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

...unable to make -- into -- their disciples into extraordinary people. The problem of philosophy is its relation to time; that the farrer back you go in time, the more creative is the moment. Aristotle will say that there is a first mover, but everything else is second-rate. Now how can we stand to hear from any period in -- in the origin of the world which is greater than our own time? What's this? You all believe that the founding fathers were founding fathers, and that you are just brats, and kids, and boys. Well, gentlemen, as long as you say that they are founding fathers, and you are all boys, and the ladies of 70 are dressed as girls, you cannot wonder that this time is decadent, because you are just girls and boys. But you accept this with great glee and say, "It's wonderful."

You live all in a mythical time, just as the ancient Greeks, because -- mythical is if you say that there was a time when things happened for the first time, but today everything happens by deduction, by logic, by reason, for causes, by motivation, for ulterior motives, and so on. Well, gentlemen, if you are all caused, you have nothing to do with the first cause. But I assure you, gentlemen, that I am free, like a first cause. I am not caused.

In what I am caused, I am mortal, and I'm very indifferent. I wouldn't stand here and speak to you. But for what I say, I'm not caused, gentlemen, but I'm cause. I am a first cause. I hope you are, too, when you do right. Anybody who does right, or who proposes love, or who does an act of charity is a first cause. Has never happened before, I hope, or you can't live. You all s- -- consume life, gentlemen. Certainly in your minds. And you are very costly addition -- you are the mildew on this civilization, all the educated people in this country, because they all live by derivation. And you are even proud of this logic. You call this "logic."

So, last time I tried to show you that there was a group of men at the end of antiquity who protested, who said that the problem was to look at the past as an ordinary time, and to look at -- themselves as extraordinary people. To reverse this process is mythical process, on which you all -- you all live in a myth, of this founding-father business of the prime mover, of the origin of species, and whatever you call this nonsense, because everything has happened before, and you are just derivations. Dregs, you are. Dregs, not derivations. You are dross, { } relics.

When Paul had this clash with the Epicureans and the Stoics in Athens, and -- for 300 years, there was this wrestling match between the Christian spirit and this philosophical logic. And I think my -- your papers bear me out -- that it

is nearly impossible for me to break into your vicious circle of thinking, gentlemen. I had a talk for an hour with one of you. I couldn't get even near his mind, when I tried to show him that Plato was not simply using the ideas of Socrates, but he was existentially moved by the life and death of Socrates, and that the ideas of Plato are the fruit of the death of Socrates. He could only write and say to me that the -- the ideas of Socrates produced other ideas. That's this mechan- -- mechanism which you have in your brain, that one thought begets another thought, gentlemen. My life begets my thoughts, and I hope my thoughts beget your life. Why should I teach you otherwise, you see? But you can't see this. This interchange between -- between thought and life -- you really think that everybody's ideas come from somebody else.

The climax was reached in a paper I had to -- to criticize today, to read today, in which the gentleman said that logos, physis, and ethos are ideas. I asked you to subsume the ideas of the Greek philosophers under these three realities, these three experiences which we all have when we write, when we speak. They are not ideas, gentlemen. As soon as you make logos, physis, and ethos into ideas, we are just Platonists. Because the word "idea" is an invention of Mr. Plato. There was no idea before. And -- if you are outside Plato, there are no ideas. But you think you can dodge the whole issue by hiding behind one of these philosophers, Plato, who is the most, of course, fashionable in your time, and say that my reminder that you live, gentlemen, under God, with people, and above nature, above things, that you eat and shit, that you love and hate, and that you believe, and obey, and command, all these three things which you do daily, that these three experiences disrupt the continuity of your thinking, gentlemen. God, men, and world, or the commands which you give as an ensign to the platoon, or whatever you do, or the orders of your doctor, which you follow, because you believe in science, or medicine, or whatever you believe in, the acts of friendship which you show to your classmate, the -- or your roommate, or even your teacher, and -- to the treatment of the things which you cut down, like a tree, which you use for firewood, they are acts which point in three -- you see, absolutely disconnected directions. One, where you are overlorded; one, where you are a lord, and one, where you are a brother.

These are experiences. They have nothing to do with ideas. As long as you call them "ideas," you haven't understood the whole course. And I would venture to say that three-quarters of you, according to your papers, have not understood that logos, physis, and ethos are not concepts, are not ideas, but are a stammering attempt to draw your attention to the fact that you talk to people, and listen to people, that you obey greater powers than yourself, and that you have the power to use animals, plants, and minerals, and the topsoil of this earth for your own sustenance. Don't you, any moment? What do you do when you breathe in this air here in this room? You dominate nature. You take it upon

yourself to declare that your life is more important than the inencumbered existence of this oxygen. You don't give a thought to the fate of the -- air in this room that it will be used up. You say, "I come first."

That's the experience of everybody. But in other respects, gentlemen, you don't say, "I come first." You say, "I come last." When you help a child, or when you -- or when you -- please your mother, you say, "I come second," don't you? And if you -- rejoice in a -- in a good party, or propose to a girl, or go down to Smith, you say, "None comes first, and none comes last. We are together."

This is physis, ethos, and logos as directions of our experience. In German terms, of course, or English -- I found my -- German's my mother tongue, so it always comes back to me, of course. In plain English then, gentlemen, logos is the lord over me. You of course are polytheists, so I must say "the lords," "the gods" which you have. I believe in one God. Yes, most of you are polytheistic, because you don't -- anybody who doesn't believe in God believes in many gods. It's very simple, because everybody has to obey orders.

Ethos, that's man. Men. Humanity, whatever you take. Your nation. Your family, et cetera. And nature, gentlemen, that's the realm of things. The -- Anglo-Saxon word for "nature" is "world." For -- in Greek it is, as you know, the "pan." So don't repeat in your finals all your own thinking, this nonsense which has made -- sterilized most of your papers on these philosophical schools, that you think that these people use -- logos, physis, and ethos. I tried to make you realize that you, while writing this paper, are forced in your own thoughts to act, distributing part of these men to their divine inspiration, and call them "gods," or "divine," or "true," which is the same, you see. When you {count} a man "true," we say that God is in him.

