MELLINE d’ASBECK MARTINUS NIJHOFF – 1915 – THE HAGUE HOUGHTSONA 1 HIGH SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY BIBLIOTHEEK RU GRONINGEN 1050 4708 THOUGHTS ON A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY SOCRATES BY HARRY BATES. REPRODUCED BY FRED. HOLLYER. MELLINE d’ASBECK MARTINUS NIJHOFF – 1913 – THE HAGUE Thoughts on A HIGH SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY In deep consideration for the thoughts foremost in the mind of the belligerant nations at the present hour, I am induced to address this little book more especially to readers in the neutral countries. M. d’A. The Hague, Holland. November 1915. O NE more emblem ofthe progress of souls has appeared in the shape of a plan with a very vast horison indeed, one of those, numerous at the present hour, that are the Future in the making. It is the project of a High-School for Philosophy. This pamphlet is meant to express the writer’s own views concerning the possibilities of such an organisation, its scope, its type of work and its efficacity. It does not in the very least wish to dictate what the organisation will be, but to lay before the thinking public some suggestions of what it might be, so as to invite an honest consideration of the subject. It commits nobody but the writer; it is not the INTRODUCTION A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY official and collective opinion of a provisional committee that assembled in order to found such a High-School. All the opinions expressed are no more than suggestions of one individual, liable to every sort ofimprovement. A certain fraction of the public has already become acquainted with this plan by means of a circular and by reprints of this circular in some of the leading papers, that must have awakened very divergent opinions. We imagine the following questions arising after the perusal of the circular: Is this High-School meant to be a sixth University in our small country already burdened by five of them? Does this committee intend to stuff immature youths with profound and infinite wisdom that will make their minds reel and render them entirely incompetent in any practical service thereafter ? Does this committee dispose Wholesale of our university and academy teaching, that it criticises rather curtly, A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY and does it really suggest anything better? What is the teaching it advocates? Here the enquirer must begin to feel puzzled and somewhat bewildered, as the circularproceeds to depict before his mind’s eye the grand procession of thinkers from the remotest corners of the world, moving towards a very insignificant place in our country and followed by future lawyers, statesmen, spiritual teachers, by artists, scientists,philosophers,by businessmen andcraftsmen,by students old and young, this multitude having to be imbued with the sense of the unity of all things. This High-School should not attempt to become a University subsidised either by State or town. It should be a moral and intellectual support, an asset in the spiritual development of the world, but not a material burden on the country. lts flourishing must be the outcome of the desire for its existence and of the conviction of the thinking and progressive public A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY that it ought to exist. Nor should an organisation expressing a new type of thought ever be hampered by officialdom or red tape of any kind. So the term “High-School” is appropriate as indicating a teaching body of the highest rank, being yet entirely free to admit amongst its teachers and lecturers celebrities in any of the subjects it proposes to deal with, entirely free in its research and in the expression of any of the definite conclusions this research may lead to. As for the suggested philosophical “propaedeusis”, or one-year’s study, preceeding the university course, the questions at issue can be brought back to the following: Is such a propaedeusis desirable at all ? What should it teach ? Where should it be taught ? The writer, who has gone through a philosophical propaedeusis in France, doesconsider it, on the whole,as advisable. Yet, one should A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY not idealise it. In France, its aim is to enlarge the student’s horizon, which it certainly does. But the very general outlook, having to be obtained in nine month’s time, often becomes no more than a general scramble. The program includes the elements of psychology, logic, ethics, metaphysics and history of philosophy; physics; chemistry, organic and inorganic, elements of industrial chemistry; political history of Europe and colonies during the last century; economie geography of the same; biology (anatomy and physiology), vegetable, animal and human; elements of paleontology. This program gives more knowledge, and is therefore undeniably useful, but not more wisdom, therefore no real philosophy. If a new type of propaedeusis were to be organised, more philosophical, less bulky and essentially practical, it might be restricted to the three following branches: i. the theory A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY of knowledge, giving the