Small is the world that most of us pay attention to, and limited is our concern.
What do we see when we see the world? There are three aspects of nature that
command our attention: its power, its beauty, and its grandeur. Accordingly, there
are three ways in which we may relate ourselves to the world—we may exploit it, we
may enjoy it, we may accept it in awe. In the history of civilization, different aspects
of nature have drawn forth the talent of man; sometimes its power, sometimes its
beauty and occasionally its grandeur have attracted his mind. Our age is one in
which usefulness is thought to be the chief merit of nature; in which the attainment
of power, the utilization of its resources is taken to be the chief purpose of man in
God’s creation. Man has indeed become primarily a tool-making animal, and the
world is now a gigantic tool box for the satisfaction of his needs.
The Greeks learned in order to comprehend. The Jews learned in order to revere. The modern man learns in order to use. To Bacon we owe the formulation, “knowledge is power.” This is how people are urged to study: knowledge means success. We do not know any more how to justify any value except in terms of expediency. Man is willing to define himself as “a seeker after the maximum degree of
comfort for the minimum expenditure of energy.” He equates value with that which
avails. He feels, acts, and thinks as if the sole purpose of the universe were to satisfy his needs. To the modern man everything seems calculable; everything reducible to a figure. He has supreme faith in statistics and abhors the idea of a mystery.
Obstinately he ignores the fact that we are all surrounded by things which we
apprehend but cannot comprehend; that even reason is a mystery to itself. He is
sure of his ability to explain all mystery away. Only a generation ago he was convinced that science was on the way to solve all the enigmas of the world. In the
words of a poet:
Whatever there is to know
That we shall know some day.
Religious knowledge is regarded as the lowest form of knowledge. The human
mind, according to Comte, goes through three stages of thought: the theological,
the metaphysical, and the positive. Out of the primitive religious knowledge meta-
physics gradually evolved, to be succeeded by the positive, scientific method of
thought. Modern man having achieved the final stage eschews all appeal to unobservable entities. In the place of God, humanity—the grand Être—becomes the
supreme object of adoration. However, what is considered an achievement from
the perspective of modern man may be judged a privation by the post-modern
man. “In future generations, people will find difficulty in understanding how at one
time generations existed who did not regard the idea of God as the highest concept
of which man is capable, but who, on the contrary, were ashamed of it and considered the development of atheism a sign of progress in the emancipation of human thought.”
Dazzled by the brilliant achievements of the intellect in science and technique,
we have not only become convinced that we are the masters of the earth; we have
become convinced that our needs and interests are the ultimate standard of what is
right and wrong.
Comfort, luxuries, success continually bait our appetites, impairing our vision of
that which is required but not always desired. They make it easy for us to grow
blind to values. Interests are the value-blind man’s dog, his pathfinder and guide.
