The aspects of society that humanism most exalts are justice and continuity. That is why humanism is always being presented with a contradiction. For when it speaks of justice it holds that the human condition is absolute; yet when it speaks of continuity it implies that society is not absolute but pragmatic and even anomalous. Its intelligence dictates the removal of all that is anomalous; yet its ideal of social continuity is validated by by its perception that the effort to destroy anomaly out of hand will probably bring new and even worse anomalies, the nature of man being what it is. 'Let justice be done though the heavens fall' is balanced by awareness that after the heavens fall justice will not ever be done again.

The definitions of humanism are many, but let us here take it to be the attitude of those men who think it an advantage to live in society, and, at that, in a …

Arnold must have for us the something of the character of what we nowadays have taken to calling a 'culture hero': that is, a man who gives himself in full sub…

After all, no one is ever taken in by the happy ending, but we are often divinely fuddled by the tragic curtain.

Compassion is no substitute for justice.

I do not believe in the doctrine of the greatest good of the greatest number. The only real, dignified, human doctrine is the greatest good of all.

Law, in its most general and comprehensive sense, signifies a rule of action; and is applied indiscriminately to all kinds of action, whether animate, or inani…