student a rough sketch of his position as thinker and knower face to face with the objective world to be known, of the conditions of human knowledge, its limitations, its possible expansion and the means by which such an expansion might be effected. This study would include the rudiments of formal logic and methodology; 2. a sound establishing of practical ethics, individual and social; 3. a historical study of the last century’s development in all its aspects, political, economical, religious, scientific, artistic, philosophical, leading to as clear as possible a comprehension of the world we live in, the causes of actual conditions, the general trend and needs of further social development. Such a propadeusis could be taught at the High-School for Philosophy; yet, there are technical difficulties in the way. Fewstudents will go in for the propaedeusis unless it be imposed by the law; when imposed by the A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY law, it must be taught at a State school or university and end with an examination. Our opinion is that the High-School should remain unofficial and that the spirit of working for examinations is not a desirable element in a free organisation for deep intellectual and spiritual life and research. The High-School, as a philosophically thinking body, could recommend a proper philosophical propaedeusis, quoting in its favour the report of the Dutch State commission for the reorganisation of education *); could give typical courses as examples of what it advocates, leaving the final organisation of a propaedeusis to official teaching bodies. If such a High-School is to be founded in Holland, it should be located in the vicinity of the Hague which is already a focus of international life, besides being the most accessible l) Report of March 2ist 1903. A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY centre for the cultured element of the population. Yet, whether it is to be founded in Holland or elsewhere, is a matter of secondary importance. It will be born wherever there is genius and the prophetic vision that sees the Rising of the Future, the wisdom that understands and knows the world of the present day, and faith in the undying Soul of all activities, ever reaching a fuller expression. It will be born wherever, to a genius of leadership, is added the enthusiasmof adherers, understanding and trusting that from such a work may arise for humanity a greater mastership, a greater beauty, a deeper understanding of its destinies. All parts away for the progress of souls. All religions, all solid things, arts, governments all that was or is apparent upon this globe or any globe, falls into niches and corners before the procession of souls along the grand roads of the Universe. Of the progress of souls of men and women along the grand roads of the universe, all other progress is the needed emblem and sustenance. WALT WHITMAN. (Song of the Open Road). A S the present sweeps on to the infinite future, the phantom of the days to be already appears, pointing to the coming order. Our knowledge lacks spirituality, oursocial and political relations lack simple morality. They lack a vision of things as related to oneanother, as necessary parts of one great whole, A spiritual attitude is synthetical, inclusive. THOUGHTS ON A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY. A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY It sees the whole world as one tree of life, all human aspirations, religious, intellectual, artistic, social, as one permanent endeavour to get into harmony with the world-process and the World-Will. A moral attitude is altruistic. It gives an equal ultimate importance to every human being. It considers human society as an organism and every individual therein as an intelligent part, different from every other, with the duty to live up to the utmost of his individual capacities, in order to contribute his full share to the welfare of the world. That such a spiritual and moral attitude is a necessary element of future developement of human thought and organisation of human action, is a conviction imposing itself with ever growing strength. It is desirable that there should be a teaching body to voice this attitude definitely and systematically and to bringtogether alldeepthink- A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY ers who fully respond to it whatever be their special line of activity. Their collective effort should lead to the creation of a Science, spiritual in the above mentioned sense, to be the means of reshaping human society alonglines more in accordance with thedeep,farreaching destiny of mankind. A centre of thought with such an aim would be rightly called a High-School for Philosophy. The term “philosophy”, when taken in its broadest sense, covers the whole ground of the aims and objects here proposed. It means the search for wisdom, i.e. knowledge tested by experience and expressed in action. It means the fusion in a thinking being of all the factors of his existence into one living and comprehensible whole. Such was the original meaning of the word “philoso- A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY phy”, that is what it should