The Philosophy of Civilization by Albert Schweitzer

Author:Albert Schweitzer [Schweitzer, Albert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Civilization, Philosophy, History & Surveys, General
ISBN: 9780879754037
Google: 5UhxAAAAMAAJ
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Published: 1987-07-15T10:53:08+00:00

There now sets in a development which works against the spirit of the age. The hitherto unopposed authority of the rational ideal is undermined. Forces of reality which are not guided by it obtain recognition.

While the will-to-progress remains an amazed spectator of events, respect for what is historical revives, though it seemed to have been banished forever. In religion, in art, and in law, men begin, though at first only quite shyly, to look again with other eyes on the traditional. It is no longer reckoned as merely something which is to be replaced, but men venture to admit to themselves that it conceals within itself original values. The forces of reality, which had been taken by surprise, everywhere act on the defensive, and a guerilla warfare against the will-to-progress begins.

The various religious bodies revoke the abdications which they had made in presence of the religion of reason. The traditional law begins to set itself in opposition to the law laid down by reason. In the atmosphere of passion produced by the Napoleonic wars, the idea of the nation takes on a new character, directing on itself, and beginning to absorb, the universal enthusiasm for ideals. The struggles carried on, no longer by chancelleries but by peoples, are fatal to the ideals of cosmopolitanism and the brotherhood of nations. By this reawakening of national thought a whole series of political problems affecting the whole of Europe are rendered insoluble. Just as the organization of Austria as a unified modern State has now become impossible, so also has the civilizing of Russia, and that it is the destiny of Europe to be ruined on account of territories which are in it but not of it, begins to become apparent.

At the close of the Napoleonic era the whole of Europe is in a condition of misery. Far-seeing ideas of reform can be neither thought out nor worked out; only extemporized palliative measures suit the time. The will-to-progress is therefore unable to recover its former vigor.

It is fatally affected, too, by the fact that everybody with any capacity for independent thought feels himself attracted by this new valuation of reality, and consequently irritated at the one-sided, doctrinaire character of the rationalist way of looking at life.

Nevertheless, the position of the will-to-progress is far from being critical. The first attacks are made by Romanticism and the feeling for reality, but are mere outpost-skirmishes, and for a long time yet the will-to-progress remains master of the field. Bentham remains still the great authority. Alexander II of Russia, Tsar from 1801 to 1825, instructs the legislative commission which he sets up, to obtain the opinion of the great Englishman on all doubtful points. Madame de Staël expresses the opinion that the fateful period she has lived through will one day be called by posterity not the Napoleonic but the Benthamite age. 8

The noblest men of the period still live in the unshaken confidence that nothing can delay the speedy and conclusive victory of the purposive and moral.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.