Is Humanism Enough?

The title sheet is headed IS HUMANISM ENOUGH?, with the venue and date in red — “Conway Hall 11/46” — beside red file-numbers (“48·62”, “F48·62”) whose origin is not established. The verso carries a keyed teal block on theistic ethics and a “#”-keyed line that belongs to the dialectic passage. In the prose below, editorial connective tissue is tinted like this; expansions of Stapledon's shorthand are silent.

My subject is, “Is Humanism Enough?” I approach it with some diffidence, because I have friends in both camps — “Christian” and “Humanist”; but all are people of good will — that is, their hearts are sound. But their heads? Their difference is symbolical of a world wide difference. And there is a need for a common platform, to unite all people of good will.

The motives of the two parties. Humanists: interest in Man, and moral will — plus intellectual integrity, therefore scepticism. Christians: interest in Man, and moral will — plus “emotional” integrity: i.e. the determination to be true to their deepest intuitions, reached through religious emotions.

My claim: Humanists ignore certain data, facts of experience, which their theory cannot cope with — a Procrustean bed of theory. Christians claim too much for religious experience — as evidence about the universe: God, etc. We have a dialectical movement of Western Civilisation: thesis — orthodox Christianity, doctrinal theism; antithesis — humanism, with scientific materialism — and here the verso's “#”-keyed line comes in: the movement for a more humane social order was the moral issue of the 19th century; synthesis — what we are groping for.

Definitions, and the policy of the argument. Consider theism in general, not Christianity: a universal being, personal or superpersonal, immanent in all things. Humanism: the doctrine that the proper concern of men is Man (a struck word before “is” is a disputed reading — “are”, possibly “we”).

And, keyed from the verso, theistic ethics. Theists often insist that — moral experience demands theistic sanction: “good” is good because God wills it; good is whatever God wills. Also: without a loving God, life is meaningless — and without reward in heaven, God cannot be loving.

First: consider the dialectical movement of thought. Theism — a doctrine about the universe; the margin sets “THESIS” against it. Theists claim: first, in religious experience they “find God” — or certainty that God exists, or something impelling them to faith that God exists; second, observation of the world gives evidence that God exists.

A summary of essential theistic doctrines. The source of all things is God (personal or superpersonal), eternal or supra-temporal, supporting the universe at each moment — that is, immanent. In Christian theism (the margin's label), God is benevolent toward his creatures; his very nature is Love. God is almighty — but he limited his almightiness by creating free individual spirits, because without freedom, nothing worth while. (But why so?) Therefore individuals can damn themselves, and often do (an “&” is struck before “often”). But mostly, God can save them — by special intervention.

But what of the undeserved suffering? — disease, etc.; “the sins of the fathers…”; “God moves in a mysterious way…”. The phrases stand in the notes with their trailing dots; they do not remove the difficulty.

The causes of the decline of Christianity (a “(Whitehead)” after the heading is struck; the name stands against the first cause). First, bad tactics in the battle with science (Whitehead): the defence of the Bible story of creation, which was not essential to Christianity; this defeat broke men's confidence. Second, failure to give a moral lead in social conflict: individuals did, but not the Churches — the Labour Movement was more truly religious, and the Russian Revolution. (A marginal flourish here — “!!—”, possibly “11—” — is a disputed reading.)

Then, under diagonal margin heads reading Verdict and Sci: the real reason for distrusting theism — internal incoherence. E.g. personality involves time: conscious process — yet God is “eternal”; personality involves purpose, and therefore finitude — yet God is infinite, therefore purposeless (“& almighty” is struck beneath). If God is “supra-personal”? What does this mean? Something quite inconceivable to us — and therefore insignificant.

Also — emotional inadequacy of theism? (the heading is boxed, and the query is the note's own). Critics say: God is good only if he wills good ends — i.e. “God” presupposes good. And the mass of undeserved suffering: infant mortality and disease; the massacre of the innocents; etc. Difficult to reconcile this with a God of Love — it involves “epicycles”.