mean once more to the world at large. Philosophy is now, except in the opinion of specialists, relegated into the realm of metaphysical speculation. If we compare this state of affairs to the philosophy of the ancient Greeks, we will understand why most of our philosophy appears very lifeless and harren, beside their “love of wisdom”. Over all Plato’s system hovers the word “dialectic”, (dialectikos), from “dia”, through, and “legein”, to speak. “Dia legein” means to speak thoroughly, and the “dialectikos” was the art of reasonable speech. We will see that it meant more than the intellectual skeleton bequeathed to us in the form of logic. Philosophy holds in her hands the thread of Ariadne, the thread of love, that will lead the emprisoned psyche out of the dark labyrinth of error and non-reality intothe sunlight of reality, “to on”: That Which Is. This One A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY Reality is manifested in the Platonic triad of Ideas: the Beautiful, the True, the Good. Therefore dialectic, or the way by which the mind proceeds from illusion to Reality, has three aspects: the dialectic of feelings or love, intimately blended with the appreciation of beauty, the dialectic of thoughts and the dialectic of actions. The love of beauty, according to Plato, is the first potent factor in the ascension of the soul from the visible world to that of Ideas. Beauty has the invaluable privilege of being the only one of the great Ideas that is revealed in matter and can be beheld by our senses. Beauty, in other words, is God manifested and its vision has the strength of a revelation. We, having blasphemously separated beauty from its very soul and origin, have debased it and materialized it, and “have invented a realism that is vulgar, an ideality that is void”. Our love is for all that is divine, it is only A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY feit more keenly for beauty, because, of all divine things, beauty is most manifest. The feeling of love in general is a necessary element of the philosophical dialectic. Intelligence without the love of the good, would remain powerless and motionless. It might realise the existence of the Intelligible World, but it would not attempt its pursuit. The myth of Phaedrus, as well the speech of Diotima in the Banquet, describe the birth and growth of love, which they define as the impulse towards the true, the good and the beautiful, in one word, as philosophy. The “true lover” according to Plato, is “the seeker after true beauty, the seeker after true wisdom, the friend of the Muses”, in short, the philosopher. The dialectic of thought leads to right knowledge. Here the mind rises steadily out of the realm of “doxa”, opinion, to that of “noêsis”, spiritual vision, lead by “logismos”, A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY reasomng. As the soul ascends, all things are gradually seen in their right proportion, and a final vision is obtained of the universe as one harmonious whole. Reasoning gives way to noêsis, intuition in the true sense of the word, from “in-tueri to look into, the immediate perception of Reality. Whilst the object of the dialectic of knowledge was to establish harmony in the objective world by the right understanding of all phenomena in their mutual relation, in their dependance of the One origin of all things, so the dialectic of actions aims at establishing inward, subjective harmony. It teaches us to consider our individuality, physical and psychical, as a small cosmos where order and harmony should reign. The object of ethics is to establish “inner justice”, a state in which justice should be done to all the aspects of our individual life, whilst everyone of them must cooperate harmoniously with A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY every other, so that none should obtain an undue mastery. The most permanent element must rule over the more impermanent, therefore reason over the passions and spirit over matter, used as the means to give shape to its ideals. Finally, the harmony of functions which has been achieved in individual life, must take place on a large scale in human society. Here also wisdom should rule. This short exposition of Plato’s System shows that his philosophy was not only intellectual, but that the emotions and activity were an intrinsic part of it. This gave it the colouring, the life, of a masterpiece of art. The enthusiastic words of Alcibiades in the Banquet are a living example of what the love of wisdom could mean to the young and ardent youths of Athens. He says of Socrates: “When I hear him, my heart leaps much more than that of the coryban- A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY tes, and my tears flow forth as he speaks, a thing I have seen happen to many others besides myself. This Marsyas here often affected me in such a way that the life I lead seems hardly worth living. He compels me to confess that, being yet very deficiënt, I do not work at improving myself, but attend to the affairs of the Athenians. By violence therefore, I stop my ears as from the sirens and flee away as far as possible, that I may not sit down beside him and grow old in listening to his talk.” M E are