Let us widen the concept of humanism, dear to our forefathers, though its meaning has been narrowed down to the signification of Greek and Latin manuals. In every age, states, universities, academies, all the conservative forces of the mind, have endeavoured to make humanism in this narrower sense a dike against the onslaughts of the new spirit, in philosophy, in morals, in aesthetics. The dike has burst. The framework of a privileged culture has been broken. To-day we have to accept humanism in its widest signification, embracing all the spiritual forces of the whole world. What we need is, panhumanism.
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It is our hope that this ideal, formulated here and there by a few leading minds, or heralded by the foundation while the war is yet in progress of centres for the study of universal civilisation,[1] shall be boldly adopted as its ensign by the international academy, in the foundation of which I hope (with Gerhard Gran) that Norway will take the initiative.
I note that Gerhard Gran seems, like Professor Fredrik Stang, to limit his ambitions to the foundation of an institute for scientific research, for in his view science is in its essence more international than art and letters. He writes:
“In art and literature we may, in case of need, discuss the advantages and disadvantages resulting from the isolation of one nation from the rest, or from the antagonism of human groups. In science, such a discussion is absurd. The kingdom of science is the whole world.… The atmosphere indispensable to science has nothing whatever to do with national conflicts.”
- ↑ For instance, the Institut für Kulturforschung (Institute for the Study of Civilisation) of Vienna (see above p. 19). This Institute has just founded a Society for the Study of World Civilisation, which issues a periodical entitled “Erde, a journal for the intellectual life of the whole of mankind.” The first number, which comes to hand while I am correcting the proof of these pages, is throughout an ardent confession of “panhumanist” faith.
