Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-07-19
The Wise Man and the Star

~ LEADING the right; OF small no.
lions as distinguished from cosmic
ideas a midsummer savant of the New
York Evening Post opines: ut doesn't get
us anywhere in p; rticular to overburden the
problem Of better schools better mayors
with mastery congratulations about the
Herd and the Unconscious. The discoveries
of anthropology about higher and lower
races are really not so good a guide to a
sane immigration policy the smaller no
tions of freedom and opportunity, upon
which our historic policy has been establish
ed. Instead of sweeping categorieS of race
and cell Structure, one would welcome oc-
casionally the smaller notion of tie individ-
ual man, which is not SO small thing after
ALL
Is Doubtless there is danger, in seeking to
escape Main Street, of getting lost in the
Milky Way. To be neither crassly provin-
cial nor sqUeamishly cosmopolitan, neither
a high-broW (who has keen defined as per-
son educated beyond his intelligence) Lor
brother to the OK" to be capable, in short,
of relishing both Einstein and the parish
beadle-this assurediy were to be happy and
wise. But alas fo- our oIo-track minds and
dwarfish syirpathies. Only the great ar
lists appear able to COMPASS the particular
and the IN versal. Shakespeare is equally
at home with the fol-de-rol of sweet Anne
Page and with Mercury
New Ii'.hted on a heaven-kissing
But rarely do the rest of show CLEAN of
that sovereign and kindly wisdom. Either
we are bored by Sweet Anne to Grabbed
. ness or ruled by her to intellectual perdi-
ton.
Those sweeping categories' at which our
Post critic rlurmurs suffer sadly at tim IS
from their didactic champions. To be pro-
found, the Learned Knights Of the Woefu
seem to take it, is to be abstract, pale, de-
personated, arctic. A touch they need of
WIN
deliberate twice in their councils-"once
when drunk, LIST they be lacking in en-
thusiasm, and once Wien sober, lest tEey be
lacking in discreticn.' For enthusiasm COM
mend US to William James. There is a
Man and a Philosopher in one! You never
find William James moping over the cosmos,
giving you recil when you ask for bread.
"a bill of fG1e,' said he, with one real
raisin on it instead of the word 'raisn,
with one real egg instead Of the word egg,
might be an in .dequate meal but it would
be at least a commencement of reality The
contention that we Ought to stick to the non
personal ell elts exclusively seems like
saying that we ought to be satisfied forever
with reading the naked bill of fare Comes
not the real complaint against the "sweep-
ing category from it's want of being hitch
ed, star-andwagon wise, to the ''individ-
ual man." Concentrations about the
Herd" the "Unconscious," "kace and Cell
Structure" and the like fatigue or appall us
only when they blink from text book S
stark aloofness or brow-beat us from the
PROFESSIONAL tripod. Let d Socrates shuttle
up, bare-footed, sky--ouled, angel-tongued,
and begin talking about the ''Herd" or the
Unconscious" or what generalization you
will, and the giddiest young gallants of
Athens will pause, charm-held to listen. Or
let man-propnet, his skin cloak wet with
dews, come crying from the wilderness d
category so strange and new as the Kingdom
of Heaven, and all manner of folk from
fishermen to kings will hear him.
To generalize the particular and particu-
larze the genera, to seek Utopia in Geor-
gia, and from the boil weevil learn more of
the universe, is not this to be truly philoso-
phic, truly scientific and truly human? THE
wise man. says Mr.. Chesterton, follows a
star low and large in the heavens, but the
nearer he comes to it the smaller it grows
until he finds at last it is the little lantern
Of some humble inn or stable" Beautifully
true; but the wise man, be it observed, DID
follow Star.