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We find it impossible to refuse our assent to the main counts of this
indictment. The deanthropocentrised universe of science is not the
universe in which man has to live. That universe is at once smaller and
larger than the universe of science: smaller in material extent, larger
in spiritual possibility. Therefore to allow the perspective of science
seriously to influence, much less control, our human values, is an
invitation to disaster. Humanism must reassert itself, for even we can
see that Shakespeares are better than Hamlets. The reassertion of
humanism involves the re-creation of a practical ideal of human life and
conduct, and a strict subordination of the impulses of the individual
to this ideal. There must now be a period of critical and humanistic
positivism in regard to ethics and to art. We may say frankly that it is
not to our elders that we think of applying for its rudiments. We regard
them as no less misguided and a good deal less honest than ourselves, It
is among our anarchists that we shall look most hopefully for our new
traditionalists, if only because, in literature at least, they are more
keenly aware of the nature of the abyss on the brink of which they are
trembling.
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