Transcript

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

...and you may say in order -- that this may not be lost on you, gentlemen, that if you take in Greece alone around 400 poleis, and every city with its own law, and cult, and severity, and directness, and you get then the Sophists and the philosophers trying to generalize; and we have today, for the whole globe, instead of for Greece, perhaps 70 nations, that this is already a tremendous streamlining process achieved through philosophy. Because obviously, the modern nation is the sum of many cities, of many poleis, and is infinitely larger. But it still has this one element which is irreducible. As long as there is a nation, it must have its own philosophical, higher s- -- institutions of learning.

And I t- -- I warned you that -- I said you don't -- misunderstand this and therefore you lump up Hungaria -- Hungary and Libya in the same category of independent nation. And you'll get into -- you are already -- we are already in the deepest of troubles because people think that the -- that the Sahara Desert is just as much a national territory as -- as Hungary is, which has a center called Budapest, and which has a record of religious and other mental problems, law problems, for centuries.

Without a mental struggle, gentlemen, no nation. And America is the one, big territory in which all this is denied. If you get here the individual American mind, and if you get here the city of man, called the "United States of America," then you think that here are the individuals, and among them everybody are the philosophers. But if, for the real understanding, gentlemen, of the workings of the political map of the globe, as between the laws of a country already -- controlling, checking your destiny, giving you your name, your private property, your security, your civil rights, your schooling, and the function of philosophy, the situation is very different. Any city of man, which we call, as I said, today a nation, that's so to speak, the technical expression for the city of man, this nation must have institutions of such a rank that they can philosophize within the limits of this nation. And therefore, it is not true that the philosopher ranks with the individual. But that which the ancient philosopher in antiquity represented was the first attempt to have an institution of higher learning that had to be tolerated by the individual city or nation, you see, as a criticism of the nations' institutions, and not of your individual whims. And since you are stubborn individualists, this is very hard for you to admit that a country is higher, more structurized, much more complicated than your own brain and your own mind.

And -- so, as I said, America is visited -- has this great visitation to undergo with the idea that philosophy can be commonplace. Then it is no longer philosophy. Philosophy is only necessary as a criticism of commonplace and

common sense. Because commonplace and common sense is the result of our living in a -- routines of daily life, where things are done in a certain way, where everybody moves in a certain manner, and where you even think in a certain pattern. You are -- all have pattern thoughts. You -- we all have. I too. We all are patterned according to our daily -- daily mass media.

And I'm always delighted when I meet a man. I can always know whether he reads The New York Times or the Herald Tribune, and he always sells me the editorials of these two newspapers as his own opinion. Nothing more funny. They never admit -- any American will always say it's his opinion. He's just reverberating what he absorbs every day. And you can always find people who will say "no" to what they read. But the wrong question formulated by your newspaper dominates your thinking, even if you deny the answer given by this editorial, you see, because what is asked and what is the topic of conversation, you get every morning, served. That's what you talk about.

Now gentlemen, a fruitful mind -- anybody who wants to bear fruit in the community must not think on the same themes on which this -- these mass media think. You must be more fruitful { }. If you think how much time you waste by talking about things you cannot change, wouldn't it be much more useful if you would begin to think something which starts a new trend of thought? And a fruitful one, and a positive one. Why do you think about all this ugliness which you read in the papers about? Even if you say, "We should do something against juvenile delinquency," you still think about juvenile delinquency. Now wouldn't it be much nicer if you would think about a -- a -- a life savior, or some -- some -- or the saints? People thought in former days that it would -- was much more useful to meditate o- -- about the saints than about the mishaps of daily life. But you are so absolutely in this gondola exposed to the wind as in any wild-chase balloon of the temp- -- in the tempest of time, that you are absolutely unable to think about any subject which isn't mentioned in the paper.

Now it doesn't matter, gentlemen -- what -- if you give the opposite answer from your -- from your paper -- your favorite paper. Your paper may be for Stevenson, and you are against Stevenson. Gentlemen, you are still for and against something raised by the paper. That's -- in fact you are just absolutely in servitude, in mental servitude to the things broached by these mass media, are you not? And I still have to find a young student, gentlemen--there is -- are two on this campus whom I know in all Dartmouth, two I know who just won't be -- they will think on more fruitful things. They will think about the Greek tragedy or about the Greek lyrics. And that's worthwhile thinking. And they are the only men of whom I expect something in the future. Of you, I do not expect anything, because you only discuss the trash of the day. And it doesn't -- I ca- -- care

in the least what you think about the day. You can say, as I said, you can offer a variation to the Herald Tribune, you see. That isn't the important thing. The im- -- the Herald Tribune forces down your throat every day what you have to think. Or it can be The Valley News or it can be the -- the -- WBS, or whatever your -- your station is, which { }.

But gentlemen, the institutions of higher learning which today, so to speak, take the place of philosopher -- the philosopher, Thales of Miletus or Empedocles, are people who say that their train of thought run -- runs on an independent line. And that is absolutely unheard in this country, because even the professors at Harvard, and at Princeton, and at Yale willingly comply with the mass media. They talk -- and I do prove -- I've talked to you in class about Hungary. Terrible, all wrong. I'm not a philosopher in this sense. I may vindicate myself now by taking you back and showing you -- .

(Sir, if the questions such as juvenile delinquency are of utmost importance to the stability of our society, how can we get { } if people who didn't consider them or think about it not necessarily be { } --)

But before you know how society should look, how can you know what to do about juvenile delinquency? Perhaps you have to throw up your hands in despair and say, "The times command now that the juvenile delinquents are -- have to become more numerous." I mean, don't you see that juvenile delinquency's importance can only be stated after you know what's important?

(Well, certainly. But it -- where is this -- where is this to be had? I mean, evidently even the situation in Hungary is of sufficient, moral importance today that, I mean, you --.)

Too late. Too late. If you had kindly thought about this 20 years ago, we might not have -- the mothers of America might not have allowed all you -- your older brothers to go home so quickly. Then we could -- we have now betrayed the Hungarians, because we come 11 years too old -- too late. In 1945, we couldn't get anybody to say that Europe hadn't been delivered at all. It had just been handed over to the Russians. That's all we did. And now we complain.

(But that was the topic in that -- at that time.)

Well, it was the topic of conversation after 1918, and -- and nobody wanted to discuss any -- such a serious thing, and as you know when Bill Mitchell tried to -- to tell the American people that they weren't through with the First World War, he was court-martialed. And I think the cour- -- if -- if more people had been court-martialed, we would be better off. I mean, because there would

be genuine martyrs. If there had been 10 Bill Mitchells, they would have stopped court-martialing people and they are -- would have done something instead.

(Sir, don't you think the Greek mean { } apply here?)

What?

(Greek mean, { } from both sides { }.)

What is it? The Greek -- ?

(The mean. The golden mean of the Greeks. Aristotle's mean {of proportion}.)

Well, there are two means in this moment in this country. The one say, "Don't get excited and compromise." And the other says, "Go to both extremes, and then you'll know what the golden mean be." In this country, you can't have the golden mean, because nobody ever goes to any side. How can you have a golden mean, if you don't know what 100 percent left and 100 percent right really means, Sir? Your golden mean is just talk. You have no idea that Aristotle means by the golden mean that you first have to have a -- somebody who goes to one extreme, and the other to the other extreme, you see. And you get Stevenson and Eisenhower.

