Transcript

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(Philosophy 10, April 30th, 1954.)

...pressed for time. So Mr. { }, we are not going to have you read this report.

What we have to finish today is the picture of the medieval university as exemplified in the medical school of Salerno. You remember that we had in Paris the two river banks, and two kinds of schools. The ordinary, old Church school -- that is, one bishop, one school; and the newfangled, international school -- "interlocal," you may call it -- and their combination, that is, a university. Then we found in Bologna, not two rivers -- banks, but we found the emperor of -- north of the Alps and the Apennine, and the pope south of the Apennine clashing. We found two orders, Church and em- -- empire, emperor and pope clashing -- "papacy" I write -- clashing on canon law and Roman law, or imperial law you can call it. Roman law and canon law. And every student required not only here to go to a local -- an interlocal teaching staff -- a faculty but here, two opposite systems of law and to become a doctor of both laws.

If you want to be a jurist, you are -- cannot just be here a county judge, as we have it. In America, at this moment, law is no science. Law is a political football. There is no -- the Harvard Law School is a grind. It's a factory for case lawyers, but has nothing to do with jurisprudence or science. Just funny.

Our law schools in this country have abolished the -- the great status of real, legislative level where things are discussed as to their merits, as to their justice. That's not done in law schools. That's done in the papers. That's done in Harper's magazine. It's not done in law journals. Law journals deal with cases in this country. That is to say, it's very important for you to understand why America at this moment is in such a bad way: it has no higher institutions of learning.

Now the third school, gentlemen, in medicine was situated even in a more strange manner: at the crossroads of two worlds of medical tradition. And Salerno is the base hospital, very much as Bordeaux would be today in the case of a world war for the American troops in France. You know, Bordeaux is a -- was a base. Now if you think of Salerno in such terms, you will see right away that Salerno is the base hospital for the crusaders to Jerusalem and the Orient. And now the whole Middle Ages were filled with crusades. There has been a crusade going on, you can say ever since 1050 down to the days of Lepanto in 1570 when Juan -- Don Juan d'Austria was going to the war. Who knows Chesterton's poem? You know. That's the battle -- the last battle in a crusade-like fashion, you see. Don Juan d'Austria is going to the war. That's 1570.

So you have, by and large, 500 centuries in which the crusaders from all Europe took ship either in Pa- -- Sicily or in -- Salerno and then sailed through the Straits of Messina towards the -- Holy -- Land or to Greece, because the Frankish -- kings also at that mo- -- time governed the peninsula which we call today "Greece" again, with a rather artificial invention, because in the Middle Ages, no Greeks lived in Greece.

That's one of the most terr- -- terrific restorations -- the world had ever seen: the attempts of the modern Greeks to pose as the -- as the heirs of ancient Greece. That's artificial. There's not one Greek in -- in Greece now. But you believe it. It's the creation of American professors, modern Greece. Hard to believe it. I know one of these professors. He said, he brought down -- when the Turkish-Greek war occurred in 1898, he brought down the house in Berkeley, California, because he told his students that now ancient Greek liberty had to be restored, you see, in the battlefiel- -- on the battlefields of Thessaly. There were more Greeks in the Turkish army so -- to be sure fighting at that time than on the Greek side. These were all Albanese {thieves}. Well, never mind. It's a good story for the school -- for the students, that there is a Greece again today.

This is -- of the -- of that -- what I tried to say is that Greece was as much as the Holy Land, as much as Asia Minor, as much as Constantinople and Egypt the -- to be reached from Salerno as the base. And the -- the sick people and the cripples also came back to Salerno, {into} the first friendly port where their own men could take care of them. They were -- Salerno was governed by Norman princes at that time who had, as you may know, not only conquered England in 1066, but they also in 1059 had taken possession of Sicily, and Genoa -- and Sal- -- Naples and Salerno, and the Straits of Otranto, and they had even gone as far as the lake of Azov -- the Sea of Azov, and the -- and the Black Sea.

The Normans, the Norsemen took possession of all the airlines of that time, which were the shipping lines. What we call today the airbases, you see, of the Americans, were then in the hands of the Norsemen. If you want to understand the Norsemen, they are very much like the modern Americans, very much similarity in character. And they based their very -- existence very much the same way on tradeposts and airbases, but always denied that they were imperialists. So as we do, we have all the airbases in the world -- more than anybody else, but we of course are no imperialists whatsoever, you see. That's only for the bad British to be imperialists. We only defend liberty in -- in -- in -- Indochina, but the British, you see, these -- these cowards, they are not even -- they are willing to commit their empire. You saw perhaps the two- -- two days ago how the roles have changed, how little imperialistic England is, and how much imperialistic we are. But it must be said in this country.

So in the same way, the Norsemen in the 11th century in Salerno, always talked very big about being crusaders and restoring freedom -- that is, Christianity -- the freedom of Christianity all over the world, but not at all dominating the world. Oh, no. I mean, nothing imperialistic about the Norsemen. Just good Christians.

So we are crusaders. Mr. Eisenhower, after all, called his book Crusade in Europe, didn't he? So this is very Norseman-like, you see. Crusade in Europe but no imperialism, of course.

That's why Salerno is very interesting, gentlemen. We are good in medicine, and the Northmen were good in medicine, because they had to go to war. Medicine and -- and -- and warfare go very close together, just as techniques, as mili- -- and hydrogen bombs and war go very close together.

And in Salerno, there were two traditions: the Arabian tradition, and the straight Greek-Latin tradition. The Arabian tradition was in fact diluted or filtrated -- filtered Greek tradition. The Arabs had no medicine of their own, but they had translated the writ- -- letter -- the -- the writings of the old Greek doctors. And then there were Latin texts.

So we get, so to speak, this -- the story in Salerno, that is taught in Salerno, is this way. Here is the old Greek, Hippocrates, on which today still, as you know, every young doctor takes an oath. Then Hippocrates' medicine had passed through the pen of a man called Galenus in the second century of our era. Hippocrates lived 400 B.C., Galenus 200 A.D. And the Arabian texts are by and large of 900 A.D. Now in Salerno, there were brought together the Arabian texts, translated from African -- by African Christians and brought to Salerno in the year of the Lord 1080, and that's -- and the Latin texts, which the monks could read directly, of Galenus, without a special translation from the Arabian.

So the clash in Salerno was of the Latin and the Arabian medicine. And so every sick man could be treated by a doctor, by comparing these two schools of thought and making a decision on which course he could follow. So you see that even in such a case of a mere surgical operation for a war veteran -- on a war veteran, these people had the liberty of choice. In {dubiis} libertas. The physical world, gentlemen, is a spec- -- the arena of doubt, of constant change, and of constant misgivings about our own knowledge.

And so you see the strange spectacle. Theology, dealing with the greatest secrets of our existence with God, has its clash quite close by between the archbishop and the freelance teachers on the other side of the river. That's dealing with the universe, with the creation of the world, and the aim of the world, isn't

it -- theology?

Now to come to medicine. Your little toe is involved, your little finger. But the two sources which clash in Salerno in the teaching of medicine are of worldwide distance. One comes from Arabia, a little bit by -- probably from India and Greece, and the other comes from Rome. So that every one little human body is exposed to traditions, you see, that have -- had -- that expanded to cover the whole Mediterranean world. I think it's very -- very interesting to see that the tension, the conflict, the mental conflict on the great principles of theology can be imprisoned into two river banks, two banks of one river Seine, and that's enough to illuminate the spirit, you see. You come {to} tremendous confl- -- conflict.

