Materialism is the auxiliary
doctrine of every tyranny, whether of the one or of the masses. To crush
what is spiritual, moral, human so to speak, in man, by specializing
him; to form mere wheels of the great social machine, instead of perfect
individuals; to make society and not conscience the center of life, to
enslave the soul to things, to de-personalize man, this is the dominant
drift of our epoch. Everywhere you may see a tendency to substitute the
laws of dead matter (number, mass) for the laws of the moral nature
(persuasion, adhesion, faith) equality, the principle of mediocrity,
becoming a dogma; unity aimed at through uniformity; numbers doing duty
for argument; negative liberty, which has no law _in itself_, and
recognizes no limit except in force, everywhere taking the place of
positive liberty, which means action guided by an inner law and curbed
by a moral authority. Socialism _versus_ individualism: this is how
Vinet put the dilemma. I should say rather that it is only the eternal
antagonism between letter and spirit, between form and matter, between
the outward and the inward, appearance and reality, which is always
present in every conception and in all ideas.
Materialism coarsens and petrifies everything; makes everything vulgar
and every truth false.
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