I feel the
inadequacy of his mind and ideas for supplying the rule of human
society, for perfection.
Culture tends always thus to deal with the men of a system, of
disciples, of a school; with men like Comte, or the late Mr. Buckle,
[423] or Mr. Mill.[424] However much it may find to admire in these
personages, or in some of them, it nevertheless remembers the text: "Be
not ye called Rabbi!" and it soon passes on from any Rabbi. But
Jacobinism loves a Rabbi; it does not want to pass on from its Rabbi in
pursuit of a future and still unreached perfection; it wants its Rabbi
and his ideas to stand for perfection, that they may with the more
authority recast the world; and for Jacobinism, therefore, culture,--
eternally passing onwards and seeking,--is an impertinence and an
offence. But culture, just because it resists this tendency of
Jacobinism to impose on us a man with limitations and errors of his own
along with the true ideas of which he is the organ, really does the
world and Jacobinism itself a service.
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