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Updated: July 12, 2025
Whilst the Western policy is frank and manly, and is exclusively in the hands of brilliant and attractive men who have been largely educated in the schools of Europe and America and who are fully able to deal with all matters in accordance with the customary traditions of diplomacy, the Eastern policy is the work of obscurantists whose imaginations are held by the vast projects which the Military Party believes are capable of realization in China.
He was a bitter opponent of foreign alliances, and denounced their evils in harsh, specific terms. He had a liking for all forthright and pugnacious men, and a contempt for lawyers, schoolmasters and all other such obscurantists. He was not pious. He drank whisky whenever he felt chilly, and kept a jug of it handy. He knew far more profanity than Scripture, and used and enjoyed it more.
Whilst the Western policy is frank and manly, and is exclusively in the hands of brilliant and attractive men who have been largely educated in the schools of Europe and America and who are fully able to deal with all matters in accordance with the customary traditions of diplomacy, the Eastern policy is the work of obscurantists whose imaginations are held by the vast projects which the Military Party believes are capable of realization in China.
Gosse had the real answer under his eyes which Fallopius had not, for the riddle was unread in the latter's days. Yet Gosse's really unpardonable mistake was attributed to himself alone, and "Plymouth Brethrenism," which was the sect to which he belonged, was not saddled with it, nor have the Brethren been called obscurantists because of it.
It was made up of letters written by the various learned men of Europe to Reuchlin, in sympathy with him in his struggle. These letters, written by different persons, but largely by Hutten, are the most remarkable of all satires of that time. They are a series of imaginary epistles, supposed to be addressed by various Obscurantists to a poet named Ortuinus.
"Work? the work of propagandism?" "Precisely. It would be pleasant enough to live in London, and associate with people of my own way of thinking; but what's the good? there's too much of that centralization. The obscurantists take very good care to spread themselves. Why shouldn't those who love the light try to keep little beacons going in out-of-the-way places?"
In Germany, even after the temporary alliance of pietism and rationalism against the Church had been transcended, and the length and breadth of their mutual antagonism had been revealed, there remained a deep mutual respect and salutary interaction. Obscurantists and sentimentalists might denounce rationalism. Vulgar ranters like Dippel and Barth might defame religion.
The real refuse, they are beginning to believe, already ripe for destruction, are those Obscurantists who set their backs to Civilisation and Humanity, and clamour for a return of that ill-fated recklessness in procreation from which the world suffered so long, the ancient motto, "Increase and multiply," never meant for use in our modern world, still clinging so firmly to the dry walls of their ancient skulls that nothing will ever scrape it off.
Philosophers have from time to time recognized the gravity of these questions and have discoursed concerning them; thus Epicurus, as Plutarch tells us, would discuss with his disciples various sexual matters, such as the proper time for coitus; but then, as now, there were obscurantists who would leave even the central facts of life to the hazards of chance or ignorance, and these presumed to blame the philosopher.
And this war between the Humanist and the Reformer gave great joy to the Obscurantists, who feared and hated them both. "Humanism," says Strauss, "was broad-minded but faint-hearted, and in none is this better seen than in Erasmus. Luther was a narrower man, but his unvarying purpose, never looking to left nor right, was his strength. Humanism is the broad mirror-like Rhine at Bingen.
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