The Great Ideas Today 1963
"The Great Ideas Today" series are annual supplements to the Great Books of the Western World set published by
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Angel
Fate
Animal
Form
Aristocracy
Art
God Good and
Evil
Astronomy
Government
Beauty
Habit
Being
Happiness
Cause
History
Chance
Honor
Change
Hypothesis
Citizen
Idea
Constitution
Immortality
Courage
Induction
Custom and Convention
Infinity
Definition
Judgment
Democracy
Justice
Desire
Knowledge
Dialectic
Labor
Duty
Language
Education
Law
Element
Liberty
Emotion
Life
and Death
Eternity
Logic
Evolution
Love
Experience
Man
Family
Mathematics
The Great Matter
^^^^^^^^^^^^H^^^^^^^^H
Mechanics
H^^H^
Medicine
I^^^K!"
Memory and
laeas
Imagirlation
IH
Reli&[ion o
1
Revolution
Metaphysics
Rhetoric
Mind Monarchy
Same and Other
Nature
Sense
Necessity and Contirigency
Sign and Symbol
Ohgarchy
Sin
One and Many
Slavery
Opinion
Soul
Opposition
Space
Philosophy
State
Physics
Temperance
Pleasure and Pa in
Theology
Poetry
Time
Principle
Truth
Progress
Tyranny
Prophecy
Universal and Particular
Prudence
Virtue and Vice
Punishment
Science
War and
Peace
Quality
Wealth
Quantity
Will
Reasoning
Wisdom
Relation
World
THE GREAT IDEAS TODAY
1963
THE FALL OF ICARUS
by Peter Paul Rubens Icarus did not heed the warnings of his father
the
and flew too
close to the sun;
wax which held together his wings melted, and Icarus crashed to his death.
THE GREAT IDEAS TODAY 1963 WILLIAM BENTON Publisher
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc Chicago, London, Toronto, Geneva, Sydney
@
1963 By Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Copyright under International Copyright Union All rights reserved
under Pan American and Universal Copyright Conventions
by Encyclopaedia
Britannica, Inc.
Printed in the U.S.A.
Existentialism translated
©
by Jean-Paul
Sartre,
by Bernard Frechtman.
1947 by The Philosophical Library,
Inc.
Reprinted by permission.
"Death Stories of
in
Venice" reprinted from
Three Decades by Thomas Mann,
translated
by H.
by permission
T. Lowe-Porter,
of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.,
Copyright 1930, 1936, by Alfred A. Knopf,
and by permission
of Martin Seeker
& Warburg
Inc.,
Limited.
THE GREAT IDEAS TODAY Mortimer
Robert M. Hutchins
J.
1963
Adler
Editors in Chief
Peter C. Wolff Executive Editor
Milton Mayer
Paul M. Gilchrist
Contributing Editor
Assistant Editor
CONTRIBUTORS Herbert
J.
Muller
Paul Tillich
•
Hannah Arendt
Aldous Huxley
Brown
Harrison
Space Symposium
Saul Bellow
Leonard Engel and Kenneth Brodney Biological Sciences
Literature
John Herman Randall,
and Medicine
Edward U. Condon
Jr.
Physical Sciences
Philosophy and Religion
and Technology
Reuel Denney Social Sciences
James Whitmore Art Director
and Law
Donald
E. Stewart
Managing Editor
Judith Jones Editorial Assistant
FOREWORD Great Ideas The contemporary
Today attempts and thought
life
past.
To
the extent that
it
of the great books to the
to relate the outstanding events of to the
succeeds in doing
accumulated wisdom of the this, it
the great ideas on the main currents of our better understanding of both the present
Part
of each annual edition of
I
reveals the relevance
contemporary scene and throws the life
and the
today.
The
light of
result
is
a
past.
The Great Ideas Today focuses upon
a topic or issue of prime importance during the year under review. This
year the topic selected
space exploration. The editors asked
is
ers—a historian, a novelist, a theologian, a
five think-
political philosopher,
and a
physical scientist— to express their views concerning the effects of space exploration on the stature of man.
The
add a commentary sum-
editors
marizing what the great books contribute to this subject. In Part II the editors examine important developments in the political and social realm. This year the subject under consideration is the changing
tempo
of history;
i.e.,
the ever accelerating rate of institutional and
technological change, which
is
perhaps already occurring
at a
pace too
rapid for the good of mankind. Part III contains five essays reviewing the most recent advances in
the arts and sciences. Here the main emphasis in scientific research or
in
form or substance
new
is
upon new departures upon novelty
These developments have their roots books and the great ideas. Following each
in literature.
in the tradition of the great
of the essays
is
applications of science, and
a Note to the Reader that calls his attention to relevant
materials in Great Books of the Western World. The essays themselves enable him to keep abreast of the advancing front in the major fields of
inquiry and creative activity. Part
IV
includes a
directly supplements Great
number
Books
of the
Western World.
It
of short works that deserve to be considered as candi-
dates for a permanent place
among
the great writings of the West. These
are chosen by the editors for their variety as well as for their relevance to current events. This year the selections are
Thomas Mann's Death
in
Venice, Robert Malthus' Essay on Population, and Jean-Paul Sartre's Existentialism.
Part
keep
V
his
enables the owner of Great Books of the Western
World
to
Syntopicon up to date. Each of the 102 chapters in the Syntopi-
con contains a
list
of
recommended
additional readings. This year the
the chapters dealing with ideas in biology and psycholreading up to date. In subsequent years, bibliographies will be brought are ogy lists in
furnished for chapters in other fields of knowledge.
THE EDITORS
A
NOTE ON REFERENCE STYLE
the following pages, passages Inare referred to by volume,
in Great Books of the Western World page number, and page section. For example, "Vol. 39, p. 210b" refers to page 210 in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, which is Volume 39 in Great Books of the Western World. The small letter "b" indicates the page section. In books printed in single column "a" and "b" refer to the upper and lower halves of the page. In books printed in double column, "a" and "b" refer to the upper and lower halves of the left column, "c" and "d" to the upper
and lower halves
For example, "Vol. 53, p. 210b" page 210, since Volume 53, James's Princi-
of the right column.
refers to the lower half of
ples of Psychology,
is
printed in single column.
On
the other hand,
"Vol. 7, p. 210b" refers to the lower left quarter of the page,
Volume
7, Plato's
Dialogues,
is
printed in double column.
since
CONTENTS PART ONE
A Symposium Has Man's Conquest
on Space
of
Space Increased
or Diminished His Stature?
Herbert J. Muller Aldous Huxley Hannah Arendt Paul Tillich
5 21
35 49
Harrison Brown
61
PART TWO
An The Tempo
Essay on Time
of History:
An
analysis
by the editors
83
PART THREE The
Year's
Developments
in the Arts
and Sciences
Literature, Saul Bellow
135
and Medicine, Leonard Engel and Kenneth Brodney Philosophy and Religion, John Herman Randall, Jr. Physical Sciences and Technology, Edward U. Condon Social Sciences and Law, Reuel Denney
227
Biological Sciences
181
279
359
PART FOUR Additions to the Great Books Library Death
in Venice,
Thomas Mann
Existentialism, Jean-Paul Sartre Essay on Population, Robert Malthus
395 443 463
PART FIVE Additions to the Syntopicon
555
PART ONE
A Symposium on Space HAS MAN'S CONQUEST OF SPACE
INCREASED OR DIMINISHED HIS STATURE?
MULLER ALDOUS HUXLEY HANNAH ARENDT
HERBERT
J.
PAUL TILLICH
HARRISON BROWN
INTRODUCTION up the symposium that
setting
Inan approach to space exploration
follows, the editors deliberately took different
from that common
in
news-
papers and magazines. The question asked here does not have to do with the scientific, economic, or military results of space exploration, but rather with
its effects
on man. The editors asked the
five participants in
the symposium what, in their opinion, the exploration of space is doing to man's view of himself and to man's condition. The question does not
man as a scientist, nor man as a producer or consumer, but man as human. We therefore invited non-scientists as well as a
concern rather
scientist to participate in the
symposium. Our panel includes a
historian,
a novelist, a political philosopher, a theologian, and a physical scientist. gave them free rein to express their opinions, but asked them par-
We
ticularly
consider whether, from their special perspectives,
to
exploration
is
the American people in particular. In will give a
space
human race in general and for brief, we hope that this symposium
a desirable pursuit for the
new
focus to the discussion about the American efforts in
space.
The space race already has
lost
some
of
its
ful of persons into orbit, a feeling
too
much
is
being
made
is
of astronauts
At a time when more than a hand-
novelty.
neither the Russians nor the Americans have launched
already beginning to develop that
and cosmonauts, and that a mere
circling of the earth in a space vehicle hardly warrants
much
excitement.
Thus, the enthusiasm about men in space— whether they be Americans or Russians— appears to have waned. For the first time, questions are being asked about the desirability and utility of the space enterprise. Initially, when the Russians appeared to have all of the technical advantages and all the luck in their space efforts, there was wide support in the United States for the American attempts to catch up. The question of whether we ought to try to conquer space was bypassed as unworthy of further consideration, because the answer,
it
was
felt,
was
so obviously affirm-
ative.
As long
as the
conquest of space was (and
is)
considered merely in
between the U.S. and U.S.S.R., the only problems concerning it worth discussing were whether we were going about this conquest in the right way, whether the nation was getting its money's worth, and whether the Americans would succeed in beating the Russians. In this spirit, expenditures for rocketry and all the other appurtenances needed to send men and instruments, first to the moon and
the light
of'
a race
Symposium on Space then to the planets, were approved with alacrity by the Congress as well by the general public.
as
In recent months, however, either because the American achievements to match those of the Russians, or because the mere passage of time seems to make adventures in space less exciting, some
seem more nearly
doubts about the American space program are beginning to be voiced. Most criticism is directed against the eflForts to send men to the moon (Project Apollo). "Anybody who would spend 40 billion dollars in a race
moon for national prestige is nuts," said former President EisenhowSome critics question other aspects of the space program. What may we expect to learn about the moon and the planets by visiting them? What more can we learn about these heavenly bodies from human obto the er.
be learned by sending up highly sophisticated instruments? What are the costs which the United States is going to have to bear during the next few decades in order to reach its goals? Are these servers than can
costs tures,
affect
commensurate with the expected results? How are the expendiin money, in manpower, and in technological resources, going to other national goals of the United States? These are just a few of
the questions raised.
it
Our symposium concerns
the desirability of space exploration, but
deals only indirectly with
many
tions. It is
and
Should they be kept from asks:
What
of the scientific
directed to the basic principles behind
men engage it? What are
in the
and economic ques-
all
human
enterprise,
conquest of space? Indeed, can
the long-range results of this enterprise?
conquering space have on mankind? What effects would result from failure? Are the gains worth the risk? Our symposium tries to evaluate man's ventures into space from this point effect will success in
of view.
Technological considerations cannot, of course, be entirely eliminated from any debate about space exploration, and so they find their way into these essays. But they play a subordinate role here, the central question always being— Is space exploration good for man? Conversely, some consideration of the value of the space effort to mankind, not based on military or technological grounds, also finds its way into discussions dealing with the scientific and engineering principles behind the effort. Thus, in Part III of this book, in the article dealing with the year's advances in physical sciences and technology, we have one physicist questioning the U.S. Man-in-Space program, while another one defends it. This discussion, as well as the more technical matters concerning rockets
and
satellites, will
be found on pp. 279-357.
HERBERT). MULLER, bom
in
New
Mamaroneck,
he has taught
at Cornell
he in
in
history, including is
1905. Educated at Cornell University,
and Purdue, and
fessor at Indiana University.
on
one of America's best known historians, was
York, in
The Uses
He
is
is
now
Distinguished Service Pro-
the author of several widely read works
of the Past
and The Loom
completing a three-part history of freedom. The
the Ancient World, history,
won
philosophv,
Western World, appeared
Modern World,
is
in
At present,
volume. Freedom
Kappa award for the best work The second volume. Freedom in the February-, 1963, and the third. Freedom in the
the 1962 Phi Beta
and
of History. first
religion.
in preparation.
To
a good positivist,
I
suppose, the question whether man's conquest
of space has increased or diminished his stature
ingless.
about
This kind of "stature" unverifiable,
it is
is
simply mean-
wholly subjective, any speculation
is
and the question
Or
is
only another distraction from
was told, with some by a distinguished mathematician whose opinion I asked. the serious business of thought.
To
so
a historian, however, the question
more important because stature has
been a
live
it
irritation,
I
quite meaningful,
is
all
the
cannot be answered with assurance. Man's
issue
ever since the rise of
modem
science,
which has profoundly transformed his thought and feeling about himself. Today it brings up the very difficult but still practical problem of keeping abreast of our knowledge, trying to understand the extraordinary
we have been
history
making.
And
to
me
the irritation of the positivist
suggests the most extraordinary thing about the conquest of space— that
apparently
it
does not strike most Americans as really extraordinary.
They were obviously excited by the feats of our astronauts, but my impression was that they felt essentially like spectators at a sporting event or another Hollywood super-feature. Rocketing around the earth was only the latest wonder in an age for which wonders have become routine. Ordinary Americans might be baffled by the question we are discussing here, or consider
it
merely academic.
what excited them was not the feats of Man— it was the feats of Americans. We were catching up with those Russians. The godless Russians seem much prouder of the conquest of space as a
More
precisely,
human
purely
the Cold
triumph, but otherwise
War- the
it
is
chiefly another incident in
really important affair of our time.
How
the rest
world feels about the triumph I cannot be sure, except for one everywhere are not simply throwing out their chests. Whatever pride they may take in the latest demonstration of the fantastic power that the human race has achieved is mingled with dread of the of the
thing:
uses
Men
men may make
assume
men
in
of this power.
Such
possibilities bring
up what
I
our main concern. The pertinent question is not so much how general do feel about this feat as how they ought to feel, in
is
view of the past history and the possible future of the human race. Now, only one who is certain of the future, or of the meaning of man's history, can give a simple, positive answer. For the rest of us nothing would seem more obvious than the complexities and ambiguities of modern history; but nothing is harder to keep clearly, steadily in view.
The conquest
of space plainly does heighten the stature of 5
man by
a
Symposium on Space crowning demonstration of his amazing capacities and of achievements that writers are now disposed to sHght— apparently because they are not plain enough. It is also a striking demonstration of mighty forces that have tended to belittle man, and now threaten to end his history— though most ordinary Americans and Russians seem not to have been suflBciently struck by these tendencies. On both counts the oversights suggest a want of historical sense, especially because our age is supposed to be very historical-minded. So I think it might help to begin with a backward look.
way back
to the magic of prehistoric man. His artigrew more elaborate, and seemingly compulsive, as his culture developed. Although we can never be sure of his mentality, his belief in magic most likely had an ambivalent effect, confirming at once his fear of the unknown and his confidence that he knew it well enough to bend it to his own purposes. At least these dual tendencies became more marked with the rise of civilization. By this time men had learned a great deal, they had achieved remarkable technological feats, and presumably they felt bigger, as certainly they built bigger; yet they also developed a still more elaborate magic, which they failed to distinguish clearly from their empirical knowledge, and their monumental architecture testified to their belief in their utter dependence on the
Iet
^
us go
all
the
facts indicate that
gods.
it
The Greeks stand out
as the first
people to arrive at a clear con-
ception of natural causes and a conscious faith in man's
own powers
of
mind, without benefit of magic or supernatural aid— a faith that to early
seemed the deadly sin of pride, since they knew that only by God had man any stature. Even so, the pride of the Greeks was not overweening by modern standards. Their poets constantly warned them of the dangers of hubris; in their classical prime they took it for granted that man was a mortal animal, and they added no divine cubit to his stature by endowing him with an immortal soul. At no time did they entertain visions of earthly progress or indefinite improvement Christians
the grace of
of the
human
Hence
condition.
in this respect, too, the rise of
modern
science in the seven-
teenth century signified a revolution in thought. But because obviously heightened men's confidence in their
own
powers,
we
it
most
should
note that their possibly sinful pride was
still rather different from that most Americans and Russians today. Although Francis Bacon trumpeted the power that science could give man over nature, and foresaw the wondrous inventions that would come from it, men in general were not dazzled by visions of its practical utility and did not at once set about
of
applying their
new knowledge
to technology.
Enthusiasm was
stirred
rather by a purely intellectual feat, an apparent growth in mental or spir-
FroEL CASTRO EMBRACING RUSSL\X COSMONAUT GAGARIN The godless Russians seem much prouder of the conquest of space as a purehj
itual
up
in
human
triumph, hut otherwise
it is
chiefly another incident in the cold tear
symbolized by Newton's grand theory. Alexander Pope's well-known couplet:
stature,
It
was summed
Nature and Nature's law lay hid in night: said, Let Newton be! and all was hght.
God
The new confidence
in
man's powers of mind bred the singular idea
of progress, a faith such as
virtue of man's
no previous society had ever had, that by
own efforts the future would be ever men were not yet thinking primarily of
better than the
a material prog-
but again Rather they conceived a progress in civility, through reason and knowledge, by the standards of their "Age of Enlightenment." With this faith came more optimistic ideas about the nature of man that are especially pertinent for us, since they had much to do with the rise of depast;
ress.
mocracy.
Man was
conceived as an essentially rational animal, or at
enough to be capable of self-government; by the same token he was no longer essentially a fallen creature of Original Sin but naturally good, or at least good enough to be fit for freedom. From the least rational
ancient doctrine of "natural law," a universal principle of justice that in
the Enlightenment seemed confirmed by Newtonian law, thinkers
now
drew the corollary of "natural rights," the rights of all men to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Thomas Jefferson, the foremost champion of
common men, most
clearly indicated
7
how much
their increased polit-
Symposium on Space ical stature
owed
to science, in particular to his "great Trinity"— Bacon,
Newton, and Locke. We must now add that few men really understood the work of Newton, which for ordinary men was only a more difficult form of magic, and that the whole optimistic faith of the Enlightenment rested on a good deal of confusion. I believe that all of us who still hold to the ideals of a free society are logically and morally committed to the essentials of this faith, but for this reason we need at once to discount it. From
modern science has bred persistent, often wild misunderBacon had a crude idea of the inductive method that he expected would work all the miracles described in New Atlantis, his essay the beginning standing.
The spreading idea that was a progress was not based on a critical, empirical study of history, but was supported by a contempt as well as an ignorance of most of the past before God had decided— it would seem arbitrarily— to let Newton be. There was no logical connection between natural law as formulated by Newton and the rights of man, which hardly looked natural in view of man's history. The universe that he made so beautifully clear was due to get more mysterious than it had ever been before. Pope's couplet would inspire one by a modern poet: in science fiction. (See Vol. 30, pp. 199-214.)
human
history
It did not last: the Devil, howling Ho! Let Einstein be! restored the status quo.^
But in particular we have now to deal with the basic ambiguities or paradoxes involved in the triumph of science, the modern counterpart of the ambivalence of prehistoric magic. These did not
become
fully
apparent until the nineteenth century. Applied science then spurred the astounding development of technology, the immense increase in material wealth and power— the meaning of progress to most Americans. The
became a commonplace in all the advanced Western For many men it was supported by the theory of evolution, from which they drew the inference that progress was the law of nature as well as of history, and therefore in effect automatic, guaranteed. "Always toward perfection is the mighty movement," Herbert Spencer proclaimed. Yet the theory of evolution depressed many other men, even apart from the initial emphasis on the endless, bloody struggle for survival. It suggested that man had not been specially created as the lord of this earth, but was only an advanced form of ape, a latecomer on the animal scene. It recalled the pessimistic implications of modem science from the outset, the reasons why it might lessen the stature of idea of progress countries.
man by making him feel insignificant in the cosmos it revealed. Churchmen who attacked the heretical faith in science and in progress still 1
Reprinted by permission from Collected Poems by
Company
Ltd.
J.
C. Squire, Macmillan and
Herbert
J.
Muller
upheld the very proud belief that the universe had been created primarily for the sake of man; but since the Copemican theory had been estabhshed, man no longer lived at the center of the universe, and he found it harder to maintain so exalted an idea of his importance. In the seventeenth century Pascal most eloquently expressed the paradoxes of the human condition in the hght of the new knowledge. Man was not simply insignificant or vile; though he was "but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature," he was nevertheless a "thinking reed" (Pensees, 347; Vol. 33, p. 233b); he knew the universe that crushed him, he alone was aware of the immensities that dwarfed him. But therein lay his curse, a torment unkno\\Ti to the rest of the creation. Pascal himself was the more tormented because, while he beheved that thought made the dignity of man, he had the most vivid awareness of the limitations of reason. The human mind was always hable to error and folly; it could not really comprehend the extremes of the infinitely great and the infinitely small between which men lay, or the mysterious mixture of spirit and clay in his own nature; it could never know the final, absolute truth it always sought. In particular, reason could not prove what for Pascal was the all-important truth— the existence of God. So he devoted his own brilhant mind to combating the skepticism that was spreading with the scientific spirit; and in his anguish he also expressed most eloquently the reasons for doubt.
the Inways
nineteenth century, Pascal's worst fears were realized, but in
more paradoxical than he
anticipated.
On
much more
the one hand, the
doubt and dependent on God. On the other hand, it generated tendencies that undermined its own faith in reason, and that deprived man of the dignity and stature Pascal had accorded him. From the mechanistic Newtonian universe that had enthralled men by its perfect regularity, thinkers now drew out logical imphcations of determinism that denied man any real freedom. He was often represented as merely a creature of heredity and environment, whose behavior was governed by the same physico-chemical laws that governed the rest of the animal world. Social analysts concentrated on the impersonal, non-rational processes that determined his history. With Freud came much more awareness of the power of the positively irrational, which has been manifested all too plainly in recent history. In this century behaviorists and social scientists have concentrated still more on mechanical, involuntary, or conditioned behavior, if only to look more Hke pure scientists, on a par with physicists. For all such reasons modem literature has notoriously been given over to pessimism. Many writers have dwelt on the insignificance of man and the ultimate triumphant advance of science led to disbehef, while it also made men feel
meaninglessness of his
life in
religious
less
a universe utterly indiflFerent to him; 9
many
Symposium on Space
MILDRED DUNNOCK AND LEE
On
J.
COBB IN DEATH OF A SALESMAN
and Hamlet have dwindled Willy Loman, a salesman
the tragic stage, Oedipus Rex into
others have belittled
little
him by dwelling
chiefly
on his own meanness as
a slave to banal convention, vulgar desire, or neurotic fear.
On
the tragic
Rex and Hamlet have dwindled into Willy Loman, a salesman. Needless to add, no sophisticate today speaks of "progress" except as a theme of derision. And all this in an era when man has been literally surpassing his dreams, when science fiction has become fact! Jaded as we all tend to be, I think that the first and last word is properly one of awe over the conquest of space. At least we might try to realize how wonderful this feat is by the standards of even our boastful fathers. At the beginning of our century men were proud that they could circumnavigate the earth in two or three months, a voyage that had once taken years, and that no society before ours had ever accomplished. Now they can rocket around their earth in little more than an hour, and can count on flying to the moon and back in a day or so— an idea that once would have seemed as fantastic as cows jumping over the moon. This might remind stage Oedipus
us, too, that science is
itself
has long stirred the imagination of
men
because
it
a highly imaginative enterprise, a spiritual adventure—not the
cold, impious, materialistic business that
10
many
literary
men
of today
Herbert
make
it
out to be.
I
J.
Muller
propose to venture some speculation on the awesome a word on behalf of the unfashion-
possibilities of the future, first risking
able idea of progress.
Yet in awe—which properly includes fear as well as wonder— one has immediately to face up to the worst possibilities. Respect for the stature that man has achieved calls for stress chiefly on the growing menaces to his dignity,
now even
to his survival. It
would seem unnecessary to power he has
point out the plainest menace, the terrible destructive
acquired through science; but the fact remains that
men have
not really
taken this to heart in their political behavior, and none of us can be sure that
we
will escape the catastrophe of nuclear war.
when America
We
are
no
safer
Defense Department, but only six million— or about a hundredth of one per cent— to its Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. One is unfortunately obliged to spell out other obvious reasons for alarm, which never seem obvious enough.
To
devotes
fifty billion dollars
a year to
its
begin with, the driving motives in the conquest of space are of scientific. The American program for landing a man on
course not
the
moon
as soon as possible
is
The problems
it
the Russians. scientifically
much
less
primarily a feverish effort to keep
up with
poses are chiefly matters of engineering,
important than the researches going on in genet-
It may cost, I gather, from twenty to thirty billions over the next few years; and one can scarcely imagine Congress authorizing anything like such an expenditure for basic scientific research. Or for medical research, or any program to improve the nation's health; or for education itself. The conquest of space might do more to increase man's stature were it not a plain distraction from much more pressing needs, a reminder of how far we are from mastering life on our own earth. The rest of the world is unlikely to rejoice in the high estate of man while the overwhelming majority of men remain in a primitive state, often on a wretchedly low standard of Hving, with countless millions simply not getting enough to eat; but Congress would dismiss as reckless extravagance any proposal to spend a few billions on efforts to combat the menace of over-population. Overfed Americans may feel more vicarious pride in their man on the moon (saving the millions of neurotics and alcoholics, the millions more of worried old folk and unemployed); only there is no telling where those Russians will be by then. Or where we are right now. The crucial decisions about the space program—as about the whole mihtary program— are perforce made by a very few men, in America no less than in Russia, on the basis of secret information not available to the rest of us. "Man" may be getting greater, but men may feel smaller, more helpless, because ever more dependics,
biochemistry, theoretical physics, etc.
11
Symposium on Space ent on decisions in which they have ever less say. Moreover, the essential
would not be comprehensible to most of us anyone know almost nothing of the workings of rockets, have only a dim idea of how the conquest of space was managed, and I cannot judge the program in terms either of scientific value or of possible military necessity; I must depend on the judgment of scientists I respect. And though such dependence on authority is nothing new in history, it points to a cost of civilization that has grown much heavier in our technical information
way.
I
for
massive technological
civilization,
and that may
intensify the individual's
so much more than the how much better they knew their little world than we can ever hope to know ours: knew their fellows, their tools, their status, their traditions, their gods, their magic— just who they were, where they stood, what they were up against, how they had to behave, when and why they had to submit. In the immense complexity and confusion of our society we have to trust to our experts, while we know that they are fallible mortals, that about economic, social, and political problems they never can agree, and that finally we are all in feeling of insignificance or impotence.
prehistoric villagers,
the
same
we may
Knowing
forget
boat, in uncharted seas, under perpetually stormy skies.
In particular the conquest of space points to the
terrific, irreversible,
modern technology. Even apart from the compulsions Cold War, there is no calling a halt to it; the momentum that technological development has gained makes it almost automatic, at once ultra-dynamic and oddly rigid. It dictates space programs just as it dictates the mechanization of everything possible. Likewise it requires our immense social machinery, the giant organizations in both business and government, and keeps on impelling the tendency for everything to grow bigger— except all the little men in or under the organizations. Technology remains the plainest source of the power and the pride of modern man, the growing stature of the race collectively, and needless to add, it is now absolutely indispensable to the maintenance of our civilization, with its enormously increased population; but for this reason it threatens to become ever more an end than a means, more the master than the servant of men, reducing human beings to mere functions in a regimented process, interchangeable cogs suitably identified by punch cards. The whole drive is perfectly symbolized by the latest development, automation—itself a rather dreadful word, emphasizing the mechanical, automatic aspects of the process. It is said that the complicated machinery being designed for space research should in time prove useful for other purposes, introduce a new era of automation. Some Americans may be dismayed by the news that most likely we will not send men to Mars after all; machines will be able to do all the necessary exploration, while computing machines will digest their reports. Other Americans are beginning to worry over the millions of men at home who will be irresistible drive of
of the
12
Herbert
J.
Mullet
BOATMEN ON THE YANGTZE RIVER world is unlikely to rejoice in the high estate of man while the overwhelming majority of men live in a primitive state
The
rest of the
deprived of their jobs,
any
case,
we
left
with useless
skills,
or without functions. In
must expect automation. Efficiency demands
it.
of a country spent on the space program, The tendency exemplify the compulsive schoolrooms, slums and short on in
billions
to sacrifice basic
human needs
chanical eflBciency.
on
this earth,
They
call
for the sake of material
still
full
power and me-
attention to an apparent emptiness of
a kind of purposelessness beneath the tremendous
to achieve practical purposes in a society in
wisdom. As Robert Hutchins observed,
it
life
effort
which know-how passes
for
appears that Americans can-
not tell where they are going or how well they are doing until they have been assured that they are keeping up with the Russians, or at least not 13
Symposium on Space So one may wonder again about what they thought excitement over the feats of their astronauts. How capacity do they have for reflection, wonder, awe? For appre-
falling too far behind.
and
felt after
much
the
initial
ciation of the old-fashioned values of civility
and enlightenment, the
ends to which science was at first hailed as a means? They cannot be expected to understand modern science, but do they cherish spiritual
the scientific
spirit,
of creativity apart
comes back
the pursuit of truth for
from
all
its
thought of whether
to the old question
about our brave
own it
sake?
Or
the joys
"pays"? In short, one
new
world:
What
kind
of people in it?^
The many millions who were on their TV sets spend many more hours a week staring at trivial or tawdry programs. Their favorite pastimes suggest a dependence on mechanical aids for passing the time, or for escaping boredom, escaping as well the effort of thought, the source of man's dignity. But most depressing is the judgment of those who are supposed to know Americans best— the advertisers, the controllers of the mass media. Their sales methods scarcely imply that the ordinary American is a mature, rational, responsible person. Often they treat him as a simple dope, who will be impressed by the patently insincere testimonials of beauty queens, ballplayers, and other such persons of distinction. Otherwise they exploit chiefly his fear of not keeping up with the Joneses, or not being well adjusted to other unthinking Americans. And when they boast of him (if only because he is a faithful consumer), The
plainest evidence
is
not heartening.
thrilled as they followed the astronauts
they are likely to betray their
own low
standards of
human
dignity or
Thus one New York executive, in the course of a defense Madison Avenue, proudly reported that Americans spend three billion dollars a year on culture. In other words, they spend less than one per cent of the national income on a primary means to self-enlargement, or simply to the possession of a real self, a mind of one's own. Now they are spending more on their space program, while their Congress refused to appropriate a few millions for the maintenance of a cultural center in the nation's capital. The exploration of outer space is more important stature.
of
than the enrichment of inner
lives.
one must add, cannot be met by the kind of crash program that may do for technological purposes. Since eminent scientists have called for the creation of a "science of survival," I assume that the rest of us ought to know that strictly there can be no such science. Together with all possible wisdom and good will, we should of course try to bring all available knowledge to bear on our problems; but in wisdom we should never hope to come up with scientific solutions. To All such problems,
2 "O brave new world, That has such people in
't"
(Shakespeare, The Tempest, Vol. 27, p. 547a).
14
Herbert
J.
Muller
PHILHABMONIC HALL AT LINCOLN CENTER, NEW YORK CITY Americans
.
.
.
spend
less
than one per cent of the national income on a primary means
to self-enlargement, or simply to the possession of a real self, a
mind
of one's
own
such a pooling of knowledge a "science" may well be good policy, means of impressing both government and public. It might also confirm the popular misunderstanding of science as a form of guaranteed call
as a
magic, the popular ignorance of the limits of science, and the confusions that have
marked
its
whole history and that now generate much pseudo-
science.
Nevertheless, scientists.
I
should emphasize chiefly the high seriousness of these
Since the unleashing of nuclear power, no profession has dis-
played a more urgent sense of social responsibility. Scientists are cooperating with their fellows all over the world, in the name of duty to "mankind"— a concept that spread in the Age of Enlightenment, and that has
become more meaningful than
it
when men knew human race. Their about what men must
ever could be
nothing about most of the globe or the history of the international conferences
do
in
which the "must"
may
issue statements
glides too easily into "will," but even so they
recall us to the exceptionally live sense of possibility that
guishes our society.
lenge"— a word that called for
upon
we
to rise to
no past society
still
distin-
symbolized by the characteristic word "chalhave reason to be weary of, as every day we are
It is
some challenge, but
in crisis, to
my
that
is
none the
less significant;
knowledge, kept ringing with such a
word. This in turn brings up the novel idea of progress, the source of 15
Symposium on Space our feeling of greater potentiality. It brings me back to the positive achievements from which our problems have arisen, and which I think too
many
now
writers
general, In ical. It
disparage or ignore.
criticism of
is
American
too easy, or at least
life
has
much
itself
exact justice, perhaps even simple justice. As
broad
we may
generalities,
who
pretty
we
mechan-
perforce deal in very
forget that the "ordinary American"
abstraction, like the sociological monster
(the one
become
easier than doing anything like
known
has two and one-half children).
is
a pure
as the "average It
man"
conceals the innum-
erable diflFerent kinds of Americans, with their innumerable varieties
and
degrees of interest, aptitude, and aspiration, which incidentally nourish enough independence of spirit to keep advertisers worried. Likewise the standard complaints of our "standardized mass society" obscure
its
unparalleled heterogeneity and mobility, the remarkable range of choice
and opportunity
it oflFers,
including ample provision for
In this pluralistic society intellectuals
may
still
fairly
its
many
critics.
complain of the
popular disposition to measure stature chiefly by success in business (even a man's "worth" by how many dollars he possesses), and of the common hostility to them as highbrows, eggheads, pinkoes; but they might be flattered even by this hostility, which implies that they have
some
real influence. As a class they in fact have a considerably larger audience than their fellows had in past societies, and nowhere do they get more financial support than they get in America. Voices crying in the modern wilderness may be subsidized by foundations, broadcast in
paperbacks. They tial
may
cry cliches
if
only because they have so substan-
and ready an audience.
In particular, of our history.
it is
We
necessary to keep an eye on the basic ambiguities
are dealing with the inescapable costs of real goods,
beginning with a material well-being that we too easily take for granted. Few of us would change places with the illiterate, poverty-stricken peasants who throughout history, as in "spiritual" India today, have made
up the great bulk of mankind. We should now add that much of their more intimate knowledge of their world was illusion or fearful superstition, and that their magic was less effective than our technology, which today all the rest of the world is eager to adopt. We have then to pay a price as well for all our scientific knowledge of man and his world, as I indicated at the outset, and especially for our fuller, more acute self-consciousness, which can be as painful as it is fruitful. Our pains are in part growing pains, due to a real growth in stature; for in the long view, man's history has in some fundamental respects unquestionably involved a progress, intellectual as well as material— even religious,
if
emerged
we have any
respect for the so-called higher religions that
late in his history. Since the rise of
16
modem
science and the
Herbert
J.
Muller
we tend to regard as intolerable many once were taken as a matter of course, and in general to judge our society in the light of higher expectations than men ever entertained
attendant growth of free societies, evils that
Among other things, we are demanding more of that "ordinary" man, who in the past was expected only to toil and to obey. The ordinary, conventional, routine life— the kind of life that almost all men have lived at all times and that can be decent enough— now strikes many before.
writers as simply dreary, indecent, almost inhuman.
As for the specific problems I have touched on, I do not for a moment wish to minimize their gravity, especially because there is no sure-fire solution for them; but again I see some need of discounting fashionable attitudes. Angst has become a rage, almost a cult. At literary gatherings I have heard other writers and thinkers dismissed with a single sentence —"He doesn't suffer from anxiety"; so I gather that anxiety is the badge of intellectual responsibility, if not of spiritual health. At the same time, I
The plight of the sensitive commonly made more grievous by
get an impression of a good deal of self-pity.
man
in the dreadful
modem
world
is
sentimentality over simplified, idealized views of the past.
It
seems
necessary to remark that one can find plenty of signs of anxiety in the
"golden ages," such as Periclean Athens, the Renaissance, the Elizabe-
than Age, and the Age of Louis XIV, and above all in the Middle Ages, the "Age of Faith." From Dante on, Europe has never lacked for writers
who
believed that their society was
As one who
is
damned
or
doomed.
not confident of the future and has not the faintest de-
the moon, but is still proud to be a member of the human even pleased to have hved in this era, I venture the commonplace that we perforce keep living on the assumption that our world may not end, and we might better go on thinking of the menaces as "challenges." There remains the possibihty that we are living in the dawn of a new era, in which man might measure up to his scientific and technological achievements, master the One World created by these achievements. The extraordinary problems we face have called out as extraordinary creative responses. Aware of the grave shortcomings of the United Nations, sire to fly to
race,
we may
forget that
the degree of lize
its
much more
surprising in a historical perspective
success, as for the
what had been only a dream
first
of
time
some
men
visionaries.
The many
tional congresses of intellectuals are likewise as novel in their
concern for
human
rights, the
is
are attempting to reainterna-
common
once revolutionary principle of the Rights
may seem immediately, they accentuate the fact that to every problem we bring intellectual as well as material resources beyond the ken of men in the past, and first of all a clearer, of
Man. However
fuller
futile
they
awareness of both problem and possibility, a habit of efforts at Hence every reason for alarm stirs widespread alarm,
rational control.
which may or may not be
effective,
but in any case gives some reason for 17
Symposium on Space
The growing concern over the massive pressures to conformity, for example, might remind us that no previous society ever worried so much
hope.
over such pressures; for until recent centuries thinkers were generally
unconcerned about threats to individuality, if aware of them at all, and were as generally disposed to prize conformity in all ordinary men. this dual view, Inrange possibilities
finally, I
indulge in some speculation about the long-
of the exploration of space. Although not qualified
to speak of the scientific prospects,
have heard expressed by planet of unimaginably science fiction
I
could appreciate the excitement
I
on another difiPerent forms of life— and their resentment of writers who keep imagining creatures superficially fanbiologists over the possible discovery
but basically like ourselves. More remote, I should think, are the communicating by radio signal with other beings in outer space; yet nuclear physicists are taking such possibilities quite seriously, even going so far as to design a formula for sending out pictures of our life. (Professor Philip Morrison, author of the formula, thinks it "very probable" that some community in our galaxy is communicating over vast tastic
possibilities of
and waiting
distances
know
that there
ceivably
more
may
to
add our earth
to
its
well be other beings
intelligent than we.
mailing
all
list.)
At
least
we
over the universe, con-
Given the enormous number of
stars,
the mathematical chances are that the combination of physical condi-
made possible the emergence of life on our planet has occurred on some millions of planets, and ours is a relatively young one. Such probabilities are strong enough to force a question of some immediate tions that
man— a question that is already being pondered by religious thinkers, such as Paul Tillich, and that recalls the ambiguous consequences of the rise of science. Briefly, what comes of the Christian view that the key to the meaning of life was the appearance on earth of Christ, "the Lord of the universe"? Did he perhaps appear on other planets millions of years before man evolved? Or is he only a local religious symbol of a divinity better apprehended by beings elsewhere, possibly beings who were not cursed by original sin? Hindus might suggest that their concept of an immanent God or World Soul is better suited than a personal God for such multifarious cosmic purposes, and might remind Christians that they pertinence for the stature of
still a small minority on this earth. A skeptic might add that more advanced beings may well have outgrown the need of religion, if they
are
ever
knew
it
at
all.
Presumably, simple believers will be dismayed by such questions, which their Bible hardly prepares them for. Thoughtful men may feel more keenly the insignificance of man's relatively brief history, on an undistinguished planet hardly worthy of special divine attention; or they
may
recall Carlyle's
remark
as
he gazed 18
at the stars:
"A sad
spectacle!
Herbert If
J.
Muller
they be inhabited, what a scope for folly and
evil; if
they be not in-
habited,
what a waste
scientific
conquest of time and space a healthy challenge to religion, and
of space!" Paul Tillich, however, considers the
concludes that Christianity cannot afford to withdraw into swers:
it
too must dare to ask
new
its
old an-
questions, to transcend our earth
our history, "even our Christianity."
I
and
should think that believers might
once exalted and humbled by the thought that God has suitably populated some other of the billions of planets, since otherwise the feel at
immensity of the universe might seem pointless. Unbelievers might reman is not so lonely after all in a cosmos made richer, grander, by other forms of life throughout vast reaches once thought cold and dead. All might be edified by the old story of the poet
joice in the thought that
who was
told that astronomically speaking,
replied: "Astronomically speaking,
Returning to
this earth,
man may end
man
we have
is
man was
insignificant.
He
the astronomer."
always to face the all-too-real possi-
Few will rejoice at the thought that crowning evidence of his Godlike power and stature—he is now able to do on his own what it once took God to do with a flood. Religion, let us add, can tell us nothing for certain about his immediate prospects on earth. Nor can science; it can only give us warnings about the wonderful, awful powers it continues to increase. Even the leaders of Russia —seemingly the most confident men today, the proudest of modern man's stature— acknowledge that a nuclear war might prevent the happy ending guaranteed by their Marxist gospel. Yet such uncertainty always inbility that
his history.
this is
volves the real possibility that avert
it
men may
avert catastrophe.
They may
directly out of simple fear, a sign of their littleness, but in part
too because of their qualities of greatness— intellectual, moral, spiritual.
Or just because of the simplest paradox of the human know they are going to die and yet go on living as if
spirit:
that all
men
they weren't, or go
on planting, making, creating things to outlive them, maybe daring or dying in order to win a mortal fame, and now maybe thrilling at the thought of conquering New Worlds instead of merely a new continent; though whatever their stature, they will end in a plot of earth as small as that which covered the bones of their nameless, prehistoric, magichaunted ancestors.
19
ALDOUS HUXLEY,
world-famous
born
in
Surrey,
in
T. H. Huxley.
England,
Educated
at
1894,
essayist
novelist,
the
grandson
and
the
of
was
critic,
great
biologist
Eton College and Oxford University, he began
his literary career as a poet, but soon turned to writing novels.
He
has written
more than a dozen novels, including Antic Hay, Point Counter Point (probably his
most widely read early work), and Brave
of a scientific "utopia." is
now
living in
interested
him
is
in
He
New
World, a frightening picture
emigrated to the United States in the 1930's, and
southern California. For
Eastern philosophy and
many
years he has been deeply
mysticism,
evident in several of his later novels and
has participated in
and
their
essays.
influence
More
experiments with "mind-changing" drugs.
upon
recently,
He
he
has dis-
cussed these experiences and their implications in The Doors of Perception and
Heaven and
Hell.
Among
his latest
works are Brave
Island, a study in "positive utopianism."
New World
Revisited and
man's conquest of space increased or diminished HasThese ten simple words are pregnant with almost
as
his stature?"
many major
problems in semantics. First of all, who or what is the "man" whose conquest of space is under discussion? The word "man" stands, in different contexts, for at least three distinct entities. Sometimes it stands for the species as a whole—for all the three thousand million specimens
Homo
of
pected
sapiens at present inhabiting our planet, and confidently ex-
(unless
something extraordinarily bad or miraculously good less than forty
should happen in the interval ) to double their numbers in years. In other contexts
"man" denotes the product
of acculturation—
the symbol-manipulating, tradition-following, tool-using
Homo
And
faber and
loquax of anthropology and history. Western Man, Oriental Man,
Man, Christian Man, Post-Historic Man— for some come trippingly oflF innumerable tongues. the word "man" may stand for the human individual, male or
Modern Man, years
Homo
Primitive
now such
finally
phrases have
female, black, white, or yellow, the psycho-physical organism that actually does the living, the procreating,
we
are
now
talking about
is
and the dying. "Man"— and what
the unique, unrepeatable person,
who may
Gautama Buddha, like Newton or the homme moyen sensuel or the village idiot. "Man"— and now we have entered the subjective world and are naming the locus one of the three billion loci of unshareably private experiences. "Man"— and we are back again in a relatively public universe, recommending virtue to an inheritor of antisocial instincts, and preaching sweet reason to a compound of id, ego, behave
like Hitler or
(
and superego, which
is
particular culture into
which
Many
at
)
once the beneficiary and the victim of the it happens to have been bom.
most powerfully persuasive effects of theoand historico-philosophical literature are obtained by enunciating huge generalizations about "man," arguing from these propositions as though they were self-evident major premises, and logical,
of the choicest, the
ethico-prophetic,
triumphantly reaching foregone conclusions— all without informing the reader (for that would spoil everything) in which sense, at any given stage of the argument, the
use of double
talk,
any
word "man"
skillful
is
being used. By
this systematic
writer can easily arrive at whatever meta-
may wish
to reach. People who sprinkle Anglo-Saxon scatology or pornography are prosecuted. But, as a matter of plain historical fact, unambiguous four-letter smut has done incomparably less harm in the world than the studied ambiguous use of such three-letter multi-purpose words
physical or ethical destination he
their prose with the monosyllables of
21
Symposium on Space "man" and "god," or that grand five-letter heretic-burner and crusadestarter, "Truth"— with the largest possible capital T. In which of its meanings, we now inquire, is the word "man" being as
used in our question about the effects on "man's stature" of "man's conquest of space"? There is nothing in the question itself to indicate which kind of "man" is being talked about. But we may assume, I think, that all three principal meanings of the word are involved. If space has in fact been "conquered," the conquest is clearly the work of acculturated man. What in fact has happened is that a very small number of Western scientists
and
technologists, using all the
enormous resources
of a
urban-industrial society, has achieved certain results, which to call the "conquest of space."
Up
we
modern choose
to the present these achievements
have been of practical significance only to a tiny handful of human beings. Neither "man," the species, nor "man," the beneficiary and victim of culture, nor yet "man," the psycho-physical organism, unique person, and locus of unshareable experiences, has as yet been discernibly affected by the exploits of Gagarin and Glenn, the collective triumphs of rocketry, guidance systems, and space medicine. These byproducts of the armament race have neither increased nor diminished the probability of nuclear war. Nor have they, as yet, contributed to human well-being or to human ill-being in other contexts than that of war. But perhaps at some future date the achievements of the engineers and scientists may be of real consequence to "man," in all the senses of that amIt will be our task, in a later paragraph, to consider some ways in which the generic, cultural, and personal statures of "man" may be increased or diminished by tomorrow's more far-reaching "conquest of space." Meanwhile, let us look a little more closely into the meaning of this suspiciously picturesque phrase.
biguous word. of the
Inter- and intra-specific conflict in the service of the instincts is as old as life itself. But exclusively intra-specific conflict, socially organized as war, justified as economic policy, and sanctified as patriotism or a crusade— this is a strictly human invention, coeval with civilization, and a by-product of acculturated man's capacity to create and worship symbols, to hypnotize himself with his own verbiage, to rationalize his ugliest passions, and then to objectify his rationalizations as gods, goals, or ideals. Metaphors drawn from war turn up in the most unexpected contexts and bear witness to the fact that, precisely because he is sapiens, faber, and loquax, acculturated man is also (and up to the present in-
Homo bellicosus. Thus, a religion professedly of love and spirinwardness gets embodied in a Church Militant. This Church Militant prays collectively to a God of Battles, recruits Christian Soldiers and
escapably ) itual
organizes
command
them
Armies and Companies Turning from the religious
in Salvation
of Generals.
22
of Jesus to the
under the intellectual
Aldous Huxley
Socially organized
and a by-product
war
is
a strictly
human
to hypnotize himself
field,
we
invention, coeval with civilization
of acculturated man's capacity to create
with his
find historians talking of the
own
march
and worship symbols,
verbiage
of ideas, the overthrow of
some system of philosophy, say, or medicine or astronomy, and the vicsome other system. And within another scientific and techno-
tory of logical
frame of reference
we
are treated to loud boasts about man's
conquest of nature, a special case of which with which we are presently concerned.
is
that conquest of space
In the ethical system of the Greeks, hubris— the overweening
bump-
tiousness of individuals or groups in their dealings with other
human
beings or with the natural order— was regarded as a very grave and, since
it
invited condign punishment, an extremely dangerous form of
delinquency.
Monotheism
de-sanctified
while hubris in relation to one's fellow in relation to the
Nature, with the result that,
man was
non-human environment
still
condemned, hubris
ceased, under the
new
dis-
pensation, to be regarded as a sacrilege or a breach of the moral code.
And even
today,
when
the consequences of our destructive bumptious-
ness are threatening, through erosion, through deforestation
and
soil
exhaustion, through the progressive pollution and depletion of water resources, to render further
human
progress ever
more
difficult,
perhaps
today the essential wickedness of man's inhumanity to Nature remains unrecognized by the official in a relatively short time impossible— even
spokesmen
of morality
and
religion,
23
by
practically
everyone, indeed,
Man, the species, is now living as a parasite upon an earth which acculturated man is in the process of conquering to the limit
except a few conservationists and ecologists. Acculturated man's "conquest of nature" goes forward at an accelerating pace— a conquest, un-
most ruthless imperialist exploiters
fortunately, analogous to that of the of the colonial period.
Man, the
an earth which acculturated limit—and the limit to
kill
is
he
man
is
all
is
now
living as a parasite
in the process of
upon
conquering to the
total destruction. Intelligent parasites take care not
their hosts; unintelligent parasites
murder and, destroying ing
species,
their
own food
push
their greed to the point of
supply,
commit
suicide. Boast-
the while of his prowess as a conqueror, but behaving, while
hookworm, man, engaged in murdering his host. It is still possible for him to give up his suicidal vampirism and to establish a symbiotic relationship with his natural environment— still possible, but admittedly (with human numbers threatening to double in boasts, less intelligently than the flea or even the
the acculturated parasite,
less
is
than forty years) very
now
busily
diflBcult.
If this
very
diflBcult
choice
is
not
made, made soon, and made successfully, acculturated man's misdirected cleverness may conquer nature too thoroughly for the survival of his own high culture, perhaps even for the survival of man, the species. 24
Aldous Huxley
The
but wholly inappropriate, military metaphor in man has chosen to speak of his parasitic relationship to our planet is now being used in relation to Russian and American successes in launching artificial satellites and putting astronauts into orbit. Space may well be infinite; and, even if finite, the universe is unimaginably vast. In a world where there are galaxies separated from our own by a distance of six billion light-years, any talk by rocket enthusiasts about "man's conquest of space" seems a trifle silly. Men will land on the moon within the next few years, and within a generation, no doubt, will land on Mars. If there is life on Mars, every round trip picturesque,
terms of which acculturated
by an astronaut
will involve grave biological dangers for all concerned.
Micro-organisms, to which living things on earth possess no inherited or acquired immunity, may be brought back from our sister planet. Conversely, living things
on Mars
may succumb
introduced by visitors from Earth. The
to the viruses
fruits of this first
and bacteria
and, in relation
whole universe, insignificant "conquest of space" might easily prove to be sudden and irreparable disaster for two biological systems, developed through three or four thousand million years of evolution. to the
And
same sort of risks would be run by earthlings visiting any life-supporting globe in any part of the universe. Acculturated man is immensely clever, and his representatives will soon be able to land an astronaut on another planet and bring him back alive. By journalists and political propagandists, this future ability has been nicknamed "the conquest of space." In what way will this "conof course the
quest of space" affect "man's stature"? Obviously, if the coming and going between planets should result in a biological disaster to
human
beings or their principal sources of
nourishment, the stature of man, the species, would be diminished— conceivably to zero. But the worst
may
never happen. Let us assume, for the made under
sake of argument, that round trips to other planets can be
completely aseptic conditions will turn out to
be immune
or, alternatively, that terrestrial
to extra-terrestrial bacteria
and
organisms viruses. In
how will the "conquest of space" affect the stature of man, the man, the product and producer of culture, and man, the unique individual and locus of unshareable experiences?
this event,
species,
Preoccupied as they are with
new worlds
Age
to conquer, the rocket en-
much-touted Space Age
thusiasts are apt to forget that their
is
also the
Exploding Populations. Like unintelligent parasites draining the lifeblood of their host, three thousand millions of human beings now live, most of them very poorly, on the surface of our planet. By the end of the twentieth century there will be, in all probability, six thousand millions, desperately trying to extract twice as much food and, if industrialization becomes general, four times as much water and at least ten times as much fossil fuel and metallic ore as are being extracted from of
25
The
rocket enthusiasts are apt to forget that their much-touted Space the Age of Exphding Populations
the earth today. is
called
down
When
Age
is
also
the attention of our high-flying rocket enthusiasts
to these simple, grisly facts of terrestrial arithmetic, they
the demographic problem of man, the species, together the social, political, and economic problems stemming from the
airily insist that
with
all
enormous and accelerating increase very simply.
How? By
shooting
in
t\\'0
human members, can be
solved
or three billion people into space
and
telling them to go and colonize some other planet. This method of increasing the stature of man, the species, by peopling other worlds with the overplus of this world's numbers was proposed many years ago by Professor J. B. S. Haldane in his Possible Worlds and
again in the Last and First Men of Olaf Stapledon. Inasmuch as their authors thought in terms of startling genetic changes and enormous
may be described as Evolutionary Utopias. Given enough time, evolution can accomplish practically anything. In the course of the last three or four billion years it has performed the almost infinitely improbable feat of developing a human being out of a giant molecule. In the future, directed by human intelligence, it might perform hardly less improbable feats in considerably shorter periods of time. But by the standards of human history, even these shorter periods will be extremely long. In the Evolutionary Utopias of Haldane and lapses of time, these books
Stapledon many thousands, even millions, of years were required for the development, by controlled breeding, of new sub-races of human beings capable of surviving and reproducing themselves in the forbidding en-
26
Aldous Huxley vironments of other planets. The rocket enthusiasts seem to imagine that migration to some wholly alien world could be undertaken, within the so, by men and women in no way different, genfrom ourselves. Being engineers and not life scientists,
next hundred years or etically speaking,
they are pretty certainly mistaken in this matter. In the present context it is
tical
the Utopian dreamers of biological dreams, not the so-called "prac-
who make
men,"
sense.
And even
in
relation to such an easily
calculable factor as expense, the rocket enthusiasts are wildly unrealistic.
To land
thousand adequately equipped colonists on ancombined budgets of the U.S.A. physically, financially, and if were it and the U.S.S.R. Morever, even politically feasible to fire off whole boatloads of emigrants into outer space, would the forcible displacement of, say, five hundred million uprooted men and women solve the primary demographic problem, or any as
other planet
few as would
five
cost several times the
of the related social, political,
and economic problems, now confronting
us? During the nineteenth century millions of Europeans emigrated to the New World; but Europe's political and economic problems were not thereby eliminated, and Europe's population went on steadily in-
though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. There seems to be no good reason for supposing that emigration to Mars will do more for Earth as a whole than emigration to the Americas and the Antipodes did for nineteenth-century Europe. We see, then, that our "conquest of space" is a conquest only in some creasing, as
picturesquely Pickwickian sense. the near future, that man,
It
seems very unlikely,
at
the species, will increase his stature
least
in
by be-
coming a cosmic imperialist. Moreover, even if cosmic imperialism should ever be within our power, the colonization of other planets will bring no automatic solution to this planet's demographic, political, and economic problems. Man, the species, might add a few cubits to his stature; but the stature of acculturated man, of the creature who, for all these centuries, has been trying to make a go of collective living, will probably remain as low as it has been in the past and is today.
word
preceding paragraphs, the Ina the word with a meaning expressible the species, should ever
"stature" has
become a cosmic number and
increase in proportion to the
been treated as Thus, if man,
in concrete terms.
imperialist, his stature will size of his extra-terrestrial
And if, in spite of the extra-terrestrial colonies, the stature of acculturated man should fail to increase, it will be because of some obcolonies.
servable and even measurable failure to solve the age-old problems of collective living here
stature"
is
on earth. But the meaning of the phrase "man's
not always expressible in concrete and measurable terms.
It
may, and in fact often does, refer to a merely notional entity— the image which acculturated man forms of himself, when he starts to philosophize, 27
Symposium on Space
In a totemistic, magic-practicing and fertility-worshiping society, "man" has the same stature as all the other denizens of a world in which everything is simultaneously natural and supernatural
way, the phrase "man's stature" stands for the fancies and human nature current at any given time and place. Thus, in a totemistic, magic-practicing, and fertihty-worshiping society, "man"
Used
in this
behefs about
(in all the senses of that
word) has the same
denizens of a world in which everything supernatural.
With the emergence
is
stature as all the other
simultaneously natural and
of self-consciousness
comes a change
man separates himself from he now assigns himself is radically to every other kind of creature. He
in metaphysical perspective. Accultm^ated
the rest of nature, and the stature different
from the stature assigned
sees himself as a
member
masterpiece of a Creator
of a species unlike all other species, the final
who
has framed the inferior world of nature and with an eye to man's moral and spiritual education. In medieval Christendom "man's stature"—the current notions, in other words, about human nature and its place in the universe— was at once gigantic and dwarfish. Man, the species, man, the beneficiary and victim of culture, man, the unique individual and locus of unshareable for man's benefit
28
Aldous Huxley experiences,
was the
central figure in a tiny spherical cosmos, constructed
expressly for the education of
human
beings and administered by a
supernatural dyarchy, with one seat of government in heaven and an-
underground, in hell. In this stuffy little all-too-human universe, words did not stand for given things; on the contrary, things stood for given words— words in the Bible or in one of the treatises of Aristotle. Nothing was studied for its own sake, but only for the sake of what it was supposed symbolically to signify. Projected into the external world, reminiscences of Roman law, Greek metaphysics, Pauline theology, Arabian astronomy, and old wives' tales of magic were rediscovered "out there" and triumphantly recognized as cosmic facts. Inasmuch as medieval man had created a world in the image of his own culturally conditioned mind, his "stature" seemed heroic. But this self-image was heroic only in relation to the windowless, artificially lighted echo-chamber which busy metaphysicians had scooped out of the totally mysterious datum of a cosmos probably infinitely extended and perhaps indefinitely other,
self-renewing. In relation to this other universe— the universe that has
gradually revealed
itself to later
observers— the "stature" of medieval
man
shrinks from the heroic to the bumptiously absurd. But, like the accul-
turated man of every other period and place, Europe's medieval man was something more and other than the victim-beneficiary of the locally current thought patterns. Medieval man was also man, the psychophysical organism, the unique person and locus of unshareable experiences. As such, he could always break out of the haunted echo-chamber that he had been taught to regard as the universe— could always escape from his notional prison into the wordless freedom of instinct and animality on the one hand, of mystical spirituality on the other. For the many there were sex, strong drink, and the recurrent orgies of a paganism that obstinately refused to die; and for the few there was the
way
of contemplation, the flight of the alone to the Alone.
What
passed
might be no more than a grotesque projection of organized ignorance bumptiously proclaiming that it was in possession of absolute Truth; but above and parallel with his notional world stretched for the universe
the boundless, unverbalized realities of unshareable subjective experience.
by
The
victim-beneficiaries of medieval culture retained their sanity
periodically de-conditioning themselves
while, centers of pure receptivity,
open
and becoming,
for a little
to the dark gods, or the gods
of light, or to both sets of deities alternately or even simultaneously.
What was done by
the prisoners of medieval European culture has been being done, by the victim-beneficiaries of every other culture. A totally acculturated man would be a monster. Sanity and humanity can be maintained only by regular escapes from culture into
done, and
is still
the unconsciousness of sleep, and by occasional conscious escapes into
"peak experiences" on the animal, aesthetic, or mystical
29
levels.
Measured
^ ^ S^^9 m1 -^-^^.-.jtti
M
!^SHK^ Fh^Hh
^^^B^S^
^^HrV' wBt^ :;^^A
^^i^^^ S^if^^H
wJ^^P^v^ Py/'S^lB'; ^QL ^^^R^P ^vviin mWf^h lajj / f-"JSf \B S«\^'^^ ^^^\w3 ^
t-' that has grown out of modem science. Every progress in science in the last decades, from the moment it was absorbed far the field of strictly scientific
and thus introduced into the factual world where we live our everyday lives, has brought with it a veritable avalanche of fabulous instruments and ever more ingenious machinery. All of this makes it more unlikely every day that man will encounter anything in the world around him that is not man-made and hence is not, in the last analysis, he himself in a different disguise. The astronaut, shot into outer space
into technology
22 Ibid., p. 24. 23 Heisenberg, The Physicist's Conception of Nature (New York: Harcourt, Brace &Co., 1958), p. 24.
45
Symposium on Space and imprisoned
in
his
instrument-ridden capsule where each actual
physical encounter with his surroundings
would
spell
immediate death,
might well be taken as the symbolic incarnation of Heisenberg's man— the man who will be the less likely ever to meet anything but himself the more ardently he wishes to eliminate all anthropocentric considerations from his encounter with the non-human world around him. seems to me, that the humanist's concern with man and the stature of man has caught up with the scientist. It is as though the sciences had done what the humanities never could have achieved, namely, to prove demonstrably the validity of this concern. The situation, as it presents itself today, oddly resembles an elaborate verification of a remark by Franz Kafka, written at the very beginning of this development: Man he said, "found the Archimedean point, but
It
is
at this point,
it
he used it against himself; it seems that he was permitted to find it only under this condition." For the conquest of space, the search for a point outside the earth from which it would be possible to unhinge, as it were, the planet itself, is no accidental result of the modem age's science. This was from its very beginnings not a "natural" but a universal science, it was not a physics but an astrophysics which looked upon the earth from a point in the universe. In terms of this development, the attempt to conquer space means that man hopes he will be able to journey to the Archimedean point which he anticipated by sheer force of abstraction and imagination. However, in doing so, he will necessarily lose his advantage. All he can find is the Archimedean point with respect to the earth, but once arrived there and having acquired this absolute power over
he would need a new Archimedean point, and so man can only get lost in the immensity of the only true Archimedean point would be the abso-
his earthly habitat,
ad
infinitum. In other words,
the universe, for lute void
behind the universe.
Yet even
if
man
recognizes that there might be absolute limits to his
it might be wise to suspect such limitations whenever it turns out that the scientist can do more than he is capable of comprehending, and even if he realizes that he cannot "conquer space," but at best make a few discoveries in our solar system, the journey into space and to the Archimedean point with respect to the earth is far from being a harmless or unequivocally triumphant enterprise. It could add to the stature of man inasmuch as man, in distinction from other living things, desires to be at home in a "territory" as large as possible. In that case, he would only take possession of what is his own, although it took him a long time to discover it. These new possessions, like all property, would have to be limited, and once the limit is reached and the limitations established, the new world view which may conceivably grow out of it is likely to be once more geocentric and anthropomorphic,
search for truth and that
46
Hannah Arendt though not in the old sense of the earth being the center of the universe and of man being the highest being there is. It would be geocentric in the sense that the earth, and not the universe, is the center and the home of mortal men, and it would be anthropomorphic in the sense that man
would count his own factual mortality among the elementary conditions under which his scientific efforts are possible at all. At this moment, the prospects for such an entirely beneficial development and solution of the present predicaments of modern science and technology do not look particularly good. We have come to our present capacity to "conquer space" through our new ability to handle nature from a point in the universe outside the earth. For this is what we actually do when we release energy processes that ordinarily go on only in the sun, or
attempt to
initiate in a test
tube the processes of cosmic
evolution, or build machines for the production
unknown
and control
of energies
household of earthly nature. Without as yet actually occupying the point where Archimedes had wished to stand, we have found a way to act on the earth as though we disposed of terrestrial nature from outside, from the point of Einstein's "observer freely poised in space." If we look down from this point upon what is going on on earth in the
and upon the various activities of men, that is, if we apply the Archimedean point to ourselves, then these activities will indeed appear to ourselves as no more than "overt behavior," which we can study with the same methods we use to study the behavior of rats. Seen from a sufficient distance, the cars in which we travel and which we know we built ourselves will look as though they were "as inescapable a part of ourselves as the snail's shell is to its occupant." All our pride in what we can do will disappear into some kind of mutation of the human race; the whole of technology, seen from this point, in fact no longer appears "as the result of a conscious
human
effort to
extend man's material powers, but rather
Under these circumstances, speech and everyday language would indeed be no longer a meaningful utterance that transcends behavior even if it only expresses it, and it would much better be replaced by the extreme and in itself meaningless formalism of mathematical signs. The conquest of space and the science which made it possible have as a large-scale biological process."-*
come est,
know
24
perilously close to this point. If they ever should reach
the stature of of, it
man would
not simply be lowered by
would have been destroyed.
Ibid., pp. 18-19.
47
all
it
in earn-
standards
we
PAUL TILLICH,
considered by
tant theologian of our time,
many
bom
was
to
be the most important Protes-
Starzeddel, Prussia, in
in
1886.
He
studied at several European universities, and received his Doctor of Philosophy
degree from the University of Breslau
World War
I,
In 1933 he
was dismissed from
am Main the
first
he taught
1911. During the period following
leading universities in Germany.
his position
University of Frankfurt
at the
because of his outspoken opposition to the Nazi regime. (He was
non -Jewish professor
to join the faculty of the
he remained
to
be so dismissed.)
He
is
the recipient of
Protestant Era,
in
accepted an invitation
New
York City, where
he has taught at Harvard and the Uni-
as well as other important honors. His
The
He
Union Theological Seminary
until 1954. Since then,
versity of Chicago.
Situation,
in
at several of the
more than a dozen honorary degrees, best-known works are The Religious
and The Courage
completing the third volume of his major
life
to
Be.
At present, he
work, Systematic Theology.
is
be discussed here has two subject The such, and the other space exploration on man
sides;
to
as
view
of himself.
The
first
seems to
one is its
call for a report
is
the
effect
of
eflFect
on man's
about man's condi-
an evaluation of man's stature as a consequence of this distinction cannot be maintained when one goes into the concrete problems which have arisen as an effect of space research and space travel. A decisive part of man's condition, as it is affected by his penetration into the space beyond the gravitational field
tion; the second, for
space exploration. But
of the earth,
is
on the basis of
his self-evaluation
this
achievement.
On
the other hand, conflicting self-evaluations are brought about by the contrast of the negative
and positive
condition. Therefore,
I
effects of
space exploration on man's
intend to deal with the problems of our subject
without any sharp demarcation between the effects of space exploration on the situation of man as such and on his view of himself. present situation the The man since the Renaissance. is
result of
many
would be
It
vent an adequate answer to our question, portant and unique
previous steps.
It
it
may
be,
if
steps
made by Western
unrealistic,
and would pre-
the last step, however im-
were considered in isolation from the and valuations if contem-
leads to a distortion of facts
porary writers overemphasize the uniqueness of the present achievement in
comparison with what has been done and thought before.
The Renaissance was not term
is
the rebirth of the ancient traditions, as the
often misunderstood, but
in all respects— religious,
it
cultural,
was the rebirth of Western society and political— with the help of the
ancient sources of the Mediterranean civilization. In this process the
were transformed in many respects because of the Christian background of the Renaissance. One of the most important transformations was the turn from the Greek contemplative and the medieval selftranscending ideals of life to the active, world-controlHng, and world-
traditions
shaping ideal. This implied a high evaluation of the technical sciences
and the begirming of that fertile interaction between the pure and the applied sciences which immensely contributed— and is still doing so—to the rapid development of both of them. There was little such interaction in Greece, the late ancient world, and the middle ages; it was something
new— not
a repetition, but a rebirth.
One may
express the situation in
three geometrical symbols: the circle, for the fulfillment of
life
and
its
cosmos in classic Greece; the vertical, for the toward what transcends the cosmos, namely, the tran-
potentialities within the
driving of
life
49
Symposium on Space scendent One, the ultimate in being and meaning, in late antiquity and in the middle ages; and the horizontal, for the trend toward the control
and transformation
of the
cosmos
in the service of
Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment.
God
The
or
man
since the
"discovery of the
is the first step of a development which space exploration is the preHminary last step. Both are victories of the horizontal over the circular and the vertical line. The transition from the vertical to the
horizontal" of
horizontal line in the determination of the telos,
the inner aim of
greatly helped
human
by the astronomy
was
existence,
of the Renais-
sance and related "utopian" literature.
The
Copernican astronomy had thrown the earth out of the center of the universe— the least divine of all places— and elevated it to the dignity of a star
same
among
other
stars.
About the
time, a highly influential philosopher,
Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, taught the im-
manence One of the most important transformations was the turn from the Greek contemplative and the medieval self-transcending ideals of life to the active, world-controlling, and world-shaping
ideal
in
of the infinite within the finite, e.g.,
earth
and man. This raised the
signifi-
cance of everything in the world by making it an expression of the divine life, and it gave impetus to the expectations of a fulfillment of history on this planet.
ture
showed
The "utopian"
visions of a future in
ligious, political,
litera-
which
re-
economic, and technical ele-
ments were united. This also increased the importance of technology pure sciences far above what it had been in Greece and the intermediary periods. Typical of this situation is Leonardo da Vinci, who combined the anticipation of fulfillment in his paintings with empirical studies of natural phenomena and with technical experiments in which, just as today, war techniques played a great role.
in relation to the
In the seventeenth century, the realization of the problems implied in
modern period of Western history increased and found a characteristic expression in Pascal's confrontation of man's smallness with his greatness. Pascal experienced with many of his contemporaries the shock of man's smallness in the universe of Copernican astronomy. At the same time, he experienced in his own work as mathematician and physicist the power of the human mind to penetrate into the calculable structures of nature— man's greatness even in the face of the quantitative vastness of the universe. In Pascal many problems of man's present self-interpretation are anticipated and the human prethese beginnings of the
50
Paul Tillich
dicament in its contradictory character is shown just as we see it today. He asked the question which is most relevant to our problem: What has become, under the control of the horizontal line, of the vertical one— the line toward that which transcends the cosmos? He answered with his famous words which contrast the "God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" with the "god of the philosophers." (See Pensees, Sect. VH-VHI, Vol. 33, pp. 243b-277b.) Pascal was struggling to save the dimension of the ultimate, which
transcends the greatness as well as the smallness of man.
He
did
it
suc-
cessfully for himself, but the general historical
development
The
followed
the
nineteenth-century
and
evolution,
in
belief
line.
in the eigh-
human
teenth-century belief in the
horizontal
was expressed
horizontal
progress, in
universal
in
the ideologies supporting
the industrial, social, and pohtical revolutions
There were always and classi-
of the last three centuries.
theological, mystical, romanticist, cist
attempts to recover the vertical line or
to return to the circular world
view of
classical
Greece. But the drive toward that which
lies
ahead proved to be stronger than the longing to return to a world in which it was more important to look at the eternal essences of the cosmos than to anticipate a future to be
created by man.
One moval
of the shocks connected with the reof
man and
center was
his earth
basically
from the cosmic
theological.
Since the
biblical literature, as well as its interpretation
BLAISE PASCAL In Pascal many problems of man's present self-interpretation are anticipated,
predicament in
and the human
contradictory character is shown just as we see it today its
during fifteen hundred years of church history,
was based on a world view in which the earth was at the center of the universe, human history was the ultimate aim of the creation of the earth, and the Christ was the center of human history, an urgent question arose:
What
is
the position of
man
God? What is the cosmic significance a whole? Does not the moving of the
in the providential acting of
of the Christ in the universe as
earth out of the center undercut both the central significance of man and the cosmic significance of the Christ? Is not the whole drama of salvation reduced to a series of events happening on a small planet at a particular time without universal significance?
With these problems aheady space exploration started
.
.
alive in the
.
51
Western world, the age
of
Symposium on Space
When men
broke through the gravitational
field of
the earth, the
was naturally astonishment, admiration, and pride. The pride was increased by the national pride of those who achieved the breakthrough, and diminished but not annihilated by the feeling of national humiliation of those who could have achieved it but did not. Yet there was almost no exception to a feehng of astonishment about first
reaction
men's potentialities, hidden until then, but
now
able to explore the transterrestrial space, he
revealed:
is
Man
also able to
is
not only
change the him by
astronomical picture by adding something to what was given to nature.
Admiration was particularly directed to the theoretical and technical
who were
intelhgence of those
responsible for the successful penetration
and to the moral courage of those who risked their hves in actualizing what was a human potentiality and had now become real. A consequence of this admiration was the status of
into the trans-earthly sphere,
(even to those in the enemy wisdom unattainable by most atomic scientists. The emotional power of
heroic pioneers given to the astronauts
camp) and
human
that of bearers of esoteric
beings given to the
is very strong, and not without important sociological These men became symbols which were decisive for the formaa new ideal of human existence. The image of the man who looks
these reactions effects.
tion of
dowTi at the earth, not from heaven but from a cosmic sphere above the
became an
earth,
object of identification
and psychological elevation
to
innumerable people.
The same image unlocked streams and outside the gravitational
inside
though not heavenly (or tion, often wTitten
of imagination
field of
hellish), beings.
by
as a sideline
about encounters
the earth with non-earthly,
The
literature of science
scientists themselves,
well as followed the actual progress of space exploration. But its full
been
development only
after actual
attained. Its real importance
scientific or technical discoveries,
to transcend the realm of tion.
The
divine,
achievements
as
reached
it
in this direction
had
not the occasional anticipation of
but the fulfillment of the desire of
earthbound experiences,
at least in
man
imagina-
so-called "Gothic" novel did this with the help of supranatural,
and demonic interferences
spiritualistic
appeared
is
fic-
preceded
in the natural process of
life,
and the
it through the use of psychic phenomena which unambiguously natural nor unambiguously supra-
novel did
as neither
natural. Science fiction, especially
if
connected with space exploration,
transcends the bondage to earth by imagining encounters with natural
but transterrestrial beings. Mythological as well as psychic supranaturalism are replaced by a transterrestrial naturahsm. The earth is trans-
cended not through something qualitatively
other, but
through a strange
part of something qualitatively the same: the natural universe.
52
Paul Tillich
::/^j&^' i
^
-
if
iZ*^^
^3 1
^
»,
~^^^!a
.1
i
'
^ '
1
A
''-'^
^">
-Wv-;:-
4j^:^:^
'
>%'**'^"''"M=-
^pt^.
'
"the triumph of providence by pietro da cortona The imagined worlds are constructed with elements of earthly experiences, even
At
this
if
these experiences are religious or artistic
point an observation can be
restraining effect on the
made which
should have some
drive toward earth-transcending imaginings
(whether they are called experiences or mere fantasy). The content of is always a combination of elements taken from earthly experience. The "beings" imagined are either glorified or vilified duplications of the human figure (angels and heavenly saints or demons and inmates of hell), or they are combinations of elements by which the human figure is disfigured, as in science fiction. This shows a definite limit to man's capacity for escaping the bondage to the earth, even in
these imaginings
The imagined worlds are constructed with parts or elements of earthly experiences, even if these experiences are religious or imagination.
artistic.
The
last
remark leads
to another, basically negative,
tional reactions to space exploration. It has
somehow
group of emo-
concretely raised
man's awareness of the immensity of the universe and the spatial distances in it. Just the experience of bridging some of these distances and the consequent imagination of bridging more of them has increased man's sensitivity to the actual remoteness of even the nearest solar system beyond our own. The dizziness felt by people in Pascal's time,
53
Symposium on Space
when contemplating
the
empty spaces between the stars, has been inman has pushed not only cognitively but
creased in a period in which
also bodily into these spaces. His anxiety of lostness in a small corner
of the universe,
which has balanced
One
controlling power.
about his controlling power
his pride
since the time of the Eighth Psalm,^ has of the reasons
is
grown with the growth
of the
the loss of the ultimate-trans-
cendent above the greatness and the smallness of man, the answer to the question of man's predicament provided by the psalmist as well as
by
Pascal.
ist
and
The
other,
Pascal,
more
particular reason,
the fact that
is
man
unknown
to
both the psalm-
can use his controlling power for
self-destruction, not only of parts of mankind but of all of it. The intimate relation of space exploration to war preparation has thrown a deep shadow over the emotionally positive reactions to space exploration. This shadow will not recede as long as production of weapons and space exploration are tied up with each other.
describing the emotional
Intific plicit
way.
One
eflFects of space exploration and its scienavoided value judgments except in an im-
however, necessary to make them explicit and to problems connected with our subject.
It is,
some
cuss
we have
precedents,
dis-
ethical
of the effects of the flight into space
down
of looking
at the earth
and the resulting
possibility
a kind of estrangement between
is
man
an "objectification" of the earth for man. The earth is deprived of her "motherly" character, her power of giving birth, of nour-
and
earth,
ishing, of
embracing, of keeping with herself. She becomes a large ma-
to be looked at and considered as totally calculable. The demythologizing the earth, which started with the early philosophers and has continued ever since in the Western world, has terial
body
process
of
been radicalized as never before. itual consequences of this step.
The same terrestrial vertical. less.
is
all
is
the greatest triumph of the horizontal line over the
has gone forward in directions which are practically limit-
However,
problems,
of
this
triumph of the horizontal
which come down
Long before the break through 1
When
I
too early to realize fully the spir-
true of another radicalization: the flight into the trans-
space
Man
It is
raises
serious
spiritual
to the basic question: "For what?"
the gravitational field of the earth, the
look at thy heavens, the
work
of thy fingers, the
moon and
the stars
which thou hast estabUshed;
What
is
man
care for him? Yet thou hast
that thou art mindful of him,
made him
little less
and the son of man that thou dost
than God, and dost crown him with glory and
honor.
Thou
hast given
him dominion over the works
of thy hands; thou has put all
things under his feet.
(Psalm 8:3-6)
54
Paul Tillich
The symptoms
of this emptiness are already conspicuously present forms of indifference, cynicism, and despair
amongst us
in the
question "For what?" had been asked with increasing seriousness and It had been asked in connection with the endless production means: machines, tools, gadgets. It had been asked in connection with the question of the meaning of life. It had been asked when the ways of modern civilization were subject to prophetic criticism, be it in religious, be it in secular terms. If the question is now asked in con-
concern. of
nection with space exploration,
it
becomes more abstract and more
gent than before. For here the horizontal line
is
ur-
almost completely
The task is: to go forward for the sake of going forward, without endlessly, a concrete focus. Of course, one could call the desire to learn more about the cosmic space and about the astronomical bodies
formalized.
in it a concrete aim, but this is only an accidental stop. The desire to go ahead whatever may be encountered gives the real impetus. But as the
exclusive surrender to the vertical line in mysticism leads to the impossibility of expressing anything
and acting
in
any direction, so the
what one could call "forany meaningful content and to complete
exclusive surrender to the horizontal line (in
wardism") leads
to the loss of
The symptoms of this emptiness are already conspicuously present among us in the forms of indifference, cynicism, and despair. Space exploration is not the means of healing it, though it may become emptiness.
a factor in deepening
it
after the first
enthusiasm has evaporated and
the pride about man's almost divine power has receded. These spiritual dangers, however, should never lead to a decision to give up either the
55
Symposium on Space production of technical tools or the attempt to penetrate into the outerterrestrial
space (as the danger of radical mysticism should not lead to
a rejection of the mystical element in every religious experience). For
danger
from actualizing its potentialities. This leads to another problem, connected indirectly with our subject— the problem of the responsibility of the scientist for dangerous possibilities implied in his discoveries. The problem is as old as scholarly thought and was for millennia a source of conflict between the priestly guardians of the holy and the philosophical critics of the traditional beliefs. Even if the sociological, political, and economic causes of such conflicts are taken into account, a genuine tragic element remains. The priest is aware of the catastrophic consequences which criticism of holy traditions can have on the spirit of many people. But the philosopher cannot resign from his vocation to fight for truth, even if sacred beliefs must be destroyed. (This is probably the earliest example of the conflict between the safety of the given and the risk of the new.) The dangers connected with present scientific discoveries refer not to the "salvation of souls," but to the very existence of mankind. But the problem itself and the tragic implications of any possible solution are the same. And the answers should be the same: Tragic consequences of the discovery and expression of truth are no reason for giving up the attempts to discover and the obligation to express truth. The danger for the soul of the believer should not stop the prophet or the reformer from pronouncing truth in the vertical dimension; and the danger of destructive consequences of scientific discoveries (including those in the social sciences and psychology) should not stop the scientists from searching for and expressing truth in the horizontal dimension. It is bad to try to avoid tragedy if the price is avoidance of truth. Therefore, even if space exploration, through its military implications, increased the chances of tragedy, this would not be a reason for stopping it. But such danger would be a powerful motive to balance the horizontal by the vertical line, in order to receive from there weapons against ultimate tragedy. In other words: The answer to the tragic implications of the pursuit of the horizontal line is not to break off this pursuit but to continue it under the criteria coming from the vertical line. But, one asks, is
is
not a reason to prevent
this still a possibility?
life
Has not the power
of the horizontal drive, espe-
what Has not man's image of himself in all Western religions been made obsolete by the horizontal dynamics of the last five hundred years? And does not space exploration say the last word in this respect? There is no doubt that science has undercut the cosmic frame within which man has seen himself in biblical literature and ecclesiastical cially in its scientific expressions,
transcends the universe and
its
almost cut
scientific
off
the relation to
exploration?
teaching, namely, as the bearer of the history of salvation for the uni-
56
Paul Tillich verse, as the only creature in
manifest, and as he
who
whose nature God could become fully own historical end as the
will experience his
end of the universe. Today's astronomy considers the possibility of other meaningful histories in other parts of the universe with other beings in whom God could have become fully manifest, though with another beginning and another end. If space exploration is seen in this context, as the preliminary last step in a long development, one can say that it has changed tremendously the cosmic frame of man's religious self -evaluation. But one must add that it has not changed the divinehuman relationship which had been experienced and symbolically expressed within this frame. Therefore, one can answer the question, whether the dynamics of the horizontal line have cut off the vertical, with a definite No! It is still possible for man to break through the horizontal movement and its tragic implications to the vertical and its power to restrict and transcend tragedy. This "stature and condition" of man has not changed, although the way of its actualization must be different from that of periods in which the horizontal line had not yet shown its driving power. religiously
While
the question of the right of scientific inquiry to go ahead
without considering possibly dangerous consequences was an-
which an answer must be of the income of a nation (or of all nations) should be given to space exploration? A main argument against space exploration is the immense amount of money needed for it, which according to the critics should be used for more important projects, e.g., cancer research or study of the best ways of restricting the increase of the world population. In both cases it is the conquest of bodily evils, disease, and hunger to which priority is given. This seems to be natural from the point of view of justice and agape (the Greek word for the Christian idea of love ) But actually it is neither natural nor was it ever real. Agape demands that the individual be always ready to help the sick and the poor in personal encounters as well as in social projects. And justice demands of society and its political representatives
swered
affirmatively, another question arises to
given. It
is
the economic question:
How much
.
the continuous fight against the structures of social evil in
tural
all its
forms.
agape prohibits the use of economic power for culproduction. Otherwise no human potentiality, neither scientific nor
But neither
justice nor
technical, neither artistic nor ritual, neither educational nor societal,
could ever have been actualized. But they have been actualized at a tremendous cost, and in their development they have produced powerful
weapons against the
structures of evil (mostly without intending to
so). "Priority of needs" cannot
mean
do
that the whole cultural process
should not have been started before the most immediate needs, e.g., conquering hunger and disease, had been satisfied. The term "priority" in
57
the growth knowledge and their inventiveness surpass what can be reached even by highly learned and productive people
Space exploration
of esoteric groups
far
.
the context of our problem
The question
.
contributes greatly to
.
who by
is
.
.
.
their
meaningful only in a particular
situation.
Which demand on the economic reserves of any group has priority at this moment? And if a definite preference is is:
lished, the next question
In
is:
which proportion
shall
social
estab-
economic aid be
given to the preferred project in relation to other important projects? Finally
it
must be considered whether the rejection
of
one project,
e.g.,
the next phase of space exploration, implies the certainty, or at least a real
chance, that one of the alternative projects will be accepted by the responis, for example, highly improbable that the money saved by the stopping of space exploration would become available for cancer research or a restriction of the population explosion. Beyond this,
sible authorities. It
all
these considerations
fest that
would become academic the moment
it is
mani-
space exploration has important military consequences and be-
longs to the realm of competition with a potential enemy.
Then
it
priority over against all projects without direct military importance.
has
The
lies in the hands of those who have knowledge of the relevant and the power to balance the different points of view in terms priorities, on the basis of the actual situation. They cannot be bound by
decision factors
of
a static hierarchy of priorities. Their only criterion should be the
aim of
all political
decisions,
which
human
power judgment of contemporaries, and the later
certainly transcends national
as well as scientific progress. In this they are subject to the their consciences, the criticism of their
judgment of history. But here a conflict
arises,
which
is
cal implications of space exploration:
58
intensified it
by one
of the sociologi-
contributes greatly to a general
Paul Tillich trend in our period, i.e., the growth of esoteric groups who by their knowledge and their inventiveness far surpass what can be reached even by highly learned and productive people, not to speak of the vast majority of human beings. Such elites are esoteric and exclusive, partly by natural selection, partly by public prestige, partly by skillful exercise of their power. An aristocracy of intelligence and will to power has developed in the democratic West as well as in the totalitarian East, and has equalized to a considerable degree the two originally opposite social and political systems. Space exploration in the democratic world strengthens the anti-democratic elements, which are present in every democratic structure. There is a tendency in the average citizen, even if he has a high standing in his profession, to take the decisions about the life of the society to which he belongs as a matter of fate over which he has no influence. This creates a mood which is favorable for the resurgence of religion, but unfavorable for the preservation of a living de-
mocracy. It
may seem remote from
our problem to raise the question of the con-
sequences of space exploration for the ideal of education. But quired by the actual situation.
If
it
is
re-
only those having the most extraordi-
nary mathematical and technical intelligence can reach the top of the hierarchy of theoretical space explorers, and
if
only those having the most
extraordinary bodily and psychological fitness can reach the top of the
hierarchy of practical space explorers,
two
types of
man
it
is
understandable that these
are elevated to the place of ideal types in accordance
with which every individual should be formed, though of approximation.
Such a demand has been made
in
many
degrees
United States, Russian Sputnik. There was, in the
most urgently after the success of the first however, a strong reaction from the side of the humanistically minded educators and also from many students who did not want, or were not able, to undergo the rigors of an education that would bring them to the top of the new hierarchy. But the question is not solved by a transitory balance between the two ways of education or by serious attempts to combine them. The preponderance of the non-humanistic way can hardly be overcome because of the actual structure of modern society and the impact it has on the life of every individual. It drives (often unconsciously) the most gifted and ambitious members of the younger generation into an educational system which guarantees them participation in the higher echelons of the social pyramid. Education cannot resist the solid structure of a social system and its demands on every individual in it. But again: There is no reason for cutting off space exploration or the developments on which it is based. Human nature in its full potentialities is not expressed by the horizontal line. Sooner or later there will be revolt against its predominance, and space exploration will be judged in the light of the meaning of life in all its dimensions. 59
HARRISON BROWN, was
bom
of California
one of America's leading physical scientists, in 1917. He was educated at the University
Wyoming,
in Sheridan,
and Johns Hopkins University, receiving
his
Doctor of Philosophy
1941. In 1942 he joined the group of scientists working on the
degree
in
atomic
bomb
project at the University of Chicago,
and from 1943
he was one of the directors of the atomic research center
at
to 1946,
Oak Ridge,
Tennessee. Since then, he has taught at the Institute for Nuclear Studies in
Cahfomia Institute of Technology. In 1947 he received American Association for the Advancement of Science work on the composition of meteorites. He was the youngest man receive this award. He has written several books, including The Chal-
Chicago and
the annual for his
ever to
at the
award
of the
lenge of Man's Future and The Next
numerous
articles to
The American
Hundred
Years,
and has contributed
such periodicals as Saturday Review, The Nation, and
Scholar.
