Description
“The idea of steady intellectual progress is a delusion of the mind; it is the mirage of the sun of reason in the vast desert of our hopes. Only reason knows the straight line, while nature knows only the circumference of the circle.”
Man is but a creature in whom spiritual and earthly forces are concentrated. Earthly forces—represented by materialism and animal instincts—have dominated most of his long history, until the sun of thought shone forth at the hands of the Greeks, who gave precedence to the spiritual aspect of man and made reason their guide and mentor. Thus, humanity began a new phase, the phase of civilization, and subsequently, numerous models of intellectual brilliance followed, the last of which was European civilization. However, industry, which is the cornerstone of European civilization, has become the church of the modern age, and its capitalist cardinals have opened its gates to the hell of primal instincts. This prompted Tawfiq al-Hakim to question the fate of humanity, which had come a long way on the path of spiritual forces and the light of reason—a question he explores in this book through various literary forms.
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