Transcript

{ } = word or expression can't be understood
{word} = hard to understand, might be this

(...10, May 26th, 1954.)

...but I'm going to study it. And we have two more meetings. And so I thought I should first of all introduce you into the relation of Catholicism and Protestantism in this circulation of thought, because it might help you to understand why both branches are Christians, and yet differ in their approach to theology. It is very important for you -- to understand, gentlemen, that the break between Cathol- -- Catholics and Protestants is one in thinking, but not in living. It is not that the Protestant can ever admit that he is not a Christian in the same sense as a Roman Catholic. And it is not in his religion that he differs, but in his theology.

Now for you, it is very difficult to understand that there are three things, gentlemen: religion, theology, philosophy. I have tried to give you an inkling of this by introducing into you -- into the new science of sociology. This whole course is a course on the sociology of knowledge. I have tried to show you that whoever thinks is either a "me," or a "he," or a "we." He's either a child, or an adult, or an elder. An elder says "we"; an adult says "I"; and a child says, "poor me," is told something, or is a "you." Therefore this whole course itself is neither philosophical nor theological, gentlemen. That's important for you now to understand. At the end of the course, you will perhaps have perceived that a man who teaches you on the 10 commandments of education deals with society and the processes of being educated, and of teaching, and these are neither theological nor philosophical problems, but these are s- -- problems of society, of the life of man in society. Therefore this is a course in sociology.

And therefore, we have now -- we should have -- acquired the faculty from an outside vantage point to judge the distinction between theology, philosophy, and religion with you and with all the gentlemen who say "I," when they wake up and think that's the beginning of wisdom: to say "I think." This is all one. The man who says -- begins -- dates his consciousness with the little word "I," is a philosopher. To say "I" first means to philosophize. The child therefore is not a philosopher, because it understands at first the word "listen." It obeys. Therefore somebody else is "I," and the child is the "you" of this "I." He's Johnny, of his mother, his mother's "Johnny." And when he answers, "Johnny is coming," he responds to somebody who has the authority to say "I." And he's not in authority, the child.

So gentlemen, children do not philosophize, because they do not begin their life in the morning with "I." "I" is only in response to obeying, listening, playing, reading, learning; that is, to actions which come to you as the second person of

grammar, by which you respond to commands. I remember you to the -- of the beginning of our whole course, where you quite freely and easily entered upon this problem of the 10 commandments. But now I find that when one -- I asked you to draw the conclusions, you all bark and say again in the good commonplace, common-sense habit of modern -- the modern masses, that your life begins with "I." Gentlemen, you have lived 20 years before you say "I." Therefore "I" is only the second person of experienced life. And it is therefore true that philosophy is always the second movement of the human spirit.

As long as you do not believe this, you cannot understand your place in society. And you don't. And in this country, people are made miserable by this tremendous overweight on the ego. They even ask you to abdicate your ego, and to be self-denying, or altruistic, or how -- all these fantastic terms run, so that you first are -- told you are an "I," and then you are told, "But don't make any use of it. Be altruistic." I am neither egotistic, gentlemen, nor altruistic. When I teach you, I teach you with authority. That is, I teach you so that you may wake up and become persons in this whole orchestra. I have an office when I say "I." A painter who says, "I have painted this," is a delegate of society for painting. He is officially a painter. And that's why he has the right to say "I." An inventor says, "I invented flying." Mr. Orville Wright can say this, because he did something for you and me. We say "I," gentlemen, when we are responsible for something that hasn't been done by anybody else. As long as you, however, think that as playboys you can say "I," you are ripe for the lunatic asylum, and you'll destroy the world. Mrs. Barbara -- Hutton says "I" in the wrong place.

So you are all -- made very miserable, because you think that "I" is the beginning of your existence as a human being. You remember that we said anybody who hasn't played and listened must become a beast like Hitler. Hitler didn't play, and didn't listen, and therefore he had no mercy, no sense of justice, no sense of fair play. Can't learn anything. He's unteachable. Therefore the philosophy of the "I" ends in human cruelty. Quite logically, Hitler comes at the end of 400 years of Renaissance-man thinking where men believe that in order to think, he had to say -- think of himself as "I."

Now gentlemen, in the natural sciences, this is perfectly okay, because we all philosophize about the world together. When a man in science says "I," he means to say that everybody in his place would observe the same facts. That's why he is not the ordinary "I" of your private physiological whims, and poor digestion; but it is the sublimated "I" which the philosophers for this reason have called the "transcendental ego." That is, an exchangeable brain, everybody free from his own passions can see the same thing in nature. The "I," gentlemen, of the last 400 years is rightly spelled with the -- with the capital "I." No harm done as long as you know that this "I" is in harness of a public office. The research man in the

natural sciences is delegated by all mankind to look at one thing and to find out how all men are meant to think about this one thing. That's why it is so dangerous when you call your little work "research," because you don't do research. And therefore it is very terrible that in this country, you little men and I little man are confused and confounded with the people who have the duty and the right to say, "I," because when they speak in the name of all reason and of all minds, fully equipped with everything in the history of science that was done before. The learned ignorance, you remember, the people who are equipped with all the knowledge of all ages, the new Newtons, who can say, "Newton is wrong," because they knew what Newton has said. But when you say, "I think," you have no idea what other people have thought. That's why you can't do research. You can only search.

The man in research is the man who can identify himself with any thought ever thought on the same subject, and therefore then do re-search, and think once more about this. You however, who have never given anything any thought, except your own benefit, and your own profit, or your neighbor's benefit -- you have never thought and felt responsible for the truth about the universe. I mean, you do what you call research, you do not -- you do anything but trying to get by and pass an examination.

And therefore, gentlemen, it is so very difficult to talk to you. I have no piece of crayon, I'm sorry to say. Oh, here it is. The word "I," gentlemen, has two absolutely different meanings. You mistake it for "poor me." "Poor me" is not "I." You are "poor me-s." You are only an "I" when you work in con- -- the continuity of a department of science, when you are philosophizing then, in this sense, that you understand what has been thought before, and try to correct that. And that has nothing to do with your own physical existence from 1935 to 2000. It is completely indifferent to your individual existence, this big "I." That's why a scientist, or an artist, gentlemen, when he says "I," must be utterly free from his own prejudices, from his own environment, from his own passions, from his own likes and dislikes. That's what you call "objectivity."