Man appeared
on the earth about a milHon years ago. Though
his
technological competence has gro\Mi steadily, he has been re-
Now,
stricted to the earth diuring all of that time.
in
our generation, he
moon and the planets, to hand. Immense new vistas have been
has developed the competence to
fly to
the
and study them at first opened to him. He can now learn things which before seemed destined to remain permanently beyond his grasp. This is a prospect which should excite everyone. Those who are not stirred by the thought of man's travobsers^e
eling to the planets are either devoid of curiosity or lack a sense of
human to
destiny.
answer
The
realization that
we may now have
in our
it
the question of extra-terrestrial life should in itself
be
power
sufficient
to spur us on.
Throughout cause of
its
his history,
man
utilitarian value:
has pursued knowledge in large part beit
helps
him
to master nature. \\^hen
we
examine the research which is being done today, we find that the greater part of it is aimed at the achievement of practical goals to win wars, to prolong life, to make money. It is understandable that such research is undertaken, and it is often enormously sophisticated. Yet, in a moral sense, such research is scarcely above the animal level. It is simply an attempt to extend our ancient predatory capabilities and to create pro:
tective devices of increased efficiency against predators.
However, there have always been some men who have held that the its own sake is one of man's most noble characteristics and the one which most distinguishes him from the lower animals. Not to pursue the exploration of space, when it is possible, would therefore be a denial by man of one of his most important attributes. Not to venture to the planets would be a negation of one of life's most noble purposes— understanding ourselves and our origins.
pursuit of knowledge for
can rationally discuss the value of programs aimed at sending men and instruments into outer space, it is essential that we understand the kinds of problems which such programs might help solve.
Before we One
of the
most important
of these
problems
is
that of the origin
and
evolution of our solar system.
Although man,
until
very recently, has been
earthbound, he has
nevertheless succeeded in learning a great deal about our solar system. Using telescopes and other instruments, he has measured the sizes of planets and their satellites. He has learned something about the chemical
compositions and temperatures of planetary atmospheres. By sub-
61
RELATIVE SIZES OF PLANETS SHOWN IN RELATION TO THE SUN Using telescopes and other instruments,
and
man
has measured the sizes of planets
their satellites
which fall upon the earth and physical examination, he has
jecting fragments of interplanetary matter
(meteorites)
to intensive chemical
learned something about the distribution of elements in cosmic matter. He has even been able to determine quite accurately the time at which the earth and meteorites were formed. Naturally, he possesses considerably more information about the earth than he does about other planets, for he has been able to observe it at much closer range. The major facts which have been accumulated, and which any general theory of the origin of the solar system must explain, fall into a most interesting pattern. It has become evident that there are two distinct
groups of planets. The four planets close to the sun are small: Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. Those farther away from the sun are very large:
and Neptune. The small inner planets are charby high average densities and must therefore be composed primarily of heavy substances such as metal and rock. The large outer planets, by contrast, are characterized by very low densities and must
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus,
acterized
62
Harrison Brown therefore be
composed primarily
light,
indeed gaseous, sub-
stances. Saturn, for example, could float in water.
The predominant ma-
terials in Jupiter
appear
to
of
\en,-
be hydrogen, helium, methane, ammonia, and
water.
The atmospheres of the two groups of planets differ dramatical!}- from each other. Mercur\' is too small and too warm to retain an atniosphere, but the atmospheres of Venus, Earth, and Mars contain substantial, although differing, quantities of carbon dioxide. By contrast, the carbon which exists in the atmospheres of the large outer planets appears to be primarily in the form of methane, There is a similar difference betsveen the forms in which nitrogen is found in the two groups. The nitrogen in the earth's atmosphere is in the form of nitrogen gas, while the nitrogen in the atmosphere of Jupiter is primarily in the form of ammonia. In other words, the atmospheres of the inner planets are chemically oxidized; those of the outer planets are chemical!)- reduced.
Traveling aroimd the sun, then,
we
see different Icinds of bodies.
Why
some large and others small? \\'hy are some dense and others "fluffy"? Why are some chemically oxidized and others reduced? At present, we do not have definite answers to these questions, but we have been able to fit the obser\-ed facts into a broad picture which seems clear in are
outline,
ff
not in detail.
The elements which formed about
five
constitute our solar system appear to have been thousand million years ago as the result of a sequence
of nuclear reactions
which
as yet
About compounds planet formation were started.
are not clearly understood.
4,500 milhon years ago the newly formed elements and their
and the processes
began
to condense,
Many
chemical compounds were present in
of
this
primordial matter, but
those which predominated were h\-drogen and helium.
To
a lesser extent,
ammonia, and water were present. Considerably less abundant were the substances which make up the greater part of the earth— siHcates and metals. Condensation processes took place in a gaseous cloud surrounding the primitive sun. \\'ithin the asteroid belt, which lies bet\\-een Mars and quantities of methane,
Jupiter, the temperatures \\ere suflBciently high to permit the condensa-
tion only of the less volatile materials,
which
\\-ere
present in but small
more abimdant substances such as water, ammonia, and methane condensed. The condensed solids amalgamated by accretion processes and gave rise to planets which, inside the asteroid belt, were composed almost entirely of rocklike material and metals. Outside the asteroid belt, the accretion processes led to the formation of planets composed in large part of methane, ammonia, and water. In the special cases of Jupiter and Saturn, which were particularly favorably situated, large quantities of hydrogen and hehum were also retained as the result of gravitational puU. quantit)'.
Beyond the
asteroid belt, howe\'er, the
63
Symposium on Space
We know that
no substance which was present
inside the asteroid belt
retained by a as a gas at the time of planet formation could have been inner planets the of none words, other planet in appreciable quantity. In observe towhich we Those oceans. originally possessed atmospheres or
day must be almost entirely of secondary origin. Yet, on the earth we observe huge oceans. If water could not have been retained in free form originally, from where did it come? The answer appears to be that water was retained originally on the earth chemically bound within the rock-forming sihcates. As the earth heated, as the result of gravitational contraction coupled with the liberation of energy stored in radioactive substances, water was liberated from the depths, and oceans were formed. Other gaseous substances were also released by this heating process, in particular methane and other hydro-
carbons and ammonia.
on the earth for a sequence of chemical compounds of increasing complexity, and eventually to the evolution of molecules which could reproduce themselves. Life emerged, and the resultant living substances began to traverse the long and complicated path which we call evolution. In the meantime, the flux of radiant energy which fell continually upon the earth gave rise to other chemical processes. In particular, it decomposed atmospheric water vapor into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Because
The
stage
was thus
set
steps leading to the buildup of carbon
hydrogen escaped from the earth's left behind, combined with with nitrogen compounds dioxide and carbon form carbon compounds to greater part of the cartime, the period of nitrogen. Over a to form free dioxide, which cominto carbon these processes bon was converted by deposited as limeeventually and was bined with calcium in the ocean of
its
lightness, a great deal of the
gravitational pull.
A
The oxygen, which was
was established among the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, that in the ocean, and that tied up in sedimentary rocks. Eventually, the primitive Uving substances learned to "feed" upon the carbon dioxide of the oceans and the atmosphere, making use of the steady flow of radiation from the sun. Photosynthesis was "invented" and made possible the continuation of life processes for an indefinitely stone.
delicate balance
long period of time on a stable basis.
Within the thin less pulsation.
which covered the
film of life
New
was ceaseand old ones disap-
earth, there
species of living matter arose
peared. Organisms of increasing complexity emerged: single-celled animals, multi-celled animals, animals with supporting structures (bones), vertebrates, fish with lungs, amphibians, reptiles,
and
recently,
man emerged— a
tual thought, a creature which, for the
could wonder about
What about
its
past,
mammals. Eventually, power of concep-
creature possessing the
its
first
origins,
the other planets? Could
64
time in evolutionary history,
and life
its
place in the universe.
have emerged upon them
Harrison Brown as well?
The emergence
of life
would seem
to call for conditions of
"chemical flexibility"— conditions in which a multiplicity of chemical reactions can take place and in which very complicated compounds are is diflBcult to imagine life on Neptune, because the surface temperature is so low that rates of chemical reactions are extremely slow. It is equally diflBcult to imagine life on Mercury, where there is no atmosphere and where the temperature of the hot side is so high that complex organic substances would be
stable over long periods of time. It
for example,
Between these two extremes, howiever, there should be a broad spectrum of conditions in which life might have emerged and flourished. One might expect a priori that Venus, which is about the same size as the earth, would provide conditions suitable for the nourishment of life processes. Study of the planet indicates, however, that although carbon dioxide is extremely abundant in the atmosphere, little if any water is present. Further, the temperature of the planet appears to be so high that any oceans would be vaporized. Under the circumstances, it seems dubious that life exists there toda;,% although it might well have existed at some time in the distant past. Why should Venus have an oxidized atmosphere and at the same time possess little if any water? It is possible that, since Venus was formed closer to the sun than was the earth, its chemical combinations of water with silicates were less stable, with the result that Venus started its life with a paucity of water. Further, the radiation intensity in the neighborhood of Venus would decompose water at a greater rate than terrestrial water was decomposed, with the result that virtually all water on the unstable.
planet disappeared.
The
situation with respect to
Mars
is
quite different. Although the
planet possesses no oceans, water appears to be present.
show seasonal changes
The
polar caps
on occasion, deposits of hoarfrost can be seen during the Martian dawn. Also, there are color changes on the surface of the planet which appear to be seasonal and which might well be indicative of the presence of some form of plant life. If such life exists, however, it must be able to survive under extremely rugged circumstances. Winter and nighttime temperatures appear to fall far below those of our own Arctic regions, and Martian midday summer heat might be the equivalent of a cold fall day in New England. in size, and,
why Mars possesses so little water. was formed so far from the sun that hydrated rock substances should have been quite stable. It may be that, because of the smallness of the planet, the water was never liberated from the interior. It may also be that water was liberated, but because of the low gravitational pull of the planet, the water has escaped over the ages until it has by now virtually disappeared. If the latter is true, Mars at one time may have had much more water than we see today— It is interesting to
By
speculate as to
contrast with Venus, the planet
65
Symposium on Space even have had oceans. Under such circumstances, have been quite different (more moderate) would conditions
indeed the planet climatic
from those
may
we now
observe.
and speculation, we can state our universe as follows: concerning problems one of the great unsolved what is the probabilflexibility," "chemical possesses Given a planet that of a sequence of end product natural the emerge as ity that life will
With
background
this
of information
chemical events? Given a planet that is not too small (like the moon), not too hot (like Mercury), not too cold (like Neptune), not too large (like Jupiter), what is the likelihood that a sequence of chemical steps will result in the emergence, over a period of time, of living substance?
Looking at the earth alone, we cannot tell. For all we know, life might be a miracle, and indeed there are many who believe that it is. But if, through space exploration, we were to find life on Venus or Mars or both, it would then appear likely that the probability of life emerging naturally, given adequate conditions, would be as high. Such a discovery would have profound philosophical importance. We have good reason to believe that planetary systems are fairly abundant universe— indeed, perhaps as many as a billion billion stars which can be seen through our largest telescopes may have planets travin our visible
eling about
them
situated in such a
in orbit.
way
Even
that they
only a small fraction of these were
if
were not too
close to their stars, not
too far away, not too hot, not too cold, not too large, not too small,
life
be a very abundant commodity in our universe. Indeed, were some sort exists on Mars, the likelihood would be high that life also exists on perhaps as many as a thousand billion plancould
we
still
to find that life of
ets in
our visible universe.
This, then, of
it is
fact.
is
A
the broad picture as great deal
is
it
theory.
appears at the present time.
Much
is
speculation.
The
Much
picture
is
based upon facts gained through intensive study of the earth by men who have been confined to its surface, and by intensive study of the moon and planets from a great distance, using telescopes. Although there is a great deal which can yet be learned about the planets using terrestrially based equipment, we can see the beginning of the end. Telescopes have limited usefulness. There are certain kinds of important planetary measurements which simply cannot be made from the earth. Indeed, were it not possible to journey to the planets, there would be many questions which would remain unanswered for all time. And of these questions, perhaps the most important is that of extraterrestrial life. Is the earth unique? Or is life abundant elsewhere?
Our
newly developed
capabilities of sending spacecraft out of the
earth's gravitational field will
make
it
possible for us greatly to
increase our understanding of the solar system and
66
its
origins.
Already
Brown
Harrison
MARINER
II:
SPACE VEHICLE USED FOR OBSERVING VENUS moon and have come close to Venus and Mars
Already vehicles have struck the
vehicles have struck the
Given enough to bring
eflFort, it
them back
moon and have come
safely.
With
still
men to Mars and Venus and Much of what we wish to know
send
learned with instruments. or to
Mars
It is
in order to obtain
more
men on
effort, it
to bring
Venus and Mars. the moon and should be possible to
close to
should be possible to land
them back. moon and planets can be
about the
not necessary to send
most
men
to the
of the important information
moon
which we
need concerning these bodies. Indeed, for most purposes instruments are actually more effective than man, and coupled with this, they need not be returned to the earth. The information obtained by instruments can be telemetered back. Because the moon is so much closer to the earth than are the planets, it will, of course, be our first object of study. Using television cameras, we can obtain, even with a "crash landing," highly detailed pictures of the lunar surface. At present, our very best pictures of the moon have a resolution of about one-half mile. Using a television camera mounted on a lunar probe, a resolution of a few feet should be possible. By using television cameras placed in a spacecraft in orbit about the moon, it should be possible to obtain detailed maps of the entire lunar surface. 67
Symposium on Space Other exciting experiments could be undertaken from such a spacecraft. The temperatures of specific areas could be measured accurately. The radioactivity of the lunar surface could be determined, and this would and mass tell us a great deal about its chemical composition. The mass could be determined accurately. With improved techniques of rocketry, it should be possible to land a probe upon the moon "softly." This would make possible a variety of important measurements. Truly detailed pictures could be obtained of distribution within the
moon
The chemical composition of One could determine precisely. determined the lunar crust could be of other important variety A "moonquakes." whether or not there are which, taken tomeasured could be chemical and physical parameters concerning the know we now than gether, would tell us much more were made at measurements if particularly moon's origin and history— the region in the vicinity of the landing.
a
number
niques,
it
of lunar locations.
should be
With
further
improvement
in rocketry tech-
possible to obtain samples of the lunar surface
remote control and to return them
to the earth for
still
more
by
detailed
study.
Present techniques of rocketry permit us to launch spacecraft which
can come very close to our nearest planetary neighbors— Mars and Venus. The great distances involved restrict the kinds of measurements which can be made, in part because of the increased difficulty of communicaimportant measurements can be made, even at present. Television observations can be made, the chemical compositions of the atmospheres can be determined, and other important parameters
tion. Nevertheless,
fields and temperature can be measured. be able to land instrument packages "softly" on Mars and Venus long before we are able to send men there and bring them back.
such as magnetic
We
will
This will
mean
that prior to the
first
human
visits to
these planets
we
should have a fairly clear picture of the conditions the visitors will encounter. Detailed television pictures can be transmitted back to the
The compositions of the atmospheres can be determined in detail. General climatic conditions can be followed over long periods of time. The surfaces of the planets can be observed through both microscopes
earth.
and
telescopes.
Lower forms
of
life,
corresponding to terrestrial bacteria, can be
searched for on Mars and Venus by culturing the material on the surface and examining the cultures with microscopes which are remotely con-
Higher
trolled.
life
listening for sounds.
Venus,
form
we
exists
If so
then do
forms can be searched for by using television and Long before the first human visitors reach Mars and
should have a clear picture as to whether or not
life in
some
on these planets.
much can be
we
place so
learned about planets by using instruments,
much
effort
why
on the manned-space-flight program? 68
Brawn
Harrison
H.
M.
BEAGLE
S.
What would if
The U.
the scientific productivitij of the voyage of the "Beagle" have been a series of measurements had been substituted for Charles Darwin?
budget for fiscal year 1963 calls for Uvo-thirds of the total space effort to be placed on the manned-space-flight program while less than one-SLxth of the total budget is for scientific research in space. Is this a S.
reasonable distribution?
The ments
is that there are few situations involving scientific measurewhich machines are not more effective than men. What, for ex-
fact in
ample, in an orbiting earth satellite, could a man learn that could not be learned with proper instrumentation? The answer is: very httle. To this must be added the fact that when we place human beings in orbit, enormous and expensive safety precautions are necessary. We can take a
much greater risk with the The situation with respect
hfe of an instrument. to space
is
similar to that with respect to
the oceans. Most of our knowledge concerning the ocean depths has
been obtained using instruments and measuring and sampling devices of various sorts which have been lowered into the sea from surface ships. Recently, a lively debate took place within the go\'ernment concerning the
effort, if
any,
which should be taken
depths of the ocean— some 35,000 similar to those
program.
On
now
being used
feet.
in
to
send
men
to the greatest
The arguments pro and con were connection with the man-in-space
the one hand, devices which will permit
to great depths are very expensive. Perhaps the
men
to
same amount
descend
of
money
invested in surface ships and in high-quaHty instrumentation would, in
69
Symposium on Space the long run, yield more information about the ocean's depths than could possibly be obtained by sending men down in a thick steel sphere. On
man himself is an instrument far more complicated, and from certain points of view more effective, than those built in factories. No matter what parameter one might be interested in, it is vitally certain that an instrument can be made which is more accurate than a huthe other hand,
man
being.
A man can estimate temperature, but He can look at a rock and estimate
thermometer.
not as accurately as a its
chemical and min-
which will do the However, the human brain can integrate oba broad over-all pattern. A man-built machine well as a human being would be both unbeliev-
eralogical composition, but instruments are available
job
much more
accurately.
servations in terms of
which could do this as ably complex and expensive.
Let us imagine the geology of North America being determined enby remote control. It seems clear that we would know far less
tirely
than
we
actually
and particularly
now know
human participation, human competence with respect to the
as the result of detailed
as the result of
integration of observations. Or, to take another example,
what would
the scientific productivity of the voyage of the "Beagle" have been
if
a
measurements had been substituted for Charles Darwin? The importance of man as an integrator and sifter of information should not be underestimated. Yet, we should recognize that we are as yet far from the point where such capability can be utilized effectively in the space program. For each dollar of expenditure, far more useful information can be obtained at the present time from instruments than from men. But we would be cold, indeed, were we to take the point of view that our every action must be justified by practical results or by the series of
gleaning of specific scientific information. In particular, ignore the man-in-space program as a great
human
we
should not
adventure.
We
spend very large amounts of money on games and, closely related twenty million persons attended major league baseball games, and gross receipts at motion picture theaters exceeded one billion dollars. Is two or three billion dollars a year too much to pay for space adventure? One may argue about the magnitude of the space effort in the United States, and one may well argue about the proper distribution of that effort. But no matter how we look at the program, it seems clear that the adventure component must be recognized. The first non-stop flight over the Atlantic gleaned little information of scientific value. Yet, that first flight was important from several points of view, not the least of which was the adventure aspect.
to them, adventure. Last year about
budget for the American space The million dollars
effort has risen from about ninety 1958 to about 3.7 biUion dollars for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration alone in 1963. NASA projects that
in
70
Harrison Brown expenditure will take place at a rate of about thirteen billion dollars annually by 1970. Today the space program consumes over twenty per cent of the total governmental research and development effort. By 1970, it is estimated, space projects will take up nearly forty per cent of the
research and development budget. Considering the technical difficulties, even these large numbers may prove to be underestimates, particularly if past military experience can be taken as a guide.
The
greater part of the current space allocations
is
for the man-in-
a current budget of 2.2 billion dollars, this program
space program. With is already receiving about two-thirds of the total space agency allotment, and even now there are signs that the manned space program is running short of
money. According
to present estimates, the Apollo project (the
manned
lunar landing) will be at least 200 million dollars short of its needs with its current budget. Without a supplemental appropriation, the only way to make up the deficit will be to take money away from
first
other programs, such as the space sciences. Yet, there
is
already evidence
that the space sciences are not providing information suflBciently rapidly to
fill
the needs of the
Thus
far,
and
manned space program. sums of money
in spite of the large
involved, the pursuit
overwhelming support from American political leaders. The basis for this support is complex, but it is clear that it was triggered by the national humiliation received on October 4, 1957, when Sputnik I was launched successfully. Subsequent Soviet space successes, particularly in the manned-space-flight area, have served to of space technology has received
strengthen American resolve to achieve leadership in this field. In addition to the Cold War aspects of space, there is undoubtedly a feeling for the
drama and adventure
of
conquering the unknown, and a desire to War element suddenly
achieve practical applications. But were the Cold
removed,
it is
dubious that space projects would receive the enthusiastic
support which they enjoy today.
The general public does not appear as its leaders are. Indeed, a number
to
be
as enthusiastic
about space
of professional people, including
have expressed their doubts about the wisdom of pursuing such a program. There are numerous signs of a latent uneasiness. There are even some signs of direct hostility. A large part of the uneasiness concerning the space program probably stems from the fact that so much money is being spent on an effort which has little obvious bearing upon the major problems which confront our nation and the world today. People who are rightfully concerned about hunger in the world cannot help thinking of how much economic
some prominent
scientists,
development could be stimulated with 3.7 billion dollars this year, growing rapidly to thirteen billion dollars by 1970. People who are rightfully worried about the alarming rate of population growth in the world cannot help thinking of what 3.7 billion dollars might do if directed 71
Symposium on Space toward the solution of that problem. Educators think of how much education could be purchased, and worry about the effect of the influx of space-designated funds upon the intellectual values of their staflFs and students. Others argue that large expenditures on space hinder the allocation of funds to other branches of science, to social science, and to the humanities. It seems possible that this uneasiness, which has been expressed in many different ways, will permeate American political leadership in the not-far-distant future.
The political fact of the matter, however, is that if space programs were completely eliminated, allocation of the funds for other worthy public purposes would not by any means be certain. In other words, the question of the emphasis we place on space projects should be decided on the intrinsic merits of the projects and not by comparison with other projects which might, in actual fact, be more useful. The first question which we must answer is from many points of view the most difficult. Do we really want to venture into space? My own answer is an enthusiastic "Yes," but I would like us to go into space for the right reasons and not for the wrong ones. We should venture into space simply because it is an enormously exciting thing to do. What is human destiny if it is not to learn about the universe in which we live? Americans should not engage in space projects simply because the Russians are
engaging in them.
tion to "national prestige"
Can we
I
believe that the question of space in relagreatly overemphasized.
is
At present, space expenditures be alarmingly high. Even at the rate of expenditure projected for 1970, the cost would come to less than t\vo per cent of the American gross national product. This represents something like three to five per cent of the activity of the industrial sector of the economy. Indeed, it may well be that the funding of space activities represents an appreciable contribution to economic growth. Given the desirability of venturing into space and given further the afford to venture into space?
do not appear
to
estimate that
we
My
can afford
it,
we
are
going about
it
in the right
way?
and Russians have been looking at space exploration primarily as a race, and in doing so have permitted themselves to become stampeded. In their push to place men on the moon as quickly as possible, they have inflated the man-in-space project to the point where it already dominates the space effort and personal feeling
is
threatens to envelop
Before
them
we
that the Americans
it.
men on the moon and planets and return should study the objects as carefully as we can
attempt to place
to the earth,
we
with instruments. By
we should aim at eventually sending we should take care of first things first. Should a Russian land on the moon first, it would not be a catastrophe for America. Indeed, we should recognize that no matter how men
to the
moon and
all
means,
planets, but
72
Harrison
much
effort is
Brown
placed on the manned-space-flight program, the probabilhappen anyway. Also, the first man will
ity is substantial that this will
probably not learn a great deal. The moon and the planets are large, and adequate exploration will require many lengthy visits. The establishment of the goal to place a man on the moon by the end of this decade makes a certain amount of sense, for it gives a definite time for a
But
definite limited objective.
out of balance, nor should
we
we
should not permit our program to get
permit
it
become a
to
circus just because
such a goal exists. Space experiments are, by their very nature, terribly expensive, with the result that they should be selected with the greatest possible care. It is often pointed out that the cost of a unit of information obtained in the space program
is
unreasonably high compared with costs of other
areas of scientific inquiry.
Here we must recognize
information are by their very nature
entific
that
some
bits of sci-
difficult to obtain.
Nuclear
physics has always been expensive relative, let us say, to the study of butterfly ecology, largely because of the high cost of the
equipment
in-
we are willing to spend money on accelerators because we that we cannot obtain the desired information unless we do so.
volved. Yet,
recognize
jump from butterfly ecology to nuclear physics was expensive, jump into space. We are confronted by the fact that we can
Just as the so
is
the
obtain valuable information only
Unless
we
are willing to
make
if
we
are willing to spend the money.
a substantial (and expensive)
effort,
the
information simply will not be forthcoming.
What past?
are the conditions on other plants?
Does
it
exist there
today?
permeate the universe? Can is
our past?
Where
we
To what contact
Has
life
existed there in the
extent does living intelligence
it?
Can we understand
it?
What
Hes our future? These are some of the questions which
can be answered over the next decades and centuries through man's exploration of space. We are indeed on the threshold of the greatest of mankind's intellectual experiences.
73
A
COMMENTARY
BY THE EDITORS I
is understood as something that began on October 4, 1957 (with the launching of Sputnik I), then the Great Books would have nothing to say on this
"space exploration" or "the conquest of space"
If
But there
subject.
row
fashion.
is
no reason
Long before
to conceive space exploration in that nar-
were sent up, man explored
artificial satellites
space and, to a certain extent, conquered Indeed, the very idea of
it.
earth satellites precedes their actual
artificial
existence
by more than 250
years. Since all descriptions of launchings of
satellites
make much
need
lite is
Newton, the
of the
considered successful only to
whom we owe
successful
A
overcome
gravity,
"in orbit,"
and since a
satel-
appropriate that
it is
the theory of universal gravitation as well as
explanation
anticipated the existence of
to
if it is
of
planetary
artificial
was not
orbits,
should himself have
earth satellites:
would not deviate and that with air was taken away. It is by its gravity that it is drawn aside continually from its rectilinear course, and made to deviate towards the earth, more or less, according to the force of its gravity, and the velocity of its motion. The less its gravity is, or the quantity of its matter, or the greater the velocity with which it is projected, the less will it deviate from a rectilinear course, and the farther it will go. If a leaden ball, projected from the top of a mountain by the force of gunpowder, with a given velocity, and in a direction projectile,
if it
for the force of gravity,
towards the earth, but would go off from it an uniform motion, if the resistance of the
parallel to the horizon,
is
in a right line,
carried in a curved line to the distance of
two miles before it falls to the ground; the same, if the resistance of the air were taken away, with a double or decuple velocity, would fly twice or ten times as far. And by increasing the velocity, we may at pleasure increase the distance to which it might be projected, and diminish the curvature of the line which it might describe, till at last it should fall at the distance of 10, 30, or 90 degrees, or even might go quite round the whole earth before it falls; or lastly, so that it might never fall to the earth, but go forwards into the celestial spaces, and proceed in its motion in infinitum. And after the same manner that a projectile, by the force of gravity, may be made to revolve in an orbit, and go round the whole earth, the moon also, either by the force of gravity, if it is endued with gravity, or by any other force, that impels it towards the earth, may be continually drawn aside towards the earth, out of the rectilinear way which by its innate force it would pursue; and would be made to revolve in the orbit which it now describes; nor could the moon without some such force be retained in its orbit (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Vol. 34, pp. 6b-7a).
74
Commentary by the
Editors
Notice the comparison between the moon, a natural earth satelHte, and that
projectiles
thrown up rapidly enough to become
are
artificial
satellites!
Undoubtedly,
mention of actual penetration into space There were, of course, earlier mythological accounts, such as that of Icarus' ill-fated attempt to fly with wings made by his marvelously skillful father, Daedalus. Icarus did not heed the warnings of his father and flew too close to the sun; the wax which held together his wings melted, and Icarus this is the first
by man or man-made objects
in a serious scientific book.
crashed to his death.
But serious concern with space far antedates even Newton. Space, as which surrounds the earth and that in which the heavenly bodies contained, has been a subject of interest ever since men began to are think scientifically about themselves and the world in which they live. Plato, in the Timaeus, gives us his view of how the heavenly bodies are
that
arranged:
The sun and moon and five other stars, which are called the planets [God] in order to distinguish and preserve the numwere created by bers of time; and when he had made their several bodies, he placed them in the orbits in which the circle of the other was revolving— in seven orbits seven stars. First, there was the moon in the orbit nearest the earth, and next the sun, in the second orbit above the earth; then came the morning star and the star sacred to Hermes, moving in orbits which have an equal swiftness with the sun, but in an opposite direction; and this is the reason why the sun and Hermes and Lucifer overtake and are overtaken by each other. To enumerate the places which he assigned to the other stars, and to give all the reasons why he assigned them, although a secondary matter, would give more trouble than the primary (Vol. 7, .
p.
.
.
45la-b).
This
is
a fairly accurate account of the
way
arranged; except that, of course, Plato's system
in is
which the planets are geocentric. Interesting,
the purpose for which, according to Plato, the planets were made: "to distinguish and preserve the numbers of time." A similar notion is expressed by Aristotle, who calls time "the number of movement." In too,
is
heavenly bodies each have their own sphere, with the earth at the center of all these spheres. Thus, there is first the sphere of the moon, then that of Mercury, then that of Venus, and so on for each of the planets. Beyond the last planetary sphere there is a sphere of the fixed stars, and finally there is a last sphere beyond this one. "The heaven" includes everything within this last sphere and the sphere itself. Beyond this, there is nothing. Aristotle says: Aristotle's view, the various
It is therefore evident that there is also no place or void or time outside the heaven. For in every place body can be present; and void is said to be that in which the presence of body, though not actual, is
possible;
and time
is
the
number
of
75
movement. But
in the absence of
Symposium on Space natural
body there
is
no movement, and outside the heaven,
as
we have
nor can come to exist. It is clear then that there is neither place, nor void, nor time, outside the heaven {On the Heavens, Vol. 8, p. 370b-c).
shown, body neither
Both
and
Plato's
Aristotle's theory,
exists
Aristotle's it
is
Outside the heavens there is
worlds seem quite small and
clear that there is
is
finite.
And
in
nothing outside the heavens.
not even any "empty space" or "void." This
quite different from the theory put forth by Lucretius. There are just
two kinds
of things in the world, according to this
Roman
poet
who was
a follower of Epicurus and Democritus, namely, atoms and void
(or
vacuum). These two things are mutually exclusive: where there are atoms, there is no void; and where there is void, there are no atoms. Void is what makes motion possible; unless it existed, the whole universe would be filled with bodies (made up of atoms), and none of them would have any place to move. Lucretius' void is, therefore, a sort of "pure" space— pure because it is space without anything in it. His universe, consisting of bodies and pure space or void, is quite naturally conceived to be infinite. There can be nothing outside it. Lucretius proves this by reduction to the absurd:
Again if for the moment all existing space be held to be bounded, supposing a man runs forward to its outside borders, and stands on the utmost verge and then throws a winged javelin, do you choose that when hurled with vigorous force it shall advance to the point to which it has been sent and fly to a distance, or do you decide that something can get in its way and stop it? for you must admit and adopt one of the two suppositions; either of which shuts you out from all escape and compels you to grant that the universe stretches without end. For whether there is something to get in its way and prevent its coming whither it was sent and placing itself in the point intended, or whether it is carried forward, in either case it has not started from the end. In this way I will go on and, wherever you have placed the outside borders, I will ask what then becomes of the javelin. The result will be that an end can nowhere be fixed, and that the room given for flight will still prolong the power of flight (On the Nature of Things, Vol. 12, pp. 12d-13a). Interestingly enough, the idea of a "pure" space,
body
in
it,
was
criticized 1,800 years later
i.e.,
space without
by the philosopher George
Berkeley. Berkeley's arguments were, of course, mainly directed against
Newton's views, but they apply
"We
just as well to Lucretius:
we cannot even frame When I speak of pure
an idea of pure Space exclusive or empty space, it is not to be supposed that the word "space" stands for an idea distinct from or conceivable without body and motion. When, therefore, supposing all the world to be annihilated besides my own body, I say there still remains pure Space, thereby nothing else is meant but only that I conceive it possible for the limbs of my body to be moved on all sides without the of
all
shall find
body
.
.
.
.
76
.
.
Commentary by
the Editors
least resistance, but if that too, were annihilated then there could be no motion, and consequently no Space" {The Principles of Human Knowl-
edge, Vol. 35, pp. 435d-436a).
Although Lucretius, in the first centurv' B.C.. had already conceived of an infinitely extended uni\'erse, there is no intimation of it in the astronomical theoty of Ptolemy, in the second centur\- a.d. In the Almagest. Ptolemy gives a picture of a universe which, though large, need not be infinite. Xor, for that matter, need it be very large, at least compared to the distances which are commonplace in modem astronomy. It merely is required that the distance from the earth to the fixed stars is large enough so that the diameter of the earth is, relative to this distance, as small as a point. Xo matter where we are on the earth, the universe above us always seems to be exactly a hemisphere. Thus the sphere of the fixed stars and the earth are in the same relation to one another as the surface of a sphere and its center. Copernicus' o\-erthrow of the Ptolemaic system was a lectual conquest of space.
One
h}-pothesis— the heliocentric
strictly intel-
one— replaced
an earlier hypothesis— the geocentric one. In the course of thirteen centhe Ptolemaic system had grown cumbersome with additions, details, and ad hoc solutions to problems that arose from additional
turies,
obser\'ations.
system was
What had once been a beautiful and beautifully simple now a complex and \eritably incomprehensible s)'stem of
circles, circles
upon
circles,
and imaginar\'
points. Copernicus' revolution
One price to be paid for world was that the universe had vastly larger than it had been in the Ptolemaic view.
restored simplicit)^ to the astronomical picture. this
to
renewed simple pictm^e
be conceived
Whereas
as
of the
the Ptolemaic uni\-erse, the size of the earth was un-
in
appreciable in relation to the sphere of the fixed
stars, in
universe the size of the earth's orbit around the sun relation to the sphere of the fixed stars. For, is
in
its
circuit
around the sun, the
uni\'erse
is
the
Copemican
unappreciable in
no matter where the earth seems to be exactly hemi-
entire orbit never appears to move out "Although [the earth] is not at the centre of the world, nevertheless the distance [between the earth and the center of the universe] is as nothing, particularly in comparison with the sphere of the fixed stars" {On the Revolutiatis of the Heavenly
spherical. Thus, the earth in
its
of the center of the universe:
Spheres, Vol. 16, p. 517b). that the
magnitude
of the
And world
again, Copernicus writes: "I also say is
such
that,
.
.
.
although the distance from
the sun to the Earth in relation to whatsoe\'er planetar\- sphere you
please possesses magnitude which
sufficiently manifest in proportion
is
compared with the sphere of the pp. 525a-526a). Thus the Copemi-
to these dimensions, this distance, as fixed stars,
is
imperceptible" {Ibid.,
can intellectual revolution took man, as the inhabitant of the earth, out 77
Symposium on Space and the universe in which he now has a tremendously larger than Ptolemy or any of the ancients
of the center of the universe; side seat
is
ever imagined
it
to be.
II
Does
change
this
Does
it
aflFect
in the physical location of
the
way
in
man
which man looks
stature?
aflFect his
at himself? In the
Copemican revolution deeply affected Finding himself no longer at the center and apex of creation, man felt deeply wounded and has felt so ever since. And this damage to his pride has been magnified by two subsequent scientific revolutions which were even more devastating than Copernicus': opinion of Sigmund Freud, the
man's
self-love.
had to endure from the hands of upon its naive self-love. The first was when it our earth was not the centre of the universe, but only a
Humanity has
in the course of time
science two great outrages realized that
tiny speck in a world-system of a
associated in our minds with the
magnitude hardly conceivable;
name
this is
although Alexandrian doctrines taught something very similar. The second was when biological research robbed man of his peculiar privilege of having been specially created, and relegated him to a descent from the animal world, implying an ineradicable animal nature in him: this transvaluation has been accomplished in our own time upon the instigation of Charles Darwin, Wallace, and their predecessors, and not without the most violent opposition from their contemporaries. But man's craving for grandiosity is now suffering the third and most bitter blow from present-day psychological research which is endeavouring to prove to the ego of each one of us that he is not even master in his own house, but that he must remain content with the veriest scraps of information about what is going on unconsciously in his own mind (A General Introduction to PsychoAnalysis, Vol. 54, p. 562c-d). It is
probably
fair to
of Copernicus,
extend Freud's statement and to say that
all
great scientific discoveries of the twentieth century have tended to
man more and more
insignificant in his
own
eyes.
Compared
the
make
to the
which matter is composed, man and his sensory apparatus seem gross and inadequate; compared to the energy released by nuclear ex'plosions, man's physical power seems insignificant and ludicrous; compared to the size of the universe as revealed by modem optical and radio telescopes, the world that is visible to man seems to be a mere speck. At the very beginning of the modem scientific era, Pascal spoke of the "frightful spaces of the universe which surround me" and added that "the eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens
infinitesimal particles of
me"
{Pensees, Vol. 33, pp. 207b, 211a). In this view, therefore, man looks down upon himself as the result
own
and inventions; for example, automation— the combined with basic knowledgehas degraded man more than any tyrant or dictator could, in making him of his
discoveries
result of superb technological skills
78
.
Commentary by
the Editors
own creation. Similarly, in this view, the of manned and unmanned vehicles, the prospective conquest of the moon and the planets by men and their instruments, will not only be a triumph of human daring and skill, it will also be another step in a series in which each human success lowers less useful
and
skillful
exploration of space
than his
by means
the stature of man. Quite obviously, the "conquest of space" not only
emphasizes the great achievements of which humans are it
to
also calls attention to the frailty of
be protected from a
human
capable,
hostile environment), to the vastness of the uni-
verse (through the realization that an entire
be
now
beings (through their need
human
more than a minute layer
suflBcient to explore
earth), to the possible non-uniqueness of
man
lifetime
would not
of space next to the
(through the anticipation
and rational beings may be found on other celestial bodies ) Yet this result seems almost too paradoxical; for, in this view of things, we infer that man is small and despicable on the basis of discoveries made by man himself. Why should not these discoveries— and their consequent technological applications— be considered a sign of man's greatness and grandeur? Is it not a sign of man's impressive stature that he is able to find out the constitution of matter down to its most minute and evanescent particles, that he is able to explore the celestial universe with telescopes for distances of millions of light-years, that he has discovered the secrets of heredity, that he is in the process of almost eliminating disease from the surface of the earth? In fact, the more complex the world is discovered to be, the more admirable is man, who is able to understand all these things. If, in Bacon's words, "Knowledge and human power are synonymous" {Novum Organum, Vol. 30, p. 107b), then as man acquires more and more knowledge, practical as well as theoretical, he necessarily becomes more and more powerful. And this would seem to imply an increase in stature. that Hving
The word
"stature" has physical connotations. In
man's stature
man
is
his height
its
literal
sense, a
and other dimensions. As a physical
entity,
has shrunk, relative to the universe, as a result of scientific dis-
coveries.
worth
But "stature"
also refers, metaphorically, to
in other respects. In these
the years. For increase his
man
man's dignity and
ways, man's "stature" has increased over
has used his powers of thought and reasoning to
knowledge and
to apply this
knowledge
in order to
conquer
nature. Indeed, man's stature considered simply as physical being
never very great. Even
how
was
vast the
and strength they were the many brute animals. But men have always felt that their
universe might be, inferiors of
men
before there was any inkling of realized that in size
worth was higher than that of other beings, because of their intellectual and spiritual powers. And from this point of view, man's stature is unaffected by technological progress or any discoveries about nature and the universe, either in the past or in the future.
79
Symposium on Space Thus Sophocles
in the fifth century b.c.
wrote of
man and
his greatness:
Speech, Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man. and wind-swift thought, and all the moods that mould a state, hath he taught himself; and how to flee the arrows of the frost, when 'tis hard lodging under the clear sky, and the arrows of the rushing rain; yea, he hath resource for all; without resource he meets nothing that must come: only against Death shall he call for aid in vain; but from baffling maladies he hath devised escapes. Cunning beyond fancy's dream is the fertile skill which brings him, now to evil, now to good (Antigone, Vol. 5, p. .
.
.
134a-b).
And also
similarly the psalmist, while praising the
Lord and
all his
works,
remarks on the privileged position of man:
[man] little less than God, and dost crown Thou hast made him with glory and honor. Thou hast given him dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet (Ps. 8:5-6). .
And
.
.
.
finally
we may
.
.
recall the
passage in which Hamlet expresses his
admiration of man:
work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! (Hamlet, Vol. 27, p. 43d).
What
a piece of
faculty! in
But none of these expressions of the grandeur of man is made by a they are all made by poets. We may well wonder, then, whether perhaps scientific and technological progress has lowered man, so that scientists can no longer agree— if ever they did— with this high evaluation of him. The long passage from Freud which we quoted earlier might scientist;
lead us to think It
so.
interesting to
is
thinkers
who
note,
initiated the
therefore,
new view
that
some
of the
Renaissance
of the universe did not feel that
they were lowering the stature of man. Giordano Bruno (1548-1600)
and time. and contains an infinity of worlds like our own. But this does not reduce man to an unimportant speck of dust. On the contrary, man can only reach perfection in an infinite universe. Because man's will and desire for knowledge are infinite, man can achieve his end and goal only in an infinite universe. Similarly, Kepler (1571-1630) did not have a low opinion of man.
rejected the Aristotelian view of a universe finite in space
The universe
Kepler
is
for
Bruno
the father of
is
infinite
modem
nicus. In Kepler's work, for the
astronomy, perhaps more so than Coperfirst time, the ancient notions concerning
the earth, the heavens, and the sun are given up. Instead of heavenly
80
Commentary by bodies being constituted of a
the Editors
diflFerent
matter from terrestrial ones (as
they are in the astronomy of Aristotle, of Ptolemy, and nicus),
all
still
Coper-
of
bodies, heavenly or terrestrial, are recognized as being of
the same kind. Instead of perfect circular motion of the stars— as something that
is
due
to the stars
because of their very perfection— we have
irregular motions such as the elliptical orbits of the planets. Kepler
was one of the first astronomers to whom the telescope was available, and he could observe such phenomena as the moons of Jupiter and the phases of Venus. The complexity and apparent confusion which had entered the astronomical picture were cleared up by the work of men like Kepler, Galileo, Newton, and their successors, and led to the recognition of the scientific laws on which modern technology, including space travel, is
based.
Though well aware
of what he was doing, Kepler was not worried he was lessening the stature of man. On the contrary, throughout his works there is much praise and jubilation over the intellectual powers of man ( including those of Kepler himself! ) and a definite feeling that these discoveries exalt rather than degrade man. The center of the universe is the most important and dignified place in it, says Kepler, and so it belongs to the sun which is a more important and primary body than the earth. Yet this does not diminish the stature of man; for in placing the sun in the center and the earth at a distance from the center, he made it clear that he was speaking of the earth "in so far as it is a part of the edifice of the world, and not of the dignity of the governing creatures which inhabit it" (Epitome of Copernican Astronomy,
that
,
Vol. 16, p. 854b).
In Newton's view, space
is
absolute and "in
its
own
nature, without
relation to anything external, remains always similar and immovable" (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Vol. 34, p. 8b). It is
extended
infinitely in all directions;
and Newton and
finds that
"God
is
able
proportions to space, and perhaps of different densities
and in several and forces, and
make worlds
of several sorts
to create particles of matter of several sizes
thereby to vary the laws of Nature, and
figures,
in several parts of the Universe" (Optics, Vol. 34, p. 543a).
The contemplation Newton.
On
of infinite spaces or other worlds does not distress
the contrary, anything which increases knowledge
encouraged. For, he shall at length
tells
us, "if natural
philosophy in
all
be perfected, the bounds of moral philosophy
its
is
will
be
to
parts
.
.
.
be also
enlarged" (Ibid., Vol. 34, p. 543b).
The scientist who has perhaps changed modern man's ideas of space more than anyone else is Albert Einstein. In Relativity: The Special and General Theory (see The Great Ideas Today 1961, pp. 427-475), he develops the theory that there
continuum. In
is
just
this view, the universe
81
is
one four-dimensional space-time non-Euclidean (i.e., the laws of
Symposium on Space Euclidean geometry do not hold true), and Einstein envisages the possibility of a universe that is finite. Is such a radical overthrow of traditional ideas derogatory to man or to man's nature? At least one
commentator on Einstein
made us merely by way
\vrites that "the
theory of relativity has simul-
and richer by showing
in the
realm of physics,
taneously
freer
not
of abstract advice but in concrete performance, that
our intellectual capacity of knowledge reaches farther than our sensory capacity of perception."^
For the boldest statement of how modern scientific knowledge has benefited man, we must return to Kepler. He finds that in his view of the universe, the dignity of the earth may have been lowered, but not the dignity of man. Indeed, he goes on to say that it is entirely appropriate to put the sun in the center of the world and make the earth travel around it, because the earth has a special station as the home of
man: From
movement home of the
the end of
the Earth as the
...
it is
proved that movement belongs
speculative creature. For
it
to
was not fitting and its contem-
man, who was going to be the dweller in this w^orld one place of it as in a closed cubicle: in that way he would never have arrived at the measurement and contemplation of the so distant stars, unless he had been furnished with more than human gifts; or rather since he was furnished with the eyes which he now has and with the faculties of his mind, it was his office to move around in this verv spacious edifice by means of the transportation of the Earth his home and to get to know the difi'erent stations, according as they are measurers— i.e., to take a promenade— so that he could all the more correctly view and measure the single parts of his house (Op. cit., \'oI. 16, pp. 915b-916a). that
plator, should reside in
This point of view
movement
of
man
if the is immediately transferable to space travel: with the earth contributes to his dignity and station
because of the added things he can contemplate, then so does travel through space in artificial heavenly bodies— and it does so to an increased degree, because man's travel with the earth is involuntary, but travel through space is voluntary and a conscious commitment of man to the enterprise of knowledge.
1
Aloy.s
Wenzl
Evanston,
111.:
in
Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, ed. by Paul A. of Living Philosophers, Inc., 1949, p. 605.
The Library
82
Schilpp,
PART TWO
An Essay on Time: The Tempo of History AN ANALYSIS BY THE EDITORS
THE TEMPO OF HISTORY "Consider the past
"...
.... Thou
Condense, if you will, the thousand years of man's rehalf a corded history [into] century. About ten years ago man emerged from his cave five years ago man learned Last month, electric to write. lights and telephones and automoOnly last biles and airplanes. nuclear power. And week
mayest foresee also the things which will be. For they will certainly be of like form, and it is
fifty
.
.
not possible that they should deviate from the order of the things
which take place now: accordingly to have contemplated
human same
life for
forty years
is
.
.
.
the
.
.
.
.
.
have contemplated it for ten thousand years. For what more wilt thou see?" Emperor Marcus Aurehus
.
.
.
.
as to
.
.
.
.
.
if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight." President John F. Kennedy
now
(a.d. 121-180), Meditations,
Vol. 12, p.
.
.
282d
INTRODUCTION
When
a man lives to be a hundred, he has lived a long time. If his hundredth birthday occurs in 1963, he has lived a thousand years, in some respects ten thousand, and in some a million. He has seen the world change as no man before him. Within his lifetime, the world has advanced from the four-wheeled wagon of his birth ( and of Mesopotamia fifty
centuries ago) to the space capsule.
This centenarian of 1963 was born in the world's most advanced cul-
was a culture in which men lived lives much like those of many commonplace ways it was a culture like that of biblical times, in which water was drawn from wells, clothing was homespun (and candles and soap homemade), oil lit the lamps, man's muscle moved most of his tools, and most men traveled either by horse ( as they had in ancient Egypt) or on foot (as they had about a million years before). The men then alive (and in all ages previously) had not expected to be astounded in their lifetimes, and they hadn't been. Marvelous new things had come— the printing press, the telescope, the cotton gin, the steam engine— and people spoke of "modern times." But those innovations had proceeded at a pedestrian pace from the Renaissance on. Their advent was manageable; the world could cope with them. No great engineer ever had to confess, as Herbert Hoover did of Telstar: "The electronics men have just gone beyond my comprehension. I belong to a generation that just doesn't grasp all that." There was always, in all ture,
but
it
their ancestors. In
84
The Tempo
of History
past eras, more of the old remaining than there was of the new; more of the famihar, the homely, and the miderstood.
Not that the world had stood cause
man
is
a restless creature.
rigid the slave,
changes,
if
The
still. The world is a However remote the
however repressive the
t}Tant, there
restless place, be-
goatherd, however
had always been
not from generation to generation, then from century to cen-
making took four hundred years to travel a hiuidred miles in neolithic Europe— but it traveled. Wandering and war cross-fertilized ci\-ilizations. There were sudden slave revolutions, sudden continents found, sudden "breakthroughs" like the clock or the compass. From the standpoint of the whole of human society, there had never been a stable world, ^^^hat there had been was a sfabhj changing world ^^'hich was recognizable from historical epoch to historical epoch. With a modicum of orientation, it is not impossible that a Marcus Aurelius could have stepped from the second century into the nineteenth; more comfortably, in any case, than a nineteenth-century man could step into the middle of the twentieth. Or, indeed, more comfortably than an early-twentieth-centur\' man could step into the 1960's. Ours is the first time in human histor)- in which no man dies in the era in which he was bom. The child of e\'en fifty years ago could have awakened in ancient Assyria or Babylon and recognized the essential conditions of human life: the times and modes of planting and harvest and, in the cities, of the season's first w^onderful fresh fruits and vegetables in the stalls and the stores; the work done by hand— grinding, corn shelling, churning— with the help of domestic animals in the fields; the heat and the cold of unconditioned air. Oh, there were wonders fifty years ago, too, but the difference betsveen lighting a candle and turning up the gas was sometuT}'.
thing a
art of potter}-
man
(or a child) could assimilate.
Fifty years later— the time of a single generation— and for the in history all historv'
is
ancient. Richthofen
first
time
and Verdun, the Gay Twenties
and Jimmy Walker, the Great Depression, WPA— all belong to ages remote now, all misty in the minds of young men and women. The Lusitania and \^^ilson and Trotsky have receded with Munich, Bataan, and
Warm
Springs. It
all
happened when people
built houses with
one bath-
room.
Twenty years have re\'olutionized life, not only in baclavard but in advanced societies. Young Germans, bom in a world of half-timbered houses and hewn stone, now live in a world of aluminum, plastic, and glass. In t\vo decades a basic new idea of life and of human relations has arisen from the smoking ruins of timeless tradition. Wherever he is— Europe, Asia, America— the child of t^venty years ago hves in a phenomenally new world. He has gone from radio to tele\'ision, from propeller to jet, from block buster to world buster. The fen-year-old, born in the pre85
An
Essay on Time
computer age, has seen the birth of the workerless factory. And the fivewho entered Hfe as a member of an earthbound race, Hves in a world in which men circle the skies and rockets streak toward Venus. In 1776 it took more than three days to go from Boston to New York year old,
means
man
What
important about this
by the
fastest
fact
not that the trip took three days, but that the time of the journey
is
was the same before.
What
was no
faster
fire
signals as
as
it
that
could travel.
would have been a thousand
is
or
two thousand years
more— since transportation meant communication— there way known for men to exchange information, except by old as fire itself. (When the inventor of the telegraph,
is
he was able from Washington, D. C, to New Haven, Connecticut, in seven days— no faster than Nebuchadnezzar, Caesar, Charlemagne, or Na-
Samuel
F. B. Morse, tried to get to his wife's funeral in 1825,
to journey
poleon.
)
The world we now
live in
is
the product of near-instantaneous com-
munication and of transportation approaching instantaneity.
It is
a world
which there are two weeks by mule or as many minutes by jet. In terms of the world of technology, the year 1769, when James Watt got his first patent for a steam engine, is more important than 1776. But 1776 was important, too: it was a year of historic action that established a new kind of nation. It was also —though few men noted the fact— the year in which a new insight into in
The pace
1000
alternative routes across the Andes: four to six
of technological inventions from a.d.
1200
1000
to the present
1300 86
1400
1500
human
histor}-
made
its
The Tempo
of History
appearance,
when two
great thinkers concluded
independently of one another that the rate of social change was increasing. Their observations were not precise. Gibbon noted in his "general
human
history that man's "progress in the improvement mental and corporeal faculties has been irregular and N^arious; infinitely slow in the beginning, and increasing by degrees with ." (Decline and Fall redoubled velocit\' of the Roman Empire, Vol. 40,
observations" on
and exercise of
his
.
p.
633d
)
.
.
And Adam
Smith, commenting on national wealth and revenue,
said that "their pace seems ... to have
been gradually accelerated have been going on, but to ha\-e been going on faster and faster" (The Wealth of Nations, Vol. 39, p. 38a). Within a century the insight of Gibbon and Smith was solid doctrine. Professor Lewis H. Morgan wrote in 1877 that "human progress, from
They seem not only
first
to last, has
.
.
.
to
been
in a ratio not rigorously
but essentially geometrical
and most rapid in the last)." And fiftv' years Harvey Robinson said: "Man's progress was wellhistorian ago, James (slowest in the
first
period,
.
nigh imperceptible for tens of thousands of years
.
.
.
but
it
.
.
tends to in-
By 1917 anthropolophenomenon in vivid fash-
crease in rapidit\' with an ever-accelerating tempo." gist
Robert H. Lowie was able
ion:
"We may liken the progress of mankind to who dawdles through kindergarten for 85
old,
to express the
that of a
man
100 years
years, takes 10 years to
go through the primar}' grades, then rushes ^^dth lightning rapidity through grammar school, high school, and college." Considering the na-
MICROSCOPE TELEVISION
1900 87
2000
Essay on Time
An
few
ture of the developments of the past
one might add, "and
years,
graduate research."
The term
may be moot; what
"progress"
social change.
is
not moot
staggers the imagination
And what
the fact of
is
not change
is
or
itself,
the spectacular character of individual changes, but the "ever-accelerating tempo." It is as if human history were a machine moving along in
low gear—with occasional bumps, blowouts, and breakdowns— and then, having always before resumed its journey in the same gear, suddenly shifting into a higher gear; then, after a short interval, into a
higher,
still
and then, after a still shorter interval, into a still higher. To the spectator (more awesomely, to the passenger), the sight is marvelous and also terrifying: Will it go on accelerating? Is it out of control, roaring forward faster and faster toward some sort of grand smashup? Will it burn itself out like a rocket? Will
ever again slow
it
HUMAN NATURE AND THE
Whatever
view
—"God
down?
IDEA OF PROGRESS
we take of the bibUcal doctrine of special creation man in his own image" (Gen. 1:27)—his distinc-
created
tiveness in kind
from the
rest of creation is generally
and the like us from the
.
just .
.
and
.
.
.
unjust,
distinguishes
Hegel (Philosophy of History, Vol. 46, Pascal's view of man as "a thinking reed" {Pensees,
brutes,"
p. 156c), reflecting
"Man
assumed.
any sense of good and evil, of ..." (Politics, Vol. 9, p. 446c). "Thought
alone," said Aristotle, "has
says
Vol. 33, p. 233b).
The
Man
decisive evidence for man's distinctiveness
in the
is
realm of action.
and to act, with some measure of freedom, upon his choice. This freedom (however limited or conditioned) is the freedom not merely to change or be changed, but to will change. "The changes that take place in nature," says Hegel, "how inalone has the
finitely
power
to choose
may be— exhibit
manifold soever they
only a perpetually
repeating cycle; in nature there happens 'nothing
and the multiform play
of
its
phenomena
new under
self-
the sun,'
so far induces a feeling of
ennui; only in those changes which take place in the region of spirit does
new arise. This peculiarity in the world of mind has indicated in man an altogether different destiny from that of merely naobjects— in which we find always one and the same stable character,
anything
the case of tural
to
which
all
change reverts— namely, a
real capacity for change,
for the better, an impulse of perfectibility" (Op.
In a similar vein Rousseau or not other creatures
quality of
may be
(
like all
cit..
reformers ) maintains that, whether
said to think, "there
is
another very specific
which distinguishes [men from brutes], and which
no dispute. This
is
and that
Vol. 46, p. 178a-b).
will
admit
the faculty of self-improvement, which, by the help
of circumstances, gradually develops
all
the rest of our faculties, and
inherent in the species as in the individual: whereas a brute
88
is,
at the
is
end
GIANT GALAPAGOS TORTOISE ONE OF THE WORLD S OLDEST SURVIVING SPECIES The life of one generation of a brute animal contains the whole history of the species :
few months, all he will ever be during his whole life, and his species, end of a thousand years, exactly what it was the first year of that thousand" (On the Origin of Inequality, Vol. 38, p. 338b). True, chimpanzees may be taught to do some of the things that men do—but it is men who teach them, and the chimpanzees' descendants revert to the static chimpanzee condition. We know that the mountains and the stars are changeable— everything is— but the organic world, apart from man, is hardly more changeable of a
at the
than they.
Man
alone has a history.
The
life
of one generation of a brute
animal contains (unless biological mutation occurs) the whole history of the species. Biological evolution
is
so slow that, as
is
only an entomologist can distinguish the species of
commonly known, modern cockroach
from their fossilized ancestors of two hundred fifty million years ago. "In one out of the million or so animal species," says Sir Julian Huxley, "mind developed to a stage at which it gave its possessor the power for true speech and conceptual thought. The result was man. With this, a new method of evolutionary change was introduced— cumulative change in the behaviour and achievements of a social group by mentally transmitted tradition, instead of change in the potentialities of individuals by physi-
On
cally transmitted systems of nucleoproteins."
species
is
now
this view, "the
human
the spearhead of the evolutionary process on earth, the only
portion of the stuff of which our planet
is
made which
is
capable of
further progress."^
This "radically phase,"
is
new phase
of evolution, the
nothing but historical change.
Its
human
or psycho-social
method, says Huxley, con-
by and cultures maintain themselves and develop." Observing that man's mental powers cannot have changed appreciably since the Paleohthic period, Huxley, hke other social scientists, ascribes change and its acceleration to the cumulative genius arising from sists
of "cumulative tradition, forming the basis of that social heredity
means
1
New
of
which human
Bottles for
societies
New Wine (New
York: Harper
89
&
Brothers, 1957), pp. 102-103.
a
Ati Essay
on Time
speech and conceptual thought; each generation of men is the beneficiary knowledge of all the generations that went before. And each new piece of recombinaand combination in serves, doors) (like a key that fits many tion with other pieces, to
This "pyramiding"
advance knowledge
in a variety of fields.
more or less orderly accelthe Lower Paleolithic period
process easily explains a
Huxley speculates that in a major cultural change required something of the order of a million years; by the late Upper Paleolithic period, nearer ten thousand years; and in historic times, something like a century. But he notes that during the last century each decade has seen at least one major change: photography, the theory of evolution, the electromagnetic theory with its appHeration of change.
and power, the germ theory of disease, the cinema, radioactivity and the new theories of matter and energy, wireless and television, the internal combustion engine, chemical synthetics, and atomic fission. "And," he concludes, "there is as yet no sign of the rate of cations in electric light
acceleration slowing down."-
On tempo
the contrary, since he wrote those words several years ago, the of cultural
change— and not
just in application
and elaboration
of
techniques— has become faster than ever. To the ancient who said, "This too shall pass," the man of 1963 might reply, "Very wellbut don't we even get a good look at it first?" Not only does the durable not endure, but the gradual character of change seems to be swept scientific
away, and with it the breathing space, the elbowroom to achieve a sense of relationship with the new. Life in 1963 is a little like a three-ring circus
come
to a country town,
with
its
succession of breathless impossibilities
in the air, and the band blarcacophony into the wild bewilderment. The only diflFerence is that there is no ordered reality to return to outside the tent. No single theory of social change accounts for the explosive character of the changes since World War II. Some of the causes are clear: on the one hand, the pent-up potentialities of the prewar period; on the other, the impetus to technological development which war itself provided— an impetus which (at the stage then reached in weaponry) placed the
here, there, everywhere, on the
ing
ground and
its
decisive battlefield in the scientific laboratory for the
In
little
more than three
first
time in history.
years, military necessity "split the
atom"—
fundamental achievement that prewar physicists had thought would take half a century.
that physics, chemistry, and biochemistry had all reached development in which they stood on the brink of great advancement through their integration. This integration— or at least this interIt is clear also
stages of
relationship—was already under
Second World Wars, 2
Ibid., pp.
in
way
in the period
which the breakdown
22-23.
90
between the
First
and
of tightly departmentalized
)
The Tempo research was proceeding apace.
of History
And
the Cold
War
provided (and con-
tinues to provide, in always increasing amounts) funds
and
facilities in
war-related fields— including medicine— which had never before been available to research. all
Given these gigantic impulses, and the geometric progression in which each new truth unlocks a dozen others, there seems still to remain a mysterious ingredient in the phenomenal onrush of change— which
is no more than to say that there seems still to remain a "magic chemistry" in man. Prof. Hornell Hart, in Technology and Social Change, cites as one of the factors of speed-up "the intensity of the need or desire for the solution of various problems."^ The Cold War may be said to provide the in-
tensity of need; certainly the political crisis of the past fifteen years, un-
precedented in both its magnitude and its unrelieved tension, is concurrent with the apparent conversion of all change into a "race." But how explain the accelerated desire?
Has a new mood seized upon men, some-
thing like that of the age of discovery that followed Columbus, a
mood
compounded, perhaps, of rejection of the past (and even of the present) and recklessness, or even desperation, bom of the threat of nuclear destruction? Or is the impetus something more optimistic—the release of man's drive to catch up with the revolutions of our time? In any case, a release of human potential is taking place of an order that calls to mind Aladdin and his lamp. All the Faustian dreams and terrors are invoked in man's headlong pursuit of mastery— mastery of the universe, of the social order, and ( tagging along ever further behind of himself. Ours is a time full of foreboding, of hope, and of prophecy. In the midst of the uprush so perfectly symbolized by the modern rocket, a mounting conflict of interpretation, prognosis, and advice pours forth from the incessantly turning presses, from the statesman's podium, the politician's platform, and the pastor's pulpit. And men turn back to the past— to that ancient history of equally ancient
words .
.
.
we
now— for
fifty
years ago or five thousand, both
understanding. They pause and ponder the
of the ancient prophet:
stumble at noon day as
"We
wait for
in the night
THE IDEA OF PROGRESS
IN
.
light, .
."
but behold obscurity
(Isa. 59:9-10).
ANCIENT TIMES
of Revelation, the new ways of Babylon ( and Tyre and Sidon and Jerusalem) did not at all represent what Hegel called "change ... for the better, an impulse of perfectibility"; still less, Rousseau's "faculty of self-improvement." True, the rich were "clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls" (Rev. 18:16), and their lives pervaded by luxury unknown to ancient Moses; but these novelties were more of
According to the prophet of
3
New
York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1957, p. 49.
91
An Essay on Time the order of sybaritic splendors than anything that elevated the human condition as a whole, materially or spiritually. To the prophet, they were
was "fallen," and had become "the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit" (Rev. 18:2). He saw social change as change for the worse ( as had the earher Jewish prophets ) if history had a direction, it was toward the destruction of the world by a wrathful god. The concept of social change as improvement or progress is first found in the secular and scientific thought of the Greeks. In the fourth century arts and sciences have B.C., Aristotle noted that "changes in the certainly been beneficial; medicine, for example, and gymnastic, and That every other art and craft have departed from traditional usage. improvement has occurred is shown by the fact that old customs are The remains of ancient laws which exceedingly simple and barbarous have come down to us are quite absurd. ... It would be ridiculous to signs that the city
;
.
.
.
.
.
rest
.
.
.
.
contented with [the] notions" of the "primaeval inhabitants" of the
earth (Politics, Vol.
The ferment
of
9,
pp. 464d-465a).
change
Athens during the "Golden Age" was
in ancient
such that the Athenians have been called "the ancient Americans." The Corinthians described them as "addicted to innovation," and observed
by swiftness alike in conception and beyond their power, and daring beyond their judgment ... A scheme unexecuted is with them a positive loss, a successful enterprise a comparative failure. They alone are enabled to call a thing hoped for a thing got, by the speed with which they act upon their resolutions. [They have] little opportunity for enjoying, being ever engaged in getting and to them laborious occuthat "their designs are characterized
execution.
.
.
.
They
are adventurous
.
.
.
is
less of
engineering,
.
.
a misfortune than the peace of a quiet life"
History of the Peloponnesian War, Vol.
Rome saw
.
.
.
pation
.
still
6, p.
(
Thucydides,
366b-c).
greater changes than Athens, in law, in war, and in
not in philosophy and the
arts. Within a few centuries of was transformed from a small settlement on the banks of the Tiber into a vast empire* But even at the height of its affluence, there were old Romans living in the country, much in the manner of their ancestors, who would perhaps have felt more at home among the "ancient" Greeks than amid the delights of the imperial city, with its exotic linens and silks, spices and swords, drugs and wines; here, too, as in Babylon, the changes were not fundamental but superficial. The characteristic alteration in the mode of men's lives was quantitative: they had the traditional goods in greater abundance and variety than their forebears. In a world which lived by war, there were many mighty convulsions, but no Roman, in a single lifetime, experienced anything like the change from the horse and buggy to jet propulsion. In the ancient Judaeo-Christian and Graeco-Roman cultures, the focus was upon the individual rather than upon society. Changes in the life of its
founding,
if
it
92
The Tempo
of History
an individual had a tempo with which no social change could compare. man might span the gulf from
In the balance between freedom and fate,
perfect happiness to perfect misery between sunup and sundown, and
within a lifetime
plummet all
(
much
or
less
)
wing his way to the heights of virtue or was the change that their tragedians
to the depths of vice. This
celebrated, their scholars investigated, their preceptors taught.
The
historical spirit of these ages (and of those that immediately followed) saw social change as cyclical in kind. Plato's hypothetical circularity of government, from despot to democracy and back to despot ( see The Republic, Vol. 7, pp. 403a-413a), has its echo in Virgil's "majestic roll of circling centuries" {The Eclogues, Vol. 13, p. 14a), and its counterpart in Aristotle's supposition that "probably each art and each science has ." often been developed as far as possible and has again perished .
(Metaphysics, Vol.
Macedonia,
8, p.
Rome— all
rose and
was hardly advanced from hardship triumphed;
.
605a). Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, Persia, Greece, fell,
and
their condition, after they fell,
that of their origination. Cultures schooled in
the
fruit
induced decadence and led
of
their
triumph was
overthrow by
to their
new
luxury,
which
cultures schooled
in hardship.
And
rise in long,
slow season against the victors, unless the victors had had
the defeated, reduced once
more
to hardship,
would
the forethought to exterminate or disperse them, in which case the newly
softened would
draw down upon themselves the aggression
of other
hardened cultures (which would go the same way). Thus the advancement of society was accepted as something rigidly circumscribed— and fabulously slow. The Athenian stranger, in Plato's Laws, asks Cleinias how much time he thinks "has elapsed since cities first existed," and the two of them agree that it must have been "vast and incalculable" and that during this period "thousands and thousands of cities [have] come into being and as many perished" and "each ." The Athenof them had every form of government many times over. ian then asks, "Would not all implements have then perished and every other excellent invention of political or any other sort of wisdom have utterly disappeared?" Cleinias answers, "Why, yes. For it is evident that the arts were unknown during ten thousand times ten thousand years." Even their recollection would have vanished, says Cleinias, and the restoration of the race "was not made all in a moment, but little by little, .
.
.
.
.
during a very long period of time" (Vol.
7, p.
.
.
664a-d).
THE PATTERN OF CHANGE
The
great changes that took place, in ancient no less than in pre-
historic times,
were
largely the results of
commonplace
trial
and
even of accident. The other-worldliness with which scientific work was regarded is nowhere better illustrated than in the life of Archimedes, who, according to Plutarch, produced his wonderful maerror, or
93
SYRACUSANS USED AKCHIMEDES BURNING MIRRORS TO FEND OFF ROMAN ATTACK Archimedes produced his machines of war and peace "not as matters of any importance, but as mere amusements in geometry .
.
.
repudiating as ignoble the whole trade of engineering, and every sort of art that lends itself to mere use and profit"
chines of
war and peace— including the lever— "not
importance, but as mere amusements in geometry.
as matters of .
.
."
any
Plutarch con-
"Though these inventions had obtained him the renown of more than human sagacity, he yet would not deign to leave behind him any commentary or writing on such subjects; but, repudiating as sordid and ignoble the whole trade of engineering, and every sort of art that lends itself to mere use and profit, he placed his whole aflPection and ambition in those purer speculations where there can be no reference to tinues:
.
the vulgar needs of
The Greeks'
life.
.
."
.
.
(Lives, Vol. 14, pp. 252b, 253d).
toward scientific research— and the scientists' contempt of utility— was a long time dying. For a millennium after Archimedes, this separation of mechanics from geometry inhibited fundamental lofty attitude
technological progress and in
was a
still
some areas repressed
it
altogether.
But there
greater obstacle to change until the very end of the Middle
Ages: the organization of society. The social system of fixed class relationships that prevailed through the Middle Ages (and in some areas much longer) itself stultified improvement. Under this system, the laboring masses, in exchange for the bare necessities of life, did all the productive work, while the privileged few— priests, nobles, and kings— concerned themselves only with ownership and the maintenance of their own posi-
94
The Tempo tion.
of History
In the interest of their prerogatives they did achieve considerable
progress in defense, in warmaking, in go\ernment, in trade, in the arts of leisure,
had no
and
in the extraction of labor
familiarity
hand, the laborers,
from
their dependents, but they
with the processes of production.
who were
On
the
other
familiar with manufacturing techniques,
had
improve or increase production to the advantage of their masters. "Thus, with one class possessing the requisite knowledge and experience, but lacking incentive and leisure, and the other class lacking the knowledge and experience, there was no means by which technical progress could be achieved."* The whole ancient world was built upon this relationship— a relationship as sterile as it was inhuman. The availability of slaves nullified the need for more eflBcient machinery. In many of the commonplace fields of
no incentive
human
to
endeavor, actual stagnation prevailed
Not all the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome for thousands of years.
could develop the windmill or contrive so simple an instrument as the wheelbarrow-
products of the tenth and thirteenth centuries respectively.
For about twenty-five centuries, two-thirds power of the horse was lost because he wasn't shod, and much of the strength of the ox was wasted because his harness wasn't modified to fit his shoulders. For more than five thousand years, sailors were confined to rivers and coasts by a primitive steering mechanism which required remarkably of the
Httle
to
alteration
become
(in
a rudder.
the thirteenth century)
With any ingenuity
at
all, the ancient plough could have been put on wheels and the ploughshare shaped to bite and turn the sod instead of merely
scratching it— but the ingenuity wasn't forth-
coming. like the
And the villager of the Middle Ages, men who first had fire, had a smoke
hole in the center of the straw-
thatched (
roof
of
his
which he shared with
or
one-room his animals
GREEK
WOMEN AT THE LOOM.
VASE PAINTING, FIFTH CENTXTRY From 2500 B.C. to the end
reed-
Roman Empire, the great advances were simple smelting, the primitive lathe and loom of the
.
dwelling )
,
while the medieval charcoal burner
made himself a hut of small branches. From 2500 b.c. to the end of the Roman Empire, the condition of most men's lives changed at an imperceptible crawl. The great advances were (like his Stone
4
S. Lilley,
Age
ancestor)
Men, Machines and History (London: Cobbett
95
B.C.
Press, 1948), p. 18.
.
.
An
Essay on Time
simple smelting, the primitive lathe and loom, the very limited (and inefficient ) use of animal power, and, in late Roman times, the adaptation
water wheel to milling. The next thousand years, after the fall of Rome, witnessed only a modest increase in the pace of historical change. The great innovations were the clock, the compass, the rudder, the blast of the
furnace, and, in the mid-fifteenth century, the single most significant
made to the preservation, diflFusion, and advancement human culture— Gutenberg's printing press and movable type. By the seventeenth century, the university had come into being (Bol-
contribution ever of
ogna
Cambridge, and Salamanca in the academy and the laboratory, but they had httle or no effect on daily life. Eyeglasses had been known and used for hundred of years, but the principle of the lens was not adapted to the microscope until around 1600. Even then the doctors ignored it, as they did the seventeenth-century thermometer (for almost two hundred years!) and the stethoscope (first described in 1819). The first fundamental change accepted by medicine since the Greeks was vaccination, introduced by Edward Jenner in 1796. in the eleventh century, Paris,
thirteenth century), as well as the scientific
THE MOMENT OF BALANCE At the end of the Middle Ages, most men in all lands lived such JTjL unvaried lives, from generation to generation, that they would have been hard put to believe that the condition of man ever changed. Nearly all of them were as illiterate as their earliest ancestors. They had no knowledge of history, or even of geography. Men never traveled or thought of traveling; like their grandfathers and grandchildren, they died where they were born and in the same unmultiplying trades— farmer, herdsman, miller, carpenter, weaver, blacksmith, and cobbler. Bakeries, meat markets, and tailor shops were unknown outside the great cities. Says Arnold J. Toynbee, "The social structure and cultural character of these societies was singularly uniform. Each of them consisted of a mass of peasants, living and working under much the same conditions as their forefathers on the morrow of the invention of agriculture some six to eight ."^ thousand years back, and a small minority of rulers Even so, change was going on, as it always has, and in the century or two preceding the Industrial Revolution the rate of change began to .
.
increase. In the first half of the eighteenth century men did live diflFerently ^— if not from their grandfathers, then from their grandfathers' grandfathers. At last the efficient use of the power of water, wind, and animals had come slowly to fruition. The human slave was long since gone in most places, and slave labor was confined largely to America and the colonial societies. The factory had come into being, using an ever
5 Civilization on Trial
(
1948), in The Great Ideas Today 1961, p. 543.
96
i^j;
MEDIEVAL FESTIVAL Free time icas spent simply, in festivals, feast days, and out of ivhich folk music and folk art developed
increasing
amount
fairs,
of the three forms of other-than-human
ever increasing variety of
\v3.\s.
The horse was worth
power
in
an
ten slaves, a good
Common tools had taken their compass and rudder led to the world-wide exchange of products and the commercial re\olution from which the early American scene took so much of its color and character. The Age of Power had arrived, marking the end of the disciplined guild system (with all its obstacles to change) and the rise of the wage worker. In one ver>' profound sense this was— as Lewis Mumford maintains— "a large step downward," a change for the worse.*^ Artisanship, individual and corporate, as an element in production began to give way to the objective of profit on the part of both the manufacturer and the worker. As specialization proceeded, the incentive of fine handiwork was sacrificed to the incentive of quantit>^ But for the conditions of daily life the loss was more than offset in three distinct ways: by the inventiveness of the free technician, by the slowly rising standard of living, and, most important of all, by the alleviation of human toil and by an increase in free time. This time was spent simply, in festi\'als, feast days, and fairs, out of which folk music and folk art developed, and with them a respect for the lowly peasant and craftsman as a person, a subject, and an appreciator. Labor was no longer the unrelieved lot of the many. (In Catholic countries the number of holidays for workers rose to as man)' as a hundred a year.) And while water wheel or windmill worth a hundred.
modern form, and the
6 Technics and Civilization
ship's
(New
York: Harcourt, Brace
97
&
Co., 1943), p. 146.
An Essay on Time Huxley says life
of the
whole past prior
to our
own time
has generally been, as Hobbes described
"
short,'
it,
that "up
nasty,
till
now
brutish and
students of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries disagree
with him radically. Short it
was
may have been, but nasty and brutish, as it had been, and as be again in the time of the Industrial Revolution, it was not. The
it
to
energy of these two post-slave and pre-industrial centuries, says Mumford, "did not vanish in smoke nor were its products thrown quickly on junk-heaps: by the seventeenth century it had transformed the woods
and swamps of northern Europe into a continuous vista of wood and field, and garden: an ordered human landscape replaced the bare meadows and the matted forests, while the social necessities of man had created hundreds of new cities, solidly built and commodiously arranged, cities whose spaciousness and order and beauty still challenge, even in their decay, the squaHd anarchy of the new towns that succeeded them. ... In every department there was equilibrium bet\\'een the ."*^ static and the dynamic. The refinements of taste and smell and village
.
.
sight came, for the earth.
first
.
.
.
time in history, to the
There were flowers
common
when food is scarce, people do not grow flowers in its Any consideration of the tempo of history must pause this equilibrium, this "moment of balance." Man had gone
for
so slowly that the aeons
saw no
place. to
contemplate
slowly forward,
substantial transformation of his
the end of the Middle Ages.
life until after
people of the
in every garden, a sign of general well-being,
Then the
way
of
culture of the past—
change— began to touch the many and to bring them some few had always until then monopolized. On the whole, these possessions, these capabilities, were neither new nor spectacular. Their increase was a step-by-step affair. But there came a pointsomewhere in the tu^elfth and thirteenth centuries— when a few notable breaches were made in the tools and methods of the ages past. Their application was gradual, and the rate of social change increased until the dynamic had achieved a delicate adjustment with the static; the new had altered the old organically, co-operatively. The process had begun to carry men to a new plane without amazing them and without cutting them off from the customary. the cumulative
of the blessings that the
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION eighteenth-century England harvests were good, food was cheap, and the people, says Harrison Brown, were in the main contented. But their contentment was not to last long. They were living on the edge of a new era which they did not in the least foresee: "The scientists, the
In
7
Op.
8 Op.
cit., cit.,
p. 16.
pp.
147-148.
98
The Tempo
of History
craftsmen, the engineers, and the manufacturers were, unaware of the
consequences, laying the foundations for a sequence of developments that to affect human society more drastically than any since
were destined
the beginnings of primitive agriculture. Within a few brief decades the
would be transformed to an extent undreamed of by peasant, madman."^ These few brief decades— at the end of the eighteenth century— marked the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Human history shifted gears for the first time; in the next one hundred years the world as it always had been was swept away, and with it the way men looked at it and at themselves. It took a million years for the Age of Tools to arrive, and another five thousand for the Age of Power to spread through the civilized world and affect the age-old conditions of daily life and labor. But the few years from the 1820's to the 1860's saw the Age of Industry hurtle from infancy to maturity. So precipitate and profound were its effects that mankind is island
king, genius, or
still
struggling, perhaps hopelessly, to adjust to them.
The
new
Industrial Revolution
had four
distinct facets:
machines; the derivation of power from
new
the invention of
sources
(coal,
oil,
and hydroelectricity ) the improvement of the machines to exploit the new forms of power ( and the enlargement of industrial units to exploit the power more efficiently); and the staggering social and political consequences of that improvement and enlargement. The causes of the revolution were more complex: there was a tidal wave of study and imagination pent up by war and released by the downfall of Napoleon and the dawn of peace in 1815. The end of feudalism liberated commerce and manufacturing; this catalytic combination brought on the Industrial Revolution and tilted the cornucopia of technological creativity. The ;
inventions
came pouring
forth in unimaginable profusion,
first in
England,
then in the United States, and finally in the whole of western Europe.
The
pell-mell
advancement was
of
two
distinct,
if
co-operative, kinds:
the fundamental innovations, and the mechanization of ancient ways of labor. In the
first
category were whole
new
industries like the chemical
development of canning, refrigeration, synthetic dyes, medicinal compounds, the storage cell, telegraphy, the generator, and the electric engine; Portland cement and asphalt paving; vulcanization and the pneumatic tire; the steam engine and the highpressure boiler; the elevator; lithography, photography, and wood-pulp paper. Any one of these advances would have been the marvel of any whole century in the past. The steam engine alone changed human history, opening up seas and continents, building cities, bringing distant men and civilizations together for the first time, and moving people freely from their ancestral homes and habits. The steam railroad trans-
and
electrical,
involving
the
9 The Challenge of Man's Future (New York: The Viking
99
Press, 1954), p. 34.
An
Essay on Time
formed the United States from a seacoast
to a continent within a genera-
tion.
But more traumatic than any of these fundamental innovations— with its impact on transportation-
the exception of the steam engine and
was the adaptation
of almost all the traditional labor processes to the
machine: sewing, spinning, weaving, shoemaking, screw-making, planing, pen making, pinmaking, matchmaking, writing (with the typewriter), and printing. This across-the-board mechanization of productive processes created an absolutely
new
foundation for
human
labor.
productive machinery were easily enlarged to the end of more economic production, and the worker who, down the
The
giant units
of
had been employed in town or village, in his own home or shop, more recently, in the small manufactory, was drawn to the factories located, for better access to transportation and to markets, in the cities. With the transition to mining, manufacturing, and mechanical transportation as the dominant fields of economic activity, the Age of Grime began— grime and grit, and soot and smog, the man-made dust whose toxic effects were known only to the slaves in the mines and smelters of ages,
or
And
the earth became, as it has ever since been, But that was a minor evil compared with the creation of the urban tenement— and the ultimate conversion of most of the great cities of the world into great slums. The new industrial enterprises employed thousands, even tens of thousands of men, in a single jerry-built building or maze of buildings, and forced them, with their families, to find any lodging they could in jerry-built tenements
the ancient world.
a dirty place to live.
accessible to the job.
And the job itself was miserable. Machines, not men, governed the pace of work; machines, not art or sensitive human hands, governed the motion and shape of work; and machines, not feeling and fellowship, governed the relationsf!S>f workers. Money (as Marx said) was the only nexus between employer and employee, and there was neither tradition nor craftsmanship to protect the "human appendage" in his job; one man could perform the simple, repetitive motions of most machine labor as well as the next.
Working
life
was stripped
of every inherent
charm.
Thus the first fruit between working and
was the disjunction exists, and must exist, with the specialization of labor at the machine. The laborer's situation, while in many ways better, was in many ways worse than the ancient slave's. He had been emancipated from every tie, detached from of the Industrial Revolution living, a disjunction
which
still
every protective (as well as every oppressive) condition of the slave's existence.
He had now
neither master nor land with
himself and in which, however brutal both
found
his security.
The
tools of his trade
100
which
may have
to identify
been, he had
(which he had always been
The Age of Grime began and the ultimate conversion of the great cities of the world .
.
.
into great
slums
manage) were now monsters bolted Aiown to the floor of He was alienated, propertyless, even in the inverted sense of being another man's property. He had nothing to sell but his labor. Thus was bom Marx's "proletarian." The degraded conditions in which this degraded man, once an independent worker or co-worker, suddenly found himself were seemingly irremediable. The industrial cities were growing too fast for social ingenuity to do anything about them. There were some attempts to stem the degeneration, but it came largely from outside sources; the worker's pride in his life sank with his pride in his work, and he often surrendered himself to the squalor and disease that embraced him. Drunkenness, crime, and prostitution flourished. The long tradition of female gentility gave way to the harridan, the whore, and the wife and mother prematurely broken by domestic misery and the workbench. Family size decreased, and the divorce rate leapt. Social work came into being with able to
another man's factory.
101
An
Essay on Time
and the famous "Christmas basket," was hopelessly inadequate. True, the city was an escape from what Marx venomously called "the idiocy of rural life" (Manifesto of the Communist Party, Vol. 50, p. 421c), with its endless roimd of days, its crude amenities, and its narrow range
charity hospitals, foundling homes,
but
it
Not only did men have to move to the city for work, but Open-eyed they packed up their families, said good-bye that they and their forebears had known, and set out for the to all metropolis. They had heard of its terrors, and they believed what they had heard, but the pull was irresistible. Millions of men uprooted themselves and left behind them forever everything comprehensible, everything that, with the warmth of the well-worn, comforted and consoled. It is easy to say that these men were without foresight. But who wasn't? Had the whole of mankind been able to assemble in council, foreseeing all the consequences of the Industrial Revolution, would they have called it oflF? Not likely. For all the consequences included both its short-term human suffering and its long-term liberation of mankind from the age-old slavery to the combination of grinding labor and inaccessible culture, incurable illness and early death. The new machines, however brutal and brutalizing they might be, reflected (and in their turn encouraged) the great breakthrough of knowledge heralded by Newton in the early eighteenth century. Knowledge would be the great emancipator of man from the strangle hold of all of the past, and would lead him from peak to peak through the application of the rigorous method of science to the problems of moral and political behavior. The ancients' cyclical theory of human history was discarded for once and all. The new liberal view of history was a "vision of a world progressively ." This vision, redeemed by human power from its classic ailments. Charles Frankel notes, was not universally shared, and in our own day seems to be losing some of its appeal, but it dominated social thought for generations, above all in the United States; "For more than a century, something like this view of history provided most Americans with roughly consistent attitudes toward the past, with a conception of the over-all direction in which history was— or ought to be— moving, and with ideas about the nature and conditions of human betterment. Ajid no other view of human history has been more peculiarly appropriate to American experience, or better able to provide Americans with an image of the place of their most modern, technological, and democratic of countries in the total design of world history. We have had fewer fixed traditions than other countries, and more room to make decisions on the grounds of efficiency and individual happiness. Applying human skill to the mastery of nature has been our principal occupation for a century and of pleasures.
they wanted
to.
.
.
a half."^" 10 The Case for
Modern Man (New York: Harper &
102
Brothers, 1956), pp. 29, 37-38.
The Tempo
of History
THE AGE OF PROGRESS
T
hus the Age of Science flowed into the Age of Progress, carrying new stream the spirit of the Age of Reason. The "reHgion of reason" goes back to John Locke in the seventeenth century, and to Voltaire, Hume, Rousseau, and Gibbon in the eighteenth. Of these great rationahsts the true progressive was Gibbon, for whom human history into the
adduced "the pleasing conclusion increased and
still
and perhaps the
Roman Empire,
that
every age of the world has
increases the real wealth, the happiness, the knowledge,
virtue, of the
human
Vol. 40, p. 634c).
race"
A
(
The Decline and
Fall of the
century later the greatest single
contributor to the doctrine of progress, Charles Darwin, echoed this
view:
"Man
has risen, though by slow and interrupted steps, from a lowly
condition to the highest standard as yet attained by
morals and reHgion" {The Descent of Man, Vol. 49, Certainly no happier belief had ever lodged
and
him
p.
in
knowledge,
330c).
itself
in
the
human
seems fair to suppose that even the industrial worker, transplanted from one era into another, was warmed by the hope for improvement, not, perhaps, for himself, but for his children and grandchildren. The present was relegated to the past; the promise was all. Everything pointed toward the increase of social democracy and the breast,
progressive
it
equalization
of
social
conditions.
What
Mill
called
the
awakened interest in improvement" was the heart of all serious discussion. Only a little more than a hundred years before, none but the wildest Utopians had supposed that man's lot might be altered, much less that a time might come, short of biblical promise, in which all men might have the essentials of life. The first half of the nineteenth century converted the promise to possibility, if not to reality. Marx and Engels
"generally
observed in 1848 that industrial capitalism "during
its
rule of scarce one
hundred years has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together" (Manifesto of the
Communist
Party, Vol. 50, p. 421d).
