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<P ALIGN=center style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><b>
<font size="4">Man
to be Surpassed</font></b></P>
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</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>&quot;MAN
is a thing that shall be surpassed&quot;. This burning phrase of
Nietzsche has unsealed many eyes: it has also scalded and frightened
others. It has been hailed by many as the motto, the mantra of the
age to come; it has been denounced equally as a false light, a lead
of arrogance and egoism.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.4cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Erich Kahler (a Czech now become an American citizen) in
his book <I>Man the Measure </I>seeks to strike a balance, but as the
title indicates, evidently leans more to the second, the reactionary,
than to the original ideal. He posits that man's humanity is to be
preserved and fostered, that is to say, his true humanity, that which
distinguishes him from mere animality. The Greek ideal, according to
Kahler, was an advance upon the animal man; it brought in the ideal
of the rational man. And yet the Greek ideal, in spite of its
acceptance of the whole <I>man – mens sana in corpore sano –
embracing </I>as it did his physical, ethical and <FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&aelig;</FONT>sthetic
development, laid on the whole a greater emphasis upon reason, upon
ration-alising, that is, ordering life according to a rational
pattern. And then the Greek ideal was more for the individual; it was
for the culture and growth of the individuality in man. Society was
considered as composed of such individualised units. The degree of
personal choice, of individual liberty, of free understanding that a
Greek citizen enjoyed marked the evolution secured by man out of the
primitive society. Still the integral man is not the rationalistic
man, even as he is not the mere biological man: and he is not
predominantly individualistic either.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.37cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Yes, man's true humanity, says Kahler, almost echoing
Nietzcshe, consists precisely in his capacity to surpass himself. The
animal is wholly engrossed in its natural nature and</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 358</FONT><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>activities;
but man is capable of standing back, can separate from his biological
self, observe, control and direct. For him &quot;existence&quot;
truly means (as the Existentialist declares today) <I>ex+sistere </I>or
<I>ex+stare, </I>to stay or stand outside. That is the surpassing
enjoyed by him and demanded of him – going beyond one's natural or
normal self. But there is a danger here. For there can be a too much
surpassing, a going away altogether, as religion or spirituality
usually enjoins. Christianity, for example, which is in many senses a
movement contrary to the Greek spirit, taught a transcendence that
was for luring or driving the human soul away from the world and men
towards an extra-terrestrial <I>summum bonum.</I></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.37cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>That is a false light, a wrong lead. Surpassing should
not mean going beyond-up and away: it means rather coming out of
one's self and going abroad, finding one's kinship and unity with
others, with the world around. The individualisation of the self –
given by the Greek culture – was the first step; the next step in
evolution is the &quot;collectivisation&quot; of the self. It is not
in the Nazi or Bolshevic sense that we have to understand the word:
it does not equate with totalitarianism. The peril is there, no
doubt. </FONT>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.37cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>But there was danger in individualism too: and the Greek
polity suffered from it. For individualism meant clash of
personalities: indeed rivalry, ambition, intolerance, arrogance, all
the violent or vulgar movements of egoism occupy a good part of the
life story of the old-world peoples trained in the classical culture.
On the other hand, modern collectivism tends towards a uniform
levelling down of all individual eccentricity. But dangers apart, the
truth of either conception, ingrained in human nature, has to be
recognised and accepted. A humanity, composed of developed and formed
individuals living in broad commonalty – that is the highest
achievement the present author holds before mankind.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.46cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Mr. Kahler does not define very clearly the nature and
function of this commonalty: but it almost borders on what I may call
human humanism, something in the manner of the other modern humanist
Albert Schweitzer. Two types of humanism have been distinguished:
man-centred humanism and God-centred humanism. Kahler's (and even
Schweitzer's) humanism belongs, very much to the first category. He
does</FONT><BR>
</P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 359</FONT><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>not
seem to believe in any transcendent Spirit or God apart from the
universal totality of existence, the unitary life of all, somewhat
akin to the <I>Vie Unanime </I>of Jules Romains.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.4cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>The limitation of such a human ideal is for us evident.
We demand a total surpassing of man, although that does not mean a
rejection of man. Unless human life is built upon foundations quite
other than what they are now, we say there can be no permanent or
radical remedy to the ills it suffers from. Hence we are for utter
transcendence; for, the highest height it is possible for the
consciousness to reach and the being to dwell in, even the experience
of Brahman or un-mitigated Absolute of the Mayavadin or the Zero,
Shunyam of the Buddhist not excluded. Since it is there that the true
foundations of creation lie hidden and it is from there that a new
world has to be recreated, a new humanity reshaped. The very stuff of
human nature has to be changed, not only what is considered as bad in
it but what is valued as good also. For beyond good and evil is
Nature Divine. Man has to find out this divine nature and dissolve
his human nature into that, remould it, reshape it in that pattern.
So long as human consciousness remains too human, it will be always
branded with the bar sinister of all earthly things. Man has to grow
into the immortal seated within mortality, into the light that shines
inviolate on the other side of the darkness we live in. That
immortality, that light one has to bring down here on earth and in
ourselves, and out of it build a new earth and a new human self and
life.</FONT><BR>
</P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 360</FONT></P>
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