28
PARTISAN REVIEW
path are either foolish or wicked. In either case they have to be
resisted. And if they are powerful, they have to be resisted by
force. This seems to me one of the most fatal beliefs that human
beings can have; not only certainty that they and only they are
right, but the inability to realize that there can be conflicting val–
ues, each of which intrinsically deserves to be realized, and all of
which cannot be realized together.
My favorite quotation (which has at last entered
The OxJord
Book oj Quotations)
comes from Kant: "Out of the crooked timber
of humanity, no straight thing can ever be made." Those who
believe this proposition to be true, and practice it, are naturally
seldom popular with either side in any human conflict. But it is
they alone who make human existence tolerable.
We are saddened by the death of
DWIGHT MACDONALD,
an early associate, contributor,
and friend.