But in order to know what to do about your cold, or your typhoid fever, these people in Salerno mobilized thousands of years of -- from far-fledged countries -- from far-flung countries, you see, and put them against each other, pit them against each other. And {in between} the law of human communities of states is in a mid- -- medium distance. It is the north of the Alps, the emperor who comes from the north of the Alps, and the pope, who comes from Rome, and they clash in Bologna. But I think it is fascinating to see how here the embodiment of conflict, in three cases, you see, covers a different distance of ground, in geography, in space. Can you understand what I mean?

Ab‚lard, who teaches on the left bank of the river Seine, as against the official teaching of the archbishop's school, you see, just one freelance teacher who say- -- can say the opposite on the greatest truth of the universe, you see, what our relation is, what redemption is, you see. Ja?

(Sir, is it -- is it -- why do you have a conflict with theology and law, or a conflict in one of the two?)

In both -- all three. You have a conflict in all three -- I gave you an example of the conflict in -- in law the last time, didn't I? In marriage. And I said, for example, the compromise was reached finally that the Church had all the things to say on the personal ways of getting married. And the state had everything to say on the material consequences of your fortune. I said, real estate, and fortune, and -- and money, and dowry were settled by the -- by the secular magistrates, with regard to marriage. That is, by Roman law, or civil law, or ordinance, or statute of the King of England, or the city of Sevilla, or the city of London. But the law -- rule of who could marry whom, and when were you married, you see, husband and wife, had to be settled by the religious authority.

Now today I want to introduce the problem of the conflict between the

medical authorities, the Arabian and the -- and the Roman. And you ask me, "Is there a conflict?" Well Sir, there is as much conflict -- because you must understand -- what's your name, please? Mr. Redhead?

(Miller, Sir.)

Miller. Mr. Miller. There is no science without conflict, because the essence of science is that you have to change all the time. You see, science is not a body of knowledge, but sci- -- science is a changing body of knowledge. No science, gentlemen, as you think, can be ever imprisoned in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. When you buy the Encyclopaedia Britannica, it's obsolete. Or the science has died. It has to be obsolete when it's commonplace. Because -- I tried to show you that science in a state of affairs of becoming must always be ahead of common sense, of that which is already trite and known to everybody, to the man in the street.

(Does it always have to have a foundation to base that on?)

No. Foundation is in Heaven, and not in your mind, and not in the common man's mind. You have to contradict common -- the common sense all the time. Twenty years ago it was considered common sense that children shouldn't have maternal care. They were -- put away in glass -- behind glass, as you know, 13 babies in one room, and 13 mothers in {such} different rooms, you see. Common sense was hay- -- had gone haywire, you see. Then one man came and said, "This is mad," and he began to preach again the real common sense. And now these children, as you know, are allowed to live -- stay with their mothers again, which had -- should never have been -- had never disappeared, you see. Common sense is the craziness of yesterday. That's what we call "common sense."

(Then you're saying all fundamental laws of science are obsolete?)

What?

(Are you saying all fundamental laws of science are obsolete now?)

Fundamental? No. Why should they be obsolete?

(That's what I asked you.)

Well, take quanta. You still think absolutely before Planck, in your -- in your imagination. You -- you are still a mechanism in your whole thinking, because { }. And in this sense, you know already that your thinking is obsolete, because your quanta theory's -- demands from you that you should -- should see --

learn to see that quantity is important. That 5 is not 5 times 1, but a quality of its own. Gentlemen, life is -- the universe becomes much more organic, but you still live in a -- in a -- in a universe because you drive cars, where you really think that 70 miles are 70 -- times 1-mile speed. Now, if you are honest with yourself, you know that a man who drives on the highway 100 miles an hour is not simply driving faster than a ma- -- man who drives at 30, but that's a different quality, isn't it? It's a jump into the -- into the reign of 100. But your mechanized thinking says, "Oh, I just increase the speed a little," you see.

You still think in -- in -- in pre-Planckian, Newtonian terms. And that's -- {in part} -- the great misfortune in this country as this moment, gentlemen. But you think out everything in quanta. You speak of a battleship as $40 million. That's no explanation of what a battleship is. You blind yourself when you -- when I read the headlines: there was launched a $40 million battleship. It blinds you to what a battleship is, you see. You try to express it in -- in -- in an unqualitative way.

And that's -- I, too -- I told you, that if you -- come -- get an author on this campus, Mr. Mumford or somebody like that, and then he -- he has to read in his -- your paper that he is the author of 23 books, you see. So you disparage the man. Well, the man who is the author of a -- simply -- a list of books is not a human being any more. An author is a man who writes a book when it is necessary to write a book. So he's not 31 times, you see, but the {essential thing is} -- that you shall say of a man, "He is always a man who has written necessary books," and not a book -- man who has written unnecessary books. You can see he has written 31 books. But you just need to leave one important question undecided, whether it's a man who sells bestsellers for money, and sells his mind, you see, to the public, or whether it's an honest man who only sells what he believes. That's the only question you can -- must say -- answer about an author. That would be quanta theory, you see. And that wouldn't be the -- the -- the modern -- the modern enumeration quality. This is all {Newtonian} physics, { } modern {commonplace}.

(If the clash in Paris illuminated the spirit of the theologians, what did the clash in Salerno do? There --)

Exactly. Now, now, now wait! Of course, what did it?

Well, there are always to decide in ever one case surgery and internal medicine. You can always be conservative, as the doctors call it, you see. Or you can always cut, cauterize and burn. In any one case, you see, the -- in this country, you always operate. In -- all other countries, people say it's better not to operate, because mended is mended, and patched is patched. And don't think that after

you have been operated -- all these surgical masterpieces of this country that you are -- that there is much left of your nervous system. You'll be ruined for life, but you are healthy, according to surgery.

That is to say, this decision is -- is the most urgent decision again today in medicine. Is it better to ha- -- suffer some pain and not to be operated upon? Or is it always better to -- to -- to cut -- to take the knife? In this country, 99 percent of the patients want to be operated. It's interesting to undergo an operation. You all want to be operated upon. I don't. I'm against it. And a wise doctor would be a doctor -- and that's the greatest conflict, you see, who in any one case is open to doubt, whether there should be operation or not, who can see that the more precious a human life is, you see, the less you can -- you interfere with his curve by taking a limb out of such a man, and un- -- make him undergo, you see, taking his attention, so to speak, upon his body.

I always tell the story of my doctor in England, whom I consulted. I had to go to Oxford to give a term there in lectures -- of lectures, and I was in great pain. And he said to me simply, "You are a scholar."

"Yes."

And he said, "Scholars and officers of the army and navy must never be under medical treatment for more than a fortnight. They are not accustomed to think of themselves. They go nuts if they are forced to. So I won't treat you. Have your pains, and good luck."

And that was a doctor. And modern people are just {barbarous}, what you call "doctors," because they are -- always know that they have to act. Gentlemen, obviously in medicine, as in legislation, and as in the divine sphere, the only wisdom is that you know you are free to act or n- -- and not to act. If you have not this doubt, you haven't even learned to doubt, what scientific doubt is. The first doubt is: is this a case for my intervention, you see? And if you are not free to say, "It is not a case for my intervention," you can never do right, really. It's accidental then.