(I'm talking here about --)

Well, are they golden means? They are just leaden means. That's the opposite from the golden mean, Sir. The golden mean means that the philosopher and the king of a city must be at odds, at loggerheads, you see. And then the people -- the citizens can strike a golden mean. If the teachers, and the ministers in the church of a -- of a nation, and the people in government are at loggerheads, then the citizens can vote right. If however the ministers only kowtow to the president of the United States because he has joined their church, then it's the end of civilization. Because both powers--the philosophical power, and the critical power, and the legal power--are in cahoots. That's what you have here in this country here today. They are in cahoots.

The physicists cannot do any research -- unless they are paid by the government. So they'd better play ball. For example. All our natural scientists are slaves of the government, because for all their means of research, they depend on the government. So what -- else can they do? You see. If do- -- not, it happens like -- to them like Mr. Eisenhow- -- like Mr. Oppenheimer. They are just secluded. He can sit in -- in his ivory tower in Princeton, but fortunately

there are still some other means. But this real research he can't do, because too expense. It costs a billion dollars a year. This -- the power only with Mr. -- with Admiral Strauss.

You have no separation here any longer of -- from Church and state in the deeper sense at this moment. This is -- you can't call this the golden mean, Sir, because the golden mean is -- is a -- is a result of tremendous suffering on both sides, wincing, you see, under the criticism on the part of the governors and your having to accept it, and on the other hand, the critis- -- critics being in real danger for their future, and risking -- sticking their neck out. But if you recommend that nobody should stick his neck out, you can't get a golden mean. Isn't that obvious?

Would you agree with me? This is the bitter lesson, gentlemen. We have totalitarianism on both sides of the globe today. It is much milder here. It's a femin- -- effete conformism, gentlemen, but if you don't talk like the stock exchange, you're just out of luck here in this country. Even the president of this United States kowtows to the stock exchange. And I think they are insane, because they live day by day. To them, the -- the selling of -- of oil is the main thing, of oil stock. It is not very important, gentlemen, whether oil is up or down. But in this country, it's rated as the first-rate news.

Somebody -- I think -- wasn't it in this class that somebody said now, the -- the -- the Suez Canal may be blocked, how could the English and French do this -- brought a harm to themselves? Well, if you -- didn't we talk here about this, that the long-range issue of such a thing for the next 200 years has -- is something quite different from a blocking of the Suez Canal for the next six months. And that this country -- if it wants to decide such an issue on the surface of things f- -- as for today, because now, at this moment, there is a tanker sunk in the Suez Canal, you'll never be able to have a future for this nation. That -- seems, you see, for a superficial thing it seems to be then the golden mean to do absolutely nothing, and keeps it -- canal open so that in five years it is blocked.

Let us open this {Ancilla} today and do something very practical. I would like to impress you with the history of the Greek philosophy. Do you have this? Well, gentlemen. Don't be so lazy. It only wi- -- weighs not even a pound. If you open the pages, gentlemen, of the table of contents, what I would like you to d- -- ask you to do, and since you don't have it here, do it for the -- to the next time, add to every one of the names given in this table of contents on the page Roman vii, viii, and ix, add the city, the homeland from which these people came. You remember that I spoke at some length of the -- and great emphasis, I hope, of the catalog of the ships. Now if you fill out the -- your own table of contents in this

book here, you may find that the philosophers respond by their -- by their springing up in all these many places in Greece, to the catalog of the ships in a peculiar manner. That -- what there was anticipated by the poet as a political unity of Greece, which probably never existed, it's a dream of Homer, you see, that they ever went to Troy together. I don't think for -- ever, you see. But he had this vision and projected it backward, you see. It's a kind of -- of -- a -- prophecy in reverse. That the response was not ships in the physical sense, gentlemen, but ships of the mind. And the ship, the navigation of the Greek philosophy amounts to a kind of seafare in the physical sense.

And there's a great poem in German by the greatest German poet of the 19th century, H”lderlin, which he called "The Archipelago." Now "pelagos" is the Greek word for "sea." And "archi-" -- I have not to translate it, that just means "arch." And these -- the lake -- the sea between Greece and Asia Minor has this official name, the Greek Archipelago to this day. You look at a map in a -- which de- -- distinguishes the various parts of the Mediterranean Sea, the part between Crete, Greece, and Asia Minor is called the archipelago. The arch sea, the -- the most genuine sea, so to speak.

And you can say then that these philosophers, gentlemen, formed such an archipelago. Whether you could -- compare them to ships or whether you compare them to islands, it is the catalog of the ships come into that shape, incarnating -- taking -- becoming embodied in thinkers who impart as associates, as -- as allies to each other this mental power in every generation, one coming from Asia Minor to Greece, and one coming from -- from Italy to Greece. And we have to distinguish here three -- this is Sicily; this is Calabria; this would be Italy; here would be -- let's put Naples, by and large; this would be Tarentum; this would be Elea. Naples is this meant to be. Pardon me, but I'm a very poor designer. You have here Greece. This would be here Corinth. This would be Athens. This would be Argos. This would be Sparta. This would be Olympia, where the famous Olympic Games were started. But up here would be the Olympic Mountains, where the name comes from of the whole -- of all Greek religion, including Olympia.

So the story of the Greek spirit -- and then of course here's Asia Minor. Here are all these islands in tremendous numbers. Here is Crete. And here is -- is the coastline of Asia Minor with Miletus and Ephesus.

Now, in order to understand the history of Greek philosophy, I think you have to understand this table of contents. You will be surprised, if you really try to follow out from Orpheus to -- to the anonymous writer, quoted by {Iamblysus} on Page 162, how in -- on 160 pages, you find 90 people, no more, because you see some of them are two in one line. You find -- as Number 10 the Seven

Sages. You find under Number 19 {Califord} and {Dimocedes}. You find in 39, {Pelleas} and {Hippotamus}. And you find on 4- -- on Page 46 {Archipos}, {Lipsylesus} and {Opsimus}. I -- you find on 53 even more astonishing: one, two, three, four, five names. And Page 54, one, two, three names; 55 two names; 56 seven names. You will kindly then furnish me the next time, every one of you, with a list -- I only have to ask you, because you -- otherwise you won't do it for yourself. And put it -- put the -- the cities in -- in your own table of contents. I think you own this book now -- by now, don't you? On the installment plan, I suppose.

Write this in. For a history of Greek philosophy, this march through the cities of man, through the cities of Greece, is of first-rate importance. You should see, you see, that the lines of force of Greek philosophy mean a constant exchange from Elea to Miletus, or Ephesus. Here is Heraclitus, here, on one end, you see, barely holding his own, the city of Ephesus, against the Persians. And here on the other hand is Elea, facing the Tyrrhenian Sea, and Rome, very near to Rome, being the northernmost post just north of -- south of Naples where there also is then later the famous Paestum. You may have heard of the Temple of Paestum, the one temple in Italy still visible from antiquity. That was called Poseidonia in antiquity. Today it's called Paestum. And it's -- Elea is -- is very close by. Here is -- who has been to Italy? Have you been to Naples?

(Yes, I have.)

Well, you know where Paestum is? South of Salerno. Then you go further south, you come to Elea. Wie?

(I didn't get that far south, unfortunately.)

Oh, no. Nobody does, you see. Nobody studies philosophy.

Here is Reggio. That is on the -- the transit to -- from {Messiana}, you see, the Greek -- the Sicilian city of {Messina}. here Syracuse, is which is famous because Plato went there and tried to convert the tyrant of Syracuse to his philosophy. And there is {Agrigen}, where Empedocles, you see, lived, and -- and jumped into the -- the vol- -- into the -- Etna trying to investigate the -- the earthquake.