now far away from the days of Plato. Many times have the graceful pillars of the Acropolis seen the sun set in the Aegian sea. The glory of the Acropolis has been followed by the greater glory of the Mount of Olives; the neat cosmos of Ptolemaeus has vanished before the concrete infinity A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY of that of Copernicus; instead of witnessing the realisation of the well ordained Republic of Plato, we have been tossed on seas more deep and more tragic of human weal and woe. Thus three great changes have taken place in human experience and human thought. Religious life and feeling has been able to assert itself independantly of philosophic thought. Absolutely free in the young ardour of its love for the majestic figure of Christ, that embodied for the first time to the West all the highest aspirations of human feeling, Europe passed through an almost exclusively religious phase. Then the mind began to awaken, and enquiry was gradually substituted to faith; the great expansion of the realm of Science began. As religion had broken with philosophy and taken its own flight of love, so did Science, under the anathema of the church, break with Scholastic philosophy, the tooi of the church, smashing theories, ab- A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY stractions, generalities, in order to deal with facts, concrete and individual. The despised world of the senses, that, according to Plato, could afford only opinion and no knowledge, became intensely alive and full of meaning to the scientist. To those who bent humbly over the mysteries of nature, watching instead of theorising, she revealed secrets more glorious than those of the intelligible world. Succeeding the development of concrete Science, dawned the consciousness of concrete humanity, humanity as a reality independant of any religious consideration as to its origin and destinies. This consciousness broughtwith it that of the rights of human beings as such. The French Revolution was a unanimous outburst of indignation and protest against social injustice. An armed fight for the rights of man took place, forcing upon Western Europe as a whole the recognition of the duty of man to man. A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY The full development of Sciences dealing with human life, individual and social, were the necessary accompaniment of this evolution. As human beings became more aware of their concrete humanity, nations became more aware of theirs. Laws applied to ever wider circles of individuals, and bound together nations and continents. Simultaneously, the development of industry brought about radical changes in economie conditions, and a maze of new problems arose, born from the very anguish of the great cities, from the very nerve of the struggle for life of individuals and nations. In the midst ot the universal and healthy breaking down of abstractions, philosophy itself became more and more imbued with the scientific method. Necessary as this development has been, its ultimate consequence, as exemplified in the positivist system, istoidentify philosophy and Science, philosophy then A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY becoming no more than Science generalised and synthesized. A reaction against this conception of philosophy set in, which is now in full sway. It has been argued that knowledge need not necessarily be scientific knowledge, that there is a philosophical knowledge with criteria of its own, a realm of philosophical research next to that of scientific investigation. Philosophy and Science cannot be indentified, because each has an object of its own. Putting it in terms of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, we would say that the object of Science is the knowledge of “the world as representation”, whilst the object of philosophy is the knowledge of “the World as Will”. In the elaboration of the philosophy of the future, the influence of Eastern thought, with its deep philosophical purity and assurance, can be a most inspiring element. Thus our world of to-day, scientific, philosophical, religious, social, national, internatio- A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY nal and intercontinental, is a huge full-grown tree of which the world of the philosophersof Athens was but thehumble seed. The “humble seed” truly, for the platonic analysis and synthesis of human activities has remained correct. Religion was born from the flight of love of Psyche and her spiritual vision, the exact Sciences were born from an unguessed at development of the dialectic, social Sciences, from the living attempt to organise and understand human conditions and endeavour. A FTER centuries of constant specialisation, we are now in possession of masses of facts and unexplained material. As we stand here, rich with experience in all directions, we need once more a living philosophy that would be the synthesis ofrightfeeling,right thinking, right acting. Once more the lesson of the Acropolis echoes within us: do not seek the A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY sunlight in your dark cave whereyou see only a shadow dance; do not seek for Reality here below. It is