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GEORGE LlCHTHEIM
view has its theological expression in the untranslatable first five verses
of the Gospel according to John, in what is called the doctrine of the
Logos:
the idea came first ... Christianity, as it was conceived by
its founder, Paul, was rooted in this view." In the sublunary world,
though, there are conflicting ideas: e.g., "Nietzsche's idea of man does
not agree with that of St. Francis, nor does Karl Marx's with that of
St. Paul. ... This is the human dilemma. . .. We live in two worlds,
a primary world of perfect ideas and an imperfect world which imitates
it." The imperfect world is that of ordinary human history, in which
men are unable to agree upon ultimate aims. "The dual philosophy
holds that, implicit in the order of nature from the beginning, there
has been an idea of man that represents what he is intended to be. We
ought to model ourselves upon it, as Cicero and others have affirmed.
But we are able to apprehend it uncertainly at best and cannot agree
on it. In our ignorance and disagreement, then, some of us follow
Nietzsche and some St. Francis, some Kipling and some Gandhi, some
Tolstoy and some Hitler. Without knowledge of the ultimate, we are
constrained to make do among conflicting opinions as best we can"
(pp. 7-14).
Now this won't do at all. I am not here concerned with the
substance of Mr. Halle's position. It has a respectable ancestry, and
doubtless it can be made plausible to people who are temperamentally
disposed to such beliefs. But it is useless as an imperial creed, at
any
rate in the present stage, when the Empire still has to be constructed,
and moreover must contend with an antagonist who believes firmly in
the objective and universal import of
his
ideology. Mr. Halle must
think again; or if he won't, someone else must.
It
is all very well for
Professor Toynbee to be skeptical about moral values: his own Empire
(whose decline he has been celebrating in so many learned volumes)
has virtually surrendered the ghost, and no longer needs a Public
Philosophy to sustain it. But
if
America is to step into Britannia's
shoes, its ruling elite will have to evolve a proper awareness of its
role, and I don't see how Mr. Halle's blend of stoicism and skepticism
can be much use to it. The less so since he is an individualist and
inclined to doubt the "real" existence of entities such as nations. "The
existence of the individual is absolute and unmistakable. . . A com–
munity, on the other hand, is a matter of degree" (p. 18). "Was
Socrates a European, a Greek, or an Athenian? ... What is a Jew? ...
What distinguishes German Jews from other Germans, perhaps, is
simply an idea of J ewishness" (p. 28) . Mr. Halle has the courage
of his convictions.
