IN THE SHADOW OF TOMORROW Current Literature
By J. Huizuiga
In the Shadow of Tomorrow (Heine- mann, 7s. 6d.) is an essay on our present discontents by a great his- torian, the author of the famous Das Herbst des Mittelalters. But Professor Huizuiga has perhaps a more intimate understanding of the decay of the middle ages than of the decay of our own culture. He compares our own period with other periods of cultural decline ; but he seem S to' ignore the possibility that what are expe- riencing is not the, end of a period in Western civilisation,' but the end of Western civilisation ' itself. . Indeed, Professor Huizuiga cannot well envisage that possibility, because the values in which he believes so strongly arc entirely conditioned by. Western civilisation. Applying those standards to present conditions, he has no difficulty in exposing the follies and brutalities of our day, its revolt against reason, its worship of the State, its senile adoration of youth, its lack of a style in art and literature, and, above all, its contempt for spiritual values. But it is discon- certing to find the few men who have been creative in an age of sterility, such as Freud, given as the supreme examples of decadence. Iret such errors must arise in the course of an analysis Which, like Professor Ilinzuiga's, is. so abstract and idealist . that it becomes merely an expression of sub- jective prejudices in metaphysical trap- pings. And since Professor Huizuiga thinks entirely in abstractions it is im- possible to discover why, except by religious faith, he is able to believe in the possibility that disaster may yet be averted. Indeed, his outlook is essen- tially a religious one. He looks on society as a sinner, sunk in sloth, bes- tiality and sin, and believes in the possibility of its regeneration by just such a miracle as that by which the sinner is redeemed.
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