Reference: The Story of Philosophy
This paper presents Chapter XI Section 3.3 from the book THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY by WILL DURANT. The contents are from the 1933 reprint of this book by TIME INCORPORATED by arrangement with Simon and Schuster, Inc.
The paragraphs of the original material (in black) are accompanied by brief comments (in color) based on the present understanding.
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Conclusion
If the reader will now summarize for himself these three philosophies, he will perhaps see more justice than at first in that disregard of chronology which placed Santayana before James and Dewey. It is clearer, in retrospect, that the most eloquent and subtle of our living thinkers belongs almost wholly to the cultural traditions of Europe; that William James, though attached in many ways to that tradition, caught the spirit of at least the Eastern America in his thinking, and the spirit of all America in his style; and that John Dewey, product of East and West alike, has given philosophic form to the realistic and democratic temper of his people. It becomes evident that our ancient dependence on European thought is lessening, that we are beginning to do our own work in philosophy, literature and science, and in our own way. Merely beginning, of course: for we are still young, and we have not yet learned to walk entirely without the assistance of our European ancestry. But if we find it hard to surpass ourselves, and are sometimes discouraged with our own superficiality, our provincialism, our narrowness and our bigotry, our immature intolerance and our timid violence against innovation and experiment—let us remember that England needed eight hundred years between her foundation and her Shakespeare; and that France needed eight hundred years between her foundation and her Montaigne. We have drawn to us from Europe, and selected for survival and imitation among ourselves, rather the initiative individualist and the acquisitive pioneer than the meditative and artistic souls; we have had to spend our energies in clearing our great forests and tapping the wealth of our soil; we have had no time yet to bring forth a native literature and a mature philosophy.
It is evident that the ancient dependence on European thought is lessening, that Americans are beginning to do their own work in philosophy, literature and science, and in their own way.
But we have become wealthy, and wealth is the prelude to art. In every country where centuries of physical effort have accumulated the means for luxury and leisure, culture has followed, as naturally as vegetation grows in a rich and watered soil. To have become wealthy was the first necessity; a people too must live before it can philosophize. No doubt we have grown faster than nations usually have grown; and the disorder of our souls is due to the rapidity of our development. We are like youths disturbed and unbalanced, for a time, by the sudden growth and experiences of puberty. But soon our maturity will come; our minds will catch up with our bodies, our culture with our possessions. Perhaps there are greater souls than Shakespeare’s, and greater minds than Plato’s, waiting to be born. When we have learned to reverence liberty as well as wealth, we too shall have our Renaissance.
To have become wealthy was the first necessity; a people too must live before it can philosophize. When we have learned to reverence liberty as well as wealth in America, we too shall have our Renaissance.
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