Transcript
{ } = word or expression can't be understood
{word} = hard to understand, might be this
...from the old school of Paris. He becomes a teacher there, and studies there, and competes for the highest honors there, and the archbishop has -- can't see why this turbulent new method of -- should be used in a local school, because it brings up a fight against the local traditions. { } then he -- he goes out and starts something radically new, this monastery { } spirit, something unheard-of. And never before had a house of God been allowed to be called after one name of the Trinity. I told you that the Church either has been called in honor of the Trinity, of the living God as we really experience Him, or as the Church of Christ, as -- the impersonation of God on this earth. But the Holy Spirit, we said, is vague, if it is only -- because then it can become just the idea of one genius. The Holy Spirit, however, always ties together two times. And in the Trinity this is clearly expressed by using the terms -- Father and Son. It always means two generations at least. Or it means the whole time of antiquity against the whole Christian era. It always means the tremendous relation of times, before Chris- -- Christ and after Christ, would be one relation of father and son. Or the Old Testament and the New Testament. The law and grace.
Now we -- then we came back to Paris, and I said that at the end of his life, he did teach in these schools on the Left Bank of the river, in a -- as a freelance teacher. And out of this {comes} this clash: the faculty of Paris arose, as a true university faculty. And we said that in a higher school of learning can only exist where the appointments are not made from the outside, but where the group that is already in the situation can co-opt, co-elect, you see, and include into its membership the newcomers, because only then can the standards be developed {from} actual teaching.
This is a very acute problem today, gentlemen. A -- a friend of mine is going to start a world university somewhere in Europe. And he naively thinks that when he invites Germany, and France, and Italy, and England to contribute to such a world university, he will have a world university. He will then hire a German, and a Frenchman, and an American, and an Englishman, and all -- {hold and be- -- lo}, there is a world university.
That's the idea on which children go about their business today in the world of affairs. And that's why the spirit today is dead as a dodo. You can't found a new institution in this silly manner, that somebody else appoints teachers and then say, "You are members of a world university," because the people who go there, before have just been an Americans, and Frenchmen, and -- and Englishmen, you see. And they haven't changed. You have to divest yourself first of your old allegiances by an act of your own life, in your own life, and in your own thinking, before you can -- before you can become the nucleus of something new. And I tried to show you that Ab‚lard, by divesting himself of his membership in the cathedral school of Paris, by first going in exile, by first going into this -- monastery of the Holy Spirit, separated himself from the old way, and lived his new method, and suffered for it. And then you can be the -- perhaps the -- the seed of a new type of man, and li- -- way of life.
Today, gentlemen, nobody ever wants to suffer for the new way of life. He doesn't want to divest himself in hard, daily practice of one way of thinking. So if this man, this friend of mine, will succeed in getting his world university, it will be just sham and fiction, because every member there they -- will be just what he has been before. He gets -- he hasn't done anything under his own steam to become a member of world thinking. That isn't so simple as you think. And that's why nothing happens today in the world. You have this UNESCO. That's a better joke, with Mr. Huxley at the top. These are -- he's an Englishman, if ever there was one. Now he travels around and appears in other places. But that doesn't change him being an Englishman. He has never done anything for ceasing his thoughts of being an Englishman, before he was appointed. You must appoint a man for what he has done.
That is, gentlemen, in the realm of thought, the thinker must deliver the goods before he's paid for, and then later you can appoint him for what he has done, and say, "That's the man; he did it." But you always try the other way around. You cannot take any old warhorse and say, "Now do something new." He'll remain the old warhorse.
And nobody knows this here. You think for money you can get anything; you can buy anything. Ye- -- you can always buy something what is there, but you cannot produce new people. New people, the founders, gentlemen, are people who take a first step at a time when nobody else knows of this -- step. Somebody has to do it first. But you always think there is somebody outside who can, so to speak, pay a man, and then he will be new. Gentlemen, nobody becomes new for -- for money. It's impossible. First, a man must deliver the goods; and then the world, after a while, recognizes that there is a new man. First of course, they slander him; they persecute him; and gradually they take to him, and say, "That's very nice." Columbus had to discover first America. There was nobody else in -- who could say, "Go and discover America." Silly. Can you see this? But you all think it can be done that way.
Every one in this world today--by the way, the world has always been this way--tries to live by caricatures, by votes, by substitutes, by second-rate living. There would be no founder, gentlemen, if somebody else could take it upon himself to tell him, "Now act in a new capacity." Then the man who would say so would already have to have lived this new thing. If something is really new, gentlemen, it is at one time not yet existent. Jesus was not existent before He had lived. Nobody could tell Him, "Become Jesus." He had to say it to Himself. A very dangerous performance. People thought therefore He was crazy. His mother thought so. And He was crazy, because anybody who is something first is in the eyes of the rest of the world insane. Ab‚lard seemed to his contemporaries therefore crazy, a madman, to be condemned. The same is true of our friend Paracelsus.
