Chapter 6THE ROLE OF REASON IN DEEN
I. Reason and PassionTHE conflict between reason and passion runs through human
history. Both are necessary for a full, rich and balanced life, but to
reconcile them is an extremely difficult problem. Reason counsels
prudence and caution while passion exhorts man to dare and take
risks. "Look before you leap'' says reason, while passion cries: "Leap
and trust to fate. Do not waste time in looking." "Without the
Bacchic element," says Bertrand Russell, "life would be
uninteresting; with it, it is dangerous.”(1)
In the history of thought, an age of reason has often been
succeeded by a period of revolt against reason. Over-confidence in
the power of reason has been followed by disillusionment with
reason. The eighteenth century was the age of reason par
excellence. We are witnessing the violent reaction against reason
today. After a long period of unquestioned supremacy, its authority
was challenged from various quarters. The poets of the Romantic
revival insisted on the inherent worth of emotion and gloried in
unrestrained expression of all emotions. The mystics were
vociferous in claiming that emotion was a better and more
trustworthy guide for man than reason. The philosophers did not
lag behind in this outcry against the tyranny of reason.
Schopenhauer glorified the blind will working through the universe
and contemptuously dismissed reason as a mere tool in its hands.
Bergson pinned his faith on intuition and resolutely set his face
against reason. They sought the help of the biologists in dethroning
reason. The psychologists, under the leadership of Freud,
questioned the view that man is a rational being and orders his life in
the light of reason. In the Freudian theory the irrational
unconscious plays the dominant role, while reason takes up the
humble position of a mere servant. The intellect is compelled to
invent specious reasons to justify the irrational operations of
unconscious desires. No wonder that, subjected to violent attacks