Transcript
{ } = word or expression can't be understood
{word} = hard to understand, might be this
(Philosophy 10, May 16th, 1949.)
...past, because what has happened during the last 400 years, gentlemen, is right here in the organization of this college, and is quite well known to you: the coming-into-existence of laboratories, we said. That is the main result of the academic world. That was Point 1. Externally today, any school is a school of natural sci- -- which is in touch with the natural sciences if it contains, and while it contains, and because it contains a laboratory. And we saw, gentlemen, that a -- the thing has come from the secret laboratory of -- of -- a man like Paracelsus, who just used the blacksmithy for his experiments. It has come down to every man having his own little lab in the cellar of his house, and blowing his hou- -- his own house up.
Today laboratories are commonplace. I wish to- -- -day to implement a little bit this story of the coming of the laboratory by telling you that Vesalius, the great anatomist, who was the -- the physician of the Emperor Charles V, when he drew his famous, beautiful drawings of the anatomy of the human body, in the '30s of the 16th century--I think the first edition was 1539--that he had to do this at his torchlight at night, in the basement of the -- the palace of the emperor. The emperor was all for it, but the clergymen was not so -- were not so much for it.
The emperor--by the way, a Roman Catholic emperor, Charles V--was the great friend of the new sciences. And you must not think, gentlemen, that in the 16th century, there was any better supporter of modern science than Catholics. The Protestants were all against natural science. They wanted to save the world by better religion. The Catholics had not much to offer in -- in the form of better religion, you see. So they thought they could save the world by better science. In the -- from the--take this down, gentlemen--from 1500 bis 15- -- 1650, the favors and the -- the -- the sponsors of science in the modern sense were throughout Catholics and not Protestants. The Protestant princes were much more hostile to modern science than the Catholics.
Charles V, for example, had the famous book of Copernicus on the -- revolutions of the stars in which he proclaimed the -- the new idea of the solar system. He had it sent to him right away from the publisher, as a best- -- as the newest -- publication, you see. So eager was the emperor who fought Luther tooth and nail, at the same time to pro- -- propagate the new natural science.
So please will you kindly cure yourself of the idea that from the very beginning natural science and Catholic Church are the antagonists. From 15- -- 1450, you may say, from the Florentine Academy, in -- in honor of Plato's memory, down to 1650, the -- the Catholics were favorable to the new science. And the Protestants were very unfavorable, because Protestantism meant once more an attempt to cure, to go forward on the path of religion. And as I said, the Catholics had at that time only the idea in religion that everything was as it should be, and therefore had to open up new avenues.
For example, gentlemen, the Jesuits were the first schoolteachers in Europe to introduce the new sciences into their teaching. In the Jesuit schools, from 16- -- 1540--when the order was founded--to 1640, there was better instruction in the natural sciences than in any other school in Europe. Because again the Protestant schools wanted people to read the Bible in Greek and in Hebrew. That was their interest, you see. The Catholics wanted to -- take their mind into the miracles of the wide world. And therefore taught mathematics, and botany, and chemistry, mu- -- long before it was ever taught in a Protestant school.
All this is unknown to you, because you all live through the glasses of the French Revolution of 1789. And these are very short-sighted glasses, gentlemen. Everything that was true in 1789 you believe as Gospel, to this day. But what was true in 1789 wasn't even true in 1640. And it isn't true today. Today and in 1640, gentlemen, the fronts are not science and Catholic Church. But they were in 1789. And this {casual front} you have to tear down, because that's just a temporary idea.
Therefore, you see, what I'm trying to do today is to introduce you into the fronts of the natural science to the previously existing world. We have seen the Ca- -- the -- the medieval cycle. And I now have try -- to try to show you how the academic sciences stand within your and our community. You know very well that at this moment, there are only two official pillars of day and night: Communism and the Catholic Church. And that's a very strange arrangement. In this very moment, you see suddenly all scientists taking refuge behind the -- behind the -- the--well, I won't say what--the spirits of the Church, clergy. I mean, two of the atomic scientists, when they discovered what they had done, became monks. Well, they may. That is, they went backward, gentlemen.
You will -- you can very simply say, this is 1500; this is 1100; then we have this period, 1500 to today. And today the question is: do we go forward into a third phase, or do we go backward? Now the atomic scientists, most of them try to make their peace with the medieval period. There is a tremendous nostalgia today, as you know, for going Catholic, for reading Thomas Aquinas, as they do in Chicago. These are all attempts to go backward to the scholastic cycle, and to escape from the dire consequences, gentlemen, of the commonplace situation of the natural sciences.
And this has to do with the enmity into which the -- humanism of the natural sciences from 1789 to this day has brought itself against everything -- else. The hu- -- you see, the -- the crime of the humanistic cycle, in which you move all, of liberalism, is that they have considered themselves the crown of creation, and not -- and denied everything else. They have denied that the sciences are a fruit of Christianity. They have denied that the natural sciences were only possible after the medieval -- Middle Ages. They have said the Middle Ages were dark. They have said that the u- -- there were no universities before themselves, the academic sciences. They have denied their own -- the own tree out of which they have grown.
And therefore a liberal today is the most unhealthy creature in the world. He has a background of only a hundred years; and that's too short for any mind to be healthy. And he -- they are completely cut off from the roots of our civilization. And therefore they have no hope to go on. You cannot be in 1980 a liberal. That's just obsolete. Because you have cut your roots as a -- in the sense in which "liberalism" is used at least in this country, gentlemen -- which go back before the French Revolution. Liberalism, gentlemen, in this country means that a liberal can be without the conservatives. Now that's impossible.
There was a man in Boston, who sent -- was famous as an atheist and Free Thinker. And one day, a friend of mine who is a Congregational minister, received a visit of this gentleman with his son: "Would you kindly -- take my son and give him religious instruction?"
And the minister was taken aback and said, "But Sir, is this a joke? You have attacked us left and right. What's the matter?"
He said, "No, believe me. I have come to understand that you have to have something to liberalize upon. I want to give my son now a conservative education so that -- later he can be -- progress from there, and liberalize upon."