But this is unknown. There's so little wisdom today in the world, because the people, you see -- many people do not know that when somebody comes to them professionally, they may be bound to say, "This is not for my professional advice." When a lawyer says, for example -- you come to a lawyer or a doctor, and say -- they say then, "I, as your doctor have to say this and this," you always know that you get the second-best advice, because otherwise he wouldn't say that. Because if he were your intimate alter ego, you see, he obviously would give a different advice. But, "As your doctor, I have to say this. But as a doctor --

as a lawyer, for example, I can tell you, go to court. You can -- you are right." As your friend, I'll say, "Don't go to court. You'll go nuts."

And the same with the doctor, gentlemen. As a doctor, he can operate, of course. As your friend, he must say, "Write your book. Get married. Take your trip, I mean. Go on with your work and forget about it," because the scar of the tissue in your -- after the operation will { } you for the rest of your life. You have never heard of this, gentlemen, because we are -- live in a barbaric age, where the -- the profe- -- the doctors are just plumbers, barbers, butchers. The lawyers are just quacks, or what- -- how do you call them. I mean -- shysters. That is, they always -- function. Gentlemen, when you can go to a man, to a lawyer, a doctor, a theologian, and because he is -- you are his client, force him to act, he has l- -- given up his freedom. If by your paying him $20 for a fee, you can force a man to marry everybody, he certainly has given up the right to administer the sacrament of marriage, because that would be the minister who says to 10 couples, "I'm sorry, I'm not going to marry you. You are just running straight into hell. And I'm not going to give you a blessing on the Church to this unholy undertaking."

No, but -- since you are willing to pay $20, they say, "I'm delighted. More, give me more of them. Every minute," you see. It's just funny. That's why the Church, of course, is -- is no -- no good. The same with the law. You can go to a lawyer and say, "I must go to court. I'm angry. I'm furious. This is my enemy. I want to put -- take him down." And if the law- -- you can force a lawyer because you pay his fee, to act for you, he's a shyster, because he's no longer free. He no longer represents anything important, any decision. He's just, you see, your servant, nothing else. He can serve your passions. Like the -- well, you see it from all the rich people who can afford to go to court on everything. I mean, the -- the lawyers always play a very pitiful role in such -- in such trials. We have such a trial right now in California, haven't we?

And the -- with the doctors, it's the same, gentlemen. The freedom, the dignity, the high rank of a profession, what we call a "profession" with the medieval term still, gentlemen, is: this is the man who is himself responsible for the decision to act or not to act.

Now, to give you a topic -- this is therefore universal, Sir, in Salerno as today. The question was always, "Should the surgery prevail, or the belief in the nature," you see, "of things?" And there you get the -- { } of -- {two} schools; one is action, this is the American school, you see. Act, act, act. And the other is wait-and-see. That's conservative. And that's -- it takes great -- much -- much more depth of character for the doctor, you see, because it's no splendor in it. And he can't charge -- he can charge for an operation $5,000, but for his

wait-and-see policy, which takes much more nerve on his part, he can hardly charge { }, you see. So his family starves. So he'd better {have} { }, operates all the time, you see, gets very rich. High -- great esteem in the community, you see, and is not rated as a crackpot who says to a sick person, "Lie -- go to bed and wait." In mo- -- in most cases, the {only reason to treat}. So they shoot them with all these modern medicines, you see, penicillin, {denicillin} and so on. Just a victim of this, myself. And can't {be enough} medicine. That's just a substitute for -- in { } action by surgery. You all believe it, that giving medicine is better than giving no medicine.

Gentlemen, the doctor begins obviously only when he is absolutely indifferent to giving a drug, or not giving a drug, and when he decides on the merit of the case whether it is not better in his case to force this man to see that he can recover from { }. Think of all the psychopaths who must get their drugs. Wouldn't it be much more impressive if the doctor says, "Now, I'm going to prove to you that you can get well without all these drugs."

Ja?

(Did you say { }?)

Oh, ja. Because you have the two -- the surgeon, the { } they were called then, instead of "surgeon" -- {it's an old term} -- and the -- and the -- the real doctor. And the -- in the Middle Ages, of course, the dignity was with the man who did not operate. The operator -- the very opposite prevailed at that time. The surgeon was {lower-grade medicine}, and the man who did not operate was the higher priest of medicine. Today, in this country, it's the opposite, you see. We take our { } from the dentists. The dentist ranks highest, and the surgeon comes second, and then the real doctor comes third in your {pub- -- in} { } esteem.

(Sir?)

Ja?

(Was it a Latin surgeon or {the Arabic} surgeon? Who { }?)

No. They are -- a surgeon, and -- and -- and treatment was both. The -- the surgery of course came down by practical apprenticeship, and not much literacy, you see. I mean, that is routine. That is like blacksmithing, you see. You may -- you may compare the -- the -- the surgeon of the Middle Ages to a -- experienced blacksmith. That is, the operation had to be taught from master to apprentice. And that doesn't come from books.

(That didn't follow from who { }?)

No. Well, there are some descriptions of operations -- you see, the -- the -- medicine is very old and highly developed already. 3000 B.C., people had skull operations of high standing. They had circumcision. They had ribs. They had artificial limbs. You see, they had already the pin to put back again -- again the -- an arm -- an arm or a shoulder, you see. So the -- the -- you must think that -- that -- very different from what you think medicine is. A very ancient and a highly developed art. 3000 B.C., you find in the graves of primitive men already people with this trepanation, that is, with blood clots taken out of the skull, after a battle, after a wound. And all this, of course, was handed over from -- from doc- -- in guilds, so to speak, in crafts, you see, from apprentice -- to the apprentice by the master. But it wasn't so much literary, you see. But it was done. People simply watched operations and then were allowed to do it themselves.

No, the great battle which the Middle Ages really filled was the fighting of epidemics. Again, you have -- have a hard time to understand this, because as you know, we pollute our rivers. And that what they could do in those days, where they had no injections, or { } -- no vaccination, was to keep the water pure. And the medical school of Salerno had a tremendous influence all through Europe. And you may say that already in the year of the Black Death in 1347, which ravaged Europe, they had -- was established agreement on the rules of immunity, or of cleanliness, or of not polluting the water, of isolating people, of burning the -- the corpses of the dead, of fumigation, that what we c- -- would call today "sterilization," you see. And you would be surprised to learn -- you will -- must be surprised to learn that in 1350, by and large, the discipline of any community with regard to the plague was tremendous. And these measures were publicly and socially in force.

That is, gentlemen, what we today rediscover as hygiene, or public health, that was really the result of the public teaching in Salerno, the discussion of medicine. The treatment of the individual not -- the -- not only, you see, was cared for, but the rules of -- in -- in preserving a minimum of purity in the community, in the commonwealth.

The pollution of rivers, gentlemen -- again is an old story -- in Persia already, in antiquity, this as you know was com- -- was considered such a crime that people were executed who polluted a river. Well, I don't know how many Americans then would have to be executed. Gentlemen, it is a great indictment against our land that the waters here are polluted. It's terrible. You see what a shoddy role again medicine plays. It's a money-making proposition, but it doesn't govern the country's spirit. Despite all the lip service you pay to medicine, the -- our industrialists are still allowed to pollute our rivers and to pollute

the air. Just go to Pittsburgh.

And this was not done in the Middle Ages, because of course the conditions of life were so scanty, and people were so com- -- compressed within the framework of small towns, with walls, and fortifications around them, with one of two pumps -- wells serving them, you see, as supply, that they had to ration the water, and the rad- -- to ration the use of the water very carefully so they always lived under a kind of austerity program.

