The Dale Memorial Lectures, 1922.
THE DECAY AND THE RESTORATION OF CIVILIZATION
THE PHILOSOPHY OF CIVILIZATION
PART I
BY
ALBERT SCHWEITZER
D.THEOL.; D.PHIL.; D.MED. (STRASSBURG)
TRANSLATED BY
C. T. CAMPION M.A. (OXON.) (SOMETIME OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD)
A. & C. BLACK, LTD. 4, 5 & 6 SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W. 1 1923
_Printed in Great Britain by_ THE WHITEFRIARS PRESS,LTD., LONDON AND
TONBRIDGE.
To ANNIE FISCHER IN DEEPEST GRATITUDE
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
“The Decay and the Restoration of Civilization” is the first part of a
complete philosophy of civilization with which I have been occupied
since the year 1900.
The second part, entitled “Civilization and Ethics”, will appear
immediately. The third is called “The World-View_(_*_)_ of Reverence
for Life”. The fourth has to do with the civilized State.
That over which I have toiled since 1900 has been finally ripened in
the stillness of the primeval forest of Equatorial Africa. There,
during the years 1914-17, the clear and definite lines of this
philosophy of civilization have been developed.
The first part, “The Decay and the Restoration of Civilization”, is a
kind of introduction to the philosophy of civilization. It states the
problem of civilization.
Entering on the question as to what is the real essential nature of
civilization, I come to the pronouncement that this is ultimately
ethical. I know that in thus stating the problem as a moral one I [pg
viii] shall surprise and even disgust the spirit of our times, which
is accustomed to move amidst æsthetic, historical and material
considerations. I imagine, however, that I am myself enough of an
artist and also of an historian to be able to comprehend the æsthetic
and historical elements in civilization, and that, as a modern
physician and surgeon, I am sufficiently modern to appreciate the
glamour of the technical and material attainments of our age.
Notwithstanding this, I have come to the conviction that the æsthetic
and the historical elements, and the magnificent extension of our
material knowledge and power, do not themselves form the essence of
civilization, but that this depends on the mental disposition of the
individuals and nations who exist in the world. All other things are
merely accompanying circumstances of civilization, which have nothing
to do with its real essence.
Creative, artistic, intellectual, and material attainments can only
show their full and true effects when the continued existence and
development of civilization have been secured by founding civilization
itself on a mental disposition which is truly ethical. It is only in
his struggle to become ethical that man comes to possess real value as
a personality; it is only under the influence of ethical convictions
that the various relations of human society are formed in such a way
that individuals and peoples can [pg ix] develop in an ideal manner.
If the ethical foundation is lacking, then civilization collapses,
even when in other directions creative and intellectual forces of the
strongest nature are at work.
This moral conception of civilization, which makes me almost a
stranger amidst the intellectual life of my time, I express clearly
and unhesitatingly, in order to arouse amongst my contemporaries
reflection as to what civilization really is. We shall not succeed in
re-establishing our civilization on an enduring basis until we rid
ourselves completely of the superficial concept of civilization which
now holds us in thrall, and give ourselves up again to the ethical
view which obtained in the eighteenth century.
The second point which I desire should obtain currency is that of the
connection between civilization and our theory of the universe. At the
present time no regard is paid to this connection. In fact, the period
in which we are living altogether misses the significance of having a
theory of the universe. It is the common conviction nowadays, of
educated and uneducated alike, that humanity will progress quite
satisfactorily without any theory of the universe at all.
The real fact is that all human progress depends on progress in its
theory of the universe, whilst, conversely, decadence is conditioned
by a similar [pg x] decadence in this theory. Our loss of real
civilization is due to our lack of a theory of the universe.
Only as we again succeed in attaining a strong and worthy theory of
the universe, and find in it strong and worthy convictions, shall we
again become capable of producing a new civilization. It is this
apparently abstract and paradoxical truth of which I proclaim myself
the champion.
Civilization, put quite simply, consists in our giving ourselves, as
human beings, to the effort to attain the perfecting of the human race
and the actualization of progress of every sort in the circumstances
of humanity and of the objective world. This mental attitude, however,
involves a double predisposition: firstly, we must be prepared to act
affirmatively toward the world and life; secondly, we must become
ethical.
Only when we are able to attribute a real meaning to the world and to
life shall we be able also to give ourselves to such action as will
produce results of real value. As long as we look on our existence in
the world as meaningless, there is no point whatever in desiring to
effect anything in the world. We become workers for that universal
spiritual and material progress which we call civilization only in so
far as we affirm that the world and life possess some sort of meaning,
or, which is the same thing, only in so far as we think
optimistically.