So that's the tragedy of the modern liberal, as you find them today. Now they don't know what to do. They'll try to send their children to Sunday School. You can't do this if you gon't to -- go to no church yourself. It's ridiculous. It's insincere. All of a sudden, all the liberals in this country think that the pope is a nice man, and he's a nicer man than Mr. Stalin. Now I don't know. All the people -- all the liberals think they must side with Mr. Stalin so they have lost either the future or the past, because the future is a yawning abyss of all their freedoms, I mean, all the "fellow travelers" here. And for the last 20 years--you can take this down, gentlemen--for the last 20 years, the American liberals have actually thought that the choice was: if they went forward, only between Stalin and Trotsky. That is, they had two tyran- -- tyran- -- tyrannical ideas. I -- I can really bear the -- witness to this, gentlemen. I have been persecuted by these people, and still are, because they cannot understand a man who has never been tempted either by Mr. Stalin or by Mr. Trotsky. I'm not interested in either one of them. And I think I'm going forward. But as a liberal in this country, the choice is between going Catholic, like Mr. Hutchins in Chicago--at least in a formal sense, by teaching everybody Thomas Aquinas--or as the intellectuals in New York by being "left," or "pink," or "fellow traveler," or something like this. Why? Because in this country, gentlemen, the mind has been merely imitating Europe. And now the first time the wind is blowing from Mr. Hitler and Mr. Stalin, so there was never any question in anybody's mind that this wasn't the wave of the future.
You may know that Mrs. Lindbergh, the wife of the famous flyer who wrote this fantastic book, The Wave of the Future, in which she sided with Hitler, and said, "That's irresistible." That was in the '30s. Have you still heard of this book? It's very -- very important to know, because now 10 years later her husband has cautiously come out with a statement that he's back to Christianity. So they balance each other, which is good for flying. And --.
So, gentlemen, this is all practical stuff. You have to know that the mind has moved from 1500 to 1900 to giving everybody his laboratory. And this practically means that today most people consider even marriage and war as experiments. Because to have a laboratory means to consider everything as experimental. We have an experimental theater. We have an experimental war. We have an ex- -- the First World war was "just an experiment." That we went home and said, "Didn't come off nicely; won't do it again," you see. So the Second World War comes, and that was very serious. Much more serious than the First.
People in this country live by experiment, gentlemen. That is, ex- -- the method of the natural science has today become commonplace. Whenever anything has become commonplace, gentlemen, it has lost all value for the renovation of human life. It is like -- a pendulum has run down in a clock, you have to wind it up again. Commonplace has no {slow}. If anything is commonplace, it means that you can't move anybody to extraordinary efforts to do it, because that what is commonplace can be done by anybody in his leisure time as an avocation, of { }.
We saw, gentlemen, that the difference between idea and commonplace is very small and very decisive. If the thing is your -- dominating idea, you give your whole life. If it is your scientific purpose, you give your career, your profession, you see. If it is your education, you give some years. And if it is your commonplace, you give an hour a day.
So you can be -- we learn that to -- commonplace is simply a question of no longer investing anything serious into something. If -- you aren't serious today in war or in marriage, so you get a divorce. And if you want to be married really, gentlemen, it must be an infinite effort. -- If you make however marriage commonplace, under psychological supervision, and statistical -- Kinsey Report, you make -- must make it abortive, because, gentlemen, nothing what we plan as a finite effort can ever prevail on our own life. If you say, "To be married costs me $2 a day, and two hours at night," you will -- must -- that's nothing. That's prostitution, because it is below your human standard. Gentlemen, nothing in life can be achieved without infinite devotion. The result is always finite, but the investment must be infinite.
Or to put it another way, gentlemen. If we will to -- you wish to build up the new sciences, and the house for the social sciences, we will have to make an infinite effort for finite results. Faith, love, and hope, gentlemen, are all dead and killed at the very moment that you measure them, that you say "It's a commensurate effort. I will put in three days or three hours of practice every day; and then I become a great violinist." You won't. It must -- pursue you day and night. You never can tell if you have real faith in your career as a violinist where it will take you. You have -- may have to go to Capetown because they have the -- the best violins at this moment -- in space. And you may have to -- have to...
[tape interruption]
...but that's how people have reformed -- re-educated Europe, too, during the last ten -- five years or four years, you see, by trips, by airplane. No infinite effort. Always knowing ahead of time when the return ticket was.
Will you kindly take this down, gentlemen: that among human beings, or in any act of newness, nothing can ever be achieved without an infinite investment. Because the three powers, gentlemen, by which we create--love, faith, and hope--die when they are treated as parts of space and time. Love, faith, and hope are the creators of new spaces and new times. And therefore, since they are creative forces, they are absolutely out, they are murdered the very minute you tell -- say to somebody, "I have faith to the extent of $5,000," or "I have time to the extent of three hours, 20 minutes," or "Reading time: 9 seconds and-a-half, on our article in Liberty." This reading time shows you to what -- to what end the world has come. It's one of the most fantastic ideas. How can anybody know how long he should read something? Perhaps he has to read it 10 times. And we develop today -- out of slow readers, who have the chance of understanding what they read, fast readers; out of lip-readers, which is the a normal way of saying -- eyereaders, as you know. But if we destroy the last remnants of the group that might understand something of the intellect. That's done here, and it's done everywhere in America, and people are proud of this destruction of the human intellect.
Because gentlemen, if you go at something, the chance is, if it is difficult, you will settle down and say, "I have to work -- as hard -- until I have gotten it." But if they tell you beforehand "It's easy, it only takes an hour," you probably will never learn it. Because it is strange enough but it is simply--take it down, gentlemen--it is a condition of the higher life of the human species: anything creative must -- can only be received by an infinite effort. It's like infinity in mathematics. Nobody can understand calculus if he doesn't under- -- understand what infinity is. And you cannot -- gain any access to the secrets of the -- of the universe if you have not the notion of infinity. Now the same is true about your own effort.
