The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness. By
Reinhold Niebuhr. (Nisbet. 7s. 6d.)
A Christian Polities
The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness. By Reinhold Niebuhr. (Nisbet. 7s. 6d.)
IT has been evident for some time that Dr. Niebuhr has something important to say, but many admiring readers of his earlier works have been perplexed when they have asked themselyes what precisely it was. The very copiousness of his exposition and of his vocabu- lary has been a source of confusion to some minds. Here he has succeeded in giving a clear and impressive statement of his views on fundamental political and social problems. As the title-page informs us, with almost eighteenth century explicitness, the book is "a vindication of democracy and a critique of its traditional defenders." He sees very plainly that no military victories or peace settlement can " make the world safe for democracy" unless it can produce better intellectual credentials than those which have been provided by the old secular liberalism: His own philosophy for democracy is summed up in a memorable epigram : ." Man's capacity for _justice makes democracy possible ; but man's inclination to in- justice makes democracy necessary." The basis of Dr.-Niebuhr's political theory is definitely Christian, and he employs tylo religious conceptions as the guiding principles of his analysis—original s and the super-temporal element in the nature of man.
By original-sin he means a tendency to pride and inordinate self: love in all the thoughts, motives and activities of men, and this propensity infects even the most exalted idealism. The "children of light ". are those who subordinate their own interests to those of a larger whole. They are not, therefore, necessarily Christian ; the Marxist too is, in this sense, a child of light. The children of light are almost invariably " foolish " compared with the children of darkness, the cynical self-seekers, because they fail to take account of the reality of human nature ; they do not sufficiently allow foe the continual influence of "original sin" in others and, worst of all, in themselves. This is the source of all kinds of illusions and perversions. The creed of the children of light becomes "the vehicle and instrument" of the children of darkness. Dr. Niebuhr thinks that Russia is a contemporary instance of this process. "A new
oligarchy is arising in Russia, the spiritual characteristics of which can hardly be distinguished from those of the American 'go-garters' of the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. And in the light of history Stalin will probably have the same relation to the early dreamers of the Marxist dreams which Napoleon has to the liberal dreamers of the eighteenth century." The principle of the super-temporal element in man's nature leads to a relativist view of the political and social problems. Man is not simply a social
animal, and his good is not simply a social good, or at least not one to be -secured completely by any earthly community. So, there are no final solutions to the great problems of socia.1 theory, and indeed one of the chief advantages of democracy that it seeks provisional solutions for insoluble problems. Dr,: Niebuhr has much that is interesting and penetrating to say 011 the individual and the community, property, toleration and the possibility of a world community in the light of his Christian pm' suppositions, and always with wide knowledge of the literature the subject. On the whole, he tends to the socialist side in m051 controversies, but with differences which would probably exclude him from- any socialist party. Criticism in detail is out of the question here, but one of some weight and one of little importance
may be suggested. Is not the distinction between children of light and children of darkness too lightly sketched? There are those who have a high degree of self-devoted loyalty but who are un- fortunately devoted to a pernicious cause. Dr. Niebuhr would no doubt say that their object of devotion is too narrow, but some of them have believed that they were serving the cause of humanity itself. Perhaps alongside original sin we ought to place "original stupidity "—that pathetic propensity of man to "get things wrong" when he sincerely desires to get them right. The unimportant complaint is that Dr. Niebuhr now and then confronts us with sentences which seem unnecessarily difficult. For example: "When it is remembered that many modern and ancient nations (including England and Russia) achieved national unity only because a foreign conqueror superimposed the initial core of unity, it will be seen that a more historical and organic development toward world unity is almost as difficult as a purely constitutional one." If this means what I think it means, I can only remark that it seems to me
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