|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 11
The men of the segment next below are dragged slowly higher,
blindly, by those just described. But they cling to their old
position, full of dread of the unknown and of betrayal. The
higher segments are not only blind atheists but can justify their
godlessness with strange words; for example, those of Virchow--so
unworthy of a learned man--"I have dissected many corpses, but
never yet discovered a soul in any of them."
In politics they are generally republican, with a knowledge of
different parliamentary procedures; they read the political
leading articles in the newspapers. In economics they are
socialists of various grades, and can support their "principles"
with numerous quotations, passing from Schweitzer's EMMA via
Lasalle's IRON LAW OF WAGES, to Marx's CAPITAL, and still
further.
In these loftier segments other categories of ideas, absent in
these just described, begin gradually to appear--science and art,
to which last belong also literature and music.
In science these men are positivists, only recognizing those
things that can be weighed and measured. Anything beyond that
they consider as rather discreditable nonsense, that same
nonsense about which they held yesterday the theories that today
are proven.
In art they are naturalists, which means that they recognize and
value the personality, individuality and temperament of the
artist up to a certain definite point. This point has been fixed
by others, and in it they believe unflinchingly.
But despite their patent and well-ordered security, despite their
infallible principles, there lurks in these higher segments a
hidden fear, a nervous trembling, a sense of insecurity. And this
is due to their upbringing. They know that the sages, statesmen
and artists whom today they revere, were yesterday spurned as
swindlers and charlatans. And the higher the segment in the
triangle, the better defined is this fear, this modern sense of
insecurity. Here and there are people with eyes which can see,
minds which can correlate. They say to themselves: "If the
science of the day before yesterday is rejected by the people of
yesterday, and that of yesterday by us of today, is it not
possible that what we call science now will be rejected by the
men of tomorrow?" And the bravest of them answer, "It is
possible."
Then people appear who can distinguish those problems that the
science of today has not yet explained. And they ask themselves:
"Will science, if it continues on the road it has followed for so
long, ever attain to the solution of these problems? And if it
does so attain, will men be able to rely on its solution?" In
these segments are also professional men of learning who can
remember the time when facts now recognized by the Academies as
firmly established, were scorned by those same Academies. There
are also philosophers of aesthetic who write profound books about
an art which was yesterday condemned as nonsense. In writing
these books they remove the barriers over which art has most
recently stepped and set up new ones which are to remain for ever
in the places they have chosen. They do not notice that they are
busy erecting barriers, not in front of art, but behind it. And
if they do notice this, on the morrow they merely write fresh
books and hastily set their barriers a little further on. This
performance will go on unaltered until it is realized that the
most extreme principle of aesthetic can never be of value to the
future, but only to the past. No such theory of principle can be
laid down for those things which lie beyond, in the realm of the
immaterial. That which has no material existence cannot be
subjected to a material classification. That which belongs to the
spirit of the future can only be realized in feeling, and to this
feeling the talent of the artist is the only road. Theory is the
lamp which sheds light on the petrified ideas of yesterday and of
the more distant past. [Footnote: Cf. Chapter VII.] And as we
rise higher in the triangle we find that the uneasiness
increases, as a city built on the most correct architectural plan
may be shaken suddenly by the uncontrollable force of nature.
Humanity is living in such a spiritual city, subject to these
sudden disturbances for which neither architects nor
mathematicians have made allowance. In one place lies a great
wall crumbled to pieces like a card house, in another are the
ruins of a huge tower which once stretched to heaven, built on
many presumably immortal spiritual pillars. The abandoned
churchyard quakes and forgotten graves open and from them rise
forgotten ghosts. Spots appear on the sun and the sun grows dark,
and what theory can fight with darkness? And in this city live
also men deafened by false wisdom who hear no crash, and blinded
by false wisdom, so that they say "our sun will shine more
brightly than ever and soon the last spots will disappear." But
sometime even these men will hear and see.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|