And I think in order to stimulate your thinking, gentlemen, as to the founding of the University of Paris, I -- will wish now immediately to confront you with the process of founding the social sciences, and founding the academic sciences, the natural sciences. I -- you have read the pamphlet on Paracelsus, I take it. And I now wish to bring out the points which Paracelsus had to live in order to be able to become the first teacher -- the first founder of a new method of observing the facts of nature. That's exactly parallel to the founding of a university, gentlemen. A university, we said, was founded on the principle that two schools of thought at the same time on -- at the same place teach the same people, the same student, opposite points of view on the same topic. You remember? The academic science, gentlemen, the natural sciences consist of a constant conflict between teaching and research. The conflict bet- -- in the natural sciences is not that -- and the sa- -- at the same place two opposite ideas on geology are held. We don't have to have here two professors of geology: one teaching the volcanic, and the other the neptunic line of thought, you see. It is enough, gentlemen, that the geology professor here at Dartmouth is constantly aware that what he teaches today may have to be revised tomorrow, and therefore impresses on his students the situation in which his teaching is, that it is only true so far, you see, and may be superseded by another expedition to Alaska tomorrow.
So gentlemen, the contradiction in the natural sciences is between teaching one thing and searching for another. That isn't the same as in -- and -- as in theology. In theology you have St. Augustine teaching one thing, and St. Ambrosius teaching another, and equalizing the two, you see. But the great authorities then are already all there.
We are how- -- theology only arose when the contradictions all had been fully stated. In natural science, it's the other way. There is a tradition about our knowledge of the globe, in 1500. It's in the classical books of the ancient scientists of Greece. And Paracelsus comes and brushes it aside and says, "You have to walk over the whole globe, and you have to -- send in all the experiences and observations from everywhere, and you have to be ready to overthrow your teaching." And therefore the students must be told that what they hear is doubtful.
Gentlemen, any teaching in the natural sciences is conditioned on: tomorrow it will be different. In theology that is not so. On God, gentlemen, we determine the -- expectation is not that it will be different, you see, but that we have to concord the terrible contradiction that God is charitable, and severe, that He punishes { } third and fourth generation, and yet is merciful forever, and forever, and forever. It's a terrible task for every generation: why is there a world war, you see, and why is God merciful? And the -- the question of evil, and of eternity, and the question of -- and the question of sin are eternal questions.
Gentlemen, in the medieval science, there is no -- not the same research to be done as in the natural sciences. What has to be done is concording. The concording of the ultimate contradictions, which are already all known. They are all in, so to speak. That the world is abstruse and absurd, you see, that people knew in 1100 just as well as they know it today, you see. But they showed ways of reconciling this, you see. And {then} can choose between various ways of reconciling it. And you have to {gain} in every student this heavy weight on his heart, that it has to be reconciled.
In o- -- gent- -- in other words, gentlemen, in the medieval science, in a university, the whole problem is the load on the teacher's heart to make the heart of the student equally heavy, equally interested. Because if the next generation does not again find that the problem of evil weighs heavy on his heart, he will not enter upon the solution. And so the next generation and the future of mankind will be without any sense of importance -- of what is important. In the academic sciences, gentlemen, the situation is different. The data are not all in. We don't know yet how contradictory our observations of the far, distant stars are to our ideas about the solar system, you see. These are contradictions. Yet we observe more and more every day.
So gentlemen, the contradictions in the aca- -- natural sciences are between different things as in the -- in the scholastic sciences. The question of an unjust law, and the right to resist it, is an eternal question. Since Cain, and Adam, and Abel, and Abraham, and Noah, there have always been the same question, that there have been tyrants and unjust laws. Your ancestors believed in the right of resistance. You don't. So, why? Because for a hundred years, you haven't been told the importance of resistance. Therefore, the -- the right of resistance is dying in this country. I asked in the other course the other day whether -- how the -- the students in class would react if the FBI came and wanted to arrest a friend who just spent the night at his house, and to whom he had offered hospitality. And they unanimously said that their first reaction would be to give him over to the FBI. Now a hundred years ago, the first reaction in this country would have been to hide him from the FBI.
In other words, gentlemen, the religious aspect of hospitality has disappeared from your hearts. Your heart is no longer caught and gripped by the sacredness of your hospitality, that you are the host, and he is the guest. And he's at your mercy, and therefore you have to be merciful as God is. You are no longer God to your ho- -- guest, but you are just a little human being who trembles when the FBI comes in and says, "Please, take him over. I wash my hands of him."