Verdict on the conflict of the clerics and the scientists. Science did not disprove theism — it merely made it look less plausible; it justified not atheism but agnosticism. But science produced a new temper, and a new loyalty — intellectual integrity: a horror of wishful thinking (sometimes overdone). Russell: “It is nobler to doubt than to believe.” And a new will to live without doctrines.

Theism may be true — in some Pickwickian sense. But we cannot know that it is true; and today it is unwholesome for us (because wishful to so many). Agnosticism is the way of true piety: insistence on theism is impious — and ridiculous: a naive trust in human thought and language. The old questions are probably false questions, admitting no true answer: hen and egg; geocentrism and heliocentrism?; God or no God; survival or no survival? But agnosticism excludes atheism, which is equally doctrinaire. And — agnosticism must be agnostic piety; otherwise — emotionally lopsided.

Now the antithesis — the margin says so. The scientific attitude: three factors in its growth (“two” is struck for “three”). First, interest in objectivity — not subjectivity: respect for “irreducible and stubborn facts” (Whitehead); not in rationality, save in inference to further facts (due to the general effects of material progress?). Second, trust in analysis into simple elements (due to spectacular successes): the conviction that wholes are “nothing but” their elements in pattern — with a tendency to ignore that parts may not reveal all their nature. Third, iconoclasm, debunking established theories — connected with the rise of the bourgeoisie? and the victory over the churches. Laudable — but may go bad: it becomes a defence mechanism — automatism, obsessive; then — debunk the debunker!

The religious aspect of the new scientific attitude (religion = an emotional attitude to the universe as a whole). Contrast the Christian attitude — filial piety, trust, taboo, emotional integrity. The scientific attitude: self-reliance, independence; intellectual integrity; reverence for inhuman “fate”, chance. But also: the egotism of humanity — self-pity for Man; cf. Russell's Free Man's Worship.

And, from the verso: individualistic hedonism is implied in materialism — i.e. in “mechanical materialism”. Contrast dialectical materialism, which can embrace all I say — but: its advocates won't agree.

Humanism, then — the religion of the scientist. Its doctrine: the whole proper concern of man is Man — not the individual: the species. Many forms — but this is the common factor. Humanism ranges between extremes that are not humanism. First, individualistic hedonism, based on absolute ethical scepticism: individual pleasure alone concerns me; therefore avoid the entangling pleasures — e.g. love, and causes (a “good” before “causes” is struck). Second, theism, and other religious doctrines (Buddhism): that we are for something above man — something supernatural.

All humanism asserts obligation to transcend individualism, for the sake of the human species — but rejects all claims beyond the species. Two main types of humanism. A: simple humanism (utilitarianism) — “man” is conceived in a limited way: extant human beings and their felt needs; future generations of the same type, fading into the distance. B: evolutionary humanism — our concern is: felt needs, and development, of capacities at present embryonic; needs not yet felt.

Simple Humanism: at heart hedonistic = utilitarianism. The standard of value — the pleasure and pain of individuals. Three difficulties. First, it fails to explain the leap from individualism to social hedonism: why bother about the pleasure of others? Because I am conditioned to bother? But what if I don't bother? Ought I to bother? Otherwise — be prudently callous. Second, the hedonic calculus: how much pleasure from each source? and how much pleasure of one individual equals how much pleasure of (e.g.) ten others? Third, are some pleasures qualitatively better? — e.g. cultural pleasures: is pushpin as good as poetry? is the pleasure of love better than the pleasure of self-regard?

The upshot. Either the theory is non-ethical, and logically sound: it says — by nature we do care for mankind, but with no obligation to do so. Or the theory is ethical, and logically unsound: it says — we ought to care for mankind. Why? Because pleasure is good, no matter whose. But the hedonistic claim is — that my pleasure alone can move me! And emotionally — simple humanism is inadequate: Brave New World is not good enough; we feel it in our bones that we are for something more than pleasure.

