A Treasury of Albert Schweitzer

Albert Schweitzer

• Publisher: Philosophical Library/Open Road
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781497675759
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Literary Essays

Collected here in a single volume are the most important philosophical writings of Albert Schweitzer, one of the greatest thinkers and humanitarians of our time. Carefully chosen from among his many written works, the selections in this anthology illuminate and amplify Dr. Schweitzer's cardinal principle of belief—a reverence for life. Among the important and revealing works included are "Pilgrimage to Humanity," which outlines his philosophy of culture, the early influences in his life, and his ideal of world peace; "The Light Within Us," one of the twentieth century's most significant and beautiful statements of one man's faith in his fellow man; and "Reverence for Life," which states, with great clarity and conviction, the essence of Schweitzer's wisdom.
Because of his legendary fame as a medical missionary, other equally important and outstanding aspects of Schweitzer's life are not as well known. Readers of this book will realize that Albert Schweitzer was a truly creative thinker, whose concern with the problems of the human spirit and whose methods of expressing this concern have raised him to the stature of one of the world's foremost philosophers.

Book Three

Pilgrimage to Humanity

The world—majesty masking the dreadful, the absurd hidden in the rational, joy embracing suffering. [1]

Europe and Human Culture*

Only an ethical energy can redeem us from our want of culture. [2] What is culture? Its essence is the ethical perfecting of individuals and of society. Every spiritual and material development possesses a meaning for culture. The will to culture is a universal will to progress which recognizes the ethical as the highest value. Apart from all the meaning which we ascribe to the advancement of knowledge and skills, it is clear that only a humanity which strives for ethical ideals can really partake in full measure of the blessings of material progress. Moreover, only such a humanity can be master among the perils such an advance brings with it. For a generation which exhibits and deems fitting for itself a faith in an immanent, automatic, and naturally realized process of development, ethical ideals are no longer needed. But to live by a faith in the competence of knowledge and skills alone leads to the frightful consequences of error in which we find ourselves. The only possible escape from the present chaos is for us to be guided by a concept of culture in which the ideals of genuine culture are sovereign.

What is the world-view in which the universal will to progress and the ethical will to progress are united and grounded in one another?

It consists in ethical world-affirmation and life-affirmation.

What are world-affirmation and life-affirmation?

For us Europeans and descendants of Europeans, the will to progress is something so natural and self-evident that we no longer recognize that it is rooted in a world-view and springs from a spiritual act. If we look around us in the world, we immediately perceive, however, that what is so obvious to us is really anything but self-evident. [3] The world-view which prevails among a people determines whether or not the will to progress is present. The world-view of world-negation and life-negation precludes it; that of world-affirmation and life-affirmation promotes it. Among primitives and half-primitives, whose undeveloped world-view is not yet related to the problem of world-affirmation or world-negation, no will to progress is present. Their ideal is the simplest and least troublesome sort of life.

As a result of the fortunes of time and because of a transformation in our world-view, we Europeans are enchanted with the will to progress. [4] The struggle for material and spiritual development which prevails among modern European men arises from the world-view which they entertain. In the Renaissance and religious movements connected with it, man became newly related to himself and to the world. This reorientation awakened in him the need to create spiritual and material values which would promote a higher development of men and humanity. Nevertheless, modern European man is not inspired in the direction of progress simply because he hopes personally to profit from it. On the contrary, he is more preoccupied with the fortunes which will befall coming generations than with his own condition. Enthusiasm for progress infuses him. Impressed by the great experiences which the world has evidently produced and preserved for him by the exercise of practical and dynamic powers, he determines that he will himself become a purposeful and vigorous force in the world. With high confidence he looks forward to new and better times which will dawn for mankind; and he understands that the power of the ideals advanced and practiced by the many conquers and transforms the conditions of life. In this will to material progress, which is united with the ethical, modern culture is grounded. [5]

Under the influence of Christianity, philosophical ethics acquired an enthusiasm which was not up to that time characteristic of it. Conversely, as a result of the impact of philosophical energies, Christian ethics began to reflect on what it should really mean and what it must accomplish. From this felicitous fusion, there arose the conviction that ethics could no longer permit what it had earlier allowed, namely, injustices, cruelties, and the heinous effects of superstition. Torture was to be done away with. The scourge of witchcraft trials was to be eliminated. Humane principles were to take the place of inhuman laws. [6] An endeavor to understand the principles and ends of law accompanied the struggle against illegality and inhumane practices. Jeremy Bentham, for example, raised his prophetic voice against laws which permitted usury, foolish customs barriers, and inhuman colonization.

