* * * * *

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

Footnotes added by the Translator, other than those which merely
supplement references to writers or their works mentioned in the text,
are distinguished by his initials.




I

THE MAN OF FLESH AND BONE


_Homo sum; nihil humani a me alienum puto_, said the Latin playwright.
And I would rather say, _Nullum hominem a me alienum puto_: I am a man;
no other man do I deem a stranger. For to me the adjective _humanus_ is
no less suspect than its abstract substantive _humanitas_, humanity.
Neither "the human" nor "humanity," neither the simple adjective nor the
substantivized adjective, but the concrete substantive--man. The man of
flesh and bone; the man who is born, suffers, and dies--above all, who
dies; the man who eats and drinks and plays and sleeps and thinks and
wills; the man who is seen and heard; the brother, the real brother.

For there is another thing which is also called man, and he is the
subject of not a few lucubrations, more or less scientific. He is the
legendary featherless biped, the _zôon politikhon_ of Aristotle,
the social contractor of Rousseau, the _homo economicus_ of the