Well, why do you laugh? Modern man is vaccinated and dies from yellow fever. Have you heard -- seen The Yellow Giant? Who knows The Yellow Giant? Isn't that the same heroism? Why do you laugh? The Yellow Giant is a play by Sidney Howard, in which he describes the victims of the first vaccination against yellow fever, which was -- enabled us to build the Panama Canal. And

some doctors volunteered for the vaccination and died in the process, and thought it was all in vain. Ja? You had a question here?

(Where is the -- on Italy there -- where was it that Pythagoras founded a col- -- colony, the Orphic colony?)

Pardon me?

(Where was it that Pythagoras founded the Orphic colony in Italy? It was a colony that was found- -- patterned after the -- to Orphic religion. Somewhere in Italy, I think I remember reading { }.)

Better inquire. Why should I tell you? { }? Who -- you mean Pythagoras or whom do you mean?

(It was Pythagoras. Yeah, I'm fairly sure that it was Pythagoras that found -- he -- of course, he's known for his numbers { }.)

All right. You are right, Sir. The city is called Croton. Here. There are many such city-states by -- through philosophers. Croton is the city of Pythagoras.

Well, it seems, you see, not philosophy to dabble in -- in geographical problems. Yet it does. Gentlemen, the -- the great flowering of the Greek spirit in its renaissance in Europe depended totally on the existence of these many independent spiritual centers in Europe. If you take Heidelberg, of which even you have heard, and -- and Leipzig, and Prague, and Vienna, and Innsbruck, and Padua, and -- and Perugia, and Bologna, and Paris, of course, and Bordeaux, and Cambridge, and Oxford, this map, or in the Middle Ages, drawn between 1200 and 1600 or 1650 by and large, corresponds very exactly on the continent to these island philosophers, you see, who had the ocean instead of the railroad. Modern man doesn't have to live -- to develop his philosophy, so to speak, on islands. But they had to, because their communication depended, of course, on the sea. On the -- the continent, if you look at the prairies of Kansas City or -- no mind has ever existed there and can never come to fruition there. You can buil- -- grow wheat there, you see. And now they drill oil in Kansas. And -- but no mind of any description. They haven't even a competitive newspaper in Kansas City. It's a very great place, you know, where one paper has a monopoly for 3 or 4 million people. Very significant for the Middle West. No comp- -- no mental competition. Just -- economic competition they have there. But nothing mental. The -- what's the name of the famous Kansas --?

(Kansas City Star.)

Wie?

(Kansas City Star.)

What?

(Kansas City Star.)

Quite. It's quite an enterprise. If you don't -- { } always the Kansas City Star, you're just out of luck there, you see. They declined even to accept advertising -- ad- -- ads from people they didn't like. That's the typical state of any continental prairie, gentlemen, any big -- that's the problem of Russia; that's the problem of Siberia; it's the problem of European Russia. Where you have just continental -- vast land masses, gentlemen, mental competition is out of the question. The -- the great invention of the Middle Ages was that the gaze of the Mediterranean and of the Northern Sea and -- the Baltic Sea were, so to speak, impressive enough to -- to force even the people inside Europe to treat their universities in such a way as though they were islands. And that's why you had 1500 independent principalities in Europe in the year of the Lord 1800. That's unknown to you, gentlemen. There were 18- -- 1500 states in Europe. And that has made Europe great mentally, because every one of these university centers, you see, was in a different state, and therefore enjoyed relative independence. If you can criticize 1499 principalities because you are situated in the 15th -- -00th, you see, you can understand how mental life can flower there. They couldn't criticize the own prince, but they could criticize all other princes. So that Catherine of -- of Russia didn't give a damn what their own -- her own nobleman ever said in the 18th century. She was a great tyrant, as you know, but she thought she was a very enlightened princess. So she said, always when she passed a law or did anything, wrong or right, she said, "What is {Schlatzer} in G”ttingen going to say?"

Now G”ttingen is a little -- is the university of the Hannoverian dynasty in the kingdom of Hannover. And we are again Hanover, you know. And of course, here is no mental dynasty. But there was. G”ttingen was an independent mental center, and still a great center of ma- -- higher mathematics. All the leading men who have designed the bomb here come from G”ttingen, and got their mathematic training in G”ttingen, including Mr. Oppenheimer, by the way. And he would have never amounted to anything if he hadn't studied in G”ttingen. And -- and of course, modern America lives still by these people who have been brought up in G”ttingen. Heaven forbid, what's going to happen if these people grow up in Princeton, directly, you see. { } place where nobody can think. The climate is just subversive to thinking in -- adverse to thinking in -- in G”ttingen -- in -- in Princeton. So you are here for this reason. You can be

very proud, we have a man who is really living -- his family is living in Princeton, but he preferred to come to Dartmouth.

Now I'm not joking. Gentlemen, this is your problem, it will be the problem of the next 50 years, whether America is going to kill science and thinking, or whether it's able to preserve it. You can't do it by money. Don't believe for a minute that Rockefeller and Ford can do anything but kill science. Money is not inducive to thinking. It's the opposite. -- With money, you cannot buy thought. That's -- but you believe you can. And that is the great mistake. You can only buy thought by a noble competition of free spirits. And you can only do it by political plurality. As soon as you have a -- a one-gov- -- -world government, gentlemen, out goes thought. That's why it's such an abominable thought, that there ever should be a one-world government. I'm all against it. That would be tyranny. And fortunately there is no prospect that we'll ever get it. But you all dream of it. And -- you -- you think all mathematically correct that one government is -- is more economical than many governments. Gentlemen, governments are nothing that have to be economical. It's one of your funny ideas that you judge the great -- issues of the spirit by money. You say it is cheaper to run one government, perhaps, than many. Gentlemen, that would also lead to the abolition of the sexes. It would be much cheaper if you wouldn't have to buy a diamond necklace for your wife. But it would be very ugly if you would have to love yourself.

Life has -- is anti-economical, gentlemen. And philosophy bears me out on this. The higher life of the spirit, these higher institutions of learning will never be economical. They'll never pay, because life is something that is beyond pay.

And therefore I think this map begs for your understanding. I think you will understand this perhaps a little more clearly than all theories I can put before you. The life of Europe and the life of Greece have flourished because of this fantastic polyphony, orchestration, the endless competition, you see, between hundreds of little centers. If you abolish these -- these -- this, gentlemen, if you get state colleges and state universities, like your -- your Ohio State, which to me is the -- is -- who's from Ohio? Cleveland? Well, that's a better place, because it has no real schools. But I mean, the University of Ohio is, you see, is -- is going to destroy all higher thinking. And I'll tell you why. There is one building now constructed by the University of Ohio. And it shelters 350 professors of English. If you have 350 professors of English in one university, you see, you abolish English, you {abolish} professors, you bol- -- abolish all nobility of thinking, you see. You can have here a professor of English; you can have there a professor of English. But you can't put 350 professors of English into one room without -- in one house without reducing the dignity of teaching

English. It's a necessary thing, but if 300 people teach the same thing, glorious subject as it is, in the same house, every one of them thinks of himself as a little smaller.

And therefore we reduce constantly by these large numbers of our state universities the dignity of this being -- this teaching. If you are -- have to teach 10 students, you see, and are the only philosopher on campus, you can think that is tremendous. But if you have 10,000 students, you see, and 500 professors teaching philosophy, it's worth nothing. This is the opposite from your mass production.

And I have to open your eyes to this fact, gentlemen, that these philosophers in Greece were so terribly important because they lived in very small centers in which -- were the only representative. And that makes a man big. If you have to represent the whole of wisdom, you probably make an effort to be really wise. If 250 -- -49 other people do the same thing, you see, you don't feel that is very important what you're doing. Can you see this?