But you cannot do this, gentlemen, without grave consequences. Today the commonplace "I" makes you think that that "I" which in you works, and the big "I" of a man in authority -- or in trying to get up to authority, the doubter, the protester, and the sufferer, who waits to be then appointed by society, the John Quincy Adams, or Plato, or Newman are already working in you. They are not. No, far from it. You are just children trying to pass an examination, and to convince somebody else that you are doing well, and that your research is right. Gentlemen, the real man who says "I" is at the head of the column, at the -- at the head of the battalion, and therefore he has nobody else who can examine him. You remember what I said about the dangers of research today, that the man in

research has to justify what he is doing to foundations of administrators who have no idea how a new idea must look, that it must look dirty, and confused, and chaotic, and so they -- all these foundations give their money to some clarified statements of people who do not do real research, but walk in the old routines of life and take a pleasant trip to Europe for that, called Fulbright, or Guggenheim, or what else.

All this comes from this confusion, gentlemen: will -- we { } say the "I" philosophizes. Any activity of a physicist, or a chemist, gentlemen, is in this sense philosophy: that the thinker, the speaker, the scientist claims that anybody in the whole history of the human mind would have to think the same thing at this moment in his place. That is only when I s- -- have to -- the right to say "I." In the same sense in the New Testament when Jesus said, "But I tell you, you have heard this-and-this." He doesn't speak there as a private citizen, not at all. He speaks very publicly, until they get Him and put Him to the Cross because He has spoken so publicly that He said, "I'll pay for it. I'll stick my neck out."

It's not an opinion, gentlemen, which is uttered when a man says, "I with full responsibility," but he throws his whole existence behind that what he says. You are far from doing this, when you say something. Next thing I hear you say is, "I said nothing. Don't quote me."

We have spoken of this in other -- but I must now say, gentlemen, that the last 400 years were philosophizing centuries. Philosophy is the unity of all our knowledge about things, about dead things who mo- -- which move, about the changing nature, this strange reality minus speech. Philosophy and the sciences of nature go together. And we use only the word "philosopher" as a kind of bracketing term to include all the various science { } ridiculous always to say "anatomy," "physics," "chemistry," "botany," "zoology." So we have abbreviated it and say, "philosophy."

You won't believe this, gentlemen, but I'll give you an example how true that is, from one little relic in this college. Down to the year 1892 -- before President Tucker became president of this institution -- the globe, and the compass, and the little telescope that -- and the little microscope that were in Dartmouth College -- was very little, what we -- they did here about the natural sciences at that time -- was called the "philosophical apparatus." That is, gentlemen, from 1500 to 1900, in a liberal arts college, the stuff which you now use in the various departments of science were all held together by the title, "the apparatus of the philosopher"; the "philosophical apparatus." Perhaps you take this down, gentlemen. It belongs also into the record of Dartmouth College. I think it's very interesting that just a simple globe and a microscope were all lumped together: anything that had to do with the observation of facts, and was called the "philosophical apparatus."

Can you see this?

Now gentlemen, that is philosophy, where one mind and all minds are -- can be -- may be identified. And that philosophy leads us to say "I" with a capital letter. In all other cases, the word "I" is not truly used. It is much better there to say, "poor me." Or "I -- I'm not so sure." When we say this we mean to say, "Don't quote me. Don't hold it against me, because although now I'll say it, it is really just running like water through my mouth, and like dust through my hair." As we say, talking through one's hat. That's what you mostly do.

Now gentlemen, what is theology compared to philosophy? If I hear you talk, and if I hear even the theologians talk today, they think it is a philosophy. Mr. Reinhold Niebuhr 20 years ago believed that stuff. He has now formally and solemnly revoked, but he was the s- -- in the same heresy as you are. And 20 years ago, he wrote a book in which actually philosophy of Communism and philosophy of Christianity go side by side. Quite an achievement for a theologian.

That is the rank heresy of this country, gentlemen, that they say that Christianity is a philosophy. As long as you don't -- do this, you do -- have no idea that -- that -- what it is to be a living being. You may be a human being, but certainly you are dead, because gentlemen, in order to observe a part of nature, you have to fix yourself with all the other minds in a static position. The observer of facts must detach himself from his own life, we said, from his own passions, from his own prejudices, from his own emotions. Now what does this mean, gentlemen? He must cease to live. Any physicist who goes into his laboratory leaves his personal life at home. Poor man.

That is, gentlemen, the modern monks, the modern ascetics are our scientists. They have abandoned life, love, hope, faith -- all in -- in order to be able to act as the points of fixation so that these things can throw themselves against their five senses and their instruments like waves against breakers. And it is this sacrifice, gentlemen, which is found in Martin -- Arrowsmith, or similar books. You know Martin Arrowsmith? Who does? Well, the whole book is around this fact that he ceases to live. That's the problem of his marriage and everything else. A scientist, gentlemen, is a monk, is the modern form a monasticism. He renounces his own life in order to have the right to say "I," because as this "I," he has a much bigger life, you may say, or a different life, the life of the mind. But he hasn't his own life anymore.

So gentlemen, the philosopher does not live his own life. Or he is not a philosopher. Because, gentlemen, we can only serve things when we become like them. When you deal with things, you have to become a thing yourself. And

that's called the mind. The mind is that immovable, identical thing that actually believes that A is not A -- A -- A doesn't equal B, A cannot be non-A. The first thing in life is of course that A is not A, you see. The -- the sentence of con- -- contradictions on which you base all your pride in logic is not true in life, because there it begins with the simple fact that the same man is one thing and another. But in science, that isn't true. In science, you get as fix- -- much a fixation in your mind as you get the thing before you. You want to shoot at a thing, and so you have to acquire one quality of the thing: sameness. The thing is A, and you are -- have therefore to become B.

So gentlemen, to -- to think scientifically is a sacrifice of your own personality, of your own life. Therefore it is not Christianity, because Christianity is the good life. Christianity is life everlasting, and abundant life, and how -- all these terms is. That is, one thing certainly: it's not a leaving of life, but a living of life. It is certainly not meant in Christianity that we get a fixation and stare at any one thing, but that we go on from one thing to -- one phase of life to another, that we are young, and old, and adults, and that we live the 10 commandments of education, for example. That would be a Christian life, wouldn't it? And anybody who lives only one command is mutilated -- mutilated -- is cramped compared to the man who can live through all the 10 commandments of education.

So a man who, in young years is sed- -- seduced by progressive education to have a laboratory of his own and then remains in the laboratory for the rest of his life certainly is stultified. Any child prodigy has this danger, as you know, of entering upon one command, "Doubt," or "No," or whatever it is, you see, only, and then gets stuck and never outgrows this one phase. That's the tragedy of the child prodigy.