And that's why he's -- a philosopher, for example, is only interesting -- with regard to what is true in him. Only one-tenth of the people who have written papers in this course have even dared to mention the question of truth. You cannot deal with a philosopher without asking whether he is true. You don't. You describe in terms from a sc- -- textbook what somebody else has reported that he has said. But I have never been able to find out, gentlemen, where you are in this whole business. And that's the only thing that would have interested me.

This is, of course, perhaps a little difficult, gentlemen. But we come to this. This is an important question. How far is this, which this man dealt with, for you real? And how far is it just a picture on the wall where you read that somebody said something about something? It's very difficult for -- for any one of you, this seems to me, to break into this reality, where you say, "I -- if I had

lived in the days of Pythagoras, would also have tried to solve the dilemma between logos and physis, by saying it's all number. Because numbers can come from the -- my -- the workings of my spirit right into the things, you see. They seem to connect them." And he -- Pythagoras therefore did not ask the very simple question, "What cannot be numbered?" He only saw that something could be numbered, you see. In as far as you and I can be numbered, we become things, however, you see. So it's pretty dangerous to use mathematics.

One of you -- who is the -- the future scientist who wrote on Pythagoras? Mr. {Porter}? Ja. Did you? You had this problem. It is a real problem. I wanted you to ask yourself, you see: how far do we get with numbers? It is a very -- awe-inspiring thing, of the Pythagoreans. Don't misunderstand me. There is something which we cannot give up, you see, that part of your and my being is explicable by numbers. It's really awe-inspiring that anybody should ever have conceived of this great harmony in numbers. But obviously something is lost. If I call Mr. {Porter}, you see, Number 365, you see, you have a right to protest, you see. Your name is lost in the -- you see. The thing that cannot be numbered, you see, is lost. What that is, is the mystery of logos, again. I mean, logos is richer than numbers. That would be the outcome of my treatment of Pythagoras, you see. Or it should have been yours, you see. Pythagoras himself cannot be reduced to a number. Otherwise there would be no Pythagoreanism, you see, no authority.

Today I want to introduce you to the -- to this last chapter of -- in Greek philosophy in which people try to cure the constant loss of power from generation to generation, because the logos was made a part of nature. The operations of lo- -- of the logos were, so to speak, considered a province, a territory of nature. Some of you have described this very clearly. -- One of you writes, for example, that with the Stoics, nature contains all the divine order of the universe, too. Now, if nature contains the gods, then part of logos, you see, obviously has been reduced to nature. And -- because the gods are the powers whom we obey. Once you look at them from the outside, as -- as nature, you see, they can be treated indifferently. Nature is that towards which we are allowed to remain indifferent. Perhaps you take this down, gentlemen: logos is that for which we have to have awe. The more you treat things as natural, the more you can remain indifferent, the more you treat them as logos, the more we have to be moved. If you then say that the divinities--as the Stoics did, by the way, partly at least--is that the gods are real, but parts of nature, the more you allow man, as Lucretius, for example, wanted us very much to do, to dismiss the gods, you see, as indifferent, neutral.

The whole world -- way, gentlemen, from Heraclitus, in his dispute with Parmenides, is that Heraclitus wanted to keep the paradox of the logos, that I'm

overawed by it, that as a moment I say something, I still feel the force by which I'm allowed to say something is above me, is something that will speak tomorrow again, differently. I have to wait--what he calls the way back--but I have said something, gentlemen, to you. I have to wait until I find myself justified, and verified, or refuted by the facts. I can treat you -- teach you something. And it will only be tomorrow that I know, "Did I?" you see. I have to wait. It isn't enough that I think right.

Sometimes, as in this country, I -- sometimes think you have to teach nonsense in order to bear fruit in truth, because the good words, the true words have all been so abused, that as long as I speak of the good, and the true, and the beautiful, there is just sterility, and non-understanding, no reaction whatsoever. We go to sleep. Now it is sometimes better to wake people up with wrong truths, gentlemen, than to put them to sleep with right truths. I don't know.

In Heraclitus, gen- -- gentlemen, the relation is still very clear that the logos is above physis. And it is very clear that Heraclitus, because he has this relation of -- logos above physis, that he is rough, that his ethics are -- serious, are severe. The result, wherever logos is above physis, gentlemen, is severity. Severity of the teacher to the student, of the -- of the prince to the subject, of the judge to the culprit, you see, because the man who has logos above nature cannot treat himself as nature, when he speaks or when he uses logos, he knows that he is himself above the things of this world. And so he has the power to subsist in a middle ground.

Today, as you know, where everything is natural, no judge has authority. The president goes in shirtsleeves and is called "Ike," and on it goes. That's a very great symptom, gentlemen, of our desire to be natural, gentlemen. Because he's natural, he doesn't want to make decisions. All the disagreeable decisions are made by Mr. Sherman Adams or some other unknown quantity, and he plays golf, because that you can understand. He's natural. That's the state of affairs of this country, gentlemen, that you elect a president who says, "I don't want to make decisions. I hate the presidency for this reason. I want to play golf." Everybody is delighted, because you are just the same.

And so you have what you want, gentlemen. You have nature. You have absolute nature, and no logos whatsoever. Pious phrases, insincerity, hypocrisy. It's the most insincere country I know of, is this country in political affairs. Not one word spoken in Congress is true. Not one word. Everything -- you see, we say -- we say that we are starved with oil, you see, and -- and now we won't sell oil to the English and French to punish them. The oil -- all the oil companies, in fact, for six months are itching to sell their oil to England and France, and with great glee have -- have come this -- see -- see this happen that the Suez Canal is

blocked. Nothing better could have happened to the American oil interests. Texas is just jubilant. But no, they talk about the drought.

Nothing is true that you hear officially, gentlemen. Always the opposite is true. Don't believe one word that is said here in foreign policy. We always do the very opposite from what we say we say -- do. But to you, these pious phrases, they all take you in, gentlemen, because it's part of -- the mind to you is just a natural entity. It follows the smallest pressures, the electorate, the stupidity of the -- of the -- and the folly of the day. That's what you think is -- is -- is the mind for. The mind is a machinery. You -- and you will -- you will of course put the -- the -- the International Business -- what's the -- these -- these are these bastards doing? Wie?

(IBM.)

Yes. They will run the country very soon.

Now, I'm very serious, gentlemen. You must, if you -- as long as you do not distinguish between logos and physis, you will never distinguish between natural pressures, gentlemen, and the truth. You have no criterion of the -- that's called "pragmatism" in this country.

