Life in nature / James Hinton ; edited with an introduction by Havelock Ellis.

  • Hinton, James, 1822-1875.
Date:
[1932]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Life in nature / James Hinton ; edited with an introduction by Havelock Ellis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ception of what in old days was called Christendom has been highly concrete, thrown into a dramatic and picturesque form much less subtle—hard though that may be for us to believe—than the more abstract conception of the Arunta, and even less consonant with science, for the Arunta have a roughly evolutionary conception of Nature. The more personal and histrionic conception of Chris¬ tendom had the advantage that at one extreme it lent itself to the highest flights of art, and at the other was comprehensible, with an effort, by the most humbly plebeian minds. It may be said to have been best presented, from the standpoint of art, by Dante on the Catholic side and by Milton on the Protestant side. At the other extreme it was set forth, in varying shapes which need not be charac¬ terised, from the altars and the pulpits of innumer¬ able churches and chapels. Its merit was that, like the schemes devised in other parts of the world, it really symbolised the relation of man to the uni¬ verse: it represented man as separated from the universe by his own deliberate act of rebellion, and showed how, in a kind of high comedy, or tragi¬ comedy, by a series of dramatic events, he could be conceived of as being brought back into harmony