Gabriel Marcel Decline of Wisdom PDF

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Microfilms, A Xerox Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.
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THE DECLINE
OF WISDOM
by
Gabriel Marcel
PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY
NEW YORK
Dnuctyaou» Undergraduate
Ubrar* OP #29,083 Library Shelf List
29 Marcel, Gabriel, 1887-

,M32 i955& decline of wisdom- New York, Philosophical Library
Other philosophical works by Gabriel Marcel
56 p, 23 cm.
THE MYSTERY OF BEING (Gifford Lectures, 1949, 1950)
VOL. I REFLECTION AND MYSTERY
VOL. II FAITH AND REALITY
MEN AGAINST HUMANITY
HOMO VIATOR
1. Philosophy—Addresses, essays, lectures. l Title.
METAPHYSICAL JOURNAL
B29.M3G5 55-3492 t
BEING AND HAVING
Ml U
THE PHILOSOPHY OF EXISTENCE Library of Congress
■ ■
sr ■ o
o
y
Published, 1955,
by Philosophical Library, Inc.
75 -Ear/ 40th Street, New York 16, N.Y.
64 &
THE DECLINE OF WISDOM All rights reserved
KiilAcx-
Printed in Great Britain for Philosophical Library by

The Camelot Press Ltd., London and Southampton
£■ 5- 36 6'2-
CONTENTS
Foreword ^
The Limitations of Industrial Civilisation i
The Notion of Spiritual Heritage 21
The Breaking Up of the Notion of Wisdom 37
v
The Decline of Wisdom
which the mind should deliberately reject. It is not therefore

by chance that in these recent years I have been drawn into
closer and closer contact with thinkers so deeply imbued with
FOREWORD the sense of the universal as Gustav Thibon, Max Picard and
poets such as T. S. Eliot.
T HE most serious misunderstanding to which my work has
given rise (among those who either know only a part of
it, or who perhaps approach it with minds not altogether
free from philosophical prejudice) is the belief that it is
irrationalist. ,
The essays in this short volume will, I hope, prove how little
basis there is for this judgment.
In reflecting on the ever-increasing aberrations in the sphere
of ethical and speculative thought and in that of aesthetics,
I have found myself by reaction growing increasingly aware of
certain values which I had spontaneously depreciated during
the formative years of (what I do not like to call) my
philosophy.
These values are all related to wisdom and common sense.
It is understandable that a philosophy whose direction is
truly existential, in the sense given to the word by Kierkegaard
and his disciples, should, to some extent, discredit such notions,
and that wisdom, and, still more, common sense should seem
from this point of view as in a sense devalued, devalued, that is,
in relation to a state of consciousness which clings passionately
to the most irreducibly individual elements contained in it.
Inevitably, as I reacted against the exaggerations of such an
existential philosophy, and in particular against the conception
of an alleged primacy of existence over essence, I tended again
to examine very seriously these values which had been impru¬
dently discredited, and I was drawn to this the more so as
world events proved with glaring evidence that today humanity
itself, and not only the individual, is dangerously tempted to
commit suicide. It is of course possible to conceive, in the
abstract, of a philosophy that discounts the increasing dangers
and temptations of the world around us. But for one who like
myself is opposed to the spirit of abstraction a philosophy of
this sort can only seem to be a possibility without substance
vii
corollary the harmonious development of the sciences and

the arts.
THE LIMITATIONS OF INDUSTRIAL
It would be difficult for us after the events of the past half-
CIVILISATION
century to share this optimism and in particular to see why
I NDUSTRIAL civilisation: the meaning of the words seems