THE PERIOD OF CONSOLIDATION
Between
1863 and 1913, the world adapted itself— technologically, at the new tempo of history induced by the Industrial Revolution, But the tempo of change was, at its new level, a relatively even one. The machine and its uses proliferated. The modern city, with least— to
packed millions, began to take livable, if unand tenement life, however dreary and desolate, began to be stabilized. The Industrial State was in full flower. Manufactured goods of every kind came cascading from the factories to find a hungry and ever more e£Fective market as wages rose. The new fuels— oil and electricity— transformed the power unit from year to year. Constant improvement in the steam and internal combustion
its
facilities
for closely
beautiful, form;
103
An
Essay on Time
engines produced bigger and more efficient factories and smaller and more efficient vehicles. Within a half century of the invention of the bicycle,
the automobile was
common, and with
it
the assembly-line
factory. With the new gyroscopic compass, huge ocean liners united the hemispheres in luxurious travel. Iron displaced wood and stone
completely in the construction of ships and railroad cars, of bridges,
and
of skyscrapers.
The pace
of inventions
and discoveries continued
to accelerate as
the consoHdation of the nineteenth-century breakthroughs went forward. The Age of Electricity arrived, with its networks of power stations and
lamp and the amplffier, the electric railroad and the streetcar, the wireless, the gramophone, and the telephone. The really phenomenal acceleration was in medicine. So primitive had the general care of health been for so many centuries that the making of different shoes for right and left feet had only begun in the first half of the nineteenth century. Now at last the inventions and discoveries of the past two centuries ( such as anesthesia ) were accepted in medical practice, their adoption expedited by the epochal development of the germ theory of disease begun by Pasteur and Koch in the seventies and eighties. In concert with the host of new instruments for diagnosis and treatment— including Rontgen's X-ray in 1895— the modernization of medicine went forward so rapidly, compared with all past ages, that the veil of mystery seemed to drop all at once from the ills of the flesh, and the prospect was plain that human suffering would be universal benefits of the incandescent
its
alleviated to a degree never in all history imagined.
Those
fifty
years— 1863 to 1913— were more than anything else the age
of implementation of the sciences
pace of change was greatest
and technics
just preceding.
The
over-
permeation of men's daily lives by the new things of the factories and the laboratories. Toil pure and simple was lightened, and a host of new conveniences was introduced. The changing pace of Iffe, however, proceeded more placidly than it had for the peasant all at once transferred from the feudal conditions all
in the steady
of the eighteenth century to the factory system in the nineteenth.
Seen from the infinite distance of fifty years later, the world of 1913 was a tranquil place, even a quaint one; a world in which the stamp of stability was still dominant. Most men changed their jobs seldom, their place of residence still more seldom. Babies were born— and old folks died— at home. Few married women worked (only four per cent in the United States in 1890); they "kept house," and keeping house meant, after the care of the children, cooking and baking and mending for
Family status revolved around having a part-time girl heavy cleaning and laundry, done, of course, by hand. Children were still seen and not heard, and the male authority was imchallenged in the home.
their husbands.
to help with the
104
ASSEMBLY LINE AT FORD MOTOR COMPANY IX 1913 Within a half century of the invention of the bicycle, the automobile was common, and with it the assembly line factory
There were no picture windows. There was no wall-to-wall carpeting, no washing machine or dryer, no refrigerator, no vacuum cleaner, no electric iron, no electric percolator, no automatic cooker (or automatic anything) in most middle-class homes. There was nothing oven-ready or powdered or instant or frozen ( except ice in the icebox ) Nickelodeons were everywhere, -and movies jerked and flickered to the accompaniment of a piano which jingled spasmodically from joy to grief to terror to ecstasy to despair and back again. There were the stereopticon and the decidedly low-fi "victrola." There were band concerts combined with the Sunday walk in the park, and the enchanted family that had one took its gas buggy out of its weekday garage for a ride— with a stop at .
the ice-cream parlor.
New times, to be sure, but hardly frenzied; and still less fearful. When conditions were good, they were bound to get better; when they were bad, they were
bound to get better. It was a world in which Europe for almost a century, and in America for half a century (except for Teddy Roosevelt's "splendid little war" in Cuba). To some it seemed that war was done with forever. In the United States, with its traditional rejection of a standing army and its two great oceans to protect it forever, the mihtary consisted of an insignificant, isolated officer corps and a small rabble of soldiers and
peace had endured
sailors recruited
still
in
among
the down-and-outers. In 1913 the United States
Army owned
seven airplanes— at a cost of $60,000. Sin and sorrow there was still, even in America.
tion of the population,
access to any of the
urban and
new
rm-al, lived in
A
considerable propor-
shanty poverty without
splendors of the age. Racial segregation was
105
TILLIE S PUNCTURED ROMANCE Movies jerked and flickered to the accompaniment of a piano which jingled spasmodically from joy to grief and back again
complete
and
unquestioned.
But
Americans
generally
thought
of
themselves as the happiest of people and of peoples. Unburdened by a
by imperial ambition and commitment, by a profand nobiHty, they lived, unlike any people before them, without the specter of taxation pursuing them. There was no income tax, no inheritance tax, no sales tax; men might accumulate fortunes, and leave them intact to their children. Along with peace, the arts of peace flourished. They may not have been adventurous— neither the Victorian nor the Edwardian period was culturally notable— but they were solid. Compulsory public education, at least through the primary grades, was long established in the advanced nations and, in America, if nowhere else, men who had not gone to high school dreamed of sending their military establishment, ligate royalty
children to college. Industrialization had transferred the scepter of economic power from Europe to America. In the half century before World War I, England, cramped by tradition, by a shortage of insular resources, and by the age of its plant, lost its leadership to an aggressive Germany, which was soon overtaken by the United States. The Americans had every thingland, resources, and, above all, the adventurous spirit in which their nation was established, a spirit unhampered by class restraints and aristocratic caution. It was the frontier spirit of individual independence and self-reliance, illuminated by the egalitarianism that offered the palm to the man of ambition, energy, and daring no matter what his origin. The American was a plunger into the unknown and into the new. To his own ingenuity he added the willingness to try anything invented anywhere else, and many European processes were adopted and developed
106
The Tempo
of History at home. The country were cut down for steel mills for new cities. "American know-
United States long before they were tried
in the
was growing Hke no
other. Virgin forests
of the latest design, for
new
factories,
how" was, and remained, an astonishment to the rest of the world. Americans did not work harder than other people, but they worked faster and more efficiently. Every adventurer, good or bad, made for the prodigious land where every adventure was possible. But
this hectic individualism,
with
all its glories,
and freedom the
fore-
most, produced in the opening years of the twentieth century a discon-
phenomenon. Mammoth industry required mammoth investment. and unregulated, was producing a new class of industrial barons— "robber barons," the reformers called them— who acquired monopoly control of the country's resources in coal, iron, steel, oil, and lumber, and in the industries those resources fed. As individuals, they might (like Andrew Carnegie) have an interest in the common weal— or they might not. And while workingmen's wages might rise, and the American standard of living surpass the rest of the world's,
certing
Private enterprise, unrestricted
the spectacle of these socially irresponsible multimillionaires— with their
absolute control, not only of the nation's material resources, but of the
hundreds of thousands of men— awakened in America a social protest that had long been in ferment in Europe. Social change— more properly, political change— had lagged far behind the hurrying pace of technological and industrial progress. But at last it came. By 1913, the demand for fundamental political change in the United States was overwhelming. Woodrow Wilson ofiFered an eloquent expression of these demands, on behalf of what he called "the New Freedom":
destinies of thousands or
Our
life
life
that
has broken away from the past. The life of America is not the it was twenty years ago; it is not the life that it was ten years ago. We have changed our economic conditions, absolutely, from top to bottom; and, with our economic society, the organization of our life. The old political formulas do not fit the present problems; they read now like documents taken out of a forgotten age .... We have come upon a very different age from any that preceded us. The old order changeth— changeth under our very eyes, not quietly and equably, but swiftly and with the noise and heat and tumult of reconstruction. ^^ .
THE WORLD
If
VV^ARS
.
.
AND THEIR AFTERMATH
the Industrial Revolution was the great watershed of man's technolo-
World War I was the watershed of his social history. world mesmerized by Science and Progress mocked the mysticism of religious sects which had long predicted that the world would end in the year 1914; fifty years later the world isn't so sure that it didn't end in gical history.
A
11 The
New Freedom (New
York: Doubleday, Page
107
& Company, 1914),
pp. 3-5, 29.
An
Essay on Time
KEVOLUTIOX.\RIES BEING SHOT DOWN IN PETROGR.\D, 1917 First World War saw the leap of the sleeping giant of Russia from the oldest surviving kitid of society, feudalism, to one unborn, communism
The
.
.
.
1914. The first war to involve the whole world saw the collapse of Western European domination and its transfer to an uninterested and unwilling
United
States. It saw, too, the leap of the sleeping giant of Russia
from
imbom, communthe tempo of history!) But it saw the idea of progress was shaken to
the oldest sur\iving kind of society, feudalism, to one
{There was an acceleration of something more subtle and seismic:
ism.
its
foundations.
The European dream of peace was shattered, along with the American dream of isolation. The triumph of the Industrial Revolution was seen be double-edged with the destructive power" of man on a scale hitherto of: poison gas, hquid fire, bombs from the sky. Most significantly of all, the long, hard climb of man celebrated by the humanists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries— pre-eminently characterized by the emergence of the individual as a person and his life as a thing of inalienable worth— was dealt a body blow by the four-year slaughter of millions of young men in the trenches. Man's imagination fails, as his to
undreamed
spirit recoils, in
the face of the fact that
million mobilized ^^'hate\^er else
more than
half the sixty-five
men were casualties between 1914 and 1918. ^^'orld War I was, it was a sweeping stimulus
to a
kind of frenz>' that overtook the civihzed world. The moral patterns of centuries collapsed
all at once. Speculation in personal, no less than in replaced the ageless quest for security. The world-wide depression followed; social systems trembled everywhere, and in some places fell. In Germany, the culture of Diirer and Kant and Goethe, of
economic,
life
108
The Tempo
of History
Bach and Beethoven, of Koch and Einstein, was swept away by racial and religious bigotry, and by the reversion to the mystique of the fiery crusade. With Nazism, the nineteenth-century faith in progress suffered another bitter setback.
World War II engulfed the whole world in the blood of burning This was something new: total war, in which not only soldiers and battlefields but also civilians and all the machinery of production were prime targets. The dead would be forever uncountable, the homeless millions likewise. The war ended with the scientific triumph of Einstein's new physics— the bombs that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Atomic power opened the portals and escorted man into a new age. The atmosphere and the stratosphere were conquered. With jet propulsion, the one world of the Industrial Revolution became one city; men crossed it now for a luncheon meeting and went to their offices in the cities.
from "suburbs" a thousand miles away. Nothing could any longer happen anywhere— no fluctuation, no invention, no convulsion— that did not happen everywhere. An election— or even a speech— in one country toppled governments in other countries and on other continents. So frenzied was the tempo of history now that there were only two ways to try to keep up with it. On the political side, there was personal "city"
The
NAZI STORM TROOPERS "Germans! Defend yourselves! Do not buy from Jews!"
signs say,
109
An
Essay on Time
government, with the debates that had taken months and years in parliaments giving way to the necessity for quick executive decision not only but also in the free societies. On the business and industrial side, there were computers, able to operate factories, refineries, and offices and also to predict the consequences of sudden changes in the totalitarian
enough to meet those consequences. And between personal government and the computer, the role of the citizen and the individual shrank at a stupendous rate even in those societies proudly and tena-
rapidly
ciously dedicated to individualism.
National governments everywhere reduced the federal principle to almost a nullity. Local and provincial governments withered as central
government grew monstrous. Nor was it war alone, or international tension, that produced this overwhelming centralization. Technology would have done it in any case. The modern techniques of long-distance transportation and communication had long since established new "natural monopolies," which, in turn, evoked new nation-wide controls. Government by national commission was inevitable. How— in the second half of the twentieth century— could state or local authority deal with nation-wide radio and television, telephone, telegraph? How, indeed, could even national authority deal with the corporation that was as much at home in one country as in another? In science,
new
objectives took the place of old.
and the
With the surface
above it all mastered, the universe was the only direction left into which man's appetite for physical expansion could be gratified. The Space Age was upon man. There was no time for adjustment, and what was adjusted to was already archaic before the program for adjustment was oflE the drawing boards. The first program of Telstar— international television— was broadcast from the village of Andover, Maine, where hand-crank telephones were still in use. So fast and far had the "second Industrial Revolution" of the computer proceeded that men and animals together were now supplying almost no work energy in America. Industry and business, big and little, were confronted with the challenge, "Automate or die." Modern machines that men operated— or that operated themselves—had to be replaced by the still more modern machines that operated other machines. The capital outlay, the waste of obsolescence, and the permanent disemployment of workers were of the earth, the waters
beneath
it,
air
staggering considerations.
The railroads had had forty years to adapt the Diesel engine of 1892 to their commercial needs and capacities; but the international air lines of 1963, still in debt for their newly purchased jet fleets, were confronted with the technological readiness of supersonic flight. What was man
to
do— throw
rocks at the
new machines
century ancestors?
110
like his eighteenth-
The Tempo
of History
THE NEW TEMPO
The the
geometric progression of the tempo of history was
mathematicians would
call a
power
now what
progression. But the pace
change was only s\Tnptomatic or, at most, secondarily change in histor}" in the few years since the world recovered from World War II. The great change is something deeper of technological
causal, of the great
far than the discover^' of cortisone— or the "invention" of the electric
toothbrush.
It
may be
s\Tnbolized
by the
rhetorical question of the dis-
"What
tinguished British commentator Barbara Ward:
is
left
that
is
stable?"
In recent years, a kind of psychological contagion has been run-
ning like wildfire through
all
Things of every kind
of man's activities.
changing— drastically. \\'hy? Why the "astonishing"— as Gunnar Myrdal calls it— movement of the Negro toward racial integration "after are
Why
decades of stagnation"?
six
the rush to the
cities of
the people of
the underdeveloped countries? ^^'hy the great migration to California?
Why, not of harder
only the arms race and the space race, but also the "rat race"
and harder
among
li\-ing
those peoples
who have
Why the precipitate rise in
achieved the possibiHt)' of leisure?
at
last
addiction to
stimulants and tranquilizers, the spiraling dependence on alcohol and narcotics? Why the health fixation in one of the world's healthiest societies? Why the peak-to-peak rise of crime, di\orce, suicide, and ps)-choneurosis?
Some what
is
of these
phenomena
less easily
explained
are in part or whole quite readily explained; their concatenation.
is
be understood in terms of new
to
at least as radical in their time.
The new tempo
not
is
machines— those of a century ago were
Nor
is it
to
be understood
in terms of the
turmoil of hot-and-cold war; man's accustomed ways have survived
many such. It is necessary can go— to assess the causes, upheaval of
Any
which we
life in
to
go deeper— deeper perhaps than
live.
serious consideration of a
the tempo of
human
man
the direction, and the destiny of the great
theme so immense and imprecise
history has to recognize
its
limitations: the
as
weight
assigned to the composite elements of histor\% the nature of change, the
meaning
of
change
as
it is
applied to mankind as a whole and to
man
human
life,
as an individual, the impact of external transformation on
and, therefore, the origin, destiny, and nature of man.
Thus a philosophy
of both man and histor\' are central to the considerawe cannot hope, within the scope of this essay, to develop either. What we can do is briefly re-examine human histor}- to disco\er the
and a psychology
tion,
but
critical
This
point at which the tempo of histor\' changed. point is clearly the second half of the eighteenth century—
critical
the onset of the Industrial Revolution. This was an era of acceleration previously unknowTi; the great divide between the old and the new.
In
many
respects
it
was a
"shift of gears"
111
more spectacular than
that of
An our o\Mi time.
It
above
of toil, and.
men toward the The certainty
Essay on Time
altered the face of the earth, the age-old conditioii all,
common attitude of ordinar>' and human progress.
the
extraordinary
possibility- of
would always be the same gave way, ahnost it would someday be different, and differ-
that life
overnight, to the certaint)' that
ent in the sense of "better." Men may have looked back to the "good old days"— they always have-but they could not help looking forward to the good new days to come. And they looked forward to them with assurance. This assurance itself was the essential element of their psychological stability. It is men's attitude toward life, not their possessions or their deprivations, that
above world"
On
all, is
go\ems the hves they
a time of uncertaint>-. a real possibiht}' in
the other,
man seems
on earth. One hundred, even
On
a sense that
to stand
lead.
Our own time
is,
the one hand, the "end of the it
wasn't a century ago.
on the threshold of the bibHcal heaven
years ago the Life of the world was predominphenomenal growth of the cities. The blessings of industr)' were come, in some small degree, to the most remote household in the advanced countries; but the spirit of Me was what it always had been. Men moved no faster— outside the factories— and the home was the undisputed center of life and death. Mobility for the sake of mobility was as good as unknown; mobility for the sake of opportunity likewise (except on the new American continent). Men felt that it was all right to stay where they were— and what they were. They didn't spurn change, nor were they carried away b\- it unless they were driven from the land to the cities. Those who were restless were many, but they were fifty,
antly rural, in spite of the
still
a small minorit}'; they did not set the tone of the age.
Men may
numbers, whose actual condition by the age of speed. They may go to the supermarket— they as likely as their wives now— iDStead of to the general store. The do-it-yourself and labor-saving devices in the home may have taken the place of the serv^ant girl. But all of these modem wonders together do not necessarily change the pace of Hfe to a critical degree. What does change it is the feeling of the time. It is a feeling of huny. It is a 'feeling of having to hurr\', not because of the speed-up on the assembly line, but because of wanting to hurry. The philosopher is said to be the man who hves every day as if that day would be his last; mid-twentieth-century man may— in this sense, if in no other— be the supreme philosopher. of life
is
be found today, and
in great
unaffected, or only tangentially affected,
Unlike mid-nineteenth-century man, he has the economic freedom which enables him to choose to huny. It is not his family's mere subsistence that compels him. And ( still more imlike mid-nineteenth-century man) he has the leisure in which to hu^y^ The paradox is more than verbal. In an age in which labor tends to be ever more homogeneous,
112
The Tempo ever less rewarding in that gives his
about; ours
is
life its
itself, it is
character.
of History
what a man does with
He may
sit
not a time of sitting quietly.
man had no concern with He did not participate actively
Mid-nineteenth-century little
consciousness of
the local,
his leisure time
quietly or race frantically
or, as
it.
recently as
fifty
"the world," and in politics
beyond
years ago, the domestic scene. His news-
if he had one, was filled with domestic aflFairs. Wars were fought on faraway battlefields by professional armies. Cities and homes were safe. Our American grandfathers— and many of our fathers— neither knew nor needed to know whether Cuba was in the Mediterranean or the Caribbean or what Korea was, or Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia, much less Iran or Iraq, or Vietnam or Vietminh, or Ghana, Guiana, or New Guinea. They were not bewildered; they may not have understood what they needed to understand, but they thought they did. We know we don't. And as if the earth and all its intricacies were comprehensible, midtwentieth-century man is called upon to take on the cosmos and to abandon his unquestioning awe of the universe for a daily, or hourly, report on the hidden face of the moon, or the surface of Venus, or the hypothesis of life on the planets. Actual government may become daily more remote from him, more the business of experts; but the democratic mythos requires his keeping up. How can he? He shakes his head; he feels old and confused, he who felt, until the atomic bomb hit Hiroshima, that he had a pretty good idea of what things were like. Be he simple or erudite, generalist or specialist, he finds himself saying, with former President Hoover, that he "just doesn't grasp all that." Let us, as we replay the reel of history, stop it for a moment and study the picture of the beginning of the eighteenth century in Europe, and especially in England, just before the great change began. Here, we have said, was the "moment of balance," the "delicate adjustment" which had taken nearly a million years to achieve. Dislocation there had been and still was. But dislocation had not yet carried away the average man's sense of location. Whatever he understood or didn't understand in the way of change— whatever he could or couldn't grasp in detail—he could grasp all of it taken together. The whole was intelligible to him. Looking at everything about him, he felt safe enough on balance to tolerate the unsafety of his changing world without suffer-
paper,
we nowadays
ing what In
its
two
traditional
call tension.
uses— in mechanics and
in politics— tension
means
the tautness caused by stretching and the strain of relations so taut that
they
may
snap.
The notion
transferred to psychology
commonly designates
the emotional pitch, the breaking-point tightness, induced by the stresses
So commonly understood— and presumably felt— are these next to impossible to imagine any product or service sold today without the appeal of relief or relaxation from them. The drug and
of
modern
life.
stresses that
it is
113
An Essay on Time liquor and tobacco business batten on them. Psychotherapy
is
of course
Without them, schools and oflBces and factories would not have their present schedules, and furniture and household appliances, recreation and entertainment facilities, transportation and tourism would all want for an advertising preoccupied with them, and organic medicine,
theme combining dread and relief. Lewis Mumford suggests an analysis "broken time and broken attention":
of
too.
modern tension
in terms of
The difiGculties of transport and communication before 1850 automatically acted as a selective screen, which permitted no more stimuli to reach a person than he could handle: a certain urgency was necessary before one received a call from a long distance or was compelled to a journey oneself: this condition of slow physical locomotion kept intercourse down to a human scale, and under definite control. Nowadays this screen has vanished: the remote is as close as the near: the ephemeral is as emphatic as the durable. While the tempo of the day has been quickened by instantaneous communication the rhythm of the day has been broken: the radio, the telephone, the daily newspaper clamor for attention, and amid the host of stimuli to which people are subjected, it becomes more and more difficult to absorb and cope with any one part of the environment, to say nothing of dealing with it as a whole. The common man is as subject to these interruptions as the
make
man of affairs, and even the weekly period of cessation from familiar tasks and contemplative reverie, which was one of the great contributions of Western religion to the discipline of the personal ^^ life, has become an ever remoter possibility.
scholar or the
The phenomenal
Progress? fifty
rise in
automobile ownership
in the past
years has put about seventy million cars on the roads in a nation
more than 180,000,000 people. New throughways and freeways and are outmoded before they are opened. The result is vehicles with the power of two hundred horses traveling more slowly than one horse. In 1911 a buggy could move through Los Angeles at a rate of
expressways
today, in the rush hours, the average car speed of five miles per hour. And the man behind the wheel? He is a microcosm of the Age of Powerlessness, equipped, like the macrocosm itself, with impotent might. There is no way to use it, nor can he abandon it and get out and walk; he is its of eleven miles per, hour;
makes the same
trip at a
He has to get somewhere— and he even before he gets to work or gets home.
prisoner.
can't.*
His tension mounts-
THE DICHOTOMY OF SPIRIT
There
are," says philosopher Alfred
North Whitehead, "two principles
inherent in the very nature of things, recurring in
embodiments whatever 12 Op.
cit.,
pp.
field
we
explore— the
272-273.
114
spirit of
some
particular
change, and the
The Tempo
of History
TRAFFIC ON A LOS ANGELES FREEWAY In 1911, a buggy could move through Los Angeles at a rate of eleven miles per hour; today, in the rush hours, the average car makes the same trip at a speed of five miles an hour
Spirit of
conservation."" This dichotomy of spirit
is
one of the prevailing
themes of psychology and history. William James finds "an everlasting struggle in every mind between the tendency to keep unchanged, and the tendency to renovate, p. 524a-b).
And
progressive principle
...
ideas" (Principles of Psychology, Vol. 53,
its
in his essay is
On
Liberty, John Stuart Mill writes:
antagonistic to the
sway
of
Custom
"The .
.
.
and the contest between the two constitutes the chief interest of the history of mankind" (Vol. 43, p. 300d). There is, presumably, a center between the two spiritual poles where the "well-adjusted
man" may
find a life without tension,
a
life
with
enough excitement, novelty, opportunity, and freedom to save him from maddening monotony. ("My God, my God!" says Tolstoy's Natasha. "The same faces, the same talk. Papa holding his cup and blowing in the same way!"— War and Peace, Vol. 51, p. 294a.) That this center is, in the cases of difiFerent men, differently located between the two poles is a
just
13 Science and the Modern World (Lowell Lectures, 1925. lan Company, 1950), p. 289.
115
New
York:
The Macmil-
)
An
Essay on Time
we know, some minds in which boldness, predominates: in some, the desire to avoid imperilHng what is already possessed is a stronger sentiment than that which prompts to improve the old and acquire new advantages; while there are others who lean the contrary way, and are more eager for future than careful of present good" (J. S. Mill, Representative Government, Vol. 43, p. 336b). Back to this center between the two poles— wherever his peculiar temperament finds it— the individual gravitates. Let him be pulled sufficiently far off center, so far that he cannot see how to get back, and tension develops. The Cold War that now divides the world may be seen in these same terms as the eternal struggle between submission and freedom, between security and liberty, between order and enterprise— and between the solid conformity of the mass and the self-assertion of the daring matter of
common
observation: "There are,
which caution, and others
in
individual. Seen in these terms, the issues are not political at
psychological. Is there a resolution of the conflict
change within
man
between
all,
but
stability
and
himself? Stating the issue in terms of the restrictions
upon man's aggressive tendencies, Freud finds that "civilized man has exchanged some part of his chances of happiness for a measure of security." Deprived, by necessity, of the primitive outlets for his aggression, civilized man can hardly be happy. There would seem to be, then, no possibility of resolution. "The human love of aggression," as Freud calls it, will assert itself one way or another; for better or for worse, man cannot give up his freedom for "civilization." (See Civilization and Its Discontents, Vol. 54, p. 788a-d. of civilization
ADAPTATION AND ADVENTURE says Darwin, "can long resist conditions
Man,"
which appear
ex-
He
has long lived in the for his canoes or implements,
tremely unfavourable for his existence.
extreme regions of the North, with no wood and with only blubber as fuel, and melted snow as drink. In the southern extremity of America the Fuegians survive without the protection of
any building worthy to be called a hovel. In South wander over arid plains, where dangerous beasts abound. Man can withstand the deadly influence of the Terai at the foot of the Himalaya, and the pestilential shores of tropical Africa." And, he points out, it is the puny bushmen and the dwarfed Eskimos who survive nature's most fearful hardships. (See The Descent of Man, Vol. clothes,
or
of
Africa the aborigines
49, pp. 350c-d, 286c-d.)
man as the supremely adaptable animal, supposed that his mental, or psychological, adaptability is equally phenomenal. "There is hardly any psychic condition," says Erich Fromm, "which he cannot endure, and under which he cannot carry on. He can live free, and as a slave. Rich and in luxury, and under This
and
it
is
the orthodox view of
is
116
The Tempo
He
of History
and peaceably; and loving fellowship." But— "the statement ... is only half true ... if he lives under conditions which are contrar\' to his nature and to the basic requirements for human growth and sanity, he cannot help reacting; he must either deteriorate and perish, or bring about conditions which are more in accordance with his needs. "^^ The physical challenge imposed by the environment— and by physical change— has for all advanced peoples as good as disappeared. Man's over all the earth" is complete. (See Gen. 1:26.) So "dominion tame have the terrors of the pristine wilderness become— the bottom of the sea, the stratosphere— that the stars themselves appear to be the only challenge left him. There have always been men who sought adventures, physical or psychological, beyond those imposed upon them, and if they have always been a small minorit)-, their derring-do has been a vicarious adventure for all their contemporaries; they ha\e appealed to the dream, if not to the calculation, of all men. These few undertake to master the environment. The\' even searchconditions of half-stan'ation. as
can
.
out or create ever)'
.
live as a warrior,
member
an exploiter and robber, and as a
of a co-operating
.
new environments
age and in ever\' area of
They are the frontiersmen of To them and their dri\-e we ascribe
to master. life.
They are those who take the steps in the dark and, by and invention, produce most of the changes that quicken the tempo of histor)'. They are men of extreme disposition, whose "center" is far over on the side of the unkno\\'n and the untried, who thrive on what for most men would be unbearable tension. When Mephistopheles oflFers Faust "peace and quiet," the latter replies scornfully, "If ever I lay me on a bed of sloth in peace, / That instant let for me existence cease!" (Goethe, Faust, Vol. 47, p. 40b). They are the adventurers who, See like Alexander, fear that there may be no more worlds to conquer. Plutarch, Lives, Vol. 14, p. 542c.) Good men and bad, they are the Napoleons of politics and industry, of science and of art. They shake the world and seem to be themselves no worse off for it. But let the ordinary man move into the unkno\\Ti— like the slave set free, the peasant forced into the factory, or the earthling of a few years ago confronted by outer space— and his grip on stability is loosened. The dizzying sense of change in our time may be compared with the sudden removal from solid ground to the edge of a mountain crevasse. The higher one goes, the further one falls. Preindustrial man (except for the monarchs and princes) had not far to fall. The ground on which he stood was emotionally familiar; nor was it just his physical immobilit}-, but also all
progress.
intention
(
his social immobility in the class society, that
may have been low— but he knew 14 The Sane Society
(New
supported him. His place
his place.
York: Rinehart
& Company,
117
Inc.,
1955), pp. 18-19.
An
Essay on Time
THE RESISTANCE TO CHANGE of human beings, the soHd men and women
T
of the he great mass world, cHmb momitains only when they have to and take risks only when they must. Not for them to reach for the stars— or fly to the moon. When they fly, they fly backward, Hke the mythical bird; more concerned to know where they've been, and how to get back, than to go somewhere new. They are the patient ones, the work horses of the world, the heroes of endurance, the "passive resisters" of change. And as hard to stampede as to hurry. Without them the tempo of histoiy would shoot up— and then down— like a comet. History itself would be madness, divine or diabolical.
They
are the custodians of culture, the repository of the slow
accumulated values. Not that they cannot adapt themfrom it. They are hardy, tough; tougher than most mountaineers and astronauts and high-fliers of all kinds. But they are the perpetual testimony to the fact that, in man, adjustment to physical change and to social change are two entirely different things. They— the many of the earth— represent the resistance against which the progressives and the retrogressives rail. The barricades they throw
past and
all its
selves to physical change; far
up against change are overt resistance
of three fairly distinct kinds.
(or even rejection);
and the
One
third,
is
habit; another,
non-inclusion in
Of these three drags on the speed-up of history, the universal dominant is habit, or custom, that "standing hindrance to human advancement" (J. S. Mill, On Liberty, Vol. 43, p. 300d). "When they are once set a-going," said Tristram Shandy, Gent., of men in general, "whether right or wrong, 'tis not a halfpenny matter,— away they go cluttering like hey-go mad; and by treading the same steps over and over again, they presently make a road of it, as plain and as smooth as a garden-walk, which, when they are once used to, the Devil himself sometimes shall not be able to drive them off it" (Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy, Vol. 36, p. 191b). The wonder, then, is that man moves at all; not that the tempo of history increases, but that there should be any. So overwhelmed by the wonder of it was the greatest of all students of habit, William James, that he defined genius as "little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way" (Principles of Psychology, Vol. 53, p. 524b). James's summary of his analysis of habit is a famous paragraph well worth innovation.
reciting as a
commentary on the tempo
of history:
the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conseris vative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance, and saves the children of fortune from the envious uprisings of the poor. It alone prevents the hardest and most repulsive walks of life from being deserted by those brought up to tread therein. It keeps the
Habit
.
.
.
fisherman and the deck-hand at sea through the winter; it holds the in his darkness, and nails the countryman to his log-cabin and his lonely farm through all the months of snow; it protects us from inva-
miner
118
The Tempo sion
by the
and the frozen zone. It dooms us upon the lines of our nurture or our
natives of the desert
fight out the battle of life
and
of History all to
early
make
the best of a pursuit that disagrees, because there is no other for which we are fitted, and it is too late to begin again. It keeps different social strata from mixing. Already at the age of twentychoice,
to
you see the professional mannerism settling down on the young traveller, on the young doctor, on the young minister, on the young counsellor-at-law. You see the little lines of cleavage running through the character, the tricks of thought, the prejudices, the ways of the "shop," in a word, from which the man can by-and-by no more five
commercial
escape than his coat-sleeve can suddenly fall into a new set of folds. On the whole, it is best he should not escape. It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and wiU never soften again. {Ibid., p. 79b) It may be well for the world but it is hard on those who want to change it. When Nikita Khrushchev visited his birthplace at Kalinovka— which he had transformed into a model agrogorod, or agricultural townhe observed with dismay that the harvesting of hay in the next village was being carried out as it had been a century ago. But one need not go to Russia to see men clinging to the ways of their ancestors. Let the tourist go to the mountain valleys of Switzerland, home of the finest of all precision machines, and he will see men and women living essentially the way they lived five hundred years ago— and training their children to live the same way. In an Alpine village— or cluster of villages— the same few names repeat themselves from house to house and settlement to settlement. The twentieth century may be remembered as the time when a villager put in a bathroom— yes, or a deepfreeze— Z?«f the way of life is untouched. This villager has as much electric power as he can use. He is as rich in this world's goods as he feels he needs to be; in many material ways he is the world's richest man. But he manures and harvests his fields as his ancestors did from time immemorial, stores his potatoes and apples for winter (and never dreams of out-of-season delicacies), and heats his house (which has no bathtub or flush toilet, still less a refrigerator or washing machine) with wood cut, split, trimmed, stacked, bagged, and wheeled by hand. He is a creature of habit— and so far from being a discontented creature, he will like as not ask you, "What for?" when you suggest that once in his life he might want to visit Geneva, Lucerne,
or Zurich.
The
"primitive" people of the island of Tristan de Cunha, after a
year's experience of mid-twentieth-century
England, voted 148 to 5 to go back home. "To prefer a recently active volcanic island to the welfare state, with only remote chances of rescue if the crater erupts again, is a
sharp commentary on modern civilization," said the London Telegraph.
Why did these islanders, who had been isolated for 150 years until they were removed to their "native" England after the volcanic eruption 119
)
.
An of 1961, go
back
Essay on Time
to a life of hunger, poverty,
for their children? "Essentially," the
and complete lack of future
London New Statesman
said, "it is
because they have taken a careful look at orn- way of life and decided that it is totally disagreeable to them. They do not conceal their scorn for the competitive and acquisitive nature of our urban civilization. They hanker, says Mr. Willy Repetto, their leader, for the peace of their traditional community, close to nature, where everybody knows every-
where everything belongs to everybody." Mr. Repetto would not be welcome in Tristan; they would not fit in with the communal life of the islanders and their presence would lead to fights. "I think," the British editorialist concluded, "we might all reflect upon his words. "^° Habit transmitted by our parents, and hardened as we mature, sets up a mighty resistance to the new simply because it is new: "Old-fogyism," says James, "is the inevitable terminus to which life sweeps us on" (Op. cit., p. 524b). The old— and the middle-aged—have tried the old ways and found them true; no wonder their slogan is the tried-and-true. Time makes conservatives of us all. Who knows whether the new-fangled will work— or what its side efiFects will be? A Boston editor once declared that a railroad from Boston to Albany would be "as useless as a railroad to the moon," and automobile riding (even at twenty miles per hour) was once held "undesirable for delicate females who would suflFer undue ner\"Ous excitement and circulatory disturbance." Immunization was at first thought to be poisonous— and so were the first tomatoes for the table.
body and, above
all,
said flatly tliat "outside" settlers
A
recent poll revealed that only ten per cent of the people
regularly
by car had ever considered
per cent wouldn't consider
it
(They were unimpressed by
even
if
statistics
flying,
who
travel
and that seventy-three
were as inexpensive as driving. showing that flying is safer than
it
driving.
to
Sooner or later— in a matter of months, years, or centuries— resistance most changes disappears. The climate of adaptability in a given society
has
much
to
do with the rate of acceptance;
in a society as flexible as
commonplace almost Only a few years ago there were still many Americans who "wouldn't have the thing in the house"; today such homes are few and far betNveen. But deeper and older attitudes, even in a flexible climate, may take decades or centuries to change (racial or religious bigotry, for example )
the American, a novelty Hke television becomes a overnight.
"All
organic
instincts,"
says
Freud,
"are
conservative,
historically
acquired, and are directed towards regression, towards reinstatement of something earlier"
(Beyond the Pleasure
Pulled as hard as he
is
Principle, Vol. 54, p. 652b),
in the direction of ever accelerating change,
15 Fla\ais, "London Diary,'' in
New
Statesman, December
120
7,
1962, p. 821.
we
There
a whole gamut of escapes, from the trivial (like candlelight dining) the tcay to neurotic illness and the ultimate refuge of psychosis
is
all
may suppose
modem
that
man's instincts must be pulling him harder
than ever toward regression.
And
there
is
considerable
evidence to
support the supposition. The spreading fashion of the old-fashioned seems to reflect a
compulsion
comforting
(if less
mother say
if
to recover at least the
comfortable)
mode
of
appearance of an older, more
life.
What would
great-grand-
she entered an elegant restaurant in 1963 and saw, as she
well might, the guests eating by candlelight?
Consider the significance of the candlehght within— in the age of neon without.
What
is
our mid-t%ventieth-centur\-
a world he wasn't prepared for,
he
is
for,
tr\^ing to construct
man up
to?
Launched
into
and, indeed, couldn't have been prepared
within that world a
little
\\orld of his
o\^'n;
not reconstruct, but construct, for his past had no candlelight in
it.
what now appears
He to have been the uncomplicated serenit}' of his youth or childhood; he wants to go further back still, to a past neither he nor his parents knew. Does someisn't satisfied
thing
tell
merely
to return to
him, subconsciously, that his real past was part of the turbulent
present; that he has to go
much
further back to recapture the
dream
of simplicity'?
modem
civilization, Freud sees man oppressed by measure of independence from it. There is a whole gamut of escapes, from the tri\-ial (like candlelight dining") all the way to neurotic illness and the ultimate refuge of psychosis: 'The hermit
In his analysis of
realit\'
and
as craving a
121
An
Essay on Time
turns his back on this world; he will have nothing to do with
it.
But
one can do more than that; one can try to re-create it, try to build up another instead, from which the most unbearable features are eliminated and replaced by others corresponding to one's own wishes" ( Civilization
and
Its Discontents, Vol. 54, p.
The
774c).
from reality" is timeless; but in times past, this flight was sought only by the few upon whose consciousness the tempo of history impinged. Only the very few were allotted the excess of reality given the many today. Tolstoy's Count Pierre, for example, was at the center of
"flight
mad
reality in early nineteenth-century Russia.
He
tried to
drown
his
sorrows in the time-tested way: after emptying a bottle or two did he feel dimly that the terribly tangled skein of life which previously had terrified him was not as He said to himself: "It doesn't matter. dreadful as he had thought. rU get it unraveled. I have a solution ready, but have no time now— I'll think it all out later on!" But the later on never came .... Sometimes he remembered how he had heard that soldiers in war when entrenched under the enemy's fire, if they have nothing to do, try hard to find some occupation the more easily to bear the danger. To Pierre all men seemed like those soldiers, seeking refuge from life: some in ambition, some in cards, some in framing laws, some in women, some in toys, some in horses, some in politics, some in sport, some in wine, and some in governmental affairs. "Nothing is trivial, and nothing is important, it's all the same— only to save oneself from it as best one can," thought Pierre, "Only not to see it, that dreadful it\" (War and Peace, Vol. 51, p. 305a-b.)
Only
.
.
.
men turn and run, one way or another, from situations that are much for them, be those situations personal or social, or, as is so often
All
too
the case, a combination of the two.
mon
cause of death
the United States.
some aspect
this delusion
suicide
is
the fourth most com-
just
"behaves in some respect for
Today
behind cancer ) among white males age 25-45 in But short of suicide, each one of us, says Freud,
(
of the
like the paranoiac, substituting a wish-fulfilment
world which
is
through into reality" (Op.
unbearable to him, and carrying cit..
Vol. 54, p. 774c).
THE COLD WAR AND THE ACCELERATION OF CHANGE s
I
the "unprogressive" Swiss villager a fool to cling purposely to the so many centuries ago? If he is shutmay be that he is only doing what his contemporary finds himself compelled to do— and less at that. He could live differently; with little effort at all
small bit of reality allotted to
ting his eyes to social change,
sophisticated traumatically,
him
it
he could throw himself
into the spirit of change and modernize his ways. Habit is not unbreakable. Resistance can be overcome— by temptation or even a common-sense view of labor-saving. The western European peasant does have access to the advantages of twentieth- century life.
122
The Tempo
of History
But most of the people of the earth do not have access to these advantages. The real obstacle to social change, the great drag on the tempo of simply non-inclusion. In spite of the miraculous spread of technology, more than two-thirds of the people of the earth are still
history,
is
unaware, or only faintly aware, of what is going on in the advanced societies. Nigerian nomads have not changed their manner of life in thousands of years. Only a small fraction of the Congolese are even
aware that the Congo is a nation, and life below the Sahara, and in of the Middle and Far East, still involves chattel slavery, sorcery, witchcraft, and ritual killing among almost wholly illiterate peoples who have not yet heard of the steam engine. Until history catches up with these millions of primitive men, the progress of social change will still be measured in ancient terms of slow centuries except in the one-third of the world where it races into the future. But it will catch up with them, not as it did with the Europeans over many centuries, but in a matter of decades or even years. It is catching up with them now, and always faster, in China and India. Westerners
much
who
think that the forced modernization of
democratic
efforts— will
require
Communist China— or
centuries
Japan was transformed from medievalism the domination of Asia ) in a handful of
should
India's
be reminded
that
Western industrialism and years at the end of the nineteenth to
(
century.
Each day three
or four
scheduled
air
transports
wing
their
way
come Here, where the Emir
across the Uzbekistan Desert and, jolting over the grass runway,
Bokhara in Soviet Asia. still had his harem of four hundred women a few decades ago, the whiterobed old Muslims painstakingly broil their spitted shashlik over a tiny flame outside the airport building, and their camels graze at the edge of the flying strip. In the town, the older women remove their veils only inside their clay-and-mud homes whose windows all open on the courtyard. Neither Muslim nor camel nor veiled woman looks up at the great passenger planes any more; they have become commonplace. At the edge of the storied old city, the "new Bokhara" is rising, with great skyscraping apartment buildings. And in the steaming market place the visitor who asks for a Bokhara rug or a caracul hat is told that he ought to be able to get them in Moscow; the manufacture of these agelessly traditional articles is now a Soviet state monopoly. So it is in much of the world that, ten years ago, or even five, change had not yet reached. Here the tempo of history is stepped up faster than it has ever been, or ever could be anywhere else in any age. Here the transformation is not from the machine age to the space age, but from something like the prehistoric to the future. The two centuries of the Industrial Revolution come all at once to one underdeveloped society after another. Whole eras of advance in science and technology are to a halt at the oasis of
123
An skipped as a
mud
Essay on Time
no place that
is
The
man
far areas of the earth since in a trice; there
from the wooden which enveloped these reached them has disappeared
village proceeds almost overnight
plough to the automated factory.
first
isolation
civilized
man
cannot
now
reach in a
matter of hours. People who never heard of Caesar, Napoleon, or Hitler, heard of the death of Marilyn Monroe a few minutes after it occurred. In fifteen years television spread from four countries to sixty-five. Even if there were in the 1960's no special compulsion, it seems
change would continue, that advances no other reason than that things that would come faster and faster, faster. Certainly there is no reason going are going faster tend to keep on supposing that the adventurous for why they should not, and every reason certain that the acceleration of if
for
man
under no imaginable circumstances collapse in the face of resistance or resignation. But there is a special compulsion which, in any foreseeable future, guarantees that the tempo of history ( and with it the pace of individual life ) will proceed at an ever-increasing rate. That special compulsion is the Cold War. There has never before been anything like it in all history: two power blocs with inexhaustible resources and talents dedicated to technological acceleration, not only in their rivalry for power, but also in their effort to outbid each other for the favor of precisely those backward areas of the earth that are moving forward the fastest. To this rivalry, as the two systems try to outdo each other in production and distribution,
mood which
everything
has seized hold of
else,
will
every domestic need, in the nature of the case, has got
be sacrificed and is sacrificed. It may not be too much to say that the Communists allow no consideration of any kind to interfere with the single objective of expediting change; and the "open society" which opposes them, whatever else it might want to do, is compelled to keep
to
up with them and,
if
possible, pass them.
For thousands of years, Asia, Africa, and Latin America lay undisturbed, in some cases (as in China) with a highly developed non-technical culture.
Then
for three or four centuries after the invention of the
and the rudder, colonial
their
exploitation— with
Beyond the
compass by
shores and coastal towns were penetrated a
slave plantations
token importation of modern where the intrepid man-hunters
blessings.
Europe beyond was worth nothing, the European of
corralled the "black ivory," nothing touched the jungles of Africa;
the cities of India and China, where
life
never ventured except on voyages of discovery or research. The world's non-Caucasians were born, lived a few years ( or a few months ) and died ,
without making more than an inadvertent impact on social change. Suddenly they have become the focus of the war for the world. East
and West vie with each other to lend or give them everything they need and want. Nothing is too good for our friends— or our prospective friends. Foreign aid— a concept only a few years ago confined to the church 124
The Tempo
of History
movement—pours
forth from both sides in bilHons of dollars two power blocs has to match the other. And those beneficiaries are regarded as the best investment whose studied neutrality brings the two rivals to their doors in a constant stream. But the Euro-American's advancement was hard and slowly won, and his industrialization went hand in hand with his political development. This may not prove to be the case in the newly developing countries: "In the rising new countries economic efficiency may at least temporarily run far ahead of progress towards social maturity and stability. Much of the stimulus for the educational advancement of the Western nations came from economic necessity. Automatization may weaken that powerful connection. It remains to be seen whether the backward countries will find a driving force to help them develop the social, cultural and political advances necessary to help them cope with the new economic
missionary (
and rubles ) Each .
emancipation."^*^
government
The
literacy
of the
In the primary
areas
of
"rising
expectations,"
Western (even in the Communist) sense rate is as low as two per cent in some countries
in the
is (
self-
unknown. the former
French colony of Niger). Fifteen Asian nations agreed at the Karachi Conference of 1960 that they would try to initiate compulsory public education by 1980; but by 1980 they will have been sovereign nations for a long time, and long since dominant in the General Assembly of the United Nations. And these new nations move onto the stage of history as nation-states at a most paradoxical time, when the nation-state appears to have passed its zenith and stands face to face with the demands of supranational sovereignty.
As the American and Soviet blocs step up their fierce competition for friends, the underdeveloped areas will move not from the past to the present, but from the past to the future. They will be the astonished recipients, not of outmoded guns and gadgets and machinery, but of all the newest innovations from the two competing systems. People who have lived for centuries with no artificial lighting will find themselves enjoying electricity generated by atomic energy.
WHAT
LIES
AHEAD?
immediate future of and technological change The gering. At the of basic research, the breaking of the genetic code scientific
is
stag-
level
looms on the horizon. Deciphered recently for one species of bacteria-
study— it promises to be "a monument of be compared with the discovery of universal evolution by natural selection."^^ It may determine the
after a century of biological
the
human
intellect to
gravitation or of
16 Wassily Leontief,
"Man and
Machines,"
in
Scientific
American,
September,
1952, p. 160. 17 Nigel Calder, "The Genetic Code Explained," in New Scientist, London, January 4, 1962, p. 32. See The Great Ideas Today 1962, pp. 198-204, 294-302.
125
An
Essay on Time
basis of thought, unlock the secrets of incurable diseases like cancer,
provide control of the inheritance of plants, animals, and even of man, and, not impossibly, result in the chemical creation of life. The use of new instruments and precision techniques to isolate substances previously beyond man's reach is revolutionizing medicine at
But the most spectacular changes in man's happy— and profitableunion of technology and commerce. Here is one breathless prediction of the character of life in the United States in 1975: "More Americans (230 million) will have more money (average national family income up from the present $5,000 to $7,500) and more every time to spend it (15% fewer work-hours, 50% more holidays) American's life [will be] safer and easier .... Electronic devices will cook his food faster, purify his air supply, diagnose the weather and also his health. If something goes terribly wrong with his insides, tiny, complex self-powered spare human parts — hearts, kidneys and livers — will be available .... On long hauls electronic guides will keep his car on the giant moving sidewalks will help him glide around town road jet airliners shuttling across the world at 1,500 mph .... Along with regular commuter helicopters, the family helicopter will be as attainable as a fancy convertible is today. With 45% more young people and 25% schools will be running on night and day schedules more old people ." and spare-time pursuits will boom astronomically. Those prophecies, published in Life in 1959,^^ are already dated by the "astronomical boom" which between 1967 and 1970 will put man on the moon: "Throughout his existence, man has been confined to his little planet by massive restraints of gravity and a space environment ruthlessly hostile to life. ... In overcoming these restraints and reaching the moon, man will have set foot for the first time on a celestial body other than the one on which he was born. He will have made the first in a succession of leaps that will end no one knows where."^^ To say, in 1963, that man's future is uncertain would be a model of understatement. The only possible reading of the social barometer is: Change— and always more of it. "The great ages," says Whitehead in Science and the Modern World, "have been unstable ages." No age has known such instability— so deep and so broad— as our own. Nor is it to be denied, in terms of human history, that our age is in many respects one of the greatest. Its very greatness lies in its tempo. It is preeminently the Age of Change, and the further knowledge penetrates the unknown, the more unknowable is the future. The arts of prediction have been refined, mechanized, automated, not merely in the physical, but also an unprecedented
rate.
living conditions will occur as a result of the
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
18 December 28, 1959. 19 Richard Witkin, The
New
.
.
York Times, July 30, 1962.
126
.
.
.
.
The Tempo in the social, sciences;
of History
but apart from the rosy portrait of the leisure
of the future, with a button to press all the buttons for him,
man
and
his
chemical foods and drugs extending his lifetime to a century and longer, prediction is dumb. Few prognosticators believe that the world of 1983— not to say 2083— will bear a close resemblance to the world today.
What
it
will resemble,
and how man
will live in
it,
we
live in
lies
behind
an impenetrable cloud. There seems httle doubt that mankind is poised on the threshold of heaven or hell. The barriers, of distance, of sound, and of outer space, are broken. There is no turning back; the "point of no return" has long since been passed. The problem-solving animal has solved a thousand problems and will solve a thousand-and-one. But the clouded future casts a shadow on him and on all his present and prospective conquests. In 1863 an inventory of basic social problems numbered twenty-two, beginning, alphabetically, with Abolition and ending with Slavery. Fifty years
later
they numbered tvventy-six,
be-
ginning with Administration of Public Institu-
Dependent and ending with Urban Problems. Today they number ninety, beginning with Accidents and ending with War.-" As man's technical triumphs multiply, his moral and poHtical problems— ond even his technical problems—seem to multiply. He is tions for the
many of the effects his Hand in hand with his new afflictions appear and
defenseless against
genius has produced.
"wonder drugs," old ones Hke syphilis reappear.-^ His pesticides protect his fruits, but carry poisons into his system. His offshore waters coat the \vings
of migratory birds with waste oil and kill them by the millions. His modem cities are becoming unbroken strips of unmanageable megalopolises marked by private opulence and pubhc squalor. His high-speed traffic is fatal,
and
his
low-speed
traffic fills his
DYING DUCKS IN
LOWER NEW YORK BAY
Offshore waters coat the wings of migratory birds with waste oil and kill them by the millions
lungs
with noxious fumes. Here he starves, there he is glutted with surplus crops which strangle his agriculture. His improved medicine and sanitation are increasing population faster than he can feed it. 20 Phelps and Henderson, Contemporary Social Problems (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1953), pp. 5-7. 21 The World Health Organization warned recently that "there had been a significant worldwide resurgence of syphilis .... The greatest rise occurred in Europe and the Western Hemisphere, the areas where the disease had ap." {New York Times, parently been brought under the greatest control. .
September 28, 1962),
p. 14.
127
.
An
Essay on Time
long-term observers of change— certainly most social scientistsThey emphasize the discrepancy between
Many
are unabashedly pessimistic.
the pace of technological advance and social advance. As Devereux Josephs, former board chairman of the New York Life Insurance
Company, put it, "Behind the good lurks a gloomy threat— the threat
things that our future holds there
increasing
of
divergence between
man's technical ingenuity and his capacity to master the social and personal problems this ingenuity creates."-- And the late President A. Whitney Griswold of Yale University warned that if man is to continue
upon the earth
to dwell
successfully
—
"more successfully than other — he must have
animals and civilizations that have become extinct"
the kind of education "that develops to their fullest potential the intellectual,
The this
moral, and esthetic powers of the individual."-^ "father" of our
age, Albert
Einstein,
once asked,
"Why
does
magnificent applied science, which saves work and makes hfe easier,
bring us so
little
happiness? The simple answer runs: Because
not yet learned to
make
a complicated question:
sensible use of
How
are
The prophet Jeremiah
we
it."
we have
But the simple answer
to learn? This
raises
the perennial
is
"They are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge" (Jer. 4:22); and Goethe's Faust declared that "What man knows not is needed most by man, / And what man knows, for that no use has he" (Faust, Vol. 47, p. question.
said of his people,
26b).
A
far cry,
hold of
man
this,
from the dream of perpetual progress that seized Revolution and carried him
at the outset of the Industrial
upward and onward
until the outbreak of
World War
I.
In 1915 the
Hobhouse, observed that the world had turned out to be "a different world from that which we knew, a world in which force had a greater part to play than we had allowed, a world in which the ultimate securities were gone, in which we seemed to see of a sudden through a thin crust of civilization the seething forces of barbaric lust for power and indifference to life."-* Forty years latergreat British liberal, L. T.
saw war in the JuHan Huxley wrote the epitaph forty years that
streets of every capital of
for the
Age
Europe— Sir
of Progress:
In spite of pessimists and disheartened idealists, the unconscious assumption widely prevailed that, however disreputably animal man's origin might have been, the process of evolution had now culminated in nineteenth-centurv civilization, with its scientific discoveries and its technical achievements. All that was now needed to put humanity on the very pinnacle of progress was a little more science, a little more rational enlightenment, and a little more universal education. 22 Life, December 28, 1959, p. 172. 23 Ibid. 24 World in Conflict (London: Unwin, 1915),
128
p. 6.
The Tempo
We
of History
the disillusionment that has set in within the brief space vears. How the orderly mechanisms of nineteen thcenturv^ physics gave way to strange and sometimes non-rational concepts that no one but mathematicians could grasp; how the idea of relaall
know
hundred
of half a
tivity,
and
its
somewhat
illegitimate extension to
human
aflFairs,
destroyed
whether absolute truth or absolute morality or absolute beaut)'; how our belief in the essential rationality and goodness of man was undermined by psycholog)' and sent crashing in ruins by the organized cruelt\^ of Belsen and thie mass folly of two world wars; and how our idealistic notions of progress as the inevitable result of science and education were shattered by events. In brief, man's first evolutional)' picture of nature and his owti place in it proved false in -= its design and had to be scrapped. faith in the
The
absolute,
crust of civilization
is
thin,
a cataclysmic future. But there in the trifling
span of
five
is
and through
thousand years or
originated on the earth t\vo billion years ago,
Man
has
moved
it
we may perhaps which man has
a crust, a crust
fast— and far— to an
so.
is
thought to have
life
about a million.
Life
human
discern
created
ever-higher ideal of
human
life
and
human
society and to the implementation of that ideal (with failures and setbacks, true enough) in the practical order. Social change, though it has depended upon technology to provide the necessary minimum conditions of his advancement, has been more than technological change. It has been cultural and in many ways moral. Man has created higher and higher political and social forms, and social justice as the
foundation of the state has brought, first, freedom, then leisure, safety, health and comfort, and then education and the arts to the many. Opti-
mism may be
rare these days
among
serious
men, but Kant's vision of "a
sovereignty in which reason alone shall have sway" (Critique of Judge-
ment, Vol. 42, p. 587a)
"We grow is
not so easy to grow
effort.
not yet to be foreclosed.
to five feet pretty readily," said Samuel Johnson, "but
Vol. 44, p. 401a).
some
is
Man
And he
is
has grown to
growing
man
is
six
as fast as
reasserts itself: Is there a limit to
be broken and which
it
to seven" (James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson,
feet— perhaps a bit
he can. But
human power,
approaching
at
now
more— wdth
an ancient issue
a barrier
which cannot
an ever increasing rate of
speed? The train of troubles which the rate of change has brought forward has already been adverted to. Portentous may be the fact that the most highly advanced nations have the highest suicide, homicide, and alcoholism rates in the world— the United States, Switzerland, Sweden, and Denmark, with Finland, France, and England close behind. Still more portentous is the fact that the countries most wholeheartedly
devoted to "the mastery of natiu-e" stand closest to the brink of a war of universal annihilation.
25 Op.
cit.,
p.
42.
129
An It is
Essay on Time
eighteen years since Hiroshima;
how many men
are able
and
to grasp the fact of atomic power, to identify themselves
with sion
it? Is this
which
simply a cultural too large for us?
is
lag, or are
Have we
we up
against a
bitten off
somehow their Hves
new dimenwe can we can be-
more than
Are we heU-bent to be more than at least in such a hurry? So far and no further— this is what Adam was told. But he and his sons have gone further in the hope that they might (as the serpent said) "be as gods." And, says Freud, they have in our
chew— at
least so fast?
time nearly become as gods; but they aren't happy with their likeness. Its Discontents, Vol. 54, pp. 778d-779a. ) Why not? our age of unprecedented change the age also of unprecedented
(See Civilization and
Why fear
is
and
insecurit\-?
Man's most
flattering
myth
is
that of Prometheus,
who
stole the secrets
and gave them to the sons of men. But aeons later, great Jove saw man with his fire and his iron, his armor and his chariots, and muttered to himself, "Of all creatures that Live and move upon the earth there is none so pitiable as he is" ( Homer, The Iliad, Vol. 4, p. 126c V The power to know the future was, of all the gifts of the gods, beginning with
fire,
of Prometheus, the one the gods resented most; but says,
"Man
has
lost
now
Albert Schweitzer
the capacity to foresee and to forestall.
He
will
end by
destroying the earth."
The
astronaut was Icarus, who, wearing wings fashioned of and fastened with wax to his body, flew so near the sun that the wax melted and he fell into the sea. Does this ancient myth tell us something as we reach for the stars? Does the strange and wonderful stor>' of Eden tell us the same thing? Forbidden the knowledge of good and evil, are we o\erreaching ourseh-es as we race for%vard e\er faster on the wings of the knowledge of lesser things? first
feathers
130
NOTE TO THE READER An
essay on a theme as comprehensive
tempo
iTx. as the
of history
must neces-
sarily
range over a wide variety of sub-
jects,
including the patterns of history, the
essay to the Syntopicon chapter on Progress.
Economic
progress, including the in-
crease of wealth, the improvement in the status
and conditions of
labor,
and the
idea of progress, the impact of technology
progressive conquest of nature through
on human
ence and invention, is discussed in the passages cited under Progress Sa-Sc. Skeptical or pessimistic denials of progress can be found under Progress Ic. The effects of science and technology
life,
growth of knowledge, and hu-
dition, the
man
the role of custom and tra-
resistance to change.
Each of these
subjects can be discussed only briefly with-
The reader who
in the essay.
is
interested
any of these subjects will find an abundance of valuable material in the Syntopicon and in Great Books of the Western World. The laws and patterns of historical change are discussed in the passages in Great Books of the Western World cited in the Syntopicon chapter on History under in investigating further
topic 4h.
The
role of the
and Physics
The
Change
summarized
12b.
Intellectual
tory 4a(2) and 4a(4). is
part played
Progress 5. Related passages on the love and hatred of change can be found under
and geographic),
scribed in the passages listed under His-
cations
5.
by custom and tradimodifying and hindering change is discussed under Custom and Convention 8, while factors operating against social progress, such as emotional opposition to change or novelty, are described under
pre-eminent individual—
of progress in
are described in the pas-
tion in
the great man, hero, or leader— are de-
The idea
life
sages listed under Science lb (I) -lb (2)
role of material forces in his-
tory (economic, physical,
and the
on human
and
cultural progress, includ-
ing progress in the all
of
its
sci-
the sciences,
ramifi-
is
and Knowledge
in the introductory
131
arts,
philosophy, and
discussed in Progress 6-6b 10.
PART THREE
The Year's Developments in the
Arts and Sciences Literature, Saul Bellow
Biological Sciences and Medicine, Leonard Engel and Kenneth Brodney
Philosophy and Religion, John Physical Sciences
Herman
Randall,
Jr.
and Technology, Edward U. Condon
Social Sciences
and Law, Reuel Denney
SAUL BELLOW,
one of the most important American writers of the
generation following Faulkner and in 1915. In 1924,
he moved with
Hemingway, was born his family to Chicago,
in
Quebec, Canada,
where he studied
at
the University of Chicago and Northwestern University, graduating with a
degree in anthropology in 1937. While in graduate school at the University of Wisconsin, he decided to become a writer. His
first novel. Dangling Man, apby The Victim in 1947. His third novel, The Advenof Augie March, won the National Book Award for "the most distinguished
peared tures
work
in 1944, followed
of fiction published in 1953." Since then,
of stories. Seize the
Day (1956), and
he has published a collection
another novel, Henderson the Rain King
(1959). In addition, he has served as one of the editors of the literary periodical
The Noble Savage. Twice the
recipient of
Guggenheim
fellowships,
and
a winner of a National Institute of Arts and Letters award, he has taught at several universities, including Minnesota, Yale, Princeton,
cently he
was honored with
University.
a Doctor of Literature degree
and Chicago. Refrom Northwestern
LITERATURE SAUL BELLOW individual peculiarly modern form The ture with Montaigne, to take an arbitrary in his
first
appears in
litera-
Montaigne in his Essays presents himself as quite a plain and ordinary man, but one in whom everything essential may be seen.^ Shunning extremes, he concentrates upon the average. This, however, he investigates in depth and, fixing his attention on matters entirely human, he emerges with a new conception of the scope and meaning of a personal existence. Man lives on this earth, his life is fragile, his time is short; still, he enjoys many remarkable powers, and he may acquire a profound skeptical wisdom. The essays of Montaigne are a personal document, parts of an extensive confession which, unlike the Confessions of St. Augustine (see Vol. 18, pp. la-125c), does not have a spiritual character. For Montaigne the human condition is secular. The facts, all of the facts, though many of them are sure to be trifling, belong in his description of the human creature. The whole sum of the facts is necessary. Mixed though they be, they do not prevent the individual from attaining his own sort of human grandeur. Thus Montaigne is able to pass with ease from kitchen matters to metaphysics. This mixture of things high and low is peculiarly modem. Romantic individualism two centuries later, in Rousseau, proclaims the uniqueness of the Self and, much more aggressively and ambitiously than in Montaigne, contrasts the individual and the surrounding world. Nineteenth-century romanticism celebrates the individual, his natural and intuitive qualities, and sees in civilization his great enemy. It awaits a new and broader freedom and prefers human life to have an aesthetic starting point.
character.
In the
But these brave expectations have,
modern world (and romanticism
excited sense of the exceptional
is
is
a
in fact, a very brief career.
modern phenomenon), the
required to bear the experience of the
commonplace. An industrialized mass society cannot accommodate any sizable population of Prometheans and geniuses. The century of Shelley's Prometheus is also that of Emile Zola's near-primate peasants and proletarians. The large claims made for the Self in the early period of romanticism begin to sound foolish in the modem age of large populations. To men of acute intelligence, by the second half of the nineteenth century, romantic individualism began to appear fraudulent. Dostoevsky shows 1
"I desire ... to be viewed as I appear in mine own genuine, simple, and ordinary manner, without study and artifice: for it is myself I paint" (Vol. 25, p. la).
135
"
Literature (in the figure of Miiisov in
easy
it is
The Brothers Karamazov,
for instance)
how
for comfortable, indolent people, thoroughly bourgeois in spirit,
to think of themselves as romantic idealists. (See Vol. 52, pp. 15a-45d
As romantic
passim. )
feeling
becomes vulgarized and debased,
literature
begins to treat the romantic hero with sharp hostility.
Early realism, in the novels of Balzac, makes
Though
much
of the individual.
examines life in a contemporary and ordinary setting, the Balzacian novel grants full dignity to people from the lower ranks of society. Romanticism in the last years of the eighteenth century began to see it
humble life. The ploughboy, the cotter, the simple charmed Burns and Wordsworth. Far less attractive, how-
great virtue in the
country ever,
girl
was the ordinary
civilized
urban
man who appeared
in the realistic
Examined with great and even tragic seriousness by Balzac, he proved to be a creature of deep and distorted passions. Old Goriot, Grandet, Vautrin— the monomaniac father, the genius novels of the nineteenth century.
of avarice, the inspired criminal— are great figures taken
That common
life is, in
from common
eighteenth-century novels like
Tom
Jones,
life. still
the material of comedy. Serious realism belongs to the nineteenth century.
soon appears that the degradation of the
It
nineteenth-century writers than
its
common
life is
plainer to
heroic possibilities. Hawthorne, in
Custom House," with gentle but bitter irony why he was obliged to write a romance. draws a deadly picture of the customs house at Salem, its sluggish-
a prefatory chapter to The Scarlet Letter called "The tells
He
ness and dullness, and of the old men, originally slow-witted or decaying,
the staflF. This to him is modem Salem. The "dim and dusky grandeur" of the old town and its colonists who came with sword and Bible, the pious but fierce Puritans who persecuted Quakers and burned
who make up
this modern dreariness. The writer must to his magnificent ancestors to be shamefully insignificant. " 'What
witches— all of that has ended in
seem is
he?'
murmurs one grey shadow
of story-books!
What
of
my
forefathers to the other. 'A writer
kind of business in life— what
God, or being serviceable to mankind
in his
mode
of glorifying
day and generation— may
that be?'
In an effort to save himself— mind and spirit threatened by the torpor and emptiness of the customs house— Hawthorne writes his romance.
was a folly, with the materiality of this daily life pressing so inupon me, to attempt to fling myself back into another age, or to insist on creating the semblance of a world out of airy matter, when, at eveiy moment, the impalpable beauty of my soap-bubble was broken by the rude contact of some actual circumstance. The wiser effort would have been to diffuse thought and imagination through the opaque substance of today, and thus to make it a bright transparency; to spiritualize the burden that began to weigh so heavily; to seek, resolutely, the tme and indestructible value that lay hidden in the petty and wearisome incidents, and ordinary characters with which I It
trusively
136
Saul Bellow
was now conversant. The fault was mine. The page of life that was spread out before me seemed dull and commonplace onlv because I had not fathomed its deeper import. A better book than I shall ever write was there.
We he
cannot be sure that Hawthorne was completely in earnest, since
He is not alone, however, in with ordinar}- life or with the writer's incapacitv' to deal with it. "Nothing conceivable is so pett\". so insipid, so crowded with paltr}- interests, in one word so anti-poetic, as the life of a man in the United States," wrote De Tocqueville in 1S40. He added, "But among the in effect apologizing for a masterpiece.
is
his dissatisfaction
thoughts which
and that
is
it
suggests there
alwa\-s one
is
which
is
full of poetn.-,
the hidden ner\'e which gives vigor to the frame."
Novelists of the nineteenth centur\". nourished on romantic individu-
cope with the results of industrial
alism, find that they are obliged to
life, becomes possible same time the indi\idual, oppressed by the weight
collectivism. Cultivated inwardness, a rich private
for a fairly large
number
the single, separate of numbers,
valueless
of people.
self, feels
But
severely limited,
by nature, by the conditions
by the lack
at the
of life— his distinction
rendered
of true power. In e\er)^ direction the romantic in-
di\idual sees injustice, the threat of debiht\-, sickness, senselessness, and
The
ruin.
t>"pical
hero of the later nineteenth-centux\' novel has been
by Christian idealism in Thomas Hardy ) is spoiled by the arrangements of civilized societ\- (in Tolstoy), decides not to get out of bed (in Goncharov^i. lives under elaborate restraints (Henry James). Emma Bovar\-. the heroine of Flaubert's great novel,
robbed of
his
\-italit\-
(
,
or destroyed
an altogether insignificant person who belongs to the pett\' bourgeoisie But Madame Bovary is something more than the record of a wTetched life. It is a ver\' special sort of aesthetic creation, immense-
is
of the provinces.
ly influential,
and
which
gi\-es to
the performance of the
discipline, his reading of fate,
ly to the subject of the novel. itself
makes up
for lack of
pettiness of the hero
nificance of this art
is
That
mind
to say that in
is
Madame Bovary
or heart in the characters of fiction.
granted. It
is \"er\-
artist, his \'irtuosity
an importance which belonged former-
great.
is
the art that
The
is
art
The
exalted, but the sig-
aim of the Flaubertian novelist
is
to immerse himself in his subject, self -forgetfully. Flaubert, says Erich
Auerbach
in
one of
his
superb
critical studies in Mimes^is, "believes that
phenomenal world is also re\"ealed in Hnguistic expresThat world is, however, in the novelist's view, an incredibh- complicated and frightful thing. It is in reaHt\- a multitude of private worlds without connection, explains Auerbach, where "each is alone, none can imderstand another, or help another to insight; there is no common world of men, because it could only come into existence if mam- should find their way to their on^ti proper reality-, the realit>' which is gi\-en to the individual— which then \\ould be also the true common reality." the truth of the sion."
137
,
Literature
Individualism thus finds sanctuary in the briefly, for
the older sort of romantic individualism fiercely. Eliot)
attack
it
Cocktail Party,
but only very
artist himself,
twentieth-century literature does not tolerate as strongly as the Marxists
Edward Chamberlayne cannot
The
this.
It assails
Christians (T.
believe in his
own
S.
The
(Bertolt Brecht). In
person-
The Measures Taken, a zealous young Communist organizer is liquidated by his comrades because he is an individual, hence dangerous to the party. From still another point of view, a writer like D. H. Lawrence declares the nullity of civilized personalities. He finds, ahty; in Brecht's
for instance, in his essay
Literature) that in his
on Melville (in Studies in Classic American self" Melville is "almost dead. That is,
"human
he hardly reacts to human contacts any more: or only ideally: or just for a moment. His human-emotional self is almost played out. He is abstract, self-analytical and abstracted. And he is more spellbound by the strange slidings and collidings of Matter than by the things men do." Melville's is an "isolated, far-driven soul, the soul which is now alone, without any real human contact." Ordinary and conventional conceptions of the self are to Lawrence "painted millstones." He thought that we were witnessing the ghastly end of a false "social" and slavish selfhood. Enduring the horror of this death, we may expect to be reborn. This, as modem attitudes go, is comparatively optimistic. Lawrence expects rebirth and regeneration, a new and greater victory for the instincts, to occur. A statement made in the early 1920's by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, the Viennese poet, frequently quoted by critics, expresses a far more nihilistic attitude:
Our time is unredeemed; and do you know what it wants to be redeemed from? .... The individual. Our age groans too heavily .
.
.
under the weight of this child of the sixteenth century that the nineteenth fed to monstrous size. We are anonymous forces. Potentialities of the soul. Individuality is an arabesque we have discarded. I should go so far as to assert that all the ominous events we have been witnessing in the last twelve years are nothing but a very awkward and longwinded way of burying the concept of the European individual in .
.
.
.
the grave
Such a
it
has
dug
for itself.
.
,
.
position, as the critic Lionel
nal book Metatheatre, must
.
Abel points out
make "moral
in his highly origi-
and morality Symbohst poet Arthur Rimbaud, a "weakness of the brain," for if man is an "anonymous force," then morality may be one of the historical costumes it has pleased him to wear during several millennia. For moral ideas, whose focus is the individual, the present itself,
in the
tendency
is
words
sufiFering absurd,"
of the
to substitute ideas of class, nation, or breed. In the political
Many ought to be guided by the gifted One or Few. "The initiation of all wise or noble things comes and must come from individuals; generally at first from some sphere, classical liberalism holds that the sovereign
138
Saul Bellow
.
one individual," said
J. S.
On
Mill in
Liberty (Vol. 43, p. 298d).
The po-
significance of the anti-individualism of occidental literature in the
litical
twentieth century
is,
however, far from
clear.
celebrated in the literature of a democracy, as the
One grew
insignificant.
Modern
De
The Many would be Tocqueville prophesied,
literature has not fulfilled this
prophecy. Writers of great power, even of genius, express their disgust
and hatred
They
for the Self.
They
cry out for the demolition of that false god.
often admire the hardness, even the brutality, of the
man
of the
people, or of the crowd; but, on the whole, the indictment of romantic individualism, itself romantic, and the dislike of humanism, itself of
humanistic origin,
suflBces
them.
None has gone
so far as to
summon
us to
what Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor called the "unanimous and harmonious ant-heap" (The Brothers Karamazov, Vol. 52, p. 133c), the final form of collectivity. enter
recent Alexander Two Ivan Denisovich and James novels,
Solzhenitsyn's
Jones's
One Day
The Thin Red
in the Life of
Line,
show
us,
the
one by describing life in a Soviet prison camp, the other in an account of the American infantryman as he advances against the Japanese on Guadalcanal, what the submergence of the individual can be like. There are immense differences, of course, between a combat soldier and a slave laborer, but these differences make the similarities all the more curious. Both books deal with the struggle for survival and with attitudes toward authority and, consequently, toward the Self, on which survival depends. Bread and warmth are what Ivan Denisovich mainly needs; these and the occasional luxury of tobacco incessantly occupy his thoughts as he labors in the arctic darkness. The man who breaks the camp rules cannot live. Confinement in a cold cell will destroy his health. But the man who does not break its rules cannot live either.
He must
pick up what
how
take every opportunity to
may be
useful;
he must learn
to conceal a broken bit of useful metal
from the searching guards, how to sew a piece of bread into his mattress. He cannot Alexander Solzhenitsyn afford, even for a moment, to feel unwell. Because he is feverish and steals a few moments of rest in his bunk, Ivan Denisovich is penalized by the Tartar guard. He asks, "What for, citizen chief?" (Prisoners are not allowed to use the word comrade. ) Solzhenitsyn notes that this question is asked "with more chagrin than he felt in his voice." Ivan knows, however, that he cannot plead with the Tartar, and 139
Literature
he
The
protests merely for the sake of form.
s\Tnpathy or expecting justice
weaken the
tion \^ould
is
ruled out.
ver\'
thought of appeahng to
Any such thought
or expecta-
and must therefore be a betrayal of the ex-naval officer who do not quickly forget their
will to sur\dve
that will. Prisoners like
past dignit)- and have not learned to check their tongues wdll eat cold
food in jail, and they will die of it. At twentv^ degrees below zero, thinly clad and underfed, a man cannot Hve. Ivan Deniso\-ich reflects, "There wouldn't be a warm comer for a whole month. Xot even a doghouse. And
were out of the question. There was nothing to build them with. Let your work \^"arm you up, that was yom* only sahation." And elsewhere he obser\'es, "Real jail was when you were kept back from work." He is therefore grateful to the Tartar for imposing a work penalt)-. fires
self- discipline and rugged peasant cunning have enabled endure years of labor in the taiga. He will not think about the authorities, about go\-emment, about rights, about his own unjust imprisonment, about the sufferings of the other prisoners, about home and family— all this would vex his heart needlessly and waste energy. His thoughts are all of bread, sugar, fish stews, boots, and of being the sort
Spartan
I\"an to
man who
of
will
Karataev Beziikhov learns
Platon
552b-5o5c.
make in
I\-an
Of the meek virtues of a man like whose simple wisdom Pierre
Peace,
in captiN-it)-, there
Though
)
the grade.
War and
scarcely a hint. (See Vol. 51, pp.
is
Denisovich
is
not without
a
rudimentary'
meager as his diet. At the day's end, he thanks God for sur\i\al. "Glor\- be to Thee, O Lord. Another day over. Thank You I'm not spending tonight in the cells. Here it's still bearable."
religious faith, this faith
is
as
Alyosha, a religious prisoner in the next bunk, o\-erhears the whispered
words and urges I\an Deniso\ich to pray. I\an Denisovich, however, is dangerous. "Prayers," he says, "are like
repHes that prayer, like hope,
those appeals of ours. Either they don't get through or they're returned with rejected' scrawled across 'em." Faith will neither move moimtains nor shorten the prisoner's sentence. But the Baptist Ah'osha is horrified
mere thought of freedom. "In freedom," he says, "your last grain be choked with weeds. Here you have time to think about your soul." If it be God's wiU that Alyosha should sit in prison, somehow it works out all right for him. "But for whose sake am I here?" says Ivan Denisovich. "Because we weren't ready for war in forty-one? For that? But was that my fault?" But these theoretical considerations are not ^•e^^• important, and the religious nai\'ete of Alyosha the Baptist may be intended to satisf}' the anti-religious demands of Soviet literary by
tlie
of faith will
.
.
.
policy.
Ivan Denisovich has greater factual, or documentar}-, than literary
work, lacking in color and passion, in dramatic however, are strangely eloquent, and the modest)- or flatness with which they are stated is suited to the sub-
interest. It is a pedestrian
vision. ver}-
The
facts themselves,
140
Saul Bellow
human
camp and
grimness of the
Ivan's almost de-individuahzed
to
desire to endure.
Such animal endurance, the
entire object of Ivan's struggle, represents,
in itself, a positive or heroic activity to certain
whom
dramatist like Bertolt Brecht, to called individual,
and
in
whose view
modern
all
human
writers.
For a
is
really the so-
realities
must undergo
the individual
a radical review, the truth should be sought in illusionless endurance.
His Galileo says, "I don't understand a fill
his belly."
The purpose
man who
of such a statement
is
doesn't use his
mind
to
not to debase the mind
but to elevate the body, as Mr. Abel in his Metatheatre argues. Whatever we wish to assert about mankind must be squared with the commonest
human
facts of ofiFered
conduct, and the interpretation of those
by authority and
tradition
is
not acceptable to Galileo. Such
are present, though seldom so clearly stated, in most
are quite explicit, however, in
common
The Thin Red
facts
issues
modern books. They
Line.
war makes men of boys is of course old stuff. What interests James Jones is the civilian society that sends forth the boys, and the kind of brutality that shapes them into manhood. The slack codes of family and community collapse in situations of primitive violence, and conventional beliefs are exposed as impositions which an illusionless man will never take as his own again, though the wisdom of con-
That
venience, the
wisdom
of the survivor,
counsel an apparent acceptance.
The boy
may still
imagines that he has the value of an individual,
and that
his survival
is
a matter of
great concern to someone, somewhere.
hardened
man
The
has realized that the truth
is
otherwise; he has been thrust into the path of destruction
by the people
at
home, and
the sooner he grasps what this means the
scheme whether he stands or falls. The older, wiser, tougher men, the professionals, underbetter. It matters little in the greater
of things
James Jones
Someone like First Sergeant Welsh with absolute or metaphysical conviction. Of those who do not understand he is intolerant, and he waits with a certain eagerness for reality to punish the ignorant, the credulous, the naive, and the immature. Welsh's toughness and harshness is more than a personal attitude; it is also his rudimentary wisdom. He drives away a young soldier in the combat area who wants permission to dig a slit trench near his. To cling to some-
stand
this.
believes
it
one else is miserable; it betrays an unformed character, for which the seasoned combat soldier has an intuitive contempt. The word that expresses 141
Literature
Welsh
man, can care about in this world it and mutters the word to himself like an incantation— "Property." The wise have it; the rest are suckers. But even Sergeant Welsh has irrational impulses of generosity. He crawls out under fire to bring back a wounded man. The e£Fort is wasted, the man is dying, and Welsh returns to cover. "Sobbing audibly for breath, he made himself a solemn unspoken promise never again to let his screwy wacked-up emotions get the better of his common for is
all
that a sensible
He
"Property."
man, a
real
has no clear idea what he means by
sense."
In these circumstances, a "fact" level. Terror,
blood
lust,
is
men
whatever brings
to a
greed, and sexual excitement are the
common
main
facts.
One
of Jones's characters, not ordinarily given to reflection, goes so far
as to
wonder whether the craving
may
not be an ineradicable cause of wars. Under threat of death and
for a peculiar sort of sexual gratification
liberated from ordinary selfhood, these soldiers are subject to fierce bursts of cruelty
and
perversity.
A
mythologist might say, in the terms of which
modern thought has grown so fond, that the presiding god god of individuation, but Dionysus, who represents the
is
not Apollo,
instincts,
the
species.
Powers, in Morte D'Urban, observes life in a very diflFerent sphere. JF.Father Urban, the hero of his novel, belongs to the imaginary
He
is an active worldly priest, much in demand charming man, fond of food and sports and company. Urban serves his order well in Chicago, and the decision of his superior to transfer him to a remote part of Minnesota is, to say
order of
St.
Clement.
as a speaker, a sociable,
tlie least,
trying to his patience.
He
finds
it
incomprehensible.
He
obeys,
of course, but with dragging feet. His impression of the country north of Minneapolis as
and
he views
it
from the
train
window
is
that
it is
without people. It didn't attract, it didn't repel. streams than he'd see in Illinois, but they weren't working. November was winter here. Too many white frame farmhouses, not new and not old, not at aU what Father Urban would care to come home to for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Rusty implements. Brown dirt. Grey skies. Ice. No snow. A great deal of talk about this on the train. Father Urban dropped entirely out of it after an hour or so. The Voyageur arrived in Duesterhaus a few minutes before eleven that morning, and Father Urban was the only passenger to get off. flat
treeless, Illinois
He saw more
.
.
.
Father Wilfred, whom Urban had known during their novitiate as Bunny Bestudnik, is head of the Clementine Foundation in Duesterhaus. The property is in poor shape, the means of the Fathers are limited, and Wilfred is trying to make things go as eflBciently as possible.
He
thinks of
little
besides
free rides on the raihoad.
tile,
The
hardware, paint, machinery,
fuel,
and
interests of the Fathers are approximately
142
Saul Bellow
who have a place to run. Urban, something of a sophisticate, and he sniffs at these hicks. He is far from humble, as he is himself aware. WHfred is pok\-, unimaginative, and bumbling. Urban is knowledgeable and worldly, charming and proud. Mr. Powers' theme is the rehgious life of those of any group of Midvvesterners
as his
name
hints,
is
average Americans, and he develops with a fine talent for wr\' comedy. He avoids strong contrasts and emphatic statements and,
practical, it
at times, follows this
method
of restraint to
In Morte D'Urban, Roman Catholicism meets The American Way of Life, and the results of this encounter are not quite clear, because the spiritual quahties of Urban, though there is no question of the genuineness of his calling, are ver\- dimly outlined. The Clementine Order has a wealthy patron named BOly Cosgrove, who is fond of Father Urban's company. Billy is generous but erratic; he is in fact a spoiled, bullying, idle man whose life is one ferocious, unending hoHday. He is a big spender, and he likes doing things for the Church. Urban is half amused by willful, playful Billy, pardons his the verge of vagueness or
vulgarity
and
his
passivit\-.
insolence,
J.
F.
Fowers
and rather enjoys the good meals and
the fine cars— Urban has a weakness for sports and for automobiles. Partly because he enjoys
it,
partly for the good of the order.
Urban
accompanies Billy on a fishing trip to the North Woods. There Billy's temper becomes ugly. He has had bad luck with the fish at Bloodsucker Lake and, seeing a stag swim by, he decides that he must have the antlers. He tries to drown the animal by holding its head under water. Such cruelt\- is more than Urban can bear. He speeds up the outboard
motor so that Billy falls in the water. When he is rescued, Billy then dumps Father Urban into the lake and speeds off. The effect of this is by no means comic. Urban had been thinking, in the boat before these events, about the matter of Uving or dying for the Faith, and had made a comparison between Billy and WiUiam the Conqueror, who was "mild to good men of God and stark beyond all bounds to those who withsaid his will." This parallel is mildly amusing. Billy could ne\er give a damn about history-. He is a completely contemporarv" American phenomenon, bent utterly on having his owti way, violently pursuing his happiness and losing none of his strength in thought. Of the two, it is he who has 143
Literature
the
more passionate
character. Urban's reHgion
is
far
from
intense.
It,
too,
perhaps American— Hberal, relaxed, nice, comfortable, unobtrusive, rather unfocused. The book concludes with two highly significant changes in the Hfe of Urban. After he has been struck in the head is
by a
golf ball,
he has tormenting headaches and
fits
of dizziness. It
appointed Father Provincial and returns to Chicago. As Provincial, he disappoints everyone, but it presently becomes clear that he is unweU. To hide his attacks from callers, he turns
is
at this
aside pietv"
time that he
and pretends
to
is
read his
breviar\%
gaining
a
reputation
"which, however, was not entirely unwarranted now."
The
for
con-
cluding pages of the novel are written without irony and are, I think, intended to show a changed Urban, mart)Ted by sufferings and brought to the fulfillment of his religious destiny. Actually, they show us very little;
they attempt, rather, to
progress of Urban's soul.
Its
tell
we cannot expect to follow the incommunicable.
us that
condition
is
Mr. Powers abides by the convention accepted by most realistic He does not give his characters thoughts or emotions they
writers.
are not "realistically" likely to have. It is odd that religious novelists Hke Powers, or like Graham Greene or EvcKti Waugh, with whom he obviously agrees, should be unwilling to offer a specifically religious psychology in their books. Anything deeper than the ordinary circumstances of life permit us to see may only be hinted at, and since we are confined by these ordinary circumstances in corruption, in states of boredom, and in egotism, the most spiritual person is the one who suffers most through the human condition. The heroes of these novelists are thus for the most part scarcely articulate martyrs.
such experience can onl\' be hinted at In mvths and images. To speak about it talk of darkness, lab\Tinths, Minotaur terrors. But that world does not take the place of this one .
.
.
We
says T.
S.
Ehot's psychiatrist, Reilly, in
The Cocktail
Party.
The
realities
world are more terrible than the darkest inventions of the imagination. Mr. Powers describes those realities as ably as Fran9ois Mauriac, or Graham Greene, or Eliot, or any other Christian writer, and he is just as reticent in describing spiritual experience. But what, after all, is a spiritual life in the twentieth century? These of
this
writers refuse to enhghten us. Perhaps the fault
enlightenment
ing
with
is
ours, for
demand-
that a ought to be a reality within our grasp. But after all, we are reading novels or witnessing plays by vvriters who have accepted the challenge of a play or novel and ought to show us the actualities
our
usual
positi\dstic
assurance
spiritual life
of
a
rehgious
life.
In almost ever\^
case,
the
choice
of
a
spiritual
course results not in correction but in death, and the Christianit>' of
144
Saul Bellow the
modern
religious novel
is
the Christianity of the Passion and the
be a
These writers between "the termite colony and the Mystical Body." Such a view perhaps expresses Romantic disappointment more than it does Christian faith. Cross;
its
religious life turns out to
saintly death.
see our choice, as the philosopher Gabriel Marcel puts
Gabriel,
it,
lying
the hero of Philip Roth's Letting Go, has been brought
up
These "higher things" interfere somewhat with his happiness. But though the shadow of pain may pass over him as he eats and drinks, it is never too dark to find the spoon. He is aware that it is somewhat degrading in a world like this to be a vulgar epicurean, a petty to lead a comfortable life but also to think of "higher things."
bourgeois creature.
He
reads (Gabriel
feelings, great enterprises, ties,
and he
pursue
feels
his private
it
is
sublime
is
a graduate student) of noble
sensibili-
faintly ridiculous to
ends so aggressively and
ambitiously, but this does not alter his castiron
selfishness.
