Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy by Gerald Stanley Lee
page 20 of 630 (03%)
page 20 of 630 (03%)
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This will have to be done first in a book. The modern world is
collecting its thoughts. It is trying to write its bible. The Bible of the Hebrews (which had to be borrowed by the rest of the world if they were to have one) is the one great outstanding fact and result of the Hebrew genius. They did not produce a civilization, but they produced a book for the rest of the world to make civilizations out of, a book which has made all other nations the moral passengers of the Hebrews for two thousand years. And the whole spirit and aim of this book, the thing about it that made it great, was that it was the sublimest, most persistent, most colossal, masterful attempt ever made by men to look forth upon the earth, to see all the men in it, like spirits hurrying past, and to answer the question, "WHERE ARE WE GOING?" I would not have any one suppose that in these present tracings and outlines of thought I am making an attempt to look upon the world and say where the people are going, and where they think they are going, and where they want to go. I have attempted to find out, and put down what might seem at first sight (at least it did to me) the answer to a very small and unimportant question--"Where is it that I really want to go myself?" "What kind of a world is it, all the facts about me being duly considered, I really want to be in?" No man living in a world as interesting as this ever writes a book if he can help it. If Mr. Bernard Shaw or Mr. Chesterton or Mr. Wells had been so good as to write a book for me in which they had given the answer to my question, in which they had said more or less authoritatively for me what kind of a world it is that I want to be in, this book would never |
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