The Value of the Humanities

Abstract

It is comforting for a humanist to reflect upon the well-known words of John Wilson, alias Christopher North, “Animosities are mortal, but the Humanities live forever.” A few extremists may urge that there is more of the darkness of night than of the warmth of Ambrose's tavern in the remark, but humanists who have had experience of concentrated attacks on certain areas of their domain will cling to the promise of a day when hostility will vanish and the value of the Humanities will not be questioned. The immortality claimed for the Humanities in Noctes Ambrosianae is not open to doubt unless human nature suffers in the future a change such as has not occurred during the centuries of evolution and revolution known to history. It is perhaps safe to assume that until such a radical change does occur, men and women will find their understanding widened and their spirit deepened by Aeschylus, Shakespeare, and Goethe, by Rembrandt and Beethoven; they will reflect upon the meaning of “right” and of “good,” of “freedom” and of “truth,” and will profit by the reflections of the truly great thinkers of the past and present; they will be intrigued by the processes which have led to social success and failure, to the development of “higher religions,” and to the building of the imposing structure of modern science both in its pure and in its applied aspects.