obvious, but I think only because they evoke a set of images
man’s growing mastery over nature should go hand in hand
with the triumph of right. In any case, the development of
historical science and sociology has in the meantime given rise
and ready-made ideas. The moment we say ‘industrial civilisa¬
to a very different conception. In place of the over-all and in
tion* we see factories, smoke, slums, suburbs, what have you,
many ways confused notion of civilisation as a whole there has
and all the commonplaces about mechanisation spring into
grown up the idea of civilisations which are not only distinct
our minds; ‘Mechanisation means progress’, or Mechanisation
but altogether separate and irreducible to one another’s terms,
is a scourge' and so on. But none of it is enough to enable us to
civilisations which may co-exist, though not without friction,
form even a preliminary concept. but which are ever in danger of replacing one another in
The trouble (as I have had occasion to say in a lecture I gave circumstances which are always tragic.
in Florence) is that the notion of civilisation itself has its It became more and more evident, especially in the light of
ambiguities, and the idea of industrial civilisation, seemingly ethnological discoveries, that those whom the civilised had
more exact, cannot help being affected by them. In principle, presumptuously labelled savages had their own civilisation
or rather at first, ‘civilisation’ meant the state of civilised man as with its perfectly recognisable structure and cohesion.
against a state of being primitive—savagery, barbarism; this is It is tempting to say that in view of all this there came about
an idea we already find in the philosophy of the Greeks, par¬ a dissociation between the ideas of civilisation and value which
ticularly of Aristotle, and which, after suffering a number of in the global concept had been inseparable. Actually I do not
mishaps, reappeared in force in the humanism of the Renais¬ believe that this can ever be absolute; it would be more true
sance. Perhaps we should note that its apparent obviousness to say that with the development of a pluralist and historicist
and brilliance dimmed in proportion as the accent was placed theory of civilisations, values came to be relativised—if I may be
upon original sin and its to some extent irreparable con¬ forgiven so barbarous a term. However you define it, a civilisa¬
sequences. # , tion implies beliefs—that is to say, values; what is dangerous is
In the eighteenth century, however, at least in J. J. Rousseau s to assert a priori that these values are necessarily those which
writings, it was confronted with a form of nature worship rationalist European thought, starting with the Greeks, has
which pin-pointed its corruption; while in the nineteenth attempted to define as universal. Not that I would say that
century, on the contrary, the West, fascinated by the progress such a reduction is necessarily impossible, only that it would
of science and technics, seized on the idea of civilisation as the need the utmost caution.
reward of the fullest development of man’s rational faculties. Can any of this help us to see a little further into what
For positivism and all the schools of thought connected with it, ‘industrial civilisation’ means ?
civilisation was the triumph of enlightened order o\er con¬ Obviously it is quite different from a rural civilisation, for
fusion, violence and disorder. The optimists of a hundred years example. We have only to think of England to see how these
ago even thought of it as the means to universal peace, imply¬ two sorts of civilisation were able to co-exist for a very long
ing the gradual substitution of right for might and bringing time, even in juxtaposition; nor can it be said that their co¬
with it not only generally increased well-being, but as a existence has now ended, though everything goes to show that
i 2
The Limitations of Industrial Civilisation The Decline of Wisdom
industrial civilisation is predominating and this in circum¬ very fragile. In that fluid world of metal it is reassuring to meet a
stances which can easily be defined. comrade.
What is also evident is that each of these civilisations forms Georges Friedmann comments that so long as this world
around a particular way of life, and above all that each of these is still frequented by men, by comrades, there is a chance of
ways of living belongs to its own particular environment. conquering it, of moulding it to the ends of culture and dignity.
I have been greatly struck by what Georges Friedmann has Nothing could be more true, I think, but we must still ask
to say about what he calls the technical environment as against ourselves on what terms this comradeship can remain genuine.
the natural environment. It stares us in the face that it is in grave danger of being im¬
paired by the intrusion of politics, or if you like of propaganda.
The Technical Environment The moment men are brought in whose function is to pass on
In the natural environment man is present in his work. ‘The slogans, a milieu which was still living and charged with
span of work is as yet no bigger than that of man’s natural currents of friendship and even genuine brotherhood is in
movements in their technical capacity. The tools which homo danger of being frozen, or to put it in another way, of turning
faber uses in his natural environment may be complex but their into a field for the transmission of quite different currents,
interposition between his hand or foot and the material on which are inhuman and magnetised by the ends purely of
which he is at work does not mean that his part in production domination.
is eliminated. On the contrary, they humanise production A question which arises here is whether people whose training
further since they make it possible to manufacture something has been almost exclusively technical are not much more
to which the craftsman, who completes the work himself, brings susceptible to this kind of propaganda than those who have
greater continuity and precision, carrying out his plan and received what at the beginning of this century was still called
giving it the harmony of a finished whole. In such a profession a general culture. Not that I would suggest a return to the
as medicine this fullness of human presence is still noticeable.’ teaching of the classics as it was conceived at the end of the
The natural environment as such is a climate of presence and nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries; but
sympathy. In it ‘a life rich in direct understanding, in presence, it seems that a counterweight to the growing technical trend in
is combined with the spread of craftsmanship and the begin¬ education needs to be invented.
nings of industry’. A strictly complementary aspect of industrial civilisation is
Nothing more different from this could be found than the brought to light in this fine passage by Spengler which occurs
technical environment which, as such, is artificial and inhuman in the last chapter of his Decline of the West:1
in the strongest sense, even where everything has been done to
improve the material conditions of work. ‘In this milieu’, Then followed . . . the discovery of the steam engine. . . . Till
then nature had rendered services, but now she was tied to the yoke
says Georges Friedmann, ‘boredom is the worker’s mate, the as a slave, and her work was as though in contempt measured by a
only possible escape is on the side of man’; and Georges Navel, standard of horse-power. We advanced from the muscle-force of
the author of Traveaux and Parcours, who has been through this the Negro, which was set to work in organised routines, to the
experience, writes: organic reserves of the Earth’s crust, where the life-forces of millennia
lay stored as coal; and today we cast our eyes on inorganic nature,
In the world of the factory all that there remains of nature is man, where water-forces are already being brought in to supplement coal.
the companion, the fellow being. If you were alone in it you would As the horse-powers run to millions and milliards, the numbers of
die. No trees, no plants, no dogs. Everything you touch is hard, the population increase and increase, on a scale that no other
dense; next to it the soft stuff of which your hand is made seems 1 Allen and Unwin, 1926.
3
Culture ever thought possible. This growth is a product of the Machine, bodies become ever more and more immaterial, ever less noisy.
which insists on being used and directed, and to that end centuples The wheels, rollers, and levers are vocal no more. All that matters
the forces of each individual. For the sake of the machine, human withdraws itself into the interior. Man has felt the machine to be
life becomes precious. Work becomes the great word of ethical devilish, and rightly. It signifies in the eyes of the believer the
thinking; in the eighteenth century it loses its derogatory implication deposition of God. It delivers sacred Causality over to man and by
in all languages. The machine works and forces the man to co¬ him, with a sort of foreseeing omniscience, is set in motion, silent
operate. The entire Culture reaches a degree of activity such that and irresistible.
the earth trembles under it.
And what now develops, in the space of hardly a century, is a The expression ‘Faustian passion’ may be surprising, but its
drama of such greatness that the men of a future Culture, with other use is justified by certain texts in Act IV of the Second Faust.
souls and other passions, will hardly be able to resist the conviction
that £in those days’ nature herself was tottering. The politics stride ‘The earthly sphere,5 declares Faust, ‘is still big enough, I find,
over cities and peoples; even the economics, deeply as they bite into for big actions whose success may light up the world. I feel in
the destinies of the plant and animal worlds, merely touch the fringe myself a great strength ready to be used with courage.5 And a
of life and efface themselves. But this technique will leave traces of little further he speaks to the Emperor of ‘spirits silently at
its heyday behind it when all else is lost and forgotten. For this work in the depths of unfathomable abysses, decomposing and
Faustian passion has altered the Face of the Earth.
combining rich emanations into rare, metallic gases and
This is the outward- and upward-straining life-feeling—true
ceaselessly inventing new things5. So I think it is legitimate to
descendant, therefore, of the Gothic—as expressed in Goethe’s
Faust monologue when the steam-engine was yet young. The keep Spengler’s expression and to describe the values of
intoxicated soul wills to fly above space and Time. An ineffable industrial civilisation as Faustian. Perhaps by exploring this
longing tempts Man to indefinable horizons. He would free himself notion and by linking it with that of the industrial environment,
from the earth, rise into the infinite, leave the Bonds of the body, we may have a chance to discover the limits of this civilisation.
and circle in the universe of space amongst the stars. That which the
There is every evidence that there is in it a fundamental
glowing and soaring inwardness of St. Bernard sought at the
beginning, that which Griinewald and Rembrandt conceived in paradox.
their backgrounds, and Beethoven in the trans-earthly tones of his
last quartets, comes back now in the intellectual intoxication of the The Characteristics of Technical Progress
inventions that crowd one upon another. Hence the fantastic traffic
that crosses the continents in a few days, that puts itself across oceans It is evident that the mastery of the forces of nature by means
in floating cities, that bores through mountains, rushes about in of increasingly elaborate technical processes is a liberation
subterranean labyrinths, uses the steam-engine till its last pos¬ which should be welcomed as such; but it is no less true that,
sibilities have been exhausted, and then passes on to the gas-engine, for reasons which must be examined, this liberation is in danger
and finally raises itself above the roads and railways and flies in the
of being itself turned into a slavery. It is in this contradiction
air; hence it is that the spoken word is sent in one moment over all
the oceans; hence comes the ambition to break all records and beat that the drama of industrial civilisation lies. Going back to the
all dimensions, to build giant halls for giant machines, vast ships ambiguity I mentioned at the beginning, I would say that,
and bridge-spans, buildings that deliriously scrape the clouds, again for the same reasons, this particular civilisation is in
fabulous forces pressed together to a focus to obey the hand of a child, danger of developing against certain universal values which
stamping and quivering and droning works of steel and glass in
would seem to be a part of civilisation in general.
which tiny man moves as unlimited monarch and, at the last, feels
nature as beneath him. But here we must be very careful. In his valuable book1 on
And these machines become in their forms less and ever less Work and Civilisation, M. Hyacinthe Dubreuil very properly
human, more ascetic, mystic, esoteric. They weave the earth over and forcefully denounces the judgments which intellectuals often
with an infinite web of subtle forces, currents, and tensions. Their
1 Travail et Civilisation, 1953, Hon, Paris.
make upon realities of which they have no expeiience. I believe and we must note particularly that in this field perfectibility
his criticism to be fully justified and I am most anxious, in has an exact and univocal meaning. If in fact one technical
what follows, to avoid any such mistake. process is better than another it is because it improves output or
‘Literature which attacks technical progress and machinery makes it possible to produce the same amount in less time or at
and turns them into a sort of monster’, writes M. Dubreuil, ‘is less cost (in either case production is by definition improved).
a waste of time. It is a case of mistaken identity; for although if What is interesting from the philosophical point of view is that
work is badly done, somebody is responsible, the villain is not in this technical domain alone the word progress has kept the
the lifeless machine but man who has decided to use it wrongly.5 fullness of its meaning. To see the truth of this we have only to
I should like to distinguish between these two statements. take a look at the fog in which it wraps itself the moment it is
The first is perfectly correct: it is ridiculous to denounce applied, say, to morals or to institutions. The reason is that the
technical progress as such (I will come back to this point, for criteria applicable to ethics, politics or indeed aesthetics can
I am anxious not to leave the slightest ambiguity). The second not have the same precision as they have in the field of technics.
assertion seems to me, however, to imply an over-simplification I believe this to be a most important point, and I think that if
and I would even say a mistake: man has not ‘decided5 to use the theories of progress current since the eighteenth century
the lifeless machine wrongly; the truth is infinitely more com¬ and particularly since Condorcet have been so deceptive this
plex, as we shall see. may largely be due to the neglect of its basic truth. It could be
As to the absurdity of condemning technical progress in shown, I think, that if there is such a thing as social progress it
itself, I think it is possible to establish certain principles which is to the extent that there exist social techniques.
it would be hard to dispute. To start with a definition, let us But after all the essential questions are those which have to
say simply that a technique is a specialised and rationally do with human happiness, or shall we say contentment on the