And -- but you have a very wrong conception, because you think of the past as a dirty, unsterile, bacterially ripe, barbaric past. That is not true. Gentlemen, the -- the discipline, which for example even the Puritans observed in a -- in a -- in a small city like Boston is remarkable. They couldn't have survived -- a year without such things, you see. No litter. Everything you see around our cities did not exist in those days. What you take for granted as dirt, and -- lack of discipline, our -- our slums around our cities, when you drive into any {town}, that you first come to these dirty outskirts, that was strictly forbidden in those days. Didn't exist. You couldn't, because people would have just died like flies.

It's the other way around from what you think, gentlemen. There has never been such a degeneracy that { } -- in public hygiene as in this -- as it is now in this country -- you can see -- when you drive into any one big city. And the way you throw around your -- your -- your -- your -- your litter, it's just undescribable.

This is a prejudice which you have to fight, gentlemen. You are accustomed to look down to -- not only to the Dark Ages, but to the Dirty Ages. Now, certainly they had no plumbing, and it was much more difficult to be pure. But I have a description these days from Spain. Spain is one of the purest countries in the world at this moment. It's as pure -- as poor, I mean -- as poor as -- as -- as any {Japanese} or our country can be. And yet the -- the cleanliness of the people -- my wife writes me -- is simply surprising. You see -- it's just so much in evidence, the first thing you feel is these people are in rags, but in clean rags. They are very, very clean. And without plumbing, you can see that this takes a tremendous discipline {of life}. Very difficult to achieve.

So don't be betrayed. There is a medical tradition in the -- in mankind which is much older than what you call Mr. Pasteur and modern medicine from 1880. That's where you date your -- your, so to speak, life expectations from.

And the -- I wanted to say this, because it's perhaps the most outstanding feature -- that the discussion of the rules of how to fight epidemics in cities and communities, that this discipline is the fruit of the teaching of the medical

schools of the Middle Ages. And that you had a public health service ever since, you see, this is -- was established in those days. But people just had public health officers. That, for example, there was -- taken care of that the dead were buried. Even in the Black Death. If you read Boccacio -- who has read Boccacio? Well, you remember that this is told during the epidemics of the Black Death, you see, where the great problem was just simply to get people to bury the dead. But it is a serious problem.

So Mr. Miller, are you satisfied?

(Well no, Sir. I was -- )

No? What's your question?

(Well, in Salerno, was there -- was there just this conflict in the -- the study of the law, or was it in all three fields? as it -- was this the center of conflict { } Salerno?)

If you have two complete set -- sets of rules, from two diff- -- opposite sources, and -- if every one issue has to be discussed from opposite authority, can't you see that's the constant conflict? I'll give you an -- example. The 13th century established a great right of resistance. As you know, the American Revolution and the English Revolution are based on the right of resistance. Well, that is a -- a formula which didn't exist in antiquity. Plato had not -- nothing of a right of resistance, right of rebellion. It's just unheard-of. That belongs to the Christian era, because it is only possible when the conscience is divine. Human conscience is the creation of the Christian era.

Now the school of Bologna, gentlemen, believe it or not -- discussed from the very first day, beginning by and large from the middle of the 12th century, the problem: has a citizen the right to resist unjust laws, and has the citizen the duty to resist unjust laws? This is { } problem. As you know, with the { } discuss, and we have the whole problem of the right of resistance, just 1946 again. Why is that so, gentlemen? This is surprising. This comes from the conflicting of two authorities, pope and emperor. You make a law. If you live under only one authority, you have to obey the law. And you are always -- on the same side as you obey the law. If you don't obey the law, you are just subversive, and you come on the list of the Attorney General.

Now, gentlemen, it may be honorable to come on the list of the Attorney General. I'm not so sure. I have never inclined to be a Communist, { } I'm a counter-revolutionary, I'm a reactionary. But when it comes to the state -- state telling me what is subversive, I'm inclined to heed some teaching and to say as a

member of the Church, "I'm not going to be told by any attorney general what's subversive, because perhaps the government is subversive." Oh yes, the government can be subversive. It can be, you see, taxation without representation -- wasn't George III subversive of the liberty of America? This country is based on the assumption that the crown -- the British crown -- went wrong. All our title to our own existence is based on the assumption that the king did wrong, because he taxed us without representation. That's subversive government.

Seems a long time ago for you. You are so complacent, and so -- love dictatorship so much by the government, that that the government can do no wrong. And you all join the FBI.

Well, gentlemen, this is not the time to give in to such terrible principles that what the government says is right. That's not true. In Bologna, for the last 900 years, always in any civilized region of the world, there has been taught that just laws have to be obeyed. And then is the split: what to do with unjust laws. There has always been agreement, gentlemen, that unjust laws may be resisted. There has not been agreement whether unjust laws must be resisted. You see, when Mr. Hitler -- organized the -- extirpation of 6 million Jews in Auschwitz, and the orders were given, many of the Germans disagreed and disapproved, certainly -- then they obeyed orders, never doubting that the law was unjust. But they held the view, which you also hold, that it is on the safer side to obey orders, and that unjust orders may be obeyed.

So you see, we had in the Middle Ages, as I said already in 1180, three schools -- two schools of thought. Both were no longer pagan. In a pagan tradition, laws have to be obeyed. The emperor, the king, the president, you see, the selectman, the -- the consul -- all -- you have no {faith}, that's pagan. In the Christian era, gentlemen, there is no doubt that everyone in his conscience has to state whether this law is just or unjust. That's your privilege. But there will always be two schools of thought. And there you have a typical struggle, you see, of a university rank. And in every one case, it has to be fought out again. Must you obey -- must you resist unjust law, or may you resist unjust law? Will you take this down, gentlemen?

Pagan solution: you obey law. The law's the law, and if you don't obey, they get you and put you in a prison. You see? Because of resistance against the law.

Not so today, gentlemen. If the law is unjust, there are -- will always be two schools of thought, and I hope they'll always exist in this country, because only as long as both can be taught freely will we have freedom in America. One will say: if the state does wrong, you have to resist. That was done by the Abolitionists, and so we get the Civil War. But Lincoln said, as you s- -- know, to the last

minute, "You may resist, but you must not do this." That was the case of the Union against the secessionists, you see. Only when the North -- South seceded, did it positively wrong, you see; it could no longer be tolerated. You see the clear three {-part} { }? Very clear about this. Slavery was wrong. There was no doubt about it.

And -- who has written on John Quincy Adams? Well, you know how eloquent he was on this point, you see. But he said, "It may be tolerated," you see. He did not incite to immediate rebellion, you see. The Abolitionist says, "It may not be okay," you see. The Civil War took place when the Adams -- the John Quincy Adams party and the Abolitionist party got together, you see. And they got together because the South was stupid enough, you see, to do positive wrong, you see, by seceding. And at that moment, the people who said, "Slavery is unjust, but it may be okay," you see, could join the people who had always said, "Slavery is unjust and it may not be okay." That's the Abolitionist.

So you get a very great case in the United States in 1861 with regard to this medieval doctrine of...

[tape interruption]

...and Mr. Miller...

[tape interruption]

...and they made { }. And you and I have in each one case weighed the evidence whether we may resist, or we must resist, you see, or we may obey, or we may not obey. Can you see this? This is very serious, gentlemen. And this country is in a very bad way, because we have at this moment, I assure you, no place in which this is done. You have a -- the University of Indiana with 31,000 students and the University of -- Ann Arbor with 51,000 students. You have masses. But you have no science of { }. You have examinations, with machinery {in it}. { }.

