“Christianity exhorted man to set himself up against Nature, but did so in the name of his spiritual and disinterested attributes. Pragmatism exhorts him to do so in the name of his practical attributes. Formerly man was divine because he had been able to acquire the concept of justice, the idea of law, the sense of God; today he is divine because he has been able to create equipment which makes him the master of matter.”

— Julien Benda

Source: Treason of the Intellectuals (1927), pp. 126-127 (regarding homo faber)

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Julien Benda 19

French essayist 1867–1956

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Julien Benda 19

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