Evolutionary Humanism — a bracket at the sheet-head warns that it blends: first, an important truth; second, an error — tries to do justice to the feeling of instrumentality. Deal first with the valid side of Evolutionary Humanism. (Its error: it derives good and evil from biology — from something other than our experience of good and evil. Its value: it uses biology to clarify our ideas of good and evil.)

The source of evolutionary humanism — interest in “the developed” and the less developed, applied to man — the developed mentality. Development is an objective fact, not merely subjective (“whim” is struck); compare Julian Huxley. Man is more developed than ape, or amoeba — in structure and function; body and experience. Human love is more developed than animal mating. Within our species, some individuals are more developed than others — but difficult to judge; and development in one respect may combine with undevelopment in others. Therefore it is difficult to apply the standard — but we do try to apply it, and we value development morally.

The criteria of development — each item carrying the note's own query. In biology: complexity? adaptation? integrative sensitivity and response (“action?” is struck for the insertion); specialization? In psychology: complexity? integrative perception; sensitivity? — and action. And keyed from the verso, under a diagonal margin pairing “develop—” with “pervers—”: if there is a Life Force — it is subject to our moral judgement: is its direction good or bad?

Development implies — perversion, from the true line of development; perversion also is objective. Biological perversion: first, degeneracy — the tape worm, the mollusc; second, over-specialization — the armed reptiles, the sabre-tooth tiger. Psychological perversion: first, degeneracy — imbecility; second, over-specialization — intellectualism; neurosis: obsessive cravings, obsessive repugnances.

In spite of all this valuable truth — I insist on the inadequacy of Evolutionary Humanism: founding ethics on biology — good and evil related to evolution; good is good because it is in the line of evolution, not because of what good is. Two forms of the theory, based on: first, the Life Force theory of evolution; second, the naturalistic theory of evolution.

The Life Force theory as ground of ethics. A: the arguments for the Life Force are unconvincing — far too weak to form a solid basis for ethics. B: anyhow the Life Force theory is a kind of theism — it incurs many of the same difficulties, and it misses certain truths of theism (I explain later). C: anyhow ethics must stand on its own feet — not on theism; not on the Life Force theory; not on natural selection.

Now consider naturalistic evolutionary humanism (based on natural selection). It tries to have the cake and eat it: it recognizes our obligation to work for development, but explains this by natural selection — you feel you ought to; therefore the feeling has had survival value. This is no justification for the feeling: instead of giving a sanction, it explains the feeling as illusory.

The psychological account is parallel. Love and reason have social survival value; groups with that tradition survive, and hand on the tradition. The source of moral feeling (compare Freud): the infant dominated by the mother — the source of pleasure and pain; conflict; an ego ideal founded on the mother; the infant imbibes the tradition, feels guilt in infringement. This explanation is true so far as it goes, but misses the vital point — and so, merely “explains away”.

The summary criticism of evolutionary humanism: it claims to be a religion and an ethic — but fails, by merely explaining away. There is no “scientific” justification for religion and ethics; contemporary naturalistic science is inadequate as a foundation. The alternative courses: first, scepticism and cynicism, for a narrow intellectual integrity; second, reject the scientific spirit entirely, and rush back to theism; third, re-examine religious experience, and the scope of intellect, reason.

In order to pass beyond humanism, we must form a clear view of the scope of reason, and the nature of rationality. All honour to the rationalists: noble work against superstition and wishful thinking. But beware of a narrow rationalism — i.e. shutting one's eyes to awkward facts for the sake of theory. I too care for intellectual integrity — and for this reason I reject “rationalism”: its theory blinds it to certain facts.

What is rationality? True inference from the given to the not-given, taking into account everything relevant within the field of observation — i.e. avoid being led astray by the irrelevant, but also avoid neglecting the relevant. Rationalism avoids wishful thinking, but is snared by the wish for rationality; it is impatient for results.

