And this explains why not a few Catholic thinkers in Spain
became followers of Krause.
And since we Spaniards are Catholic--whether we know it or not, and
whether we like it or not--and although some of us may claim to be
rationalists or atheists, perhaps the greatest service we can render to
the cause of culture, and of what is of more value than culture,
religiousness--if indeed they are not the same thing--is in endeavouring
to formulate clearly to ourselves this subconscious, social, or popular
Catholicism of ours. And that is what I have attempted to do in this
work.
What I call the tragic sense of life in men and peoples is at any rate
our tragic sense of life, that of Spaniards and the Spanish people, as
it is reflected in my consciousness, which is a Spanish consciousness,
made in Spain. And this tragic sense of life is essentially the Catholic
sense of it, for Catholicism, and above all popular Catholicism, is
tragic. The people abhors comedy. When Pilate--the type of the refined
gentleman, the superior person, the esthete, the rationalist if you
like--proposes to give the people comedy and mockingly presents Christ
to them, saying, "Behold the man!" the people mutinies and shouts
"Crucify him! Crucify him!" The people does not want comedy but tragedy.
And that which Dante, the great Catholic, called the Divine Comedy, is
the most tragical tragedy that has ever been written.
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