This is not only in the -- the case of houses, so. You see it in the case of college presidents, who jettison their teachers if they are -- considered red, and so on. That is, the weightfulness of hospitality and protection, you see, by you, given to somebody else, your divine quality of -- being able to protect other men's lives has fast disappeared from your hearts. We haven't made it important. It doesn't weigh on you. Therefore, this eternal question of unjust laws, you see, of tyranny, of hospitality, of protection, of self-defense, you see, {is} at this moment not in you. It isn't important for you. You -- the right of resistance is -- disappearing fast from this country. Your generation is a regimented generation, by and large. It's -- you may rebel individually against it, but you will not deny that the mass of your colleagues in this college want -- just want to have their peace, and want to be left alone, even if Mr. { } is killed.
That's very serious, gentlemen. It will give you an example --.
({ }.)
How do you pronounce it? Not { }.
({ }.)
Well, gentlemen, there you see the -- can you grasp the difference between a legal or theological question and an academic question? The question of -- of -- after an oak tree or a mammoth, you see, can only be solved if you bring in new bones of another mammoth, you see, from another region. Then everything we said about the mammoth may have to be revised. Ja?
So academic questions, gentlemen, are based on new observations. Before, they cannot be finally answered. But legal questions and theological questions are based on our sense of -- of what is important in this question. You say, "If the FBI comes, it is important that I shouldn't be disturbed in my way of life. So I wash my hands of every disturbance. I wish to conform. Just leave me alone. Otherwise I couldn't go to a picnic tomorrow. It c- -- would cost my time." Think, if you have to defend your friend -- conceal your friend from the FBI, it may take you to strange lands; you may miss your appointment tomorrow. It always is a very -- you can only give your time to something important, because otherwise you get off schedule.
Gentlemen, the question of importance always involves a distinction between eternal values and immediate values. You have always to pause if you wish to give importance to a legal question.
You are slandered, gentlemen. Take this question. You are slandered. Now you know the laws of this country make it very difficult to accuse a slanderer in court. You usually don't get anything out of it, you see. And -- it's a very costly affair, and the slanderer gets away, you see. You know that. Therefore most people in this country just know, even if they are slandered, that they won't do anything against it. There may, however, come a point where you have to sue the man, you see, because he has slandered your wife. Obviously you can only do this if the honor, you see, of your name is more important than everything you have to do during the next six months. Because it will cost you at least six months--and much more, perhaps--until you have brought the case to court and you fought it through to the Supreme Court.
Therefore, gentlemen, "importance" always means that you have to pause, and make the distinction between the eternal and the temporary. Any legal or theological question means just this, that you know what is eternally important and what therefore has to take second seat in comparison to it. Otherwise you can never go to court, for example, because any court action interrupts -- Mr. {Medina's} -- life. The poor man is -- at this moment sacrificed for the United States, this Judge {Medina}.
He -- the -- a friend of mine said yesterday to me, "Every day the papers should print the headline on the {Medina} case," because it is in -- in the court, in New York, that today the Constitution of the United States is defended against Communism. It's a great case. And probably Mr. {Medina} will crack. There -- I wouldn't be surprised if he wouldn't try any other case in the future, anymore, this poor man. But you have -- you perhaps read it with curiosity, gentlemen, but do you read it with the trembling in your heart that this is your case? That the right of jury and court are on trial there today? That if Mr. {Dennis} and company succeed in breaking Mr. {Medina}'s health, and spine, and nerves, that there will have been cast a tremendous prejudice on the underdog?
In this country, everybody has always sided with the defendant. Everybody who hasn't pleaded guilty was innocent. Every court was sacred for the accused. After this trial, that won't be the case. Since the accused have been able to start a whole conspiracy against the functioning of the court in the United States, you see, these accused--it's very strange that they should call themselves "Communists"--will have deleted the privileges of the underdog, because in the future, the pub- -- be very suspicious when a man {seems} to fight in court for his life. They'll be annoyed, and they'll say, "He's just a nuisance. We know that."
That has never happened before in the United States, gentlemen. The {Medina} case is the first onslaught on the Constitution of the United States. It is very strange. The -- the accused, gentlemen, in -- are tried for usi- -- for saying that they want to use violence in the United States -- against the government of the United States--you know this; that's the whole case--and the naive reader of this accusation thinks that this violence would be applied in the streets, in the barracks, in the battleships, in the factories, you see, to blow up the U- -- government of the United States. Instead, the -- government of the United States is now blown up in the courtroom. It's the only place where the Communists in this country have a faint chance of using their dynamite. We don't have to fear Communism in factories. We don't have to fear it in {force}. We don't have to fear it in any other place. But with the -- in the judiciary, they are at this moment using violence against the government of the United States. You see the paradox? That they are tried, and that this case itself is now turning out to be the only violence they can successfully use. Isn't this a strange story?