Cattleyards of knowledge we have today. But that has nothing to do with the decisions, gentlemen, which have to be cultivated in every human heart, whether he knows what he's doing, whether he has the power to stand up against 155 million people in this country and say, "You're wrong. I'm not going to share this." That has to be done. That has to be cultivated. That has to be educated into you. And it can only be done if both sides of such a decision are worthily enacted, you see, and lived, by living people.

Now this -- let's have a break here.

[tape interruption]

...of the two parties on the universals in the Middle Ages is the war between nominalists and realists. And that goes right through all the three types of medieval university: be it medicine, be it law, or be it divinity. And be it the -- the fourth faculty which prepared the children of the medieval world, to go there, the so-called faculty of arts and sciences, the faculty in which you when you are in college. The not-graduate school, you see, in which you are. The fourth faculty of the arts and sciences also is hit by this problem of the universals. And it also was split in Paris, and Salerno and in -- in Bologna, and all the imitating universities later on: Oxford, Padua, and Heidelberg, and Salamanca in Spain. Wherever you have universities, you could find that the professors, regardless of -- they were -- jurists, or theologians, or doctors would group themselves into nominalists and realists. And it's not easy for you and me to get the hang of this battle. And especially what you read in books, or in handbooks and textbooks is just awful stuff. And I think it's more misleading than enlightening.

The gist of the matter between nominalist and realist is the question whether when I call you a human being, or whether when you call me a professor, this is anything real. Is it just a nomen, just a -- arbitrary thing, as you call it -- "Let us call this arbitrarily God," as a student wrote in one of his papers to me: "Let us call this arbitrarily God." God bless his -- his soul, this poor boy's soul. He really was a nominalist; that is, he declared that even "God" was just a name.

Gentlemen, if God is just a name, then there is no God. Nominalism transforms the names and the -- into mere words, and the words into mere inventions of the arbitrary, individual mind. And that's what you believe. You are all nominalists. And this is -- in Greece was called the -- the reign of the sophists. The sophists said all words are waxen noses. We invent words, and we sell them to the public. Every advertising agent does this. Every propagandist does this, as a radio commentator does this. We live today in a situation very much like the end of the Middle Ages, the end of any civilization, when the nomina are nothing but names. Hollow, smoke inventions -- "smokescreen" is perhaps the best word for nominalism. Nominalists say that words are smokescreens behind which people can hide their real intention to exploit you.

You know this from all the world today that they try to exploit you by selling you great names, and there's nothing behind it. The realists, gentlemen, are the na‹ve people to which I unfortunately belong. When I receive the mail in the morning, I feel so satisfied with all the advertising which is in the mail, that I want to order everything they recommend. I think it's just wonderful. And fortunately I'm married, and so I cannot put in all those orders, because otherwise I would be bankrupt. But I'm still of -- one of these psychological victims,

you see, who believes that when a man says something, that might be so. It might be real. The name might stand for reality.

I might still believe that when I hear "the United States of America," this means a free country. It is a pure superstition, gentlemen, in the eyes of the nominalist. They say, "Let's debunk this. Just commercial interest, it's nothing but."

Well, you see, we are all both, obviously. Nominalists at times, and realists at times. When you sing the National Anthem, you are a realist, because obviously you try to say something which you mean. And when you run away from some overdone advertising and say, "No, they won't get me. I won't buy a ticket here. That's just old stuff," then you are a nominalist, and you say, "It's nothing but empty words."

So gentlemen, the decision of "When are we forced to use certain general terms?" is a deep, religious question, because it means: is man able, capable to come to grips with the truth? If all words are just words, gentlemen, then you {know} absolutely blind, deaf, and dumb, because every word then can just be abused. And if, on the other hand, every name is true, then obviously we are the dupes of everybody who is callous enough, and impertinent enough to play on our nerves, and on our prejudices, you see, and use these terms.

So again, it's as with the unjust law, gentlemen. Very similar. In the Christian era, it cannot be as in China, where when you make the sign of the father, the son has just to kneel down, because he's forced to be, you see, patriarchal and to obey orders from his father. In the Christian era, you must -- we must distinguish. At certain times, we must use certain words with authority, with relevance. And at certain times, we must be free to criticize.

Make this parallel very clear in your notes, gentlemen. Between the -- that's why I brought up this unjust law business first -- thus you can understand the lack of resistance, you see. But you -- it's quite clear to you that you cannot resist everything, every law. You can only resist unjust law, you see. And then you must not resist, but you only may resist. You understand? So you always have three attitudes, the wise man. The same is true, gentlemen, of all terms of all humanity, human society, because these terms are the laws of human behavior in a much wider realm than the law.

If you are forced to say of a Frenchman, "He is a human being. Therefore despite the fact that he is a Frenchman, I have to be decent to him," you are in a tremendous decision at this moment, because no doubt he is a Frenchman, and you have every reason to believe that Frenchmen and Americans don't go to-

gether very well. They don't, you know. It begins with plumbing and bathtubs, as you know. Plumbing in France and plumbing in America just smells differently.

And therefore, if you are satisfied with the nominalis- -- with the realistic idea, "This man is a Frenchman; I don't do him an injustice; he wants to be a Frenchman; I am an American, you see; we'd better keep apart," you're perfectly legitimate, aren't you? I mean, everything is in order. Most people act this way. Or take a white man in the South. He says, "Niggers? No objection, but I won't have anything to do with them." And you see, when I come down South, and I -- tell -- tell a woman there that I have I friend who is a Negro, a respected doctor in the town, she gets up in the -- on the -- in the train and says, "You traitor!" And will not -- not speak to me anymore. Just because I have a black man as my friend.

Now, here you see again, this is law. That is, the name there makes law to her, you see. The law- -- the name she has -- she's entitled to -- to apply and my name for the same man is a different name. He's my friend. And the racial issue doesn't enter. I can forget it. And she cannot call him "friend," because she has nothing, the poor woman, but the racial clash, which you see now in South Africa how serious it is with the -- with the -- how do they call it? -- apartheid business there, you see, where the same Boers, as you know, Mr. { } and his group, they have missions, Christian missions at this moment, Dutch missions, Boer missions going strong among the black man. And at the same time, they have apartheid.

The human soul is a very difficult, you see, fellow to deal with. These people do more for the Negro in their -- from their own point of view, the highest point of view -- from the missionary point of view than the English people who are against apartheid, and were just exploiting the black industrial worker there in Johannesburg in the diamond mines, and therefore need him, and therefore are against apartheid.

It's a terribly complicated business. It all depends who comes first, which name in -- application to human beings. And this -- is the central thing which today is not understood by the logical -- logicians in this country. Who has co- -- taken a course in logic? Only one. There's hope for the rest.

The -- gentlemen, modern semanticists and modern logicians have completely lost sight of the importance of the -- problems of universals, because they think that the -- it deals only with things. For example, is it necessary to call uranium a metal, or an element? That would be such a nomen that is a reality. Is it one of the 72 elements, you see? Or is it not? That's, as you know, very practical today, with 235 and 239, as you may know. What do we call an element, with these isotopes, you see? What is an element? Are the isotopes special elements, or are

they one element in two forms?