So philosophy, gentlemen, is indifferent to the good life, because it wants to -- what does it want? -- to analyze life. In order to be the analyst of life, you have yourself to stop living. Otherwise you can't analyze. Nobody can analyze and live and the same time. So you either love your patient and cure him, and run away with him and get married, or you receive $50 for each session on your couch, and analyze this patient until he and you are dead. There is -- so this distinction between a psychoanalyst, and a -- and a -- a healer, a personal healer, a friend. A friend lives with his person, and they go on from the process of ani- -- animisis or talking it out to the next step. Then they have a meal together. And then they go to the theater together. And then they go on a journey together. And then they meet other people. That's real living. But if you have a professional analyst, you pay him for every meeting. So he -- and you don't live together. It's the money between you that prevents that.

Wherever you have, gentlemen, departmental thinking, you have philosophy.

And wherever you have philosophy, you have a stopping -- stoppage of life, of life's stream, because in real life, gentlemen, you constantly change from "you" to "I" to "we" to "it" or "he." And in departmentalized life, you all the time remain the big ego, the expert, you know who knows, and you get your objects who are told what they are and are analyzed by you. The philosopher has a fixation as "I," because his objects also have a fixation as "its." If you have 10 cases as a lawyer, or 10 cases as an analyst, or 11 elements as a chemist, these elements, because they are just objects, force you to -- all the time to be their subject, their "I." You are the man who knows. And they are the things which you know. And that is not to be changed. There never will come a time where oxygen tells a chemist who he is.

Now life, however, gentlemen, real life consists in this -- of this wonderful and risky business that one day you get up and tell me, and the other day I get up and tell you, and we never are sure who is going to do what. Therefore politics is real life, because now they tell somebody who thought he could tell the others at this very moment in this country. And that's why politics is so ali- -- much alive, because you never can tell what happens tomorrow. But if you had a dictator, or if you had a {G- -- GPU} or a real FBI, Mr. McCarthy would be all the time the man who told us, and -- examined us. There would be nobody who could examine him. And that would be then a fixed situation, and that would mean that you have the Russian situation in which the party is all the time the expert, and the 199 million Russians are all the time the guinea pigs. That is science.

Gentlemen, Russia is a philosophical country. And the terrible thing about you is that you nearly are in the same boat. Not quite, as present America fortunately shows. Nobody here in politics allowed to play the expert as though it was chemistry or physics. There will always -- somebody who says, "Mister, who are you?" As soon -- long as an expert can be called down, you see, on the carpet, we still are in a living universe. Can you see this? Because there is -- he has spoken out of court. He is -- he is called into being and called out of being. He changes his role. He is not an eternal "I," and he has not in front of him an eternal nature.

So philosophy, gentlemen -- I have to ask you to understand this -- is specialization. Philosophy is always specialization, that one thing always is to be met as a thing, and the observer is always to be on the throne of the mind. There are mental thrones in philosophy. And the rest is at their feet.

Now we turn to theology, gentlemen. And finally a word about religion. In theology, we have not a universe of things, but we have a universe of people in authority and people who obey. That is, you have -- need theology today, because even you occasionally have to obey, or -- when -- in the worse places

today, the poor teachers have to obey the children. I know such places. It's horrid, but it happens. And in many families, the parents obey the children. That would still need a theology, because the children would have then to be told when they abuse the authority over their parents, and when not. There are living beings on both sides, where there is authority, gentlemen. Do you understand that Dartmouth College is -- has authority over you. It can sever you -- severe -- sever you -- your ties with the college, can it not? As long as this is possible, you are not a thing for Dartmouth College, assaulted in a laboratory. But you are under their authority. And the Dartmouth authorities have to do their duty by you.

You just have to think of the { } case. This { }, this poor boy who was killed here. The authorities there were in authority. They had to do something about it in order to recognize that the people who did it, and the man who suffered it both were Dartmouth students. And that needs a theology. That is, people in authority must know how far their authority goes. Remember what we said about the medieval university: always a question of authority. Unjust law, just law; marriage by the tribe, or marriage by the -- persons themselves; epidemics; the common faith; discipline. All these problems have nothing to do with philosophy, gentlemen, because they entail the situation that both sides are people, but that one is responsible for the other. A doctor is in authority; an anatomist is a scientist. Therefore a doctor can never be just a scientist, because he must tell you to get operated. There he uses his authority, you see. That's not knowledge, you see. That's authority.

And that's why modern anatomy came after medieval medicine, because first you have to treat people, and then you can embellish this treatment by knowing a little more about the bones, and the muscles, and the nerves, the things that build up your body. But to treat a man, for this you have to be a doctor, you have to have a degree of a university. You have to free your mind from the slavish idea that you have to act one way or the other. I told you, to be a professional man means to be free, you see, from any one jargon, to know that at this very moment, you have to make a new decision. He is a quack who thinks that every illness -- every case of one illness has to be treated in the same way every day. And he may have the title "Professor." He still is a quack. A doctor is only a man who can see a patient and say, "All 99 cases before, I've treated this way. This hundredth case I must treat differently." If he cannot say this, he has ceased to be a good doctor. Can you understand? Because he must know that at this moment, he has to use his authority straight from Heaven. He must incarnate the miracle of his own free decision. If he just repeats what's in the book, you don't have to go to him. You can go to the slot machine, put in a dime, and get the operation.

You don't believe all this because you are -- totally philosophized. Gentlemen,

put it down: theology is a theory of authority. Philosophy is a theory of things.

Now religion is your own attitude towards yourself and your neighbor. Everyone has a religion, whether this religion -- is articulate or not because mo- -- we all are tied to certain routines. And these routines are inherited, or drain- -- trained into us, gentlemen, or they are re-acquired by your own heart. That is, most people in this country represent all the superstitions of the last 7,000 years. If I would analyze you and investigate your religion, you -- I would probably find 52 different degrees of religiousness. They are few among you who have taken this problem of being in your own ruts seriously, and have tried to master this. And they have a -- a real religion of their own. They have their religion. But most people are under just some religion.

