Show culture alone not sufficient la our days culture has been proposed as a substitute for religion and poetry offered as a better guide for our lives than the loving word of god more and more says matthew arnold mankind will discover that wo have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us to console us to sustain us without poetry our science will appear incomplete and most of what now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced by poetry but it were as well to offer moonlight instead of warm sunlight for poetry and culture are largely a reflection of religion and history shows us that they cannot long survive its absence men of a vaguely speculative bent and a more than ordinary share of refinement like matthew arnold or emerson may hero and there be found who think they find in culture all that they need to direct and purify their lives aesthetic JEs movements and brook farm experiments may bhea they are successful beget an elevating influence for a time but in the end culture left to itself will become the culture of nero and petronius arbiter and society that of herculaneum Hercula and pompeii american quarterly be view |