There you have a typical problem of the universalist struggle. But in the Middle Ages, gentlemen, the struggle was much more real, and it is going to be much more real when we deal with Negroes, and Jews, and Japanese, and Chinese, and Communists in the future. It is very small matter, as these Mr. Wittgensteins, and -- and these logicians and semanticists now deal with elements, because the elements don't talk back. Uranium doesn't tell us their opinion about our behavior with regard to uranium, you see. They suffer quietly, these elements.

But the Japanese are not going to suffer quietly all the time. They are very angry with us, because, you see -- because of this hydrogen explosion, you remember? Because their fishermen got burned and they take it out on us now, nine years after Hiroshima, because their whole pent-up disgust with America comes out in this complaint about the fishermen. It's all complaining about the bomb explosion of the -- 1945, you see. That's what -- how -- the way the nations take their revenge. And it's -- it's much more serious than the people in this country seem to realize. It is not that we exploded some bomb, but they were the victims of the bomb explosion, which is now the -- the -- agen- -- on the agenda in Japan at this moment.

Now, gentlemen, there you have the very interesting prob- -- universals' problem: are the Japanese our human brothers with regard to a bomb explosion, or are they objects of our military strategy? Is it -- a baby in Japan an object of strategy, or is it a -- a fellow man in warfare? I understand that Mr. { } talks about this problem in his Tuesday lecture. Who -- who listened to him? Anybody gone? It -- wasn't this his subject, that the civilians have been put on the side of the enemy, simply, you see, and ne- -- have ceased to be treated as our fellow man?

And that's the question of the universals: because is the general expression, "object," or "enemy," you see -- can it be extended to anybody arbitrarily by one side? After all, when the Japanese entered the war, they assumed that we were Christians. They therefore assumed that we would not bomb a city wholesale. They { }. That was the tacit understanding, so far, you see, in warfare. Now we -- invented something which could only { } we could murder all the women and children, so we did it. But that's a change in -- change in code. And {we} simply did it, because we talked ourselves into the -- our right to use the general term, "object" or "enemy," for anybody living in the country of Japan.

Didn't -- and that's quite unheard-of. Nobody in 1870 or 1865 thought this. You read on the Civil War, and you read all about the chivalry between North

and South. These were your cousins. Do you think that the step-grandson of General Washington, the man who had married his step-granddaughter, General Lee, was an enemy? Simply, he was both. He was an American, he was a brother, and he was a friend, and he was a rebel. And that was very complicated. And all these universals had to be balanced very carefully. And they were not arbitrary, gentlemen. It was the sacred duty of Abraham Lincoln, and it was the tragedy of his assassination, as you know, that this could not be carried through. That we got the carpetbaggers instead of the settlement of the Civil War. And so we had to wait for Governor {Shivers} and the year of the Lord 1952 before we got the end of the Civil War in this country, you see. Ninety years it took them -- 80 years, because nobody {depressed} the arbitrary use by the North of the term "enemy" for the Southern being.

It's very serious, gentlemen. "Universal" is the -- application -- will you take this down, gentlemen? -- of generalizations to parts of the creation in which we move. Now that's very easily handled in chemistry and in physics, because there the things do not talk back. But with regard to God Almighty, with regard to divinity, and with regard to society, gentlemen, it is terribly important, any such expression. When you say of somebody, "dirty Jew," gentlemen, you make for civil war. You may think the man doesn't listen in, but somehow he knows exactly how you speak behind his back. And this is a generalization. And in your -- company, it may just be the use to say so. But that doesn't mean that you are not the Devil's chariot by using this term, and that you are preparing a great catastrophe. And you are.

Or -- these terms are, therefore, gentlemen, the real, decisive decisions between you and the world in which you live. This is decisive because you subsume part of the created universe under some rules you have established. You say, "I meet a Frenchman, I call him a Frenchman." Great. Is it right to call him a Frenchman? Isn't this already jeopardizing your unity? Is -- do you mean an {elder} Frenchman, you see? Is this the best description? {Could} you avoid calling him a Frenchman, as long as you possibly can, and say -- call him "George"? As long as you call him "George," you see, you may cease to be an American. And that may be very good for you, because he -- you make him cease to be a Frenchman. And so there is something third, which you create at this moment, simply by suspending judgment. Can you see this? And by allowing France and America to become relative, instead of staying absolute.

The struggle of the universal, gentlemen, is the whole decision about the relative and the absolute. If you use these -- your generalizations, your little bit of vocabulary which you have inherited from the streets of -- New York, if you think how accidental the ways you call people with their -- with their nicknames. Think of all the -- races and nationalities, how they tease each other in the -- in

the big cities, you see. And if you think how accidental that is, the group whose nickname you inherit, and the nickname which they pin down -- pin on you from the other side, you must understand that man must struggle against the accident of these universals.

We always speak of the "accident of birth," gentlemen. You have heard this expression. But that's -- it's not so accidental. Birth is not accidental. I think if your parents were in love with each other, it's not accident. But the accidental thing which you really mean when you speak of "accident of birth" is the use of the universals which you and your -- the people you meet apply upon each other. That you are called an "American," or that you are called a "New Yorker," or that you are called a "student," that's purely accidental. And that may hurt you terribly, because it gets you together with a group of -- bunch of fellows for which you are -- have no -- cannot be called responsible, you see. You did not pick this environment. You merely mean not even the "accident of environment." I invite you to consider a third rubrum. Neither is birth accidental, nor is environment accidental. But the use of the general terms, which you use for other people, and which other people use for you, that is largely accidental, because the -- you do -- are not meant at all for whom you really are.

I could give you a -- a -- a funny example. This happened yesterday. I have rebelled against the typical intellectual all my life. I have always tried to act, and not just to think. I have made -- my whole life, I could -- if you -- told you my story -- has been an attempt to make action and thought always be coincidence. I have given up many promotions and careers because I did not want to be, so to speak, purely in the hot air of the intellectual life. And yet it happened to me that a -- I -- a man whom I have to respect as a great fellow, because he was angry with me I didn't help him in a thing where I thought I -- it wasn't my business. I said, "I have come to this country. I'm now an American citizen. And you dream there of a German restoration. I am not going to -- to do this."

Well, he got very angry with me and said, "Typical German intellectual."

And I looked him over and said, "It really hurt. I thought we had become friends." It really hurt, because it was the one thing I was pretty sure that I didn't deserve. And that was a universal. From his gratification, you see, it was very simple. He was impatient with me, because I didn't do his bidding, so to speak, you see. And he wanted to say that as far he knew the intel- -- German intellectual, he would never act and always just write books.

And now in my case, this was so funny, because as I said, for the last 40 years, I have always paid cash, and always furnished the goods, and have left the schools and the bookwriting for many decades and -- in order to get into action.

And I -- my resolve not to meddle with German politics was perfectly legitimate, because I feel I am in this country now, you see. And I have turned my back on German affairs. And this wasn't my business. He lives in this country as long as I live now, and he has never ceased to be a German. And so he cannot understand that I'm not, you see, with him in German politics, you see, at this moment.

But I got my -- my universal, you see, and it has of course, in a way finished our friendship, because -- I still respect the man -- and he's a very nice man, but I see that he doesn't see me. I mean, he has classified me, you see, under some generalization that I'm no longer interested in, myself. Inasfar as he sees me, you see, I don't want to be -- to be seen in this way by him.

Well, many of -- you will make many such experiences in your life. I mention it only because it happened yesterday. And it was quite an eye-opener again, what one such generalization, you see, can do to human relations. I -- we no longer see eye to eye, because he doesn't see me, but he has given me a berth within his Pullman car for all German intellectuals. I am no longer interested in myself inasfar as he knows me. Can you understand this? That is a typical universal.