In this country, as you know, by this idea of philosophy, and everybody his own thinker, we have a complete relapse into Stone Age religions. The Kentucky county, the miners worship the snakes, the rattlesnakes. And when a -- a husband there was bitten by the snake -- I know the story myself -- the wife prevented the doctor to cure him, because he -- since the rattlesnake had bitten him, he was a sinner. And so he had to die. That happens and -- by white -- and these are white-bread Ameri- -- white people -- white Americans. In Virginia, when a -- man dies, all the women in the family go into labor and -- in travail and get him into Heaven by giving birth to his soul. These are Scotch Presbyterians in West Virginia who do that.

So gentlemen, people who are so proud of their "I-s," of their philosophy are the most prone to the dirtiest and most stupid superstitions. There is more superstition in this country than anywhere else in the world today, because you have told people they are all their own philosophers. Nobody can do that. That's too much. You are not so powerful that you can. And therefore, you have today this victory of the Pentecostal sects in the South, and all the -- Jehovah's Witnesses, and all the damned sects in Ca- -- Los Angeles. And there is no more superstition anywhere in the world, as I told you, than in this country. Because, gentlemen, when you think that you are a philosopher, not in a department of life, and not with regard to things, but also with regard to authority, then you will always become unconscious of the authority which you serve.

Take this down, gentlemen: the people who think to know things means to know how to live always ignore the club of the authority which they serve. These women in West Virginia, of course, their husbands were all free masons. So these people needed some mourning, some form of -- of -- of deep regret. And so when this mother -- I know this special case -- lost her son in an air -- air accident -- airplane accident at the Air Force of the United States Army, she -- and her daughter and her sister -- just went to bed and strampeled it out three

days. And gave birth to his immortal soul. That's something that the old Stone Age Indians do, too. And there we can even admire it as a symbolic action of -- of getting it out of your system. But the tragedy is not that the West Virginians -- did this, gentlemen, but they didn't know, you see, that they were relapsing into Stone Age ritual, because they couldn't stand the philosophical freedom of an independent American of today.

Now theology then, gentlemen, is the question of authority. It is -- theology is the re-founding of authority. I remind you, gentlemen, that theology begins with Ab‚lard and Anselm with the simple question. A father confessor comes to Anselm of Canterbury and says, "My parishioner says, `My sin is so dark that even God cannot forgive it.' What shall I answer him?"

And Anselm says, "Tell him that God is greater than all his concepts about God. And that therefore God can forgive him."

Now gentlemen, there you have a typical theological situation. The father confessor, it is not free in his authority. He thinks that he has to tell this sinner that he is a sinner, you see. But Anselm of Canterbury reminds him that the incarnation can never be proven by argument. And that it has to happen before the eyes of this parishioner that a priest believes in the greater goodness of God, at this very moment -- now, here, not just theoretically -- and takes it upon himself to say, "If you believe, and if you are allowed to be bound to me by my authority and your obedience, I can help you, because I can open your eyes to the fact that for a free man, there is always a way out, always a way beyond your intrications, a way beyond your fetters and your -- bound-" -- how would you say? "Boundedness"? Can you say that? No. What's the -- being bound, I mean, your being imprisoned -- in the prison of your own shortcomings?

(Limit. Limitation.)

Wie?

(Limitations.)

Oh, that's too -- "boundedness" is much stronger than "limitation," Sir. What's limitation? Statute of limitation, I mean. I wanted a stronger word. What?

(Bondage.)

Bondage. That's the word. Bondage.

So gentlemen, the authority which Anselm gave the living priest is the fou- --

cornerstone of medieval theology, and to find for every one case the proper answer by which the man in authority, in any par- -- parish of the land, or of America, or of -- Europe for that matter, is able to speak up to the soul in bondage, and to free her. That is the riddle of theology. It's the same we saw about the law. Justice is not what is written in the law, or in the Constitution. Our Constitution is unjust today, because it does not mention certain things like the passport, or the free movements of the United States, so you can get signs in California: "No Ozark admitted"; and you can get the state department denying you a passport, and not allow Maurice Chevalier to come to this country to act. Because it so happens by accident that the Constitution does not mention these two problems.

Now gentlemen, if the Supreme Court of the United States or if you yourself in your -- in your scientific mind and objective mind say, "Yes, because it is not written in the Constitution, it cannot be law. It cannot be right," then you have forfeited the right to be in authority as a voter, or as a party, or as a leader of people, because justice is equally free today as it was yesterday. And you have to find what is right in 1954, regardless of what's written in the Constitution when there is just a gap, when the people didn't think of it. You can't stand by and say you don't care for this passport question. Gentlemen, it's a question of life and death of the policy of the United States. For the last 300 years, every American was a messenger of good will around the world. And at this moment, we allow the government of the United States to prevent you and me from being that, because we are suspect. Every 160- -- all 160 million Americans at this moment are suspect in the eyes of their own government. So they -- government says, "I first have to scrutinize you before I give you passport." That's a complete reversal, a complete revolution, a total reverse of the idea of government in this country, because the idea of government was that everybody can be trusted except the government. And now you have the theory that nobody can be trusted except the government.

That's the Constitution of the United States. And I deny that this is any human behavior which you show. You all are for the abolition of all the civil liberties at this moment. You think it's -- McCarthy is a good man. Well, gentlemen, you must know what you're doing. You live in a different country than the country -- that -- existed when I came to this country. And I'm certainly a citizen second-class. I can be deported. Do you think that has anything to do with the natural rights of a citizen in the United States? The McCarren Act has created a -- a governmental citizenship, at the whim of the government.

Everything is topsy-turvy, because you have not even known that government is not knowledge, and not opinion, and not scientific, but it is just, and justice has to be reborn every minute. It doesn't exist in anything written. It

doesn't consist -- insist -- exist in the Constitution of the United States, gentlemen. That's a scrap of paper. It has to be interpreted. You must know what -- justice in your own heart before you can read what the -- what the people tried to say. You have to trust that you meant justice and they meant justice. And that the words written at that time, you see, cannot be in conflict with your sense of justice.

So gentlemen, you need a theology and not a philosophy to interpret the relation of authority to the people who have to obey. Whether a father can kill his child, or has to educate it and bring it up, that's never a philosophical question. That's a question of his authority and the limitations -- here, I will use this term -- of his authority. And we all know very well that a child has a claim against his parents. But why do we know this? We know they have made this conscious to us by theology. And you don't need theology if this is your religion. That is, if you have the habit of doing this.

