times,

illiterate,

or

even in deliberately anti-intellectual Sparta, some members of the intellectual

classes

hierarchy.

Some

have been

—the

schoolteacher in most periods fairly close to the

at

the

very top

rural parish priest of the

bottom.

—have

level

of

the

social

Middle Ages, the

been in terms of

real

wages

THE ROLE OF INTELLECTUALS Yet

it

very hard indeed to

is

make an

effective generalization,

even for a given period, to say nothing of the whole course of Western history, concerning the attitude of the intellectual classes

established order of their society.

always been, though Plato through the

innumerable

we know

toward the

Rebels at the very top there have

litde of

them

in the

Dark Ages. From

Christian Fathers to Abelard, WycHffe, and the

first

Yet

intellectual rebels of today the succession is clear.

probably the great bulk of the intellectual

who

even of those

majority

classes, the great

preach, teach, orate, editorialize, and

have been conformists, supporters of things

comment

as they are, conservatives

in the simple sense of the word, that of "keeping intact

what we

Certainly their listeners and readers have been in their conduct

have."

conformists and conservatives, or intellectual history of the

able indeed that even in

—

we

should not be here to study the

West there would be no West. It the modern West the many readers

is

prob-

of non-

conformist writings, of writings attacking the established order, are not influenced at or

relief,

much

all to

as

rebel themselves.

They

our ancestors used to get

get a sort of catharsis

relief

through sermons on

hell-fire.

At any

rate,

clear that since the beginnings of the Enlighten-

it is

ment, the creative portion of the intellectual classes have in general been dissatisfied with the world they saw around them, anxious to

reform

it,

convinced

could be reformed.

it

ohilosophers were agreed

among

The

eighteenth-century

themselves, in spite of certain differ-

ences over methods, that the job could be done fairly soon, that society could be

made

and Reason) evident tellectuals of the priests,

—but

lightened, the

all,

once they were enlightened.

These

few

intellectuals

in-

—

^the

who

they loved and trusted the unprivileged unen-

common

people

whom

they were going to train for

in Utopia.

Now still

to

Enlightened hated the privileged unenlightened

the conventional noblemen, the very

opposed them

life

over according to standards (those of Nature

with the nineteenth century the creative intellectuals are

in rebellion, out they are

moved

in ideal

toward the

no longer

right,

a united band.

toward the old

religion,

Some have toward the

451

— ATTACKS FROM RIGHT AND LEFT toward some kind of authority, some making and keeping the many nice and quiet, and happy. Some have moved left, toward some form of

old, or a rejuvenated, aristocracy,

definite design for

perhaps also

what now begins property

word of fright to the conventional man of More important, the creative intellectuals come on more and more into conflict with precisely the

to be a

—socialism.

as the century goes

kind of people the eighteenth-century philosophers had cherished and

— the ordinary educated but not intellectual middle-class person^

nursed

Most

up

of the standards set

compromise were very

torian

we

century writers

some

in the last chapter as those of the Vic-

still

largely repudiated

remember and

by the nineteenth-

These writers share

read.

of the attitudes of the middle classes, notably a conviction that

progress

real

is

and

possible; at the very least, they share a sense of

history, of process, of flow.

middle

classes, for

Even

"philistine."

middle

philistine, the

summa,

anticlerical,

a

is

man

But they quite

specifically

dislike the

they invent uncomplimentary names like

a writer

classes, a writer

thought a century

whom

who

whom

glories in the achievements of the

the aesthetes

Herbert Spencer

and arty folk generally

who

wrote a nineteenth-

no conformist, no contented man, but convinced that a

lot

is

wrong with

a strong

the world.

Spencer, in short, protests, complains, bellyaches; he cannot for long

—and very occasionally praising

describe or analyze without blaming

without displaying annoyance or anxiety; he has, in short, the acid flavor

we have come

to expect

from

serious writers.

Already in the

nineteenth century the creative intellectuals are working up to the state

an

they have reached in contemporary America, where one expects

intellectual to

pects to

wrong with our our

complain

as naturally as

he breathes, where one ex-

open any serious publication and begin

to

read about what's

colleges, the crisis in the family, the destruction of

topsoil, the crossroads in international relations, the

coming end

You will even find complaints about the role of the Some years ago a distinguished French writer, Julien Benda, wrote a book called La trahison des clercs, which can be informally translated "What's Wrong With the Intellectuals." of our culture. intellectual.

We

are, of course, exaggerating.

Science, or cumulative

knowl

452

tl

ATTACKS FROM THE RIGHT edge, cannot in

itself

hope or

praise or blame,

fear;

Some

great deal of scientific writing in these times.

and there

is

a

may work

artists

with intent to nlease rather than to improve, though probably most

judgment about the universe.

art involves a

Still,

true that roughly since the French Revolution the

productive of the intellectual

most of the way of

rejected

forgotten, the imitators

and

and notably the

classes,

it

is

creative and.

have

writers,

of the middle classes of the Weit,

life

have rejected the values current

by and large

more

among

that class

—and

it

must not be

who make

aspirants to middle-class status

up the very great bulk of the working

classes of this period.

Attacks from the Right

For convenience we of nineteenth-century

shall classify attacks

life as

from

the Right

on the conventional ways

and from the

Left.

These

terms grew up out of French parliamentary practice early in the

when

century,

group

and

the conservatives or monarchists took to sitting in a

to the right of the presiding officer,

certain symbolic fitness in this, since

push on

and

and the

reformers grouped themselves on his

radical

constitutionalists is

on the whole the Left wishes

a to

to as full a realization as possible of the "principles of 1776

1789," the democratic aims of the

American and French revo-

and on the whole the Right wishes a much

lutions,

There

left.

Of

society.

less

democratic

course, the simple linear differences suggested

by these

terms are inadequate to measure the complexities of opinion even in politics.

For one thing, the center from which we measure Left and

Right

not a clear fixed point, for there

is

is

always that democratic

tension between the ideals of liberty and equality noted.

The

ideal of security adds

still

we have

another complication.

already Still,

as

a rough means of sorting out attacks on the position outlined in the last

chapter, the division into Right

cially if

we

note that the line

circle so that the

Republic

it

is

Communists,

extremes meet.

striking to note

is

and Left should be

useful, espe-

a curved line that can

In the

how

last

years of the

come

full

Third French

often the Monarchists and the

in political terms extreme

Right and extreme Left, voted 4.53

ATTACKS FROM RIGHT AND LEFT on the same

What

They both hated with

side of a given question.

who

ardor the vulgar conformists

virtuous

did not want revolutionary change.

the eighteenth-century philosophes, with the sound instinct

makes us recognize our enemies, singled out for their bitterest was the Roman Catholic Church. For if you hold, as the

that

attacks

philosophes mostly did, the doctrine of the natural goodness and reasonableness of ordinary men, then the polar opposite of original sin.

Enlightenment

But a great deal more of the

—naturalism

with

on

earth; dislike of tradition, of

and sometimes

in

organized Christianity

a

established hierarchies; belief in liberty or equality, liberty

and

equality

—finds

in

Enlightenment

senses the

traditional

We

cluster of antithetical ideas.

itself is

have already noted that in some

and the Anglican,

We

a child of Christianity.

even the more conservative churches, the

see that

for instance, have

Roman

wrong indeed

"modern

spirit" are

we have noted

up

to set

by no means refused

in the last chapter

to believe in

would

and the In

fact,

was one of the elements of

Notably in the United

but a crank minority believes in democracy,

have

It

that conventional, churchgoing

Christianity, Catholic as well as Protestant,

the Victorian compromise.

adapt

to

the formula: "Christianity"

mutually exclusive systems of values.

shall

Catholic

themselves in part to changes since the eighteenth century.

be very

ma-

denial of the supernatural;

its

terialism; belief in assured progress

the idea

is

cluster of ideas of the

it

States,

where

all

follows that Christians

democracy.

Nevertheless, the established churches have from time to time

produced thinkers

who

have been the most determined and absolute

of opponents of democracy.

Of

these, there

is

surely

no more

elo-

quent, able, and one fears, at bottom unrealistic, thinker than Joseph

de Maistre.

This Savoyard

civil

servant exiled by the French Revolu-

tion sought to bring his fellows back to verities.

With

a

good deal of

as one of the founders of the

notion that something

modern

new and good

is

what he held

to

be eternal

he picked on Francis Bacon

insight

evil,

which

possible.

is

precisely the

Few Americans

can

read a passage like the following without amazement, and usually

454

ATTACKS FROM THE RIGHT indignation; yet

important that

is

it

we

realize

men

in our

own

culture have held these beliefs:

The very tide of his [Bacon's] main work is a striking error. There no Novum Organum or, to speak English, new instrument, with which we can reach what was inaccessible to our predecessors. Aristotle is the true anatomist who, so to speak, took apart under our eyes and showed to us the human instrument. One can only smile somewhat scornfully at a man who promises us a new man. Let us leave that expression for the Gospel. The human spirit is what it has always been. Nobody can find in the human spirit more than is there. To think the thing possible is the greatest of errors; it is not knowing how to look at one's self. There may be in particular sciences discoveries which is

.

.

.

.

.

.

are true machine:, very suited to perfect these sciences: thus the differ-

was useful to mathematics as the toothed wheel was to But as for rational philosophy, it is clear that there new instrument just as there are none for mechanical arts

ential calculus

watchmakin'^.

cannot be

:.

in genciT.i.

Du

Maistic's big work,

papal

he

infallibility,

felt

was

and

Pape,

is

a defense of papal authority, indeed,

in general of

an authoritarian system in a world

an anarchy of

falling into

belief

and

"Protes-

practice.

tantism, philosophism," he wrote, "and a thousand other sects,

or

less

among men,

truth in

which

it

now

the

human

finds itself."

race cannot remain in the condition

Yet he apparently was

not to hope for any sudden mending, especially

gone

Anglo-Saxons.

as the

wise and disciplined fast

more

perverse or extravagant, having prodigiously diminished the

men

What he

in countries

to bring the

world

to

its

enough

peoples as far

did hope was that a nucleus of still

Catholic at heart could hold

during the storm of materialism, unbelief, and

and be there

realistic

among

scientific

progress

senses after the inevitable break-

down.

To literally

new

Maistre a usually rhetorical term of abuse can be almost applied:

He

was a

reactionary, a

man who

held that nothing

could be good and nothing good could be new, that the Catholic

synthesis of

the Middle

Ages was

valid

for

all

time.

Yet even

Maistre could not escape history, and at least in his sharp, clear, epi-

grammatic

style bears the

unmistakable mark of the eighteenth cen-

455

ATTACKS FROM RIGHT AND LEFT More than

tury.

that, in his

dishke of sentimental enthusiasm, in

hii

scorn for the humanitarians of his day, he shows signs of the shghtly cynical Catholic authoritarianism that

within the Church

was

to

trouble gentler souls

way in which he suggests in the above passage that expressions like "new man" had better be left to the Gospel. Moreover, if you read him carefully enough, Maistre will be found to have some of the notions about the "organic" nature of society, the saving strength of tradition and prejudice, we shall find in Burke; but Maistre's manner is even less conciliating than Burke's, and he

Note

itself.

the

leaves the impression that his

inconsistently an

unchanging

good organic

society

rather

is

society.

Maistre can hardly be to most twentieth-century Americans more

than a queer specimen from another world.

Americans have almost standing of a

Edmund

much

as

much profounder

Burke.

Now

Burke

Unfortunately, most

difficulty in the critic

sympathetic under-

of democracy, the Irishman

lived in the second half of the eight-

eenth century, and his greatest book, the Reflections on the Revolution in France,

was published

He

in 1790.

however, one of the most

is,

able thinkers to question the basic beliefs of the

Enlightenment, and

continued throughout the nineteenth century to be the great source of a certain kind of conservative opposition to the tendencies of the age.

Burke was a

Protestant, a sincere Anglican

English influence and

who made

Commons. He supported that

were long read

tected

against

it.

his career in the British

the cause of the

in this country; but

what he thought were

Revolution, and early

made

him

conflict

of

start

he de-

French

with the ad-

particular made most Americans

as a benighted soul.

a reply to Burke,

are likely to feel that Paine is

from the very

This step brought him into violent

Man was

House

rebels in speeches

disastrous possibilities in the

vanced thinkers of the time, and in

Burke

American

himself a leader in an intellectual crusade

of the age of Jefferson regard

Rights of

who had grown up under

and

had the

to this

Tom

Paine's

day most Americans

better of the

argument.

Yet

well worth the attention even of the convinced democrat of

the Left, for he seems to

many

to

have made some analyses of

human

relations that deserve to be considered additions to our slender stock

456

ATTACKS FROM THE RIGHT of cumulative knowledge in the social sciences. this

from the mass of

a solid core of Christian faith that tive

knowledge

To Burke

It

is

hard to

is

clearly not reducible to

distill

Burke

his rhetoric; moreover, there remains in

cumula-

in the scientific sense.

the French Revolution

was predominantly the work of

a certain type of idealist educated in the great hopes of the Enlighten-

Burke did not maintain

ment.

that everything

was

satisfactory Ia

the France of the old regime, that nothing needed to be done to im-

prove French social and

political life.

Burke was not

that kind of

reactionary, though as his polemic continued and the Terror came on

he was capable of an occasional passage in which he sounds

in France,

The

almost as rigid as Maistre. of the French Revolution

is

base of Burke's criticism of the leaders

that, instead of

going ahead and trying to

repair a defective flue, rebuild a wall or so, tighten a roof, they pro-

posed almost

literally to tear

up a brand-new one them the

blueprints.

existence,

and even

for

down

which

the whole building and then put

had given

their philosopher teachers

But the old building was the only building in if

men

could have agreed to build according to

the theorist's blueprint, the building

they were not in fact so agreed.

must have taken some

time.

building was pretty well torn down, and the French people

out shelter from the storms.

But'

All that happened was that the old

The new one had

together largely with the old materials, for

men

finally to

with-

left

be pieced

cannot live in the

modern world without shelter. But the philosophers didn't build the new-old building; it had to be built by a more ruthless master builder, a man who could get things done by authoritarian means if necessary by a Napoleon Bonaparte, in short. It is quite true that Burke, writing in 1 789-1 790, foresaw and specifically predicted a dictator like

—

who

Napoleon,

Now but

it

finally did

come

to

power

may

help the reader to follow his analysis.

Christian pessimism about the animal hatreds

in 1799.

the above figure of speech does less than justice to

was

goodness of

his hatred for the

man

man;

Rousseau

Burke

starts

with a

indeed, one of his great

who

preached the natural

unsoiled by civilization, the Rousseau

called the "insane Socrates of the National

Burke

Assembly."

whom

Ordinary

457

he

men

ATTACKS FROM RIGHT AND LEFT the promptings of their desires, their passions, will, according

if left to

to Burke, always tend to

Yet in daily

beasts of themselves.

bad

men

"naturally,"

ones.

We must conclude

true:

most of them do none of these

life

Man

behaving

good

like

social

in a

what Rousseau

that just the opposite of

membership

saved, not ruined, by his

is

ones, or at least quiet

and

political

environment

said

in society,

his obedience to convention, tradition, prejudices, law,

His

make

Civil society presents the striking spectacle of poten-

society.

tially,

is

to cheat, seduce, violate, to

and the criminal exceptions can always be coped with

things,

sound

run amuck,

and the

by

like.

the one thing that stands be-

is

tween him and a chaotic mess. It

follows that you

ments, institutions,

set

must never destroy the great bulk of arrangeways of managing human

It is

aptitudes can devise

all sorts

real

of

improvements that

improvements.

along

this road,

tempt

to

if

new ways

of handling these matters,

they would only

The French

all civil society.

from the system of weights and measures

What

keeps ordinary

makes with is

men on

men

the society of

naturally.

American

morrow

it

change everything

They turned

which he

campus where

feels

a notice

will be a tradition that

is

in part

identification the individual

himself part. it

This feeling

has to grow, slowly

Burke would not have appreciated the

college

the job

of practical experience.

not something that can be produced to order;

and

to

the decent road, however,

and a kind of emotional

at-

in 1789 did really at-

to the election of bishops

structure of the central government.

over to theorists instead of sticking by

at least habit,

well be

But Burke holds that you must go cautiously

tempt such a complete overthrow; they sought

and the

work might

attempt very few changes at a time, and never

change

we

true that any bright person with the right

call "civil society."

theoretical

relations that

story about the

was posted, "Beginning

freshmen remove

their caps

to-

when

they pass before the statue of the founder." For Burke, what holds society together

is

nothing rational in the simple sense of the word,

nothing planned, nothing put In

fact,

down on

paper as a

new

constitution.

he would hold the term "new constitution" to be complete

nonsense.

458

At most, you can introduce new elements

in a constitution,

ATTACKS FROM THE RIGHT might make a graft on a

as you

tree,

by an organic, not a mechanical

process.

Burke does

He

above.

not, of course, use the

kind of language

uses the terms current in his

lowed one of

own

used

But note what a very different em-

"social contract."

We are no longer

phasis he gives to this notion.

we have

age, including the hal-

dealing with Lockian

or Benthamite calculation of interests, but with concepts clearly in the

medieval Christian tradition. Society

indeed,

is,

mere occasional

Subordinate contracts

a contract.

may

interest

for

of

objects

be dissolved at pleasure; but the state ought

not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken

up

by the fancy of the

parties.

for a

little

temporary

It is

to be looked

and to be dissolved on with other reverence;

interest,

because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in

and

all

science, a partnership in all art, a partnership in every virtue

in all perfection.

tained in

those

many

who

are living,

dead, and those state is

As the ends

of such a partnership cannot be obbecomes a partnership not only between but between those who are living, those who arc are to be born. Each contract of each particular

generations,

who

it

but a clause in the great primeval contract of eternal society,

linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible invisible

which holds

violable oath their

physical

all

and

all

moral natures each in

appointed place.

One more other famous rights,"

and

world, according to a fixed compact sanctioned by the in-

passage

—

may be

and explosive

and brings

it

cited to

—phrase

show how Burke

takes

still

an-

of the Enlightenment, "natural

around to conformity with

traditional notions of

authority and inequality.

Government is not made in virtue of natural rights, which may and do exist in total independence of it; and exist in much greater clearness, and in a much greater degree of abstract perfection; but their abstract perfection

is

their practical defect.

want everything. provide for

human

Government wants.

is

Men

be provided for by this wisdom.

By having

a right to everything they

a contrivance of

human wisdom

to

have a right that these wants should Among these wants is to be reckoned

the want, out of civil society, of a sufficient restraint

upon

their passions.

459

ATTACKS FROM RIGHT AND LEFT Society requires not only that the passions of individuals should be sub-

but that even in the mass and body, as well as in the individuals, men should frequently be thwarted, their will con-

jected,

the inclinations of

and their passions brought into subjection. This can only be done by a power out of themselves, and not, in the exercise of its function, subject to that will and to those passions which it is its office to bridle and subdue. In this sense the restraints on men, as well as their But as the liberties and liberties, are to be reckoned among their rights. the restrictions vary with times and circumstances, and admit of infinite modifications, they cannot be settled upon any abstract rule; and nothing trolled,

is

if

so foolish as to discuss them

What happened well-meaning men

upon

that principle.

in France, according to Burke,

got a chance in the financial

was

crisis that led to

calling of the States General to try to destroy the old

and did succeed in breaking down much too much of

Frenchman, no

thrown

longer able to rely

ofi balance, frustrated.

The Reign

gression.

eflect too big

of Terror

changes in

society.

on the

He

that foolish

society,

The

average

it.

ways of

settled

the

French

old,

was

took his frustration out in ag-

was the normal

result of trying to

Burke, had he been

would no was

alive,

doubt have argued that the gangster bootlegging era of the 1920 's the

normal

result of trying

by changing the law to

make men change

very old drinking habits.

Burke was

not, however, a reactionary.

He

did believe in the pos-

indeed in the necessity, of the new, the experimental.

sibility,

would "reform mere stopgaps

His proposed reforms seemed

to impatient radicals like

Paine and Owen, and indeed

temperament must

the real reforming pathetic.

He

in order to conserve."

For he

not believe that

is

all

his objections to

at the

men

find

Burke fundamentally

very bottom a pessimist.

He

anti-

simply does

can be happy here on earth, ever.

He

puts

the rationalist planning of the eighteenth-century

enlightened largely in terms that

mark

the so-called "romantic revival"

—in terms of the organic nature of human groups

(as

opposed

to the

mechanical), in terms of tradition, sentiment, even prejudices, a word

almost equivalent to sin to the eighteenth-century philosophers.

behind

this there lies

an older nomenclature for an older

ings, essentially those of

460

Augustine and Aquinas.

set

Yet

of feel-

ATTACKS FROM THE RIGHT One more

Christian thinker must be noted.

was an Oxford don who became one of the great

Church Anghcan

Newman

was a

sensitive,

Newman, Hke

as

He

authority.

could not satisfy himself until, in 1845, he went over to the Catholic Church.

High-

known

imaginative young

and for

acutely the need for certainty

felt

figures in the

revival of the early nineteenth century

the "Oxford Movement."

man who

Newman

Cardinal

Roman

Maistre and Burke and indeed

all

the Christian conservatives, found the enemy in the philosophy of the

Newman

Enlightenment, though by the mid-nineteenth century

could

use "Liberalism" to designate the cluster of ideas he hated.

By Liberalism I mean false liberty of thought, or the exercise of thought upon matters, in which, from the constitution of the human mind, thought cannot be brought to any successful issue, and therefore is

out of place.

may

cepts

.

.

fore, e.g. Political

no revealed

[Liberalism holds that]

.

reasonably stand in the

Economy may

way

[that] there

is

is

There-

reverse our Lord's declarations about

may

poverty and riches, or a system of Ethics condition of body

doctrines or pre-

of scientific conclusions.

teach that the highest

ordinarily essential to the highest state of

a right of Private Judgment: that

is,

there

mind

no

is

.

.

.

existing

authority on earth competent to interfere with the liberty of individuals in reasoning tents, as

and judging

is

no such thing

con-

its

Therefore, e.g. religious establishments

requiring subscription are Anti-christian. there

and

for themselves about the Bible

they severally please.

.

.

.

[Liberalism holds that]

as a national or state conscience

.

.

[that] utility

.

and expedience are the measure of political duty [that] the Civil Power may dispose of Church property without sacrilege [that] the people are the legitimate source of power [that] virtue is the child of knowledge, and vice of ignorance. Therefore, e.g. education, periodical literature, railroad travelling, ventilation, drainage, and the arts of life, when fully carried out, serve to make a population moral and happy. .

.

.

.

.

Newman's liberalism, less

interest for us,

Do

to

accommodate

.

lies

less

in his attacks

in the rather

No

one was ever

almost certainly

made no

on

tradi-

surprising efforts he clearly

his thought to the spirit of the Victorian

not misunderstand.

Newman. He

.

.

even in his profound emotional acceptance of

tional Christianity, than

made

however,

.

less

Age.

a time-server than

conscious effort to put over

a message in terms which might be taken to pervert

it.

He was 461

ATTACKS FROM RIGHT AND LEFT simply too intelligent, too aware of what was going on around him, perhaps also a

much

bit too

position Maistre took:

of a Britisher, to take the neat, dogmatic

Newman

new

is

tian

Doctrine (1845) goes so

possible.

Christianity in

stitution

He

far as

that

it is

of course perfect,

human

a

a rule of

is

is

all

change

institution here

and

to

good

is

on earth

be perfect

test to tell

For us

life,

called our illative sense.

when For

development or a corruption.

fication, if

of Assent (1870),

with sense

you prefer) of

common is

certainly

is

we

we must

rest

cannot use any

is

good or bad, a

Newman

on what

earlier anticipations of

much

shall study in the next chapter.

belief that will

go beyond the

(justi-

sort of criteria

with natural science, and perhaps

would be unfair

does not say that

But he does

to say that

Newman's

we

insist that full

should believe what

human

Hfe on

illative

to believe";

we want

this earth

has

guided by something more than notions of truth that guide the

experimental of

We

a given change

that

de-

which has the promise of de-

one of the

associates

It

in so

must distinguish between

William James's famous pragmatic "will

Newman

to believe.

to be

sense.

basically

But

must change, because

seeking for some psychological explanation

is

modern man

of truth

a divine in-

is

This notion, developed especially in his

of the anti-intellectual doctrine

Newman

to

have changed often."

to

is

it

velopment, holds also the threat of corruption.

Briefly,

bound

is

it

otherwise, but here below

it is

We

errors.

velopment and corruption.

Grammar

true

—indeed, Newman holds that such a belief

one of the great Liberal

simple scientific

is

and therefore above change.

"In a higher world

life.

to live is to change,

Not

form

does indeed guard himself from a

In so far as the Church

relativist position:

it is

good, indeed nothing

far as to insist that precisely because

traditional sacramental

its

is

on the Development of Chris-

in his Essay

change, to grow, to develop. completely

new

nothing

that

i.e.,

scientist in his laboratory; that

what we Americans

sensitivity, of

moral

sensitivity, of concrete

Knowledge we

lems.

at

bar of

each

462

is

is

a mixture

strong, but only

one

aesthetic

experience of actual prob-

arrive at through the illative sense

by pure logic as a cable of many strands

edge arrived steel;

call

something

"hunch" and "know-how," of

is

is

is

to

knowl-

to a single

of a simple, single piece.

ATTACKS FROM THE RIGHT The

and

illative sense varies in different individuals,

stronger

be in such matters no such universal affords,

say that there

is

often

is

There can

applied to science

test as logic

no way of proving a truth of morals or

an imperfect or an untrained

vi^ith

them

in

than in moral matters.

in, for instance, aesthetic

aesthetics to a person

But

illative sense.

this

is

not to

no such thing as truth in these matters; on the con-

trary, the general

opinion of mankind over the ages has not been

cynical or skeptical in these matters of value-judgment, but has recog-

nized

and wise men when

saints, artists,

expect Christian truths as perfect,

we

dogmas do not

fit,

shall

ferior in validity to the

Newman's own

up

is

them

we

we

are

we

if

work among men

at

fact, if

be

to

dogmatic where

fact of the scientist.

him

exercise of the illative sense led

and economic

Only

our judgments of value are in-

feel that

judgments of

tion of conservative politics, .social

find

unchanging, absolute, only, in

met them.

it

in the direc-

toward sustaining the existing system of

relations.

But the

one of the very best for what

theoretical scaffolding

sometimes called

is

he drew

liberal Cathol-

icism, the conscious adapting of Christian attitudes to a greater degree

of democracy, toward a greater acceptance of

some

of the goals of the

Enlightenment.

We thinkers

have chosen Maistre, Burke, and

who

attack

Newman

from the point of view of

cosmology and psychology the optimistic and the Enlightenment. It

men

like these

is difficult,

perhaps secular rather than religious.

West.

There are indeed

Inevitably,

attacks

Right,

from the new authoritarian or

really

Christian or traditional, and to these

the line between

articulate interests are

most conservatives

are at least outwardly Christian, since Christianity faith of the

examples of

rationalistic beliefs of

draw

of course, to

and other conservatives whose

as

traditional Christian

is

the established

on democracy from the

totalitarian positions that are

we

not

shall shortly come.

Their great development was in the twentieth century, though their roots lie in the nineteenth.

In the nineteenth century, the most im^

portant intellectual opposition

go back

to

still

came from thinkers who wanted

something they thought

prevailing here on earth.

better,

At bottom, what

and once,

to

at least, actually

they opposed to democracy

463

ATTACKS FROM RIGHT AND LEFT was

aristocracy, the rule of the wise

tion of the

Greek or the Roman gentleman

later Christian

We who

and the good, the

and feudal

as

it

classical tradi-

had been modified by

practice.

cannot here attempt a systematic treatment of such thinkers,

differ

from men

like

many

nineteenth century,

popular government

Burke of

are convinced that

inevitable in the West,

is

By

chiefly in their emphasis.

them

and

the

some form

of

main concern

their

seems to be that some kinds of excellence (other than the

gift of

making money or that of swaying crowds) be made available for the coming democratic society. In a sense, two great political thinkers commonly classified as John Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville,

"liberal,"

much

the majority," and was

and

really

belong in this

Mill was greatly worried about the danger of the "tyranny of

class.

in

interested in proportional representation

schemes to protect the

other

minority groups.

of

liberty

Tocqueville was a cultivated French nobleman

who came

States in the early nineteenth century to study

our prison systems, and

who went back home society,

Democracy

enough considered in us,

some ways

the

to write

in

one of the

classic

America (1835-1840).

work

and

The book to us

spiritual

is

rightly

Americans,

as

was worried about

of a liberal; but Tocqueville

about our preference for equality over

of intellectual

United

accounts of American

one of the kind favorable

as

to the

about our distrust

liberty,

refinement and distinction, about the

danger to the future of Western

man he

and our great indifference toward, indeed excellences of the classical gentleman.

sees in

our great strength

dislike of, the traditional

He was

a generous aristocrat,

puzzled by American hopes for immediate perfection, put ofl by our frontier egalitarianism,

ways

right.

alarmed by our faith that the majority

But he foresaw our coming greatness

—foresaw,

in a passage of great insight, our conflict with Russia.

that in our greatness

we may put

He

is

al-

indeed,

has fears

material above spiritual ends, but

he does not miss the nobler aspect of the "American dream."

