The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-dayUnderhill, Evelyn
Religion
The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day
Underhill, Evelyn
Spiritual life
Now this indifference means, of course, that we do not as educators, as
controllers of the racial future, really believe in the spiritual
foundations of our personality as thoroughly and practically we believe
in its mental and physical manifestations. Whatever the philosophy or
religion we profess may be, it remains for us in the realm of idea, not
in the realm of fact. In practice, we do not aim at the achievement of
a spiritual type of consciousness as the crown of human culture. The
best that most education does for our children is only what the devil
did for Christ. It takes them up to the top of a high mountain and shows
them all the kingdoms of this world; the kingdom of history, the kingdom
of letters, the kingdom of beauty, the kingdom of science. It is a
splendid vision, but unfortunately fugitive: and since the spirit is not
fugitive, it demands an objective that is permanent. If we do not give
it such an objective, one of two things must happen to it. Either it
will be restless and dissatisfied, and throw the whole life out of key;
or it will become dormant for lack of use, and so the whole life will be
impoverished, its best promise unfulfilled. One line leads to the
neurotic, the other to the average sensual man, and I think it will be
agreed that modern life produces a good crop of both these kind of
defectives.
But if we believe that the permanent objective of the spirit is God--if
He be indeed for us the Fountain of Life and the sum of Reality--can we
acquiesce in these forms of loss? Surely it ought to be our first aim,
to make the sense of His universal presence and transcendent worth, and
of the self's responsibility to Him, dominant for the plastic youthful
consciousness confided to our care: to introduce that consciousness into
a world which is really a theocracy and encourage its aptitude for
generous love? If educationists do not view such a proposal with
favour, this shows how miserable and distorted our common conception of
God has become; and how small a part it really plays in our practical
life. Most of us scramble through that practical life, and are prepared
to let our children scramble too, without any clear notions of that
hygiene of the soul which has been studied for centuries by experts; and
few look upon this branch of self-knowledge as something that all men
may possess who will submit to education and work for its achievement.
Thus we have degenerated from the mediaeval standpoint; for then at least
the necessity of spiritual education was understood and accepted, and
the current psychology was in harmony with it. But now there is little
attempt to deepen and enlarge the spiritual faculties, none to encourage
their free and natural development in the young, or their application to
any richer world of experience than the circle of pious images with
which "religious education" generally deals. The result of this is seen
in the rawness, shallowness and ignorance which characterize the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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