Pragmatism -- when Chesterton came to this country, he said, "They tell me that you can make anybody buy anything by psychology." He said, "That's -- that's new." Chesterton -- you know, the English humorist. "That's really new to me. We never would have dared to say officially that we are free to cheat everybody," because saying in psychology that I can make everybody buy everything, even if he doesn't want it, you see, that in -- in Engli- -- plain English is called cheating, you see. You call the psych- -- customers "psychology," don't you?

So you see, as soon as psychology becomes a means to an end, all science in this country is prostituted. You have to pay $22,000 to -- in Boston to the head psychoanalyst, if you want to -- to settle for psychoanalytical practice. So you can see how many people have to be fleeced before one case can be healed.

And I have a friend, who's young -- a poor teacher. She had $8,000 of savings. The psychoanalyst found out about it, and he exactly treated her as long as there was one cent of these $8,000 coming, forthcoming. And then {she} suddenly was cured. That's all going on in this country with great glee. You call it "science." The science of psychoanalysis, you see. I call it "the robbery."

But as soon as you have no distinction between physis and logos, gentlemen, how -- what's the difference, you see? What's the difference between

nature and truth? You have -- can make no -- no -- no distinction. To you, all the utterances of human beings are nothing but instinctive results of pressures on this {people}. The person says what it is clever to say. And what is lucrative to say. And you assume that's so. If you want to be elected, you have to say these things. If you want to sell something, you have to say these things. And if you want to be liked and be taken into a fraternity, you have to say nothing, and on it goes. And you believe this. That's so funny. You believe that physis has swallowed up logos.

Now gentlemen, once physis swallows up logos, the result is--as with the Stoa, as with the Epicureans--logic. That is, logos can be pre-calculated, gentlemen. The Greeks had this word "logic," and they had also the word "logistics," by the way, in many forms. And in Plato already, you find the degradation of logos to logistics. That is -- what is logos, gentlemen? Pre-calculable truth. That is, you are not saying something because you have to say it now, you see, and then verify it by your own act. You don't take an oath and say, "I'm going to be faithful to this woman," and then try to be faithful, you see. But you precalculate, as a lawyer would in a contract, you see. And all logic, gentlemen, is repeatable truth, and computable truth. it is know- -- truth already known, and now reformulated.

The result, as you know, in the Stoa was that the logic produced tremendous rhetorics. Rhetorics is also saying something, you see, for the second time. Not saying -- not speaking under compulsion for the first time, as an original mind, you see, but thinking it over, and now putting it in to such a form, you see, that it will sell.

As soon, gentlemen, as this -- as this Niagara, from logos to logic, was set in motion by Parmenides, here, when he tried to make master -- man master of anything in the outer world, in his mind, and not allowed himself to s- -- admit that he was inspired, time and again, and to say what was necessary in this moment, but he looked at all the world as just a -- in shambles, so to speak, you get the necessity, gentlemen, of finding some way of rebuilding logos. And so you get at the end of the -- in the Paulinian appearance in Athens, you get the clash between logos and pneum- -- pneuma -- pneuma. We -- you have heard of the Holy Spirit.

Now gentlemen, as long as the Greeks believed in logos, there was no need for the special word "pneuma." Pneuma and logos -- are historical ideas. You use spirit, the word "spirit." You have heard of the Holy Spirit. Why did the Christians--when they went into the pagan world, to the Gentiles, to the Greeks especially, and the Romans--why did they have to -- burden us with the Trinity? That is the problem of the Greek mind, gentlemen. In the meantime, the logos of

antiquity, the power to speak, had been used by the philosophers, and the philosophical schools as an apparatus, as a mechanism, as something that was like nature, you see. It could be particularized, and it could be itemized, and -- any of you who has written a paper on any of these philosophers must simply know that the logos was treated by them as a thing, as an entity like any other. This is what the Greeks did to logos. They depersonified it, and they detemporized it. And they said, "The logos is a machine, is a mechanism."

To give you the -- an example of what happens in -- in America at this moment. We have here a group of people here who try to keep the inspiration of President Tucker alive. And one of the men -- took -- in this group to speak on -- on President Tucker. And he got up and he began, "The mechanism of a college..."

And I interrupted and said, "The spirit of a college."

And there was great laughter, because he wanted to speak about the spirit, but the natural word for him was "the mechanism of the college," you see. Because it's much now -- natural for you to speak of the mechanism of the college, you see, than of the spirit of the college. You -- we know more about the mechanism, the filing cabinets, et cetera, and the alumni fund, you see. So it is -- the draw is always -- the drawback is always to speak about the mechanism, you see, and not of the spirit. Or -- except when you sing "Dyin- -- Dartmouth Undying," you see, because it is so definitely dead.

This is very serious, gentlemen. You have -- we are -- anybody in any family, in any fa- -- nation is faced with this contradiction, you see, that the spirit which we invoke usually is -- already has been used for ulterior motives, has it not? We say it's a pep talk. And once you say it's a pep talk, the logos is already dead.

Now the Christians' attempt to go out into the world from -- from Judaism--Israel being the only group in the ancient world which had shunned philosophy, and had not gone this way of logic, and natural science--this way into the Greek world was beset with this decadence of logic. If log- -- logos is a part of the natural realm, you see, then it can be looked at objectively, and it is something that I can use, as I can use anything. And the Greeks did, by the time of the Roman Empire, use their mind.

So we can say, perhaps in so many words, gentlemen, when logos becomes physis, then it becomes mind. Mind is logos in the state of nature, as a part of a man's equipment, as a man's mechanical equipment. Logos in the force of our -- and your original experience as a child, for example, is overwhelming,

an act of obedience. I mean, when you take a child for the first time to church, there are no questions asked. But it tries to open its lips for the "Our Father" with the feeling that there is a Father in Heaven. As soon as you -- in this country, you can no longer rely on this. You are all so sophisticated.

It happened to me in the last class, in the last course, last year. I've never for- -- I shall never forget it. I shall take this to my -- to, so to speak, as an earthquake -- to my grave, as a real, shattering experience, that a boy in the same class in the beginning of the course seriously -- in the beginning of the class, said to me, in front of the class, publicly, that Jesus committed suicide. And by the end of the class, he had gone one better and he said, "After all, Hitler sacrificed himself for his nation." Now I don't think you can speak to this man any more about any religious truth directly, you see. He is absolutely ruined. Everything has gone.

