The primitive man found it easy to be in touch with nature. He almost felt himself to be a part of nature. He had not the paraphernalia of “civilisation”. These are often a barrier between man and nature. To live with nature is to learn humility.
The modern man, perhaps, is more intellectual, but less intuitional. The intellect distinguishes, analyses, separates, as intuition seizes in one swift synthesis the “wholes” of life and experience. The self-critical consciousness of the modern mind must rise to a higher stage, that of spiritual culture. It unifies, it develops a synthetic philosophy of life.
Shakespeare has not the heavy self-consciousness of the civilised scholar. Shakespeare was nature’s child. Shakespeare’s mind was illumined by a culture of the spirit. And did not Darwin feel the growing wonder of the world? Evolution does not mean the elimination of the spiritual. “There is in man,” said Darwin, “something more than the breadth of his body.” Newton, Shakespeare, and Darwin, to my mind, are the three creative geniuses of Britain.
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