in the permanent, indestructible World, and this world must be moulded in its image. Ye are the architects. Your model is in your soul. Seek it there. This is the task that rests with us. A great reconstruction is at hand, and a High-School for Philosophy could play its part therein. The character of its teaching should be synthetical and spiritual. It should not only synthesise in the usual sense of the word. Scientific research deals with facts and the wherefore of facts. A law is itself no more than one phenomenon explaining a multitude of others. Such an explanation does not leave the surface. The Science of Sciences would still deal only with conditions; the Universal Law would be the one condition, the superphenomenon explaining everything else. A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY In spite of the steady development of Science and the progress of scientific unification, mankind feels that there is something lacking yet, something that an ontward synthesis, no matter how universal, can never give. There is a thirst fora knowledge that would be both synthetical and spiritual. Synthetical in showing the existing relation and the mutual dependance of phenomena, spiritual in ever seeking not only their cause, but also their very nature. What are they? What do they mean ? What do they try to express ? As a deep observer of mankind seeks not only to explain how certain actions were performed in certain circumstances, but tries to grasp their psychology, so should one try to grasp that of a far wider range of phenomena. Such an endeavour might lead to the recognition that each body expresses the life of a soul, and that every “phainomenon” is truly an “appearance” in the world of matter of A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY some unseen reality. Yet, this is not sufficiënt. The seeker must pass beyond this statement and not stop at the mere vague admission of mystery underlying all our knowledge. He must proceed ever further, with open eyes and open mind, gathering every hint, letting no experience pass by unheeded that may reveal a relation between material facts and the spiritual life of man, between human experience and the One Life of all things. In order to pursue such a study with the hope of attaining some definite results, one should ever substitute to an outward, literal study of any subject, the study of its inner life and itsdeepest significance. All this points to the real need of an institution inspired by this attitude towards the problem of knowledge. The vital reason for its existence does not in the very least lie in its adding branches of study here and there, but in its attempt to go to the very heart of that A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY which is already known and studied elsewhere. Not bare knowledge, but understanding is required, not the husk of life, but its kernei. F OUR main subjects would cover the field of activities of the High-School for Philosophy: Religion and religions; Philosophy and the pbilosophy of Sciences; Art or Aesthetics; Ethics, individual and social. R ELIGIONS are ways to God, ways to the One Reality, called by Plato “to on”: That Which Is, by the Hindu “Sat”: Being; by the Chinese “Tao”. The High-School would show how all these ways that lead to the one ultimate and indescribable end, instead of conflicting with each other, harmonise in one great symphony of aspiration and contempla- A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY tion. In this case especially, there should be no outward study of the letter, but the inward study of the spirit, joined to the historical study of the growth and origin of the religious Systems. There should be a constant attempt to discover the intrinsic value of each religion, to indicate the deep analogy between them, the farreaching truths of their doctrines, that harmonise with the profoundest metaphysical statements, with the final goal of Science, with the climax of artistic inspiration, with the truest, happiest and freest society of human beings. Also their immediate social value should be shown. Religion is no indifferent matter in the life of nations, its inspiration has been the great moving power of civilisations, and yet, only inasmuch as the particular religion brought to a certain people, was adapted to their particular psychology. The study of religion should include that of mysticism: the individual, psychological treading of the A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY inner way in the “Light that lighteth every man who cometh into the world”. P HILOSOPHY, in the usual, more restricted sense of the term, would bethenextstudy.Though a preliminary knowledge of the philosophical Systems of East and West is a necessary condition for the true understanding of the scope and significance of philosophic thought, the school should not merely aim at a general parade of systems. It should consider the psychological and ethical value of philosophy, the necessary place it occupies in human soul-life, and its hearing upon human action. Philosophy is a link between concrete experience and the very highest flights of the soul, it is a discipline of mind and body, it is a training of man