The -- the greatest act of logos, of obedience to our Father in Heaven, has become suicide, the going to the Cross, the Crucifixion. And on the other hand, the most arbitrary bastard, the devil himself, the great liar, really an ana- -- the -- a beast from the abyss, has "sacrificed himself for his nation." This is -- can be performed in New Jersey and adjacent territories. This boy of course, came from New Jersey, from one of these Nazi communities there. Well, that's -- Wisconsin and New Jersey, gentlemen, they have more Hitlerites than all Germany today.

(To give this fellow his due, he might have been able to say that quite logically, looking at it from Hitler's point of view, Hitler believed -- I imagine Hitler believe he was sacrificing himself for his people, don't you think?)

Not in his last speech. He said, "You deserve now to perish." He didn't say that he -- he said, "I go out, because you haven't sacrificed yourself for me." That was his last speech.

(Well, I mean, before that. A person who's crazy can say all sorts of things.)

But my dear Mandaville, if you do not shudder over the human frailty, I'm very sorry you don't know how serious the destruction of all values at this moment in this country is, if you can sell this -- and this boy was convinced that this was clever, you see, was very smart, and if you even are convinced that it can be held, we have no means any longer of understanding each other, because the logos can only be understood in terms of sacrifice, you see, in terms of obedience, in terms of authority, in terms of majesty, in terms of awe, in terms of submission. Because the logos says to you, you see, "Now you have to go and die on the battlefield."

Now if Hitler, you see, sacrificed himself for his nation, the whole resistance against Hitler all over Europe was criminal. Understand? All the people on whose memory our -- your, my future rely, much more than you know, because these good people have said, so to speak, like the Hungarians now, you see. It's very similar -- the consequence is, you see, that we have no good men in our { }, because they all -- the goo- -- best ones have all resisted this scoundrel. So you get into terrible consequences, you see. The blind admiration of Nero, of power for its own sake.

Oh no. You don't see what the logos does. Every word you speak, my dear man, and every name you invoke organizes the whole universe, you see. It is -- you can never isolate Jesus and -- and Hitler, you see. They infect all your judgments in ethos and physis. Because after all, you despise then a man like Jesus who had not -- not even -- not even a veterans' home, not even a Levitt House to put His head down. And Hitler, who conquered the whole world, and you still say he sacrificed himself for the --. That's the consequence, then. Where is then -- why not take the Suez Canal? Why not march into Hungary? Why not, my dear man? Why not? It's the only reasonable thing to do: conquer the world. That's the consequence when you use this word "sacrifice," my dear man, in the opposite sense in which it was meant.

You cannot isolate Mr. Hitler as a nice, interesting fact, you see. He's just the world war, world conquest. That's what -- and he said so. "I want to be this," you see.

Oh no, oh no. The -- that's why -- everybody in Europe feels that the United States are just a shipwreck, because they have no mind left, gentlemen, or if you say -- no logos left. There is no logos here. Anybody can sell anything and s- -- called -- be called "smart." This is very smart what this boy said, you see. Also -- you also think it's smart. Smart is logic, gentlemen, without the spirit. If he makes you buy something, it's very smart. But that he may create an inflation, and a spiral in wages, and so on, by -- by overdoing his -- his automobile stunt, his prosperity in automobiles, so to speak, that is, you see, not logic. That's logos. That takes a spirit to know.

I gave an example, gentlemen. There is a paper -- who was in Philosophy 9? I think you will -- remember, I gave you this example of Mr. David Lawrence, this arch-rascal who publishes this capitalistic paper on -- on -- United States News Reports, where he said that inflation was in- -- in- -- inevitable, because debtors like inflation, and there are more debtors in this country than creditors; therefore we must have inflation.

What's wrong about this? Very smart. He was very clever. And many

people, of course, subscribe to this paper, because he is so smart, gentlemen. The scoun- -- what is -- can you reach the point where you find what -- what makes him into a scoundrel, just by this one paragraph? You see, the logic is impeccable, you see. But of course, always, as with the spirit, it is that the spirit knows that there are not just debtors and creditors, you see. There is still right and wrong. There are still widows who have a right to -- to live an income, but on their pension, you see. And there are still endowed institutions who have a right to live on their endowment. And there is -- there are -- any number of things that cannot be dragged down by the greed of -- of enter- -- of workers and manufacturers. Inflation is the way in which the -- the working class and the industrial class live together on my and your back. Fleece us, that is, the people who at this moment are not wage earners or, you see, or money makers. You live in some form on a -- on a settled income, on -- on the tuition or whatever it is, who -- somebody pays. If this has to be increased, you are in danger. That's inflation. Inflation is just un- -- -not right. The smart man does not know what right or wrong is, gentlemen, because right or wrong -- you should know this from your study of Plato -- is something that is not natural. It isn't even mathematical, Mr. {Porter}, you see. That's the Pythagorean problem, you see. Plato said, "The good is also the mathematically true," you see. "Mathematics and the Good," Mr. Whitehead called his last lecture. But the good is not the mathematically correct at all. It's different.

Ethos and physis cannot be identified; that's the power of the logos to say. As soon as you make logos into logic, you will not give in before you have explained the whole ethical realm of politics by natural commotions. And that's what's going on in this country. That's what Mr. David Lawrence does in these news reports. He says that inflation is inevitable because there are more creditors -- more debtors than -- than creditors. And debtors love inflation. Can you see what happens when you treat -- treat all social relations by numbers, by quantity? That's physis. And that's -- and that's -- you see, that's acclaimed in this country.

So the word "pneuma," then gentlemen, is an attempt to get out of the constant loss of energy of the logos by tre- -- being treated by mere logic. So I have invoked the necessity, gentlemen, of creating pneumatics. That would be a reminder that logic is always wrong. Because logic treats the logos as nature. But gentlemen, that I can say "no" is never nature. That's always supernature. That is always something quite different. That's a power that is of -- primeval.

Just as God created the earth, I can create injustice by calling a thing unjust. Somebody has to call a spade a "spade" before it is a spade. You don't believe this. You think the spade is a spade before I have called it a spade. But this is not so in society, gentlemen. Before I have called Hitler, you see, a

"scoundrel," he is not a scoundrel, because in the ethical world, you see, anybody who can speak is on the side of the angels before he has been found out and declared to be on the side of the devil. The strange thing about humanity is, gentlemen, that you assume that before the man has been declared to be worth killing, and worth executing, he has a right to live.

