A modern symposiumDickinson, G. Lowes (Goldsworthy Lowes)
Philosophy
A modern symposium
Dickinson, G. Lowes (Goldsworthy Lowes)
Great Britain -- Social conditions; Social problems
Let us be patient and follow each his path, waiting on the word of God
till He be pleased to reveal it. For His way is not hard, it is joy
and peace unutterable. And those who wait in faith He will bless with
the knowledge of Himself."
As he finished it was light, though the sun had not yet risen. The
first birds were singing in the wood, and the fountain glistened and
sang, and the plain lay before us like a bride waiting for the
bridegroom. We were silent under the spell; and I scarcely know how
long had passed before I had heart to call upon Vivian to conclude.
I have heard Vivian called a philosopher, but the term is misleading.
Those who know his writings--and they are too few--know that he
concerned himself, directly or indirectly, with philosophic problems.
But he never wrote philosophy; his methods were not those of logic; and
his sympathies were with science and the arts. In the early age of
Greece he might have been Empedocles or Heraclitus; he could never have
been Spinoza or Kant. He sought to interpret life, but not merely in
terms of the intellect. He needed to see and feel in order to think.
And he expressed himself in a style too intellectual for lovers of
poetry, too metaphorical for lovers of philosophy. His Public,
therefore, though devoted, was limited; but we, in our society, always
listened to him with an interest that was rather enhanced than
diminished by an element of perplexity. I have found it hard to
reproduce his manner, in which it was clear that he took a conscious
and artistic pleasure. Still less can I give the impression of his
lean and fine-cut face, and the distinction of his whole personality.
He stood up straight and tall against the whitening sky, and delivered
himself as follows:
"Man is in the making; but henceforth he must make himself. To that
point Nature has led him, out of the primeval slime. She has given him
limbs, she has given him brain, she has given him the rudiment of a
soul. Now it is for him to make or mar that splendid torso. Let him
look no more to her for aid; for it is her will to create one who has
the power to create himself. If he fail, she fails; back goes the
metal to the pot; and the great process begins anew. If he succeeds,
he succeeds alone. His fate is in his own hands.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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