The great danger: within a familiar universe of discourse, “singular points” may occur and be overlooked — i.e. true rationality may demand a wider universe of discourse. Examples: first, two-dimensional beings on a sphere may complicate their geometry, but — can't perceive the third dimension. Second, eyeless beings sensitive to light could not conceive three-dimensional seeing. Third, “the heart has its reasons that the head knows not” — i.e. the whole cognitive-affective-conative person. But: “its reasons” do not support theism; yet: they demand more than humanism.

“The heart” can give no evidence about the hidden nature of reality — therefore no evidence for theism. But — it gives important evidence about itself, i.e. about the nature of personality. If its evidence won't fit rationalistic theory — so much the worse for the theory. This does not lead to irrationalism, but to a wider universe of discourse. (A diagonal “End first” is struck at the foot of this verso — a discarded halving of the lecture.)

Now I can produce my own sketch of the SYNTHESIS — no doubt false, but worth considering. An examination of religious experience: inevitably my experience — typical, average, open to all (the last phrase is a marginal insertion) — offered as a basis for discussion.

But first, preliminaries: more awake and less awake states (of knowing, feeling, striving). I distinguish them in myself, ranging from sleep to my most aware, most lucid. In the more awake state I am aware of more — more clearly, more comprehensively; and I feel more precisely, and more “appropriately”; and act more coherently, and appropriately, and “creatively”. First, I am more aware of the objective world: of sense perception; of the principles implied in it; of myself as an object, a person; of other persons as objects, persons. Second, I conceive motives inconceivable to the less aware I; and I “see through” the more somnolent motives — to “what I really want”.

In the less awake states I trust the more awake, and particularly the most awake — i.e. I trust my imperfect memory of it. But — I may be too somnolent to have memory of it, or to have a cogent memory. What reason have I to trust the more awake state? First, it works, does not let me down (compare: we trust the adult, not the child). Second, it affords deeper satisfaction — a sense of “the true I”.

The most awake state of all — for me: sensory acuity — when attended to; intellectual acuity, when similarly attended to — with, in the margin, imagination; emotional acuity; conative integrity, and new motives. I see that some things matter supremely — e.g. intellectual integrity; emotional and conative integrity. They matter “in a relatively absolute way” — i.e. beings sufficiently awake to grasp them cannot but will them to occur wherever possible, unless the minds have been perverted from the true line of development (mental, spiritual) — perverted by irrelevant cravings. I see that this is so because of what mind is — or rather what personality is: it follows from the experienced nature of personality; to deny it is nonsense. True for any rank of personality, in any period, and any world. Awake minds cannot but will these things — as ends, intrinsically good; not merely for individual satisfaction (though satisfaction comes, incidentally).

What kind of things does the most awake state will? First, from one point of view — they are all activities of persons (of me, or of others): i.e. acts expressive of the essential personality — e.g. intellectual integrity. Second, from another point of view — they are relations of the person and his world: acts of “me-moulded-by-my-world” (the margin cues: compare Hegel), and directed to my world's fulfilment. I.e. in every case the concern is with something objective to the act itself: in consciousness I espouse objective needs — of my own “body”; of my own “personality”; of other people, persons; of groups; and so on (the list ends in a blank ditto line). I.e. personality is the expression of a world in individual consciousness; personality without a world is an abstraction — what is concrete is a personal consciousness in a world. For the awake state, what matters most is the fulfilment of persons; the ideal: the fulfilment of the universe in personal consciousness (one or many persons).

For religious experience, perhaps the most important thing is: personal relations. Two kinds of relations between individuals. First, animal, subhuman: no clear awareness of self and other; the self is an automatic self-cherisher — response to stimuli; plus automatic gregariousness — conformity and persecution. Second, distinctively human: full expression in love — clear awareness of self and other as different, in needs, capacities, temperament; mutual enrichment, mutual cherishing; each espouses the other's needs, as his own.

