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PARTISAN REVIEW
how he can best stand in relation to that otherness. We may, of course,
find that it takes some prodding, even severe prodding at times, to get
man to relinquish his hold on his mythologies and his romantic idealisms,
but if man is a little stubborn we need not let that color our overall es–
timate of his growth. Man has, after all, developed the attitudes which
will allow him to move on and grow, and it is his own being that issues
the strongest, clearest call for change.
Man may never completely free his perceptions from the effects of his
thoughts and emotions; science is just beginning to accept the fact that
we change the nature of what we observe merely by observing it. But
for the moment, and perhaps for centuries to come, our species seems in–
tent on exercising its observation and objectivity and exorcising its needs
and fears from as many of those observations as possible. We can only
applaud these attempts. For by demystifying the nature of his own being
and extricating himself from absorption in that being, man draws his
attention away from that alluring image reflected in the pool and feels
himself exploring the world his self-preoccupation has kept him from
seeing.
In
time the process of demystification and discovery may open
man's eyes to the existence of others who, like him, have lived for cen–
turies in the caves of their individual existences, chained to the walls of
their own selves, and who now grope tentatively for a hand to hold as
they approach the light of day.