And you don't know this great danger, gentlemen. You smother people today with bigness because you -- the business community, gentlemen, lives by the opposite principles, and must live by the opposite principles from the mental community. And you try -- here, in this -- in this college -- the trustees of Dartmouth College are selling us down the river by saying it would be good to have 10 -- 10 professors with 10 -- 1,000 students each in his classes -- in their classes. And they have these "yes" and "no" examinations. This man is -- well, I won't say who he is. But you all know it, I suppose.

(I'm just wondering why -- having only one philosopher in a community would be any -- why wouldn't it be just as bad as having one newspaper in Kansas City?)

You see, the great thing is that Kansas City has too much territory. Four million people. If you had one philosopher in Norwich, and the other in Hanover, no harm done. It has to be small, can't you see? But weak. It's like a good flower, you see, like an orchid. One orchid is enough. And you don't have to have a big collection of orchids. If you give your -- your friend an orchid, you see, or a gardenia, it isn't improved at all if you give her a hundred gardenias or a hundred orchids. Anything precious, you see, is precious by its singleness. Anything useful is precious by its mass. -- You see, since you come all from mass production, you carry over the values of useful things to the value of precious things, you see. A diamond necklace is not improved if you have 99 diamond necklaces. You must have one which is beautiful. As soon as a wife -- your wife has a hundred necklaces, she will be blas‚, and she will not be as fastidious, she

will not give a damn for any one of them, you see. Because overeating does no good.

But from the point of view of the factory that turns out diamond necklaces, all these { } now, you see, it's of course "the more diamond necklaces the better." But that's a very wrong viewpoint. One diamond necklace is much more precious than a hundred diamond necklaces. If you can't see this, I can't help you. That's why one wife is better than a hundred wives. That's why a harem is not an ideal, you see. It's also very hard for you to understand. Most of our businessmen are all Moslem, and they wouldn't have -- like to have any number of wives. It's not a good idea. Why is that so? Why are a hundred wives poorer -- poorer -- {ruling} than one? You can't prove it to me from any economic viewpoint, because the -- your and my life, Sir, is not ruled by economics. It isn't.

Economics are for the earthly things, but neither for you or for me. It's better to have one friend on this campus than to be on good terms with 2,999 students. Why that is, so, I can't tell you, Sir. But it's the law of the universe. One friend is better than 200 -- 2,900 chums -- chums.

Prove it to -- I mean, you can ask -- say, "I don't understand." Then I have to say, "You live -- on another planet."

That's why the -- the essence of thought is its rare- -- rarity, you see. You must appreciate one truth as -- so that you can stand still and say, "I can't rush on to the next truth. I can't buy the next New Yorker. I'm still occupied with repeating this one tremendous truth all my life." And of course my -- my act -- I have tried -- I'm -- I'm sure I cannot succeed with you, to sell you this idea that to be astonished, you see, has this great beauty that you never have to end to be astonished. You have abolished astonishment. You are astonished over nothing. You say, "I don't care." "So what?" anybody who says, "So what?" has to rush on the next. Anybody who says, "Indeed?" gains time, because he will stand there and still think about it and the next day, and the next day, and the next day. All this is connected, as you will see, you see. It must be rarity in time and rarity in space, in place. You have 350 professors of English in Ohio State, English goes out of the window. It just sounds silly, why, you see -- this is mass production. It's -- Shakespeare loses all importance. It is just the result I mean of observation. You will -- you can see it around you.

(What -- would you suggest in a case like that, where there has to be a big English department, there in a big school like that? Merely the housing of them in separate quarters, or something?)

Well, I mean, obviously, Sir, this should be -- even in California, they have decided to make three colleges. There is no reason that Ohio State has to be one school.

(There're five of them.)

Wie?

(Five of them.)

What do you mean? They overlap? The university of O- --?

(The university system, yeah.)

Where?

(Athens, Miami, Kent State, they're all { }.)

Divide them again. Send them out again. And certainly I would then form units in which one professor of French or 10 professors of French, 10 professors of English, you see, would be housed in the same group, and would form a -- a kind of humanities center, you see. And I would never think that 350 professors of English would be together, you see. I would then make some French, and some English, and some history professors, you see, so to speak, get together so that they can exchange, that they can become more fruitful in their -- you see, in talking to each other. Because 350 professors of English, every one, you see, dealing with one page from Keats or from Wordsworth, different pages, must just go -- nuts. And they will become smaller, and smaller in their thought, you see. They'll just talk personalities and in {editions}, and footnotes.

(Presumably, though, if they're professors, they're going -- they're going to not be limited by the -- by the physical environment in one building. And they'll be able to cross the street to the French department building where there are 300 professors of French. It really doesn't seem to make very much difference whether they group them together this way or in another way?)

Oh, oh, oh. I am not sure { } you underrate the effects of all this, of environment, of -- on me and you { }.

(In -- in Europe now, Sir, there's this new university of Europe that's dedicated to {ruling} Europe under one -- one government. Do you think it's better to rule, in this case, Europe under economic {principles}?)

I think that our economic unity of the future of which we all are convinced is { }. I don't think there will be an economically independent Europe, you see. We are part and parcel of it. And most big factories in Europe are owned by Americans anyway, as you know. That's all American money. We -- I think that economy doesn't have to be tyrannical. The difference between a state and a church, and an economy is, you see, that business doesn't have to claim this mental obsession, this mental power. We { } see from Mr. Khrushchev, you see, even if they want to be liberal, can't. I mean, just crushed, instead of Krupp.

Economy is at this moment, at -- at the crossroads. The Russians have totally misunderstood the economic issue. They have built a state instead of an economy. And they said the state would wither away; instead the economy is withering away. That's really the funniest thing { }. The Russians are very much concerned with this {deficiency} of their own theory that they have built up a tremendous government instead of building up a tremendous society. It's anti-Marxian. I mean, the only anti-Marxians in Europe are the Russians. Ja, because they have not emancipated the economy from their -- o- -- from the overweight on the state. You haven't seen this, this contradiction. It's very strange.

Economy in itself can be pluralistic. -- And by pluralistic, I mean it doesn't have to be take- -- religion, or -- or -- or conviction, or world view, or philosophy in itself. And we are on the crossroads at this moment, you see, before mankind there is the tradition that there is only state and Church. People finally here have separated them. But we haven't yet settled the question where Mr. Charles Wilson {goes}. So we put him in the -- defense industry. I think that's a big misfortune. I think that Mr. Wilson is perfectly disqualified to be in politics. And he is on the best of destroying the power of the United States. To give you an example: as an economist, he wa- -- knows the large production centers are economical. He produced tanks. And he was warned by the experts that -- the production of tanks must be dispersed. That would be more expensive, but it would be -- be secure, and if the United States were bombed, obviously one -- the destruction of one tank factory wouldn't matter so much.

He instead said, "I'm Charles Wilson of General Motors, and therefore, I have to be economical -- I have to economize." So he put all the tank production of the United States into one place. In normal times, such a man woul- -- should have -- would have been impeached for high treason. Because he couldn't do anything more advantageous for the enemy. He's, you see, a man in the wrong place. As an economist, he's wrong -- he's right. As a statesman -- absolutely { } absolutely different viewpoints. For a national policy, economy is a very poor advisor. For an economist, it's the right advice to be cheap. If somebody

else has to tell him that for the security of the nation, cheapness is no argument, absolutely no argument. The opposite is true. He had prevented all decentralization of industry in this country, saying it was too expensive. Gentlemen, for the future of America, nothing is too expensive. You are all siding with Charles Wilson against me, gentlemen, but I think he is a great -- a great { } to this country. And we will have a terrible awakening. { } see that.