Awareness of “we” — the community of the two, valued more than either alone? The individuals remain distinct: no common “I”, only a common “we” — otherwise no love. A hate factor in all love: the conflict of self-interests remains — but true love transmutes it. Possessiveness incompatible with love — therefore a violation of respect for personality. But a quasi-possessiveness through the “we”, for the sake of the “we”, never for the “I”. And a generalized will for right relations — impossible without experience of love: i.e. the will that all persons be treated as persons, plus the will for a universal “we” embracing all persons. Personality involves community, and vice versa. The goal: personality-in-community.

A brief ancillary face, keyed ⊕, with a teal “5” and the diagonal head “In love”: “pleasure merely directs attention to ð mother” — the pleasure is the pointer, not the whole value; the matter re-enters the argument on the child-and-mother sheet.

In love we wake to essentially new values (as in all mental maturing) — i.e. we discover values unintelligible earlier: e.g. the baby's love of the mother. First, the orthodox psychoanalytical account — the margin's verdict: inadequate: the mother gives pleasure and pain, therefore is loved and hated, through simple conditioning; conflict over the mother; an ego ideal derived from the mother — i.e. all values derived from animal impulse through conditioning. Second, Ian Suttie's criticism: the child discovers “I” and “you” and “we”; “I” and “you” on an equal footing (but “I” is stronger). Third, my point: the child finds new values: “I”, “you”, “we” not reducible — to sensory pleasure and pain; different in kind. Both kinds emerge in the objective world, but the horizon widens.

Moral experience: psychoanalysts derive it from conflict over the parents, between the self and its “ego ideal”. True — so far as it goes (a “but insist” is struck); but love is presupposed — else no guilt. Morality involves obligation to persons — to others or to self.

Note! This account of the child's experience is not essential to my view; it may be a false account — but I would bet heavily on its truth. Anyhow, at some point genuine love emerges.

Art — a particularly obvious case. This work of art is an end in itself. But: a sense of possession — the universe finds expression through me.

After these preliminary remarks, I can deal with the fully developed religious experience itself. Thus far humanists might agree? — but now I go too far for them; theists will applaud but demand more.

The child's discovery of “I”, “you”, “we” is — religious in an embryonic way; and so is all personal love. It includes a sense of “instrumentality”: “I” am for “we” — for something more than just “I”, and more even than “you” — i.e. I am for love. This sense is not yet explicit, but is implied in the child's love behaviour.

Mature waking to religious experience: early or late (or never); fully lucid or half-conscious; or confused by theories, or wishes. It is a waking to discover — “the spirit” — but I use the word in a special sense. “Religious experience” means (for me) experiencing an attitude to the universe — or to the supremely important thing in it? (the alternative is a starred insertion keyed from the previous verso) — and the right attitude: i.e. actually appropriate to the actual universe. No particular religious experience is fully appropriate, fully religious; but all are partly religious, if involving an attitude to the whole. The religious aspect of particular acts and experiences: the act is a symbol, evoking the religious attitude — e.g. in love, art, intellection, creative action — courage, etc.; pleasure or pain; bodily exercise and functions; muscular skill; perception.

A verso parenthesis reserves another use of “spirit” — that in virtue of which we will: spirit in the other sense. But by “spirit” I never mean a divine person.

Lovers embracing — a sense of universality: the universal subject embraces the universal object; each is a vehicle, instrument, vessel. This is what we are for: channels through which objective influences find expression. In all such experiences — an unmistakable sense of awakening: new meaning, new values, new self; new needs generated in the person by the object — and the object is the universe. A sense of possession, of being possessed by — compare the child, possessed by the “we”. In mature religious experience — possession by the “spirit”: i.e. by a vision of an ideal form of behaviour for all personal beings. Compare the Platonic form of the Good — but not in a realm apart: inherent in the nature of personality — or personality-in-a-world, or rather: personality-in-community-in-a-world. I.e. the ideal of full personal expression — in sensitive, intelligent awareness; love; creative action — in relation to the actual universe. I.e. the spirit is not a substance, but a Way of life (the word boxed; beside it, in red: Tao) — a temper, an attitude — varying according to circumstances, from person to person, country to country, world to world; but always — the full expression of personality in those circumstances.