He
has
just
enough
self-
awareness or "unhappy consciousness" to consider himself sensitive in his love affairs, and he can be pleased with his insightfulness while he does what young men of his class generally do. As in Lewis Carroll's "The Walrus and the Carpenter," tears are shed, but the little oysters are eaten anyway. Gabriel wants to behave well. He tries to obtain a baby for adoption by an unhappy couple, and the pages dealing with the pregnant waitress who is prepared to give away her child are among the liveliest in the book. But the personal Hfe with its problems of personal adjustment and its pursuit of personal happiness cannot be as interesting to us as it is to Mr. Roth and Gabriel. Mr. Roth is evidently not aware that he is strengthening the case of the Philip Roth antipersonalists by being so solemn about Gabriel's troubles. We know from our first meeting with Gabriel that he is a rather tough young man who, in basic matters— food, shelter, money, advancement— will always make out. There is nothing to be said against a prudent hero or against any hero whose case is clearly and interestingly stated. The difficulty is that Gabriel expects to fascinate everyone though there is no one who fas-
cinates
him.
145
Literature
John Updike's The Centaur, is a youthful hero of a different sort. He presents us with a case of what modem
slightly
Here are some
of the
Peter,
in
with regrettable ponderousness, typical thoughts
call
and impressions
sensibility^.
critics,
of a sensibility:
section of lavender shadow under the walnut painting of the old yard. I had loved that tree; when I was a child there had been a swing attached to the hmb that was just a scrumble of almost-black in the picture. Looking at this streak of black, I reli^ed the ver\' swipe of mv palette knife, one second of my life that in a remarkable way had held firm. It was this firmness, I think, this potential fixing of a few passing seconds, that attracted me, at the age of five, to art. For it is at about that age, isn't it, that it sinks in upon us that things do, if not die, certainly change, wiggle, slide, retreat, and, Uke dabs of sunlight on the bricks under a grape arbor on a breezy June day, shujBfle out of all identity? I
had been admiring a
tree in
my
This passage offers several illuminating curiosities to our study. These are the
words and ideas
of a high-school boy.
At
fifteen
he aheady has a
He remembers
with a tone of elegy and elderly wisdom the beginning of his aesthetic development. Jonathan Swift in old age was said to have congratulated himself on having written so well in his youth, but Mr. Updike's adolescent hero is moved by the
nostalgia for early childhood.
artistic triumphs he had at the age of five. This deeply subjective musing requires a careful choice of words and rhythms, images. A poet might have written tliis paragraph (if he had thought it worth his while). A student of literature can detect in it echoes of Henry James, and of Virginia Woolf, and of the James Joyce who wrote Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Sensibility is for the most part youthful. It owes that to romanticism, which celebrated
early life— the feeling heart of childhood, the emotions of adolescence.
when it dethroned Zeus, welcomed the advent of Prometheus. Mr. Updike's Peter plays Prometheus to his father's Chiron, but the author does not succeed in making this myth take in the Early romanticism,
Pennsylvania countryside.
He
has more success in his
Mr. Updike writes in the
stories.
title
"When
stor\'
of
moved to Firetown," new collection. Pigeon
they
his
Feathers, "things were upset, displaced, rearranged." David, a sensitive is frightened when he picks up H. G. Wells's Outline and reads that Jesus was something of a communist, "an obscure pohtical agitator, a kind of hobo in a minor colony of the Roman Empire." He cannot accept the answers given by his mother and by the pastor, the Reverend Dobson, in Sunday School, to his questions about death and immortahty. Nature itself fails to give him comfort. He is puzzled by the pleasure it gives his mother to take long walks. "To him the brown stretches of slowly rising and falling land expressed only a huge exhaustion." "What do you want Heaven to be?"
and only
child,
of History
146
Saul Bellow
mother asks. "He was becoming angry, sensing her surprise at him. She had assumed that Heaven had faded from his head long ago. She had imagined that he had already entered, in the secrecy of silence, the conspiracy that he now knew to be all around him." Since David is a little hero of sensibility, it might have been predicted that he would resolve his difficulties aesthetically. After he has shot some pigeons in the bam, he contemplates their feathers and is enchanted and consoled. "The God who had lavished such craft upon these worthless birds would not destroy His whole Creation by refusing to let David live his
makes Mr. Updike's children precocious, almost The boy has
forever." Reflectiveness elderly.
He
does not leave David without a touch of irony.
killed these inoffensive birds but sees the proof of his immortality in
But the story
their feathers.
The
faith in craftsmanship.
course, the religion of
itself
reveals that the writer has
religion of the writer of sensibility
great is,
of
art.
mature should be described as a conspiracy and resignation is to be expected in any American story of adolescence. The theme goes back at least as far as Sherwood Anderson's I Want to Know Why, and some students of literature find it also in Fenimore Cooper and Mark Twain. In J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye and in his more recent chronicles of the Glass
That the world
of the
to conceal ignorance
family, the horror of an adult society
is
also
recognized by boys on the threshold of maturity.
as
These adolescents are often described
deeply and naturally intuitive; they
possess
what
called "the
a
first
Chinese heart,"
still
once world of
philosopher
and
in this
corruption and compromise they are the only
ones in whom democratic and liberal values, mercy and generosity, may be found. In the nineteenth century, too, maturity trayed as either villainous
The
Way
or
is
often por-
sad.
Butler's
of All Flesh describes the libera-
youth from the tyranny of the elders, and Butler observes elsewhere, perhaps only half jestingly, that it might be best for a child to come into the world with no parents John Updike to bring him up but with a twenty thousandpound note pinned to his swaddling clothes. The parental figures who dominate nineteenth-century literature are craggy, whiskered types who personify discipline, renunciation, order, hypocrisy, control. Even so balanced a person as J. S. Mill cannot conceal a certain bitterness in his Autobiography when he describes how tion of
147
Literature his father,
with the best of intentions, drilled
all
feeling out of him.
Mill lost— lost temporarily— when he
was plunged into despair What useful and meaningful life; him a before he had that conviction his was when he had slowly recovered that conviction, the crisis was over. Ivan Karamazov tells his brother Alyosha in a mood of rebellion that while he does indeed love life, loves the sticky little leaves of spring, he expects and prefers an early death, possibly foreseeing that with maturity he will lose his rebellious spirit and become merely comfortable and cynical. Since he believes that God has created an unjust world, he respectfully oflFers to return his "ticket." (See The Brothers Karamazov, Vol. 52, pp. 118b-126d.) By the end of the century, however, another sort of romantic youthfulness is in evidence which refuses to make itself responsible for the world. It seems no longer necessary to weigh the world and find it wanting; one can find it wanting without going to the trouble of weighing it. The writers most admired in the twentieth century are either intensely subjective, or nihilistic, or both. For them, traditional authority does not exist. State, family, religion are regarded as phantoms. The authority of art itself has been declining among artists, although literature continues to flourish even where the idea of literature is treated with contempt by those who call themselves anti-artists.
reason why immaturity makes so great an appeal to American The writers, or to those postwar European writers who have come
under American influence,
is
perhaps not too
difficult to discover.
The
enforced passivity of the individual confronted by the huge power of
modern organizations resembles the impotence of childhood. Those who say yea to these combinations of power are not children but adults. There occurs, consequently, a clinging to childhood and youth which may explain certain middle-aged and even elderly Beats and superannuated and gaily wrinkled Peter Pans.
Heaven
lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing Boy,
wrote William Wordsworth, and analytic explorations
timent as well, has
Of
his point of view, supported by psychoand discoveries about infancy, and by popular sen-
many
lively exponents.
D. Salinger, a brilliant performer, is easily the best. He gives his allegiance mainly to children and to the young in heart, and writes of them with great warmth and purity. The Catcher in the Rye perhaps argues too closely his romantic theory that the youth, in these,
J.
Wordsworth's words,
some
vatic
moments
Mr. Salinger's
is
"still
that
stories, less
Nature's
Priest."
Holden Caulfield has
make him sound very
unlike a schoolboy. ambitious and ideological, are more successful
148
Saul Bellow
than his novel. But his theme
Love and Squalor, a munion with a little Bananafish, Seymour cide,
is
always the same. In For Esme—with
and privileged comand her small brother. In A Perfect Day for Glass, in Florida with his bride, commits suibut not before he has played in the water with a young child soldier enjoys a very special
girl
and told her his tale of the bananafish. In the title story of his new volume, Rai^e High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, Salinger tells of an odd
wedding party in New York on a hot day during World War II, and exposes the imbecihty of "normal" social conduct. He describes a different war, the one carried on by the regular against the irregular or exceptional members of society. The absent hero is Seymour Glass, who has ideas of his own about love, weddings, and wedding parties. The ladies of the wedding party, and especially the matron of honor, are angry at the fancied humiliation of the bride by the groom. Salinger turns a clear, not altogether kindly Hght on the code of the outraged
women. The matron
of
twenty-four or
in a
honor is described as "a hefty girl of about pink satin dress, with a circlet of artificial forget-me-nots in her hair. There was a distinctly athletic ethos about her, as if, a year or two earlier, she might have majored in physical education in college. In her lap she was holding a bouquet of gardenias rather as though it were a deflated volley-ball." Her husband chucklingly refers to her as a "bloodthirsty wench," apparently familiar with her -five,
The
deflationary powers.
sympathetically.
The
Mrs.
other lady,
Silsburn,
is
treated
more
perspiration has seeped through her heavy pancake
makeup, but she holds her patent-leather purse "as though it were a and she herself an experimentally rouged and powdered, and very unhappy, runaway child." Mrs. Silsbum's childishness earns
favorite doll,
is not a part of the solid, aggressive union of mature females. The groom's brother, who tells the story,
her Salinger's indulgence; she brings a
little
band
of
wedding
matron There he
guests, including the belligerent
of honor, to a small apartment shared
by the young
Glasses.
mixes a pitcher of drinks and defends his brother ardently when the of being a freak who doesn't know how "to relate" to people. "He's absolutely unfit for marriage or anything halfway normal, for goodness' sake," she says. The angry brother rephes that he doesn't
matron accuses him
give a damn what Seymour's mother-in-law "or, for that matter, any professional dilettante or amateur bitch had to say." Seymour is a poet.
"A
poet, for God's sake.
And
I
mean
a poet." Neither matrons nor
mothers-in-law nor psychiatrists will ever see
him
for
what he
really
is.
After this outburst, the brother sits on the edge of the bathtub, alone, reading in Seymour's diary. Seymour, it appears, sees everyone about him with saintly tolerance and love, somehow interprets banalities as divine miracles. A dessert of frozen cream cheese and raspberries served by his bride-to-be makes tears come to his eyes. "(Saigyo says, 'What it is
149
Literature I
know not/But with
was placed on the
gratitude/ My tears
fall.')
A
bottle of ketchup
Fedder
table near me. Muriel apparently told Mrs.
My precious girl." "I felt unbearably put ketchup on everything. happy all evening," he says elsewhere. He observes of Mrs. Fedder that she is a woman "deprived, for life, of any understanding or taste that
I
.
.
for the
main current
.
of poetry that flows through things,
things.
all
be dead, and yet she goes on living, stopping off at delicatessens, seeing her analyst, consuming a novel every night, putting on her girdle, plotting for Muriel's health and prosperity. I love her. I find her unimaginably brave." "Oh, God," Seymour says at last, "if I'm anything by a clinical name, I'm a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy." She might
as well
and decadence is conThis memoir is An Introduction. expanded in Seymour, tinued and fault in hagiography. prolix, common becomes somewhat a touching, but The vulgarity of a brazen, unfeeling world is tirelessly condemned. The saint forgives, but
The
contrast of purity with social villainy
there
is
much
so
to forgive.
He
is
enraptured
by everything ordinary, though that might appear to other eyes frightful, and he kills himself at the height of his ecstasy.
Now
as
hard to make a virtuous character look real. Readers want hard proof of every claim made for him. The Children of Darkness long perhaps to see the Children of Light, but they examine their credentials with great suspicion. Nowadays, all
writers know,
it
is
they are too sophisticated to sneer at virtue,
however. "Well,
more
They
are
isn't this nice,
more
inclined
really— sweet.
to
say,
We
need
of this endearing romantic childishness."
In this way, a writer like Salinger can be
widely appreciated, while the feelings he deals with remain on an adolescent level. I
/.
doubt whether the naivete of "the first heart" can win out against sophisticated judgment. D. Salinger It is not so easy to confound the wise, for they grow wiser and wiser with time. Nevertheless, Salinger does what a writer should do; he stubbornly clings to his fragile idealism. There is a nobility of feeling in his stories which is, unfortunately, rare in contemporary literature. Perhaps such nobility can only belong to innocence or be appreciated only within a small circle.
The elect.
children of the Glass family are a very small
They have
their oriental
community
of the
Buddhist connections, but their strong150
Saul Bellow
commonly happens in among others) that can be appreciated by the initiates alone, by the most in case, the young and the pure in heart are in.
local sympathies
est
American writing the best things people. In this
Samuel
are with one another. It
Hemingway and
(in
Fitzgerald
Butler declared, nearly a century ago, that he could bear
lying but hated inaccuracy. John O'Hara, too, has a passion for
and
none but precise facts. would eat Lowney's chocolates (or Samoset, Page and Shaw's, or Whitman's); he knows exactly what it would mean to be chosen for Walter Camp's Second correctness,
He knows
as a social historian tolerates
that in 1926 a lady with a sweet tooth
how far the bullet of a .30-06 would carry; how a man might have founded a black-market fortune during World War II; how often a garage mechanic in Trenton, New Jersey, will need to
All-America team;
change clothes. His information seems inexhaustible; it is ofiFered, with some pride, as the real thing, and it is almost always fascinating. In reading the twenty-three stories of his
Cod
new collection. The Cape when they are recorded
Lighter, one can feel the strength of facts
by a writer who loves them to fanaticism. In his line of work, Mr. O'Hara is a master. His ear for dialogue is faultless. In stories of the 1920's, like The Engineer, no character will be heard using the slang of a later period. In this avoidance of false notes and of excesses in is an evident pridefulness. It is pardonable, but it is also Weeks, the engineer, moving into a hotel, makes his arrangements with Jimmy the Negro porter in a conversation that covers five pages. He settles laundry prices with him, he tells him he wants his suits pressed without creases in the sleeve, he ascertains whether, in shining
dialogue there
noticeable.
shoes,
Jimmy
When
takes out the laces.
they ask.
nice and fresh.
Well, Yes,
It is
as
not
I
do
answers,
run them under the tap and rinse 'em out to look it
right.
But some don't
ask.
I ask.
sir, I
I like
I
Jimmy
to
seen that.
have
my
Weeks
things just so ...
alone
who wants
who know
things to be just
so.
O'Hara
is
just
His fullest admiration their jobs, and, although the engineer himself
cunning and penetrating
goes to those
.
in matters of detail.
bad egg, O'Hara nevertheless records his accomplishand energy that amount to sympathy. Realistic writers follow a method which can be traced back to Montaigne, of circling over random facts waiting for an opportunity to pounce on the essential. O'Hara shows how useful that method remains. But there are times when the essences he comes up with are not very essential. Certain of his stories run like little trolleys, bright and glittering, but
turns out to be a
ments with a
relish
151
Literature
without a passenger. Sunday Morning, for instance, has almost no content. Justice makes an unsuccessful attempt to deal with problems of conscience that trouble a man in the autumn of his life, visited, unexpectedly,
by sexual
desires.
He
writes.
I explain to myself what happened to me? I came to life had before, but this time it was the thin chill of a distant autumn and not the recollected pressure of a real woman against me
How
can
again, as I
me
hardly even thought of her; I then I began thinking that this new life would if I did not go back again to that hideous house. This new life I was feeling was hideous, too, but I had lost any sense of beauty that I had ever had. Yes, I thought, killed by an early frost, and to hell with it. One thing killed, another thing come to life; and what was gone was truly gone and better gone and useless. Only this hideous new life was not dead. that brought
to life so desperately. I
thought of myself. remain incomplete
And
is rare in O'Hara. He seldom comes at sensitive feelings from the front. For obvious reasons, he does better when he approaches them indirectly. On the whole O'Hara prefers people who are honest, blunt and plain, stoical and de-
This sort of lapse from clarity and good judgment
cent. Ernest
Pangbom
in
The
Professors, dis-
covering that he has judged his colleague
Jack Veech wrongly, considers whether he
John O'Hara
to a class of initiates
who
should say anything. "A compliment would be rejected, and a word of pity would be unthinkable. Indeed the compliment was being paid to Pangbom; Veech honored him with his confidence and accorded him honor more subtly, more truly, by asking no further assurances of his silence." These are the quiet virtues O'Hara likes. They remind one of Kipling. Here the "sovereign self" of romanticism is exchanged for the more reticent and undemonstrative decent self. This decent self derives great satisfaction from belonging have a feeling for the right thing. The romanti-
cism of an elaborate and possibly self-indulgent inner
O'Hara
as
Under
it
was by
his master,
life is
rejected
by
Hemingway.
pseudonym of Abram Tertz, a Russian writer has pubnumber of stories in the West. The latest of them is the most extraordinary. It is a novella called The Icicle, and it is fantastic in the manner of Gogol and Dostoevsky and the great Hoffmann of the Tales, demonstrating with genius the thesis advanced by Tertz the
lished a small
152
Saul Bellow
On
he exposes the inconreahsm is always necessarily critical of institutions and the Soviet system permits no real criticism, writers are in the impossible and humiliating situation of appearing, under compulsion, to be honest, and their only possible compensation lies in their agreement with the ultimate aims of socialism and their vision of an earthly heaven fulfilling the prophecies of Marx. Tertz argues daringly and with much historical substance that art can thrive under despots, and he calls on the Soviet authorities to allow what can be done to be done. With permission, which it would be wise for the dictatorship to grant, writers could "express the grand himself in his essay
Socialist Realism. In this
sistency of the oflBcial Soviet
demand
for realism. Since
implausible sense of our era."
an impressive demonstration of what this can mean, and human and artistic powers as Tertz's should endure and develop in spite of half a century of suppression, purges, wars, in spite of wooden styles oflBcially supported, and in spite of the ignorance of the world which might be supposed the inevitable result
The
it is
Icicle
is
perfectly astonishing that such
of Soviet policies. Says Tertz,
I put my hope in a phantasmagoric art, with hypotheses instead of a Purpose, an art in which the grotesque will replace realistic descriptions of ordinary life. Such an art would correspond best to the spirit of our time. May the fantastic imagery of Hoffmann and Dostoevsky, of Goya, Chagall and Mayakovski (the most socialist realist of all), and of many other realists and nonrealists teach us to be truthful with the aid of the
absurd and the
fantastic.
In support of such a view, similitude (of the that
it
O'Hara
it is
also possible to argue that realistic veri-
become burdensome and difiEcult, and which only a small number
sort) has
requires a degree of special knowledge
of fanatical devotees can attain. In
even
an era of specialization such as ours,
know what know what he is writing
a botanist, studying plant hormones, let us say, will not
a colleague in plant ecology
is
doing. Literally to
about would impose an impossible strain on the most dedicated realist. The most informational of novelists can no longer adequately inform us. The world is really too much for the realist to cope with. Furthermore (and here, too, literary history brings us back to Montaigne), the writer in the modem era has always avoided overspecialization. His mentality has represented the high average; it has represented a comprehensive rather than an exclusive principle.
A
writer can intrigue us
by
imitating
do it. But the specialist. Balzac and Zola did so. realistic hard of a modern experience has demonstrated the absurdity still and facts pertinent standard in hterature. If a writer must know all
O'Hara and others
still
cover a wide range of subjects, he must give up the omniscience without which fiction cannot be written. It is thoroughly understandable there-
153
Literature fore that
men
like Tertz (or like
Nabokov
in the
United States) should
determine instead to follow the path of the absurd toward the truth. The Icicle is written in the form of a message sent by the author him-
shape he will assume in the future; here evolution and reincarnation are grotesquely, laughably, touchingly combined. The poor writer is still deeply in love with his beautiful but faithless Natasha, and self to the
enough
to endure the transmigration of souls. conferred on a young Russian. He becomes suddenly A clairvoyant. Helpless, he sees past and future. He knows whether people will pass examinations or not, when they will die and how. Before his this love is strong
terrible gift is
He
them
were once and as A young engineer named Belchikov suddenly has an antique fireman's helmet on his head which gleams and dissolves, and the engineer proves also to have been a prostitute of ancient origin, and before that a priest. Dazzled by these transformations, the young man (to whom it is granted to know himself in all his earlier forms, as far back as the fish in the primordial seas) begins to think that there is an analogy between economic and very eyes they are transformed. they are to be.
Women
sees
sprout beards and
as they
men grow
other forms of determinism, that just as every
breasts.
man
is the product of economic forces which are responsible for everything in the world .... the individual, the character, the personality— or even, if you like, the soul— also have no part in life
even a Leonardo da Vinci
reflexes of our vision, like the spots we see when we press our eyeballs or look at the bright sun for a long time without blinking. We are used to seeing people against a background of air, which looks empty and transparent, while the human figure appears to be of great firmness and density. Now, we are wrong to attribute the unvarying density and sharpness of the human silhouette, which comes out particularly well in the bright light of day, to man's inner world and to call this his "character" or "soul." Li fact there is no soul but only a gap in the air through which mutually unconnected psychic substances rush in nervous gusts, changing according to the age and circumstances.
and are only
What our pseudonymous young Russian is telling us— and it is in full harmony with his own situation as the unknown poet— is not after all vastly different from what many of the advanced writers of the West say with less vigor and comic effect. Here, too, we are informed that personality is not what civilization by its conventional teaching led us to think. Is there not some sort of agreement between these metaphors of Tertz and the strange visions of Picasso, in which men and women appear like brilliant phantoms, human and animal traits sharing the same being, and bursting out with eyes, noses, and lips, as though in the grip of evolutionary forces? Though it was held in an ancient view that the "carnal," or outward, man wasted away while the spirit was renewed daily (II Cor. 4:16), later beliefs affirmed strongly that the
and bone had a
fixed determinate character,
154
and that
man
of flesh
this character
was
Saul Bellow
immensely
now widespread, under the inhuman being is an "anonymous favorite theme of speculation among scientists when philosophy (the late P. W. Bridgman was one of the
significant.
The
conviction
is
fluence of biology and physics, that the force." This
is
a
they venture into
most recent), but
it
and
historians, critics,
is
even more enthusiastically explored by literary They have found theories like the Heisen-
artists.
berg theory of indeterminacy, or the notion of entropy, of the greatest fascination and utility. A few with horror, but more with melancholy joy, like
Andre Gide
or
Thomas Mann, have accepted
the obliteration of the
personal as the historical fact (to be unhistorical death).
The novel
of ideas has
added
little
to the
is
a fate worse than
development
of ideas.
human
situation
Writers are in general more effective in appreciating a
than in intellectual discovery. Too often in
recent times they have been
glad to work out the implications of scientific or philosophical theories
own deeper intuitions, as artists should. Writers have not merely turned away from obsolete ideas of personality. With rare exceptions, they have attacked and demolished them with a instead of consulting their
ferocity
and loathing not
to
be explained simply by a change
climate or an advance in thought.
The
of
mental
old parents sitting in trash cans, in
a play by Samuel Beckett, and the scenes of perversion and cannibalism in a book like William Burroughs' Naked Lunch may indicate, it is to be hoped, that the false gods of individuality have now been utterly pulverized by the last champions of iconoclasm and that we are now ready for a different and truer vision of things. There is a danger to literature in such earnestness. When novels and plays are written to test out the
ideas of Heidegger on existence, or those of Heisenberg on location, the human content of art must necessarily dwindle, and Western writers illustrating ideas
Socialist-Realists
begin to take on a peculiar resemblance to Russia's are also working out a thesis.
who
why a novella like The Icicle, of independent inspiration, remodern ideas but not derivative from them, is so stirring and flecting marvelous. While other writers steadily chew their Marxian cabbage or This
is
perform the familiar routines of despair, a writer like Tertz, as free from the oligarchy at home as from fashion abroad, reveals a new source of literary power. There is a hint in The Icicle that another force contends with change, namely love. When the beautiful, faithless Natasha confesses that she is pregnant but doesn't know by whom, her lover, with his vision of natural history, brushes this aside as trifling. He sees human beings merging grotesquely into one another, and species into species as well. How can a particular detail of paternity be important? But love
and deeper matter, and from the void our hero still cries out to Natasha that he loves her. For those who experience love, these questions of identity have a more than theoretical significance— those is
a different
whom we
love exist.
155
Literature
Ignazio Silone explains in a and Wine why it seemed tells
of
watching the face of a
version of this book in a
prefatory note to his to
him necessary
woman
German
new
version of Bread
to rewrite his novels.
in a Swiss train as she
read the
He first
translation:
Fortunately, that edition of my novel did not have a photograph of the author; if she had recognized me I would certainly have been very embarrassed. In fact, an unusual discomfort was forcing itself into my
mind. The page the the contrary, at that
woman was reading did not satisfy me at all. On moment it seemed even stupid to me. Why had
could have foreseen that people like this would read thought to myself, I certainly would have omitted that page. I would have left others out too; and I would have thought more about certain expressions. I asked mvself why most writers, in writing a book, think more often of their colleagues and the critics, who read a hundred books a year, and not of the strangers to whom the book can have some personal importance. I
written
my
book,
it? If I
I
Such a sense of Most writers have
responsibility their guild in
America, a novelist whose aim
is
very rare. Mr. Silone
is
quite right.
mind and not the ordinary
it is
reader. In
to reach the great reading public gen-
erally wants profit and fame. A century ago the novelist could still be a prominent figure at the center of the life of his country, a spokesman, reformer, prophet, like Dickens in England or Dostoevsky in Russia. Today
the novelist has yielded this position to the expert, the opinion-molder, the pollster, the psychologist, et cetera. Mr. James Reston of the
New
York Tunes recently argued that the journalist played the role of the novelist in the twentieth century. He would have been more nearly right if he had said that Henry Luce had replaced Balzac and Dickens, and that the drama or melodrama of Time or Newsweek had captured the reading pubhc that once waited for the weekly episode from The Three Musketeers or Va7iity Fair. The separation of the writer from the great public was accompanied in the nineteenth century by an increased refinement in the art of fiction. Private rather than public questions began to preoccupy the novelist as he moved from the center of public attention. He tended to become indifferent, in certain cases positively hostile, to the average consumer of printed matter. Painters and musicians as well as poets and novelists developed esoteric tendencies which, in certain instances, made their work almost as inaccessible to the general public as that of theoretical physicists or mathematicians. Revolutionary ideals, while they lasted, attached many European writers to a wider
public, but disappointment in
communism intensified the aesthetic motivation of writers so that moral questions tended to become increasingly peripheral. In a book like Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus, aesthetic
preoccupations of the greatest refinement are paralleled by the barbarism of modem civilized masses. A connection is seen by Mann between the fanatical, remote artist and the degeneracy of fascism. As Mr. Lionel
156
Said Bellow
moral significance, and the possibility of when selfhood is destroyed. But Mr. Silone, for himself as writer, and for his characters, begins with the moral question. The fact that people wish to be morally effective seems to
Abel argues
in his Metatheatre,
tragedy as well, must cease to exist
make Of
individuals of them.
the old version of Bread
Silone says that
the fullness of
my
and Wine,
he had written
it
"out of
heart just after the Fascist
occupation of Ethiopia and during the Purge Trials in
Moscow, which had been
set
up by
remnants of the opThe inhuman behavior of Genposition. eral Graziani to Ethiopian combatants and civiHans, the enthusiasm of many Italians for the conquest of the Empire, the passivity of most of the population, and the impotence of the anti-Fascists all filled the soul with a deep Stalin to destroy the last .
.
.
Ignazio Silone
sense of shame." Silone has the distinction of being simple without being naive; he is
it is very obvious that he belongs to a traditional which compassion and justice are not rhetorical expresirregular and even old-fashioned as that may seem in a world in
genuinely serious, and
community sions,
which
in
widely agreed that such things belong to the past. the revolutionary hero of Bread and Wine, sick in body and uneasy in mind, returns to his native mountains in the south of Italy after fifteen years of exile. Disguised as a priest, he lives in a it is
Pietro
Spina,
tiny impoverished village, unable to continue his revolutionary
work
because of his broken health and his disillusionment with the "red fascism" of the Communists. What Spina observes in his village retreat are the ancient facts of poverty, labor, himger, and ignorance. But the life of the peasant, though it is miserable, produces an elementary effectively
realism not to be found in
cities.
Moral and religious
qualities are
still
alive in primitive situations.
Spina was once the favorite pupil of an old priest,
Don
Benedetto,
who
Church and now lives in retirement. The two are able to meet only briefly, and Spina is greatly moved by the old man's words. "I, too, in the dregs of my aflEictions, have asked myself: where is God and why has He abandoned us?" says the priest.
has had
diflBculties of his
own with
the
Certainly the loudspeakers and bells announcing the new slaughter were not God. Nor were the cannon shots and the bombing of the Ethiopian villages, of which we read ever)' day in the newspapers. But if one poor man gets up in the middle of the night and writes on the walls of the village with a piece of charcoal or varnish, "Down with the War," the presence of God is undoubtedly behind that man.
157
Literature
Mr. Powers' book, an occult subject. The Urban encourages mysticism of a singularly inactive variety. Comfortable Midwestern community life seems to induce a spiritual vagueness and lack of focus unknown to Silone's religious radical or fiery old priest, surrounded by hunger and oppression, conditions very like those in which Christianity had its beginnings. Reviewing the literary situation of the 1920's, George Orwell connected the pes-
Here
faith
not,
is
as
in
prosperity that surrounds
simism of the Georgians with the prosperity of that epoch. He spoke of a "golden age of the rentier intellectual," and said that everyone with a safe income of 500 pounds a year "began training himself in tedium vitae."
He
accused writers of enjoying solid comfort and hanging on to same time— having their cake and eating it
spiritual distinction at the
an ornament instead of a cause. Silone one can say this. But then his subject matter makes things easier for him. He has two worlds, the archaic world of the Italian village and the new world of the warlike dictator, and these offer
too— making of
is
their Christianity
not a novelist of
whom
a simple contrast. Faith for Silone of poverty
manifest
and
labor.
itself in
A modern
is
the ancient faith in
a modern, urban setting
its
ancient setting
how
faith would where circumstances are more
reader longs to see
complex and ambiguous. In its new version. Bread and Wine has lost some of its freshness and youthfulness, but it is purer in form and deeper in feeling. Reading it again, the Swiss lady in the train would learn less about Mussolini's Italy, but would see all the principal figures more distinctly and find them incomparably more moving. It was for her, as Silone tells us, that he rewrote the book, for after she had left the train he "continued to reflect on the great dignity and power of literature and on the unworthiness of most writers, myself included."
Yukio
Mishima's After the Banquet also mixes elements of traditional and modern life. Kazu, the marvelous self-made woman who owns a famous restaurant patronized by right-wing Tokyo politicians and bigwigs, is over fifty but still ripe and vigorous. Her skin is white and glossy, her eyes shine with open good nature, her character is simple. She is easily touched, rather stubborn, intensely practical. She loves excitement, and though she knows that at her age she can no longer expect the passionate happiness of love, she is by no means willing to live austerely. A Japanese Wife of Bath (see Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, Vol. 22, pp. 167a-b, 256a-277a), she is far too vital for that. She is still capable of a sort of love. Her insight, however, is remarkably keen; she understands very clearly the people she has to deal with and her own impulses. She has made her fortune among the conservatives, but it is her lot to lose her heart to a radical politician,
whom
an elderly, unsuccessful diplomat is something of an aris-
she meets in her restaurant. He, Noguchi,
158
Saul Bellow tocrat,
not altogether lacking in charm, but dry, rationalistic, and rigid in A woman of the people, Kazu can be loud on occasion, but
his principles.
she has a good deal of delicacy ly
also.
Noguchi brings her to
visit his
fami-
Kazu is greatly impressed and sadly comforted at the proslying among the upper-class dead when her time comes. Kazu
cemetery.
pect of has glimpsed the fringe of death at the end of that bright material, her life.
Subtly, but
still
Mishima gives us
definitely,
to understand that
it is
not solely Kazu's impulsive heart which dictates this marriage. "Kazu," he says, "naturally sensed the latent strength within her, but she was well
aware at the same time that this strength had been bent and curbed, and would never cast off its shackles and break loose." At the banquet where she and Noguchi meet for the first time, one of the louder and jollier guests is carried off by a stroke, and the shadow of death is not far from Noguchi. This elderly marriage seems, from Noguchi's standpoint, a tranquil settling
But Kazu
is
down
to wait for the end. this. She wants Noguchi to become and she maneuvers him into accepting the nomcity governor. Kazu throws herself into the cam-
not really ready for
active again in politics,
ination of his party for
paign, and lives again. She works so energetically that she almost singlehandedly makes up for Noguchi's dryness and lack of color. Out with the voters, she eats
and
drinks, she dances
and makes speeches. She sings
sentimentally, but also with genuine feeling, over the microphones to
the crowds. Noguchi's funds are limited; Kazu, in secret, spends her
money without honor, he
is
When
stint.
terribly angry.
own
the old diplomat learns of this injury to his
He
even goes so
far as to strike and kick his wife, and this
one of the highest moments
of her
life,
is
for
while she weeps and begs forgiveness, she also enjoys it all passionately. Such dramatic con-
summations make her
But then Nohabitual restraint and attiecstatic.
guchi regains his tude of aristocratic rectitude.
A
scurrilous
pamphlet containing a great many facts about Kazu's past— some of them true— is circulated. About this Noguchi is very decent; he does not mention it. After the election
is
lost— not so
much
be-
cause of Kazu's early sins as because of her
husband's unbending dryness— Noguchi wants his wife to go into retirement with him. But she is not ready to be buried alive, and,
though
it
company while
it
means she
will lie in
in the next life
Yukio Mishima
an obscure grave, Kazu forgoes good
and chooses gaiety and
lasts.
159
activity in this one,
Literature
Another Country by James Baldwin should perhaps be judged as a document and not a novel. It is hard to believe that Baldwin, with
l\
his talents, could himself take ters
ine
have and in the
a fitful reality;
it
seriously as a piece of fiction. Its charac-
on the same page they can be in one phrase genu-
next, false
and
lifeless.
The
style
is
alternately fierce, free,
empty. The scenes of love-making, and they are dramatic in an inferior Lawrentian manner, a kind rhetorical bad, many, are very tides, jungles, and cosmic events rivers, of nature-mysticism of seedy or arty, foolish,
on in the thrill-language of "instinctual fulfillment." It is undoubtedly well-meant and perhaps serves the interests of social progress, but it is very poor stuff, falsely sensitive, made up entirely of phrases, and almost devoid of feeling. Baldwin is genuine and admirlaid
when he expresses rage or indignation, and not when he writes of love and tenderness. In this novel able
at all all
convincing
the important
and they are many, are translated into sex. Truth and honor, and hate, the injustices of American society, the menacing and explosive racial conflicts for which there is no acceptable apology— the situation of the Negro in America is a scandal— all these matters are connected by Baldwin to the sexual theme. Civilized white sexuality is pitilessly denounced and damned. Everything the ordinary white citizen of this country would accept as average and normal, his "square" values, Baldwin angrily tears to shreds. ". All that jazz about the land of the free and the home of the brave," says a Negro woman in Another Country. "Some days, honey, I wish I could turn myself into one big fist and grind this miserable country to powder. Some days, I don't beheve it has a right to exist." ". Wouldn't you hate all white people," she asks elsewhere, "if they kept you in prison here?" She is speaking of the Harlem slums in all their filth, ugliness, and wretchedness. "Kept you here, and stunted you and starved you, and made you watch your mother and father and sister and lover and brother and son and daughter die or go mad or go under, before your very eyes? And not in a hurry, like from one day to the next, but every day, every day, for years, for generations?" The anger is just. As a document, therefore. Another Country questions,
indignation, love
.
.
has great importance, but
it
.
,
does very httle for the progress of the
novel.
George Orwell
in
1940 wrote an essay in praise of Henry Miller
(
Inside
the Whale) in which he noted that a significant change had occurred in
dropped what Orwell called "the Geneva language of the ordinary novel" and was dragging "the realpolitik of the inner mind into the open." In Miller's case, he said, "this is not so much a question of exploring the mechanisms of the mind as owning up to everyday facts and everyday emotions. For the truth is that many ordi-
literature. It had, in Miller,
nary people, perhaps an actual majority, do speak and behave in the that is recorded here. The callow coarseness with which the charac-
way
160
Saul Bellow
Tropic of Cancer talk is very rare in fiction, but it is extremely common in real life; again and again I have heard such conversations from people who were not even aware that they were talking coarsely," ters in
Orwell is quite right about Miller. He brought into literature things that had never been there before. The question for the writer as he advances ever deeper into the formlessness of everyday facts is what he is to do with them, whether he simply wants us to be shocked or has some other purpose. Miller has always been an artist, but those writers
who have learned from him, like Baldwin, have not in every case beheved that to be necessary. Some have felt it obligatory to go shuddering and naked through chaos, or to experience disintegration because disintegration is there. Art, too, must submit to this annihilation.
Many
writers are strongly op-
posed to an
art that
triumphs while in every
mankind suffers. Baldwin must be one of these, for he could very easily write better novels if he believed they served other sphere of
life
moral aims effectively. He is a writer who, for reasons not difficult to appreciate, will not take literature as such seriously. Still, he cannot let it go, either, for he is a writer, and a rather fashionable writer at that. He has a following, largely white and liberal, for which he performs a significant moral, but a dubious artistic, function. As for his morality, both in the novel and in his recent 'New Yorker essay (now published in book form under the title The Fire Next Time), James Baldwin it is fiery but formless. Baldwin believes intenlove sely but with considerable vagueness in and freedom. White America is shocked to find itself so hated, but it is also attracted by angry denunciation, by the exposure of its failures, and in some cases fascinated by the freer and deeper sexuality often attributed to the Negro, Baldwin accepts the popular thesis that moral soundness his
and the capacity for sexual gratffication are connected. In many modem impotence and wickedness go together, and ( in Lawrence's
novels, sexual
Lady Chatterleys Lover,
for instance) the desexualized or instinctually
crippled are the most devoted servants of a heartless industrial civiliza-
Baldwin implicitly relies on these Lawrentian ideas, ultimately traceable to psychoanalysis, and shows the Negro, insulted and disfigured as he has been, truer to his instincts, closer to reality, better and more human tion.
than his white oppressors.
161
Literature
You must put yourself in the skin of a man who is wearing the imiform of his countr)% is a candidate for death in its defense, and who is called a "nigger" by his comrades-in-arms and his oflBcers; who is almost always given the hardest, ugliest, most menial work to do; who knows that the white G. I. has informed the Europeans that he is subhtiman (so much for the American male's sexual security); who does not dance at the U. S. O. the night white soldiers dance there, and does not drink in the same bars white soldiers drink in; and who watches German prisoners of war being treated by Americans with more hviman dignity than he has ever received at their hands. And who, at the same time, as a human being, is far freer in a strange land than he has ever been at home. Home! The very word begins to have a deYou must consider what happens to this he has endured, when he returns—home: search, in his shoes, for a job, for a place to hve; ride, in his skin, on segregated buses; see, with his eyes, the signs saying "White" and "Colored," and especially the signs that say "WTiite Ladies" and "Colored Women"; look into the eyes of his wife; look into the eyes of his son; Hsten, with his ears, to political speeches, North and South; imagine yourself being told to "wait." And all this is happening in the richest and freest country in the world, and in the middle of the twentieth century. spairing and diabolical ring.
citizen, after all
A
Negro
girl,
a prostitute at fourteen,
is
the heroine of Robert Cover's
One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding. A white college sophomore spends a weekend with her. He represents educated stupidity and the conceited and self-congratulatory boorishness of the white middle class.
The
speaks the language of inno-
girl
cent profanity, the jazzy slang of the brothel.
In her naivete
and
lies
of course she
client.
is
The comedy
a natural understanding, far superior to her
white
of the prostitute has
a
long literary history, and the story of the
whore who bourgeois
or
is
better
puritan
than the respectable also
has
a venerable
But something new has been added in the last decade. Not only has the woman a better and deeper nature than the respectable man, as in Somerset Maugham or Guy de Maupassant, but she is a priestess of Isis, or some other Mediterranean deity, as in Al-
lineage.
berto Moravia's Robert Gover
Woman
of
Rome
or the film
Never on Sunday. Reviewing Cover's book in Esquire, Core Vidal praised the girl, Kitten, as "one of the happiest creations of recent fiction. Businesswoman and child, whore and moralist, she is, although illiterate and 'uneducated,' one of the most telling critics of the American social scene and everything cold, crabbed, inhuman and hysterical in it to appear in many 162
Saul Bellow years."
Once
by the eyes
again, as in so
of innocence,
many American
and
books, ci\ilization
time the emperor
this
is
is
seen
Hterally without
clothes. Neither writers nor the
pubHc, seemingly, ever tire of this exposure of corruption and h\-pocrisy by the natural, the instinctual, the abused but great-hearted innocent. Kitten is, at times, a delightful char-
On
the tele\ision what she really enjoys is the weather forecast; demonic "white man's nonsense," bluster and violence. .Angered by her weekend lover's television watching, she tries to throw the machine out of the window. Mr. Cover, however, lines up matters in a rather tiresomely simple fashion. On the one side he puts the new erotic moralitv' over which the Negro presides— swinging freedom, jazz, instinct; on the other, stand selfishness, prejudice, neiu-otic sexuaht\% the acter.
the rest
is
worship of machinery, the platitudes of half-baked liberalism, and all that is most repulsive in American life. Cover has much in common with Salinger; neither of
them has gone
far
beyond the
attitude of outraged
innocence. Baldwin as a critic of American institutions shows
much more
any of his contemporaries. His demand for social justice is genuine, and, although the ti.vo books he has recently published contain a good deal of fashionable nonsense about sex and rant about history, the depth and fierceness of his polemic against American society- have shocked and frightened many readers, wounded them and roused them by the exposure of hatreds of which they were not aware. There is sickness also in the diagnoses Baldwin offers of our common American ills, but he penetrates more deeply into these than most American writers. maturit}- than
The bourgeois has been pro\ading the comedian with material since he appeared on the stage of world his historic career,
it
is
history-;
often said,
is
he
still
does
so,
even though
ending. In Moliere's Bourgeais
GentiJhomme, he is fresh and ludicrous; in Shaw's Heartbreak House, he is aheady stale. Mr. Mangan's very wealth is a fiction, a joke, and his prudence is the cause of his death. It is not so much the full-fledged bourgeois who is the theme of modem comedy, as the little man— the little man who apes the dignitv' and refinements of the leaders of societ>'. In the nineteenth-centur\^ novel, the subject of the ambitious
man
or
woman,
one generation remo\'ed from the rural laborer or peasant, hke Hardy's Jude or Flaubert's Emma Bovary, the obsciu"e provincial whose head is turned by bad books and dreams of romantic delicacy and erotic happiness, is treated with high and even tiagic seriousness. Shaw tieats it later in a mixed manner in Pygmalion, where the poor Doolittle girl, taken from the dust heap by the Professor and taught to speak like a woman of the upper classes, also acquires a new spirit and is capable of feeling and suffering in a different fashion. The common man, like Hardy's Jude, who falls in love with learning and religion, civilization, and all the higher forms of thought and feeling, discovers, after an ambitious and 163
Literature
heartbreaking struggle, only the snobbery of the learned, the hollowness of beliefs, and a moribund civilization. He is rewarded for his efforts by the pain of insight and an agony of spirit. The comedian of the twentieth century has made much of the private, shabby person who plays the gentleman. Joyce's Leopold Bloom in Ulysses
is
one such figure—"How grand
the type Clair's
A
we
are this morning!" In the movies
represented by Charlie Chaplin and by the clochard of Rene Noiis La Liberie who becomes a bourgeois tycoon, but finds it
is
much and hits the road again. Artists and poets themselves have enjoyed playing the role of the respectable person, disguising themselves as bank clerks or insurance executives, making subversive fun of the romantic conception of the artistic personality as well as of the petty individualist of common origins and gentlemanly pretensions. An appearall
too
ance of "dignity" is still good for a laugh, as James Donleavy has recently proven in The Ginger Man. Sebastian Dangerfield, who is allegedly studying law in Dublin, is continually on his dignity, patronizes shopkeepers and the "peasantry," but is a very funny scoundrel and unscrupulous sensualist. Private life, inner life, worthy and even laudable sensibility—these too have become the materials of comedy now. More than a century ago, Stendhal was already becoming bored with the first person singular
and complained that
tinually.
The
it
was very
trying to
be writing
"I" con-
exploration of consciousness, introspection, self-knowledge,
and hypochondria, so solemnly conducted in twentieth-century literature, in books like The Confessions of Zeno by Italo Svevo, treated ironically and humorously. The inner life, the "unhappy consciousness," the management of personal life, "alienation"— all the sad questions for which the late romantic writer reserved a special tone of disappointment and bitterness are turned inside-out by the modern comedian. Deeply subjective is,
self-concern ness, is
my
easily
is
ridiculed.
My feelings, my
progress,
my
made
laugh at
to
makes such forms
sensitivity, all
my
early traumas,
fidelity,
my
my
guilt— the
moral serious-
modern reader
of these. Perhaps the population explosion
of self-concern
seem funny. Perhaps the political and between practice and doc-
scientific revolutions, the wars, the difference
trine in all
modern
planations
are
countries, the failures of religion, et cetera— the ex-
many,
endless— have
made
the
prevailing
forms
of
individualism obsolete.
To guide us in our observations, a comparison between Thomas Mann's Death in Venice- and Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita may be useful. Both are stories of older men who fall in love with someone much younger. The parallel is really very close. Humbert Humbert is Gustave von Aschenbach in his comic form. In Nabokov, the Nietzschean, Freudian theme is mocked. Humbert is not impressed by sickness, nor does he associate it with genius; perversity is a concept from the whiskered 2 See pp. 395-440 below.
164
Saul Bellow past with
its
notions of normalcy.
Nor does he show much
the theme of Apollo-Hyacinthus, which
Mann
interest in
develops with such earn-
world destiny do not move him in the good old grave love without classical allusions, and murders his rival in a grotesque parody of the jealous lover. Quilty, the rival, will not hold still and die becomingly, but makes fun of himself and of his murderer and of the grand passion— of the value of life. Wright Morris' What a Way to Go explicitly develops the Death in Venice theme as comedy. It is doubtful that Nabokov was thinking of Mann's novella, but Mr. Morris' American professors are in Venice, discuss von Aschenbach in a comic setting, and give Mann's name to a cat. The comic hero of Mr. Morris' novel is Soby, a professor of ripe years, who finds his erotic destiny in a college girl during a Mediterranean tour. Miss Throop, a estness. Questions of
Germanic
style.
He
falls in
friendly old dragon, a large, frowsy, thoughtful, eccentric
woman
of a
certain erudition, says to Soby, "Getting back to the Greeks has
its
but don't offend the gods by ignoring your luck. On the Orphic side, which is mine, the beloved is both named and nameless, a charming Oberlin freshman, a Nausicaa by the sea, a Lolita selecting a new popsicle. /m-persons, rather than persons— if hazards, doesn't
it?
.
.
.
you know what I mean. We have no name for what is fish below the thighs. Could that be why it is the lasting personality?" Mr. Morris is one
of
our
best
writers,
keen,
charming,
thoughtful, witty, but too fond, perhaps, of obliquity. Soby marries his Nausicaa, so much younger than himself, and takes his chances. The gods are not satisfied with prudence and demand that a man abandon such bourgeois
considerations as differences in years or the
middle-aged desire for serenity and comfort. In "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," T. S. Eliot described another Soby whose life had been measured out with coffee spoons, the
poor, aging, fussy creature, indecisive, losing his soul in paltriness, the civilized
Wright Morris
personaUty
estranged from instinct. Prufrock will hear the mermaids singing as he walks by the sea, but observes with great sadness, "I
do not think that they
no chance
of
any such
fate,
will sing to me." Professor
belief that the only lasting personality
mystery. The melancholy comedy and, since the point of view of
a pity that the book
is
common
must be sought becomes gayer
of Eliot
What
a
Way
not better. Morris
Silone that most writers think
than of the
reader.
Soby takes
bravely making the Orphic choice in the
more
He
is
is
to
Go
open
is
in instinct
so interesting,
to the charge
of the critics
and
it is
made by
their colleagues
guilty of professionalism.
165
and
in Morris' book,
Literature
Pale Fire disappointed a public which was waiting for another Lolita, and found when they opened the book, instead of the tlirilhng confessions of a cultivated European gent who falls in love witli
Nabokov's
an American nymphet, a long and formidable poem in heroic couplets of nine hundred and ninety-nine lines. One suspects tliat Mr. Nabokov took pleasure in dashing these expectations, for he is an artist, not a producer of shockers for the great public. Pale Fire is written as an explication de texte.
The notes on the poem
tell
the story
DeCommunist revolution he escapes to America. The Queen, a woman little to his taste (but then he does not have what of the King of an imaginary country.
tlironed
by
Americans
a
\\'ould
call
a
normal or healthy
would like to Riviera, he declines the but him on keep going to answered he would be "He to stay. America some time next month and business interest in the opposite sex),
Vladimir Nabokov
in Paris
tomorrow."
"Why America? What would he do
there?"
"Teach. Examine literary masterpieces with brilliant and charming
young people. The King is ster
he could now freely indulge." He would be something of a mongreat charm—his vegetarianism, the cap he wears at looks, the thick beard, and the refinement of his judg-
A hobby a
but for his
night, his florid
marvelous creation.
ments, his resigned but graceful acceptance of the facts of the modern He comes to give the American poet. Shade, a royal theme, and
world.
lives for the
poem, hovering over Shade, trying
to lead
and
instruct him.
How firmly, how stupidly I believed that Shade was composing have been a poem, a kind of romaunt, about the King of Zembla. prepared for the horrible disappointment in store for me. Oh, I did not expect him to devote himself completely to that theme! It might .
.
.
We
have been blended of course with some of his own life stuff and sundry Americana— but I was sure his poem would contain the wonderful incidents I had described to him, the characters I had made alive for him and all the unique atmosphere of my kingdom. I even suggested to him a good title— the title of the book in me whose pages he was to cut: Solus Rex. ... I started to read the poem. I read faster and faster. I sped through it, snarling, as a furious young heir through an old deceiver's testament. Where were the battlements of my sunset castle? .... Instead of the wild glorious romance— what did I have? An auto-
biographical, eminentK' Appalachian, rather old-fashioned narrative in a neo-Popian prosodic st\le— beautifulK- written of course— Shade could
not write otherwise than beautifully— but void of special rich sti-eak of magical madness. .
166
.
.
my
magic, of that
"
Saul Bellow
These sentences are from the conclusion of the book; by the time we read them poor Shade has become nothing but a shade. An assassin aiming at the King has killed the unfortunate poet, and the King has made off with the manuscript. He recovers from the shock of his first reading. On calmer study he finds the poem to have a dim color and vestiges of music which are inspired by him, and the explication de texte does indeed have the rich streak of magical madness missing from Shade's lines. What in the modern world but art and literature can a King
him? Mr. Nabokov seems to
find to interest
Stern, by Bruce
Jay Friedman,
is
comedy
a
ask.
of a different variety, less
and subtle. Stern has a house in suburbia he does not really want, a job he cannot bear, a wife who grieves him, hostile dogs who lie in wait and snatch his wrist in their teeth when he passes. Stern is a burlap hero, a little man who is humble because he has so much to be humble about, a schlemiel, ineffectually doing his conscientious best, until his burning and repressed emotions find expression in a stomach ulcer. The lower end of Long Island, trampled flat by its intricate
millions of inhabitants,
is
the scene of his
trials.
Slovenly, innocent, well-
intentioned Stern, a born victim and patsy, is
He
losing his battle with his neighbors.
tries to
open
his heart to his friend, the
Negro
painter Battleby, but Battleby seems not to
hear him.
He
replies,
fixion oils I'd love for
"I've got
you
with a powerful religious quality.
how
I
"No,
was able I
mean
to someone.
to
it,"
some
cruci-
to see. Real giants I
don't see
come up with them." Stem said. "I have to
talk
." .
.
Battleby avoids answering, but as clumsy, heedless Stern pours out his soul, he finally tells
him, "You've got to abstract yourself so
that
you present a
The
faceless picture to society."
sufferer does not
know what
to
of this. "Stern, puzzled, but afraid that
make if
he
asked for elaboration, Battleby would find
him anti-Negro,
said, 'All right. I'm going to Bruce Jay Friedman doing that thing right away.' No less neurotic and confused are the rich passengers of Joseph Bennett's Luxury Cruise setting forth from 57th Street in New York on the Olympic "loaded with champagne and wines, caviar, pheasants, terrapin and other rare foods. Arrangements had been made to replenish the larder start
at the
Mediterranean ports; so the ship would be a floating storehouse on the long trip through the undependable regions east
of delicacies
167
(f
Literature of Suez." This
is
luxury in the imperial style as described by Suetonius, A Deck costs $14,230 per
and Gibbon. An outside stateroom on
Tacitus,
The passengers, representing old money and new money. Wall LaSalle Street in Chicago, Texas oil, and California fortunes, are very successfully drawn by Mr. Bennett. The rich at play—preposterous, horrible— offer a large target to the satirist. Mrs. W. W. Holahan
person. Street,
of Santa Barbara, California, for instance,
described as being "enor-
is
mously prominent in green. Green shoes, green satin heels, a fur coat you could measure by the quart for thickness, richness, lushness, great plumed hat or cap drooping with green velvet. And that face— the square determined jaw, staring eyes heavy-lidded, hair fading from blond, big nose. The fingers bulged with jewels, big and hard, beneath the gloves of greenish kid with traces of powder on them." An aristocratic Eastern lady whose husband is not prospering imagines that a Texas oil tycoon who stumbled drunkenly into her cabin has assaulted her. The degenerate Italian husband of an American heiress steals Mrs. Holahan's emeralds and drops them overboard—de gaite de coeur. A yachtsman whose hobby is
who
navigation has a wife
Another
satire,
diverts herself with a
more widely acclaimed,
jL\. Grass. Little Oskar in early childhood
how
is its
is
member
of the crew.
The Tin Drum, by
Giinter
central figure. Oskar, a born artist, seeing
nasty and corrupt
life
was, and
how
lustful,
him were, decided that he would and contrived to remain a little child. In size, therefore, but not in experience and intelligence, he is still tiny Oskar who has clung to the toy drum and who has seen the rise of Hitler and the collapse of Germany from the special perspective of the timeworn child. Of all the child heroes considered so far, he is easily the least innocent. He almost fulfills the chilling prophecy of Hesiod that one day, in the old age of the race, infants would be born with gray heads and that it would then be time to seek a new beginning. The wrinkled and careworn little boy of Jude the Obscure anticipates this development. Mr. Updike's five-year-old prodigy of The Centaur, little wisehead, is another stooped greedy, and vicious the adults about
grow no
larger
small figure of precocity. tions
of age,
writers,
Tiresias all
the
The blending
and even with
and they love
its
of childishness with the percep-
disabilities,
fascinates
is an intriguing figure and exposes sharply and energetically muddleheaded Danzig Thebans about him— the adulterers, the
wurst-eating bourgeoisie, the brown-shirt idiots in
and
many modern
to introduce Tiresias in a sunsuit. Little Oskar-
cruelty. It
would almost seem
as
if
all
their grossness
the ancient lowly, the slaves,
peasants, and plebeians, have turned at the
end of two millennia into a Mr. Grass had an interesting subject here, but the point of view of the dwarf is too special and limited for the burden imposed on it. Grass's comedy is ambitious; what he wants is
huge mass
of small despots.
168
Saul Bellow
nothing
less
history in it all,
than to chronicle the whole of modern
The Tin Drum. His
and the fun wears
little
hero
thin, for the
is
German and European
unnecessarily long in telling
katzenjammers are endless and
a prolonged reminiscence of schoolboy pranks by a host his sleepy dinner guests
A
who
like
will not let
go home. but more readable book
is The Hard Life by Flann O'Brien, a witty, reminiscent novel which tells of the raising of two young boys by a garrulous old Dubliner who loves the bottle. The Hard Life is quite unpretentious, and Mr. O'Brien himself, in his dedication to Graham Greene "whose own forms of gloom I admire," calls it a "misterpiece." We are thus put at once on notice that the writer has no intention of grappling with the demons and that, except inadvertently, no subject of world significance will be discussed. We are notified, moreover, that all the persons in the book are real, not fictitious.
And
slighter, less ambitious,
the master-spirit of Pascal
Pensees: "Tout
le
trouble
is
du monde
invoked in an epigraph from the quon ne sait pas rester
vient de ce
seul dans sa chamhre."^ If Mr. Collopy, the guardian of the
two
boys,
had
only stayed in his room with his good whiskey, his vague humanitarian
aim of improving the lot of women, and his gossiping Jesuit friend, all would have been well with him. But he went out to meetings in a rainy season (he loved to heckle speakers), and the drenchings aggravated his rheumatism. The crock did not cure him.
He
took large doses of the
Gravid Water prescribed by Manus, the elder of the two boys, and swollen, irreversibly. He went to Rome on a pilgrimage to cure his dropsical weight, broke the springs of carriages en route, and finally lost his life at a violin concert in a small hall when the landing of a
became
staircase
gave under his weight.
in America has returned after an absence of many years. It was not merely the dull solemnity of the Eisenhower era, its fatty piety and the lack of wit in high places, that discouraged it. The present
Comedy
administration, though
it
likes
wit better, does not give us
much
to laugh
The dignity of the citizen of a democracy has been humorlessly insisted upon by minorities who were in their powerless days the subject about.
Finn is a and that the runaway slave, Jim, is a great character. He is called Nigger Jim, and for this reason organized Negro opinion is for burying the book. Other minorities in their struggle for equality have behaved no better, and the effect has been a bogus rhetorical "respect." The touchiof rude unfeeling satire. It does not matter that Huckleberry classic
ness or hypersensitivity of various classes that develops in the course of their social ascent unfortunately results in pompousness, hypocrisy,
tyranny.
We
begin to understand what
this
may mean when we
3 "All the unhappiness of men arises from one single quietly in their own chamber" (Vol. 33, p. 196b).
169
fact,
and hear
that they cannot stay
"
Literature
Premier Khrushchev cry out that the younger generation of poets and painters in the Soviet Union "eat the bread of the people" and repay them with "horrible rot and dirty daubs." This is what comes of the policy that art must serve the political and social aims of any regime or class directly. Every despot, George Bernard Shaw once wrote in his airy way,
keep him sane. He, the comedian, was whose dangerous duty it was to remind the despot of the truth. It is somewhat old-fashioned to assume that the truth will always be clear enough to make the aim of the comedian plain to everyone. The severity of the tyrant who is obviously mad and who murders or imprisons millions of people makes the truth most painfully, horribly clear. Luckily, we have had nothing so terrible to cope with; our own
must have a
disloyal subject to
that disloyal subject
forms of tyranny are incomparably milder. But we ought not to spend too much time in self-congratulation. We have problems enough of our own. For reasons that seem peculiarly American, pretensions of many kinds have to be taken very seriously. Faced with people who in another context might be figures of satire or caricature, the writer has felt obliged to clear his throat respectfully and to address them as Mr. Boor,
Honorable Mr. Idiot. As a shrewd critic, Mr. Harold Rosenberg, has observed on this subject, the writer "loves his neighbors too much, in being so disturbed at their weaknesses." That is to say, he approaches them all with the earnestness they are theoretically entitled to. And, either from lack of courage or lack of candor, or because he does not trust his instincts, or has failed to develop his understanding, he brings a great deal of solemnity to intrinsically comic themes. "With a little less or the
love and solidarity on the part of their scribes, the braves of
Long
might have supplied some living grotesques as solid as those of Dickens or Gogol," writes Rosenberg. "Fitzgerald and Faulkner, however, hesitate to throw to the dogs of comedy these citizens upon whom they depend for Values.' This situation is gradually changing. The comedian is not more willing to attack power at its source, but he has begun to exploit comically the romantic theme of the precious, unique self. Romantic sensibihty has always had satirists to mock it. Thomas Love Peacock was one of the first. Dostoevsky made marvelous fun of the exquisite romantic personality in a novel like The Possessed. But on the whole, the modern movement in literature represents a victory for wretchedness, and even in the recent "absurd" plays and novels there is still more metaphysical despair than laughter. However, a small handful of writers, among them the best talents of the present generation, have oflFered us, in comedy, our only relief from the long-prevalent mood of pessimism, discouragement, and Island's
North Shore or of Mississippi county
seats
low-seriousness (the degenerate effect of the ambition for high-seriousness). Let us hope that, superfluity and solemn nonsense having been
laughed and hooted away by the comic
170
spirit,
we may
see the return of
Saul Bellow
what we may ultimately decide on the basis of existential metaphysics, modern psychology, Marxism, or symbolic logic about the meaning of an individual life, it is only proper and sensible to remember that there are now more individual lives than ever, and that certain revolutions in production a genuine moral seriousness in literature. Regardless of
have made these
power
lives
possible.
Free public education has given the
and a new understanding
of expression
(in that order)
to the
grandsons and granddaughters of laboring illiterates. It has made them able to deplore their civilized condition. A mighty and universal spirit is uttering its first words, releasing what was perhaps to have been expected— the cry that the world is an oppressor, and that existence is absurd. In this situation, the comic spirit is also
of grievance, long in abeyance,
the spirit of reason opposing the popular orgy of wretchedness in
modem
literature.
Vasco Pratolini
explains in a note to the reader of
book is a memoir, not a fantasy. "It the author and his dead brother. The author, his
writing
in
more. late,
He
sought
it,
Two
Brothers, that
a conversation between
nothing
and too brother's nature. These pages
regrets that
divined his
consolation,
he but
is
faintly,
are offered in sterile expiation."
Two
Brothers
is
a short book, and
its
brev-
powerful emotions. Love
ity is the effect of
and death color every word and every detail, and one senses that there were many things left unsaid because they did not meet the strict test of necessity. The two brothers are orphaned by the death of their mother. The younger, Feruccio, is adopted by a whitehaired couple, the major-domo of a Florentine villa and his wife. The older brother is occasionally brought by his grandmother into the domain of privilege to visit the lucky Feruccio,
who sometimes behaves with ostentatious superiority. He is a beautiful child, spoiled by
his foster parents.
during adolescence. older brother,
now
And
brothers rarely meet
Vasco Pratolini
then one day the
a student and poorly dressed, unkempt, in a ragged
coat, catches sight of
To
The
Feruccio
among more prosperous
high-school boys.
spare Feruccio embarrassment, he denies being his brother and hides
himself, but Feruccio's feeling for
has no
him
is
strong.
wish to conceal his lower-class origins. 171
He
is
not a snob and
Literature
Presently the privileged position of Feruccio comes to an end—he is forced into the world, ill-prepared, to make his way. He runs errands, cleans furnaces, shovels snow. "Your eyes
were opened
to
this
new
prepare you for
it. and there was nothing in your former meaningless a destined to be Now I know that you were defenseless, sacrifice in a world where even the lamb must fight ferociously to defend its innocence." The younger brother too is now one of the poor, and not having been educated in the realities of poverty, makes bad mistakes. His marriage is disastrous, and bad marriages, says Pratolini, are fatal in such circumstances. "True love belongs to the poor. When a man and wife are poor, they must make their souls as one, if they are to endure and give each other courage. To love is to give each other courage. Only then does [a man] fully appreciate the meaning of his presence ." on earth. In the last year of the war Feruccio sickens, goes to Rome for help, is improperly treated in the hospital, and wastes away, the love between the brothers increasing, their intimacy deepening with the progress of the disease. Feruccio cries out, "I don't want to die." But he is dying. June comes, the Germans are in the streets, the wards of the hospital are crowded, beyond the walls the trees are green, the flies buzz about the dying Feruccio's bed. And that is the novel. Brief, modest, and memorable, it circumvents the theoretical perplexities which, as we have seen,
life to
reality, .
.
.
.
.
beset so
.
.
.
many
writers,
leaving
whether the dying Feruccio and "anonymous forces."
it
to historians
of
culture to
decide
his grieving brother are individuals or
own reasons for persisting in the examination of the reality of individualism. Professor Wylie Sypher argues in Loss of the Self in Modern Literature and Art, citing many authorities
Still, theoreticians have their
and
poems, and novels, that "the era of individualism yields of total groupism. And how can humanism survive in an age of total groupism? This is a crisis the humanist has not to
plays,
the
era
previously faced. anti-literature
No wonder
and
anti-art
the
humanism
persists
only
that persists,
residual
in
if
it
does, in
form." Professor
Sypher describes a new sort of "anonymous humanism" which takes into account the failures of the romantic belief in freedom, sees that liberalism,
which
tried to give this
behef a practical, institutional expression, aware of the swamping or "minimizing of the self by the law of larger numbers." Loss of Self is a book of great interest. It suffers, however, from two characteristic defects of modern criticism. has failed, and
First,
it
is
treats all the
products of the tendency
seriousness, regardless of their quality.
are extremely poor, but
have spoken
at length
all is grist
Some
that
it
examines with equal
are good, even great, others
comes
to the historian's mill. "I
about some writers and painters
172
I
do not greatly
Saul Bellow
but find highly illustrative." But bad books and good books cannot support the same argument without distinction. Art and bungling must
like
show us quite
different things,
even
in a literature that originates in a
theory of the Absurd. Secondly, Professor Sypher shares the fault of critics
He
when
apparently takes
poem
common
they discuss the relation between art and ideas. it
for granted that
same
or a play, or that the
an idea simply gives birth to a them both. "As every-
Zeitgeist produces
body has noted," he writes, "Descartes cleft apart the realm of man's experience: there was the res extensa— the realm of matter, operating by universal mathematical laws— and the res cogitans— the world inside, which by contrast with the actuality and regularity of the physical system outside, seemed unreal." Romantics, he explains, defend the self against is my idea of the world." This an interesting account of the development of romanticism and unquestionably has some bearing on what has happened, but, in making
the res extensa, "asserting that the world is
such a tidy packet of art and intellectual history, Sypher subordinates imagination to thought, deriving the one directly from the other. Of course it is
true that
opment
many modern
of thought
cepting the account of tion of their art.
writers consciously participate in the devel-
and enter
into the current of intellectual history, ac-
given by
life
its
commanding
Such writers take what
is
figures as the condi-
given by Existentialism or
Psychoanalysis, by Physics or Logic, as they understand these subjects, to
be somehow
irreversible.
Once Descartes had
about the res extensa and the res cogitans
uttered those fatal words
see Meditations, Vol. 31, pp.
(
96b-103d), man's course was presumably set unchangeably.
And
Hegel,
Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl, Einstein, Schrodinger, Heisenand others made further disclosures which evidently determined
berg,
Mann, Musil, Camus, There was no getting away from it, it seems. A concise summary of this attitude is offered by Professor Erich Heller in his study of Thomas Mann. Describing the conversation between the Devil and Adrian Leverkiihn in Mann's Doctor Faustus, Heller writes, "For four hundred years" (according to the Devil) "all great music rested on the assumption that there could be harmony and peace between a universally established convention and the subjective concerns of the individual, that 'soul' and 'order' were profoundly at one, and that it was therefore possible for the human passions truly and freely to express themselves within prescribed formulae. But this 'play' is over, the 'law' no longer recognizes itself in the 'mirror' of human inwardness, and the human heart refuses to be persuaded that there is an 'universal order of ." Apparently we must not things' with which it can live at peace. the form of the novel for such writers as Gide, Sartre, Beckett.
.
.
expect to thrive without guarantees of safety or perfect metaphysical
Here it is assumed that the world is now radically different from what it was, that knowledge and civilization have put the human stability.
173
Literature
unbearable anxiety by overturning its ancient damaged. These certainties, and that art and Hfe have been irrecoverably bourgeois possibly of expectations on based are dubious assumptions
new
heart in a
state of
origin-a universal insurance policy which covers the soul. The absence of any such insurance produces the condition of "absurdity." Professor Sypher, though he hopes for the appearance of a sturdier humanism, expects that it will have to square itself with "the absurd."
Lionel Abel, Mr. arguments
in his
Metatheatre, does terrible
for "absurdity" in his essay
Theatre of the Absurd.
"And has
it
become
particular
kind
we And
world
"Is the
so recently? of
damage
on Martin
to the
Esslin's
live in 'absurd'?" asks
The
Mr. Abel.
does our world, newly absurd,
theatrical
art
expressing
'absurdity'?"
require
a
"Esslin,"
he continues, "says that our present sense of absurdity springs
from the
loss of
humanly important
realities.
Of what realities? Well, know when this occurred.
we have lost God. I should like to But Esslin probably means that we have lost a belief in God once natural to us. Now I confess to having very little nostalgia for those periods in history when it was 'natural' to believe in God. Was such belief ever really Esslin thinks
natural? S0ren Kierkegaard, for one, thought that Christian education,
century— this kind of education
'natural' in the nineteenth
we have
lost—
was the main obstacle to Christian belief; for Kierkegaard, true belief was always possible, always miraculous." Abel passes then to the examination of other arguments for absurdity, the most prominent of which the loss of "our formerly felt intimacy with the world." Esslin cites Camus's Myth of Sisyphus on the passing of a trusted, "reasonable" world, on the divorce between "man and his life, the actor and his setting" which leaves us with the feeling of absurdity. Camus, Mr. Abel replies, "wants the world to be familiar; Aristotle thought it should excite wonder." He adds, "To say that reason is gone is to speak without any hope of being understood. An absurd world would be silent; it would not be plied with plays." And finally, "The world can no more become absurd than it can sin, starve, or fall down. There are many absurdities in the world; most of them were always there." Mr. Abel has a twofold purpose, he tells us in the preface to his bril-
is
liant little book.
He
tries to
explain
altogether impossible, for the
why
modern
"tragedy
dramatist,"
is
so diflBcult,
and
if
not
"to suggest the
nature of a comparably philosophic form of drama." He is a serious, learned, but also witty and succinct writer. Tragedy, Mr. Abel argues, requires a protagonist who lives through tragic destruction brought on
by
hubris,
and "becomes
daemon." Oedipus is destroyed by his is pledged to punish. But in Oedipus at Colonus, he is revealed as a daemon. "Two cities want his body when he dies," for the greatest of suflFerers can confer blessings. In divine, a
discovery that he himself
is
the murderer he
174
Saul Bellow his discussion of Shakespeare,
Mr. Abel takes the view that Shakespeare's
tragedies are imperfect, and that only
Macbeth meets the
definition of a
true tragedy. Another term must be found to describe the other masterpieces of Shakespeare.
Tragedy requires the existence
of an ideal
world. "Very probably there must be something ideal about the struc-
world in which tragedy is and this, in the sixteenth century, was not to be found. But Western civilization has created another dramatic form insuflBciently understood by those who are so busy ture
the
of
possible,"
bewailing the impossibility of tragedy in the modern world, and that form is metatheatre. It is
already plainly present in Hamlet and
The Tempest and in the plays and Cervantes. In metatheatre, as
"already
theatricalized";
of
Calderon
life
is
the events
seen are
"found by the playwright's imagining rather than by his observing the world." "Hegel thought that after Hamlet, all modern trage-
would be tragedies
dies
of the intellectual. I
think he should have said tragedy
would be
replaced by metatheatre." In metatheatre the
Lionel Abel
world seems an emanation from human consciousness. "Tragedy," says Mr. Abel, "makes human existence more vivid by showing its vulnerabiHty to fate. Metatheatre makes human existence more dreamlike by showing that fate can be overcome. There is no such thing as humanistic tragedy. There is no such thing as religious metatheatre." It is impossible, in an attempted summary, to do justice to the scope and spirit of Mr. Abel's argument. He himself, however, does state it as his main assumption that his studies of dramatic forms "all imply that dramatic forms are related to and take their life from values which are important outside of drama. I am not a formaHst. Formalists, I think, are too interested in form as such to really understand it." Elsewhere, however, he says, "Metatheatre glorifies the unwillingness .
of the imagination to regard
seems to hold that the itself to
any given
any image of the world
literary imagination
set of values
.
.
as ultimate." This
does not consent to bind
which are important outside
of drama.
The New Theatre of Europe, a recent anthology, two particularly significant plays, Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons and Corruption in the Palace of Justice by the late Ugo Betti. Mr. Corrigan has also provided introductory essays by the playwrights themselves, and these are of the greatest value. Both address themselves to the same question, inescapable for the writer— what is it that defines
Robert ^
Corrigan's
contains
175
Literature a man? What is he? What am I? Mr. Bolt says, "We no longer have, as past societies have had, any picture of individual Man (Stoic Philosopher, Christian Religious, Rational Gentleman) by which to recognize ourselves and against
which to measure ourselves; we are anything. But
it is not everyone who can live with that, though it is our true present position." For that reason we attempt to derive an image of ourselves from the society about us. "But society can only have as much idea as we have what we
if
anything, then nothing, and
are about, for
it
has only our brains to think
was with such thoughts, says Mr. Bolt, that he approached the writing of his play about Sir Thomas More. "Thomas More became for me a man with an adamantine sense of his own self. He knew where he began and left off, what area of himself with." It
.
.
.
he could yield to the encroachments of his enemies, and what to the encroachments of But at length he was those he loved. asked to retreat from that final area where he located his self. And there this supple, humorous, unassuming, and sophisticated perand could no more son set like metal cliff." That this is not budged than a be merely an idle or entirely theoretical problem anyone who has recently read the ac.
.
.
.
a scene fbom "a
man for all
seasons"
Emlyn Willunns Sir Thomas More;
Left,
as right,
George Rose as
Common Man
count
the
of
Arendt
.
.
Eichmann trial by Hannah The individual is con-
will realize.
sumed by
his social or political activities un-
which powers. Mr. Bolt wonders whether any genuine sense less
he
contains his identity
finds the final area
without "something transcendental."
If
that
ture, he says, "for we are rightly committed paramount gift our thinkers, artists, and for
ence, should labor to get for us
is
is
so
and
of self
we have
his is
moral
possible
a barren fu-
to the rational. I think the all I
know, our men of
sci-
a sense of selfhood without resort to
magic."
Ugo
Betti's essay, Religion
and the Theatre,
is
an attack on what passes
modern art, on the indolence of the Christian virtues modern form, on the self-indulgent tears, soft humanitarianism,
for Christianity in in their
and optimism of complacent consciences. A genuine religious art, in view, must begin by admitting the worst. A man who believes in God, or says or thinks that he does, may comfort himself with his faith. "Happy are they who are calm, sure, strong, and no longer need anything, or at least think they don't. But how can we avoid thinking, also, of those who are weak, without faith, and without hope?" These, the Betti's
176
Saul Belloic
weak and
despairing,
must be shown, by the rehgious
God
they do belong to a world in which
play-vvright, that
can do," says
Betti,
clumsily to prove again certain things to someone, starting from
"is try
zero. I belie\'e, truly belie\e, that all
exists. "All I
human
abdications
'no's/ a small yes'
we
which
we
if
search untiringly at the bottom of
end by
will always
will
outweigh
finding,
ever)' objection
to rebuild e\-er}-thing." \\'hat Betti asserts
is
that
we
under and be
so
many
suflBcient
cannot live without
no matter what we may tell ourselves. The soul cannot breathe without it. The most disfigured, hardened, and justice,
cynically embittered
own metaphor, again. Betti
men
crave
in Betti's
it,
be clean and the "absurdists" seem to inas the leper craves to
many
habit
different
galaxies,
apart.
He would
probably be considered old
hght-years
hat by a novehst like Nathalie Sarraute
who
away from the inauthenticity of the "individual." The odd thing is, however, that
has gotten
despite the old-fashioned ring of the state-
ment by
Betti,
derstand what
Modem
most people probably do unit
means.
writers on the
whole have given up
the theme of justice. Indeed they rarely deal
with
any
social
questions.
Ever\'
year,
in
America, a large number of "informationar novels are published. These take you "inside"
Robert Bolt
Madison Avenue or "inside" the U.S. Senate and tell you how things are done. But they are not genuine social novels. They do not try to examine or explain business or political power. Books like Mr. Bennett's Luxury Cruise describe the manners of the rich; manners, not money, is their theme. In a society built on specialization, novelists too are specialists. They may specialize in "facts" like Mr. O'Hara, or in "culture" like Mr. Updike. The drift of such "facts" and such "culture" is growing constantly clearer. Literature in the United States is becoming more professional, less generally meaningful. The injustices that stir writers most deeply are those done to sensibilit}\ There is no broader idea of justice. American novelists are not ungenerous, far from it, but as their view of society is fairly shallow, their moral indignation is nonspecific. What seems to be lacking is a firm sense of a common world, a coherent community, a genuine purpose in life. No one can will these things into being and establish them by fiat. That has been tried often enough, and the results of such efforts have ver}^ properly been met with skepticism. The supernatural, the transcendental have not been rejected or "debunked" by the modern consciousness only to be replaced by the inventions of wTiters. The Silones and the Bettis are rare exceptions. It 177
Literature requires a certain daring to assert as Betti does that the
hungers for
justice.
This
be unsure of themselves and
to
human
soul
not a fashionable thing to say. Writers tend
is
to accept the verdicts of the learned, the
tell us that certain values are gone from this world. "The good," said William Blake, "are attracted by men's perceptions/And think not for themselves."
Erich Heller \\ho
historicists like
fore\-er
BIBLIOGRAPHY Abel, Lioxel, Metatheafre: A New View of Dramatic Form. New York: Hill &
Wang.
Grass, Glxter, The Tin Drum, trans, by
New
Erich, Thomas Mann: The German. Cleveland: The World Publishing Companv, 1961.
Heller,
York: Dial Press, Inc., 1962.
Ironic
New
The Fire Next Time.
York;
Dial Press. Inc.. 1963.
Betti, Ugo, Corruption
New
Xew
The
MiSHiMA, YuKio, After the Banquet, trans, by Donald Keene. New York: Alfred
Theatre of Europe.
A. Knopf, Inc., 1963.
Companv, Morris, Wright,
1962. ,
New
and the Theatre,
Religion
Theatre
Dell Publishing
Bolt, Robert,
The York:
New
of
New
The
York:
A Man
Europe.
Theatre
of
(ed.).
Europe.
Publishing Companv,
New
The
New
York:
Dell
New
Go\-ER.
Robert,
Misunderstanding. Press,
Inc..
New
York:
Life.
Inc.,
New
1962.
The Cape Cod Lighter. Random House, Inc., 1962.
Two
bv Barbara Kennedv.
Brothers,
New
trans,
York: Orion
Press, Inc., 1962.
Roth,
Philip,
Letting
Random House,
York:
1962.
One Hundred
New
F., Morte D'Urhan. New York: J. Doubledav & Companv, Inc., 1962.
Berklev Publishing Compan\".
Inc..
York:
Pratolixi, \"asco.
New
Fire.
Po^^-ERs,
1962.
Stern.
Go.
O'H-ARA, John,
DoxLEAvy, J.AMES Patrick, The Ginger Man. New York: Medallion Books,
Friedmax, Bruce Jay, Simon and Schuster.
Pale
Pantheon Books,
York:
Publishing Company, 1962.
Robert
\'L.ADiMm,
Way To
a
Publishers, 1962.
Flaxx, The Hard
O'Briex,
New
Burroughs, Willlani S., Naked Lunch. New York: Grove Press. Inc.. 1962. CoRRiGAX.
What
Atheneum
York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, Inc., 1962.
for All Seasons, in
of
York:
Nabokov,
Company, 1962.
Theatre
DeU
in
New
Europe.
New
Line.
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1962.
the Palace of
in
Dell Publishing
York:
Red
JoxES, James, The Thin
Bexxett, Joseph, Luxury Cruise. New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1962.
Justice, in
York: Pantheon
Books, Inc., 1963.
BALD^^-I^, James, Another Country.
,
New
Ralph Manheim.
1963.
Inc.,
Salixger,
J.
D.,
Dollar
Beam,
Grove
Introduction.
178
Go.
New
York:
1962.
High the Roof and Seymour, An
Raise
Carpenters
Boston:
Company, 1963.
1962.
Inc.,
Little,
Brown &
Saul Bellow SiLONE, Ignazio, Bread and Wine, trans,
Sypher, F. Wylie, Loss of the Self in
by Harvey Fergusson II. New York: Atheneum Publishers, 1962.
Modern
and
Stories.
York:
in
Icicle,
Fantastic
Pantheon
York:
Books,
1963.
Inc.,
Co., Inc., 1963.
New
New
Art.
1962.
Inc.,
Tertz, Abram, The
SoLZHENiTSYN, ALEXANDER, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, trans, by Ralph Parker. New York: E. P. Button
&
Literature
Random House,
Updike, John, The Centaur. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1963.
SvEvo, Italo, The Confessions of Zeno, trans, by Beryl de Zoete. London: Martin Seeker & Warburg, Ltd., 1962.
Pigeon Feathers.
,
New
York: Alfred
A. Knopf, Inc., 1962.
NOTE TO THE READER his review of recent literature, Mr. Bellow treats three subjects of fundamental importance in modern literary criticism: the changing conception of the indi-
the Syntopicon chapter on
In
nature of comedy,
the
vidual,
rise
and the mass
become
is
less
that this diminished status
and the
lections
by Mr.
Two
of these are particu-
larly striking. First, the prison
reflected in
described in
One Day
experiences
in the Life of Ivan
Denisovich are similar in
many ways
Pierre Bezukhov's experiences in a
prison
classic statements of the threat
stoy's
se-
included in Great Books of the
Western World.
important, and
Great Books of the Western World,
one of the
are cited under Happi-
Several of the works reviewed
recent literature. The reader who is interested in exploring this subject further will find, in
life
Bellow have interesting parallels in the
his
is
under top-
ness 4b.
society, the individual has
increasingly
Man
while passages expressing the tragic
view of human
view that, of industrialism, democracy,
definition of tragedy. It
with the
ic 12,
camp
to
French
in Russia as described in Tol-
War and
Peace (Vol. 51, pp. 547aSecond, the
to individuality
posed by the mass society—
555c, 575b-582a, 604b-609a)
On
Liberty (Vol. 43, pp. 267-
behavior of the soldiers in James Jones's The Thin Red Line bears a close resem-
S. Mill's J.
323), especially Chapters 3 and
4.
.
and conceptions of them
blance to that depicted in some of the battle scenes in War and Peace. Thus, in the
are set forth in the passages in Great Books of the Western World which are cited in the Syntopicon chapter on Poetry under topic 4h. The all-important work in
Nicholas Rostov enters his first batconvinced of his own importance—he is "strong, happy, and loved," but after being wounded and left without help, he is
As
for
comedy and
tional definitions
this area
is,
tragedy, the tradi-
of course, Aristotle's
(Vol. 9, pp. 681-699).
amples of comedy and
The
On
latter, tle
forced to realize that as an individual he
Poetics
of
greatest ex-
no significance (see
lOld-llOa, c).
satire are listed in
179
ibid., especially
is
pp.
LEONARD ENGEL( was
bom
in
New
left)
,
one of America's most
He was educated
York City in 1916.
He
and the University of Chicago.
prolific science writers,
at
Columbia University
has specialized in science and medicine
almost from the beginning of his career as
first a newspaper and magazine World War II, as a free-lance science writer. He has published nearly four hundred signed articles on science, is a regular contributor to Scientific American, Harper's, and the New York Times Magazine, and is the author of several books, including The Operation and The Sea, the first volume in Life's Nature Library series.
writer and correspondent, and then, since
KENNETH BRODNEY
was born
spent most of his early years in
New
versity of Wisconsin
and the University of
of Current History magazine, has
United
States,
and
for six years
Press, serving the last his interests is
in Brisbane, Australia, in 1919,
two years
but
He was educated at the UniTexas. He was an associate editor
York City.
worked for a number of newspapers in the was a foreign correspondent for the United as
bureau chief
have turned from international
currently a reporter, writer, and editor for
in
affairs
NBC
Moscow. In recent to
years,
science reporting.
News.
He
BIOLOGICAL SCIExNCES AND MEDICINE LEONARD ENGEL, KENNETH BRODNEY one experimented without a preconceived idea, one would be actif one observed with preconconceived ideas, one would make poor observations and run the risk If
ing at random; but on the other hand,
of taking one's o\%tl conceptions for reality.
Claude Bernard
While
the healing of the sick
ence,
modem
a matter of art^ as well as sci-
is
medicine owes
curati\e powers largely to
its
sci-
tools of science, the experimental
ence and to the most po\\erful of all method. In the past twent\-fi\e years, \^"e ha\e had the benefit of an unprecedented flood of medical advances. Medicine has forged them
by drawing upon the
biological sciences for
understanding of the machinery of
for
life,
and not least, for techniques of discovering and testing new means of combating
ideas,
disease.
In short,
medicine has progressed
through experimental research.
Medical research involves risks as well as As Claude Bernard, the great nineteenth-century physiologist noted four generations ago, there is only one wholly satisfacgains.
man
tory experimental animal for the study of
and human medicine: man erly organized
promising is
new
uncovered,
himself. In prop-
medical research, whenever a means of dealing with disease it
is
assayed as thoroughly as
possible in the laboratory
and
in
mammals
Claude Bernard
with similarities to man, such as mice, rabbits, dogs, and monkeys. Because no two species are entirely alike in physiology or biochemistry, howe\'er, no one can know in advance precisely what will happen when a new drug or method of treatment is
tried in a
human being
takingly planned, the
always an experiment, a 1
for the first time.
Whether accidental
or pains-
human trial of a new medical treatment is human experiment, and there is some risk that
first
." ( Hippocrates, The Law, Vol. 10, is of all the Arts the most noble the nature and constitution^of the to attends art, and an is "Medicine 144a); p. Plato, Gorgias, patient, and has principles of action and reason in each case Vol. 7, p. 281b).
"Medicine
.
.
.
181
Biological Sciences
and Medicine
can be escaped only by giving up and trying nothing new— at whatever cost in continued suflFering and death from diseases still unconquered. Well-managed research can at best minimize the risks and see that they are taken only for worthwhile ends. In practice, this is easier said than done, especially when one considers
things will go wrong.
The
risk
altogether on progress in medicine
that medical research
is
a large
and complex human
human
activity, subject
not
but also to the pressure of often divergent interests. The lesson has been driven home recently by a singularly shocking mass tragedy, the birth of thousands of grievonly to the usual imperfections of
ously deformed babies to
new
activity,
women who had
"sleeping pill" early in pregnancy.
taken a seemingly innocuous active ingredient of the pill
The
was thalidomide, a synthetic drug with a molecule composed of thirteen atoms of carbon, ten of hydrogen, four of oxygen, and two of nitrogen, linked together in a pair of rings with a third ring attached as a "side
group." Before the sleeping-pill tragedy had run
its
course,
it
had raised
questions cutting through a broad nexus of moral, political, legal, and technical scientific issues.
The
desirability of a profit-making
drug indus-
had been called into question, as also, among other things, the role of government in medicine, the eflSciency and integrity of U.S. government agencies, the adequacy of contemporary drug-testing methods, the ethics of medical research, and the humanity of present abortion try
laws.