Now gentlemen, if you would really still be identical with the -- Constitution of the United States, if you would identify yourself with it as a real American citizen, you would demand from your newspaper to read a full, stenographic report, and you would tremble -- tremble for the health and survival of Judge {Medina}. And you would write him letters of comfort and send him a bottle of champagne. I mean it. That's at this moment the focal point of the attack of Russia on this country. But how is it treated? Just as a sideshow. And on the other hand, because this is not treated as it should be, there are all these -- witchhuntings outside, quite insignificant, trying to find whether a union of footwe- -- -carriers is perhaps -- contains perhaps a Communist. The violence against the United States can be brought against the judiciary, against the legislative branch, or against the executive branch. And by this strange turn of events, our judiciary is found open to attack.
I can't of course understand that these lawyers are not debarred, and {debunked}, that we allow them -- it's the lawyers there, who terrify me more than the accused. That these lawyers are allowed to function in this court is just beyond my understanding. Because the danger is, you see, as I said, that the next underdog will not have the same graceful hearing from the court.
({ }.)
Well, you are a very {good boy}? Don't you see that -- that there is -- you see, of course this country has never believed that quantity isn't quality. You always think bigger is better. But I don't think a longer trial is a better trial.
({ } another alternative { }.)
I feel not. I -- I mean, I read this very carefully, and I feel that they -- the abuse is so obvious by the -- by the defendants that -- that this cannot go on. { } it is only -- I mean, in England, it would- -- just -- wouldn't happen. That's the same {judicial system}. Couldn't -- it couldn't have hap- -- couldn't happen { } in England { }.
You see, we have -- I tell you the reason. It is the same reason why we have no successful proceedings against slander. In England, as you know, there is a very strict rule of contempt of court. And contempt of court is -- is not used here by Judge {Medina}. But that's a very serious business, you see. Contempt of court is exactly this act which makes the functioning of -- of the -- of the judiciary, you see, impossible. And we have, as with slander, you see, where in England, a man gets $500,000 in -- indemnity, here he gets $1 and has to defray the costs of the trial himself. If a man accuses you of slander, he {is ruined}. In England, the man who -- who has slandered is ruined.
No, no. This democracy has simply given rein to -- an affection for the underdog, which now has to be corrected, in a reasonable way, you see. The sympathy for the underdog is -- what has { }, but it's open { }. How long is this trial now going on? Does anybody happen to know when it started?
({ }.)
What I mean to say is, gentlemen, the case may bring home to you the fact that it is not research which is the question of the medieval university, but conflict of two possible judgments on the matter. If you take the side of the defendant always, you get into this situation as today: the underdog is always, you see, right. You can take another point of view in which you say the judge must be protected, you see. And you can take a third point of view and say that the -- the prosecuting attorney has to be protected, I mean. You have three possible solutions of this -- of this situation. You can side with the person injured, whose child has been kidnapped; you can chide with -- side with Bruno Hauptmann, you see, who kidnaped the child; or you can protect the jury and the judge, as they do in England. In -- in France and Germany, the sympathy would be with the man injured, with the man who has lost his cow by a thief, or his child by a kidnaper, you see. But in this country, the sympathy is with the man who was bold enough to commit a crime, and hasn't been able -- has not yet been able to be convicted.
So gentlemen, in legal, and religious, and theological questions--take this down--the research is not what moves the science on, but the necessity of bringing to the next generation again the eternal question in such a way that it will weigh heavily on their hearts, that it will become important. The old -- old sciences of law and theology faced the problem of making the same question newly important. The academic question, however, depends on the possibility of bringing in new facts.
You see, your -- since you believe that the only science is natural science, you cannot be surprised that we have neither a reputable theology nor a reputable jurisprudence in this country at this moment. Because these two sciences depend exclusively on importance, and not on new facts, you see. They depend on interest, on -- on zest, on a new generation again wishing to conquer the concordance, the -- of opposite points of view. Whereas today, you sit back and say, "Oh, we send an expedition to the Arctic, and they'll find out about the magnetic pole." And that's all what your curiosity has to do: spend some money on some scientist who is sent there. And then we'll know.