A divider face in blue pencil — “Personal relations / of religion” — carrying a blue “14” whose relation to the main ink pagination is not established.

A religious experience comes as a revelation — of Something not formerly noticed: something new; it is given — and has to be related to one's accepted culture. Christianity falsifies by claiming too much; Humanism falsifies by suppressing aspects of the experience. In some ways Christianity is nearer the truth.

First, doing things “for the glory of God”: dig in the garden; build Jerusalem in England's — … (the line breaks off with its dots; “art” stands in the margin); swim; love a woman. The motive may be purely — personal fulfilment; or — social fulfilment; or — “Glory of God”. Or better — “for the glory of the spirit”: i.e. for the universal ideal of the fulfilment of personality-in-community-in-this-universe. A sense of increased awakeness in all this.

Second, the Christian theory of salvation. A man cannot save himself — Chelmsford: “lifting by own boot straps”; the race cannot save itself. I.e. “God” must intervene — an act of divine grace. The individual must “open his heart” — otherwise God cannot save him. But: only God does the saving. (A first draft of the non-theistic translation — the vision that “possesses, remakes, kills, recreates” — is struck through at the foot of this sheet; its matter stands, unstruck, two sheets on, and is voiced there.)

Keyed from the verso: compare the child's first vision of “we”. The unregenerate self wills: self-aggrandisement; the beloved's aggrandisement; society's aggrandisement; etc., etc. All these ends are good — so long as they do not conflict with the spirit: e.g. the self may conflict with love; love with society; society with the spirit. The unregenerate self wills them for their own sake — never as occasions of the spirit. The unregenerate self cannot lift itself beyond itself — cannot will the spirit as such.

I.e. the unregenerate self cannot love God — unless God reveals himself; what saves is the revealed vision of God. An important truth is contained in this view. Translation into non-theistic language: the fully awake mind alone can will the spirit fully. Less awake states may will it partially (according to their “rank”), in so far as they are susceptible — open to the vision. They cannot rise to a higher level of awakeness without incursion by a new vision — which takes possession; kills; recreates on a new plane.

But: a deeper gulf between the most awake and all the others. The less awake states do not clearly know what they are doing when they will love, and the rest: they will particular spiritual acts, not the spirit. The most awake state (for me) — wills the spirit as an ideal form. The less awake states = the unregenerate self: it cannot save itself (a “which” is struck) — but must open its heart; only the clear vision of the spirit can save it: the vision takes possession, against violent resistance; “kills” the old self; recreates a new self. I.e. the spirit affords no motive to the somnolent self — it seems irrational, crazy, is resisted. Yet the spirit is immanent — even in the mundane self; but embryonic, and “other”.

I.e. the spirit “promises” fulfilment — but not to the ordinary self: only to an unborn self, an other self. And the other self does not seek fulfilment: it does not serve the spirit for self-fulfilment; it lives unconditionally for the spirit; fulfilment is incidental. I have described the core of religious experience, as it seems to me.

Objection by Theists. They say: “there is another stage of awakeness, beyond your highest reach, which gives assurance of God.” Answer: may be! (the concession is an insertion) But are they deceiving themselves? — in terms of current theory and wishful thinking. Even if they are more right than wrong — theism today is too insecure a prop. My religious experience is the plain man's — but clarified.

Objection by Humanists. They say: the naturalistic account of religion is adequate — in terms of natural selection, social conditioning, psycho-analysis. (A retort — “then stick to it; give up religion! But—” — is struck through diagonally, and not voiced.) Answer: you falsify the thing to be explained. The actual religious experience and your view of it are superficially alike but fundamentally different — cf. a live human being and a wax model. I.e. you are blinded by your theory.