[pg xi]
Civilization originates when men become inspired by a strong and clear
determination to attain progress, and consecrate themselves, as a
result of this determination, to the service of life and of the world.
It is only in ethics that we can find the driving force for such
action, transcending, as it does, the limits of our own existence.
Nothing of real value in the world is ever accomplished without
enthusiasm and self-sacrifice.
But it is impossible to convince men of the truth of world- and
life-affirmation and of the real value of ethics by mere declamation.
The affirmative and ethical mentality which characterizes these
beliefs must originate in man himself as the result of an inner
spiritual relation to the world. Only then will they accompany him as
strong, clear, and constant convictions, and condition his every
thought and action.
To put it in another way: world- and life-affirmation must be the
products of thought about the world and life. Only as the majority of
individuals attain to this result of thought and continue under its
influence will a true and enduring civilization make progress in the
world. Should the mental disposition towards world- and
life-affirmation and towards ethics begin to wane, or become dim and
obscured, we shall be incapable of working for true civilization, nay,
more, we shall be unable even to [pg xii] form a correct concept of
what such civilization ought to be.
And this is the fate which has befallen us. We are bereft of any
theory of the universe. Therefore, instead of being inspired by a
profound and powerful spirit of affirmation of the world and of life,
we allow ourselves, both as individuals and as nations, to be driven
hither and thither by a type of such affirmation which is both
confused and superficial. Instead of adopting a determined ethical
attitude, we exist in an atmosphere of mere ethical phrases or declare
ourselves ethical sceptics.
How is it that we have got into this state of lacking a theory of the
universe? It is because hitherto the world- and life-affirming and
ethical theory of the universe had no convincing and permanent
foundation in thought. We thought again and again that we had found
such a basis for it; but it lost power again and again without our
being aware that it was doing so, until, finally, we have been
obliged, for more than a generation past, to resign ourselves more and
more to a complete lack of any world-theory at all.
Thus, in this introductory part of my work, I proclaim two truths and
conclude with a great note of interrogation. The truths are the
following: The basic ethical character of civilization, and the
connection between civilization and our theories of [pg xiii] the
universe. The question with which I conclude is this: Is it at all
possible to find a real and permanent foundation in thought for a
theory of the universe which shall be both ethical and affirmative of
the world and of life?
The future of civilization depends on our overcoming the
meaninglessness and hopelessness which characterize the thoughts and
convictions of men to-day, and reaching a state of fresh hope and
fresh determination. We shall be capable of this, however, only when
the majority of individuals discover for themselves both an ethic and
a profound and steadfast attitude of world- and life-affirmation, in a
theory of the universe at once convincing and based on reflection.
Without such a general spiritual experience there is no possibility of
holding our world back from the ruin and disintegration towards which
it is being hastened. It is our duty then to rouse ourselves to fresh
reflection about the world and life.
In “Civilization and Ethics”, the second part of this philosophy of
civilization, I describe the road along which thought has led me to
world- and life-affirmation and to ethics. The root-idea of my theory
of the universe is that my relation to my own being and to the
objective world is determined by reverence for life. This reverence
for life is given as an element of my will-to-live, and becomes
clearly [pg xiv] conscious of itself as I reflect about my life and
about the world. In the mental attitude of reverence for life which
should characterize my contact with all forms of life, both ethics and
world- and life-affirmation are involved. It is not any kind of
insight into the essential nature of the world which determines my
relation to my own existence and to the existence which I encounter in
the world, but rather only and solely my own will-to-live which has
developed the power of reflection about itself and the world.
The theory of the universe characterized by reverence for life is a
type of mysticism arrived at by self-consistent thought when persisted
in to its ultimate conclusion. Surrendering himself to the guidance of
this mysticism, man finds a meaning for his life in that he strives to
accomplish his own spiritual and ethical self-fulfilment, and,
simultaneously and in the same act, helps forward all the processes of
spiritual and material progress which have to be actualized in the
world.
I do not know how many, or how few, will allow themselves to be
persuaded to travel with me on the road indicated above. What I desire
above all things—and this is the crux of the whole affair—is that we
should all recognize fully that our present entire lack of any theory
of the universe is the ultimate source of all the catastrophes and
misery of [pg xv] our times, and that we should toil in concert for a
theory of the universe and of life, in order that thus we may arrive
at a mental disposition which shall make us really and truly civilized
men.
It was a great joy to me to be afforded the opportunity of putting
forward, in the _Dale Lectures_, delivered in Oxford, the views on
which this philosophy of civilization is based.