Let me now put this whole problem, gentlemen, of -- so -- may I sum this up? The -- doctrine of the Holy Spirit is an attempt to link up the Greek odyssey, the Greek migration, the Greek ex- -- exodo- -- exodus from normal humanity into philosophy. This attempt to look at the mind as a mechanism, and to treat it as something that is under law, and whose results can be pre-calculated. That is the essence of logic, you see, pre-calculating of -- the results of the spiritual life of mankind. The pneuma is an attempt to restore the balance, and to say, "Just as much as I can repeat old ways, I can also start a new way." And since I can start a new way, the power with which I decide whether I repeat at this moment, or whether I st- -- start something different, you see, this decision is not logic. And that is -- comes from the spirit, or as the Greeks called it, from the pneuma.

Never forget, gentlemen, that the word "pneuma" and the word "spirit" is nothing but the word "breath" in -- in Anglo-Saxon. It's nothing so very highfalutin. It is simply the breath of life. I have published a book in German under this title, The Breath of the Spirit, to draw attention to the fact that something absolutely physical is meant, that I can take a deep breath and start all over again.

So the -- the whole road of -- of the ancient world, from Paul to St. Augustine, is an attempt to bring the mind of the Greek philosophers back under the domination of the spirit. Or, as I tried to tell you, to balance the overwhelming weight of past routines, of known and computable ways of the mind, by unknown, unheard-of future ways of inspiration. The Holy Spirit is an attempt to tell you that the past is not better than the future; the future is not better than the past. Both -- has to be holy. That is, both -- has to be de- -- delve into this {c- -- total} freedom, as in -- the New Testament expresses it, that a good -- that a wise man brings out of his treasures something old and something new. You become, gentlemen, a Christian as long as the old is not better than the new in you -- in your judgment, and the new is not better than the old, by itself. As long as you think new is better, you are apes. And as long as you think that old is better than new, you are monkeys. So take your choice.

The problem of the spirit is that old and new are no categories for truth, or for goodness, or for value, or for importance. If you are recommended television because it is new, it's a very poor recommendation, you see. That's not a good recommendation. But you believe that you cannot resist the new. This country, as you know, is just -- if you say, "This is new," you think you have to

have it, you see. And if you say, "It is old," you think you can -- you can -- pass it over.

We had a young woman who married -- went to -- to marry in -- in Oregon. And she came back after 20 years. This was in '35, that she had gone out and gotten married. And she came back in '55 and entered our church and said, "This is impossible."

And we said, "What's impossible?"

"This church," she said.

And we said, "Why?"

"It's the same rug. It's the same rug." There was the same rug, you see, lying in the aisle -- aisle, which had -- been there when she got out to Oregon, you see. In a decent church in Oregon, you see they change the rug every three years. Of course, no -- no spirit. But rugs.

To show you what happens when logos becomes, gentlemen, the -- something physical, a mechanism, a logic, a rhetorics, all the things of public speaking, all the things you study. I got here a book yesterday -- from the university in which I have to teach next spring. So they wanted to prepare me for the worst, I suppose. And -- it's called a -- a ring lecture. That is, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 people have followed each other very -- like the Great Issue course. But with some more connection I suppose this is, because they -- it's called "From the -- from the unvivified--how do you?--unliving to the living." It is a way, so to speak, of life -- from -- from death to life.

That is the way, gentlemen, of the Greek mind. This is a typical Greek book. It begins with the deadest, the external, the air, the fire, the elements, the heavens, as it is still in Plato's Timaeus, you see, the universe, which is dead, as far as we know. It may be heated; it may be moving. But it is dead. It has no life. And all Greek mind, and your mind, too, thinks it can explain me and you by knowing what Mars and Jupiter are like, and what the galaxy is, and what the cell is, and what the waves is, and what -- all physicists do this, you see. You see, the -- the tendency is to go to physis to explain life. To begin from scratch. -- People think that's very logical. Because if you -- if you use your logic to explain the living from that which does not live, you see, the reasonable people say that this man is logical. You give me physics. What's the next science on top of physics, what would follow, Mr. { }?

(The logos.)

Oh no, no. I mean, in natural -- in the field of natural science. If you first have explained everything you can do in the realm of physics, which would be the next science -- which is already a little more complicated?

(Chemistry.)

Chemistry. {Mixturing}, you see. Then would come the cell physiology, you see, biology; and then would come plant life, you see; and then would come animal life; and then would finally come?

(Spiritual life.)

Well -- they don't believe in the spirit, but at least human life. Social life. All right. If you think already { }.

Finally, you would then explain God from waves, and that's what they all try to do. We -- this book is very typical for what the Greek mind has tried to do since the days of -- of the Ionian philosophers, to explain the higher out of the lower, gentlemen. To explain the higher out of the lower. And the spirit with which I try to explain the lower then is itself explained as the result of the lower, you see. I use my mind to say that waves constitute the universe. But I say this. And this in -- in your mind is perfectly logical. One day it will be explained by Mr. Einstein's theory of relativity, because what I say is the result of waves. If it is the result of waves, it is not { } you, in any respect. It cannot be true, gentlemen. Because in order to be truth, it must have a source which is not waves. Waves don't bind me, you see. I can -- you can laugh at this. Anything that is just waves, gentlemen, has absolutely no compulsion. If you look through any truth, gentlemen, as being purely psychological, purely chemical, purely physical, it loses all interest, because why should you believe in such nonsense, you see? Something that is just produced, like an -- like an -- egg souffl‚, like an -- how do you call it? -- these French souffl‚s, you see, out of a few eggs, you make a tremendously pompous { }. How do you call it?

(Fondue?)

Wie?

(Fondue?)

Fondue is quite solid, you know, compared to a souffl‚. Wie?

(Would meringue?)

Yes, a meringue is good example. Souffl‚, they call it. Don't you say souffl‚, too?

(Yeah.)

All right.

(It's an omelette. Scrambled eggs.)