And therefore, gentlemen, anything -- why do I say this? At this moment, infinity is abolished officially in a commonplace civilization. Anybody who says, "This takes infinite effort," is laughed at, and ridiculed. And says, "Well, if you don't tell me how much it costs, and who -- how many people are going to buy it, and -- then it's nothing."
Mr. Firestone, great patriot, is willing to pay any mil- -- amount of million of dollars to spread good things: Christianity and rubber tires in this moment in this country. And -- but one condition is attached: it must go over the radio.
Now gentlemen, nothing that begins can ever start with mass program. The mass is always the last. So Mr. Firestone will waste millions on some hucksters, but -- nothing will happen, except that perhaps Firestone will sell more rubber tires. That may be. But he's quite honest. He doesn't want to sell more rubber tires. And he has sell -- sold too many. The income tax, you see, has to be beaten, so he wants to spend it. But the idea that you have to spend something valuable is -- in such a manner that it lives on the fourth level of commonplace, just means, you see, that over the radio everybody can get it without effort. If he can get it without effort, it can't bear fruit. It's impossible, you see, because he neither gives time, nor seriousness, nor devotion, nor the fear of the Lord, nor anything, you see. He doesn't defy anybody by -- by listening to Mr. Firestone.
Now if a man has no infin- -- no relation of infinite value to something new, it cannot come into existence. It cannot. This is the first thing, gentlemen, you have to know, because this is the condition for the -- giving birth to the social sciences, which we really need if we don't want all to be destroyed and eaten up. But you cannot by -- buying primers on -- on -- on science, Mathematics for the Millions. That's a commonplace book. But if somebody comes to you and says, "Listen. I'm to tell you something privately. But it's very dangerous. The FBI would be after us. And nobody -- our parents won't like it, and the college will separate you," then it's perhaps worthwhile listening.
I don't know. It isn't proven because something is -- is -- is a secret, or a beginning, or dangerous, that it is good. But I would say, gentlemen, if anything is good, it must be dangerous. There is nothing without risk in this world. And you know it.
And nobody tells you these things. So we have today, gentlemen, the commonplace situation, and the laboratory, I want to tell you, today is such commonplace that we have to-- how -- tear out of the hands of this natural scientific method of commonplace all the things that are not experimental. Human soc- -- society, gentlemen, consists of those processes which cannot be experimented with, that's human life and death, that's peace and war, that's marriage and having children, that's patriotism, that's truth, that's growth.
I heard a terrible story -- a jung -- a young woman was ruined, because the nurse was present at the delivery of their baby, and the doctor was {slated to come}, the obstetrician. It's such a gruesome story that I still can't -- can hardly tell it; I only was told it a few days ago. And this nurse, in her in- -- insipidity was only conscious of the command: the doctor must be present at the delivery. So she pushed the -- the baby back, when it was out, and forced therefore the poor mother to contain the baby until the doctor was there. It was a real crime. And the mother has been invalidated -- an invalid through this event.
So you see what limit -- you see, what -- what lack of faith, love, and hope does to a nurse. She had only the technical routine: the doctor had to be present. So the -- the child -- the process of growth met with no respect. But you know that we do this in all our schools today, that we hold the children back and don't let them grow? We make them happy. And -- take away from them the feeling of importance, and newness, and expectation by intoxicating them with -- with being nice to all other children? I know several children in Hanover who have been seriously ruined, and -- because they -- they were kept back in their nat- -- own growth. Don't dance out of the -- outside, you see, outside the -- I mean, conform. Such spirit of conformity is upon us, and conformity is hostile to growth. I mean, you take a lawn mower, and you make the whole -- all the grass even; you can level everything off. But I don- -- wouldn't say that this is inducive to the growth of -- of a special flower. I know this, because with my lawn mower, I went into the flower bed the other day in my -- and my wife hasn't yet forgiven me. Growth, gentlemen, is something that commands respect and that cannot be experimented with. And all modern science in this country is a pseudo-science. It's just as funny as witch-hunting in the 6- -- 15th century -- witchburning. What the natural sciences do today, they call themselves "sociology" and "psychology," and they experiment with human beings. And therefore they s- -- commit the crime of crimes: the crime against growth. Growth is something you cannot experiment with. You can only experiment, gentlemen, with dead things, which are moved from the outside. Growth is the one process, gentlemen, where the movement is inside that which grows. You can test a man when he f- -- how long it takes to fall down a -- a scaffold, because that's only gravity, you see. He is not moved him- -- his own mover. But where man is his own prime mover, you must never experiment with him.
Now all living plants, animals, and men grow. And growth is a movement which has its center inside itself. Therefore, anything growing is inaccessible to the methods of the laboratory. And wherever a man wants to use microscopes and measurements for growth, try to have him executed. He's murder- -- a murderer.
And you must learn, gentlemen, that today there are more crimes committed in -- against growth in the world than any crimes against -- the existence of life. Although we have concentration camps, and we have brutality, and we have wars, I think more souls today are crushed and prevented from growing than bodies are killed, in all these terrible processes. Growth is more despised in an experimental society, you see, today than just human life. The disregard for growth is greater, I think, than disregard for human life. Even today, with all the many murders committed.
Once your eyes are open to this, gentlemen, you will understand what the sin against the Holy Spirit means, which cannot be forgiven. It's exactly this, you see, which is committed today officially by every college and every institution in this country.
Now why do I say all these things, gentlemen? To show you that the laboratory of the last 400 years was at first called into being by heroic action, by these great founders. As long as these founders were individuals, the Catholic Church--though perhaps impeding the individual founder, because of his confusion--was still perfectly willing to find the miracles of God in the world. The Lutherans were not. Luther was against the worldly sciences. The Catholics were not. From 1650, gentlemen, to -- 1789, the academies were institutionalized, as you know. That is, they took up the research, and there developed the antagonism between the Church and the natural sciences, which you now think is hereditary. The reason was: because these academies were indifferent to the denomination and religion of their members. Even to 1789, the Catholic Church was not hostile to research. But they couldn't stomach the toleration of scientists, you see, who were not Catholics.
