Отрывок из книги
John Kelman
Published by Good Press, 2019
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The idea of Titanism has become the commonplace of poets. It is familiar in Milton, Byron, Shelley, and countless others, and Goethe tells us that the fable of Prometheus lived within him. Many of the Titanic figures, while they appeared to be blaspheming, were really fighting for truth and justice. The conception of the gods as jealous and contemptuous was not confined to the Greek mythology, but has appeared within the pale of Christian faith as well as in all heathen cults. Nature, in some of its aspects, seems to justify it. The great powers appear to be arrayed against man's efforts, and present the appearance of cruel and bullying strength. Evidently upon such a theory something must go, either our faith in God or our faith in humanity; and when faith has gone we shall be left in the position either of atheists or of slaves. There have been those who accepted the alternative and went into the one camp or the other according to their natures; but the Greek legend did not necessitate this. There was found, as in Æschylus, a hint of reconciliation, which may be taken to represent that conviction so deep in the heart of humanity, that there is "ultimate decency in things," if one could only find it out; although knowledge must always remain dangerous, and may at times cost a man dear.
The real secret lies in the progress of thought in its conceptions of God and life. Nature, as we know and experience it, presents indeed an appalling spectacle against which everything that is good in us protests. God, so long as He is but half understood, is utterly unpardonable; and no man yet has succeeded in justifying the ways of God to men. But "to understand all is to forgive all"—or rather, it is to enter into a larger view of life, and to discover how much there is in us that needs to be forgiven. This is the wonderful story which was told by the Hebrews so dramatically in their Book of Job; and the phases through which that drama passes might be taken as the completest commentary on the myth of Prometheus which ever has been or can be written.
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