Over against this reasonable and disciplined view of man and of
his world stands naturalism. It exploits the defects of the classic
"virtue"; it is, so to speak, humanism run to seed. Just as religion
so often sinks into bigotry, cruelty and superstitition, so humanism,
in lesser souls, declines to egotism, license and sentimentality.
Naturalism, either by a shallow and insincere use of the materialistic
view of the universe, or by the exalting of wanton feeling and
whimsical fancy as ends in themselves, attempts the identification of
man with the natural order, permits him to conceive of each desire,
instinct, impulse, as, being natural, thereby defensible and
valuable. Hence it permits him to disregard the imposed laws of
civilization--those fixed points of a humane order--and to return
in principle, and so far as he dares in action, to the unlimited and
irresponsible individualism of the horde. Inevitably the law of the
jungle is deliberately exalted, or unconsciously adopted, over against
the humanist law of moderation and discipline.
The humanist, then, critically studies nature and mankind, finding in
her matrix and in his own spirit data for the guidance of the race,
improving upon it by a cultivated and collective experience. The
naturalist uncritically exalts nature, seeks identification with it so
that he may freely exploit both himself and it. The faith of the one
is in the self-sufficiency of the disciplined spirit of mankind; the
unfaith of the other is in its glorification of the natural world and
in its allegiance to the momentary devices and desires of the separate
heart. It will be borne in mind that these definitions are too
clear-cut; that these divisions appear in the complexities of human
experience, blurred and modified by the welter of cross currents,
subsidiary conflicting movements, which obscure all human problems.
They represent genuine and significant divisions of thought and
conduct. But they appear in actual experience as controlling emphases
rather than mutually exclusive territories.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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