The Sleepwalkers (262 page)

In
this
safely
bounded
world
of
comfortable
dimensions,
a
well-ordered
drama
was
taking
its
pre-ordained
course.
The
stage
remained
static
from
beginning
to
end:
there
was
no
change
in
the
species
of
animals
and
plants,
no
change
in
the
nature,
social
order
and
mentality
of
man.
There
was
neither
progress
nor
decline
within
the
natural
and
spiritual
hierarchy.
The
total
body
of
possible
knowledge
was
as
limited
as
the
universe
itself;
everything
that
could
be
known
about
the
Creator
and
his
creation
had
been
revealed
in
Holy
Scripture
and
the
writings
of
the
ancient
sages.
There
existed
no
sharp
boundaries
between
the
natural
and
the
supernatural:
matter
was
imbued
with
animal
spirits,
natural
law
was
interpenetrated
with
divine
purpose;
there
was
no
event
without
a
final
cause.
Transcendental
justice
and
moral
values
were
inseparable
from
the
natural
order;
no
single
event
or
fact
was
ethically
neutral;
no
plant
or
metal,
no
insect
or
angel
exempt
from
moral
judgement;
no
phenomenon
was
outside
the
hierarchy
of
values.
Every
suffering
had
its
reward,
every
disaster
its
meaning;
the
plot
of
the
drama
had
a
simple
outline,
a
clear
beginning
and
end.

This
briefly,
was
our
forebear's
view
of
the
world
less
than
fifteen
generations
ago.
Then,
roughly
within
the
five
generations
from
Canon
Koppernigk
to
Isaac
Newton,
homo
sapiens
underwent
the
most
decisive
change
in
his
history:

"The
gloriously
romantic
universe
of
Dante
and
Milton,
that
set
no
bounds
to
the
imagination
of
man
as
it
played
over
space
and
time,
had
now
been
swept
away.
Space
was
identified
with
the
realm
of
geometry,
time
with
the
continuity
of
number.
The
world
that
people
had
thought
themselves
living
in
–
a
world
rich
with
colour
and
sound,
redolent
with
fragrance,
filled
with
gladness,
love
and
beauty,
speaking
everywhere
of
purposive
harmony
and
creative
ideals
–
was
crowded
now
into
minute
corners
in
the
brains
of
scattered
organic
beings.
The
really
important
world
outside
was
a
world
hard,
cold,
colourless,
silent,
and
dead;
a
world
of
quantity,
a
world
of
mathematically
computable
motions
in
mechanical
regularity.
The
world
of
qualities
as
immediately
perceived
by
man
became
just
a
curious
and
quite
minor
effect
of
that
infinite
machine
beyond."
²⁸

The
uomo
universale
of
the
Renaissance,
who
was
artist
and
craftsman,
philosopher
and
inventor,
humanist
and
scientist,
astronomer
and
monk,
all
in
one,
split
up
into
his
component
parts.
Art
lost
its
mythical,
science
its
mystical
inspiration;
man
became
again
deaf
to
the
harmony
of
the
spheres.
The
Philosophy
of
Nature
became
ethically
neutral,
and
"blind"
became
the
favourite
adjective
for
the
working
of
natural
law.
The
space-spirit
hierarchy
was
replaced
by
the
space-time
continuum.

As
a
result,
man's
destiny
was
no
longer
determined
from
"above"
by
a
super-human
wisdom
and
will,
but
from
"below"
by
the
sub-human
agencies
of
glands,
genes,
atoms,
or
waves
of
probability.
This
shift
of
the
locus
of
destiny
was
decisive.
So
long
as
destiny
had
operated
from
a
level
of
the
hierarchy
higher
than
man's
own,
it
had
not
only
shaped
his
fate,
but
also
guided
his
conscience
and
imbued
his
world
with
meaning
and
value.
The
new
masters
of
destiny
were
placed
lower
in
the
scale
than
the
being
they
controlled;
they
could
determine
his
fate,
but
could
provide
him
with
no
moral
guidance,
no
values
and
meaning.
A
puppet
of
the
Gods
is
a
tragic
figure,
a
puppet
suspended
on
his
chromosomes
is
merely
grotesque.

Before
the
shift,
the
various
religions
had
provided
man
with
explanations
of
a
kind
which
gave
to
everything
that
happened
to
him
meaning
in
the
wider
sense
of
transcendental
causality
and
transcendental
justice.
But
the
explanations
of
the
new
philosophy
were
devoid
of
meaning
in
this
wider
sense.
The
answers
of
the
past
had
been
varied,
contradictory,
primitive,
superstitious
or
whatever
one
likes
to
call
them,
but
they
had
been
firm,
definite,
imperative.
They
satisfied,
at
least
for
a
given
time
and
culture,
man's
need
for
reassurance
and
protection
in
an
unfathomably
cruel
world,
for
some
guidance
in
his
perplexities.
The
new
answers,
to
quote
William
James,
'made
it
impossible
to
find
in
the
driftings
of
the
cosmic
atoms,
whether
they
work
on
the
universal
or
on
the
particular
scale,
anything
but
a
kind
of
aimless
weather,
doing
and
undoing,
achieving
no
proper
history,
leaving
no
result.'
In
a
word,
the
old
explanations,
with
all
their
arbitrariness
and
patchiness,
answered
the
question
after
'the
meaning
of
life'
whereas
the
new
explanations,
with
all
their
precision,
made
the
question
of
meaning
itself
meaningless.
As
man's
science
grew
more
abstract,
his
art
became
more
esoteric,
and
his
pleasures
more
chemical.
In
the
end
he
was
left
with
nothing
but
'an
abstract
heaven
over
a
naked
rock'.