And so, the funny thing is this -- the reason of -- the first reason of the hostility of the Catholic Church to science is a sociological--and not an intellectual--reason. The mixing of Catholics and non-Catholics -- what you see today again in the Church with their -- with their segregation, you see--you must have a Catholic tennis club, and a Catholic fishmonger club, et cetera--it is this segregational aspect, gentlemen, that the heretic should not be socially met, which develops at first the hostility. I told you that in 1635, the great cardinal Richelieu asked Protestants, Huguenots, to join the -- his academy. He, being half a politician of the state, and half a member of -- only formally, a me- -- a cardinal of the Church, saw that the new science, the new approach had to be carried on by everybody who could use his wits, that there was no reason why a non-Catholic should not be a member of the academy. But the Catholic Church, you see, deeply hurt by the religious wars of the previous -- century, decided to say that Catholics should not side, and sit, and eat, and meet with Protestants.
So gentlemen, it's a sociological reason, the founding of these academies which brought about the rift -- on the rift between Catholics and Protestants in matters of science. I think that's very important for you to know. With whom you are not on speaking terms, gentlemen, he becomes your enemy. And the Catholics from 1640 to 1789 tried to avoid whenever they could for their faithful the -- the social amenities. You see, they exclu- -- I mean, no intermarriages they could have it, and no social intercourse. And the Royal Society, for example, in 1665, when it was founded, was a typical modern asso- -- society in which neither could a member be asked what he believed, or what denomination he was, nor could the word "religion" of course be mentioned in any one of its dealings, and its transactions. The Royal Society pushed the new -- worldliness and the religious neutrality of the academic spirit to its limits.
It went so far, gentlemen, that any systematic remark was excluded for the last 20 -- first 20 years of the transactions from the society. If you read the transaction of the Royal Society today, you think you are in a madhouse, because only empirical statements of fact were admitted. No order could be put into it. No general rules could be -- could be derived at. They were so anxious to live only with -- reports, you see, and assertion of facts from the world. And they hated all system, hated all order. Goethe -- Goethe, the German poet whose anniversary we celebrate this year, has written a very charming essay on the transactions of the British Royal Society, in which he says it's just unbelievable to what -- to what ultimate -- really ridiculous atomism human intellect can go, from a fear of falling into the scholastic trap of system. And so, gentlemen, the rift between science and the Church came from the new republic of scholars, from the new fellowship which the academic -- -demies represented, A fellowship, you see, not dependent on religious fellowship. A weekday fellowship, so to speak, without regard to where you go to church on Sunday.
And gentlemen, human relations precede mental relations. If you break away from a fellow, then you suspect what he thinks, because you don't meet him anymore. If you meet a man, he can have the most abstruse ideas, you still can trust him, you see. He -- you say he has very interesting ideas. I don't approve of it. But if you don't meet a man on principle, and say, "I never meet him," then of course you begin to think that he is -- has strange ideas, and terrible ideas. I think it's a little bit the case with the Russians at this moment. We have made up our minds that we won't mix with the Russians, so we credit them with the most -- incredible ideas. And then we are very surprised, when in a special case, they are just normal, and -- and fall in love with a woman, et cetera.
From 1789, gentlemen, to 1914, or -- 19- -- to this day--it makes no difference whenever you date this--science and Catholic Church carried the animosity further, because after 1789, the liberals held dogmatically that everything that was needed for the education of a human being was science, that they were self-supporting, that liberalism could pull itself out by its own bootstraps, and that science was a primary source of human illumination, of human enlightenment. From 1789, science became in its own mind sovereign. It denied the sequence of the first and the second intellectual cycle, which had never been done before. Only in 1789, gentlemen, did the academies enter the universities and say, "Your university training has to be changed."
I told you that in Dartmouth only in 1890, did this third period enter. In -- up to 1890, President Bartlett here would give a course to every senior, in place of this G-I course, "Universal History of Mankind," instead of -- and that was a real introduction of every member of the cla- -- of the senior class to his place in the universe. It was an historical course, not a geographical, or economic, or political course. And the second thing was that down to 1890, there was no laboratory in -- on this campus. The thing that came nearest to a laboratory was called the "philosophical apparatus." You may take this down, gentlemen. That's a medieval expression. "Philosophical apparatus" was still used for the globe, and the few maps they had, and the ruler, and such things in this college, down to 1890. "Philosophical apparatus" is a medieval expression, because philosophy is the wisdom of this world, of the natural world, and -- in comparison to -- to the divine knowledge, you see, and the law, theology and law; the philosophical apparatus was just for the prep school, was just for the minor things of the world. So gentlemen, can you find the technique in your notebook, you make it clear that the word "philosophical apparatus," although used in 1889, is still a medieval expression, something that had -- has still hung on in this country from before 1500. You see, nobody in his five senses could today call the map of the world "philosophical apparatus," because the word "philosophy" has exploded in all the -- the many natural sciences, you see. Before 1500, the word "philosophy" covered all na- -- knowledge of nature, all knowledge of the world. "Philosophy" meant wisdom of this world. "Theology" meant wisdom of the other world.
So in -- 1890 in this college, there was still the conflict between medieval nomenclature and modern {knowledge, gentlemen}. Because there was philosophical apparatus, which will -- made only sense for monks and priests, you see, who had to know a little astronomy, but just on the side. It wasn't their real study, you see. It wasn't -- wasn't good enough for a university. It was only good for -- like arithmetic, for preparing yourself for the real stuff. Then in 1890, the laboratory takes over, which means that it is for adults, that it is a real science, that it is something better than theology and law, more real science, you see, more scientific.
