I932

REVOLT AGAINST THE INTELLECT

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ual path of physical control and development. The individual cannot take with him along this path any doctrines, beliefs, or theories; he can take only a few natural principles of universal application. Nothing physical can be attained in a mass movement or taught 1 by mass instruction except through the eternally nonintellectual methods of mass education. Is it then clear that our spiritual stewards, the churches, cannot participate in the struggle against the intellect so long as they remain bound to intellectual powers and to the state? Is it clear that all the churches' complaints about the materialism of man and the state are wholly futile since they themselves partake of that materialism? Is it clear that real religion, that is, the essentially nonintellectual doctrine of the unity of all organic life and all creation, is forever being crippled in the churches by their striving for worldly and intellectual power? Is it clear that religion, which is a basic sentiment of mankind that cannot be killed, must therefore take, refuge in various sects or in the arts, in so far as they have not given themselves over to the intellectual forces, in so far as they are not seeking power or money but are remaining true to creative development? The revolt against the intellect can to-day be seen most clearly in politics. The anti-intellectual parties have many followers, and anti-materialism is enjoying a great success that seems genuine, but is really artificial. For most of those who are storming against materialism themselves possess a purely materialistic attitude toward brute force and the state. People are against the intellect yet they desire power not the natural power that radiates from individual men and the developmental forces embodied in them, not the power of example or completeness, but a power justified solely intellectually, not organically, and built on com-

pulsion. People are against the intellect and feel that politics should lead them back to natura.1 human relationships. They sense dimly that blood ties are binding, that the land is stronger than the state, that language is stronger than national boundaries. But they wish to prove blood and race relationships intellectually, they are proud that their universities teach racial subjects, and they wish to maintain or conquer by force,of arms the ineradicable forces of patriotism and language. People realize that intellectual discussion leads nowhere, yet they flock to discussion centres and to parliament and then deprive themselves of any possible benefit by leaving as soon as their opponents begin to speak. People are divided against themselves and believe that they can bind together inner and outer forcesa hopeless intellectual attempt. It is equally hopeless for rational politicians to invoke the intellect against dictators or persuasion against passion. A dictatorship can be justified as well as parliamentarianism, but such justification is of value only to the intellectuals, not to the people.

I N its heart of hearts the people has always been anti-intellectual. At bottom most of the people are skeptical and believing at the same time. They have a basic religious feeling of the unity of all organic life, and they view with suspicion all purposive intellectual creationsscience as well as the state, newspapers as well as politicians, schools as well as universitiesand their skepticism toward the Church, in so far as it has compromised with worldly powers, is ineradicable. They have always had some understanding of knowledge but none of science, some understanding of matter but none of materialism, some understanding of the power of the soul, but none of sentimental feeling. They

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