626 PROSPECTS OF THE WESTERN CIVILIZATION
these second thoughts of Western minds might be commended as the
beginning of wisdom,1 they would not exempt Western hearts from the
duty and ordeal of conversion. Abashed Western intellects must follow
the Hellenic example set by Socrates when he turned away from the
study of an outer physical universe to the exploration of an inner
spiritual one.3 Contrite Western souls must accept a contemporary Asian
verdict that 'Western science is ignorant of the distinction between
worldly knowledge and godly knowledge'3 and a classical Hellenic verdict
that 'omnia . . . ista sagacitas hominum, non sapientia, invenit'.4

'The first scientific quest was concerned, not with the nature of the
Objective Universe, but with the central problem of human fate.5 Dream-
interpretation, Divination and Astrology, the three great branches of
Primitive Science, all attempted to answer the most poignant questions
about the fundamental nature of Man. These questions still remain un-
answered. . . . We know very well that the specific quest of the early
intuitive sciences was not taken over by the scientific disciplines which
superseded them... . Because of the immense success and prestige of the
scientific Weltanschauung, it was hardly noticed until recently that these
central problems of the Human Soul had been omitted from the fields of
Modern Science and Philosophy. ... It would be idle to contend that
extraverted Science and Religion do not serve real human ends. Their
social, ethical, and cultural values are manifest. But the Soul of Man is
still athirst for the essential things which were left behind in the pre-
scientific limbo—things which have lain dormant but are not dead. In the
Unconscious they await the day of resurrection, ready to break through
whenever the spiritual quest is undertaken anew, clothed perhaps in
strange archaic garb, and whispering their primordial longings to our
dreaming minds/6

The negative act of spiritual purification through humility would be a
necessary prelimmary to this positive act of replenishing an empty
Western cistern from well-springs in which the living waters of Religion
had never run dry; and these sources for a renewal of Western Man's
spiritual life were unlikely to be found either in Western or in Russian
geological formations; for History and Scripture had testified with a
conclusive unanimity that the parts of Caesar and Christ could never
both be played by the same person or same people. If either the Ameri-
cans or the Russians were to cast themselves for the Caesarean role of
putting a distracted Oikoumeni into political and material order, they
would thereby be disqualifying themselves for becoming candidates for
the privilege of being chosen to be the prophets of a spiritual revival,
while the West European peoples would have to face the hard truth that
their recent forfeiture of their ephemeral power did not carry with it any
guarantee that these ex-conqui$tadores, ex-proconsuls, and ex-entre-

1 Ps. cxi. 10; Prov. I. 7 and ix, 10,

* See Plato: Phaedo, 96-97, quoted in III. iii. 186-7.

3 P. RanransSthan, Solicitor General of Ceylon: 'The Miscarriage of Life in the West',
in The Hibbert Journal, vol. vii, No. i (London 1909, Williams & Norgate), p. xa.

4 Seneca: Epistulae Morales ad Ludlium, Ep. xc, § n.

s See N. K. Chadwick: Poetry and Prophecy (Cambridge 1942, University Press),
pp. 91-94, quoted in VII. vii 761.—A, J.T.

* Baynes, H. G.: Mythology of the Soul (London 1940, Bailliere, Tindall, & Cox; 1949.
Methuen), pp. 646 and 647-8.