So gentlemen, "philosophical apparatus" meant recognition, gentlemen, that philosophy is secondary to religion and law. "Laboratory" means that the form of scientific research dominates, and that the research man can do without religion and law -- law; without, that is, state and Church, that he is his own master, and he is himself the mastermind, and the philosopher, you see, { }. This damned word, "I am the captain of my soul," which leads everybody in Waterbury -- lends -- leads everybody to Waterbury or Bellevue --. Nobody is captain of his soul, gentlemen, or he has no soul. Soul is your part in God. And how can you be the captain of your soul, the one thing with which you are not yourself, but better than yourself? It's a fantastic notion. That's a typical 19thcentury notion of a liberal. This sentence, "You are the captain"--or "I am the captain of my --" or what is it? "You are the captain of your soul"--wie?--"He is the captain of his soul" -- what?
("I am the captain of my soul.")
Yes, yes. And then he gets married, and it's all over.
In this sentence, gentlemen, you can recognize the arrogance of the liberal of the 19th century. "I am the captain of my soul." You can be a captain of a ship. You can be captain of a thing, you see, which you direct by your mind. But if the soul is anything, it is your captain. If there is a -- has -- if there -- man has a soul, then certainly nothing else is your captain, but your soul. So if the sentence then makes any sense, it would have to read, "The soul is my captain." That makes sense. But to say, "I am the captain of my soul" means the execution of this soul. It means exactly that the -- it can't grow. It means exactly that I -- I, with my will, my purpose, my aim, my plan, my master plan, my science, that I plan my soul. And get birth control.
That's what we have today. It is a fantastic sentence. When you begin to think of this, you don't -- wonder why people are today all crazy, and lunatics. "I am the captain of my soul" condemns a man not only to a -- to loneliness and isolation, but it condemns him even to supervise his only growing point, his soul, from the point of his -- point of his mind, of his mastermind, of his -- probably the last book by Mr. Freud: tells him how to treat your soul. That's what he does. Freud is -- is the -- the -- of course the incarnation of this deviltry. Telling you how to treat your soul, instead of allowing your soul to tell you off. Who is master in the house? The devil of your mind or the soul?
Now gentlemen, you have to decide this. Today it is decided in this country in favor of commonplace psychology, commonplace science, commonplace methods of mathematics. You actually think it would be better if you couldn't be mathematically tested and -- and -- and stated. Mathematics is a human invention. So what about it? My mind can never contain me. I'm more than my mind. Tomorrow I'll have a different mind. I'll have a change of mind. Gentlemen, the decision is whether the mind, which is fixed, shall govern growth, or whether it shall not.
Now the old Renaissance thinkers, gentlemen, who established laboratories, never said before 1789 that man was the captain of his soul. They let the -- left the soul alone. And that's why the hostility with the Catholic Church has only reached its danger point during the last 150 years. From 1789 to 6- -- 1940, you may say, the two were irreconcilable, because the scientist said that he needed no soul, that the mind was enough to entertain him and to misdirect him. It is enough to entertain you and to misdirect you, and to produce atomic bombs and liquor.
For this -- purposes, gentlemen, of play and destruction, the mind is perfectly sufficient. The mind is insufficient for making peace and for begetting children. You can't beget children by the mind, you see, because the mind makes you impotent. And you can't beget--what was the other?--make peace with the mind, because your mind stands in the way with -- making peace with any other fellow who is of a different mind. The condition of peace, gentlemen, is that the mind is not sovereign. And the condition of children is that the mind is not sovereign. That's why France has -- doesn't multiply anymore; it's sterile. { } the country of this last revolution, because the French have held this wisdom that the mind is God. Liberalism thinks that the mind is God. So from 1789 to 1940, pea- -- Church and science are in this strange contradiction. And now we come perhaps to the closest formula, why? Because in -- after 1789 only is the real story of the western mind forgotten and repressed. It seems in 1789 for the first time that the universities only had to serve the natural sciences. It is forgotten that there were 400 years of universities, you see, in which human freedom, the right of resistance, human contradictions, marriage, all this had been developed. The processes which the universities in the Middle Ages had developed had become such commonplace in 1789, that the people thought they could take them for granted, and that the institutions by which these -- these insights had been developed, you see, therefore could now be taken over by the academicians.
So it's a strange story, gentlemen. The academies are not the same as the universities, down to 1789. The very moment the first laboratory appears in the university, and these universities give up to -- to persecute the academicians, and say, "No, we will learn from you," the academicians go the whole hog and say, "Out you go: everything that has been before in these universities." And what was the last thing, gentlemen, which showed that the u- -- the college is older than a laboratory? Which on this campus is the one institution which has faded and is only there as a derelict? Chapel, ja.
What time is it, please?
(Quarter after.)
Let us have a break here.
[tape interruption]
...advancing -- advancing from 15- -- 1450 or 1500 to 1940. When Mr. Einstein wrote this notorious letter about the atomic bomb to Mr. Roosevelt, the sovereignty of the -- scientists broke down. It was impossible after 1940--and it should be impossible for you--to say that science is without conditions, that natural science stands on its own. It doesn't. There are several conditions, gentlemen, under which natural science has been allowed to advance from 1500 to 18- -- to 1940.
And if you discover this, gentlemen, you understand why the enmity between Christianity and natural science is very short-lived. It is a sociological enmity from 1640 to 1789. Ta- --perhaps you take this down. There are two enmities between -- Christianity and science. Or thr- -- let's put it three; then we include the Protestants. Three enmities. The first enmity: from 1500 to 1640, the Protestants say, "We must have -- the way of salvation is purer religion." The scientists say, "The increase is through the discovery of the world." That is, two ideas about progress. Luther says, "Purge the Church." The scientists say, "Purify your mind, in things of the world, new observations, new research." If you read Paracelsus--that's all brought out -- brought out in my pamphlet very clearly--that Paracelsus was neither a Protestant nor -- nor a Catholic, you see. But he was -- he was not interested in this antagonism. Paracelsus was a Christian who wanted to take the next step in the history of the human mind, and that was from theology to natural science. -- By suddenly -- no longer disputing about { } sources, in writing, but by going out in to the world and comparing research with conditions.