elaborated form of knowledge, and let us add that the tech¬ one hand and with spiritual quality on the other. And it has
niques we are concerned with here are all skills which con¬ yet to be shown that the progress of social techniques as such
tribute to the transformation of the world. They all offer is sufficient either to increase contentment or to develop
certain basic characteristics which it would be difficult to spiritual quality. Only the most rudimentary psychology could
overstress. induce us without further argument to believe it does.
(1) They are specialised and, almost always, within their
own specialised field they tend to give rise to new forms of The Positive Value of Technical Progress
specialisation. I have blamed myself recently, particularly when I was
(2) They are perfectible. lecturing in South America, with not having perhaps brought
(3) And they are transmissible. Indeed, the more rationalised out sufficiently in my writings what I would call the positive
they are, the more easily can they be transmitted. value of technical progress. I am not thinking only of its use¬
What does run the danger of getting lost is what craftsmen fulness—only a lunatic would deny that—but of something
call a knack, something that can only be passed on by example more than mere utility. There is no doubt that in applying a
if at all, and not by any theoretical training or instruction. technique which he has mastered the technician experiences
Again, certain empirical recipes may have been lost because a joy which is not only basically innocent, but even noble. It
they were never, properly speaking, fixed. But a technique such is a joy which is bound up with the consciousness of power over
as we conceive it today is transmissible by definition. inanimate things, that is to say, over a reality which is subordin¬
The perfectibility of techniques should also be emphasised, ate and is in a sense meant to be controlled by man.
7 3
It is true that things offer a resistance, but it is, as it were, the things is, we shall see, an abuse pregnant with the gravest
resistance of inertia which it is good to overcome. Moreover, it consequences. °
can only be overcome by means which have an extreme pre¬
The Effect of Technical Progress on Man
cision. The value of a technique is that of the precision with
which it is applied, and we must remember the connection All this brings us to the second of M. Dubreuil’s assertions,
between precision and intellectual honesty. the one concerning the wrong use of the machine. I have
A link notion—and it already bears an ethical or at least already said that I disagree with it.
pre-ethical character—is that of accuracy. No technician can We might say, using Christian terms—and these terms are
do without the virtue of accuracy: in his world inaccuracy is urged on us not only by faith but also by reflection—that it is
always punished and the punishment is sometimes terrible. in the nature of techniques to lead the mind into temptation.
Hence the awareness of responsibility which he incessantly But we must immediately qualify this statement. It would
carries with him. obviously be absurd to think of techniques as wielding power
At the same time this awareness has to be of a particularly in their own right; it is always a being who leads into
subtle kind. It must not invade the foreground of his conscious¬ temptation.
ness but must remain on its outer fringes. A surgeon performing I do not, of course, intend to go into the problem of daemon-
an operation cannot forget his responsibility for a moment, ology, although it undoubtedly arises on the fringes of our
but it must not weigh on him to the point of being an obsession: enquiry. All we have to ask ourselves here, and this without
it is not on this that he must focus or even concentrate his mind trespassing beyond experience, is what the notion of temptation
but oh his task; responsibility is rather the spirit in which his means and in what circumstances it may become active. My
task is carried out or the light in which he sees it, and this is view is that it is invariably bound up with power. The moment
the very light of his sense of accuracy and precision. that we are endowed with power of whatever sort we are
And, again, there is the purity and soundness of the joy which exposed to the temptation of abusing it. How are we to account
goes with technical research when it results in a discovery. I am for this face which is so intimately part of our way of being?_
inclined to think that what is positive in all this is that the I think that it is nearly always a phenomenon which could be
technician is not thinking of himself, but of his task, and here compared to vertigo—vertigo being the impulse to ‘let oneself
again there is the saving virtue of precision. It is true, of course, go to’ something.
that the technician is a man and that it is natural for him to What I mean is this. The exercise of any sort of power should
think of the personal advantage his success may bring him, but by rights be accompanied by the exercise of control over this
this consideration is, as it were, collateral; his research work in power itself—this is a sort of ‘power at one remove’. But in
itself holds no room for vanity, for the time being at any rate practice such concomitance of strength and control over that
it literally drives it out. In this the technician differs from the strength is by no means inevitable. We find, on the contrary,
intellectual or the artist; in a sense his work is necessarily more that the more suddenly power is acquired—or at any rate the
pure, it leaves literally no place for ambition or flattery. less the conditions of its acquisition are like those of natural
Alain distinguishes between human attitudes involved in growth the more does it tend to behave as a parvenu', like a
actions applied to things and those applied to people. It is self-made man who believes (always quite wrongly) that he is
indeed far simpler for an action to be pure if it bears on things, in no man’s debt, it rejects, as though it were an unwarrantable
while to act on people, or to be more accurate, to bring to intrusion or encroachment, any form of limitation or control
bear on them the techniques which are rightly applicable to over itself.
B 9 io
This being said, my suggestion that it is in the nature of environment, as Friedmann writes, ‘the whole of human life and
techniques to lead the mind into temptation simply amounts in particular the whole life of work is woven through and
to this: a man who has mastered one or more techniques tends through by those rhythms which, flowing from generation to
in principle to distrust what is alien to these techniques; or generation, have been gradually formed and established in the
rather, he will at a pinch admit the validity of this or that other society to which they so intimately belong’.
technique he has only heard of or knows only at second hand; I would not in the least suggest our indulging in some sort of
but he will usually be most unwilling to accept the idea that pseudo-romantic hankering after a lost paradise, a paradise
a meta-technical activity may have value. But in respect of whose undoubted benefits, we may be sure, were balanced by
technical power which is immediate, what I have called power terrible disadvantages. All I am trying to show is that although
at one remove is necessarily meta-technical. Indeed it is these we cannot speak, like M. Dubreuil, of unwillingness or of ill
powers at one remove which, in a technical civilisation, are will on the part of man, technical development does, taken in
most likely to be discredited. itself, tend to create a world which is singularly barren and as
But let us not forget that the activity among all others which a result unfavourable to the use of powers at one remove; and
can most truly be described as power at one remove is reflection. let us note that these powers correspond fairly closely to what
And in fact, everything goes to show that in a civilisation of in other ages was known as wisdom.
this sort the importance of reflection will be minimised if not As a simple illustration of what I mean by a barren world
denied. Already we see logico-mathematical nco-positivism, take the family and the danger it runs in a technical milieu
a philosophy which denies the role of reflection altogether, where the women work as well as men, the children are virtu¬
gradually invading England and a part of the United States; ally left to themselves and there often arises between them and
to the philosophers of this school, the idea of a philosophy of their parents a sort of mutual hostility. When I spoke of a
reflection is utterly alien, they almost put it aside as a sort of world which is generously watered by life I was thinking
mysticism. particularly of the benefits of a strongly established family.
At this point our analysis must be taken a step further. But what is it that wisdom as such is normally called upon
Whence does reflection spring? I mean true reflection which to oppose? It stands over against hybris, pride. Where the
on n account must be confused with some kind of ratiocination. counterweight to pride is lacking, the techniques left, as it
I once wrote in Being and Having, ‘Power at one remove is were, to their own weight, arc moreover burdened by the
nourished by a blindfolded intuition; this intuition is something weight of pride which in no sense belongs to them. For once
that I am, not something that I have’, and it belongs to again, it is not that the techniques have an intrinsic reality;
philosophical thought to retrieve it and, as it were, to make it they are only given a specious reality through a vice of abstrac¬
articulate. tion in the one who uses them, takes his pleasure in them and
But let us not linger in this abstract realm. The more the lastly becomes their slave.
world I dwell in is alive, the more generously it is watered by To put it differently, techniques tend to become the dynamic
life, the more my intuition—and I would really prefer to call lineaments of an abstract world in which the intellect is the
it, my participation—will be rich and substantial at its source. more at ease the more it is specialised. Actually, this mental
But does this not bring us back to the difference between agility is the result of a training of which the value, I repeat, is
natural and technical environment? For there is no doubt that not disputable. But this training implies no contact at any point
t]hc technical environment is the poorest possible in life, the with an environment which is concrete and, as it were, not
furthest possible removed from nature. While in the natural altogether explicitly definable; in this it is the opposite of
The Limitations of Industrial Civilisation
impression on first coming to a country such as Venezuela,
organic growth, and I am not thinking only of the growth of the where I had the feeling that what had been a landscape was
body, but of a feeling, a belief, of the becoming of the imagina¬ being turned into a builder’s yard. There you may witness the
tion in all its forms. kind of planned sectioning and cutting up which I would
venture to call sacrilegious. I had this feeling most strongly in
The Abstract Character of Industrial Environment Rio de Janeiro, where the hills were going to be levelled with¬
By an odd coincidence, I have just read the following passage out the slightest consideration for the reality of the original
in a book by Helmuth Gollwitzer1 which contains one of the site. This is something very significant; whereas in the past a
most objective criticisms I have ever come across of Soviet city moulded itself on the natural structure or pre-structure, as
man: it were fulfilling it, we are likely to see larger and larger
agglomerations piling up without the slightest regard for the
This system neither recognises any subject as confronting it nor natural pre-formation. There is not the least hesitation in
as a result does it allow the development of any such subjects, doing violence to nature to carry out an abstract plan.
whether individuals or groups, and this means exactly that here
nothing is allowed to grow. If life is unfettered growth in conformity These words, abstract, abstraction, keep coming back, and
with its own laws, this is surely the gravest accusation that can be this cannot be helped because it is just the crux of it. But we
brought. And indeed, for the life of the community, both the must try to understand the reason for this predominance in the
spiritual and the economic consequences of this fact are terrible. industrial world of the abstract, the planned, the organised,
There is room for nothing but pre-established plans and manu¬ the dissected. It is a difficult question because the causes and
factured objects: anything that grows is suspect.
conditions arc so tangled up that we cannot be sure of discover¬
ing all at once which of them is the key to all the others. It is
It can of course be objected that what is true of the Soviet
likely anyway that here, as so often, the categories of cause and
world is not necessarily true of industrial civilisation in general,
effect have to be transcended and the vicious circle is the rule.
but is this not perhaps merely because in other countries that
Mass production on a scale which was inconceivable in the
civilisation has not yet unfolded all its implications? Thus in
past is of course related to the existence of the masses whose
ihe United States, the logic of technocracy sometimes comes
needs must be satisfied and for the satisfaction of whose needs
up against a sentimentality which can be almost childish, while
an individualised economy is inadequate.
on other occasions it goes hand in hand with a confused But these masses are not only at the beginning, but at the
religiosity. But what matters to us is to discover what this logic end; I mean that they are themselves—as masses—partly the
really is and the ways in which it shows itself. result of mass production and its consequences in every
There are two points which seem to me of the highest economic field. There is also the fact that big industry tends
importance. itself to create the needs which it later claims to satisfy. And no
Firstly, there is a danger of the technical environment doubt it must be added that’ this whole process becomes
becoming for us the pattern of the universe, that is to say, the increasingly inevitable as tin.e goes on, or if you prefer, it tends
categories of its particular structure being claimed to be valid to create its own inevitability.
for an objective conception of the world. So far as I can see (but I must again stress that my lack of
And note that this is not a matter of interpretation only; the competence forbids me to speak categorically) we are con¬
interpretation becomes embodied, it seeks to reconstitute the fronted by an enormous system which consolidates itself more
world, moulding it to its own image. Never shall I forget my and more, so that it is less and less easy to see the logical
i Und Fiihrer Woher du Nicht Willst, Munich, Kaiser Verlag, 1953. 14
*3
possibility of anything altering it in principle. ‘Logical’, I said, But we must see that as soon as the technical environment
but history is there to show us how inadequate are such logical, has become the predominating, general, normal environment,
rational considerations. The mysterious role of crises, catas¬ it is strictly normal for such techniques to become generalised
trophes, even natural upheavals may be to bring into play and to proliferate. This is one more victory for abstraction, the
compensating elements, which act, however, in ways that individual being now a unit whom it is possible and right to
confound our reason. deal with as with all the other units in his category.
