Christopher Dawson

As I have pointed out, it is the Christian tradition that is the most fundamental element in Western culture. It lies at the base not only of Western religion, but also of Western morals and Western social idealism. ”

Man is a means and not an end, and he is a means to economic or political ends which are not really ends in themselves but means to other ends which in their turn are means and so ad infinitum. ”

The intercourse between the Mediterranean and the North or between the Atlantic and Central Europe was never purely economic or political; it also meant the exchange of knowledge and ideas and the influence of social institutions and artistic and literary forms. ”

This freedom of political discussion on the highest level is something which Western civilization has in common with that of classical antiquity, but with no other. ”

No doubt Western civilization has in the past been full of wars and revolutions, and the national elements in our culture, even when they were ignored, always provided an unconscious driving force of passion and aggressive self-assertion. ”

Man can know his world without falling back on revelation; he can live his life without feeling his utter dependence on supernatural powers. ”

The Church as a divine society possess an internal principle of life which is capable of assimilating the most diverse materials and imprinting her own image upon them. ”

Thus Christian humanism is as indispensable to the Christian way of life as Christian ethics and a Christian sociology. ”

If man limits himself to a satisfied animal existence, and asks from life only what such an existence can give, the higher values of life at once disappear. ”

The present age has seen a great slump in humanist values. ”