And the question arises, gentlemen, now with regard to the highest, with regard to the divine: how the names of God are necessary or arbitrary. We have three stages. The things, the dead things of physics and chemistry, of furniture, of the metals, of minerals -- can be called one way or another. We have these artificial names for the elements, for example. They can't call. They can't be insulted. And therefore, in the last 400 years, the call of the universal has been silence. The -- call of the universals always becomes very violent when human beings are in -- in -- in jeopardy, and when the question is: is a man really labeled white when instead of giving him an immortal soul and calling him "my brother," to call him by his racial name, or by his religious name, you see, or by his age group? Is it not terrible for a Church to have middle-aged couples, and young married couples, and the teenagers together for religious -- activities? Isn't this the devil incarnate, how we run our churches? I think it is the devil incarnate. It's a wrong universal applied by our church organization.

They are crazy, because they do not teach people to meet despite their -- their different ages, but they teach them to meet because of their same ages. Well, that's no religious reason. That's a physiological reason, or biological reason. And then you can have the tennis club much better for the young, and the bridge club for the old. You call it -- a spade a spade, and don't call it a church.

This is a typical wrong universal. Or an indifferent, I mean, a not thought-out universal. But now with regard to God, gentlemen, in the Middle Ages, of

course, {you} began with theology, {were} much more {touchy}. And I have to try to get your interest awake by showing you that our problem of universals comes by the mutual use of name-calling. When you are allowed to say -- speak to somebody in one way, and to speak of him behind his back in another way, then you -- the question of universals becomes violently political at this moment in this country. Fair -- the fair employment practices, for example.

Let me -- let me go on, you see; I have only a short time.

Gentlemen, all the medieval students and teachers were priests. And they all said Mass every morning. Anselm of Canterbury and Ab‚lard, the great founders of medieval thinking, were religious leaders. And they invoked God. To them, it was a question of life and death whether they invoked by their name the real power, or whether this was just sham and fiction. They could not, for the life of them, ever admit, gentlemen, that nominalism solved any problem.

You must look through the terror of sophistry, which is your curse, because you actually believe that words are just words. Gentlemen, even a doctor today has to call a typhoid fever a "typhoid fever." He cannot back out and say, "That's just a word." If you pin him down, he has to say, "This is appendicitis," because that means that his fellow doctor to whom he commits this man, the hospital has to operate on him. Therefore the word "appendicitis" is a universal which is -- what is it, gentlemen? It teaches you -- I give you -- already the solution -- which is at this moment necessary. The right universal is not saying that any name can be used always. It cannot say that no name can be used ever. It's as with the unjust law and the just law.

The right universal of a doctor, for example, is that according to the state of science at this time and juncture of civilization, we have to call this case "appendicitis," to the best of our knowledge. By our knowledge and conscience, we are forced to give it this name.

Gentlemen, the -- {by the} -- arbitrating the problem of generalizations, man enters the decisions of the historical hour. That's not a classroom decision. That's not something arbitrary. You cannot say, "Which I arbitrarily call God." For 1954 years, people have spoken of the power that has been represented by Jesus as His Father, and of Him as His son, and of the spirit that has emanated from this union, as the Holy Spirit. You cannot say, "What I arbitrarily call `God,'" because that is an historical reality which for the -- at this moment in our Christian era has to be said. You cannot back out of it. If you can, you can then -- fall silent. But you cannot speak at all.

The only way in which you can speak of God is as the triune God. There is no

other way of defining God, because in this hour of history, this is the power which makes us speak to each other. And there is before -- there was the father of -- the God of Abraham, Jacob and -- and Isaac, as you well know, and there have many ways of speaking of God, as a fa- -- creator of the universe.

But gentlemen, a man who says, "Whom I -- what I arbitrarily call `God,'" is an idiot. He's feeble-minded. He doesn't know what he's doing, because gentlemen, you have to invoke the mercy of God when you are in concentration camps and -- are in the process of being poisoned by gas in Auschwitz. And when you are Mr. {Dickinson} now, in court. Or when you are, like Mr. -- General -- who was the general in the -- { } in the -- in the -- in the hands of the Russians? You are idiots, because you -- do not admit that you are living by the grace of God. And you have to invoke this grace in the ear of cruel man. And you have to rely on this. But you are { } apes of the marketplace, { } ever to admit. You think you sit and think out some god which you {claim}. No gentlemen. The power that gives you the power to resist evil -- that's God. And we have learned how to resist evil by one great example, and no other.

So gentlemen, the question for the medieval man was the question of the existence of speech, the existence of thought, the existence of philosophy and theology all told. The question of the universals is the question whether man is a sophist, an advertising man who can say what he pleases, or whether he is an honest man who has to tell the truth. And it begins, of course, with the guarantor of truth. There is no truth if there is no God, because God is truth. You can't get out of it.

So the whole blessing, sponsorship, authority, continuation of the whole life processes of the Western world, and the white man, and the human race in general, by the way -- has very little to do with the white man in fact, it's all -- everybody -- con- -- has to do very much with the restoration of the authority of universals. It is perfectly true, gentlemen, that we have learned to speak of God in the right terms through time. That is, the cave man did not know yet how to invoke God.

So I take care of your tender conscience, which says, "After all not all people have always known God." And therefore you defend, you see, you prohibit yourself the use of God because it's just not scientific. It should be by all -- everybody. That's nonsense. Universals are used by the experts. Appendicitis is not -- something Johnny must know when he has appendicitis. The -- the doctors must know. If you are a priest, an elder of the community, you must know that God has to be invoked by His proper name, as Father, Son and Holy Ghost. If you're a child, if you're just Johnny, and have appendicitis, you don't have to speak of God, of course. You remember our tripartition of the humans -- human being. As

a child, you can of course fend off your responsibility and say, "I'm a playboy. I know nothing, of course." Very welcome, you don't belong in a university. As a fighter, you can fight the { } and can say "these terrible people in Rome" -- or in Wittenberg, or in Geneva -- "they are such Puritans, I have nothing to do with them," it's better to say, "I know nothing of God. I don't use this term. It's a term that in my universal vocabulary doesn't exist."

But gentlemen, if you are an elder in your heart of hearts, if you know that you have to feed your -- your wife and your child, that you are not going to run away from your wife, if you want to assure your wife that you respect marriage as a sacrament, you have to tell her that you believe in God.

I have a friend who was a farmer, a Dartmouth graduate, and a Communist, and rich besides. He was four things which you really cannot be -- ver- -- ver- -- be very well altogether. He married a very pretty girl. And he sent her in 1936 on the route in Vermont to canvass for Earl Brower for president. And she responded by running away with another Dartmouth boy and getting a divorce. And since he was Communist, he had no word to say to her. He could only say to her, "You are right. You can do as you please." And he was very sorry, because he thought he had been married. But he could not invoke any name above her and him, in whose name this marriage was to stand. They were just two different bodies, and they had arbitrarily called their living together a "marriage," and now it was all over in the eyes of the lady, and off she went with another boy.

And this happens when you declare, gentlemen, that name -- nomina are just words. You cannot get married. You cannot become a citizen of the United States. For example, you cannot invoke against the McCarren Act your right as a citizen that you cannot be deported. As you know, they cancel now, the -- your naturalization, which is certainly {bright} injustice. But in an irreligious country, you have no right to recur to God, and to His faith and to say, "Once a citizen, always a citizen, that's bad faith."