Unlike

naggmg

tone of

so

many European commentators, he

never takes a

superiority.

A

later

464

English writer, Sir Henry Maine, puts very clearly the

ATTACKS FROM THE RIGHT come very near

distrust has

who had

historian,

work on him that

man

as

In his Popular

democracy.

aristocratic distrust of

Government (1885)

Maine was by profession a

to fright.

and did much

specialized in early legal history,

the frontiers of anthropology.

But

his studies

had convinced

mankind, working through Western

the line of evolution of

up of

highest representative, ran from primitive tying

its

the

individual in definite obligations never consciously or voluntarily as-

sumed

to the

what he "from

to

is

modern freedom do and

of the individual to decide for himself

In Maine's famous phrase, man's progress

be.

What alarmed him

status to contract."

in the 1880's

is

was the

evidence from trade-union activities in Britain, social-security legisla-

Germany,

tion in

men

propaganda everywhere, that some

rising socialist

preferred security to liberty, the safety of status to the risks of

Maine

contractual freedom.

West

dom

make

to

is

one of the

first

great writers in the

some eighteenth-century notions of human

use of

as a defense of the status quo.

Maine

is

the

Tory

preaching what the radical of the 1780's had preached.

once a threat to the established mercantilist system, was

free-

of the i88o's

Laissez faire,

now

threatened

by socialism, and had become the conservative doctrine of a capitalist

middle a

class.

changing

Actually, there

society, successful

the structure of the society.

Western radical.

very

If the

if

In

society continues to change, as

who promote

the pro-

Paine in 1790 wanted a government that would govern

cost very

little,

you want

not a radical like Just as

this.

are incorporated in

changes will find themselves opposing what was once

Tom

little,

course;

made

society very definitely has, then those

new

posed

nothing paradoxical about

is

changes once

and

that

that in 1950,

Tom

Newman

would

let

nature take

its

beneficent

you are an old-guard Republican,

Paine.

seems a wiser

man

than Maistre because he

sought to understand the facts of social change, so another group of conservatives seems wiser than

men. that are

Maine and

These are the Tory democrats, seen gave them the name.

more

practical

men

It is

the other frightened gentleat their best in the

England

not exactly that the Tory democrats

than the plain Tories; indeed, though they

have in Benjamin Disraeli a

man

practical

enough

to rise to the posi-

465

ATTACKS FROM RIGHT AND LEFT tion of

prime minister, they are mostly confirmed

minded

people, often theorists like the poet Coleridge, clergymen like

They

F. D. Maurice,

sometimes accept the

Burke a

that

good

life,

most

human herds

equality

—factory

people need

is

had

and

They

believe with

are unable to guide themselves in freedom to

men

that, in short,

and the

Industrial Revolution

gentle-

are often very self-conscious Christians

label "Christian socialist."

men

idealists,

are sheep

who need

bad shep-

in their opinion resulted in the rise of

owners, politicians, agitators, journalists.

good shepherds who

The

shepherds.

Enlightenment about

false ideas of the

What

the

government inspectors

will see that

keep factories clean and sanitary, that the workers have

social security,

These good shepherds are the natural leaders of

that all runs well.

the people, the wellborn, the educated, the classical gentleman again.

The

free choice,

are

Tory democrats

favorite doctrine of the

for the second part of their

open

if

name

the press, schools,

—

is

that

and

all

if

—and the justification

the people are really given

the organs of public opinion

then in such free conditions the people

to all points of view,

own accord, by democratic voting, choose the men who have the gifts and the training to rule

actually will of their

right shepherds, the wisely.

The

century

West

really wise

and good, they argue,

in danger of letting the struggle

are staying out of the political battle, leaving socialists,

are in the nineteenth-

the cranks.

truth, the people will

If

go by

to the

it

default.

They

demagogues, the

they will only go before the people with the

know them

The Tory democrats

for their true leaders.

objected to the disorder, the vulgar scram-

bling, the harshness of a money-getting society.

jected also to the ugliness of their times.

Many

of

them

ob-

But those whose chief

quarrel with democratic ways as they developed in the nineteenth

word

century was aesthetic are worth a brief

in themselves.

They

are not very easy to classify according to their acceptance or rejection

of the Enlightenment.

Some

Englishman William Morris, that the trouble with that

it

of the really tender-minded, like the

called themselves socialists,

hadn't gone far enough, that

men and women 466

a

and argued

democracy was that there wasn't enough of it

it,

had created around ordinary

new bad environment,

that

you should change that

ATTACKS FROM THE RIGHT environment and

come better

the natural goodness

let

But John Ruskin, who

out.

example of the

For

this

of the masses is

perhaps a

type.

"Tory" Ruskin was named a college

in the late nineteenth century to allow

men

and wisdom

called himself a Tory,

at

Oxford founded

competent sons of laboring

For

to study in that university of the ruling classes.

years,

College was a center of opposition to the actual Tory party. is difficult

and

to disentangle

label the variants of political

Indeed

Ruskin

here perhaps unfairly grouped with those whose main feeling of

opposition to their age centers in matters aesthetic. to

it

and moral

opposition to things-as-they-were in the nineteenth century. is

Ruskin

His focus seems

be a dislike for money-getters, a dislike for those

who measured

success in terms of material success, or the honors achieved in a vul-

moods he sounds

In such

garly competitive society.

of this morass of materialism. criticism is

You may judge

by two quotations, "There

is

like Carlyle,

Leader

at times comes, like Carlyle, close to asking for a

and

to get us out

of his aesthetic social

no wealth but

life"

and "Life

the possession of the valuable by the valiant."

The

aesthetic critics of nineteenth-century democratic culture

united at least in their belief that in quantity, that the

it

machine had

killed

any pleasure in creative work

of the kind the old craftsman used to feel, that

unalleviated burden, that

it

were

produced "cheap and nasty" things

it

had poisoned even the

had made work an leisure of the

work-

ingman by leaving him only mass-produced mediocrity even in his amusements. They were not in agreement about the way out, but most of them held that the uncorrupted few, the men like themselves who still

knew

and

create here

the beautiful

teenth century ideal will

and the good, must somehow take the lead

and there

little cells

of beauty and wisdom.

was the great century of

communities designed to prove that a given

remake

able in the

fallen

United

men.

There was

States,

which

communities were founded Phalanx in

New

Jersey,

is

there.

still

a fascinating catalogue of

human

nine-

environment

social

a good deal of space avail-

one reason

why

Brook Farm

New Harmony

The

social experiments, of

little

in Indiana

hopes and

so

many

of these

in Massachusetts, the

—the

failures.

list

is

Morris,

467

long,

who

ATTACKS FROM RIGHT AND LEFT was a gentleman of independent means, founded various shops handwork, preached

faithfully before little

wrote a Utopia called

News from Nowhere

(1891) in which

got rid of machines

and great ugly

and

green and pleasant land of

arts

and

for

groups of converts, and

cities

live

men

have

once more in a

crafts.

In this classification of aesthetic opponents of democracy you will

no doubt

way formulae

for heaven

went

sixteenth century

on

was not Morris or Ruskin,

all

not do

little

They offend

was not the Utopian

it

who

suburban castle-home.

among

the ugliest things

If there really is progress, it

it

democracy too hghtly.

will

The

filling stations,

American motor highways has ever built on this earth.

has hardly achieved the elimination, or

even the lessening, of the ugly.

and

man

comfort

Nevertheless

slums of Manchester or Liverpool, the hot-dog stands, motels, and cabin slums that line major

It

socialists of the

really threatened the

to dismiss the aesthetic criticism of

are surely

the settled

proportion to their importance.

communities, but the Marxists

of the philistine in his

kind of

earth, the

in for the wilder sects.

bourgeois sometimes out of

little

men with onefanatic who in the

find the greatest concentration of cranks, of

Moreover, these

critics,

impractical

though many of them seem, focused attention on aspects of

soft

the very important problem of the incentives and rewards of labor in

modern

Capitalist

society.

and

socialist

thought alike tended, and

still

tend unduly today, to consider the problem of labor solely in terms of

wages and

Men

"efficiency" in the technical sense of factory organization.

like Morris, or the

though they were

in the

French Utopian

socialist

ways of the world, knew

Fourier, incompetent better.

They pointed

out that the problem of getting people to do the necessary work of the world

is

of dollars

and cents or of

men do

a

full,

complex,

human

efficient

problem, not merely a problem

motions.

They pointed out that made have pride of workman-

not like to be bored, that they like to feel they have

something useful or even

beautiful, that they

ship, that they enjoy being part of a team.

Morris in

News from Nowhere

lovely public forest

don used 468

to be,

—Kensington

has the outsider notice, in the

Forest

gangs of sturdy young

—where

men

ugly suburban Lon-

cheerfully digging ditches,

— ATTACKS FROM THE RIGHT and

is

When

told

by

guide that they enjoy competitive ditch-digging.

his

the outsider expresses surprise, his guide remarks that he un-

derstands that in nineteenth-century Oxford and Cambridge eight-

oared crews went through the hardest physical labor with pleasure.

The sermon may seem you

tion

silly and sentimental; and yet on reflecamount of "work" expended by a college team would easily build a housing project. There

crew or a football is

rather

will realize that the

no magic that can turn labor

suade us that there

You

can

make

mocracy with

But there

is.

abundant energies of

men

is

and Morris does not

and

a real problem of using the

have so

been engaged in

far

intellectual interest

effective attacks

and other

peal,

and

strains in

and the one we now

came

iTiovements of the Right

them under,

classify

any

determined.

From

in the twentieth century those totalitarian

—Fascism, Nazism, Falangism, and the like

a fascinatir^g one,

and one

in the

war of

1939.

that has already attracted

Once more, we must warn

say that Wagnr.r, for instance,

"cause of,"

ii'^

is

We do

know

it

The Nazis

is

much

absurd to

blame

for," a

cannot be ex-

more than cancer or polio can be movements always have a set

that such

of views about all the questions, big

some

the reader that

"responsible for," "to

German Nazi movement.

plained fu'jy and completely, any fully explained.

the

an exclusive

that of

the problem of the intellectual ancestry of Rightist totalitari-

attention.

they got

is

rate, biologically

which were perhaps no more than scotched is

live in.

the good; they have at times appealed to

—at

these attacks there

anism

we now

on democracy have indeed been

our Western tradition, but their major ap-

in-group, national, racial

Now

this chapter are

other base than that of Christianity or the classical

ideal of the beautiful

these

critics of de-

(no slight thing) but that

they have not in fact greatly influenced the world

The immediately made from some

per-

in socially eflfective ways.

a pretty effective argument that the

whom we

of purely historical

into sport,

of their answers.

and

little,

and we can

That should be enough

see

where

for all but

most determined metaphysicians.

We

have already noted that the

called nationalism

gave trouble

cluster of ideas

to those

who wished

and sentiments all

men

to

469

be

ATTACKS FROM RIGHT AND LEFT Even within

brothers.

national states greatly influenced by the ideas

of the Enlightenment, even in the states at the heart of the democratic

—the United States, Britain, France, and the smaller countries of western and northern Europe — the demands for national unity, for tradition

conformity on the part of each citizen to a national pattern, served to lessen the personal

within states,

freedom, the range of character and eccentricity,

Moreover, most of the great democratic

in-groups.

these

including the United States, had in the nineteenth century ca-

reers of successful expansion in the course of as possessions lands inhabited

by

men

there prevailed in the nineteenth

and

A

peoples. justify

if

what

whole its

their

literature of the

rest of the

in the lands

and

that they ought,

ways on these darker-skinned

"white man's burden" arose to

world.

who

own good

to

to die out.

tradition

was

levels,

and

be kept in a perpetually inferior

Americans

like

that they

hitherto

and urged

that

dominant great

Rhodes, no

theorist but a

even

Lothrop Stoddard and Madison

something had

races

ought

status, or

Grant, Britishers like Benjamin Kidd, were alarmed tide of color,"

strongest,

held that these non-Western peoples

could not in fact be brought up to Western

be helped

different

early twentieth centuries the

where the democratic

however, there were those for their

hold

authors for the most part considered the inevitable

Westernizing of the

Even

impose

possible, to

to

citizens of these democracies

feeling that theirs were better, higher, ways,

peacefully

and

of different color

Almost universally among the

culture.

which they came

to

"rising

at the

be done to protect the

The Englishman Cecil who made a fortune in South

of whites.

businessman

Africa, believed that Anglo-Saxons (or rather, English, Scots, Welsh-

men, and Americans) had achieved standards of moral and

political

decency no other peoples seemed able to achieve, and that therefore they should unite, get as as fast as possible to

But the

and

practice

much

of the earth as possible,

and multiply

fill it.

clearest line of antidemocratic Rightist totalitarian

comes out in the German and

Italian experience.

thought

Their

nationalism, their later totalitarianism, does not prove the existence of an innate incapacity for political virtue

470

among Germans

or Italians.

ATTACKS FROM THE RIGHT Their are

politics

many

is

a

complex resultant of many

growth

variables of historical

There

historical factors.

two centuries

in the past

that

help explain the rise of totalitarian societies in the twentieth century in these states.

We

are here interested in the strands of nineteenth-

century thought that helped to

make Nazism and

that in the nineteenth century only a

any nineteenth-century thinker

Yet

therefore in a sense an injustice. beliefs

and

institutions

into an oak, that earlier,

no

if

stage

is

true

very term

an anachronism, and

we remember

do not grow even

later

It is

The

were taking.

direction these antidemocratic forces proto-fascist for

Fascism.

few wise men recognized the

human

that

an acorn

as inevitably as

an inevitable consequence of an

is

the search for totalitarian origins in the nineteenth century

will not mislead us.

One sve

strand

is

certainly the simple strand of historical nationalism

have already noted

To

West.

as universal in the

must be

this

added, especially for Germany, a very strong strand of "racism," the notion that

—blond,

Germans

are biologically a special variety of

homo

siders, this is clearly

an example of a

social

myth; the Germans

myths which, though they do not correspond irony has often been pointed out:

The

first

to

work

source of these ideas of

Germanic

Frenchman, the Comte de Gobineau.

and color

lies

Greeks, legend

made such gods

as

literary

in the writings

long history in the West of prestige attached,

actual blondness, at least to lightness of color.

Even among

if

you

will note a certain tendency to

more blond than the

sinners.

whether or not blonds tend question

is

make

Scientifically speaking, to

simply meaningless.

Actunot to

the ancient

Apollo blond; the whole Hindu

system depends on varna, color; even in the Christian

tradition

The

together.

modern

strong

of a nineteentherhaps, that our tion

how

is,

an opinion

far

is

life-preserving,

life-furthering,

preserving; perhaps species-rearing; and

we

species-

are fundamentally inclined

which synthetic judgments a most indispensable to us; that without a recognition of logical fictions, without a comparison of reality with the purely man could not live imagined world of the absolute and immutable that the renunciation of false opinion would be a renunciation of life, a to maintain that the falsest opinions (to

priori belong) are the

.

.

negation of

To

life.

.

recognize untruth as a condition of

life:

that

is

impugn the traditional ideas of value in a dangerous manner, and a philosophy which ventures to do so, has thereby alone placed itself beyond good and evil. certainly to

By

the twentieth century

to catch

begun

on with the

down

to seep

deal of the point of

intellectual classes,

view we here

a

man

prevails in the world.

and

forms had

in less obvious

In

its

origins a

good

call anti-intellectualism is that of a

wise enough to

It is

had begun

of anti-intellectualism

into popular consciousness.

self-conscious "superior," a

dom

some

know how

wis-

little

a point of view that turns easily into

kind of snobbery, the feeling that the masses are the herd and

wise few are, or should be, the masters.

Nietzsche, of

modern

who

This runs

the clearest example of this strain in the attitude

is

anti-intellectualism.

Yet there

is

also a strain, clear ul-

timately in Freud, that emphasizes the possibility that ordinary

may

learn the truth about themselves, a truth far

the eighteenth-century view of

they can themselves reality.

Once men

straight, they will,

we

through

all

make

man, and

men

more complex than

that once

having learned

it

the necessary adjustments to this newly seen

realize

the really grave difficulties of thinking

according to this more democratic view, be well on

the road to straight thinking.

The most

familiar

phase of contemporary anti-intellectualism

brings out this aspect clearly. cal

writers

figures like

like I.

Alfred

A. Richards

word semantics has gone tries.

Semantics

is

From

obscure and

difficult

philosophi-

Korzybski through more graceful

literary

to frank popularizers like Stuart Chase, the far, especially in the

English-speaking coun-

the science of meaning, the study of the

way

515

in

THE ANTI-INTELLECTUAL ATTACK which human beings communicate with one another. The semanticist will point out, for example, that three different observers

may

refer

to the actions of a fourth person, the first as "pig-headed," the second as "obstinate,"

and the third

words the observers use

as "firm."

The

actions are the same; the

by no means the

to describe the actions are

same; they indicate certain feelings of the observer, and they communi-

Words

cate these feelings, rather than an objective report.

are, then,

charged with emotional overtones and are not mere signs like the

X and y of

Pig-headed carries with

algebra.

it

strong disapproval,

and firm is slightly approving. our culture be still more approving.

obstinate rather less strong disapproval,

Persevering would in

Again, there are the great big words that draw into themselves all

sorts of

human

confusing

hopes and

analysis very hard — — to find for them a concrete meaning.

form

liberty, equality, fraternity

the operation of producing

"meaningless." that

way

of

substitute blah-blah

life

and

we have merely come

We

In the language of semantics,

have no referent; you cannot per-

them

to be seen

Mr. Stuart Chase suggests

whenever we are tempted

democratic

even on close

the ardent semantic reformer says impossible

it is

terms like

fears, so that

in his

to use great big

let

it

go

at that.

form

Of

they are

felt;

Tyranny

of

vague phrases

or Western individualism

to the current

and

we

Words like the

should simply

course at this extreme

of the nominalist position.

are ready for the reflection of this anti-intellectualism in formal

philosophy.

That reflection takes on a paradoxical form: a philosophy that would eliminate philosophy from our studies. The exponents of this philosophy, the "logical positivists," developed their position, not from

some nineteenth-century

the simple belief of tion tic

positivists in the induc-

and natural science of Herbert Spencer's time, but from

logics

method.

and mathematics and the modern conceptions of Very

briefly, logical

kind of knowledge natural science.

the process gradually

this

kind of knowledge there

worked out

through which one can

516

positivism asserts that the only valid

cumulative knowledge, the kind one finds in

is

For

syllogisscientific

test

in

exists a process,

Western culture by our

the truth of any statement that

scientists, is

claimed

CONTEMPORARY ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM to

In Bridgman's term, you can perform an operation

be knowledge.

on the statement laboratory

and

—but

— sometimes

a long

research,

field

and

difficult

much mathematics and hard

an operation that will enable you to

thinking

logical

test the truth

or

the statement.

falsity of

Mostly the logical

positivists take their illustrations of the legiti-

mate kind of knowledge from the natural

We

sciences.

may

vary

procedure and bring the legitimate and illegitimate kinds of

their

knowledge If

operation involving

(as they maintain)

to bear

men

you make the statement "All

men

believe in

believe in God.?"

to ask everyone they

As

statement "All

the

topic.

God," you can

test

You

pollsters.

meet the question, "Do you

soon as one of the interviewed says no, you will

have an operational proof that the statement

make

same

at least the

by the methods of the public-opinion

that statement

can send out

on

men

really

believe

is

But

false.

in

God

you

if

down

deep

within themselves, no matter what they say," you have gone beyond

any

pollster's

tests.

ment "There are

making

classified as

you cannot

are

no

check up

of the logical positivist's

being within the scope of "knowledge."

answer

men

especially not

on the

scientifically

you say "God

state-

exists,"

you

of statement the logical positivist says cannot

to a

You

are

have been doing since the Greeks.

making

You

are

no means be accepted by everyone

by those with expert training in philosophy. The

tends to regard

all

be

metaphysical question; you are doing the

getting answers that will by

positivist

possibility

really

atheists in foxholes." If

the kind

a metaphysical

same thing

beyond the

tests,

Similarly,

still

— and

logical

traditional philosophic thinking, the

kind

involved in fields like metaphysics, ethics, political theory, even most

epistemology and of course pure Aristotelian logic, as a complete waste of time; the favorite figure of speech compares the traditional philosopher with the squirrel in his treadmill cage.

The whose

logical

positivists

positive interest

is

are

themselves

chiefly the

most abstract thinkers,

modern extension

of the mathe-

way of going at things that is called symbolic logic. Some more innocent of them hoped that once they had worked out

matician's of the

symbolic logic to perfection

all

communications in symbolic logic

517

THE ANTI-INTELLECTUAL ATTACK would be

human

perfectly understandable by all

thenceforth never quarrel, since they

ance and misunderstanding.

would never

But mostly the

pushed aside these questions of moral and judgments)

no

that just because

found there were in

on

They were

earth.

They simply took of view

annoying

aesthetic standards (value-

many answers

did not really believe

as there

not, in their practice,

to

brought up in prevailing Western

Yet since from

its

make more

sense,

is

more innocent to its more immense role

is

Heir

triumph of the objective thinking we

to the

call

natural

long Western tradition of tough-mindedness, he

afraid of the kind of thinking

He

the illative sense.

sophisticated forms

of the irrational in

a constant temptation for the anti-intellectualist to

see only the clear-cut science.

traditions,

than others.

anti-intellectualism emphasizes the

there

nihilists.

hold that some judgments about morals and

aesthetics are truer, or at least

lives,

were human beings

moral cynics or

values as not to be thought about profitably, a point to those

which have tended

men's

ignor-

answer to these questions could be

scientific

fact as

from

suffer

logical positivists simply

They

them "meaningless."

as to

who would

beings,

Newman

sees that all sane

defended

men

as the

work

of

of sufficient education

can be convinced of the truth of certain propositions in physics; he sees that all sane

men

of sufficient education simply cannot be con-

—beyond

vinced of any propositions in English literature

ments of

fact,

Romeo and

simple

such as that William Shakespeare wrote a play called

Juliet.

And,

at that, there are those

who

maintain that

Yet, of course, the position that on

Francis Bacon wrote that play!

any statement save simple statements of

verifiable fact

and statements

of scientifically established uniformities one man's opinion

good pin

as another's, the position that, as

is

as

good

as poetry,"

—find displeasing. One way

state-

out

for

is

Bentham once

one that most

men

—even

is

just as

declared, "pushanti-intellectuals

them we have seen already suggested by

Machiavelli and Nietzsche:

The

truth of these value-judgments

not be rationally establishable, but their importance in the social of a given culture can be established. efficacy of certain religious rites

518

A

may life

society that believes in the

wholly incapable of

scientific justifica-

:

I

CONTEMPORARY ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM may

tion

example

yet gain

strength

Greek crew

a

from such

Pareto

belief.

the sea, before they set sail

an

as

cites

in ancient times sacrificing to Poseidon,

god of

on a dangerous voyage; we today should

be willing to accept regarding Poseidon the logical positivist's verdict that there

is

no

possible proof of his existence; yet, says Pareto,

clear that if

under the influence of the

selves right

with Poseidon the crew rowed more

have come with Pareto

century anti-intellectual, a

up a

to

first

social

heartily,

maintained

most representative twentieth-

to a

trained engineer,

a

science

that

Switzerland; but in his

effort to build

would stand comparison with

who

last years

who

mathematician

economics and then to sociology in an

Pareto was an Italian

science.

is

Poseidon was useful to them, and in a sense, true.

clearly belief in

turned

it

had put them-

under pressure of danger, then

better discipline, stuck together better

We

belief that they

a

did most of his creative

natural

work

in

he accepted a post under Mussolini,

this and for many of his doctrines as expressed in his The Mind and Society he has been labeled a reactionary, a Rightist, the "Karl Marx of the bourgeoisie." He was like most articulate anti-

and for

intellectuals

—a

—

confirmed scholar and

intellectual.

tached to the sort of ideal John Mill brings out in

saw

his

On

Emotionally

at-

Liberty, Pareto

world moving apparently farther and farther from individual

human behavior, farther from men and ideas. He was in some senses the disillusioned liberal, trying to explain why liberalism hadn't worked, not rejoicing that it hadn't. Of course, for the tradiliberty

and

toleration of great variety of

international peace

reforming

tional

and

free circulation of

liberal all

wrapped up

words and

in

faith, the

mere

admission that liberalism wasn't working, the insistence that the facts of life

were,

were not entirely what the

was

a treason

irritating to

many

on Pareto's

part.

thought and hoped they

Moreover, Pareto

is

profoundly

readers because he insists too vehemently that he

in effect the first person to study

tachment of the

liberal

scientist,

human

keeping his value-judgments outside his

work, or actually, insisting that he never makes value-judgments. course he

is

relations with the cool de-

comes nowhere near living up

and dishkes, somewhat different

in

Of

to these professions; his likes

many ways from

those of the

519

THE ANTI-INTELLECTUAL ATTACK reforming

come out on every

liberal,

page.

His great hatred

the people he calls the "virtueists," the crusading reformers

by

and perhaps some education

legislation, policing,

to

wipe

for

is

who

wish

off the

face of the earth sexual irregularities, alcoholic drinks, gambling,

and

the other lesser vices.

The Mind and

Pareto prefaces

Society with a

somewhat

tedious

scientific

method

but by no means superfluous essay on just what the is.

This method he

scious

calls

human mental

the logico-experimental; other kinds of con-

activity

he

that logical thinking certain way, a

way

merely a

is

non4ogico-experimental.

calls

word

that he does not use simply the

logical; that

problems

Note

because he holds

using the

set of rules for

that can be applied to

is

mind

in a

like the existence

of the Trinity or the Aristotelian entelechy as well as to problems like that of the chemical composition of a given protein.

Pareto as a sociologist separating out in

human

is

concerned chiefly with the problem of

action

the rational

(logico-experimental)

from the nonrational (non-logico-experimental). havior, he

found a part

called "residues,"

In our social be-

to be the expression of certain sentiments

he

and another part the expression of other sentiments

he called "derivations."

Note

that neither residues nor derivations are

for Pareto drives, urges, appetites, libidos, or whatever else the psy-

chologist tries to analyze in

animal push its

to action.

human

Pareto

is

what

study to the psychologist;

action that

is

behavior as a sort of underlying

willing to assume this push, and leave interests

Buying wool socks

for cold weather

bought deliberately

to get

is

good socks

one such

If,

as

sociologist

action.

at a price the

this is rational, or logico-experimental action in interests.

him

If

they are

buyer can afford,

accord with the doer's

however, they are bought without regard for price by a

sentimental lover of England

who

buys imported English socks in

order to do his bit to help England, then clearly something

something the economist has

come

into play.

The

else,

to disregard in his price statistics, has

This something

else

is

the substance of Pareto's study.

part of the action of our Greek sailors sacrificing to Poseidon

that explained Poseidon as ruler of the seas,

520

is

expressed in words, ritual, symbolism of some kind.

maker and

quieter of

CONTEMPORARY ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM tempests,

is

for Pareto a derivation,

a theory or explanation usually

logical in form, but not logico-experimental,

The

by the methods of natural science.

Bacon

and

the "Idols"

called

them

useful classification than did Bacon.

what

derivations are close to

what we

to

Pareto gives

"rationalizations."

not capable of verification

know nowadays

all

as

much more complex and

a

Indeed, his

for the purposes of

is

commonest way the

semantics one of the very best analyses of the

human mind has gone to work in social and ethical theory. He is clear in his own mind that these derivations have very little effect on the general behavior of men in society, very little effect on social change. What we have in this book called cosmologies Pareto would have held were mostly tissues of derivations; he maintained that they

have in his as

own

no

no

or

little

effect

emotional

on the behavior of those

life

he was clearly unable

He

no worse than another.

better or

who

Yet

hold them.

to treat

one cosmology

hated socialism, and

medieval Christianity as well; he was himself a good nineteenthcentury bourgeois.

What

move men

does

in

society,

These have extraordinarily

society, says Pareto, is the residues.

intellectual in

and keeps them together

little

They

them, though they are usually put in logical form.

men,

are expressions of relatively permanent, abiding sentiments in

expressions that usually have to be separated

a derivation, which

actually

Let us revert

quickly.

to

latter

our pagan Greek

with a group of Christian Greek lighting candles, sailing.

