Pantheism's destruction of boundaries - pagina 28

Pantheism's Dcf<tnictwn of Boundaries. end tli:it spark of holy ontliusiasin is extinrrnislied wliicli can glow only in higher latitudes beneath the azure sky. Sport is excullenr, and we felt flattered when recently our batters and bowlers returned from Eiii^land laden with honors; but it would cause us greater joy if we discovered among our youth enthusiasm for the lK)nor of our history, for patriotism, and for a holy conviction in things lovely, pure, and beautiful. in tlie

the erasure of boundaries stands otfensiv^ely The word especially in the sjiheres of morality. way, in our ''sin" became too pungent; "holy "was replaced by "lu-ave." " brave " by " decent," and " decent " by " neat," a word descripAnd how can it be otherwise, tive of dress, not of personality. when the noblest thinkers of our age have reduced good and

But

alas! here, too,

degree when the law for moral life is allowed to be fixed autonomously by the subject himself, by Mdiich every moral idea is robbed of its absohite character; when the aesthetic is exalted at the cost of the ethic, and the doctrine is^ proclaimed from our housetoj)s that the sensual life also must demand satisfaction for its claims? Is the boundary between Is it still known what honor truth and falsehood still fixed ?

evil to a dilferem-o of

What

is?

Who

is

;

right if

it

be not the right of the stronger?

Where, between theft and property? above all, is the boundary which distinguishes guilt from fate, Has not Buckle i'.nputability from irresistible inclination? statistically shown how each year there must take place so many divorce suits, so many accidents, so many murders with the dagger, so many others with the pistol, and so many, again, It is all the one process, which, restlessly l)v strancjulation ? turning the wheel of life, hurries it on from that which is real distinguishes

to the ideal. less

Why,

honorable sort

then, be surprised

ai-e

ever enlarged

;

tliat

excise duties of a

that the dissolute

woman

presses her claims with ever-increasing shamelessness; and that our sturdy Dutch integrity, which was once proverbial in the itself in its legends ? once sang, " I love the Lord, because he hath heard Our age raves with altruvoice and my supplications."

market of the world, buries Israel

my

ism, because

its

heart

is

too faint for real egoism.

the noiunena withdraw themselves in

the

far

And when

distance

and,

greater distance, disappear behind the ever-changing phenomena, and a jjontifex is no longer near to bridge this

at a

still

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