2024-03-13 06:07:43 by skmnktl
This page does not need to be proofread.
FOREWORD
WHAT is man? What is his place in the universe ? What is his ultimate destiny? What constitutes noble living? Questions like these have been raised from the beginnings of thought. Though the dignity of man is not affected by his inability to answer these questions, it is affected by his indifference to them. Man does not live by bread alone. He desires not only to live but to understand and behave well. To live in a world that makes no sense is intolerable to him. He feels an overwhelming need to explain the universe, to reduce the bewildering diversity of phenomena to some order. Hunger and thirst after righteousness is as much a characteristic of the human mind as hunger and thirst after rationality. Codes of conduct and systems of philosophy which give abstract rules and definitions cannot satisfy these vital needs as art and literature
do through their creations which embody high ideals of life and conduct.
Our moral nature owes a great deal of its growth and education to the work of artists. Even illiterate people are influenced by it far more profoundly than they know, for art exercises its power over us with or
WHAT is man? What is his place in the universe ? What is his ultimate destiny? What constitutes noble living? Questions like these have been raised from the beginnings of thought. Though the dignity of man is not affected by his inability to answer these questions, it is affected by his indifference to them. Man does not live by bread alone. He desires not only to live but to understand and behave well. To live in a world that makes no sense is intolerable to him. He feels an overwhelming need to explain the universe, to reduce the bewildering diversity of phenomena to some order. Hunger and thirst after righteousness is as much a characteristic of the human mind as hunger and thirst after rationality. Codes of conduct and systems of philosophy which give abstract rules and definitions cannot satisfy these vital needs as art and literature
do through their creations which embody high ideals of life and conduct.
Our moral nature owes a great deal of its growth and education to the work of artists. Even illiterate people are influenced by it far more profoundly than they know, for art exercises its power over us with or