The Creative Minority

We live in a hard period marked by the turmoil of the human spirit and the instability of society, because the human civilization we have built with sweat and blood is on the verge of entering a new epoch that may be perfumed with immense possibilities.

But a period of transition is an anxious period, marked by doubt and perplexity. Creeds have been shaken and other creeds have appeared; values have crumbled and upon their ruins values have risen; opinions have spread and theories have circulated, until you see people the whole world over in a kind of distressing spiritual bewilderment and a gnawing anxiety of soul.

Someone may suppose that this crisis of ours is unique, or that it will destroy civilization. That is an error in historical thinking, for this crisis is but one link in a long chain of successive crises through which mankind has passed, and out of which the human spirit has always come victorious. The values of civilization do not die. A setback strikes them and a weakness besets them, but before long they come out of the darkness vigorous again, thanks to the creative minority that keeps its faith and its high ideals.

In the blackness of crises people grope for the light; in the fog they yearn toward the summits robed in light. And in hardships people look about for the leader — and leadership has always lain with the good, luminous minority, rich in its spirit, great in its daring.

Come with me in your imagination to a splendid monument standing on the two banks of a pool in a public garden of a great Western city — a monument with which a spiritual bond grew up in me when I was a student, so that I would find myself walking toward it whenever I felt a weariness in my soul.

The monument is two pieces of rock. One represents Time, and the second represents Humanity. The statue of Time is fearful to look upon: a huge phantom, towering of stature, still with the stillness of death, wrapped in a robe that shrouds it as though it were a specter come up from the depths of the earth. Its sunken eyes, fixed on the far horizon, and its mocking, scornful smile kindle no warmth in you — for what has no life in it has no warmth. So you turn your face to the second piece of the monument, on the opposite bank: the statue of Humanity, throbbing with life. This great rock, which ends in a summit at the farthest east, from behind which the light breaks forth — this great rock, I say, represents the history of man. In this rock the sculptor's chisel has figured the processions of humanity coming out of dark caverns, crawling upward toward the summit of light; and in their crawling is figured life with its cruelty, its misery, and its wretchedness. Hunger and disease, crime and persecution, despair and gloom — they are all there. Gentle, weeping childhood, pale, suffering motherhood, and burdened, mournful old age — you see them all moving with the caravan at a slow pace. And that fearful monument, the monument of Time, stands mocking man's struggle.

But the monument has a radiant face as well, for in it is figured also life in its greatness, and man in his might. In this caravan crawling toward the light there rise above the shoulders of men heads with radiant faces; in their loftiness is majesty, and in their steps is resolve. You see Socrates, the cup of death in his hand. You see Plato in his grove. You see Alexander and his hosts. You see a crucified one, and at the foot of his cross weeping women. You see the Arab Prophet. You see Paul in his prison. You see a pile of firewood upon which a man of learning or a reformer burns. You see Luther translating his Bible. You see Pasteur and his microscope. And as you follow the caravan's march you see here and there a head held high, or a hand stretched out to a weak man, a wretch, or a beggar — and the caravan, all of it together, moves toward the rays breaking forth from behind the summit of light.

You stand before the statue as I stood, and you linger long as I lingered, and no weariness comes over you; rather, the longer you gaze at it, the more the processions of bitter history and of radiant history take shape before you.

And you will stand, as I stood, a long while, gazing at the lifted heads — at the active, creative minority which led, and still leads, the human caravan toward the light.

Search out the victors in the battle of life, the immortals in the register of humanity, the creators in the world of thought and spirit — and whom do you find? The insolent oppressors, or the spirit of justice crying out in the face of aggression? Nero, or his martyrs? Socrates, or those who condemned him to death? Pilate, or Christ? The noble Arab Prophet, or his persecutors of Quraysh? Paul in his prison, or Rome swaggering in its might?

In science, and the blessings that have flowed from it, who unveiled the obscurities of the universe and solved its riddles? A few among men. In society, in reform, who was crucified? Who was persecuted? Who was burned? A few among men. In the battle of life — and history is the record of the battle of freedom — in the battle of life, I say, who shed his blood, who fell slain in the fight, that you might enjoy the blessings of freedom?

A few among men. And in the decisive hours, who took the decisions? Who dared to face the mob? Who defied the times? Who directed the multitudes? A few among men. Even in our republican system, who decides? Is it a matter of numbers, of hands forever raised — or is it a luminous few who cut the road, who propose, direct, and carry out?

It may seem to some of you that I am cheating the masses of their due, in an age that fights to give the masses their due; or that I despise the toiling, silent multitudes laboring unseen, in a period when these multitudes are fighting in defense of their right to life; or that I belong to the party that pleads for the aristocracy, its merit and its rights, because it patronized the arts, and its palaces were a refuge for thought and a haven for learning.

No. For all my acknowledgment of the historical fact, I am of these multitudes; I feel with their feelings and suffer with their sufferings. Nor am I one of the geniuses, that I should count myself among that creative few who rise above the shoulders of men. I am rather one of the modest citizens who believe that every one of us can be numbered in the ranks of the good minority, and that it is not necessary for you or for me to be a poet or an artist or a philosopher or a scientist and inventor in order for you or me to be pressed into the company of the immortals.

I said at the beginning of my talk that we live in a period in which people have lost their faith in spiritual values. Do you believe in spiritual values? Then you are of the creative minority. For the civilization that loses its faith in spiritual values dies.

We live in a period marked by doubt — doubt in everything: in the worth of justice and goodness, in the worth of morals and religion, in the worth of the school and the laboratory, in the worth of life itself. Do you believe in the worth of justice and goodness? Do you believe in man? Do you believe that he is destined to reach the rank of the angels? Then you are of the creative minority.

We live in an atmosphere in which human conceptions have been turned upside down: virtue is scorned, tyranny is magnified, bodily force is sanctified, commercial monopoly is counted genius and opportunism intelligence; and nothing is easier for a man in such an atmosphere than to lose his faith and abandon his ideals. Do you keep your faith in virtue? Do you keep your ideals? Then you are of the creative minority. For every civilization that loses faith in spiritual values, in the human virtues, is a civilization walking toward extinction.

Among the secrets of genius is sacrifice; among its elements, pain; among its circumstances, privation. But among the secrets of genius is immortality; among its elements, victory over pain; among its circumstances, contentment. Let us, then, be of this minority which, though it sacrifice, though it suffer, though it be mocked, remains the minority that leads the caravan toward the light, the good, and the beautiful.