It's very bad that such a man is allowed to have anything to do with the state. He doesn't understand anything of government. He understands { } production. And these are two different things -- absolutely different things, absolutely -- contrary principles, because the statesman has to look for the existence of the United States in the year 3000, of which you cannot -- are not {fit} at all. Does it represent { } that deserve the sacrifices of men -- free men for centuries to come. That's the only good reason for the existence of a republic. The production of motor cars is of absolutely unimportant { }. That's good for the economy. That's not good for government.

There you have a very clear instance, gentlemen, that we are also in this country at this moment undecided where economy stands. If you get the three things, gentlemen: the state, that is protection against foreign enemies; the Church, that is the setting up of the goals for which we should strive against enemies, despite enemies, you see, where we {get} direction of life; and then you get the economy, that's the know-how. You see, our problem is this: the state was, since ancient days -- let us put it here, into Athens, or into Croton, where Pythagoras lived; or to Elea, where Parmenides gets up; or into Syracuse, or into Ephesus. Here, I have put in the wholeness of cities. And the Church was strictly local and became wider and wider through the movement of the spirit, criticizing the local government, criticizing human sacrifice. And in the person of Christ, this inroad against any political, limited set of values became universal, and we have today the idea that all churches are larger than all states.

No state can afford a real state religion, because the religion of any state today must also be able to please another state. Christianity, you see, you can have a Roman Catholic Church in Spain, but the -- even the Spaniards have to say that -- they hate to say -- admit it, that the pope in Rome is also a Christian. I mean, if the Spaniards had their way -- they have, through the last centuries, always denied that the pope in Rome was a real Catholic. They always said the archbishop of Toledo was a better Catholic. And -- they have. It has been a real battle. You don't understand this, but it's just as bad as with Protestants, you see, in the Roman Catholic Church. It's just an illusion of yours that you think that the Spaniards obey the pope in Rome. They don't. They force his hand.

When Phillip II of Spain died, the pope in Rome had a -- the greatest joy

of his life. And all the chimes -- the bells of St. Peter were chiming in to celebrate the death of -- the king of Spain. That's an important fact. You see, that was an act of deliverance for the pope. And it would be good for some Irish people in this country to know this.

Now gentlemen, the economy was never run in Pythag- -- in -- in the days of Pythagoras in Athens. It was run in homes. And all economists, you see, they we- -- were home economists, in antiquity. The -- that is, gentlemen, the economy was smaller than the city. You could run a farm which was self-supporting. You could run, you see, a -- a business, which seemed more or less selfsupporting, with your fruit garden, and your vegetable garden, and your cow, and your pig, you see, in the back yard.

Gentlemen, the -- one thing which has happened, as you can see, in our time is that the economy today is larger than Church or state. We are interested in Afghanistan not because we share their statehood, or we share their churchhood. For Heaven's sake, we don't. But we share their economic problems. The economy has risen from being the smallest unit in the universe, you see, to be the largest. And in antiquity, this didn't exist. So if you compare antiquity and the times--1900 on one side, down to 1900, gentlemen--it is so that the economy is smaller--you know the mathematical sign for "smaller than"--is smaller than state or Church. Our problem has -- is that for the first time in the history of the human race, gentlemen, state and Chur- -- or Church, whatever you turn to, also the Christian churches, also the Buddhist churches, you see, also Mus- -- Islam, they are all smaller than the economy. And therefore, philosophy is in a new -- in a new chapter today. That's why for the first time, the Greek way of -- the -- questioning the universe is no longer, you see, in order. Where you -- we have to think "new." It's a new situation. Can you see these two -- these two entities? Can you see my scheme here? I don't know.

This is quite important for your understanding, gentlemen. Before 1900 A.D., and in this sense, all modern -- so-called "modern" philosophy in this country or in Europe goes on the Greek side. Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, Nietzsche, William James are still all thinking in such terms that the economy, in their mind, at least, was smaller in its area, than state or Church. After 1900, we cannot afford this fiction, because today we know -- you -- just have to think of the oil in Arabia, it's a very practical example, you see, the economy is larger than state or Church.

Therefore, gentlemen, I give you a history of philosophy which is in this sense obsolete. That is, I think it is not obsolete. It warns you that all your terms: democracy, freedom, education, universities, philo- -- idealism--they all come from a time in which man's economy was smaller than his state and his church.

You have to coin a new language today. We -- we are working on this. And my -- I have -- that's -- has been my problem all my life. I grew up like you with the na‹ve idea, you see, that one thinks in political terms, and one thinks in religious terms. And then one masters the economy. Now this is impossible.

We first live under a worldwide economy. And inside of this, there are some remnants of Church and state, which are smaller, you see. And we have to -- then to try to find a language of philosophy, of criticism, of freedom, you see, which stands up under the impact of one economy, you see. -- We have already one world order, which is not one state, and it is not one church, but is one economy. And that's already there. It is still in a -- in -- and one economy doesn't mean, gentlemen, that one administers his economy. But if you hear this -- this talk about oil, you see how united it already is, you see.

The -- the same is true of the Suez Canal. You see, one economy means that the Suez Canal is a function of one economy and has nothing to do with the state of Egypt, or the state of England anymore. You can't judge the Suez Canal in terms of politics. If you do, you get into trouble, as we are now, in -- you see. The -- on the map of the globe, gentlemen, the Suez Canal i- -- ha- -- holds a functional place as allowing Europe, Asia, and Africa somehow to have traffic. That's its importance. Whether this is called Egypt, or whether it's called Palestine, or whether it's called France, or whether it's called India is an absolute second-rate matter compared to your and my problem to think of the Suez Canal as a function of the universe. And I think you should know this.

The one phil- -- man who -- who anticipated this, who entered a new chapter in the life of -- history of philosophy is the famous Count Saint-Simon. We owe it to Saint-Simon that the Suez Canal was built. These -- disciples of Saint-Simon were not bankers, and were not socialists. But they were -- they were called Saint-Simonistes. And they had this great idea that the Panama Canal and the Suez Canal would force the people of this world to think in terms of one economy, you see. Not of one state, and not of one church. But of one economy, you see.

And therefore, the Panama and Suez are really great motors for revolutionizing your and my thinking. It doesn't help you at all to think of the Suez Canal as part of Egypt, you see. And it will not help you to -- to -- to call it later a colonial enterprise, of the people who built it, you see. It is something new, utterly new, you see. It's one place on the map of the world that is functional, you see, like -- just like your larynxes,or your pharynx, you see. The pharynx cannot say, "I am alone," you see. It has to breathe. And the larynx has to -- the pharynx has to eat, has to swallow. And if it doesn't, you see, it is not a pharynx. And all the other questions are absolutely minor, the self-consciousness of the

pharynx, or the self-consciousness of the Egyptians -- it's absolutely second -- second-rate. Not important.

Now we can't think this out today, but I wanted to draw your attention to the fact that the old, ancient philosophers, gentlemen, took that place which modern economy does take. They stood for the unity which the economy did not yet offer, and which they anticipated in their mind. I come back to my demand on you, gentlemen, to be very critical against your use of the word "nature." You all think that nature is given, that nature is first and that the laws of the city are second. And I've tried already to impress you with the fact that -- quite the contrary, your society, your family is your first impression. And that nature is what you see outsi- -- out of the window when you look out of your family living room. That which is not your immediate self you call "nature," which is separate from you, which you can only see with the help of your family through their eyes, through their education, and through the faith they have implanted in you.