Theology gentlemen, then steps in where people are uncertain about their religion. Theology is the conscious theory that corrects a religion going astray. Philosophy is the theory -- the conscious theory applied when technicians don't function. Philosophy comes when a pump doesn't get you water. Then you have to go the scientist, the physicist, and he says how to build the pump so efficiently that it will do this. All modern, natural science, gentlemen, helps the technician to do better towards the things that wait to be used. The soil: the agricultural chemist tells you what phosphate to use, what lime to use on this soil. But the farmer tilled the soil before he had his practice, as we say it.

So gentlemen, where there is authority, you have religion. Where there is work, you have practice. And you need to improve your religion, theology; and you need -- to improve your practices, you need natural science. Science is the step that frees man from routines in his practice of work. And so philosophy enlightens our work. Theology improves our habit, our ties -- "religion" meaning the ties which we work with the rest of the world, with our children, with our friends, with the government, with the society. That's religio, to be bound to. And theology corrects the part -- the religion that falls down on the job. Theology improves religion. Science improves practice. Practice of work.

So gentlemen, wherever we work, we are dealing with things. Wherever we command, we are dealing with authority. So in the same factory, gentlemen, you have workers, and you have work. For the work, you need science. But for the workers you need authority. And people have mistook this, and they have tried to pay the -- the worker by the wage -- by the hour only, and so you get the unions who now try to fill the gap between the authority of the -- of the management, and the individual worker, and put themselves in a -- as an authority in

between them.

But in a wild state of -- of science in the 19th century this whole problem of authority over the worker was totally overlooked. They coul- -- didn't see that this was the theological problem. They -- people thought: technology's just scientific. You pay a man 60 cents per hour, or whatever it is, you see, and he behaves like water and gas. And he has to, otherwise he starves. That was the id- -- idiotic idea of the 19th century, which was drunk with science and thought that you could run a science -- factories scientifically.

Gentlemen, with regard to electricity, you can. With regard to steel and -- and wood, you can exploit these raw materials scientifically. But with regard to the workers, you cannot. So they lost all their money they made usually in strikes. And they were very much surprised that these wicked workers did strike. But a wicked worker is a human being, and he knows that when there is authority, authority must stand corrected by theology. It cannot be -- stand corrected by science or philo- -- the -- the sum of all science by some philosophy. You can have a philosophy about how to breathe in this hall, or how much work to do per diem.

But gentlemen, your philosophy is -- is totally uninteresting with regard to me. I defy your philosophy. Woe to you if you try to deal with me -- deal me -- with me philosophically. That's your arrogance. You really think that it helps you to have a philosophy when it comes to proposing to your girl. My dear man, how to propose to your girl is always in defiance of your whole philosophy. All philosophers become ridiculous when they have to propose to a woman. The ancients, as you -- the ol- -- old Christians in Middle Ages, as you know, they depicted Aristotle on all fours being ridden by a very beautiful harlot, { }, because they wanted to show how a philosopher is completely unable to manage a woman, but she's very able to manage him.

She put herself in authority, because he did not know that the problem between a husband and woman is one of reciprocal authority. He -- the philosopher thinks there is no such thing as authority. He doesn't know even what -- the -- the word "authority" is not found in any philosopher's vocabulary, you can say. Where it is found, it comes from theology, smuggled in. Of course, some philosophers actually have had to speak about authority. They couldn't help it. But then they were crypto-theologians. Hegel, for example, is such a man, you see. Hegel was just a -- a minister in the dress of philosopher. A preacher. So is Marx, an old prophet, putting on the garment of science.

"Authority," gentlemen, is a word not found in philosophy, but it is the reason why you need a theology, because we all claim to a certain extent all -- every

minute either to be under your authority and to be taken good care of, you see, or to have authority and have the right to take care of you. Nobody is ever without claiming authority or suffering authority. And it is your great fallacy that you think that isn't so. You really think that "I" is I. Never was there a greater lie. The only people who are constant "I-s" are to be found in our lunatic asylums. They are so cut off from the rest of the world that they constantly say "I." And they cannot be reached by anybody else. They are called catatonics.

I just read a story of a -- the sister of one of the leading psychiatrists -- perhaps he was a psychiatrist for this reason -- of Europe. He was the head of the greatest mental asylum in the heart of Europe, in Switzerland. This man had a sister who was a catatonic. And she was so insensitive to the rest of the world that his children used to climb up and down her -- her body, and she would remain completely indifferent. She was "I" for herself, and the rest were all things. And these -- these children were -- just ants. She couldn't help that. They were ants, they were bees, they were some -- some insects. And that's the temptation of the philosopher, gentlemen, to think of the rest of the world as just world; and his mind being the only one, you see, that has the antidote of fixation, of attention, of observation, of analysis.

Now gentlemen, from this vantage point of having now separated theology and philosophy I hope successfully again, I want to enter upon the story of Protestantism. Protestantism is the attempt to make every Christian into a theologian. That is, it is the attempt to unify the triangle between parishioner, priest, and theologian, and to say to the individual Christian, "You can be your own theologian." That this is not recognized comes from the fact that Luther called this business u- -- the "universal priesthood."

That is, if you take these -- this triangle, gentlemen, here is the layman. Or the individual Christian. Here is his priest. I told you that theology is the way of the priest for his case to an expert, when he gets stuck, and this reporting back of the theory of the theologian to his case, to the layman. So the theological process goes from priest, to theologian, and back to layman.

In Protestantism, this collapses. It's a short-circuit. Just as today in mathematics, you think you can learn enough mathematics so that you can spare the expert mathematician. A great mathematician told to me, and said to me in despair -- just to make the comparison very clear, gentlemen -- he said, "There are at -- in a living science, of mathematics, perhaps 100 or 120 mathematicians who make new mathematics, in which the science is the growing poi- -- at the growing point of doctor -- of learned ignorance, where these people are really, you see -- feel the responsibility of renewing the whole thought of mathematics. But in America, there are 12,000 professors of mathematics, and the public thinks that

they are all mathematicians. But they are just professors of mathematics. They teach what other people have created. And it's a tremendous error in this country," and he says it leads on. As I said, this man is a very famous mathematician. He says it goes on. Since there are 12,000 professors of mathematics erroneously considered to be mathematicians, the students of these mathematicians and the laity think that they can buy for 5 cents a book on mathematics and know it.

And we -- we have, as you know, the mathematics of the commonplace, of the millions. And we have this state, you see, where everybody thinks that he can know this whole field of human endeavor in five minutes. You remember this whole course of events from the source to the ocean. At the source, you see, one man or two. Later on it becomes a brook. Later -- then it becomes science. Then it becomes education. And at the rate of the commonplace, you see, nobody has to give any -- much time to it, and everybody has it at once.