on the way to wisdom through the knowledge of himself, A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY a means through which the veil of sensuous illusion is rent. This veil was rent by East and by West in different ways, and yet only by those who lived and experienced what they taught. The greatest Systems outstepped the field of pure reasoning, admitting side by side with reason, intuition, or spiritual insight that sees things “sub specie acterni”, in the aspect of eternity. As Plato passed from logismos to noêsis, from reasoning to spiritual vision, so did all those who allowed their soul to take the lead. Thus Plotinus, thus Spinoza, Kant and Hegel, thus the philosophers of the Vedanta, thus the followers of Tao. Where reason stops and can argue no more, the soul goes on, ever further, knowing her way in her own realm. Not only the abstractions of the mind and its sublimest flights belong to the study of philosophy. The purely scientific attitude, the final discoveries of the mind, humblypau- A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY sing and contemplating the minutest workings of nature, are of as great a philosophical importance. Every positive Science lands intothe great unknown, every positive Science touches human life at some point of its research. *) Of all Sciences, psychology affords the richest harvest of facts that bridge over the gulf between the seen and the unseen world. In this respect, it may be called the Science of the future. A RT is included in this program of philosophy. This may astonish only those who are used to see in philosophy no more than the dialectic of thought, and those whom beauty *) We might quote as examples Goldschmid’s study of the relations of sound, colour and grometrical forms; W. Crookes’ and G. Ie Bon’s study of the desintegration of matter into force ; Hinton’s and Poincaré’s hypothesis of the fourth dimension; Poincaré’s study of the relative value of mathematical postulata and axioms. A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY has never carried away in an ecstasy that suddenly revealed the Eternal. Among the paths that hu man beings tread to reach the Divine, there is one that has the right to a name of its own: “the path of beauty.” There is a lack of understanding of the deep meaning of beauty, of the value of harmony. Those to whom the higher truths are revealed more especially by the means of beauty of form, colour or sound, should realise first of all that the deep life of beauty cannot be revealed unto them, unless they themselves attempt to shape themselves in the image of beauty. “All the parts of human life, in the same manner as those of a statue, ought to be beautiful”, teaches Stobaeus the Pythagorean. Beauty must be reflected in her worshippers. Lamartine’s words in “Raphael are perfectly expressive: “Nous luidonnions aussi ce nom parcequ’il avait pour trait distinctif de son caractère un sentiment si vif du beau A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY dans la nature et dans I’art, que son ame n’etait, pour ainsi dire, qu’une transparence de la beauté matérielle ou idéale, éparse dans les oeuvres de Dieu et des hommes.” To those who understand the deep meaning of beauty, it is clear that beauty means peace, rythm, order. The ethical hearing of these three words alone is tremendous. They seem, like the Divine Life itself, to spread infinitely, like circles around a pebble thrown into the water, going from God to the world of phenomena and from the individual centre to the remotest social circumference, thence to spread into the as yet unrealised society, where perfect orderand perfect freedom would coïncide. If the link uniting beauty here below with the Ideal world were fully recognised, the world of art, that has sunk into an ever increasing materialism, very wrongly termed “realism”, would be revolutionised. Theatre, for example, instead of only rendering more A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY or less commonplace events in human life, could representcosmic and individual soul-life and perform once more “ Mysteries’ ’ like those of ancient Greece. The deep value of an artistic impression that reveals the Ideal world, lies in the creating, by means of physical beauty (of rythm, sound, colour or form, or any of these combined) of a state of consciousness entirely synchronie with that physical beauty. This state once induced, the physical representation is followed up to the very Reality that has only been translated in visible and audible signs. Thus the artistic perception of a form may be a harmonising of oneself with the Reality that is its very life. Beauty thus understood, will appear as a profoundly significant, vivid and representative dream, initiating one into the atmosphere of the Real World. A true experience of beauty once obtained, the inner mysteries of the soul once lived in the rapture A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY of harmony, this vision will haunt the soul for ever. E THICS, individual and social, form the last main subject to be dealt with. Since a living philosophy can- not be otherwise than practical, that is, leading to action, all the previous subjects were meant to