It always seems to me that -- it is -- it is just startling how you people all go around, waiting for the next physicist to explain your own highest prayer, or thought, or -- and then think that you will accept his explanation. If all explanations are nothing but vapors of the brain, gentlemen, of the brain cells, then I'm not interested. Then he has just to say what his machinery forces him to say. And he certainly cannot tell the truth, because he will only follow his self-interest; he will follow the line of least resistance. All natural explanations explain everything by the -- line of least resistance, by gravity, you see, by selfishness.

The -- way -- the response, the protest against the Greek mind was Christianity, which said that the road travels from life to death -- to dead things. That I first say "no," that by -- when I speak to you, gentlemen, I am alive. I am certainly more alive than this piece of wood. And that's why I'm entitled to stand here, and to hammer this table. It has to take it, because it serves a higher life. And -- now comes the whole problem, gentlemen, which the Christians had to face--the Jews, too--and which you and I have to face when we see the place -- try to -- allot the place to philosophy.

This book is written from the dead to the living, and it always assu- --

[tape interruption]

...this book are as alive as anybody can be -- while they wrote the book, and you are at most alive when you read it. That is, the assumption is, gentlemen, that when you write a prose book, or a book in prose, or when you read it, that this is the highest moment of vitality, so to speak. The highest phase of vitality.

Now, I'm going to go to Mnster, gentlemen, and to teach there. And I shall begin with this book, and I shall say, "I have to reverse the process." I have to teach a -- a cl- -- a course in which I try to pursue the road from life to death, how even the best life dies in the ears of students. Because you take examinations, which is a specific form of Hell and death. Anything that is asked in an examination is no more alive than a dead dodo. It's killed, obviously. That's why

all the great truth is constantly killed in our colleges. You cannot be asked a question in an exam under duress, and still appreciate its poetical, or its scientific value. You just have to know it by rote, and you have to -- try to get by. And you swindle, and you copy, and you cheat, and what-not. So all truth in any school of -- of the world, gentlemen, dies. The dead -- the death, the un- -- very in- -- undignified death of imitation and -- and fear.

But there is another, much more difficult thing. Anybody who speaks, gives a course from the logos down to physis--as I intend to do, instead of from the physis up to logos--must admit that in the moment while he's speaking in the classroom--I'm speaking here to you, gentlemen--we are less alive than we might be. In other words, the whole problem of Heraclitus, and Parmenides, and the Stoics, and Plato, and Aristotle is the incongruity of the comparison. If you try to explain the mind as a mechanism, gentlemen, the mechanism of -- even of a college, the mechanism of logic, you have, through these various phases--from physics, to chemistry, to biology, to psychology--you have the right to assume that you are on top of this ladder. This book is written by people who think they are on top of the world. They are the finest flowers of this -- of this world of Mr. Einstein in which you deduce the higher from the lower.

If I say, gentlemen, "All lower things must be explained by the higher, the world is only because man is, man is only because God is, and I cannot possibly explain the slightest star in the universe -- use the slightest star in the universe to explain me, but I must use me to explain the star," I am in this very great handicap, gentlemen. I cannot reverse the process and say, "I look down now on the feces of my body and say, that is what I've left behind, although it is literally true." I must look up, as well as down. That is, any human being who is not crazy knows that when he opens his mouth and passes judgment on things, on lower -- on things of the natural world, gentlemen, is standing halfway between a greater life and the lower life. And therefore, there is no reciprocity, gentlemen, between the logician and the pneum- -- pneumatist, you may call him this way, the pneumatics, the spirit, the man who believes in inspiration and in his obedience to the spirit, because I have to admit that I am not the lord of the spirit. I am under the spirit. Whereas this other, this logician can say that he is on top of his world. He is the finest flower of the dead universe which he has construed.

Can you see the difference, that this ladder leads to the point that these 12 gentlemen are sitting there on top of their own death chamber, which they have construed, and say, "We are the finest flower of the dead universe, which finally has produced life," which is a joke to me. Death doesn't produce life so easily.

You know there have been very wise men who have said that all the oxygen in the ar- -- atmosphere come from our -- from life, from corpses that have given off the air, that even the oxygen that you find around us are the result of life. You see, not the other way around. The oxygen is not the -- the -- the reason for our existence. But the -- we are the reason for the existence of oxygen in the universe. A very great Frenchman, Felix Ravaisson, has always taught this. And I think he'll come into his own. It's a very profound remark, that that little life, that has -- exists in the universe, you see, has come down into this universe which is totally dead, and has not produced us. If God hadn't created us as living, and created an environment in -- we would be -- these -- these dead things wouldn't be. I don't think that any one of you believes that cemeteries are the place in which the children are born. They are born in a cradle from the love of their parents. And love is nothing which you find in -- in dead matter.

However, there is a real problem, that the man who looks down, gentlemen, has very modestly put himself between the logos above him, and the physis below him. And he knows that with all his fellow men, he is in a community of mankind in which he is not alone in handling and manipulating the logos, but he is only a member of the group which is inspired. That's Heraclitus' doctrine, that while I say something, somebody else has to say the opposite. And that is the life of the logos.

So this is my problem in Mnster, and it should be my problem with you, gentlemen, to make you understand the tem- -- the eternal -- temptation of the philosopher. The tem- -- temptation of the philosopher is the reduction of a three-dimensional existence into a two-dimensional existence. That is, he wants to have a polarity: "I'm the subject. You are the objects." That's all you know, too. I don't live this way, gentlemen. I know that I am entitled to call certain things objects. But I am in a certain -- to -- in all important questions, I'm subjected to some power that is not my object at all.

I -- you can hear today even ministers say in church that God is the object of our worship. If the -- object of our worship, He would be an idol, and He couldn't be worshiped. He is not the object of your worship, you see. Can you see this, that this is impossible? But that's the result of such a book, gentlemen. If you only have this ladder, from the unliving to the living, you see, up -- up -- up in one direction, you see, man is the only subject, and all other things are objects, including God.

And then you have this tragedy, gentlemen, that among the things which this -- this human mind here, these 12 wise men, here--they are very funny, really--which they finally dabble with, is the objectivity of the divine. That is,

they must transform the persons into neuters, into things. Always think of the way of the Greek tragedy that -- which it is, the Greek philosophy, the word from "he" to "it," the world -- the road from -- "we" -- "he" to "it." Out of Zeus, there comes the divine, or the universe. The real change, gentlemen, is not a new name, but a new gender. "That"-ness, instead of "he"-ness, you see. That's why you cannot understand the Trinity. The Trinity is a very simple attempt of the times from Paul to St. Augustine to combat this constant loss of personality, of your authority, of he who says something to you, by saying that if I am already allowed to think of myself as a person--which is very bold assumption, because in fact I am after all a bundle of nerves, and of -- you see, and a coward, and what-not--so if I call myself, as you are -- think you are allowed to call yourself, a "person," or even a "personality," then obviously, God must be more than one personality. He must be at least myself and two generations, and their unity. I'm only young or old. You are only now young, and one day you will be old. So God must be at least the Father and the Son. That's the minimum, in order to understand the authority which He has over me.