Here you see that the -- that ancient philosophers, gentlemen, did anticipate the unity of the universe, which we today call the economy, or the globe, where -- when they spoke of no- -- nature. Nature was an imperative to be achieved. And the first people who tried to conquer this unity of an economy in which all men were to participate are the Greek philosophers. They did it through the mind, while we do it with oil tankers. Therefore everything today is different. You live without philosophy, but with the World Bank. The Greeks couldn't live without philosophy, because the philosophy gives them direction.

The -- the philosophers were the first to s- -- to tend -- to tell us what to do with the nature. That is, with that part not yet inhabited, not yet politically ruled, not yet, you see, unified with the outside world, as we also say. Gentlemen, today there is no outside world. You have no outside world left. Where there is economy, there is no outside world, you see. If you take oil, today that's not outside anymore. It's economized. Anything that enters the ecos, the household of man, gentlemen, is no longer in the outside world. Of course, the whole declamation of the Russian Revolution has been to this extent. They said deserts should be treated for their content of sand, you see. You shouldn't rant, and write poems on -- on deserts, you see, but you should say, "What can I do with the desert?"

Now in this word "nature" then, of antiquity, gentlemen, there is always this tremendous program: what is man demanded to do with nature? What are these things implying? And they imply that the little state is too small, that the gods are too narrow, you see, that the world has to grow. So nature is a growing concept, a dynamic concept { }. And as long as you treat nature as a growing

concept, you won't -- you will be in the Greek tradition; and you can't go wrong, because then you will welcome this change -- transformation into an economy, that man is the husband-man of nature. But if you think of nature, as most of you still do, as something to be just looked at, irresponsibly, enjoyed, exploited -- like the American farmer who afford -- could afford to buy one farm after another and squeeze it dry, and then throw it away, and live then in his old age in -- in Los Angeles, on his -- on the -- on the -- on the income which he had wrested from these poor, destroyed farmlands, then you mistreat the Greek term "physis."

What I'm trying to do is to show you that the march from -- from nature contemplation, of -- from Thales of Milet- -- on philosophy to the realm of practical economy is the true fulfillment of, you see, the -- this -- this adventure of the Greek mind. Whereas if you get caught in the word "nature," you are in great danger today to keep -- take it as a cold, unchallenging, purely descriptive, you see, thing that doesn't make demands on us.

Well, all the natural sciences, of course, in their application of our findings, show you that I'm right, because natural science has led to technology. Technology has led to the doc- -- to this economy. So practically, the natural sciences have exactly acted, you see, in treating nature as that which was not yet under the sway of economy. That's why I'm stupefied when I see that people immediately build now planes or rockets to go to the -- Mars, so that this poor, unsullied nature immediately is treated as something to be projected into, to be shot at, to be aimed at, you see, which is certainly not contemplation, you see, but conquest, is it not?

But the fiction of your -- of your poetry on nature is -- and your use of the word "nature" is as though nature was something not as a challenge, but something lying there in quietude, so to speak, and calmness, and without arousing in you immediate action. This is not -- not so. The -- the -- the so-called objective statement about science, gentlemen, is the unphilosophical treatment of this. Nature, the concept of nature in the sciences is that nature looks at things and tells you how they are. Practically, if you re- -- what really happened is: nature is the challenge which has asked men what to do with it. This is something quite different. Can you see the difference? Physis is a command much more than a fact. And for the Greeks, the -- nature was not fact, gentlemen, but it was fiat -- fiat -- fiat. Let us do something to it. And you are very badly put -- as regard to facts. I mean, you believe that science deals with objective facts. It doesn't. And it gives -- offers you opportunities. It offers you the possibility of shooting a rocket to the moon. What the moon is for, science doesn't tell you at all. I know more about the meaning of the firmament when I at night look up at the stars and admire them. And I have a much deeper insight than all the astronomers

put together, if I allow myself to be astonished. These astronomers already -- they are far too practical. They are already on the way of conquering the stars. And I doubt that by conquering the stars we do them justice. -- That's obviously not their -- the only purpose, that we should fly to these stars.

I always think that the deepest insight you can gather from wondering at the stars is that we also should form such beautiful constellations on this earth, that our free associations should also be constellations miraculously and rhythmically performed. And if you could construe and dissolve all your human associations in such noiseless manner as the stars, there would be great peace and harmony on this -- on -- earth. As you know, people break up their homes, and get divorces, and certainly don't constellate with their beloved ones.

And I only throw out this, that there is a way of dealing with the universe as part of you and me, if you don't treat it as nature, but if you treat it as -- as -- as teachers, if you treat it as home. You can at every moment, gentlemen, treat the -- the cre- -- the -- the world outside as your homeland, as creation. God's creation -- you are creature. These are creatures. We are already at home. All you can do as a Greek philosopher who say, "I have a homeland. That's my city. And I set out to conquer the rest of the world, to subdue it and make it into my homeland," you see.

And you must see, gentlemen, that the Greek mind is a conquering mind, that the scientific mind is a conquest of the u- -- world outside, to make it a part of the inside world. In as far as -- with the philosophers of -- which we have in this book here, they have tried to tell you of the universe. They have told you what to do with the universe, so that it may become inside. And our world economy is the result of -- of this tremendous mental struggle to subdue it. But there is an opposite attitude, the Jewish attitude, the Biblical attitude, which always has to strike a balance, gentlemen. The Jew- -- Jewish attitude says, "I'm not interested in the laws of gravity. I'm not interested in the law of chemistry. I'm not interested in the astronomical arithmetic. I'm interested in the fact that God created first the stars, and then me. And that therefore I and the stars are both His creatures."

That's equally true, gentlemen. And it means that in the historical sense, man is the latest, you see. And therefore if he could only behave as harmoniously as the sun, he can learn from the sun, you see. And he has to be, therefore, grateful that he is the newcomer to this whole galaxy of stars and creatures.

So if you put man in the middle, gentlemen, you can look back at creation and say man is the latest creature. Or you can -- take the opposite view and say, "Man is a political animal. Here is his polis. He looks out of the window of this

political -- his polis, and he tries to subdue nature." He goes out and tries to make nature--we can translate with "outside world"--he wants to transfer the outside world into his polis. So everything in the world becomes a political issue. Coal becomes a political issue. Oil becomes a political issue, you see, the sp- -- air space over your head is a political issue. Can you keep a jet plane out of your -- of your land, you see? Unfortunately, you cannot, you see. It's a purely political question, isn't it? A hundred years ago, if you had asked a man, a lawyer, he would have said, "Of course, you can shoot him down. It's your private property. We have a new notion of private property even in the United States, the most reactionary country in this respect in the world. You cannot exclude a man from the airspace over your own land. But I assure you, when I grew up, all the lawyers in the world decided that you could. You could forbid an airplane to fly over your heads, you know. You have given up this right just like that. It has never really been disputed, by the way. Very interesting, the new invention just brushed aside all old concepts of air space, you see.

So in any moment, you and I, gentlemen, are therefore standing between your -- our cult in our own community, where man has to know that he is a creature among other creatures, or -- and between the conquering mind which says, "There is an outside world which hasn't yet come under our servitude, under our service, under our understanding, and we technologically will, you see, take it in. So you see, the two worlds, political and physical, are in constant -- in constant antagonism. If the political is the analogy of the created world of God, then we have peace of -- so to speak, we are not in a hurry. We are already -- Heavens! There are thousands of years that have gone by and we are the latest, you see. If the technological world takes over, we are in a terrible hurry, so that the oil isn't wasted, and that the -- the -- everything is made use of, the masses, people, and that the stratosphere is filled with our noise.

