Adventures of ideas / by Alfred North Whitehead.

  • Whitehead, Alfred North, 1861-1947.
Date:
1933
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Adventures of ideas / by Alfred North Whitehead. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ness, embodies itself in special expression after special ex¬ pression. It condescends so as to lose the magnificence of its generality, but it gains in the force of its peculiar adaptation to the concrete circumstances of a particular age. It is a hidden driving force, haunting humanity, and ever appear¬ ing in specialized guise as compulsory on action by reason of its appeal to the uneasy conscience of the age. The force of the appeal lies in the fact that the specialized principle of immediate conduct exemplifies the grandeur of the wider truth arising from the very nature of the order of things, a truth which mankind has grown to the stature of being able to feel though perhaps as yet unable to frame in fortunate expression. The greatness of Christianity—the greatness of any valu¬ able religion—consists in its ‘interim ethics’. The founders of Christianity and their earlier followers firmly believed that the end of the world was at hand. The result was that with passionate earnestness they gave free reign to their absolute ethical intuitions respecting ideal possibilities with¬ out a thought of the preservation of society. The crash of society was certain and imminent. ‘Impracticability’ was a word which had lost its meaning; or rather, practical good sense dictated concentration on ultimate ideas. The last things had arrived: intermediate stages were of no account. This consideration was of more influence in framing the mentality of the earlier followers than in the initial founda¬ tion of the religion. It enabled these followers to transmit in their full purity the primitive notions. But the religion arose in a more tranquil atmosphere although highly sensitive in regard to religious emotion, and with some admixture of apocalyptic belief. The Galilean peasantry, having regard to their climate and simplicity of life, were neither rich nor poor: they were unusually intellectual for