Now that is the story of Luther, gentlemen, and Melanchthon. The detour via the priest and the theologian all the time in the 400 years had been curtailed, abbreviated more and more. And people had tried to say that more and more people could participate in this theological instruction. And finally, Luther said, "Why not say, `Every soul can be her own theologian'?" And so you get in Protestantism, gentlemen, in Luther and his friend Melanchthon, you get this strange situation that theology becomes commonplace.

So you take this down, gentlemen, as a formula to think further: Protestantism is that moment in the history of faith where the correction of religion is not -- is put into the hand of every member of the religious group. Protestantism is not a new religion, gentlemen. But it is a new, social -- {sociological} form of theology. That's very important that you should understand this, because it's the condition today to make peace between Rome and Wittenberg -- and Geneva. Calvinism, Protestantism, Baptism, whatever you take. And it's high time that we do this. We cannot afford any longer in the year 1954 to believe in the eternal separation of Roman Catholics and Protestants. I think that's -- is a crime. And people who do this -- just don't know what a luxury they afford themselves. In a world in which nine-tenths of the people believe nothing, you can't -- the one-tenth cannot split itself into 10 different groups and say -- of each other they don't believe in anything.

I have a very dear Catholic friend in -- in my hometown who actually thinks because I am not Roman Catholic, I'm not a Christian. And on the other hand, I have met here the minister of this church -- the previous one, not this one -- and he gave notice in the church services that all the Christian churches were united in this and that. And so we asked him after the service, "The Catholics, too?" And he said, "Of course, not."

Now gentlemen, as long as this terrible -- such terrible talk goes on, on both sides, that the one and the other say the other are not Christians, you -- we are sinning. It's a crime, because that means then, as you have heard it say, that all the Roman Catholics -- including Mr. McCarthy -- suspect all the Protestant clergy of being Communist, because if -- if there is no distinction between -- Catholicism, you see, and -- only this distinction that the Catholics are the Christians and the others are not, or vice versa -- that the Christian churches are all Protestant, a the Romans are not -- then you only have black and white. And that's not the story of America. This is a Christian country regardless of its denomination.

So it's high time, gentlemen, that somebody should put Protestantism and Catholicism in its time sequence. The time sequence is that Protestantism completes, not the religious, but the theological cycle that was started with Anselm of Canterbury, that what in Anselm and Ab‚lard was done by the few for the priests, that was given in Protestantism to everyone. But the content -- the correction of the Christian religion, is exactly the same. Now you can choose -- pick and choose and say, "I don't believe that everybody is capable of doing this." Or on the other side, you can say, "He is capable, and the abuses of the clergy are too great, so every Protestant must act on his own conscience." I don't care, but you must understand what the decision is all about. The decision is about theology, but not about religion.

That's why the Puritans were just as good monks as the people in the 4th century of our era. They were Puritans -- pure of heart not only, but also very ascetic. And the Methodists again. There's absolute no difference in their religion, with the religion of the 5th century of our era. But there's all the difference in their theology. That is, in the theory and the forms in which the existing religion every day has to be revitalized and corre- -- self-corrected, because people always relapse into superstitions.

Nine-tenths of the members of any religious group do not come up to the faith of that religious group, but are superstitious, you see. Isn't that true? Every- -- everybody knows this. It's so funny that nobody says it. Everybody knows that out of -- 99 out of the 100 people you meet in a church are not up to the requirements of their faith. They're just before that. They're children. They are superstitious. They are Old Testament people. They are pagans. Whatever you take it. Stone Age Indians. But they certainly are not what they proclaim -- what the Church proclaims their member -- its members are meant to be. We all are that way. I am not any better. Occasionally we come up to the full meaning of that group to which we go in order to worship together. It is terrible, however, that you -- really think that the group -- group's means of improving the religion of its members, you see, is completely the same as the actual behavior of these

members. That isn't true. Ja?

(Sir, how would you classify the Jewish religion? Does that stand apart from these two { }?)

Now, Sir. We have talked about this privately. I am very willing -- I would -- go into this. But not at this moment. I have one-and-a quarter of a meeting; forgive me. I mean, it's very -- you can answer it yourself.

You see, there is no mission in Jewish life. And otherwise everything is the same, you see. There's no expanse. But otherwise, you see, inside the groups, of course, the religious problem is exactly the same.

Now gentlemen, Luther lives from 1483 to 1546. And his colleague, the second, on whom we have to -- of whom we have to think is Philipp Melanthon. You can write it with a -- without the -- in the shorter form he uses in the later life, Melanthon. Philipp Melanthon. Very important man, because he's responsible for the whole re-organization of the modern universities. He's responsible for the catechism and the Sunday school. He has invented these instruments of torture.

And he lives from 1497 to 1560. Now gentlemen, again -- I want you to understand that dates of life are very important. He comes half a generation after Luther. He was 19 years old when Luther was 34, that is, in the -- at the prime and the acme of his life. When Luther was already challenging pope and emperor, he just began to teach, at -- the age of -- ripe age of 21, he was a professor of Greek in Wittenberg.

And so, this problem of a half-generation is something I can only mention here, but it's very important. Terribly important. With Goethe and Saint-Simon, you have a similar relation -- difference of 11 years. You have a -- such a relation between Paracelsus and Copernicus. Gentlemen, a half-generation is in the life of the intellect as big as a whole generation -- 30 years -- in the life of physical parents and children. And let me say on the side, I mention this because at this ca- -- in this case you can study it. Gentlemen, every educational institution lives by half-generations. Every college of the -- in the land and every school has to be re-founded every 15 years. There is no such thing as an identical Harvard after 15 years. You believe it, and your faith keeps the fiction up. But go to John Hopkins. That was the most famous medical school in the -- in America. They still say so. But John Hopkins has to be re-founded every 15 years. So has this -- this college to be. That's why I would limit the -- the -- the tenure of a -- any college president to 15 years, not because I -- begrudge him his task, but -- he can be re-appointed, the same man -- but he has to re-found the college, because gentlemen, in 15 years the mind, which works twice as quick as the body, has to, you see, in a new

situation find new means of expressing the spirit.

