SCIENCE AND CULTURE 9 



We are now passing through a new crisis. 

 Once more science proclaims: "All reality 

 belongs to me! The entire personality of 

 man belongs to me!" And once more man 

 feels astonished and asks: "Is it then definitely 

 proved that my personality is nothing but a 

 vain show? That I am really a thing like 

 other things and that human culture, like the 

 cultivation of trees or plants, ought to be 

 reduced to the passive application of laws for- 

 mulated by the theoretical sciences?" 



The principle of culture up to the present 

 time has triumphed over the assaults which 

 have been made upon it. Is it to be expected 

 that the result of the present crisis will be the 

 same? 



II 



It might seem enough for the resolution of 

 this question to appeal to that law of rhythm 

 and alternation which in a general way gov- 

 erns the manifestations of life. Humanity 

 seems to be walking like a drunken man, now 

 escaping a fall to the left hand by an exag- 

 gerated movement to the right, now throwing 



