Evening star., 1935-09-22


He gave to the world an objective study
of the subjective. He placed lights
along the way into the darkest Of
darknesses.
"The world is too much with us"
Wordsworth had written. Amiel
echoed the thought. The way of es-
cape from man-made vexations led
inward. The individual could pro-
ject out of his own mind his own world.
Every man, to quote somewhat less
erudite philosopher of our own day,
could be indeed a king. But there
was no need of economic and social
upheavals to bring about the regaliza-
ton. The individual had but to recog-
nize his kingship. He need only be
the master of himself. The whole
vastness of creation, unfenced and un-
decided, lay behind his own skull.
NOW this Is a philosophy which
seems an almost inevitable human
response to a troubled, confused time.
It has been the philosophy of all of
hiStory's twilights. 1t is, perhaps, a
matter of wonder that there has not
been a more vigorous revival of 1t in
our own day. Perhaps this is due to
the fact that no leader of genius has
arisen to lead the world into this path.
The old leaders were leaders of an old
age.
Amiel, perhaps more penetrating
and prophetic than any of them,
speaks with the voice of the present.
The journal, so much expanded and
vivified, may have far-reaching influ-
ences on world thought. Already. we
are told, there has been a profound
effect both in Europe and in Latin
America. Now that the work has
been issued in English it is not un-
likely that there will be an enthusiastic
revival of the Amiel cult in this
country.
Psychiatrists Of decade ago would
have looked with horror on the re-
appearance of Amiel as a messiah
The weight of their science was di-
rected to push the mind in an oppo-
site direction. They knew too well
the barren, haunted land to which his
path might lead. Their asylumS were
filled with unfortunate who had fol-
lowed it.
1t was the misfortune of Amiel to
have lived at the dawn of an age
when materialism was to gain its
greatest triumphs-when the riches
of the domain of extroversion we're
so great that the sane could only
sneer at the fools who set their sails
inward But the way of the mate
rialists also led. as Amiel prophesied,
to darkness and ruin and world mad
ness-to the soup kitchen and the
firing squad.
Amiel himself encountered the perils
Of extreme introversion and the OBJ
jectively-so paradoxically opposed to
the subjectivity of materialism, as
he recognized-which it demanded.
He was himself, in the end, hapless
victim of the lonely desert of the
mind. But, more than any of the
others who have followed it, he rec
ognized the dangers that must be con-
quered by the brains pilgrims. He
was unhappy. Some of the supreme
demands of his nature we're thwarted.
But he knew also the riches and
beauty of the way. 1t was not road
to be followed naples and provision
less.
Nature, said Amiel, was a reflection
of the mind but, paradoXically enough
the mind was reflection of nature.
Underlying both of them-as Words
worth, Carlyle. Thoreau. St. Paul, St.
Francis and Buddah had recognized
was something far deeper interfused.
Some called it God. Some called it
the Absolute Amiel did not quarrel
over terms. He knew, with Buddhis-
tic intuition, the necessity of putting
ones self in harmony with it. One
does not carry a watch on the seas
Amiel sailed, for there time is no
more and the instant and eternity are
fused.
A MEL was both philosopher and
prophet and this single quotation
which space allows, written rs years
ago. expresses clearly thought which
many have started unconsciouSly to
echo. One may hear something like
it over the radio almost any evening
"One sees that the era of mediocrity
is at hand in every sphere of life.
Equality gives birth to uniformity
and it is sacrificing the excellent,
the remarkable, the extraordinary,
that one gets rid of the bad. Low
spirits will become the malady Of the
equalitarian age. The useful will
replace the beautiful, industry will
replace art, political economy will re-
place religion and arithmetic will re-
place poetry.
THE time of the great men Is
passing: the epoch of the ant hill, OF
the multiple life, arrives. BY con-
tinual leveling and the division OF
labor, society will become everything
| and man will be nothing. Statistics
will register great advances and the
moralist q gradual decline. The av-
erage will rise like the bottoms Of the
valleys by the denuding and sinking
of the mountains. A plateau less and
less undulating. without contrasts
without oppositions, monotonous- -
such will be the aspect Of human
society. Extremes meet, and if the
march of creation consists at first in
endlessly disengaging and multiplying
differences, it afterwards retraces its
steps, effacing them one by one. May
equality, which, in the beginning, Is
torpor, inertia, death, become in the
end the form of life?
Is it not purchasing universal well
being at too great a price to pay
with the highest faculties, the noblest