The

They

thinks his pagan predecessor

and

to

The

ritual

assurance of such aid and comfort. for

our two

the

same

sets of sailors.

social

acts

The

later praying,

what Poseidon and

believer in the Virgin

was dead wrong.

perform certain

is

Virgin Mary just before

The

needs to secure divine aid and comfort in a

taking,

that

and even

and compare them

sailors,

to the

vary.

greatly

few centuries

derivations are the explanations of

the Virgin respectively do.

the

sailors a

and making vows

from the part

may change

in

residues are

difficult

under-

that give the performer

residues are nearly the

same

Both the pagans and the Christians have

and psychological needs and

satisfy

them

in

much 521

the

THE ANTI-INTELLECTUAL ATTACK same ways, though with very tions of

what they

different rational (intellectual) explana-

are doing.

Pareto's conception of the residues

and

actual classification of the residues

way

work

they

in

human

though

it

may

be

tradition

and

first

men

habit,

His

out.

as that of his

he distinguishes

—non-logico-experimental

genuine

his limited but

the residues of persistent aggregates, the

mark men who

sentiments that

call

—his philosophy of history,

These are

cosmology.

original than

work

the detailed analysis of the

classes of residues

we must

stand out, and help form what

difficult to

by no means as good

society are

But two of the major

derivations.

was much more

and much more

that of the derivations,

ways, solid discipline,

like regular

like the Spartans, the lions;

and second there

are the residues of the instinct for combinations, the sentiments that

mark men who

like novelty

and adventure, who invent new ways

of

men

not

less

im-

foxes.

who men who hate discipline, men like the Athenians, the Now men as individuals hold all sorts of logically quite incon-

sistent

mixtures of these two and the other (and to Pareto

doing things, easily

like to cut loose

from the

old, the tried,

shocked,

But

portant) residues.

in societies of

many

individual members,

men

influenced largely by one or the other of these major residues tend to

predominate, and to characterize that of history, Pareto

far

is

where the residues of a

—

—a

struggle of thesis

which the residues of

maximum

part they can in a

ideas, inventions, enterprises,

a conservative society

predominate changes into this

conception of a pen-

and

would

antithesis.

West was

in

Pareto's

mind

a

combinations played per-

human society. The nineteenth among individuals full of new

convinced that the old ways were bad,

that novelty

was the great thing

thing

It

was a

how

instinct of

century was a century of competition

else.

just

Like most philosophers

even, though the comparison

nineteenth century in the

society in

haps the

on

But he does have

Yin and Yang

have angered Pareto

The

clear

persistent aggregates

another kind of society.

dulum swing,

from

society.

to strive for at the expense of every-

society notably out of equilibrium.

It

had

to

turn toward the other kind of residues, toward the persistent aggregates,

toward a society with more security and

522

less

competition,

more

CONTEMPORARY ANTI-INTELLECTUALI S M discipline

and

freedom, more uniformity and

less

go the way we are going

to

less variety.

Pareto's final general conception

is

one of an equilibrium

this

but constantly renewed by a sort of

medicatrix naturae not

vis

be supplanted by any social physician or planner.

to

entirely rule out the possibility that

may in little ways here and a way that what they plan whelming emphasis

Pareto does not

beings by taking thought

there change social arrangements in such

But the over-

turns out to be a reahty.

work

of his

human

in

Western

a society, an equilibrium constantly disturbed at least in society,

had

It

in the twentieth century.

is

that in

human

affairs

change in

human conduct as a whole must be distinguished from change in human ideas and ideals. Man being what he is, and in our Western culture the residue of instinct of combinations being so widespread, there

and

is

bound

all its

him

tueists,

be change in

many

fields of

human

But for Pareto there was

also

Fashion

interest.

commercial dependents can almost be said

change's sake. for

to

— and

to

be change for

more important

to point out just because the reformers, the liberals, the vir-

the optimistic planners

conduct where change

would not

see

it

—a

human

level of

very slow indeed, almost as slow as the

is

kind of change the geologist and the evolutionist study.

This is

level of

human

conduct where change

At most, Pareto

the level of the residues.

leader can manipulate the derivations in such a

are

made

inactive,

relatively

new

and others

is

very slow indeed

held, the skilled political

way

are

that

activated.

some

possibly

produce

effective

governmental inspection of meats, for instance, not

residues or

an appeal to men's sense of

work

like

Upton

old

civic responsibility,

argument of the eighteenth-century literary

destroy

Sinclair's

sort,

ones.

residues

He cannot He will get just

by

not just by a rational

but also by propaganda, by

The

Jungle,

making

as

many

people as possible jeel fear that they will eat uninspected dirty meat

and die of food poisoning unless the government does viously, the

knowing

The

men who

direct

American advertising

inspect.

Ob-

are Paretans without

it.

wise leader according to Pareto will read Bacon's famous

aphorism, "nature

is

not to be

commanded

save by obeying her"

?23

— THE ANTI-INTELLECTUAL ATTACK (natura non vincitur nisi parendo), as

"human

commanded save by obeying it" or at You must not expect human beings

least

—

it

not to be

is

into account!

consistently

good, kindly, wise.

unselfish,

Above

all,

you

that any institution, any law, any constitution, any

must not expect

treaty or pact, will

make them

But Pareto goes a

so.

bit

beyond

this

Planning, except for limited and always very concrete ends,

position. is

common

devoted to the

sensible,

be

to

nature

taking

dangerous.

with actual

Pareto, starting

from mathematics and engineering, and

hostility to Christianity,

comes on

Not

very close to the Christian Burke.

only

this specific

question

very likely that a big,

is it

ambitious, legislated change will not achieve the results the planners

planned;

produce unpredictable and perhaps unfortu-

likely to

is

it

Pareto would have gloated a

nate results.

fate of the Eighteenth

bit,

Amendment, which

one suspects, over the

did not promote temper-

holic beverages a respectable drink for middle-class

many ways make alcowomen. Until

we know more

to trust to

ance in the United States, but helped produce newer and in less desirable habits of

drinking

—helped,

of social science, the best thing to

condemns

the upstart intellectual arrogantly

human

nature;

for instance, to

we must

do

is

believe that the ingrained habits of the

more

race are, even by evolutionary standards,

what

as the irrational side of

human

useful to survival than

the impertinent logic of the reformers.

Much to

modern

of

democratic

optimistic

culture

today.

unpalatable though

anti-intellectualism, taste,

actually

is

Even semantics has spread

widespread into

in

it

is

Western

popular conscious-

We

ness, to

be sure in forms Korzybski would hardly recognize.

have

heard about rationalization, propaganda, the ambiguities and

all

other inadequacies of language;

ahead in

this

people, you

must

other than logic. factors they

propaganda,

we

are all

reminded daily that

world you must exercise your deliberately

The

win

friends

is

which the French

know

public awareness call

to get

handling other

and influence people by

experts in propaganda

must reckon with

skill in

expressively

arts

that one of the

and

—and

distrust of

cynically

bourrage de crane, "brain-stuffing."

We

are brought squarely

524

up against the problem of the

relation

CONTEMPORARY ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM way

of anti-intellectualism to our democratic tradition,

Democracy

mology.

as

to be achieved

reason —or political all

who

planners

men would

social

men

all

power

use their natural

to

an enlightened group of

to

could devise and run institutions under which Anti-intellectualism maintains against these

be happy.

democratic beliefs the belief that

men

and cannot under the

are not

guided by their reason, that the drives,

best educational system be

conditioned reflexes that mostly do guide them cannot be

habits,

changed rapidly,

man

change toward universal happiness

by educating

by entrusting

at least

cos-

life,

ripened in the eighteenth century held out

it

hope of rapid and thorough

on earth

of

intellectual,

These two

of beliefs, the democratic

sets

Many

seem mutually incompatible.

Rightist attacks

we

in the nature of

make him behave in the from the way he has behaved

will continue to

immediate future not very differently in the past.

something

that, in short, there is

makes him and

that

and the

anti-

and

of the Leftist

discussed in the last chapter seem in comparison

democracy, mere extensions or modifications of

relatively close to

some ways

But Pareto's position, for instance, seems

in

polar opposite of democracy as Maistre's,

and of

as

as

little

it.

much

a

use to us

today.

Graham

Yet call

Wallas, as

we

noted,

was

in

sympathy with what

democracy, and went part way with the

good a defender of

all sorts

anti-intellectuals.

and most

to retreat

idealistic of social scientists in

And

Machiavelli, Bacon,

human

nature and

they say

is

it

is

difficult for

most of us

anti-

—and

to read Pareto

La Rochefoucauld, and the other "realists" about human affairs—without feeling that much of what

quite true.

We are back, so strong in real

All but the very

our culture have had

from eighteenth-century rationalism and learn from the

intellectuals.

So

of democratic causes as Stuart Chase has

been greatly influenced by anti-intellectualism. softest

we

and the

of course, to the eternal contrast, the eternal tension,

Western

culture,

between

ideal, the practical

tuals are pulling

this

and the

desirable.

democracy over toward the

to emphasize the facts of

life,

world and the next, the first

The

anti-intellec-

of these pairs.

the "spotted actuality,"

is

Yet

not necessarily

525

THE ANTI-INTELLECTUAL ATTACK to

adopt the conclusion that no improvement in actual conditions Indeed, in Western tradition the realists (in our

possible.

sense,

which

—see

"reaUsm"

is

p.

confusingly different from

They

rarely gloat with pleasure over the

conditions they insist are there, are real.

we have

insisted

belong together.

It is

throughout only

in neglect of the other,

tions

we now

medieval sense of

190) have more often been ethical meliorists, even

optimists, than cynics.

not,

the

is

modern

face

is

is

a

when

The

this book,

real

and the

bad

ideal are

by nature enemies.

They

they are divorced that each, pursued

danger to

society.

One

of the great ques-

whether good democrats can accept the

reality

the anti-intellectuals have brought to their attention without losing their belief in the possibility of

526

improving that

reality.

15 Mid-Twentieth Century

SOME UNFINISHED BUSINESS

It E HAVE HITHERTO, and quite deliberately, treated the intellectual West with but incidental mention of any other culture.

history of the

men and women And it is a fact that

For we have focused on the attitude of Western toward the Big Questions, toward cosmologies.

on the whole the West has not been greatly influenced by the cosmonor even by the ethical and aesthetic, ideas of other cultures.

logical,

There

is

unquestionably a great deal in the

we have

culture

tures of the

Homer and

form of Western

Eastern Mediterranean region in the millennia before the lonians.

in many ways these early own Western culture; and

But

simply the ancestors of our

and other Near Eastern elements

save for the Hebraic

they

first

here studied, the Greek, which comes out of the cul-

had mostly done

work

cultures are at

any

rate,

in Christianity,

before the rise of the great

Greek

Western culture would, of course, have

to take

their

culture.

A

detailed study of

into account

many

India and China,

kinds of contacts with other cultures, especially in

and note many ways

in

which our inheritance would

be different had these contacts never taken place.

There

is first

the

familiar interchange of material goods, the kind that even the prehistorian can trace

through archaeological remains.

usually been willing

enough

gingerly with strange foods.

The West

to accept strange wares, to

Western

man

is

has

experiment

not quite the complete

527

— SOME UNFINISHED BUSINESS devotee of newness, invention, experiment he seemed to the nineteenth-century progressive to be: There have been neophobes even in Nevertheless, any

our culture. *^races

of these borrowings

modern Western language

from

curry, tomato, tobacco, pajama,

all

over the globe

\owtow, bungalow, and many more.

Sometimes the borrowings involved inventions and have already noted a very typical example of influence

on Western culture

Western culture

as

some

of

But they

them

at

also

sticks

a real style.

modern

The French

with which

brought Chinese

Chippendale, for instance.

the beginning of that

come

Hindu in origin many other borrowings least we could not have

now is. The eighteenth-century intellectuals very much indeed. In part, as we shall see, they

Christian opponents.

is

We

This and

used the wise Confucian Chinese as

—Chinese

ideas.

sort of external

it

admired the Chinese

art

this

in the sign for zero,

and borrowed through the Arabs. are important; without

bears the

sugar, alcohol,

The vogue

eclecticism out of

Western

of Chinoiserie

which may yet

much

physiocrats were

to beat their

art into

influenced by

the Chinese.

With

the discoveries of the fifteenth century

and the beginnings

of the expansion of Europe the study of non-European lands and peoples of all sorts

began

to take

an important part

in

Western

Yet the growth of most of the formal sciences was very slow early centuries.

Anthropology

is

learning, in these

in origin a nineteenth-century sci-

ence; even comparative linguistics, the serious study of India and ot

China, are no century

and

it is

later

than the Enlightenment.

true that the very careful study of

among

Western

phases of the lives

tradition

and students.

scholars

the lecture plaform had spread at least

all

by the nineteenth

was a commonThe popular press, books, and among many millions of Westerners

cultures of peoples outside the

place

Still,

some information about other

by no means broad or deep; and

peoples.

it is

This knowledge was

probable that few Westerners

actually thought they could learn anything

from the heathen.

Per-

haps the typical Britisher or Frenchman was not quite so "culture-

bound," not quite so

was thought

528

to

narcissistic in his

be by

the intellectuals

admiration of the West as he

who wanted

us to be really

— THE WEST AND OTHER CULTURES human, and absorb the best of the familiar quotation from Tennyson can stand as a value the nineteenth-century West set upon the

cosmopolitan, really

universe.

the

fair

the

Europe than

years of

fifty

There out at

a cycle of Cathay."

best in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment.

its

sample of

East: "Better

another phase of the interrelation of cultures that comes

is

of bits

use

Yet

of information

—actually

This

about one culture to further a policy you are pushing in your culture.

the

is

more often misinformation

own

In the eighteenth century, the philosophes loved to invent

wise Persians, Chinese, Hindus, Hurons, and South Sea Islanders

who, coming in contact with European ways, brought of

Europe the wisdom of

their

that all these yellow, black,

European problems to be themselves

their

own

to the criticism

points of view.

The

brown, and red men, bringing

own

trouble to bear

is

on

supposedly native wisdom, turn out

European philosophes, with exactly the same ideas

about right and wrong, beautiful and ugly, reason and superstition,

and convention the other enlightened had.

nature

Europeans are no more than to beat

fictions,

something Western, and no proof

With

geography and anthropology, on

same way.

in quite the

peoples.

witness

It is still

Ruth

improvement

nineteenth-century

this rather

we

Westerners

levels

from other

at all that

have really learned at high ethical and metaphysical peoples.

These non-

straw men, sticks with which

innocent

in

sciences

game could

Too much was known about the primitive much more skillfully, as

played, however, though

Benedict's

quietly

co-operative

Zunis in Patterns of

Culture and Margaret Mead's sexually blissful maidens in

Age

in

We

return to our point.

it is

For the historian of the

hardly necessary to devote

it is

clusters of

much

This statement

simply a recognition of a

is

attention to other cultures

not provincial or otherwise

fact.

Indeed, the marginal and

from outside the West is modern groups that appeal to Eastern Theosophy of Madame Blavatsky's kind on

sectarian nature of influences at this level clear

of

Big Questions which have prevailed hitherto in the

than the Western.

wicked;

Coming

Samoa.

ideas about the

West,

like

not go

from the

fate of the little

wisdom, from Bahaism or

529

SOME UNFINISHED BUSINESS wisdom of Confucius or Buddha. These main current of Western thought and and real some individual conversions to them

to learned admiration for the

exotic cults are all outside the

however intense

feeling,

may

be. It is

may

quite possible that this spiritual self-sufficiency of the

West

be changing, and that in the next century or so there will arise

West and indeed

in the

and philosophy

into

all

which

over the world a great syncretic religion will

pour the long wisdom of the East.

and West

Professor Northrop's recent Meeting of East

perhaps a

is

There may be One World make possible One World of the flesh. Already it is somehow or other a very large number of Western men and

prophetic as well as a symptomatic book. of the spirit to clear that

women must

learn to understand the cultures of non-Western people,

even though understanding prove to be not quite conversion.

we

cannot be sure of what

so far ahead, nor of

lies

what

Even

the cosmologies of the twenty-first or twenty-second century.

from

the most high-minded of cosmopolitans should not shut

mind

the possibility that the rest of the world

generations be

won

may

But

go into

will

in the next

his

few

over at least to Western material wants, that the

Ford,

air conditioning,

fucius

and Buddha.

and the comic

strips

may conquer

both Con-

A Summary What

can be said to be really persistent notes or

acteristics of

this

Western culture

since the ancient

high level of abstraction, there

type of

mind

traits

Greeks ?

nothing that can

is

or char-

Obviously, satisfy

It is

somewhere

at least

in these three millennia

you can dig up

erner in almost every possible category of

human

probable that

one West-

experience.

There

A

not even agreement on the continuity of Western culture. Spengler holds that what

tinuous stream

way with 530

the

that refuses to accept the validity of our analogies with

the spectrum or with the normal distribution curve.

like

at

is

we have

in fact three,

treated in this

as a con-

none of which communicates

—the Apollonian, or

the others

book

is

man

in any

Graeco-Roman, the Magian,

A

SUMMARY and the Faustian, or European, each of roughly one thou-

or Arabic,

sand

German, you of the

you find Spengler an oversoulful

if

many, both

will recall that there are

Middle Ages, who regard medieval culture

antithesis (in the Still,

the

Even

duration.

years'

common,

lovers

and haters

as just

about the

not the Hegelian, sense) of ours today.

certain big generalizations about the intellectual climate of

West can be made.

First of

we must

all,

note that in no other

culture have the natural sciences flourished as they have in the West. Increasingly,

is

it

true,

men from

other cultures have practiced the

study of science with great success; science

human

successful of

efforts to

many ways

in

most

the

break through the bounds of the modern

more

in-group, or nation-state,

territorial

is

successful

than commerce, more successful than religion.

mark

in

respect

this

But science

West

in

modern form

bears plainly the

developed.

could hardly have developed save in the Western

It

mosphere of tension between the world and the next.

of the

and the

real

in

which

ideal,

it

between

Complete absorption of the mind,

world as

it

worldly problems. things;

it

at-

this

made

would complete preoccupation with

would mere unsystematic ingenuity

so too

is,

was

at least, in

another world, complete devotion to inner logic, would have science impossible; but so too

its

the

in concrete

Science needed not merely an interest in material

needed the

intellectual apparatus to devise the incredibly

complex ordering of things we

call science;

it

needed above

all

the

long training in the use of reason afforded by the Greek and medieval philosophy and theology our innocent logical positivists like to deprecate.

But natural a cosmology.

cosmologies;

science, as

It it

we have

has congruence or consonance with

you will no doubt have

and drink (which science an

(which

is

does not in

has not such consonance with others.

you are an Eastern mystic for

an expert on

insisted,

is

the body

to feed that illusion

also

human

whom

provide

modern Western If,

for instance,

a complete illusion,

with a

minimum of food make yourself

an illusion) but you will not

physiology.

answer to the question. meaningless in

is

itself

scientific

You Is

cannot, however, get from

the

human body an

illusion

terms), nor even to the question, 5.^1

SOME UNFINISHED BUSINESS Is

most of us do in the West,

better, as

it

body a

real thing or

is

it

also a meaningless question for science). entific

consider

to

better to consider

it

In

an

human

tlie

(which

illusion

is

brief, the pursuit of sci-

knowledge may well be a part of our Western values;

cannot

it

possibly mal{e our Western values.

Let us take a concrete case for that studies heredity, genetics,

command

improve

its

that

possible to learn

it is

over

science,

none the

is

it

will

breeding

if

follows precedent

it

already good

is

much

geneticist

in their infancy,

still

it

material,

from the

cal possibilities of eugenics,

social sciences,

its

That branch of biology

illustration.

though

human

enough

From

beings well.

and often denied the

less possible to learn

so

about the biologithe

status of

something about

how

to

persuade people to accept the recommendations of the biologist, about the kinds of social groups that types of

human

being were bred, and about

There

social problems.

these fields, especially for instance,

human

what

is

personality.

human What kind

to breed

would probably be produced

is

many

if

certain

other pertinent

indeed an immense area of ignorance in

where they converge; we do not

really

human body types and we know or can know enough

the relation between

Still, let

us assume

beings. shall

all

know,

we

breed?

Shall

we

specialize

on types

— the

the football player, the manager, the salesman, a graded series

artist,

of intelligences from the Alphas or intellectuals to the Epsilons or lowcaste workers, as in shall

we

try to

breed the all-around

brain to anything? to breed the

New

Aldous Huxley's grim Brave Or, since

body away, so

we

man who

World?

Or

can turn his hand and

we try minimum as in

are looking well ahead, shall

to speak, or at least to a

Shaw's Bac\ to Methuselah and thus paradoxically rejoin the PlaScience cannot answer these questions.

tonists?

The human mind,

at least in the old simple sense of the logical, ratiocinative mind, does

not in

fact

called the

answer them.

human

will,

democracy they are in ing the general

will,

They

are answered by

what

is

still

by the whole force of the personality.

fact

by a

answered by what there sort of

is

no harm

best

In a in call-

rough adjustment among competing

but not antithetical groups pursuing different but not wholly different

532

i

SUMMARY

A

In the Western tradition the leaders, the aristoi, the

ends.

much

ruling classes do

poses, or values

For the

—

first

at least,

the

elite,

persuade the masses

to

not in the traditional attitude of the West.

of the generalizations

cumulative body of Western thought

Greeks and the medieval Christians

and today

yesterday

and

But they do not wholly make these ends, or pur-

accept them.

to

to shape these ends,

we can make about is

that

down

displays

it

the non-

from the

the enlightened

to

a belief that men's sense of values

is

of

a groping

awareness of the organization of the universe, an organization not evident to unreflective men, not provable by scientific methods, never

wholly plain to the best and wisest of men, but an organization, not

Over the

a chaos. is

ages, the clearest

the term natural latv,

same thing

Or, to put

that those ideal,

to

common

who

three

all it

mean

indication of this feeling

mean

be sure did not

to a Stoic, a Scholastic, or

pher, but did to for.

which

exactly the

an eighteenth-century philoso-

a faith in the substance of things hoped

another way, the very concept of natural law means

hold

it

believe that the

gap between the

between what we have and what we want,

actually a gap, but a relation.

It is

summed up

Hebrews: "For here have we no continuing

is

real

no

and the

abyss, not

in the Epistle to the

city,

but

we

seek one to

come." Second, there

what

for

is

is

throughout Western

commonly

group, to which

is

intellectual history a feeling

called the "dignity of

man."

applied the irreducible notion that

treated as things, or animals, has varied.

For the

The area, the men may not be

early

Greeks

this

group was limited in some ways to the in-group of the Hellenes;

was

clearly so confined to the in-group

Greek

Stoics

race.

To

and Hebrew prophets extended

the Christian

mortal souls.

among

The

all

men

this idea to the

human

are equal in the possession of im-

basic democratic "liberty, equality, fraternity"

once more, part of the heavenly city of the eighteenth century; in

it

the early Hebrews.

it

is,

is

our modern cosmology the direct reflection, the direct successor of

the Christian conception of the equaUty of souls before

may add separated

as a footnote that the

man from

main Western

God.

One

tradition has very firmly

the rest of nature, to which

it

refuses to give the

533

SOME UNFINISHED BUSINESS special status of sharing in the

do not have

souls.

not normal Western doctrines.

much

Animals

moral struggle.

West

in the

Pantheism, and most certainly metempsychosis, are

who

Indeed the Hindu,

we

coarse about us, thinks

are

finds

so

most inconsiderate of our fellow

animals.

Third, there life

is

a striking continuity of Western ideas of the

Once more, we must use the figure spectrum is the way of life that was

here on earth.

Central in this

aristocratic culture of

Golden Mean.

—the

teenth century,

is

acceptable to those

we

could

of

who

ineffable;

find the central point of

Since indeed

at its

variety of

most

stable,

obvious that both the ascetic and the

it is

manic (Faustian.?) ways of

life

are present in our tradition.

Never-

kind of recurring resolution of the complex tensions

between Western striving for the

and Western pleasure and

Mean

in

even approximated the Spartan model of

society has rarely

as a

be

it

Western culture shows,

Dark Ages, an amazing

save perhaps for the interval of the

theless,

nor will

—any heights.

as a fourth generalization that

uniformity and discipline,

who

Western culture

views and practices moral and aesthetic, since even

Western

of the

to those

ideal, practically realized in the thir-

other-worldly,

ascetic,

manic drive for the heights

make

much,

This statement will not be acceptable

hold that the central Christian

some kind

the ideal of the

ideal of nothing too

Greece

good

of the spectrum.

ideal, the

interest in the

of the old Greeks keeps

its

hold

unattainable perfection,

world

at

—sometimes,

hand, the Golden as in

Aquinas or

Chaucer, or even John Mill, in forms Pericles might not have recognized. in the

The

How

far this aristocratic code of conduv't can

masses of society

is

one of the most acute of modern problems.

basic belief of the eighteenth-century philosophers

was

lated the democratic ideal

form of the good masses

is

life

now

that the

common man

it is

which

will disappoint the adepts

hardly safe to go.

We cannot pretend

answer the fascinating problem of why our Western

society has, at

by our own not wholly subjective standard of evolutionary

534

this

Greek

all.

these generalizations,

of the philosophy of history,

least

who formucan lead

that the material basis lacking to the

potentially available to

Beyond to

be approximated

sur-

SUMMARY

A vival,

been the most "successful" of

The answer

many

will lie in

human

societies so far in

variables

we cannot

cannot assemble into anything like a formula.

isolate

history.

and therefore

There probably

is

not

even any central taproot, any determining factor of the sort the Marxist sets

no

up

mode

in the

economic

modern

life

Of

of production.

why

account of

really satisfactory

from the

industrial life

hunt

simplicities of the

was

of production elsewhere

course, the Marxist gives us

so different

on

environmental explanations, such

to the complexities of

from the development

Our

this globe.

Western

the development of

of

modes

generation distrusts simple

as the favorite

one that the

soil

and

climate of the small European peninsula oil the great Asiatic land mass

were particularly favorable to whatever virtues seem most needed to explain the success of Western society tion, love of competition,

—and

v^ven the

complex

and

— energy, inventiveness, imagina-

so on.

—forms

Most

of us distrust the simple

of explanation that assign an innate

superiority, god-given or evolution-given, to certain

We

cannot believe that there

is

really

Aryan, Nordic, Caucasian, or what you

equipment

difFerent

enough from

groups or

any kind of homo will,

with hereditary biological

that of non-Westerners to explain

the recent success of ours in competition with other societies.

us

would

also distrust

any form of

explanation that attributed to the culture has taken.

mildly intellectualist

Indeed,

notion just

idealistic explanation,

mind

many

of

Western

man

Most

of

any form of

the shape our

readers will probably reject the

advanced in

this

growth of cumulative knowledge (which surely

we Westerners

races.

occidentalis,

book, that in part the

is

the

means by which

acquired the weapons to defeat the rest of the world

and the material abundance

to

tempt them)

is

due

to the

happy balance

our major cosmological systems have maintained between

this

world

(experience) and the other (logic, planning, the esprit de systeme).

Yet

all

these explanations,

which we

rightly reject

when

they are

claimed to be sole explanations, are probably ingredients in the most

compound we call Western culture. Take away any one of many others we have not analyzed, and you do have the Western culture we know. Take coal and iron away from

'unstable

them, and any one of (not

western Europe, and of course you do not have the Industrial Revolu-

535

SOME UNFINISHED BUSINESS we know

tion as

it;

take

Marx away, and you do

Paul and

St.

Augustine, Calvin and Karl

St.

not have our Western view of

Our

Present Discontents

we

In the perspective of Western intellectual history,

many

life.

seem

of the problems that

to

can see that

our alarmists so new, so demand-

ing, so imperative of solution, are in fact very old

problems that

and women

to

doom who

Notably, those prophets of

solving.

man must

Western

how

of Western culture have managed

survive without

hold that modern

we must somenew Age of Faith,

agree on the Big Questions, that

from our present multanimity

escape

men

into a

have against them several thousand years of Western history in which

men

have disagreed over these fundamental questions.

this

problem of agreement on the Big Questions there

specific

times:

cosmological question that

Can we continue

to hold

is

gap between

we have and

to note

"is"

man

Western

see almost

is

has never

no change

now,

in

and now, or very

come very

up trying

answers

in all their bewildering

to the

clinically

seem

how much

time

in our inheritance

have

to

make.

left

states of

continue

mind

is,

we

variety.

of course, possible,

We

certainly

do not

who

keep talking of

Yet crisis,

it

does not

crossroads,

Some further emendations Enlightenment we shall almost certainly

are wholly wrong.

from the

For the gap between our

between the world we think desirable

—and the world we have 536

shall

variation in attitudes toward fundamental

likely that those prophets little

?

and mutually contradictory

problems of value and conduct a society can stand.

and the

close to closing,

to close

Big Questions those

to certain temperaments, even probable.

know

be" which as historians

Western cosmology, that we

to accept as

Such a persistence of existing and

to

always the possibility that the next few generations will

on the whole accept

more

concretely a problem for our

and "ought

yet has never, for very long, given

There

a

lies

even those modified eighteenth-century

ideas of progress, of the possibility of closing here shortly, that

But beyond

to live in

ideals

and our behavior,

—indeed, morally right, necessary

has been since the Enlightenment

OUR PRESENT DISCONTENTS gap of very different psychological character from the gap the

a

knew and

tional Christian

The gap between what ought in

all

men's minds, certainly in

men and

nary

may

gap

own

one's

really isn't there.

which

will, all of

it

exists

But ordi-

aware

constantly, naggingly

—though the outside observer

—somehow

There

persuade themselves

many ways

are

elect,

of filling

On

it.

mystic submission to some greater

whole into view, there

as a

For those who have

will help close the gap. is

sermon.