So gentlemen, from 1500 to 1640, the enmity -- comes from the Protestants against the scientists. From 1640 to 1789, the Catholics fear the mixing of Protestant and Catholic in matters of research. They fear the social mixing of the two. They don't want to let their sheep lie with the wolves.
From 1789 to 1940, the liberal mind of the scientist wants to subjugate the soul. He wants to subjugate the soul. The liberal mind wants to subjugate the soul. "I am the captain of my soul." In this moment, the soul is lowered -- below the mind. There can be no soul, but -- only a psyche. The expression of this domination of the souls of men by mind is that they cease to be called "souls." How are they called today? What's the Greek term? "Psyche," you see. Psyche. Psyche is that soul which is no longer real, but is dominated by my own mind. That's, of course, no -- worth nothing. It's a stump, so to speak; it's an unreal soul. Psyche -- wherever you meet the word "psyche," "psychosis" -- a man who has a psychosis is sick; a man who goes to the psychiatrist is sick. And a man who goes to the psychoanalyst has -- is like a dead tooth. His psyche is something that can be analyzed. Gentlemen, anything that can be analyzed cannot grow. Analysis is -- excludes growth. Perhaps you take this down. Analysis excludes growth. You can go to the an- -- analyst if you wish to -- erase, to eradicate your tooth, your stump of -- of a soul, which you call psyche. But as long as you are healthy, gentlemen. You can embrace your psychoanalyst; you can love him; or you can run away with him; or you can hit him; or you can kill him. But certainly, gentlemen, as long as there is an ounce of soul left in you, you cannot enter upon a relationship with your psychiatrist of analysis, because it just means that you have given up yourself. { }. That's why the analyst has to put up with the love affair with their patients, because they just found that these people had still some remnants of life in them. And life consists and grows of hate and love. And so as you know in all psychoanalytic literature, it is always -- they speak of transference. Now -- in good Anglo-Saxon English, it just means that this -- the man hates or loves the doctor. But it has to be "transference," so that it seems something, so to speak, of a scientific nature. Our hate or love are perfectly unscientific. They are just utterances of the human soul. Analysis, gentlemen, and growth are mutually exclusive, just as much as experimenting is. Whenever you analyze, you give up growth. You may have to give up growth, wild growth--weeds, you see, have to be analyzed, pulled out, you see. But it's -- a condition of psychoanalysis is that the doctor knows that this is { } growth, that this is rotten, that it is good to destroy it. It's a -- it's a surgical operation on the soul for that part of it which isn't soul, which is just psyche, which therefore can come under the scrutiny of the human mind.
It's very simple, gentlemen. Put analysis and experiment on one side, and put growth on the other--and passions--and then you see what you can do with analysis. You can do with analysis whatever you can do with laboratory -- in laboratories. And you can do in laboratories anything that can be experimented with. You cannot analyze the attack of the Japanese on Pearl Harbor. Unfortunately you have to declare war. That's not an analysis of they -- what they do -- have been doing, but it's an answer. You have to respond, you see, if you wish to be -- keep alive to such an attack. And -- the idea that you can analyze an act which goes to the center of your being -- is just nonsense.
Now gentlemen, once more then: from 1789 to 1940, the liberals believed that they could do with ex- -- the experimental mind. And that the people whom they -- that they themselves, the founders of science, the scientists of science, the teachers of science, and the popularizers of science, that all these vier -- four groups of people--the founders; the research people in science; the educators; and the popularizers, the writers of bestsellers and Books-of-the-Month Club books--that all four could derive their authority from science exclusively, that if you said, "Doctor of Psychology," somebody would buy the book because they would say, "Hmm, any doctor in psychology knows his stuff."
In 1940, gentlemen, with the atomic bomb, science split up its conditions. Now which were these conditions, gentlemen, of which the people in the 19th century--the liberals--didn't want to know? First was the brotherhood of all scholars all over the globe. Number 1 tenet: the brotherhood of all scholars. Second, the right of all men to benefit by the findings of this brotherhood. Third, that progress in science meant progress in life; that progress in science meant progress in society. And fourth, that the public would sacrifice for science, for truth. That the public--that's the general public--would always be willing to -- make sacrifices for truth.
({ }.)
Certainly. Number 1, that the process of scientific research unites all men in a brotherhood of scientists, in a republic of scholars: that all scholars are -- wherever they live, are a brotherhood. That's been exploded by the atomic bomb. Number 2, that all mankind will benefit from every one discovery in science. But if you invent the telephone, you cannot hold it away from anybody, you see. It will become commonplace. All techni- -- you can put -- add this: all technical inventions down to 1940 have been made accessible to everybody. Everybody in this country has a car. That's a tremendous {thing to say.} So you -- this is not understood as a -- this is a tremendous tenet of faith. You see, you could have a society -- in China, if an invention was made, it was reserved for the emperor and the court. And therefore, many of the things were lost again. The same in -- in Greece, by the way. Science in an- -- in -- outside the Christian world, gentlemen, has not flourished, because the inventor kept his science to himself, or his potentate.
I'll tell you a -- sad story from Germany -- to this effect. An American businessman invented a special musical whistle -- whistle for cars in the beginning of the horn, blowing the horn. It played a little melody: ta-tee-ta-tah. And he went to Germany and thought it was a wonderful thing, and went immediately to the emperor, and was well received. And the emperor paid him a nice sum, and he bought it. And my man was very happy. But then, he of course went on to try to sell this horn to others. And they said, "Nothing doing. It's a monopoly for His Majesty. His Ma- -- Majesty wants to be known wherever he goes by his horn."
Well, it was a complete sell-out, as you can see. The man -- the poor man had sold, you see, for one horn his whole invention. If he hadn't gone to the emperor first, he might have sold a hundred thousand. But he -- by beginning at the top, he enabled a -- a feudal society, in which the emperor had this right to tell the chief of police, "You won't admit any whistle that's like mine," you see, he cre- -- excluded the whole market from this man. And there he was, and had to return. He -- he sold one whistle in all {Germany}.
