Theories of the Universe
The Revival of Culture. By Lars Ringbom. With a Preface by Count Hermann Keyserling. (Cape. 25s. each.) I GIVE Dr. Ringbom's book pride of place in this review beciuse, although he is not, like Count Keyserling, a world celebrity, he has at least a definite and intelligible conception of racial culture and racial development. Influenced by Spengler, Dr. Ringbom departs from Spengler's teaching in important particulars, and the main part of his theory is original. Whatever one may think of this theory, it would be ungracious not to pay tribute to Dr. Ringbom as an expositor. He is a modest writer ; what he says is always sensible, even if it is controversial, and his method of saying it is clear, detailed, and definite. Recommended by these merits his theory is entitled to respect, and I shall briefly summarize it.
Human beings in respect of their reaction to life may be divided roughly into two classes, the one individualistic, the other collectivistic. In the first the instinct of self-preserva- tion is dominant, in the second that of race preservation. Persons belonging to the first class are confident, self-assertive, energetic, and full of initiative ; members of the second are passive, acquiescent, conventional, and depend less upon themselves than upon the community to which they belong. There is a sex division between the two types ; men conform to the first, women to the second ; there is also a race division, Nordics being an individualistic type, Slays collectivistic.
The Swedes, the most individualistic because the purest Nordics (Dr. Ringbom by the way is a Finn, but his book is translated from the Swedish), are tolerant of individual idiosyncrasies, and have developed a society in which social interference with individual activity is reduced to a minimum. The English on the whole are like them. Not so the Russians, who, sensitive to mass suggestion, unable to conceive of individual freedom except as absence of responsibility, and identifying brotherhood with absorption in its mass, are profoundly collectivist. Both types are necessary to racial development, and from their clash and co-operation is generated the drive which makes for advancement and progress. The individualistic element experiments, initiates, and constructs ; the collectivist preserves what has already been won and holds together the matrix of a secure society, within which alone fresh experimentation is possible. All social development may be regarded as a striving towards an equilibrium between the types.
To divide the human race into two or more fundamental types is the besetting temptation of social theorists. William James began it with his categories of the " tough " and the " tender minded," and his classification still, to my mind, holds the field. Since then psychologists and sociologists have tumbled over one another in their eagerness to dicho- tomize the human race, and Dr. Ringbom's categories of ‘‘ individualistic and collectivistic " add one more item to an already overstocked list. The temptation should, if possible, be resisted. The human race is too various to consent to assort itself into a few carefully prepared pigeon-holes, and the classifications, useful up to a point, mislead if pushed beyond it. Usually they are pushed beyond it, for example, by Dr. Ringbom. Now, I have no quarrel with a rough and ready classification applying to a reasonable number of people into individualist and collectivist types. It is all right as far as it goes ; but it does not go very far. Certainly not far enough to become a basis for a theory of social progress. Dr. Ringbom has allowed himself to fall in love with his theory, and with the usual consequences : it has run away
with him.
Whenever I read Count Keyserling I am reminded of a
famous reproof administered by Dr. Johnson to a mystical thinker, to the effect that if Mr. X had experienced the unutter- able, then Mr. X should not try to utter it. Now Count Keyser- ling goes out of his way to insist that his philosophy is not a system and cannot be formulated in abstract terms. " The school of wisdom ", he tells us in the Introduction he has written to his main philosophical work, " does not give o•it an abstract teaching . . . but it creates symbolic images ; it sets examples." It " teaches nothing definite in particular,
for that would simply leave it on the level of traditional thought " (It is not clear why. Cannot one teach what is new ?), "but its method is that of a living improvisation at the right moment." And if we ask, Why call it a School of Wisdom at all ? That, replies Count Keyserling, is one of my paradoxes. " Its name was chosen just because of the paradox it contains, for there can be no question of a school in the ordinary sense of the word, and wisdom is essentially unteachable." Very well, then, Count Keyserling should not try to teach it.
His philosophy, if philosophy it is, is essentially mystical in character. Now mysticism cannot give an account of itself. If it did, it would cease to be mysticism. Hence most mystics write what is to the ordinary man manifest nonsense, Count Keyserling among them. This is not neces- sarily a criticism of the Count's philosophy—it may be a truth that the truth is inexpressible—but merely of his tedious attempt to express it. For let ouring to be profound he is merely diffuse.
The problem of the modern world, he tells us, " lies in the fact that the centre of gravity within man has passed from the untransferable to the transferable." Appalled, we clamour for a solution. But Count Keyserling is equal to the task. What is necessary is " that humanity must reach a higher and more creative understanding, that it must make the intellect subservient to what the early Christians called Logos spermatikos, that it must venture further on the line of independence and responsibility." Well, well Count Keyserling likens his method to those of Confucius and of Buddha. The sages of the East, he has noticed, con- tented themselves with emphasizing a few simple truths. " The whole of Chinese culture," he tells us, "derives from a few re- corded talks of Confucius." Quite so Buddha and Confucius did not, in fact, write books. Approving their approach to reality and commending their example, Count Keyserling would, I cannot help thinking, do well to follow it.
If it were not for the Count's manner, his matter might not be so bad ; but his manner I find intolerable. Writing in a style of deliberate arrogance, he asserts claims that one would not have ventured to make for Plato. The meetings at the Keyserling school solve apparently most if not all the major problems of philosophy. Thus it is interesting to learn that the problem of " the relationship between eternal significance and the ever-changing appearances of external fact or form " was solved in 1921, while the meeting of 1922 " solved the problem of the heroic Western modality of life."
We are recommended by the Count to read him " without a break from beginning to end," in order that " the special style of the book may act like a musical rhythm " upon our souls. " Nor," we are warned, " should the repetitions be skipped." We are, moreover, " to pay as little attention as possible to the contents and facts, but simply to let the intrinsic power of spiritual truth act upon us." These, however, are recommendations for a first reading only. For the second—but whosoever reads the Count a second time must really look after himself. C. E. M. JOAD.
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