The Trinity is a very chaste attempt, gentlemen, to place you in the middle of the pro- -- process between logos, and physis, and ethos. It has nothing to do with denomination. It has nothing to do with the pope in Rome. It has something to do with the truth, gentlemen, the Trinity. Don't believe that because you are a Christian, you must believe in the Trinity. No. Because you have to believe in the Trinity, you must be a Christian. It -- it is simply so that your own spiritual experience must prove to you that it is utterly ridiculous to deduce your power to declare love, or to declare war, or to make friends, that this should depend on the working of your cells. That is not -- not -- begging the question. That is valid that you want to make peace. And you have to stand by it, whether your cells function one way or the other. Or the next scientific fashion tells you that your cells move in a different direction. What difference does it make to the -- your truth? What difference does it make to your freedom? What difference does it make to your willingness to pay the penalty of your decision, or to stand by your word?

As soon as you have realized this, gentlemen, you understand that the Trinity is the philosophical answer to Greek philosophy. That's what it is. It is nothing of a luxury. It isn't the heart of the matter. Jesus didn't have to preach the Trinity for reasonable people who hadn't gotten lost in philosophy. But anybody who has studied philosophy, even by indirection, in a -- in an American grammar school, must believe in the Trinity in order to get out of his mental cave of philosopher -- being a philosopher. A philosopher is a man who has only the one-way street that he is on top of life. And everything is less alive than he. He is perfectly willing to admit that he can be deduced from the less life. That's his -- so to speak, his admission in the logical process. But otherwise, he is quite

sure that he represents the highest life at this moment.

Anybody who knows a little bit of himself, knows that this is nonsense, that most moments we are less alive than great powers like genius, and saints, and martyrs, who have done much better, really -- as we -- than we. Any one of you knows at this moment, that when your mother gave birth to you, she did a bigger job than you have ever done in your life so far. And -- you know very well that a veteran who -- a soldier who has died in Korea has stood his ground better than we. We mostly fail. Anybody who has died for us, anybody who has sacrificed for us ranks higher in vitality than you and me. And any- -- no -- nobody can be talked to, who doesn't admit this from the very beginning, that there can be higher life than his own. That's the condition, gentlemen, under which we only can transact business when we deal with the truth. You cannot be the yardstick of the truth yourself. It is impossible. Can you see this?

The philosopher doesn't see this. And that's why Greek philosophy -- had to -- be brought down. And that's why I'm interested, gentlemen, in this course to say to you, very frankly, gentlemen, that the Trinity, which these ministers themselves do no longer understand, because they have not -- neither studied Greek, nor Latin, nor Hebrew, nor philosophy. They don't understand anything. They are the slaves of the fashionable philosophy of our day today, these poor, so-called ministers of the word. But you and I, gentlemen, as laymen, as secular minds, you must know the remedy against your own mind's haughtiness and arrogance. And that is only when you see yourself standing here. We are all within the realm of the experience of neighbors. One saying one thing, and another saying something else. Now we all know that this is held together by some higher authority. You have listen to me, you see, as your teacher. But I have to have teachers, myself.

In this constant exchange of authority, gentlemen, I am only on the rung of the ladder which is in the middle; and therefore there is a higher authority than myself. Anybody who has died for me, has more claim to your respect than your -- than I have, myself. He has {brought into the life}, and I have not. And I pray that I may be spared, that I don't have to die in resistance against Hitler, or some such --.

Some of -- my best students, gentlemen, who have taken every word, which I have taught them in Germany, and believed it, have acted upon it and have died from the hands of Hitler. Well, they are now higher in authority than I am. I am their teacher, all right. But they have done what I have taught them to do. And therefore they have outgrown me, and I have to admit that they are above me. And they do. By the way, this is a very practical business for me, because these people have now to be put into the right authority in Europe if --

if Germany is going to have any life again. And we are battling -- I -- I just -- large exchange of printed matter on this business. I had to write some open letters on this be- -- in this -- on this point to the people who -- who, like Mr. Mandaville, think that -- that Hitler was after all not so bad.

(I didn't say that!)

Well, at least he believed that he sacrificed himself for his nation. You said.

(I said he believed -- I said that he believed he was sacrificing himself. Well, what crime would that be, Sir?)

Ja, that's all enough. That would be enough to absolve him. Anybody can't do more than -- than have a good opinion of himself.

(I wouldn't say it otherwise, { }.)

Well, gentlemen, let's come back to the main issue. The main issue today is that the dogma of the Christian Church has ceased to be a dogma of the Church. It's a problem of the philosophers today. The Trinity today is the last chapter in the history of the Greek mind. It is an attempt to get out of the vicious circle, and that's why they were all great Greeks who -- who had this -- who proclaimed this dogma, you see. That is, an attempt of the Greeks to find access into the Church and to Christianity.

The Jews laugh at this dogma to this day and said, "Why bother? We have never believed that man's mind was such a great thing, or that the world was -- could -- the idols of the world, the sun was a god, or the stars were gods. We never believed this nonsense in the first place. We were no astrologers, we were no chemists, we were no psychoanalysts. And therefore, we don't have to be converted." And so the -- any Jew will -- a real Jew, I mean, an orthodox Jew--not Mr. Freud or so--but they will poke fun at -- at the Trinity, and say it's not necessary. And you have learned this, and you all poke fun at the Trinity and say that Paul spoiled Christianity, because he had to say to the Greeks that they had to be -- come under authority again. Nothing else the Trinity says.

The Trinity places man in the middle. Here is nature. These are the things for which I can make up my mind. I must study them. I can -- you see, anything that is indifferent, gentlemen, is physis. Indifferent in the sense that I can use it, because I undoubtedly have the right to use all lower life. We talked about this, about meat, didn't we? With the camels and the vegetarian? Did we speak here about this? That was the other class. Well, I mean, the -- you don't doubt the fact

that you can eat hamburgers, you see. A vegetarian doubt -- begins to doubt it, you see. He places himself elsewhere and he says, "I can't take life."