What comes first is decisive in your own life, gentlemen. On Sundays, we think that the right treatment of our political behavior is what we should, so to speak, be taught. That's the -- meaning of the church service, you see. On weekdays, we are taught how to -- go out and get the physical under our domination. And this is today the real -- the real -- has been the problem between Church and state. And all this today is new.

I had to -- had a -- lunch with one of you just now, and he asked me how to study theology. Well, I think the answer is, you can't today, because today the ministry of the Word is against the economy of the world, you see. And to be a minister within a state or with -- within a church is a very minor matter compared to this great question, you see, what has anybody still to say when all the wheels are spinning all over the world as -- though we were -- were just one big machinery, you see. Where machines hum, there is nothing to say. They are too

loud. You can't speak in a factory, you see. They're too loud, you see. They're -- they're performing.

And the voice, gentlemen, of philosophy therefore has never been so weak as it is today, I think for this very reason. In a state, you could still have a philosopher. Franklin D. Roosevelt would still listen to philosophers. Our president doesn't. He's in this big -- big wheel within wheels already of a world economy. The Second World War has -- has unified the world to such an extent that we -- people move just under the impact of a tremendous machinery, tremendous juggernaut, the -- tremendous change. And you live in this clim- -- new climate, gentlemen; and I have to tell you that between you and me, there is a total chasm in the educational feeling and the feeling --. We still thought that by our talking philosophy, we could influence the Church and the state. I think in your generation the economy has really become such a giant, that you have a deep feeling that talk won't help, you see, because these -- these big machines -- the -- the -- the bulldozers just won't listen to human voices.

This is, I think, the real -- the real issue of our time. The Greek philosophers have won at the price of going out of existence themselves. They have unified physis. They have unified nature. And the ci- -- cities from which they have sprung, these tiny little islands, you see, in which they became vocal, are all swallowed up. We said last time about Hungary.

And Heaven -- if you know this, gentlemen, you will be very serious about the future of the human race. You have to start -- there are great issues before you, very great issues; and your generation has to -- to do a tremendous job all over the globe. It has not even s- -- been started. And you go and think that you -- that you are -- have an education. Quite a new education has to be -- has to be begun. We cannot rely on the old ways at all, because what you learn as an American, gentlemen, or as a Presbyterian just isn't good enough today, you see. You have to be able to -- to speak, to criticize something that is already as big as the universe for -- at least for human conception, you see.

I have sinned because I didn't give you a break. And I'm very sorry for this. I intended to. I will not repeat this onslaught on your health. But now, it's too late. So you allow me, I -- we may break off a little earlier. I'll go on another 10 minutes. Because I want to show you now why I had to deal with this.

In the history of Greek philosophy, and in Empedocles or -- and in Parmenides, and all the later ones, there is one word which plays a tremendous part as the goal. In this goal, they tried to reconcile the smallness of their political outlook and their political system, and their political boundaries, and the challenge of the created universe. And this word was the word for universe, the

word {"pan"}. From {"pan"}. Perhaps you take this down, whether you know Greek -- letters or not, it doesn't matter. You need this word at least once { } {"pan,"}, the whole. In Latin, the universe--"universum," and now today, "the universe"--was the war-cry of the philosophers after Parmenides, gentlemen, with which they definitely -- definitely changed the traditions of all their fellow citizens, by the simple trick of calling it "the universe." In -- in Latin, and Greek, and German, and French, as you know, there is a difference between -- not French, but Latin, and Greek, and German -- there is a difference between the three genders of a word -- noun. You have "he," and "she," and "it." As have -- you have -- and it is very important, gentlemen, that whereas the polis is feminine, and the gods are masculine, the {"pan"} -- {"topan"} is neuter. It has no life. It is an object. And all what you call today "objectivity," and "object, comes from this little trick, that since 500--not in Heraclitus, who is an old, still-believing pre-Christian Christian and non-Jewish Jew, so to speak--but in all Greeks, all of you, too, there is this surreptitious little sneakily -- sneaky step. By speaking of the universe as though it was a neuter. It was neither "he" nor "she." You cannot say -- say, "the universe who," and you cannot say, "the universe," you see, "she." You say "it."

And that's a very little trick, gentlemen, because the word physis is still feminine. In -- in Shakespeare in 6- -- before 1650, also in English, the word "nature" was feminine. It was not -- it doesn't cease to be a -- feminine before 1650 in English language. What does this mean, gentlemen? It is alive. Something that is "she" and "he" is as much alive as you and I. And therefore, it can serve as an educator, as a -- as a -- as a brother, as a sister of you and me. If it is "that," if it is a thing, it is an object of my exploitation, of my engineering, of my planning.

And today, the Greeks have -- philosophers are -- have so completely flooded your brain that most living processes, gentlemen, by you are qualified as "its." Now any -- anything which you call "it" has no right to talk back. If you say, "God is something," God has ceased to speak. You can never say of any speaker that he is "it." That's impossible. The word "infant" in Latin is neuter, because an infant is he who does not speak. "Fari" means to speak. "Infant" is somebody who does not speak. And that's the word for child, you see, the nonspeaking. Therefore it is "it."

That is, gentlemen, "hes" and "shes" have voices and know better who they are than you and I. "Its" have to be investigated by you and me, and examined, because they have no self-consciousness. Therefore, gentlemen, the scientist who deals with an object knows more about the object than the object. But if you deal with me, Sir, I will always talk back and say, "But I know better what my interest is than you do," you see, "even if you 10 times tell me that you really

have only my own interests at heart. I simply won't believe it, that I shouldn't know, too," you see.

This is the whole problem of human freedom today. If you have one economy -- Mr. Khrushchev said, "I know what's good for these Hungarians. They don't know. They must have a socialist government." Don't you see, that's the logic, if they are just "its." If the universe is "it," gentlemen, then all events in the universe are also objectively knowable. And most of you are dedicated in a way to this superstition that everything can be treated as an object. And you try even to treat your own body as an object. You will always go wrong on this, gentlemen. Your body is yourself. It's not an object. It's sacred. If you treat it as an object, you will kill it. It will -- you will go schizophrenic. Your body is not an object. You can't treat it objectively. It's just no way of doing this. The body is just one form of your own existence on this -- in the -- on this globe.

So you see, it has tremendous consequences, what I have tried to show you. If you -- if you treat nature as that outside world which has -- be -- to be brought under the -- your domination, very appeal- -- of great appeal to any human -- to any male, to any man, this conquering attitude, you get very far, except for the fact that the -- you choke -- this genuine life and the highest life of any such object is its own speech.

You have now all the Indians on the reservations, gentlemen, because you have treated them objectively, but they have no longer anything to say. They are without real speech. It's just a -- a patois, a lingo which is { }. You have deprived them of their vote, in the deepest sense of the word, of their vocality. They haven't been asked. They have been driven out, into their reservations. The treatment of the red Indian is a result of treating them as objects. Any -- { } whether it's maternal care or whether it's exploitation, the -- Department of the Interior in the United States, as you know, has tried to help these people as objects. And others have tried to destroy them as objects and exploit them. It works both ways. As long as they are objects, they will wither on the stem. Their life will leave them and they will become deader and deader all the time. Now they are so dead that nothing can help them, I'm sure. We have killed them.

