Tertium Organum

part of ministers of 
religion.
All these are utter absurdities of which only men 
are capable. 
A right understanding of 
morality,
not as it is but as it should be, could 
save us to a great extent from such perversions of thought. Altogether, there 
is very little morality in our life. European culture has followed the path of 
intellectual development. The intellect invented and organized without 
thinking of the moral meaning of its activity, and this led to the result that the 
crown of European culture is the 'Dreadnought'. 
Many people think in this way, and because of this take a negative attitude 
to all culture. But this also is unfair. Besides the 'Dreadnought', European
thought has produced much that is useful and valuable, much that makes life 
easier. The working out 
of principles of 
freedom and justice; the abolition of 
slavery (though nominal); in many spheres, victory over hostile nature; 
means of disseminating 

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thought, the press; the miracles of modern medicine and surgery - all these are 
undoubtedly real achievements and must be taken into consideration. 
But there is no 
morality in them, 
i.e. no truth but, on the contrary, a great many lies. We are satisfied 
with principles as principles, lulled by the thought that one day they will be applied to 
life, and we are in no way surprised or disturbed by the fact that, while we evolve 
beautiful principles, the whole of our life (i.e. the life of cultured humanity) goes in the 
opposite direction. A cultured European invents with equal ease a machine-gun and a 
new surgical apparatus. European culture started with the life of a savage, as though 
taking this life for a pattern and beginning to develop 
all its sides,
without thinking of 
their moral value. The savage smashed the head of his enemy with a simple club. We 
have invented very complicated devices for the same purpose which are capable of 
smashing simultaneously hundreds and thousands of heads. Flying, about which men 
dreamed for thousands of years, has been achieved, and used first of all for the 
purposes of war. 
Morality
should have been the co-ordination of 
all
sides of life, i.e. of the actions of 
man and humanity with the higher emotions and the higher attainments of the intellect. 
From this point of view it becomes clear why it has been said earlier that morality is a 
form of aesthetics. Aesthetics - the 
sense
of beauty, is the 
sense
of the relationship of