But The West Did Not Last Long

We Have Entered A New Phase Of Culture - We May Call It The Age Of The Cinema - In Which The Most Amazing Perfection Of Scientific Technique Is Being Devoted To Purely Ephemeral Objects, Without Any Consideration Of Their Ultimate Justification. It Seems As Though A New Society Was Arising Which Will Acknowledge No Hierarchy Of Values, No Intellectual Authority, And No Social Or Religious Tradition, But Which Will Live For The Moment In A Chaos Of Pure Sensation.

The Moment That The State Came Into Conflict With The Higher Power, The Moment That It Set Itself Up As An End In Itself, It Became Identified With Augustine's Earthly City And Lost All Claims To A Higher Sanction Than The Law Of Force And Self-interest. Without Justice, What Is A Great Kingdom But A Great Robbery, Magnum Latrocinium?

The Church As A Divine Society Possess An Internal Principle Of Life Which Is Capable Of Assimilating The Most Diverse Materials And Imprinting Her Own Image Upon Them.

The Sublimated Idealism Of The Enlightenment, The Spirit Of The League Of Nations And Of The United Nations Charter Have Not Proved Strong Enough To Control The Aggressive Dynamism Of Nationalism.

American Literature Has Never Been Content To Be Just One Among The Many Literatures Of The Western World. It Has Always Aspired To Be The Literature Not Only Of A New Continent But Of A New World.