ASPR Journal, V14 - Iapsop.com

8 Journal of the American Society for Ps·ychical Research.
called on to furnish a substitute for what they tear down, they
hedge and evade the issue or disguise the very thing which they
say they deny. They are not materialists, but they secretly harbor
the materialist's ideals, tho calling them by another name.
All the arts of subterfuge are employed to set up theories that
are absolutely wanting in ethical implications of any inspiring
or heroic character. Consciousness is a very good thing to live
for up to the brink of the grave, but it becomes absurd to hope
that it does not end there! The very ideal that gives life its
zest and vigor, namely: the prolongation and extension of the
meaning of personality, is discouraged and laughed at, if it tries
to extend its meaning beyond the grave. Self-preservation is
all very well, if only you limit it to the present life, but it is
ridiculous if you desire or hope to guard it for eternity. Ideals
are for the present and not for the future in such a system. But
it mistakes the constitution of human nature and it is successful
in maintaining its position by disguising the motives which determine
itscourse. It exaggerates the importance of knowledge, or
distorts the knowledge that is really valuable and totally neglects
the ethical and emotional elements of human nature for whose
guidance intelligence exists. It despises emotion and forgets that
there lie the springs of morality and idealism, the only idealism
that is clear and important. Instead of directing these passions,
as Plato suggested was the function of reason in the myth of
the chariot and the two steeds, they seek to ignore or despise all
emotions that lead to moral heroism and cultivate those which
accompany the conquests of knowledge, the passive passions that
lead only to indolence and snobbery and to no heroic action. The
philosopher and scientific man must find the moral equivalent
of religion and urge it with all the fervor of a missionary, or
the world will go its way without him, seeking in the exaltation
of personality and its hopes the redemption it needs from the
besotted Laodiceanism of the sceptic or the libertinism of the
materialist.
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