I would tender my deepest thanks to my friends, Mr. C. T. Campion,
M.A., now of Grahamstown, South Africa, and Dr. J. P. Naish, of
Oxford. Mr. Campion is the translator of this first part of the
“Philosophy of Civilization”. Dr. Naish has seen the book through the
press and translated this preface.
ALBERT SCHWEITZER.
Strasbourg, Alsace.
_February_, 1923.
[pg xvi]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I How Philosophy is Responsible for the Collapse of
Civilization [1]
CHAPTER II Hindrances to Civilization in our Economic and Spiritual
Life [15]
CHAPTER III Civilization essentially Ethical in Character [35]
CHAPTER IV The Way to the Restoration of Civilization [62]
CHAPTER V Civilization and Theories of the Universe [80]
[pg xvii]
THE DECAY AND THE RESTORATION OF CIVILIZATION
CHAPTER I
HOW PHILOSOPHY IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE COLLAPSE OF CIVILIZATION
Our self-deception as to the real conditions of our civilization. The
collapse of the theory of the universe on which our ideals were based.
The superficial character of modern philosophizing.
We are living to-day under the sign of the collapse of civilization.
The situation has not been produced by the war; the latter is only a
manifestation of it. The spiritual atmosphere has solidified into
actual facts, which again react on it with disastrous results in every
respect. This interaction of material and spiritual has assumed a most
unhealthy character. Just below a mighty cataract we are driving along
in a current full of formidable eddies, and it will need the most
gigantic efforts to rescue the vessel of our fate from the dangerous
side channel into which we have [pg 002] allowed it to drift, and
bring it back into the main stream, if, indeed, we can hope to do so
at all.
We have drifted out of the stream of civilization because there was
amongst us no real reflection upon what civilization is. It is true
that at the end of the last century and the beginning of this there
appeared a number of works on civilization with the most varied
titles; but, as though in obedience to some secret order, they made no
attempt to settle and make clear the conditions of our intellectual
life, but devoted themselves exclusively to its origin and history.
They gave us a relief map of civilization marked with roads which men
had observed or invented, and which led us over hill and dale through
the fields of history from the Renaissance to the twentieth century.
It was a triumph for the historical sense of the authors. The crowds
whom these works instructed were filled with satisfied contentment
when they understood that their civilization was the organic product
of so many centuries of the working of spiritual and social forces,
but no one worked out and described the content of our spiritual life.
No one tested its value from the point of view of the nobility of its
ideas, and its ability to produce real progress.
Thus we crossed the threshold of the twentieth century with an
unshakable conceit of ourselves, [pg 003] and whatever was written at
that time about our civilization only confirmed us in our ingenuous
belief in its high value. Anyone who expressed doubt was regarded with
astonishment. Many, indeed, who were on the road to error, stopped and
returned to the main road again because they were afraid of the path
which led off to the side. Others continued along the main road, but
in silence; the understanding and insight which were at work in them
only condemned them to isolation.
It is clear now to everyone that the suicide of civilization is in
progress. What yet remains of it is no longer safe. It is still
standing, indeed, because it was not exposed to the destructive
pressure which overwhelmed the rest, but, like the rest, is built upon
rubble, and the next landslide will very likely carry it away.
But what was it that preceded and led up to this loss of power in the
innate forces of civilization?
The age of the Illuminati and of rationalism had put forward ethical
ideals, based on reason, concerning the development of the individual
to true manhood, his position in society, the material and spiritual
problems which arose out of society, the relations of the different
nations to each other, and their issue in a humanity which should be
united in [pg 004] the pursuit of the highest moral and spiritual
objects. These ideals had begun, both in philosophy and in general
thought, to get into contact with reality and to alter the general
environment. In the course of three or four generations there had been
such progress made, both in the ideas underlying civilization and in
their material embodiment, that the age of true civilization seemed to
have dawned upon the world and to be assured of an uninterrupted
development.
But about the middle of the nineteenth century this mutual
understanding and co-operation between ethical ideals and reality
began to break down, and in the course of the next few decades it
disappeared more and more completely. Without resistance, without
complaint, civilization abdicated. Its ideas lagged behind, as though
they were too exhausted to keep pace with it. How did this come about?
* * * * *
The decisive element in the production of this result was philosophy’s
renunciation of her duty.
In the eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth it was
philosophy which led and guided thought in general. She had busied
herself with the questions which presented themselves to mankind at
each successive period, and had kept the [pg 005] thought of civilized
man actively reflecting upon them. Philosophy at that time included
within herself an elementary philosophizing about man, society, race,
humanity and civilization, which produced in a perfectly natural way a
living popular philosophy that controlled the general thought, and
maintained the enthusiasm for civilization.