There

more

the

also the Christian attitude

is

last

fully closed in heaven, that those

who do

on earth

it

of the

law, one

toward the gap

not will find

it

— that

who work

can never be wholly closed here on earth, but that those

honestly, justly, considerately toward closing

to take

way

difficult

gap with one

optimistic reformer just about to close the last

probably

private account, there are ritual practices, conviction of

belonging to a body of the

humanity

is

men's minds.

must

of the time, they

think their position hypocrisy

that the

and what

to be

all civilized

must not be

their leaders

Most

of this gap.

tradi-

felt.

will find

it

fully closed

in hell.

But to many of the painfully there,

Christian this

way

yawning

as

wide as

Enlightenment the gap ever.

is

on the

ness in all believe

its

we human

we have with

fill

words,

in the

a firm notion of

—peace,

ritual, or

we

any other consoling

naturalistic-historical point of view,

why

after political

take the

plenty, happi-

They

want, and that

we

gap between what we want and what

Victorian compromise did not hold, stay put,

gap

beings should have what

still

any other world than

They have

other, the ideal side of the

is

range from lazy comfort to the leap of the heart.

cannot successfully

from a

They cannot

out, for they cannot believe in

nowadays rather unpleasant one.

what

is,

heirs of the

why

illusion.

one reason

This

last

why

the

tne lower classes refused to

socialism preached the need for economic democracy

democracy had been attained.

equality, not just spiritual equality.

No

of the poor to be materially richer.

The

Men wanted

economic

ritual could satisfy the desire

material ideals of the eight-

eenth century are deceptively simple; just because they are so simple

537

SOME UNFINISHED BUSINESS and

so material

it

them when we have

Now

it

may

not.

modest goals

setting small,

attained

be possible to lessen the gap between the real and

the ideal by bringing the ideal a long

less

we have

has been very hard to pretend

all

way back toward

along the line

criminal alcoholism; not perfect sexual

reality,

—

by

not temperance but

life

on earth but fewer

divorces; not the elimination of "soap operas," but better-balanced

radio programs; not complete economic security but less disastrous depressions with less widespread unemployment; not a world govern-

ment it

United Nations that

that will forever guarantee peace, but a

will help us stave off

The

comes.

list

war and perhaps make

The moderate

could be prolonged indefinitely.

asks that democracy give

realist

up some of

when

barbarous

it less

eighteenth-century

its

optimism about the natural goodness and reasonableness of man, about the magic

effect of a

environment (laws, constitutions,

and

He

and

readily changeable social treaties,

new

political

educational institutions

curricula), about the nearness of the approaching millennium.

asks that democracy accept

Christianity as tragic sense of

some of

some of the pessimism of

embodied in the doctrine of

human

original sin,

come out

some

of the

limitations that has inspired great literature,

the doubts about the universal capacity of

straight that

traditional

of

all

modern psychology, some

men

common-sense awareness of the impossibility of perfection of us have in those fields of activity where

we

act

to think

of the practical, that

most

under the burden

of responsibility.

Western democrats may be able cessive

from

optimism about human

the Enlightenment,

Many

of

them

to close the

to shake off the

burden of ex-

perfectibility that they

have inherited

and adapt

are increasingly

their ideals to this harsh world.

aware that something must be done

gap between promise and performance the years have

opened up in the Western democracies. the self-deluded idealists is to

reaffirm the promise

who seem

They cannot go along with

to think that all that

more firmly than

ever.

For one

is

necessary

thing, they

begin to detect a touch of bitterness in the affirmation which shows that even the idealists can look about them.

538

You

will find the case

a

OUR PRESENT DISCONTENTS for a

democracy willing

Mr. A. M. Schlesinger,

put by

to face the facts of life very cogently Jr.,

unlikely that in the next

The

in his

few

Vital Center.

It

not at

is

make

years this point of view will

all

real

gains in the West.

But

is

such a pessimistic democracy likely or even possible

democracy that resolutely refuses

to

promise heaven on earth and

does not return to the older heaven in another world

we have

element in the democratic cosmology,

much

One

We

have indeed

of the democratic cosmology has been after a fashion

we have

reconciled with formal churchgoing Christianity; but

noted that, especially in the liberal Protestant groups, very of the divine, the miraculous, the transcendental has

Finally, of course, there

formal, rationalistic faith.

Western democracies millions of

way from

still

very strong has been a

insisted,

denial of the supernatural, a denial of an afterlife.

seen that

?

—

violent positivists

and indifferent, millions

men and women

who

been

range

anticlericals to the completely

all

the

all

the

worldly

Can

are simply not Christians.

in a

left

remain in

men and women who

also

indeed

these

find the spiritual resources needed to face hardship,

frustration, struggle,

taught to believe

and

little

and unhappiness

would be banished

—

the evils they have been

all

from human

shortly

life.?

Though there have persisted through these last three centuries many Christian groups who held to the spirit and the letter of the traditional faith, there have also grown up certain surrogates for the Christian faith that many had lost, or that had been altered into pseudo-Christian optimistic rationalism. racy, nationalism, socialism, fascism,

and

sects.

fairly

Most of

Most

men of

many

variant creeds

common

a belief in the

their

these surrogates have in

rapid perfectibility of

measures are taken.

These surrogates are democ-

and

here on earth

them deny

—provided

the proper

the existence of any super-

natural being capable of interfering in the affairs of this earth,

many do indeed of goodness

retain the notion of

—a kind of impersonal

some

sort of

God—and all place for man

though

guiding principle

believe that the uni-

verse can be

made

them

the very general attitude or cosmology of the Enlighten-

all lies

a comfortable

ment, which perhaps takes on

its

to live in.

most representative form

Back of

in the

539

kind

— SOME UNFINISHED BUSINESS you find

of liberal, democratic system of values actual

territorial nation-state, so that in practice

But the

John Mill.

in

form, the Church for this

institutional

has been the

faith,

democracy and nationalism

have been united in complex and varying fashion.

Socialism

origi-

is

—or

nally an heretical development of earlier democratic thought

if

you

it

deepening of democratic aims

prefer, a

has been successful, has got

itself tied

—which

wherever

also,

up with the nation-state and

with nationalism.

Now we

have deliberately used of these impersonal

faiths

— these

formally nontheistic religions in which abstractions like virtue or liberty,

groups like the national in-group, are hypostasized

surrogate, with

all its

The inadequacy

quite adequate substitute. in

comparison with Christianity

weak

in their cure of souls.

crusading stages

—socialism

comes

it

These impersonal

them

away

faiths

true that in their fighting

It is

before

of the impersonal faiths

to

and

power, for instance

they are able to enlist the full spiritual ardor of give

term

especially evident in relation to

is

the problems of the individual in trouble. are

—the

connotations of a somewhat synthetic and not

many

of the faithful, £|

something very great indeed, melt

a sense of belonging to

^11

But once

their petty selfishnesses in emotional self-surrender.

they are established, once they are faced with this routine world, these

impersonal faiths have

little

to offer the

unhappy, the maladjusted,

the suffering.

Nationalism the

weak and

is

probably the strongest of these

the inadequate with their

faiths.

membership

It

in

whole, their share of the "pooled self-esteem" of patriotism. times of

crisis

daring.

But

it

been able

to rely

it is

hard

Virgin Mary. touch.

It is

does not take the place of a consoling God.

oppressed.

Marianne,

Socialism

would seem

no doubt encouraging But the

is

hard

really

It

has in

at

Marianne,

a heroic figure of the barricades-

as generations to

have even

have prayed less

work making

to the

of the consoling

to the faithful Marxist to

know

that

things better for the

unhappy need something more human,

something more aware of them, not

540

is

to pray to

Dialectical Materialism

the great

on both human patience and human

the symbol of the French Republic,

But

bulwarks

as

temporary victims of the mode

j\

— OUR PRESENT DISCONTENTS human

of production, but as important, unique, sovereign

serving the immediate attention of

Moreover, there

God

another psychological weakness in modern

is

surrogates for older theistic faiths.

very hard to permit repentance. that have

(heresy)

have usually broken

gone on

The United

who

government tends apparently

States

Communist, always

nomenon

is

thirties

confessions of

a

in these days to

Communist,"

A

Communist

difficult,

French

party in the is

ap-

But the phe-

Department.

to the State

obvious in any study of modern social and political move-

In the great French Revolution, for instance,

ments.

especially

but has since declared his repentance

Communist

a

it

treason

Soviet Russia, though the accused

admits to having joined the

dark days of the still

trials for

Englishmen and other West Europeans.

in the case of

parently

lay religions find

down and made most complete

the opinion that "once a

intellectual

in

These new

In the numerous

were by no means forgiven and taken back into the

their errors, they fold.

beings de

or his agents.

indeed almost impossible, for a

it

man who had

was very voted con-

spicuously with the Moderates in 1790 to excuse himself in 1793 with the then triumphant Extremists by pleading his error, by claiming

had repented and seen the

that he

guillotine. It

is

He commonly

light.

ended on the

hard to repent effectively in these impersonal religions.

Yet the forgiving of the repentant sinner has been one of the great strengths of Christianity, one of the ship has

ways wise Christian

Now

tempered the wind to the shorn lamb.

the rigid attitude toward repentance displayed by the faiths

is

related to the abstract

— that

separated from the real

and perfect

desire so passionately that

ideals

forgive

him

can hardly avoid trying ing to his ideals.

much

less

man

the slightest imperfection.

No

exacting than the Communists,

their leaders the

wholly this-worldly

who do

doubt the riper democracies,

Still,

behavior in the

Those who hold these

be perfect that they cannot

A

to eliminate those

up with human weaknesses.

leader-

be that

newer impersonal

human

Utopia they were designed to achieve on earth.

may

an ideal improperly

ideal

they hold for

it

like the

much more at all

EngUsh, are

willing to put

none of them seems

chance for effective and not

idealist-

not behave accord-

to offer to

shaming com541

SOME UNFINISHED BUSINESS promise that the Christian requirement (note that

a requirement)

it is

of forgiveness to the penitent affords; nor do they offer to the faithful

the spiritual security, the flexible discipline, that the Christian doctrine

and repentance

of sin

offers.

danger for the modern

Finally, these abstract faiths are a grave

make

intellectual, since they

and how

to right

from the

real, as

These

it.

we have

seem

easy, indeed they

ready assumption that he knows just what faiths

is

intellectual, already separated

from

that has surely not

narrowed

since

called

back

and

realistic

nature.

the mass of his it

developed

needed rather

early in the nineteenth century,

to the close

human

noted, for they oversimplify

But the modern

modern form

the world,

encourage the separation of the ideal

fellows by a

rift

to ennoble, his

wrong with

study of the whole range of

its

to be

human

behavior than to be allowed to develop in fine moral indignation his notions of "ought to be."

when

Indeed, even

these notions take

on

the appearance of realism, of hard-boiled acceptance of things-as-theyare, they are a very evident

writers have already

form of

intellectual like Pareto has tipped

moment

at this

simple

real,

is

Certainly, the balance can be tipped, as

matter.

ideal,

plicities of

himself go.

is

it,

much

in history, tipping

too far

faiths.

The

the heart of the

many

a

away from

toward the

a grave danger encountered

our surrogate

is

what

lays

modern the ideal.

ideal, the over-

by the rawness and sim-

intellectual

can so readily

In retrospect, this furious urge to the ideal in a

Carlyle, for instance,

some

Balance, a sane resolution

and the

of the tension between the ideal

But

that "inverted idealism"

found in Machiavelli.

him open

man

let

like

to the otherwise unfair

charge of being proto-fascist. Carlyle, like Nietzsche, would unquestionably have repudiated the flesh-and-blood Nazis; but Carlyle tossed off in complete irresponsibility so

many

them proved

of

effective

many

Nazi

fine

and indignant

ideas that

I

ideas.

In summary, then, these newer faiths do not have the richness

and depth of awareness

of

what human beings

are really like that the

older religions have; they are therefore not as able as the older religions to cope

with the problem of

Democracy and 542

human

relations in a time of troubles.

socialism have hitherto, in a sense,

had

relatively

i,

I

OUR PRESENT DISCONTENTS comfortable going in a world where most of the material indices

were going up

really

They have not

in a steady curve.

women

from too many unhappy men and

face

yet

whom

for

had

to

not

this is

even remotely heaven on earth the menacing and very natural cry of "put up or shut up."

Perhaps they will not.

may

It

be that the great

masses in the West can take the attitude, hitherto confined to aristocralike the Stoic, that this

cies

world in which nobody

a tough

is

is

always happy, in which everybody has got to keep coping with his troubles,

and

which there

in

seems most unlikely.

no reward beyond the grave.

is

The mass

of

mankind, even

in the

But

this

West, have

never been able to take the tragic view without the help of a personal religion, a religion hitherto

always transcendental, supernatural, other-

Somehow, democracy,

worldly.

to Christianity

not to return wholeheartedly

is

if it

(which many today would have

it

on

do), must take

the cure of souls.

There in the

is

way

another, and

still

more

of a pessimistic, realistic

supernatural.

definitely intellectual, difficulty

democracy without

This democracy would have

activities the tentativeness, the

to

belief in the

extend to

the acceptance of slowness, the recognition of the limits set effort

the

our

on human

by those two words impossible and insoluble which characterizes

work

of the scientist as scientist

us attain in the specific tasks

very large

number

something not part of history but

we humans

promptly

certitude

anywhere they could turn

have an omniscient God.

If a

to forgo the delights

is

something that never changes,

still

part of ourselves.

who

lost

But

it

is

Christian

up.

be asked of our

is

democracy

would seem

to

it

And we

cling to omnisci-

—an omniscient force,

if

we

cannot

thoroughgoing relativism (not of course

nihilism) in values it

would have

tried to find scientific certitude, historical certitude,

ence as the companion of certitude

—and

in part at least, all of

In such a democracy a

cling to certitude; those

certitude

effectively

fulfill.

comes from knowing in advance that

certain absolutes are true, that there

that

and which,

we must

of people indeed

of certitude, the assurance that

clear

all

wiUingness to experiment, the patience,

that

sustain their pessimism

new

citizens of a pessimist

only such a relativism could

and keep them from hoping

543

at

SOME UNFINISHED BUSINESS some new kind

least for

of pie in the sky

up

will be very difficult indeed to set

much

human

of poor

nature,

more

—then

such a democracy

in our time.

It

would ask too democracy

actually than optimistic

was

asked, since the average citizen of the old optimistic democracy

allowed his bit of the old consoling religion.

we come

Moreover,

we

difficulty

the mid-twentieth century to the same

in

encountered in ancient Athens: Just what

is

the relation

between the attitudes taken toward the Big Questions by the

and the whole

lectuals

The

slightest attention to

—

existentialists in

lectuals

Germany and America,

—makes

whole equilibrium, of a

structure, the

what

is

intel-

society.?

among Western

going on

intel-

France, followers of Barth and Niebuhr in

the bright

young Catholic converts

in

England

plain that the intellectuals are tightening their spiritual

it

getting set for a long spell of hard going, growing very scornful

belts,

of such cheerful democrats as Benjamin Franklin, or such shallow

democrats as

due

Thomas

even more

for

The Enlightenment may

Jefferson.

bitter

attacks than

imagine the average American quite the

mood

—or

it

received it

from the

very hard to

indeed the average European

—in

of sensitive, high-minded, world-embracing despair

come over the vanguard

that has

those

Yet one finds

romanticists of Wordsworth's day.

well be

of

Western

a certain coarseness, like that that wells

intellectuals.

There

up from the fabliaux

is

in the

midst of the high-minded thirteenth century, that one suspects

will

keep the fleshpots boiling for a while even in our tragic world. It will

to

not do, then, to conclude that our Western culture

make some

sort of volte-face into

democratic cosmology revision even

gave to

its

what form

depend on the

The

result of the struggle

society

A

very great deal

between the United

which the whole cosmology

very necessities of the struggle

one of the unpleasant

544

that revision will take.

a struggle in

much more regimented is

almost certain in the

more thorough than the revision the nineteenth century from the Enlightenment. One cannot be

and Soviet Russia, stake.

about

original heritage

at all sure in 1950

will

is

is

Age of Faith. The West to receive another

another

may

drive the

West

than our tradition holds good.

facts of

human

relations

States is

at

into a

For

it

—one of the kinds of

OUR PRESENT DISCONTENTS new

facts that the

cold or hot,

reaHstic democrats

you have

—that

in war.

less liberty

than in

have got to face

have more authority and

to

quieter times.

Very roughly, and with

of specific twistings

all sorts

in each that contradict the generalization,

it

and turnings

would seem

that in the

United States and in Russia are temporarily embodied a number of

some kind

the sets of opposites that in

tained that tension which

is

of union have hitherto main-

so characteristic of the West.

We

pure Liberty, and they pure Authority.

not, of course,

We

are

do not

stand for the individualism of the great cats, nor they for the col-

We

lectivism of the beehive or anthill.

Neither of us

not uniformity.

systems of values. do,

Still,

lives

up

the opposition

on the whole, stand for the

are not variety,

is

there,

and

is

the irreducible something in each

worn

little

old

word

and turn on

human

liberty, a feeling

itself

man

to

the chief defenders

it

will

the very real problems

when you do wrong" or "liberty, not down defiantly unconvinced that these The Western tradition of which we are now

is

not dogmatically, not even

idealistically,

individualist.

Our chances

of maintaining the traditions of the West,

them

in

a

form not unfairly described

greater than our prophets of

lectualism of the last

doom

will admit.

For

if

human

nature from

has given us reason to believe that is

What

all

of preare

the anti-intel-

few decades has been corrosive of the more naive

or simply by the release of

reflexes,

and

but

as democratic,

hopes of a heaven on earth through the perfecting of

really

pause a

be free" or "you are free

more firmly

serving

feeling for

best suggested by

deep

paradoxes are necessary.

it

—a

We

book have

right, but a slave

license," is nevertheless

the

still

which, though

when confronted with

suggested by such phrases as "force a

when you do

being

are

own

very real.

series of values that in this

been treated as the central values of Western culture that

and they

extremes of our

to the

if

its

human

nature,

bad environment,

our democratic way of

life

anchored in our habits, traditions, sentiments, conditioned

and super-egos

it

to our grandfathers

may

well survive even a very harsh reality.

seemed the strength of democracy,

pendence on the rationality of men,

now

indeed seems

its

its

de-

weakness;

545

SOME UNFINISHED BUSINESS but perhaps after

all

democracy does not depend on the

The democratic West

men.

was supposed, with

its

has

now

rationality o£

withstood two wars in which

animity, and even comfort, to

go down before the superior

toughness, and unanimity of

its

down, but won through of,

what looked

it

addiction to variety, indiscipline, spiritual mult-

antidemocratic foes.

to victory in spite of, or

did not go

It

more

discipline,

likely because

to certain critics like weaknesses.

For what looks

in purely intellectual analysis like disintegration,

squabbling, rank inability to agree on anything at

all

may

j!

well be no

more than disagreement on matters we Westerners have been

'

dis-

agreeing on publicly and violently most of the time since Socrates

played the gadfly in Athens. tions of their creeds,

it is

If

you think of the

full logical implica-

American

Jews, and Marxist materialists fought side by side in the forces in the lieve as

but

this

two world wars. You may say

much

that they did not really be-

in their respective formal faiths as in the

would be much too

United

States,

You may

logical a position to be true.

say that they "believed in" religious toleration as a positive good, that

would no doubt be

true in part of

many

But the

of them.

thing you could say would be that they never thought at

all

and

truest

about the

general problem of religious toleration, that most of

them simply ac

cepted the existence of Catholics, Jews, Protestants,

and

of materialist as one of the facts of like the weather.

A

in quite ordinary

bral cortexes, probably, but in a gist hasn't quite located

We in

come

much

varieties

all

one of the things you take,

life,

very great deal of the Western

embedded somewhere

i

really astonishing that Catholics, Protestants,

way

of

life is

!

J

thus

'

Americans, not in their cere-

safer place

—we used to say, in

which the physiolo-

the heart.

back, then, to the proposition that for

all

we

yet

know

|

terms of a cumulative social science, the relation between the

strength of a given society and the degree of agreement on matters

cosmological

among

its

|

members cannot be determined. There seems

to be excellent evidence that very considerable multanimity in matters of theology, sist if

metaphysics,

art, literature,

the existence of such disagreement

is

and even

ethics can per-

taken, not as a lofty ideal

of toleration, of progress through variation (though for

546

many

intel-

i

|

OUR PRESENT DISCONTENTS it is

beings.

Western

but as something given, something normal for

just that)

lectuals

human

If

democracy

really

means anything

intellectuals as intellectual agreement, then

But the whole course of our

democracy.

some

indicate that in

so unnatural to it

is all

up with

intellectual history

would

way Western intellectuals and that somehow these dif-

perverse, obstinate

have always thrived on their differences,

ferences have not really disturbed the nonintellectuals

Even

the social equilibrium.

today, there

is

enough

to upset

no good evidence

that

the intellectual alarums of our age of philosophical worries have really

gone beyond that small section of the population that possesses high

We

verbal aptitudes. like

Fromm

Erich

neurosis,

so far

is

are not even quite sure that social psychologists

are right in declaring that nervous instability, even

common

in

all

way

of

life.

traditional democratic

parts of our society as to threaten our

Maybe

the flight

from freedom has

been exaggerated.

But even sick society,

If

and believe something

we must have

a

new

gests that the religion will not far

humbler

crat

is

intellectuals

modern

come from

is

We

a

on the

right

Western precedent sug-

the intellectuals, but from a at least

it

will be very its

hard

coming.

no thinking demo-

a deep energy

and probably

and toughness

of common human race no

also

in the

system can contain, that our culture has sources of strength

lists as

—that

tions

is

urge us

have granted, in accordance with the cur-

not greatly affected by our philosophy

Pareto

who

—even on those who prophesied

anti-intellectualism,

sense, that there

intellectual

religion, all

a further grave intellectual difficulty

can avoid facing.

rent of

ours really

lofty together are

source, and that for a while

on established

There

if

seems unlikely that the earnest intellectuals

to get together track.

these diagnosticians are right, even

if

it

is,

one of to

—or

lack of one.

his strongest residues the residue to

make

sense.

The need

for satisfying

Yet even

ma\e

deriva-

our desire to

understand, to have our experience hold together logically, not to be shockingly, patently, inconsistent, not to be hypocrites in our in others' eyes is

—

this is

safe to say that

no

a very strong need

civilization has

among human

own

beings.

or It

been led by an intellectual class

persuaded that their world of values, their explanation of

why 547

they

SOME UNFINISHED BUSINESS were

was

there,

In a democracy there

pretense, hypocrisy, pure fake.

cannot be for long an unbeHeving intellectual

and

class

a believing

uonintellectual class; nor can a skeptical or cynical intellectual class

devise a religion for the masses.

Now our intellectual classes are by

no means today

But many of them are puzzled, and they are

come more

until they

in such a plight.

likely to be

successfully to grips with the

more puzzled

problem of modify-

ing our eighteenth-century heritage from the Enlightenment.

make a final brief summary of that problem. The democratic world-view was formulated

in the eighteenth cen-

the end of three centuries of change that had culminated in

tury at

the great triumph of natural science in the

Whatever may have been

fellows.

work

Newton and

of

the philosophical

day many of them are sincere Christians use of an intellectual

method

that

was wholly

method

at the

—as

made

mercy of observed

this

world

may it

in accordance with the

emerged

inevitable

may

it

in the eighteenth

These

human

facts

senses

the

Briefly, a proposito

not transcend them and

and nineteenth

You have

human

unilinear progress toward

only to follow

among

beings

is

those

centuries, the doctrine

who

modern

perfectibility

one of conviction that

human

548

down

to the

it.

the ages from Thucydides to

men

the behavior of

are born to trouble,

and

nature has not greatly changed.

you study the recorded behavior of homo sapiens from the

times right

of

earth,

social scientists to note that the

really observe carefully

that in recorded time, at least,

on

toward truth or contradict

down through

Machiavelli to the ablest of tradition

the democratic faith

and reasonableness of men and the doctrine

either transcend the scientific attitude

If

to

methods of natural science has

two of the master generalizations of

of the natural goodness

human

had

not contradict them.

Now as

facts.

subtle than

—and no other.

accord with the facts of this world; it

scientists they

to this

which they were recorded, statements about

world of sense experience, tion

—and

of arriving at generalizations, a

were ultimately, no matter how much more the instruments by

his

and theological

opinions of these working scientists as private persons

make

Let us

mid-twentieth century in the

spirit

earliest

and with

OUR PRESENT DISCONTENTS the

methods of the natural

scientist (as far as the

inadequacies of the

permit such study) you will be unable to take

historical record will

anything like the attitude of Condorcet, for instance, or even that of

You

Paine and Jefferson.

concepts of the natural goodness and rea-

scientific generalizations the

man and

sonableness of of our

on

life

Democracy, in

short,

creates

in part a system of

is

scientist holds to

be

true.

by the

difficulties

is

not the kind that

is

not

in the

is

by the chemical analysis of the

tested

is

Such a solution of the democrat's

bread and wine. is

judgments inconsistent

any more than the truth of the Catholic

scientist,

doctrine of the Eucharist

dary

terms,

This inconsistency would not

at least

of this world, able to say that his truth least tested

human

would not create some of the —or —were the democrat able to say that his kingdom

create difficulties

now

of the increasing perfection, in

earth.

with what the

it

rough

will be unable to accept as even

not a happy one, but

is

intellectual

quan-

De-

not altogether inconceivable.

mocracy may become a genuinely transcendental

faith, in

which

belief

is

not weakened by lack of correspondence between the propositions

it

lays

down and the facts of life on this earth. There are when an American boasts about the lack of class

say that

in his country

he never bothers

our

class

We

Americans have no trouble

mind with

his

cynics

who

distinctions

the facts, the facts of

structure, the facts about Negroes, Jews, Mexicans, Nisei. at all in

recognizing the fact that the

basic principles of that democratic heresy,

Marxism, are contradicted

by almost every principle of the actual structure of present-day Russian social life;

we

differently

from

recognize that Russian "democracy" ours.

promised heaven out of

In short, democracy

performed, of transcendental wants,

may keep

it

world, and put

this

may it

is

defined quite

be able to take

in the

world of

belief, of vicarious satisfactions of

an ideal not too

much

sullied

its

ritual

human

by the contrast with

the spotted reality.

Or we may the world

see the

working out

which accepts the

which accepts pie in the sky

a pessimistic

and no

of a democratic attitude toward

limitations of ordinary

view of

really ineffable,

human

nature,

this

world, a democracy with no

no

all-satisfying pie in the larder.

549

SOME UNFINISHED BUSINESS Its

enemies have long said that democracy

that even in it

sets for

its

human

nature standards that can be approximated in

conduct only in times of ease and prosperity.

we

they say,

a fair-weather thing,

is

incomplete realization of Hberty, equality, fraternity

need

shall

discipline,

human

In a time of troubles, not to be

leadership, solidarity

achieved by letting

men

even in theory, even in fantasy, follow their

own

Such

discipline

private wills.

crisis,

English took with amazingly

bombing

men do

of cities

which put

Even more

battle line.

all

into

idealist,

went

they

make

they were going to

a

it

much

war of

spirit of the

way was

striking in a

minded

The

war.

on no mere metaphorical

civilians

this last

this last

apparent psychic damage the

little

most Americans went into

crusading

indeed accept in times of

Western democracies showed well in

as the

To

war.

with very

the spirit with

little

apparent belief that

better world, with very

They went

1914-1918.

which

the horror of the tender-

little

into

it

of the

as into a

disagreeable but necessary task that they were able to do very well

indeed, but which they saw no reason to pretend to enjoy, or to enQoble.

They went

And conclude.

into

we may

here

An

it

as realists, not as cynics.

well conclude, as far as a book of this sort can

democracy, a believing democracy (in the old

idealistic

transcendental sense of religious belief)

such a democracy would find

and

scientific heritage to

the very least need to chiatrist.