An era of the sovereignty of the practical and the moral appeared on history’s horizon. People began to grasp the concepts of duty and honor by which the human community was later nourished. Without alarm, a profound and felicitous reform in conduct was achieved. The education of men for civilized life was carried forward in nobler ways. The public welfare was elevated as a standard of judgment for governments and for their subjects. At the same time, men began to appreciate that every human being should be able to exercise himself in a manner commensurate with his own dignity and welfare. The war against ignorance was under way. [7]

With the discovery that reason teaches the principle of love, there came a reformation which has no equal in the history of humanity. [8]

Nevertheless, the course of modern European thought reveals a tragedy. By a slow but irresistible process, the union of the ethical and world-affirmation and life-affirmation has been dissolving and threatens to disappear completely. Consequently, European humanity is infused and impelled by a will to progress which is superficial and improperly oriented. [9]

In the nineteenth century, the spirit of realism raised its head.… The first important personality in which it was incarnate was Napoleon I. The first significant thinker who acted as its prophet was the German philosopher Hegel. According to Hegel, men do not find it necessary to transform reality in order to bring it into conformity with ideals established by thought. Progress itself establishes and preserves the correlation in a natural way. In one way or another, the passions of dominant personalities and of nations subserve progress—even war. The notion that ethical idealism is a kind of sentimentalism, with which one can achieve nothing in the world of reality, originated with Hegel. He voices the theory of realism in a phrase, when he writes, “What is rational is real; and what is real is rational.” When this formula was written on June 25, 1820, our age was born—an age which continues to move toward world war and which will perhaps one day destroy culture completely.

Hegel ventures to assert that everything subserves progress. The passions of rulers and nations are servants of progress. We can only say that Hegel did not know national passions as we know them; otherwise he would not have dared to write that! … Will we be able again to entertain and exercise ideals which can transform reality? This is the question before us today. [10]

A proper understanding of the laws and limits of human thought is required if we are to clear the building site for the construction of a future philosophy.… As great and as significant as the progress of natural science has been, the materialistic philosophy bound up with it will be of no help. It will always display the same poverty and the same radical errors. Although some distinguished scientific scholars have recognized this, materialism nevertheless continues to believe that its future is firmly fixed by the development of natural science.… For the foreseeable future, materialism will remain the philosophical religion of truncated intellects. Consequently, Feuerbach is destined to be resurrected in many editions and in many periodicals. [11]

Our philosophy incorporates only unstable fragments of an edifying world-view which hovers before it. As a result, our culture remains fragmentary and insecure.

It was disastrous that western thinkers did not confess the unsatisfactory results and the futility of their search for a secure, valuable world-view. Our philosophy became more and more superficial. Thinkers lost touch with the elemental questions which man has posed about life and the world. More and more they found themselves gorged on a diet of pedantic philosophical questions and of the professional manipulation of philosophical technicalities. Instead of producing genuine philosophy, they concocted in a professional and perfunctory manner an impotent brew. Often their maneuvers were versatile and professional, but the results were nevertheless impotence and irrelevance.

This artificial philosophizing failed to grapple with a world-view founded in thought and directed to the service of life. Through it we lost an invigorating world-view and, consequently, culture.

Some signs of self-reflection are beginning, however, to make their appearance. Here and there we discover a recognition that a philosophy must again be sought which will offer men a meaningful world-view. [12]

The mind of mankind must be renewed, if it is not to go down to destruction. [13]

When the thought of future thinkers moves to a deeper, more ethical will to progress, we will be redeemed from our want of culture and its attendant miseries and move toward genuine culture. Sooner or later that true and definitive renaissance which brings peace to the world must dawn. [14]

* Schweitzer’s “Kultur” is rendered by “culture” rather than, as is commonly the case, by “civilization.”

African Problems

When I am in a boat with Africans who ask what is different in Europe from what it is here, I describe three of the most striking things. At one time or another, most of the Africans connected with the Lambaréné hospital have heard me speak of them. Repetition brings them as new to their ears. They continue to be amazed by them and to comment on them.

First, I tell them that there are forest fires in Europe. This they cannot understand, for even in the dry season here it is so damp that the forest cannot catch fire, no matter what one does to set it ablaze. Even trees which are cut in the dry season and left to dry for months cannot easily be burned. Only the small and middle-sized branches are consumed. The large branches and the great trunks are simply charred.