But that ethical, and at the same time optimistic, view of things in
which the Illuminati and rationalism had laid the foundations of this
healthy popular philosophy, was unable in the long run to meet the
criticism levelled at it by pure thought. Its naïve dogmatism raised
more and more prejudice against it. Kant tried to provide the
tottering building with new foundations, undertaking to alter the
rationalistic view of things in accordance with the demands of a
deeper theory of knowledge, without, however, making any change in its
essential spiritual elements. Goethe, Schiller and other intellectual
giants of the age, showed, by means of criticism both kindly and
malicious, that rationalism was rather popular philosophy than real
philosophy, but they were not in a position to put into the place of
what they destroyed anything new which could give the same effective
support to the ideas about civilization which were current in the
general thought of the time.
[pg 006]
Fichte, Hegel, and other philosophers, who, for all their criticism of
rationalism, paid homage to its ethical ideals, attempted to establish
a similar ethical and optimistic view of things by speculative
methods, that is by logical and metaphysical discussion of pure being
and its development into a universe. For three or four decades they
succeeded in deceiving themselves and others with this supposedly
creative and inspiring illusion, and in doing violence to reality in
the interests of their theory of the universe. But at last the natural
sciences, which all this time had been growing stronger and stronger,
rose up against them, and, with a plebeian enthusiasm for the truth of
reality, reduced to ruins the magnificent creations of their
imagination.
Since that time the ethical ideas on which civilization rests have
been wandering about the world, poverty-stricken and homeless. No
theory of the universe has been advanced which can give them a solid
foundation; in fact, not one has made its appearance which can claim
for itself solidity and inner consistency. The age of philosophic
dogmatism had come definitely to an end, and after that nothing was
recognized as truth except the science which described reality.
General theories of the universe no longer appeared as fixed stars;
they [pg 007] were regarded as resting on hypothesis, and ranked no
higher than comets.
The same weapon which struck down the dogmatism of knowledge about the
universe struck down also the dogmatic enunciation of spiritual ideas.
The early simple rationalism, the critical rationalism of Kant, and
the speculative rationalism of the great philosophers of the
nineteenth century had all alike done violence to reality in two ways.
They had given a position above that of the facts of science to the
views which they had arrived at by pure thought, and they had also
preached a series of ethical ideals which were meant to replace by new
ones the various existing relations in the ideas and the material
environment of mankind. When the first of these two forms of violence
was proved to be a mistaken one, it became questionable whether the
second could still be allowed the justification which it had hitherto
enjoyed. The doctrinaire methods of thought which made the existing
world nothing but material for the production of a purely theoretical
sketch of a better future were replaced by sympathetic attempts to
understand the historical origin of existing things for which Hegel’s
philosophy had prepared the way.
With a general mentality of this description, a real combination of
ethical ideals with reality was no [pg 008] longer possible; there was
not the freedom from prejudice which that required, and so there came
a weakening of the convictions which were the driving power of
civilization. So, too, an end was put to that justifiable violence to
human convictions and circumstances without which the reforming work
of civilization can make no advance, because it was bound up with that
other unjustifiable violence to reality. That is the tragic element in
the psychological development of our spiritual life during the latter
half of the nineteenth century.
Rationalism, then, had been dismissed; but with it went also the
optimistic convictions as to the moral meaning of the universe and of
humanity, of society and of man, to which it had given birth, though
the conviction still exerted so much influence that no attention was
paid to the catastrophe which had really begun.
* * * * *
Philosophy did not realize that the power of the ideas about
civilization which had been entrusted to it was becoming a doubtful
quantity. At the end of one of the most brilliant works on the history
of philosophy which appeared at the close of the nineteenth century
philosophy is defined as the process “by which there comes to
completion, step by step, [pg 009] and with ever clearer and surer
consciousness, that conviction about the value of civilization the
universal validity of which it is the object of philosophy itself to
affirm.” But the author has forgotten the essential point, viz., that
there was a time when philosophy did not merely convince itself of the
value of civilization, but also let its convictions go forth as
fruitful ideas destined to influence the general thought, while from
the middle of the nineteenth century onwards these convictions had
become more and more of the nature of hoarded and unproductive
capital.
