Concern for survival,
however, which seems to be the pragmatic principle in morals, does not
afford a remedy for moral anarchy. To take firm hold on life,
according to Nietzsche, we should be imperious, poetical, atheistic;
but according to William James we should be democratic, concrete, and
credulous. It is hard to say whether pragmatism is come to emancipate
the individual spirit and make it lord over things, or on the contrary
to declare the spirit a mere instrument for the survival of the flesh.
In Italy, the mind seems to be raised deliriously into an absolute
creator, evoking at will, at each moment, a new past, a new future, a
new earth, and a new God. In America, however, the mind is recommended
rather as an unpatented device for oiling the engine of the body and
making it do double work.
Trustful faith in evolution and a longing for intense life are
characteristic of contemporary sentiment; but they do not appear to be
consistent with that contempt for the intellect which is no less
characteristic of it. Human intelligence is certainly a product, and
a late and highly organised product, of evolution; it ought apparently
to be as much admired as the eyes of molluscs or the antennae of ants.
And if life is better the more intense and concentrated it is,
intelligence would seem to be the best form of life.
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