At the sawmills here, owner and workers smoke their pipes and shake out the glowing embers into the sawdust. It is so damp that there is no danger of fire. The African cannot understand that in Europe a forest fire may be started by someone dropping a burning match.

After they have made their comments on this remarkable event, I tell them that in Europe people row boats for pleasure. This revelation is greeted with unrestrained laughter and a flood of questions. “Who order them to row?” “No one.” “Someone must give them a gift for doing it.” “No, they do it willingly and for nothing. They often row until they are completely exhausted!”

Their remarks on this matter are apparently endless. Here in Africa, if the men in two canoes are going upstream or downstream together, they may race each other for a short distance. But the idea that people will get into a boat, not wanting to go on a journey or without articles to be transported, simply in order to row is incomprehensible for the African. Furthermore, the idea that they will use their leisure time in this senseless activity is incredible. I do not attempt to make clear to them what sport is. Their life is such that they have to use their physical energies more than they like. Consequently, they cannot understand how people will exert themselves when not forced to do so.

The third thing I tell them is that in Europe a man can marry without having to pay for his wife. This cannot be true, they say. The doctor is having some fun at the expense of the poor black man. [15]

Among primitive people, taboo is extremely important. Taboo means that something must be avoided, lest misfortune or death results. The origin of taboo ideas is a dark matter. Some taboos have significance for all members of a group. Others have a meaning only for certain individuals. Among those of general significance, there are the important taboos to be observed by a man whose wife is expecting a child. The Pahouin taboo forbids him to eat meat which has begun to smell (apart from the taboo, the natives readily eat meat which is almost putrid), to touch a chameleon, to fill a hole with earth, to drive nails, to be present at the death of a man or a beast, to have anything to do with a dead body, to step over a procession of driver ants, and to do many other things.

At one time I was upset when Africans absolutely refused to carry the bier at hospital funerals. By presents and pressure, I tried to persuade them, when their turn came. A man would fall on his knees, begging me to release him from the task. Since then I have come to appreciate the inner conflicts my requests produced. Nowadays I use only volunteers for this duty, and they receive a fixed wage for their service. [16]

There is nothing in the life of these people which cannot become the object of a taboo. [17] Some women have the idea that, if their first child is a boy, either they or the child must die.… The fact that some Africans die if their taboo is violated can only be explained on the ground that their belief in taboo affects them mentally in a way beyond our ability to imagine. Certain Europeans who have earned the confidence of the Africans can accomplish something in such cases by their spiritual authority. [18] For the African, Christianity is the light which shines in the darkness of fear. It assures him that he is not under the control of nature-spirits, ancestral gods, or fetishes. It testifies that no man exercises any uncanny power over another. It signifies that only God’s will is sovereign in all events.

“I lay in cruel bondage,

Thou cam’st and mad’st me free!”

The words of Paul Gerhardt’s advent hymn express better than any others what Christianity means for primitive man. [19]

Speaking of my work in the primeval forest of Equatorial Africa provides an opportunity to express myself on the difficult problems of colonization among primitive people.

Do we Europeans have the right to impose our rule on primitive and half-primitive people? No, if we desire only to rule and to get material gain from their lands. Yes, if we seriously intend to educate them and to help them realize a condition of well-being. Were it really possible for them to live unto themselves, we could leave them to their own devices. But the fact is that international trade has made its impact on them. Neither we nor they can undo this. Already they have lost their freedom because of it. Their economic and social fabric has been transformed by it. As a result, the chiefs, by use of the weapons and wealth international trade has brought to them, reduce the mass of the natives to servitude and turn them into slaves who are required to work for the export trade in order to enrich the few. Moreover, sometimes people themselves become merchandise to be exchanged for money, lead, gunpowder, tobacco, and liquor, just as in the days of slave trading. In face of the situation produced by the advent of international trade, there is no question of real freedom of self-determination. It is only a question as to whether native peoples are to be left to the mercies, good and evil, of greedy native rulers or to be ruled by officials of European nations.

Many of those who undertook, in our name, to seize colonial lands were guilty of acts of injustice, violence, and cruelty which were just as offensive as those of the native rulers. A heavy load of guilt, therefore, rests upon us. Not one of the sins committed against native peoples today should be buried in silence or excused. [20]

The tragic fact is that the interests of colonization and those of civilization are not commensurate. On the contrary, t...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Editor’s Preface
• Book One: Reverence for Life
• Book Two: The Light Within us
• Book Three: Pilgrimage to Humanity
• Book Four: Philosophy of Religion
• Acknowledgments and Sources
• Copyright Page