And what becomes of the distinction between the normal and
The Process of Dehumanisation and the Technicality of Knowledge the abnormal? It will almost inevitably be interpreted in a
It is of course an absurd illusion to think that by means of behaviourist sense. It is normal for the individual placed in
some sort of world planning these calamities can be kept such and such conditions to react in a given way and any
permanently at bay. anomaly is a failure to adapt himself. The end of it, almost
But there is something more important still. It is impossible certainly, is what I would call a general pragmatisation of human
for man not to consider himself as part of this cosmos—or of beings and relations, as indeed we see in American and Ameri¬
this a-cosmos—planned and dissected by the technicians; as canised countries such as Sweden. The astonishingly high
a result, he inevitably becomes ? target for those techniques incidence of psychosis in these countries is enough to show that
which, in principle, are legitimately applicable only to the the system which they seem to have adopted involves a tragic
outward world. There are already countless instances of this in oversight of certain deep human exigencies, and this is perhaps
the fields of experimental psychology, psychiatry and so on. the more convincing because these are countries which are
One of the most characteristic of them is the incredible prosperous and where all the basic needs seem generally
development of the use of tests in America and in the American¬ speaidng to be satisfied. But the ravages caused in them by
ised countries. There are, of course, certain fields where their boredom, sexual immorality and drunkenness are, as it were,
use is altogether justified; I would say that such a field is that irrefutable symptoms of a deep-seated lesion, of what I would
of motor-sensory behaviour; it is perfectly proper to determine indeed prefer to call a sin against life itself.
by means of tests whether a given person is fit to exercise But make no mistake—that sin is most intimately bound up
certain well defined functions directly related to such activity with a certain technical representation of the world. I would
—to be a pilot or a truck driver, for instance. But the more we say that as a result of the act by which man projects upon the
leave this field for that of the intelligence properly so called, world the light of a knowledge which is technicalised, an
that is to say, of understanding and a fortiori of affectivity, the increasingly monstrous image of the world and of himself is
objection to the use of tests is grave, even decisive. thrown back at him—an image which is ever more distorted
Experimentation, if we reflect upon it, should as such be and ever less decypherable.
handled warily; but the striking fact is that, for the reasons I Is this not indeed perhaps the unrecognisable image which
have given, it is reflection which is simply set aside in these so often faces us in modern art? In general, the consequences
Americanised countries. I have had a recent confirmation of it of all this are incalculable, particularly in what relates to self-
in talking with a Swedish psychologist who told me that he had knowledge. The Socratic axiom implied the idea of an identity
literally discovered since he came to France the limitations of between the knower and the known, and this idea was at the
certain techniques which were sanctioned in his own country basis of traditional philosophy until Hegel. But now, following
without the slightest warning as to the conditions in which they upon the hyperbolic development of technics, a development
could be suitably applied. of which the so-called acceleration of history is perhaps in some
15 16
The Limitations of Industrial Civilisation
ways only a corollary, the truth of this postulate is increasingly
hallmark is always that of the will to power. And no doubt
put in doubt. As a result the subject tends less and less to be
we shall always feel the need to find a scapegoat in whom to
treated as a subject and is consequently less and less respected.
Hence that spreading violation of privacy which is one of the localise that will. Indeed it is quite possible that at the outset,
some one person hungering for domination helped to launch
most horrifying features of the modern world, whose worst
excesses in this direction show themselves in literature. this terrifying venture. But it must not be forgotten that by
It might at least be thought that, as a beneficent counterpart now the system is endowed with its own power of self-consolida¬
to all this, the new skills might strengthen man’s hold on his tion, which incidentally is the crowning absurdity, since it may
earthly habitation; unfortunately experience belies it, and the in the end involve us in the sacrifice of all, certainly not for all
reason is doubtless that in such a world the very idea of taking but precisely for no one—an immense holocaust to nothingness.
root ends by seeming contradictory. What we said of agglomer¬ But how should we not see in all this a huge inverted carica¬
ations replacing cities is relevant: an agglomeration is, as it ture of what the Christian can only call the plan of salvation ?
were, the very embodiment of uprootedness. I have said inverted for if on the one side sacrifice is the very
In such a world the mass transfers of populations which have expression of love, on the other it is the manifestation of a
taken place in the totalitarian countries should no longer be devitalised rationality which is already turning human beings
considered an anomaly. On the contrary, they may well be¬ into robots. But this glaring opposition can only be seen at the
come the rule once the vital link is broken between man and furthest limit, because undeniably, so long as this enormous
his environment and people are seen as mere units of pro¬ process of dehumanisation is still on its way, it involves qualities
duction—as machines which are needed here or there for which are genuinely spiritual, especially generosity, although
reasons connected with the general economy and whose of that generosity it tends, by the strangest paradox, to dry up
feelings are of not the slightest interest. Indeed, perhaps it the springs and as it were to preclude the very possibility. Thus
would be best so to train these men-machines that their needs I do not hesitate to say that, if we could discover what this
and feelings would become atrophied and in the end vanish! process is at bottom and in principle, putting aside the illusions
I remember once being told by someone who was dealing and misconceptions which it encourages and exploits, we would
with the terrible problem of Displaced Persons that some see that it cannot be considered as anything except basically
country or other only wanted people who could make shoes! daemoniac.
The entity one-who-can-make-shoes is substituted for the
concrete reality of so-and-so, married to such and such a Remedies for the Dehumanisation of the World
person and father of such and such a child. So I do no violence to my argument if I say that the world is
This indeed is again the sin against life understood in its in need of exorcism. But this is obviously a misleading term and
deepest sense. Life is no longer, as it were, conceived except in I have in mind no sort of magic formulae. The only genuinely
bio-sociological terms, that is to say, as a process whose physico¬ exorcising power is that of love, and even then love needs to
chemical conditions are claimed to be strictly and objectively be incarnate.
definable and which exists in view of a given task which relates But as we have known for twenty centuries, such an incarna¬
to the collectivity. tion, if it can take place at all, can only do so at the humblest
Here again the wildest excesses of the totalitarian regimes level. There must be a Bethlehem of reflection and fervour and
seem only to be the ultimate expression of a monstrous logic, this I see as the only genuine hearth and nourishment for
the logic of dehumanisation. It is easy enough to show that its thought anxious to avoid at all cost falling into ideology or still
worse into foolish sentimentality.
*7
18
But nothing I have said should make us forget the considera¬ and it is here that the need for humility can be plainly seen.
tions we started from. It would indeed be to fall under the joint For to have exorcising power, action must be on the level of
spells of sentimentalism and ideology to hope for some sort of good will, that is to say, love of one’s neighbour. It is impossible,
Gandhi revolution and a return to a pre-technical age. The
I think, to condemn too mercilessly the illusion of achieving
burden of technics has been assumed by man and he can no anything by introducing into spirituality the sort of planning
longer put it down because he finds it heavy. The consequences
operations which can only act against the spirit.
of such an abdication would be catastrophic. Just as in be¬ I have spoken of meta-technical activities; the proper place
coming de-Christianised humanity tends to fall far below the of meta-technics is at the juncture of the spiritual and the vital,
level of pre-Christian civilisation, so in giving up what must in a mysterious region which is also that of the charismata.
after all be called the conquests of science it would fall into the Like all other religious terms without exception, the term
lowest degradation. charismata can mislead, perhaps by evoking some absurd
So the problem—and of course, here we can only state it—is imagery of kindly spells cast by personages muffled in priestly
only to know how we may struggle efficaciously against the robes. The simplest is to go back to the etymology. Charisma
weight by which in a technical age man is dragged down into means gift, a gift of love which itself is gift.
the excesses of technocracy. If the word liberty, today so It is in gift, that is to say in grace, that there assuredly lies the
dishonoured, still has any meaning, it is strictly applicable to only principle capable of breaking, I will not say the world of
this act. But clearly, it is not just a question of putting on a the techniques in so far as they are admirable means to be used
brake: no genuine action can be merely negative. It is a for the good of all, but those superstructures which threaten in
question of mobilising such forces as are capable of effectively the long run to stifle their beneficent power, because they are
opposing this immense drift; that these forces are spiritual ordpdned to the triumph of pride which ultimately encompasses
nobody will deny; but spiritual is another word which is the destruction of the proud.
frequently misinterpreted and misspent. What I think we need
today is to react with our whole strength against that dissocia¬
tion of life from spirit which a bloodless rationalism has brought
about.
This does not mean that we should go back to some sort of
false romanticism—I must admit that I find traces of it even in
Bergson. Perhaps the most important task on the plane of
speculation is to deepen once again the notion of life itself in
the light of the highest and most genuine religious thought.
I have had occasion recently to observe that in Germany some
such new development seems to be taking place, in profound
reaction against the aberrations which have for so long dis¬
figured the very image of that country.
But it must be added at once that this development, which
can only take place on the highest levels of spirituality and
reflective thought, can never reach the fullness of its authenticity
and value unless it has its counterpart in the sphere of action,
19 20
hang on us in tatters, I would like to tear them off once and for all
and to fling them away.
THE NOTION OF SPIRITUAL HERITAGE
On a lower plane, I recall another instance of what I mean:
I THINK that I can never forget the more than physical
horror and anxiety I experienced in walking among the ruins
an American officer in a town in Burgundy which had virtually
been destroyed, saying to a young friend of mine: ‘You should
of inner Vienna in 1946, or more recently in Caen, Rouen or be grateful to us for bombing all this old stuff. Now you can
Wurzburg. Among these ruins, how could I help evoking that have a clean new town.’
spiritual heritage on which it seemed that human blindness had There is a growing number of people who no longer recognise
inflicted such irreparable damage? What concerns us here is their heritage or, rather, who refuse it like a legacy to which
not so much the physical destruction of so many irreplaceable burdensome obligations are attached. I remember a young
monuments of an honourable past but the state of mind from communist Negro furiously attacking an ethnologist who had
which that destruction is inseparable. Not that this state of praised African civilisation. He felt that this praise was some¬
mind can be claimed to be the cause of the destruction—we how intended to fetter him to his traditions, which he was on
should in any case in this field beware of causal interpretations. the contrary longing to shake off like a hateful yoke.
But what is undeniably true is that the destruction presupposed Note that this change in outlook is undoubtedly connected
a technical development which, at least indirectly but none the with the growing prestige of youth as such and the discrediting
less most effectively, helped to weaken or even to eliminate of old age. The old are increasingly regarded as good for noth¬
those feelings of gratitude and veneration without which those ing, and this after ail is simply a corollary of the fact that,
monuments could not lastingly be preserved. To tell the truth, generally speaking, output is considered more and more to be
I don’t quite know what term will cover this state of mind. At the only valid criterion of human value. In South America I
the bottom of it is a growing impatience with what tend was very much struck, even in such countries as Brazil and
increasingly to be regarded as obstacles to the advent of a new Peru, with the brutally lighthearted way in which venerable
world, even of a renewed humanity. Let us see what the edifices were pulled down to make room for huge characterless
philosopher Gerschenson says in his Correspondence with V. buildings that could never house a human presence; they were
Ivanov: nothing but tenements meant to hold the largest possible
number of individuals a nd offices piled on top of one another.
Recently I have felt that all the intellectual acquisitions of man¬ All this obviously is true. Nevertheless logically we have no
kind, all its wealth of thought, knowledge, treasures accumulated right to go straight on from these observations to a judgment of
through the centuries, are as intolerable as a yoke, they are like value. We cannot know a priori, that is to say, without a careful
clothes which are too heavy, I feel stifled in them. ... I say to my¬
analysis, whether we are not faced, in reality, with a widespread
self‘What happiness it would be to dive into Lethe, to wash off from
my' soul the memory of all these religions, philosophies, of all this aberration. That it is widespread proves nothing either way;
knowledge, art, poetry—what joy it would be to come out on the a disease does not stop being a disease because it has grown
other side as naked, light, buoyant as the first man, and to stretch into an epidemic, quite the contrary. The philosopher is thus
out and raise my arms, without a memory of the past except the bound to reflect upon these things and in the first place to ask
crushing weight of all these clothes and the delight of having shed
them.’ Perhaps we were at ease in our resplendent robes, so long as himself what exact meaning can be given to the concept of
