NO SYNTHETIC LIFE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4544, 4 March 1942, Page 3

NO SYNTHETIC LIFE

PRODUCT OF DIVINE FORCE “ Man can make synthetic rubber, but not synthetic life. Everything that lives and breathes is the product of another force, and I do not hesitate to name it as divine; and man is godlike or great only when he perceives life and through his perception masters it. That is why poets, artists, and thinkers have been called divine, but never inventors, technicians, or generals. “ We say divine Homer, divine Duse, divine Michaelangelo, but not divine Edison, divine Newton, and never, even at the zenith of his glory, divine Napoleon. And those Caesars and emperors who set themselves among the gods, in whatever age, were the ones to lead their peoples and their empires along the path of ruin. “ The adoration of inanimate objects, the Golden Calf, money, technical achievements, is never any more than a substitute for the perception of and high regard for creative being. But man carries within himself the spark of its spirit, the power of its love. “ Only animate love can produce real power over things; and even a candle, an oil-lamp, a loom, a pewterpot was once as much of a technical product as the electric bulb and the tractor; and they became familiar, home-like, animated things because they served the generations of man and were closely related to their creature life. “ Even a .weapon can win a soul when it is being wielded in a good and human cause; but its dynamic power may never be worshipped in its own right.”—Carl Zuckmayer, an anti-Nazi, in his autobiography.