Antioch College - Towers Yearbook (Yellow Springs, OH)

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Roy Fickes Mock, Toledo, Ohio Eugene Whitson Nelson, Logansporzf, Indiana Harold Moberly Poland, Ocean Beach, California Xarifa Louise Sallume, Battle Creek, Michigan Reuben Seime, Viroqua, Wisconsin Roland Herbert Shackford, Portland, Maine Ollie Roy Stone, Wyoming, Ohio Robert Lauren Tracy, laclqsonzfille, Florida Raymond Iohn Wiclcst1'om, Duluth, Minnexoza 48

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I use the term achieve advisedly. For a unified and consis- tent life is an achievement, and one of no mean order. It does not simply happen, it will not come about merely by being ex- posed to unified and consistent teaching. It comes from an earnest effort on the part of the learner himself, first, to put together what he knows and then to act accordingly. Permit me to make a slightly different approach. Consis- tent conduct is impossible without a unified knowledge. If we are to act consistently we must, in Matthew Arnold's words, endeavor to see life clearly and see it whole. As Thomson says, it takes a long-necked observer to see the entire f-irmament from one window. So we have divisions of labor among scientists, and we have divisions in the labor of students. These constitute the courses. But the divisions be- tween courses are not insurmountable stone walls. It is a whole we study and that whole is the order of Nature, an organism with parts or members, constituting one body. All of the sci- ences, as well as religion, philosophy, and, indeed, art, are but so many different ways of viewing or approaching nature. 47

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ill PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS CONCERNINGAPHILOSOPHY OF LIFE gl o sHtP can be steered with its wheel lashed fast 5 A the ship without chart and compass can do 7 but drift. So it is with a philosophy of life. If one fe me is to reach a destination, one must have a destina- tion, and not be blown about by every wind of doctrine. On the other hand, the steersman that keeps his course must shift the wheel alertly with every change of wind or fresh ocean current the ship encounters. Wisdom is delicately balanced be- tween loyalty to principle and openness of mind. How easy for constancy to harden into a sort of rigor morris of stupid custom, without variety, adventure, or zest, and how facile the descent from alert intelligence, to mere opportunism and expedieucy, without range, prospect, plan or hope. But where, amid the confusions of this epoch, can a chart be found? One need not despair of an answer. Hold fast the conviction that a man has power, within limits, to choose his course, and there remains only the question of direction. Now two points sullice to determine a line, and any line may be projected into infinity. Every person recognizes some loy- alty beyond his own pleasure, some devotion to a person, group, nation, or cause. This loyalty is to him utterly valid and authoritative. Let him project it into infinity, by working it to the utmost. If it is only the loyalty of the worker to his job, he may give it an infinite projection and make it the beginning of a life-philosophy, by seeking to know the total meaning of the job, its place in the economy of life, all its scientific, technical, and human bearings. Alfred Noyes considered the hand-organ Hunder the aspect of eternity. That is wisdom.