they were newly made to measure and intact. But now that they spiritual heritage.
have got so torn in the course of all these years, now that they The first question which might be asked is whether these two
21 22
The Notion of Spiritual Heritage The Decline of Wisdom
words are not contradictory. Is not a heritage necessarily identified with the part played by the support, but only if we
something objective, a possession handed on from generation recognise that it has as its complement something which is quite
to generation? And is not spirit inspiration and creation? This different and which has no meaning except on the spiritual
objection is not merely formal: could it not be reasonably plane.
claimed that what is handed on is always a thing, or at most a I have not, by the way, given any definition of the word
sign which, in itself, still belongs to the world of things ?—while spirit, I have in mind the concensus whic h expresses itself in
it is the part of the spirit to be always new, always reborn, the common usage rather than in any strictly definable notion.
and always to ascend from the sign to the reality signified Thus, what our analysis seems to show is that the notion of
which itself can never be passed on but must always be handing on is here completely inadequate, and that where
rediscovered. spiritual realities are concerned we cannot think simply in
Let us see if this argument, impressive as it is, in reality terms of a perpetuated possession, seen as an object which is
deserves to be retained. It is natural to turn in the first place to handed on from one to another. This, actually, is confirmed
the arts. Can a picture or a symphony which has come down by the most current experience, I remember my parents
to us from Rembrandt or Beethoven be described as a material telling me how, one day when they were looking at the admir¬
system of signs? This seems to me a confusion. A system of able porch of the Cathedral of Alengon. two local women
signs is for instance an alphabet or a code, and if we have stopped in amazement to see them in contemplation of a
inherited such a thing we have to find out what the letters or monument which for them had doubtless only the value of its
the figures stand for. There is any number of possible keys. The usefulness.
unity of the system is arbitrary: it is purely arbitrarily that to We could say, I think, that on the one hand, it is only possible
this or that visual symbol this or that sound has been made to to speak of spiritual heritage where there persists an awareness
correspond. But there is nothing of this kind about a work of of such a heritage, and on the other, that this awareness can
art. Its unity, which is by no means arbitrary, has to be grasped only survive in a certain climate of diffuse gratitude. I stress
by a process of living sympathy. this word. As I was preparing this book, 1 came to attach an
Besides, the notion of handing on has itself to be understood ever increasing importance to this disposition, while at the same
more deeply, for we nearly always tend to reduce it to its time recognising that it seems to be in some sort waning in the
simplest terms, which are, it seems, tactile. Somebody holds world of today. But I think that a phenomeno-logical analysis
something in his hand and passes it on to me so that I should must be attempted before we can go on with our inquiry.
hold it in his place: as in the torch race described by Lucretius. One observation to begin with: everything seems to show
But the moment we have left this tactile field everything is much that gratitude and admiration tend to lessen in the measure
more complicated. Think, for instance, of teaching a song to a that creative power weakens. And let us add that as this power
small child: this means teaching him to sing it in his turn. Even withdraws it is replaced by its toxic and deceptive substitute,
in so simple a case as this we have to admit that the difference the claim to innovate, and by the vanity that goes with it. The
between transmitting spiritually and materially blurs and self styled innovator is centred upon himself, that is why he is
begins to vanish. This is still more obvious if we think for in¬ so often unwilling to admire or to be grateful; no doubt he
stance of parents handing on to their children some particular feels that one way or another he risks being diminished or
way of thinking or believing, say their notion of honour. It is humiliated, whereas the creator as such docs not think of
true that there is always some material support for such himself, is not occupied with himself. You could say that the
transmission; or rather, at a pinch the transmission could be creative act as such is essentially ingenuous, even if afterwards
23 24
The Notion of Spiritual Heritage
the artist looking at his work admires himself and feels that
memory which is not simply a preservative, rather is it wake¬
there is nobody to compare with him.
fulness, a vigilance of the soul attentive not to lose what it
The gratitude we are particularly concerned with here
regards as of lasting value. Perhaps the accent will be rightly
implies in its subject an intense awareness of his own receptivity
placed if we remember that this wakefulness is an active
and is thereby referred wholly to the other as the source of the
struggle against the inward forces of dispersal, let us even say
benefit received. I have intentionally used the concrete word
of distraction. The German word Zjerstreutheit has both mean¬
source rather than cause. The assertion immanent in gratitude
ings. This is where we may see the deep affinity between
bears on the gift I have received and is directed to the one from
memory and faithfulness. Forgetting is a lapse of faithfulness.
whom I have received it. The simplest case, and the easiest to
But let it always be recalled that faithfulness is active, it is the
analyse, is where I know my benefactor by name. Should we
opposite of inertia.
say, in the terms of a Spinozist psychology, that gratitude is a
Not of course that there is any question of denying the
satisfaction linked with the idea of a given person regarded as
physiological foundation of this activity. But if it is indeed a
cause? But as I have implied above, the term cause is here
virtue it is so in so far as it is an inward disposition, firmly
utterly unsuitable. Besides, this decomposition betrays the
maintained whatever the gaps in what I would call mnemonic
concrete reality we are seeking to understand. What w.e need
tissue. And virtue should here be taken in its strict sense—in the
to know is the nature of the link. And we should add that it is
sense of virtus and as implying courage as opposed to slackness
a link winch unites my benefactor and myself and that of this
of whatever kind.
union the gift is the means. I prefer the word union to relation
All this remains true, if less visibly, when the gratitude is
because, as was seen by Bradley, the feeling always transcends
diffused because the giver cannot easily be identified. And
the relation to which it may be tempting to reduce it.
there is also the intermediate case of a person receiving a gift
But is it enough to say that gratitude is a feeling? Does this
without knowing from whom it comes. In a well-born soul
not make of it simply a state of consciousness or perhaps a
gratitude is not abolished by this ignorance. All you can say is
habit induced by training? This would be to strip it of its
that the recipient will feel the need of discovering his benefactor.
purposiveness and to ignore its proper function in the economy
But clearly, when we are speaking of a spiritual heritage we
of the spirit. It is clear to my mind that gratitude, even where
are faced with realities which are much less easy to encompass.
it can hardly show itself materially at all—perhaps only in a
Nevertheless, thinking in a concrete way it will be possible to
gesture or a smile—is a sort of mysterious restitution, a restitu¬
find landmarks in experience. In comparing some of the towns
tion in spirit. Not only is it a response, still more deeply is it
in America with the towns of old Europe I spoke of the need to
an aspiration to respond more and more intimately; and to
distinguish carefully between a city and what is nothing but
respond is of course essentially to recognise. The ambiguity of the
an agglomeration and I mentioned that in the one case there
French word reconnaissance (both ‘gratitude’ and ‘recognition’)
is presence while in the other there is none. That presence, or
is helpful in this respect. It could also be said that gratitude is
that climate, is manifestly a survival of the past, a survival
rooted in generosity: those are mean souls who are, as it were,
which ensures the participation of the living in—what? As
mortified by a gift, as though they felt it was a chain to fetter
them. always when we come to the idea of participation it is difficult to
designate the participated reality by an exact term. I do not
But it must be added that gratitude is not only in the moment, it
think that this difficulty is fortuitous; for in a general way the
is lasting, and this is what is meant when it is called a habit.
act of designating bears on objects—on this thing or that; but
In that sense it is based on memory, it is memory. But it is
in this case it is not an object or a thing we are concerned
G 25 26
with but rather a life which is in some sense supra-personal. regard a being who has not the power of recognition, of
Let us pause a moment to see what exactly is the meaning of gratitude, as a being who is disinherited.
the word supra-personal. Nothing is more common or more All this helps us to see the vast scale of the problem we are
unfortunate than the habit, which for clearly discernible dealing with. But it would be well to have a clearer notion of
reasons is growing, of confusing the infra- and the supra- the nature and the confines of that heritage, and also to ask
personal. The mass—and all that pertains to the domain of the ourselves to whom is addressed that diffuse gratitude of which
mass—is infra-personal. My friend Gustave Thibon has I spoke.
observed with justice that atomisation and collectivisation are The answer to this may at first look simple. Is it not gratitude
two sides of the same and indivisible process which could be to our forebears or, if you prefer, to the anonymous multitude
described both as devitalising and as de-spiritualising. On a of those who have built up the civilisation we enjoy? The
level which is certainly not biological there is probably identity commonplace vagueness of this reply makes it suspect. Note to
between life and spirit. But the paths we have followed con¬ begin with that the term ‘civilisation’ which I have just used here
verge on this important fact that it is only where there exists for the first time covers a reality which is strangely hybrid
a concrete and organic unity—and not a piling up or an and which cannot be described as spiritual unless the word is
accumulation—that we shall find ourselves in the presence of used in the vaguest sense. It is true that we have already
the supra-personal, and also that only there does it become mentioned how difficult it is in this domain to establish an
possible to speak of a spiritual heritage in the sense we are exact frontier between the material and the spiritual. It would
trying to define. The man of the agglomerations is in the deepest be safer to say that if such a division is possible it bears not so
sense of the word a man without a heritage and from whom no- much on the contents as on the way of living a reality which
one will inherit anything. I am tempted to say that the element itself belongs to both the visible and the invisible worlds. Let
in which he subsists is that of non-gratitude—let us not say us further recall the distinction we made earlier between the
ingratitude because that would presuppose a gift, a kindness infra- and the supra-personal. Surely the idea of a nameless
which remains unrecognised, and here, it is truly the kindness multitude throws us back into the infra-personal, and what is
that has disappeared. This is true in every possible sense: it is infra-personal cannot, by definition, either inspire or feel
enough to think of the materially unworthy conditions—the gratitude. It could be shown at this point that personality itself,
slum, the tenement—in which the proletariat as such exists. as it develops, following its upward rhythm, reaches towards
What has replaced the gift is the always partial, always in¬ the supra-personal, while if it withers or disintegrates, it falls
adequate satisfaction of a claim which the claimant feels to be into the infra-personal. All this amounts to saying that we
profoundly just and also no doubt unlimited. But this world of cannot do with any sort of composite picture or classification;
claims is a world where grace, in the most general sense, is what we need is, on the contrary, to become conscious of a
profoundly unthinkable, as it is indeed in a universe which is dynamic which is the very life of the spirit.
mechanised and subject to the implacable necessity which rules In the light of this observation and of those we made earlier,
over the machine. it may be possible to re-vitalise, as it were, that notion of
But between grace and gratitude there exists an intimate spiritual heritage which, unless these precautions are taken, is
connection. This is expressed in the French action de grace. in danger of hardening, of sclerosis—as happens whenever
It could be said that the gift as such is inseparable from its thought is shut in by the categories of having.
recognition, and so true is this that the recognition itself can None of this is difficult to grasp if we think of the kind of
in a sense be described as gift. This is what makes it possible to gratitude we feel before the work of some great artist who still \
27
o The Decline of Wisdom
nourishes our inward life. It may well happen to us in such a
in the way of force itself, force has no hold over it. It seems to
case to see the artist as a mediator between ourselves and a r^
me particularly important to see that we are here in a dimension
world which is not of his own making, but which it has been ™
which has nothing to do with history as it is commonly under¬
given to him to discover. Once again we come upon the
stood since Hegel. Not that Hegel, at any rate in his early
distinction, which I believe to be fundamental, between
work, lacked the notion of spiritual heritage: on the contrary,
creation and production: it would be difficult to speak of
he had it in a very high degree. But I think that, through its
mediation in the case of something manufactured or produced.
inward slant, his thought was to tend in fact towards a muti¬
The issue may be confused for us by the fact that the artist,
lated philosophy, a philosophy which, though continuing to be
in the course of his earthly life, has gone through trials of such . 1,
inspired by him superficially, was to be turned by his followers
a kind as to arouse our pity or admiration. But this is not f
against the basic tenets of his early doctrine. I am not sure that
invariably the case; sometimes on the contrary the work seems
this contradiction or regression is not implied in the very notion
only to have come into being at the cost of the artist as a man
of objectivity as it works itself out in a philosophy based on the
and of his human virtues. Thus our gratitude seems really %
to go not to the man as such but to the spirit which became dialectic of the Master and the Slave. To understand this it is
enough to compare almost any text inspired by this dialectic
embodied in him, even though such an incarnation presupposes * J *
with a text, say, by Peguy. I am thinking especially of his
a sort of active self-effacement on his part, for which he should * '