The thalidomide
disaster
The
more dramatic aspects of the thalidomide tragedy are well known. But the origin and inner history of the tragedy are worth exploring in some detail to focus upon the issues raised and the very real diflBculties of plotting a
course that will adequately bar similar disasters
and yet not deny man the fruits of medical research. Thalidomide was developed as a sedative and widely marketed in western Europe in 1959 and 1960 by a German pharmaceutical firm, Chemie Griinenthal. It had several apparent advantages over older sedatives. It was inexpensive, acted quickly to produce deep, "natural," all-night sleep, and was free of disagreeable morning-after effects. Moreover, in contrast particu-
(most widely utilized sedative in the United most widely utilized means of committing suicide), thalidomide seemed almost proof against misuse. Germany had no drug laws comparable to those of the United States. Nevertheless, the manufacturer carried out safety tests in laboratory animals. These showed the drug to have an extraordinarily low level of toxicity. The finding was confirmed for man when would-be suicides tried to end their lives with overdoses of the drug: all survived very large doses without detectable harm. larly
to
States,
barbiturates
and
also the
182
Leonard Engel, Kenneth Brodney
As a result, German drugstores were permitted to sell thalidomide without a doctor's prescription. Under the trade name Contergan, it became the most popular sleeping pill in West Germany, employed in homes, hospitals, and mental institutions alike. In medicines with such trade names as Algosediv and Grippex, it was combined with aspirin and other drugs as a remedy for colds, coughs, nervousness, neuralgia, headache,
and asthma.
A
special liquid
form for children,
Johns Hopkins University, who went to Germany to investigate thalidomide, became West Germany's baby sitter. And since, in addition to being a "safe" sedative, thalidomide
reported
Dr.
Helen
Taussig
B.
of
relieved the nausea of pregnancy,
take
it
to obtain a
good
doctors told pregnant
women
to
night's sleep.
During 1960, manufacturing firms in several other countries obtained manufacture thalidomide. As yet, there had been no reports untoward efiFects from the drug. But the disaster was already beginof ning to take shape. Physicians were reporting the birth of an increasing licenses to
number
of infants with a previously rare de-
The name, from the Greek words phoke, meaning "seal," and melos, meaning "limb," describes the deformity: failure of the long bones of the upper and lower arm to develop in the unborn child, so that at birth the hand extends almost directly from the shoulder, like the flipper of a seal. Phocomelia is ordinarily so rare that most
fect called phocomelia.
doctors never see a case in a lifetime of practice.
had been West Germany. there were about
In the ten years 1948-58, there
possibly fifteen cases in
all
of
But in the single year 1959, a dozen cases, and in 1960, babies with seallimb deformities were seen in almost every pediatric clinic in that country.
Moreover, there
were striking diflFerences between these cases Infant with phocomelia and those previously known to physicians; two German pediatricians regarded them as representing a new type of birth defect and even wished to give it a new name. In previous cases of phocomelia, only one arm was usually affected; in the cases that now began appearing, both arms were generally deformed, and in about half the cases the legs were also affected, though seldom to the same degree. (If both arms and legs were very severely deformed, the infants were unable to turn over in their cribs and the inactivity soon led to fatal pneumonia.) In addition, some of the babies also bore a hemangioma (strawberry mark) extending from the forehead down the nose and across the upper hp, but the mark was neither harmful nor permanent.
183
Biological Sciences
and Medicine
Other deformities occurring in many of the infants were absence of the external ear, abnormal placement of the internal ear, and abnormalities of the digestive tract, heart, and circulatory system. Nevertheless, most of the children seemed to have good (if not normal) hearing and normal inteUigence.
By the summer of 1961, hundreds of infants with phocomelia were being born, and West German physicians knew that they were up against a disastrous epidemic of a disastrous disease. Separate investigations were launched in the cities of Bonn, Hamburg, Kiel, and Miinster. At first, the investigating physicians suspected a hereditary factor, in part because earlier cases of phocomelia had been found to be genetic in origin. Aside from the fact that no evidence of a hereditary
be found, the cases were soon so numerous and so widethis explanation absurd. A search was accordingly begun for some external factor that could have aflFected the infants, probably early in pregnancy, when the limbs and organ systems are beginning
factor could
spread as to
make
to form.
The search was conducted with the aid of questionnaires, sent to the parents of deformed children and to their physicians, asking about X-ray exposures during pregnancy, any drugs or hormones taken, the use of soaps, foods, and food preservatives, methods of contraception, tests. One of the physicians making these inquiries.
and even pregnancy Dr. Widukind Lenz
of
Hamburg, noted
that 20 per cent of the mothers
replying to his questionnaire reported taking Contergan during their
pregnancies. Lenz re-questioned
time
specifically
now
said they
all
the parents on his
about the thalidomide
had taken
they had considered
it;
pill.
many had
list,
asking this
Fifty per cent of the mothers
not reported
it
before, because
too innocuous to be worth mentioning. It often happens that the first word of something wrong slips out almost accidentally. Lenz was well aware of what was at stake. If thalidomide was responsible for the outbreak of phocomelia, each day's delay in making a report would add to the toll. But the Hamburg physician was also a cautious man, determined to refrain from identifying the drug publicly until he had documented the connection between it and phocomelia. This he eventually did; he was also able to fix the critical time for exposure and to show that even a single dose of the drug could be damaging when taken at the time the limb buds are forming in the embryo, between the twenty-eighth and forty-second day after conception. Meanwhile, Lenz warned the manufacturer privately about his suspicions. A few days later, Lenz also related his suspicions at a meeting of pediatricians, without naming the drug he had in mind. That evening, a fellow physician approached him and asked, confidentially, whether the drug was Contergan. His wife, the doctor explained, had taken Contergan and had had a phocomelic child. it
184
)
Leonard Engel, Kenneth Brodney
was Contergan he suspected was soon known to physicians throughout West Germany. By the end of November, 1961, Griinenthal had withdrawn Contergan and other thahdomide-containing drugs from sale, and the West German Ministry of Health had issued an official warning against their use by pregnant women. Before the epidemic had run its course, West German mothers had had more than five thousand thalidomide babies, and well over a thousand had been bom in eighteen other countries. In West Germany, Lenz's admission that
plans were
made
it
for rehabilitation centers for the pitiful victims.
numbers do not reveal the depth to
whom
But
of a tragedy in terms of the individuals
the tragedy occurs. In Belgium, a devout
family decided, in family council, to do
Roman Cathohc
away with a phocomelic baby
borne by the mother. The prescription for the needed overdose of barbiturates was written by the family doctor, also a Roman Catholic ( whose sister-in-law later also bore a thalidomide baby). The lethal dose was administered by the mother, alone with her deformed child. (The family and the doctor were all tried for murder, and all were acquitted. The United States was spared all but a few cases of deformed thalidomide babies. This was not so much due, however, to its food
and drug laws (generally believed to be very nearly the strictest in the world), as to no less than three distinct strokes of good luck and to the alertness and stubbornness of a staff physician at the Food and
Drug Administration In
September,
Merrell
Company
in
1960,
Washington. U.S. pharmaceutical
firm,
a
of Cincinnati, applied to the
FDA
the William
S.
for permission to
compounds which its Canadian subsidiary was already selling in Canada. Under the basic U.S. drug law— the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938— a manufacturer who wished to introduce a drug he had not manufactured before produced ( even a drug which was not really new, but was already being by another manufacturer) had to file a new-drug application with the FDA. The application had to describe how the drug was manufactured and the purposes it was intended to serve, and furnish proof of its safety when used for these purposes. Under the regulations then in effect, the FDA had sixty days within which to examine the application and make known its objections, if any. If there were none, the drug would distribute
in
the
United
then be permitted to go on
The
first stroke of
States
thalidomide
sale.
good fortune
for the U.S.
can be said to have
happened even before Merrell filed its application. Thalidomide had been developed abroad, and the unwitting mass human experiment was already under way in other countries. If thalidomide had been developed in the U.S. and brought to the FDA at an early stage, long before any potential for harm was suspected, the story might well have been different. Such experts as Dr. Taussig
that
was
to reveal
its
defects
185
Biological Sciences
and Medicine
(the Taussig of the medical-surgical team that devised the famous Blalock-Taussig "blue baby" operation, and a physician with a lifelong interest in birth defects) believe that permission for sale would have
been granted. "It was an excellent sedative," Dr. Taussig has observed, "and it [then] appeared to be safe." As it was, the second stroke of luck also came at the start. The FDA found Merrell's application incomplete, and immediate clearance of thalidomide was denied. While Merrell worked to compile the additional required information, reports began to appear in medical journals abroad of a relatively minor problem with thalidomide: the occurrence of a form of neuritis among persons taking the drug over an extended period. The reports were seen by Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey, a physician and pharmacologist on the FDA staflF. She also noticed that the Merrell company proposed to recommend thalidomide for use against nausea of pregnancy. From work with the anti-malaria drug quinine during
World War
II,
Dr. Kelsey had
scious of the very different efiFects
drugs
newborn
may have on
become con-
and unpredictable the fetus or the
compared with their efiFects on older children and adults. She asked Merrell for
infant,
further data, particularly on the safety
of thalidomide during pregnancy. This second
delay saved the United States from a catas-
trophe like that in Europe, for Dr. Frances Kelsey
the
phocomelia
disaster
now
finally
reports of
began
to
appear.
Only nine births of babies with thalidomide-induced phocomelia have been reported in the United States. In all cases, the thalidomide was obtained abroad. But the modesty of that figure involved yet another piece of luck— a piece of luck that nearly concealed a serious weakness in U.S. drug controls. The new-drug regulations allow manufacturers to
new drugs for trial in patients in advance of a liSuch tests are required to establish the uses and limitations of a new drug and to provide the FDA with information needed to determine whether the drug should be licensed for sale. Many manufacturers exercise great care in distributing new drugs for trial, restricting them to physicians with qualifications and facilities for chnical research. Others, however, have not been nearly so discriminating, and have sent new-drug
distribute samples of
cense for
sale.
186
Leonard Engel, Kenneth Brodney samples out
less selectively,
distribution
would help promote future
While waiting
company
Merrell
Of
these, the
perhaps in the not unjustified hope that wide sale of the drug.
for the thalidomide application to
FDA
on, the
Some 247 admitted
subsequently interviewed 1,168.
they had not signed statements
(
required by
FDA
their qualifications for conducting clinical tests;
remember whether they had signed such
regulations
)
certifying
640 others could not
Only 276 had and 102 had
statements.
given Merrell the required written reports on their
made
be acted
sent the drug to 1,267 physicians for clinical testing.
tests;
man" (as the pharmaceutical on the doctor. But the drug had
oral reports, usually to a "detail
industry terms
salesmen)
calling
patients, including 3,272 women of childbearing And 624 of the latter were pregnant. Miraculously, most of these women had not taken the drug until after the critical second month of pregnancy. No deformed babies were bom to them.
been given to 15,904 age.
The most celebrated thaHdomide case in the U.S. involved Mrs. Robert W. (Sherri) Finkbine, a 30-year-old Phoenix television actress and mother of four children, who chose to have an abortion instead of a possibly deformed infant. Her efforts to obtain the abortion focused attention
anew upon
existing U.S. abortion laws. Early in pregnancy, Mrs.
Finkbine took thalidomide tablets her husband had bought in Europe.
When newspaper
accounts of the disaster in Europe alerted her and
her husband to the possible consequences, they decided to seek an not permitted even probably, defective fetus. A Phoenix hospital nevertheless agreed to permit the operation until newspaper publicity made it clear that it could not be performed "quietly" (as is the case with most of the few abortions abortion. In Arizona, as in the other 49 states, abortion
is
for such a reason as the elimination of a possibly, or
done
in
reputable
U.S.
hospitals
a court had best be sought.
When
today),
and that the sanction
of
the judge decided that the law was
the law, the Finkbines went to Sweden, where a medical board author-
makes no specific mention ground for abortion. The abortion was performed and the unborn child was found in fact to be deformed. Dr. Robert E. Hall of Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons spoke for a wide body of opinion when he wrote in an angry article that "the true issue raised in this country by thalidomide was not weak drug laws, but archaic abortion laws." ized the operation, although Swedish law also
of anticipated fetal deformity as a permissible
The
FDA
While
and the food and drug laws many
Dr. Hall's view undoubtedly reflected the feeling of
persons, there
was a problem
in the U.S.
drug laws, and
in the laws themselves, then in their administration
187
by the
FDA
if
not
and
in
and Medicine
Biological Sciences
the complex of processes by which new drugs emerge from the laboratory and come into use. This was evident at numerous points in the story of how thalidomide came not to be marketed in the United States.
One problem
could be
summed up
by Dr. Taussig have been licensed
in the observation
thalidomide would almost
certainly
and others that had been developed in the U.S. Another was the apparent laxity the manufacturer and the lack of enforcement of FDA regulations
if it
of in
the distribution of thalidomide samples for "clinical testing." Still another
was the slowness of the FDA to react. Although thahdomide was withdrawn from the market in Germany in the fall of 1961, no action was taken by the FDA to warn either the American medical profession or the American public. The first warning was a letter from the Merrell company requesting physicians who had received supplies of the drug to destroy or return remaining supplies. It was not sent until the early spring of 1962. The FDA itself took no public action until midsummer, when a Washington newspaper finally broke the story of how close the U.S. had come to tragedy. One consequence of the public commotion that followed was a hasty, widely publicized search by the FDA for samples of the drug; it was this activity that revealed the free-and-easy manner in which the drug had been distributed. Another result was to focus public attention upon both the FDA and the laws under which it operated. The Food and Drug Administration was established as the Bureau of Foods and Drugs in the Department of Agriculture in 1906 when Congress passed the Wiley Act, the first U.S. food and drug law. A primary target of the act was the host of worthless patent medicines then flooding the market —tonics containing little more than spiced alcohol, tuberculosis remedies heavily laced with opium, fraudulent herbal cure-alls, fake syphilis remedies. The Bureau succeeded in eliminating the worst ofiFenders, despite cumbersome procedures imposed on it by the law and despite a problem that has plagued food and drug law enforcement from the beginning-
money and manpower. The Bureau (its name was changed to FDA in 1930) operated under the 1906 law until 1938, when Congress adopted the present basic food lack of
and drug law. This law gave the FDA a considerably broadened grant of power, including jurisdiction over cosmetics. Curiously, the most important provision of the law— the section requiring licensing and proof of
new drugs— was a last-minute addition. It was inserted into the law when more than 70 persons died after taking an "elixir" containing the new drug sulfanilamide dissolved in a poisonous solvent, diethylene glycol, a widely used automobile antifreeze. The manufacturer reportedly had tested the concoction for flavor, but not for toxicity. In 1959 Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee began looking into the safety for
pharmaceutical industry. His starting point was the high price of drugs.
188
Leonard Engel, Kenneth Brodney Investigators for his Senate Antitrust and
made
ly
prices for
Monopoly Subcommittee quick-
headlines with the discovery that manufacturers' (wholesale)
some drugs
in
wide use were
as
much
"manufactmring cost"
is
manu-
as ten times their
facturing cost. As the pharmaceutical industry
was quick
a bare-bones, out-of-pocket, item;
to point out, it
omits over-
head, distribution, research and development, and numerous other
mate items
of cost,
and
hardly a vaHd basis for computing
is
legiti-
profits.
it was clear from the hearings that the pharmaceutical grown enormously and profitably, and that all was not well for the public, at least in the relationship between the FDA and the giant it was supposed to regulate. Since 1938, the varied industries within the FDA's purview— food, drug, and cosmetic— had grown to a combined retail-value gross of
Nevertheless,
industry had
about $100 billion a year, approximately one-fifth of the total annual U.S. production of goods and services. The greatest part of this, of course, represented food products. But nearly $2 billion worth of cosmetics
were being sold each year drug sales had reached $3
(as against $5 million a year in 1906), billion a year
of $250 million in the mid-1930's
)
.
and
(as against an annual total
In the drug
field,
was charged not only with checking manufacturing
moreover, the
FDA
operations, but with
carrying out certification tests on batches of insulin and antibiotics, with policing the nation's 56,000 drugstores to see that prescription drugs are sold only on prescription, and with passing on the safety of new drugs pouring from pharmaceutical laboratories at a rate of over 400
To perform these numerous and varied tasks, the FDA had an imderpaid stafiF of 1,600 and an annual budget, in the fiscal year 1960, of less than $14 million. In the course of the Kefauver hearings, the pubHc heard some of what this imbalance between means and responsibilities must lead to. Dr. Barbara Moulton, a physician formerly in the FDA's new-drug division, reported that the agency's evaluation methods had become "hasty" and
a year.
One
"extremely dangerous." for
reason was lack of
manpower and
facilities
an independent check on pharmaceutical company data. As a
much of the data, the FDA Many FDA oflBcials, Dr. Moulton for
the industry's
word
for
it
result,
could only take the industr>-'s word.
added, were only too inclined to take any\vay, thanks to long "fraternization" and
"close association" with the pharmaceutical industry
and
"for personal
gain."
In short, the
FDA
was
from a disease that has been a
suffering
perennial plague of federal regulatory agencies. In part through of
common
good graces
of
an industry that
may
represent their only hope for a
future job, employees of federal regulatory agencies can easily
spokesmen
ties
professional interests, in part through a wish to stay in the
for the industry they are
become
supposed to regulate. In a time of
189
Biological Sciences
and Medicine
easy morality this can lead to outrageous "conflicts of interest." One such case came to light through the Kefauver investigation. To students of American medicine, it could hardly have been more shocking. The man
involved was Dr. Henry Welch, son of Dr. WiUiam H. Welch-'Topsy" Welch, one of the founders of the Johns Hopkins Medical School and a father of scientific medicine in America. While chief of the FDA's division for hcensing and testing antibiotics, Henry Welch had received $287,142 over a seven-year period as writer and editor for two journals on antibiotics deriving almost all their support from manufacturers of antibiotics.
In April, 1961, Senator Kefauver introduced a nation's drug laws and plug loopholes revealed
bill
to
tighten the
by the committee
was referred to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, a body dominated by Southern conservatives. In the committee, it was subjected to a process of attrition, which ate away with equal effect at provisions reasonable men could differ on and provisions objected to almost solely by drug-industry lobbyists. The bill's course was strangely reminiscent of that of the 1938 law, which was similarly subjected to years of whittling away in committee. And just as the disaster with the eli?dr of sulfanilamide had rescued the 1938 bill from oblivion, so the thahdomide disaster saved the Kefauver bill. The disclosure of the thalidomide disaster and of the role played by luck and the stubbornness of a single woman physician produced prompt —in fact, almost hasty— action on two fronts. A restrengthened version of the Kefauver bill was quickly voted through the committee and the Senate, and a companion bill, introduced by Representative Oren Harris hearings. It
House. The final bill, known as Drug Industry Act or the Kefauver-Harris Act of 1962, became law on October 10. The Food and Drug Administration, meanwhile— belatedly of Arkansas, just as quickly passed the
the
utilizing authority
it
had possessed
right
along— drafted and put into
ef-
governing the experimental use drugs. In addition, at the height of the furor over the unfortunate
fect early in 1963 a
new German
of
stiff
set of regulations
drug, a citizens' advisory committee— originally set
up
to consider
FDA
revealed by the Kefauver hearings— pubHshed a set of recommendations for reorganization of the FDA. Early in the new year, the FDA's parent agency, the Department of Health,
shortcomings in the
Education and Welfare, moved to put the committee's major recommendations into effect as well.
THE REVISED DRUG RULES The critical question, of
course,
is
to
what extent these various
reforms will actually serve the public interest,
i.e.,
without bringing medical progress to a crawl or a seeing
what the new measures provide. 190
increase public safety halt.
Let us begin by
Leonard Engel, Kenneth Brodney
Under the 1962
manufacturers must submit not only evidence of
act,
(as under the 1938 law), but also "substantial proof"
safety
eflFectiveness
of a
new
drug. In testing drugs, moreover,
of the
"adequate"
animal tests must precede human tests. Under the old law, new drugs were allowed to go on sale automatically (in the absence of specific FDA disapproval) within sixty days of the filing of a new-drug application; now, aflBrmative FDA approval must be given before a new drug may be marketed. Further, the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare now has the power to order ofiF the market any drug posing an "im-
minent threat" to health. Previously, the FDA could move against a harmful drug, once it was licensed for sale, only by persuasion or through a clumsy, roundabout "misbranding" provision inapplicable in practice to most drugs. Manufacturing, labeling, and advertising regulations were also tightened. Pharmaceutical manufacturers must now be registered with the federal government, and plants and laboratories must be inspected at least
every two years; drugs produced in unsanitary or mismanaged
may be seized. (common
and advertising must carry drug in letters at least half as large as those used for the brand name, and all advertising for a drug must include a brief statement of the drug's effectiveness, side effects, and conditions under which it should not be used. A provision stricken from
plants
the generic
the final version
Also, both drug labels
medical)
name
of the
would have required the consent
of
all
patients before
they were given an experimental drug. Since this would have interfered
with controlled
trials of
conceal the fact that a
new drugs (in which it new drug is being used
is
often necessary to
in order to eliminate
was modified. Consent is now required except where the physician "deems it not feasible" or where "in his professional judgment [consent] would be contrary to the best psychological factors),
the provision
interests of the patient."
The FDA's new
rules for clinical tests of
new drugs were published
August, 1962. As finally put into effect in February, 1963, they called for safeguards that should have been in force since the passage of the in
1938 law.
A
major requirement
is
that manufacturers give the
FDA
notice and full details in advance of the distribution of drugs for testing
among other things, to allow the FDA to communicate and immediately, in an emergency, with physicians taking part in a test. Plans for drug trials must also be filed with the FDA in advance— in outline form for early phases of a trial, when only limited numbers of patients will be involved, and in fuller detail for trials involving large numbers of patients. Changes in plan, moreover, must be communicated to the FDA, and physicians taking part in clinical trials must submit a statement of qualifications for carrying on medical re-
purposes, in order, directly
search.
191
Biological Sciences
No
less
and Medicine
important are regulations requiring the manufacturer to
in-
and report to the FDA and all investigators testing a particular drug any findings suggesting "significant hazards, contraindications, side effects and precautions." "Alarming" findings must be reported immediately. Trials are to be halted and all investigators and the FDA notified, pending re-evaluation of the drug, in the event of an vestigate promptly
"substantial doubt" should arise about the safety Manufacturers must also submit detailed data on pre-clinical laboratory tests and "adequate" records of the clinical trial, including case histories of patients and information on how given
"alarming" finding or of continuing a
if
trial.
quantities of drugs
were used.
The recommendations
of the citizens' advisory
altogether diflFerent character. in the quantity
centration in a
FDA
committee were of an
called for a sharp increase
and their conwhich would carry on research and consumer protection as well as the
and quality of Food and Drug
on various aspects of testing
FDA's routine
The committee
scientific duties.
scientific activities
Institute
A
parallel reorientation of the agency's
approach was also asked, with less emphasis on inspection and policing and more on consumer and industry education. To carry out such changes, the committee said it would be necessary to appoint men of broad scientific background to the top FDA posts instead of nonscientists risen from the inspector ranks, as in the past. The creation of a national advisory council to obtain expert outside counsel and guidance in planning was also urged. In December, 1962, the division to carry out
its
FDA
reorganized and expanded the new-drug
greatly enlarged duties under both the 1962 act
and the FDA's own new experimental-drug regulations. Soon afterward, official promise was made that the Food and Drug Administration would be reorganized along lines "closely following" the citizens' advisory committee report.
an
THE "new" FDA So much for what has been put on paper. How well will the "new" FDA do what it is supposed to do? A key factor in the protection the U.S. public actually receives against harmful drugs is the warmth of Congress towards the FDA. In 1938 and 1962, Congressional interest was high; the agency received broad new grants of power. At other times, Congressional ardor has waned and economy-minded Congressmen, abetted by an assortment of industry lobbyists, have been able to nullify the grants of power at least in part by keeping FDA's appropriations down. In other words, how the FDA will now do will depend on what kind of support the agency receives in the next two or three years from Congress and other government agencies. At the moment of writing, the signs were not too encouraging. Both Senator Kefauver and
192
Leonard Engel, Kenneth Brodney Senator Paul Douglas of processes,
Illinois,
were openly voicing
that
pungent
fears over the
critic of U.S.
FDA's
government
ability to administer
new law. And one spring day. Dr. Kelsey— the woman who had held back thalidomide and who had become chief of FDA's new Investigational Drug Branch— took reporters on a visit to her unit. The unit was soon to receive reports on all drugs currently under test in human patients in the U.S.— two copies each of an estimated 2,500 reports, or 5,000 documents in all. She estimated that they would form a stack 1,250 feet high— more than twice the height of the Washington Monument. She showed reporters the space assigned for storing them: a room measuring fifteen by twenty feet. The reports were to be analyzed by members of a newly tripled staflF of doctors, and data from the reports were to be fed into a computer for cross-reference purposes. There was no space for the newly recruited doctors to work in, and no room for the computer. The least that could be expected was a log-jam certain to keep off the market for many months hundreds of new drugs, good and bad, useful as well as the
indifferent. is the degree to which any set of laws well drawn and enforced, can eliminate the however and regulations, hazards attendant upon the introduction of new drugs or other treatments
More
to the point, though,
into medicine.
no drug
is
To begin
with, there
the often overlooked fact that
is
wholly innocuous. All drugs involve some risk of untoward
reactions, either because individuals differ in their reactions to drugs
or because there has
(even the most
skillful
been some misjudgment physician
may
in
the use of a drug
err); and, in general, the
more
powerful the drug as a healing agent, the greater the risk of untoward reaction. Some of the most essential medicines in the physician's black
bag
are, frankly, quite toxic.
The margin between the
An example
is
the heart stimulant, digitalis.
and a toxic dose is so narrow that severe reactions to digitalis are frequent; but the heart disease patient would be in even greater difficulties without the drug.
No
therapeutic dose
can insulate a patient completely against even when a familiar drug is involved. This is even more true of a new drug that has never before been used in a patient and whose performance in man, despite the most exhaustive tests in the animal laboratory, cannot possibly be known precisely in advance. There must come a time when a new drug or medical treatment is tried for the first time in a human being, or else the whole enterprise of medical research becomes a pointless academic exercise. rules
or regulations
risks of this kind,
Even
after the first trials of a
will continue to
new
be unavoidable
new
medicinal agent in humans, there
risks as
use of the
new
agent
is
extended
As the thalidomide episode showed, a drug may be quite suitable for the bulk of the population and yet have calamitous effects on the unborn child. As evidenced by the frequency to
sectors in the population.
193
Biological Sciences of aspirin poisoning in
children out of
all
young
and Medicine
children, a
proportion to
its
drug
may have
toxic effects in
effects in adults. Conversely, there
drugs— the thyroid hormone is one— which produce far greater effects There may even be groups of people in the population who react in an unusual and dangerous way to a drug because of some inherited abnormality'; thus, some individuals suffer toxic reactions to sulfa drugs because of an inherited enzyme deficiency. What a well conceived and executed new-drug regulation program can accomplish is to make sure that the preliminary laboratory work is well planned and carefully carried out; that trials in humans are properly arranged and are conducted by well-qualified in\'estigators; that there and, is prompt recognition and communication of untoward results; finally, that the game is worth the candle. By the latter, we mean that a new drug that does seem to involve risk be used, initially at least, only for serious illnesses for which present methods of treatment are unsatisfactory; and that standards of safety be set very high for drugs used in treating trivial ailments or ailments for which safe, adequate medication already exists. And a policy of conservatism should be follo\\'ed especially in prescribing new drugs for women who are or might become pregnant. For many years, responsible surgeons have made it a practice to avoid all but emergency surgery during pregnancy. Not that surgery cannot be carried out during pregnancy; if needed, such operations can be managed with great success and without ill effect to the fetus. It is simply thought a matter of common sense to postpone surgery, when possible, are
in adults than in children.
until after it
comes
pregnancy.
A
similar attitude of reserve
is
appropriate
when
to drugs.
should be noted that none of
this is really new. Thoughtful physihave been pursuing such policies for decades. In considering new drugs for licensing, moreover, the Food and Drug Administration has long sought to fit its safet\' standards to the specific problem at hand, and on more than one occasion has applied them with judgment and zeal. It is a matter of record that the FDA has kept off the U.S. market a considerable number of drugs that have been widely sold abroad but were held to fall below U.S. safet>' standards. The troublesome problems lie elsewhere. A real diflBculty revolves, for instance, around the question of how large and what kind of clinical trial ought to be required for a specific new drug, and just what constitutes an adequate standard of safety for that drug. The problem is best illustrated by recalhng the case of one particular drug. A few years ago, a pharmaceutical firm developed a "psychic energizer"— a drug for the treatment of mental depression. No significant untoward reactions were noted either in animal studies or in a clinical trial lasting eighteen months and embracing nearly 9,000 patients. The drug, Monase, was It
cians
accordingly cleared for
sale.
194
Leonard Engel, Kenneth Brodney
More than
a year later, after use in hospitals throughout the country,
three deaths from failure of the blood-forming tissues in the bone
occurred in patients receiving Monase.
When
still
marrow
another death occurred
under similar circumstances some months later, the FDA requested the manufacturer to withdraw Monase. At that time, the total frequency of such deaths was between one per 22,000 patients receiving Monase (FDA figure) and one per 35,000 (manufacturer's figure). Monase was withdrawn. The episode raises two points. The first is that side effects with a low order of frequency (as
is
the case with
many
serious side effects)
are
Very large clinical trials often undetectable quite hazardous as sale to an equal as may be required— and these can be the FDA set its whether number of patients. The second question is in trials of
safety
standard for
Monase
reasonable
too
high.
size.
The
FDA
noted
that
other
"psychic energizers" are available, but some psychiatrists assert that Monase was more effective than many and was well worth the "small"
There is no simple formula for resolving such and conscientious men will continue to differ over work them out one by one, making mistakes from time to
risk involved in its use.
questions; honest
them and
to
time.
There are other problems. The evaluation of a new drug
in
the
laboratory depends on the ability of the researcher to anticipate prob-
lems that might arise in the use of a drug and to devise laboratory "models" that will bring them out. This is by no means easy. At the time that thalidomide was in the laboratory stage of development, comparatively possibility of
little
thought was given by drug researchers to the to an unborn child. It was known that drugs
harm by drugs
could cause birth defects in animals, but this generally occurred only under laboratory conditions so unusual as to make the likelihood of a similar occurrence in human beings seem extremely remote. Whether or not thalidomide was tested in pregnant animals at that time, however, it was tested later most intensively by investigators in half a dozen countries— and with almost uniformly negative results. The difficulty was that doses of thalidomide comparable to, or even rather larger than, those taken by human patients produced little detectable effect on animals (many were not even made sleepy) and produced no birth defects; massive doses, on the other hand, simply caused pregnant animals to abort too early in pregnancy for anything useful to be learned. It was not until much later that a dosage was found that would produce birth defects similar to phocomelia in rabbits. So the chances are that preliminary pregnant-animal tests would not have revealed thalidomide's devastating capacity for harm. And the chances are that accidents will attend future innovations in medicine, as they have attended innovations in the past.
195
Biological Sciences
and Medicine
RISK VERSUS PROGRESS
By way
of perspective,
it
innovation in medicine in
may be
useful to look into the
other areas and from a
problem of
different point of
Depending on how one's figures are chosen, experimental medicine can be made to appear either an exercise in irresponsibility and almost purposeless cruelty, or a never-failing source of good for all. It is of course neither, but a field in which accidents (sometimes dreadful ones) can happen even with the best of intentions, and which can call for very real courage on the part of both doctors and patients. It view.
not easy to plunge into a poorly charted sea, especially when just enough is known to make it clear that there are great hidden risks. As to accidents, we need recall only, for example, the development of poHo vaccine. In addition to the difficulties attending the introduction
is
of the
Salk vaccine in 1955
(difficulties
involving,
fundamentally, a
manufacturing process and of the U.S. Public Health Service), a wave of vaccine-induced polio cases accompanied the trial of an early polio vaccine in the 1930's. (There were risks for the physicians who developed that early vaccine, too; one of them committed failure of the
suicide. ) Moreover, although it attracted Httle newspaper attention, there was a problem in the summer and fall of 1962 with the Sabin oral polio vaccine: enough actual cases of polio were induced by the type III component of the vaccine to lead Canada to abandon its mass oral-vaccine immunization program and U.S. health authorities to recommend avoiding the use of type III oral vaccine in adults ( among whom most cases of vaccine-induced type III polio in the U.S. had occurred), except in epidemic emergencies.
Another accident of progress— comparable in scale to the thalidomide catastrophe— was the "epidemic" of blindness that suddenly broke out among premature babies in the early 1940's and swept through hundreds of hospital nurseries in the U.S. and elsewhere before it was brought under control in 1955. The blindness was due to retrolental fibroplasia, a term referring to the principal characteristic of the disease— the growth of an opaque membrane in the chamber of the eye behind the lens. No one knows just how many babies were irreversibly blinded by the disease; the number must total some thousands. A dozen years were needed to trace the membrane to its source. The cause was prolonged
exposure of the infants to high concentrations of oxygen; for reasons
have never been determined, the Hfe-giving gas stimulated abnormal gro\\i:h of tissue in the infants' eyes. The disease first appeared when piped oxygen and modem leakproof incubators were introduced into hospitals to deal with a central problem in caring for premature infants: their tendency to frequent, sudden, life-endangering respiratory crises. There was then no reason to suspect that the improved oxygen equipment would do anything but good. Retrolental fibroplasia essentially that
196
Leonard Engel, Kenneth Brodney disappeared once the cause was identified and hospitals learned to restrict the use of oxygen in premature babies to the minimum necessary to save
life.
The
retrolental
Medicine
is
fibroplasia
cases
key medical problem.
a
illustrate
not free to wait until every possible problem or hazard
worked out (even assuming
were possible) before applying a and they require treatment now, not tomorrow. Many illnesses, to be sure, carry little risk of permanent harm; in these, new methods of treatment can wait until much information about them has been gathered. Many illnesses, on the other hand, represent an immediate and serious threat. In these, the physician or surgeon may be under pressure to make the speediest possible use of new methods— despite incomplete information, and despite serious risk. This is most dramatically evident in surgery. During the 1930's, Dr. Evarts Graham of St. Louis performed the first successful removal of a lung, an operation done frequently today for cancer of the lung. Dr. Graham's first patient survived. The surgeon then had to wait until case is
new
treatment to
human
number twenty-one between
all
that
beings. Medicine deals with sick people,
for another to survive the operation; the nineteen in
died. "I think that
would have discouraged me," another
surgeon, himself a distinguished pioneer of heart surgery, remarked years later. "I don't think
I
would have had the nerve
to
go on— or be the
twenty-first patient either."
In the field of heart surgery, the development of which constitutes the great achievement of surgery in the past twenty-five years, operations have been preceded by animal-laboratory
work
new
that has often
reached extraordinary proportions. This has reduced but not eliminated the risk arising
when new
operations are
room. There have been, moreover, ing out of
all
An example relief of
tions are first
many
key aspects of a procedure is
first
attempted
in the operating
which systematic workthe laboratory was impossible.
cases in in
surgery of the mitral valve (one of the heart valves) for
damage caused by rheumatic among the commonest of all
successful mitral-valve operations
was no known method
heart disease; mitral-valve operaheart operations. At the time the
were carried
out, in 1948, there
of duplicating the eflFects of rheumatic heart
hope to do animals— a very different matter from operating on a human patient with a sick heart. So the surgeons attempting mitral-valve surgery had little worthwhile laboratory experience to guide them, and the mortality was very high.
disease in animals; the best the experimental surgeon could
was
to duplicate
some
of the manipulations in healthy
One
of these surgeons. Dr. Charles P. Bailey of Philadelphia, lost his
first
three patients (and also his operating privileges at the hospitals
involved), and he fully anticipated losing more.
uled
his
fourth
and
fifth
attempts
197
for
the
He
accordingly sched-
same day
at
different
Biological Sciences
and Medicine
he might get the fifth operation done before word could get around of the outcome of the fourth. The fifth was his first success and helped usher in a procedure that has usefully prolonged tens of thousands of lives. Further, it should be noted that despite the great risk, Dr. Bailey had no shortage of volunteers for the operation. Without hospitals so that
effective treatment, severe
patients
lose.
is fatal.
Dr. Bailey's
to lose. Unfortunately, there are always patients
had nothing
with nothing to
rheumatic heart disease
This
is
why
doctors and patients alike continue to
accept the risks that cannot be eliminated from innovation in medicine.
Organ transplantation
Inonthedespite anysearch for new ways long restless
difficulties as
which will go people needing the
of treating the sick, as there are
may well prove to have been a turning point one of the most significant developments in medical history. In centers in both the United States and abroad, medical-surgical teams began to doctor's help, the past year in
achieve indisputable success in the science-fiction feat of transplanting kidneys from one individual to another. Transplantation of kidneys be-
tween identical twins had been achieved in 1954. Now there were also a small but significant number of human beings— rather more than a dozengoing about for periods of several months to several years with a kidney donated by a fraternal twin, an ordinary brother or sister or other relative, or obtained from a stranger who had died (usually as the result of
an accident)
while
transplant beneficiary
still
was
possessing healthy
a university official in
One kidney Milwaukee; another,
kidneys.
Chicago now worrying about dieting to restrict the bloom her had gained after operation; a third, a man who stayed on to work in the hospital where he had undergone surgery. Medical investigators and experimental surgeons freely predicted before scientific meetings that kidney transplantation would be a widespread procedure within a few years, and that transplantation of other organs such as skin, lungs, and stomach would follow soon afterward. Organ transplantation has been a medical dream for hundreds of years. Occasional crude attempts to transplant tissues, usually from an animal but sometimes from one hapless human to another, go back at least to the sixteenth century. But systematic efforts to accomplish tissue and organ transplantation are hardly more than a dozen years old. What has held transplantation surgery back is not the technical difficulty of the surgery (surgeons already perform many operations much more a
girl in
figure
difficult technically
than the grafting of a kidney, for example), but the
transplanted from one individual to another do not "take," but after a short time are rejected. Thus skin so-called "graft barrier." Tissues
grafted from one person to another will appear healthy for several weeks; then, inevitably,
it
becomes inflamed and necrotic and 198
is
sloughed
off.
PL.\CING
THE CORDONA BUTTON (SYNTHETIC CORNEA^ IN A patient's eye
The
rejection of grafts
against the outside world.
is
a product of the body's defense system
We
are most famihar with the role of the
body's defenses in pro\'iding protection against viruses, bacteria, and the
The system
any "foreign" substance introduced from animals of an alien species, but from other individuals of the same species. There is only one exception. Individuals with identical hereditary^ make-up are apparently not "foreign" to each other and can exchange grafts. This has been sho\\Ti in experiments with inbred mice of established identical genetic constitution, and, in man, by studies of identical twins (individuals developed from the same fertilized ovum). There are situations in which the graft barrier does not matter. For like.
also reacts against
into the body, including tissues of alien origin— not only
example, blood vessels
may be
grafted \\Tthout concern for the barrier;
blood-\'essel grafts sers'e essentially as a temporary-
growth of new
framework
for the
\^essel tissue, which forms before the grafts are injured
the graft reaction. Corneal grafts
may
by
also "take" in a proportion of
patients without arousing a graft reaction. In order to
make most
tissue
some way must be found to breach the graft barrier. Several have' in fact been uncovered. But some of these are wholly impractical for man, and all are hazardous. Nevertheless, one has been made to work in human patients. The dozen-plus men and women walking about with "alien" kidneys in their bodies are proof or organ grafts stick, however,
of that.
199
Biological Sciences
The
best starting point for the
breakthrough
the
is
first
and Medicine
stor\-
of the
kidney transplantation
systematic attempt to carr>' out kidney grafting
occurred in 1953 and 1954 at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, the hospital of the Harvard Medical School. Progressive physiin
man.
It
and surgeons had long been especially interested in two specific kinds of graft: skin and kidney. Skin grafts were wanted for the treatment of severe bums. Kidney transplants were wanted because incurable kidney disease is widespread and because life is feasible with, but impossible without, one functioning kidney. Moreover, the surgery cians
involved did not appear unusually
seemed
to
be speedy connection
difficult.
of the
The
principal requirement
new kidney
to the patient's
blood \essels, a task well within the capability of current surgical technique.
In 1953. investigators were just learning that graft rejection involves a
major component of the body's defense system: the formation of antibodies. There was yet no clear idea how the formation of antibodies against a graft might be pre\ented or how their action might be suppressed. The Harvard group— a young surgeon, Dr. David M. Hume, and three medical specialists, Drs. John P. Merrill, Benjamin F. Miller, and George W. Thorn— nevertheless decided to attempt kidney transplantation. There were any number of patients who had gained all the benefit they could from any other known means of treatment and who had literally nothing to lose. Nine transplants were attempted, all with kidneys obtained from patients who had died of chronic heart disease. Four of the kidneys functioned, and tsvo of them functioned for a surprising several months before they were rejected and destroyed.
In the
fall of
who knew
1954, a physician at a U.S. Public Health Service hospital
of the
Har\ard group's work was caring
for a
young veteran
dying of intractable kidney disease. He noticed that the patient was \isited daily by an apparently identical twin brother. The physician was also
aware that skin
identical twins.
He
grafts
had been exchanged successfully between
accordingly sent the patient and his brother to the
Harvard group. The outcome— after tests had proved the brothers to be twins— was a historic operation two days before Christmas. A kidney was taken from the healthy brother and grafted into the sick one. The operation was a complete success. Within minutes of being connected to the patient's blood vessels, the grafted kidney began to secrete urine, and within a few weeks the once-doomed patient was entirely well. Both the twin who received and the twin who gave the kidney remained entirely free of kidney ailments. (The twin who recei\'ed the kidney died in 1963, however, of heart disease.) The operation proved conclusively that a transplanted kidney would work, and kidne>' transplantation between identical twins has since in fact identical
200
Leonard Engel, Kenneth Brodney
become "routine"— as
uncommon
"routine" as
may be
expected for individuals as
whom
happens to need a new kidney while the other has a spare healthy one. About thirty identicaltwin transplants have been performed at various centers throughout the world to date. Nearly all have been unqualified successes. The success with identical twins spurred the search for
ways
incurably
as identical twins,
one of
to extend kidney grafting to other ill
kidney patients.
Researchers in the animal laboratory mean-
while were finding
how
the graft barrier could
be breached, although the methods they devised were bizarre and startling to say the least. One stemmed from the discovery that mammals are "immunologically immature" at birth and cannot form antibodies until some time later. Consequently, newborn animals will accept alien cells as their
injected immediately
own
if
they are
before or after birth.
Further, they will continue to accept cells or tissues life.
from the same alien source throughout
Skin grafts were successfully carried out
in mice, for example,
by
injecting the
mice
at
birth with cells from a particular strain of
Gray mouse with two-month-old
mouse and then later taking a skin graft from skin graft from a white mouse the same type of animal. A second method of breaching the barrier was even more drastic. Since antibodies are formed chiefly by cells in the bone marrow, the pulpy filling of most bones, an animal was prepared for a graft by destroying the bone stroyed
marrow with
marrow was then replaced by an The new marrow injection
the animal that furnished the graft. ability of the graft-receiving
but since
it
came from
The
of
restored
the
animal to form antibodies against germs; the new marrow did not
the graft donor,
react against the graft. Later,
destroy the
The demarrow from
a massive dose of X-rays.
marrow and do the
it
was found that drugs can be used
to
job of X-rays in this procedure.
tortuous neonatal cell-injection technique
was obviously
cable to the kidney-grafting problem. Desperate as
it
inappli-
was, the X-ray-and-
bone-marrow-replacement procedure was tried in a few desperately ill patients. It failed; the transplanted marrow never took, and the patients, lacking any means of combating germs, succumbed to infection. While this X-ray procedure failed, it finally led to a procedure through which the first real kidney grafting successes were achieved. It occurred to the Harvard group particularly that it might be possible to make do with an X-ray dose that merely suppressed antibody formation temporar-
201
Biological Sciences ily
of
and Medicine
marrow completely. During the interval temporary suppression, the patient's body might somehow become
instead of destroying the bone
tolerant of the graft.
There were many failures as this idea was worked out at Harvard and at other centers. No one knew how large a dose of X-rays to give or how to give it— in one big concentrated dose, or spread out over hours or days. There were no satisfactory guidelines from the animal laboratory; each species, including man, has its own pattern of response to radiation. No one knew whether antibody-suppressing treatment would have to be given after the graft and, if so, what kind and how long it might have to be continued. Merely protecting the patient against infection during the period of antibody suppression posed formidable problems.
was accompHshed in Murray (who had joined the Harvard group as surgeon) grafted a kidney from a Milwaukee student into his fraternal twin brother (born at the same time but developed from a separate fertilized ovum). Antibody-suppressing X-ray treatment was given the kidney recipient both before the operation and later, when rejection of the kidney threatened. Both the donor of the kidney and its recipient are alive and well over four years later. Soon afterward, a similar success was achieved in Paris. And now, as experience has been gained, successes have become more frequent if not yet regular occurrences. The nearly a dozen and a half living "graftees" of today represent the survivors among some 100 terminal kidney disease patients in whom, as of mid-1963, surgeons in Britain, France, and the U.S. had attempted
The
first
solidly successful non-identical-twin graft
January, 1959,
when
Dr. Joseph E.
non-identical-twin kidney grafts.
To is
see one
way
in
which
this
procedure of the surgery of tomorrow
carried out, let us follow the case of one kidney transplant patient,
from Chicago whose kidneys had been destroyed by is the fall of 1962, and the place, the hospital of the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, where Dr. Hume— the surgeon in the early eflFort at kidney grafting at Harvard— is now chief of surgery. An older sister, with the backing of her family, has offered a kidney, which a variety of tests has proved suitable. Only a few weeks before. Dr. Hume (like other surgeons in this field) had promised himself not to take a kidney from a living donor until the chances for success in kidney grafting had greatly improved. Then he had watched a patient die while he waited vainly for a suitable kidney from a cadaver. (Kidneys for grafting must not only be free of disease, but must come from an individual of the same blood type as the patient and, in the case of cadaver kidneys, must be obtained within minutes of death.) Reluctantly, he agreed to accept the older a 19-year-old
infection.
girl
The time
sister's offer.
202
John and Andrew Riteris— non-identical twins on whom a kidney transplant operation was performed. John has two scars from, the removal of both kidneys, and Andrew has one from the removal of the kidney which he gave to his brother
On
the day before the operation,
the patient was
A
the hospital's radiation therapy unit.
wheeled into
150-roentgen dose of X-rays,
spread out over her whole body, was given, followed by another 150 to the spleen
huge
(an important source of antibody -forming tissues). The
machine could have given her the
2,000,000-volt X-ray
entire
dose in fifteen minutes; the procedure was actually spread out over a period of five hours, as experience had shown "easy does it" to be essential to the patient's survival.
The next morning, graft.
the patient and her sister were in adjoining operat-
Hume
ing rooms. In one,
prepared the 19-year-old
The new kidney would be placed
as satisfactory
as
e.g.,
take the
if
there
is
some
specific reason for
own
removing
the presence of disease that might spread from the old
kidneys to the
Meanwhile,
receive the
a position quite
the normal position. Ordinarily, the patient's
kidneys are taken out only
them,
girl to
in the pelvis,
new
one. This patient's
in the other operating
sister's left
own
kidneys were not removed.
room, another surgeon prepared to
kidney.
When Hume removed. A waiting Hume
was nearly ready, the sister's kidney was took it in a sterile pan and walked quickly
signaled that he
back to
his
own
operating room. "I never ask anyone else to carry
the kidney," he says. "If
it's
dropped,
I
have no one to blame but myself."
With all due deliberate speed, the graft was connected first to a leg artery and then to a leg vein. The shorter the period in which the kidney is without a blood supply, the better for the kidney and the better for the patient.
203
Biological Sciences
The kidney turned
and Medicine
a healthy pink as soon as the blood vessel clamps
were released. Now, Hume inserted the ureter, the kidney's outlet tube, which had been taken along with the kidney, into the bladder. Even before the operation was completed, the grafted kidney was producing urine. In the first twenty-four hours after the operation, it produced over sixteen quarts— all loaded with toxic wastes that neither the
girl's
onmi
kidney machine (a device that has come into recent years as an aid in kidney-disease emergencies) had wide use in remo\'e. been able to During the next three weeks, tlie patient underwent an extraordinary-
kidneys nor an
artificial
transformation, from a pathetically ant, rapidl\-
frail,
cranky, near-child to a pleas-
de\eloping \oung woman. Her appetite was voracious: she
day plus snacks in between. But the critical point in the graft procedure was yet to come. Three weeks after the operation, her white cell count— an index of the state of her bone marrow— began ate SL\ full meals a
to fall as a result of the X-ray treatment the da}- before tlie grafting
few da\s, white cells were all but undetectable in her Her bone marrow was effecti\ely paralyzed. Xo antibody-fomiing cells were being produced. This protected the new kidne\- against operation. In a
blood.
a graft reaction, but
To
it
protect her, she
left
her helpless against infection.
was placed
in a sterile
room— a new
facilit\' at
the
and the first of its kind anywhere. Air filters and germicidal lamps keep the interior of the room freer of bacteria than an operating room. Entry is through an air lock, in which doctors and nurses— pre\iously scrubbed— are sterile-gowned. Food, anything needed for the care of the patient, books, and newspapers are sterilized and passed through a special port. The bed and other furnishings themseh'es are autoclaxed hospital
before the patient glass screen,
is
mo\ed
in.
behind which there
Msitors talk to the patient through a is
also a tele\ision set to help the pa-
tient pass the wear>' hours.
The the
sterile
efiFect
room did
its
job for the Chicago
of the radiation treatment
girl.
\^"ithin
two weeks,
on her bone miirrow had begun
to wear ofi^ to the point \\here she could return to her o\\'n room, though some precautions still had to be observed. She also began drug treatment designed to prevent a full recovery of the bone marrow and to keep antibody production at a relati\el\^ low level. Experience has shown
that this will protect the kidney against rejection, yet pro\ide protection
against infection.
Three months
woman,
left
specialist
after the operation, the patient,
the hospital to return to Chicago,
was able
to take over the task of
now
a blooming
where
young
a kidney-disease
watching her and of regulating
her drug dosage to keep the kidney functioning. Actually, she could not yet be counted a "cure." finally
accepted
b>-
the
It
may
take a year before a grafted kidney
is
body and the drug regimen can be abandoned.
204
Leonard Engel, Kenneth Brodney This has been indicated not only by experience with the small successful kidney graft patients so far, but also
a kidney
is
by
grafted into a dog, the graft will succeed only
ceives X-ray or drug treatment at the time of operation
ment
is
number
studies of dogs.
and
if if
the
dog
drug
of
When re-
treat-
continued for eight to ten months. After that, the alien kidney
appears to be accepted and antibody-suppression treatment can be
dis-
continued.
The important ing procedure
and
is
point, however,
is
now managed. As
not precisely
time goes on,
how it
the kidney graft-
will
become simpler
can already be discerned. Thus, investigators at the University of Minnesota recently found that mice can be induced to accept skin grafts without injection of donor cells at birth, without easier. Signs of this
X-ray treatment, and without antibody-suppressing drugs; repeated
in-
from the donor strain over a period of a dozen weeks or so will do the job. It is probable that correspondingly simple methods of carrying out grafting will be developed for man. The real point is that a new medical advance with profound and revolutionary implications is rapidly emerging from the trial stage. Experiments looking toward the transplantation of nerves, lungs, stomach, intestine, liver, ovaries, and endocrine glands, in addition to kidneys, are under way. Some must soon begin to achieve success. Such accomplishments will provide a critical test of men's attitudes toward themselves and each other. Someday, it may be possible to use animal tissues and organs for human grafting. For a considerable time, however, tissues for grafting will have to come from living human donors or, where possible (in any event, in the case of one-of-a-kind organs), from cadavers. Even removal of segments of skin or use of blood from the dead is still repugnant to many people— a circumstance reflected in the many laws that raise obstacles to the use of cadaver material. As to organs from living donors, giving a kidney is not the same as giving blood; a kidney will not grow back. Still, as a New York specialist recently remarked, "When kidneys can be transplanted, two kidneys jections of killed cell material
are a luxury."
The need
How
for organs
and
tissues will almost surely outstrip the sup-
who
gets what? What does the doctor do about the patient who would benefit from a transplant but who has another disease and a poor life expectancy? Is one justified in asking or ply.
does one decide
permitting someone to give up a major internal organ for such a patient?
How much
is one justified in doing to keep a particular individual alive? These questions have a familiar ring; they resemble many that have been raised by other recent developments in medicine. Whatever one may think now, however, the significant answers can come only on a case-to-case and day-to-day basis as tissue and organ transplantation becomes an established part of surgery and such problems are encountered
205
Biological Sciences in real situations.
general terms.
make
it
But
and Medicine
not too early to think of these problems in of the past year in kidney grafting
it is
The developments
be upon us quickly enough.
clear that transplantation surgery will
Cold and ultracold
in
medicine
heart surgery, patients are frequently cooled down to a body temperature of 85° to 80°-some 13° to 18° below normal. The rationale
In
of the procedure, which is called hypothermia, is simple. During heart operations— unless the operation can be carried out without interrupting the heart for more than a brief moment— oxygenated blood must be sup-
plied to the patient's body, especially to such critical tissues as the brain,
by a heart-lung machine. Lowering the body temperature reduces the volume of oxygenated blood needed and greatly simplifies both the construction and operation of the heart-lung machine. Now, medicine is making two other highly novel uses of cold. One is the treatment of ulcers by freezing the stomach solid. The other is the use (temperature:
of liquid nitrogen as a
new
— 196°C.)
species of surgical "knife."
aid, tissues
may
With
its
be destroyed in place easy removal by conven-
either
or frozen solid for tional surgery.
The
ulcer treatment originated in the Uni-
Minnesota laboratory of Dr. Owen Wangensteen, one of the world's most disH. tinguished medical teachers. It promises an
versity of
extremely simple means of treating intractable cases of that widespread badge of modem man, the peptic ulcer. Hitherto, intractable ulcers have required surgery that could even involve (with not at all happy results) removal of the stomach. Now, many patients are being healed by nothing more complicated than swallowing a balloon through which a DR. OWEN H. WANGENSTEEN WrTH GASTRIC FREEZING UNIT Many patients are being healed
by swallowing a balloon through which a freezing solution
is
circulated
freezing solution
is
circulated for forty-five
minutes to an hour. Peptic ulcer the stomach or
is
a result of self-digestion of
duodenum
(the
first
the small intestine after the stomach)
part of
by the
stomach's digestive juices.
In keeping with a long continued interest in the ulcer problem, several years ago Dr.
Wangensteen investigated the effect of temperaHe found their activity greatly
ture on the activity of digestive juices.
decreased at lowered temperatures and, in at
fact,
halted almost completely
temperatures near freezing. The finding was the basis for a
206
new
:
Leonard Engel, Kenneth Brodney
1
', which we ascribe to matter. Beyond the constant conjunction of similar objects, and the consequent inference from one to the other, we have no notion of any necessity or connexion" {Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Vol. 35, p. 479a). nature,
241
Philosophy and Religion
Analytic ontology Blanshard's book is a carefully argued defense
of a metaphysical posi-
world is a completely intelligible system that reason can eventually hope to explore. Comparable in importance is a brief volume of a very different stamp, Herbert W. Schneider's Woodbridge Lectures on Ways of Being: Elements of Analytic Ontology. These lectures are crammed with a wealth of original and suggestive ideas that bear serious pondering. But though they are full of acute criticisms of other positions on a wide variety of specific issues, both many of those held in the classic tradition of Aristotelian ontology and many of the more novel ideas explored in our century, these criticisms are not developed '
tion already familiar-that the
now in fashion, but rather thrown off suggestively and inquiring mind. Blanshard's careful arguments call for painstaking examination and appraisal; Schneider's insights demand rigorous thinking through and further exploration. This may for many deprive them of the immediate appeal they might possess if more fully worked out. But they are the product of long years of meditation and reflection by an independent mind with a gift for new perspectives, for seeing the ways of the world and their relations in new ways. The allusive quality of Schneider's exposition, however, his pointing to rather than fully spelling out the further consequences of what he sees clearly, in the detailed analysis
for the perceptive
and his
him
of the considerations that lead
many
summarize
cult to
make
to reject traditional views,
stimulating suggestions, both critical and constructive, as as
diffi-
the elaborated arguments of the two previous
thinkers.
who long taught at Columbia, is neither a British analyst He is working rather with a full awareness of the classic
Schneider,
nor an
idealist.
tradition that
began with
Aristotle.
modifications of that tradition ation,
whose
But he
made by
naturalistic analysis of
is
also the heir of the critical
the great figures of the last gener-
what there
is
tried to carry
ex-
its
Hobbes, ploration further. He acknowledges For Dewey. Woodbridge, and George Santayana, Peirce, Frederick J. E. in the world him, ontology is the attempt of man to orient himself in indebtedness to Aristotle,
which he finds himself. what it means to be.
It sets
forth
from
Aristotle's original question of
Analytic ontology presupposes that there is a substantial body of information on what there is and what there is not, and it accepts such facts as its starting point in trying to determine what can be said about being in general. What can be said about the ways in which various beings happen to be? And can this be said systematically without going beyond .
.
.
the limits of a factual inquiry?
The
analysis or orientation Schneider
is
contribution to this information. "Its aim
242
upon the makes no new
trying to provide rests
factual knowledge gathered by the various sciences; is
to
it
put things of
all sorts
into
John Herman Randall,
some kind
of order;
Jr.
away of individual beings acHow, and in what different ways,
primarily a filing
it is
cording to their proper fields of being." can things be said to be? But Schneider is working not merely in the
classic tradition of Aristotle
and its further exploration in our century. He has also been impressed by the way the existentialists have shown a renewed concern with the "how" of being, as contrasted with the rather diflFerent question to which Aristotle so soon shifted, the "what" of being, what it means to be a being. To be sure, they have concentrated on how being appears in man, in human "existence," and Schneider does not share this narrow focus on
human
existence; man's situation involves his relations to
many
other
and by beginning with a study of how these other beings exist we may hope to get a more accurate perspective on man's own type of being. But Schneider nevertheless finds many of the questions and distinctions of the existentialists illuminating, and he tries to make use of them in his larger exploration of the different ways of being encountered in the world. Cutting out, then, the "anthropocentric methods of analysis" (the existentialists' starting with being as it is exhibited in man), he attempts to extend these questions and distincH^^^^™ tions to all the ways of being, and to incorporate them into the naturalistic ontology stemming from Aristotle. Here is one of the few instances of genuine contact between two of our different critical philosophies. For Schneider, Heidegger is not the author of a beings,
m
new
gospel, but the source of suggestive ideas
be used Fundamental
that properly interpreted can rich ontological analysis.
conviction that the world
each of
new
is
to enis
his
changing, that
generation has to undertake the task
orientation
afresh,
and that there may
hence be objective reasons why ontology needs to be revised and rewritten. The problem he has been long reflecting upon is "what Herbert W. Schneider it now means to be in the world as it now is." Schneider agrees with Aristotle that there is no single way in which things can be said to be.^ Instead, he finds three basic, irreducible ways or "dimensions" of being: natural, cultural, and formal. But he departs from tradition in finding no "cosmology," no structure of the world as a Some things are 3 "There are many senses in which a thing may be said to 'be'. said to be because they are substances, others because they are affections of substance, others because they are a process towards substance, or destructions or privations or quahties of substance, or productive or generative of substance, or of things which are relative to substance, or negations of one of these things or of substance itself" (Aristotle, Metaphysics, Vol. 8, p. 522b). .
243
.
.
Philosophy and Religion whole, that would
Our world
other.
make is
how
clear
these three
ways are related
not in that sense "intelligible." There
is
no
to each
map
of
no science of the whole world. "I have been unable to find a privileged place where I could get a panoramic view of the world from the outside. I have done the best I could to describe as much as I could from the inside, where the view is not too good." Schneider is thus expressing what we have called the pluralistic the world as a whole, for there
is
all our critical philosophies of experience today. He oflFers an analytic ontology, not a speculative metaphysics. The world lends itself to many human perspectives from within. But
conclusion of
while nature, culture, and structure are found together in countless ways in the world,
the systems and structures which we discover in the world no evidence that they all are parts of a single system. ... as we follow the diversified ways in which things and systems are together we do not arrive at a total system. Totality is a purely denotative term and There is no totalizing process, no impHes no systematic structure. summing up of incommensurables. The world is not a sum of beings but a receptacle in which diverse beings mingle in an indescribable com-
despite there
all
is
.
.
.
patibility.
Things might possibly constitute a systematic unity; to the best of our knowledge they actually do not. Nor is the world, if not a system, a community, as cosmologists like Whitehead have argued, a network of communication systems. Anything in the world is apt to be involved in all three ways of being; but while
all
things together are in the world, they are not in communication.
Schneider rejects also the notion of levels or stages of being, of which he takes Nicolai Hartmann's elaborate
scheme
of the "ontology of
emer-
gent evolution," a pattern popular a generation ago, as a sophisticated illustration.
This
may
well be a transcription of the varied aspects of
being in man, but it is both anthropomorphic and explains nothing. After paying his respects to the "quest for Being"— reality is where we start
our analysis, not where
we
surd, inappropriate, idolatrous
The
arrive, and the cult of "Being" is "aband empty form"— Schneider concludes:
is exhibited here and now, and it is not a struccannot be told, it must be admitted, for it precedes all analysis. ... In short, being is no fit object of criticism or praise, and hence, the only useful kind of ontology is analytic, tentative, piecemeal.
unity of the world
tural unity. It
Schneider starts by trying to clear the ground. His first chapter, "Logic and Ontologic," examines the subtle relations between the formulation of how things can be said to be, and how they really are, with all its dialectical puzzles and all the linguistic entanglements into which men have fallen. His aim is to clarify ontological analysis by freeing it from dependence upon logical "necessities." Ontology, to be sure, must use
244
John Herman Randall,
}r.
language and logical forms; but its commitments to logic are no different from those of any other concrete scientific analysis. Schneider goes as far as possible toward an ontology without logic. Above all, its analysis needs no foundation or "grounding" in any necessary truth arrived at by transforming logical certainty into existential subject matter. Traditionally such a grounding has depended on some form of the ontological argument;
has seemed too naive to take being for granted as
it
given factually and as open for investigation. This leads to an acute criticism of two versions of the argument for some "necessary being": the
simple form in Aristotle (see Metaphysics, Vol. 8, pp. 601b-603b), and Descartes's argument for the existence of himself and of God ( see Meditations, Vol. 31, pp. 77c-89a).
A
dle, that
either
is
or
Finally, there has
is
not,
Nor does the logical law of excluded midapply to ontology.*
been a search
in the tradition for a principle of
individuation. Schneider defends individuality as an ultimate category of ontological analysis: individuals are not
formed by uniting un-indi-
viduated elements, for they are themselves ultimate elements of being.
With
Aristotle
he agrees that being
individuated. "It
is
is
more reason-
able to accept individuality as a basic fact, than to invent stories about its
origin." This leads to a suggestive analysis of the interplay of indi-
and
viduality
relationality as facts of being generally, of "things,"
of existence, all of
which are always
relative to
some
and
context.
ways of being gets its suggesand separations. Nature is basic, Natural being presupposes no other kind;
Schneider's analysis of his three basic tiveness
from
his original groupings
foimdational for being it is
itself.
the dynamic matrix and source of
tainer or "receptacle" within
be found a variety of natural
compound Not
all
orientation;
which
all
all
that moves. It remains the con-
events happen. Within
"fields," so that
it
are to
every natural being has a
they jointly provide the context for processes.
natural processes are alike; there are at least as
many
types as
there are natural sciences. Schneider distinguishes five categorial "fields"
The most general is the space-time frame for motions and measurements. What has continuum, a universal been known as the electromagnetic field is the general realm of interactions. Then there is the field of natural history, the endurance of natural beings that have careers, both inorganic and organic. Organisms exhibit needs, which lead to selective appropriation and effort, and to the or
modes
of natural conditioning.
dimension of feelings and values. Where there is life, there is nature; but there is also elementary selection and valuation. Values come into being in the course of nature, but they lead on to the arts of culture. 4 The law of excluded middle was originally enunciated by Aristotle: "In the case of a pair of contradictories, either when the subject is universal and the propositions are of a universal character, or when it is individual, as has been said, one of the two must be true and the other false" (On Interpretation, Vol. 8, p. 28a-b).
245
Philosophy and Religion
we come
and habit formation which are the rooting of intelligence in nature. Somewhere there dawns along the path of learning the ability and then the habit to look ahead and to become aware of where the use of means is leading. This is the field of finality, of natural teleology, of the means-end relation. All this SchneiLastly,
to those processes of learning
der includes within natural being.
own comment
His
runs:
have distinguished the basic fields and processes in ways which cross the conventional distinctions between man and nature, for I have put man into nature, which is his original habitat. I have linked inorganic with organic "careers," whereas living processes are usually distinguished sharply from the inorganic. I have associated many aspects of human nature, including the primitive forms of learning, consciousness, and intelligence with those of other animals, and reserved only the more organized, systematic, and methodical developments of art and mind as cultural opI
erations or experience.
Turning from the human animal to the human person and from natural processes to actions, operations, or procedures, Schneider encounters a
new way ture.
of being,
Human
which
in contrast to nature
operations are
is
conveniently called cul-
work and production, instrumental and
perimental, a use of natural resources as resources for
human
ex-
culture.
Schneider uses "experience" as the process of learning by operating, it with the Greek notion of techne or "art" as meaning ac-
equating
the worker who does a human job, who operates sucway, he gives the name "person." Personality is the outcome of cultural being. Persons are made, not born. The child acquires a "mind" in the process of "appropriating" the operations of its particular cultural field. When it has a "mind of its own," it is able not merely to do its own work, but to understand what is implied in participation in a culture. No individual can confer personality on itself; a person is
quired
skill.
To
cessfully in this
necessarily a social being.
The progress
of a person
and
of a culture
depends on four elements:
the funding of memory, the vesting of interests, the organization of
The funding of memory is the way that the person's interests, ideas, and imagination can have at hand capital, gleaned from experience, as resources for meeting new problems. Then his interests must ideas,
and the
vitality of the imagination.
relating of the past to the present in such a
be vested
must be specialization, dimust generate ideas, be conceptualized, symbolized, and communicated. Ideas take the form of jobs, tasks, problems, plans, methods, enterprises. Lastly, interests must be nourished by imagination. Against the background of this psychology of experience, Schneider in relation to his institutions; there
vision of labor, integration, selection.
The
interests
distinguishes four basic structures or fields— four dimensions of culture— within which cultures take on their varied patterns and achieve their
246
John Herman Randall,
Jr.
They are historical being, moral being, coexistence, and communion. What does it mean to be an historical being? This is something more than to be a part of the general course of natural events. In
varied works.
analyzing this more, Schneider
is
led to delineate historical time, the liv-
ing or funded past, and the anticipated future, and concludes that "hav-
ing a mind" and "being historical" are two ways of describing the same fact of experience.
Moral being, or the realm
of obligation,
transactions. Obligations are generated
is
the field of institutional
by the
conflicting
demands
of
out of these conflicts there emerge standards for
intersecting groups;
membership and general norms
for transactions.
The
primary- function of
not the definition of the good or of values, but the specification of the conditions required for co-operation; moral rules define the social conditions under which any value can be pursued. Any organized moraht)'
is
group develops a moral structure
Obhgations are social, is independent
of obligations.
institutional beings; they are quite objecti\-e, their reality-
any person to recognize them. They are the matrix within which other aspects of cultural being function, the public framework of transaction. Schneider is at his most original in this theory of of the willingness of
objective
obligations,
which
is
an
institutionalized
development
Hobbes (see Leviathan, Vol. 23, pp. 86c-96b). The third dimension of cultural being, "coexistence,"
is
of
the field of
co-operative production in institutions, of the diversified, unsystematized, ununified arts and sciences in which mankind has preserved and method-
developed what it has learned to do, to think, and to cherish, the varied forms of man's productive work through which he learns. They ically
all exist
together in proliferation; their only unity
interests in
each personality. In such choice
Under the fourth dimension, which
is
lies
is
the integration of
the most real freedom.
communion,
or imaginative per-
sonal relations, are grouped friendship, piety, or devotion to endangered
goods and ends (known today as "commitment"), and communion with spirits— invisible, haunting persons, those once living or purely imaginary
and
fictitious.
The systems
of formal being derive from the process of formulation, which takes place both in the realm of natural processes and in that of cultural operations; and there is an interplay between activities and forms, systems, and structures. But formal systems have a way of being of their own, categorically unlike others. They are found in great profusion. Schneider tries to exhibit a few basic types that show they are
not limited to conceptual or theoretical systems alone, or restricted to the world of discourse, logic, or mind.
He
starts
with the
latter,
"rea-
son" or the systems of ideas which arise in communication. Ideas are by their nature systematic
tions to nature
and
and
interrelated; they display both actual rela-
to culture,
and formal systems 247
of
symbolism and im-
Philosophy and Religion plication.
a
fifth
Some make
assertions about matters of fact
system of "evidence" or knowledge
of
and thus enter
into
nonformal beings, a body of
in a system of evidence, which structures of evidence in other on to rules out "self-evidence." This leads
sciences or truth. Facts are always
made
arts like the law.
But such forms of "reason" exist side by side with other formal structures. There is an analysis of the different forms in the arts. There are the formal fitnesses that characterize "decencies" and deontologies— here Schneider explores the "rational" or formal aspect of moral being very acutely, of right and wrong rather than interests and values. The kind of "ought to be" here involved is merely the completion of an existent situation
which
is
determinative or demanding, so that the "ought"
already contained in what
is
is
there. If an objective or situational calcu-
can be generalized or systematized, a forpossible. In moral relations one begins with given
lus of what-needs-to-be-done
mal science of duty is obstacles and tries to discover the rules of the game. Such situational determinism is a particular form of "objective relativism" in a realistic survey of systems and of formal being. Schneider extends it to the formalities of religious celebration, and to harmonies in general. He is led to a reinterpretation of the myth of natural law, which he takes as a symbol of the determining powers of cultural being. "Despite nature's neutrality, man's cultural environment and conditioning are such that his moral field, that his
is,
the very structure of his situations,
movements and
decisions."
The
frequently determining for
is
existence of such objective situational
structures throws doubt on the gulf
between the
"is"
and the "ought,"
wholly the exercise of freedom. "No human determinations are ever purely external or purely internal, wholly fated or wholly free," Schneider concludes, "We have at last been compelled to think of our world of forms in pluralistic terms. We hardly even dream of
and upon the moral
life as
a universal structure or form of forms.
The information
of things
is
rela-
tional, relative, multidimensional." It
has hardly been possible here to do more than suggest something of
Schneider's originality of approach, his fresh
ways
of seeing things to-
gether and yet as distinguished from other things. His use of many of the characteristic ideas of recent American philosophy is apparent. And it
is
hoped
that something has
been indicated
of
how, by emphasizing
the situational character and general objective relativism they share, he has been able to incorporate into a pluralistic and naturalistic ontology many of the insights of the existentialists.
Major translations by side with the books from three very different traditions that have just been examined, there have appeared English translations of
Side
two others that
in their
new
dress are
bound
248
to
make
a significant
if
slow
John Herman Randall,
Jr.
impact upon philosophizing in Enghsh. For they are major classics in the Continental philosophy since World War I, in the currents of thought that in both Germany and France pushed the phenomenological analysis
Edmund
of
Husserl on into those positions loosely grouped together as
existentialist.
Martin Heidegger
is
the acknowledged fountainhead of this philo-
sophical stream. Until 1962 there existed in English only versions of
some
on Greek philosophers and German Romantic poets. These, even taken together with various brief preliminary sketches for the ontological analysis of being he has long promised but never worked out, hardly suflBced to explain his impressive influence. And in any event they have seemed to many to suggest a significant change away from of his shorter essays
was originally found so stimulating. Last year there appeared a translation of his Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, which, by coming to terms with the major figure in the German tradition, serves as a kind of introduction to Heidegger's position— a better one than to Kant's own thought, it has been held. Now at last appears Heidegger's epoch-making book itself. Being and the position that
Time, published as Sein und Zeit in 1927. This is a study of the strucit appears in man, in finite human existence. It was originally announced as preliminary to the analysis of being itself, a task
ture of being as
Heidegger has not yet achieved.
It
contains his analysis of the
human
and temporality. Sein und been held to be virtually untranslatable— even into German, it was said. For it manipulates the German language in the way Hegel attempted, and in the way Aristotle manipulated Greek. The present translators, John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson, have wrestled long with their thorny problem; they provide a lexicon of terms, and many
situation in terms of anxiety, care or concern,
Zeit has long
footnotes that try to explain Heidegger's subtle linguistic distinctions.
How
far they
lish, like
will
have succeeded
depend on
The
in
the further question of
making Heidegger intelligible in Engfar Heidegger is himself intelligible,
how
one's ultimate philosophical judgment.
is Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenolowhich appeared in 1945 as Phenomenologie de la Pergy ception. Merleau-Ponty, who died in 1961, was the outstanding univer-
other major translation
of Perception,
sity
teacher in France in the revolution in philosophy generally taken to
initiated by Jean-Paul Sartre. There is more of Husserl and method of careful descriptive analysis than of Heidegger in this book, and its author was a leader in popularizing the phenomenological method
have been his
in
French philosophizing. This volume, starting out
tion of our perceptual experience as
plex that experience intellectualism
is
it
is" exhibits
as "a direct descrip-
how much more com-
than either traditional empiricism or traditional
and rationalism have found
it,
and brings a wealth of
carefully reinterpreted psychological experimentation to support
249
its
de-
,
Philosophy and Religion scription. It uses
its
account of "pre-objective" and non-reflective experi-
ence to furnish a detailed criticism of the "classical prejudices" and assumptions of the theories of knowledge of minates, in
good
modem
philosophy.
It cul-
existentialist fashion, in a dis-
cussion of temporality and of freedom.^
Both Being and Time and Phenomenology of
Perception are established books, which
have long had an opportunity to exhibit their seminal character. They have been unusually fertile in provoking and sustaining further philosophical developments within the currents of thought in which they are so fundamental. They have aroused interest in the problems they raise, in their method of formulating, and perhaps above all in their method for dealing with those problems. Both are at bottom fundamentally critical studies. They appeal to a fresh consultation with and analysis of man's direct experience of the world in which he finds himself. They have thus iniMartin Heidegger
tiated a reconstruction of the traditions out of
which they sprang; though it is instructive to observe that Heidegger, like Husserl himself, has shown a tendency to fall back on an enlarged transcendental philosophy with marked analogies to that of Kant, and that in the end Merleau-Ponty makes central a reexamination of the Cartesian cogito. As such, both books furnish gateways into the Continental enterprise of radical rebuilding and extension of their earlier traditions. Both speak in an idiom of their own, a mixture of their particular tradition, of the language of Husserl's phenomenology, and of the authors'
own
novel distinctions.
Will they prove capable of making a real impact on English-speaking philosophizing,
whose language and methods have been and
still
They
are both extraordinarily difficult books, subtle
and elabo-
different?
are so
rate analyses of experience approached, inevitably (despite their professions of intention to
be resolutely descriptive and presuppositionless )
through a framework of traditional assumptions and unquestioned distinctions. The first step has been taken in putting them into English. The more fundamental translation calls for philosophic minds with the imagination to see
how both
end a common enterprise Eugene
traditions are
now engaged
in
what
is
in the
of critical reconstruction.
F. Kaelin, of Wisconsin, in his
An
Existentialist Aesthetic, gives the
detailed examination and commentary in English on Merleau-Ponty, his critical enterprise with the views of the Americans James, G. H.
Dewey.
250
first
comparing Mead, and
John Herman Randall,
Jr.
Meaning, theory of knowledge,
and philosophy
of science
much of the best work of the analytic philhas been done in clarifying particular points, or dealing with specialized themes, in the general field of logic and its interrelation. For the same reason, there can here be mentioned only a few of the the nature of the case,
Inosophers
more
interesting books that
phors lysts
is
a
welcome
working
in
have appeared
collection of papers
America,
Max
in this field.
Models and Meta-
by the dean
of linguistic ana-
Black of Cornell, his
first
since the Prob-
lems of Analysis in 1954. Black shows how his methods can clarify and make precise issues in the philosophy of language, the theory of meaning, the logic of
Here are
metaphors and models, induction, causation, and time.
his study of the linguistic relativity of B. L.
Whorf and
his
presidential address on language and reality, in both of which he concludes, "No roads lead from grammar to metaphysics." The Diversity of
Meaning of of meaning
L.
J.
Cohen
is
the most thorough and comprehensive study
since the classic
Meaning
Meaning of C. K. Ogden and the few analytic philosophers who of
Cohen is one of on the work of the linguists. Peter T. Geach, in Reference and Generality, examines the form of meaning so central in discussion since Russell's doctrine of denoting, applying formal logic to arguments in everyday language, and considering medieval views on the modes of reference as well as the recent views centering on Russell. The old epistemological problems continue to haunt some thinkers. I.
A. Richards in 1923.
rely heavily
Here might be mentioned two sharply contrasting studies of perception. D. M. Armstrong, an Australian philosopher, has followed up his Perception and the Physical World (1961) with a study of Bodily Sensations. Armstrong holds the view of "direct realism" as to perception, which he defends by refuting with "conceptual analysis" both the representative theory and phenomenalism: what we immediately perceive is something physical, which exists independently of our awareness of it. In Bodily Sensations he argues that the sole immediate objects of bodily and tactual perception are the thermal and spatial properties of our own body, and physical objects in contact with it. But in the end Armstrong so qualifies his position by extending the scope of perceptual illusion in the face of physics that it is hard to see what is left of it. We seem to be back with what the Americans called Neo-realism, now, however, acutely defended by the latest methods of analysis. John W. Yolton, in Thinking and Perceiving, is, in sharp contrast, a convinced dualist; he is the foremost American student of Locke. By careful criticism of Dewey and G. H. Mead, as well as of Merleau-Ponty and Ryle, from all of whom he nevertheless draws much, Yolton concludes that images, meanings, significations, and concepts are "mental entities." There is indeed a continuity between thought and action, but 251
Philosophy and Religion a physiological process remains of a different order of reality from a mental process. The logic of mental words must be joined with the
Thinking thus appears as an emergent process. Yolton relies on psychological theory and experimentation as well as on philosophical reflection; but he is driven to work out a theory of philosophical explanation that makes not deducibility but "intelligibility" the basic feature of the logic of explanation. The understanding the philosopher seeks through his theories is not primarily empirical: it is metaontology of mental
entities.
be verified, but it is none the less explanatory. It must be constructed in close contact with scientific data, but in its explanations it goes beyond them. Thus philosophy and the sciences can fruitfully work together, without philosophy being restricted to methodo-
physical. It cannot
on the techniques of the sciences. What both Armstrong and Yolton are attempting is now coming to be called "philosophical psychology," and seems to be growing rapidly in poplogical or logical observations
ularity.
In the philosophy of science there has been no writing so outstanding as Ernest Nagel's
The Structure
Thomas The Structure
of Science (1961).
his contribution to the Unified Science series.
Revolutions,
S.
in
primarily concerned to deny
is
the view that scientific knowledge tive,
Kuhn,
of Scientific
and that one
scientific
the logical sense on
its
cumula-
is
theory builds in
predecessors. Kuhn,
after reading Wittgenstein, has discovered ob-
jective relativism,
and
realizes that alternative
scientific theories
may
present us with alterna-
views of nature, each one of them being an acceptable view of what nature is like, if it does not prove to be inconsistent or incomplete. Karl Popper has added a volume of stutive
dies.
Conjectures
appUes
basic
his
method suggested
and
Refutations,
conception in his title to
of
which
scientific
many
topics
ranging from the status of science and of metaphysics, which he does not take to be meaningless, principles. Karl Popper
public
opinion and liberal
opposition in the Vienna Circle, developed in his
edition,
to
Popper, once the leader of the
Logic of Scientific Discovery (German 1959), the anti-Baconian view that
1934; English translation,
science proceeds by conjectures, anticipations of nature,
and by tentative which are then subjected to critical tests and refutation. They may well be shown to be false, but not to be true or even probable, in guesses,
the sense of any calculus of probabihties.
252
To be
of
any value a hypoth-
John Herman RondalL esis
must be thus
principle falsifiable;
in
step forward. This sense of liberal
and the advocate
human
fallibility
Jr.
is
always a
made Popper
a political
refutation
its
has
of "piecemeal engineering" in social matters.
has also led him to find congenial the similar strain in Anglo-American philosophizing, and he has been learning much from Peirce, as the It
theor)' of degrees of truth
emphasized
in this
volume seems to suggest.
Ethics that The notion the concepts
ethical theory
primarily concerned with the anah'-
is
sis of men use in their everyday decisions and judgments has pretty much dominated English philosophical reflection on
ethics in this century. It was made central Cambridge philosopher G. E. Moore in
in the Principio Ethico of the
339a-436c) spends so
much
outset of his discussions;
At Oxford it received whose Ethics (Vol. 9, pp.
1903.
strong support from the study of Aristotle,
time on just such a careful analysis at the
and
as
Oxford idealism declined
in the 1920's,
element of Aristotle came to the fore there too, though the particular concepts emphasized, like the Right, carried the lingering odor of an earlier Kantianism. When the full force of linguistic analysis this initial
was
felt at
Oxonians. of the
Oxford,
The
it
found
fertile
soil
among
the classically trained
writings of the English analysts on ethics bear something
stamp of an incipient Aristotelianism brought up
to date. \\'ith the
spread of these methods to the United States, it becomes important to understand what these moral philosophers are trying to do and how they do
it.
We now
possess an excellent balanced introduction to this whole by an American, the late Sidney Zink, in The Concepts of Ethics. Though his book does not display the originality, for instance, of Schneider's treatment of moral being and obligation, it explains lucidly the issues that have been raised and the various positions taken on them; and by its moderation and sanit}^ in arriving at his own adjudication, it is a persuasive recommendation for the analytic approach to the under-
discussion
standing of the moral
life.
Zink
is
concerned to elucidate "the way
we
think" about such things as value, obligation, and responsibilit)-; in doing so he has method of
we
way we
talk" about them. "The by a conjoint analysis of \\'hat think, the dominant philosophical "common sense," was emphasized
to refer continually to "the
treating philosophical problems
think and
how we
speak
is,
I
method today." The way we think, by Moore, the way we talk by Wittgenstein. The latter, Zink judges, is most important where puzzles have been generated through the looseness and ambiguity of language, as on the questions of responsibility and "free wiU." But common opinion is often confused; there remains great need of clarification of the basic ethical concepts, through careful analysis of their meanings.
253
Philosophy and Religion purely theoretical matter. For while such analysis need not take a stand on the more particular questions for ethical decision, the analyst cannot avoid doing so on the general issues that are of great practical importance, like whether value judgments can lay claim to
Nor
is
this a
is no such thing as a "meta-ethics" quite pure there cannot be a "pure" ethics. commitments: of practical useful term than "good," Zink starts by more a "value" Considering construct a "science" of values, but cannot notion. We the analyzing
being knowledge. There
value statements are not merely "emotive"; they refer to something, a knowable feature of things. As Moore held, value is an objective property of things, but
it is
not in any clear sense simple, intrinsic, or "non-
natural." Men indeed disagree about values, but they admit they are often mistaken, even though there is no general test for the truth of value
judgments. Values are relative to the situation, and are found only in relation to some sentient being. Zink reaches his conclusion, that value is a property about which we attempt to make true judgments, only after a long consideration of all the objections
By is
a similar series
of careful arguments, he
a single sort of thing, like the satisfaction
Such reductionist views or
and arguments against it. view that value
rejects the
of desire,
or pleasure.
assert the presence of different species
at once dimensions of that one thing, for which they provide no
principle of ranking. Zink thus maintains a
clear
compromise between
"ex-
treme relativism," which holds that value judgments deal with no objective property, and "extreme objectivism," which holds that value can be known with the precision of a "science"— a quite Aristotelian position.
On
the central issue of obligation, Zink holds that there are true judg-
ments of value that provide the ground for determining true judgments of obligation. By a detailed examination of the arguments of H. A. Prichard, Sir W. D. Ross, and the other Oxford "deontologists," who maintained that the Right is a distinct ethical category, quite independent of its tendency to maximize the good, he defends the view of Moore that the good can always be used to criticize rules of obligation and particular obligations, and argues for the flexibility of moral rules. When Zink comes to consider moral decision, the moral deliberation that leads up to it, and the other concepts involved— responsibility, will, choice, and intention— what is of greatest interest is not the judicious conclusions at which his analysis arrives, but the method of examining
what men would say only
an
illuminating
in a variety of test
illustration
of
examples. His use of
the
clarifying
power
it is
of
not
such
how Aristotelian has been the atmosphere whole recent discussion, from his opening agreement on: "There is such a thing as moral reasoning, but, as Aristotle said, the judgment must ultimately rest with 'perception,' " that is, with "an original
analytic techniques. It suggests of this
254
John Herman Randall, estimation of
what
is
good." Zink sums up
:
Jr.
"We
hold persons to be under
obhgation only for acts which satisfy the conditions of responsibility.
We hold
them responsible when they act and that for which we hold them obligated and responsible is the realization of what is good." .
.
,
intentionally;
Like
the ethical analysts, Zink attempts
all
up the puzzles about the "freedom of the will." Both the libertarian and the extreme determinist are wrong. We can find no power to clear
of "free will." "Willing" in the sense of trying is
possible, but
The
is
neither
sponsible;
not necessary to being reis
the ability to choose.
fact that our acts are all
caused does not
relieve us of responsibility for them:
who
cause them. "The cause
is
the person in one of his aspects. is
the
sum
presses (or
is
And
we
The person
of his general tendencies
cular intentions.
it is
the person, or
and
parti-
so far as his action ex-
caused by) these, so far
it
Sidney Zink
is
voluntary and responsible." Zink's particular discussion illustrates
how
the analytic treatment of
responsibility
and "freedom," so central a theme
philosophy,
a combination of an Aristotelian concrete analysis of the
is
in
recent
ethical
conditions of moral deliberation and choice, with a rejection of any
we find events subsumable under causal laws, into a universal determinism. Like the others, Zink
"metaphysical extension" of the fact that
Hume, that the contrary of every matter of fact "There are no grounds for claiming to know, in the case of all choices or actions, that no other action was possible. There is not even any ground for claiming to know, in the case of any particular choice or action, that no other choice or action was possible. We just cannot know this much." In this fashion the analysts arrive at an empirical understanding of the human freedom necessary to make moral accepts the principle of
is
possible."
action
and moral judgments of obligation and responsibility meaningful,
a freedom reached more pretentiously by other philosophers.
From
this
turn to the
comprehensive discussion of the concepts of ethics
new book by one
of the leaders in the application of
we
can Oxford
possible; because it can never imply 6 "The contrary of every matter of fact is a contradiction, and is conceived by the mind with the same facility and distinctness, as if ever so conformable to reality. That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction than the affirmation, that it will rise" (Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Vol. .
