Humanism and America : $b Essays on the outlook of modern civilisation
Philosophy
Humanism and America : $b Essays on the outlook of modern civilisation
Humanism; Literature -- Philosophy; Philosophy, Modern; United States -- Civilization -- 20th century
The above, in a representative modern fashion, confuses modesty and
humility. The modern modest dogma that the world was not “shaped and
created for mankind” has shown itself, when all its implications are
considered, no less deficient in real humility than the conceited
belief that the world was created for human comfortableness. This
belief was far more radically repudiated by Milton than by us. Only
with the aid of modern pride can we be sure that his _basic_ religious
ideas have been “_genuinely_ outlived” and that we, having read Darwin,
conceive of ourselves “much more _humbly_ than he did.” He, to be
sure, was no adept either in Darwinian or in Emersonian modesty. As a
man among men he had strong intellectual and even personal pride. But
above it he had true spiritual humility; which may consist with, and
derive support from, that virtue too much obscured by modern modesty,
namely “self-esteem, founded on justice and right, well managed.”
This kind of self-reliance enabled Milton to assign full value to
the moral division he found within himself. His “energetic dualism,”
as the reviewer calls it, his dramatic sense of the _real_ opposition
between the nature of lust, pride, and Chaos and the nature of purity,
humility, and Peace, was not “based on” transient religious concepts.
It was “based on” the duality he found at the centre of himself as well
as at the centre of European experience, Christian and pagan. He would
have found it also at the centre of ancient Buddhism, if he had known
this as we know it to-day. But, says my reviewer, “we cannot invent an
opposition we do not feel.” Very true. Nevertheless, with the aid of
right self-esteem and humility, with a patient critical reverence for
what is best in ourselves and in accumulated tradition, European and
Oriental, we may not only “feel” but realise, in thought and conduct,
an opposition we did not invent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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