quote of the day
"...the deep, universal distrust of Intellect rests upon its hostility to what is felt as the pulse of life. Common language records this opposition in a dozen ways: Life is warm, hot, glowing; Intellect is cold and dull. Life is its own mover, impetuous, heedless of reasons and obstacles, intent upon a few elemental goals which are not to be argued with--food, shelter, love, survival. Intellect is static, calculating, aimed at purpose clear to a few, but uncertain in their results, and vague or invisible to the multitude. Intellect observes rules of its own making that no one enforces, and is full of scruples in private, though in public it speaks confidently of itself and callously of life. The classic instance of Intellect's inhumanity is Voltaire's remark after he had asked why someone wrote bad books and was told that 'the poor man had to live': 'I do not see the necessity.' Intellect has apparently nothing to say to the predicaments and tragedies of life; it is a fair-weather friend.... But it is... true that to drift on the stream of sensation without articulating a judgement would be to remain a baby or a molluse, feeling life but ignorant of it. And this explains why Intellect, with all its shortcomings, does in the end know life and enhance it."
Jaques Barzun, The House of Intellect (1959).
Jaques Barzun, The House of Intellect (1959).