Now that's anti- -- pre-scientific, you see, behavior. Science rests on the -- it's a good story, because it may show you -- the -- you see, the -- the contrast. This attitude of the German emperor clearly violates the tenet of scientific progress, you see, where all technological things based on science are made accessible to everybody. You take this for granted, gentlemen. but { }. It is perfectly possible that certain things become the reservation of the FBI very soon. Perhaps they say, "We only can have wiretapping and television, and nobody else can, because we want to be in on everything, but nobody else must."
You can imagine such a -- such a state of affairs. I'm sure in Russia they have things accessible to the -- to the leading group which the masses just never see, like caviar and champagne. So gentlemen, technological progress assumes the constant spread to everybody of its benefits. Third, the progressive steps are assuredly beneficial to society. Progress is beneficial. And fourth, the support of this progress in the direction of more truth, or more facts, will always be supported by the people. I've reformulated the four, but it's exactly the same thing, these four laws, you see. This is the minimum tenet of every modern scientist, gentlemen, and it is no longer valid. Progress in science is no longer -- no fool can say that it is beneficial to society under all circumstances. Why is genocide a -- genocide beneficial? It isn't. It's just -- it's ambiguous, you see. You can't tell. Progress -- scientific progress, gentlemen, is void of any direction. It can be beneficial, and it can be nonbeneficial. We don't know. Certainly I don't say -- it is wrong to say that it is identifi- -- to be identified with beneficial. It isn't. It is just what it is. It's change, but never can we kn- -- say, "But it's change for the better." We don't know. It all depends on the human beings who handle it, whether it is to the -- the better.
Number 2, it is not true that there -- there's a solidarity between scholars is {growing}. It is not true that the solidarity between the scholars is gro- -- growing. Quite the contrary. They are split up.
Third, it is not sure that everyone will be allowed to participate. You can have monopolies, like the atomic bomb. Whole nations there are excluded from any access to their use.
And Number 4, the masses don't like the truth. Up and down, neither the rich or the poor. Wherever you get any crowd or mob, you cannot assume that they are interested in truth. They aren't. They will not make sacrifices for the truth. They will far prefer their legends -- legends, and their myths, and their -- their fairy tales. They won't. I mean, you can't -- tell the truth about -- the -- the War between the States in South Carolina to this day. You just can't. The last man who tried committed suicide.
So gentlemen, the four tenets -- why could they be believed by the academics, gentlemen? Because the universities existed, the universities developed these four tenets. That is, the four tenets on which natural science has been based were all created between 1100 and 1500.
To give you a little example, gentlemen, how this was done: it was done in chapel. The chapel of the Middle Ages, gentlemen, out of which every scholar in the Middle Ages came, has of course these four tenets. First, in chapel you believe in the solidarity of the human race. Second, you believe that in God the government in the Christian era, progress is possible. Jesus left the world that the Spirit would show better things to His disciples, better than He even could tell them. And so progress is based on this unity of our era. Third, peace is the destiny of man; therefore the third tenet, the progress will be beneficial. In chapel, that is -- makes sense. And fourth, the clergy and the laity are identical in their purposes. The scientist today, you see, if he is paid well by the government, may exclude the Russians from the atomic bomb. A clergyman of the Universal Church can never think of himself as any other relation as to the laity, to the people, because he comes from the people and belongs to the people, and he doesn't belong to the state, certainly. He doesn't belong to the American government.
Gentlemen, in chapel, the four tenets all make clear sense. They don't make sense in the laboratory. They have made sense for the last 400 years, because every scientist, gentlemen--take this down--every scientist got these four tenets, because he had to rival with the Church. The rivalry of science with Christianity -- with the Church, made the scientists behave. They all tried to be as good as gold, so to speak. They tried to be as good as a Christian. What did a scientist say? "I can be a Christian, without being a member of the Church." That the idea was always, you see, that the Church was -- didn't do -- contribute anything to being good, or to being progressive, so "Let's be as good as a Christian." You know all these people, whom you--perhaps you are one of you -- of them yourself--used to say, "Well, how can the -- the Church, it's just not doing its part, and it's obsolete, and Christianity is a good thing, but the Church testifies against Christianity; if I -- if the Christians were only better, I could believe in Christianity," that's a typical scientific idea. It always presupposes, gentlemen, that the scientist understands Christianity without belonging to it. And appreciates it, and in his own life realizes it.
And so, gentlemen, the modern scientist, for the last 400 years, competed with the Church. He competed with the Church. He tried to be as good as them in his truthfulness, in his brotherhood with all people all over the globe, in his -- in his obs- -- willingness to let everybody benefit from his inventions, you see, and in his fervent service of the pro- -- for the progress of mankind.
All these ten- -- tenets, gentlemen, a pre-natural, and they are supernatural, and they come from chapel. All medieval thinkers, gentlemen, were educated in chapel, the way all college students were, down to 1921, I think, in this college. That had a tremendous effect, of course, because in chapel you absorb these four items, gentlemen: that all men are one in one spirit; that the specialist has to serve the people--the clergyman, the laity -- the export is -- is all, that knowledge is service, that knowledge is not power. Now today, unfortunately, as you know, that's turning; knowledge is power. The Marxians say so and the -- the government says so. And it buys these scientists, as -- as brainpower, as brain trust.
Without chapel, gentlemen, science belongs to the pigsty, or how do you say? Science without the prerequisite that the scientist must be a good Christian in his heart is impossible, because science is based on the assumption that its direction is beneficial to the whole of mankind, to the whole of human history, to the whole of all strata of society, and that man who is not a scientist is eager to support it, the masses, you see, that they have the light of reason, even if they don't have it themselves, in high regard; that they respect it.
So you have four conditions there, you see, gentlemen. The four conditions of chapel are: first, the -- mankind is one; second, history is one; third, the direction of history is the same for the man in power and the people led by them, the directed people, you see; and that the masses will respect the sacrifices made for them, you see, and that the people who -- who lead will respect the masses. That's a very -- these are four very difficult human principles, gentlemen, of which you can completely lose sight, if you are uneducated { }. Then you get Mr. Hitler's doctors who experiment with inmates in concentration camps, because they say it's very interesting to find out how human beings behave, you see.
