ing chapter when Peikoflf finally presentsnus with the philosophical solution tornAmerica: Ayn Rand’s “objectivism.”nPeikofiPs remarks become aphoristic, asnthough they were the irrefutable wisdomsnof some Eastern mystic. Logicalncontradictions thus need not be addressed.nAlthough the central role innhuman af&irs of ethics and values is properlynacknowledged, Peikoflf provides nonprogram for discovering the origins ofnthose ethics and values and for showingnhow they dynamically mediate the tensionnbetween the individual and thengroup. Selfishness and reason as necessarynactive processes are applauded andnthe discrepancy between immediatenconcrete perception and later abstractnconception is recognized, but Peikoflfnnever concerns himself with how onencould possibly represent once and for allnthat absolute truth and reality to which henconstandy refers.nAn this does not mean that the booknwill not trigger a host of usefiil connections.nThe concepts Peikoflf dashinglynjuggles must be dealt with by any conservativensetting out to specify a moralnconception of reality and existence. Still,nit is important that we continue to recognizenthat our peculiar American landscape,nhowever imperfect, can continuento resist tyranny as long as the variousn”knowledges” its reason releases do notncause the majority of us to lose faith innthe original enterprise. As long as we remembernthe necessary balance betweennassertiveness and humility, we can livencomfortably with reason. DnOf Poetry, Pseudo-Psychiatry,nand ProphecynPeter Medawar: Pluto’s Republic;nOxford University Press; New York.nArthur Janov: Imprints: The LifelongnEffects of the Birth Experience;nCoward-McCann; New York.nby Bryce ChristensennAt least since William Blake, mostnpoets have been decidedly hostile to science.nAnd with good reason: scientificnparadigms expressed in flatly denotativenformulae have gready constricted thenbreadth of accepted reality, consequentiyndeadening appreciation for the creativenimagination. Indeed, when Charles Darwinnconfessed in im Autobiography thatnhis own analytical habits had made himnutterly incapable of enjoying Handel ornShakespeare, he anticipated a parallelnobservation made by I. A. Richards concerningnthe typical 20th-century reader.nMr. Christensen is assistant editor ofnChronicles.nPoetry, warned Richards, is in seriousntrouble because modems cannot respondnemotionally to any “pseudostatements”nrepugnant to an empirical and mathematicalnWeltanschauung.nThis antipoetic reduction of the culturallyncertified universe was hardlynnecessary. Sir Isaac Newton, the repeatedntarget of Romantic scorn, was anythingnbut a thoroughgoing empiricist A ferventnbeliever in Scripture, Newton abhorrednthe conception of the world as an autonomousnmachine. He supposed thatnangels superintended the movements ofnplanets and metaphorically describedngravity as the music of a divine Piper.nThough Newton was himself not especiallynfond of poetry, his world view couldnhave richly nourished a poetic sensibility.nUnfortunately, post-Newtonian scientistsnhave since used Occam’s razor as anscalpel for severing the optic nerves ofnall eyes which see seraphs anywhere.nMoreover, they have amputated all earsnwhich hear the celestial strains: long beforenthe cosmos was so termed, its inves­nnntigators had thus become voluntarilynabsurd (from latin absurdus, “deaf’).nAlthough lacking much that Newtonnembraced, the modern scientific worldnview, with its attendant inability to bifurcatenemotional and intellectual responses,nis nevertheless the attenuatednheritage of Judeo-Christianity. Unlikenthe deities of the East, the biblical God ofnthe West is a jealous God. In the OldnTestament, Joshua demanded that thenpeople make an absolute choice betweennYahweh and the pagan gods of Egypt,nwhile in the New Testament, Jesus deniednadmittance to His strait and narrownway to any not willing to forsake, if necessary,neven father, mother, and spousenfor the Truth’s sake. In the light of suchnexacting doctrines, the West developednan exclusive and self-consistent understandingnof reality. In contrast, under theninfluence of religions which recognizenas equal many dificrent paths to nirvana,nthe Eastern nations developed eclecticnphilosophies, ignoring—often failing tonapprehend—logical inconsistencies. ThenEast therefore provided a most bountiflilnharvest of gods (India alone has tens ofnthousands), but wise men looking fornChrist or science had to travel west.nrSlake was not a wise man. Arguablyna talented madman, he led the vanguardnof poets who declared allegiance to “thenDevil’s party” and w^ed war against bothnChristian belief and scientific method.nLike Milton’s Devil, such poets sought toncreate their own “private systems of salvation”n(Keats’s phrase) rather thannhumbling themselves before religiousndoctrine or physical fact. They wantedntheir mysterious rainbows undisturbednby optical analysis and reftised to subordinatenthe capricious spirits of Imaginationnto the angelic heralds of revelation.nUnlike Milton, the Romantics failed tonrecognize that subjective aflfirmation isnsoon obscured in the gloomy chaos ofnnihilism or contorted into the serpentinencoils of Blakean myth. In Blake’s “four-foldnvision,” the scientist and the scriptoriannare identified together as Urizen and castninto heUish underworld dens, while hisni2Sn^wmberI983n