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past was religious in this sense, although strongly opposed to tradition–
al forms of religion. For the progressive intellectual's religion was
completely this-worldly; in the name of rationality, science and in–
tellectual honesty, he rejected all beliefs that could not eventually
be confirmed by scientifically controlled experience.
The possession of a this-worldly religion gave the intellectual of
fifty years ago great strength and peace of mind. He made the
best of two worlds. Nothing required him to lower his sights, to
settle for less than perfection; and at the same time, he did not ask
to be believed merely on faith. All
his
promises would be honored in
cash, at face value, whereas other religions pay in imaginary cur–
rency out of a treasury of fictitious entities. Could anyone doubt
the moral, intellectual and practical superiority of the progreSSIve
intellectual's creed?
And yet, we can see today, after fifty years and a number of
wars and revolutions, that the progressive intellectual's creed was
utterly vulnerable. For in spite of the radical elimination of vested
interests, established authorities and organized religion in Russia, per–
fection in the shape of freedom, equality, non-violence and justice
failed to materialize. To his bitter humiliation, the progressive in–
tellectual, too, had to learn that it was impossible for him to maintain
both perfectionism as to the ends sought and deference to the verdict
of experience in so far as the attainment of the ends was concerned.
Like other founders of religions before him, he, too, had to make
a choice between abandoning either the idea of salvation or the
standard 'of this-worldliness. In either case, a radical change of attitude
towards traditional forms of religion became inevitable.
Obviously, conversion to some older form of religion wiIl result
if one retains faith in salvation but despairs of attaining it with
this-worldly experience. There are such cases on record among former–
ly radical intellectuals, but I think they are vastly outnumbered by
those who made the other choice and abandoned the idea of salvation
rather than that of this-worldly standards of experience. Those who
make such a choice will become resigned to imperfection and death;
they will not recognize any of the visible, real forces in the world
today as strong and pure enough to overcome and eliminate all evil.
But they will not become cynics for that. They will tenaciously cling
to "ideal" values such as Truth, Beauty and Goodness. They
will
be