A

it

hard

an other-worldly

make some

realistic, pessimistic

perhaps possible, though

is

accommodate

to

difficult

faith.

this-worldly

its

God would

Its

at

compromises with the psy-

democracy

—a

democracy in which

ordinary citizens approach morals and politics with the willingness to

cope with imperfection that characterizes the good farmer, the good physician, the

good holder of the cure of

man, counselor, or

psychiatrist

more

of

its

Were

its

demands met,

tures.

citizens than it

any

—such

human

possible.

world one

No

between the

priest, clergy-

would demand

culture has ever

set of beliefs

democracy whose

and Uve another,

is

ideal

and the it

demanded.

real

may be

resolved in

cul-

citizens pro-

wholly im-

The tension many ways in a

such society can long endure anywhere.

healthy society; but

550

be he

might well be the most successful of

Finally, a cynical democracy, a

fess in this

souls,

a democracy

can never be taken as nonexistent.

;

Suggestions for Further Study

HOW

Inis BOOK

TO USE THIS BOOK

not a digest or survey of Western thought.

is

If,

as is

contended in the introductory chapter, most of the substance of such a survey

must deal with noncumulative knowledge, then

quite

is

it

impossible for anyone to produce an authoritative survey, digest, or

elementary manual of intellectual history, such as a good popularizer of science could produce for such fields of cumulative

physics or chemistry. series of private

that

man

is

this writer

is

to

not so sure

make up

This book

intellectual history

judgments made by the

knows

is,

knowledge

as

inevitably in part a

man who

writes

it.

Unless

the right interpretation always

go through the original their

is

—and —he will do better to afford his readers con-

sure that he

stant chances to

and

An

stuff of intellectual history,

own minds on many

matters.

then, a kind of guidebook.

Now

good guidebook

a

to a specific region of this earth will give the traveler

much

necessary

information about the ways of getting around, about railways, hotels, currencies, it

and the

will also, even

like,

and

it

great deal of information about

ing

at,

will provide

maps

though the author thinks he

what

or important, or improving.

of the country.

isn't

the author thinks

A man

who

—

if

such a

is

so,

But

give a

worth look-

loved and appreciated

wine could not possibly write the same guidebook convinced teetotaler would write

doing

man

to

France that a

ever dared write a

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY guidebook to France.

A

mapped country

country of the

as the

should try to give as

and

much

guidebook reliable

writers, inevitably dwell

reader's attention.

to

any such confused and

human mind

must, though

ill-

it

information as possible about books

on what the author thinks worth the

Yet always the important point

is

that the traveler

—or reader— should put himself into the direct experience of traveling, or reading.

Original

2,

3.

Writing

THE GREEKS

Broadly speaking, there are two methods of sampling the materials that

make up

whole works

the record of Western intellectual history.

as designed

One

by their authors, the other to read

to read

is

selections, an-

method the reader meant him to have, comes nearer the original. In the second method the reader can cover a great deal of ground, but he never experiences the work as a whole. He experiences only what the modern anthologist or editor of the collection wants him to. The first method is here recommended, if only because it offers the reader a fuller experience and more real challenge to his mental adaptability. But a few anthologies, "readings," and thologies,

specially

prepared

samples.

In the

first

covers less ground, but he comes nearer the experience the author

the like are listed, for they are often useful as auxiliaries.

Americans

who

like reading

have long relied on free public

jj

libraries.

nowadays a good many inexpensive editions of great and near-great books. Here are a few: The inexpensive, paper-bound Crofts Classics of Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., New York, N. Y. Another paper-bound series is the Little Library of Liberal Arts, 153 West 72nd The Mentor books, mostly contemporary, but Street, New York, N. Y. serious and very inexpensive, are issued by the New American Library of World Literature, 245 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. Among bound books in the lower-price range, the student will find a very good choice in the Everyman's Library (N. Y., E. P. Dutton), the Oxford World's Classics (N. Y., Oxford University Press), the new Inner Sanctum Library of Living Literature (N. Y., Simon and Schuster), the Home University Library (N. Y., Oxford University Press), the Viking Portable Nevertheless, there are

552

^|

ORIGINAL WRITING Viking Press), the Hafner Library of Classics (N. Y., Van Nostrand Classics (N. Y., Van Nostrand). A good book of readings to be used with this book is W, Y. Elliott and N. A. McDonald, Western Political Heritage (N. Y., Prentice-Hall, (N.

series

Y.,

Hafner), and the

1949)-

Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War.

A

number

of inexpensive edi-

For the general reader, the most useful is that edited by Sir R. W. Livingstone in the World's Classics. This is condensed, but only relatively unimportant narrative sections have been sacrificed. Clouds. Sophocles, Antigone; Euripides, Bacchae; Aristophanes, These are all available in various translations. There is W. J. Gates and Eugene O'Neill, Jr., The Complete Gree\ Drama (2 vols., N. Y., Random House, 1938). The Fifteen Gree\ Plays published by the Oxford University Press is a bargain, and presents a very good choice of the Greek tions are available.

drama.

Unfortunately,

it

does not include the Bacchae.

and The Republic. There are many works available of which the most famous is Jowett's. Random House has a good two-volume edition of this translation of The Republic, with an introduction by Raphael Demos. The Republic is a relatively long book, but if possible should be read entire. One might read Books V through X, which are the more purely Utopian parts of Plato,

The Apology

of Socrates

translations of Plato's

The

the work.

parable of the cave (Jowett translates

it

den) occurs

at

Book VIL The parable of the gold, silver, and brass and iron men is in Book III, at the end. Aristode, Politics. There are many editions and translations, including a very good one by Jowett. It is perhaps less essential that this book be read as a whole than that The Republic be so read. Books IV and V, dealing with forms of government and their ways of changing and containing some typical criticism of Plato, make a good unit. the beginning of

For those who wish

to read a bit further, the following are suggested:

Homer, Odyssey, prose

translation

Butcher and Lang; Hippocratic

of

Writings, Hippocrates in the Loeb edition, which has Greek on one side,

English translation on the other sity Press;

here a sampling will

"The Sacred Disease" pocrates refuses to

in vol. II

(now

published by the Harvard Univer-

suffice,

—the

notably "Precepts" in vol.

first

I

and

study of epilepsy, which Hip-

blame on the gods); Herodotus, History of the Persian

Wars, Books VII and \TII; Lyra Graeca, in the Loeb edition edited by Edmunds at least the longer surviving fragments of Sappho in vol. I

—

lyric

poetry

examples of

is

like

lyric

who wants

form some notion of what Greek the plays are supreme poetry); Xenophon, Memorabilia of Socrates, Anabasis;

should be read by anyone

(many

of

the

to

choruses in

553

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY Old Oligarch, Constitution of Athens (this work in libraries under Xenophon or Pseudo-Xenophon

is

—

sometimes catalogued it

is

a brief pamphlet,

a kind of "letter to the editor," written by an indignant Athenian Tory); Plutarch, Parallel Lives, lives of Lycurgus

and of Alcibiades (Plutarch 4, but the two lives

himself belongs, as a "Hellenistic" figure, in Chapter

above mentioned are those of between Athens and Sparta). Since

classicists

men who

bring out forcibly the differences

have long sought to widen

interest in their subject,

good many selections and anthologies in translation. The latest of these, and a convenient one, is The Portable Gree\ Reader edited by W. H. Auden (Viking Portable Library, N, Y., 1948). One of the most varied, culled in part from sources difficult of access in English, is the "Library of Greek Thought," new American edition (Boston, Beacon Press, 1950), and especially A. J. Toynbee, Gree\ Civilization and Character and Gree\ Historical Thought. there have been quite a

4,

LATER CLASSICAL CULTURE

The ries

For English-speaking people, the King James version carJetvs. an overwhelming weight not merely of religious, but of aesthetic

No modern version has really caught on. A briefest sampling Old Testament would include the books of Genesis, Exodus, Ruth, Job, Proverbs (sample), Ecclesiastes, and Isaiah. A good edition for general use is E. S. Bates, The Bible Designed to Be Read as Living Literature (N. Y., Simon and Schuster, 1936). Later classical writing. It is hard to choose good representative reading on the Weltanschauung of the Hellenistic Greeks and the Romans. authority.

of the

The

level

is

high, the mass of materials interesting, but the peaks are not

striking, especially

more

if

we

are seeking politiques et moralistes rather than

strictly literary figures.

the range of the written

The

lyric

word

But the following should give an idea of in this period.

poetry of classical Greece in

its

full

range can be sampled

in the Palatine or Gree\ Anthology, in the Loeb edition, a collection that

gave the word anthology

to literature.

For the Romans, there

is

a con-

venient single volume of Catullus, translated and edited by F. A. Wright

(N. Y., E. P. Dutton, 1926), a volume of the Broadway translations. There are many translations of both Horace and Vergil. A few of Horace's odes and satires and perhaps the so-called minor poems of Vergil (the Bucolics and the Georgics) will do.

554

ORIGINAL WRITING For the beginnings of the novel, with its great value for social and is Longus, Daphnis and Chloe, often translated. The novelist George Moore translated it into modern English as The Pastoral Loves of Daphnis and Chloe (London, Heinemann, 1927). Most intellectual history, there

employ older

of the cheaper reprints

American student,

whom

to

a foreign language.

is

unfortunate for the modern

Renaissance English

In Latin there

is

the literary are very

translations;

fond of Renaissance translation, which

quite naturally also

is

a fascinating novel, Apuleius,

The

Golden Ass, well translated by W. Adlington in the Loeb edition (London, 'Heinemann, 1928). To these should be added a sampling of Lucian's pvery Voltairian tales, essays, dialogues. Lucian is translated by A. M, Harmon in the Loeb edition (4 vols., London, Heinemann, 1919-1925); [try "The Dream" and "The Parasite" in volume III, "A True Story" in [volume I, a parody on the wilder tales current in his time, "Zeus Catetchized" in volume II. The Greek or Roman educated gentleman the class that ran the [Empire [

—was,

—

cussed briefly in

[like in

choice.

formed intellectually by the culture we have disChapters 2 and 3. To see more direcdy what he was

of course,

the early centuries of our era, the following Polybius,

The

IPutnam's, 1922-1927),

is

a representative

W.

R. Paton (6 vols., N. Y., essential to understanding the political traditions

Histories, translated by is

Romans.

This can be supplemented by reading in Livy, well translated in the Loeb edition by B. O. Foster and E. T. Sage, and in of the

Machiavelli's Discourses

indeed.

You can

see

McKinlay, Letters of a 1926).

on Titus Livius.

him

Caesar's Gallic

Most

of Cicero

best in his letters, well

is

dull reading

presented by A.

M.

Roman Gentleman (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, War and Civil War, though spoiled for many of

us by memories of high-school Latin, remains an admirable reflection of

Roman man

of action. For the average cultivated man, Plutarch does There are many translations of his Parallel Lives, and the For the higher rest of his work, especially the Moralia, is interesting. Marcus Aurelius, level of the moraliste, there are two contrasting works Meditations, edited by A. S. L. Farquharson (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1944), for the Stoic side and Lucretius, Of the Nature of Things, translated by William Ellery Leonard (N. Y., Dutton, 1916), for the Epicurean. If you wish to try to read a very different other-worldly philosopher, there is The Essence of Plotinus, edited by Grace H. TurnbuU (N. Y., Oxford the

beautifully.

—

University Press, 1934).

The Mind

Of

collections, the handiest

is

Cyril Bailey, ed.,

Rome

(Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1926), with translations of representative Latin writings and commentaries on them. Two big collecof

tions covering all classical

noncumulative thought are

W.

J.

Oates and

555

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY C. T. Murphy, Gree\ Literature in Translation (N. Y., Longmans, Green,

Guinagh and A. P. Dorjahn, Latin Literature Longmans, Green, 1942).

1946), and Kevin tion

(N.

Y.,

THE DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIANITY

5. In the

Luke and

New

St.

in Transla-

Testament, the

John,

I

and

II

minimum might

Corinthians, Hebrews.

be the Gospels of

St.

But the whole should

be read.

The

ordinary reader will hardly need to go direct to any of the

Fathers before

St.

Augustine (for

whom

see reading for

A

Chapter 6),

good sampling, moreover, is in H. S. Bettenson, ed., Documents of the Christian Church (N. Y., Oxford University Press, 1947), a convenient and inexpensive anthology useful right through the two millennia of Christianity. A more detailed collection for the early Church is J. C. Ayer, A Source Boo1{ for Ancient Church History (N, Y., Scribner's, 1913)-

7-

6,

THE MIDDLE AGES

The Confessions of St. Augustine (Loeb, Everyman, and others) are among the few personal documents of the Middle Ages. His City of God (Marcus Dods,

ed.,

tr.,

2

vols.,

N.

Y.,

Hafner, 1948) is hard going for all least one contemporary life of a

At

but the really philosophical mind.

Columban (University

saint should be read: Jonas, Life of St.

and Reprints,

vania, Translations

of St. Boniface

(G.

W.

II,

Robinson,

of Pennsyl-

1902, no. 7); Willibald,

The

Life

Cambridge, Harvard University

tr.,

For the hermits, there is the delightful series of lives transHelen Waddell, The Desert Fathers (N. Y., Holt, 1936). The Scholastics are not to be read lightly. If you wish to attempt Aquinas, a good beginning can be made in Father M. C. d'Arcy's volume of selections in Everyman's Library; or for a wider sampling, Richard McKeon, ed., Selections from Mediaeval Philosophers (2 vols., N. Y., There is Abelard's Historia Calamitatum (H. A. Scribner's, 1929-1930). Bellows, tr., St. Paul, T. A. Boyd, 1922) and his correspondence with Heloise (C. K. Scott-Moncrieff, N. Y., Knopf, 1926). Two saints of the high Middle Ages can be approached in medieval documents: St. Bernard, Letters (F. A. Gasquet, ed., London, J. Hodges, 1904), and The Little Flowers of St. Francis (James Rhoades, tr., N. Y., Oxford University Press, 1916).

lated by

Press, 1947).

Sampling of Freising,

will

do

for the chronicles

make good

—though

general reading.

some, like that of Ottc

Gregory of Tours, History

oj

I

ORIGINAL WRITING the Franf{s (Ernest Brehaut,

tr.,

N.

Y.,

Columbia University

Press, 1916;

O. M. Dalton, tr., 2 vols., Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1927); Matthew of Paris, English History (J. A. Giles, tr., 3 vols., London, Bohn, 18521854); Otto of Freising, The Ttvo Cities (C. C. Mierow, tr., N. Y., Columalso

bia University Press, 1928); Joinville,

Memoirs (Everyman's, N. Y., ButN. Y., Button, 1906).

ton, 1908); Froissart, Chronicles (Everyman's,

For imaginative literature, a start can be made with the Song of Roland (English prose translation by Isabel Butler, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1904); Aucassin and Nicolette (translated into verse by Andrew Lang, many editions, also in Everyman's in another translation); Chretien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances (Everyman's, N. Y., Button, 1935). There is a selection of lays and fabliaux (proper ones) otherwise impossible to get at in English in Isabel Butler, Tales from the Old French (Boston, Houghton MifHin, 1910). Bante must be taken seriously or not at all. There is no doubt that the Inferno is the best choice. There are many translations into English, none of them supremely great transThat of C. E. Norton is good (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1894). lations. There is a Vising Portable Dante edited by Paolo Milano (N. Y., Viking Press, 1947).

Probably the best single piece of medieval writing for the reader

go

wants

to

many

editions.

to the great

books for himself

is

who

Chaucer's Canterbury Tales,

Most editions have glossaries and other helps, so that the in which they are written is not too difficult. There is modern English published by Simon and Schuster (N. Y.,

Middle English a version in

1948).

There are some

excellent collections of medieval writings: the

Portable Mediaeval Reader

B.

(J.

Ross and

Viking

M. M. McLaughlin,

Lynn Thorndike,

eds,,

and Columbia University Press, 1944); R. L. Poole, Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought and Learning (2d ed., rev., N. Y., Macmillan, 1920); J. H. Robinson, Readings in European History (2 vols., Boston, Ginn, 1904-1906). Many of the books of the English historian of the Middle Ages, G. G. Coulton, who loved and hated the period he spent his life studying, are direct compilations from the sources, notably his Life in the Middle Ages (2d ed,, 4 vols., N. Y., Macmillan, 1928-1930). N.

Y.,

Viking

Life in the

Press,

1949);

Middle Ages (N.

University Records

Y.,

8.

HUMANISM

Five books will give you a representative acquaintance with the humanists: the

artist,

Benvenuto

Cellini,

Autobiography; the scholar, Eras-

557

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY mus, Praise of Folly; the scholarly man of the world, Thomas More, Utopia; the robust scholar and man of letters, Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel (Donald Douglas, ed., N. Y., the Modern Library, 1928); the courtier, Baldassare Castiglione, The Boo\ of the Courtier (L. E. Opdycke, tr., N. Y., Scribner's, 1903; also in Everyman's Library in translation of 1561). Cellini, More, and Erasmus are available in many English versions; in general, the modern translations are more accurate.

PROTESTANTISM

9.

A good selection from the writings of the Protestant reformers would be most useful. The major works of Luther, translated into English, are available under the imprint of F. }. Holman, Philadelphia, 1915-1932; there is a good translation of his Table Tal/{ by William Hazlitt in an old, unlovely, but still convenient library of "classics," the Bohn Standard Library, London, H. G. Bohn, 1857 ^^^ later; three of his most important the 95 theses, the Address to the German Nobility, and pieces of writing the Christian Liberty are thrown into a strange company with The

—

—

Prince and Utopia in volume

XXXVI

of that curious bookseller's venture.

President Eliot's Five-Foot Shelf (Harvard Classics, N. Y., P. F. Collier,

Luther was an admirable pamphleteer, and the pamCalvin is a Classics volume make good reading. much harder man for a modern to follow. There is a good choice of his writings in French, with an introduction by Karl Barth, Calvin, Textes 1910 and later).

phlets in the

Harvard

by Charles Gagnebin (Paris, Egloff, 1948). The Institutio Christianae religionis (for some reason translated nowadays as a plural,

choisis, edited

"institutes") ofi&cial

is

edition

is

available

in

many

English and American editions:

the

Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (7th American

Board of Christian Education, 1936). There J. H. Robinson, Readings in Boston, Ginn, 1 904-1 906), II, Chs. 24-29,

ed., Philadelphia, Presbyterian

are brief selections from the "sources" in

European History (2

10.

vols.,

RATIONALISM AND SCIENCE

—

—

Here is a good cross-section nothing more of this important part modern Western mind: Francis Bacon, Philosophical Worlds (N. Y.,

of the

Dutton, 1905). This is the text as established by careful editors like Spedding and Ellis. There is a good edition of the Great Instauration

(Garden City, Doubleday, Doran, 1937). There are countless editions of the Essays, including a most inexpensive one in Crofts Classics. Book I of the

Novum Organum,

plus the

Advancement

of Learning,

is

a

good

.

ORIGINAL WRITING The Prince, many editions, an inexpensive one The Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius is a very useful complement to The Prince, and is collected with The Prince in the edition of the Modern Library, New York. Montaigne, Essays, many editions. There is a good one in the Modern Library. minimum.

Machiavelli,

in Crofts Classics.

Hobbes, Leviathan,

Everyman's Library,

in

Open Court

Library, also Chicago,

II.

also a critical edition,

Oxford

Descartes, Discourse on Method, in Everyman's

University Press, 1909.

Publishing Company, 1907,

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Locke is the man who must be read. The Essay Concerning HumanUnderstanding and the Two Treatises of Government underlie most eighteenth-century thought on man as a social and thinking animal. There are many editions of the Essay, including one in Everyman's

The two treatises are conveniently Thomas L Cook, in the Hafner

Library.

duction by

put together, with an introLibrary of Classics (N. Y.,

Hafner, 1947). There is not

much use in the layman's going direct to Newton. But anyone interested in the eighteenth century should sample some of the Newton. These are usually long out of print, but can up secondhand. Fontenelle, the ablest of them, at least as a man of letters, can be sampled in modern French editions by those who read French. But there are many copies of his Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds in English translation, right up through the early popularizers of

often be picked

In English, there

nineteenth century.

is

a very capable job of scientific

An

Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries (published by Patrick Murdoch, London, 1747). popularization: Colin Maclaurin,

Much

of Voltaire

is

readily available in English.

very good start with B. R. 1949).

The Candide

is

L.

Yet

his Persian

MacVeagh (N.

Y.,

a

Y., Viking,

available in Crofts Classics.

Montesquieu has never had ence.

You can make

Redman's Portable Voltaire (N. a

wide modern English-speaking audi-

Letters in English translation

Dial Press,

1929), and they

were reprinted by

make an

excellent

specimen of eighteenth-century use of the foreigner as a beating-stick for one's in

countrymen.

The

Spirit of the

Laws was

translated

Bohn's Standard Library (London, 1902); there

Hafner (N.

is

also

and published an edition by

Y., 1949).

Thomas Paine century mind.

is

an admirably representative piece of the eighteenth-

His Rights of

Man

is

in

Everyman's Library,

his

Age

559

of

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY Reason in the

Little

Library of Liberal Arts (N. Y., Liberal Arts Press,

1948).

most of the above. The and the Emile will be an adequate sampling. The psychologist will want to go on to the Confessions. All these The Emile was published in Everyman's Library are easy to come by. and has been reprinted in part in many series of "educational classics." The political writings are in Everyman's and in Hafner's Library of Classics (N. Y., 1947). The Confessions have often been reprinted. In formal philosophy, Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding was printed by the Open Court Publishing Company (Chicago, 1926). Kant is certainly a hard subject for the layman. There is a good choice of his writings edited by T. M. Greene: Kant, Selections (N. Y., Rousseau

a necessary counterbalance to

is

discourses, the Social Contract,

Scribner's, 1929).

German writers of the Enlightenment are not availOne should, however, sample them, perhaps most readily whose Laocoon, Nathan the Wise, and Minna von Barnhelm

In general, the able in English. in Lessing,

are available in Everyman's Library.

Bentham is a very important thinker, but not an interesting one to go to directly. Still, if you can struggle through the Principles of Morals and Legislation (N. Y., Hafner, 1948; also Oxford University Press), you will have a firm notion of what the utilitarians were like. There is a good omnibus on the social contract, Social Contract; Essays by Lock^e, Hume, and Rousseau, with an introduction by Sir Ernest Barker (London, Oxford University Press, 1947).

12,

13.

Just because the nineteenth century

make

it

i

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

quantitatively

is

so near us,

more important than

we

are tempted to

earlier centuries.

It

does

in-

deed, as was pointed out in the text, have an extraordinary range of

opinions and values, and these can by no means be sampled completely

by anyone but the specialist. The following, on the same scale as for other periods, should give you an idea of the range of belief in the century.

In

the

central,

progressive,

but

respectable

tradition,

J.

S.

Mill's

and Representative Government are available in Everyman's, and his Autobiography an important book is in the World's His French opposite number is Tocqueville, whose Classics (Oxford). Democracy in America (Henry Reeve, tr., H. S. Commager, ed., N. Y., Oxford University Press, 1947) should be read. The more radical branch-

Liberty,

Utilitarianism,

560

—

—

ORIGINAL WRITING ing out from the positivist base

long books on "principles" are

is

best covered in

now

Herbert Spencer, whose

almost unreadable, but whose shorter

and The Man versus the State are most characteristic. It is worth while to sample this tendency in America in some of the writings of W. G. Sumner, for example, The Challenge of Facts and Other Essays (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1914). Walter Bagehot, Physics and

Social Statics

Politics

(new ed., N. Y., Knopf, 1948), is an essential beginning for the modern anti-intellectualism. All Bagehot's work, including the essays, is delightful reading, the work of a thoughtful Victorian The novel is of great use in these years, but the trouble is to

study of literary liberal.

make any

sort of choice.

Perhaps one could read a Trollope, say Phineas

Finn, and a Balzac, say Eugenie Grandet or Pere Goriot, as a fairly central

view of the Western bourgeoisie. For the Right, Burke's Politics (R.

J. S. Hoffmann and Paul Levack, Knopf, 1949) is essential. Little continental work is available in English. Hegel has indeed been translated, and The Philosophy of History (J. Sibree, tr., rev. ed., N. Y., Willey Book Company, 1944) will do to

eds.,

N.

Y.,

introduce

German

conservative thought.

Saint-Petersbourg (6th ed., 2

mended

to all

who

vols.,

read French.

Lyon,

Joseph de Maistre's Soirees de J.

Newman

B. Pelagaud, 1850) is

is

recom-

well worth reading.

The

famous Idea of a University (several eds., London, Longmans, Green; also D. M. O'Connell, ed., Chicago, Loyola University Press, 1927) is best known, along with his Apologia pro vita sua (several eds., London, Longmans, Green, also Everyman); the intellectual historian will find An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (new ed., N. Y., Longmans, Green, 1949) and An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (7th ed., London, Longmans, Green, 1888) of great interest. Carlyle is a noisy attacker, but at this distance no longer a very effective one; still, you may sample him at his proto-fascist clearest in Shooting Niagara (London, Chapman and Hall, 1867). For the gentlemanly conservatives Sir Henry Maine's Popular Government (London, J. Murray, 1885) will do, and for the lovers of the beautiful and the good, William Morris, News from Nowhere (N. Y., Longmans, Green, 1955, first printed in The Commonweal, 1890), John Raskin, The Crown of Wild Olive (Everyman's, N. Y., Dutton, 1930), and Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy (J. D. Wilson, ed., Cambridge, England, University Press, 1932). tion

(new

T. H. Green's Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligaby Bernard Bosanquet, London, Longmans,

ed. with preface

Green, 1931) should round out this reading. The sources of nationalism are as endless as the is

complex.

Those coming new

to its

social

sentiment

study should begin with the

itself

critical

561

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY and

But some of the readable (Everyman's, N. Y., Dutton, 1907); J. G. Fichte, Addresses to the German Nation (R. F. Jones and G. H. Turnbull, trs., Chicago, Open Court Publishing Company, 1922); Arthur de Gobineau, The Inequality of Human Races (Adrian Collins, tr., N. Y., Putnam's, 1915), Book I only of the French original, Essai sur I'inegalite des races humaines, Paris, 1853-1855; Madison Grant, The Passing of the Great Race (4th rev. ed., N. Y., Scribner's, 1921). In the attack from the Left, Marx is central. Everyone should read the Communist Manifesto (many editions) which contains a surprising amount of the mature doctrine. Many a sincere student has nodded over Das Kapital, which is a difficult and learned work. There are various collections and selections from the canon, notably one edited by Emile Burns, A Handbook of Marxism (N. Y., Random House, 1935), which includes something of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin. Here again the beginner will do well to consult the books suggested in the Critical and Descriptive Writing section for this century. Of other attacks from the Left, Fourier has left little readable, though he is at bottom a striking and original thinker. There is a Fourier, Selections, edited by Charles Gide (Julia Franklin, tr., London, Sonnenschein, 1901). Proudhon is more systematic. Any thorough student of Marx will have to consult him; his Systeme des contradictiones economiques (2 vols., Paris, Guillaumin, 1846) is a good sample. Comte is rather a special case a man who tried to systematize and freeze the Enlightendescriptive books in the section following.

sources are Giuseppe Mazzini,

.

—

ment

A

a point of his

at

own

The Duties

14,

We

15.

ed.,

is

London, Routledge, 1908).

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

have, in spite of the

historical perspective.

Man

In English translation there

choosing.

General View of Positivism (new

of

The

demand

reader

for

contemporary

who wants

history,

no

real

a quick review will find

it

Hans Kohn, The Twentieth Century: a Mid-way Account of the Western World (N. Y., Macmillan, 1949). The following should enable the reader to form a clear impression of the accumulated force of anti-intellectualism. The best of democrats owes it to himself to examine this body of writing with as open mind as possible. Some of these writers are out-and-out totalitarians; others regard themselves as democrats willing to face the facts of life. Some of these in

books are probably masterpieces; most represent current popular writing

on man ed.,

as a political animal.

Knopf, 1948); Georges

562

Walter Bagehot, Physics and

Sorel, Reflections

Politics

(new

on Violence (T. E. Hulme,

ORIGINAL WRITING tr.,

N.

(N.

