ABSTRACT
Han Ryner, unquestionably, has been the victim of this twofold contempt. We have passed through an age of excessive specialism, in which artists were prone to despise thinkers, and thinkers to despise artists. Those whom Nietzsche described as "amphibious" could not find a home in either camp. But the world seems to be entering a new phase, in which the human mind is endeavouring to assemble its scattered energies. This is because we are living in a time of need and of anguish; because art and thought are not, can no longer be, mere Alexandrian luxury, nothing more than the pastime of a pundit; because, henceforward, they must aim at the service of man and of life, and therefore at synthesis. Romain Rolland has been the herald and the embodiment of such a synthesis of art and thought. Han Ryner has a like aim, and that is why his day is now dawning. Ryner speaks of Heracles as the only one of the gods to be virtuous-" because at first, and for long years, he was a man." l Thus art and thought are
only divine because they are human; and in their humanity they are unified.
