It puzzles the anthropology staff at the University of Toronto that
Catholic students grasp the problems and character of primitive soci-
eties more readily than other students. I suspect they are baffled
because they imagine that persons with a definite religious outlook
should find it more rather than less difficult to understand pagan soci-
eties. I am sure that they suspect that there is some deep and
disreputable bond between the primitive mind and the Catholic mind.
But on the other hand the Catholic espousal of reason as the creative
principle is bewildering to anthropologists. For if the Catholic is the
champion of rational principles and individual reason how can he
understand primitive man who is embedded in a world of magical
irrationalities and collective consciousness?
	One answer to this last problem in the anthropological mind can
be given in a quip to the effect that we grasp the irrational and the
primitive today because, however uncongenial it be, we live it. But we
should reflect that the anthropologists and sociologists of our day ai
committed to the irrational and the collective as an ideal. Reason ft
them is the destructive principle deriving from demonic matter. Reaso
is the individualist principle which in their view has separated mer
making them vertical and distinct. We must, they say, recreate ma
in the crucible of emotion. Reason stands between us and the ne’
millennial mankind. It must be abolished except as a tool of applie
science.

from "Catholic Humanism and Modern Letters." THE MEDIUM AND THE LIGHT.
pp.153-154.
Originally delivered as part of the McAuley Lectures, St. Joseph College,
West Hartford, Connecticut, 1954, pages 49-67.