1912); Friederich Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Modern Library edition of The Philosophy of Nietzsche Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (N. Y., Reynal and Hitchcock,

Heubsch,

Y.,

Morals, in the Y., 1937);

1939); Benito Mussolini, article on fascism translated in

from Encyclopedia Italiana, A. Zimmern, Modern Political Doctrines (N. Y., Oxford

University Press, 1939); Graham Wallas, Human Nature in Politics (London, A. Constable, 1908); J. H. Robinson, The Mind in the Makjng

(N, Y., Harper, 1921); T. W. Arnold, The Fol}{lore of Capitalism (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1937); Sigmund Freud, An Outline of Psychoanalysis (James Strachey, tr., N. Y., Norton, 1949), the master's last word, and worth careful reading; see also The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud (A. A. Brill, tr., ed., N. Y., Modern Library, 1938). Gaetano Mosca, The Ruling Class (N. Y., McGraw-Hill, 1939). Pareto impossible for the ordinary reader; there are two good summaries, is one difficult, L. J. Henderson, Pareto's General Sociology (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1935), the other more popular in style, G. C. Homans and C. P, Curtis, Jr., An Introduction to Pareto (N. Y., Knopf, Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society (N. Y., 1934). Scribner's, 1932); same author, An Interpretation of Christian Ethics (N. Y., Harper, 1935); Stuart Chase, The Tyranny of Words (N. Y., Harcourt, Brace, 1938); James Burnham, The Managerial Revolution (N. Y., John Day, 1941); Bergen Evans, The Natural History of Nonsense (N. Y., Knopf, 1946); Bertrand de Jouvenel, On Power (N. Y., Viking Press, 1949).

is a superior sample of the philosophers of history. He can approached in the one-volume condensation of the Study of History by D. C. Somervell (N. Y., Oxford University Press, 1947). For others, see pp. 161-161 of Bulletin 5^ of the Social Science Research Council. Here are four very recent attempts by younger men to get them-

Toynbee

best be

selves

—and us—straight about the place of democracy M. Watkins, The

in the mid-twentieth

West (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1948); Samuel Beer, The City of Reason (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1949); A. M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Vital Center (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1949); H. Stuart Hughes, An Essay for Our Times (N. Y., Knopf, 1950). Finally, here are three books in which practicing social scientists try to get the possibilities of social science straight: Clyde Kluckhohn, Mirror for Man (N. Y., Whittlesey House, 1949); A. H. Leighton, The Governing of Men (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1945); and the same author's Human Relations in a Changing World (N. Y., E. P. Dutton and century: F.

Political Tradition of the

Co., 1949).

563

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY

Critical

and Descriptive Writing

INTRODUCTION

I.

Like

many introductions, The problems

this

more

concrete,

even

at

this

more

stage

A

good

clear, in the course of the

wish

how

problems, and see

starting point

Harper, 1921), which history of the

should perhaps be read

at the

conclusion

here stated in general terms should become

of the book.

But the reader may

book.

more thoroughly some

of

these

they have been set by other workers in the

field.

is

is

investigate

to

H. Robinson, Mind

J.

in

the

Ma\ing (N.

Y.,

a kind of sketch or outline for an intellectual

Western world written by one

of the first

ans to interest himself in just this kind of history.

American

Two

histori-

interesting dis-

cussions of the problem of delimiting the field of intellectual history

—

i.e.

from the history of philosophy, or of literature, or of political thought are A. O. Lovejoy, Great Chain of Being (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1936), Ch. i, and F. L. Baumer, "Intellectual History separating

—

and

it

Problems," Journal of Modern History,

Its

XXI

(Sept.

1949).

An

H. Randall, Jr., Maying of the Modern Mind (rev. ed., Boston, Houghton MifBin, 1940). An encyclopedic treatment is given by H. E. Barnes, Intellectual and Cultural History of the Western World (N. Y., Random House, 1937). Herschel Baker, The Dignity of Man (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1947), is an admirable intellectual history of the West from

excellent survey, dealing mostly with formal thought,

is

J.

the Greeks to the Protestant Reformation. vastly bigger subject suggested by the distinction between cumuand noncumulative knowledge can perhaps hardly be pursued

The lative

profitably here.

lem of the mental

The

relation

activities

reader

between

who

wants a brief introduction to the probthinking and the rest of our conscious B. Conant, On Understanding Science

scientific

can consult

J.

(New Haven, Yale University Press, 1947), and I. B. Cohen, Science, Servant of Man (Boston, Little, Brown, 1948). There is in Bulletin ^4 of the Social Science Research Council, Theory

and

Practice in Historical

Study (N. Y., 1946), an extensive bibliography centered on the problem of methods in the social sciences, or more specifically, on the relations between history and

historical

writing, social sciences such as sociology,

anthropology, economics, and the philosophy of science.

All these matters,

however, are best considered after the reader has finished

this

564

book.

CRITICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE WRITING 2,

There of

all

history, C. E.

most

useful.

THE GREEKS

an enormous literature of comment on things Greek, almost

is

The beginner

favorable.

it

3.

will find the excellent sketch of

Greek

A

History of Greece (London, Methuen, 1929), This can be followed by G. L. Dickinson, The Gree\ View

Robinson,

of Life (7th ed..

City, Doubleday, Doran, 1928), which is very view of a cultivated modern Englishman brought

Garden

typical of the point of

An

American introductory handbook is (Cambridge, Harvard UniverWill Durant's Life of Greece (N. Y., Simon and sity Press, 1923). Schuster, 1939), written after the professional scholars had found his

up on the

W.

classics.

C. Greene,

excellent

The Achievement

of Greece

Story of Philosophy "too popular," is a good, clear, careful introduction C. M. Bowra's to Greek life, with useful bibliographies and footnotes.

Ancient Greeks Literature in the Home University Library (London, 1933) is an excellent brief introduction, now published by the Oxford University One of the most delightful popular books on Greece is Edith Press.

Hamilton, The Gree}{ Way (N. Y., W. W. Norton, 1930), now, as The Greef{ Way to Western Civilization, available in the inexpensive Mentor

(N. Y., New American Library, 1948). A. E. Zimmern, The Gree^ Commonwealth (5th rev. ed., Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1931), is one of the best analyses of the Greek city-state, written by a rather tenderminded lover of Greece. Another good book on the same subject is Gustave Glotz, The Greeks City (N. Y., Knopf, 1929). For the heritage of Greece the standard work is R. W. Livingstone, ed.. The Legacy of\ Greece (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1921). The great work of our own contemporary generation of classical scholars is Werner Jaeger, Paideia (Gilbert Highet, tr., 2d ed., N. Y., Oxford University Press, 1945). This is an advanced study, and should be read only after some knowledge of the Greeks has been attained. The essential tool for exploration of books

all is

fall of the Roman Empire, Cambridge, England, Univer-

ancient history, from_ the Egyptians to the the

Cambridge Ancient History (12

sity Press,

1

923- 1 939).

4.

The

vols.,

L\TER CLASSICAL CULTURE

on the Old Testament and on Jewish history is enorgood short background book is J. H. Breasted, Ancient Times (Boston, Ginn, 1916), Ch. 7 the student will be tempted to read the whole book for an excellent survey of the ancient Near East. Of older books in English there is G. F. Moore, The Literature of the Old Testa-

mous.

literature

A

—

565

— SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY ment (N.

same author's general survey of reN. Y., Scribner's, 191 3-1 920). An Robert Pfeiffer, Introduction to the Old Testa-

1913), and the

Y., Holt,

ligions, History of Religions (2 vols.,

admirable recent study

ment (new

ed.,

N.

is

Y., Harper, 1948).

On

the prophets, there

is

Edith

(N. Y., W. W. Norton, 1936). For a general history of the Jews, consult A. L. Sachar, History of the Jews (N. Y., Knopf, 1932). For the later classical culture, much of the writing listed under Chapters 2 and 3 is valid. On science there is Arnold Reymond, History of the Sciences in Graeco-Roman Antiquity (N. Y., Dutton, 1927). The Hamilton, The Prophets of

Israel

is W. W, Tarn, HellenisFor the great political problem the Greeks never solved see W. S. Ferguson, Gree^ Imperialism (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1913). On literature see F. A. Wright, A History of

best brief historical study of the Hellenistic age

(London, Arnold, 1927).

tic Civilisation

Later Gree\ Literature (London, Routlcdge, 1932). A popular survey of the major philosophical clash is R. D. Hicks, Stoic and Epicurean (N. Y., Scribner's, 1910).

For Roman history there is a good American textbook, A. E. R. Boak and Richard Hudson, A History of Rome to ^6^ a.d. (3d ed., N. Y., Macmillan, 1945), and an excellent cultural survey, W. C. Greene, The Achievement of Rome (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1934). The Roman spirit is well brought out in Edith Hamilton, The Roman

Way

(N.

W. W.

Y.,

Norton, 1932).

modern manual, Leon Homo, Roman There

1930).

Rome,

(N.

Y.,

is

a

Knopf,

volume from Oxford The Legacy of There is a pleasant J. W. Mackail, Latin Literature (N. Y-,

a parallel "legacy"

is

Roman

Scribner's,

1895).

though

it

is

literary history,

Roman law

has not really attracted the popularizers,

well handled in the Legacy of

Declareuil,

many

political institutions, there

edited by Cyril Bailey (Clarendon Press, 1924).

account of

is J.

On

Political Institutions

Rome

Rome.

A

rather dry

the Latv-giver (N. Y., Knopf, 1926).

On

summary this

and

other topics, the student will find leads in the appropriate articles

In the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences edited by E. R. A. Seligman

and Alvin Johnson (15 vols., N. Y., Macmillan, 1930-1935). See, for inThe introduction to stance, articles on Roman Law, Stoicism, Equality. volume I of this encyclopedia is a useful collaborative history of thought about

man

in society.

5.

THE DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIANITY

One trouble with the early history of Christianity is that to underhow differently modern men look at it one would have to read

stand

566

CRITICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE WRITING A

dozens ot volumes.

good

is to lake two poles: a scholarly Roman Dawson, The Maf{ing of Europe (London,

start

Catholic view in Christopher

Sheed and Ward, 1932); a scholarly anti-Catholic view in Charles GuigneChristianity Past and Present (N. Y., Macmillan, 1927). On the

bert,

institutional history, there

A

is

work, K.

a sound, large-scale

History of the Expansion of Christianity (7

vols.,

N.

S. Latourette,

Y., Harper, 1938-

I and II. On doctrine, there is the great Protestant work Adolph Harnack, History of Dogma (tr. from 3d German ed., 7 vols., London, Williams and Norgate, 1 894-1 899), and A. C. McGiffert, A History of Christian Thought (2 vols., N. Y., Scribner's, 1932-1933), The confusing struggles of ideas and interests out of which ChrisHere are some basic tianity emerged victorious has a huge bibliography. books: Gibbon, Decline and Fall (many editions), Chs. 15 and 16 (this will throw as much light on Gibbon's eighteenth century as on the early Christian centuries); Kirsopp Lake, Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity (London, Macmillan, 1920); W. R. Halliday, The Pagan

1945), volumes

of

Bac}{ground of Early

University

(Liverpool,

Christianity

Press,

1925);

Franz Cumoit, The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism (Chicago, Open Court Publishing Co., 1911); E. R. Goodenough, The Church in the Roman Empire (N. Y., Holt, 1931); Samuel Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius (London, Macmillan, 1904); E. M. Pickman, The Mind of Latin Christendom (London, Oxford University Press, 1937); T. R. Glover,

(2d

ed..

The

Conflict of Religions in the Early

London, Methuen, 1909).

Historical Jesus

(new

ed.,

N.

interest to the general reader

6, y.

For medieval

Y.,

than

Albert

Macmillan, 1948), its

tide

might

is

Roman Empire Quest of the of

much more

indicate.

THE MIDDLE AGES

intellectual

history

there

H. O. Taylor, The Mediaeval Mind (new versity Press, 1949).

Schweitzer's

Leads from Taylor will

a great inclusive work, Cambridge, Harvard Unitake you almost anywhere

is

ed.,

in these 1000 years.

stark opposition of love and hate of the Middle Ages, we may put Walsh, The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries (Memorial ed., N. Y..

As J.

J.

Fordham

University Press, 1943), against H. E. Barnes, Intellectual an-f Cultural History of the Western World (N. Y., Random House, 1937), Part III, 275-595. Or to oppose more consciously literary figures, Henry

Adams, Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1905), and G. G. Coulton, Medieval Panorama (N. Y., Macmillan, 1938). For the background of political history, there is a good short textbook,

567

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY A

Carl Stephenson,

Brief Survey of Mediaeval

Europe (N.

Y., Harper,

1940-

The

following should guide the interested student into most phases of

medieval culture: Summerfield Baldwin, The Organization of Medieval Christianity (Berkshire studies, N. Y., Holt, 1929); C. G. Crump and

The Legacy of the Middle Ages (N. Y., Oxford UniH. Haskins, The Normans in European History Houghton Mifflin, 1915); C. H. Haskins, The Rise of Uni(N. Y., P. Smith, 1940); Helen Waddell, The Wandering (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1927); G. C. Homans, English

E. F. Jacobs, eds..

versity Press, 1926); C.

(Boston, versities

Scholars

the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, Harvard University Johan Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages (London, E. Arnold, 1924); Henri Pirenne, Mediaeval Cities (Princeton University Press, 1925); Ernst Troeltsch, The Social Teaching of the Christian Villagers

of

Press, 1941);

Churches (Olive Wyon, tr., 2 vols., N. Y., Macmillan, 1931); Joseph Turmel (A. Lagarde, pseud.). The Latin Church in the Middle Ages (N. Y., Scribner's, 1915); Sidney Painter, French Johns Hopkins Press, 1940). 8.

Chivalry

(Baltimore,

HUMANISM

Jakob Burckhardt, The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy (S. G. C. Middlemore, tr., N. Y., Macmillan, Probably the best-known book

1890), the

work

is

of a nineteenth-century

German

professor

who

loved the

A. Symonds, The Renaissance in Italy, is an Enghsh classic reprinted as a Modern Library Giant (N. Y., 1935). Still another classic, and a most delightful book, is G. F. Young, The Medici (N. Y., Modern Library, 1930). A good textbook, with abundant bibliography, is H. S. Lucas, The Renaissance and the Reformation (N. Y., Renaissance for

its virility.

J.

On Erasmus there is Preserved Smith, Erasmus (N. Y., H. O. Taylor's Thought and Expression in the Sixteenth Century (2d ed., rev., N. Y., Macmillan, 1930) has never had the success

Harper, 1934). Harper, 1923). of his

there

book on the medieval mind, but it is full of good material. Finally, an admirable summary of the Renaissance in Bernard Groethuy-

is

sen's article, "Renaissance," in the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences,

XIIL p.

The Age of the Reformation (N. Y., Holt, 1920), is American textbook, covering the ground to include intellectual

Preserved Smith,

an

excellent

568

PROTESTANTISM

I

I

CRITICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE WRITING There are no "classics" comparable to the writings of Jakob J. A. Symonds, and G. F. Young on phases of the RenaisThe reader will get a summary of interpretations from Preserved sance. Smith, from George Stebbing, The Story of the Catholic Church (London, Sands, 1915), from R. H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (London, J. Murray, 1926; also in a cheap edition, the Mentor books), from Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (N. Y., Scribner's, 1930), and from Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (N. Y., Farrar and Rinehart, 1941). history.

Burckhardt,

10.

RATIONALISM AND SCIENCE

There is a most compendious intellectual history available for Chapand 10 Preserved Smith, A History of Modern Culture (N. Y., Holt, 1930-1934), I, The Great Renewal. From this point on, the reader interested in political theory should work closely with G. H. Sabine, A History of Political Theory (N. Y., Holt, 1937). For philosophy, the layman can do much worse than W. J. Durant, T'he Story of Philosophy (N. Y., Simon and Schuster, 1926); for a heavier treatment, there is Harald Hoffding, A History of Modern Philosophy (B. E. Meyer, tr., j, vols., London, Macmillan, 1900-1924). There is an admirable new study of the relations between natural science and society, Herbert Butterfield, The Origins of Science (London, Bell, 1949). There is a long hostile literature on Machiavelli well summed up by Lord Acton in his introduction to Burd's edition Acton, History of Freedom and Other Essays (London, Macmillan, 1907). For a favorable account see James Burnham, The Machiavellians (N. Y., John Day, 1943). There is a good modern analysis of Bacon, F. H. Anderson, The Philosophy of Francis Bacon (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1948). On the seventeenth century, see G. N. Clark, The Seventeenth Century (Oxford, Clarendon Press, i^ig), and the earlier chapters of A. N. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (N. Y., Macmillan, 1925). For a rounded treatment of French classical culture, see A. L. Guerard, The Life and Death of an Ideal (N. Y., Scribner's, 1928).

—

ters 8, 9,

—

11.

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Smith, History of Modern Culture,

II

{The Enlightenment),

gives

the full factual background for the intellectual history of the Enlighten-

ment.

The

student wishing to have bibliographical guidance can find

in the three eighteenth-century

it

volumes of the Rise of Modern Europe,

569

— SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY edited by

W.

The Quest

L. Langer: Penfield Roberts,

iy40 (N. Y., Harper, 1947); iy6^ (1940); Leo Gershoy,

W.

for Security, lyi^-

L. Dorn, Competition for Empire, 1740-

From Despotism

Revolution,

to

ijG^-iySg

(1944).

For the general reader, the following gives an admirable cross-section For the "advanced" but

of critical attitudes toward the Enlightenment. still

very Victorian point of view, John Morley's three biographies (really

essays on the French Enlightenment), Voltaire (2d ed., rev.,

N.

Y.,

D.

Appleton, 1872), Rousseau (new ed., London, Chapman and Hall, 1878), Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (new ed., N. Y., Scribner and Welford, 1878); for another liberal nineteenth-century point of view, Leslie Stephen, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century (2 vols., N. Y.,

Putnam's, 1876); for the twentieth-century sympathetic (and innocent) French Liberal Thought in the Eight-

radical treatment, Kingsley Martin,

eenth Century (Boston,

Little,

Brown, 1929);

for a broad, detached survey,

Ernst Cassirer, Die Philosophic der Aujkjdrung (Tiibingen, 1932), a book that

should be translated into English;

skeptical but not cynical study, C. L. Becker,

Eighteenth-Century

H.

J.

C. B. Mohr.

The Heavenly

(New Haven,

Philosophers

1932); and for a Marxist interpretation,

J.

for

modern,

a

City of the

Yale University

Laski,

The

Press,

Rise of Liberal-

ism (N. Y., Harper, 1936).

On

is Leslie Stephen, The English Utilitarians N. Y., Putnam's, 1900), and an admirable book by Elie Halevy, The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism (Mary Morris, tr., London, Faber and Gwyer, 1928). For a nineteenth-century criticism of utilitarian as-

the Utilitarians, there

(3 vols.,

sumptions,

(N.

see

James Fitzjames

Stephen,

Liberty,

Fraternity

Equality,

Y., Holt, 1873).

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

12, 13.

is J. T. Merz, A History of European Thought in the Century (4 vols., Edinburgh, W. Blackwood, 1896-1914), F. S. Marvin's Century of Hope deals mostly with science.

The

big book

Nineteenth

which

(Oxford, Clarendon Press, 191 9) gives a bird's-eye view of the nineteenth century, but does not quite live up to its title. There are three volumes of collected lectures edited by F.

Ideas of

Harrap,

Some

J.

C.

Hearnshaw

The

Social

&

Political

Representative Thin\ers of the Revolutionary Era (London,

1931),

Thinl^ers of the

The Age

1932), The Social the Victorian Age

&

Social

&

Political

of Reaction

&

Political Ideas of

Ideas

of

Some

Reconstruction

Some

(London, Harrap, 1933)

Representative

(London, Harrap,

Representative Thinners of together span the

—which

CRITICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE WRITING Like all such work of many hands, they arc uneven (Professor Hearnshaw edited many such volumes, beginning with the Middle Ages; they can be found under his name in any good library catalogue; together they make a general study of Western political and See also Crane Brinton, English Political Thought in the social ideas). Nineteenth Century (new ed., Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1949), and Roger Soltau, French Political Thought in the Nineteenth Century (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1931). For the background of modern nationalism, there is C. J. H. Hayes, The Historical Evolution of Modern Nationalism (N. Y., R. R. Smith, 1931), and Essays on Nationalism (N. Y., Macmillan, 1926); Hans Kohn, The Idea of Nationalism (N. Y., Macmillan, 1948); Lord Acton, "Na-

century after a fashion.

tionality," in Essays

Peter

Viereck,

on Freedom and Power (Boston, Beacon Press, 1948); (N. Y., Knopf, 1941); Frederick Hertz,

Metapolitics

and Politics (N. Y., Oxford University Press, 1944). There are many who seek to explain Marxism to the many; these explanations are not by any means in agreement. Do not let this disHere are a few elementary explanations: Sidney Hook, courage you. Towards the Understanding of Karl Marx (N. Y., John Day, 1933); M. M. Bober, Karl Marx's Interpretation of History (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1927); Isaiah Berlin, Karl Marx, His Life and Environment (2d ed., N. Y., Oxford University Press, 1948); G. D. H. Cole, What Marx Really Meant (N. Y., Knopf, 1934); A. D. Lindsay, Karl Marx's Capital (N. Y., Oxford University Press, 1925). Nationality in History

On

special phases of nineteenth-century intellectual history there are

many books

indeed.

Long

bibliographies are given in

J.

H. Randall, The

Mailing of the Modern Mind (rev. ed., Boston, Houghton MifBin, 1940), and in H. E. Barnes, An Intellectual and Cultural History of the Western

N. Y., Reynal and Hitchcock, 1941). The following 13 good start: Jacques Barzun, Darwin, Marx, Wagner (Boston, Little, Brown, 1941); J. A. Hobson, Imperialism (rev. ed., London, G. Allen and Unwin, 1938); Guido de Ruggiero, The History of European Liberalism (R. G. CoUingwood, tr., London, Oxford University Press, 1927); Ernest Barker, Political Thought in England from Herbert Spencer to the Present Day (N. Y., Holt, 1915); Lord Hugh Cecil, Conservatism (London, Williams and Norgate, 1912); L. T. Hobhouse, Liberalism (N. Y., Holt, 1911); Bertrand Russell, The Scientific OutlooI{ (N. Y., Norton, 1931); George Nasmyth, Social Progress and the Darwinian Theory (N. Y., Putnam's, 1916); Paul Sabatier, Modernism (C. A. Miles, tr., N. Y., Scribner's, 1908); Jacques Maritain, Freedom in the Modern World ^Richard O'SuUivan, tr., London, Sheed and Ward, World

(rev. ed.,

suggested

as

a

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY 1935); J. M. Robertson, A History of Free Thought in the Nineteenth Century (2 vols., N. Y., Putnam's, 1930); Yngve Brilioth, The Anglican Revival (N. Y., Longmans, Green, 1925); R. B. Perry, The Present Conflict of Ideals (N. Y., Lx)ngmans, Green, 1918); A. C. McGiffert, The Rise of Modern Religious Ideas (N. Y., Macmillan, 1915); George Brandes,

Main Currents in Nineteenth-Century Literature (6 vols., London, Heinemann, 1901-1923); V. L. Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought (3 vols., N. Y., Harcourt, Brace, 1 927-1 930); R. H. Gabriel, The Course of American Democratic Thought (N. Y., Ronald, 1940).

572

Essay Topics

It

is

always easy

of history.

frankly

The

difficult,

compose

to

little

set pieces

on almost any phase

following suggestions for essays and discussions are

and are not

not, since they involve

to be

answered out of any single book,

much noncumulative knowledge,

swered in any one way, even by the wisest in the wisdom of

They demand some

exercise of the imagination,

out genuine problems. cretely

and with a

some

They can and indeed should

full respect for facts;

to

be an-

this

world.

effort to

work

be treated con-

they are not invitations to

mere windy generalizations.

2, 3. 1.

How

THE GREEKS

would you have voted had you been a juror

at the trial

of Socrates? Plato, Apology; Xenophon, Memorabilia; Aristophanes, Clouds; background and facts of the trial in any good modern history of Greece, preferably a full one, for example, Cambridge Ancient History, V, or }. B. Bury, A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great (London,

Macmillan, 1900). 2. Is

Plato a conservative or a radical (or neither)

A minimum Ch.

9.

}

V-X. See also Jaeger, Paideia, and Ernest Barker, Greefi Political Theory (London, Methuen, reading

is

the Republic, Books

X918).

573

— ESSAY TOPICS Judging from his

3.

plays,

what

sort

of

beliefs

political

(or

had Aristophanes?

theories, or "platform")

All the plays are pertinent here, but especially Knights, Clouds, Lysistrata.

4.

How

adequate do you find the ethical standards of "nothing

excess" or the

5.

"Golden Mean"?

Nicotnachaean Ethics,

Aristotle,

How

in

adequate to your

Politics.

own do you

find the aesthetic standards

of the great culture in Greece?

Here you will do best to look at a good many reproductions of Greek art and go over some of the drama. For a general discussion, see Percy Gardner, The Principles of Greeks Art (N. Y., Macmillan, 1914). In our

6.

Athens

a

modern

sense of the word,

how

far

was

fifth-century

"democracy"?

This is a tricky subject. You can get the facts of political, social, and economic organization out of Zimmern, Greel^ Commonwealth and Glotz, GreeJ{ City. For the spirit, it is best to go direct to Plato, Aristophanes, Thucydides especially the Funeral Speech of Pericles in Thucydides, History, Book II, 34-46, Aristotle, the Old Oligarch. ,

—

7.

How

close a parallel

national relations B.C.

among

do you find between the problems of

the

Greek

and problems of international

city-states of the late fifth

relations

among

inter-

century

nation-states in the

twentieth century?

For the Greek

side, the basis

must be

a

good

history of Greece

bridge Ancient History, Bury, or C. E. Robinson.

But

see also

Cam-

Thucydides,

Aristophanes (especially Lysistrata, Peace, Acharnians).

8.

Do

century

you think there was a single Greek religion

B.C.,

or actually various cults, or sects,

much

in the fifth

as in

our con-

temporary Christianity? This

is

a difficult problem.

G. L. Dickinson, The Gree\ Vietv

of Life

(7th ed.. Garden City, Doubleday, Page, 1925), Ch. i. Jane E. Harrison, Themis (Cambridge, University Press, 1912); Gilbert Murray, Five Stages of

Gree\ Religion (2d

574

ed.,

N.

Y.,

Columbia University

Press, 1925); L.

ESSAY TOPICS R. Farnell,

don

How

9. is

Greel^^

Hero Cults and Ideas

useful

—

if

at all

for twentieth-century

Here

all

LATER CLASSICAL CULTURE

Suppose you were an

1.

Old Testament.

This

—do you think the study of ancient Greece

Americans?

your reading will have to be brought into play.

4.

the

of Immortality (Oxford, Claren-

Press, 1921).

What

intelligent Martian,

idea

would you have

a broad but not a vague question.

is

Read

and could read only of

human

at least

Genesis, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Isaiah, and try to

2.

What do you make

of the

Book

nature?

the books of

work

it

out.

of Job?

There are hundreds of commentaries. Avoid them all, read Job fully, and try to put what the book is about in your own words.

3.

What do you

care-

think Western civilization owes the ancient He-

brews? There is a "legacy" book, The Legacy of Israel, edited by E. R. Bevan and Charles Singer (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1927), on the whole not quite up to The Legacy of Greece and The Legacy of Rome, but useful here. See also PfeifJer, Introduction to the Old Testament, J. M. P. Smith, The Moral Life of the Hebrews (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1923), and Sachar, History of the Jews.

4.

What

as seen in

Do

are

some notes

Graeco-Roman

or characteristics of a declining culture

culture after 300 e.g.?

and novels suggested above

find plenty of suggestions in A.

London, Oxford University VI,

Much You will

not try to do a complete survey, but choose concrete examples.

of the verse, tales,

"The

J.

Press,

Toynbee,

are

A

good material.

Study of History (6 vols., volumes V and

1934- 1939), especially

Disintegration of Civilisations"; these are summarized in the

one-volume version of Toynbee edited by D, C. Somervell (N.

Y.,

Oxford

University Press, 1947).

575

— ESSAY TOPICS Take any one

5.

later writer

—Theocritus,

Menander (from

the

fragments, plus the Latin adaptors, Terence and Plautus), Plutarch,

Lucian, Longus This

6.

more

a

is

To

—and

4.

difler as

191 1),

abiding

traits

of the politician

do you find

in Cicero?

should be your chief source, but a sampling of the orations will

The

the famous one on Catiline.

commented on

in

letters

Roman

McKinlay's Letters of a

are

and

translated

i

Gentleman.

Write a character sketch of Plutarch; or an essay on Graeco-

Roman Plutarch

culture as reflected in Plutarch.

one of the few people of antiquity one can see

is

as a person, as a

man

of ideas.

He

Brown, 1898)

to a

good

in the

round

can easily be read in English, from the

old-fashioned five-volume edition of Little,

moraHsts?

Roman Stoicism (Cambridge, England, and W. L. Courtney, "Epicurus," in Evelyn Hellenica (London, Rivingtons, 1880).

What

help

8.

on

E. V. Arnold,

in

Abbott, ed.,

letters

do they

far

University Press,

—say

you find elements of decadence in him.

specific variant

how

Background

His

if

judge the Stoics by Marcus Aurelius and the Epicureans by

Lucretius,

7.

see

W. W. Goodwin

Select Essays of

Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1913-1918).

(6th ed., Boston,

T. G. Tucker (2

There are many

vols.,

translations of the

Parallel Lives. 9.

On

the strength of this brief acquaintance, which do you pre-

human beings, Romans of theirs

fer as

the Greeks of their great age (fifth century) or

the

(100 b.c.-iSo a.d.)

A

difficult subject.