Now, this was true in Melanchthon's case, because if you compare Luther and Melanchthon, Luther lives the life of a layman. And Melanchthon invents the techniques for all laymen. Can you get this? Luther had to live the life -- a life beyond the monastery. He marries. He teaches. He has children. He -- he is in politics. He is the first layman, and this symbolized in the fact that the first man's birthday that is celebrated in christendom is the 10th of November, day of St. Martin, because it's Martin Luther. He was born on that day. And all people before were celebrated for the day -- day of death. The -- all the saints' days stand in the calendar because the saint died on this day; but that you have the 4th of July, that you have George Washington's birthday, that you have Lincoln's birthday, that all is Protestant -- invention. There has been, with one exception, I have to admit, {with Charlemagne}...

[tape interruption]

...king's -- the king's birthday. In this country, the birthday of the Constitution, or of George Washington's birthday, or Lincoln's birthday. Gentlemen, to celebrate birth is -- was the expression by which Luther said, "Every man born is a theologian." That is, everybody born has the highest authority to correct authority. This is how queer this -- this whole triangle looks. Will you -- this is queer, but perhaps it's worth your while even to retain it, gentlemen, in writing, that every man born from woman in Protestantism is apt to correct authority -- is an authority apt to correct authority.

You know, the forerunner of this was Jeanne d'Arc, who defied the authorities of the Church and was -- claimed that he had the right to correct ecclesiastical authority. But Luther, so to speak, makes this the law of the land. That's Protestantism. Protestantism is that the individual Christian is a theologian, or must try to become one. Now, Melanchthon, gentlemen, has put this into form. He has invented the catechism. And he has published a big book, Loci Communes, The Commonplaces of Theology. Now you'll remember that I told you that every science, every branch of knowledge must run down into becoming commonplace. Well, in Melanchthon's life, in 1521, he was the first to articulate the term "commonplace," which you inherit from him. Melanchthon was the man who said it: "Theology now must become commonplace." Theology was for the genius. Then it was for the scholar. Then it was for the educated man. And in Melanchthon, it was claimed that it had to be the -- the property of every Christian. You understand? Is this clear about commonplace? The book is called On the Commonplaces of Theology." And your use of the word "commonplace" was then created in the year 1521. Before, nobody knew what it means to be commonplace.

In this moment, you all, so to speak, who believe in commonplace, you are all Protestants. Even the Roman Catholics are in this country. They can't help it. Commonplace is the law of the land in this country. Everything is commonplace, as you know. And everybody tries to be commonplace.

(Doesn't the ability to correct the theology -- correct religion, doesn't that -- in correcting authority. That's what you're { } deny, aren't you?)

Well, theology is the pow- -- power -- theory how to correct authority. And if you become a theologian, you claim the authority to correct authority. Theology is something in the books, it's a state of affairs, a science. But you, as a theologian, you see, if every layman is a theologian, he says, "I -- my conscience is the highest authority."

(Isn't there a danger there of {the philosophy branch} of becoming {the theology branch}?)

Wonderful. Ja. Very true. That's why the outcome today of Protestantism has often been said to be that the -- all people have become philosophers. But it isn't inherent in the statement of Luther, or Melanchthon, because Luther was very clear about man as a servant or a commander. He wrote, as you know, the famous book on the human will as the servant and as a master, { }. And he said, "We either obey or we command. Nobody just indicates or observes."

So you see, once you, however, switch over to the theory that man is just looking at life, you see, then you become a philosopher. Now -- that you cannot say of a Protestant that he believes this, as far as he is a Protestant. But it is true that -- that coincident -- or from contemporaneously with Luther of course, the scientists said, "Let us not be either Catholics or Protestants, but observers of facts." So this third group begins right there. In this sense, there is a connection. But with regard to Luther and Melanchthon, they belong into the Christian, theological, ecclesiastical cycle as the state of commonplace, you see.

But once they had done this, Paracelsus and Copernicus, of whom we already spoken, you see, said, "We choose quite another path. Nature cannot be regimented by authority, you see. We cannot prescribe rules to things we do not even understand. We first have to look into the matter," you see, "and know how the matter moves." But that is not with regard to human beings, which -- at that time, and shouldn't be today. But all dead things have to be observed -- experimented with, before we can use them -- you understand the difference? It's a different horizon. You look into the world of things, and you become philosopher. But if you move -- would move within the world of your community and your family, you ask, "Who is an authority, and how should this authority be

used?" Take the simple fact, gentlemen, it's very burning: when a parent gives orders, he is in authority, it should be obvious that he must make the child understand that the father is not giving the orders for his own personal aggrandizement, but he gives them, because the spirit demands that he should give this order, you see. So you must make clear that he and his children live under the same spirit. This is un-understandable in Dartmouth College.

Yesterday some boy came and said to me that he -- there were 50 boys sitting in this room, and he said this literally -- and he meant it: they had 50 different spirits. Now, this heresy, you see, is rampant among you. You actually think that -- every brain of yours contains a spirit. But gentlemen, the spirit which contains you here is of course that which brings you all into the same room, makes you all listen. You may be reluctant, recalcitrant against this spirit. But the fact is that if you have -- are not of one spirit, I could not speak in one tongue to all of you. You can only understand this if at this very moment you are trying to be of one spirit. But that's the usual heresy in this country. Everybody is his own philosopher, everybody says his little "I" is coinciding with the research "I," you see, of one man who thinks for all. And you actually think -- this man didn't even laugh at his own stupidity. And he thought that every one of you has a different spirit.

I said, "Of course I know the -- the real constitution of the United States is anarchy, mental anarchy." And that's {true}, you see. You don't know whose servants you are. You all are servants of the devil, if you believe that you have your own spirit. Perhaps you are.

But to believe that you, little creatures, are powerful enough to -- to harbor one separate spirit, that's really quite something. There is only one spirit, and there's now -- no many. And the others -- all the multiformity of spirits is -- is diabolical, demonic. As I said, the man who says "I" all the time is in a mental asylum. He tries to have his spirit to himself, and he goes to pieces.

But test yourself. You really don't know what you say when you say, "Everybody has his own spirit." It's ri- -- utterly ridiculous and it stops all thinking, and it shows that you are all -- have given up the spirit, because if -- the spirit is that power which makes you think, for example, that you are all independent. Now every one of you thinking that you have an independent spirit, obviously it is just like identical twins. You all think this same nonsense. You -- this spirit of nonsense is -- is dominant over you. If 52 people think everyone has the same spirit, they obviously have the same spirit -- they have their own spirit. The spirit is -- is what makes you think.