Now there is this whole decision to be made that there is higher life and lower life. And just as much as you have every right to kill a flea, so you have a right to eat hamburgers. It's a national passion in this country to eat hamburgers.

Which is a grave decision, gentlemen. Why should we eat meat, you see? If you are only apes and monkeys, a Darwinian cannot eat meat, because a man is just an ani- -- other animal. If you -- if you group men on the level of animals, you see, then we better not eat meat. But man is not an animal. He's animated. He's a little better than an animal, because he can condemn himself. He can condemn part of his life as lower life, and other parts of himself as higher life. And he can draw this wedge in between himself, between his transient, and temporal, and -- and physical existence, and his representation of the power that decides where the -- the road shall go, what the journey is.

So gentlemen, the acknowledgement of the higher life above me places me in the position to know what is physis, what is ethos, and what is logos. Before, I try to mix all these spheres. I try to treat logos as a machine. I mean as -- read all these logical positivists, or semanticists. They all try to say the -- the mind is just a machine. And if you treat the machinery right, then it has infallible, but indifferent, results. There is no truth which the pure logician can bring out, that is of any importance. They are all valid, in the sense that they are -- cannot be refuted. But if you will read -- read the famous syllogisms, and the famous logical feats of Mr. Zeno, the logician in antiquity, or today, of these modern things, -- they are not interesting. They are just as good as the $64,000 question. The answer -- I have not -- yet to find the answer to any of the $64,000 question which are -- is of any relevance. They are all indifferent, you see. That's very typical of our civilization, that nothing important is ever asked. The stupidity is asked, and stupidity is answered. And for this you are paid.

We -- it's really very interesting, gentlemen, you see. It's a -- it's the same as with your mechanical examination questions. There can -- no important question can be asked -- which is tested by a machine, you see. They are not important. It's a lottery. -- Your life doesn't depend on the "yes" or "no" of this answer, isn't that true? Now, of course, I -- unfortunately you do not know that while writing the papers for me, your own future mental life and its health depends on the answer you give. But it does. It isn't important, gentlemen, what mark you get in this course. And it isn't important what you tell me and what I think of it. But it is terribly important that at one point, you should break through your own mind's crust, and know that you are under logos and above

physis, and in an ethical relation to me. Which is very difficult for a student to grasp, it seems. But this is the whole problem of this course, gentlemen, that logos, ethos, and -- and physis, gentlemen, can be simply called "God," "man," and "world." The -- I use the Greek words to -- to shout you into the -- into the awareness, gentlemen, that there is within the -- your educated sphere, where you all use these highfalutin terms like "psychoanalysis," and "psychology," and -- and "advertising," and -- and what all the terms are which you use, I mean, this -- this -- this goulash of -- of English, which you call "scientific language," that -- I can enter this realm of nonsense, too, and sell you there logos, ethos, and physis, as highfalutin terms. Human beings who don't go to college say -- speak just of God, man, and world with honesty, because they still bow their head to God. You don't. So I have to call it "logos." And physis to you is -- is -- seem -- seemed to me better in your technological age than if I say "world," because you think the world has no -- is not -- not entrusted to you. You don't believe that the creatures are moaning, and groaning, and waiting for their redemption by you. You do- -- think you can cut the redwood, or cut the viol- -- tread down the violet, or extirpate the -- the moose, or the elk, and as long as you treat the world as -- in this sense, I'd better say "physis," to make it possible for you to -- to find this term within your own jargon, within your own lingo.

So I have only spoken Greek to you, gentlemen, all this time, because I felt that by -- inviting you to the -- this -- the -- to this jargon of the Greek philosophers, I might do two things: show you the temptation, which anybody who does something in this world has, to be -- become master of his destiny. The Greek philosophy is an attempt to become master of our destiny, gentlemen. Christianity has tried to set the scales in order again, and to tell us that we are not masters of our destiny, and never shall be. This is your own decision, gentlemen. When you are in your office, in your business, you think you are the masters. To a certain extent, you are, you see. Where you repeat the performance, where you invest -- compute -- we are to a certain extent the masters of -- not of our destiny, but of our purposes, you see. Destiny has nothing to do with purpose.

And the -- important thing that happened, gentlemen, in the reconquest of the pneuma -- through the Trinity is, this distinction between purpose and destiny. The Greek mind cannot distinguish between goal and aim, between destiny and purpose. The -- when your mind is God, and God is the mind in this sense, you see, in -- in philosophy, in your own business, you always say -- think that your purpose is your destiny, and your destiny is your purpose. Obviously, gentlemen, the destiny is only always evident after your purpose has failed, you see.

When Mr. Franklin D. Roosevelt had polio, his destiny became very clear,

because his purpose was destroyed. That's why many great men have been created by suffering, you see. It takes suffering to d- -- learn the distinction between purpose and destiny. Can you see this? Not? No? That's difficult. So on this we have to -- speak next time. You cannot see the distinction between purpose and destiny?

(No.)

I'm glad you say it, because that's just the -- of course, the same thing as you can't see the difference between logic and logos. Right, you are.

Who, by the way -- would you all be honest, and tell me? Who can see the distinct -- difference between purpose and destiny? Who can see it? I think that's good. This is only a minority. But that's the same issue, gentlemen. The problem of philosophy has been that knowledge is virtue. And virtue is knowledge. Now virtue is power. A man who would have power would be the master of his destiny. Man has no power. And -- the more he tries to have power, gentlemen, the more powerless he becomes. God is only strong in the weak.

That's all paradox at this moment. But I think we have the topic for the last lecture, gentlemen. The end of Greek philosophy is always -- each time this recognition that purpose is not destiny and destiny is not purpose. Today, I was satisfied to introduce you to the fact that the pneuma, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, is not a religious doctrine, and a religious experience, but the necessity of expressing the Greek experience in terms that were no longer Greek, but that -- led the Greeks back into the general experience of the whole human race, that the loss of spirit, the loss of logos, by mere logical, you see, instrumentalism, mechanism, cleverness, had to be rebuilt, or replaced, had to be remedied by making man again able to be inspired by a power higher than he himself.

Thank you.