All your reading should be grist to your mill.

be afraid of saying the alive for you,

"a plague 10.

o'

}

Do

not

wrong thing. These people should be at least partly in some way affect you. You can, of course, feel

and must

both your houses."

In your opinion,

is

the

Roman drama

justly considered of far

lower quality than that of the Greeks.''

Take

either

comedy or

tragedy, not both.

All the complete dramatic works

may be found in Gates and O'Neill, The Complete Gree\ Drama (N, Y., Random House, 1938) and Duckworth, The Complete Roman Drama (N. Y., Random House, 1942). that have been preserved

t

ESSAY TOPICS

THE DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIANITY

J.

What

1.

This

is

your idea of the personahty of Jesus?

not worth doing except freshly, from the Gospels themselves, and

is

without worry over the fact that generations have gone over the same

ground.

2.

What

The Acts 3.

is

your idea of the personality of

St. Paul.''

of the Apostles, the Pauline Epistles.

Why

was

a heresy heretical.''

This can be approached in two ways: (i) take a single heresy, say the Arian, and try and decide

much common

why

it

was

rejected

(2) try the

harder task of seeing what

have in

against the Catholic

by the Catholic Church; anything) the heresies

(if

position.

boo\ of Heresies (N.

4.

Why

A Hand-

L. Cozens,

do you think Christianity won out over competing

ligions of the

An

Y.,

McGiffert, History of

Dogma, M. Sheed and Ward, 1947).

Christian Thought, Harnack, History of

Roman

re-

Empire.''

old question (like that of the reasons for the

fall

of

Rome)

but

still

you will look at it freshly. Most of the books cited above, especially Gibbon, Glover, Halliday, Cumont, Dill. See also A. D. Nock, Conversion (London, Oxford University Press, 1933). fresh,

5.

if

How

far does

an economic explanation account for the

rise of

Christianity }

—

—

if only to refute him Karl Kautsky, Foundations of Christianity (N. Y., International Publishers, 1925).

Try

6.

A

How much

"escapism"

is

difficult subject to treat fairly.

cheap

field

day on

this.

Most

there in early Christianity.?

The

anti-Christian can always have a

of the general books above help.

For

monasticism, see Adolf Harnack, Monasticism (N. Y., Putnam's, 1910); C. G. Herbermann and others, eds., Catholic Encyclopedia (15 vols.,

N.

Y., Robert Appleton, 1907-1912), article

dell,

The Desert

on monasticism; Helen Wad-

Fathers (N. Y., Holt, 1936).

577

ESSAY TOPICS (y^y. I.

at

Could you be

home

THE MIDDLE AGES

sent back by time-machine,

fifth-century

in

Athens or

in

would you

feel

thirteenth-century

more

western

Europe ? Accumulation from study of Greece;

Baldwin,

Coulton, hije in the Middle Ages, sampling;

Medieval Christianity;

Crump and

Jacobs, eds.,

Legacy of the Middle Ages; W, S. Davis, Life on a Mediaeval Barony (N. Y., Harper, 1923); Taylor, Mediaeval Mind.

Comment: "The gap between human affairs; it was at about its 1.

in

theory and practice

is

often wide

widest in the much-admired 13th

century."

Adams, Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres; Coulton, Life in the Middle Ages; Maurice de Wulf, Philosophy and Civilisation in the Middle Ages (Princeton University Press, 1922); F, J. C. Hearnshaw, ed., Mediaeval Contributions to Modern Civilisation (London, G. G. Harrap, 1921); Bede Jarrett, Social Theories of the Middle Ages (Boston, Little, Brown, 1926); Taylor, Mediaeval Mind.

Does medieval

3.

from the

social

theory

show any fundamental changes

position taken by the Fathers?

Troeltsch, Social Teaching of the Christian Churches,

4.

How

tury an

far

"Age

do you think

it

\.

justifiable to call the thirteenth cen-

of Rationalism"?

A. N. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (N. Y., Macmillan, 1925), Ch. i; C. L. Becker, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century

(New Haven,

Yale University Press, 1935), Ch. i; Etiennc Mediaeval Philosophy (A. H. C. Downes, tr., N. Y., Scribner's, 1936); Etienne Gilson, Reason and Revelation in the Middle Ages (N. Y., Scribner's, 1938); Taylor, Mediaeval Mind, IL Philosophers Gilson,

5.

The

Were

i

Spirit of

\

U .

'

i

Abelard's troubles caused by his excessive rationalism or

were they due

to the characteristics of his personality?

Helen Waddell, Feter Ahelard; a Novel (N. Y,, Holt, 1933); Joseph McCabe, Peter Abelard (N. Y., Putnam's, 1901); Letters of Abelard

i

ESSAY TOPICS and Heloise

(Scott-Moncrieff,

tr.);

F. A. Gasquet's introduction to Eales,

6.

tr.,

London,

Do

J.

Historia Calamitatum (Bellows, tr.);

Some

Letters

of Saint

Bernard

(S.

J,

Hodges, 1904).

you think the Church was

justified in

using the Inquisi-

tion ?

A.

1921); H. C. Lea,

&

Mediaeval Heresy

S. Turberville,

A

the Inquisition

(N. Y., Button,

History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages (N. Y.,

Harper, 1887); Elphege Vacandard, The Inquisition (tr. from 2d ed. by B, L. Conway, N. Y., Longmans, Green, 1908); G. G. Coulton, Inquisition

and Liberty (London, Heinemann, 1938). 7.

Was

medieval asceticism morbid?

Johannes Jorgensen, Saint Catherine of Siena (Ingeborg Lund, tr., London, Longmans, Green, 1938); William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (N. Y., Longmans, Green, 1902), Chs. i, 6, 7, 16, 17; Taylor, Mediaeval Mind, Ch. 20; Troeltsch, Social Teachings of the Christian Churches, I, Ch. 2; Heinrich Suso, The Life of Blessed Henry Suso by

Himself (T. F. Knox,

tr.,

London, Burns, Lambert, and Gates, 1865); a modern version by W. Butler^

The Boo/{ of Margery Kempe, 14^6, Bowden (London, J. Cape, 1936). 8.

How

far

existed in the

is

the claim justified that a "Christian

Democracy"

Middle Ages.?

G. K. Chesterton, Chaucer (London, Faber and Faber, 1932), Ch. 2; Christopher Dawson, Mediaeval Religion (N. Y., Sheed and Ward, 1934), Part III; G. G. Coulton, The Medieval Village (Cambridge, England, University Press, 1925), Chs.

8, 9, 18,

bury Tales," F. N. Robinson, Mifflin, 1933);

Wells,

9.

tr.,

N.

Do

ed..

20; Geoffrey Chaucer,

Poetical

"The Canter-

Work^s (Boston, Houghton

William Langland, The Vision of Piers Plowman (H. Sheed and Ward, 1935).

W,

Y.,

medieval heresies represent only the "lunatic fringe" of

Christian culture

.f*

D. L. Douie, The Nature and Effect of the Heresy of Fraticelli (Manchester, University Press, 1932); J. W. Thompson and E. N. Johnson, An Introduction to Medieval Europe (N. Y., W. W. Norton, 1937); Turberville, Mediaeval Heresy & the Inquisition; Emile Gebhart, Mystics

579

ESSAY TOPICS Heretics in Italy at the End of the Middle Ages (E. M. Hulme, tr., London, G. Allen and Unwin, 1922); Evelyn Underbill, Jacopone da Todi (N. Y., Dutton, 1919); D. S. Muzzey, The Spiritual Franciscans (Prize Essays of the American Historical Association, 1905; N. Y., 1907); Henry Bett, Joachim of Flora (London, Methuen, 1931); G. M. Trevelyan, England in the Age of Wycliffe (3d ed., N. Y., Longmans, Green, 1900); H, B. Workman, John Wyclif (2 vols., Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1926); James Gairdner, Lollardy and the Reformation in England (4 vols., London, Macmillan, 1908-19 13).

&•

Give a

10.

critical appraisal

of medieval education at the univer-

sity level.

The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages (new M. Powicke and A. B. Emden, eds., 3 vols., Oxford, Clarendon

Hastings Rashdall, ed., F.

Press, 1936).

HUMANISM

8. 1.

How

would you

define the term Renaissance?

B. Groethuysen, "Renaissance," Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, XIII;

E. F. Jacob and A. S. Turberville, "Changing Views of the Renaissance," History,

XVI

(Oct. 1931);

Houghton

(Boston,

H. Randall, Ma\ing

J.

Mifflin,

1940), Part

I;

of the

Modern Mind

almost any reading on the

period will give you materials.

2.

Comment: "Leonardo da

typical Renaissance fields of

human

weakness

Vinci's career

—dispersal

is

an example of a

of energies over too

many

activity."

R. A. Taylor, Leonardo the Florentine (N. Y., Harper, 1927); Edward McCurdy, The Mind of Leonardo da Vinci (N. Y., Dodd, Mead, 1928).

3.

What do you

mus, Rabelais,

find

"modern"

in

any one of the following: Eras-

More.''

For Erasmus, Smith, Erasmus, and Johan Hulzinga, Erasmus (N. Y., Scribner's, 1924); for Rabelais, A. J. Nock and C. R. Wilson, Francis Rabelais (N. Y., Harper, 1929); for More, W. H. Hutton, Sir Thomas More (London, Methuen, 1895).

580

ESSAY TOPICS 4. Satire as a

weapon

of the humanists:

its

origins,

its

purposes.

Samples are Sebastian Brant, The Ship of Fools (E. H. Zeydel, ed., N. Y., Columbia University Press, 1944); Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum, Latin text

(New Haven, many editions.

with English rendering by F. G. Stokes

Press, 1925);

5.

effect

Do

Erasmus, Praise of Folly,

you agree that the humanists of the Renaissance had

little

on the development of democracy?

g. 1.

Yale University

What

seems

to

cess of the Protestant

PROTESTANTISM

you a most

satisfactory explanation for the suc-

Reformation?

All the books listed under Critical and Descriptive Writing, Ch.

9, p.

568

are germane.

2.

Can you

separate out

"modern" and "medieval" elements

in

Luther's Weltanschauung? Preserved Smith, The Life and Houghton Mifflin, 1914), and Abram Lipsky, Martin Luther, Germany's Angry Man (N. Y., Stokes, 1933).

For more material than

listed above, see

Letters of Martin Luther (Boston,

3.

Write a good

critical

review of

Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

some American popular usage

Max Weber, The

(Note that

"critical,"

of the word, does not

Protestant

contrary to

mean "damn-

ing. )

4.

The

tory for

a

relations

between Protestantism and

given country

politics: a case his-

(England, Scotland, Holland, Germany,

France).

go to good political histories and work the problem There are good historical bibliographies in A Guide to Historical Literature (N. Y., Macmillan, 1931).

The

best

way

is

to

out for yourself.

581

ESSAY TOPICS Do

5.

you hold the proliferation of Protestant

be a sign

sects to

of strength or of weakness?

This

But you can

needs careful sociological research.

really

the problem

up

clearly in a country like seventeenth-century

at least set

England.

See

Eduard Bernstein, Cromwell and Communism (London, G. Allen and Unwin, 1930); L. F. Brown, The Political Activities of the Baptists and Fifth Monarchy Men in England during the Interregnum (Washington, American Historical Association, 1912); G. P. Gooch, English Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century (2d ed. with notes and appendices by H. J. Laski, Cambridge, England, University Press, 1927); H. J. C. Grierson, Cross Currents in English Literature of the Seventeenth Century (London, Chatto and Windus, 1929); T, C. Pease, The Leveller Movement (Washington, American Historical Association, 1916).

10.

Try

1.

to

RATIONALISM AND SCIENCE

draw concrete examples

of Bacon's Idols

from your own

experience of the world.

The

idola are in

Do

2.

Novum Organum, Book L

you think Machiavelli's Prince deserves

to be called sci-

entific or objective?

Do

3.

you accept

as valid the distinction

made

in the text

between

and rationalism?

science

This requires a good deal of knowledge perhaps not now available to you. But try to think it out without reference to later work on scientific method.

4.

To which

of the currents of thought and feeling studied in the

three chapters

last

under the names humanism, protestantism, and

rationalism do you think

5.

And

What do you

in

what

modern democracy owes most?

find Descartes

are they

and Bacon

Descartes, Discourse on Method, and Bacon, carefully read, should

582

to

have in

common?

most strongly opposed?

form an adequate

basis.

Advancement

of Learning,

ESSAY TOPICS

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

II. 1.

Examine

closely

how

any eighteenth-century writer uses

tain of the great clusters of ideas

—

i.e.,

cer-

nature (and natural), reason,

rights, social contract.

Almost any writer

will do.

Voltaire will turn out to be

perhaps, and contradictory, than you had anticipated.

more complex,

Rousseau, Diderot,

Locke himself are by no means simple, clear-cut propagandists. You will find these ideas at their simplest if you take the propagandists rather than the thinkers

—

i.e.,

Paine, Condorcet, the lesser encyclopedists,

A. O.

Lovejoy's Essays in the History of Ideas (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press,

1948) will help you with the technique of this kind of essay. 2.

man

Try

to define a given eighteenth-century writer's

view of "hu-

nature."

Rousseau, so commonly labeled as believing in the "natural goodness of

man"

—

see notably Irving Babbitt,

—

Houghton Mifflin, 1919) is a Paine, Bentham almost any

—

Rousseau and Romanticism (Boston,

locus classicus worth re-examining. of the enlightened

—are

worth

Godwin,

this

sort of

study.

3.

How

life") are

A

far

do you think American

(or

"way

of

products of the EnHghtenment ?

big but useful study.

pendence (N. the author,

Start

with Carl Becker's Declaration of Indewith an introduction by

Y., Harcourt, Brace, 1922; reprinted

N.

Y.,

Knopf, 1942) and Ralph Gabriel's Course of American

Democratic Thought (N.

4.

political ideals

To what

Y., Ronald, 1940).

degree would you

call Jefferson a

Child of the En-

lightenment }

A

more modest and

above.

The

works, especially to

preamble

5.

concrete

to the Declaration of

What

introduction

is

to

the

on Jefferson is enormous. the Notes on Virginia and to

literature

Go

problem of essay 3 straight to his

his letters.

own

Reread the

Independence.

your opinion of the relation of the Enlightenment to

traditional Christianity.''

583

ESSAY TOPICS What do you

6.

find

still

valid in the world-view of the Enlighten-

ment?

12, 13.

The

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

student will find the nineteenth and twentieth centuries full

of problems that should have the easy fascination of contemporaneous-

Suggestions are hardly necessary; here are a few.

ness.

Attempt a definition of "romanticism."

1.

Irving Babbitt, Rousseau 1919); Crane Brinton,

and Romanticism (Boston, Houghton

The

Political Ideas of the

(London, Oxford University Press, 1926); G. A. Borgese, Encyclopaedia of the Social

What

2.

J.

Mill,

S.

would be

Carlyle,

Do

mean by

liberty (or

?

Renan, Tocqueville, and many others

—a

interesting to take a lesser light

at least in parliamentary proceedings,

3.

on "Romanticism" by

article

Sciences, XIII.

does any one writer of the period

democracy, progress, development)

Mifflin,

English Romanticists

a

politician

journalist,

you agree with the statement

will

who

is

do.

It

recorded

a preacher.

in the text that nineteenth-

century intellectuals are overwhelmingly against existing middle-class standards.?

Survey

and

briefly,

try

and

through secondary works

list

them

if

necessary, the field of writers,

as accepting or not accepting their surroundings.

This type of essay can be greatly developed.

Do

4.

you accept the

classification of

Marxism

as a religion?

See the references to Marxist literature listed under Original Writing and Critical

and Descriptive Writing.

Use your own Judgment on

this

problem. 5.

are

What

elements in nineteenth-century nationalism do you think

new?

See the references to nationalism and its literature Critical and Descriptive Writing.

Writing and

584

listed

under Original

:

INDEX Amorites, 99, 100

Abbaye de Theleme

(Rabelais), 277

Abelard, 191, 193, 207, 451 Abraham, 100, 103

439> 455. 489 Anarchist, 261, 473

Absolutism, 213, 285, 287, 292, 293

Anaximander, 39

Academic des Sciences, 337 Achaean League, 90

Anglicans,

Achilles,

Anglo-Saxons, 219 Anthropology, 528

39

Acropolis, the, 61, 441

Actaeon, 119 Action jrangaise, 141 Act of Uniformity, 1559, 318, 319 and Eve, 167, 194, 236, 282, 322,

»Adam

1

:

Anabaptists, 261, 310, 336 Anarchism, philosophical,

363

Adam

of St. Victor, 192

Adams, Henry, 227 Adams, John, 374 Adams, Sam, 374 Advancement of Learning, 342 Adventists, 330 Advertising, 448, 449, 513, 523 Aeschylus, 75, 85

313, 318-320, 365, 372,

295,

Anthropomorphism, 45 Anticlericals, 401, 421, 443, 452,

Anti-intellectualism, 503-509, 512-515, 524-

526, 545, 547 Antinomianism, 310, 312, 332, 333

Antioch, 95, 99, 151 Anti-Saloon League, 375 Aphrodite, 64, 100

Apocalypse, the, 497 Apollo, oracle of, at Delphi, 77, 471, 530 .Arabs, 96, 98, 188, 217, 528

Archimedes, 12, 14, no, 112

Alamo, 62

Mission, 247 Areopagitica, 294

Alexandrians,

in,

113, 220

Amalekites, 99, 100 American: democrat, 526; education, 507; hopes, 464; "mind," 34; morals, 513; politics,

The

513; tabloids, 227; tradition, 507 American People, 290

American Revolution, 374, 408, 425, 482, 489 Amiens, cathedral, 60, 251

539

Antigone, 23, 57

Architecture

Alexandria, 95, 99, 151, 337 Museum, no, 113

404, 408,

454. 456, 461

Aetolian League, 90 Agnostics, 449 Albigenses, 225, 237 Alexander the Great, 95, 99, 122 Alexander VI, Pope, 299

392,

272; Doric, 247; horizontal, 264;

classical,

Arians, 237 Aristarchus,

no

Aristocracy, 53, 452, 472 Aristocratic ideals, 474,

543

Aristophanes, 9, 13, 72, 73, 92 .Aristotle,

15, 34, 38, 42, 43, 50, 51, 54,

102,

114,

120,

172,

184,

189,

193,

196-198, 200, 209, 216, 248, 269, 270, 271, 276, 292, 300, 339, 342, 345, 348,

360, 455, 503, 513, 517, 520 Arius, 153, 154

Artemis, 119 Assyria, 98 Astarte, 100

585

INDEX Athanasians, 153, 154

Bible,

Atheism, 336, 372, 382, 421 Athena, 80, 94

309, 310, 3n, 324, 325, 329, 461 "Bill of rights," 253

Athens (5th Century), 31, 42, 47, 123, 241, 416, 438, 442, 490, 545, 546 Atlantic Monthly, 502

Black Death, 249

Atom bomb, 497 Atomism, 421, 431

Blunt, Wilfred Scawen, 294 Boccaccio, 265

Augustinians, 313 Augustus, 122, 123

de

the,

Blavatsky,

139:

97,

216, 237,

270, 28>,

Madam, 529

Bloch, Marc, 240

Bodin, Pierre, 291, 292, 355

Australian Bushmen, 32 Authoritarianism, 457

la

Boetie,

Edenne, 293

Bohr, Niels, 13, 496 Boileau, Nicolas, 273, 274, 284

Bollandist monks, 403 Book, of the Dead, 36

B

Booth, General, 436

Baal, 100

Borgias, the, 275

Babbitt, Irving, 502 Babbitt, 71, 222, 260, 327, 450,

Bosanquet, 425

502

Babylonia, 98, 99, 100 The Babylonish Captivity of the Church,

304

Bossuet, 274, 311 Boswell, James, 352

Bourgeoisie, 302, 444, 481, 482, 487, 488.

521

Bacchus, 81, 82, 83 Bach, Johann, 27, 28, 56, 242 Bac^ to Methuselah, 532

Bacon, Francis, 196, 218, 272, 340, 342, 343. 344, 348, 349. 350, 351, 353, 355, 360, 361, 399, 454, 506, 518, 521, 523,

525

Boyle, Robert, 347, 348 Boy Scouts, 315, 316

Brahe, Tycho, 345 Brahms, Johannes, 56 Brave New World, 20, 532 British British

Bacon, Roger, 218, 239 Bagehot, Walter, 513, 514

Bahaism, 529 Bancroft, George, 25 Baptists, 84,

330

House of Commons, 456 Museum, 21

Royal Society, 337 Brook Farm, 467 Browne, Sir Thomas, 283 Brutus, 292 Buddha, 51, 530 British

Barbusse, Henri, 492 Barth, Karl, 498

Burckhardt, Jacob, 261

Battle of the BooJ{S, 364

458, 459, 460, 463, 466, 524 Burns, Robert, 324

Bayle, Pierre, 403

Burke,

Edmund,

199, 400, 401, 456, 457,

Beatitudes, 41

Business cycle, 483

Beauvais, cathedral, 247, 252

Butler, Samuel,

Becker, Carl, 405 Bellamy, Edward, 427

Byron, Lord, 294, 442 Byzantines, 63, 263, 265

435

Bcnda, Julien, 452 Benedict, Ruth, 529

Bentham, Jeremy, 389, 391, 392, 422, 425, 430, 438, 444, 445, 459, 518 Berdyaev, Nicolai, 498 Bergson, Henri, 495 Berkeley, George, 351, 352 Bernstein,

Edward, 479

586

Caesar, Julius, 8, 122, 160, 210 Calvin, John, 173, 188, 298, 300, 303, 308,

309, 313. 315, 321-323. 328, 329, 484.

485 Calvinism, 312, 321-329, 332, 407, 478

INDEX Calvinists,

260, 274, 303, 308, 310, 314,

Christianity (cont.):

315, 320, 323-327. 329, 331, 332, 365.

199, 226, 227, 229, 232, 235, 243, 255,

484, 485

260, 271, 272, 274, 284, 288, 312, 321,

Cambridge

University, 469

322, 325, 326, 328, 333, 334, 358, 363366, 369-408, 418, 436, 437, 443, 454, 461, 462, 469, 473, 476-489, 521, 524,

Candide, 122, 423 Canon law, 128, 311 Canterbury, 234

527> 538-540, 543 Christian Scientists, 437

Canterbury Tales, 9

"Christian socialists," 401, 466

Capitalism, 304, 419, 481 Capitalist, 338, 468, 482-484, 487,

488

Caracalla, 130

Les Caracteres originaux de frangaise,

I'histoire rurale

240

Church,

Roman

Catholic, 27, 151, 166, 172,

173, 177-179, 181, 183, 187, 192, 193,

Thomas, 445, 450, 467, 472, 485,

Carlyle,

Book of, 98 Church of England, 317, 318, 319

Chronicles,

201, 207, 208, 210, 226, 236, 238, 261,

542

267, 274, 288, 298-318, 321, 325, 328,

Carthage, 108

333, 337, 350, 363, 372, 380, 383, 416,

Caste system, Hindu, 471 Castiglione, Baldassare, 280

454, 456, 461, 462, 505, 540 Cicero, 124, 183, 260, 263, 273

Castor and Pollux, 81

City of God, 25, 184, 185

Catholicism, 154, 306, 307, 313, 463, 499

Classless society,

Catholics, 318, 454, 455, 478, 494, 499, 546 Catullus, 124

"Class struggle," 481, 482, 483 Clouds, 33, 50

Cellini,

Benvenuto, 267, 275, 276, 285

mythology, 30 Celtic romanticism, 63 Celtic

488

Cobbett, William, 301, 303 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 445, 466 Colet, John, 271

Cervantes, Miguel, 231, 242, 272

Collectivists, 475, 482, 487,

Chanson de Roland, 223, 226, 227, 250 Chapman, John Jay, 294 Charlemagne, 175, 178, 226

Columbus, 175 Comic strips, 530

Charles

II,

King, 295

Chartists, the,

474

Chartres, cathedral, 60, 62, 247, 251, 264,

321, 442 Chase, Stuart, 515, 516, 525 Chateaubriand, Francois Rene, Viscount de,

Coming of Age in Samoa, 529 Commentary on Livy, 356 Communism, 47, 239, 478, 500, 541 Communist Manifesto, 482, 483 Communist Russia, 486 Communists, 453, 478, 487, 541 Comte, AugTJSte, 411, 477 Conciliar

436

543

Movement, 300, 306

China, 35, 175, 220 Chinese Chippendale, 528

Conditioned

Chaucer, Geoffrey, Chivalry, 232, 233

Condorcet, 378, 405, 408, 411, 426, 549 Confessions, 184 Confucius, 530

Christian:

Congregationalists, 315, 374, 437

9,

234, 235, 243, 265

Chautauqua, 114

attitude, 254, 255, 432; beliefs, 268, 341,

reflexes,

504, 508, 509, 511,

525

Conquistadores, 242

376, 463, 476, 513; culture, 358; doctrines, 405, 464; faith, 197, 457; hope,

Conscience, 486, 511

405; ideals, 269, 379, 486, 533; truths, 462, 477; religion, 402, 542; tradition,

Constantinople, 151, 176, 271

272, 284, 325, 350, 386, 403, 471 Christianity, 25, 31, 45, 97, 98, 112, 134, I35> 139. 144, 146-174, 190, 195, 196.

Constantine, 154, 271 "Constitution of Athens," 53 Consubstantiation, 321

Contrat Social, 393, 396, 418 Copernicus, 341, 345, 378

INDEX Corcyra, 91, 93

Determinism, 332, 406, 478, 480, 484, 485,

Corinthians, 74, 115 I Corinthians, 143, 144

Dewey, John,

CosmopoHtanism, 416

Dialectical materialism, 188, 480, 481, 484,

Council of Nicaea, 153, 154, 162 Course of American Democratic Thought,

Dialectical

495

Diogenes, 119 Dionysius. 72, 81, 84, 100 Discourse of Method, 349

Cromwell, 295, 319 Crusades, 189, 232, 238, 257 15, 288, 368,

379. 452, 457, 493, 496, 498, 501, 504,

Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, 385 Discourses Concerning Government, 294

Benjamin, 465 Divina Comedia, 245, 250

Disraeli,

516, 535, 546, 551 Cynics, 518, 526, 550

Dogma,

Dominium

Danae, 41 Dante, 210, 223, 243, 245, 248, 251, 255, 262, 265 Danton, Edmond, 374 206, 216, 219, 220,

224, 241, 243, 249, 250, 275, 450, 451

Darkness at Noon, 487 Darwin, Charles, 39, 378, 412, 413, 414. 415, 420, 433, 435, 446, 493, 507, 513 David, 98 Deduction, 196, 215, 218, 257, 270, 349 Deism, 336, 372, 382, 421 Deists, 372, 374, 382, 383, 406,

424

Delacroix, Casimir, 422

Demeter, 81, 84 Democracy, 54, 392, 418, 439, 440, 454, 463, 466, 469, 473, 475, 479, 480, 481,

487, 489, 500, 514, 525, 537, 538, 539, 542, 543, 544, 545, 547, 548, 549, 550 in America, 1835-40, 464

Democracy

Democratic

tradition,

477, 545

Dominican Order, 239

D

Danube basin, 31 Dark Ages, 56, 203,

229

486

Creative evolution, 493, 495

Creon, 23

12,

method, 43

in Ephesus, 115,

Dickens, Charles, 242, 444 Dictatorship of the proletariat, 482, 483,

Courtly love, 229, 230, 231, 232 Cranmer, Archbishop, 318, 319

Cumulative knowledge,

496

485, 486, 540

Diana

419

13, 495,

American, 399, 470,

476, 491, 507, 514, 515, 524, 545, 547,

548 Democritus, 39, 49, 497 Demosthenes, 90 Deontology, 445

,

204, 206, 207

Donatist, 148

Don Don Don

Giovanni, 72 Juan, 281

Quixote, 231, 232, 233 Dore, Gustave, 245 Dreiser, Theodore, 450

Dreyfus case, 492 Dubois, Pierre, 291

Duns

Scotus, 191, 192

Ecclesiastes, 102,

198

Eclecticism, 440

Economic determinism, 301 Eddy, Mary Baker, 173 Edward VI, 319, 320 Egypt, 30, 36, 95, 98, 108 Egyptians, 32, 61, 133 Eighteenth Amendment, 6, 524 Eif{onoklastes, 295

Einstein, Albert, 13, Eliot,

Thomas

496

Stearns, 275

Elizabeth, Queen, 317, 320

Elizabethans, 85

Elohim, 102

Depression, 483, 490, 502, 538

Emancipation Proclamation, 137 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 21, 74, 106,

Descartes, Rene, 272, 337, 345, 349, 350,

Empire

351, 352, 353, 370, 400, 423

588

State Building, 60

Empiricism, 353, 362

45(

INDEX Encyclopedists, 513

Filmer, Sir Robert, 288, 289, 290

Engels, Friederich, 479, 480, 483, 487, 488 English Villagers of the Twelfth Century,

Fourier, Francois, 468

240

Fourteen Points, 6 Francis

Enlightenment, the Age

of,

258, 259, 261,

275, 284, 312, 333, 334, 349, 355, 362,

I,

275

Franciscan movement, 236, 239 Franklin, Benjamin, 52, 294

427, 429, 436, 437, 438, 443, 445, 451,

Free association, 512 Free will, 322

454-459. 461, 463, 466, 470, 473, 474,

Frederick

369-408, 410, 414-417, 419, 421, 423,

476, 477> 478, 480, 489, 490, 492, 494, 495. 505, 507,

5".