Now, I can't go unfortunately into this, but I want to say one thing. The commonplaces of Melanchthon and the catechism are something that has noth-

ing to do with religion, gentlemen. I think that religion, in order to be revived, should give up the catechism, and the reading of the Bible, and the -- specially the -- the -- this -- bull sessions on the existence of God. You can never recapture your own sense of religion by discussion, or by learning -- by answering questions, or by learning anything by heart, by rote. These are three impediments to -- to discovering what your religion is. And I think most people today so completely mistake theology for religion that the only sal- -- salvation for you would be to throw out all your theology, all your cheap reasoning about things you have no understanding of and no access to.

But in the eagerness of Melanchthon, that everybody should have this precious pearl of theology himself, today Protestants and Catholics I think teach their children far too much theory, far too much theology. At a time when it makes no sense to them. So I am -- believe that the Sunday school prevents grown-up Christianity in this country. It's childish. Utterly childish and utterly nonsensical. I haven't found the final solution certainly, either, but I want to tell you only that you must know about Luther and Melanchthon, because at this moment, the Catholics and -- and Protestants are both in the same boat, that they want the children to know too much in the abstract about religion. Now to know about religion is not to have religion.

I had a discussion some years ago in a -- in a -- in a -- in an army camp with a man from Manhattan College who studied for the priesthood. He could recapitulate all the arguments for the existence of God given by St. Thomas Aquinas. But if there ever has been a godless creature, this man was it. You see, to know the arguments for the existence of God has absolutely nothing to do with your belief in God. He believed in the arguments, but that is just rational intelligence. But to believe in God is some quite different behavior, which usually leads -- leads you to be very silent about Him, because natural shame would forbid you to talk about your most important tie. And you don't mention it if it isn't absolutely necessary. But he could rattle this out, you see, like water, and was a real devil.

To know theology, gentlemen, has absolutely nothing to do with religion. That is, it should have, because it should only come in addition to the religion, you see, as a correcting force. But modern people today seem to me like people who cut off their legs, and then go on -- go on crutches or in a wheelchair and -- and say that they -- they get better around this way. It's better to have no crutches, no wheelchair, but your own legs, although they may be less rational.

Most people today run around with theological crutches, instead of experiencing their legs. Where is my friend? Here -- here is my friend with his funny idea about religion.

You -- everybody has a religion, because everybody -- you know what your religion is? The things which you can do, but may not do. That is, you cannot do them, although theoretically you could do them. You could kill me at this moment, Sir. That you don't do this does not happen from fear. There's no fear in -- in this moment in your mind. But it doesn't enter your mind that you could kill me, I'm sure. That's your religion. And you don't kill your neighbor. You don't know how difficult it was to get that much religion into you. But there it is. Fortunately you don't know it.

Religion is that liberty of which we make no use, or that freedom. Gentlemen, the lawyers of this country -- I'm very proud -- to tell you the story -- the lawyers of this country have now published a volume on international law. And a Mr. Drinker of Philadelphia is the editor. And he chose a quotation from Lord Woolton, the English minister of health in the -- in the Labour government, I think it was. Is he? Or is he -- is he Churchill -- is he conservative? Does anybody know Lord Woolton? Great man. And it runs, this line, as a motto of this book on international law: "The yardstick for civilization," I think it's -- I don't know it literally, but the meaning is there -- "the yardstick of a civilization is the obedience to that which cannot be enforced." The yardstick of a civilization is the obedience to that which cannot be enforced. That's your religion.

Therefore, it enters into any moment of your life. You can never make use of all the possibilities which you have. When Mr. Nicholas Butler of Columbia University, of blessed memory, the president of Columbia who was too long president for his own good, when he was involved in a -- in a trial, was one of these people who -- who cracked up in -- in the Depression, I think it was a Harriman, I'm not sure who it was; one of these big men who failed -- he was asked why he had trusted this man too much. And Butler gave the very masterful answer: "It is the embarrassment of a gentlemen that he is not free to take advantage of all his rights."

He had not the -- he could have suspected him, but it wasn't his right. I was not his -- in his religion to do so. Now that's a very fine sentence. He could have said, "It is not -- it is the embarrassment of a Christian." It's the embarrassment of any believer. It's the embarrassment of a man who feels tied to some higher law of the universe, to some majestic -- majestic command that he cannot make use of all the rights that society may have given him.

And that is your real problem, gentlemen. You can destroy your body by sexual orgies, but you may not. You can get drunk, but you must not. That's your religion. And it's perfectly inarticulate. Everybody knows it. If you -- when the dirty, off-color story is told in your fraternity, just leave the room. That's your religion. If you try to laugh with them against your taste, that's the devil. That

destroys you.

Everybody is every moment enacting such -- the same with your patriotism. Nobody in this country, I hope, will do like this president of -- which company is it who advertised yesterday that --? Oh, Williams Shaving Cream. Don't buy Williams Shaving Cream anymore, because the president has come out with an ad, the president of Williams, that he was active in religion in Yale University, in New Haven, as an advertising for his shaving cream. So that we might buy his shaving cream, he says, he's a religious man. Now that's irreligious, if anything is. And it should be pilloried. And nobody should buy from Mr. Williams as long as his ad appears. It's not only bad taste, but it's really a provocation of any sensitiveness -- you understand. Saying that you should buy shaving cream because the president of this company is active in religion in New Haven, so making capital out of his religion. That's of course the end of religion, you understand.

And that could appear yesterday. You see, today, religion has become big business, because it's an insurance against McCarthy's investigations. I despise the people who now suddenly begin to go to church, because they do it for -- for external reasons, for political reasons. So today, the showing of religion may be the most irreligious action there can be, obviously, because religion has nothing to do with going to church. In a church, you expose yourself to a theological correction of your religion. That's all what you do in a church, in a building, you see. You allow somebody else to tell you that the religion isn't yet good enough, but you have a religion anyway. It may be a miserable religion. This president of -- obviously has no religion. He has just shaving cream.

I'm sorry, but I wanted to -- this is important enough, gentlemen, to leave this mark with you. Luther and Melanchthon are the people who have formed your mind much more than you know. It hasn't been formed by Plato, it hasn't formed by the liberal arts college. You don't know it. You think you are -- formed by science or such things. In fact, you all claim, you see, that you are your own theologian. And I still should find a -- a Catholic who doesn't claim the same. He claims also now his conscience. And therefore Luther and Melanchthon have universalized the contribution of the Middle Ages at its end. And in this sense, Luther and Melanchthon belong to the Middle Ages. But they have -- in them, you and I have access to the doings of the Middle Ages. If you look at a good Protestant today, you know what the people in the Middle Ages have done.

Thank you.