admirable pages on the Supplicants; but in general, the
be given credit. This is an illustration of what was said of the
relation between the personal and the supra-personal. * importance from my own standpoint of his critique of the
modern conception of history could hardly be over-emphasised.
If the example of the artist taken individually is particularly
clear, we must also see that here again there can be no true * At the touch of a science of history which is no longer any¬
thing but a lifeless piling up of documents, ‘the real event’, says
demarcation and that a kind of mysterious communication
seems to take place between the works of different artists, Peguy, ‘becomes a historical event, it turns to cinders. The
however original each one is in itself. temporal world does not wait for the eternal kingdom to fall
Thus we are led to the idea that, however you consider it, a to ashes’.1 ‘History’, he also says, ‘is that long railway line
spiritual heritage seems to be a kind of mediation. But I will running along the coast. But it does not follow the coast itself,
add at once that this mediation is itself mediated. What should it does not coincide with the coast itself, for upon the coast
we understand by this obscure expression? It means that the there are tides and men and fishes and the mouths of streams
and rivers and the double life of earth and sea.’2 The historic
heritage we speak of is not only an intermediary between
sciences become a huge refrigerating plant. . . . And let
ourselves and the spirit, whatever metaphysical definition we
us also say that history understood in this way is the story of
give the term, but that we can only recognise that heritage for
irremediable ageing, for the only remedy to old age is the
what it is in the light of that Idea to which alone it owes its
rejuvenating action of grace and this action is totally un¬
value and its dignity. This explains why it is that the more the
suspected by the historian. How foolish it then becomes to
notion of spirit ebbs from human consciousness the more the
believe in the justice of history and to appeal to its tribunal!
idea of such a heritage tends to become obliterated. And this
Yet ‘it is into the senile hands of Clio that the historians of our
obliteration in its turn shows itself in the progress of impiety,
time would place not only the government of the world but
taking this word in a sense completely independent of con¬
fessional religion of any sort. Piety is the feeling for what is spiritual government as well, and the ordering of what is not
of the world’.3
holy. And what is holy is inviolable. And the inviolable stands
1 Quoted by Delaporte, I, p. 119. 2 Clio, p. 248. 3 Clio, p. 190.
29
30
If we join the profound intuitions of Peguy with our own being a notion which really belongs to the empirical and
analyses we shall see that the notion of spiritual heritage economic cycle of production, distribution and consumption.
empties itself of meaning in the exact measure that history How could such a transposition help us to account for the
grows debilitated, degenerates into the piling up of information search for truth, for instance, or the practice of the good, or
and ‘becomes inscription in place of memory’. Gradually all aesthetic creativity? Was it possible, I wondered, that the
value ebbs from it as a science. If man is to remain in living notion of value in philosophy had followed upon a sort of
contact with the past it must be in a dimension other than that devaluation of reality itself? If this were so, then we ought
in which historians confine themselves to the collecting of their surely to go back to where Nietzsche started from, and retrieve
the ontological element which he tried to reduce to terms of
documents.
Does this mean that documentation as such is useless or value and to express in terms of will.
harmful? Obviously, that would be absurd. But the truth is Can these observations help us to answer the questions we
that this work, indispensable in itself, must be kept alive by an asked earlier?
inward disposition which alone can give it meaning and virtue. Note firstly that they link up with what was said of gratitude
And the danger is great that the work, in the long run, may and could be said of veneration. We are evidently outside the
stifle the disposition which alone can justify it; while it is only circle, not of a philosophy of values as such, but of a voluntarist
too understandable that in the face of the mountains of his¬ philosophy of values, and I am not thinking only of Nietzsche
torical rubble there arises a sort of nihilistic protest, the protest but at least as much of a contemporary thinker such as Sartre
of the new man clamouring to be rid of the burden of the past. who must indeed be considered in some respects as a degenerate
To this Ivanov justly replies that to believe in the possibility of disciple of Nietzsche. In his work is to be found the notion that
reverting to the state of the primitive is an illusion, ‘a betrayal, values are literally creat'd by the one who holds them; freedom
a forgetting, an escape, a cowardly reaction which comes from pre-exists.values, and this in fact is the only meaning that can be
weariness ... the road to the simplicity so dearly loved and so given to his famous dictum: ‘existence precedes essence’.
greatly desired must pass through complexity’.1 Clearly, if Sartre is right, then we have to say that there is no
Perhaps we shall see further into this most difficult problem spiritual heritage and also that values exist altogether in¬
if we examine the connection between spiritual heritage and dependently of that non-existent heritage; though it would
values properly so called: can we reasonably say that values are remain to be seen of what use they are in such a system.
themselves inherited? We could also ask this: are we sure that My own outlook is the exact opposite of this, and nothing
values can be preserved even after we have liberated ourselves makes it clearer than the relationship between gratitude and
from the notion of a spiritual heritage? And can such a libera¬ grace. To put freedom at the beginning is deliberately to
tion be effective or is it an illusion? ignore the reality of gift; it amounts, in fact, to replacing the
Clearly to attempt to answer these questions we must tackle point of view of creation by the point of view of production.
once again the notion of value and find out what use can be It also means stripping what are still called values of all possible
made of it. For it must be admitted that there has grown up a universality. It is curious to note that in one of its aspects
scholastic of values just as there was once a scholastic of being, Sartrian thought tends towards solipsism—but only in one
and that by now the more is said about it the less is understood. aspect, for there are others by which it is drawn to Marxism
I suggested in my last book (Men against Humanity) that the and materialism. This pull is characteristic; it can hardly be
error lay in trying to carry over into the domain of essence and permanent for it prevents all equilibrium.
But what becomes of the notion of value in such an outlook
1 Correspondence, pp. 144-5.
32
31
as mine, that is to say, in a metaphysic whose axis is gratitude
and the consciousness of the sacred? of my very being in as much as this is not a given nature but a
To begin with, I stand very firmly by what I said in Homo creative aspiration: once again we come upon the inexhaustible
Viator: value can only be incarnate; the moment we disembody formula: become that which thou art.
it while trying to make it objective, we distort it and we strip But we cannot stop at this without falling into pure romanti¬
it of its authenticity. cism, and this itself can be a temptation. I would feel that I
Does this mean that all values are in a sense historic and sinned against the truth if I did not point out what are, after
cannot be taken out of the context of their time ? Should we say all, the grave objections which in the present world situation
for instance that for us, now, the good can only be defined in can be raised against this concept, however satisfying it may be
terms of the world situation of today? Such a statement would to the mind. As one of the heirs I have the duty to see that world
be dangerously ambiguous and might falsify the notion of situation not only from my own standpoint but from that of the
incarnation. Is it not more true to say that there is always and countless multitude of the disinherited who are all around me,
necessarily a tension between the individuality of the circum¬ and this obligation is certainly not one of the least pressing of
stances and the universality of the law? In regard to value, that the calls that reach me. My first duty is to reject the lie that
tension seems indeed to be the crux, the spring, for we must turn after all the disinherited are also heirs. The truth is rather that
away both from the formalism which denies history and from to be heirs they must first be human beings, and to be a human
pure relativism which incidentally is self-contradictory since being means not only to possess the biological characteristics
it tends to make history into an absolute. of a given species but to live in a human way; for all appear¬
We must admit however that the idea of such a tension is ances to the contrary, these words have a perfectly precise
abstract and equivocal. How far can we make it concrete? It meaning, at any rate in a philosophy of the spirit. To live
would seem necessary to refer it to the subject that I am. But humanly means to live in such material conditions that the
here too there is a danger: on the one hand I might be tempted human being is not crushed under the weight of care, and that
to cut 01Tthis subject from its roots in history; and on the other, his consciousness is able to develop an awareness of both self
if I put it back upon its family tree, do I not withdraw from it and other—and also of a reality which transcends the opposition
its value as subject, depriving it of its power of initiative and between the two. These conditions relate to the satisfaction of
turning it into a mere link in an endless chain? Once again, basic needs—food, housing and the rest. . . . Here Marxism is
the pitfalls are those of objectivity; and it is at this point that right lo denounce the mystifying tactics employed by those who
we must go back once more to the notion of spiritual heritage. bring in spiritual considerations inopportunely in order to veil
For from the only philosophic standpoint which seems to me realities which they have not the strength or the courage to
valid, that of reflection or meditation, I see myself as the heir: face in their nakedness. And this uncovers an immense problem
only we must keep in mind that, as we said earlier, the heritage of which it is indeed hard to find the positive solution: how shall
is a reiterated call rather than a possession which is handed on. the heirs so transform the world of the disinherited that they in
And here again we must be careful lest we should ignore the turn may share in the spiritual heritage? The extraordinary
inextricable complexity of real situations. What reaches me is difficulty of the problem lies in that we, the heirs, appear from a
not a single call; rather, I have to make a choice between calls certain point of view as allies of an economic system of which it
which are discordant and some of which are temptations: and may be asked whether it does not pre-suppose that world of the
it may be that my freedom will consist chiefly in recognising the disinherited. Hence we ought carefully to examine what may
temptations for what they are. But the axis of this choice is that be the nature of that alliance. For it is easily enough mis¬
conceived, and here the objection to the claims of Marxism as
33
34
a philosophy, as a Weltanschauung, in the domain of religion What is in any case out of the question is a psychologism of any
as in that of aesthetic values is insurmountable. sort or an essentially positivist sociology. But this clearly
To say for instance that at a given level of poverty and brings us back to what was said earlier about values, and I
exploitation there is a danger of religion being used by the think that we come again upon a notion on which I have
exploiters as an additional means of pressure is to recognise a insisted a good deal in my recent writings: that to account for
fact of which unhappily instances arc not lacking; but to go essence we should draw on a philosophy of light or of the light¬
from this to conclusions bearing upon the essence of religion giving (des Erhellendes). Essence or value—in this perspective
itself is radically illegitimate. The Christian has simply to the two tend to coincide—appear as a modality (Weise) of the
declare that by reason of human weakness it is always possible light-giving principle rather than as an immaterial content
to pervert that essence but without real injury to the content of which is illuminated. I am not unaware of the abstruseness of
faith. But it must also be added that unfortunately on the this statement, nevertheless I think that it usefully reflects on
existential plane there is always danger of this confusion arising the notion of spiritual heritage. For at the end of these con¬
and that in this sense a bad priest is literally a false witness who verging analyses it is to be seen more clearly than ever that
betrays r ;t and contributes by his example to the spreading the opposition of subject and object is not only barren but dis¬
torting. To understand this we need only recall that it is only
of distrust and hate in place of love and faith.
by an abstraction that the gift can be separated from the way
It should be observed that in the light of the notions of
in which it is accepted, acknowledged and made into an object
testimony and creative attestation the notion of spiritual
heritage which I have attempted to analyse in the first part of of gratitude.
In concluding, I should like to insist once more on the fact
this essay is, as it were, raised and transfigured. But on this
that a rigid and self-enclosed traditionalism involves a double
ground even more than on any other, it is clear that there can
failing: a failing against truth and a failing against charity.
be no question of imagining anything that bears the slightest
Here if anywhere, we should keep in mind the distinction
likeness to the handing on of property. Perhaps we should turn
between the open and the closed made by Bergson in his last
at this point to the idea of development so profoundly elaborated
writings. Let us simply say that the notion of a spiritual heritage
by Cardinal Newman:
depends on an open way of thinking, and that thought can only
This process is called the development of an idea, being the remain open if it is spurred on, as it were, by concern for the
germination, growth and perfection of some living, that is, influential
disinherited and above all by the refusal to conceive of their state
truth, or apparent truth, in the minds of men during a sufficient
period. ... It grows when it incorporates, and its purity consists, of indigence as permanently unavoidable, when not only for
not in isolation but in its continuity and sovereignty.1 the Christian but for any religious consciousness whatsoever, it
can only represent the ceaseless appeal of the spirit to every
Though it remains to be seen what is the exact meaning given man’s good will.
here to the word idea.
The stronger and more living an idea, that is, the more powerful
hold it exercises on the minds of men, the more able is it to dispense
with safeguards and trust itself against the danger of corruption.2
But such a statement presupposes a veritable transcendence of