The -- the treatment as objects, gentlemen, is then--will you take this down?--a decision. What we treat as object, and what we treat, you see, as vocal, as "he" or "she," is the perpetual decision which we make about the purpose, the destiny of the universe. And you can do it with flowers. You can do it with wild animals. It's the way we now exploit the tigers and the lions, and allow these Chicago businessmen to shoot down all the lions in Africa means that we think they are objects. Are they? I think they are part of our creation for

whose survival we are really all responsible. There have to be tigers. You can't shoot them down. Why? It's very hard to say. It's a decision, you see. It's an intimate belief that we know only of ourselves if they are our brothers, our antecedents, our ancestors. I mean, all people are good Darwinians in the sense that -- do you think that Mr. Darwin invented the idea that we have pedigree? The Bible says that first the plants were created, and then the animals, and then men. And always we -- have people respect for the lion, and for the elephant as tremendous protagonists of men.

You -- if I may here today -- listen to an American boy, you really think that Mr. Darwin discovered that there was -- creation, and that these great animals and mammals came before us. -- Everybody knew that the gorilla -- that most people are just gorillas. That's nothing new. The problem of -- before 1859, was only how to avoid of remaining a gorilla. And after 1859, the great {question} was how to become as rapidly as possible a total gorilla. Yes, that's all. This is your decision. You have managed very well. I mean, most people I meet strike me as gorillas. And you know The Hairy Ape. Who has read The Hairy Ape? That's the application of Darwin to -- to modern times. Who wrote it?

(O'Neill.)

It's a very good play. It's a very serious play, gentlemen. But this is not new. The funny thing which is hard for me to understand is that Darwin today strikes you as the discoverer of man's embed- -- you see, being part and parcel of the natural universe, because that's old, you see. But the great dignity of man was that he had to show that he was the last primate, you see; therefore, had to do better, and to outgrow the gorilla. And couldn't be reduced to the -- to his previous form, because that had -- he had left behind us.

So you perhaps see now, gentlemen, that to call the universe "it" meant that -- everything met within the universe was in danger of becoming an object of the mind. And as soon as my own sister, and my own mother, and my own sweetheart, and my own child could be treated in this sense objectively, the Greek philosopher was in great danger of go- -- becoming a pervert. And as I have tried to tell you, they all were perverts, because homosexuality created for them this -- the second world, in which for themselves the laws of the universe did not apply. They were a law to themselves. They lived in this academic ivory tower, which was pestered with vices of the most terrible kind. And that's a condition of treating the universe as the universe.

You will find it true inside yourself, gentlemen. If you go all out for philosophy, the whole rest of the world, including myself, including your friends, will tempt you as though you could treat them as analytically, you see,

as objects of your understanding, or of your statistics, or of your mastery, or of your exploitation, or of your treatment. You will psychologize; you will say, "This man I treat with this psychological trick," and "The other man I impress in this way," you see, and "I'll show interest in his business, and I -- then -- I'll make friends this way," you see. "I only make objects, because I take it upon myself, you see, to treat all these things."

The universe, gentlemen, then is the sum of all these things. And things are a method of treating the universe as being outside of me. The polis -- the political treatment of the universe is the opposite: treating even the stars as part of me. If I look up to the sun and say, "Dear Sun, shine," you see, I call the sun, as St. Francis did in his famous hymn to the sun, "my own brother," and the moon "my sister." Now you are not in this poetical mood, you may not like it. But gentlemen, a flower in the garden, you will admit -- or a bird whom you protect against the -- your cat -- you do treat as a -- as some living being that has as much right to exist as you yourself. You see the difference?

In a political treatment, gentlemen, we ask ourselves: how much right ha- -- have I to exist? And I can't have any more right than all the brothers and sisters around me. In the naturalistic approach, gentlemen, in the physicist's approach to me, you see, I think this is an outside world which has come under my domination.

So the word -- use of the word "universe," gentlemen, is the choice of a method. It is a decision. It is not an objective fact itself, to use the universe as something objectively given. My protest against this is that this is not so. Anybody who speaks of the universe therefore says, "I can deny the living soul around me," he denies God. And the other who -- who affirms God may deny the -- the -- the laws of the universe, of nature. Both obviously is impossible.

Gentlemen, life consists of breathing out and breathing in. It consists of constantly shifting between treating the outer world as object and as subject. There is no other way of living, gentlemen. In any one moment, here -- here, the -- I speak to you, I treat you as fellow creatures. Next moment, I run into you, we are just bodies colliding. Obviously, you see, I cannot afford then to forget my own body. I have to save it. I have to save my skin, you see. They are outside each other. And I treat you as an object that has to be gotten out of the way. And I shall.

But that's your difficulty then, gentlemen. You are inclined not to see the dilemma of life. The dilemma of life is constantly to change between treating the outer world as object and as brother. There is no way of treating it as one only. It's impossible. You { } constantly here. Obviously this furniture is so much

less alive, it doesn't matter. We stand it up and put it in the chimney, and get a good fire { } to keep warm. There would be very little { } for this. Of course, the treasurer of the college wouldn't like it.

On the other hand, you people and I, we are in the same boat, in the same sense we are fellow oarsmen. So I cannot treat you -- I cannot throw you into the fire to get warm -- keep warm. So the decision between universe and divine life, gentlemen, is of course a decision which draws constantly lines within the outer world. And all the time we have to distinguish what is on our side as living beings, as vocal beings, as having as much right for existence as we, and those things which we have to make subservient to our existence like fuel, and coal, and air, and such things. And then there is no preliminary, dogmatic decision possible. At any one moment, you may sing to the air a poem with just as much sense as you may breathe it in and use it for oxygen. Your idea is that -- there are certain things that are constantly dead. You think -- it strikes you as funny, that a poet shall write a poem to {the air}. I'm sorry for you. You must take up in yourselves this creative power that even the air and the stars deserve a song. {Even they} deserve to be spoken to. If you cannot practice this poetical being, I will not trust your philosophical or your scientific one.

You must keep this -- this quest in your heart that at no moment is it clear to you where life and where death is. Gentlemen, the thing is the decision over life and death. That's the gist of the matter. The word "universe" is a decision in favor of death. If you say "universe," you say, "I preferably now treat the universe as deader than myself, as object." An object is deader than the subject. But if you sing to the air or to the gods, you treat the universe as more alive than you yourself. And I think sometimes that's very much in order, because I feel very often that I am deader than the rest of the world. I hope you will find -- feel this, too, at times, because otherwise you can't come to life. You have to reject your own decadence, your own stupidity, your own boredom. And you can only do this by coming down on you and saying, "I am dead, and the rest of the universe is much more alive." Now I -- I don't see that I can convince you of this so easily. But anybody in love knows exactly what I mean, because the first thing a -- a lover says is that he feels he is not sufficiently alive, and he cannot compete with his sweetheart with regard to her {loveliness}. He doesn't deserve to be loved. Anyb- -- lover -- I challenge anybody, that he cannot be in love if he doesn't admit that he des- -- doesn't deserve to be loved. Now God deserves to be loved, because He's only life, without death. But you and I are so much death, and dirt, and filth, and what-not that we feel very definitely that we don't deserve to be loved. How can anybody love us? You say by this, "I am a mere object. I'm not sufficient of a -- of a person that I really deserve to be loved."

So in this sense, I think every one of you makes this experience as a very practical matter. If you only could see the word "universe," gentlemen, is -- comes from a logical dichotomy. There is no objective universe {always}, you see. But universe is an attempt to look at the reality around us, you see, in a certain manner.

Thank you.