prepare for right action, action guided, inspired and spiritualized by vast and deep thought and feeling. Knowledge that does not culminate in action is incomplete and not true to the law of the cosmos, which is Creative and ever tends to expression. From the Archetypal world, the world of Ideals, the great plans for human development must descend and become manifest in the world of matter. This is the art of creation in general, the word “creation” being understood as the projection of ideals into our world. A HIGH-SCHOOLFOR PHILOSOPHY The Ideal which ethical creaton endeavours to express, is that of Humanity. The entire ethical striving of mankind, individually and socially, is to manifest this Ideal. All religions and all far reaching philosophies depict the Archetype of Humanity, or the Ideal Humanity, as a marvellous Organism or Organisation. Whatever it be, it is a dream of enhancing beauty, that lives in each one of us, whilst reaching far beyond our individual comprehension. Each individual is part of that Ideal Scheme, a note in that great Symphony. By his inner power of reaching beyond himself, he is conscious to a more or less great extent of the entire Symphony. We all bear this symphony in a latent state within us, we aspire to create it, that is, to manifest it. That is why, dispersed individuals as we are, mysteries to one another, we yet seek each other, recognise and love eachother, thus actualising a fragment of the Symphony. The Ideal A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY Scheme is a state of harmony where the individuality reaches its climax of bliss and expansion in love and in freedom tobe,justas here below we only feel really free to be ourselves when with those who love and understand us. Where there is no love, there is always a cramping of the individuality, never its full expression. This simple fact is worth stating, on account of the apparently insoluble conflict existing between individualistic and collective views. The whole of life is a makeup of the individual and the collective spirit, a constant fluctuation between the two. That we are all to ourselves and nothing to ourselves is the First paradox of life, that is a series of paradoxes all along on account of the antethesis of the individual and society, the subjective and objective World. Neither can or ever will be entirely sacrificed. The practical conclusion therefore seems to be the following. The Ideal Humanity is a A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY state of harmony, which does not mean identity of parts, but the most delicate cooperation of entirely different elements through the power of love, whose characteristic is to admit difference, to want difference, to harmonize difference. Our moral effort will be in one sense the most individual, because it demands of the individual all he can possibly giveof himself, in the other sense quite collective, because that which he must give of himself is a living part of the Symphony of Ideal Humanity. Social progress, i.e. the projection and gradual realisation of Humanity by itself, is a historical unfolding in time and space. Every sense of progress must be the consideration of the next step to be taken. Our duty therefore consists in fitting our individual Ideal in the present Ideal of Humanity, in creating our own epoch, whilst expressing as fully as possible that part of it which is ourself. A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY The next step of our time, socially speaking, seems to be the imbuing of Society in its political and economical aspects with that sense of spirituality and morality we have already insisted upon. This spiritual and moral attitude should move and inspire: The regulation of “power” and “rights”, a more definite establishing of the conditions within which power can be exercised and of the limits of power when faced by rights; A deeper understanding of economie facts, leading to the discovery of “the Soul of economics”; A reorganisation of international relations between political and economie units. A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY HUS summarised is the vision of a possible High-School for Philosophy, a spiritual organisation i that would cooperate with all its T might in the elaboration of a deep and living knowledge that would be the scientific basis for the building of the new society, of a grander future. There is, according to the principles here expressed, no true knowledge that does not include all thelifeof man, hence this program, including it all, from its flights to the Infinite down to its concrete, material existence. How this program is to be worked out, which will be the Solutions found in this human striving for human welfare, the future A HIGH-SCHOOL FOR PHILOSOPHY will decide. It needs strong hearts, strong hands, deep thought, and the solemn conviction that we are in the midst of this world of toil and anguish and also of unspeakable beauty, not as casual passers-by, but as conscious cooperators with the World Will, whose duty it is to gather together the scattered fragments of all past work, and with the Spirit of Life to weave them into a fabric more glorious than has yet been known to us.