He finds in the panorama of his thoughts an idea of
infinite Being, or God, and proceeds to study the relation of that
conception to all others. It is a task of critical analysis and religious
confession: and nothing could be more legitimate and, to some of us, more
interesting. But whence these various ideas, and whence the spell which
the idea of infinite Being in particular casts over the meditative mind?
Unless we can view these movements of thought in their natural setting and
order of genesis, we shall be in danger of turning autobiography into
cosmology and inwardness into folly.
One of the most notable points in M. Benda's analysis is his insistence on
the leap involved in passing from infinite Being to any particular fact or
system of facts; and again the leap involved in passing, when the
converted spirit "returns to God", from specific animal interests--no
matter how generous, social, or altruistic these interests may be--to
absolute renunciation and sympathy with the absolute. "That a will to
return to God should arise in the phenomenal world seems to be a miracle
no less wonderful (though it be less wondered at) than that the world
should arise in the bosom of God." "Love of man, charity, humanitarianism
are nothing but the selfishness of the race, by which each animal species
assures its specific existence." "To surrender one's individuality for the
benefit of a larger self is something quite different from
disinterestedness; it is the exact opposite.
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