RELIGION AND THE INTELLECTUALS
137
chicks are not born fully-fledged, is well known, and scholars are
rightly scornful of Pliny's belief in the supernatural. Yet the underly–
ing poetic short-hand can easily be read if one studies the various
(and for the most part degenerate) Greek myths of the Sea-goddess
Alcyone, and makes good religious, though not good pharmaceutical,
sense.
Christian supernaturalism is equally a disease of language. When
Jesus, himself an intellectual by contemporary standards, was ac–
claimed the Messiah he inherited certain mythic attributes and reli–
gious obligations. But that he thereupon ceased to be subject to
natural law makes neither historic nor mythic sense. I can understand
an ex-Catholic atheist nostalgically reverting to Catholicism from
Communism, or a bored Episcopalian falling in love with Catholic
ritual. But when a self-styled intellectual without any such ecclesias–
tical background deliberately embraces a mediaeval faith in the
supernatural,
I
cannot see that he places himself on any higher in–
tellectual level than his despised and pitied Stalinist counterpart.
MARIANNE MOORE
1.
The helplessness of individuals and of society,
I
at–
tribute to breakdown in the individual.
2.
Catastrophe conduces to contrition. Convictions, however,
are the result of experience. Corroborated by the thinking of others–
and the moral law (which is self-demonstrating, most of us admit,)
-experience is almost certain to accept the fact that mystery is not
just a nut which diligence can crack.
Mystical belief which is not unthinking belief, seems to find
that science does not discredit the supernatural but reinforce it. That
is to say, we see that reverence for science and reverence for the soul
can interact.
3.
Can culture exist without a positive religion? Culture so far,
has not existed without religion and
I
doubt that it could.
Religion that does not result first of all in self-discipline will
never result in "social discipline" and could be the prey of any form
of tyranny.