35,
p.
458b-c).
255
.
.
.
Philosophy and Religion in which moral judgments are made and moral arguments carried on. Richard M. Hare, in The Language Nowell-Smith, in of Morals (1952), was a pioneer, along with P. H. this type of moral philosophy. Unhke most of the analysts, who have devoted their attention to the traditional problems of knowledge and logic, the analytic moral philosophers have taken seriously the obligation to clarify the thinking and practice of non-philosophers, and Hare's present volume is written lucidly for the layman. Where his first book dealt primarily with moral terms. Freedom and Reason goes on to examine the nature of moral arguments and reasoning. Hare begins by reformulating the tests he used before to mark off moral arguments from others. He holds that it is essential to moral terms to be both universalizable and prescriptive. Rules must be used consistently: a rule I apply to myself I must also apply to others. Moral judg-
linguistic analysis to the terms
ments, in this Kantian sense, must be capable of being universalized— though Hare provides for principles being modified and complicated.^ In defending his position Hare here makes it a logical requirement that all words be used consistently, adjectives like "green" as well as "good." And he argues strongly the familiar distinction between terms that are merely descriptive and those that are genuinely prescriptive. At the same time he holds that his own position is valid because men's desires are what they are and because they like what in fact they do like. But to speak morally, they must adopt what they like as an ideal, or advise it
as a principle.
Hare connects his theory with utilitarianism. He makes an important distinction between a morality of interests and a morality of ideals. With interests, we can secure universalization by getting a man to consider whether he would be willing to have others do to him what he is doing to them, and thus persuading him to apply his own principles to them also. But with ideals such arguments are not eflFective, for he would agree to suffer himself what he is inflicting on another in the name of the ideal. Hare has an In the
second half of the book.
illuminating discussion of the fanaticism involved in the morality of ideals,
a
very
realistic
much
in the
modern temper, and the moral
universalization
of
interests.
He
also
superiority of
discusses
with
full
problem of moral weakness, the place of imagination in moral thinking, and the rational basis of tolerance. Perhaps the most original book on ethics to appear has been the Gifford Lectures of Georg von Wright, The Varieties of Goodness. Von Wright, who studied in Helsinki under a member of the Vienna Circle, illustrations the
7 Kant asserted the necessity for the universaHzation of moral judgments in the categorical imperative: "Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law" (Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, Vol. 42, p. 268d )
256
John Herman Randall,
Jr.
succeeded for a time to the chair of Wittgenstein then returned to Finland.
which
He
is
best
his previous writings in English
known
at
Cambridge, but
as a logician, the field in
have appeared; but he has always
displayed a healthy skepticism of exaggerated practical claims for formal logic.
Unhke
who have
emphasized the purely von Wright regards ethics as concerned both with the investigation of its concepts and with the practical direction of human life. Nor does he accept the dogma that denies any logical connection between describing and evaluating. He is fully acquainted with all the recent discussion in moral philosophy that Zink, for example, recounts. But again and again he takes earlier moralists, especially Aristotle, into consideration. And he does not hmit himself to the Aristotle who analyzes the language of morals. He shares also the teleological and functional views of the Greek: evaluation involves existing purposes, function, and pursuits. The goodness of instruments, for instance, is tied up essentially with the notion of those
writers
recently
theoretical function of ethical philosophy,
purpose.
With a wealth
of detailed analysis,
The
many diflFerent forms of goodness: human welfare, and various others. It is ines
as exhibiting only
And
it
is
two forms, the good
Varieties of
Goodness exam-
technical, utilitarian, medical,
a mistake to consider goodness
as
means and the good
as end.
misleading to ask the questions in general, whether value
judgments are objective or subjective, whether they can be true or false or not. The answers will vary in diflFerent contexts. They will depend upon which of the various forms of goodness is being considered, and upon how the judgment is being stated. Thus von Wright allows that first-person value judgments often contain an element of expressiveness which is neither true nor false; but even here that rarely exhausts their content. By his clear distinctions he manages to get away from the over-simplified and one-sided positions that are better suited for purposes of debate than for illumination of the complexities of a field where many diflFerent varieties of values, situations, and ways of talking are clearly involved. His examination shows how the analysts at their most fruitful are pushing their contextual analysis to constructive ends.
von Wright does not shy away in crudely men have used and stUl can employ to illuminate moral experience. He defends the use of such myths as the state of nature and the social contract, and emphasizes their logical value. One of the most interesting parts of an illuminating book is its imaginative use of logical fictions— schematically simplified communities which reveal clearly what is at stake in the practice of
As a modern
logician,
empirical fashion from the theoretical constructions
justice or injustice.
257
Philosophy and Religion Political and social philosophy has already been suggested in connection with Hare's criticism It of the fanaticism of a morahty of Utopian ideals that the current has
been running strongly toward a more modest and more "realistic" view of the complexities of human life, and the need for flexible methods of adjustment rather than absolute principles. Several thinkers coming from very different philosophical backgrounds have undertaken critiques of the moral basis of pohtical philosophy, in the interest of showing the unsatisfactory character of rooting it in absolute and inflexible principles. Sidney Hook has long been a valiant defender of democracy and its freedoms against the upholders of tradition and against modern authoritarian and totalitarian attacks. In The Paradoxes of Freedom he submits to the logic of pragmatic inquiry the very freedoms he finds essential, showing what happens to them in those civil libertarians who try to defend them as absolutes. The correlative of a particular freedom is the negation of the freedom to frustrate it. We want more than one freedom, but the fulfillment of one often leads to the frustration of others. Nothing is so stark a fact in human experience as the conflict of rights.
The prob-
one of adjusting them in particular cases. If any be taken as absolute, this obscures the need to balance them all, in terms of their consequences on the public welfare.
lem
is
Natural rights are reasonable rights, the reasonable and therefore moral goals to which all
governmental action
tries to
show
language
is
subjected.
Hook
that despite often inconsistent
was the position
this
of
Locke and
Jefferson. In the inescapable conflict of rights
and
and responsibilities, no absolute obligation save the moral obligation to be intelligent. Intelligence alone effects a reasonable adjustment, and sets limits of timing, scope, and appropriateduties,
obligations
there can be
ness. It alone
Sidney Hook
of all values
it
is
an absolute value, because is the judge of its own
alone
limitations.
Hook goes on
between democracy and judicial review, and finds grave difficulties in the views of those who have recently tried to justify such review. The authority of intelligence must be vested in democratic political processes, and cannot be delegated to any body which has power but no commensurate reto consider the serious issues in the conflict
sponsibility. Finally, Hook examines defenses of the right to civil disobedience and to revolution, and finds them a contradiction in terms
258
John Herman Randall,
Jr.
within a community that can as a whole be regarded as democratic. He grants a carefully circumscribed right to certain types of non-violent
disobedience in cases where a democracy has violated
its
own
presup-
even these cannot be taken as absolute, and are subject to the need to safeguard the whole structure of democratic society. Hook's moral foundation for human rights is the view that obligation is derived from the reflective judgment that some shared goal, purpose, or need requires the functioning of these rights, and that the goals positions, but
of a democratic community provide the context for civil rights. His fundamental contention is well argued; his particular adjustments raise rather than settle the issues, but at least he has phrased them in such a way that in specific contexts further inquiry and knowledge can be fruitfully brought to bear. It is the great merit of the pragmatic method Hook employs that when successful it manages to transform an issue
to
be debated into a problem to be inquired
into.
Whether modern demo-
cratic societies adequately provide the conditions for this transformation
remains just such a problem. Another writer on the moral basis of political philosophy, Thomas Landon Thorson of Wisconsin, attacks the broader problem of the philosophical justification of majority rule as a decision-making procedure, in
Thorson operates within a very different and analytic philosophy. He sets out to find a philosophical justification for democracy, rejecting both the metaphysical appeal to absolute standards like natural law and natural rights, and the relativistic view that no scientific choice between ultimate values can be made. This involves him in working out a conception of political philosophy that will be able to accept scientific standards and at the same time to "justify." He tries to find such a justification through seeking a model in the way recent philosophy of science justifies its fundamental assumptions. In its historical forms, in Plato, Hobbes, Locke, or Rousseau, political philosophy has always made recommendations on either the deductive model of traditional metaphysics or on the model of empirical inference from facts. It must now recognize that its ultimate political recommendations can be neither theorems in a deductive system, nor empirical hypotheses; they cannot be thus proved or demonstrated. But they can still be made rationally.
his
Logic of Democracy.
context, that of recent logical positivism
Rationality consists in deciding wisely in terms of the context of the decision.
Recommendations are "appropriate" to certain contexts; and must furnish the requisite knowledge of those contexts.
political science
But to operate at all, ultimate political choices, like those of democracy, must be binding in all contexts. How are such ultimate commitments to be made rationally? Thorson's actual defense of democratic procedure relies on Peirce's injunction based on human fallibilism: "The maxim 'Do not block the 259
Philosophy and Religion a statement of the ultimate 'must' of science." Peirce
way
of inquiry'
saw
that the very recognition of
supplies the
is
maxim
this to political philosophy.
or majority,
is
human intellectual limitations in itself human behavior, Thorson applies
that should govern
No one man, no
group, whether minority
ever justified in claiming a right to
the whole society on the grounds that
it
make
knows what the
decisions for
"right" decisions
because the "rightness" of a political decision cannot be proved its consequences cannot be predicted with certitude nor its ultimate ethical supremacy demonstrated— we are obligated to construct a decision-making procedure that will leave the way open for new ideas and social change. "Do not block the possibility of change with respect are. Just
—because
to social goals." In man's very fallibility
is
seen a rather clear-cut recom-
mendation of what is rational to do. Thorson thus sees combined in the "logic" of democracy both the empirical temper of mind and the need and room for the kind of cate-
commitment the absolutists counsel. Indeed, "the philosopher of democracy," Locke, easily combined them both. And despite his strong criticisms of the futility of absolutism, Thorson ends by defending gorical
Locke's use of the language of natural law and natural rights, as the
only terms in which in his day to express this element of commitment (see Concerning Civil Government, Vol. 35, pp. 25d-54d passim). What really doing is to defend democracy as a rational
he— and Locke— are
and it is such a "logic of recommendation" he is exploring. He ends with praise for the British and American tradition in political
faith,
thinking, as having always recognized man's intellectual inadequacies as the beginning of wisdom in politics. His own political philosophy might well be taken as the bringing of central strands in John Stuart Mill, which it so much resembles, up-to-date in the setting of analytic
philosophizing.
Hook and Thorson
are Americans.
British studies in political philosophy
sciences
makes
clear
how
A
significant
volume
of
mainly
and the philosophy of the social
the English analysts have begun to turn their
constructive purposes. In 1956 Peter Laslett and W. G. Runciman of Cambridge published a collection on Philosophy, Politics and Society, largely negative in implications, whose motto was, "Political
methods
to
philosophy
is
dead." But in 1961 H. L. A. Hart used linguistic analysis for
Concept of Law. And now a second volume of studies title comes from Laslett and Runciman, showing a new interest in political theory and the methods and results of the social sciences, and advancing toward prescriptive recommendations. Runciman himself, in "Sociological Evidence and Political Theory," argues the importance of factual studies for social policy, and Alasdair Maclntyre makes a pioneer attempt to relate the recent philosophical
positive ends in his
under the original
analysis of the conditions of
human
"action" to the research of the social
260
John Herman Randall, scientists, in
"A Mistake about Causality
consists in trying to use
an inadequate
constant conjunction, whereas in society
an action might have been other than
Jr.
in Social Science."
The mistake
Humean view of causation as much is due to human "action": an agent always has alterna-
it is,
Hence the body of ideas in a society is important as indicating the limits of action, and account must be taken of the tension between tives.
and other factors. Social ideas and policies, in a word, have ceased to be arbitrary language, and once more have a rational basis and function in genuine decision-making. the rationality of social
life
Religion
Undoubtedly is
forces
the most fundamental problem facing religions today
their sharp confrontation
secular
of
society,
with each other and with the dynamic generated by our rapidly
confrontation
a
contracting technological world. This problem of confrontation
mental, for in practical
and
it
are brought to a focus
intellectual
and philosophical,
porary situation. The great
Roman
own
characteristic
way by
is
funda-
the other problems, both so insistent in the contem-
Catholic Church, under the pressure
of imaginative leadership, tried to face its
all
it
in
calling the Sec-
ond Vatican Ecumenical Council, doubtless the most
significant
religious
event in the
Western world during the past year. With an even broader horizon, for
includes the living Paul Tillich in his
it
religions
of the Orient,
Bampton
Lectures, Christianity
and the En-
counter of the World Religions, tries to approach this central problem, and to set forth
some points all
of
view he considers decisive
attempts to deal with
in
it.
one of the most respected Protesin America, perhaps the thinker who today comes closest to serving as an intellectual spokesman for the more forward-looking and imaginative currents in the very diverse streams of American Protestant Paul Tillich thinking. But he is not only a theologian, he is a philosopher as well. And this gift, combined with his wide learning, his experience spanning two continents, and perhaps above all his long concern with the religious values of so-called secular culture, has given him a wide audience far outside any merely conventionally religious circles. He is both a participant in the Western religious tradition, and also a factual and fair-minded, though not disinterested, observer of its world-wide encounters. Tillich
tant
is
theologians
261
Philosophy and Religion Tillich takes religion broadly as being grasped
to
which
concern
by an ultimate concern
other concerns are preliminary. The religious name for this in the West, God, and in the East, some less personal
all is,
highest principle. But the main characteristic of the present encounter of the world religions is their facing of the "quasi-rehgions" of our time. In these secular quasi-religions, the ultimate concern is directed toward objects like nation, science, a particular form or stage of society, or a highest ideal of humanity. Tillich undertakes an acute analysis of the "radicalizations" in fascism
something
in taking
finite as
religion of equal power,
nature,
in
and
may be those who
it
on the image of
to take
its fragility.
and
their
the evil generated
He
asks whether
most Western countries
and suggests
that in defending itself
is
socialism, all
unconditionally ultimate.
humanism dominant
the liberal
holds,
and and communism, with
character of nationalism
potential religious
The
is
led to violate attack
a quasi-
real danger,
He
it.
he
very
its
judges that
Judaism, Western Christianity, and Islam have been so far comparatively immune to communism, because they still have as their essence the prophetic quest for justice out of which
What
communism
itself
developed.
has been the historical attitude of Christianity toward other
religions? It has not
been exclusively negative, but rather a
union of acceptance and rejection, with
all
"dialectical"
the tensions, uncertainties,
and changes that
implies. Admitting the lack of consistent attitude, emphasizes the strain of Christian universalism from the Gospels and the Fathers through the eighteenth-century philosophies of "religion"
Tillich
of Kant, Fichte, Schelling,
and Hegel, which
in
the later nineteenth
century transformed Christian universalism into humanistic relativism.
As examples
who urged Arnold
J.
of the
most radical re-evaluation, he
cites
Ernst Troeltsch,
replacing missionary attacks with "cross-fertilization," and
Toynbee,
who
advocates a synthesis of world religions.
reaction to this— in the direction of an exclusive conception that Christianity
Thus today there
is is
The
denying
one religion among others— culminates in Karl Barth. a profound contrast, an inner tension and dialectic,
in Protestantism.
This
ambivalence Tillich finds
encounter with the quasi-religions.
makes the
especially Its positive
relation of Protestantism to
confusing
in
the
major
valuation of the secular
them more ambiguous than
that
which denies them any religious significance. Protestantism can receive and transform their religious elements; it is also a more easy prey to their absolutizing of the finite. This attitude toward the quasi-religions of secularism, not one of simple negation but a "dialectiof Catholicism,
cal" one, "is not a weakness, but the greatness of Christianity, especially in
its self-critical,
How No
is
Protestant form."
the continued presence of
religion
is
many
religions to
be understood?
of one pure "type"; rather, each exhibits contrasting poles,
262
John Herman Randall,
Jr.
and tensions between interdependent elements, which drive it on to new its characteristic emphases. This makes possible religious growth without assuming a unilinear development, as did the Hegelians. Thus Buddhism is not a stage of religion now left behind, as Hegel held; combinations of
it is
a
still
living religion, with
its
own
tension of emphases, itself in polar
tension with the emphases of other religions. Christianity cannot be
tion
absolute
the
called
from
all
religion;
has
it
always
embodied some
selec-
the elements and polarities that constitute the religious
realm.
Concretely, Tillich sees the encounter between Christianity and Bud-
between the primacy of the mystical and the ethical elements that appear in different emphases in both. This leads each to a further dialogue within itself over the relationship of the two poles in its own present type. Both religions have grown out of the experience of the Holy as present here and now; like all higher religions, both have transcended it while preserving it, pushing that experience toward the Holy as being— the mystical, and as what ought to be— the ethical. There is no living religion without both, but in all born in dhism
as a "dialogue"
India the mystical element predominates, just as in those born of Israel the social-ethical does. Tillich sketches such a dialogue of encounter in the light of his
own
dialogues in Japan, exploring the contrast between the two symbols for
Kingdom of God and Nirvana. No fusion, no common denominator that would reduce the concreteness of the symbols, is possible. Yet the two are not mutually exclusive; the Christian tradition has included parts of the Buddhist revelation. There is the contrast between the two principles involved, of "participation" and of "identity," the ultimate, the
which lead the Christian while the Buddhist sees Christianity has
man
to
its
it
to see nature as a tool for
as
human
something to be identified with in
purposes, art.
Again,
elements of nature-mysticism. With the relation of
man, participation leads
to
agape— love— while
identity leads to
compassion, the former to the will to transform individual and social
from them. comes to a preliminary breakdown. He
structures, the latter to salvation
Here reflects
for Tillich the dialogue
that
Christianity has
its
own
elements of mystical salvation
no revolutionary dynamics in Buddhism: "No impulse for transforming society can be derived from the principle of Nirvana." But history itself has driven Buddhism to take history seriously: Buddhists in Japan, and not only there, are looking for a spiritual foundation for democracy. Is this possible without the estimate of every individual as a person, "a being of infinite value and equal right in view of the Ultimate?" The Buddhist says, "If every person has a substance of his own which gives him true individuality, no community between individuals is possible." The Christian replies, "Only from
history; but
he can
find
263
Philosophy and Religion
with such persons is community possible, for community presupposes separation. You have identity, but not community." TiUich ends on this note; but will the history of
The
Buddhism?
fruit of Tillich's reflections is that in the
hght of their encounters
must judge themselves afresh. Christianity as the basis of its self-judgment must use the criteria found in its central symbol, which he interprets as the crucifying of the particular for the sake of the universal: the principle of love liberates from bondage both to a particular "rehgion" and to the religious sphere as such. From this followed the two major tensions in Christian self-interpretation, that between the particular and the universal character of the Christian claim, and that between Christianity as itself a religion, and as the negation of "religion." Christianity developed into a specific religion, and also received elements from all the other religions it has confronted. For centuries its openness and its receptivity were its glory, until with the Reformation they were lost on both sides, and it ceased to be a center of crystallization for all positive religious elements. The record illustrates "the rhythm of criticism, countercriticism and self-criticism" throughout all the encounters of religions
Christian history.
What
outcome
the
is
criticism.
in the present
now aware
Christians are
that
They no longer attempt Buddhism,
learn also a
new
a
community
and Taoism he
"dialogue" already started.
From such
Does
this
first
mankind
mean
of them, or the
urges
of conversation; with
a
continuance
of
its
attack
would would then seem
way which
historical
destiny
religiously."
either a mixture of religions, or the victory of
end
the
self-criticism, Christianity
valuation for secularism;
not merely negative, but "the indirect takes to unite
self-
to "convert" in the traditional sense.
With the Jews they have created Hinduism,
encounter? Tilhch assumes that
must be a mutual judging and
it
of the reHgious age? Tillich rejects all three.
would destroy the concreteness which
gives religion
its
one
The
dynamic
power. The second would impose one particular answer. The third will not occur because the religious principle cannot come to an end. A particular rehgion will be lasting to the degree in which it negates itself as "a religion." "Thus Christianity will be a bearer of the religious answer as long as it breaks through its own particularity."
The way
to achieve this
is not to relinquish one's religious tradition concept which would be nothing but a concept. The way is to penetrate into the depths of one's own religion, in devotion, thought and action. In the depth of every living religion there is a point at which the religion itself loses its importance, and that to which it points breaks through its particularity, elevating it to spiritual freedom and with it to a vision of the spiritual presence in other expressions of the ultimate meaning of man's existence.
for the sake of a universal
264
John Herman Randall,
What
Tillich
is
synthesis. Rather,
counseling it is
is
new
not a
community
a
Jr.
universal religion, not a
new
of religions in dialogue with each
other; each led to further self-criticism through the criticism of and by what it encounters. "Community," he insists, "presupposes the separation of what is individual," not a swallowing up in identity. He is applying
own social principle to religions themselves. Where does this leave the quasi-religions? National and social cerns are humanly great and worthy of commitment. But when such
his
con-
mix-
and destructiveness are elevated to unlimited ultimacy, as in their radical forms, they become demonic. Secularism, if it be the aflBrmation of secular culture to the exclusion of religion and prophetic criticism, must be rejected by any religion. But even then it has positive instrumental value: "The secularization of the main groups of presentday mankind may be the way to their religious transformation." And if tures of creativity
it
can retain
secular
its
critical spirit, rejecting all religious
Protestant
absolutism,
Christianity
must
absorb
or quasi-religious
and transform the
of men. We find today those who maintain that must become secular. For these it has become "an expresthe ultimate meaning in the actions of our daily life. And this interests
Christianity sion of is
what
it
should be." Tillich has not forgotten his spiritual ancestor
in Luther.
Assuredly, Tillich has not said the last word in suggesting these approaches to the major religious problem of our times. The processes of dialogue and self-criticism are infinitely difficult in detail, intellectually as well as practically. But without something of the insights and convictions he expresses so provocatively, to
be futile. Perhaps the most
distinctively
all
further words are likely
American contribution
to the theological
reformulations within Protestantism in our century— so distinctive as to
cause European eyebrows to be raised— was the movement toward an "empirical theology" that endeavored to "demythologize" the Christian tradition
by interpreting
it,
not in terms of the earlier philosophical
idealism, or, in the present fashion, in terms of
German
existentialism,
but rather in terms of the thought of the American philosophers of the era between the wars. Easily the most original and provocative of this group has been Henry Nelson Wieman, long an influential teacher in the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. In the Library of Living
Theology has appeared The Empirical Theology of Henry Nelson Wieman, edited by Robert W. Bretall, as companion to earlier volumes on Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Emil Brunner. This comprises nineteen interpretations and criticisms of Wieman's thought from a group ranging from thinkers close to his own position to thinkers as remote from him as Father Gustave Weigel, S.J., and including men like Daniel D. Williams, Stephen C. Pepper, Walter M. Horton, and Edwin A. Burtt.
265
Philosophy and Religion
Wieman
furnishes an intellectual autobiography, and detailed answers
to each of his critics. In the former
philosophers
who formed
his
own
he
tries to
come
to terms with the
Dewey and Whitehead,
views,
well as with Tillich and Karl Barth; in the latter he imdertakes
as all
those necessary qualifications and elaborations a lifetime of religious
thinking has brought
him
to.
From the beginning Wieman asked himself, "What operates in human life with such character and power that it will transform man he cannot transform himself, saving him from evil and leading him to the best that human life can ever reach, provided he meet the required conditions?" From Dewey he learned, "Inquiry concerning what makes for the good and evil of human life must be directed to what actually and observably operates in human life." Following such an "empirical" method, he has found that transforming process, that creative transformation of the human personality, of the social order, and of the course of history, which is the meaning of the presence of God in human experience. Hence he interprets God as what Whitehead calls "creativity," meaning "the transformation of the individual by innovating insights." Religious knowledge will be the discovery, by empirical inas
quiry, of
what does
so actually operate in man's experience.
most fruitful dialogue with Wieman's "naturalism," he fears he has "adopted a much too simple positivism in his epistemology, and then has tried to bring all the cognitive aspects of religious knowledge within the narrow framework of that positivism." Here, as in his other replies, Wieman accepts the emphases of the more sophisticated views of recent theologies of "commitment." But he sturdily insists that scientific knowledge and involvement of the whole personality can be united. Reliable distinctions and creative transformations of human existence need not be in conflict. He has learned much from Tillich and others of the important funcPerhaps Daniel D. Williams
Wieman
initiates the
here. Sympathetic with
with the source of human But he still thinks that what commands faith has a structure by which it can be known, and that this demands cognitive symbols as well, that is, an empirical and philosophical
tions of non-cognitive
good immanent
symbols
in co-operating
in the processes of hving.
interpretation.
The sympathetic on the
reality of
critics in this
volume make
God Wieman saved
clear
how by
insisting
a generation of American liberal
from the narrowness of a mere humanism. The currents have been running in other directions, and most of them have wanted to go on from Wieman. But they all make fundamental his central insistence that unless God is found working in human experience, he cannot be the God who redeems. In that sense, all
religious thought
of recent theology
Protestant religious thinking has
become 266
experiential.
:
John Herman Randall, Tillich
approaches
existentialism,
theologians
the
Wieman
have
problems
in
that
begun
also
to
of
of
Jr.
rehgion
in
philosophic
explore
the
the
language
naturalism.
resources
of
of
English linguistic
was reported in the excellent account by Frederick Ferre, Language, Logic and God. This year we can only mention the volume edited by Ian T. Ramsey, Prospects for Metaphysics, which contains many suggestive studies on the interconnections between theology, metaphysics, and ethics. It indicates that at the moment perhaps the most interesting philosophical development is the marriage between the children of the church and the offspring analysis for their purposes, as
recently
of Wittgenstein.
History of philosophy
Any attempt x\- philosophy
to
consider
the
significant
works
in
the
history
of
appearing during the past year must begin with the
opening volume of W. K. C. Guthrie's Histoiy of Greek Philosophy, planned to carry the story in five volumes down to but not including the Neoplatonists Guthrie judges that with the Neoplatonist Plotinus there seems to enter "a new religious spirit which is not fundamentally Greek," which points to medieval philosophy rather than back to the ancient world. This first volume is entitled The Earlier Presocratics
and the Pythagoreans; it includes the MilesXenophanes, and Heraclitus, as well as
ians,
The author hopes that the second volume will be able to discuss on the same full scale the remainder of the Preso-
the Pythagoreans.
cratic philosophers.
Guthrie
is
the successor of F.
M. Comford
in the chair of ancient philosophy at
He
Cam-
perhaps best known for his suggestive and witty The Greeks and their Gods (1950). His present enterprise is bridge University.
is
W. K. C. Guthrie comprehensive consideration of the whole history of Greek philosophy to appear in English since the translation of Theodor Gomperz's Greek Thinkers (1901-12); it is the first study on such a scale to be written by an English scholar. This initial volume is a worthy companion to the Presocratic Philosophers of G. S. Kirk and J. E. Raven (1957); together the two are bound to supersede John Burnet's Early Greek Philosophy, a landmark in its day, which has served since 1892 as the Bible in English for this field. Cornford used to maintain with some asperity the quality of Cambridge not only the
first
267
Philosophy and Religion classical scholarship in philosophy. It is evident that the present genera-
need fear no lowering of standards. is needed ... is a comprehensive and systematic account which will so far as possible do justice to the opposing views of reputable scholars, mediate between them, and give the most reasonable conclusions in a clear and readable form." He adds, "The qualities called for are not originaHty and brilliance so much as clearheadedness, sober sense, good judgment and perseverance." In tion
Guthrie comments: "What
these latter qualities he certainly excels.
ment here
is
many
of the
What
distinguishes his treat-
not novel interpretations, but his careful taking account scholarly disputations on vexed points of understanding,
and his constant endeavor to give just due to the truth that lies behind what seem to him rather extreme positions, and to explain why scholars have so disagreed. Illustrative is his attitude toward the disparagement of Aristotle as a reliable source on the views of his predecessors, advanced in the impressive and influential writings of Harold Chemiss. He defends "the soundness of Aristotle's judgment in general," and insists that Aristotle himself makes clear the controlling preconceptions which enable us to correct the efiFect of his o\\ti philosophical outlook upon the selection he makes from his past.
As a
result of this
attitude, the reader
can count on a sober and
sane discussion— favorite words of Guthrie— of most of the scholarly controversies
evidence
is
generated by the fact that with the early Greeks the
sufficient to suggest
many
interpretations, but often inade-
quate to refute any one conclusively. Here
what the
early Greeks
is
were doing or how
no preconceived view their
of
pioneer reflections
developed, but rather the present state of scholarly opinion as appraised
by a
mind. Guthrie's plan makes no demand for a knowledge is confined to the supporting footnotes. It seems that this history will remain for some time the standard treatment
judicial
of Greek; such Greek likely
in English, the starting point for all further explorations
ideas formulated
by the Greek mind, and transmitted
of the great
to the
West
in
the classic tradition.
To the present-day mind, the three major figures in ancient philosophy who still seem most illuminating and suggestive in themselves are the three
who
contributed most to the formation of the classic tradition. In
them taken together, we find most of the great ideas first worked out. They still possess a perennial freshness; they remain the intellectual contemporaries of every philosophical mind. of "seminal minds";
our
own
centur>',
It is
even our
fashionable to speak
own
generation, can
boast of some. But the great seminal minds of Western thought have
been Plato, Aristotle, and Saint Augustine. Four very different books in English have recently tried to come to terms with these ever-new figures. No one, however critical of the 268
John Herman Randall, tradition, or howe\'er start, is
convinced he
willing to give
approaches him from
up
Plato.
is
How
that he to find
Jr.
is
bravely making a fresh
much
in Plato
the standpoint of linguistic analysis
the thorough and unorthodox
the Oxford philosopher,
I.
An Examination
M. Crombie. Crombie
is
when one
revealed in
of Plato's Doctrines is
by
helped by his having
much thought to the analysis of the distinctive logic of religious language so as to make sense out of it. Another volume, Norman GuUey's given
Theory of Knowledge, puts rather more emphasis on historical and explores the variety of Plato's contributions to the analysis of knowledge. In The Political and Social Ideas of St. Augustine, Herbert A. Deane, a philosophically trained historian of political theory at Columbia, comPlato's
scholarship,
bines historical with philosophical analysis to exhibit the relations be-
tween Saint Augustine's general framework of thinking and his social and political theories, emphasizing a much closer connection than is often assumed.
He
also explores the coherence of the social philosophy
itself.
In Deane's hands the major transmitter of classical ideas to the
West
turns out to possess as great philosophical
power
as
he has had
influence on the classic tradition.
Emerson Buchanan's Aristotle's Theory of Being is a brief but peneand interpretation of Aristotle's conception of ousia or being as found chiefly in the central Books Z, H, and (VII, VIII, and IX) of the Metaphysics (see Vol. 8, pp. 550a-578a, c). As such, it is trating analysis
probably the most significant investigation of the focus of Aristotle's metaphysics since Joseph Owens' The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics (1951). Like Guthrie's history. Father Owens' study is
a critical examination of the recent literature on the subject.
Buchanan
concentrates on the text, assuming that Aristotle's terms are to be taken
etymological meaning." He finds that in Book Theta (IX) Aristotle comes out with a dynamic conception of being as energeia, "activity." In arriving at a completely universalized concepliterally, in "their plain,
tion of being, Aristotle did not forsake the
dynamism
of his analysis
of natural processes.
Aside from specialized studies, the event of the year in medieval is the brilliant Evolution of Medieval Thought by the Cambridge scholar David Knowles. This is not a history in the conventional
philosophy
and it in fact leaves the presentation of philosophical positions and the arguments for them to others, so that it is most suggestive to
sense,
those already familiar with the substance of medieval philosophizing.
But
it
is
immensely stimulating
as
"history,"
in
the
of illuminating the context of thinking, in the sidelights in the judicious appraisal of relations
and
broader it
sense
throws, and
contrasts. It claims to exhibit
medieval philosophy as the "direct continuation" of Greek thought, and the continuity has never been more persuasively set forth. It is weakest
269
Philosophy and Religion century, whose brilliance it recognizes, as breakdown rather than as the vital reconstruction of a tradition, and in perpetuating the myth of a discontinuity between medieval and modern philosophizing. One more general interpretation of a whole period treats its subject as the working out of a novel intellectual enterprise to a breakdown that called for another fresh start. In the four volume history of philosophy edited by Etienne Gilson, there is now available the third part. Modern Philosophy: Descartes to Kant, by Gilson and Thomas Langan. In the view of the authors, Aristotelianism had exhausted itself, leaving a vacuum to be filled by the seventeenth-century philosophers who started from the new science. Those who, beginning with Descartes, took mathematics as their model produced the golden age of modern metaphysics; those who started with Bacon's observational in treating the fourteenth
the
ideal led in the age of Locke, an age of philosophy without metaphysics, to the tradition of criticism, which, like that of
and
his followers in the fourteenth century,
William of Ockham all metaphysical
banished
speculation, finally losing itself in "the poverty-stricken doctrines of the
nineteenth-century ideologists"
who came
after Condillac.
Kant
the
is
climax of this intellectual episode, and the doorway into "the era of temporality, relativity, and Ek-sistenz." He initiated "the modern reduction
of philosophy to science";
by depriving
ethics
of
any objective
foundations, he started an age of moral faith in which "ethical truth its motives of credibility"; by substituting for obbeauty our appreciation of it, he confused the philosophy of art with aesthetics. Within this framework of appraisal, which the authors do not attempt to keep from coloring their emphasis and their interpretation and criticism of the major philosophers on whom they concentrate, they
progressively lost jective
present a lively and often penetrating examination of those aspects of
modern philosophers
that justify their judgment.
the tremendous influence of the philosophizing
new
They
rightly
emphasize
science in setting the course of
and determining the new
assumptions
on
which
it
proceeded. In the central "problem of knowledge" those assumptions generated, they conduct a very acute analysis from the standpoint of the Aristotelian tradition; this
is
particularly the case with the major empiricists, including
the Lockean side of Kant.
It is
true that the decline of rational theology
and such figures cyclopedists, and Rousseau receive short is
relentlessly pursued,
to explore a detailed critical
modem and
its
Hobbes, Spinoza, the EnBut for one who wants examination of the major figures in earlier as
shrift.
philosophy from a perspective rooted in the classic tradition
enduring ideas,
it
would be hard
work.
270
to find a better place to see
it
at
John Herman Randall,
A
Jr.
work dealing with a specialized discipline, The Development of Logic by the Oxford logicians William and Martha Kneale, must now be set beside A History of Formal Logic of I. M. Bochenski (English translation by I. Thomas, 1961). The work of the Kneales has met with an extraordinarily fine reception, though, as was to be expected in view of the controversial nature of logic today, there have been disagreements about their interpretation of the developments after Gottlob Frege (1848-1925), which occupy the last four chapters. Kneale himself stands broadly in the tradition of J. Cook Wilson, the influential Oxford logician of the first part of the century. The appearance of these two histories of logic after long neglect is an indication that the heirs of the renaissance of formal logic in our century, who have hitherto been too busy to bother with their predecessors, are at last further general historical
begiiming to take a lively interest in past solutions to problems similar to their
own.
American philosophy
Among the many competent jTx movements, there are three
studies of individual philosophers
we emphasized
thought. At the outset
and
dealing with major figures in American
volume on The
the appraisal of the present
American Philosophy by John E. Smith. Smith's analysis of his five representatives— Peirce, James, Royce, Dewey, and Whitehead— is a brilliant delineation of the central drives that distinguished each, and yet united them in a common body of convictions that expressed what Smith calls the "unwritten philosophy" deeply rooted in American experience. These drives and convictions Smith sees in a broader perspective that both exhibits them as continuous with the mainstream of the Western humanistic tradition, and at the same time is aware of their limitations. situation in the judicious
Spirit of
There are three dominant or focal beliefs through which our philosophic spirit can be articulated. First, the belief that thinking is primarily an activity in response to a concrete situation and that this activity is aimed at solving problems. Second, the belief that ideas and theories must have a "cutting edge" or must make a difference in the conduct of people who hold them and in the situations in which they live. Third, the belief that the earth can he civilized and obstacles to progress overcome by the application of knowledge. Taken together, these beliefs define a basically humanistic outlook. ... All things derive their value from the contribution they make to the founding and the securing of the good life. All
human
five
of
Smith's
philosophers
gave
function of reflective thought.
intervene in
human
life,
that
it
central
importance
They believed
to
the
that reason can
can establish connections with
human
purposes and goals. Yet three of them, Peirce, Royce, and Whitehead,
remained devoted to the ancient ideal of rational 271
truth, that
is,
that in
Philosophy and Religion its
distinctively intellectual function thinking
tism" in the narrower sense
is
is
autonomous. "Pragma-
only one form of the broader doctrine
is an activity performed by men, that it is a means of answering questions and solving problems. Smith raises questions about the second conviction, that ideas must make a difference. It is important to do away with specific evils; but
that thinking
man and
is
no mere technician: he is concerned with himself, his nature, For him these are all "practical" problems of the highest
his destiny.
import.
Smith
intelligence
calls
for
a broadening of the scope
traditional quest for understanding. "It
of the
problems
must deal with, from the concern with the immediate
He
judges that this
is
has become increasingly clear that questions about
to the
taking place:
man and his command
inner life— his morality, his religion, his sanity— have taken as the 'real'
Smith
problems of men."
questions
also
the
transform the conditions of
environment,
it
was extended
conviction,
third
human
life.
that
knowledge
can
First directed to the external
to the faith that the
knowledge
of the
problems arising out of social and hishimself might prove to be the greatest problem
social sciences could solve the
"That man and obstacle to progress was not, until recently, considered a serious possibility." Here, too. Smith sees a broadening and deepening of problems. "Controlling the external world is not enough; more attention must be paid to the distinctively human problems of morality, of religion, and of art." Smith does not urge forsaking the characteristic spirit of American philosophizing as articulated by the great figures of the golden age. He ends with a plea for an original and creative philosophy based on two of their central convictions: the belief that experience, in its comprehensive and not in its narrow sense, is a genuine disclosure of reality that can be trusted; and that reason, in the broader sense not limited to an abstract formal structure standing apart from a world of brute fact, or to its deductive sense in mathematics and its analytic function in physics, is an actual power in the world and in living experience. What Smith is really urging is that American philosophizing become aware of itself as the spearhead of the classical tradition of Western humanism, and bring whatever distinctive insights it has been able to attain to the task of extending rather than narrowing the concerns of that tradition of wisdom. But this is precisely the aim of all our critical philosophies of experience. What Smith hopes is that American philosophy can regain the independence of thought that will enable it to torical life.
play a distinctive role in the
Smith
ojEers
common
enterprise.
a sympathetic, though far from uncritical, analysis of
the central drives of major American thinkers of the past eighty years. Side by side with his broad delineation, we can now place the acute
272
John Herman Randall, technical
of
criticism
Jr.
one of the ablest participants
in
those
great
debates. Arthur O. Lovejoy, dean of American philosophers and last survivor of the group Smith
He was most
1962.
since his historical
concerned with, died on December
is
30,
widely known as a historian of ideas, especially
The Great Chain of Being came out in 1936, and his illuminating studies commenced with the very beginning of his career,
was appropriate in one who called himself a temporalistic realist. But his reputation as a philosopher was first established as a leader in the movement of the realistic revolt against idealism in the first decade as
of the century. In his long series of philosophical papers, culminating
Carus Lectures, The Revolt against Dualism (1930), he upheld known as critical realism, largely through bringing his powers of logical analysis to bear upon the vagueness and confusions in his
the position
of other views.
He
took as his special victims the
members
of the other
contemporary revolt against idealism in what was loosely known as the pragmatic movement. These critical studies have now been collected in a volume entitled The Thirteen Pragmatisms and Other Essays, taking its name from the most famous of all ( 1908 ) Throughout, Love.
joy's logical analysis tries first to state explicitly
the premises of a position, next the con-
clusions drawn, and then to examine the argument carefully to see whether the latter follow consistently from the former, or whether ambiguities and shifts of meaning enter at any point. The conclusions are illicit if they spring from an initial confusion or later
vagueness. Lovejoy held that
if
philosophers
can be brought to agree on the definitions of their key terms and on what data they will accept, they may also be brought to agree on their conclusions.
To come
agreement, co-operation
regarded his
is
own work
to such an initial
necessary. Lovejoy
as a contribution to
Arthur O. Lovejoy
this clarifying enterprise.
Lovejoy was the great exposer of the looseness and vagueness in much and his keen criticism is essential, if not always final, in any appraisal, an indispensable supplement to set of the thinking of the pragmatists,
beside Smith's more sympathetic insights. This volume of illustrations of his logical analysis at work has also, as George Boas suggests in his preface, the enduring philosophical value of presenting an analytical
method
that can
be practiced on present-day
a process of philosophizing that
Lovejoy recognized to the
full
is
issues
and
their discussion,
both illuminating and chastening.
the non-rational factors in men's dealing
273
Philosophy and Religion
with philosophical issues, the temperamental assumptions never questioned or even clarified which control men's most rigorous thinking. But he held that rational analysis could bring these non-rational factors to Hght and perhaps even lead to their discounting. As Boas remarks, "At a time of mounting anti-intellectualism, this should prove a welcome antidote." Lovejoy anticipated by a generation the drive for intellectual
emphasized by the present-day brands of philosophical But with his gifts of historical imagination, he had a concern not merely with the issues of his own da>- here dealt with, but with the whole sweep of the classic tradition. What did not pass his own high tests of rational consistency he did not accept, but neither did he dismiss it as meaningless: he tried to understand. Lovejoy's clarification and criticism deal with issues that have now receded into the past. But one of Smith's figures, Whitehead, though clarity so strongly
analysis.
scarcely influential on the
main currents
of
contemporary philosophizing,
continues to be of concern to a small but increasing body of students; and the literature dealing with his ideas has burgeoned in recent years.
dozen book-length studies of his philosophy have appeared in English, and almost as many in other tongues. In 1961 Ivor Leclerc of Glasgow edited a co-operative volume of significant papers, The Relevance of Whitehead; 1963 has already seen another, Alfred North Whitehead: Essays on his Philosophy, edited by George L. Kline. Whitehead, perhaps the greatest speculative philosopher in the AngloAmerican tradition, is a thinker who stands sorely in need of elucidation. We now have the authoritative volume of Victor Lowe, Understanding Whitehead, to ser\^e as the best gateway into his thought. Lowe, though he disclaims discipleship, is one of those welcome students of an original philosopher who can always clear up a difficult point by recalling a private conversation. He has long been known for his careful and detailed study of the development of Whitehead's thought; this essay, thoroughly revised and e.xpanded, forms the central portion of the book. It is preceded by a clear exposition of the major phases of Whitehead's
At
least a
philosophy, and followed by a defense of his conception of experience
and
of the critical
and constructive use he makes
of
it.
Lowe
has no
private axe to grind, and he can put himself sympathetically and lucidly inside his teacher's problems. Since
human
Lowe
is
addressing "the intelligent
and not merely other students of Whitehead, he does not argue with other interpretations; he does not attempt the kind of critical analysis found in the commentaries of Nathaniel Lawrence, Ivor Leclerc, Robert M. Palter, or William A. Christian. Indeed, he has made Whitehead's thought so transparently his o\mi that he fails to see the need of answering the critical questions raised by other competent students. Nor does he, perhaps, really succeed in defending Whitehead's particular form of "experientialism" against the doubts of the "empiricists." being,"
274
John Herman Randall,
Lowe can
Better than any one else,
Jr.
take you inside Whitehead; once
you must use your own wits. But cannot the same be said of all the ence we have here been exhibiting? there,
critical
philosophies of experi-
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The
books
listed
below have been
Deane, Herbert
dis-
Abmstrong,
New
D.
Bodily
M.,
Sensations.
Perception
and
New
Humanities Press,
,
York:
the
Physical
1961.
Geach, Peter
How
Do
ty:
Things with J. Words. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni-
Austin,
L.,
to
Philosophical Papers, ed. by
New
1961.
Max,
Studies
in
socratics
Vol.
A
History of Greek Earlier Pre-
The
I,
and the Pythagoreans.
New
Press, 1963.
Aristotle's
Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, trans, by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper & Row,
1962.
1962.
Jonathan, The Diversity of Meaning. London: Methuen & Company L.
Hook, Sidn-ey, The Paradoxes of Freedom, Berkeley: University of California
Ltd., 1962.
Crombie,
I.
Doctrines.
Press, 1962.
An Examination of Plato's Vol. I, Plato on Man and So-
M.,
Kaelin, Eugene
on Knowledge and York: Humanities Press,
thetic:
ciety, Vol. II, Plato
Reality. Inc.,
1963.
Hare, Richard M., Freedom and Reason. Fair Lawn, N.J.: Oxford University
Theory of Being. Cambridge, Mass.: Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Monographs, Num2,
Inc.,
York: Cambridge University Press, 1962.
1962.
ber
N.Y.:
Ithaca,
1962.
Philosophy.
Blanshahd, Brand, Reason and Analysis. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1962.
Cohen,
Some Medieval
Random House,
Guthrie, W. K. C,
Cornell University Press,
Buchanan, Emerson,
York:
Inc.,
1962.
Models and Metaphors: Language and Philosophy.
Ithaca, N.Y.:
of
Theories.
GuLLEY, Norman, Plato's Theory of Knowledge. New York: Barnes & Noble,
Sense and Sensihilia, ed. bv G. Wamock. Fair Lawn, N.J.: Oxford ,
Black,
Modern
GiLSON, Etienne, and Langan, Thomas, Modern Philosophy: Descartes to Kant.
J.
Urmson and G. J. Wamock. Fair Lawn, N.J.: Oxford University Press,
University Press,
Reference and Generali-
Cornell University Press, 1962.
O.
J.
T.,
An Examination
and
versity Press, 1962. ,
and So-
Ferre, Frederick, Language, Logic and God. New York: Harper & Brothers,
1961.
Inc.,
Political
cial
York: Humanities Press, Inc., 1962.
World.
The
A.,
Ideas of St. Augustine. New York: Columbia University Press, 1963.
cussed in the preceding essay.
New
F.,
An
The Theories
Existentialist Aes-
of Sartre
and Mer-
leau-Ponty. Madison: University of Wis-
consin Press, 1962.
1962, 1963.
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Philosophy and Religion Kline, George L. (ed.), Alfred North Whitehead: Essays on His Philosophy.
Englewood
Cliffs,
N.J.:
tions:
edge.
physics. Fair
Smith, John
1962.
The Structure
(eds.),
ety
Philosophy,
Politics
W.
and
&
The Spirit of American Lawn, N.J.: Oxford
Fair
Thorson, Thomas Landon, The Logic of Democracy. New York: Holt, Rinehart
& Winston,
G.
Inc.,
1962.
TiLLiCH, Paul, Christianity and the En-
Soci-
counter of the World Religions.
(Second Series). Oxford, England:
Basil Blackwell,
N.J.:
University Press, 1963.
of Sci-
Foundations of the Unity of Science, Vol. II, No. 2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962. entific Revolutions.
Laslett, Peter, and Runciman,
MetaOxford Uni-
(ed.). Prospects for
Lawn,
E.,
Philosophy. S.,
Inc.,
York: Colimibia University Press, 1962.
eval Thought. Baltimore: Helicon Press,
KuHN, Thomas
Knowl-
Books,
Schneider, Herbert W., Ways of Being: Elements of Analytic Ontology. New
Medi-
of
Basic
versity Press, 1963.
1962.
Knowles, Da\id, The Evolution
of Scientific
York:
Ramsey, Ian T.
Kneale, William, and Kneale, Martha, The Development of Logic. Fair Lawn, N.J., Oxford University Press,
Inc.,
New
1963.
Prentice-Hall,
1963.
Inc.,
The Growth
New
York: Columbia University Press, 1963.
Mott, Ltd., 1962.
WiEMAN, Henry Nelson, The Empirical Theology of Henry Nelson Wieman, ed. by Robert W. Bretall. New York: The
Leclerc, Ivor (ed. ), The Relevance of Whitehead. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1961.
Macmillan Co., 1963.
LovEjOY, Arthur O., The Thirteen Pragmatisms and Other Essays. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1963.
Wright, Georg H. von. The Goodness.
New
Varieties of
York: Humanities Press,
1963.
Inc.,
Lowe, Victor, Understanding Whitehead. Yolton, John W., Thinking and Perceiving: A Study in the Philosophy of Mind. La Salle, 111.: The Open Court Publish-
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1962.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, Phenomenology of Perception, trans, from the French by Cohn Smith. New York: Humanities Press, Inc., 1962.
ing Co., 1962. ZiNK,
Sidney,
New Popper, Karl, Conjectures and Refuta-
York:
The Concepts St.
of Ethics. Martin's Press, Incorpo-
rated. 1962.
note to the reader of the philosophical Many themes discussed
issues and by Professor Ran-
valuable material in the Syntopicon and in
Great Books of the Western World. As Professor Randall observes, the method of language analysis, which at present plays so prominent a role in British and
review of recent developments in philosophy and religion have a long history. The reader who is interested in dall in his
their historical
background
will find
much
American philosophy,
276
is
similar in
many
John Herman Randall, ways
to the
method used by
most
Aristotle,
Being
Jr.
the most valuable references be-
1,
notably in the Nicomachean Ethics (Vol.
ing
pp. 339-436). The reader who ested in exploring this subject
Metaphysics, Aquinas'
9,
would do well
to
is
inter-
in-
troductory essay to the Sijntopicon chapter
on Language. Then he can investigate
and
3fl-3c
5-5a.
A
These pas-
and obscuri-
particularly valuable text in this area
The the
reaction against language analysis
name
of
"reason" appears to be
closely related to
between
the traditional dispute
rationalists
and
empiricists.
in
found in the passages cited under Good AND Evil 3a. Also touched upon is the distinction between a morality of ideals and a morality of interests. This distinction is closely related to that between an ethics of duty and an ethics of happiness. Passages in Great Books of the Western World dealing with this issue are cited in the Syntopicon under Duty 2 and Happiness 3. Two books on democracy are reviewed
is Book III, "Of Words," in Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Vol. 35, pp. 251b,d-306d).
in
in
upon a
moral philosophy. One of the central problems is that of defining the good. The various definitions of the good for man can be
languages, and with their imperfections—
ty.
Aristotle's
Theologica,
wide variety of concepts and problems
sages deal with the growth and hfe of their ambiguity, imprecision,
Summa
Professor Randall touches
ethics,
the passages in Great Books of the Western World cited in the Language chapter
under topics
Sophist,
Plato's
to
and Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. In his discussion of recent works
further
begin by reading the
those
The
in
central aspects of this dispute are discussed
An
essay.
this
thinking
earlier
excellent
on
this
summary
of
can be the chapter on subject
in the introductory' essay to the Sijntopicon
found
chapter on Experience. Passages defining
Democracy.
the character of rational knowledge are
mocracy and comparisons between it and other forms of government can be found in the passages cited under Democracy 1.
listed in the
chapter on
Knowledge under
topic 6h{S), while differing views
on the
in
the
essay
for
Traditional conceptions of de-
discover necessary
In the section on religion, the confronta-
relations are set forth in the passages cited
and beand secular thought are discussed. Material on earlier similar confrontations can be found in the passages cited under Religion 6d and 6g.
capacits'
of reason
to
tions
under Necessity antd Contingency 4a.
The new in
this
efforts
tween
in ontology described
essay inevitably call to
mind the
major analyses of "being" which loom so large in the history of Western philosophy.
These are summarized
between
different religions
religious
Finally, for the reader
who
is
interested
in the history of logic, the introductory es-
in part in the intro-
say to the Syntopicon chapter on Logic
ductory essay to the Syntopicon chapter on Being. The key passages expressing di-
provides a good brief
verse conceptions of being are cited under
modem
277
development.
summary
of
its
pre-
1 ^
.^H
EDWARD
U.
CONDON,
Washington University in
1902.
A
Louis,
in St.
Wayman Crow Professor of Physics at was bom at Alamogordo, New Mexico,
graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, where he
received his Ph.D. degree in
1926, he also studied at the universities of
first book Enghsh on quantum mechanics; in 1935, with G. H. Shortley, he wrote The Theory of Atomic Spectra, stiU the definitive work on the subject. After several years as a lecturer and teacher in physics at Columbia, Princeton, and Minnesota universities, he became an associate director of research for the Westinghouse Electric Corporation. In 1945 he was appointed Director of the National Bureau of Standards by President Truman, a position he held until 1951, when he became director of research for Coming Glass Works. Since 1956 he has been chairman of the physics department at Washington Univer-
Gottingen and Munich. In 1929, with P. M. Morse, he wrote the in
sity.
the
His scientific achievements include major roles in the development of
Franck-Condon principle dealing with molecular motions, and
in
the
interpretation of radioactive decay.
ROBERT JASTROW, the Man-in-Space Program,
is
who
contributed the section on
The
Utility of
Director of the Institute for Space Studies, God-
dard Space Flight Center, National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
GARRETT,
C. G. B. the author of the section on Optical Masers, is head of the Optical Electronics Department, Bell Telephone Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersev.
)
PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY EDWARD U. CONDON
The ments
of this essay indicates that
title
it is
concerned both with develop-
pure sciences and with advances in the technological apphcations of science. At the risk that attends all generalizations, we may say that the past year (and perhaps even the past several years) saw many more spectacular developments in technology than in the in the
physical sciences proper.
The reason for this imbalance is not hard to find. It lies in the space exploration program on which the world, but mainly the United States and the U.S.S.R., is embarked. Billions of dollars and miUions and engineering man-hours were spent last year on the United States space effort alone. Most of this expenditure went into technological channels, although part of it did find its way into pure of scientific
scientific research efforts. It
seems appropriate, therefore, to begin
this
essay with a section
detailing the present state of the art of rocketry— the art
which makes
the entire space exploration program possible. In the second section,
we
up by means of which send the near future. The these rockets or it is planned to up in third and fourth sections assess the results obtained by space exploration so far and future results expected. The third is concerned with the purely scientific results, and the fourth considers the contribution of the U.S. space program— and especially the Man-in-Space program—to the wellbeing of the nation. (The section on the Man-in-Space program is by Dr. Robert Jastrow of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.) consider the various spacecraft which have been sent
Because of the concern
felt in
the United States in recent years about
the kind of scientific education which children and young people are
we include in the fifth section an account of the steps currently being taken to improve science teaching and learning on all levels— in elementary schools, secondary schools, colleges, and universities. In the sixth section we turn to a development that is not directly receiving,
connected with the space program. Here events
in a field that is
we
describe the most recent
only a few years old— "optical masers" (lasers);
the advances here are mainly in the field of pure rather than appHed science, although masers are expected eventually to tical use. (This section
is
by Dr. C. G.
Laboratories.
279
have great pracTelephone
B. Garrett of Bell
Physical Sciences and Technology
we
Finally, in the seventh section,
1963
is
lutionary theory of the atom, this
take cognizance of the fact that
the 50th anniversary of the announcement of Niels Bohr's revo-
last section,
and that Bohr himself died
we have
therefore,
in 1962. In
supplied a fairly detailed review
of the present picture of atomic structure
and how
it
developed during
the last half-century, largely as an outgrowth of the work of Bohr.
Bigger and bigger rockets
Very large rockets have been built in the postwar years, and
still
larger
ones are under development. These rockets provide the propulsion for sending scientific instruments
and men into
They
orbit
to the
Moon,
in the
postwar revolution in military technology.
or to the nearer planets.
Rocket propulsion
is
around the Earth,
are also a major
component
sometimes called reaction propulsion. To get
a propulsive force in the forward direction, a stream of material
method
is
used on a small scale in rotating lawn sprinklers which eject streams of water in a direction approximately opposite to that in which the sprinkler turns. It is also used ejected to the rear at high speed. This
in the skyrockets seen in fireworks displays.
now
is
The same
principle
is
ap-
New
York to Paris in a few hours. The first recorded military use of rockets was in China in a.d. 1232, in the defense of Kai-feng Fu against attacking Mongols. The news traveled rapidly westward to Europe. Later in the thirteenth century, an Arabic book on the art of rocket making appeared. Rockets were used in warfare plied in jet planes which
in the ensuing centuries.
Indian troops of
made
fly
from
Toward
eflFective
the end of the eighteenth century,
use of them against the British, firing volleys
two thousand at a time. William Congreve, a British
artillery expert, developed incendiary which were used to burn much of Boulogne in the Napoleonic Wars in 1806, and also against the French fleet. In 1807 they were used against Copenhagen, again at Leipzig in 1813, and at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. However, with the improvements in artillery that were being made, interest in rockets as weapons lapsed. The subject was again taken up by R. H. Goddard, professor of physics at Clark University, who in 1919 proposed the use of rockets as a means of reaching "extreme altitudes." He had a successful test in 1926 in which his rocket reached the great altitude of 184 feet! Later, with support from the Guggenheim Foundation, he carried on work on
rockets for the British
a
much larger scale at Roswell, New Mexico. In Germany Hermann Oberth published a pamphlet. The Rocket
into
Interplanetary Space (1923), which stimulated technical interest there and led to the formation of a Society for Space Travel. In 1932 the
German Army began Treaty of Versailles.
to take
A
an
interest: rockets
were not barred by the work
secret research establishment for rocket
280
Edward
U.
Condon
Robert H. Goddard, the father of U.S. rocketry
was set up toward the end of 1933. Wemher von Braun, then aged 20, was put in charge. (Now, 30 years later, he is in Huntsville, Alabama, in charge of the major rocket development program at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Marshall Space Flight Center.) Out of the beginning in 1933 came the large German rocket test center Peenemiinde on the Baltic coast. That center produced the German V-2 weapon, the first of which was fired against Paris on September 6, 1944. The V-2's were about 46 feet tall and 5/2 feet in diameter, used alcohol and liquid oxygen as fuel, weighed about 14 tons when fully loaded, and traveled at 3,300 miles per hour, at an altitude of some 60 miles, carrying a 2,000-pound bomb for a range of about 200 miles. Since their speed exceeded that of sound, there was no defense against them. Altogether the Germans fired some thirteen hundred of these weapons against England. The last V-2 that was used in the war was fired against Antwerp in March, 1945. As German military might finally collapsed, the rocket men destroyed the Peenemiinde base and fled, leaving it to be captured by the advancing Soviet army. At the war's end, Russia and the United States vied for the services of the German rocket men and for the supply of finished and partly finished V-2's from the German factories. In America, however, the rocket development program remained small until 1954, when the arms race began in earnest. By that time both at
281
Physical Sciences arid Technology
Russia and the United States had successfully tested thermonuclear weapons. Each of these H-bombs had an explosive power equal to a million times that of the one-ton chemical bombs which the German V-2's dropped on London. Hea\y emphasis was placed on developing
IRBM's (intermediate range balhstic missiles) to go about fifteen hundred miles and ICBM's intercontinental ballistic missiles to go more (
)
thousand miles. These goals are now fully accomplished and such missiles are in
than
five
regular production in both countries.
The period of July 1, 1957— December 31, was designated as an International Geo-
1958,
physical Year
(I.G.Y.
major co-operative
).
effort
This represented a
among
scientists of
more about the Earth on and about the Sun which makes
nations to learn
all
which we
live
it. As part of the planning, an committee in 1954 recommended that the program ought to include a rocketlaunched satellite to go around the Earth car-
life
possible on
I.G.Y. special
r\'ing scientific instruments.
On
July 30, 1955,
Eisenhower announced from the White House that this would be done as part of the American contribution to the I.G.Y.: we would plan to launch ten satelhtes, each weighing t\vent>'-one pounds. The announcement received a banner headline next day in the New York Times, which also carried a Early V-2 rocket subsidiary stor>- headed "Russia also striving to put up satelhte." On October 4, 1957, the Russians put up the first satellite, Sputnik I, a ball weighing 184 poimds, which stayed in orbit for three months. On November 3, 1957, Sputnik II was put in orbit, this one weighing President
1,120 pounds. It carried a dog to longed weightlessness.
now made
Frantic efforts were
test
to
how
a
mammal would
react to pro-
speed up the United States program.
In early 1958 the U.S. put three small satellites in orbit:
Explorer
Vanguard
I I
Explorer III
January 31, 1958 March 17, 1958
30.8
March
31
26,
1958
lb.
3.2.5 lb. lb.
Then, on May 15, 1958, the Russians put up Sputnik III, which had a weight of 2,926 pounds. The first U.S. satelhtes of more than a thousand pounds came with the Discoverer series, the first of which was launched
282
Edward
U.
Condon
Vostok
February 28, 1959, with a weight of 1,300 pounds. By May 24, 1960, the United States had put up Midas II with a weight of 5,000 pounds, but during 1960 the Russians had launched Spacecraft I, 11, and III, each with a weight of 10,060 pounds, and then, on February 4, 1961, the 7.1ton Sputnik VII.
The
manned
first
on April
On May
5,
came with the
satelHte flight
12, 1961, in Vostok
1961, Alan B. Shepard
"Freedom
of 302 miles in
7,"
flight of
Yuri Gagarin
a vehicle with a weight of 10,418 pounds.
I,
made
a successful suborbital flight
followed by another such suborbital
flight
July 21, in "Liberty Bell 7." This
of 303 miles by Virgil L. Grissom on was followed on August 6, 1961, by the flight of Gherman Titov in Vostok II, which completed seventeen orbits of the Earth. On February 20, 1962, "Friendship 7" carried John H. Glenn successfully around the Earth three times. The Soviet cosmonauts Andrian Nikolayev and Pavel Popovich in Vostok III and IV, completed, respectively, sixty-four and forty-eight orbits on August 11-15, 1962. L. Gordon Cooper completed
twenty-two orbits
in "Faith 7"
Russians established two
made
new
the longest flight thus
for a distance of
two
tina Tereshkova, in
more than
far,
on
May
15-16, 1963. In
June 1963, the
records: Valery Bykovsky, in Vostok V,
going around the Earth eighty-one times and the first woman astronaut, Valen-
million miles,
Vostok VI,
made
a flight
which orbited the Earth
forty-eight times.
On May
25,
announced
in a
1961, just after the Shepard flight. President
message
to
Kennedy
Congress the goal of the United States to land
283
Physical Sciences and Technology
men on
the
support,
Moon by
NASA
1970. Congress has thus far given this
having $3.6 bilUon to spend in the
program
fiscal
full
year ending
The Russians have not announced their plans, but it is believed they will make eflForts to keep the lead that they have in this 30, 1963.
June
field.
How doMotion
rockets
work? The governing principle
is
Newton's Third
Law
(Principles, Vol. 34, p. 14b; also Corollary III, pp. 16bof 17b). Let us suppose that u ft/sec is the speed relative to the rocket
with which the gas stream leaves the nozzle and that the rate of ejection of material from the nozzle
is
m
lb/sec.
Thus momentum toward the rear
mu Ib-ft/sec^. By Newton's Third must gain forward momentum at this same
leaving the rocket at the rate of
is
the so
body
mu
is
of the rocket
Law rate,
the force (in poundals) urging the rocket forward. Expressed
in pounds,
it
is
m(u/g), where g
=
32.2 ft/sec-, the acceleration of
gravity.
Therefore the of ejection
m
lifting force in
of products of
u/g (expressed
in
seconds)
pounds
is
fuel.
also equal to
u/g times the rate
in lb/sec. In rocket
technology
called the specific impulse of the fuel-
nozzle combination. For example, the
oxygen and alcohol as
is
combustion
If
German V-2
undiluted, this
rocket used liquid
would give an exhaust
velocity of 13,000 ft/sec, hence a specific impulse of about 406 seconds.
would melt the nozzle. By come out at about 3,000°C.;
In this case, however, the gas temperature eflBcient this
nozzle cooling, the gases could
was accomplished by
diluting the alcohol with water.
Thereby the
exhaust speed was reduced to 7,300 ft/sec, giving a specific impulse of
228 seconds.
A large
rocket should be designed for a burning rate
enough so that the
thrust,
m{u/g),
will
m
lb/sec that
.
VIKING
V-2
JUPITER
THOR REDSTONE VANGUARD JUNO
284
is
be large compared with
II
„
1 ^m
THOR-ABLE
.
Edward
M
the weight
(
in
Condon
U.
pounds ) of the rocket;
M
diminishes as fuel
We are interested in the velocity which the rocket will attain. for the initial mass,
when
V
where
t is
—
velocity v
=
u log
0,
we
Mo/M —
burned.
is
Writing
Mo
find
gt
time and log means a natural logarithm. This shows that for
maximum velocity we need as possible,
and
t
to
make
ii
as large as possible,
as small as possible.
The value
of u
is
Mo/M
as large
limited
temperature of combustion that will melt the nozzle. The is limited, since Mo includes the weight of the payload to be
value of
by the
Mq/M
lifted as well
weight of the container which holds the initial fuel charge. A value for the mass ratio Mo/M that can reasonably be achieved is about 4. Since log 4 = 1.39, an exhaust speed of u = 7,300 ft/sec permits the attainment of a vertical speed of 7,300 X 1.39 or about 10,100 ft/sec ( minus whatever is lost in the falling term, gt, for the time of burning ) If the burning time is ten seconds the gravitational loss is 322 ft/sec, as the
which is small compared with that gained from the nozzle reaction, in this example about 3 per cent. To put a rocket in orbit a speed of about 18,000 mi/hr (26,000 ft/sec) is needed. We see that this cannot be directly achieved with a
Rockets shown in their proportionate sizes
ATLAS-AGENA THOR-DELTA
ATLAS D
TITAN
285
CENTAUR
SATURN
C-1
Physical Sciences and Technology
mass ratio of 4 and a nozzle velocity of 7,300 ft/sec. This difficulty is overcome by use of multistage, or step, rockets. When the first stage is burned out, the empty fuel container serves no further useful purpose and so can be dropped loose to fall back to earth. If now the payload of the first stage is really another rocket which also has a mass ratio of 4, by the time it is burned out another 10,000 ft/sec of speed will be added and the remaining payload will have a vertical speed of about 20,000 ft/sec. If again the payload of the second stage is really a third rocket, whose payload is the ultimate one that is to be put in orbit, then its final speed will be about 30,000 ft/sec, which is more than enough to put that payload into orbit. for one ton of net payload in the third stage there probably another ton of structure. With a mass ratio of 4, the third stage initial mass must then be eight tons. If the second stage structure is another eight tons, then the second stage initial mass must be 16 x 4
Working backward,
is
or 64 tons.
And
similarly the initial total
hundred
must be Also working backward, in excess of five
it
is
mass of the whole assembly
tons.
easy to see that in order to achieve we would need to be able to
the desired final speed in a single stage,
build a rocket that could carry fuel amounting to 36/37 of It is
its
total mass.
quite out of the question to reduce the weight of payload, container,
nozzles,
and controls
to as little as 1/37 of the total.
for satellite launching are
made
That
is
in stages, usually three, as
why
all
rockets
assumed
in
our
example.
The
rockets
and launch vehicles
in the table
(
on page 287 ) are among
those that have already been successfully developed and used. In addiare now under active development for future space programs. These rockets are larger and more powerful than any
tion, there are several that
previously launched.
an advanced version of a U.S. Air Force intercontinental Powered by a combination of nitrogen tetroxide and hydrazine, the two engines of its first stage will develop a thrust of 430,000 pounds, while the single engine of the second stage will develop Titan
II is
ballistic missile.
an additional 100,000 pounds. The Titan will be 90 feet in height and have a diameter of 10 feet. It is planned to have a capabiHty of launching a 6,000-pound payload into orbit 100 miles above the earth and is presently scheduled to be the launch vehicle for the two-man Gemini spacecraft.
Centaur is the first rocket planned to use the extra-powerful fuel combination consisting of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. This fuel will give 40 per cent more thrust than kerosene and hquid oxygen. Centaur
be the second stage, with Atlas as the first stage. This combination is have a capability of placing an 8,500-pound satellite into an orbit 300 miles in altitude, and also of launching a 750-pound unmanned payload to a landing on the moon. Centaur is also to be used as the launcher for will
to
286
1
'
o !
C
on
W5
o
ID
3
2
-w
JS
1
:§
'C
-c
05 Tf 03
.„
c
y --en
^3
^O e^ m
tJ
03
^
-3
-£h
in 05
- ^o
"a
^ § S u 3
c 3
C/D
cS
8
^
^«D Co
'1'
a> 'a
C
00 in a>
05
o CD
o CD
05
05
1
1 in
c/3
Tf CD
O^^ o o n 00
1-d
1O
-c
c
t^e
Ph
!> U5 CO
in
CD 1—1
8
1—1
i-H
(yi
^ •M
r«
O ^v. "ili^a S» O r» •"
CD
t^
W
1> cq
O o ai 1—1
o lO CD a>
o o o
o o o
o o o o^ 05
rf
c CD
X
X!
in
X
X
X
X
in
1—1
CD CD
CO ai
l>
t~-
CO 00 t-
ai 00
i>
«o s»
;Ji
bO
Ji
2 a>
3
W5 a>
W
o>
1—
^
o
^
o CD
CO
05
^^
i-H
1—1
1—
1—
>—
-
that
we have
range of values of
ahready discovered
Z
all
exist.
Figure 3
S
TTZE
n^
® 343
(less
of the
:
Physical Sciences and Technology
Physicists and chemists were next confronted with the problem of finding out the form in which positive electricity exists in the atom and how the electrons are arranged in different atoms. To understand what they did, we must consider the early nineteenth- century development of spectroscopy. Toward the end of the seventeenth century two contradictory views were put forward about the fundamental nature of light, that form of energy which stimulates visual sensation, affects photographic plates, and enables plants to grow. Isaac Newton (1642-1727) is usually said to have favored the view that light is a stream of corpuscles, while Christiaan Huygens (1629-95) developed the idea that it consists of wavelike pulses propagated through an all-pervasive hypothetical medium called the "aether." ( See Newton, Optics, and Huygens, Treatise on Light, Vol. 34.) Newton, however, was not as specific in his views as this statement would imply, judging from this communication to the Royal Society ( December 7, 1675 ) something of a different kind propagated from lucid bodies. may suppose it an aggregate of various peripatetic qualities. Others may suppose it multitudes of unimaginable small & swift Corpuscles of various sizes, springing from shining bodies at great distances one after another But they that like not this, may suppose Light any other corporeal emanation or an Impulse or motion of any other Medivim or aethereall Spirit diffused through the main body of Aether, or what else they can imagine proper for this purpose. To avoyde dispute & make this Hypothesis generall, let every man here take his fancy, Onely whatever Light be, I would suppose, it consists of Successive rayes differing from one another in contingent circumstances, as bignes, form or vigor
Light
is
They
that will
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
A large part of the history of physics from then to now is concerned with the fluctuating fortunes of the corpuscular and wave views with which Newton here deals so
Young
in
impartially.
1801 on interference of
light,
From
the researches of
and those
of A.
J.
Thomas
Fresnel and
of Joseph von Fraunhofer in the early nineteenth century, the experimental evidence seemed to be decisively in favor of the wave theory. The wave theory dominated the subject until light quanta were dis-
covered by
A wave
Max
Planck in 1900 and Albert Einstein in 1905.
its wave number, which is the number of complete cycles of oscillation per unit of length taken in the direction of propagation of the wave. This can be measured, as Fraunhofer showed (1821), with a diffraction grating. Color correlates with wave number: red Hght consists of some 17,000 waves/cm, violet of 33,000 waves/cm, with the other colors of the spectrum ranged in between. The wave is
characterized by
to be a much more accurate way of characterizing the hght than vague subjective description of its color.
number proves
344
Edward
CaCa He 3969
U.
Condon
FeFe
Ca Ca "* ^ H6 HT Fe 4102 422743Q8 4341
Mg 5173 5270 Solar spectrum
A
any optical device for analyzing a composite beam by different wave nmnbers and for measuring the wave numbers. The hst of wave numbers together with measures of relative intensity is called the spectrum of the hght from any spectroscope
is
of light into parts characterized
source.
Fraunhofer had showTi that the light from the sun consists of waves ranging over a continuum of wave numbers, crossed by a large number of lines of darkness, or wave numbers at which the light is very weak.
Fraunhofer had waves/cm agree
also
observed that his tvvo dark
D
lines
closely with a pair of bright yellow lines
at
16,960
which occur
flames, and that these lines are much brightened (sodium chloride) is put into the flame. G. G. Stokes of Cambridge wrote to Thomson (Lord Kelvin) at Glasgow in 1854 propounding an analogy with mechanical resonance in sound; according to this analogy, atoms would strongly absorb the same frequencies of wave motion as those they emit. In his letter, Stokes says, "I beheved in the spectra of
when common
many
salt
was sodium in the sun's atmosphere." Within a week Thomson rephed to Stokes suggesting that other substances might be found in the sun and stars by this method. If the wave numbers of bright lines in the flame spectra of a substance on earth match those of the dark lines in the spectra of the light from sun and stars, this points to the presence of the substance in the sun. Most of modern astrophysics is built on the fruitful exploitation of that suggestion. The first to put it into practice and to discover metals other than sodium in the sun was Gustav KirchhoflF (1824-87), whose work on this was done in the period 1859-61. In the century since then, there
detailed analyses of the composition of the atmospheres of
many
thou-
sands of stars have been made.
Most
of the strong lines in the solar spectrum could
be correlated with
those occurring in terrestrial Hght sources. Strong lines
first observed spectrum in 1868 that could not be so correlated were correctly surmised to be due to an element not yet discovered on earth; it was called helium by Norman Lockyer. In 1895 this surmise
in the solar
345
Physical Sciences and Technology
was confirmed with the discovery on earth by Sir WiUiam Ramsay of a gas whose spectrum matched that of the "hehum" hnes on the sun. It is the element for which 2 = 2, having two electrons in its atoms.
Avast
amount
of
work was done
in the last half of the nineteenth
century in measuring accurately the
wave numbers
of thousands
atomic spectra. Although this was immensely useful for chemical analysis, no progress was being made on the really fundamental question: What feature of the structure of an atom determines of lines in
the kinds of light emitted in
The
spectra of
its
spectrum?
some substances,
particularly
hydrogen and the
alkali
metals, are relatively simple, in contrast to the complex spectrum of iron,
which
excited in an electric arc
between iron
thousands of distinct
In 1885 a discovery of great importance was
lines.
made by Johann Jakob Balmer
electrodes,
consists
(1825-98), a Swiss schoolteacher.
of
He
found a simple formula representing the wave numbers of the principal spectral lines in the spectrum of hydrogen:
=
TS. to
dous convulsions of nature, such as volif
Burials Marriages
14,718 11,984 19,154
Proportion
and the consequent discouragements to agriculture, than to the loss which they sustain bv the plague. The most tremen-
do not happen
Births
21,963 21,602 28,392
Annual Average
and
of Prussia
of Lithuania
of births to
which thev groan,
canic eruptions and earthquakes,
1702 1716 1756
at-
tributed to the tvranny and oppression of
the government under
Kingdom
Dukedom
accounts ven' soon obliterated.
causes that produce even sickly sea-
yrs. to
>Ts. to yrs. to yrs. to
1702 1708 1726 1756
of
Pomerania
Births
Burials Marriages
6,540 7,455 8,432 12,767
4,647 4,208 5,627 9,281
1,810 1,875 2,131 2,957
Proportion
Proportion
of births to
of birtJis to burials
marriages
36 39 39 43
10 10 to 10 to 10 to to
140 177 150 137
100 100 to 100 to 100 to to
In this instance the inhabitants appear have been almost doubled in fifty-six years, no very bad epidemics ha\ing once interrupted the increase, but the three years immediately following the last period (to 1759) were years so sickly that the births were sunk to 10,229, and the
sons and epidemics ought to be ranked a
to
crowded population and unwholesome and insufficient food. I have been led to this remark bv looking over some of the tables of Mr. Susmilch, which Dr. Price has extracted in one of his notes to the post-
burials raised to 15,068.
on the controversy respecting the population of England and ^^ales. They are considered as ver^' correct, and if such tables were general they would throw great light on the different ways bv which population is repressed and prevented from increasing beyond the means of subsistence in any country-. I will extract a part of the tables, with Dr. Price's remarks. script
Is
it
number
not probable that in this case the
had increased faster accommodations necessary^ to preserve them in health? The mass of the people would, upon this supposition, be obliged to live harder, and a greater number would be crowded together in one house; and it is not surely of inhabitants
than the food and the
495
Great Books Library improbable that these were among the natural causes that produced the three sickly years. These causes mav produce such an
though the
e£Fect,
may
sidered,
For further information on this subject, Mr. Susmilch's tables. The extracts that I have made are sufficient to show the periodical though irregular returns of sickly seasons, and it seems highly probable that a scantiness of room and food was one of the principal causes
I
countr\-, absolutely con-
not be extremely crowded
a country even thinly an increase of population take place before more food is raised and more houses are bviilt, the inhabitants mvist be
and populous. In inhabited,
if
some degree
distressed in
Were
subsistence.
for
that occasioned them. It
room and
prolific
greater
take
the marriages in Eng-
the
number
sicklv seasons
of
and
this,
added
of
ver\-
imfavorable effect on the health of the
common
the
that prevailed.
people.
positive
tion of the cause that
Neumark Annual Average 5 5 5
of
yrs.
yrs.
3,483 4,254 5,567
1,436 1,713 1,891
Proportion
Proportion
of births to
Annual Average
marriages
of births to burials
5 >TS. to 1701
37 to 10 40 to 10 42 to 10
155 to 100 164 to 100 143 to 100
5 5
1726 1756
yrs. to yrs. to
Or,
it is probable that the custom of early marriages will continue till the population of the countn,^ has gone be\ond the increased produce, and sickly seasons appear to be the natural and nec-
courage marriage,
essan,'
consequence.
I
should
fore, that those countries
Epidemics prevailed for six years, from 1741, which checked the in-
was increasing
e.xpect, there-
where subsistence
suflficiently at
times to en-
courage population but not to answer all its demands would be more subject to pe-
crease.
Dukedom
of
Magdeburgh
Annual Average
Births
5 yrs. to 1702 5 yrs. to 1717 5 yrs. to 1756
6,431 7,590 8,850
yrs. to yrs. to
yrs. to
riodical epidemics
4,103 5,335 8,069
than those where the
population could more completely accom-
Burials Marriages
modate
1,681 2,076 2,193
An
itself to
the average produce.
observation the converse of this wiU
probably
also
be found
Proportion
Proportion
countries
that
are
of birtlis to
of births to burials
sicknesses, the increase of population, or
Annual Average
The
it.
condition of the laborer as greatly to en-
1736, to
5 5 5
impelled
to
Burials Marriages
5,433 7,012 7,978
first
be more particular, when the increasing produce of a countr)- and the increasing demand for labor so far amehorate the
Brandenburgh
Birtlis
1701 to 1726 to 1756
>Ts. to
Cultivation
When
kind.
to the necessit)- of
harder Hving, would probably have a
for
than of the preventive from a prospect of increasing plent)' in any country, the weight that represses population is in some degree removed, it is highlv probable that the motion will be continued beyond the opera-
houses to remain the same, instead of five or six to a cottage there must be seven or eight,
fast
must have been improving, and marriages, consequently, encouraged. For the checks to population appear to have been rather
of marriages than usual to
supposing
were increasing rather
old states, notwithstanding the occasional
than usual, or even were a
number
place,
appears from the tables that these
countries
land for the next eight or ten years to be
more
refer the reader to
1702 1717 1756
marriages
38 36 40
to 10 to 10 to 10
156 142 109
to to to
to
In
those
periodical
the excess of births above the burials, will
100 100 100
be greater than tries
years 1738, 1740, 1750, and 1751,
were particularly
true.
subject
If
sickly.
496
is
in the inter\'als of these periods
usual, ceteris paribus, in the coun-
not so
much
subject to such disorders.
Turkey and Eg\pt have been nearly
Malthus: Essay on Population
depended upon, but, probably, in this instance they do not give incorrect proportions. At least there are many reasons for
stationary in their average population for
the last century, in the intervals of their periodical plagues, the births
must have
exceeded the burials in a greater proportion than in such countries as France and England. The average proportion of births to burials in any country for a period of five or ten years will hence appear to be a very inadequate criterion by which to
expecting to find a greater excess of births
real progress in population.
This proportion certainly shows the rate of
tional yearly increase of produce will almost invariably be followed by a greater
increase during those five or ten years;
proportional increase of population. But,
judge of
its
above the burials than in the of
in
the population
good land
former period
the
In the natural progress
latter.
of
any country more be taken
will, ceteris paribus,^
into cultivation in the earlier stages of
than in the
we
And
later.
it
a greater propor-
can by no means thence infer what had been the increase for the twenty years before, or what would be the in-
besides this great cause, which would nat-
crease for the twenty years after. Dr. Price
beth's reign than in
Sweden, Norway, Russia, and the kingdom of Naples are increasing fast; but the extracts from registers that he has given are not for periods of suffi-
ent century,
but
observes
extent
cient
burials greater at the
that
the
establish
to
fact.
It
I
cannot help thinking that
the occasional ravages of the plague in the
former period must have had some tendency to increase this proportion. If an average of ten years had been taken in the
is
however, that Sweden,
highly probable,
above the end of Queen Elizathe middle of the pres-
urally give the excess of births
intervals
of the
returns of this dreadful
had been would
Norway, and Russia are really increasing in their population, though not at the rate
disorder, or
that the proportion of births to burials for
certainly give the proportion of births to
the
short
periods
would seem
to
Dr.
that
show. For
Price
the years of plague
rejected as accidental, the registers
burials too high for the real average in-
takes
five years,
if
crease of the population. For
end-
some few
years after the great plague in 1666,
ing in 1777, the proportion of births to
it is
Naples was
probable that there was a more than usual
reason to suppose
excess of births above burials, particularly
would indicate an increase much greater than would be really
if Dr. Price's opinion be founded, that England was more populous at the revolution (which happened only twenty- two
burials
in
the
kingdom
144 to 100, but there
is
of
that this proportion
found to have taken place in that kingduring a period of a hundred years.
dom
years afterwards) than
it is
at present.
compared the registers of many villages and market towns in England for two periods: the first, from Queen
tion of the births to the burials throughout
Elizabeth to the middle of the
to 100. Dr. Short
Dr.
Mr. King,
Short
in
1693, stated the propor-
the Kingdom, exclusive of London, as 115
last cen-
and the second, from different years at the end of the last century to the middle of the present. And from a comparison
makes
it,
in the
middle
tury,
of these extracts,
former period
it
the
1
very greatly depend on the spirit of industry that prevails, and the way in which it is directed. The knowledge and habits of the people, and other temporary causes, particularly the degree of civil liberty and equality existing at the time, must always
appears that in the births
exceeded
the
burials in the proportion of 124 to 100,
but
I say ceteris paribus, because the increase of the produce of any country will always
in the latter only in the proportion of
111 to 100. Dr. Price thinks that the registers in the former period are not to be
have great influence recting this spirit.
497
in
exciting
and
di-
Great Books Library stant as any of the laws of nature with which we are acquainted. The passion between the sexes has appeared in every age to be so nearly the same that it may always be considered, in
of the present century, 111 to 100, includ-
The proportion in France for ending in 1774, was 117 to 100.
ing London. five years, If if
these statements are near the truth, and there are no very great variations
particular periods
would
appear
the proportions,
in
population
the
that
at
algebraic language, as a given quantity.
it
The
of
beyond the food which it can either produce or acquire is a law so open to our view, so obvious and evident to our understandings, and so completely confirmed by the experience of every age that we cannot for a moment doubt it. The different modes which nature takes to prevent or repress a redundant population do not appear, indeed, to us so certain and reg-
consequent vicious habits, war,
riage, the
luxury, the silent though certain depopula-
and the
tion of large towns,
and
tions
insufficient
close habita-
food of
many
of the
poor prevent population from increasing
beyond the means
of subsistence, and,
if I
may
use an expression which certainly at
first
appears strange, supersede the neces-
sity
of great
and ravaging epidemics
great law of necessity which prevents
population from increasing in any country
France and England has accommodated itself very nearly to the average produce of each country. The discouragements to mar-
we cannot always we may with certainty
but though
ular,
the mode,
to
what is redundant. Were a wasting plague to sweep oflF two million in England and six million in France, there can
the fact.
repress
If
the proportion
predict
predict
of births
to
deaths for a few years indicate an increase of nimibers
much beyond
the proportional
be no doubt whatever that after the inhabitants had recovered from the dreadful
increased or acquired produce of the country,
we may be
shock the proportion of births to burials
less
an emigration takes place, the deaths
would be much above what
will
it is
in either
New
it
of heaven.
to the miraculous
The
causes of
it
Were
every inquiring mind. spirit
It
ines.
The only true criterion of a real and permanent increase in the population of any country is the increase of the means of subsistence. But even this criterion is subject to some slight variations which are, however, completely open to our view and observations. In some countries population appears to have been forced, that is, the people have been habituated by degrees to live almost upon the smallest possible quantity of food. There must have been periods in such countries when popu-
are not remote,
accords with the
of philosophy to sup-
pose that not a stone can fall or a plant rise without the immediate agency of divine power. But we know from experience ture have
what we been conducted almost
bly according to fixed laws.
And
there no other depopulating causes,
subject to periodical pestilences or fam-
interposition
that these operations of
real average in-
every country would, without doubt, be
and mysterious, but near us, round about us, and open to the investigation of liberal
and that
crease of the population of the country.
latent
most
the births;
few years cannot be the
Jersey, the proportion of births
on an average of seven years, ending in 1743, was as 300 to 100. In France and England, taking the highest proportion, it is as 117 to 100. Great and astonishing as this difFerence is, we ought not to be so wonder-struck at it as to atto deaths
tribute
shortly exceed
the increase that had taken place for a
country at present. In
perfectly certain that, un-
call na-
invaria-
lation increased permanently,
since the
world began, the causes of population and depopulation have probably been as con-
increase in the
seems
498
to
means
answer
without an China
of subsistence.
to this description. If the
Malthus: Essay on Population accounts
we have
of
are to be trusted,
it
of living almost
upon the
The law
in
is
means
of subsistence that the average
repeatedly called that the
necessarily
is
country
produce of support the
it
is
lives
but barely
sufficient
of the inhabitants,
for.
demand for a greater population made without preparing the funds necessary to support it. Increase the demand
the population.
the
at-
hear of
come when it is thus The true reason is
increase does not
chil-
dren has tended principally thus to force
A nation in this state must be subject to famines. Where a so populous in proportion to
as to
population.
China
expose their
to
an abortive
common
so
is
encouragements that ought to be given to If the tendency of mankind to increase be so great as I have represented it to be, it may appear strange that this
smallest possible
putrid offals that European laborers would rather starve than eat.
hope,
will
tempt. Nothing
quantity of food and are glad to get any
which permits parents
humanity
to
the lower classes of people are in the habit
by promoting cultiand with it consequently increase the produce of the country, and ameliorate the condition of the laborer, and no apprehensions whatever need be enterfor agricultural labor
to
vation,
any
from the badness of seasons must be fatal. It is probable that the very frugal manner in which the Gentoos are deficiency
tained of the proportional increase of pop-
in a year
An attempt to effect this purpose any other way is vicious, cruel, and tyrannical, and in any state of tolerable freedom cannot therefore succeed. It may appear to be the interest of the rulers, and
of scarcity without materially distressing
the rich of a state, to force population,
in the habit of living contributes in
some
ulation.
degree to the famines of Indostan.
in
In America, where the reward of labor is
at present so liberal, the
lower classes
might retrench very considerably themselves.
