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PARTISAN REVIEW
and are afraid of philosophy," he writes, "we shall have no great
science." For philosophy is a vision of possibility based on actualities
and not determined by them; it reaches beyond fact to values; it
exercises "a speculative audacity" in relating values to each other.
It must be consistent with the findings of science, but outruns and
outreaches at any given moment what we strictly know. It is an
informed commitment and an intelligent guide to action on behalf
of moral ideals.
THE MONUMENT
At focus in the national park's ellipse a marker
Draws tight the guys of miles, opposite the national
Obelisk with its restless oval peoples who shall be
Drawn deep into its austerities or for a moment
Try the mystery of the god-like eye, before our long
Climb down past relic schoolboy names and states
And one foolish man
Climbs up, his death high in
his
elliptic face.
John Logan
