One Living Body

From "The vision of the fool and other writings" by Cecil Collins (1908-1989)

"All real creation is personal, in art as in life. The mystery of personality is the basis of romantic art, as it is the basis of democracy. They are one. Democracy is the most difficult and most creative form of society known so far to man, difficult because creative and romantic art is its natural expression. The creative chaos of democracy - with all its weaknesses, hypocrisy and injustice - is much closer to the human way of making a society then the iron prison of dictatorship states, communist or fascist. So, the flowing empirical expression of romantic art is much nearer the actual life of the human psyche.

Democratic romantic vision of civilization put the responsibility of life upon the individual. We can not give our problems over to some leader, who will solve them. The democratic civilization can be the soil in which the moulding and leavening of personal vision and of the collective unconscious mind of man will create a new world mythology of expression. The re-establishment of the creative imagination in the life of man, the working towards a world consciousness - that is - the idea of the world as one living body, constitutes the great task of the democratic attitude in art and in life, because real creative energy works through diversity. For example, the law of growth is universal one, and yet that law is expressed differently in the form of a rose and in an oak tree. Under the diverse expressions of different artists works the same universal creative spirit, and deep under the consciousness of man works the hidden unity of the unconscious mind of the human race. The time has come for us to affirm the fundamental unity of man, to work for that which unifies him, and not what divides him.

We are told a lot about our duty today, but it is mans duty to be free. He owes it to society, and I define freedom as the fulfillment of mans essential self. Liberty is not something that is let loose; it is something that is created. It is an achievement first in the individual man, then in a nation, then in the world community. The real measure of our civilization is its fruits. Civilization is created by men of good will, and not by politics. A European once showed an Indian sage a wireless and told him of the wonders of modern civilization, to which the Indian replied- "you make battleships, but can not even control your thoughts, to what will that lead?" We know to our cost the answer to that.

If we are not not all to perish we have got to realize that we are all fruit growing from the same, vast unconscious root of life. In whatever we destroy, we destroy ourselves, for the world is one living body.