The Anglo-Saxon Tradition
THESE present days of crisis may produce something beside ill if, out of them, springs for us too a faith that shows our own ways of life to be affirmative and very far from eliete, ’ wiites Professor George Catlin in an open letter to Mr. 11. G. Mi ells, with which he opens his book, “The Anglo-Saxon Tradition. “Such a discovery and faith is indeed not to be produced overnight. It will find its background in the history of the people. In searching for it we can possess our souls in peace, knowing that, whether in peace or war, either way it will be required; and, if in war, it will be equally required in victory or defeat. ... “There is, let us be sure, such a reality as civilization —and this is a pa - tern of values described through the ages, which is a witness against the upstarts of each generation and an enduring measure of the stature of great men. That should give us confidence, even in the blacker hours as we labour. ... “Herr Hitler, in ‘Mein Kampf,’ speaking of the advantage of concentration of territory, says:— . . , . “‘Even Britain is not proof to the contrary against this advantage, tor we are apt to forget the nature of the Anglo-Saxon world in its relation to the British Commonwealth. If only on account of her community of lan guage and culture with the American Union, England cannot be compared with any other State in Europe.’ “It is for us today to decide—and the decision is urgent—whether we still believe in this characteristic culture; and believe that it, and through it, we may contribute, something of note to our common human civilization and to the wider stream of humanism. “For if we are to contribute worthily, our contribution must also be the mind and spirit, and not only of sports and plumbing and variety hum our. The Anglo-Saxon peoples are, in the mass, neither noted as emotional nor logical. Nevertheless, along with that practical temperament that pro duces great architects and engineers they have gifts that have made them second to none as touching the scientists, but also the painters, the poets and the philosophers whom they can boast. “The lands of Boyle, Newton, Darwin, Michelson, Edison, Kelvin; of Reynolds, Gainsborough, Constable,’Turner and Whistler; of sliakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Longfellow, Whittier, ’Tennyson. Browning; of Duns, Occam, Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Bentham. Mill, Janies, Dewey and Russell, need fear comparison with none.
“Nevertheless, at present this notion af a grandeur of Anglo-Saxon culture, not as empty words but as a spiritual reality in which chiefly lies the hope against I lie servile slate, has scarcely yet entered upon the fringe of consciousness of most of our citizens. Within four years, if we are to be saved, it must, become a blazing conviction. . . .
“With France, it. must be in tlie forefront in contributing to the enriching of a new epoch of humanism and human decency. To do this, however, it must first know what it itself stands for spiritually—not accidentally and incidentally.
“Tlie core of the Anglo-Saxon Tradition is the belief that science, research, experiment, initiative, flourish best when there is rational freedom. Hence from this wise, fertile freedom springs progress, concrete progress for the common man.
“But, if science is not to bo permitted to bear its fruits in applied knowledge utilized by our rulers and captains, applied in terms of nutrition, health, cheap goods, cheap electricity, cheap, good clothes and like triumphs of invention that # obliterate class-difference, then it will not be surprising if the unemployed, the miserable, the discontented, the common man, turn from trouble or monotony to the great public works, the vast buildings and motor roads, and absence of unemployment if bought at the cost of authoritarian regimentation, the line marchings and songs and bands of youth of the totalitarian dictatorships.
“It is in human nature. And if initiative or scientific development does not matter, then the chief prop of argument, from the point of view of civiization, for our free, democratic system, is knocked away. . . . “There are times for relaxation and times for discipline, of which dis■ipline we have heretofore been capable. In Anglo-Saxony, as a bearer of liberty, and equality, I see no hope save in the revival today of the relentless spirit once shown by tlie Commonwealth men. Peace is indeed possible, not only by craven submission but by that instinct and just spirit that sees higher than tradesmen’s chafferings and poisoned sectional suspicions, and that conducts life, of man and of nation, as in tlie sight, of its Maker, before Whom Caesars and Czars and tyrants pass and fall like leaves before the autumn wind.
“It involves the vision alike of men and of nation as part of a wider plan, transcending nation and class, of eternal justice that does not fail, rational justice to the enemy and rational justice to ourselves. 1 decline to think our task is easy. I believe it can be done.”
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Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 164, 6 April 1940, Page 15
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837The Anglo-Saxon Tradition Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 164, 6 April 1940, Page 15
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