A
famine therefore seems
may be
and thereby lower the price of
to
rewarded. The numbers will
permanently increase without
uously resisted by the friends of the poor,
It
expected
consequently
that in the progress of the population of
America, the laborers will less liberally
in this case
and
labor,
expense of fleets and armies, and the cost of manufactures for foreign sale, but every attempt of the kind should be carefully watched and stren-
be almost impossible.
in
time be
a proportional increase in the
much
means
of
particularly
subsistence.
ceitful
In the different states of Europe there
the
when
on that account,
must be some variations in the proportion between the number of inhabitants and the quantity of food consumed, arising from the different habits of living that prevail in each state. The laborers of the south of England are so accustomed to eat fine wheaten bread that they will suffer themselves to be half starved before they will submit to live like the Scotch peasants. They might perhaps in time, by the constant operation of the hard law of necessity, be reduced to live even like the lower Chinese, and the country would then, with the same quantity of food, support a greater population. But to effect this must always be a most difficult, and every friend
dially received I
it
comes under the de-
garb of benevolence, and to
likely,
is
be cheerfully and
cor-
by the common people.
entirely acquit Mr. Pitt of
any
sinister
intention in that clause of his Poor Bill
which allows a
shilling a
week
to every
laborer for each child he has above three. I
was brought some time after, I such a regulation would be
confess, that before the bill
into Parliament,
thought that
and
for
highly beneficial, but further reflection on the subject has convinced
me
that
if
its
object be to better the condition of the poor,
it
is
calculated to defeat the very
purpose which
it
has in view.
It
has no
tendency that I can discover to increase the produce of the country, and if it tend to increase the population, without increas-
499
Great Books Library
the
new
and inbe that
the necessary
ing the produce,
evitable consequence appears to
colonies,
where the knowledge and
industry of an old state operate on the
same produce must be divided among
fertile
unappropriated land of a
new
one.
a greater number, and consequently that a day's labor will purchase a smaller quan-
In other cases, the youth or the age of a
and the poor therefore in general must be more distressed. I have mentioned some cases where population may permanently increase without a proportional increase in the means
importance.
state
tity of provisions,
of subsistence.
But
it
is
restricted to a limit
beyond which
it
it,
It
is
probable that the food divided in as great
is
plenty to the inhabitants, at the present period,
as
it
was two thousand, three
And
thousand, or four thousand years ago. there
is
reason to believe that the poor and
thinly inhabited tracts of the Scotch High-
between the
food and the numbers supported by
not in this respect of very great
of Great Britain
evident that the
variation in diflFerent states,
is
much
lands are as
is
as the rich
not pass. In every country the population
lous province of Flanders.
of which is not absolutely decreasing the food must be necessarily sufficient to support and to continue the race of la-
by a people more advanced
borers.
tion,
Were left to its
by an overand popu-
distressed
charged population
can-
a country never to be over-run
own
but
in arts,
natural progress in civiliza-
human
from the time that its produce might be considered as an unit to the time that it might be considered as a million, during the lapse of many hundred years, there
food which they produce, and happy according to the liberality with which that
would not be a single period when the mass of the people could be said to be free
Other circumstances being the same, it may be affirmed that countries are populous according to the quantity of
food
is
divided, or the quantity which a
day's labor will purchase.
Com
from
countries
for
more populous than pasture countries, and rice countries more populous than com countries. The lands in England are not suited to rice, but they would all bear potatoes; and Dr. Adam Smith observes that if potatoes were to become the fa-
common
and if the same quantity employed in their culture as
ple,
ployed
it,
we have
first
ple
exist-
though perhaps
cause;
in
some
of
these states an absolute famine has never
been known. Famine seems
peo-
was now em-
to
be the
dreadful resource of nature.
is
population
is
so superior to
last,
the most
The power the power
the earth to produce subsistence for
country
would be able to support a much greater population, and would consequently in a
that premature death
very short time have
of
it.
mankind
in the great
its
finish
in
of in
man
some shape The vices
race.
are active
and able ministers
They
are the precursors
of depopulation.
its
must
human
or other visit the
of a country does not de-
pend, absolutely, upon its poverty or riches, upon its youth or its age, upon
human
miUions and millions of
ences have been repressed from this sim-
of land
in the culture of corn, the
The happiness
Euhad accounts of
of food. In every state in
rope, since
are
vorite vegetable food of the
distress, either directly or indirectly,
want
army
and often work themselves. But this war of extermina-
of destruction
the dreadful
being thinly or fully inhabited, but upon
should they
the rapidity with
which it is increasing, upon the degree in which the yearly in-
tion, sickly seasons,
crease of food approaches to the yearly increase of an unrestricted population. This
and plague advance in terrific array and sweep off their thousands and ten thousands. Should success be still incomplete,
always the nearest in
gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear
approximation
is
500
fail in
epidemics, pestilence,
Malthus: Essay on Population and with one mighty blow
levels the
would be imminent and immediate. At
pop-
ulation with the food of the world.
every period during the progress of
Must it not then be acknowledged by an attentive examiner of the histories of mankind that in every age and in every state in which man has existed, or does
vation,
now
mankind, if they were equal. Though the produce of the earth might be increasing every year, population would be increasing much faster, and the redundancy must
That the increase of population by the means of
nec-
is
subsist-
ence.
To
a person
distress
for
be repressed by the periodical
Mr. Condorcet's Esquisse
dun
tableau
under the pressure which terminated in his death. If he had no hopes of its being seen during his life and of its interesting France in his favor, it is a singular instance of the attachment of a man to principles, which every day's experience was
was
written,
it is
said,
of that cruel proscription
the preceding
so fatally for himself contradicting.
the
human mind
in
To
see
one of the most en-
lightened nations of the world, and after a
can-
it
the
historique des progres de I'esprit hurrmin'*
obvious inferences, from a view of the
past and present state of mankind,
garden,
or constant action of misery or vice.
VIII
who draws
of all
a
necessarily
That population does invariably increase the means of subsistence increase. And, That the superior power of population is repressed, and the actual population kept equal to the means of subsistence by misery and vice.
when
CHAPTER
want
food would be constantly pressing on
like
exist:
essarily limited
culti-
from the present moment to the time when the whole earth was become
man
some thousand years, debased by such a fermentation of disgusting passions,
and of society who have noticed the argu-
of fear, cruelty, malice, revenge, ambition,
ment
madness,
not but be a matter of astonishment that all
the writers on the perfectibility of
lapse of
of an overcharged population treat
and
folly
as
would have
dis-
and invariably represent the difficulties arising from it as at a great and almost immeasurable distance.
graced the most savage nation in the most barbarous age must have been such a tre-
Even Mr. Wallace, who thought the argument itself of so much weight as to destroy his whole system of equality, did not seem to be aware that any difficulty would occur from this cause till the whole earth had been cultivated like a garden and was in-
sary
it
always very
slightly,
mendous shock
mind
a
Were
beautiful
this really the case,
system of equality
respects practicable,
I
and were in
other
cannot think that
our ardor in the pursuit of such a scheme to be damped by the contemplation remote a difficulty. An event at such a distance might fairly be left to Providence, but the truth is that if the view
ought of so
of the
argument given
in this essay
be
of the
human
that nothing but the firmest convic-
Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind, written while Condorcet was in hiding from his political enemies. In the Sketch, Condorcet set forth his conception of human history as a continuous progress from barbarism and superstition to reason and enlightenment. He divided history into ten great stages, and he believed that the Sketch was being written near the end of the ninth stage. The tenth stage was to be marked by "the abolition of inequality between nations, the progress of equality within each nation, and the true perfection of mankind" (Translated by June Barraclough. New York: Noonday Press, 1955)— Ed.
capable of any further increase of produce.
to his ideas of the neces-
and inevitable progress
just,
the difficulty, so far from being remote.
501
Great Books Library tion of the truth of his principles, in spite
of
appearances, could have withstood. This posthumous publication is only a all
sketch of a
much
larger
work which he
proposed should be executed. It necessarily, therefore, wants that detail and application which can alone prove the truth of any theory. A few observations will be
show how completely the
sufficient to
ory
is
contradicted
when
it
fund should be estabhshed which should assure to the old an assistance, produced, in part, by their own former savings, and,
by the savings of individuals who making the same sacrifice die before they reap the benefit of it. The same, or a
in part, in
children
give
who
assistance
to
lose their hus-
bands, or fathers and afford a capital to
the-
those
applied to
is
should
fund,
similar
women and
who were
of an age to
found a new
the real, and not to an imaginary, state of
family, sufficient for the proper develop-
things.
ment
treats of the future progress
wards perfection, he in
says, that
of
man
comparing,
ciety.
tivation, their industry,
and
found
it
inefficacious.
By
it
a basis
an extended population will not be performed without the goad of necessity. If by establishments of this kind this spur
just
the idle and upon the same footing with regard to their credit, and the future support of their wives and families, as the active and industrious, can we exto
industry be removed,
if
the negligent are placed
the application of
calculations to the probabilities of life
by preventing
labor necessary to procure subsistence for
afraid that the
proposes
by means
says, that
ress of industry and the activity of commerce less dependent on great capitalists. Such establishments and calculations may appear very promising upon paper, but when applied to real life they will be Mr. found to be absolutely nugatory. Condorcet allows that a class of people which maintains itself entirely by industry is necessary to every state. Why does he allow this? No other reason can well be assigned than that he conceives that the
and well stated, and mode by which he should be removed will be is
he
equally solid, and by rendering the prog-
dependence, and even of misery, which menaces, without ceasing, the most numerous and active class of our societies." difficulty
further,
great fortunes, and yet giving
their
then, a necessary cause of inequality, of
am
still
in the
credit from being the exclusive privilege of
enue of those families that would depend so entirely on the life and health of their chief, ^ he says, very justly, "There exists
I
Going
establish-
made
the protection of the so-
serving a state of equality,
their divisions of
verting afterwards to the precarious rev-
The
These
might be found of more completely pre-
their cul-
means of subsistence, we shall see that it would be impossible to preserve the same means of subsistence, and, consequently, the same population, without a number of individuals who have no other means of supplying their wants than their industry. Having allowed the necessity of such a class of men, and adlabor,
industry.
the just application of calculations,
the different civilized nations of Eu-
and observing
their
name and under
to-
rope, the actual population with the extent of territory,
of
ments, he observes, might be
In the last division of the work, which
and
the interest of money, he proposes that a
pect
to
see
men
exert
that
animated
activity in bettering their condition 1
which
forms the master spring of public prosperity? If an inquisition were to be established to examine the claims of each
now
save time and long quotations, I shall here give the substance of some of Mr. Condorcet's sentiments, and hope I shall not misrepresent them, but I refer the reader to the work itself, which will amuse, if it does not convince him.
To
individual and to determine whether he had or had not exerted himself to the
502
Malthus: Essay on Population utmost, and to grant or refuse assistance
Mr. Condorcet's picture of what expected
pletely destructive of the true principles
and equality. But independent of this great objection to these establishments, and supposing for a moment that they would give no check to productive industry, by far the greatest difficulty remains yet behind. of liberty
Were every man
may be
happen when the number of men shall surpass the means of their subsistence is justly drawn. The oscillation which he describes will certainly take place and will without doubt be a con-
would be little else than a repetition upon a larger scale of the English poor laws and would be comaccordingly, this
to
cause
subsisting
stantly
misery.
The only point
in
periodical
of
which
from Mr. Condorcet with regard picture
the period
is
human
plied to the
sure of a comfortable
thinks that
when race.
it
I
differ
to
this
may be
ap-
Mr. Condorcet
cannot possibly be applic-
it
man
able but at an era extremely distant. If
and were the rising from the "killing frost" of misery, population must rapidly increase. Of this Mr. Condorcet seems to be fully aware himself, and after having described further improvements, he says:
between the natural inand food which I have given be in any degree near the truth, it will appear, on the contrary, that
provision for a family, almost every
would have one, generation
the
free
proportion
crease
the period
progress of industry and happiness, each generation will be called to more extended enjoyments, and in consequence, by the physical constitution of the human frame, to an increase in the number of individuals. Must not there arrive a period then, when these laws, equally necessary, shall counteract each other? When the increase of the number of men surpassing their means of subsistence, the necessary result must be either a continual diminution of happiness and population, a movement truly retrograde, or at least, a kind of oscillation between good and evil? In societies arrived at this term, will not this oscillation be a constantly subsisting cause of periodical misery? Will it not mark the limit when all further amelioration will become impossible, and point out that term to the perfectibility of the human race which it may reach in the course of ages, but can never pass?
He
in
this
does
can
exist
continue
and
at
of
men
sur-
that
this
necessary
cause
to
of mankind, and will forever unless some decided histories
present,
exist,
change take place
in the physical constitu-
tion of our nature.
M,r.
Condorcet, however, goes on to say
which he conceives be so distant ever arrive, the human race, and the advocates for the perfectibility of man, need not be alarmed at it. He then proceeds to remove the difficulty in a manner which I profess not to understand. Having observed that the ridiculous prejudices of superstition would by that time have ceased to throw over morals, a corrupt and degrading austerity, he alludes either to a promiscuous concubinage, which would prevent breeding, or to something else as unnatural. To remove that should the period to
is no person who does not see very distant such a period is from us, but shall we ever arrive at it? It is equally impossible to pronounce for or against the future realization of an event which cannot take place, but at an era when the human race will have attained
we
arrived,
we have had any
There
which
number
of periodical misery, has existed ever since
how
of
the
oscillation, this constantly subsisting
then adds:
improvements,
when
pass their means of subsistence has long since
But
of population
the difficulty in this
way
will,
surely,
in
the opinion of most men, be to destroy that virtue
and purity of manners which
the advocates of equality and of the perfectibility of
at
and object
present scarcely form a conception.
503
man
profess to be the
of their views.
end
Great Books Library
CHAPTER
The cet
IX
of
question which Mr. Condor-
last
proposes for examination is the organic perfectibihty of man. He observes that
the proofs which have been aheady
if
and which,
given will
receive are
itself,
force
development in
the
establish
to
sufficient
perfectibihty
definite
their
in
greater
of
work
the in-
man upon
the
supposition of the same natural faculties
prove that advance in an opposite direction. It may perhaps be said that the world is yet so young, so completely in its infancy, that it ought not to be expected that any diflFerence should appear so soon. If this be the case, there is at once an end of all hvrnian science. The whole train of reasonings from eflFects to causes will be destroyed. We may shut our eyes to the book of natxire, as it will no longer be of any use to read it. The wildest and most improbable conjectures may be advanced with as much certainty as the most just and subhme theories, founded on
to
are susceptible of amelioration?
improvement
the
of
medicine,
from the use of more wholesome food and habitations, from a manner of living which will improve the strength of the body by exercise without impairing it by from the destruction of the two
excess,
great causes of the degradation of man,
and too great
misery
riches,
from the
gradual removal of transmissible and con-
by the improvement of more efficaby the progress of reason and of
tagious disorders
physical knowledge, rendered cious social
order,
he
infers
will not absolutely
that the duration
death
natural
that though
become between
will
man
increase
birth
without
ceasing, will have no assignable term,
may mean
and
word word to
properly be expressed by the
indefinite.
He
then defines
this
to
mode
of
facts
bend
to
estabhshing systems
instead
of
upon
The Newton
will
facts.
old
the
make
systems,
theory of
grand and consistent be placed upon the
as the wild and eccentric hypotheses of Descartes. In short, if the
same footing
a constant approach to
an unlimited extent, without ever reaching it, or an increase in the immensity of ages to an extent greater than any assignable either
again
return
philosophizing and
and
We
and reiterated experiments.
careful
may
immortal, yet his
much
stress upon these some measure tend there has been no marked
lay
prejudices, they will in
organization, these natural faculties them-
From
hfe will to a certain degree vary
would not
and the same organization which he has at present, what will be the certainty, what the extent of our hope, if this selves,
human
from healthy or unhealthy climates, from wholesome or unwholesome food, from virtuous or vicious manners, and other causes, but it may be fairly doubted whether there is really the smallest perceptible advance in the natural duration of human hfe since first we have had any authentic history of man. The prejudices of all ages have indeed been directly contrary to this supposition, and though I
laws of nature are thus fickle and inconstant, if it can be affirmed and be believed that they will change,
when
and
for ages
quantity.
ages they have appeared immutable, the
But surely the application of this term in either of these senses to the duration of human life is in the highest degree unphilosophical and totally unwarranted by any appearances in the laws of nature. Variations from difiFerent causes are essentially distinct from a regular and unretrograde increase. The average duration
human mind citements fixed
in
to
will
no longer have any inbut must remain
inquiry,
inactive torpor,
or
amuse
itself
only in bewildering dreams and extrava-
gant fancies.
The constancy of the laws of nature of effects and causes is the founda-
and
tion of all
504
human knowledge, though
far
Malthus: Essay an Populatwn be it from me to say that the same power which framed and executes the laws of nature mav not change them all "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye." Such a change may undoubtedly happen. All that
I
mean
to sav
that
is
ment not
it
change
will take place,
make anv
unreasonable
as
it
assertion
aiBrming that the tact
to
as
moon
come
will
therefore
well
calls
With regard
I
human
far
go and no further, that
extent
mav
increase forever
the organic perfectibilitv, or degener-
am
told
that
it
is
a
maxim among
may breed any degree of nicety you please, and they found this maxim upon another, which is that some of the offspring will the improvers of cattle that you
to
from the earhest ages of the world to the present moment the smallest permanent s\Tnptom or indication of increasing proobservable
it
of the general laws of nature.
there does not appear to have existed
The
its
and say so
precise term
and animals, which he says may be regarded as one
in con-
usual time.
to the duration of
its
because the limit of
ation, of the race of plants
in
with the earth tomorrow, as in saying its
mark
that
undefined, because vou can-
and be properly termed indefinite or unhmited. But the fallacy and absurdity of this argimient will suflficiently appear from a shght examination of what Mr. Condorcet
and think
be contradicted
that the sun will rise at
life,
may
w-e
\\'hatever
is
life is
exactly shall
from reasoning. If, without any previous observable s\"mptoms or indications of a change, we can infer that a to infer
rests
human
impossible
is
it
the sandv foundation on which the argu-
possess
the
desirable
qualities
of
the
of
parents in a greater degree. In the famous
climate, habit, diet,
and other causes on have furnished the pretext asserting its indefinite extension; and
Leicestershire breed of sheep, the object
length of
is
Many, I doubt not, will think that the attempting gravely to controvert so absurd a paradox as the immortality of man on earth, or indeed, even the perfectibility of man and society, is a waste of time and words and that such unfounded conjectures
from enlarging the bounds of human it; so far from promoting the improvement of the human mind, they are obstructing it; they are throwing us back again almost into the infancy of knowledge and weakening the
best answered by neglect. I profess, however, to be of a different opinion. When paradoxes of this kind are advanced by ingenious and able men, neglect has no tendency to convince them of their mistakes. Priding themselves on what they conceive to be a mark of the reach and
foundation of that mode of philosophizing, under the auspices of which, science has of late made such rapid advances. The present rage for wide and unrestrained speculation seems to be a kind of mental intoxication, arising, perhaps, from the great and unexpected discoveries which have been made of late years in various branches of science. To men elate and giddy with such successes, everything appeared to be within the grasp of human powers; and, under this illusion, they confounded subjects where no real progress could be proved with those where the progress had been marked, certain, and acknowledged. Could they be persuaded to sober themselves with a little severe and chastised thinking, they would see that the cause of truth and of sound philosophy cannot but suffer by substituting wild flights and unsupported assertions for patient investigation and well authenticated proofs.
longation.^
for
1
eflEects
life
size
of
their
and
o\%-n
understandings,
comprehensiveness
of
of
procure them with small heads and
upon these breed-
far
science, they are contracting
are
extent views,
to
small legs. Proceeding
the their
they will look upon this neglect merely as an indication of poverty and narrowness in the mental exertions of their contemporaries, and only think that the world is not yet prepared to receive their sublime truths.
On
the contrary, a candid investigation accompanied with a perfect readiness to adopt any theor>' warranted by sound philosophy, may have a
of these subjects,
tendency to convince them that in forming improbable and unfounded hypotheses, so
505
Great Books Library ing maxims,
made to grow. He might, however, assert without the smallest chance of being contradicted by a future fact that no carnation or anemone could
we might
evident that
is
it
could ever be
go on till the heads and legs were evanescent quantities, but this is so palpable an absurdity that we may be quite sure
and that though we cannot there really is a see it or say exactly where it is. In this
ever by cultivation be increased to the
degree of
say that he has seen wheat or the largest oak that could ever grow; but he might easily, and with perfect certainty, name a point of magnitude at which they would not
are not just
that the premises
case, the point of the greatest
assignable quantities
dorcet's acceptation of the term.
Though
the largest ear of
arrive. In all these cases, therefore, a care-
I
ful distinction
not be able in the present instance to
mark the ment will
limit at
stop, I
a point at which
the limit
would never be
It
so small as
cannot be true, therefore, that among
animals some
be
|
and animals cannot increase indefinitely in size is that they would fall by their own weight. I answer, how do we know this but from experience? from
'
experience of the degree of strength with
i
know
'
why
rat.
merely undefined.
is
It will
ing to continue forever, the head and legs the head and legs of a
plants
which these bodies are formed.
of the offspring will possess
that a carnation,
the desirable quahties of the parents in
long before
a greater degree, or that animals are in-
the size of a cabbage,
definitely perfectible.
ported by a
fiom
my
perhaps more marked and striking than anything that takes place among animals, yet even here
want
of
The progress
of
wild
a
beautiful garden flower
it
plant
to
is
would be the height
of absurdity
of
among
animals there
though is.
It is
we do
is
tenacity
The reasons
know
only
I
this
the
in
same
of
materials
many
size that
a
substances
would sup-
of the mortality of plants
unknown
to us.
No man
can say why such a plant is annual, another biennial, and another endures for ages. The whole affair in all these cases, in plants, animals, and in the
human I
race,
is
an
and
affair of experience,
only conclude that
man
is
mortal be-
cause the invariable experience of
among
all
ages
has proved the mortality of those materials
a limit to improvement,
not exactly
would not be sup-
but
are at present perfectly
the
plants as well as
reached
experience of the weakness and
in nature of the
be increased ad infinitimi, but this is so gross an absurdity that we may be quite sure that
it
I
port as large a head as a cabbage.
to
was unlimited or most obvious features of the improvement is the increase of size. The flower has grown gradually larger by cultivation. If the progress were really unlimited it might
One
stalk,
its
carnation stalk. There are
assert that the progress indefinite.
made between an
said, perhaps, that the reason
will not arrive. I should
not scruple to assert that, were the breedof these sheep
should be
unlimited progress and a progress where
which further improvecan very easily mention
it
No man can
cabbage.
improvement, or the smallest size of the head and legs, may be said to be undefined, but this is very different from unlimited or from indefinite in Mr. Con-
may
cabbage; and yet there are much greater than a
size of a large
limit,
know where it who
of
which
probable that the gardeners
his visible
body
is
made.
What can we reason but from what we know.
contend for flower prizes have often applied stronger dressing without success. At the same time, it would be highly presumptuous in any man to say that he had
to
seen the finest carnation or anemone that
man on
Sound philosophy
506
alter this
earth
will not authorize
me
opinion of the mortality of till
it
can be clearly proved
Malthus: Essay on Population that
human
the
and
race has made,
said
is
making, a decided progress towards an extent of
inimitable
why
life.
And
the
the
height of their
chief
been
have
to
whitening
very
successful
in
and increasing the race by prudent marriages, skins
adduced the two particular instances from animals and plants was to expose and illustrate, if I could, the fallacy of that argument which infers an unlimited progress, merely because some partial improvement has taken place, and that the limit of this improvement cannot
particularly by that very judicious cross with Maud, the milkmaid, by which some
be precisely ascertained.
wards immortality on
The capacity of improvement in plants and animals, to a certain degree, no person can possibly doubt. A clear and decided progress has already been made, and yet I think it appears that it would be highly absurd to say that this progress has no limits. In human life, though there
very great additional weight that an
reason
I
capital defects in the constitutions of the
family were corrected. It
The
therefore,
man
think,
in
man
to-
to urge the
earth,
life
in-
would give
Mr. Condorcet's book may be considered not only as a sketch of the opinions of a
many
celebrated individual but of
men
of the
France at the beginning of the Revolution. As such, though merely a sketch, it seems worthy of attention. literary
in
CHAPTER
X
reading Mr. Godwin's ingenious and
for the
rest, are
I
argument of population.
to the
foundations,
on which the arguments
organic perfectibility of
necessary,
crease in the duration of
it may be doubted whether, since the world began, any organic improvement whatever in the human frame can be
ascertained.
not be
probability of any approach in
are great variations from different causes,
clearly
will
order more completely to show the im-
Inable
un-
work on
justice,*
political
it
is
usually weak, and can only be considered
impossible not to be struck with the spirit
as mere conjectures. It does not, however, by any means seem impossible that by an
precision of
and energy of his style, the force and some of his reasonings, the
attention to breed a certain degree of improvement, similar to that among animals, might take place among men.
Whether
may be
intellect
a
even
matter
longevity
The
larly,
of
doubt,
are
in
a
but
size,
sions
supposing a small degree of improvement possible, but in not discriminating
to
attempts ancient
of
of
kind,
except
Bickerstaffs,
in
who
air
time,
of truth
to
it
often
He
fails
unwarranted by his sometimes in removing
Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, and on General Virtue and Happi-
Its Influence
ness.
Godwin considered
all
control of
man
by man more or less intolerable, and, in the Enquiry, he argued that "government by its very nature counteracts the improvement of original mind." He was convinced of the perfectibility of man, and he foresaw the day when governments would no longer be necessary, because men would be guided by reason in all of their actions.— Ed.
breed should ever become I know of no well-directed
this
family
are
premises.
between a small improvement, the limit of which is undefined, and an improvement really unlimited. As the human race, however, could not be improved in this way without condemning all the bad specimens to celibacy, it is not probable that general; indeed,
same
philosophy seems to require. His conclu-
to lie
in
an attention
an
must be confessed that he has not proceeded in his enquiries with the caution that sound
trans-
seem
gives
the whole. At the
and perhaps
degree
error does not
with that impressive earnestness of
manner which
could be communicated
strength, beauty, complexion,
missible.
ardent tone of his thoughts, and, particu-
the are
507
Great Books Library which he himself brings too much on general and abstract propositions which will not the
He
certainly
occult cause
relies
admit of application. And
tempt to be the grinding law of necessity, misery, and the fear of misery. The great error under which Mr. Godwin labors throughout his whole work is the attributing almost all the vices and
his conjectures
modesty
the
outstrip
far
of
nature.
The system of equality which Mr. Godwin proposes is, without doubt, by far the most beautiful and engaging of any that has
An
appeared.
yet
amelioration
as some mysterious and and which he does not atinvestigate, will be found to
mentions
thus
objections
forward.
misery that are seen in
human
of
be produced merely by reason wears much more the promise of permanence than any change eflFected and maintained by force. The unlimited exercise of private judgment is a doctrine inexpressibly grand and captivating and has a vast superiority over those systems where every individual is
society
civil
Political
institutions.
to
regulations
society to
and
and
property are with him the fruitful sources
conviction
of
the
the hotbeds of
evil,
all
administration
established
a true state of the case,
all
Were
that degrade mankind.
it
of
the crimes this
really
would not seem
a hopeless task to remove evil completely
without emotions of delight
from the world, and reason seems to be the proper and adequate instrument for eflFecting so great a purpose. But the truth is that, though human institutions appear to be the obvious and obtrusive causes of much mischief to mankind, yet, in reality they are light and superficial; they are mere feathers that float on the surface in comparison with those deeper seated
and admiration, accompanied with ardent
causes of impurity that corrupt the springs
in a
manner the
slave of the public.
The
substitution of benevolence as the master
spring and instead
of
moving
principle
self-love,
of
devoutly to be wished. In short, possible to contemplate the fair structure
longing for the period of
ment. But,
alas!
that
society,
consummation
a
is
is
im-
whole of
this
its
it
and render turbid the whole stream
accomplish-
human
moment can never
arrive. The whole is little better than a dream, a beautiful phantom of the imagination. These "gorgeous palaces" of happi-
Mr. Godwin,
and immortality, these "solemn temples" of truth and virtue will dissolve, "like the baseless fabric of a vision,"
we awaken
"The
says,
ness
in his
attendant on
fits
and the
when
lished
are
administration
alike
hostile
these
spirit of fraud,
growth of the estab-
are the immediate
and contemplate the true and genuine situation of man on
chapter on the bene-
system of equality,
a
spirit of oppression, the spirit
of servility,
to real life
to
of
They
property.
intellectual
improve-
ment. The other vices of envy, malice, inseparable com-
earth.
and revenge are
Mr. Godwin, at the conclusion of the third chapter of his eighth book, speaking
panions. In a state of society where
of population, says.
human
in is
society,
perpetually kept
means of the wandering
of
life.
their
lived in the midst of plenty
There is a principle by which population
these sentiments
down
The narrow
all
to the level of
among
men
and where
shared alike the bounties of nature,
would
inevitably expire.
principle of selfishness
would
No man
never find through the lapse of ages that population has so increased as to
being obliged to guard his little store or provide with anxiety and pain for his restless wants, each would lose his individual existence in the thought of
render necessary
the general good.
the
subsistence. tribes of
Thus,
vanish.
America and Asia,
we
the
earth." This principle,
cultivation
of
the
which Mr. Godwin
enemy 508
to
his
No man would be
neighbor,
for
an
they would
Malthns: Essay on Population have no subject of contention; and, of consequence, philanthropy would resume the empire which reason assigns her. Mind would be delivered from her perpetual anxiety about corporal support, and free to expatiate in the field of thought, which is
congenial to her. Each would assist the
enquiries of
all."
This would, indeed, be a happy
might be expected to press under so perfect a form of society. A theory that will not admit of application cannot possibly be just. Let us suppose
and vice
the causes of misery
all
War and
removed.
in this Island
Unwholesome trades and manufactories do not exist. Crowds no
contention cease.
state.
longer collect together in great and pesti-
But that it is merely an imaginary picture, with scarcely a feature near the truth,
lent cities for purposes of court intrigue,
the
reader,
am
I
cannot
midst of plenty.
bauchery. There are no towns sufficiently
take place of drinking, gaming, and de-
live in the
cannot share
All
Were
nature.
bounties
the
alike
of
large
there no established adminis-
tration of property, every
to
have any prejudicial
human
the
man would be
obliged to guard with force his Selfishness
gratifications.
Simple, healthy, and rational amusements
is
well convinced.
Man
commerce, and vicious
of
already too
afraid,
of the
constitution.
happy inhabitants
The
on
eflFects
greater part
of this terrestrial
paradise live in hamlets and farmhouses
little store.
would be triumphant. The sub-
over the face of the country.
scattered
contention would be perpetual.
Every individual mind would be under
Every house is clean, roomy, and in a healthy
a constant anxiety about corporal support,
are equal.
The
And
necessary labors of agriculture
jects
of
and not a
single intellect
would be
left
How
Mr. Godwin has turned the
little
attention of his penetrating real state of
man on
mind
Island
by
to reason thus
all
great
is
distance.
habitable globe
already
parts
immeasurable centuries
may
of
pass
is
uncultivated. are
improvement. still
it
increasing
of
Myriads
of
impartial
be the same as
to
spirit of
justice, all
at
benevolence, guided the
will
divide
members
would be impossible
this
of the
Though
that they should
have animal food every day, yet vegemeat occasionally, would satisfy the desires of a frugal people and would be sufficient to preserve them in health, strength, and spirits. Mr. Godwin considers marriage
population
away, and the earth be
The num-
table food, with
The
capable
all.
society according to their wants.
Three fourths of the
now
suppose
The
produce among
to foresee difficulties at
cultivated
we
present.
earth will sufficiently
appear from the manner in which he endeavors to remove the difficulty of an overcharged population. He says, "The obvious answer to this objection is that a
among
ber of persons and the produce of the
the
to
the
men
labors of luxury are at end.
are shared amicably
free to expatiate in the field of thought.
sufficiently
airy,
situation. All
as
a
fraud and a monopoly. Let us suppose the
still
upon
commerce
of the sexes established
inhabitants."
principles
of
of supposing that no distress
have already pointed out the error and difficulty would arise from an overcharged popula-
Mr. Godwin does not think himself that this freedom would lead to a promiscuous
tion before
with him. The love of variety
found
sufficient for the subsistence of its
I
intercourse,
the earth absolutely refused
the
and
most perfect freedom.
in this
I
perfectly agree is
a vicious,
and unnatural taste and could not prevail in any great degree in a simple and virtuous state of society. Each man would probably select himself as a partner,
produce any more. But let us imagine for a moment Mr. Godwin's beautiful system of equality realized in its utmost purity, and see how soon this difficulty
corrupt,
to
509
Great Books Library
whom he would adhere as long as that adherence continued to be the choice of both parties. It would be of httle consequence, according to Mr. Godwin, how
to
many
children a
woman had
or to
whom
they belonged. Provisions and assistance would spontaneously flow from the quarter
which they abounded to the quarter that was deficient. And every man would be ready to furnish instruction to the in
rising generation according to his capacity. I
cannot conceive a form of society so
taken place throughout
present
at
supposing no
anxiety
support of children to ceive that there a
hundred,
of
as
we
this
in
a
With
these
encourage-
extraordinary
and every cause of depopulation, as we have supposed, removed, the numbers would necessarily increase faster than in any society that has ever yet been known. I have mentioned, on the authority of a pamphlet published by a Dr. Styles and referred to by Dr. Price, that the inhabitants of the back settlements of America doubled their numbers in fifteen years. England is certainly a more healthy country than the back settlements of America, and as we have supposed every house in the Island to be airy and wholesome, and the encouragements to have a family greater even than with the back settlers, no probable reason can be assigned why the poputo population,
lation should not
possible,
we
itself
than fifteen years.
quite sure that truth,
double
we do
will only
in less,
But
to
which
in the
known
to
and who
reflects
soil in
on
the
of the lands already in cultivation,
year without dressing.
None
of the
lands in England will answer to this description. Difiicult, however, as it might be to double the average produce of the Island in twenty-five years, let us suppose it
effected.
At the expiration of the
first
period, therefore, the food, though almost
if
entirely vegetable,
be
would be
sufiicient to
support in health the doubled population
not go beyond the
well
much who is
or
scheme might defeat itself. The soil of England will not produce much without dressing, and cattle seem to be necessary to make that species of manure which best suits the land. In China it is said that the soil in some of the provinces is so fertile as to produce two crops of rice
of fourteen million.
suppose the period of is
such,
person
use of animal food. Yet a part of this
During the next period of doubling where will the food be found to satisfy
doubling to be twenty-five years, a ratio of increase
a
and the barrenness of those that are not cultivated, will be very much disposed to doubt whether the whole average produce could possibly be doubled in twenty -five years from the present period. The only chance of success would be the ploughing up all the grazing countries and putting an end almost entirely to the
family.
ments
Yet with
exertions,
country,
fertility
about the future do not conwithout
probable that the half of
acquainted with the nature of the this
exist, I
twenty-three,
purpose.
greater
are
would be one woman
It is
every man's time must be employed for
unshackled intercourse, on the contrary, would be a most powerful incite-
and
doubt that the which we have
to
sufiicient.
entering into that state.
to early attachments,
little
would tend augment the produce of the country. But to answer the demands of a population increasing so rapidly, Mr. Godwin's calculation of half an hour a day for each man would certainly not be greatly
An
ment
be
directed chiefly to agriculture,
undoubtedly
constituted,
many from
the northern
supposed, added to the circumstance of the labor of the whole community being
upon the whole to population. The irremediableness of marriage, as it deters
can
There
equalization of property
favorable
is
all
America.
states of
have
510
Malthus: Essay on Population
demands
the importunate
numbers. Where
of the increasing
up? Where is the dressing necessary to improve that which is already in cultivation? There is no person with the smallest knowledge of land but would say that it was impossible that the average produce of the country could be increased during the second twenty-five years by a quantity equal to what it at present yields. Yet we will suppose this increase, however improbable,
take place.
to
No human
institutions here existed,
of
men. them between public and private good. No monopoly had been created of those advantages which reason directs to be left in common. No man had been goaded to the breach of order bv unjust laws. Benevolence had established her reign in all hearts; and yet, in so short a period as opposition had been produced bv
within
years,
fiftv
violence,
oppression,
be divided among twenty-
form of distress, which degrade and sadden the present state of society, seem to have been generated bv the most imperious circumstances, bv laws inherent in the nature of man and absolutely independent of all human regulations.
fabric
ever)'
is
If
The
us but look for a
see
the
moment
into the next
twent)'-eight
million
we
himian
ulation million,
chilling
would be one hundred and twelve and the food only sufficient for
thirty-five
had vanished reappear. The mighty law of self-preservation expels all the softer and more exalted emotions of the soul. The
million unprovided for. In these ages
to
nature
plucked before
to it
of
vices
too
is
ripe,
strong
com
The
resist.
unfair proportions, train
are
evil
all this
for
flow
in
for
the
of
time
we
are supposing the produce
and the
speculator can imagine.
undoubtedly a very different from population from that which Mr. Godwin gives, when he says, "Myriads of centuries of still increasing population may pass away, and the eaith be still found sufficient for the This
falsehood
support
sevent\'-seven
yearly increase greater than the boldest
are immediately generated. Provisions no
longer
leaving
of the earth absolutely unlimited,
is
and the whole black to
million,
want would be indeed triumphant, and rapine and murder must reign at large; and yet,
or secreted in
that belong
shall
beings
without the means of support; and before the conclusion of the first century the pop-
spirit
and invigorated
repressed by
are not yet too well convinced of
period of twenty-five years, and
imagination vanishes
of
we
the reality of this melanchoh' picture, let
breath of want. The hateful passions that
temptations
to
Godwin
Mr.
\\'hich
ascribes the original sin of the worst
No
The exuberant
severe touch of truth.
human
till
resumes his wonted triumphant over the
falsehood, misery, every hateful vice, and
to
plenty,
few bosoms,
a
support of twent)'-one million
of benevolence, cherished
by
it
perverseness
the
Alas! What becomes of the picture where men hved in the midst of plenty, where no man was obUged to provide with anxiety and pain for his restless wants, where the narrow principle of selfishness did not exist, where Mind was dehvered from her perpetual anxiety about corporal support, and free to expatiate in the field of thought which is congenial to her. This
at the
self-love
empire and lords
eight million.
beautiful
in
expiring struggles,
faint
world.
any concession. Even with this concession, however, there would be seven million at the expiration of the second term unprovided for. A quantity of food equal
would be
length
at
strength of the argument allows of almost
to the frugal
lingering
yet
lence,
makes some
the fresh land to turn
is
view
the
mother with a large family. The children are sickly from insufiicient food. The rosy flush of health gives place to the pallid
cheek and hollow eye of misery. Benevo-
is
of the difficult)' arising
subsistence of
511
its
inhabitants."
Great Books Library
am
I
every man was perand ready to supply the wants of his neighbor. But that the question was no longer whether one man should give to another that which he did not use himself, but whether he should give to his neighbor the food which was absolutely necessary to his own existence. It would be represented that the number of those that were in want very greatly exceeded the number and means of those who should
aware that the redun-
suflBciently
possessed the
dant twenty-eight million or seventy-seven million that I have mentioned could never
have
existed. It
ciple in tion
is
is
a perfectly just observa-
Mr. Godwin that "There
tion of
human
fectly
society,
perpetually kept
a prin-
is
by which popula-
down
to the level
means of subsistence." The sole question is, what is this principle? Is it some obscure and occult cause? Is it some mysterious interference of heaven, which the
of
at a certain period strikes the
men with
least, as
willing
supply them, that these pressing wants,
impotence and the women with barrenness? Or is it a cause open to our researches, within our view, a cause which
which from the
has constantly been observed to operate,
that these violations
though with varied force, in every state in which man has been placed? Is it not a degree of misery, the necessary and in-
the increase of food and would,
institutions, so far
may be curious we have been
duce should, all
supposing,
it
they
was
quence who labored the
they
lived
of
in
little
least,
if
that
possible, in
order
be obtained to
effect
at
this
It
might be urged, perhaps, by some
objectors that as the fertility of the land
increased and various accidents occurred,
some men might be much and that when the reign of self-love was once established they would not distribute their surplus produce without some compensation in return. It would be observed, in answer, that this was an inconvenience greatly to be lamented, but that it was an evil which bore no comparison to the black train of distresses that would inevitably be occasioned by the insecurity of property, that the quantity of food which one man could consume was necessarily limited by the narrow capacity of the human stomach, that it was not certainly probable that he should throw away the rest, but the share of
more than
the
conse-
or
events,
itself.
dangerous situation of the country would be while
if
first,
how some
stated in the strongest terms. It that,
had already checked
great, and indispensable purpose, it would be advisable to make a more complete division of land, and to secure every man's stock against violation by the most powerful sanctions, even by death
to observe, in the case
which at present govern civilwould be successively dictated by the most imperious necessity. As man, according to Mr. Godwin, is the creature of the impressions to which he is subject, the goadings of want could not continue long before some violations of public or private stock would necessarily take place. As these violations increased in number and extent, the more active and comprehensive intellects of the society would soon perceive that, while population was fast increasing, the yearly produce of the country would shortly begin to diminish. The urgency of the case would suggest the necessity of some immediate measures to be taken for the general safety. Some kind of convention would then be called, and
midst of plenty,
oc-
to dictate that a yearly increase of pro-
ized society
observed
had
which
of the laws
the
produce of the
gratified,
from aggravat-
have tended considerably to mitigate, though they never can remove? It
be
casioned some flagrant violations of justice,
ing,
that
all
were not by some means or other prevented, throw the whole community in confusion, that imperious necessity seemed
evitable result of the laws of nature,
human
state of the
country could not
who 512
sufficient for their support,
Malthus: Essay on Population that even
if
he exchanged
his surplus
himself and innocent children in miser)'
food
and made them in some degree dependent on him, this would still be better than that these others should
some express
absolutely starve.
every
and want.
for the labor of others,
The
on the
for the evils
ficulties that
The view rior
would come im-
who had
It
diflBculties
community labored felt
own
the
secure that
all his
well provided for
under which the
that while every
children
man
would be
by general benevolence,
the powers of the earth would be absolutely
And
starve.
suflBcient to
When,
It
should
support their
therefore, a
woman
to prevent the frequent recur-
be highly unjust
which would inevitably ensue; that even if the whole attention and labor of the society were directed to this sole point and if, by the most perfect security of property and every other encouragement that could be thought of, the greatest possible increase of produce were yearly obulation
still,
children.
man.
in the
women
rence of such an inconvenience, as
inadequate to produce food for the pop-
tained, yet
woman, than
was connected with a man who had entered into no compact to maintain her children and, aware of the inconveniences that he might bring upon himself, had deserted her, these children must necessarily fall for support upon the society or
tvimed their attention to the true
cause of the
supposed.
disgrace which attends a breach of
have resources
commerce between would be urged by those is
children,
of these diflBculties presents
could not be expected that
der discussion, intimately connected with the sexes.
we have
chastity in the
the preceding,
on
obligation
own
support his
us with a very natural origin of the supe-
which were pressing
subject that
implied
or
to
reasonings in a community under the dif-
society.
The next
man
seems to be the natural result of these
It seems highly probable, therefore, that an administration of property, not very diflFerent from that which prevails in civilized states at present, would be established as the best, though inadequate,
remedy
institution of marriage, or at least of
fault
by personal
men might
to
it
would
punish so natural a
restraint or infliction, the
agree to punish
it
with
dis-
more obvious and conspicuous in the woman, and less liable to any mistake. The father of a child may not always be known, but the same grace.
The
offense
is
besides
uncertainty cannot easily exist with regard
that the increase of food
would by no means keep pace with the much more rapid increase of population; that some check to population, therefore, was imperiously called for; that the most natural and obvious check seemed to be
to the mother.
Where
the evidence of the
the means of support; that where this not-
was most complete, and the inconvenience to the society at the same time the greatest, there it was agreed that the largest share of blame should fall. The obligation on every man to maintain his children the society would enforce, if there were occasion; and the greater degree of inconvenience or labor, to which a family would necessarily subject him, added to some portion of disgrace which every human being must incur who leads another
withstanding was the case,
into unhappiness,
essary, for the
a suflBcient punishment for the man.
to
make every man provide
for his
offense
own
would operate, in some respect, as a measure and guide in the increase of population, as it might be expected that no man would bring beings children; that this
into the
world for
whom
he could not find
it seemed necexample of others, that the disgrace and inconvenience attending such a conduct should fall upon the individual who had thus inconsiderately plunged
might be considered
as
That a woman should at present be almost driven from society for an offense which men commit nearly with impunity
513
Great Books Library be undoubtedly a breach of natBut the origin of the custom, the most obvious and effectual method
seems
should
to
as
community, appears to be natural, though not perhaps perfectly justifiable. This origin, however, a serious inconvenience to a
now
lost
the
in
new
train
afford assistance to greater numbers. All
who were
in want of food would be urged by imperious necessity to offer their labor
ideas
of
which the custom has since generated. What at first might be dictated by state necessity is now supported by female delicacy, and operates with the greatest force on that part of society, where, if the original intention of the custom were preserved, there
is
in
own
these two fundamental laws of
and the were once established, inequality of conditions must necessarily follow. Those who were bom after the division of property would come into a world already possessed. If their parents, from having too large a family, could not give them sufficient for their support, what are they to do in a world where everything is appropriated? We have seen the fatal effects that would result to a society if every man had a valid claim to an equal share of the produce of the earth. The members of a family which was grown institution of marriage,
in
much
On
demand
this
And
thus
it
appears that a society con-
according to the most beautiful form that imagination can conceive, with
position in
of distinction.
seems both natural and
upon
a
particular
just that,
occasions,
their
moving
principle, in-
all
members corrected by
its
reason and not force, would, from the
in-
and not from any man, in a very short
evitable laws of nature,
of sur-
some
And
its
stead of self-love, and with every evil dis-
distinguishing criterion, ex-
more obvious mark
or de-
stituted
plus produce to supply. Moral merit
plus produce would, in general, seek
stationariness,
crease of population.
benevolence for
The owners
among known depends. And on
happiness, or degree of misery, de-
pends the increase,
The number of these claimants would soon exceed the ability of the sur-
cept in extreme cases.
No man
the state of this fund, the happiness,
state at present chiefly
appeared that
is
shares.
larger
the lower classes of people in every
blank.
difficult
the
or the degree of misery, prevailing
from the inevitable laws of our nature some human beings must suffer from want. These are the unhappy persons who, in the great lottery of life, have drawn a
very
of land
When
consumption.
vided
a part of the surplus produce of others as a debt of justice. It has
appropri-
would exchange his labor without receiving an ample quantity of food in return. Laborers would live in ease and comfort and would, consequently, be able to rear a numerous and vigorous offspring.
too large for the original division of land
could not then
absolutely
The fund
beyond their demands upon this fund were great and numerous, it would naturally be divided in very small shares. Labor would be ill paid. Men would offer to work for a bare subsistence, and the rearing of families would be checked by sickness and misery. On the contrary, when this fund was increasing fast, when it was great in proportion to the number of claimants, it would be di-
by the owners
sessed
the least real occasion for
it
article so
this
ated to the maintenance of labor would be the aggregate quantity of food pos-
society, the security of property
appropriated to
exchange for
essential to existence.
it.
When
able and
duce, and thus at once benefiting the community and enabhng these proprietors to
of preventing the frequent recurrence of
is
upon those who were
fall
professed themselves willing to exert their strength in procuring a further surplus pro-
ural justice.
original depravity of
period
it
degenerate
upon
structed
choice
ferent from that
514
into
a
society
con-
a plan not essentially dif-
except
which prevails
in
every
Malthus: Essay on Population
known
state at present; I
mean
CHAPTER
a society
divided into a class of proprietors, and a class
of laborers,
main spring
and with
self-love
We
have supposed Mr. Godwin's system of societ)- once completely established. But it is supposing an impossibiht) The same causes in nature which would destrov it so rapidl\\ were it once estabhshed, would prevent the possibifity of its establishment. And upon what grounds we can presume a change in these
the
of the great machine.
In the supposition I have made, I have undoubtedly taken the increase of population smaller and the increase of produce greater than they really would be. No reason can be assigned why, under the circumstances I have supposed, population should not increase faster than in any known instance. If then we were to take the period of doubling at fifteen years, instead of twent\-five years, and reflect upon the labor necessary to double the produce in so short a time, even if we allow it possible, we may ventvire to pronounce with certaint)^- that if Mr. Godwin's system of societv' was established in its utmost perfection, instead of myriads of centuries,
not thirty years
before
utter destruction
its
could
.
conjecture.
tion of the passion
taken place in the the decline of
elapse
sum
vain and
know,
how much
from
repeated
men
against
futile,
such
may
pleasures
as
and unproductive of lastBut the pleasures of pure
love will bear the contemplation of the
most
improved
reason,
and
exalted virtue. Perhaps there
is
the
most
scarcely a
man who
has once experienced the gendehght of virtuous love, however great his intellectual pleasures may have
uine
been, that does not look back to the period as the
We
sunny spot
in his
whole life, where which he re-
his imagination loves to bask,
experience,
misery and hardship
of this passion to contribute to
ing satisfaction.
such governments as at present exist in Europe, or submit to the extreme hardwell
in
of pleasurable sensations in Hfe.
inveigh
well
essen-
regions.
Men
ages de-
as the comforts of their age, cor-
selves,
must be completely destroyed its members would volunconsent to leave it and live under
new
all
poral debiht)' and mental remorse,
principle
setders in
in
Those who have spent their youth in criminal excesses and have prepared for them-
before any of
first
have
incompetent judges with regard to
ver\-
the
ships of
life
Those who from coldness of contemperament have never felt what love is will surely be allowed to be
have taken no notice of emigration for obvious reasons. If such societies were instituted in other parts of Europe, these countries would be under the same difficulties with regard to population and could admit no fresh members into their bosoms. If this beautiful societ)' were confined to this Island, it must have degenerated strangely from its original purity, and administer but a very small portion of the
tarily
thousand
stitutional
I
tial
or six
five
success.
power
its
towards the extinc-
between the sexes has
claimed against a passion which they have ceased to feel, but with as little reason as
from the sim-
proposed; in short,
utterlv at a loss to
years that the world has existed.
the
it
I am No move
natural causes,
ple principle of population.
happiness
XI
collects
regrets,
will
undergo in their own country before they can determine to desert it; and how often the most tempting proposals of embarking for new settiements have been rejected by people who appeared to be almost starving.
five
and contemplates with the fondest and which he would most wish to
over again. The superiorit)' of
intel-
lectual to sensual pleasures consists rather in their fiUing
up more
time, in their hav-
ing a larger range, and in their being less
hable to satiety, than in their being more real
515
and
essential.
Great Books Library Intemperance feats
own
its
every enjoyment de-
in
purpose.
A
walk
car.
It
symmetry
"the
is
of person,
the affectionate kindness of feelings, the
day through the most beautiful country, if pursued too far, ends in pain and fatigue. The most wholesome and invigorating food, eaten with an unrestrained appetite, produces weakness instead of strength. Even intellectual pleasures, though cer-
woman
imagination and the wit" of a
that
and not the
the passion of love,
excite
mere distinction of her being a female. Urged by the passion of love, men have been driven into acts highly prejudicial general interests
tainly less liable than others to satiety, pur-
to
sued with too
probably they would have found no
little
the
vivacity, the voluptuous softness of temper,
in the finest
intermission, debilitate
the
of
had
culty in resisting the temptation
body and impair the vigor of the mind. To argue against the reality of these pleasthe
but
society,
diffi-
ap-
it
ures from their abuse seems to be hardly
form of a woman with no other attractions whatever but her sex. To
Godwin,
strip sensual pleasures of all their adjuncts,
just. is
Morality, according to Mr.
a calculation of consequences,
or,
peared
deprive a magnet of some of
Archdeacon Paley very justly expresses it, the will of God, as collected from general expediency. According to either of these
sential causes
say that In
attended
definitions, a sensual pleasure not
and
if it
it is
the
of attraction,
weak and
pursuit
of
is
to
most
es-
and then
to
its
inefficient.
every
enjoyment,
whether sensual or intellectual, reason, that faculty which enables us to calculate consequences, is the proper corrective and
with the probability of unhappy consequences does not offend against the laws of morality,
order to prove their inferiority,
in
as
in the
be pursued with such
probable, therefore, that im-
a degree of temperance as to leave the
guide.
most ample room for intellectual attainments, it must undoubtedly add to the sum
proved reason will always tend to prevent the abuse of sensual pleasures, though it by no means follows that it will extinguish
of pleasurable sensations in love, exalted
by
Virtuous
life.
friendship, seems to
that sort of mixture of sensual
and
be
It
is
them.
have endeavored to expose the fallacy argument which infers an unlimited progress from a partial improvement, the limits of which cannot be exactly as-
intel-
I
enjoyment particularly suited to the nature of man, and most powerfully calculated to awaken the sympathies of the soul, and produce the most exquisite grati-
of that
fications.
which a decided progress has been observed, where yet it would be a gross absurdity to suppose that progress indefinite. But towards the extinction of the passion between the sexes no observable progress whatever has hitherto been made. To suppose such an
lectual
there are
Mr. Godwin evident
certained. It has appeared,
says, in order to
inferiority
sense, "Strip the
the
of
commerce
show the
pleasures
of
of the sexes of
its attendant circumstances, and it would be generally despised." He might as well say to a man who admired trees: strip them of their spreading branches and lovely foliage, and what beauty can you see in a bare pole? But it was the tree with the branches and foliage, and not without
all
extinction, therefore,
that
is
merely
to offer
an
unfounded conjecture, unsupported by any philosophical probabilities. It is
a truth, which history
I
am
afraid
ex-
not only to a moderate but even to an
One
as distinct,
makes too
feature
and
gate as any two things the most remote, as
a beautiful
think,
emotions from the aggre-
may be
cite as different
I
instances in
some men of the highest mental powers have been addicted
them, that excited admiration. of an object
many
woman and
a
map
of
clear,
that
immoderate indulgence in the pleasures But allowing, as I should
Madagas-
of sensual love.
516
Malthus: Essay on Population
some unexpected word,
numer-
tions
excited
ous instances to the contrary-, that great
by a
letter that
intellectual exertions tend to diminish the
the most extraordinary revolutions in our
empire of this passion over man, it is evident that the mass of mankind must be improved more highlv than the brightest ornaments of the species at present before an\- difference can take place sufficient
frame, accelerates the circulation, causes
be inclined
to do, notsvithstanding
sensiblv to affect population.
I
b\'
delivered to us, occasions
is
the heart to palpitate, the tongue to refuse its office,
and has been known
to occasion
death by extreme anguish or extreme joy. There is nothing indeed of which the phv-
would h\
is more mind in
sician
a\\are than of the
the
assisting
power
of
no means suppose that the mass of mankind has reached its term of improvement, but the principal argument of this essay
valescence."
tends to place in a strong point of view the
instances of the effects of mental stimu-
The
or
retarding
con-
instances here mentioned are chiefl\"
ficiently free
on the bodilv frame. Xo person has for a moment doubted the near, though mysterious, connection of mind and
tain
bod^.
improbabilit\'
that
the
lo\\"er
classes
lants
of
ever
people in any countr)- should ever be suf-
from want and labor to obanv high degree of intellectual improvement.
But knowledge
it
arguing totalh" without
is
of the nature of stimulants to
suppose either that they can be applied
CHAPTER
continuallv with equal strength, or
XII
immortaht\- on earth seems to be rather
oddiv placed
in a
chapter which professes
remove the objection
to his s\stem of from the principle of population. Unless he supposes the passion between the sexes to decrease faster than the duration of life increases, the earth would be more encumbered than ever. But leaving this difficult\- to Mr. Godwin, let us examine a few of the appearances from which the probable immortalit\- of man is
equalits'
inferred.
To prove
the
power
of the
mind over
Mr. Godwin observes, "How often do we find a piece of good news disthe
ma}'
body,
sipating a distemper?
How common
is
remark that those accidents which are
who
the
those
fix
slight
disorders
the attention of a
has nothing else to think
of;
but
of
man this
does not tend to prove that activity of
to
will enable a man to disregard a high fever, the smallpox, or the plague.
mind
gotten and extirpated in the busy and ac-
The man who walks twent}' miles with a motive that engrosses his soul does not attend to his slight fatigue of body when he
walk twent}" miles in an indolent temper and am extremely fatigued. I walk twenty miles fuU of ardor, and with a motive that engrosses my soul, and I come in as fresh and as alert as when I began my journey. Emo-
and
disregard
frame which
the indolent a source of disease are for-
tive?
thev
would not exhaust and wear out the subject. In some of the cases here noticed, the strength of the stimulus depends upon its novelts' and unexpectedness. Such a stimulus cannot, from its nature, be repeated often with the same effect, as it would by repetition lose that property which gives it its strength. In the other cases, the argument is from a small and partial effect to a great and general effect, which will in numberless instances be found to be a ver\- fallacious mode of reasoning. The bus\- and active man may in some degree counteract or, what is perhaps nearer the truth,
conjecture respecting the Mr. Godwin's future approach of man towards
to
if
could be so applied, for a time, that they
I
half determined
comes in; but double his motive, and set him to walk another t\vent\' miles, quadruple it, and let him start a third time, and
517
Great Books Library so on,
their riders in their strength
and the length of his walk will uldepend upon muscle and not
mind. Powell" for a motive of ten guineas,
not at
all
tired
in
his
first
Another day, perhaps, going over same extent of ground with a good deal of sport, I have come home fresh and alert. The difference in the sensation of fatigue upon coming in on the different days may have been very striking, but on the following mornings I have found no such difference. I have not per-
nearly the
walk of
twenty miles, because he did not appear to be so, or, perhaps, scarcely felt any fatigue himself. The mind cannot fix its attention strongly on more than one object at once. The twenty thousand pounds so engrossed his thoughts that he did not attend to any slight soreness of foot or ness of limb. But
had he been
ceived that
is
When
was
I
my
less stiff in
limbs or
on the morning after the day of the sport than on the other morning. less footsore
upon the by taking off the attention from the bodily fatigue than by really and truly counteracting it. If the energy of my mind had really counteracted In
stiflF-
all
these cases, stimulants
mind seem
really as
fresh and as alert as when he first set off, he would be able to go the second twenty miles with as much ease as the first, and so on, the third, etc., which leads to a
palpable absurdity.
feeling a consider-
tigue.
twenty-four hours.
This statement of the case shows the fallacy of supposing that the person was really
home
able degree of uncomfortableness from fa-
would not make him walk in
I
quently returned
a frame of moderate strength would, permake the man kill himself by his it
effect,
When
haps,
an hundred miles
spirits,
and make them tire sooner. have taken a long walk with my gun, and met with no success, I have fre-
and
would have walked further probably than Mr. Godwin, for a motive of half a million. A motive of uncommon power acting upon
exertions, but
and
but towards the end of a hard day the previous fatigue would have its full weight
timately
a horse of spirit
to act rather
the fatigue of
my
tired the next
morning?
body,
why If
should
I feel
the stimulus of
the hounds had as completely overcome
nearly half tired, by the stimulus of the
added to the proper management of the bit, he may be put so much upon his mettle that he would appear to a standerby as fresh and as high spirited as if he had not gone a mile. Nay, probably, the horse himself, while in the heat and passion occasioned by this stimulus, would not feel any fatigue; but it would be strangely contrary to all reason and experience to argue from such an appearance that if the stimulus were continued the horse would never be tired. The cry of a pack of hounds will make some horses, after a journey of forty miles on the road, appear as fresh and as lively as when they first set out. Were they then to be hunted, no perceptible abatement would at first be felt by
the fatigue of the journey in reality, as
spur,
did in appearance,
be
why
tired sooner than
the forty miles?
bad
fit
writing tion, I
I
if
he had not gone to have a very
happen
of the toothache at the time this.
every
it
should the horse
I
am
In the eagerness of composi-
now and
then, for a
moment
cannot help thinking that the process which causes the pain
or two, forget
it.
Yet
I
going forwards, and that the nerves which carry the information of it to the brain are even during these moments demanding attention and room for their ap-
is still
propriate vibrations. vibrations
The
multiplicity
of another kind
of
may perhaps
prevent their admission, or overcome them for a time when admitted, till a shoot of extraordinary energy puts
all
other vibra-
tions to the rout, destroys the vividness of
my
Foster Powell (1734-1793), English longdistance walker.— Ed.
argvimentative conceptions, and rides
triumphant in the brain. In
518
this case, as
Malthus: Essay on Population in the others, the tle
or no
power
mind seems
have
to
ht-
in counteracting or curing
the disorder, but merely possesses a power, if
strong!)' excited,
of fixing
attention
its
on other subjects. I do not, however, mean to say that a sound and vigorous mind has no tendency whatever to keep the body in a similar state. So close and intimate is the union of mind and body that it would be highly extraordinary- if they did not mutually assist each other's functions. But, perhaps, a comparison, the body has more upon the mind than the mind upon the body. The first object of the mind is to
upon
the consequent probability of the immor-
tahty of man, are of this latter description, and could such stimulants be continually
apphed, instead of tending to immortalize, they would tend very rapidly to destroy
human frame. The probable increase of the voluntary power of man over his animal frame comes the
under Mr. Godwin's consideration, and he concludes by saying that the voluntary' power of some men, in this respect, is found to extend to various articles in which other men are impotent. But this is
next
reasoning against an almost universal rule from a few exceptions; and these excep-
effect
act as purveyor to the wants of the body.
tions
When
that
these wants are completely satisfied,
an active mind is indeed apt to wander further, to range over the fields of science,
I
it
has "shuffled
is
seeking
off this
to
be rather
tricks
than powers
exerted to any good purpose.
have never heard of any
man who
could
regulate his pulse in a fever, and doubt
much, if any of the persons here alluded to have made the smallest perceptible
or sport in the regions of imagination, to
fancy that
seem
may be
mortal
vain exer-
progress in the regular correction of the disorders of their frames and the conse-
hare in the fable. The slowly the body, never fails to
quent prolongation of their lives. Mr. Godwin says, "Nothing can be more
overtake the mind, however widely and extensively it may have ranged, and the
unphilosophical than to conclude, that, be-
brightest and most energetic
the train of
and
coil,"
But
kindred element.
its
all these efforts are like the
tions of the
moving
tortoise,
willingly as they
may
intellects,
attend to the
cause a certain species of power
un-
first
or
it
second summons, must ultimately yield the empire of the brain to the calls of hunger, or sink with the exhausted It
seems
tainty that to
as if
if
body
I
respect widely
in sleep.
one might say with
win's.
its
cer-
that one
immortality of the body.
On
tions,
to infer the
all.
mind
A
I
I
see be-
is
founded upon indications
is
aris-
and the other has no foundation at expect that great discoveries are yet
science,
particularly
branches of human physics; but the
in
moment we
leave past experience as the foundation of our conjectures concerning the future; and, still more, if our conjec-
would probably exhaust and destroy the strength of the body.
from Mr. God-
distinction that
to take place in all the
the contrary,
the greatest conceivable energy of
different
ing from the train of our present observa-
being accompanied by the im-
mind by no means seems
The only
assertions of the Prophet Mr. Brothers
a medicine could be found
mortality of the mind. But the immortality of the
beyond
tween a philosophical conjecture and the
immortalize the body there would be no
fear of
is
our present observation, that is beyond the limits of the human mind." own my ideas of philosophy are in this
temperate vigor of
mind appears to be favorable to health, but very great intellectual exertions tend
tures absolutely contradict past experience,
we
been often observed, to wear out the scabbard. Most of the instances which Mr. Godwin has brought to prove the power of the mind over the body, and
rather, as has
upon a wide field of unand any one supposition is then as good as another. If a person were to me that men would ultimately have
are thrown
certainty, just tell
519
Great Books Library eyes and hands behind them as well as be-
scopes would probably think that, as long
fore them, I should admit the usefulness
as the size of the specula
of the addition, but should give as a reason
of the tubes could
my
disbehef of it that I saw no indicawhatever in the past from which I could infer the smallest probability of such a change. If this be not allowed a valid for
ers and advantages of the instrument would increase; but experience has since
tions
taught us that the smallness of the
field,
the deficiency of hght, and the circum-
all
stance of the atmosphere being magnified
appears to
prevent the beneficial results that were to
that in the train of our present observa-
be expected from telescopes of extraordinary size and power. In many parts of knowledge, man has been almost constantly making some progress; in other parts, his efforts have been invariably baffled. The savage would not probably be able to guess at the causes of this mighty differ-
objection,
conjectures are alike,
all
equally philosophical.
me
and
and the length be increased, the pow-
I
own
it
no more genuine indications that man will become immortal upon earth than that he will have four eyes and four tions there are
hands, or that trees will grow horizontally instead
of perpendicularly.
be
It will
said,
perhaps, that
many
dis-
coveries have already taken place in the
ence.
Our
world that were
some
httle insight into these causes,
expected. This
unforeseen and un-
totally
I
grant to be true; but
if
further experience has given us
what we are of what we
person had predicted these discoveries without being guided by any analogies or
if
he would deserve the name of seer or prophet, but not of philosopher. The wonder that some of our modern discoveries would excite in the savage inhabitants of Europe in the times of Theseus and Achilles proves but little. Persons almost entirely unacquainted with the powers of a machine cannot be ex-
which, though negative,
though not
to
much
savages to say what grasp. as
A
watch would
much
or
is
persede
is
strike a
instances,
we
There
savage with
are
now
the
various
marked
characters
to the energies of their minds, their
of
relative
benev-
olent pursuits, etc., to enable us to judge
whether the operations of intellect have any decided effect in prolonging the duration of human life. It is certain that no decided effect of this kind has yet been observed. Though no attention of any kind has ever produced such an effect
able
which prevent an improvement in those invenwhich seemed to promise fairly for
The
certainly a sufficiently in
which we have some knowledge,
unlimited tions,
is
difference
to perceive the causes
it at first.
able to pass two or three nights without
necessity of this species of rest.
its
surprise as a perpetual motion;
many
A
mind
body, and this diminution of health and strength will soon disturb the operations of his understanding, so that by these great efforts he appears to have made no real progress whatever in superseding the
is to us a most familiar piece of mechanism, and the other has constantly eluded the efforts of the most acute intel-
In
infirmity."
great excitements on his
his
yet one
lects.
a very useful
sleep proportionably exhausts the vigor of
was known
not within
"conspicuous
this
man who by
better able than is
is
As the necessity of sleep seems rather depend upon the body than the mind, it does not appear how the improvement of the mind can tend very greatly to su-
be called competent judges,
are certainly
are not to expect,
to
four thousand years ago; and, therefore,
we
to expect in future,
piece of information.
pected to guess at its effects, I am far from saying that we are at present by any means fully acquainted with the powers of the human mind; but we certainly know of this instrument than
not, of
at least,
indications from past facts,
more
and
has therefore enabled us better to judge,
a
original improvers of tele-
520
Malthus: Essay on Population as could be construed into the smallest semblance of an approach towards im-
mortality,
yet
attention
more
to
the
of
body seems
the
a
the earth will
to
The man who
have
takes his
temperate meals and his bodily exercise
with scrupulous regularity will generally be found more healthy than the man who, very deeply engaged in intellectual pursuits,
agined with truth, in the heart
The
whose
citizen
who
has retired, and
beyond his Uttle the morning about
dling
all
box,
will,
perhaps,
live
as
many women
as
men who
in these
and
Godwin
human
life,
indefi-
as a very
Both these gentlemen
immortality.
after
have rejected the
the
light of revelation
absolutely promises eternal
They have
state.
lects in all ages
life in
to the ablest intel-
has indicated the future
existence of the soul. Yet so congenial
the idea of immortality to the
mind
of
it
out of their systems. After skepticisms
tidious
probable
are
mode
all
concerning
their fas-
duce a species of immortality of
law of philosophical probability but
have existed during some thousand years, no decided difference has been observed in the duration of human life from the operation of intellect; the mortality of man on earth seems to be as completely established, and exactly upon the same grounds, as any one, the most constant of the laws of nature. An immedi-
self in
and
in
it-
the highest degree, narrow, partial,
unjust.
great,
They suppose
virtuous,
that
all
the
and exalted minds that
have ever existed or that may exist for some thousands, perhaps millions, of years will be sunk in annihilation, and that only a few beings, not greater in number than can exist at once upon the earth, will be ultimately crowned with immortality. Had such a tenet been advanced as a tenet of
in the Creator of the Uniall
own,
their
not only completely contradictory to every
sity of characters that
power
only
the
of immortality, they intro-
take a larger range, as in the great diver-
ate act of
is
man
that they cannot consent entirely to throw
similar instances, or to
verse might, indeed, change one or
which
another
also rejected the light of
which
natural religion,
excited to vigorous mental exertion.
As
without taking
curious instance of the longing of the soul
long as the
most extensive, and whose views are the clearest of any of his contemporaries. It has been positively observed by those who have attended to the bills of mortality that women live longer upon an average than men, and, though I would not by any means say that their intellectual faculties are inferior, yet, I think, it must be allowed that, from their different education, there are not so
this subject
nite prolongation of
his borders of
is
of that interest
and Mr. Condorcet concerning the
above garden, pud-
philosopher whose range of intellect
it fails
notice of these conjectures of Mr.
ideas, perhaps, scarcely soar
or extend
a certain period to
which nature and probability
can alone give. I cannot quit
often forgets for a time these bodily
cravings.
fly off at
some more genial and warmer sun. The conclusion of this chapter presents us, undoubtedly, with a very beautiful and desirable picture, but, Hke some of those landscapes drawn from fancy and not im-
certain
respect than an atten-
eflFect in this
tion to the mind.
two,
will ultimately rise instead of fall, or that
of
I am very sure that all the enemies of religion, and probably Mr. Godwin and Mr. Condorcet among the rest, would have exhausted the whole force of their ridicule upon it as the most puerile, the most absurd, the poorest, the most piti-
these laws, either suddenly or gradually;
revelation,
but without some indications of such a change, and such indications do not exist, it is just as unphilosophical to suppose that the life of man may be prolonged beyond any assignable limits as to suppose that the
be and that stones
most
and,
attraction of the earth will gradually
ful,
changed
consequently, the most unworthy of the
into
repulsion,
521
the
iniquitoiisly
unjust,
Great Books Library Deity that the superstitious
folly of
man
however trifling these litmight appear to him, that they possessed such curious powers of selection, combination, arrangement, and almost of creation that upon being put into the ground they would choose, among all the dirt and moisture that surrounded them, those parts which best suited their purpose, that they would collect and ar-
to tell him, that
What
a strange and curious proof do
these conjectures exhibit of the inconsistency of skepticism! For it should be ob-
served that there sential difference
is a very striking and between believing an
esas-
which absolutely contradicts the most uniform experience and an assertion which contradicts nothing, but is merely beyond the power of our present observation and knowledge. 1 So diversified are the natural objects around us, so many instances of mighty power daily offer themselves to our view that we may fairly presume that there are many forms and operations of nature which we have not yet sertion
fined inlets of knowledge.
The
respect analogous to the ter
and stronger
of the latter assertion
weight of ceive,
what I said before, when I observed it was unphilosophical to expect any specific event that was not indicated by some kind of analogy in the past. In ranging beyond the bourne from which no traveler returns, we must necessarily quit
dict
we
consistently with true I
up
it
a hap-
is
regard to our not in favor
that the
first
this
great
mir-
the last
the
full
prodigious difference, but
latitude.
For instance,
man
2 The powers of selection, combination, and transmutation, which every seed shows, are truly miraculous. Who can imagine that these wonderful faculties are contained in these little bits of matter? To me it appears much more philosophical to suppose that
regard to events that
has, however, as
raise
has discovered many of the laws of nature: analogy seems to indicate that he will discover many more; but no analogy seems to indicate that he will discover a sixth sense, or a new species of power in the human mind, entirely beyond the train of our present observations.
that
earth,
creatures,
we have repeatedly seen, and miracle we have not seen. I admit acle-
extend our view beyond this life, evident that we can have no other guides than authority, or conjecture, and perhaps, indeed, an obscure and undefined feeling. What I say here, therefore, does not appear to me in any respect to contra-
happen on
human
The only difference, with own apprehensions, that is
is
but with expected to can seldom quit it philosophy. Analogy
corruption of
or at least invisible, form to give
to
When we
rule;
before he believed
assertions
pier existence in another state.
have witnessed the process of vegetation or growth; and were another being to show him two little pieces of matter, a grain of wheat and an acorn, to desire him to examine them, to analyze them if he pleased, and endeavor to find out their properties and essences; and then
this
proofs,
these strange
the essence of thought in an incorporeal,
versant only with inanimate or full-grown
may be
of mat-
little bits
placed in the earth.
than if he had been told that a being of mighty power, who had been the cause of all that he saw around him and of that existence of which he himself was conscious, would, by a great act of power upon the death and
resurrection
body from a natural body itself a more wonderful instance of power than the germination of a blade of wheat from the grain, or of an oak from an acorn. Could we conceive an intelligent being so placed as to be con-
it
first
very little doubt that the imaginary being which I have supposed would hesitate more, would require better authority
does not appear in
1
which were
I feel
of a spiritual
and never
of matter
range these parts with wonderful taste, judgment, and execution, and would rise up into beautiful forms, scarcely in any
observed, or which, perhaps, we are not capable of observing with our present con-
objects,
bits
tle
could invent.
con-
522
Malthus: Essay an Population surely no
man can
hesitate a
moment
the resurrection of
question,
a
we have
clude that
in
supposing that the
saying that, putting Revelation out of the
of
man may be inmay
prolonged than that trees
definitely
spiritual
rather less reason for
life
body from a natural body, which may be
be made
merely one among the many operations of nature which we cannot see, is an event indefinitely more probable than the immortahty of man on earth, which is not
tatoes indefinitelv laro-e.^
only an event, of which no symptoms or
the chapter which have been examInining, Mr. Godwin professes to consid-
from the principle of population. It has appeared, I think clearly, that he is great-
the observation of man.
ought perhaps again
I
to
my
to
make an
ly
apol-
why
philosophy as
should
it
I
own
I
think
to immortality
A
ever improbable on the
conjecture,
first
view of
ad-
vanced by able and ingenious men seems at least to deserve investigation. For my own part I feel no disinclination whatever to give that
of
the smallest
the mighty
ficient
ar-
weight of
it is
remain undoubtedly of suf-
fairlv said to
itself
completely to over-
however, make one or two obon a few of the prominent parts of Mr. Godwin's reasonings, which will
ity. I will,
servations,
contribute to place in a
still
clearer point
furnace in wrong shapes. These be broken and thrown aside as useless; while those vessels whose forms are full of truth, grace, and loveliness will be \\afted this great
of nature is present in these operations. To this Being, it would be equally
will
all
po\\erful easy to raise an oak without an acorn as with one. The preparatory process of putting seeds into the ground is merely ordained for the use of man, as one among the various other excitements necessary to awaken matter into mind. It is an idea that will be found, consistent equally with the natural phenomena around us, with the various events of human life, and with the successive Revelations of God to man, to suppose that the world is a mighty process for the creation and formation of mind. Many vessels will necessarily come out of all
The only
turn Mr. Godwin's whole system of equal-
God
energy in
certainly not of
of proof, the force of
may be
unimpaired; and
man on
earth which the appearances that can be brought in support of it deserve. Before we decide upon the utter improbabihty of such an event, it is but fair impartially to examine these appearances; and from such an examination I think we may con-
full
shadow
the objection
degree of credit to the opinion
the probable immortality of
is
gument, therefore, in the chapter which has any tendency to remove the objection is the conjecture concerning the extinction of the passion between the sexes; but as this is a mere conjecture, unsupported by
howit,
on earth
a kind to soften the difiiculty.
it is,
not be shown to be so in a
candid examination?
and that instead of
difiicult)%
myriads of centuries it is really not thirty years or even thirts' davs distant from us. The supposition of the approach of man
a conjecture
spirit of
erroneous in his statement of the dis-
tance of this
readers for dwelling so long
which many, I know, will think too absurd and improbable to require the least discussion. But if it be as improbable and as contrary to the genuine
upon
XIII
er the objection to his system of equality
constant of the laws of nature that has
ogy
indefinitely high, or po-
I
have yet appeared, but is a positive contradiction to one of the most
come within
grow
CHAPTER
indications
ever
to
into happier situations, nearer the presence of the
mighty maker.
Godwin advances the idea of the indefinite prolongation of human life, merely as a conjecture, yet as he has produced some appearances, which in his conception favor the supposition, he must certainly intend that these appearances should be examined; and this is all that I have
3 Though Mr.
meant
523
to do.
Great Books Library of
view the
hope that we can reason-
little
I
ably entertain of those vast improvements in the nature of
man and
he holds up
our admiring gaze in his
to
which
of society
am
willing to allow that every volun-
tary act
is
political justice.
upon the
Mr. Godwin considers man too much in the light of a being merely intellectual. This error, at least such I conceive it to be, pervades his whole work and mixes itself
diction to
with
all his
reasonings.
men may
tions of
The voluntary
The
these decisions.
man may be made
not act
question,
therefore,
to
understand a distinct
convinced by an unargument. A truth may be
proposition or be
dif-
answerable brought home to his conviction as a rational being, though he may determine to
and corporal propensities from what they would be in beings wholly intellectual. Mr. Godwin, in proving that sound reasoning and truth are capable of being adequately communifirst
man do
does not merely depend upon whether a
ac-
of a rational faculty
cated, examines the proposition
and a palpable contra-
experience, to say that the
all
very powerfully, as disturbing forces, in
compounded
ferently modified in creatures
subject,
corporal propensities of
originate in their opin-
but these opinions will be very
ions,
preceded by a decision of the
mind, but it is strangely opposite to what I should conceive to be the just theory
act contrary to
The
it
as a
compound
the desire of possessing a beautiful
men
will urge
prac-
being.
cravings of hunger, the love of liquor,
woman
to actions of the fatal con-
tically, and then adds, "Such is the appearance which this proposition assumes,
ests of society,
when examined
and practical
vinced, even at the very time they com-
not
mit them. Remove their bodily cravings,
admit of debate. Man is a rational be." So far from calling this a strict ing,
determining against such actions. Ask them
view. In
.
in a loose
consideration
strict
will
it
sequences of which, to the general
and they would not
.
own
consideration
of
should
the loosest and most erro-
neous
call
way
it
the
subject,
I
possible of considering
it.
their opinion of the
I
inter-
they are perfectly well con-
hesitate a
moment
same conduct
in
in an-
other person, and they would immediately
reprobate
It is
it.
But
in their
own
case,
and
the calculating the velocity of a falling
under
body in vacuo, and persisting in it that it would be the same through whatever resisting mediums it might fall. This was not
tion with these bodily cravings, the deci-
Newton's mode of philosophizing.
few general propositions are cation to a particular subject.
compound being is difi^erent from the conviction of the rational being. If this be the just view of the subject, and both theory and experience unite to prove that it is, almost all Mr. Godwin's reasonings on the subject of coercion in his seventh chapter will appear to be founded on error. He spends some time in placing in a ridiculous point of view the attempt to convince a man's understandsion of the
Very
just in appli-
The moon
is
not kept in her orbit round the earth, nor the earth in her orbit round the sun,
by a
force that varies merely in the inverse ration of the squares of the distances.
make
To
the general theory just in application
to the revolutions of these bodies,
it
the circumstances of their situa-
all
up a doubtful proposition mind by blows. Undoubtedly it is
ing and to clear
was
necessary to calculate accurately the dis-
in his
turbing force of the sun upon the moon,
both ridiculous and barbarous, and so is cock-fighting, but one has little more to do with the real object of human punishments
and
of the
moon upon
the earth; and
till
these disturbing forces were properly estimated,
mowould have proved
actual observations on the
tions of these bodies
that the theory
was not accurately
true.
the
too frequent)
is
524
One frequent (indeed mode of punishment Mr. Godwin will hardly think this
than
much
death.
other.
Malthus: Essay on Population should be tempted to use
intended for conviction, at least
it does not appear how the individual or the society could reap much future benefit from an understanding enlightened in this manner.
The
principal
punishments have
in the gratifi-
where murby flying to a sanctuary, are allowed more frequently to escape, the crime has never been held in the same detestation and has consequently been more frederers,
which human view are undoubtedly
objects in
it
cation of his revenge. In Italy
No man who
restraint and example: restraint, or removal of an individual member whose vicious habits are likely to be prejudicial to the society, and example, which by expressing the sense of the community with regard to a particular crime and, by associating more nearly and visibly crime and
would have been comparatively but known.
punishment, holds out a moral motive to dissuade others from the commission of it.
portion the punishment accurately to the
Mr. Godwin thinks,
Restraint,
quent.
has
solitary
Italy
use of the
aware of
passion
stiletto in transports of
little
That human laws either do or can pro-
may be
no person
offense, assert.
imprisonment, which
been the most
certainly
all
moment, that if every murder in had been invariably punished the
a
for
permitted as a temporary expedient, though
he reprobates
at
is
the operation of moral motives can doubt,
From
the thing
and, indeed, almost the only attempt to-
folly to
absolutely impossible, but this
is
imperfection, though
successful,
have the
will
the inscrutabilit}' of motives
species of injustice,
human
may be called a no valid argument
it
is
man
wards the moral amelioration of offenders.
against
He
that he will frequently have to choose be-
talks
fostered
of the selfish passions that are
by
solitude,
and
tween two
of the virtues
generated in society. But surely these
Were
it
and virtuous men he would probably be more improved than in solitude. But is this practicable? Mr. Godwin's ingenuity is more frequently employed in
of
terrible,
mented
common
A
continual en-
But nothing
human
difficult as to
improvements. that
more men
The frequency who,
is
so easy
institutions;
suggest adequate It
is
to
of talents
be laemploy
former occupation than
ter,
as the
of
crime
common
saying
sufficiently
among men, know bet-
is,
proves that some
may be brought home
truths
to the conviction of
punishment, has powerfully
the mind without always producing the proper effect upon the conduct. There are
sentiment
other truths of a nature that perhaps never
frequent in the mouths of the
can be adequately communicated from one man to another. The superiority of the pleasures of intellect to those of sense Mr. Godwin considers as a fundamental truth. Taking all circumstances into considera-
its
to
generate
that
people, that a murder will sooner
come
and the habitual in consequence held will make a man, in the agony of passion, throw down his knife for fear he or later
will admit.
their time in the
indefatigable pains taken in this
contributed is
that suggests itself of evils.
in the latter.
nations
country to find out a murder, and the cer-
which
them
nothing so
have indeed been led into the most barbarous cruelties, but the abuse of any practice is not a good argument against its
tainty of
mode
as to find fault with
Punishment, for example, is totally reprobated. By endeavoring to make exam-
The
the best
practical
and
a sufficient rea-
these institutions as perfect as the nature
remedies.
ples too impressive
it is
deavor should undoubtedly prevail to make
finding out evils than in suggesting prac-
use.
is
preventing greater
the offender confined to the
society of able
tical
and
evils;
the lot of
is
son for the adoption of any institution that
vir-
tues are not generated in the society of a prison.
laws. It
to light;
horror in which murder
is
tion,
525
I
should be disposed
to
agree with
Great Books Library him; but
how am
I
to
who
truth to a person
communicate
intellectual pleasure.
felt
I
may
and able expostulations might be
patient
this
has scarcely ever
incapable of effecting in forty years.
well
as
attempt to explain the nature and beauty of colors to a blind man. If I am ever so
and
laborious, patient,
clear,
CHAPTER XIV
and have the
most repeated opportunities of expostulation, any real progress toward the accomplishment of my purpose seems absolutely hopeless. There is no common measure between us. I cannot proceed step by step:
If
the reasonings of the preceding chapter are just, the corollaries respecting
which Mr. Godwin draws from the proposition, that the voluntary political truth
actions of
a truth of a nature absolutely incapa-
men
originate in their opinions,
will not
appear
I
ness of
man
sient,
perfectible, or in other words, susceptible
it is
ble of demonstration. All that that the wisest
had agreed
and best men
can say
I
to be clearly established. These corollaries are, "Sound reasoning and truth, when adequately communicated, must always be victorious over error: Sound reasoning and truth are capable of being so communicated: Truth is omnipotent: The vices and moral weak-
is
in all ages
in giving the preference, very
greatly, to the pleasures of the intellect;
and that
my own
experience completely
confirmed the truth of their decisions; that
had found sensual pleasures vain, tranand continually attended with tedium and disgust; but that intellectual pleasures appeared to me ever fresh and young, filled up all my hours satisfactorily, gave a new zest to life, and diffused a lastme,
it
ation for
my
The
it is
credulity,
fect
I
feel
to sleep over
it;
I
ly
an, I feel alive
joy
my
and
in spirits
and
upon the conduct, the major may be
falls to the ground. If by adequatecommunicated be meant merely the con-
viction of the rational faculty, the major
must be denied, the minor true
in
cases
will
be only
capable of demonstration,
and the consequent equally fourth proposition Mr.
falls.
Godwin
calls
The the
preceding proposition, with a slight variation in the statement. If so, it must accompany the preceding proposition in its fall. But it may be worthwhile to inquire, with reference to the principal argument of this essay, into the particular reasons which we have for supposing that the vices and
pass an
evening with a gay party, or a pretty
con-
by ade-
sequent, or the omnipotence of truth, of
very differently
but when
If
course
upon the subject. I have very frequently taken up a book, and almost as frequently gone
may be
allowed and the minor denied. The con-
and
produce real conviction. The affair is not an affair of reasoning, but of experience. He would probably observe in reply what you say may be very true with regard to yourself and many other good men, but part
three propositions
conviction as to produce an adequate ef-
I have not said anything, nor can anything be said of a nature to
my own
is
quately commimicated be meant such a
not conviction.
for
first
sidered a complete syllogism.
my
authority:
Man
of perpetual improvement."
mind. If he believe can only be from respect and vener-
ing serenity over
are not invincible:
wom-
truly en-
existence.
