Today we live in a material world. All our energies are turned outwards as we interact with a man-made environment dominated by electronic machines and by the ceaseless waves of data which they throw at us. In the past beliefs gave meaning to life, but now its things, gadgets and data, which we imagine empower us, becoming extensions of ourselves. Conventional religion has drastically declined, leaving scientific materialism as the unspoken creed which underpins our civilisation. But it was not always so, even in the recent past. This book looks back to a handful of inspirational figures of the last century who were driven to create personal belief-systems for themselves. Philosophers, scientists, artists critics or poets, their existence was concentrated in the life of the mind, Creative thinking about the nature of their own humanity gave meaning to their lives, and their achievements constitute an important legacy for us today. This is a thought-provoking book which will fascinate those who care about the history of ideas, and about the path our civilisation is following.
The subjects of this study are:
Rainer Maria Rilke, Rudolf Steiner, Gustav Mahler, Martin Heidegger, Arthur Eddington, Edmund Wilson, F.R.Leavis, Le Corbusier, Teilhard de Chardin, Ruth Benedict,
Jackson Pollock, James Merrill
166 pages Illustrated £8.00
Pen to Paper
