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    On the Nature of Man: An Essay in Primitive Philosophy
    On the Nature of Man: An Essay in Primitive Philosophy
    On the Nature of Man: An Essay in Primitive Philosophy
    Ebook85 pages58 minutes

    On the Nature of Man: An Essay in Primitive Philosophy

    By Dagobert D. Runes

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    About this ebook

    This work of philosophical soul-searching explores the mysteries of human life and consciousness.

    In this fascinating work of spiritual philosophy, Dagobert D. Runes sets out on a contemplative journey unencumbered by the traditional manner and terminology of philosophical writing. His purpose here is to articulate the true essence of humanity and human thought. By turns inspiring and melancholy, Runes peels back the layers of quotidian life to explore its deepest meaning.

    As Runes puts it in this volume: “What goes on in the core of our mind, this tumult created of our vexation with the business of animal living, lies just in our mind. Our mind is our whole world; the whole world is in our mind.”
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPhilosophical Library Open Road
    Release dateFeb 22, 2022
    ISBN9781504074773
    On the Nature of Man: An Essay in Primitive Philosophy
    Author

    Dagobert D. Runes

    Dagobert D. Runes was born in Zastavna, Bukovina, Austria-Hungary (now in Ukraine), and received a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Vienna in 1924. In 1926 he emigrated to the United States, where he became editor of the Modern Thinker and later Current Digest. From 1931 to 1934 he was director of the Institute for Advanced Education in New York City, and in 1941 he founded the Philosophical Library, a spiritual organization and publishing house. Runes published an English translation of Karl Marx’s On the Jewish Question under the title A World Without Jews, featuring an introduction that was clearly antagonistic to extreme Marxism and “its materialism,” yet he did not entirely negate Marxist theory. He also edited several works presenting the ideas and history of philosophy to a general audience, including his Dictionary of Philosophy.

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      Book preview

      On the Nature of Man - Dagobert D. Runes

      THE QUEST

      As I write these lines, and as you read them, we find ourselves aware of living in an ocean of energies. We are much like a tree in the forest, visibly growing from sapling to huge ripe trunk. As time goes on, we wither away, dry and lifeless, unless some blight cuts us down before our time.

      What is man, beyond the awareness of shooting up for a while from parental roots into a being like his parents, then growing to be like his grandparents? And there the drama ends, except that man too sets out seedlings for tomorrow’s growth.

      Still, we are not mere plants. We are animals prowling for food and shelter. We move about restlessly. Yet we are not mere animals either, forever on the hunt unless asleep—we are imbued with an awesome feeling of nature beyond the touch of paw and nose, of tongue and tooth, of ear and eye. The trees turn knowingly with the wind; spiders spin webs cunningly; but we fashion thoughts and tales and tartans in zigzags and spires which wander and rise far beyond their use and purpose.

      We are spiritual.

      We are plants inspired by unpredictable notions of useless games, by intricate laws and bizarre morals that give us more unease than comfort; by fanciful cogitations about invisibilities—we are full of mysteries that, at least to our perception, trouble neither tree nor tapir.

      What goes on in the core of our mind, this tumult created of our vexation with the business of animal living, lies just in our mind. Our mind is our whole world; the whole world is in our mind.

      Our sculpture is just a rock to the bird, our painting only a greasy canvas to the cat, our songs scarcely a noise to the fish, and the words spouting from our lips—what are they to the tree?

      To a city of ants, a destructive rip of the bulldozer means the end of the world; perhaps to a shoal of fish, the draining of a pool means the Great Drought; to a stranded herd of sheep the river’s overflow in spring is the Everlasting Flood; and to the worm in a stomach there is no world outside those walls.

      Man splits some atoms and talks of harnessing the universe. Which universe? Which one of the infinite universes?

      Man, little two-legged man, riding like a fungus on an elephant at breathless speed on this uncontrollable gigantic rock vehicle through endless space in aeonic time—man finds himself aware of some few of the unfathomed energies of this little globe, and in his mind he appears nature’s master, deus ex machina.

      The homing pigeon which finds its way high above a hundred miles of broken landscape, the bat which flies in the black of night, the salmon which crosses an ocean against fearful obstacles, the tiny caterpillar which spins an almost perfect cocoon, the day-old chick which pecks a grain instead of a pebble—they all, and many million others from microbe to gorilla, live under manifold energies as strange to us as the turning of the green plant to the sun.

      Certainly there are quick and quack answers to every query. It is amazing how rapidly shallow explanations come forth. Sometimes men even think they solve a problem by giving it a Greek or Latin name.

      We are shipwrecked on this watery, germ- and microbe-infested splinter of a minor star and are just another growth on it, shifting for food and shelter. And after all is said and done, today as in the age of the stilt-dwellers, the days of man are still devoted to the lowly purpose of digging for food and toiling for shelter.

      But man is spiritual.

      Man must ponder. He ponders his past and learns from mistakes as well as successes; he ponders his future in looking back at his past; he ponders the lines on the horizon and the lines on the face of his mate; he ponders the thunder and lightning, the sun, the moon and the stars, the heaving ocean and the rising mountains, the green of the faraway valley and the blooming sweetness of the flowers, the fury of the howling beasts and the uncertainty about his neighbor—man ponders, and from his meditations, his fears, his loves and anguish, spring helpful faith and philosophies, lawful union and the manners of comfortable living.

      This is all man’s world in man’s mind; man’s mind is man’s world.

      To the timeless universe coursing through infinite space, what is this all but the dreams and doodlings of a blade of grass in the evening wind?

      That which man calls beauty—what is it? That which man calls knowledge—what is it? What man calls moral—what is it? What he calls heritage—what is it? The blade of grass is singing in the wind and it thinks the wide, wide universe

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