"What's faith?" they say. "You have denied faith. You say `faith.' You are absolutely ignorant of faith. This is arbitrary. Everybody has his own faith." {Frightening}.

Without religion, you can't have the civil rights, gentlemen. Without invoking God's majesty, you can have no ministry of justice, no administration of justice, and no administration of anything in this country. But you believe this. And that's why we live today in a terrible age of sophistry. You actually believe that you can agree on what car to buy, but you cannot agree on the existence of God.

Well, obviously very soon they'll steal your car, because what's the difference

between theft and -- and property? If there's no God, there's no difference, absolutely no difference. It's perfectly arbitrary. It is only if your God is sanctified as an expression of the divine truth that I have to believe you. If you say that you say this in the name of truth, I'd better acquiesce, you see, as { }. But if you say, "I have no -- I speak in my own name," I say, "Your own name? You dirty -- hundred pounds of flesh. I don't believe in your carnal man at all, because you're just a bundle of nerves, and of lust, and of appetites. And I'd better run away from you. You're a dangerous man. And your reasons, that's the harlot that serves your own {bank,} { }, your utility. {So you're just a utilitarian}.

You must see this abyss, gentlemen, in order to understand the importance of the problem of the universals. The u- -- problem of the universals becomes more and more urgent the higher up you come to the topic it covers. If -- if we treat of truth and liberty, and God and justice, then it's terribly important that we do not speak arbitrarily. If we speak of things -- of dead things, it is more or less indifferent. Whether you call helium "helium," or whether you call it "silenium," after all, we won't go to war for that, you see, because that is a -- an agreement between parties, you see, and the silenium, and the helium, and the oxygen, and the hydrogen -- they probably are not very interested in our vocabularies.

So now you live in a world, gentlemen, from 1500 to 1950, in which things had to be named. The medieval ma- -- people lived in a world in which divine powers had to be named -- justice, the Church, the state, the courts, the families, the nations, the gods of the various religions at war with each other, the sects, the orthodox -- that was the epoch. Today, gentlemen, we have civil war all over the world. From Viet Minh to Viet Nam, you can then say that's everywhere. That is, Korea -- take North Korea and South Korea. Take Germany -- East Germany and North -- West Germany. Take Viet Minh and Viet Nam. Isn't it terrible? The allegedly unified nations are cut to pieces everywhere. Pakistan and India, similar tragedy. Ridiculous this division, of course.

Pure invention of a civil war, you see. Man is today therefore waking up to a new problem of universals. How do we call each other? Now, gentlemen. This is why the medieval university has much more future than the modern renaissance -- Institute of Advanced Studies in Princeton. That's quite obsolete. That's just for physicists. Who cares for physicists? I mean, they just have to be imprisoned, incarcerated, or kept under control. We need obviously very different people to make peace in this world. You can't do it with physicists.

So gentlemen, the universals are not understood as a serious problem for the last 450 years. At this very moment, they are shooting forward, because we discover now that generalist -- general terms -- generalizations have three applications, three different applications. One is: we invoke in prayer. The second: we

speak of things in general terms. We say, "There are 60 million Frenchmen; 40 million Frenchmen; 100 -- 90 million Russians." We all say this so glibly, as though they were just things, we can number them.

But then we come to men in mutuality, gentlemen, and we speak to each other. There are three ways then of dealing -- having general terms. Speaking to each other: you call me "teacher," then I have to call -- the right to call you "students." So mutually we invoke -- give each other general terms. You call me "old"; I call you "young." And I -- I told you my story, you see. He calls me "a typical German intellectual." My revenge will be that I sign all my letters from now on, you see, "T.G.I." -- typical German intellectual. I'll not allow him to forget his -- his -- his attack, his slander.

You see, the things are called by general terms without rep- -- answer, without their answering. They are {carved off}, spoken of. People speak to each other, and the name you give me is reflected on the na- -- in the name I give you. As it -- how do you say -- as it sounds into the woods? So the echo comes back. You have a proverb of this type in English? I mean, the -- the echo -- if I -- you call me "Professor," I'm willing to call you "Sir," too, you see. The -- generaliza- -- the universals are mutual among human beings. They are arbi- -- seem arbitrary about things, and they are of necessity with regard to the powers under whose guidance we must be placed in order to keep -- speak to each other at all.

Before you can call me "Professor," and I call you "Student," we must already be on speaking terms. The powers that make people live on speaking terms are the powers of the medieval university. They are God. God is the power in whose name men -- people can speak to each other. And you must learn, gentlemen, that about the universals, with regard to the divinity, there can be no quibble. That's not arbitrary. If you think that is arbitrary, you thereby stop all {these efforts} and condemn man to eternal warfare. You don't believe this, I know, because you are practical people and you think that in this country of ours, which has been blessed by a long time of peace, that you just can talk. That you don't -- that the -- the basis is very {slim}. But you all believe in the same destiny of man. You believe in human liberty. And liberty is a guarantee which is only possible if God created you, because gentlemen, if He -- if your liberty is just -- the liberty of a crocodile, or of a basilisk, or of a dragon, I'd better slay you.

You see, when you say you were created free and equal, you always assume that I have to believe that you were not created free as my enemy, but that you were free for a higher purpose which I have to {stomach}. Your freedom must be considered as a blessing to me, isn't that true? As soon as you are just free like a wild animal, I'd better take a pistol and shoot you.

So you always think that when you say, "All men are born free and equal," that settles the issue. Gentlemen, behind this sentence is always a religious freedom, that God wanted you to be free, and that I would put up with your freedom, whether I like it or not. I have not to put up with the freedom of the -- of the moose, you see, or of the wild bear. I may shoot him. I cannot shoot you -- why, Sir? Because God did not create you free and equal, but He created one man of which you and I are just ramifications. {See, it's} much more problematic. God has not created you, and He has not created me. It's not true that God created man free and equal. That is just a secular translation of the Bible, in which it says that God created Adam. That is, He created one man out of whom you and I have sprung. And the real tradition of the human race cannot be replaced by such na‹ve statistical slogans that He created God -- man free and equal, when the whole story is that I have to put up with your stupidity, and your tardiness, and your laziness, and you have to put up with mine, because we are just one, you see, and the same person, divided into so many divisions. Isn't that true?

It's much more serious, gentlemen, and it is no time now to quibble. I want you to know that the question of the universals is the question of the condition of {human thinking}. It's a very serious question. We live today in the time of the sophists, which says that any generalization is arbitrary. "I call this `man.' I call this man a `rational animal.'" That's also pleasantry, you see, and I say that -- any sociological textbook which tells you that it { } it's quite arbitrary. And as I said, students write in a paper for me: "Whom we call arbitrarily `God.'" Gentlemen, if this is true, then go home. And don't pay one cent for any institution of higher learning. It cannot exist. It cannot. { }. And { } haven't believed this all these years. That's the teaching, the {damned} destruction of teaching that has gone on in this country for the last 30 years, that everything the human mind says is just arbitrary.

Gentlemen, you know very well that this is -- you cannot say to your captain in -- in the -- on the battlefield, "You are a coward," unless he is a coward. That's not arbitrary. The same way you cannot say to God {He's anything} arbitrary -- that you call Him arbitrarily God and pat him on the shoulder. It is as if you would call your captain a coward. The -- the father of our -- our { } is not a coward, and he is not arbitrarily called "God" by you, to be sure.

Thank you.