I was startled when I realized it. It was as though his
reality were not attested till he had a child. It was as if his _raison
d'etre_ had been to have a son. And he had no children. Therefore he had
no _raison d'etre_. He was nothing, a shadow that vanishes into nothing.
And he was ashamed, consumed by his own nothingness.
I was startled. This, then, is the secret of Italy's attraction for us,
this phallic worship. To the Italian the phallus is the symbol of
individual creative immortality, to each man his own Godhead. The child
is but the evidence of the Godhead.
And this is why the Italian is attractive, supple, and beautiful,
because he worships the Godhead in the flesh. We envy him, we feel pale
and insignificant beside him. Yet at the same time we feel superior to
him, as if he were a child and we adult.
Wherein are we superior? Only because we went beyond the phallus in the
search of the Godhead, the creative origin. And we found the physical
forces and the secrets of science.
We have exalted Man far above the man who is in each one of us. Our aim
is a perfect humanity, a perfect and equable human consciousness,
selfless.
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