Modern science, gentlemen, ca- -- is suspended between teaching of the tradition, and research in new facts. And therefore, gentlemen, the academic science is -- originates in a conflict between the existing school and exploration, re-search, discovery. The discovery of America, the observations of the rotations of the -- Mars and Venus in the sky led to the new picture of the earth and of astronomy. The -- new observations of the bones in anatomy led to the new picture of medical -- in medical science by the famous anatomist, Vesalius. All this happens in 15- -- since -- after 1500, gentlemen. New observations overthrow old teachings.
You may put down, gentlemen, on one side, the words "tradition," "teaching," "doctrine," "stock of knowledge"; and on the other, you may put the words "discovery," "research," "explorations," "observation," "information." There you have the antagonism, the polarity. You can use any of these two words -- two -- these -- pairs of words, you see, to express the -- the situation.
Now gentlemen, any doctrine, any science, any tradition which is taught to children before he's in school with the--pardon me?--with the qualification, "This is only true so far," is a new type of doctrine. The newness of the Renaissance scientist, gentlemen, about nature--what we call the academic sciences--are then...
[tape interruption]
...they said that of course, when the secret police came to a German house, that the -- he -- they should have hidden the Jews, and the Social Democrats, and the nationalists, these conservatives. And it is a shame; every German was guilty because he didn't become a hero and protect his friends against Hitler.
Now I have a colleague who told me that he has offered to the FBI to inform against us, on this faculty. He -- { }. So you see how difficult it is to measure with the same measure the -- the people in a foreign country and your own country. Nobody wants to be a martyr at this moment in this country. And why then were the Germans so terribly wicked when they didn't?
So in -- in 10 years, we have run the gamut from demanding once more the -- the duty to resist tyranny. They want something far away. And now saying, "But we of course have no duty to -- to resist the secret police. Do you think the FBI is anything but a Gestapo? What's the difference? Both put in by executive order without any legal foundation, outside the Constitution of the United States. What's the difference? It's just an executive order. It has absolutely nothing to do with your civil rights, or { }. Yet everybody's rushing in to help the FBI.
Now I don't say that you shouldn't, gentlemen. But be careful that you don't measure with two standards. You have condemned these very things in other people's -- in other countries, and other people's lives. And you have acted accordingly. The -- Germans, on the basis of this have at this moment no state--and they will never have one, probably--on the basis of your moralizing on this fact. And -- so perhaps you should have no government, either.
These are very serious questions, and only show, gentlemen, that I have to talk to you about Bologna, and about the conflict of imperial and canon law, and its great fruit, the right of resistance. And the same with marriage law. The difference between imperial marriage laws and personal marriage laws, because both are in this moment vanishing. The Russians have made this strange law that you can't marry anybody who is not a Russian citizen. That's an interference of the imperial law with the church law, you see. And the right of resistance is here given up immediately if anybody comes to your house and asks for information about some -- anybody else. Gossip has suddenly been dogmatized as a -- in a wonderful { }. Mere gossip, which the FBI collects. Called "testimony."
"Oh, I had heard, yes, yes." I -- the -- the last thing I heard was -- a -- a man was investigated, and a -- a woman hurried, of course, to the wonderful opportunity, and said, "Yes, he went to a pink school." You see, a pink school. That was the accusation, you see, which she was eager to furnish.
"He went to a pink school," whatever that may mean. Very -- it was just a high school even, not a college.
Ja?
(Is that the reward for resistance, { } resistance?)
Pardon me?
(Is that the reward for resistance, { } injustice?)
It's always {is, Sir}. The essence of the right of resistance is that you may be killed in the process. If -- there is no "if," Sir. You may be sure, gentlemen, that if anybody resists a state, he's apt to be shot in the process. The -- your "if" -- only shows how far removed you are from reality. You don't even know what the "right of resistance" means. Because you ask "if." But that's the essence of it, gentlemen, that there is in -- a situation which is preferable to be shot dead on the ground than to survive tyranny. Do you think any tyranny would ever have been laid and ambushed if this wasn't so? Do you think the farmers at Lexington and Concord had any "if"? Was there -- what was -- else was it, but the right to resist? And what was their reward? To be shot dead. Have you ever been to Con- -- to the bridge there? Well, it -- was very easy to fire, both ways. Probably the British soldier could have -- could have fired, too, but they preferred to run.
My dear man, your "if" just shows that you are here in an academic situation, that I haven't been able to impose on your heart the heaviness of this question. and that you are only at this moment in the ci- -- cycle of natural scientific thinking, and therefore think, "How silly to die for it. How impossible. How can anybody be asked to do this?"
