June 17, 1852.—Every despotism has a
specially keen and hostile instinct for whatever keeps up human
dignity, and independence. And it is curious to see scientific and
realist teaching used everywhere as a means
of stifling all freedom
of investigation as addressed to moral questions under a dead weight
of facts.
Materialism is the auxiliary doctrine of every tyranny,
whether of the one or of the masses. To crush what is
spiritual,
moral, human so to speak, in man, by specializing him; to form mere
wheels of the great social
machine, instead of perfect individuals;
to make society and not conscience the center of life, to enslave
the
soul to things, to de−personalize man, this is the dominant
drift of our epoch. Everywhere you may see a
tendency to substitute
the laws of dead matter (number, mass) for the laws of the moral
nature (persuasion,
adhesion, faith) equality, the principle of
mediocrity, becoming a dogma; unity aimed at through uniformity;
numbers doing duty for argument; negative liberty, which has no law
in itself, and recognizes no limit except
in force, everywhere
taking the place of positive liberty, which means action guided by an
inner law and
curbed by a moral authority. Socialism versus
individualism: this is how Vinet put the dilemma. I should say
rather that it is only the eternal antagonism between letter and
spirit, between form and matter, between the
outward and the inward,
appearance and reality, which is always present in every conception
and in all ideas.
Materialism coarsens and petrifies
everything; makes everything vulgar and every truth false. And there
is a
religious and political materialism which spoils all that it
touches, liberty, equality, individuality. So that there
are two
ways of understanding democracy....
What is threatened to−day is moral
liberty, conscience, respect for the soul, the very nobility of man.
To defend the soul, its interests, its
rights, its dignity, is the most pressing duty for whoever sees the
danger. What
the writer, the teacher, the pastor, the philosopher,
has to do, is to defend humanity in man. Man! the true
man, the
ideal man! Such should be their motto, their rallying cry. War to all
that debases, diminishes,
hinders, and degrades him; protection for
all that fortifies, ennobles, and raises him. The test of every
religious, political, or educational system, is the man which it
forms. If a system injures the intelligence it is
bad. If it injures
the character it is vicious. If it injures the conscience it is
criminal.
Amiel's Journal
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