[299] The Church, so far as it has become humanitarian, has itself succumbed to naturalism.
[300] Sutta of the Great Decease.
[301] If a man recognizes the supreme rôle of fiction or illusion in life while proceeding in other respects on Kantian principles, he will reach results similar to the “As-if Philosophy” (Philosophie des Als Ob) of Vaihinger, a leading authority on Kant and co-editor of the Kantstudien. This work, though not published until 1911, was composed, the author tells us in his preface, as early as 1875-78. It will be found to anticipate very strikingly pragmatism and various other isms in which philosophy has been proclaiming so loudly of late its own bankruptcy.
[302] “C’est en vain qu’on voudrait assigner à la vie un but, au sens humain du mot.” L’Evolution créatrice, 55.
[303] Metaphysics, 1078 b.
[304] In the beginning was the Word! To seek to substitute, like Faust, the Deed for the Word is to throw discrimination to the winds. The failure to discriminate as to the quality of the deed is responsible for the central sophistry of Faust (see p. 331) and perhaps of our modern life in general.
[305] “J’adore la liberté; j’abhorre la gêne, la peine, l’assujettissement.” Confessions, Livre I.
[306] Analects, XI, CXI. Cf. ibid., VI, CXX: “To give one’s self earnestly to the duties due to men, and while respecting spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom.” Much that has passed current as religion in all ages has made its chief appeal, not to awe but to wonder; and like many humanists Confucius was somewhat indifferent to the marvellous. “The subjects on which the Master did not talk were: extraordinary things, feats of strength, disorder and spiritual beings” (ibid., VII, CXX).
[307] One of the last Chinese, I am told, to measure up to the Confucian standard was Tsêng Kuo-fan (1811-1872) who issued forth from poverty, trained a peasant soldiery and, more than any other one person, put down the Taiping Rebellion.
[308] See J. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire’s Introduction to his translation of the Nicomachean Ethics, p. cxlix.