The medieval man began with the following statement: "Since our Lord died on the Cross, there must be many cases in which it is preferable to die -- than to live." The thing has been summed up very neatly in Pierre, by Herman Melville. At the end of this -- who has read it? Oh, Herman Melville is an American writer. Not a Russian. You -- you are still allowed to read him. Heavens! Who has read Pierre, by Melville? I thought he was the best American writer.
What have you read by Herman Melville?
[in chorus] (Moby-Dick.)
Really, have you read it? Most of you have, the title page. I have yet to find a student who has read Moby-Dick from the -- cover to cover. Who has? From cover to cover, and everything that's in between? I doubt it, to tell you the truth. I still have to find the man who hasn't skimmed over various pages in it.
But the -- Pierre is with -- without Pierre, you don't understand MobyDick, and without Moby-Dick, you don't understand Pierre, by the way. The book ends on this terrible note, "It's speechless sweet to kill thee."
Now that's the climax of the scientific circle of your question, Sir. The answer of the medieval -- cycle would have been "It's speechless sweet to be killed." It is speechless sweet to be killed in a good, just cause. And if you don't know that such a case exists, you don't belong into the cycle which deals with eternity. You only belong into a cycle that deals with temporal knowledge. Knowledge of changing facts. And that's what you all do. But anybody who is -- is willing to don a uniform must also know that he can be shot in the process of wearing this uniform. It is more sweet, gentlemen, to resist a tyrant than to fight in a battle for your country. Because it is much more difficult. The tyrant, you see, wears the uniform of your own country. And the enemy, you see, everybody applauds if you resist him. That's the -- the -- { } the same. Why could all the Germans resist the Russians, and the French, and the British, you see, and kill them, but not Hitler? That's a very profound question. But it wasn't the question that they wouldn't fight for anything. But there was -- the question of danger of life was in both cases exactly the same. If you are a soldier in the United States army, you see, you have the -- your -- it is solved for you, is it not?
No gentlemen. You have just shifted the importance. Any man who doesn't fi- -- resist unjust laws will of course have to resist the enemy from outdoors who attacks an unjust state in which you happen to belong. Nobody -- you see, the questions of eternity are not questions which you can escape from. The same people who resisted in this country tyranny were peaceful people, when it came to the foreign policy of their country, didn't want to go to war. Ja? Because they still wanted to resist at home.
You can say, gentlemen, that eternal things are always with us. If you, however, deny that they are eternal, they -- will come to you in an indirect fashion. If 190 million Americans say, "I personally cannot do this, because I may die -- be killed in the process," there will be a world war, and all the 190 million people will run the risk of being killed, you see, because not one of them wanted to be killed with some greater degree of danger. There is a scale. Can you -- have you -- any graphic genius here who could put this on a scale? You can say that the more a man takes it upon himself to resist, the less will he be caught indirectly in a mass resistance. But the -- eternal has always to be defended against the temporal. In -- marriage, for example, you see. This law in Russia has to be destroyed. It's an unjust law. It is unjust. And the lynching in the South is unjust.
Now if one man in the South, one sheriff acts really, and resists the mob--boldly, you see--he is in great danger, you see. But the law will be in force, and the lynching will die. If, however, no sheriff in the South will protect the Negro against lynching, you have to have a mar- -- a militia marching into the South; a whole regiment may have to be mobilized, a whole division, a whole army corps, you see. There is much more loss of life perhaps involved. But no individual will think that he directly is in danger of life. The whole peace of the United States will be -- in jeopardy, as in the Civil War.
And so your choice, gentlemen, in defending eternal values is always in a s- -- gliding scale from person to mass. Any non-resistance against corruption in Tammany Hall, or in city government, makes it more complicated to clean out the Augean stable. First, the first policeman is bribed, then the second, then the 10th, then hundred, you see. Finally, you have to get, you see, a real landslide to clean out that stable, you see. It's much more costly. If the first had resisted, it would have been much more dangerous for him, much more difficult to resist the pressure, you see; but it would have been much more -- cheap -- much more -- less expensive.
So gentlemen, all eternal values are protected on a gliding scale. The more personality invested in the defense of the eternal, the less expensive the defense. You can -- that's an absolute rule. All the American boys today who are willing to enter the army under the draft, but say, "The FBI, that's too much for me; I can't resist her -- them," simply have chosen mass existence to personal existence. I assure you, any person who resists has an infinitely greater influence than 200,000 people who are mobilized to march against the Communists. And if you mobilize 200,000 people, much more havoc is done; much more money, time, blood, and tears is spent, of course; many more families are broken up, as in -- if 10 -- one man did this. But you can't just make this choice, that you are to be drafted, but you won't resist.