Once philosophy had been an active worker producing universal
convictions about civilization. Now, after the collapse in the middle
of the nineteenth century, this same philosophy had become a mere
drawer of dividends, concentrating her activities far from the world
on what she had managed to save. She had become a mere science, which
sifted the results of the historical and natural sciences, and
collected from them material for a future theory of the universe,
carrying on with this object in view a learned activity in all
branches of knowledge. At the same time she became more and more
absorbed in the study of her own past. Philosophy came to mean
practically the history of philosophy, but the creative spirit had
left her. She became more and [pg 010] more a philosophy which
contained no real thought. She reflected, indeed, on the results
achieved by the individual sciences, but she lost the power of thought
about fundamental problems.
She looked back with condescending pity on the rationalism which she
had outstripped. She prided herself on being able to trace her descent
through Kant, on having been shown by Hegel the inner meaning of
history, and on being at work to-day in close sympathy with the
natural sciences. But for all that she was poorer than the poorest
rationalism, because she now carried on in imagination only, and not
in reality, the recognized work of philosophy, which the latter had
practised so zealously. Rationalism, for all its simplicity, had been
a working philosophy, but philosophy herself had now become, for all
her insight, merely a pedantic philosophy of degenerates. She still
played, indeed, some sort of _rôle_ in schools and universities, but
she had no longer any message for the great world.
In spite of all her learning, she had become a stranger to the world,
and the problems of life which occupied men and the whole thought of
the age had no part in her activities. Her way lay apart from the
general spiritual life, and just as she derived no stimulus from the
latter, so she gave none back. Refusing to concern herself with
fundamental [pg 011] problems, she contained no fundamental philosophy
which could become a philosophy of the people.
From this impotence came the aversion to all generally intelligible
philosophizing which is so characteristic of her. Popular philosophy
was for her merely a review, prepared for the use of the crowd,
simplified, and therefore rendered inferior, of the results given by
the individual sciences which she had herself sifted and put together
in view of a future theory of the universe. She was wholly unconscious
of several things, viz., that there is a popular philosophy which
arises out of such a review; that it is just the province of
philosophy to deal with the primary, deeper questions about which
individuals and the crowd are thinking, or ought to be thinking, to
apply to them more comprehensive and more thorough methods of thought,
and then restore them to general currency; and, finally, that the
value of any philosophy is in the last resort to be measured by its
capacity, or incapacity, to transform itself into a living philosophy
of the people.
Whatever is deep is also simple, and can be reproduced as such, if
only its relation to the whole of reality is preserved. It is then
something abstract, which secures for itself a many-sided life as soon
as it comes into contact with facts.
[pg 012]
Whatever of inquiring thought there was among the general public was
therefore compelled to languish, because our philosophy refused either
to acknowledge or to help it. It found in front of it a deep chasm
which it could not cross.
Of gold coinage, minted in the past, philosophy had abundance;
hypotheses about a soon to be developed theological theory of the
universe filled her vaults like unminted bullion; but food with which
to appease the spiritual hunger of the present she did not possess.
Deceived by her own riches, she had neglected to plant any ground with
nourishing crops, and therefore, ignoring the hunger of the age, she
left the latter to its fate.
That pure thought never managed to construct a theory of the universe
of an optimistic, ethical character, and to build up on that for a
foundation the ideals which go to produce civilization, was not the
fault of philosophy; it was a fact which became evident as thought
developed. But philosophy was guilty of a wrong to our age in that it
did not admit the fact, but remained wrapped up in its illusion, as
though this were really a help to the progress of civilization.
The ultimate vocation of philosophy is to be the guide and guardian of
the general reason, and it was her duty, in the circumstances of the
time, to confess [pg 013] to our world that ethical ideals were no
longer supported by any general theory of the universe, but were, till
further notice, left to themselves, and must make their way in the
world by their own innate power. She ought to have shown us that we
have to fight on behalf of the ideals on which our civilization rests.
She ought to have tried to give these ideals an independent existence
by virtue of their own inner value and inner truth, and so to keep
them alive and active without any extraneous help from a corresponding
theory of the universe. No effort should have been spared to direct
the attention of the cultured and the uncultured alike to the problem
of the ideals of civilization.
But philosophy philosophized about everything except civilization. She
went on working undeviatingly at the establishment of a theoretical
view of the universe, as though by means of it everything could be
restored, and did not reflect that this theory, even if it were
completed, would be constructed only out of history and science, and
would accordingly be unoptimistic and unethical, and would remain for
ever an “impotent theory of the universe,” which could never call
forth the energies needed for the establishment and maintenance of the
ideals of civilization.
So little did philosophy philosophize about [pg 014] civilization that
she did not even notice that she herself and the age along with her
were losing more and more of it. In the hour of peril the watchman who
ought to have kept us awake was himself asleep, and the result was
that we put up no fight at all on behalf of our civilization.
[pg 015]