CHRISTIANITY AND T H E N E W AGE
unregulated activity of the ordinary man. This led, on the one hand, to the individualistic cult of material success and, on the other, to a humanitarian idealism that is in reality nothing else but the same ideal in a socialised form. No doubt these ideals still preserved some of the moral inspiration that derives from the Puritan tradition, just as European liberalism retained something of the humanist tradition. But when this religious inspiration has evaporated, American civilisation without Calvinism, like modern European civilisation without humanism, becomes a body without a soul. And it is this dead civilisation which is apotheosised in the mythology of Hollywood and which is invading the Old World with all the prestige of its vast material achievement. It possesses a kind of pseudo-humanist appeal since it offers the ordinary man and woman the vision of a wider and richer life.
The new machine-made civilisation may be destructive of the finer pleasures in life, but under the old conditions these were only accessible to a small number. The ordinary man gets more satisfaction from his cinema and his daily paper than from grand opera or classical literature. If modern civilisation is able to pay its way, if it is not upset by some unexpected economic or military catastrophe,