The "if" -- can you see that your question is wrongly asked? The "if" only shifts in direct application to your person. The less you become a person, you see, the more you are exposing great numbers to the same danger of losing your life. Every war can be avoided, gentlemen, if there are enough people. If President Roosevelt had resigned in 1938, and -- and stumped the country for air power, he could have prevented the Third World War, but it would have cost him his office. Now since nobody in this country will renounce anything voluntarily, it couldn't be done. He had to be president. But it -- there is always a way out. Always. If he had given his whole name to this cause, you see, for example, I mean--I'm exaggerating, now, this. But I'm quite sure that it would have had tremendous effect if the president of the United States would have said, "I always wanted to be president, but the peace of the world is more important than the presidency." Instead, he said, "The presidency of the United States is so important, that I even wish to go to war for it." That's -- was the president, his policy, you see, in order to -- "Since I am president, I have to do everything to remain president." But he could have said, "Peace is so important that I must cease to be president."
You have always the other choice, you see. Now that would have been his political death, you see. And that's more painful sometimes than to be killed physically. But you can do it, can you not?
The "if" is always there. Can you see this, that your question was wrongly asked?
(Well, you don't think that peace was more important than the last war, do you?)
Oh. The war is after all only -- an abortion of peace. Aren't -- what is better, war or --?
(What was price -- what was the price of the last war? That's what I mean. Why would { } Roosevelt -- commit political suicide so that we could have peace? Chamberlain { } war.)
He didn't sacrifice his prime ministry, did he? He wanted to remain prime minister.
(Why didn't -- why did Hitler sacrifice himself?)
He didn't { }. Don't you see it? He didn't sacrifice anything. He wanted to have it both ways. No sacrifice and peace, of course; you can't have that. I don't think you can catch me this way.
(Why -- did Roosevelt { } the country know that he knew that { } the country's firepower was a { }.)
I don't know. Perhaps he didn't. He wouldn't have { }. And it may be, you see. The terrible thing about any resistance is that you never know the success. Your question -- this -- what's your name, please? Pardon me for not knowing it.
(Horowitz.)
Wie?
(Horowitz.)
Oh yes, I should -- Horowitz' question is a very good question, because all -- in every American boy's mind. You always exclude danger from your calculations. You will always say, "It must be riskless." But gentlemen, to -- any defense of the eternal against the temporal is always unpredictable as to its consequences. Always. Marriage. If the father and the mother tell the girl whom to marry, that's safe. They know at least that the neighboring estate will be adjacent to their land. And the money-bag will marry money-bag, you see. And you can predict what happens. If the girl is allowed to say "no" to -- you see, when she is engaged, there's a risk involved. She may never find the right husband. She may never get married, because girls are not, you see -- very -- on very safe ground with boys, if left alone.
So gentlemen, the defense of any value--law or religion--by resistance or by any decision is always risky. You can never make a sacrifice or resist in the sense of concording if you don't give your heart to -- something. Now gentlemen, a person who invests his own heart into any act is always apt to hear from the clever people of the brain, "Why do you expose your heart to getting hurt?" If you invest a heart -- your heart into anything, it is -- unarmed, undefended. If you tell a girl that you love her, she can hurt you. So you'd better spar with her and fence with her, that she can't hurt you.
Don't you see, gentlemen, that the very problem of concording is that you invest your heart, and this means that you don't know the answer, the response of the other side. Nobody who loves his neighbor as himself knows whether the neighbor is going to love him. And of course, therefore you are told by the world, and your parents, and your friend, "Don't do it. It's silly." All right. If it is silly, then -- then the world must end in misery, and no- -- nothing -- no {real} peace can be established, you see. Then it is better to give -- what's going to happen, gentlemen, when the girls don't want to have any conflict? They'll go to the eugenist, the psychoanalyst, and he'll tell you whom to marry. That's coming. I -- it's already on -- on the -- on the march, that the psychoanalyst decides whether a love is to be pursued or not. Fear of freedom, as Mr. Fromm has called it, I mean. They're running away from freedom. The people today -- you want to be told by the psychologist that this is the right girl. I have told a -- psychologist tell another -- a boy, "Marry -- marry your cousin. Marry your coed. Marry some person with the same habits. Marry somebody who also like -- likes Keats." It's terrible. The most boring performance, but "no conflict, no conflict." You see. That is, no power to concord.
Concordance, gentlemen, is the power of the heart to overcome conflict. You are told instead, "Don't have any conflict." So you can't live. But it is true, what Mr. Horowitz said. You won't die, either. You take this down, gentlemen: only he can die who has lived. And most people today prefer to this reality of living and dying a situation in which they neither live nor die. Most of you cannot die, because they are- -- you aren't alive. Things cannot die. Dead things cannot die. You can formulate it this simple way. Dead things cannot die. And dead people cannot die. There are several people in this country, quite famous, who are dead for 30 years. But they don't know it.
