Philosophy and the Social Problem

by Will Durant

It is the chance of philosophy.

CONCLUSION

SEE now, in summary, how modest a suggestion it is, grandiloquent though it may have seemed. We propose no ’ism, we make no programme; we suggest, tentatively, a method. We propose a new start, a new tack, a new approach,—not to the exclusion of other approaches, but to their assistance. If this thing should be done, it would not mean that other gropers toward a better world would have to stand idle; it would but give light to them that walk in darkness. And it would make possible a more generous coöperation among the different currents in the stream of reconstructive thought.

We are a little discouraged to-day; we lovers of the new have become doubtful of the object of our love. Perhaps—we sometimes feel—all this effort is a vain circling in the mist; perhaps we do not advance, but only move. Our faith in progress is dimmed. We even tire of the “social problem”; we have tried so many ways, knocked at so many doors, and found so little of that which we sought. Sometimes, in the lassitude of mistaken effort and drear defeat, we almost think that the social problem is never to find even partial solution, that it is not a problem but a limitation, a limitation forever. We need a new beginning, a new impetus,—perhaps a new delusion?

See, too, how the thought of our five teachers lies concentrated and connected in this new approach: what have we done but renew concretely the Socratic plea for intelligence, the Platonic hope for philosopher-kings, Bacon’s dream of knowledge organized and ruling the world, Spinoza’s gentle insistence on democracy as the avenue of development, and Nietzsche’s passionate defence of aristocracy and power? There was something in us that thrilled at Plato’s conception of a philosophy that could guide as well as dissect our social life; but there was another something in us that hesitated before his plan of slavery as the basis of it all. We felt that we would rather be free and miserable than bound and filled. Why should a man feed himself if his feet are chained, and he must never move? And we were inspired, too, by the demand that the best should rule, that they should have power fitted to their worth; we should be glad to find some way whereby the best could have power, could rule, and yet with the consent of all,—we wanted an aristocracy sanctioned by democracy, a social order standing on the broad base of free citizenship and wide coöperation. Socrates shows us how to use Bacon to reconcile Plato and Nietzsche with Spinoza: intelligence will organize intelligence so that superior worth may have superior influence and yet work with and through the will of all.

And here at the end comes a thought that some of us perhaps have had more than once as this discussion advanced: What could the Church do for the organization of intelligence?

It could do wonderful things. It has power, organization, facilities, through which the gospel of “the moral obligation to be intelligent” could be preached to a wider audience than any newspaper could reach. And among the clergy are hundreds of young men who have found new inspiration in the figure of Jesus seen through the aspirations of democracy; hundreds eager to do their part in any work that will lessen the misery of men. What if they were to find in this organization of intelligence a focus for their labor?—what if they should not only themselves undertake the studies which would fit them for membership in the Society, but should also make it their business to stir up in all who might come to them the spirit of the seeker, to incite them to read religiously the reports of the Society, to call on them to spread abroad the good news of truth to be had for the asking? What if these men should make their churches extension centers for the educational work of the Society,—giving freely the use of their halls and even contributing to the expense of organizing classes and paying for skilled instruction? What if they should see in the spread of intelligence the best avenue to that wide friendship which Jesus so passionately preached? What better way is there to make men love one another than to make men understand one another? True charity comes only with clarity,—just as “mercy” is but justice that understands. Surely the root of all evil is the inability to see clearly that which is; how better can religion combat evil than to preach clarity as the beginning of social redemption?

One of the many burdens that drag on the soul is a knowledge of the past. It is a strong man who can know history and keep his courage; a great dream that can face the fact and live. We look at those flitting experiments called civilizations: we see them rise one after another, we see them produce and produce and produce, we feel the weight of their accumulating wealth; still visionable to us the busyness of geniuses and slaves piling stone upon stone and making pyramids to greet the stars, still audible the voices of Socrates in the agora and of old Plato passing quietly among the students in the grove, still haunting us the white faces of martyrs in the amphitheatres of Rome: and then the pyramids stand bare and lonely, the voices of Greek genius are hushed, the Colosseum is a ruin and a memory; one after another these peoples pass, these wonderful peoples, greater perhaps, wiser and nobler perhaps, than the peoples of our time; and we almost choke with the heavy sense of a vast futility encompassing the world. Some of us turn away then from the din of effort, and seek in resignation the comfort of a living death; some others find in the doubt and difficulty the zest and reward of the work. After all, the past is not dead, it has not failed; only the vileness of it is dead, gone with the winnowing of time; that which was great and worthy lives and works and is real. Plato speaks to us still, speaks to millions and millions of us; and the blood of martyrs is the seed of saints. We speak and pass, but the word remains. Effort is not lost. Not to have tried is the only failure, the only misery; all effort is happiness, all effort is success. And so again we write ourselves in books and stone and color, and smile in the face of time; again we hear the call of the work, that it be done:

Edens that wait the wizardry of thought,
Beauty that craves the touch of artist hands,
Truth that but hungers to be felt or seen;

and again we are hot with the passion for perfection. We will remake. We will wonder and desire and dream and plan and try. We are such beings as dream and plan and try; and the glory of our defeats dims the splendor of the sun. We will take thought and add a cubit to our stature; we will bring intelligence to the test and call it together from all corners of the earth; we will harness the genius of the race and renew creation.