Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2291

Typed letter of January 31, 1944 to Heath from Mildred Jensen Loomis, Lane’s End Homestead, Brookville, Ohio, followed by several lines inadvertently typed on the back of a carbon of a letter of February 25 to Bartlett, Poe and Claggett and evidently intended in reply to Loomis.

Lines dated February 6, 1944

 

 

 

Dear Mr. Heath,

 

It is gratifying to be remembered by you and to have your comment. I’ve read your thesis on beauty and man achieving divinity through creation of beauty. May I add a point which underlies my own philosophy and way of living?

 In my mind God is also Truth and Goodness, as well as beauty, and to create beauty without goodness is missing the point. And goodness is determined by man’s nature — that is, a thing is good if it is useful to man. It is good if in its creation it has used the full man, i.e. his body, mind and will. Man’s will is not used unless he can fully perform; that is, plan, design, purpose and execute. When he has done all these he can be held responsible for his work; i.e. has fulfilled the moral aspect. If he does not purpose the work — (what good it shall serve) he is but an automaton in performing or designing it. If he purposes it but cannot carry it out he cannot be held responsible for it either, and again has transgressed the moral aspect.

 I believe that man’s will (his being held responsible for the work he achieves) is man’s truly human characteristic. Highly specialized work destroys that aspect for him, and so I think modern work is too much concerned with material aspects — production, wages, etc — and not the fundamental human element and development involved. So I choose for myself (and wish that others would also) a kind of work which satisfies the full human need of body, mind and will — and in producing useful things I try to create them as beautifully as possible. But beauty disassociated from use seems to be abnormal — a transgression of at least one of the four funda­mental requirements for perfection, i.e. the formal design, material, efficient tool or final purpose causes for any activity.

 I hope this isn’t too abstruse. It is very real and meaningful to me. So real as to motivate my change in pattern of living.

 

 

Sincerely yours,

(signed) Mildred Jensen Loomis

 

_____________________________

 

/Heath to/ Mildred Jensen Loomis, Feb. 6, 1944.

 

Freedom in unity — co-operation — is spiritual because it is integrative, creative. Socialized man, i.e. contractually related men (the social and impersonal love relation), are creative