A blue-pencil face — numbered 26, its diagonal margin reading “My view =” — supplies the first plank: my view avoids the egoism of humanity (which spoils humanism) — the self-importance of Man.

My view is Humanism Plus = Evolutionary Humanism with clear awareness that it is more than humanism, and with borrowings from theism — e.g. instrumentality, and “salvation”. Better: my view is personalism, because it is not limited to Man — but objective personalism, because personality is the product of — the objective world and subjectivity. Better still: my view is personalistic communism, because personality implies community — presupposes it.

My view is Theism Minus, but Plus also. Minus — a personal deity; minus individual immortality (agnostic here) (a “personal” before “individual” is struck). It accepts instrumentality — but, for the spirit. It accepts salvation — but not for the individual self; rather for the individual in instrumentality to the spirit. Plus — greater emotional depth than theism: theism's promise of individual survival blurs the essential tragedy of the unregenerate self. My view avoids both emotional weaknesses: the tragedy for the individual unsaved is absolute — but is transfigured in his waking to the spirit.

Humanists charge Christians with — woolly and wishful thinking. The margin answers: True! Christians charge Humanists with — crude and obtuse feeling. Again: True! Humanism is not the antithesis to Theism, but a compromise — a failure to make the synthesis.

This face opens with a struck “extra fine”, and carries the circular Liverpool University Library stamp (“STAP.” boxed at its centre) with “F11/49” — the manuscript's afterlife as an archival object (catalogue reference OS/F11/49).

The last leaf carries two summaries. The recto is headed “Summary of ‘Is Humanism Enough?’” and notes “[Alternative Summary Over Leaf]”; its margin numbers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5-, 6, 7, 10, 11, 14, 16–19, 20, 21) key the items to the lecture's own page numbers. The verso is the “Alternative Summary”, five numbered items, with “F 11/49” at its foot. Both are rendered below, close to the sheets.

The recto summary runs: Introductory: my friends — Christian and Humanist; emotional integrity; intellectual integrity; the dialectic. Theism: definitions; the essential doctrines; the causes of the failure of the Churches. Verdict on clerics v. scientists: theism not disproved; internal incoherence — false questions; agnostic piety. The scientific attitude: objectivity; analysis; debunking. Humanism: but — a religious attitude, between individualism and theism. Simple Humanism: either non-ethical and logical, or — ethical and illogical. Evolutionary Humanism: development and perversion, objective; inadequacy! — because it derives ethics from biology: Life Force; natural selection. Scope of reason: the universe of discourse; singular points; the heart has its reasons. Religious experience must be re-examined! — more awake and less awake; relatively absolute good — the margin asks: What things are good? Personal relations: subhuman and human; the generalized will for personality. Religious experience itself: the child's “religion”; mature religion — the spirit; possession by a vision; “the glory of God”; “salvation”; translation into non-theistic language. Objection by Theists; Objection by Humanists. Humanism Plus; Theism Minus, but Plus also: objective personalism; personalistic communism; instrumentality; salvation; avoid the egoism of humanity; avoid blunting the individual tragedy.

The verso's Alternative Summary: first, not sociological — but the prerequisites of a sound social theory. Second, the dialectical movement: A, doctrinal Christianity, Deistic; B, scientific materialism — the humanist compromise; C, synthesis →. Third, a revival of doctrinal Christianity, today? — the danger of this. Fourth, learn Christianity + (“but” and “from” are struck; the “+” is an insertion). Fifth, my view: awake and less awake; the authority of the awake; the values of the awake — awareness; feeling, action — i.e. the expression of personality; but objective personalism — concentric rings; integrity of intellect, of feeling, of action; personality-in-community — the analysis of love; evil; the correction of Freudianism; the awake values irreducible; religious experience — non-theistic; the concept of the spirit; “the glory of God” — instrumentality; salvation; agnosticism about the universe — agnostic piety.