528, 529, 536-539.

548

II, 191, 262 French Revolution, the, 292, 373, 374, 375,

384, 386, 387, 400, 406, 408, 410, 411, 417, 425, 427, 436, 453, 454, 456, 457.

Epicureans, 120, 121, 485

482,489,491,498,541 Freud, Sigmund, 289, 327, 505, 507, 509515

Epimenides of Crete, 40 Episcopalian religion, 164, 305, 309 Epistle to the Hebrews, 533

Erasmus, 163, 260, 263, 268, 271, 272, 285

Freudian analysis, 143, 167, 230, 377, 504, 512

Fromm,

Erastianism, 317, 318, 320 Erastosthenes, no, 112

Essay on the Development of Christianity,

Erich, 547

Functionalism, 442, 502 Fundamentalists, 311, 313, 317

462 Essay on the Inequality of Races, 416 Essay on the Principle of Population, 398 Gabriel, Ralph, 419

Ethical culture, 499

Eubulides of Megara, 40 Eucharist,

147,

148,

150,

155,

164,

171,

193. 194. 319. 350. 549 Euclid,

no

Euphuism, 269 Euripides, 83, 85

Europa, 41 Evolution, 413, 415 Existentialism, 499 Extremists, 541

Gainsborough, Lord, 55 Galen, 216 Galilee, 140, 161, 162 Galileo, 16, 337, 340, 341. 342, 345, 346,

347 Gallup

polls, 8, 223 Gandhi, Mohandas K., 23

Genetic sciences, 19 Genie du Christianisme , 436 Gentiles, 141, 143

George III, 299 Gerard of Cremona, 189 Germanic barbarians, 123 Fabians, 476, 492, 506 Fabliaux, 234, 235, 265

Gerson, Jean, 300, 301 Gettysburg Address, 137

Faerie Queene, 283

Giotto, Florent., 262, 264

Falangism, 469 Fascism, 469, 471, 472, 478, 539 Fathers, the Church, 158, 163, 184, 194,

Gnostics, 152, 154, 237

197, 200, 270, 311, 348, 451

"Faustian" man, 275, 281, 531 Faustus, Doctor, 281

Fenelon, Bishop, 274 Fichte, Johann Gotdieb, 415, 423 Ficino, Marsilio, 271

Gladstone, William, 163

Gobineau, Comte de, 416, 471 Godwin, William, 392 Goebbels, Joseph, 473 Goering, Herman, 473

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, 242, 277, 504

Golden Mean,

die, 58, 60, 62, 65, 73, 84,

93

589

INDEX Golden Rule, the, 41 Gongorism, 269

Herod, 97, 99 Herodotus, loi Heroes and Hero-tvorship, 472 Herostratean complex, 115

Gorer, Geoffrey, 290 Gorgon's head, 76 Gospels, 137, 174, 456; Matthew, 137, 138, 147, 151; Mark, 137, 147; Luke, 137, 139. 147; John, 137, 139, 145 Gothic, 176, 222, 251, 264, 265, 269, 282,

299, 436, architecture,

251; cathedrals, 246, 247, 248; England, 222, 252; flamboyant,

252; lar,

Low

Countries, 222; perpendicu-

252

Graeco-Roman: civilization,

109; concept, 133; culture,

Hippocrates, 37, 102, 109, 112 Hider, Adolf, 8, 242, 318, 473 Hobbes, Thomas, 286, .190, 353-355, 394 Holbach, Baron, 372

Hollywood, 34, 64, 73, 139, 231, 281, 435, 448,449 Holmes, John Haynes, 401 Holy Grail, 249 Holy Rollers, 80, 84, 164 Holy See, 271 Holy Willie's Prayer, 324

96, 176, 211, 214, 241; paganism, 174;

Homan, George, 240

world,

Homer,

113-115, 130, 153, 154, 157,

206, 377 Grammar of Assent, 462

36, 48, 77, 78, 84, 93, loi, 114, 241, 273, 414, 527 Hooke, Robert, 347

Grant, Madison, 470

Horace, 125, 223, 268

Greek Orthodox Church, 151 Green, T. H., 425, 475 Gregory of Tours, 227

Hotman,

Grey, Lord, 374

Humanism,

"Grub

Street,"

Frangois, 293 Huguenots, 293 Huizinga, Johan, 249

258, 259-263, 268, 269, 282,

284, 285, 289, 293, 296, 366, 414

447

Humanists, 262, 263, 268-271, 276, 278,

Guilds, 205

279, 281, 283, 285, 291, 292-297, 337,

H

340, 364, 432, 499 Human 'Nature in Politics, 506

Hume, David,

Halevy, Jacques, 403 Hamlet, 72 Harding, President, 492

Hundred

402, 423

War, 225, 257 Hus, John, 298, 299, 300, 306, 310 Huxley, Aldous, 20, 532

Harrington, James, 295, 296, 355 Hartford Convention, 430

Harvard, 329, 507 Harvey, William, 337, 347 Haskins, C. H., 218, 257

Years'

I

Haydn, Joseph, 55 Heard, Gerald, 493 Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century

"Ideational" culture, 493 "Idols," 361, 521 Iliad,

The, 97

Imitation of Christ, 192

Imperialism, 211, 420, 487

Philosophers, 405, 418, 533

Hedonism, 120, 174 Hegel, GcoT^c Wilhelm Frederich, 423,

Individualism, 276, 307, 308, 545 Induction, 196, 197, 215, 218, 342, 349.

351, 516

424, 425, 444, 480, 489, 505 Hellenistic age, 31, 87, 109, 114, 158, 533

Industrialism, 304, 482

Hclvetius, Claude, 372, 401

Industrial Revolution, the, 326, 427,

Henry

VIII, 275, 279, 304, 305, 318,

319

Infallibility, papal,

Heracles, 76

Inferno, 245, 246

Heraclitus, 39, 43 Herder, Johann Gottfried von, 396

Innocent

590

III,

455

Pope, 210

Inquisition, the, '••2

466

INDEX Instauratio

Magna, 342, 343, 360

Intellectual freedom,

Intellectual history defined,

24

Intellectualism, 535, 541, 542, 546, lonians, 39, 123 Isis,

Koran, the, 97 Korzybski, Alfred, 515, 524 Kremlin, the, 21

476

547

cult of, 158, 159

Israel,

Labour Party, 476 La Bruyere, Jean de, 75 Ladies Aid Societies, 315, 316 La Fayette, Marquis de, 374

94 J

Jacquerie, the, 236,

237

Laissez-faire, 426, 428, 429, 430, 431,

James, William, 42, 462, 495, 496 Jansenism, 274 Jefferson,

Thomas,

46, 183, 203, 374, 402,

403, 437. 456, 549 Jehovah, 100, 102, 128, 313 Jehovah's Witnesses, 84

Lateran, Church of, 164

Lateran Council, 193 Lavoisier, Antoine, 411

Jerusalem, 98 Jesus,

Lamartine, Alphonse de, 422 Laocoon, 62, 115 La Rochefoucauld, Due de, 525 Last Supper, The, 267

Jeremiah, Book of, 104 Jesuits,

465

475

Leaning Tower of

341 137, 138, 140, 147, 148, 153, 155,

161, 168, 194, 437, 488

Pisa, 16

Lecky, William, 403 Leda, 41, 81

Jewish Law, 142

Leeuwenhoek, Anton van, 347

Jews, the, 546, 549

Left, the, 410, 453, 456, 474, 476, 477, 492,

Jim Crow, 399

502, 506, 525 Leighton, Alexander, 507 Lenin, Nikolay, 478, 487

Book of, 102, 104, 105 Johnson, Sam, 352 Job,

Leonardo da Vinci, 262, 275 Lessing, Gotthold, 416 Levellers, English, 278

Judaism, 45, 98 Judas Iscariot, 157

The

Jungle, 523

Joinville, Sieur de, 227, 228,

232

Levites, Jewish,

75

Jupiter, 76, 341

Lewis, Sinclair, 71

Justinian, 128

Liberal, attitudes of, 399,

K

444, 445, 519,

520, 523, 540 Liberalism, 461, 473, 519 Liberal Party, 475

Kant, Immanuel, 25, 198, 242, 351, 396, 422, 423 Das Kapital, 321, 479 Kautsky, Karl Johann, 479 Keats, John, 6, 15 a

Kempis, Thomas, 192

Kepler, Johannes, 345, 346, 347

Keynes, John Maynard, 14 Kidd, Benjamin, 470 Kierkegaard, Soren, 499 Kluckhohn, Clyde, 507 Knights, The, 71 Knight's Tale, The, 229, 230, 234 Koestler, Arthur, 487

Libido, 504, 510, 520 Library of Congress, 368 Ltfe of Johnson, 352

Lincoln, Littre,

Abraham,

94, 136, 137, 271,

419

Maximilien, 411

Livy, 292

Locke, John, 288, 344, 351, 353, 369, 370, 371. 372. 380, 387, 400, 425, 459, 513 Logical positivists, 477, 516, 517, 518, 531 Lollards, 238, 299

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 444

Looking Backward, 427 Lope de Vega, 242 Louis IX, 227, 228

591

INDEX Louis XIV, 273, 274, 372, 378 Lucian, 122 Lucretius, 121

Luther, Martin, 164, 167,

173, 236, 237,

259, 260, 298, 300, 301, 303, 304, 305,

307-314,317-321,328 Lutheran Church, 310, 316, 320 Lysistrata,

Mesopotamia, 30, 36, 123 Messiah, the, 106, 486 Metempsychosis, 39 Methodism, 84, 317, 333, 437 Metric system, 222 Michelangelo, 264, 267, 282 Middle Ages, the, 175, 176, 180, 199-206, 210, 213, 214-255, 258, 262, 265, 267-

90

M Machiavelli, Nicole, 54, 141, 163, 280, 300,

277, 282, 285, 286, 289, 290, 293, 300, 310, 313, 337, 339, 341, 355, 357, 362364, 368, 400, 402, 407, 416, 431, 450455. 481, 503. 531

355. 357. 358, 359. 360, 506, 514, 518,

Mill, James,

525. 542, 548

Mill, John, 294, 295, 432, 433, 444, 445,

Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 427 Macedonians, 87, 90, 95

Maecenas, 447 Maine, Sir Henry, 464 Maison Carree at Nimes, 125 de Maistre, Joseph, 401, 436, 454, 456, 457, 461, 462, 463, 465, 498 Malthus, Thomas, 398

Manhattan Island, 61, 442 Manichaeism, 165, 185, 445 Man the Machine, 372 Marathon, 92 Marc Anthony, 122

Marcus Aurelius, 113, 124 Maritain, Jacques, 499 Marsiglio of Padua, 211

Materialism, 336, 372, 421, 425, 454, 467, 474, 477. 485. 494. 499

546 Marx, Karl, 21, 188, 237, 301, 322, 424, Materialists, 199, 401, 478, 488,

450, 476, 479, 480, 481, 482, 483, 485, 488, 493, 494, 519, 536 Marxism, 236, 239, 476, 478-480, 483-489, 500, 535, 549 Marxists, 17, 302, 303, 321, 438, 468, 476, 481, 483, 485, 486, 500, 502 Mary, Queen of Scots, 319, 320 Mass, the, 164, 193, 235 Maurice, F. D., 466

444

446, 464, 475, 496, 519, 540 Millerites,

154

Miller's Tale, The,

The Mind and Society, Minoan civilization, 31 Mithra, cult

of, 158,

519, 520

161

Moabites, 99, 100 Moderates, 541

Mohammedanism, 45, 188, 225 De Monorchia, 210, 248 Monarchists, 453 Monopoly, 405, 429 Montaigne, 273, 284, 285, 331, 402 Montesquieu, 300, 372 Mont St. Michel and Chartres, 227 More, Sir Thomas, 271, 285 Morgan, Lewis, 426 Morgans, the, 484

Mormons,

the,

437

Morris, William, 427, 466, 467, 468, 469

Mosaic Law, 80, 127, 128 Moses, 100, 102, 103, 383 Motley, John, 472 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 55, 56 Murray, Gilbert, 63, 73, 273 Mussolini, Benito, 519

Mysticism, 445

N

Mazzini, Guiseppe, 419, 420, 421, 501 Mead, Margaret, 529

Medieval philosophy, 189

234

Milton, John, 272, 294, 295

Napier, John, 345

Meditations, 124

Napoleon, 47, 140, 163, 169, 410, 457, 491

Meeting of East and West, 530 Menandcr, 117 Mencken, H. L., 450

Napoleonic wars, 387 Nathan the Wise, 416

592

Nation-state, 488, 500, 501, 531, 540

I

1

INDEX Nationalism, 304, ^74, 415, 416, 417, 418, 419, 420, 421, 469, 471, 489, 500, 501, 502, 539. 540 Naturalism, 442, 454, 499 Natural law, 130, 133, 208, 212

"Old Oligarch," 70 Old Testament, 36, loi, 102, 136, 155, 285, 287, 288, 332 Oligarchy, 54

Nature, 370, 373, 379, 383, 384, 385, 404, 405, 406, 523, 524, 525 Nazism, 420, 469, 471, 472, 500, 505, 542

Olympic games, 59 Olympus, 75 One World, 530

On

Liberty, 294, 432, 519

Neoclassicism, 269, 421

Optimists, 526

Neo-Gothic

Original sin, 312, 358, 373, 406, 454 Origin of Species, 414, 433 Orpheus, 81

422, 440

style,

Neoplatonists, 119, 185, 191, 271, 351 Neo-Scholastics, 250

Neo-Thomism,

Orphism,

Catholic, 52

Owen,

Neurosis, 508, 547 New Deal, the, 392, 433, 475, 476

82, 84

Robert, 387, 390, 398, 460, 508

Oxford Movement, 461 Oxford University, 467, 469, 475

New Harmony, 467 New Lanark, 390 Newman,

ic

Cardinal, 436, 460, 462, 463, 465,

513, 518

News from Nowhere,

New Testament, Newton,

468

Paine,

loi, 136, 138, 145

Sir Isaac, 14, 217, 285, 336, 337,

Tom,

191, 235, 289, 294, 374, 403,

456, 460, 465, 499, 549 Palatine Anthology, 116

348, 369-371, 380-383, 397, 400, 413,

Palestine, 36, 99,

484, 493, 496, 507> 510, 548

Paliadio, 269,

Newtonian

physics, 13, 367, 381, 385, 397,

497

Palmyra, 88 Pandora's box, 76

Du Pape, 455 Parad iso, 246

Nibeltingenlied, 97

Nicomachean

107

272

Ethics, 43, 58

Niebuhr, Reinhold, 499

Pareto, Vilfredo, 507, 519, 520, 521, 522,

Nietzsche, Friedrich, 25, 97, 261, 450, 473,

523, 524, 525, 542, 547 Parmenides, 39, 43 Parthenon, 60, 61, 64, 76, 115, 321, 442 Parthians, 123 Partisan Review, 502

495> 499, 514, 515, 518, 542 Nigger Question, 472 Nihilists,

518

Nirvana, 51, 282

Nominalism, 421 Noncumulative knowledge,

Pascal, 163, 337, 13,

265, 368, 498, 551

Normative judgments, 27, 335 Norse mythology, 30 Northrop, Professor, 530 Not Paul But Jesus, 140

O

345

Paternalism, 446 Patriarcha, 288 Patriarchs, 151

Patriotism, 478, 540

Patterns oj Culture, 529

Pavlov, Ivan, 508, 509, 512 Peasants' War, 236, 237, 238, 259, 260,

310, 314

of,

193

Odyssey, The, 97 Oedipus complex, 510

Offenbach, Jacques, 27, 28

Oj Time and the Oklahomal. 72

219,

Pelagius, 186

Oceana, 295

Ockham, William

15,

River, 283

Peloponnesian War, 38, 87, 88, 89, 91, 376 Pentateuch, the, 10 Pericles, 56, 57, 61, 66, 67, 68, 69, 72, 73,

79, 87, 125, Peripatetics,

376

120

Persian Empire, 98, 99

593

INDEX Petrarch, 273

Psychiatry, 509, 550

Petrine tradition, 151, 271

Psychoanalysis, 509 Psychologists, 512, 520, 547

Philebus. 86 Philistines, 99, 104, 260,

Philosophiae

Psychology, 510, 538

452

Naturalis

Mathe-

Principia

Physics

and

Ptolemies, the,

no

"Pure science," 498

matica, 380 Politics,

Puritanism, 295, 315, 324, 327, 328

513

Pico della Mirandola, 271

Puritans, 308, 314, 325, 326,

Pietists,

Pythagoras, 39, 346 Pythagoreans, 86

333, 437

Pilgrim Fathers, 163 Place, Francis,

365

374

Planck, Max, 496 Plato, 9, 13, 15, 22, 24, 25, 38, 40, 51, 84,

120, 122, 174, 184, 189, 196, 201-203,

260, 269, 271, 346, 353, 441, 451 Platonism, 271-273, 281, 349, 480, 532

Quakers, 314, 330, 336

Quebec, 258

du Plessis-Mornay, Philippe, 293 Pliny, 216 Plotinus, 119, 122, 144

Rabelais, Francois, 265, 266, 272, 276, 282,

Plutarch, 113

283, 285

Plymouth, 162 Policratus,

Racine, Jean Baptiste, 274

Racism, 471 Radicalism, British, 475 Raphael, 264, 267 Rationalism, 170, 258, 259, 272, 285, 288,

203

Polis, 31

Political Justice, Politics, 43, 53,

392 503

Polybius, 113

289, 327, 334-337, 353- 362. 367. 373,

Pompey, 122

374, 407, 438, 445, 521, 524, 525, 539

Pope, Alexander, 372, 382, 403, 421 Popular Government, 465 Poseidon, 519, 520, 521

Rationalists, 273, 274, 295, 296, 313, 334,

Positivism, 336, 425, 509

Realism, 117, 190, 194, 542 Reason, 370, 371, 386, 387, 391, 397, 398,

Positivists, 38, 174, 177, 191, 199,

401, 443,

477, 516, 517, 539 Pound, Ezra, 502 Pragmatism, 425, 496 Predestination, 186 Prince, The, 355, 356, 359 Principles of Political Obligation, 475

Pr ogres de V esprit humain, 378 Progressives, the, 492

Propaganda, 524

207

Protestantism, 258, 259, 262, 269, 285, 298,

299, 302-316, 321, 333, 336, 365, 403, 454, 481 Protestants, 167,

399, 402, 423, 425, 444, 451 Reflections on the Revolution, ijgo, 456

Reformation, 100, 164, 226, 253, 257, 259, 260, 261, 270, 300, 301, 302, 304, 314,

Presbyterians, 315

Proprietas, 204, 206,

335, 336, 348-350, 354, 373, 402, 407. 418, 438, 460, 480, 488

168, 172, 173, 182, 258,

Relativity,

496

Renaissance, 63, 73, 76, 100, 214, 252, 253, 257-270, 272, 273, 275-280, 282-286,

291-293, 337, 342, 344, 349, 35i, 355, 380, 394, 402 Renaissance of the Twelfth Century, 257 Republic, 43, 44, 47, 50, 52, 53, 65, 71

Republicanism, 292, 465, 508, 509 De Rerum Natura, 121

261, 268, 270, 274, 296, 297, 307, 310,

Revelation, Revisionist

594

*

315, 337, 380 Reign of Terror, 460

311, 315, 319, 340, 366, 436, 455, 456,

546

1'

Book of, 145, 146 movement, 479

Revolution of 1848, 477

I

INDEX Revolution

of

the

proletariat,

486,

487,

St.

Thomas Aquinas,

183, 188, 190, 195-

200, 211, 227, 240, 243, 249 -252, 299.

489, 495

Rheims, 251 Rhodes, Cecil, 470 Richards, I. A., 515

Salvation

Right, the, 410, 453, 463, 469, 473, 478,

Saracens, 228

502, 525 Robespierre, Maximilien de, 374

Sarton, George, 218, 257

Robin Hood, 176

Schelling, Fried rich von, 423

Robinson,

J.

346, 367, 404, 405, 460 Salisbury, John of, 204, 280, 290,

Sartre, Jean Paul,

H., 8

Schlesinger,

Rockefeller, John D., 163, 484

359

Army, 436

499

A. M., 539

Jr.,

Scholasticism, 188, 190-199, 200, 209, 215,

Rockefeller Center, 60

220, 237, 250, 252, 257, 262, 264, 268-

Roman Empire,

270, 284, 285, 299, 315, 334, 340, 342-

25, 97, 99, 112, 159, 176,

186, 210, 242, 243, 290, 292, 384, 493

Roman Law, 95, Roman Republic,

126, 128, 130, 131, 133

344, 349, 533 Schweitzer, Albert, 136

122, 128

Science, 414, 494, 498, 504, 509, 510, 516-

Romantic Movement, 373, 397, 421, 427,

518, 531, 548

513 ,516 .548 448

495> 504- 505 Romanus, Egidius, 204, 206, 211

Scientists, 494, 496, 497, 501,

Rome,

Scotus Erigena, 191

8,

Scott, Sir Walter, 176, 245,

95, 108, 123, 125

Romeo and

518 Roosevelt, Theodore, 492

Seaver,

]uliet,

Rouen, cathedral, 252 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 142, 183, 237, 327, 373. 385. 393> 394, 395> 396, 418, 457, 458, 512 Royce, Josiah, 425 Rugged individualism, 59, 373, 430, 431,

H.

62

L.,

Self-Help. 433 Semantics, 515, 516, 521, 524 Seneca, 125

Sermon on

the

Shakespeare,

Mount, 137

William,

14,

158,

85,

272,

277, 284, 342, 448, 518 Shaftesbury, Earl of, 397 Shangri-la, 56

432

Shaw, Bernard,

Ruskin, John, 427, 467, 468, 485 Russell, Bertrand, 191

9,

13, 73, 434, 438, 506,

532 Shelburne, Lord, 389 Shelley, Percy Bysshe,

6,

435

Shooting Niagara, 472 Simonides, 62, 63 Sinclair, Upton, 523

St.

Ambrose, 163, 215

St.

Augustine, 25, 163, 165, 184, 185, 187, 188, 198, 298, 321, 322, 367, 378, 460,

Single taxers, 443 Sistine Chapel, 267,

282

St.

484, 536 Bernard, 192

Skepticism, 382, 384, 401, 402, 421, 423 Skinner, B. F., 20

St.

Dominic, 238, 239

Slavery, 412

St.

St. St.

St.

Francis of Assisi, 163, 173, 174, 192,

Slavs, 31,

225

Smiles, Samuel, 433, 434

216, 238, 239, 298 Ignatius of Loyola, 163, 307 Joan of Arc, 416

Smith,

Adam,

Socialism,

Jerome, 163

.

476, 488, 521, 539, 540, 542

317, 332, 387, 445, 468 ,475. 479

St. Just,

Socialists,

St.

369 Monica, 184

Social sciences, 18, 502, 507,

St.

Paul, 114, 136, 140, 142, 143, 144,

166, 185, 487, 533, 536

488

14, 372, 404, 423, 429,

236, 392, 452, 465, 466, 468,

150,

.

524 532, 546 ,

.

Socrates, 40-43, 75, 81, 84, 191, 207, 457,

546

595

INDEX Thoreau, Henry David, 23, 396, 450 Thorndike, Lynn, 218

Solomon, 98, 107 Sombart, Werner, 339 Somervell, D. C, 6

Thucydides, 37, 66, 74, 91, 92, loi, 102, 376, 410, 548

Sophists, 50, 92

Sophocles, 14, 85

de Toqueville, Alexis, 464

Sorel, George,

Tories, 399, 465, 475 Torricelli, Evangelista, 346

429

Sorokin, Pitirim, 10, 241, 492, 493, 494 Soviet Government, 487, 498, 500, 508 Sparta, 42, 47, 59, 89, 123, 209, 231, 395,

435» 438, 450, 522 Spencer, Herbert, 25, 53, 412, 414, 425,

Totalitarianism, 463, 469, 470, 471, 475,

513 Toynbee, Arnold,

10, 241, 492, 493, 494,

495

452, 476, 499, 516 Spengler, Oswald, 10, 241, 246, 281, 492,

Trade unions, 428, 429 La trahison des clercs, 452

530, 531 Spenser, Edmund, 283

Treaty of Versailles, 6

Transubstantiation, 193, 194, 320

Spinoza, Baruch, 353, 354, 423 Spirit oj the

Treitschke, Heinrich von, 415

Laws, 372, 385

Trent, Council

Stalin, Joseph, 478, 479, 487, 488,

States General,

502

of,

333

Trinity, the, 382, 400, 520

Trollope, Anthony, 434, 442

460

State socialism, 483

Trotskyism, 502

"States of the Church," 271

Truth, absolute, 496, 497, 543 Twain, Mark, 448

Stevin, Simon, 345

Tyler, Wat, 236

Stoddard, Lothrop, 470 Stoics, 93, 120, 121, 132, 233,

533

Tyranny oj Words, 516

404 Stupor Mtindi, 262 Stuarts, 294,

Sutnma

Summa

U

contra gentiles, 195 theologica, 195, 197, 198

Understanding (Verstand), 423, 425

Supermen, 261, 473, 514 Supremacy Act, 318, 319 Swift, Jonathan, 364 Swinburne, Algernon, 435

UNESCO,

Sydney, Algernon, 294, 297

Universities:

Syria, 95, 108, 129,

133

19 Unitarianism, 153, 164, 317, 437 United Nations, 538 Universalists,

437

261; Bologna, 179; Cambridge, 469; Cornell, 507; German, 242; Har-

Basel,

vard, 329, 507; Montpellier, 217; ford, 179, 467; Salerno,

Tacitus, 124

Urn

Taine, Hippolyte, 275, 400 Tawney, R. H., 328

Usher, Bishop, 382

Taylor, Henry Osborne, 202

Utopia (Plato), 49, 278 Utopia (Thomas More), 278

Tennyson, Lord, 414, 444, 529 Tertullian, 163, 192, 194 Thebes, 23, 89 Theism, 424, 540

Ox-

217

Burial, 283

Utilitarianism, 389, 398

Theosophy, 443, 529 Thermopylae, 62

Valla, Lorenzo, 271 Value-judgments, 26, 27, 336, 518, 519 Vandals, 184

Third Republic, 93, 141, 416, 453 Thomism, 198, 370

Venus de Milo,

Theocritus, 113, 117

596

Vegetarians, 443 64, 115

•

INDEX "Victorian

Whitehead, Alfred North, Whitman, Walt, 74, 106

Victorians, 413, 415, 428, 431-439, 441-444,

William

448, 449, 452, 454, 461, 499, 514 Villon, Francois, 251, 267

Williams, Roger, 315 Williamsburg, 55

Virgin Mary, 159, 252, 267, 282, 313, 521,

Wilson,

Vergil, loi, 124, 223, 248, 273

Compromise," 473, 474, 489, 490, 491, 537

Vital Center, The, 539 Voltaire,

Francois Marie Arouet de,

122,

183, 235, 275, 363, 372, 374, 378, 382,

383, 401, 403, 416, 421, 423

W Wagner, Richard,

242

II,

Woodrow, 6 Victory, 115

Wissenssoziologie, 450 Witchcraft, 412

Wolfe, Thomas, 283 Wordsworth, William, 421, 445, 504 World government, 500, 501, 538 Wyclifife,

John, 208, 237, 238, 298, 300,

306, 310, 451

72, 469

Wallas, Graham, 506, 525 Warning of the Middle Ages, 24

Washington, D. C, 257, 441 Washington, George, 94

X Xenophon,

40, 70, 281

Y

Waterloo, Batde

of, 419 Watteau, Jean Antoine, 422

Way

oj all Flesh, 435 Wealth oj Nations, 373 Webb, Beatrice and Sidney, 506 Weber, Max, 303, 328 vVelfare state,

Wells.

H.

440

G., 46,

371, 495

Wilde, Oscar, 492

Winged

540

4, 43,

Yaweh, 102 Yellow Boof{, The, 492

Zeitgeist, 55,

506

Weltanschauung:

German, 208; Roman, 124; 20th century, 492; other, 348, 401 Wesley, John, 16?, 173

199 Zeno, 39, 40, 121, 233, 353 Zeus, 32, 33, 41, 76, 77, 80, 81, 100 Zion, 437 Zola, Emile, 442, 450

Zwingli, Ulrich, 298

597