What does this mean? They had no solidarity for the whole of mankind, you see. See the difference? This happens everywhere today. You get it with euthanasia. The society today doesn't want to be bothered with old people or suffering people. So why -- not do away with them? They finally agree, themselves. It's an impatience to deal with human beings, if they live too long, or they live in unhealthy conditions, for example.
Gentlemen, today you have to decide--this is a tremendously exciting moment--whether you recognize the -- the in- -- mutual dependency of the chapel and the laboratory, or whether you don't, that will signify your stand in the new era. The new parties, gentlemen, therefore of the future are the -- the ones who isolate the laboratory. Whether you call yourself a capitalist, or a Communist, or a scientist, or a Bolshevik, gentlemen, makes no different. Mr. {Hocking} is just as much a Bolshevik as a -- as Bolshevik is Mr. {Hocking}. Mr. {Hocking} believes that the mind is the captain of the soul, for example. He is a good Hegelian. Hegel is the philosopher of this domination of the mind over the human soul. And I come from a country, my dear -- my dear friends, where I had to fight hard to rid myself of this prejudice. I know what I'm talking about because Hegel is the philosopher of this very sentence. And Marx is -- as you know, is the disciple of this man. And they both teach that man is the captain of his soul.
So gentlemen, the chapel develops four qualities. And -- how -- what time is it? {Does} it say one minute left? Wie? I'd like to give you a little example how simple the progress of the human race is. In 1100, a book was written which may give you an insight into what the -- all the schoolmen of the Middle Ages went through before they began to uni- -- concord the law or theology.
There was a handbook for the father confessor in Church, a manual for the confessions. And -- it's a very great book, and was read all over -- Europe in the Middle Ages. It's just called On True and False Penitence. That's the title. The title of this manual perhaps --. We don't know the author. It was in existence by -- by 1100. Now to give you an example of how the solidarity of the human race had to be created, I quote you one item there. It says that in secular -- in the world, the judge judges the criminal according to the law of the city, of the land: "He has murdered -- commits murder." But he says, in church, in chapel, when you hear a man's confession, the first thing the judge has to say to himself is, "I did this, committed the sin myself."
That is, the first condition for a father confessor, gentlemen, is the opposite from a secular judge. The first attitude must be, "I committed this sin myself." Judge and sinner are identical. Now you always think of the solidarity of the human race too far-fetched: Negro and white, and -- and -- and Chinese and American. That's -- when you think of the "brotherhood of man." Gentlemen, the first solidarity of the human race consists about the people -- between people who judge each other. If you say, "That's a wicked deed," of somebody else, you see, you break your solidarity. The first attempt must be, "Would I have done it, too? Or perhaps I wouldn't," you see. In this moment, you create the real solidarity of the human race.
Now put it -- this down, gentlemen: chapel doesn't look for the solidarity of the human race between distant people in space, in far-distant spaces. The real problem is, gentlemen, in the solidarity of the human race is your neighbor. Which is much more difficult to achieve, as you know. Just go to an apartment house in New York, and study the -- the degree of solidarity between tenants on the same floor there. Every one of these people is much nicer to the next Chine- -- or Chinaman in -- in Shanghai than he is to his neighbor there, because he doesn't know of his neighbor there, you see. But he reads the papers about the {plight} in Shanghai. There is no greater stranger today, as you well know, as neighbors in an apartment house, in these big tenement houses, I mean. Nobody is a man more alone than in a big city, obviously, you see. He has much more solidarity with -- with the Basuto Negro in South Africa. He can send him a parcel. But he can't ring up your neighbor in an apartment house and say, "Hello, Buddy," you see. { }.
The solidarity of the human race, gentlemen, today is completely lost between neighbors. The judge in the Middle Ages was pulled down to the level of the judged. Every day in ed- -- in the educational process of chapel. You take this for granted. But you must now know that before 1100, no Judge -- {Medina}, and not -- no Judge Cardozo, or no Judge Learned Hand has any use for saying, "I would have done this myself." He judged the criminal as somebody different; that was the pagan tradition, which still was enforced at that time. In church, yes, we mix; but not in the world. But from 1100 { } every man who went to study theology and law, it was driven in, day after day, that the judge and the judged were the same man. So you see the tremendous, creative force in this.
It's a -- every father confessor in the western world sat in his -- sits today in his confessional with the deep feeling: "There is no violation of the Ten Commandments which I couldn't have committed myself," you see. Therefore you -- that's why you can confess your sins to this man, obviously.
I think you are good heirs of this tradition, gentlemen. In your heart of hearts, you have this solidarity. Any American boy has this openness, that he knows the other fellow is just in the same boat. But please treasure it, and know where -- whence it comes. It doesn't come from science, you see. But it comes from a much simpler attitude of the unity of the human race, that sins are -- we all have in common, our deficiencies, and that nobody who comes to you with a crime can be told to you that you wouldn't have done it, you see. There is nothing so black, because -- also there is nothing so white, which is not in every one of us. Isn't that true?
So gentlemen, the -- I want -- give you this example to insist that chapel is at the root of modern science. There is no laboratory which we can permit without chapel, because otherwise you get the concentration camp. You get the conc- -- the experimentation with human life. You get wars of aggression. You get the uprooting of whole populations. You get the killing of all the kulaks, just because they have some land, you see, and they have to give way to modern { }. You get the censorship of Mr. Shostakovich, or any other composer if he doesn't follow the party line. Growth is not admitted, you see. But they are all captains of men's souls, these Bolsheviks. Any Platonist is, any philosopher-king. Wherever you hear a man say, "Let the philosopher be king," run away, because when the philosopher is king, the mind rules the soul. And the mind is then master of growth. And the nurse can push back the child into the body of the mother, and reverse the process of living life, of growth, because the mind has made the rule and regulation that the doctor should be present. So reality cannot happen, so to speak, because the mind is not satisfied. It's not according to science.
Thank you.