They begin at a point which the previous generation did not
believe to exist--a visible world reduced by positive science to the
invisible world of philosophy. They confront not a quantitative
universe, but a qualitative. They almost begin at the very spirit of
man; they cannot advance far before they find themselves groping in the
unseen, and using, not the senses given to us by action, but the eyes
and ears of the understanding by which alone the soul of man can
apprehend reality. Even the Germans have gone back to Goethe.
This, then, is the contribution which Dr. Jacks makes to modern thought.
We are to consider man as a creature of boundless potentiality, to
realise that his first need is for light, and to define that mystic
all-important word in terms of education. Christianity was not concerned
with the moral law; it was concerned with the transcending of all law by
the spirit of understanding.
I need not guard myself against the supposition that so true a scholar
is satisfied with the system of education which exists at the present
time. Dr. Jacks looks for a reform of this system, but not from the
present race of politicians.
"How can we hope to get a true system of education from politics?" he
asked me. "Is there any atmosphere more degrading? Plato has warned us
that no man is fit to govern until he has ceased to desire power. But
these men think of nothing else.
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