Theism; being the Baird Lecture of 1876Flint, Robert
Religion
Theism; being the Baird Lecture of 1876
Flint, Robert
Theism
The truth that social development ought to combine and harmonise
permanence and progress, liberty and authority, the rights of
the individual and of the community, has been often enforced and
illustrated. The earnestness with which Comte did so in both of his
chief works is well known. A philosopher of a very different stamp, F.
v. Baader, has in various of his writings given expression to profound
thoughts on the subject. His essay entitled 'Evolutionismus und
Revolutionismus des gesellschaftlichen Lebens' merits to be specially
mentioned. Alexander Vinet has often been charged with a one-sided
individualism, and perhaps not altogether without justice; but he
always maintained that he was merely the advocate of individuality.
"Individualism and individuality are two sworn enemies; the first
being the obstacle and negation of all society--the second, that to
which society owes all it possesses of savour, life, and reality.
Nowhere does individualism prosper more easily than where there is an
absence of individuality; and there is no more atomistic policy than
that of despotism." Vinet has probably not held the balance exactly
poised between the individual and society; but his dissertations, 'Sur
l'individualité et l'individualisme' and 'Du rôle de l'individualité
dans une réforme sociale,' would have been far less valuable than they
are if he had forgotten that, although it is the individual who thinks,
the thought of the individual cannot form itself outside of society
nor without its aid. But he did not, as words like the following
sufficiently prove:--"It is better to connect ourselves with society
than to learn to dispense with it, or rather to persuade ourselves
that we are able to dispense with it. It is only given to the brute to
suffice to itself. Man has been chained to man. We hardly give more
credit to spontaneous generation in the intellectual sphere than in the
physical world; the most individual work is to a certain point the work
of all the world; everywhere _solidarity_ reappears, without, however,
any prejudice to liberty: God has willed it so." "It is with the soul
engaged in the life of religion, or that of thought, as with the vessel
launched upon the waters, and seeking beyond the ocean for the shores
of a new world. This ocean is society, religious or civil. It bears
us just as the ocean does--fluid mass, on which the vessel can indeed
trace furrows, but may nowhere halt. The ocean bears the ship, but the
ocean may swallow it up, and sometimes does so; society swallows us
up still more often, but yet it is what upbears us; nor can we arrive
without being upborne by it, for it is like the sea, which, less fluid
than the air, and less dense than the earth, just yields to and resists
us enough to sustain without impeding our progress towards the desired
goal." There are no finer pages in Martensen's 'Christian Ethics' than
those in which he treats of "individualism and socialism," "liberty
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account