THE LAWRENCE MYTH
temporary states of comparative stability. This solution has points of
resemblance both to the Whiteheadian "event" in physics and to
Dewey's "equilibrium" in psychology. But the question is always to
what extent such a resolution involves a virtual capitulation of one
or the other of the contending parties. Lawrence was someone who
spent his entire career combatting what he believed was an undue
balance in the structure of human life at the expense of the animal
nature in man. In his reaction against the scientific rationalism of the
latter nineteenth century he undoubtedly plunged himself into the
most abject nature-mysticism. But the reaction against Lawrence in
tum need not be anything so simple as a renewed assertion of pure
scientific rationalism. For scientific rationalism, in any of its current
forms or derivatives, does not really provide a resolution of the con-
flict of which Lawrence's career was the rather sensational rehearsal.
Insofar as it is applied to the kind of problems with which he was
concerned, it can only lead to an unequivocal victory of the one side
of man's nature over the other. It can only lead to a further building
up of precisely those structures under which the individual has been
buried for centuries. The only real resolution would be a redefinition,
in terms of what both man's reason and his nature are at present, of
man himself. It may be that such a redefinition may be accomplished
within one or another of the available contemporary programs; or it
may be that none of these quite avoids faIling over into one of the two
extremes. But what is certain is that no definition will be satisfactory
that does not take into important account all those values to whose
defensive assertion Lawrence felt obliged to devote his career.
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