Читать книгу The Goose-step: A Study of American Education онлайн

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With Nicholas Murray Butler I took a course in the critical philosophy. At this time he was a modest professor, and his dazzling career lay in the future. I shall have many impolite things to say about Butler, so let me make it plain that there is nothing personal in my attitude; to me he was always affable. He possesses a subtle mind, and uses it thoroughly. With him I read “The Critique of Pure Reason” twice through and as a work of supererogation I read also the impossible German. I had had a little metaphysics before this, and was now pleased to have Kant demonstrate that I had wasted my time. I took seriously what I read, and assumed that my professor was taking seriously what he taught; so imagine my bewilderment when shortly afterwards I learned that Professor Butler had left the Presbyterian church, and had joined the Episcopal church, as one of the steps necessary to becoming president of Columbia University. It gave me a shock, because I knew he had no belief whatever in any of the dogmas of the Christian religion, and had completely demonstrated to me the impossibility of any valid knowledge concerning immortality, free will or a First Cause.