the idea even if it is not understood in a strictly Platonic sense.
1 Development of Christian Doctrine, Section I. 2 Loc. cit., Section III, 5.
35 36
As always, we must be careful not to be misled by metaphors.

THE BREAKING UP OF THE NOTION OF The spatial image middle can be usefully replaced by measure,
WISDOM and instead of saying that the middle space is disused we can
say that measure is depreciated, it is no longer regarded as a
I T was in 1951, in South America where I had to speak on
the role of the philosopher in the modern world, that I found
value. I think that we should not be mistaken in saying that
the ne quid nimis has been a constant of universal wisdom, and
I will add that, reciprocally, the moment an excess—even an
I was questioning myself about the notion of wisdom—not so
excess in the order of purity—is regarded as a good, we are
much about its contents as about its chances of manifestation
outside wisdom properly so called (it being understood that we
in this world of today. Anticipating my conclusions, let me
are still speaking of profane wisdom). I admit that this is not
say at once that I believe these chances to be waning, or more
really a definition, but in the interests of clarity I will keep to
exactly, that wisdom, taken in that sense of mediation which
it in what follows.
belonged to it throughout past ages, seems to be under such
Let us ask ourselves in the first place what are the conditions
pressure that it is in danger, literally, of breaking up, of being
and the ways by which the mind may be led to give to measure
dislocated. There has grown up on the one hand a whole
as such a value which is properly spiritual. But perhaps we
system of technical knowledge aimed at the ordering of the
should start by qualifying. Moderation, which is after all to
world and of human life as a set of purely natural processes;
some extent the same as measure, may be counselled in the
while on the other, we see the growth of ascetic disciplines
interests of bodily health. In that case it is the dietician who
strongly influenced by Eastern thought—the oddest aspect of
speaks, he allows the use of alcohol or tobacco in moderation,
this is that it takes place at a moment when that way of thinking
etc. ... He will say perhaps that the moderate use of tobacco
tends to desert the countries of its origin. It is true that here the
or alcohol cannot do much harm, and that complete abstention
terms are not properly fixed and that there is a readiness to talk
might even be bad for a patient who is in the habit of smoking
glibly of the sages of India. To avoid confusion let us note to
or drinking. But note this: the dietician speaks in the name
begin with that there is a fundamental difference between
of a kind of wisdom of the body. He may of course forbid the use
wisdom of the profane kind, such as the thought of Confucius
of stimulants altogether, because of some special predisposition
or Epicurus, of Montaigne or of Goethe, and those disciplines
or a particular danger threatening his client. All the same, this
by which the soul trains itself to overcome the world and its
idea of a wisdom of the body should make us think: how is it
illusions. This, however, is no more than a preliminary dis¬
conceivable? Perhaps only to the extent that the body is
tinction and though I think we should establish it in principle
likened to a mind in infancy, a mind which is still in need of
it will certainly not make it possible for us to attach a neat
tutelage? Dietetics would then be a sort of education of the
label to every case; we shall have to beware of this particularly
body, combining firmness and flexibility. Let us go on to
when we talk of Christian wisdom. What I should like to try to
medicine. Clearly at this level the basic notion is that of an
show is that wisdom, in the traditional and profane sense of the
equilibrium to be discovered and maintained, an equilibrium
word, used to occupy a sort of central zone, a sort of middle
which is living and cannot therefore be set up once and for all
(milieu), whence it seems now called upon to withdraw—and in
so doing it cannot but change its nature—while this central but has to be restored from moment to moment in relation to
zone itself becomes nothing but an empty space, a space liter¬ conditions which are constantly changing. For this continual
ally untenanted. It is this emptying that I should like to study. changing of conditions is not accidental but, on the contrary,
inherent in the very structure of life. It is surely only by a
37
38
The Breaking Up of the Notion of Wisdom The Decline of Wisdom
faulty abstraction that we have grown accustomed to thinking certain mastery over himself. But I must emphasise two points.
of life as something on its own, apart from the conditions to I have said he has achieved it: it seems to me that there can be
which it must adapt itself. This is very important to our dis¬ no wisdom which is not the fruit of a slowly developed maturity,
cussion. Even on the level of the body and of organic life these and maturity presupposes patience and continuity. Note that
elementary truths can be lost to sight, and this undoubtedly patience and continuity are even more than closely linked:
happens whenever the organism is thought of as a machine, or patience is continuity, it is, as it were, its visage. And I would
rather, whenever the self-regulating power which belongs to the say that at the root of wisdom there is a degree of patience
individual organism comes to be ignored. This mistake is towards oneself, which is the contrary of presumption. He who
carefully avoided by those doctors who, without falling into the would obtain everything from himself and this immediately
wrong sort of quietism, believe that nature should be left to do will never attain to wisdom. He may indeed attain sanctity,
its work, or rather that the use of medicines is to assist it: but for this he stands in need of grace, and nothing in the least
contrast this with the pride of the scientist who ignores the need like grace is allowed by wisdom, in so far as it is self-aware.
for this kind of fundamental humility in the presence of the Should we then say that it is the result of training ? Such a view
silent work of life. would be not only superficial but contradictory, since a training
We can go on from here to the field of ethics the more easily of this sort, or if you like such a moral horticulture, already
because wisdom can be seen from this point of view as a sort of presupposes wisdom. If this is true we shall have to say that the
moral dietetics. Even where the issue is physical health the passing of time is as necessary to wisdom as if it were organically
advice of the dietician can be neglected or refused: ‘You part of it. Indeed, wisdom precludes the kind of instantaneity
want m<V to give up my pleasures? Why should I? I do not care which used to be so fashionable among our contemporaries.
to prolong my life if I am to be deprived of everything that Note that in the ages when it was respected wisdom was
makes it livable.5 In a world which respects wisdom, the answer regarded as the prerogative of old age: and if respect for age
is that there exists a hierarchy of ways of living, and that a man has almost vanished in our day, this is undoubtedly connected
who has to give up his coffee or his whisky should be able to with the devaluation suffered by wisdom itself.
discover ‘higher satisfactions5 which should give a truer mean¬ Let us observe in passing that wisdom, considered not from
ing to his life. It can also be said that on the social plane the the outside but from the point of view of someone who is seeking
individual has a duty to bring his conduct into harmony with it, can never be looked upon as acquired. If a man were to
the requirements of the natural group such as the family. This say of himself, ‘I am a sage5, he would at once make himself
would be the moment to show how it is that these arguments for ridiculous. Is this because the sage is expected to be falsely,
all their reasonableness and perennial validity tend in given hypocritically, modest ? I do not think so, I think it is because
circumstances to lose their ‘existential weight5, but we must we know that if wisdom became complacent, it would immedi¬
first bring out in a more concrete way the implications of ately get stiff in the joints and in the end fall into decay. It does
the notion of wisdom, and see in what circumstances it can seem in the last analysis that, for the seeker, wisdom is in a
predominate. sense indistinguishable from the pursuit of it. We shall have to
Let us note firstly that here the relation of dietician to see why it is that this pursuit is today generally held suspect;
client becomes interiorised: wisdom cannot be anything but an our further analysis will throw light on this.
auto-dietetic, though this must be clearly distinguished from Let us consider firstly that, if not by right, at least in practice,
the Kantian autonomy which belongs to quite a different in real life, the patience needed to attain wisdom goes perhaps
spiritual dimension. The sage is a man who has achieved a not with leisure but certainly with a state that can be negatively
39 40
The Breaking Up of the Notion of Wisdom
a slant towards contempt. It is very possible for the sage who
described as not-being-careworn. In an age more favourable to
practices detachment—a sort of Lucretian detachment for
this pursuit than ours, not even the humblest artisan knew
instance, the kind of the suave mari magno—to fall into betrayal,
anything of the kind of care that obsesses the proletarian of
and this on the plane of wisdom itself. For after all the true
today. Yet care, more than almost anything, makes for mentat
function of the sage is surely the function of linking together,
discontinuity. It is true that syndicalism, in so far as it assures
of bringing into harmony. I am not thinking only or even
the worker of security, tends to lift from him the burden of
chiefly of the Greeks, but of classical China, of the China of
care and thereby helps him to be once more capable of wisdom.
Lao Tse, and what here strikes me in a really marvellous light
But it must be added at once that this is only true in so far
is that the sage is truly linked with the universe. The texts are
as it confines itself to the professional sphere, for if it does not,
unmistakable and revealing: the order to be established in life
it suffers in a most harmful way from the repercussions of the
—whether of the individual or of the city or of the empire—is
world’s political unrest, and there, and for every reason in the
in no way separable from the cosmic order. And perhaps in this
world, there is no longer anything in the least like wisdom.
connection we should give much greater importance than is
It could also be said that wisdom implies a certain distance
commonly done to those forms of knowledge, such as geomancy,
from events, though we would need to examine the nature of
astrology and so on, which were so highly developed in China
that distance, as also of patience which has a hidden connec¬
and in other Asiatic countries and which today are discredited
tion with it. The intrusion of politics into professional life seems
to the point of the absurd. The important thing and I think
to eliminate that distance, and this in a really degrading way
it is hardly possible to insist on it too much—is that in this
since it is directed by the press, by propaganda and what have
outlook the true aim of knowledge and of life is to be integrated
you. ... It is really a kind of manipulation of human beings in
in the universal order, and not at all to transform the world by
view of party aims. Yet it must also be remembered—and this
bringing it into subjection to the human will, to man’s needs
is most important—that if a worker stays outside his pro¬
or his desires. The expression ‘practical anthropomorphism
fessional organisations because he believes them to be tainted
which I have used elsewhere is, I think, exactly fitting in this
by politics and wishes to keep his independence, he risks falling
connection. This attitude, which is that of humanity today, is
back into the worst kind of insecurity, into the most anxious
the exact opposite of the one that might be called cosmo-
care, and of thus also being left in his own way at the despotic
centrism and which implied a deep humility on the part of man.
mercy of events.
It is an extraordinary illusion to believe that because we have
Almost the same thing could be said about the family in the
done away with geo-centrism or even helio-centrism in the
modern world. It can hardly be denied that the family has
field of astronomy or cosmography we have also finished with
been the nursery of a certain kind of secular wisdom, and that
anthropocentrism. What has happened is merely that it has
this wisdom is today falling to pieces. This is true both where
been carried over to a different field—that of action, and it is,
the authority of the father is disappearing and where it is en¬
almost certainly, precisely in this field that it can lead to the
forced against the current in a world which is less and less
inclined to grant it. And this brings us inevitably to the most tragic consequences. . ,
All this is not really a digression, quite the contrary. 1 think
problem of the relations between wisdom and tradition.
that wisdom in its greatest and most traditional sense has
I have spoken of distance: is it not better to say detachment ?
probably always consisted above all else in the will to exorcise
But here again we come up against difficulties. The detachment
that attitude of mind which is triumphantly manifested m
of the sage, as against that of the saint which is quite different,
what I have called practical anthropomorphism.
is always in danger of being tainted by pretentiousness and by
42
D 4i
But to make it clearer we must examine the subtle relation¬ beyond it. But it is difficult to conceive the sage without a kind
ship which exists between wisdom and reason. of harmonious equilibrium which he cannot but feel as happi¬
There is no doubt that we think of the sage as a reasonable ness. The famous pages of Montaigne are in this connection of
man. But is the word ‘reasonable’ altogether unambiguous ? I a significance and value which transcend their author:
do not think so. The reasonable man is perhaps fundamentally The soul in which philosophy dwells must, by its own health, give
and above all else a man who perceives the limitations of health to the body also. Its contentment, repose and ease must shine
reason. Let me recall what Chesterton wrote in Orthodoxy: a forth, and it must so mould the outward body to its own form that
man who is insane is a man whose reason is without roots and it endows it with a gracious pride, an active and alert bearing and a
quick and merry countenance. The chief sign of wisdom is a constant
functioning in a void. He adds that it is mystery that keeps the
rejoicing (esjouissance). Its state is like that of things above the moon:
mind of man healthy: so long as you have mystery you have always serene.
sanity, take away mystery and you fall into morbidity. Leaving
aside this statement (though it seems to me profoundly true) What is certain is that the notion of wisdom implies what
what I think is evident is that reason in a reasonable man acts, might be called aristocratic values, this word being taken in
as it were, as its own brake, and where this brake is lacking an altogether general sense and in no way related to the idea of
there can be no room for wisdom. aristocracy as a class. What I mean is that there can be no
Doubtless it could be objected that we must not be misled by wisdom without a recognition of a certain hierarchy of modes
the use of the word wisdom in the singular and that there are of living, without the prevalence of an idea of a better life,
very different types and modes of wisdom. There is the wisdom even if this is not referred to a religious or metaphysical
which some might call earthy and which is closely linked with absolute. But we must be careful not to jump to conclusions.
common sense, the wisdom of Moliere for instance; and at the There undoubtedly still exist democracies of a type which, at
opposite end of the scale there is a wisdom, such as that of the least provisionally, is compatible with the idea of the primacy
cynics, which on the contrary seems to despise common sense of quality. This was certainly true of English democracy, at
and to set it at naught. Between them is there a common any rate until the First World War, though it is also true that
denominator? I would prefer to put the question in dynamic it hung on the existence of an aristocracy regarded as ex¬
terms. Whatis common is the direction, the magnet, and perhaps emplary. The notion, hard to analyse, of the gentleman as the
I should say that this is always grounded in the will to freedom. exemplary type is of great significance. It could also be said
It could be said in a general way that wisdom is the appanage (though much less clearly) of democracy in France, so long as
of the free, and also that what the sage is always looking for is it stood out, in whatever muddled and incoherent v/ay, against
authentic freedom. the drag of egalitarianism. The problem is still more compli¬
It is easier to define this freedom negatively than to bring cated and confused in the federal democracies of Switzerland
out its positive attributes. The sage is in the first place one who and the United States. But wherever egalitarianism prevails,
has silenced his passions, or at least tamed, domesticated them; rooted as it always is in envy and resentment, the sense of
he is also independent of public opinion and prejudice and is quality tends to vanish. It is indeed depressing but quite logical
able in all circumstances to resist the collective impulse. and understandable that we should witness almost everywhere
Perhaps we should also say that this independence gives him a progressive devaluation of the activities of the mind in favour
peace and, if the word still has meaning, happiness, so long as of manual work. Even craftsmanship, in so many ways linked
this is not confused with pleasure. Even the hedonists have had with an activity which is properly artistic, is systematically
to establish a hierarchy of pleasure and thus in a sense to go discouraged. It seems to me very hard indeed to formulate a
43 44
positive principle which could be claimed to justify this which was its appanage. The role of bad films cannot here be
devaluation; probably it has several and fairly varied roots. overlooked. Those who, by reason of their very poverty and
We will examine one of them further on. It is easy enough to of what was deeply real in their work and in their tastes, were
agree that in the 19th century abuses of exactly the opposite genuinely and constantly in touch with what might be called
sort were the rule, and that the conditions of the proletariat in the soil of existence, are today perverted by something that is
the first decades of the Industrial Revolution were such that certainly not culture but is rather its most harmful counterfeit.
they remained a lasting shame to the society which was respon¬ That popular wisdom to which philosophers worthy of the
sible for them. But it is no less certain that the reversal, inevit¬ name have always paid tribute cannot really be separated
able though perhaps it was, which has been taking place ever from common sense; and the disappearance of common sense
since, must result in the suppression, not only in practice but as is a phenomenon of immeasurable gravity and one which must
of right, of anything having the remotest likeness to an aristoc¬ inevitably bring about a radical change in the climate of the
racy. For it is obvious that the One Party of a totalitarian mind. It is comparable to some great meteorological trans¬
regime has not the slightest bearing on it, it is not even a formation such as now and then takes place, and mental
caricature of an aristocracy, it is its complete negation. meteorology is the name I would propose for this change which
Yet it may perhaps be asked, can we be sure that a kind of is too deep and too general to be readily discerned; so wide¬
wisdom cannot subsist even when the sense of quality has almost spread is it indeed that no doubt it happens in every one of us—
vanished? This needs careful consideration: there is no doubt that is why it needs a sustained effort of concentration to
that there existed in the past and particularly in such countries become aware of it.
as France and Italy a popular wisdom. But was this not bound With the disappearance of common sense it is likely that
up with a tradition of craft and family life and even more wisdom also is doomed to vanish, or at best to become the
deeply with a continuity which itself is on the way to vanishing prerogative of the very few. Perhaps we might ask ourselves
if it has not vanished already ? Here the role of environment is of if at that point it does not change its nature in such a way as
great importance: even where there was nothing like the poetic to become something approaching sanctity. We will come back
and cosmic feeling prevalent in China for so many centuries, to this important point. What I should like to stress now is
the individual was at least conscious of belonging to a deeply that at bottom common sense is not so very different from
humanised environment. No one better than Peguy has shown wisdom. It is a kind of deposit left by wisdom: instead of
the way in which intelligence and work were inter-related drifting about it settles in the average human being, but only
among the people; but his ‘people’ were essentially a people of for so long as certain sociological conditions are maintained.
craftsmen. Today this relationship is broken up and the world The nature of these conditions is shown by the word ‘common’
is in discord. What is very curious, incidentally, is that, for itself. There is and there can be: no common sense where there
certain psycho-analytical reasons, the intellectual toadies to the is no common life or common notions, that is to say where
people in exactly the measure in which his own thinking has there no longer exist any organic groups such as the family, the
become disembodied and floats about in a sort of indeterminate village, and so on. Yet the collectivisation we are witnessing
medium; I mention psycho-analysis because the intellectual in every field is happening at the cost or even in contempt of