Under such circumstances reasoning and arguments are not instruments from which success can be expected. At some future
moral weakness of man can never be wholly overcome in this world. Man, according to Mr. Godwin, is a creature formed what he is by the successive impressions which he has received, from the first moment that the germ from
time, perhaps, real satiety of sensual pleas-
some accidental impressions that awakened the energies of his mind, might effect that in a month which the most
ures, or
526
on Population
Molthiis: Essay
which he sprung was animated. Could he be placed in a situation where he was subject to no e\'il impressions \\'hatever, though it might be doubted whether in such a situation virtue could
I
justice,
I
if
understand
rightly,
it
weaknesses of
men proceed from
and
the in-
and social institutions, and that if these were removed and the understandings of men more enbghtened, there would be little or no temptation in the world to evil. .\s it has been justice of their pohtical
proved, however,
clearly
think) that this
and
(at
least
as
other such virtuous
independent of anv pohtical or social institutions whatever, the greater part of mankind, from the fixed
tion,
in-
rather increased the probabilit\" that an-
I
entireh" a false concep-
is
saN'
one respect
the same, and that, therefore, I could have no good reason for supposing that a greater number of sLxes would come up in the next hundred times of throwing than in the preceding same number of throws. But, that man had in some sort a power of influencing those causes that formed character, and that everv" good and virtuous man that was produced, bv the influence which he must necessarilv have,
to
is
that the greater part of the vices
Godwin might in
is
preceding causes, or rather the chances respecting the preceding causes, were alwavs
would certainlv be banished. The great bent of Mr. Godwin's work on pohtical
show
that Mr.
accurate, that in the case of the dice, the
vice
exist,
am aware
that the comparison
character would be
generated, whereas the coming up of sixes
that,
upon the dice once would
certainly not in-
crease the probabilits- of their coming;
up
a
and unalterable laws of nature, must ever be subject to the evil temptations arising from want, besides other passions; it fol-
second time. I admit this objection to the accuracy of the comparison, but it is onlv
lows from Mr. Godwin's definition of man that such impressions, and combinations of
assured us that the influence of the most
impressions, cannot be afloat in the world
yev\- strong
partially
formation of character,
it
temptations to doubtedh" affect some, but
a
all
that sixes will
men
these
be virtuous as come up a hundred times will
following upon the dice. of combinations
upon
The
much
in
man might be so mode
a
re-
regard to the
peated succession of throws appears to
me
that he
must necessarilv
his
first
it\-
in
existence.
.\nd
this
evil
could hv the
far
enhghtened with elbow throw sixes even'
of shaking his to
of
motions of the arm, remain
and vice
relative proportions of virtue
the future periods of the world;
become general rules; that extraordinary and vmusual combinations will be frequent;
weakness of mankind, taken
or that the individual instances of great
are invincible.
all
number
man; though it would be the height of folly and presumption to attempt to calculate the
comparison
in
would give
absolutely independent of the will of
some measure, show the absurd-
which have appeared
I
or at least allow that
would be able
like the nice
of supposing that exceptions will ever
virtue
un-
with
those impressions which form character,
exist in
the world, supposing ever\- indi\-idual to be formed what he is by that combination of impressions which he has received since
will,
will fail
time. But as long as a great
not inaptly to represent the great varietv' of character that
to
man be removed,
up the comparison; a
it
attempt to prove that
temptations
exertions of
great varietv
the dice in
his
evil. It will
Had Mr. Godwin
greater number.
succeeded
is
surely as improbable that under such cir-
cumstances
Repeated ex-perience has
\-irtuous character will rarel\- prevail against
without generating a variet\- of bad men. According to Mr. Godwin's on\ti conception of the
valid.
safelv asserted that the vices
The
ages
of the world will ever prevail imiversalK-.
fifth
proposition
is
it
at
mav be
and moral
in the mass,
the general de-
duction from the four former and will con-
527
Great Books Library as the foundations which have given way. In the sense in which Mr. Godwin understands the term perfectible, the perfectibility of man cannot be asserted, unless the preceding propositions could have been clearly established. There is, however, one sense, which the term will bear, in which it is, perhaps, just. It may be said with truth that man is always susceptible of improvement, or that there never has been, or will be, a period of his history in which he can be said to have reached his possible acme of perfection. Yet it does not by any means follow from this that our efiForts to improve man will always succeed, or even, that he will ever make, in the greatest number of ages, any extraordinary strides towards perfection. The only inference that can be drawn is that the precise limit of his improvement cannot possibly be known. And I cannot help again reminding the reader of a distinction which, it appears to me, ought particularly to be attended to in the present question: I mean, the essential difference there is between an unlimited improvement and an improvement the limit of which cannot be ascertained. The former is an improvement not applicable to man under the present laws of his nature. The latter, undoubtedly, is apph-
sequently
support
gree of beauty in the flower which he at
fall,
present possesses, yet he cannot be sure
it
The
By endeavoring to imone quality, he may impair the beauty of another. The richer mold which he would employ to increase the size of his plant would probably burst the calyx, and destroy at once its symmetry. In a similar manner, the forcing manure used to bring about the French Revolution, and to give a greater freedom and energy to the himian mind, has burst the calyx of humanity, the restiaining bond of all sobeautiful blossom.
prove
however large the separate pethave grown, however strongly or even beautifully a few of them have been marked, the whole is at present a loose, deformed, disjointed mass, without union, symmetry, or harmony of coloring.
ciety; and, als
Were
it of consequence to improve and carnations, though we could have no hope of raising them as large as cabbages, we might undoubtedly expect, by successive efforts, to obtain more beau-
pinks
by the
I
No
proving the happiness of the
perfectibility of a plant.
would
object
conceive,
symmetry, and beauty of
to unite size, or. It
The
florist is, as I
col-
surely be presumptuous in the
most successful improver to affirm that he possessed a carnation in which these qualities
er
may
However
soil,
spe-
least
may be endured, before the wound grows up again. As the five propositions which I have
beautiful his flow-
be, other care, other
Every the
misery
existed in the greatest possible state
of perfection.
human
advance in this respect is highly valuable. But an experiment with the hviman race is not like an experiment upon inanimate objects. The bursting of a flower may be a trifle. Another will soon succeed it. But the bursting of the bonds of society is such a separation of parts as cannot take place without giving the most acute pain to thousands; and a long time may elapse, and much cies.
man may be have mentioned before,
of the enterprising
specimens than we at present possess. person can deny the importance of im-
tiful
real perfectibility of as
similar means, rather in-
creased in stiength, he will obtain a more
cable.
illustrated,
by pursuing
that
been examining may be considered as the cornerstones of Mr. Godwin's fanciful
or other
might produce one still more beautiful. Yet, although he may be aware of the absurdity of supposing that he has reached perfection; and though he may know by what means he attained that desuns,
structure
and, indeed, as expressing the
aim and bent of excellent
may 528
be,
much
his
whole work, however
of his detached reasoning
he must be considered as having
Malthas: Essay on Population failed
CHAPTER XV
great object of his under-
the
in
from the compound natixre of man, which he has by no means sufficiently smoothed, taking. Besides the difficulties arising
argument against the perfectibility of man and society remains whole and unimpaired from anything that he has advanced. And as far as I can trust my own judgment, this argument the principal
appears to be conclusive, not only against the perfectibility of man, in the enlarged sense in which Mr.
Godwin the Mr.Enquirer drops a in
which seem
to
his
opinions since he wrote the Political Justice;
and
years
as this
standing,
a
is
I
work now
of
some
should certainly think
I had been arguing against opinions which the author had himself seen reason to alter, but that in some of the essays of
that
the Enquirer Mr. Godwin's peculiar
Godwin understands marked
mode
of thinking appears in as striking a light
term, but against any very
the
to hint at
preface
few expressions some change in his
as ever.
striking change for the better in the form and structure of general society, by which I mean, any great and decided amelioration of the condition of the lower classes of mankind, the most numerous, and, consequently, in a general view of the subject, the most important part of the human race. Were I to live a thousand years, and the laws of nature to remain
It has been frequently observed that though we cannot hope to reach perfection in anything, yet that it must always be advantageous to us to place before our eyes the most perfect models. This observation has a plausible appearance, but is very far from being generally true. I even doubt its truth in one of the most
or rather
obvious exemplifications that would occur.
hope, a contradiction from experience
I doubt whether a very young painter would receive so much benefit from an attempt to copy a highly finished and perfect picture as from copying one where the outlines were more strongly marked and the manner of laying on the colors was more easily discoverable. But in cases where the perfection of the model is a perfection of a difi^erent and superior nature from that toward which we should
and
the same, little
should
I
in asserting that
little
fear,
no possible
sacrifices or
which any of the com-
exertions of the rich, in a country
had been long inhabited, could time place the lower classes
munity
for
a situation equal, with regard
in
circumstances, to the situation of the
to
common
people about thirty years
in the northern states of
ago
America.
The lower classes of people in Europe at some future period be much better
we
may
naturally
instructed than they are at present; they
making any progress towards it, but we shall in all probability impede the progress which we might have expected to make had we not fixed our eyes upon
may be
taught to employ the
fittle
spare
many better ways than they may live under better
time they have in at the alehouse;
so perfect a model.
and more equal laws than they have ever hitherto done, perhaps, in any country; and I even conceive it possible, though not probable, that they may have more leisure;
but
it is
that they can of all
money to
not in the nature of things
them
early, in the full confidence
that they shall
be able
to
shall
not
always
A
highly intellectual
exempt from the infirm calls of hunger or sleep, is undoubtedly a much more perfect existence than man; but were man to attempt to copy such a model, he would not only fail in making any advances towards it but by unwisely straining to imitate what was inimitable he would probably destroy the little intellect which he was endeavoring to improve. being,
be awarded such a quantity
or subsistence as will allow
marry
advance,
fail in
provide with
ease for a numerous family.
529
Great Books Library way.
He
The form and structure of society which Mr. Godwin describes is as essentially distinct from any forms of society which have hitherto prevailed in the world
ploy
as a
being that can live without food or is from a man. By improving society in its present form, we are making no more advances towards such a state of things as he pictures than we should make approaches towards a line with regard to
when
sleep
besides of a
which we
The
ference that Mr. Godwin's decision in his
whether, by looking
essay appears at once as evidently false
were
walking
question, therefore, to
is
parallel.
such a form of society as our polar
we
Godwin appears this
to
me
to
as Dr.
star,
true.
Mr.
species? Mr. have decided
siders
the
I
as
from the frugal
The frugal man make more money saves from and adds to his capital, and
that
locking up
is
a dif-
evidently
some present incon-
the
think
from
funds destined for
star. it
has been proved in the former
absolutely impracticable.
is
polar star in the
What
great seas of political
discovery? Reason would teach us to ex-
pect no other, than winds perpetually adverse, constant but fruitless
con-
toil,
shipwreck, and certain misery.
an
not only
fail
in
frequent
We
making the smallest
shall
real
his
income
approach towards such a perfect form of society; but by wasting our strength of mind and body, in a direction in which it is impossible to proceed, and by the frequent distress which we must necessarily occasion by our repeated failures, we shall evidently impede that degree of improvement in society which is really
this
capital
attainable.
totally a distinct character, at least with regard to his effect upon the prosperity
Smith.
Smith's position
Godwin
society
is
of the state,
essential
consequences then are we to expect from looking to such a point as our guide and
acknowledged truth, and therefore makes his comparison between the avaricious man and the man who spends his income. But the avaricious man of Mr. Godwin
Adam
so
parts of this essay that such a state of
observa-
mischief of profusion
is
could not, indeed, but occur to
our polar
be more evidently just. The subject of Mr. Godwin's essay is a little similar in its first appearance, but in
He
up
motion
The only way, he had of weakening this objection was to compare the two characters chiefly with regard to their tendency to accelerate the approach of that happy state of cultivated equality, on which he says we ought always to fix our eyes as
tion can
as distinct as possible.
locks
sets in
therefore,
by parsimony and poor by proand that, therefore, every frugal man was a friend and every spendthrift an enemy to his country. The reason he gives is that what is saved from revenue is always added to stock, and is therefore taken from the maintenance of labor that is generally unproductive and employed in the maintenance of labor that realizes
is
Godwin
the maintenance of labor.
rich
essence
Adam
It
thus
fusion,
No
of Mr.
is
kind. But the
venience might arise to the poor,
served that nations as well as individuals
valuable commodities.
man
wealth in a chest and
unproductive. This
on avarice and profusion in the Enquirer. Dr. Adam Smith has very justly ob-
itself in
more valuable
no labor of any kind, either productive or
question against himself in his essay
grow
benefits the state
spent as income, but the labor
avaricious his
are likely to advance or retard the im-
provement of the human
in this
it
because he adds to its general capital, and because wealth employed as capital not only sets in motion more labor, than
man
of Dr.
in order to
he either employs himself in the maintenance of productive labor, or he lends it to
tuted according to Mr. Godwin's system
some other person who
must,
will
It
probably em-
530
has appeared that a society consti-
from the inevitable laws of our
Malthus: Essay on Population nature, degenerate into a class of propri-
and a
etors
of laborers,
class
the substitution of benevolence for
moving
love as the
is
and that
in
self-
exchange
for
necessaries
the
of
life.
would hardly appear then that you benefit him by narrowing the market for this commodity, by decreasing the demand for labor, and lessening the value of the
principle of society,
It
producing the happy eflFects that might be expected from so fair a name, would cause the same pressure of want to be felt by the whole of society instead
by the exertion of his bodily strength. is the only commodity he has to give
This
of
only property that he possesses.
It is to
Mr. Godwin would perhaps say that
the established administration of property
the whole system of barter and exchange
which
and
now
is
to the
felt
only by a part.
apparently narrow principle of we are indebted for all the
is
noblest exertions of
human
genius,
finer and more delicate emotions of the soul,
for
indeed,
everything,
that
exacting
dis-
and no
sufficient
change has
as yet
taken place in the nature of civilized
poor
a
money without
return
for
it.
In
answer to the first method proposed, it may be observed that even if the rich could be persuaded to assist the poor in this way the value of the assistance would be comparatively triffing. The rich, though they
tinguishes the civilized from the savage state;
severe
so
you would man, you labor upon your-
traffic. If
the
relieve
should take a part of his self, or give him your
the
all
a vile and iniquitous
essentially
self-love that
man
he either is or ever will be in a state when he may safely throw down the ladder by which he has to enable us to say that
think themselves of great importance, bear
but a small proportion
risen to this eminence.
in point of
num-
advanced
bers to the poor, and would, therefore,
beyond the savage state, a class of proprietors and a class of laborers^ must
relieve them but of a small part of their burdens by taking a share. Were all those
If
in every society that has
necessarily
labor
is
exist,
it
is
evident
that,
that are
as
added
the only property of the class of
diminish the possessions of this part of that a poor
of those
employed
in
the value of this property must tend to
The only way
in the labors of luxuries
number
producing necessaries, and could these necessary labors be amicably divided among all, each man's share might indeed be comparatively light; but desirable as such an amicable division would undoubtedly be, I cannot conceive any
laborers, everything that tends to diminish
society.
employed
to the
man
has of supporting himself in independence
which it been shown that the spirit of benevolence, guided by the strict impartial justice that Mr.
practical principle^ according to 1
could
It should be observed that the principal argument of this essay only goes to prove the necessity of a class of proprietors and a class of laborers, but by no means infers
take
place.
It
has
that the present great inequality of property is either necessary or useful to society. On
2 Mr. Godwin seems
as
to have but for practical principles; but I
restraint.
the present state of society, and the beauty of a different state, without pointing out a practical method that might be immediately applied of accelerating our advances from the one to the other.
it must certainly be considered an evil, and every institution that promotes it is essentially bad and impolitic. But whether a government could with advantage to society actively interfere to repress inequality of fortunes, may be a matter of doubt. Perhaps the generous system of perfect liberty, adopted by Dr. Adam Smith and the French economists, would be ill exchanged for any system of
the contrary,
little
respect
own it appears to me that he is a much greater benefactor to mankind who points out how an inferior good may be attained than he who merely expatiates on the deformity of
531
Great Books Library
Godwin
would,
describes,
if
Three or four hundred years ago there was undoubtedly much less labor in Eng-
vigorously
acted upon, depress in want and misery the whole human race. Let us examine
land in proportion to the population than
but there was much more dependence; and we probably should not now enjoy our present degree of civil at present,
what would be the consequence, if the proprietor were to retain a decent share for himself; but to give the rest away to without exacting a task from
the poor,
Not
liberty
in return.
would
there
produce of land,
of
diminishing
dependent upon their bounty. Even the greatest enemies of trade and manufactures, and I do not reckon myself a very determined friend to them, must allow that when they were introduced into Eng-
the
as well as the labors of
want than can be adequately supplied. The sur-
more
plus of the rich
will
always be
man might be
land liberty
in
but four will be desirous to obcannot make this selection of three out of the four without conferring a great favor on those that are the objects of his choice. These persons must consider themselves as under a great obligation to him and as dependent upon him for their it.
He
The
support.
to
debase
the
and every history of
man
ever read places in a
we have
mind
is
exposed which
is
inequahties of the
The proper
when
labor
of benevolence
is
to
it can never be substituted in its no man were to allow himself to act till he had completely determined that the action he was about to perform was more conducive than any other to the general good, the most enlightened minds would hesitate in perplexity and amazement; and the unenlightened would be continually committing the grossest mis-
love,
intrusted
but
place. If
In the present state of things, and par-
who
first.
oflfice
soften the partial evils arising from self-
with constant power. ticularly
to
and
acting as another general law, corrects the
strong point of view the danger to which that
and
parent;
same time some bountiful provision which,
human mind,
than dependence; that
its
is
in request, the
does a day's work for
me
man
confers
great an obligation upon me as I do upon him. I possess what he wants; he possesses what I want. We make an amicable exchange. The poor man walks erect in conscious independence; and the mind of his employer is not vitiated by full as
takes.
As Mr. Godwin,
down any
a sense of power.
532
_,
1
smooth the wrinkles of this seems to be the analogy of all nature. Perhaps there is no one general law of nature that will not appear, to us at least, to produce partial evil; and we frequently observe at the
perities,
and the dence, and the evil effects of these two impressions on the human heart are well known. Though I perfectly agree with Mr. Godwin, therefore, in the evil of hard labor, yet I still think it a less evil, and less calculated
in their train.
the partial deformities, to correct the as-
man would feel his poor man his depen-
rich
power
came
Nothing that has been said tends in the most remote degree to undervalue the principle of benevolence. It is one of the noblest and most godlike qualities of the human heart, generated perhaps slowly and gradually from self-love, and afterwards intended to act as a general law whose kind oflRce it should be to soften
sufficient
for three,
tain
of
give something in exchange for the pro-
has appeared that from the principle
of population
by the introduction
the poor,
visions of the great Lords, instead of being
another objection yet remains.
luxury, It
to
be,
if
manufactures, had not been enabled to
mention the idleness and the vice that such a proceeding, if general, would probably create in the present state of society, and the great risk
them
therefore, has not laid
practical principle according to
Malthus: Essay on Population
which the necessary labors of agriculture might be amicably shared among the whole class of laborers, by general invectives against employing the poor he appears to pursue an unattainable good through much present evil. For if every man who employs the poor ought to be considered as their enemy, and as adding to the weight of their oppressions, and if the miser is for this reason to be preferred to the
man who
spends his income,
up more land, in breeding more oxen, employing more tailors, and in building more houses. But supposing, for a moment, that the conduct of the miser did not tend to check any really useful
ing in
This I
their incomes might, to the advantage of society, be converted into misers. Suppose then that a hundred thousand persons who now employ ten men each were to lock up their wealth from general use, it is evident that a million of working men of difiFerent kinds would be completely thrown out of all employment. The extensive misery that
Mr.
follows that any
number
of
now spend
an
such
event
would produce
in
and
I
some
difficulty in
to "place in
human
their
the
up nothing, that the point has
corn,
the
of producing them,
which
equitably divided, labor,
and
an extent,
up up the power virtually the
as
if
he were
a beggar; but not to as great an extent as
if
he had employed
his
command
over his
own
his
invectives
they were attended
to,
against
would
produce much present evil without approximating us to that state of cultivated equality to which he looks forward as his polar star, and which, he seems to think, should at present be our guide in determining the nature and tendency of human actions. A mariner guided by such a polar star is in danger of ship-
his contemporaries, as truly,
to as great
if
certainly
same. These things are certainly used and
consumed by
are they to
the necessary labor in a society might be
really lock
is
How
Till Mr. Godwin, therefore, can point out some practical plan according to which
nor oxen, nor clothes, nor houses.
Undoubtedly he does not
human
labor.
it.
these articles, but he locks
to
seven hours in the
still
interfere with his
Having defined therefore wealth, very justly, to be the commodities raised and fostered by human labor, he observes that the miser locks up neither illustrate
six or
be prevented from making this exchange? It would be a violation of the first and most sacred property that a man possesses to attempt, by positive institutions, to
nature of wealth have not been applied to
really necessary,
among themselves never
quantity of subsistence.
incomes
of
is
the lower classes of society
would more in want than others. Those that had large families would naturally be desirous of exchanging two hours more of their labor for an ampler
not been rightly understood, and that the definition
if
necessarily be
beings in the condition
development and
that,
much more
is
the principle of population, some
to be placed." But Mr. Godwin says that the miser
true
there
be produced in as great abundance as at present. But it is almost impossible to conceive that such an agreement could be adhered to. From
which they ought
really locks
that
happiness might
proving that a con-
who spend
concede to
perfectly willing to
Godwin
day, the commodities essential to
duct of this kind tended more than the
conduct of those
are
the unconquerable diflBculty.
could agree
question whether he might not
and find
is
am
work more than
could hardly refuse to acknowledge,
self
who
those
all
of
labor in the world than
Godwin him-
present state of society, Mr.
are
employment to obtain thrown patents which they may show in order to be awarded a proper share of the food and raiment produced by the society? out
men who
it
how
produce,
wreck.
wealth in turn-
533
Great Books Library
CHAPTER XVI
no possible way in in general be emto a state, and beneficially so
Perhaps there
is
which wealth could ployed
particularly to the lower orders of
it,
professed object of TheSmith's inquiry the
as
is
The
increasing
demand
for
more
it,
mean an
I
which
causes
still
which he occasionally
interesting,
mixes with
inquiry into the
happiness
the
affect
of
nations or the happiness and comfort of
the lower orders of society, which
most numerous
am
in
class
is
the
every nation.
I
aware of the near connection of these two subjects, and that the causes which tend to increase the wealth of a state, tend also, generally
agri-
must always tend to better the condition of the poor; and if the accession of work be of this kind, so far is it from being true, that the poor would be obliged to work ten hours for the same price that they before worked eight, that the very reverse would be the fact; and a laborer might then support his wife and family as well by the labor of six hours, as he could before by the labor cultural labor
sufficiently
speaking, to increase the happiness of the
lower classes of the people. But perhaps
Adam
Smith has considered these two still more nearly connected than they really are; at least, he has not stopped to take notice of those instances where the wealth of a society may increase Dr.
inquiries
as
(according to his definition of wealth)
without having any tendency to increase
of eight.
The
another inquiry, however, perhaps
is
Had
Mr. Godwin exerted his energetic eloquence in painting the superior worth and usefulness of the character who employed the poor in this way, to him who employed them in narrow luxuries, every enhghtened man must have applauded his eflForts.
and
causes of the wealth of nations.* There
by improving and rendering productive that land which to a farmer would not answer the expense of cultivation.
Adam
Dr.
natiu-e
labor created
by
luxuries,
though
the comforts of the laboring part of
do not mean
it.
useful in distributing the produce of the
I
country, without vitiating the proprietor
discussion of
by power,
happiness of man, but shall merely con-
or
by indeed, the same
debasing the
laborer
dependence, has not, on the state of the poor.
to enter into a philosophical
what
constitutes the proper
accession of work from manuthough it may raise the price of labor even more than an increasing de-
two universally acknowledged inhealth, and the command of the necessaries and conveniences of life. Little or no doubt can exist that the comforts of the laboring poor depend upon
mand
the increase of the funds destined for the
sider
beneficial efi^ects
A
gredients,
great
factures,
for agricultural labor, yet, as in this
case, the quantity of food in the country
maintenance of
may
exactly in proportion to the rapidity of this
not be proportionably increasing, the
advantage to the poor will be but temporary,
as
increase.
the price of provisions must
increase
labor,
and
will
be very
The demand for labor which such would occasion, by creating a
necessarily rise in proportion to the price
competition in the market, must necessari-
of labor. Relative to this subject,
ly
I
can-
not avoid venturing a few remarks
on a part of Dr. Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, speaking at the same time with that diffidence which I ought certainly to feel in differing from a per-
raise the value of labor,
additional
number
of
and,
hands
till
the
reqxiired
were reared, the increased funds would
An
son so jusdy celebrated in the political world.
Inquiry into the Nations and Causes of Nations; Great Books,
of the Wealth Vol. 39.-Ed.
534
Malthus: Essay on Population be distributed
the
to
same number
merely nominal, as the price of provisions must necessarily rise with it. The demand for manufacturing laborers might, indeed, entice many from agriculture and thus tend to diminish the annual produce of the land, but we will suppose any eflFect of this kind to be compensated by improvements
of
persons as before the increase, and therefore
every laborer would live compara-
But perhaps Dr.
tively at his ease.
Smith
errs in representing
Adam
every increase
of the revenue or stock of a society as
an
increase of these funds. Such surplus stock
be conby the individual possessing it as an additional fund from which he may maintain more labor; but it will not be a real and eflFectual fund for the main-
and the
or revenue will, indeed, always
in the instruments of agriculture,
sidered
quantity of provisions, therefore, to remain
increase has arisen merely from the pro-
Improvements in manufacturing machinery would, of course, take place, and this circumstance, added to the greater number of hands employed in manufactures, would cause the annual produce of the labor of the country to be upon the whole greatly increased. The wealth, therefore, of the country would be increasing annually, according to the definition, and might not, perhaps, be increasing very
duce of labor and not from the produce of
slowly.
number
tenance
of
laborers,
unless the whole, or at least a
an
additional
the same.
of
great part of this increase of the stock or
revenue of the society, be convertible into a proportional quantity of provisions; and it
will not
land.
A
be so convertible where the
The question
distinction will in this case occur
between the number of hands which the stock of the society could employ and the number which its territory can maintain. To explain myself by an instance. Dr. Adam Smith defines the wealth of a nation to consist in the annual produce of its land and labor. This definition evidently includes manufactured produce, as well as the produce of the land. Now supposing a nation, for a course of years, was to add what it saved from its yearly revenue to its manufacturing capital solely, and not to its capital employed upon land, it is evident that it might grow richer according to the above definition, without a power of
self-evident proposition that rise in
The
increase in the price of labor there-
fore,
which we have supposed, would have or no eflFect in giving the laboring
little
poor a greater command over the necessaries and conveniences of life. In this respect they would be nearly in the same
one other respect they worse state. A greater proportion of them would be employed in manufactures, and fewer, consequently, in agriculture. And this exchange of professions will be allowed, I think, by all, to be very unfavorable in respect of health, one state as before. In
would be
in a
essential ingredient of happiness, besides
the greater uncertainty of manufacturing
from the capricious taste of man, the accidents of war, and other
the yearly stock of
causes.
provisions in the country ing, this rise
the price of labor, the stock of pro-
of course raise the
stock in trade or of setting
if
a
be a nominal rise, as it must very shortly be followed by a proportional rise in provisions.
maintenance of labor. There would, notwithstanding, be a demand for labor from the power which each manufacturer would possess, or at least think he possessed, of extending his old
price of labor, but
It is
any general
visions remaining the same, can only
real funds for the
demand would
whether wealth, increas-
the condition of the laboring poor.
supporting a greater number of laborers, and, therefore, without an increase in the
This
is
ing in this way, has any tendency to better
up
labor, arising
fresh works.
was not
increas-
would soon turn out
to
It
be
may be
stance as
535
I
said, perhaps, that such an inhave supposed could not occur,
Great Books Library because the rise in the price of provisions would immediately turn some additional capital into the channel of agriculture. But this is an event which may take place very
wealth of the nation has had httle or no tendency to better the condition of the laboring poor. They have not, I believe, a
should be remarked, that a
conveniences of life, and a much greater proportion of them than at the period of
slowly, as
it
had preceded the and would, therefore, impede the good eflFects upon agriculture, which the increased value of the produce of the land might otherwise have occarise in the price of labor,
is employed in manufactures and crowded together in close and unwholesome rooms. Could we believe the statement of Dr. Price that the population of England has decreased since the revolution, it would
sioned.
might
It
also
be
said, that the additional
would enable it to import provisions suflBcient for the maintenance of those whom its stock could em-
even appear that the effectual funds for the maintenance of labor had been declining during the progress of wealth in other respects. For I conceive that it may be laid down as a general rule that if the effectual funds for the maintenance of labor are increasing, that is, if the territory can maintain, as well as the stock employ,
capital of the nation
A
ploy.
small country with a large navy,
and great inland accommodations for carriage, such as Holland, may, indeed, import and distribute an effectual quantity of provisions; but the price of provisions
be very high
and less
to
make such an
must
importation
number of laborers, this addinumber will quickly spring up, even
a greater
answer in large countries advantageously circumstanced in this distribution
tional
of such wars as Dr. Price enu-
in spite
respect.
An
and
of the necessaries
the revolution
of provisions,
rise
command
greater
merates. And, consequently,
instance, accurately such as I
have supposed, may not, perhaps, ever have occurred, but I have little doubt that instances nearly approximating to it may be found without any very laborious search. Indeed, I am strongly inchned to think that England herself, since the revolution, af-
if
the popula-
any country has been stationary
tion of
we may safely infer that, may have advanced in manu-
declining
or
however
it
facturing wealth,
its
effectual
funds for
the maintenance of labor cannot have increased. It is difficult,
however, to conceive that
fords a very striking elucidation of the ar-
the population of England has been de-
gument in question. The commerce of
clining since the revolution, though every
as well as external, has certainly idly
testimony concurs to prove that
this country, internal
advancing during the
The exchangeable value
been rap-
last
in the
crease,
century.
if it
slow. In the controversy
market of
its
in-
has increased, has been very
which the ques-
tion has occasioned, Dr. Price
undoubtedly
Europe of the annual produce of its land and labor has, without doubt, increased
appears to be
very considerably. But, upon examination,
accurate information than his opponents.
be found that the increase has been produce of labor and not in the produce of land, and therefore, though the wealth of the nation has been advancing with a quick pace, the effectual funds
Judging simply from this controversy, I think one should say that Dr. Price's point is nearer being proved than Mr. Howlett's. Truth, probably, lies between the two statements, but this supposition makes the
maintenance of labor have been and the result is might be expected. The increasing
increase of population since the revolution
it
ter
will
chiefly in the
for the
of
his
much more
subject
and
increasing very slowly,
to
such as
the increase of wealth.
536
have been very slow
in
completely masto
possess
more
comparison with
Malthus: Essay on Population
which
That the produce of the land has been decreasing, or even that it has been abso-
that
lutely stationary during the last century,
for rearing,
few
will
be disposed
closure of
commons and wastelands
tainly tends to increase
country,
beheve. The
to
but
it
in-
cer-
the food of the
has been asserted with
confidence that the inclosure of
common
has frequently had a contrary effect, and that large tracts of land which for-
fields
weight of
merly produced great quantities of com, by being converted into pasture, both employ fewer hands and feed fewer mouths indeed,
beast
It
is,
an acknowledged truth, that pasture land produces a smaller quantity of human sub-
com
land of the same natand could it be clearly ascertained that from the increased demand for butchers, meat of the best quahty, and sistence than
ural fertihty,
its
increased price in consequence, a great-
er quantity of
good land has annually been
employed
grazing,
human stance
in
subsistence,
would
the diminution of
which
this
London. Formerly, meat would not pay
in
cattle
killed, will
at
the different periods
have consumed
(if I
may
be allowed the expression) very different quantities of
may
human
subsistence.
A
fatted
some respects be considered, in the language of the French economists, as an unproductive laborer: he has added nothing to the value of the raw produce that he has consumed. The present system of grazing undoubtedly tends more than in
the former system to diminish the quantity
human
of
subsistence in the country in
proportion to the general
fertilit)^
of the
land.
circum-
occasion, might have coun-
bought
and scarcely for feeding cattle on land that would answer in tillage; but the present price will not only pay for fatting cattle on the ver\' best land, but will even allow of the rearing many, on land that would bear good crops of com. The same number of cattle, or even the same
when
than before their inclosure.
is
the price of butchers'
I
would not by any means be under-
stood to say that the former system either
terbalanced the advantages derived from
could or ought to have continued. The
the inclosure of wastelands, and the gen-
creasing price of butchers'
eral It
ural
improvements in husbandry. scarcely need be remarked that the
meat
is
and inevitable consequence
general progress of cultivation; but
in-
a natof I
the
can-
high price of butchers' meat at present, and its low price formerly, were not caused
not help thinking that the present great
by the
quality,
scarcity
in
demand
for butchers' meat of the best and the quantity of good land that is in consequence annually employed to produce it, together with the great number
the one case or the
plenty in the other, but
by
the different
expense sustained at the different periods, in preparing cattle for the market. It is,
of horses at present kept for pleasure, are
the chief causes that have prevented the
however, possible that there might have been more cattle a hundred years ago in the country than at present; but no doubt
quantity of
can be entertained that there is much more meat of a superior quaUty brought to market at present than ever there was. When
food in the country
the quantity of subsistence in the country,
meat was very low, were reared chiefly upon wastelands; and, except for some of the principal markets, were probably killed with but little other fatting. The veal that is sold so cheap in some distant counties at present bears
the price of butchers'
and consequently on its population. The employment of much of the most fertile land in grazing, the improvements
cattle
httle other
human
from keeping pace with the generally increased fertility of the soil; and a change of custom in these respects would, I have little doubt, have a very sensible effect on
in agricultural instruments, the increase of
large farms and, particularly, the diminu-
resemblance than the name to
tion of the
537
number
of cottages throughout
Great Books Library the are
kingdom
all
concur to prove that there many persons em-
in agricultural labor
ployed period
of
must be employed almost wholly
manufactures, and
is
it
known
well
mense amount.
in
Her immense amount of manufactures, therefore, she would exchange chiefly for
stead of buckles and metal buttons, com-
bined with the restraints in the market of labor arising from corporation and parish laws, have frequently driven thousands on
The
charity for support. is,
luxuries
itself a
whatever
strong
from
collected
world. At present,
great increase of
indeed, of
equally evident that
It is
from the great bulk of provisions and the amazing extent of her inland territory she could not in return import such a quantity as would be any sensible addition to the annual stock of subsistence in the country.
that
the failure of some of these manufactures, merely from the caprice of fashion, such as the adoption of muslins instead of silks, or of shoestrings and covered buttons in-
the poor rates
great honor in
in
cheapness of labor she might work up manufactures for foreign sale to an im-
in-
crease of population, therefore, has taken place,
trade and foreign
if
China, from the plenty of laborers and the
as at the
Whatever
revolution.
the
now
evident that,
It is
commerce were held
not probably so
all
parts
the
of
appears that no labor
it
spared in the production of
is
The country is rather over-peopled proportion to what its stock can employ,
food.
evidence that the poor have not a greater
in
command
and labor is, therefore, so abundant that no pains are taken to abridge it. The consequence of this is, probably, the greatest
ences of
of the necessaries life;
and
if
and conveni-
to the consideration
that their condition in this respect
is
rather
worse than better be added the circumstance that a
them
is
much
employed
sibly afford;
must be acknowledged
that the increase of
happiness of the laboring
poor.
That every increase of the stock or revenue of a nation cannot be considered as an increase of the real funds
.for
it
will
though they may enable a farmer to bring a certain quantity of grain cheaper to market, tend rather to diminish than increase the whole produce, and in agriculture, therefore, may in some respects be consid-
it
wealth of late years has had no tendency to increase the
for
served that processes for abridging labor,
in large manufactories,
unfavorable both to health and virtue,
soil can posbe generally ob-
production of food that the
greater proportion of
ered
rather
than
public
capital could not
be em-
private
as
advantages.
An immense
the mainte-
nance of labor and, therefore, cannot have the same good eflFect upon the condition of the poor will appear in a strong light if the argument be apphed to China. Dr. Adam Smith observes that China has probably long been as rich as the nature of her laws and institutions will admit, but that with other laws and institutions, and if foreign commerce were had in honor, she might still be much richer. The question is: Would such an increase of wealth be an increase of the real funds for the maintenance of labor, and, con-
ployed in China
sequently, tend to place the lower classes
wealth, the exchangeable value of the an-
of people in
China
in
in
preparing manufac-
tures for foreign trade without taking off
so
many
laborers from agriculture as to
al-
and in some degree diminish the produce of the country.
ter this state of things, to
The demand
for
would naturally
manufacturing laborers
raise the price of labor,
but, as the quantity of subsistence
would
not be increased, the price of provisions
would keep pace with than keep pace with provisions
were
it,
it if
really
or even
more
the quantity of
decreasing.
The
country would be evidently advancing in its land and labor would be annually augmented, yet the real funds
nual produce of
a state of greater
plenty?
538
Malthus: Essay on Population for
the maintenance of labor would be even declining, and, conse-
the land, according to the French economay not be a more accurate defini-
stationary, or
mists,
quently, the increasing wealth of the na-
tion.
tion
would rather tend
to depress than to
raise the condition of the poor.
gard
to the
With
re-
command
over the necessaries they would be in the
and comforts of life, same or rather worse state than before; and a great part of them would have exchanged the healthy labors of agriculture for the unhealthy occupations of manufacturing industry.
when
applied to China, because
clearer
it is
gen-
wealth of China With regard to stationary. long has been any other country it might be always a erally allowed that the
matter of dispute
at
which
of
the two
periods compared wealth was increasing the fastest, as
it is
upon the
rapidity of the
increase of wealth at any particular period that. Dr.
Adam
Smith says, the condition
it
that every increase of
is
wealth, according to the definition of the economists, will be an increase of the funds for the
maintenance of labor, and conse-
quently will always tend to ameliorate the condition of the laboring poor, though an increase of wealth, according to Dr.
Smith's definition, will
Adam
by no means
in-
same tendency. And yet may not follow from this consideration
variably have the it
The argument, perhaps, appears
Certain
Adam
that Dr. just.
It
seems
Smith's definition
in
many
is
not
respects improper
and lodging of a whole people from any part of their revenue. Much of it may, indeed, be of very trivial and unimportant value in comparto exclude the clothing
ison with the food of the country, yet
may be
still
considered as a part of its revenue, and, therefore, the only point in which I should differ from Dr. Adam
it
is evident, howtwo nations might increase exactly with the same rapidity in the exchangeable value of the annual produce of their land and labor, yet if one had applied itself chiefly to agriculture, and the other chiefly to commerce, the funds for the maintenance of labor, and consequently
fairly
to consider every
where he seems
of the poor depends. It
Smith,
ever, that
increase of the revenue or stock of a so-
is
ciety as an increase of the funds for the
maintenance of labor, and consequently, as tending always to ameliorate the condition of the poor.
The
fine silks
and
cottons, the laces,
the effect of the increase of wealth in each
may
would be extremely different. In that which had applied itself chiefly to agriculture, the poor would live in great plenty, and population would rapidly increase. In that which had applied itself chiefly to commerce, the poor would be comparatively but little benefited and consequently population would increase
ment the exchangeable value
slowly.
mists consider
nation,
CHAPTER
A
and
other ornamental luxuries of a rich country contribute very considerably to augof
its
annual
produce; yet they contribute but in a very small degree to augment the mass of happiness in the society, and that
it is
with some view
of the produce that
we
it
appears to
me
to the real utility
ought to estimate
the productiveness or unproductiveness of
The French economanufactures as unproductive. Comparing it with the labor employed upon land, I different sorts of labor.
XVII
all
labor employed in
should be perfectly disposed to agree with
them, but not exactly for the reasons which they give. They say that labor employed upon land is productive because the produce, over and above completely paying
question seems naturally to arise here
whether the exchangeable value of the annual produce of the land and labor be the proper definition of the wealth of a country, or whether the gross produce of
the laborer and the farmer, affords a clear
539
Great Books Library rent to the landlord; and that the labor employed upon a piece of lace is unpro-
in obtaining the produce. In their former
merely replaces the provisions that the workman had consumed, and the stock of his employer, without af-
tion of the food of the country
ductive because
employment they consumed
some employment
return
fording any clear rent whatever. But, supposing the value of the wrought lace to be such as that, besides paying in the most
complete manner the workman and his employer, it could aflFord a clear rent to a third person, it appears to me that, in comparison with land,
it
labor
the
would be
still
as
empk)yed upon unproductive as
Though according to the reasoning used by the French economists, the man ever.
employed would, in
the
in
this case,
manufacture of lace seem to be a produc-
tion of the wealth of a state,
be considered
added nothing
He
land:
in that hght.
to the gross
silks
tional quantity of food.
A
capital
employed upon land may be
unproductive to the individual that employs it and yet be highly productive to
tive laborer, yet, according to their defini-
to
a certain por-
and left in and laces. In their latter they consumed the same quantity of food and left in return provision for a hundred thousand men. There can be Uttle doubt which of the two legacies would be the most really beneficial to the country, and it will, I think, be allowed that the wealth which supported the two hundred thousand men while they were producing silk and laces would have been more usefully employed in supporting them while they were producing the addi-
it
he ought not He will have
A
the society.
produce of the
capital
has consumed a portion of this
employed
may be
on the contrary,
in trade,
highly productive
and yet be almost and
to the individual
totally
produce and has left a bit of lace in return; and though he may sell this bit of
unproductive to the society:
lace for three times the quantity of provi-
ing labor unproductive, in comparison of
he consumed while he was making it, and thus be a very productive laborer with regard to himself, yet he cannot be considered as having added by his labor to any essential part of the riches of the
that
gross
the reason
sions that
The
state.
why
which
I
should
employed
is
call
this
is
manufactur-
in agriculture,
and
not for the reason given by the French economists.
It
is,
indeed, almost impossible
to see the great fortunes that are
trade,
and the
many merchants
clear rent, therefore, that a cer-
liberality live,
made
in
with which so
and yet agree
in the
paying the expenses of procuring it, does not appear to be the sole criterion by which to judge of the productiveness or unproductiveness to a state of any particular species of labor. Suppose that two hundred thousand
statement of the economists that manu-
men who
no third person
tain
produce can
are
afford, after
now employed
manufactures that only tend
in
facturers can only
grow
rich
by depriving
themselves of the funds destined for their support. In
many branches
profits are so
great as
clear rent to a third person;
producing
in the case,
profits center in the
to gratify the
of trade the
would allow but
and
of a
as there
is
as all the
master manufacturer,
vanity of a few rich people were to be em-
or merchant, he seems to have a fair chance
ployed upon some barren and uncultivated
growing rich, without much privation; and we consequently see large fortunes acquired in trade by persons who have not been remarked for their parsimony.
lands, tity
and
of
to
food
of
produce only half the quanthat
they themselves
con-
sumed; they would be still, more productive laborers with regard to the state than they were before, though their labor, so far from affording a rent to a third person, would but half replace the provisions used
Daily experience proves that the labor in trade and manufactures is
employed
sufficiently it
540
certainly
productive to individuals, but is
not productive in the same
Malthus: Essay on Population from the redundancy of capital employed upon land. The superior encouragement that has been given to the industry of the towns and the consequent higher
degree to the state. Every accession to the food of a country tends to the immediate benefit of the whole society; but the fortunes
made
in trade
tures rising
tend but in a remote
and uncertain manner to the same end, and in some respects have even a contrary tendency.
The home
is paid for the labor of artificers, than for the labor of those employed in husbandry, are probably the reasons why
price that
trade of con-
most important trade of every nation. China is the richest country in the world, without any other. Putting then, for a moment, foreign trade out of the question, the man who, by an ingenious manufacture, obtains a double sumption
is
by
far
vated.
it might undoubtedly have been much more populous than at present, and yet not be more incumbered
throughout Europe,
by
portion out of the old stock of provisions
be so useful to the state who, by his labor, adds a sin-
man
gle share to the former stock.
The
cannot quit
this curious subject of the
from population, a subject to deserve a minute in-
difficulty arising
that appears to vestigation
con-
yond
laces, commodities of silks, trinkets, and expensive furniture are undoubtedly a part of the revenue of the
sumable
society;
population.
its
I
will certainly not as the
much soil in Europe remains uncultiHad a different policy been pursued
so
the
me
and able discussion much be-
my power
to give
Price's
two volumes of Observations. Hav-
and
the rich, and not of the society in general.
of life in towns
An
increase in this part of the revenue of
says,
"From
a state cannot, therefore, be considered of
with
how much
same importance as an increase of food, which forms the principal revenue
been called the graves
the
also convince all
definition,
though not according
in
the country, he
comparison,
this
who
it
appears,
great cities
truth of
mankind.
consider
it,
It
have must
that ac-
cording to the observation, at the end of
mass of the people. Foreign commerce adds to the wealth of
of the great
Adam
without taking
ing given some tables on the probabilities
but they are the revenue only of
a state, according to Dr.
it,
notice of an extraordinary passage in Dr.
the fourth essay, in the former volume,
Smith's
is
by no means
strictly
it
proper to consider
our diseases as the original intention of
to the def-
inition of the economists. Its principal use,
nature.
and the reason, probably, that it has in general been held in such high estimation, is that it adds greatly to the external power of a nation or to its power of command-
eral
They
our
own
are,
without doubt, in gen-
creation.
Were
there a coun-
ing the labor of other countries; but it will be found, upon a near examination, to contribute but little to the increase of the internal funds for the maintenance of labor, and consequently but little to the happi-
where the inhabitants led lives entirely natural and virtuous, few of them would die without measuring out the whole period of present existence allotted to them; pain and distemper would be unknown among them, and death would come upon them like a sleep, in consequence of no other cause than gradual and unavoidable
ness of the greatest part of society. In the
decay."
try
natural progress of a state towards riches,
I
own
that
I felt
myself obhged to draw
manufactures and foreign commerce would
a very opposite conclusion from the facts
follow, in their order, the high cultivation
advanced in Dr. Price's two volumes. I had for some time been aware that population and food increased in different ratios, and a vague opinion had been floating in my mind that they could only be kept
of the
soil.
In Europe this natural order of
been inverted, and the soil has been cultivated from the redundancy of manufacturing capital instead of manufacthings has
541
Great Books Library Norway, Dentwo or three hundred years ago, he might have found perhaps nearly the same degree of civilization, but by no means the same happiness or the same increase of population. He quotes himself a statute of Henry the Eighth, complaining of the decay of tillage, and the enhanced price of provisions, "whereby a marvellous number of people were rendered incapable of maintaining themselves and families." The superior degree of civil liberty which pre-
equal by some species of misery or vice, but the perusal of Dr. Price's two volumes Observations,
of
opinion had
that
after
cultivated land. In parts of
mark, or Sweden, or in
once to conviction. With so many facts in his view to prove the extraordinary rapidity with
been conceived, raised
which
population
it
at
when
increases
un-
checked, and with such a body of evidence before him to elucidate, even the manner
by which the general laws
of nature re-
press a redundant population,
it
me how
fectly inconceivable to
write the passage that
I
per-
is
he could
have quoted. He for early mar-
was a strenuous advocate riages
as
the
best
vicious manners.
preservative
He had no
against
this country,
in
America,
doubt,
its
share to promote the industry,
contributed,
happiness, and population of these states,
fanciful con-
ceptions about the extinction of the passion
but even
between the sexes, like Mr. Godwin, nor did he ever think of eluding the difficulty in the ways hinted at by Mr. Condorcet.
will not create fresh land.
He
may be
frequently talks of giving the prolific
directed exertions of
food for
its
tonishing as
man
if
rapidity as
A
first,
Price,
speaking civilized
the
of
different
says,
state,
"The
those which favor most the increase and
He
then
enjoy a greater
England, but we may be population will not
that
of
the
did then.
who contemplated
the
happy
lower classes of people in
never exposing her to the sun or air. The situation of new colonies, well governed,
or simple stages of civilization, are
the happiness of mankind."
it is,
The Americans
America twenty years ago would naturally wish to retain them forever in that state, and might think, perhaps, that by preventing the introduction of manufactures and luxury he might effect his purpose, but he might as reasonably expect to prevent a wife or mistress from growing old by
as as-
he had resisted the conclu-
of the
it
person
state
Euclid.
Dr.
powerful as
long continue to increase with the same
sion of one of the plainest propositions of
stages
sure
perfectly
could produce
me
said, perhaps, to
in subjection to
by the best
support, appears to
civil liberty, all
degree of civil liberty, now they are an independent people, than while they were
powers of nature room to exert themselves. Yet with these ideas, that his understanding could escape from the obvious and necessary inference that an unchecked population would increase, beyond comparison, faster than the earth
without
vailed
in-
is
a
bloom of youth that no efforts can There are, indeed, many modes
ar-
American colonies as being at that time in the first and happiest of the states that he had described, and as afford-
body
ing a very striking proof of the effects of
tard the approaches of age, but there can
the different stages of civilization on pop-
be no chance of success, in any mode that could be devised, for keeping either of them in perpetual youth. By encouraging the industry of the towns more than the industry of the country, Europe may be said, perhaps, to have brought on a premature old age. A different policy, in this
stances the
rest.
But he does not seem to be aware that the happiness of the Americans de-
ulation.
pended much
less
upon
their peculiar de-
gree of civilization than upon the peculiarity of their situation as
their
new
colonies,
having a great plenty of
upon
fertile
of
treatment in the pohtical, as well as animal,
un-
542
that contribute to accelerate or re-
Malthus: Essay on Population life and vigor While from the law of primogeniture and other European customs, land bears a monopoly price, a capital can never be employed in it with much advantage to the individual; and, there-
would
respect,
infuse fresh
into every state.
fore, it is not probable that the soil should be properly cultivated. And though in ever)^-
civihzed state a class of proprietors
and a class of laborers must exist, yet one permanent advantage would always result from a nearer equalization of property.
The
the niomber
greater
proprietors,
of
the smaller must be the nimiber of laborers;
a greater part of societ)'
the
happy
state
would be
in
possessing propert)-,
of
and a smaller part in the unhappy state of possessing no other property than their labor. But the best directed exertions, though the)' may alleviate, can never remove the pressiire of want, and it will be difficult for any person who contemplates the genuine situation of man on earth, and the general laws of nature, to suppose that
possible
it
the most enlightened
any,
could place mankind in a state where "few would die without measuring out the whole period of present existence eflForts,
ground.
On
the contrary, the most baleful
may be
mischiefs
manlv conduct because
what
it is
relates
expected from the un-
of not daring to face truth
unpleasing. Independently of to
this
great obstacle,
if
we
unwisely direct our eflForts towards in which we cannot hope for
an object
we
success,
shall
not
only
at
great a distance as ever from the
as
summit
by the
CHAPTER
view of human life which results from the contemplation of the constant pressure of distress on man from the difficult)' of subsistence, by showing the httie
expectation that he can reasonably enperfectibihty
of
gradual and vmavoidable decay."
of those laws of nature
And
great obstacle in the
to
must be
But I hope I be pardoned if I attempt to give a view in some degree diflFerent of the situation of man on earth, which appears to me to be more consistent with the various phenomena of nature which we observe around us and more consonant to our ideas of the power, goodness, and foreknowl-
is
whose exertions improvement is evident that no
to those
are laudably directed to the of the
human
possible
species,
ors to slur
it
it
edge of the Deity. It cannot be considered
from any endeavover or keep it in the back-
good can
trial
of virtue preparatory to a su-
shall
discouraging as the contemplation of this difficulty
temptations to which he must
perior state of happiness.
beyond the
laws of animated nature which
have no reason
the
and school
one of the general we can expect will change. Yet,
of subsistence
seems
frequentiy considered, as a state of
any extraordinar)' improvement in society is of a nature that we can never hope to overcome. The perpetual tendency
means
earth,
be exposed, from the operation which we have been examining, would seem to represent the world in the Hght in which it has been
to
to increase
on
strongly to point his hopes to the future.
undoubtedly, a most disheartening
man
X\^III
The
necessarily
in the race of
be per-
of Sis)^hus.
in consequence of no other cause than
that the
shall
recoil of this rock
tertain
way
we
of our wishes, but
petually crushed
where pain and distemper would be unknown among them; and death would come upon them like a sleep,
It is,
exhaust our
strength in fruitless exertions and remain
allotted to them;
reflection
suffi-
done for mankind to animate us to the most unremitted exertion. But if we proceed without a thorough knowledge and accurate comprehension of the nature, extent, and magnitude of the difficulties we have to encounter, or
cient yet remains to be
arise
ing exercise of the
543
as
an unimprovto endeav-
human mind
Great Books Library ways of God to man" we proceed with a proper distrust of our own understandings and a just sense of our
some Ought we not then to corlect our crude and puerile ideas of Infinite Power from the contemplation of what we actually see existing? Can we judge of the
we
that
all
comprehend the reason
see,
if
we
of
hail every ray of
with gratitude, and
light
when no
appears, think that the darkness
is
to indicate their fitness for
superior state.
if
insufficiency to
seem
as
or to "Vindicate the
light
Greator but from his creation? And, unless
from
we wish
to exalt the
power
of
God we
at the
and bow with himible deference to the supreme wisdom of him whose "thoughts are above our thoughts," "as the heavens are high above
conclude that even to the Great Creator, Almighty as he is, a certain process may be
the earth."
appears to us as time)
within and not from without,
In
expense of his goodness, ought
necessary, a certain time (or at least
our feeble attempts, however, to
all
Almighty
"find out the
to perfection,"
The moment we allow
ourselves
qualities of
we
we
shall
shall
childish
his
never
them
know where all
progress
will
fit
them
for
seems to imply a preformed existence that does not agree with the appearance of man in infancy and indicates something like suspicion and want of foreknowledge, inconsistent with those ideas which we wish to cherish of the Supreme Being. I should be inclined, therefore, as I have hinted before in a note, to consider the world and this life as the mighty process of God, not for the trial, but for the creation and formation of mind, a process necessary to
ask
as they
to stop;
in
mind which
high purposes?
A
be led into the grossest and most absurdities;
what
requisite,
state of trial
viously
things are not otherwise, instead
of endeavoring to account for are,
to
may be
order to form beings with those exalted
in
it
seems absolutely necessary that we should reason from nature up to nature's God and not presume to reason from God to nature.
why some
not to
the
knowledge of the ways of Providence must necessarily be at an end; and the study will even cease to be an improving exercise of the human mind. Infinite power is so vast and incomprehensible an idea that the mind of man must necessarily be bewildered in the contemplation of it. With the crude and puerile conceptions which we sometimes form of this attribute of the Deity, we might imagine that God could call into being myriads and myriads of existences, all free from pain and imperfection, all eminent in goodness and wisdom, all capable of the highest enjoyments, and
es of the Divinity, into a capacity of superi-
unnumbered
or enjoyment.
awaken to elicit
man
many
matter, going through a long
many
of it,
them
receives through
acting
by general
life
may be
consid-
and awakening his by the animating touch-
laws,
sluggish existence,
The
original sin of
man
is
the torpor and corruption of the chaotic
matter in which he It
may be
said to
be bom.
could answer no good purpose to en-
whether mind be a from matter, or only a
ter into the question
distinct substance
ris-
specks of
finer
form of
and some-
after
all,
times painful process in this world, but tion of
an ethereal spark from the clod of in this view of the subject, the
ered as the forming hand of his Creator,
space.
ing apparently from so
spirit, to
various impressions and excitements which
as the points throughout in-
constant succession of sentient beings,
chaotic matter into
And
clay.
But when from these vain and extravagant dreams of fancy, we turn our eyes to the book of nature, where alone we can read God as he is, we see a
finite
inert,
sublimate the dust of the earth into soul,
is
as
it.
The question
is,
perhaps,
a question merely of words.
essentially
Mind
mind, whether formed
from matter or any other substance. We experience that soul and body
attaining, ere the termina-
know from
such high qualities and powers
544
Malthus: Essay on Population are most intimately united, and every appearance seems to indicate that they grow from infancy together. It would be a sup-
are the
ity to believe that a complete and full formed spirit existed in every infant, but that it was clogged and impeded in its operations during the first twenty years of
mind they both seem
to agree that
as well as of
God
seem, even afterwards, to be necessary to that activity which they first awakened. The savage would slvimber forever under his tree, unless he were roused from his torpor by the cravings of hunger or the pinchings of cold; and the exertions that he makes to avoid these evils, by procuring food and building himself a covering, are the exercises which form and keep in motion his faculties, which otherwise
continue
is
body, and
be forming and imthe same time, it cannot appear inconsistent either with reason or revelation, if it appear to be conas
to
folding themselves
sistent
at
with phenomena of nature, to sup-
pose that
God
is
would
constantly occupied in
through
impressions life is
man
that
the structure of the
is
surely worthy of the
man on earth be unattended with probabihty, if, judging from the little experience we have of the nature of mind, it shall appear upon investigation that the phenomena around us, and the various events of himian life, seem pecuharly calculated to promote this great end, and especially if, upon this supposition, we can account, even to our own narrow underThis view of the state of
seem
standings, for
to
many
and inequahties
man his
God
if
those
human mind
motion by the necessity of satisfying the wants of the body. Want has not unfrequently given wings to the
have been
which querulous makes the subject of
complaint against the
human mind,
of the noblest exertions of the
of those roughnesses
in Hfe
too frequently
all
which arise from the wants of the body were removed from the mass of mankind, we have much more reason to think that they would be sunk to the level of brutes, from a deficiency of excitements, than that they would be raised to the rank of philosophers, by the possession of leisure. In those countries where nature is the most redundant in spontaneous produce, the inhabitants will not be found the most remarkable for acuteness of intellect. Necessity has been with great truth called the mother of invention. Some
highest attributes of the Deity. will not
From
stimulants to exertion
receives
the process for that purpose.
The employment
sink into listless inactivity.
that experience has taught us concerning
forming mind out of matter and that the various
and
powerful, are generated, these stimulants
by the weakness, or hebetude, of the organs in which it was enclosed. As we be disposed
into sentient activity;
course of excitements, other wants, equally
life
shall all
stimulants that rouse the brain
man
such seems to be the sluggishness of original matter that unless, by a pecuhar
position attended with very htde probabil-
the creator of
first
of infant
set in
imagination of the poet, pointed the flow-
of nature.
The first great awakeners of the mind seem to be the wants of the body.^ They
ing periods of the historian, and added acuteness to the researches of the philos-
opher; and though there are, undoubtedly, 1
was my some length It
many minds intention
have entered
to
at
into this subject as a kind of second part to the essay. A long interruption, from particular business, has obliged
me
of social
me
have advanced.
I
if
their bodily stim-
were removed, yet it can scarcely be doubted that these stimulants could not be withdrawn from the mass of mankind without producing a general and fatal torulants
the present. I shall now, therefore, only give a sketch of a few of the leading cir-
general supposition that
improved by
sympathy that they would not
relapse into hstlessness
to lay aside this intention, at least for
cumstances that appear to
at present so far
the various excitements of knowledge, or
to favor the
545
Great Books Library por, destructive of
by the full ctJtivation of the earth, it has been ordained that population should in-
the germs of future
all
improvement. Locke,
if
recollect, says that the en-
I
crease
law
deavor to avoid pain, rather than the pursuit of pleasure, is the great stimulus to action in
and that
life;
particular pleasvu"e,
we
shall
contemplation of
amount
as to
it
seem necessary
has continued so long
to a sensation of pain or un-
by these
ing faculty, that the
mind is formed. If Locke's idea be and there is great reason to think that
the laws of nature,
of
with which fect
from the same causes,
dinary coiu-se of things, the finger of
were frequently his
The Supreme Being has
tory labor
upon
able
connection,
God were
frequently to change
even the bodily wants of mankind would cease to stimulate them to exertion, could
or-
they not reasonably expect that
if
their
were well directed they would be crowned with success. The constancy of
prepara-
efforts
and ingenuity has been exersurface. There is no conceiv-
cised
if
God
speak more
visible, or to
purpose (for the finger of God is, indeed, visible in every blade of grass that we see), a general and fatal torpor of the human faculties would probably ensue;
not produce
much
the founda-
is
just,
correctly,
till
certainty
expect the same ef-
it is,
seems to be necessary to create exand exertion seems evidently necessary to create mind. The necessity of food for the support of life gives rise, probably, to a greater quantity of exertion than any other want, bodily shall
we may
The constancy
or the
tion of the faculty of reason. If in the or-
evil
dained that the earth food in great quantities
seems absolutely necessary act always
Supreme Being should
ertion,
or mental.
it
and to and form the reason-
according to general laws.
that
stimulants,
it
to create exertion,
direct this exertion,
under the absence of it. To avoid to pursue good seem to be the great duty and business of man, and this world appears to be pecuUarly calculated to afford opportunity of the most unremitted exertion of this kind, and it is by exertion,
much
may, perproduces a great
httle reflection
overbalance of good. Strong excitements
and
this
but a
haps, satisfy us that
easiness
evil
faster than food. This general
has appeared in the former parts
it
partial evil,
tiU the
it,
much
as
of this essay) imdoubtedly produces
any not be roused
in looking to
action in order to obtain
into
(
the laws of nature
its
is
the foundation of the
our comprehensions,
industry and foresight of the husbandman,
between the seed and the plant or tree that rises from it. The Supreme Creator might, undoubtedly, raise up plants of all lands,
the skilful researches of the physician and
to
the indefatigable ingenuity of the
and the watchful observation and patient investigation of the natural anatomist,
for the use of his creatiores, without the
those
assistance
of
which we
call seed,
assisting labor
little
bits
philosopher.
matter
of
of
form
To
his
mind
for the con-
our understandings, obvious and striking, a we retimi to the principle of population
man
and
the immortal
previously neces-
into action
and consider man as he reaUy is, inert, and averse from labor, unless compelled by necessity (and it is siirely the height of folly to talk of man, according to our crude fancies, of what he might
and
sluggish,
to reason.
this kind,
all
stancy of the laws of nature seem, even to
furnish the most unremitted excite-
ments of
we owe
in his
God
sary to the enjoyment of the blessings of hfe, in order to rouse
constancy
As the reasons, therefore,
ground, of collecting and sowing seeds, are not surely for the assistance of
made
this
To this constancy we owe mind of a Newton.
man. The
processes of ploughing and clearing the
creation, but are
To
the greatest and noblest efforts of intellect.
or even without the
and attention
artificer,
to iirge
man
to
further the gracious designs of Providence,
546
Malthus: Essay on Population
we may pronounce
be),
with certainty
lect),
we
still
see that
cultivation proceeds very slowly,
we may
tivation of the earth,
conclude that a
fairly
have been
insuflRcient.
if
less
stimulus
Even under
duce It
casioned by the law of population tend
and contribute to that inand consequently of impressions, which seems upon the whole favorable to the growth of mind. It versal exertion
finite variety of situations,
population and food increased ratio, it is
probable that
impede the general
purpose of Providence. They excite uni-
the op-
ural fertility for a long period before they
same
have been
way probable
seems, however, every
rather to promote than
would
betake themselves to pasturage or agricul-
Had
distress in countries that
that even the acknowledged difficulties oc-
eration of this constant excitement, savages
ture.
evident that the same principle
long inhabited.
will inhabit countries of the greatest nat-
in the
it is
which, seconded by industry, will people a fertile region in a few years must pro-
would not have been peopled but for the superiority of the power of population to the means of subsistence. Strong and constantly operative as this stimulus is on man to urge him to the culthat the world
is
man
probable that too great or too
little
excitement, extreme poverty, or too great
might never have emerged from the savage state. But supposing that earth once well peopled, an Alexander, a Julius Caesar, a Tamerlane, or a bloody revolution might irrecoverably thin the human race and defeat the great designs of the Cre-
riches
may be
spect.
The middle
The ravages of a contagious disorder would be felt for ages; and an earthquake might unpeople a region forever. The prin-
perate zones of the earth seem to be the
to
mankind
or
the accidents of nature, the partial evils arising
is
seem
contrary to the analogy of
can be a middle region. The tem-
most favorable to the mental and corporeal energies of man, but all cannot be temperate zones. A world, warmed and enlightened but by one sun, must from the laws of matter have some parts chilled by perpetual frosts and others scorched by perpetual heats. Every piece of matter lying on a surface must have an upper and an under side, all the particles cannot be in the middle. The most valuable parts of an oak to a timber merchant are not either the roots or the branches, but these
according to which population in-
creases prevents the vices of
it
regions of society
to intellectual improve-
nature to expect that the whole of so-
ciety
ator.
ciple
be best suited
ment, but all
alike unfavorable in this re-
from general laws, from obstructing
the high purpose of the creation. It keeps the inhabitants of the earth always fully
up to the level of the means of subsistence; and is constantly acting upon man as a powerful stimulus, urging him to the further cultivation of the earth, and to enable it, consequently, to support a more ex-
are absolutely necessary to the existence
tended population. But it is impossible that this law can operate, and produce the effects apparently intended by the Supreme Being, without occasioning partial evil.
of the middle part, or stem,
Unless the principle of population were to
could find out a
be
would cause more of the substance to go to stem, and less to root and branch, he would be right to exert himself in bringing
object in request.
could not possibly
grow without
altered, according to the circumstances
of each separate country
(which would
not only be contrary to our universal experience, with regard to the laws of nature,
which
is
the
if he which
roots or branches, but
mode
of cultivation
such a system into general use. In the same manner, though
but would contradict even our own
reason,
which
The timber merchant expect to make an oak
we
cannot
possibly expect to exclude riches and pov-
sees the absolute necessity
of general laws for the formation of intel-
erty from society, yet
547
if
we
could find out
Great Books Library government by which the numwould be lessened and the numbers in the middle regions increased, it would be undoubtedly our duty to adopt it. It is not, however, improbable that as in the oak, the roots and branches could not be diminished very greatly without weakening the vigorous a
mode
any observable diflFerence, from their diflEerent situations. Exertion and activity are in general absolutely necessary in the one case and
of
if
there really
can only
bers in the extreme regions
are only optional in the other.
That the generate find
ciety the extreme parts could not be diminished beyond a certain degree without
port
hope
the very
man
dustry did not bring with idleness
its
would not
certainly
upon
we ought
be what they this subject,
now it
sorrows The another
But
activit)-.
review the various
if
useful
coveries, the valuable writings,
laudable exertions of mankind,
we
and other I
believe at-
ate upon the many than to the apparently more enlarged motives that operate upon
is,
without doubt, highly valu-
able to man, but taking
man
difficulties
in
form which
distresses of life
of
excitements,
to
of impressions, to soften
tributed to the narrow motives that oper-
the few. Leisure
frequently
be necessary, by a peculiar train and humanize the heart, to awaken social sympathy, to generate all the Christian virtues, and to afford scope for the ample exertion of benevolence. The general tendency of a uniform course of prosperity is rather to degrade than exalt the character. The heart that has never known sorrow itself will seldom be feeUngly aJive to the pains and pleasures, the wants and wishes, of its fellow beings. It will seldom be overflowing with that warmth of brotherly love, those kind and amiable affections, which dignify the human character even more than the
seem
dis-
should find that more were to be
and
class
pecuhar course of excitements, would not need the constant action of narrow motives
we
families,
evi-
is
cording to the chances, out of so great a
to
or
faculties that
CHAPTER XIX
are.
to consider chiefly the
continue them in
men
reward and
it its
mass, that, having been vivified early by a
to
exertions that
which they are involved.
in-
mass of mankind and not individual instances. There are undoubtedly many minds, and there ought to be many, ac-
were
themselves
punishment, the middle parts
In reasoning
dent that
if
The
necessary to make, in order to sup-
quate to grapple with the
could
to rise or fear to fall in society,
us.
Ufe contribute to
every day's experience
might otherwise have lain forever dormant, and it has been commonly remarked that new and extraordinary situations generally create minds ade-
cause that they are the most favorable to the growth of intellect. If no
it
awaken
lessening that animated exertion throughis
difficulties of
talents,
must convince
circulation of the sap in the stem, so in so-
out the middle parts, which
is
arise
possession of the highest talents. Talents,
the
indeed, though undoubtedly a very promi-
probability seems to be that in the greater
nent and fine feature of mind, can by no
number
means be considered as constituting the whole of it. There are many minds which have not been exposed to those excitements that usually form talents, that have yet been vivified to a high degree by the
of instances
rather than good. It
as
he
is,
produce evil has been not unfreit
will
quently remarked that talents are more
common among younger among elder brothers, but
than can scarcely
brothers it
be imagined that younger brothers upon an average, bom with a greater inal susceptibility of parts.
The
excitements of social sympathy. In every
are,
rank of
orig-
life,
in the lowest as frequently as
in the highest, characters are to
diflFerence,
548
be found
Malthus: Essay on Population
human kindtowards God and
overflowing with the milk of
breathing
ness,
love
man, and though without those peculiar powers of mind called talents, evidently holding a higher rank in the scale of beings than many who possess them. Evancharity,
gelical
meekness, piety, and
all
that class of virtues distinguished particularly
by the name
of Christian virtues
do
not seem necessarily to include abilities, yet a soul possessed of these amiable qualsoul
a
ities,
awakened and
vivified
by
these delightful sympathies, seems to hold
a nearer
commerce with
the skies than
mere acuteness of intellect. The greatest talents have been frequently misapplied and have produced evil proportionate to the extent of their powers.
Both reason and revelation seem sure us that such minds will be
to
as-
undergone the further process necessary to give firmness and durability to its substance, while the other is still exposed to injury, and liable to be broken by every accidental impulse. An ardent love and admiration of virtue seems to imply the existence of something opposite to it, and it seems highly probable that the same beauty of form and substance, the same perfection of character could not be generated without the impressions of disapprobation which arise from the spectacle of
moral
the mind has been awakened into by the passions and the wants of the body, intellectual wants arise; and the desire of knowledge and the impatience under ignorance form a new and important class of excitements. Every part of nature activity
condemned
seems peculiarly calculated to furnish stimulants to mental exertion of this kind, and to offer inexhaustible food for the most unremitted inquiry. Our immortal Bard
but while on earth, these vicious instruments performed their part in the great mass of impressions, by the disgust and abhorrence which they excited. It seems highly probable that moral to eternal death;
evil
says of Cleopatra-
Custom cannot stale Her infinite variety.
absolutely necessary to the produc-
is
tion of
moral excellence.
A being
with only
The
good placed in view may be justly said to be impelled by a blind necessity. The pursuit of good in this case can be no indication of. virtuous propensities. It might be said, perhaps, that Infinite
a state of
trial,
amplification,
Upon
disapprobation and disgust at different
and has it
is
distinct
it
is
accurately
true
parts
that support the superior,
though they sometimes offend the fastidious microscopic eye of short-sighted man, contribute to the symmetry, grace, and fair
felt
proportion of the whole.
essen-
The
from the being that has
have received
but
applied to nature. Infinite variety
inferior
infinite variety of the
forms and op-
immeawaken and improve the mind
erations of nature, besides tending
seen only good. They are pieces of clay that
applied to any one
considered as a poetical
blended in the picture give spirit, life, and prominence to her exuberant beauties, and those roughnesses and inequalities, those
this idea, the
evil
when
seems, indeed, eminently her characteristic feature. The shades that are here and there
Wisdom cannot
but will not hold against mind in this world is
in a state of formation.
may be
when
the supposition that
being that has seen moral
expression,
object,
want such an indication as outward action, but would foreknow with certainty whether the being would choose good or evil. This might be a plausible argument against
tially
evil.
When
diately to
impressions:
they must, therefore, necessarily be in different shapes; or, even if we allow them
by the
both to have the same lovely form of virtue, it must be acknowledged that one has
provement by offering so wide and extensive a field for investigation and research.
ates,
549
variety of impressions that
opens other
fertile
sources
it
cre-
of
im-
Great Books Library Uniform,
could
perfection
undiversified
together with the endless food for specula-
which metaphysical subjects
not possess the same awakening powers.
tion
When we
prevent the possibility that such a period
endeavor then
contemplate
to
the system of the universe,
when we
should ever arrive.
think
of the stars as the suns of other systems
we
reflect that
we do
It is
when
scattered throughout infinite space,
ings
beaming
light
and
life
is
unnumbered
to
when our minds unable in admiration
at
us not querulously complain that
all
additions
ing.
us
that
the
variety
infinite
tain period,
These impressions may, and from these various modifications, added probof
ably to a difference in the susceptibility of the original germs, ^ arise the endless diversity of
add
calculated, to
which
arise
human
furnish
curiosity
endless
and
exertion.
of success, invigorates
thinking
to
may be
motives
1
to
The con-
faculty.
If
even if and improves
the
subjects
inquiry were once exhausted,
It is
probable that no two grains of wheat
are exactly alike. Soil undoubtedly makes the principal difference in the blades that
stant eflFort to dispel this darkness,
the
see in the world;
that surrounds these interest-
of
intellectual activity
human
we
minds does not increase in proportion to the mass of existing knowledge. The finest minds seem to be formed rather by efforts at original thinking, by endeavors to form new combinations and to discover new truths, than by passively receiving the impressions of other men's ideas. Could we suppose the period arrived when there was
all
reason that he should not engage in them.
it fail
character that
but reason and experience seem both
thirst of
to
impressions.
indeed, be infinitely modified,
of
knowledge. It is probable that man, while on earth, will never be able to attain complete satisfaction on these subjects; but this is by no means a
intended
perhaps admit
appears to me, in the
that class of excitements
topics
will not
assure us that the capacity of individual
same manner peculiarly
ing
and
while on earth of above a certain number
meta-
obscurity that involves
The darkness
from
a speck, continues in vigor only for a cer-
greatest possible quantity of good.
from the
knowledge do have been much below them inferior in
in intellectual capacity. Intellect rises
(and variety cannot exist without or apparent blemishes) is admirably adapted to further the high purpose of the creation and to produce the
to
Socrates, a Plato, or an Aristotle,
not appear to
inferior parts,
physical subjects
mass of
to the philosophers of the present day,
nature
The
A
however confessedly
same advantages, that clouds and tempests sometimes darken the natural world and vice and misery the moral world, and that all the works of the creation are not formed with equal perfection. Both reason and experience seem to indito
to the
any marked and decided manner increas-
possess the
cate
would be making
let
God's creatures do not
all
it
cli-
mates are not equally genial, that perpetual spring does not reign throughout the year, that
the contrary,
human knowledge, and yet, perhaps, it may be a matter of doubt whether what may be called the capacity of mind be in
the mighty
incomprehensible power of the Creator,
On
probable that were the present system
to continue for millions of years, continual
to grasp
the immeasurable conception sink, lost and
confounded
by no means one of the wisest saySolomon that "there is no new
of
thing under the sun."
not probably see a
millionth part of those bright orbs that are
worlds,
oflFer,
spring up, but probably not all. It seems natural to suppose some sort of difference in the original germs that are afterwards awakened into thought, and the extraordinary difference of susceptibility in very young children seems to confirm the sup-
of
mind
would probably stagnate; but the infinitely diversified forms and operations of nature,
position.
550
Malthus: Essay on Population convinced that an ovei-powering conviction
no further hope of future discoveries, and to ac-
of this kind, instead of tending to the im-
quire pre-existing knowledge, without any
provement and moral amelioration of man, would act like the touch of a torpedo on all intellectual exertion and would almost put an end to the existence of virtue. If the scriptural denunciations of eternal punishment were brought home with the same
the only
employment
of
mind was
eflForts to form new and original combinations: though the mass of human knowledge were a thousand times greater than it is at present, yet it is evident that one of the noblest stimulants to mental exertion would have ceased; the finest feature
certainty to every man's
mind
as that the
would be lost; everything allied to genius would be at an end; and it appears to be impossible that, under such
night will follow the day, this one vast and
circumstances, any individuals could poss-
room
of intellect
same
ess the
gloomy idea would take such
Shakespeare,
a
were Newton, or a
even by a Socrates,
or
a
Homer. If a revelation from heaven of which no person could feel the smallest doubt were to dispel the mists that now hang over metaphysical subjects, were to explain the nature and structure of mind, the afiFections and essences of all substances, the mode in which the Supreme Being operates in the works of the creation, and the whole plan and scheme of the universe, such an accession of knowledge so obPlato,
an
Aristotle, or a
tion,
human mind, would
activity to the
tion
and
to
damp
For this reason doubts and
that
Our
From of the
objections
the
little
human
to
involve
not,
I
think,
repeated experience that they are not ac-
companied with evidence of such a nature as to overpower the human will and to
make men
lead virtuous lives with vicious
dispositions,
of the structure
understanding,
and vice are
would call an action which was performed simply and solely from the dread of a very great punishment or the expectation of a very great reward. The fear of the Lord is very justly said to be the beginning of wisdom, but the end of wisdom is the love of the Lord and the admiration of moral good. The denunciations of future punishment contained in the scriptures seem to be well calculated to arrest the progress of the vicious and awaken the attention of the careless, but we see from
such a revelation.
we know
how human
really virtuous
yet sufficiently strong to see the most
striking
ideas of virtue
but few,
in
some parts of the sacred writings as any argument against their divine original. The Supreme Being might, undoubtedly, have accompanied his revelations to man by such a succession of miracles, and of such a nature, as would have produced universal overpowering conviction and have put an end at once to all hesitation and discussion. But weak as our reason is to comprehend the plans of the Great Creator, it is
conceive
perhaps, very accurate and well-defined;
have never considered
difficulties
difficult to
and a love and admiration of God, and of moral excellence.
the soaring wings of in-
I
it is
of moral evil,
tellect.
the
for
beings could be formed to a detestation
probability tend to repress future exer-
all
posses-
faculties as to leave
must necessarily make the same impressions on man, who can judge only from external appearances. Under such a dispensa-
tained, instead of giving additional vigor
and
full
no any other conceptions; the external actions of men would be aU nearly alike; virtuous conduct would be no indication of virtuous disposition; vice and virtue would be blended together in one common mass; and, though the all-seeing eye of God might distinguish them, they
intellectual energies as
possessed by a Locke,
human
sion of the
after.
we must be
A
faith that
551
merely from a dread of here-
genuine
shows
faith,
by which
itself in all
I
mean a
the virtues of
Great Books Library a truly Christian
life,
may
generally be
considered as an indication of an amiable and virtuous disposition, operated upon
by pure unmixed fear. more by When we reflect on the temptations to which man must necessarily be exposed in this world, from the structure of his frame, and the operation of the laws of nature, and the consequent moral certainty that many vessels will come out of this mighty creative furnace in wrong shapes, it is perfectly impossible to conceive that any of these creatures of God's hand can be condemned to eternal suffering. Could we
ation of general laws,
happiness. Life
love than
once admit such an idea, all our natural conceptions of goodness and justice would be completely overthrown, and we could
God
as a merciful
and
righteous Being. But the doctrine of
life
no longer look up
to
and immortality which was brought to light by the gospel, the doctrine that the end of righteousness is everlasting life, but that the wages of sin are death, is in every respect just and merciful, and worthy of the Great Creator. Nothing can appear more consonant to our reason than that those beings which come out of the creative process of the world in lovely and beautiful forms should be crowned with immortality, while those which come out misshapen, those whose minds are not suited to a purer and happier state of existence should perish and be condemned to mix again with their original clay. Eternal condemnation of this kind may be conit
is
not wonderful that
it
But
fear of death.
that
to
New
The partial pain, therefore, by the Supreme Creator,
inflicted is
forming numberless beings to
a capacity of the highest enjoyments,
is
but as the dust of the balance in comparthe happiness that is communiand we have every reason to think that there is no more evil in the world than what is absolutely necessary as one of the ingredients in the mighty process. ison
of
cated,
The
striking necessity of
general laws
for the formation of intellect will not in
any respect be contradicted by one or two exceptions, and these evidently not intended for partial purposes but calculated to operate upon a great part of mankind, and through many ages. Upon the idea that I have given of the formation of mind, the infringement of the general laws of nature, by a divine revelation, will appear in the light of the immediate hand of God mixing new ingredients in the mighty mass, suited to the particular state of the process,
and calculated
new and powerful
to give rise to a
train
of
impressions,
and improve the human mind. The miracles that accompanied these revelations when they had once excited the attention of mankind, and rendered it a matter of most interesting discussion, whether the doctrine was from God or man, had performed their part, had answered the purpose of the Creator; and these communications of the divine will were afterwards left to make their way by their own intrinsic excellence; and by operating as moral motives, gradually to influence and improve, and not to overpower and stagnate the faculties of man. It would be, undoubtedly, presumptuous to say that the Supreme Being could not
tending to purify,
should be
and death, salvation and more frequently opposed
each other in the
is
while he
life
destruction are
state. It is a gift
which the vicious would not always be ready to throw away, even if they had no
represented, sometimes, under images of suffering.
generally speaking, a blessing
is,
independent of a future
sidered as a species of eternal punishment,
and
had not been formed
with qualities suited to a purer state of
Testament than
happiness and misery. The Supreme Being
would appear to us in a very different view if we were to consider him as pursuing the creatures that had offended him with eternal hate and torture, instead of merely condemning to their original insensibility those beings that, by the oper-
552
exalt,
Malthus: Essay on Population though upon this supposition, it seems highly improbable that evil should ever be removed from the world, yet it is
possibly have effected his purpose in any
other
way than
that
tion. But,
which he has chosen,
but as the revelation of the divine will which we possess is attended with some doubts and
difficulties,
and
as
evident
that
this
impression
would not
answer the apparent purpose of the Creator; it would not act so powerfully as an
our reason
points out to us the strongest objections to
the quantity of
a revelation
excitement to exertion
imphcit, universal belief,
did not diminish or increase with the ac-
which would force immediate, we have surely just cause to think that these doubts and difficulties are no argument against the divine origin of the scriptures, and that the species of evidence which they possess is best suited to the improvement of the human faculties and the moral amelioration of mankind. The idea that the impressions and excitements of this world are the instruments with which the Supreme Being forms matter into mind, and that the necessity of constant exertion to avoid evil and to pursue good is the principal spring of these impressions and excitements, seems to smooth many of the difficulties that occur in a contemplation of human life, and appears to
me
tivity or the
and moral
certainly arises
is
The con-
weight and in the distribution of this pressure keep alive a constant expectation of throwing it off.
Hope
Man
springs eternal in the
never
is,
human
but always to be
breast,
blest.
Evil exists in the world not to create
despair but activity.
We
are not patiently
submit to it, but to exert ourselves to avoid it. It is not only the interest but the duty of every individual to use his utmost to
efforts to remove evil from himself and from as large a circle as he can influence, and the more he exercises himself in this duty, the more wisely he directs his efforts, and the more successful these efforts are, the more he will probably improve and exalt his own mind, and the more completely does he appear to fulfill the will
evil,
and, consequently, for that part of both,
and it which
indolence of man.
it
tinual variations in the
to give a satisfactory reason
for the existence of natural
if
not a very small part,
from the principle of popula-
of his Creator.
553
NOTE TO THE READER
A tion
proper evaluation of the ideas and theEssay on Popula-
cused primarily on the theories of Godwin and Condorcet, his criticisms are directed at Utopian theories in general. For the views of other philosophers concerning the
ories set forth in the
possible only
is
if
they are compared
with the views expressed in other impor-
works on the same
tant
reader
who
wishes to
subjects.
make such
The
possibility
and the
a com-
stitutions essential to
parison can easily locate relevant passages in
ment
course, his theory of population growth.
For passages in Great Books of the Western World in which the causes and effects of an increase or decrease in population are discussed, the reader should consult
the pages cited in the Syntopicon chapter 4c.
theory, Malthus draws the conclusion that poverty is inevitable, and that its inevitability should be assumed in all legislation affecting the poor. For other views concerning the his
population
Why How
does evil exist? Is evil necessary? can the existence of evil be reconciled with the perfect goodness of an omnipotent God? A general discussion of these issues can be found in the introductory essay to the Syntopicon chapter on
causes of poverty, the possibility of pre-
venting or eliminating laws,
it,
the role of poor
and the precepts of charity with
re-
spect to the poor, see the passages cited in
Ae
chapter on
Wealth
under topics
Good and
8,
Following his discussion of population
and poverty, Malthus turns
of evil,
to a consid-
his
attention
is
and the necessity for experience of under Good and Evil Id,
evil are cited
eration of the possibility of achieving an
Though
Evil. Specific passages dealing
with the origin, nature, and existence of evil, the divine goodness and the problems
8c-8d, and lOe(l).
ideal society.
in-
see the passages
cited
The most important of the theories advanced by Malthus in the Essay is, of
From
it,
an ideal society,
and economic
under State 6-6h and Govern2e. For optimistic and pessimistic views about the perfectibility of man, see the passages cited under Progress lb and Ic. Several pages of the Essay are devoted to an analysis of the various ways of defining the wealth of a state. For other theories concerning the elements of wealth and the factors determining the prosperity of states, see the passages cited under Wealth 1 and 9b. In the final chapters of the Essay, Malthus takes up the general problem of evil.
Great Books of the Western World with
the aid of the Syntopicon.
on State under topic
of achieving
political, social,
lb,
fo-
554
and 6b.
PART FIVE
Additions to the Syntopicon
Each of the 102 chapters of the Syntopicon contains a Readings.
The
list
list
of Additional
composed of works not are recommended which the Western World
for each chapter
is
in-
for
cluded in Great Books of supplementary reading because they make important contributions to the discussion of the topics dealt with in the chapter. Because Great Books of the Western World includes only a few twentieth-century works, the Editors paid special attention to recently published
books
in constructing the lists of Additional Readings.
of these
lists
was completed
in 1950; since then
many
The compilation significant
works
have appeared. The reading lists below are designed to bring the lists of Additional Readings up to date. In this one respect, and in this alone, the Syntopicon needs to be supplemented from time to time. In preparing these supplementary lists, we have divided the 102 chapters of the Syntopicon into several groups of closely related chapters. In The Great Ideas Today 1962, reading lists for the chapters dealing with ideas in the sphere of law and government were offered. This year, reading lists have been prepared for the chapters dealing with ideas in the sphere of biology and psychology. In future editions of The Great Ideas Today,
we
will furnish lists for the other groups of chapters.
we have followed the same general were employed in constructing the Syntopicon lists of Additional Readings. However, we have allowed ourselves a little more latitude and applied somewhat less exacting standards because the books under review have all been published within the last few years, and it is more difiBcult to assess the permanent value of very recent works. In selecting the books listed below,
principles that
ANIMAL Carson, Rachel,
Houghton Frisch,
Silent
Mifflin
Karl Von,
Spring.
TiNBERGEN, N., Soclol Behoviour in Animals. New York: John Wiley & Sons,
Boston:
Bees:
1953.
Inc.,
Company, 1962.
,
Their Vision,
The Study
of Instinct.
Oxford University
Chemical Senses, and Language. Ithaca:
Press,
New
York:
1951.
Cornell University Press, 1950.
GoETSCH, WiLHELM, The Atits, trans, by Ralph Manheim. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1957. La Barre, Weston, The Human Animal. Chicago: The University of Chicago
DESIRE Hubert, The Many Faces of Love: The Psychology of the Emotional and Sexual Life, trans, by Philip Mairet. New York: Pantheon Books, Inc., 1955.
Benoit,
Press, 1954.
557
Additions to the Syntopicon
A
Systematic
York:
The Ron-
BiNDRA, Dalbir, Motivation:
New
Reinterpretation.
ald Press Co., 1959.
Heider, Fritz, The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations, Ch. 5. New York:
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1958. Peters, R. S., The Concept of Motivation.
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