It is, as
I think everyone except its thick-and-thin advocates must feel, that
pursued _a outrance_ it lacks a seriousness commensurate with its
claims--that it exhibits indeed a kind of undertone of frivolity that is
all the nearer to the absolutely comic for the earnestness, so to speak,
of its unconsciousness. The reason is, partly no doubt, to be ascribed
to its _debonnaire_ self-satisfaction, its disposition to "lightly run
amuck at an august thing," the traditions of centuries namely, to its
bumptiousness, in a word. But chiefly, I think, the reason is to be
found in its lack of anything properly to be called a philosophy. This
is surely a fatal flaw in any system, because it involves a
contradiction in terms; and to say that to have no philosophy is the
philosophy of the impressionists, is merely a word-juggling bit of
question-begging. A theory of technic is not a philosophy, however
systematic it may be. It is a mechanical, not an intellectual, point of
view. It is not a way of looking at things, but of rendering them. It
expresses no idea and sees no relations; its claims on one's interest
are exhausted when once its right to its method is admitted.
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