There always was a true church, in the sense of people united in the highest truth accessible to man at any given period, and this has always been other than the church
which called itself so; and there have always been science and art, but they have not been the activities that called themselves by those names.
To those who regard themselves as the representatives of the science and art of a particular period, it always seems as though they had done and were doing, and above all were Just about to do wonderful miracles; and that apart from them no real science or art has existed or does exist. So it seemed to the Sophists, the Schoolmen, the Alchemists, the Cabalists, the Talmudists, and so it seems to our scientific scientists and art-for-art’s sakists.
CHAPTER XXXVI
‘BUT science and art! You are denying science and art: that is you are denying that by which humanity lives.’ People constantly make this rejoinder to me, and they employ: this method in order to reject my arguments without examination.
‘He rejects science and art, he wishes man to revert to a state of savagery-why listen to him or discuss with him?’
But this is unjust. Not only do I not repudiate science, that is, the reasonable activity of humanity, and art-the expression of that reasonable activity-but it is just on behalf of that reasonable activity and its expression that I speak, only that It may be possible for mankind to escape from the savage state into which it is rapidly lapsing thanks to the false teaching of our time. It is only on that account that I speak as I do.
Science and art are as necessary to man as food and drink and clothing-even more necessary but they become so not because we decide that what we cal science and art are essential, but only because Science and art really are essential to humanity.
If people prepared hay for man’s bodily food, no conviction of mine that hay is human food would cause it to become so. I must not say: ‘Why do you not eat hay when it is your necessary food?’ Food is necessary, but perhaps what I am offering is not food.
And this is just what has happened with our Science and art. It seems to us that if we add the termination logy to some Greek word and call it a science, it will be a science; and if some nastiness, such as the dancing of naked women, is called by a Greek word, and we say it is an art, it will be art. But however much we may say this, the things we occupy ourselves with-counting up the beetles, investigating the chemical constituents of the Milky Way, painting water-nymphs and historical pictures, or composing stories and symphonies-will not become either science or art till it is willingly accepted by those for whom it is being done. And up to the present it is not so accepted.
If certain people had the exclusive right to produce food and all others were forbidden to do so, or it were made impossible for them to do so, I imagine that the quality of our food would deteriorate. If the people who had the monopoly of food production were Russian peasants, there would be no other food than rye-bread, kvas, potatoes, and onions-the food they are fond of, the food which pleases them. And this would happen to the highest human activity-science and art-if a single caste were to monopolize it,-but with this difference, that in bodily food there can be no great deviation from what is natural: both rye-bread and onion, though not very tasty foods are nevertheless wholesome; but in mental food there may be very great deviations and some men may feed for a long time on mental food that is quite unnecessary for them, or is even harmful and poisonous. They may slowly kill themselves with opium and spirits and may offer this same food to the masses.
That is what has happened among us. And it has happened because scientists and artists occupy a privileged position, and because science and art in our world are not the whole reasonable activity of the whole of mankind without exception, devoting its best strength to the service of science and art, but are the activity of a small circle of people having a monopoly of these occupations and calling themselves scientists and artists, and who, therefore, having perverted the very conception of science and art, have lost the very meaning of their calling and are merely occupied in amusing a small circle of idle consumers and saving them from the ennui that oppresses them.
Since men first existed they have always had science in the plainest and widest sense of the word. Science, in the sense of all man’s knowledge, always has existed and does exist and life is inconceivable without it: it calls neither for attack nor for defence. But the point is that the domain of knowledge is so various, so much information of all kinds is included in it-from the knowledge of how to obtain iron, to the knowledge of the movements of the celestial bodies-that man loses himself amid these various kinds of knowledge unless he has a clue to enable him to decide which of them all is most important for him, and which is less so.
And therefore the highest aim of human wisdom has always been to find that clue, and to show the sequence in which our knowledge should rank: what of it is of the first and what is of lesser importance.
And just this knowledge, that guides all other knowledge, is what men have always spoken of as science in the strict sense. And right down to our own times such science has always existed in human societies after they have emerged from the primeval, savage conditions.
Since humanity existed always among all peoples teachers have appeared who have produced science in that strict sense-the knowledge of what it is most necessary for man to know.
That science has always dealt with the knowledge of what is the destiny, and therefore the true welfare, of each man and of mankind. And that science has served as the clue in determining the importance of all other knowledge, and of the activity which gives it expression, namely, art.
Those kinds of knowledge which aided and came nearest to the fundamental science of the destiny and welfare of all men, stood highest in general esteem, and those least useful stood lowest. Such was the science of Confucius, Buddha, Moses, Socrates, Christ, Mohammed: such is science, and so it has been and is understood by everybody, except by our circle of so-called educated people.
Such science has always not merely occupied the first place, but has alone determined the importance of all the other sciences.
And this occurred not at all, as is supposed by the so-called learned men of to-day, because deceivers-the priests and teachers of that science gave it that importance, but
because indeed, as everyone can learn by his inner experience, without a science of man’s destiny and welfare there can be no evaluation or choice of any science or art, and therefore there can be no study of science: for the subjects for science to deal with are innumerable; I underline the word ‘innumerable’, because I use it in its literal meaning.
Without knowledge of what constitutes the destiny and welfare of all men, all other science and art becomes, as they have become among us, an idle and pernicious amusement. Mankind has lived long, but never without a science to show wherein its destiny and welfare lie. It is true that the science of the welfare of man appears on superficial observation to differ among the Buddhists, Brahminists, Jews, Christians, Confucians, and the followers of Lao-Tsze (though it is only necessary to consider these teachings, to find one and the same essence), but wherever we know of men who have emerged from the state of savagery, we find this science, and now suddenly it seems that people to-day have decided that it is just this very science-which has hitherto guided all human knowledge-which hinders everything.
People build an edifice, and one architect draws up one set of plans, another-another, and a third-a third. The plans vary somewhat, but are correct in that everyone sees that if all is carried out according to the plan the edifice will get built.
Such architects were Confucius, Buddha, Moses, and Christ.
Suddenly people come and assure us that the chief thing is not to have any plans at all, but to build anyhow, by the look of the thing. And this ‘anyhow’ these people call the most exact scientific science, as the Pope terms himself the ‘Most Holy’. People deny every science, the very essence of science-the ascertaining of the destiny and welfare of man, and this denial of science they call ‘science’. Since men first appeared, great intellects have arisen among them who in struggle with the demands of their reason and conscience have asked themselves what our destiny and welfare consist in-not mine only but every man’s.
What does that Power which produced and guides us demand of me and of every man? What must I do to satisfy the craving implanted in me for my personal welfare and that of the world in general?
They have said to themselves: ‘I am a whole, and I am a particle of something immeasurable and unending. What are my relations to other particles similar to myself-to individuals and to that whole?’
And from the voice of conscience