You can be dead with all the essential parts of your utterances and your thoughts, and still go in -- on eating and sleeping, gentlemen. That's not the whole life of you, if you are in power, if you are the secretary of the American Medical Association. After all, the country is only interested in the fact that he is a secretary of the American Medical Association. Whether he eats, or drinks, and breathes, these are very minor matters of life. Any -- any jellyfish can do that. But the pro- -- problem is that a man in any position in life, gentlemen, it's important that he's alive to this position. And this nobody can do without exposing his heart to conflict. And this is what you won't hear, because the whole medieval cycle of scientific endeavor has died in you. And you are out of it. The only thing you believe is science in the sense of the science of facts.
So let's now go to Paracelsus. Paracelsus is a queer guy. He's a doctor of the body, gentlemen, and he is at the same time a serum in the body politic. That is, here is a physician who is, at the same time, inside the medical profession a blood -- a drop of blood of a new quality, and creating a tremendous disturbance.
The question -- the -- the case of Paracelsus is such a great case, gentlemen, because you think that physician is--don't you?--he's the highest, scientific position of a man. I know many social workers who think that social scientists should be doctors of society. I think I have already told you that this is impossible.
Inside society, you can only be a {lupuscle} or a red drop- -- corpuscle. I cannot cure society as a physician, you see. I can only be somebody different inside society, and thereby change society, you see. By -- because I change its constitution, its -- its compound. You remember? We have talked about this -- before.
Now I come back to this in Paracelsus' case, gentlemen. You have here the paradox that a doctor who -- on whom you look as somebody who's able to cure a patient, to cure a case, is in his whole life a new quality in the compound of the medical profession. And much more so a new -- a new element inside the whole professional group of people dealing with things of this earth. From the plumber to the artist, and from the engineer to the doctor, through Paracelsus, the body -- social body who carries on the dealing with machines, with cures, with facts ha- -- has become a different quality, has earned a different label. The label "academic." The academic, gentlemen, in 1500 is in a crying conflict against the universities. So our friend Paracelsus was chased from Basel. It's exactly what happened to Ab‚lard in the local cathedral school. Paracelsus is in -- in a university based on the principles of the Middle Ages. The university allowed to teach Ara- -- Arabian medicine, and Greeks' medicine, and Latin medicine. Avicenna and Galenus, the Latin and the Greek, as they { } in Salerno, where you had the -- the two schools of thought, the oriental thought, you see, and the Latin thought, fought out in the great hospital of the Crusades.
Now in Basel, the medical school was based on the same assumption: every student had to read up on his Arabian text, translate it into Latin; and on his Latin and Greek texts. And -- in comes Paracelsus and says, "I'm neither going to speak Latin nor Greek; I'm going to speak German, my own native tongue. But I will bring in the facts from all my travels. I will bring the whole world of new fact into this classroom, and will bring on the conflict between new facts and old tradition."
And if you read -- my pamphlet, I have quoted there his great description of the new principle that before a -- a disease has not been investigated on the whole globe, in any part of the globe we will never know what the disease is. That -- first of all, we must have met this disease, you see, in any place in -- before we can know what it is.
Therefore, gentlemen, the academic is ubiquitous. The academic spirit is ubiquitous; the university spirit is local. From vier- -- 1500, gentlemen, to 1650, the academic spirit is still outside the universities. The universities resist. If I can get you to understand wha- -- that the university and the academic are two different things, you will be highly educated people. In this country, you see, this has been really forgotten. You think that we are in the academic world, and that there are universities, and that's, you see, exactly the same. It's the opposite. In universities, there is disputation; there is conflict of ideas. In the academic world, there is conflict of new information and old theory. You see the difference?
The academic then, gentlemen, is based on correspondence all over the globe, on -- information on a global sphere. To give you some examples, gentlemen. Let me -- I -- I have made -- committed the crime of keeping you without a break. But please allow me to -- it makes no sense to have a break right now. Let me dictate you some points, which you can do, even though you are tired.
The principle of the academic world is the bring- -- gathering of information outside the local site of the academy. Therefore the -- the principle of the academic world is the bringing-in of new information from outside the -- the site -- s-i-t-e, the place of the acad- -- where the academy is located. The academic spirit also fights the local school, as Paris did. But the academic, the spirit fights the local tradition, and the local spirit with a different instrument. The tool of the university is the confrontation of opposite opinion. The tool of the academic spirit is the confrontation of theory and fact...
[tape interruption; end]