suffers from an inferiority complex which is itself inseparable these organic groups. This may seem astonishing at first sight,
from a great pretentiousness: we are here in the field of but it is very obvious if we think about it. For we are confronted
ambivalence. But the people, flattered, indoctrinated, subjected everywhere with enormous agglomerations which are increas¬
to all kinds of propaganda, is doomed to lose the good sense ingly mechanised, so that the individuals are linked in much
45 46
the same way as the parts of a machine. This seems to me one disastrous results and can hardly be condemned too strongly.
of the most terrible effects of the predominance of the State. The champions of committed thought start from the notion,
It could be said that the moment common sense goes out of which is true, that man is a being who exists in a particular
institutions and civic relationships it is also driven from the situation and whose thinking can only start from the concrete
human mind. There are countless examples of this: I am situation in which he is. They are indeed right to condemn the
thinking especially of the burdening of teaching and school life sort of mental absenteeism which is almost certainly an intel¬
by examination programmes which are often drawn up in lectual sin. But what they are in danger of overlooking is that
defiance of common sense, so that the means of selection are man defines himself precisely in terms of the tension between his
made increasingly artificial and take less and less account of own situation, which is always singular, and the universal
those human qualities which ought surely to be considered values which are proposed to him: values which he does not
before all others. Another and very different instance is the fact have to create but to assert, and this not only in the abstract
that small enterprises, that is to say those which are on a really but by embodying them in his own conduct and work. We can
human scale, are systematically penalised in favour of enormous indeed say with complete assurance that if the notion of
and dehumanised concerns.1 Still another is the danger to such commitment has any meaning it must be in relation to an
professions as medicine when they are run by functionaries. absolute which has first to be recognised. As soon as what is
I wish only to draw attention to the inevitable effect of all stressed is not an absolute to be recognised but a creative act—
this upon mental attitudes. I admit that it is difficult to judge an act claimed to be creative—by which human freedom gives
with certainty of a process which is still developing. But in birth to its own values, anarchy takes the place of reason. And
observing those around us it is hard not to conclude that, as I as anarchy is untenable, a roundabout road—and something
have tried to show elsewhere, the spirit of abstraction is gradu¬
very like a crooked way out—will be looked for. This is where
ally taking hold of human beings and alienating them increas¬ the notion of history is brought in, and of a historical sense to
ingly from the sense of life and living realities, while at the same be used as a criterion and to replace the traditional values
time it makes of them a field which is dangerously favourable which are to be discredited once and lor all.
to the growth of totalitarian ideologies. But here again is an innovation which is not compatible with
It is clear as daylight that these ideologies are incompatible what has always been understood as wisdom. If indeed wisdom
with our idea of wisdom, if only because they shut out all notion implies maturity it inevitably presupposes an attitude of
of measure and relativity, and without this notion they in¬ respect for the past. By this I do not mean a blind conservatism
evitably drift into fanaticism: from the standpoint of wisdom— or a superstitious feeling for tradition. To respect the past does
of any wisdom—fanaticism is literally madness. We have not not in any way prevent us from recognising—and in a most
yet spoken of tolerance and this is the moment to touch on it,
painful way—the mistakes of which our predecessors were
for it is in this connection that the kind of regression that has
guilty and of which we may perhaps in some manner have
been going on for half a century is perhaps most clear. It seems
shared the guilt. But I think this recognition, and it should be
that it is not enough to say that tolerance is not practised: most
as lucid as possible, should not preclude what I would like to
people nowadays have not an idea of what it means.
call an intellectual piety, for, without this, all feeling for
Here it is necessary to point out the dangerous equivocations
nuances, and as a result for equity, is completely lost. Yet
contained in the fashionable expression: committed thought (pensee
today, still, no doubt, under the influence of committed
engagee). The confusion which is at the back of it has really
thought, whole periods of history and ‘classes’ of men, seen in
1 This is perhaps^changing, as for instance in Germany. the distorting mirror of abstraction, are judged in the most
47 48
summary, overall and iniquitous way; while the very same that in doing so there is a danger of overlooking an important
people who are so censorious about the past, show themselves difference of perspective. What it amounts to is that these
(in the same spirit of abstraction) remarkably indulgent to the conceptions can only really come to life within a mystique. I
abuses growing and multiplying in our own time, which they am leaving aside the question as to whether such a mystique
regard as the womb of history. It is not enough to say that this is necessarily tied to a dogmatically defined religion, or
way of thinking is unreasonable, it should be stressed that it is whether it can take root beyond dogmatism as, for one,
clean contrary to all wisdom. For if on the one side we have, Huxley seems to believe. This is indeed a most important
after all, the immense patrimony of history—busy as we seem question but it falls outside our present field. It is not that I
to be dismantling it—we are only dealing on the other with would deprecate mysticism; I would go further: it is not
unformed and indeterminate possibilities. impossible that in the past the highest forms of wisdom known
From these considerations, which could be developed further to man have been largely dependent on a mystique; all the
and in other ways, there seems to me to emerge this important same, on the level of experience, everything took place as
fact: we are witnessing an enormous dislocation of something though wisdom had its independent existence. There was a
that can now be hardly seen or heard, but which has been sensorium commune (the Latin words are stronger and more
wisdom. Of that wisdom there is nothing left but ‘scattered characteristic than the French or English) and this sensorium
limbs’. What I mean is this: obviously, the technical processes commune provided a sort of meeting ground for the sacred and
which have been so prodigiously developed and specialised the profane. What is new is that it is this very meeting ground
during the past half century have as their aim the rational that has collapsed, leaving the world more broken than it has
ordering of all the resources at the disposal of mankind; a ever been, perhaps, in any known epoch.
whole body of recipes is growing up as to the detailed manner This shows itself in every field, even in that of philosophy
of this ordering. Yet if we ask ourselves what is the connection proper. Anyone who has attended international philosophical
between this body—so vast that it has in it the material of congresses is aware that, even putting aside Marxism and its
countless manuals—and what used to be known as wisdom, we derivatives, there exist in the modern world two distinct types
will ^ee that it is only its residue, its left-over, its dregs. You of philosophy without any living communication between
could put it like this: the huge multiplication of means put at them: there is on the one hand logico-mathematical neo¬
man’s disposal, and of recipes for their use, takes place at the cost positivism which predominates in the Anglo-Saxon countries
of the ends they are supposed to serve, or, if you like, at the cost and in parts of Scandinavia, and, on the other, there are the
of the values which man is called upon both to serve and to doctrines of metaphysical inspiration, whether existentialist or
safeguard. It is as if man, overburdened by tire weight of not, current in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and in the
technics, knows less and less where he stands in regard to what countries of South America.
matters to him and what doesn’t, to what is precious and what But we must go still further. I had occasion the other day to
is worthless. say publicly that atonal music often seems formless and without
But now let us turn to the corollary, the development, in the content—emotional or other—to those who belong to a
face of all this technical progress, of ascetic doctrines which are different musical school: afterwards a mathematician who was
usually more or less directly influenced by the initiation prac¬ in the audience came up to me and said: Tncommunicability
tices of the East—we need only think of Aldous Huxley’s is not confined to the arts, we find it nowadays even in the most
recent evolution to get an idea of what this is. I am willing to abstract sciences. Often a highly specialised scientist communi¬
admit the fitness of calling this asceticism wisdom but I believe cates with hardly anyone outside his own particular field of
49 50
research and his work becomes a closed book to scientists kinds of wisdom: the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of
engaged in other fields.* Christ? And we feel at once that between these opposites it
Of course, we may hope that a scholar of genius will arise will not be easy to find a common denominator. I will come
tomorrow who will overthrow these partitions and establish an back to this in a moment. Take the first of the two precepts:
exchange between these water-tight worlds. But in the mean¬ ‘He who seeks to save his life shall lose it.’ Here again there is a
time the growing number of hermetic languages (hermetic in duality, an antagonism. What do the words mean exactly?
the non-csotcric sense) is creating a real Babel. This has its To ‘seek to save one’s life’, this is surely not only, not even
counterpart in the fact that the universal is now on the side of chiefly, to look for means of prolonging one’s existence. To
applied technics—of technical processes directed to this or that save one’s life must mean to establish it on what, from the
practical end. But we may well ask ourselves if this displace¬ natural point of view, is a solid basis, and this involves the use
ment of the universal from the theoretical sphere to the practical of foresight. But what the Gospel shows us is that in acting in
is not an event of the utmost gravity and one that heralds the this fashion we start from a faulty evaluation of what is essential
dusk of civilisation. and what is not, we labour to preserve what is in reality the less
The connection between this phenomenon and the one I important and in so doing, without knowing it, we compromise
tried to analyse earlier is obvious. There can be no wisdom what is in reality the most precious.
without at least the veiled presence of the universal. To the Such examples chosen among countless others show us
extent that the universal is debased or driven out, wisdom without the least doubt that what the Gospel brought with it is
becomes eclipsed and its place is taken by a system of technical what Nietzsche was later to call a transvaluation. This trans¬
processes tightly fitted into one another, whose complexity is valuation is indeed so radical that what on one level is seen as
only rivalled by the poverty of the ends it serves. wisdom on the other level is seen as foolishness.
There remains a problem which is perhaps the gravest of all. As time went on, however, the evolution of moral philosophy
No question is more complex or needs greater care in hand¬ in Christendom tended to gloss over this paradox and to attenu¬
ling than the relations between Christianity proper and that ate its scandalousness; though it is also true that time and
wisdom in the traditional sense I have been dealing with until again there arose great religious souls who reopened the breach
now. Everything depends in the upshot on the way the accents which others had sought to close and denounced the mis¬
are placed on different aspects of the Christian message, and direction given, consciously or unconsciously, by the teachers
also of course on the interpretation given to wisdom, for as we of the preceding epoch.
have seen it can be understood in very different ways. Let me To be more explicit: in order to make it clear to us that, after
explain. If you consider a sentence such as this, ‘He who seeks all, Christianity asks of us nothing that is against reason, the
his life shall lose it’, or this, ‘Unless you become as little children accent has been generally placed on the implications of the
you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven’, it would seem notion of salvation; salvation being represented as the fulfilment
that they are expressly directed against the notion of wisdom of our heart’s needs, it was relatively simple to show that to
we have been obliged to adopt. This is perhaps even more follow the precepts of the Gospel—however disconcerting they
evident in the second than in the first example. To become as might seem at first sight—was to act with the greatest wisdom:
little children: does this not imply giving up all the accumu¬ for is not wisdom, before all else, the considered appropriation
lated experience, all that maturity without which it seems of means to an end regarded as an undisputed good? Con¬
impossible to attain to wisdom such as we conceive of it ? Does versely, it could be proved that it is senseless to conform to a set
it not at least force us to admit that there are two quite different of rules directed to a secondary good such as happiness in this
5i 52
world. Indeed, is it not perhaps a mistake or a betrayal even to the advantages we could not get for ourselves if we were left to
call this happiness a secondary good? Should not its pursuit
our own resources.
be judged incompatible with the teaching of Christ, whose From the spiritual point of view, all this is thoroughly
doctrine is a life and a way—a way that leads through the scandalous, the fundamental error being to imagine salvation
Crucifixion? as a share in a sort of celestial allotment scheme: for whatever
Obviously, all this needs infinite shading and qualifying. We our idea of Heaven, this allotment scheme notion has to be
could say for instance: thrown out once and for all.
(1) the more the corruption of nature resulting from sin All this is indeed strongly felt by Christian consciences
is stressed, the more shall we be inclined to suspect and in the nowadays and the more alive of them have undoubtedly
end even to condemn an ethic, that is to say a wisdom, which abjured this traditional mistake. The danger is that they might
defines itself in reference to the natural order. fall into a different mistake which is perhaps even more grave.
(2) the more the eschatological character of the basic What tends to take the place of this individualistic utilitarianism
Christian affirmation is brought into the foreground, the more is a historicism contaminated by such doctrines as Marxism
shall we be led to stress the urgency of sanctifying action, as which have nothing whatever to do with Christianity, a
against that philosophy of slow fruition without which, I repeat, historicism which tries, though vainly, to obtain the blessing
it seems difficult to speak of wisdom. of the Church.
But really to understand the contemporary situation, really From my own standpoint in the present study it follows that
to discern the fissure which exists in this domain as in other’s, this contamination by history is a mortal danger to Christian
I think that the following observation is necessary: wisdom. We have already had a glimpse of tne reason for this:
I have said that the two kinds of wisdom seemed reconcilable a conception which takes as its terms of reference an imaginary
in terms of salvation and of its primacy. But what salvation? future, a future imagined in the abstract, is. contrary to the very
Are we not dealing here with a current notion of salvation notion of wisdom. I will give only one example of what I mean
which is at bottom narrowly individualistic and in danger, but I think it illustrates it vividly. I have heard with my own
through its very hardening, of overlooking certain fundamental ears a well-known cleric laying down in principle that the
aspects of the Christian message ? There is no doubt at all that regimes in the Sovietised countries are in line with history and
we must protest strongly against the sort of spiritual utilitarian¬ almost canonising history itself. And when his attention was
ism which claims to teach the safest way for each of us to attain drawn to the millions languishing in prison and in labour camps
beatitude. How relevant in this connection is Franz Werfel’s he exclaimed: ‘What is this in comparison with all the rest?’
admirable novel, Heaven Lost and Regained', where a servant, Actually there are two distinct types of error in this aberration:
anxious to prepare as well as possible for what she really to the error of the historicist proper is added the error of the
imagines as a kind of celestial spa, undertakes to pay for the scientist, used to juggling with figures and who takes advantage
keep and education of her young nephew destined to become a of the very hugeness of the numbers to cease imagining any¬
priest, to offer Masses for her intention, and generally to act as thing whatsoever. It is interesting to note that in this case the
the best possible intercessor before the One who is the overseer sin against common sense is also the sin against justice and
of the ordering of eternal life. charity.
It hardly needs saying that this notion of intercession is Will it be said that this is an isolated instance ? I do not
undilutedly profane. The priest is seen as somebody who has believe it. This evil is like a vertigo; for reasons which are
enough influence, who can pull the right strings to obtain for us extremely complex and into which I cannot go in detail, we see
53 54
countless Christians whose heads are literally turned by history, towards reconstruction only if it becomes incarnate, and this
people who are desperately anxious to conform to history— kind of incarnation, as I have said, can only take place at the
though history by its very essence is what is impenetrable humblest and most intimate level of human hfe: the level at
to us. which a few men of good will meet to work at a common task.
Thus it is only fair to admit that even among Christians that I have said a common task, for it is certainly not a question o
breaking up or dislocation of wisdom which I have tried to inditing some ambitious and utopian programme. Experience
analyse is increasingly taking place. For there is clearly a has taught us that not only are such programmes doomed to
danger that as a reaction to this kind of historicist frenzy there failure, but what is more serious, their failure, by a sort o
may arise a frenzy of integralism, a return to the most rigid inevitable repercussion, worsens the situation they started
and antiquated thinking in theology. Nothing could be further from. I realise that a call to humility is disappointing at a time
from wisdom worthy of the name. It is true that there always when the label ‘world-wide’ is fashionable whenever an organ¬
remains to very pure and lofty souls the resource of dis¬ isation is set on foot. But this fashion is just the mark of one of
regarding all this, of escaping upwards as it were into the hope our most harmful illusions. I cannot protest too strongly against
of attaining to mystical union. This indeed is the supreme gift, the notion that our thinking nowadays is only valid if it is on
the supreme realisation; but in relation to wisdom it is a a world-wide or planetary scale. Here as everywhere, it is the
beyond. Besides, even here it is difficult not to feel a certain sense of the neighbour that needs awaking, for it is the only
apprehension, for should not holiness and mysticism (which safeguard against calamities which indeed are certain to be
are not the same but have between them a most complex world-wide.
relationship) have a sort of human foundation of natural
wisdom and morality? And where this foundation is threatening
to collapse, is there not a danger of an element of error or at
least of illusion finding its way into this most pure and lofty
work ?
Enough has been said to show the infinitely tragic spiritual
situation of the modern world. What is particularly grave, if
we reflect on it, is that wisdom or common sense, untenanted
and as it were set adrift, may be taken in tow by a singularly
adroit propaganda which is quite capable, in a transitional
period, of using them to its own advantage, since these dis¬
positions lose their consistency the moment they are no longer
related to a stable order, to a truth. And we have seen that
order, stability and truth are mortally compromised as soon as
it is the will to power that predominates and turns the world
into a factory. From then on, by what is only seemingly a
paradox, the practical and the metaphysical problems merge
into one. I mean that it will not be enough to exhume this or
that general principle once elucidated by a secular thinker or
a doctor of the Church; such a principle will be valuable
55 56

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29 Marcel, Gabriel, 1887-

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The Limitations of Industrial Civilisation i

The Notion of Spiritual Heritage 21

The Breaking Up of the Notion of Wisdom 37

which the mind should deliberately reject. It is not therefore

corollary the harmonious development of the sciences and

I NDUSTRIAL civilisation: the meaning of the words seems

But such a statement presupposes a veritable transcendence of

As always, we must be careful not to be misled by metaphors.

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